Discussing Land and Space in and around Vortex

[SOBwasaSOB]

On 7/31/2020 at 12:47 AM, raggedman07 said:

Well their "flagship" park is pretty crap...they have ONE thing...SteVe...and the park is so poorly managed it's not even worth going to try to get a ride on it.

 

I agree with you on the operations but they have many terrific rides that make the visit worth it in my eyes.  Maverick is world class, TTD is an amazing rush, Millennium Force is not just a great ride but also has a great location...from a rides standpoint Cedar Point blows KI out of the water.

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

An idea I came up with for how the station could be in Rivertown over the valley for a Mack multi launch. 

Source for photo: Kings Island Forever Facebook page

 

[FUN&ONLY!]

2 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

An idea I came up with for how the station could be in Rivertown over the valley for a Mack multi launch. 

Source for photo: Kings Island Forever Facebook page

 

Beer themed launch coaster!

[bengalsguy23]

4 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

An idea I came up with for how the station could be in Rivertown over the valley for a Mack multi launch. 

Source for photo: Kings Island Forever Facebook page

 

I’m all for a Mack launched coaster but does Kings Island see that as a need when they already have two launching coasters? I think a spinning Mack launched coaster would be different enough. I also think it would be cool if you built a Mack multi launch with 4 trains. 2 of them regular and 2 of them spinning. It’s like two rides in one at that point. 

[SonofBaconator]

This is the type of Mack I'd want to replace Vortex

 

[silver2005]

I'm in support of a launch coaster mostly if it actually has some decent speed to it, like 70+ mph and actually has a layout to accommodate said speed.  

Mack has hit the upper 60s, so 70+ should be doable. 

[coaster sally]

26 minutes ago, silver2005 said:

I'm in support of a launch coaster mostly if it actually has some decent speed to it, like 70+ mph and actually has a layout to accommodate said speed.  

Mack has hit the upper 60s, so 70+ should be doable. 

Im sorry but a mack is just as vanilla as another b&m.  I would rather have a Gerstlauer or vekoma launch coaster personally.  Also I would be shocked to see cf spend 30+ million on a mack.  Also there is only a few of us that has been on the European macks and their reviews as a consensus are the launches all are weak.

[FUN&ONLY!]

1 hour ago, bengalsguy23 said:

I’m all for a Mack launched coaster but does Kings Island see that as a need when they already have two launching coasters? I think a spinning Mack launched coaster would be different enough. I also think it would be cool if you built a Mack multi launch with 4 trains. 2 of them regular and 2 of them spinning. It’s like two rides in one at that point. 

A MACK Rides extreme spinner would definitely be different enough from Backlot Stunt Coaster and Flight of Fear. I would love something like this one supposed to open next year. This would make up for many of the lost inversions and give Kings Island another “unique” coaster as I know some people have been disappointed over the years with Kings Island getting basic rides like a B&M invert and a B&M hyper (though these rides are still very good).

 

[coaster sally]

1 minute ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

A MACK Rides extreme spinner would definitely be different enough from Backlot Stunt Coaster and Flight of Fear. I would love something like this one supposed to open next year. This would make up for many of the lost inversions and give Kings Island another “unique” coaster as I know some people have been disappointed over the years with Kings Island getting basic rides like a B&M invert and a B&M hyper (though they are still very good).

 

An extreme spinner is different but the novelty wears off fast.  Rode time traveler 4x last month over a couple days and it got boring

[FUN&ONLY!]

7 minutes ago, coaster sally said:

An extreme spinner is different but the novelty wears off fast.  Rode time traveler 4x last month over a couple days and it got boring

I would love to see the park get something insane like an S&S 4D coaster or an Intamin Pre-Fab, but I just don’t see them investing in anything like that. Anything from Intamin or RMC seems unlikely unfortunately. I guess Cedar Fair is working with S&S, but I don’t know if we would receive a major S&S coaster. Aside from B&M, MACK Rides, and Gerstlauer, the craziest thing we could MAYBE get is a GCI Hybrid if they start making them, but that is also very unlikely unfortunately.

[coaster sally]

At the 2024 announcement.  "Kings Island fans we have been listening and we are proud to announce that next year we are working with the people that brought you maverick at Cedar Point and other record breakers around the globe the world's fastest multi launch roller coaster!"

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

3 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

This is the type of Mack I'd want to replace Vortex

 

That's Helix at Liseberg and from what I can see, it really uses the terrain well. I hope that what they eventually put in The Vortex area is well thought out and uses that crazy topography to its advantage. 

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

6 hours ago, FUN&ONLY! said:

Beer themed launch coaster!

Actually, the idea I have is actually how a bandit tries to take over the Miami River Brewing Company that has been serving nice beer and bourbon to the folks visiting Rivertown. Also, the idea is that to compliment the new ride, they bring back the brew fest and have it in Rivertown with live music and stuff (similar to Cedar Point's Frontier Fest.)

 

Also sorry for the double post

[FUN&ONLY!]

1 hour ago, coaster sally said:

At the 2024 announcement.  "Kings Island fans we have been listening and we are proud to announce that next year we are working with the people that brought you maverick at Cedar Point and other record breakers around the globe the world's fastest multi launch roller coaster!"

I would LOVE an Intamin Blitz, but I still don’t see Cedar Fair working with them anytime in the foreseeable future. From what I have heard, Cedar Point doesn’t even use Intamin replacement parts for their Intamin rides, and they are now having parts custom manufactured just so they can avoid Intamin. I have also heard that disagreements between Intamin and Cedar Fair are what lead to Volcano’s removal. I can’t confirm any of this, but this is just what I have heard.

[bengalsguy23]

5 hours ago, coaster sally said:

Im sorry but a mack is just as vanilla as another b&m.  I would rather have a Gerstlauer or vekoma launch coaster personally.  Also I would be shocked to see cf spend 30+ million on a mack.  Also there is only a few of us that has been on the European macks and their reviews as a consensus are the launches all are weak.

I found copperhead strike to be more intense and fun then mystery mine and dare devil dive. Can’t say I’ve been on a launching gerstlauer. Copperhead has weak launches but the rest of the layout had some Maverick like moments that I really enjoyed. I agree it’s pretty expensive for a coaster that size but words is that Carowinds was very happy with their investment and you know how Cedar Fair is with working with specific companies. 

[IndyGuy4KI]

13 hours ago, coaster sally said:

At the 2024 announcement.  "Kings Island fans we have been listening and we are proud to announce that next year we are working with the people that brought you maverick at Cedar Point and other record breakers around the globe the world's fastest multi launch roller coaster!"

As much as I would love to see that as well, I have a hard time believing it.

[coaster sally]

With bgw and KD fighting for tourism dollars next year.  Maybe CF brass will notice how well BGW is doing at taking a larger slice of the pie in the area and take note of their shiny new multi-launch

[bengalsguy23]

16 minutes ago, coaster sally said:

With bgw and KD fighting for tourism dollars next year.  Maybe CF brass will notice how well BGW is doing at taking a larger slice of the pie in the area and take note of their shiny new multi-launch

I don’t think Cedar Fair is really fighting that hard for the tourism Dollars with KD. A few years back Cedar Fair made proposals to the kid area and the Carowinds area for tax incentives for potential expansion of the parks. The Charollote area made a good offer. The Richmond area basically said they didn’t care. Now we see the result at kd has gotten one roller coaster since 2011. 
 

i get that your point was more to do with the possible success of Intamin and pantheon but it is still interesting that Cedar Fair is almost giving up on Kings dominion. 

[gforce1994]

I think when we are looking at future attractions one has to look at the variables.

1. The attraction needs to be tall, and a weenie of the area. Vortex dominated the skyline, and provided the needed backdrop when looking straight at the tower. It is needed to ensure that people see it on I71 and pull over to visit the park. Copperhead Strike is only 82 feet tall (the ride would easily blend in Mystic, Beast, Diamondback and not be seen).

2. The park has a small ravine that can easily be used to break records. Let’s say the park installs a 225 foot tall dive coaster-they could easily create a drop that could approach 250 feet.

3. The ride has to be a high capacity thrill ride. Vortex had a cap of 1600 people per hour (more likely around 1200 considering day to day operations). Copperhead Strike and Maverick have capacities around 1200. However, Valravn has a capacity of 1200 and Yukon Striker has one of 1329. Having been to CP and seeing how efficient they are running Valravn, I feel like it is fair to assume that KI could easily approach 1200 riders per hour.

4. The ride has to provide decent value for the cost. Copperhead Strike cost $26 million dollars. Manta(SD) cost between $35 and $50 million. Time Traveler cost $26 million.

Valravn cost between $20 and $25 million, while Yukon cost $25 million. With KI being situated so close to the factory where B&M track is produced, it is fair to assume that if a Yukon clone were plopped directly into KI, it would be cheaper due to negligible shipping costs.

5. Uniqueness and marketability: this is critical. A ride like Vortex can not be replaced easily. The thing is the rumored replacements all have their pitfalls: Raptor-KK is getting one in 2021, Wing Coaster- HW has “the best one” in the eyes of many, Intamin Blitz- would be compared to Maverick, and Dive Coaster-Valravn in CP. Out of all those options, I think the park could have more to work with if they went with a Dive Coaster.

[IceePirate]

41 minutes ago, gforce1994 said:

I think when we are looking at future attractions one has to look at the variables.

1. The attraction needs to be tall, and a weenie of the area. Vortex dominated the skyline, and provided the needed backdrop when looking straight at the tower. It is needed to ensure that people see it on I71 and pull over to visit the park. Copperhead Strike is only 82 feet tall (the ride would easily blend in Mystic, Beast, Diamondback and not be seen).

2. The park has a small ravine that can easily be used to break records. Let’s say the park installs a 225 foot tall dive coaster-they could easily create a drop that could approach 250 feet.

3. The ride has to be a high capacity thrill ride. Vortex had a cap of 1600 people per hour (more likely around 1200 considering day to day operations). Copperhead Strike and Maverick have capacities around 1200. However, Valravn has a capacity of 1200 and Yukon Striker has one of 1329. Having been to CP and seeing how efficient they are running Valravn, I feel like it is fair to assume that KI could easily approach 1200 riders per hour.

4. The ride has to provide decent value for the cost. Copperhead Strike cost $26 million dollars. Manta(SD) cost between $35 and $50 million. Time Traveler cost $26 million.

Valravn cost between $20 and $25 million, while Yukon cost $25 million. With KI being situated so close to the factory where B&M track is produced, it is fair to assume that if a Yukon clone were plopped directly into KI, it would be cheaper due to negligible shipping costs.

5. Uniqueness and marketability: this is critical. A ride like Vortex can not be replaced easily. The thing is the rumored replacements all have their pitfalls: Raptor-KK is getting one in 2021, Wing Coaster- HW has “the best one” in the eyes of many, Intamin Blitz- would be compared to Maverick, and Dive Coaster-Valravn in CP. Out of all those options, I think the park could have more to work with if they went with a Dive Coaster.

You forgot to take into account the shipping costs of the trains since they aren't made locally. Also, the virus might be a good thing for the park in terms of development since the TREX model might get more fleshed out by the time the park looks to build a new coaster. I doubt KI would build a raptor anyways since the capacity wouldn't be what the park is looking for, a ground up RMC like lightning rod or a TREX would be more in line with that they're looking for. I think it's really a toss up right now at which Ohio park CF wants to make the new thrill park of the midwest. CP might be running out of space, so that could be an issue for them. If they have the space, then KI would likely turn more into a family thrills park, which makes the addition of a MACK multilaunch a lot more likely. A coaster like time traveler also has a lot of promise. Due to the way the land is laid out, the park could do a lot of things to make it the tallest, longest, ect. That would provide a lot of enticement to come to the park without building something that's too big that might turn some away.

[BeastieFanatic]

I dont think its likely, but I would LOVE to see them demolish tomb raiders old building and somehow incorporate that into whatever new ride goes into Vortexs plot. It would be neat a coaster to fly over the entryway for beast or something along those lines

[Skibum]

On 8/3/2020 at 11:06 AM, gforce1994 said:

I think when we are looking at future attractions one has to look at the variables.

1. The attraction needs to be tall, and a weenie of the area. Vortex dominated the skyline, and provided the needed backdrop when looking straight at the tower. It is needed to ensure that people see it on I71 and pull over to visit the park. Copperhead Strike is only 82 feet tall (the ride would easily blend in Mystic, Beast, Diamondback and not be seen).

2. The park has a small ravine that can easily be used to break records. Let’s say the park installs a 225 foot tall dive coaster-they could easily create a drop that could approach 250 feet.

3. The ride has to be a high capacity thrill ride. Vortex had a cap of 1600 people per hour (more likely around 1200 considering day to day operations). Copperhead Strike and Maverick have capacities around 1200. However, Valravn has a capacity of 1200 and Yukon Striker has one of 1329. Having been to CP and seeing how efficient they are running Valravn, I feel like it is fair to assume that KI could easily approach 1200 riders per hour.

4. The ride has to provide decent value for the cost. Copperhead Strike cost $26 million dollars. Manta(SD) cost between $35 and $50 million. Time Traveler cost $26 million.

Valravn cost between $20 and $25 million, while Yukon cost $25 million. With KI being situated so close to the factory where B&M track is produced, it is fair to assume that if a Yukon clone were plopped directly into KI, it would be cheaper due to negligible shipping costs.

5. Uniqueness and marketability: this is critical. A ride like Vortex can not be replaced easily. The thing is the rumored replacements all have their pitfalls: Raptor-KK is getting one in 2021, Wing Coaster- HW has “the best one” in the eyes of many, Intamin Blitz- would be compared to Maverick, and Dive Coaster-Valravn in CP. Out of all those options, I think the park could have more to work with if they went with a Dive Coaster.

I realize that Steel Vengeance is still a recent ride opening but I would think that an RMC would be a little more cost efficient.  While it would be ground up, I would think that an RMC costing around $15M would be a pretty efficient usage of that space where Vortex sat.  Zadra supposedly was $16.5M to build.  Steel Vengeance and Iron Gwazi were about half that much but they had an existing coaster superstructure to utilize (at least, to some extent).  Plus, it would have a longer ride time than a dive coaster with many different elements available (standard coasters to inversions).

[coaster sally]

7 minutes ago, Skibum said:

I realize that Steel Vengeance is still a recent ride opening but I would think that an RMC would be a little more cost efficient.  While it would be ground up, I would think that an RMC costing around $15M would be a pretty efficient usage of that space where Vortex sat.  Zadra supposedly was $16.5M to build.  Steel Vengeance and Iron Gwazi were about half that much but they had an existing coaster superstructure to utilize (at least, to some extent).  Plus, it would have a longer ride time than a dive coaster with many different elements available (standard coasters to inversions).

The brass in charger have shown they would much rather play it extremely safe.  Sans steel vengeance whats the most innovative ride the current brass has purchased?  Orion, copperhead, Yukon, etc are nothing groundbreaking.  Even the most innovative element on steel vengeance is the outerbank.

[Skibum]

On 8/2/2020 at 6:22 PM, coaster sally said:

An extreme spinner is different but the novelty wears off fast.  Rode time traveler 4x last month over a couple days and it got boring

This looks like a nausea inducing experience.  I do well on forward facing coasters and can handle inversions but the spinning element does not seem like a experience.  Apologies if I have stated this before but I don't want a coaster that is just inversion heavy.  One of Maverick's best attributes is that the inversions are secondary to the actual ride.  Sweeping and/or overbanked curves and nice drops and bits of airtime are more preferable in my opinion.

[gforce1994]

2 hours ago, coaster sally said:

The brass in charger have shown they would much rather play it extremely safe.  Sans steel vengeance whats the most innovative ride the current brass has purchased?  Orion, copperhead, Yukon, etc are nothing groundbreaking.  Even the most innovative element on steel vengeance is the outerbank.

I feel the most innovative part were the Gen III trains. They doubled the number of wheels and redesigned the restraint.

[JimParker85]

Zadra being so (relatively) inexpensive kills me. It looks fantastic, that giant stall inversion should be epic. The smaller one on Goliath is outstanding. I'd love to see a North American park have RMC build a ground up I-Box monster. The layout on Zadra looks much more interesting than Iron Gwazi's IMO, although we STILL don't have an Iron Gwazi POV. 

[coaster sally]

31 minutes ago, JimParker85 said:

Zadra being so (relatively) inexpensive kills me. It looks fantastic, that giant stall inversion should be epic. The smaller one on Goliath is outstanding. I'd love to see a North American park have RMC build a ground up I-Box monster. The layout on Zadra looks much more interesting than Iron Gwazi's IMO, although we STILL don't have an Iron Gwazi POV. 

wood structure is cheaper than steel supports.

[SOBwasaSOB]

If we get a dive coaster I will be so sad.  Ive ridden 3, and i have not thought much of any of them.  Very boring, long and drawn out elements and very short rides.  They are beautiful to look at though, I will admit that.  

[SonofBaconator]

13 minutes ago, SOBwasaSOB said:

If we get a dive coaster I will be so sad.  Ive ridden 3, and i have not thought much of any of them.  Very boring, long and drawn out elements and very short rides.  They are beautiful to look at though, I will admit that.  

I'd like to think if KI got one it would be unique enough. KI typically does their own thing with the coasters they get. Maybe they'd get a 6 seater with a thinner track spine that focuses more on inversions. Maybe they'd get one to feature an element like a zero-g stall, cobra roll, etc. Maybe they'd get one and have it feature two 90° drops vs just one. The list goes on.

I agree they get repetitive but I think KI goes the extra step to differentiate their coasters.

[SOBwasaSOB]

2 hours ago, SonofBaconator said:

I'd like to think if KI got one it would be unique enough. KI typically does their own thing with the coasters they get. Maybe they'd get a 6 seater with a thinner track spine that focuses more on inversions. Maybe they'd get one to feature an element like a zero-g stall, cobra roll, etc. Maybe they'd get one and have it feature two 90° drops vs just one. The list goes on.

I agree they get repetitive but I think KI goes the extra step to differentiate their coasters.

I am not trying to be a contrarian and I have mad love for my home park, but what unique coaster elements does KI have?