Kenban

I suspect the Peanuts sale is a sign, not that they are being removed, but that the kids area is being overhauled into Camp Snoopy. Try to find any merchandise that says Planet Snoopy that is not included in the sale. Plenty of generic Kings Island Peanuts merchandise that is not on sale. The survey at Carowinds which became Aeronautica Landing occurred in 2020. 2021 they did a survey at Kings Island asking about the kids area and a lot of questions about dining. To add a new coaster I would remove the old theatre and barn yard area. I think a Mack spinner like Sierra Sidewinder at Knott’s would be a great fit. While I am certain a clone would fit, a custom layout to better utilize the space would likely be better. Based on the survey and construction at other parks a large new restaurant with indoor seating, maybe even a stage for live entertainment, maybe character dining. I would put it on the path leading to the picnic grove and the water park. Across from the picnic area is a small strip of grass with some trees, and a large employee parking lot on the other side of the fence. It’s not really usable for expanding the kids area with rides, but a large restaurant would be perfect just don’t put windows on the backside of the building. The employee parking can easily be shifted and it’s unlikely the restaurant would take the whole lot. There is enough room here for a clone of Harmony Hall, it feels unlikely something that big would get built but a food court would be nice. Although a Lazy Bear Lodge style restaurant would look good in a Camp Snoopy area. I would love to see boo blasters replaced as well but this feels like too much for one year. I would like to think that they would demolish the majority of the land and rebuild it, similar to what has been done at other parks when they receive a camp Snoopy retheme.

I keep seeing people assuming B&M or Clermont had to have made a mistake. If a footer moved, especially if it’s the one supporting the diagonal, the forces imparted to the support would be increased and I believe the failure would look exactly like what we have seen. The top of the support appears to be pushed outward away from the support, which is the direction it broke in. My theory is they do a survey and find the diagonals footer sunk into the ground more than expected.

I am concerned that Carowinds maintenance missed it for what now appears to be a week. They should be doing a visual inspection of the entire ride daily and we have people going back through their pictures from the last week and you can see it progress from the top of the weld to slowly tear the support apart. I understand how it got missed the first day or two. But I saw a picture from Thursday the day before it was closed and it’s very obvious.

Here is a video, it appears it happened in the middle of the day. I wonder how long it operated with it broken like that. Likely a lot of inspections going to be happening. I also expect engineers from B&M to be on site next week inspecting it in person. While Clermont could likely get them a new support in a few weeks, B&M is likely to redesign it first. I would also expect B&M will issue a service bulletin to inspect other rides just in case. I have heard and seen pictures of cracked spines on B&M coasters. This is the first broken support to my knowledge. I think I know where this is on the coaster, but please someone correct me if this is wrong. It looks like the first big turn after the lift hill. Which means this would be somewhat close to a road.

The LSM launch fins act as their own magnetic brakes. The train would not even make it to the spike.

I think part of the problem is people have some extremely weird ideas of what changes are happening. I know I was hopeful the ride would be extended so something could be done with the speed beyond just hitting the brakes, but the lack of any additional construction means that is unlikely. But I keep seeing people thinking the ride will be taller than Kingda Ka, or faster than Formula Rossa, and frankly I never thought anything like this would be reasonable. Cedar Fair likely just wants a safe, and reliable ride, and is not concerned with breaking records. I am expecting TTD with a new station, a switch to get onto the launch track, a spike to get some initial speed then a long launch to get just enough speed to clear the top hat, hit the brakes same as before and a slightly longer slow speed section to get to the new station. That’s it basically the same ride with just a backwards launch up a spike to get some speed. Zamperla is not going to build the launch, it’s likely being done by InTraSys. Most of the track and it appears all the really high speed sections will be the original track just modified to add a new launch system and different brake layout. Zamperla is building trains, a station, a spike, some track to tie it all together, and a new control system. It’s common to outsource track switches so I would not be surprised if they are not responsible for that. Does Zamperla do their own control systems, those are also frequently outsourced. It’s still a complicated project but I think people are really overthinking this.

Kings Island is the only park in the chain without a wild mouse style coaster. If anything Cedar Point getting one likely has increased the chances that the park will get one. It means corporate management is willing to install lower capacity coasters in the big parks. Although I suspect if the park gets one it would go in Coney Mall. The building for DarKoaster is larger than the Boo Blasters building but close enough something similar should be possible, but I am certain it would mean losing the stage, meet and great space, and might still require a little bit of expansion. A ride like that would likely need most of the building. Frankly I feel like DarKoaster was a mistake, not the ride or experience itself because everything I have heard about the ride itself is good. But because of just how low capacity the ride is. I suspect the source of the issue is trying to cram the ride into too small a space, which is what I feel would happen with the Boo Blasters building, I also think the trains are really not helping and traditional seating would allow a higher capacity train. From what I have heard it has a maximum capacity of around 350 riders an hour, roughly half of even a wild mouse, and my calculations back that up. Thankfully the slow dispatch speed means it’s likely operating close to that theoretical when it works, but even for a family coaster that is just really low for a big park. I am about to discuss the technical details of how the ride operates. You might consider this a spoiler, if so skip the rest of this paragraph. The building is pretty small, so there is a main loop of track which actually goes around the building twice and a pair of track switches, one to let a train off the loop into the station and one to let a train leaving the station to enter the track loop. While one train is in the station, the second goes around the loop twice and it feels different due to lighting and projection changes. So you actually travel around the building 4 times. The problem is the trains only hold 10 passengers and from launch to the brakes is just over 90 seconds. Combine the ride time with the train parking and the fastest dispatch even possible is roughly every 100-110 seconds. I think the Boo Blasters building would be better served staying a dark ride. I just would like it redeveloped into a new theme.

The pictures and video that I have seen of the aftermath so far are pretty wild. An entire wheel assembly came off the front car of the train and landed right next to a support. It sounds like 3 people were ejected from the train, two of them fell to the ground, one somehow got lucky and fell on top of a horizontal support and was able to shimmy himself up on top and there is video of him sitting on top of the steel beam waiting to be rescued. This sounds very similar to what happened on Mindbender and Quimera. Not sure if it’s the train design or maintenance issues, but to me at least the common link is Schwarzkopf. It feels like any of these rides still running original trains should have the trains replaced.

I am almost positive the missing letter was the hyper for CGA. The codes are from B&M and designate the design, the first two are the type of coaster, MC standards for Mega Coaster, and the 3rd letter is the actual layout. If you order a clone of an existing ride it will have the same 3 letter code as the original. The missing letter pretty much signifies someone paid B&M for a design of a Hyper/Giga which has not been produced. It has been revealed that Cedar Fair had gone as far as ordering the trains for the coaster before it was cancelled. I cannot imagine they did that before the design was effectively finished.

Are you certain this generates a fault? Having been to other parks with the same ride they have the same problem of people pulling down the restraints and it appears to not cause an issue.

I just thought getting an error message trying to fix my mess that happened due to error messages was funny.

It turns out if you get an error message when you submit a post, and it does not show up, it does not mean it will not show up later. I even submitted a report after I could not find a way to delete the messages myself, and got an error message.

I doubt this was leaked by the park, people really do monitor this information, but you’re wrong about what was being monitored. Also Screamscape is not where it was originally posted, it had already been making the rounds on other sites before Screamscape reported anything. This is also not even the first one from Vekoma that someone caught in the past year. It appears the Nashville Zoo is getting a dueling Vekoma family Boomerang that has also not been announced yet. I want to show just how easy this is, and this is literally how this was originally found. https://www.importgenius.com/suppliers/vekoma-rides-manufacturing-bv People are not watching the park, they watch the manufacturers, and where they are making shipments. As of right now item 10 on the shipments page is a 48,870 kg shipment to the Nashville Zoo… Shipment number 1 the most recent shipment was made to Koch development, it’s a little light at only 2,670 kg so no way it’s the ride itself, but this shipments marks and numbers listed is “VEKOMA REF: VRM-23-411 PROJECT: FAMILY BOOMERANG ROLLER COASTER”. Got to love coaster manufacturers who make it that easy.

Already been purchased, some park in I think South America, announced it a few months ago.

There are a few easy answers, Hong Kong for instance, both Ocean Park and the Hong Kong Disney Resort, have their own stops on the cities subway system. In Shanghai, Shanghai Disneyland has its own Subway stop. Personally I would count Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disneyland. Both are very easily and cheaply accessed from the cities. Those rail lines directly connect to subway stations and the transfer is very easy. Universal Studios Japan is also directly on a JR line. There are also smaller parks on subway lines. Tokyo Dome City, or closer to home the seaside parks in Coney Island New York.

As far as I can tell I have not received a single Pass Perk, enhanced or otherwise all season. As I remember this requires being signed up for marketing emails from the park. But as far as I can tell I am signed up, I have checked my account on the website they have the correct email address, my account shows marketing emails are turned on. So far, nothing. Frankly the whole pass perks program has always felt worthless. At the very least they need some other way to provide the perks. Maybe integrate it into the park app. But then I still hate how parks hide things on your account. This is not just Kings Island/Cedar Fair either. But for instance the 2 free bring a friend tickets, the renewal Fast Lane, etc they are all “loaded” into your account with no way to see them. You have no way to verify the correct item was used. Early renewal gave a free bring a friend ticket, the Prestige pass gave two. They expired at different times and zero way to check what was consumed if they got loaded into the account correctly, etc. The black hole really makes you not want to use them or makes you forget they exist. I cannot help but wonder if it’s on purpose.

I am hopeful this means the spin the wheel, gambling form of Fast Lane, will be removed from the park. I really prefer guests just paying and getting exactly what they want. I assume corporate has not changed their policy on Fast Lane, which means at most 50% of a ride’s capacity can be used for Fast Lane. Every ride has handled that differently but that’s why Cedar Point used one station for Fast Lane and one for the regular queue on dragster. If Fast Lane already had a line and the policy was followed before, the stand by line should be unchanged. But at least at Kings Island I very rarely see much of a line for Fast Lane so adding additional people to the Fast Lane will typically slow the regular line. The parks own advertising for Fast Lane is “Wait less. Ride more!”, capacity of the rides is unchanged, for someone to ride more others must ride less. The average wait time for the regular line basically has to be going up. Season long Fast Lane, and other season long products like the meal and drink plans change people’s habits. They encourage pass holders to visit more frequently. I have just about everything on my pass, and even before season long Fast Lane if I was in the area I would drop by for a “free” meal. Season long Fast Lane means I don’t care if it’s a holiday or weekend. I visit much more frequently, and except for food lines really don’t care how busy the park will be, for me the ride lines are still very short. I just don’t see this changing much. My biggest concerns are Flight of Fear, and Night rides on The Beast. Most of the time at Kings Island, Fast Lane has a very minimal wait, and I do not believe for most rides this product will have a huge affect on either line. Disney Lightning Lane is timed for a reason, most rides do not enforce it, but Tron for instance does, because of the concern of people buying a time earlier in the day and waiting until dark for a night ride. I am hopeful Kings Island will be using timed entry to prevent a ride getting overwhelmed at the end of the night, but I doubt it.

The company I work for is still getting quotes of 2+ years on what used to be off the shelf electronic components. When you’re dealing with long lead times it’s really common for the supplier to get the estimate wrong. A couple of extra weeks or months is really common. My gut says the supplier is giving delivery dates and just not delivering. I have been in the middle of this before. You place an order and are told it will be delivered by X day. Which you use to tell your customers when they should expect their orders. The problems occur when you don’t get your parts on time, suddenly your production is backed up and cannot deliver to your customers by the dates you already promised, which just snow balls down the chain. I do blame Worlds of Fun for not cancelling the opening earlier. I cannot imagine GCI was not communicating to the park about this issue. Likely they were planning to use overnight shipping to get the items as quickly as is possible, and relying on bad information, but they held out hope for way too long. The impression I have is the parts have always been missing, and that nothing broke, it’s not important to test the ride, and I read where the park was even able to train ride ops. My understanding is that GCI employees have been riding it as well. All of my guesses deal with locking/unlocking restraints, restraint position sensors, or communication between the train and the station when parked in the station. Something that you can work around or disable without too much hassle but you need working for operating with park guests.

I did not find out until after I wrote that. It was actually confirmed to be missing parts by a pair of GCI employees over the weekend at an ACE event at WoF. It’s something unique to the Infinity Flyers, and they are waiting for the parts to arrive from somewhere in Europe. Except for these missing parts, the ride is complete and ready to open. My understanding is it is related to the electronics for the restraints.

This caused me to cancel my trip. At this time not sure what I will do, might reschedule, might make totally new plans. I will be at Holiwood Nights next weekend. I had planned on turning it into a longer road trip and making my way out to WoF in part due to the 50th anniversary and also to ride this coaster. It was going to be a few other parks as well on the way there and on my way back home. I was already tempted to delay or cancel after I found out that the fireworks do not start until later in the summer, delaying the opening of the ride was the push I needed to just cancel anything past Holiday World. Rumor is they need a part, not sure what they need. They were able to complete a decent amount of testing and even released a POV, so it was operating a few weeks ago.

Due to the multiple spinning platforms on Cargo Loco, unless you try to balance the weight around the barrel you’re going to have a really hard time getting the barrel spinning. A single person, or groups who sit together are just going to be fighting against the ride too much. As the smaller platform spins when your barrel approaches the outer edge your weight will be forced to the outer edge. You can try to take advantage of this imbalance because it does accelerate the barrel, but so far I have not been able to do so. Load a barrel with 5 people and they spin really easily. I wonder if the issues people have had getting the barrels moving is not differences between the barrels, but differences in weight distribution.

If management wanted to make this work I think they could have tried a lot harder. But this feels like a project from previous management that the current leadership just wants to die. I do wonder just how expensive are the operating costs? How low could Disney go before it’s not worth running? The employee discount is 50%, which frankly makes it cheap enough I would have done it, and still might talk to some friends who work for Disney, but is it profitable at that price point? The Starcruiser is mostly going to be worthless for anything dealing with the general public. It’s directly behind the star wars land, but across an employee parking lot so even having “excursions” to the ship would require Disney run shuttles. Unless you’re entering from the current hotel check in, which is also a problem, it was valet parking only for a reason, there is no regular guest parking lot and no where to put one. It’s only 100 small and currently windowless hotel rooms, there is a window but it’s not very wide and is hidden behind panels in the room for emergency use only. The restaurant was designed for a pretty small number of guests, when occupancy was higher it had to run two services. It was very purpose built for a single use. I suspect it’s going to be torn down or just sit abandoned. Even turning it into offices feels like too much work.

What Universal is building in Texas is unlikely to even say Universal anywhere but the fine print. If you look at the concept art it’s a Dreamworks park. I doubt it will be marketed as a Universal park except as a way to get approvals to build the park. I believe having that separate identity is important, it focuses it to a much smaller group of IP, and provides less competition for the resorts. This also allows them more flexibility in their standards as they build and operate the park. Except for maybe Pixar, Disney would have a hard time separating a single brand from the parent company.

I don’t think anything would have changed. My understanding is the source of this claim was a representative of Cedar Fair presenting a case on why they should receive the tax incentives to government officials in I believe North Carolina. I have seen no evidence that suggests tax incentives for Kings Dominion were ever a real possibility. In total the incentives were less than a million dollars, and lasted three years. That’s not a million a year, it was less than a million spread over three years. Cedar Fair had to spend something like $45 million dollars. I just do not believe a two percent savings is enough to change what park would receive this kind of investments. I am convinced Cedar Fair had already decided to invest this money at Carowinds. They saw a tax incentive program that they were not eligible for and decided to lobby trying to get an exception. It worked.

The savings is not as significant as you might think, Canadas Wonderland charges 13% tax. Kings Island would not charge tax on the purchase. You still save some money but its like 10-15% depending on current exchange rate.