DoomPlague

Looks like they're going to divert Perimeter Road for this. It's an odd/bad fit for the park, for sure but I'll gladly ride it. I'm also going to agree with those that think this is a last minute addition to make up for 2024.

The whole thing went almost as badly as it possibly could have and that somehow only adds to its legendary status. It's the last time KI tried to do something extraordinary and I've noticed that many younger enthusiasts, who never got to ride it, are surprisingly fascinated by it. Anytime I mention somewhere online that I rode it a bunch of times, people ask what it was like.

While it's unfair to make assumptions about BeastFarmer's motives, you don't have to have a racial slant to recognize the common patterns of racially charged comments that avoid "saying the quiet part out loud" especially any time an incident happens at a park. Honestly, at first glance, BeastFarmer's post reminded me of many similar comments that were a bit more obvious, but I prefer to give the benefit of doubt especially to a frequent poster. It's easy to have knee jerk reactions like that if you see enough "subtle" racist comments, especially on Youtube shorts. For some reasons I see way more racist comments on shorts than on regular youtube videos. I'm guessing its because racists have short attention spans.

Yeah, Intamin is a serial offender and their costs are obviously higher. Zamperla hasn't reached that status as bad as the TT2 situation turned out to be. Sure, it does seem that Intamin is more reliable than they were when all those rides were built (and don't forget P/I305) but its hard to look past at all the problems of the past.

I suspect the easiest would be more operating days, and I mean just more than a couple extra weekends. They potentially could experiment with some more evening-only dates, maybe with reduced operations. There are plenty of people in the area willing to show up for just a couple hours. Otherwise, I think the park would need a serious expansion to drive up the numbers, including a parking expansion and the chain just isn't interested in that.

Action Zone: A big retheme preferably is pretty much what we all want. My dream retheme for it isn't realistic but I think a victorian city theme would be neat here and I've suggested before that you could take out Congo, Timberwolf and Skyflyer to create a new path that goes behind the Drop Tower and them have room for new rides and a shop or restaurant, etc. Adventure Port: Add some music and some extra theming. Oktoberfest: I'm fine leaving it as a small part of the park, tbh. Coney Mall: Bring back the arch and make some other small improvements to add to the classic midway feel. And play appropriate music. Area 72: a full restroom and expand the food stall to have meals. A flat ride wouldn't hurt. Rivertown: a theme refresh would be great. I would consider a flying theater for the Crypt building and put in a Musik Express in that area or some other flat ride. I would love to see WWC get some improvements to scenery and new water elements. Planet/Camp Snoopy: as others have said: make the whole area camp snoopy. I-Street: Music changes. Some nice symphonic music with the occasional pieces that match the theme (like Italian or French). I know we have a whole other threat about park music but my most recent visit I was particularly bugged by how much country music is played in the park. Sorry if you like country music but, imo, I think music without lyrics at all works best especially if you have music specific to each area. As others have suggested, The Vortex plot and the area around WindSeeker and Backlot could be turned into a new area. Eventually Backlot should come out though. I enjoy the ride but it has poor capacity and its taking up that prime realestate with its ugly theming.

Honestly, I would gladly give up a couple of early Winterfest days in favor of more night rides on The Beast and other coasters.

Looks like pass options for 2025 are up for legacy SF parks and its...gold pass, prestige pass, and all park passport, matching Cedar Fairs options. As well as all season flash pass and a "two meal" dining plan.

Six Flags Great America got HB theming in the late 90s and phased it out years back. I thought more SF parks had it but maybe not.

Seems like a good choice aside from everyone's issues with Premier trains. It compliments their lineup well and fills 2 major holes at CW: inversions and launching. Its good to see more rides from manufacturers not named B&M or GCI.

I think we need a new term for these. Or for the rollercoaster water coasters. Which was first?

Personally, I feel like Banshee is enough of an inversion machine for the park, especially since most inversions...really aren't that great (and I say that as someone whose love of coasters began with Vortex). I would be a thrilled with a Mack Stryker though. Voltron is fantastic.

Park burnout is definitely a thing. For me it's more specific to going to the same 2 Ohio parks for a few years and continually telling myself that I'll make it out to other parks.

I saw that photo and thought, "Is that Kings Dominion?" then saw the ole' Potatoworks.

Yeah, that just makes more sense. Though I did recently update the KI app and it does have some nice improvements at least. I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. We don't know how the pricing will work. I'm sure it will go up at least a little but when you consider how cheap the All-Park Passport is, I don't think the pricing is based on the total number of parks but rather how many you are likely to visit in a year and how much you're willing to pay. The average passholder isn't travelling all over the country hitting other parks and the company knows that.

Hopefully they have a "if its not broke don't fix it" attitude regarding the names. The top 3 seasonal parks, by attendance, are all Cedar Fair parks (including KI) while SF parks underperform when you consider their size, operating days and proximity to major metro areas. I would like to think the only CF parks in danger of getting branded are the small-to-medium sized ones. It could very well have the opposite effect. Why go to "Six Flags" on your trip when you have "Six Flags at home?" While the Six Flags brand isn't as tarnished to the gp as it is to enthusiasts, much of the public does see Six Flags rather generically. Trying to turn Six Flags into a trusty, reliable national brand has backfired, imo, and is not a great strategy to begin with when the experiences vary so wildly.

Honestly, when I rode on June 19th I was surprised that I *didn't* feel that jolt before the first lift. I think I did notice the sound you were talking about with the lift hill though.

-The best rides I've had on MF are better than Orion -But Orion will consistently give you airtime where as most of my rides on MF have little airtime -I like the sections on MF where you stay low to the ground and get to appreciate the speed. -I prefer Orion's sort-of-a-waveturn hill more than Millie's gray-out hill after the drop. -MF gives you better views and multiple tunnels. -Orion's speed hill is probably the best element on either ride. So yeah its pretty close. I give the nod to Orion just because its easier to get on.

Man, I never thought to just ask in here for something like that. I've struggled to find some of the music played in the Top Gun queue for some time.

I've now realized that, after merger, this would make the 4th such incident in the chain. That's still like a one in tens-of-millions chance of a rider doing this but I suspect changes might be more likely that I previously thought. I just hope its simply a matter of just securing those areas better. Lockers would be overkill, imo.

It's my understanding that Universal had (and still does) exclusive Marvel theme park rights east of the Mississippi, starting when they opened IOA.

Now that the chain will have 30+ parks, they may have more pull with Coke and could ask them to create some sort of higher capacity machines (though I'm not betting on that happening). Not sure about the ones at the park but its common for soda fountains to have ice makers but many probably can't keep up with demand anyways. Also, it seems like the freestyles are refilled with those flavor cartridges from the front and have to be taken out of service for a moment, which probably discourages park staff from refilling as needed.

A few national outlets have reported the incident including USA Today (which refers to just an "accident" in the headline, which is pretty irresponsible). I've delved into comment sections at a number of outlets to see what people are saying and I haven't seen anyone suggest that the park did something wrong or that this means rides are dangerous etc etc. Literally every post is a form of "how can someone do something so stupid." So I'm not terribly concerned about the ride or park's reputation. I will say, though, that the Columbus ABC affiliate talked to an "expert" who sounds like the guy attorneys call up for their lawsuits. He argues that the park has a duty to predict behavior like this and try to stop it with things like motion sensors and even razor wire. It was an absurd take considering that such behavior is extraordinarily rare and in no way reasonable.

I forgot to make this TR as I unwound from the trip and got back to work. The last park of my trip was the famous Europa Park. Like the other European parks, Europa has nice theming and scenery but its not as elaborate as Phantasialand. However, it does have 14 coasters and a bunch of dark rides. I left open an extra day in the trip in case I needed it to hit everything I wanted. We made our way towards the new ride, Voltron but came across SilverStar first. It's a B&M hyper and it was a walk-on at this time. The ride is sponsored and the queue building is massive inside with a bunch of frankly wasted space. Having an indoor queue is nice though. The ride itself...well its a B&M hyper. Good air time throughout. I definitely prefer Diamondback for the most part though Silverstar doesn't run as slow in its second half. We then made it to the new Mack multi-launch coaster, Voltron. Being a new ride, it was a bit of a wait even this early. The outdoor theming was nice but not as cool as once you get inside. Inside there's an animatronic Nikola Tesla and on the ceiling are 4 large tesla coils...that every once in a while play the ride's theme. It's pretty cool. Eventually you get to an attendant who hands anyone with a bag an RFID card which will lock and unlock some double-sided lockers. Unlike FLY, they are just simple white cards instead of a strap and there's no metal detector. So its more of a bin replacement rather enforcing a strict loose item policy. Once to the ride platform, the 4x4 trains move on a conveyor platform and the process is pretty efficient. The ride itself has a prelaunch section with special effects that mimic you being jolted with electricity and the track jumps up and down. It's pretty neat and on our second ride, everyone on the ride was playing along. The ride also has a turntable midway and a very short backwards launch. It's a nice little surprise. Overall the ride is fantastic. It has loads of strong airtime and quick transitions. It's easily one of the two best rides I've ridden on the trip, which says quite a bit. I would love to see KI get this new model. After Voltron, we made our way to Blue Fire, which was considered a game changer for Mack. It's a good multi-launch coaster. A bit shaky and not as good as some other LSM launch coasters out there but still probably the second best ride at the park. Like Silverstar, it has a sponsored, oversized indoor queue. We also did Wodan Timbur Coaster, a GCI woodie. Nice theming in the queue. The ride itself is decent but nothing too special. It lacks the relentlessness of Mystic Timbers. Euro Mir is a Mack spinner themed to the Mir space station. A replica of the station is above the queue and there are cosmonauts and related things in the ride itself. The highlight of the ride is the spiral lift hill, where you are rotated up the hill by a rocket with Russian techno blaring in the background. It was quite entertaining. The main part of the ride is a fairly typical family spinner. Arthur is part dark ride, part coaster. The park is apparently pretty proud of the ride because there's a making-of video in the queue. The entrance is in an indoor plaza where part of the ride goes. Very nicely themed even if I didn't really know what was going on. It's probably the best dark-ride coaster combination I've been on, technology wise. It's inverted but the seats rotate to view scenery. Pretty nice scenery and animatronics, then you hit a short rollercoaster section that goes outside. EuroSat CanCan Coaster is the ride housed in that totally-not-an-Epcot-knockoff sphere in the park. It was a pleasant surprise. It's a simple lapbar coaster that blazes by some French-themed scenery in the dark. It's not overly fast, so you can actually see the scenery and hear the music. Schweizer Bobbahn (Swiss Bobsled) is my second Mack bobsled of the trip. Remarkably this thing was running 4 trains (I guess they have 5!?) even though its a really short ride. The one at Parc Asterix was definitely better. Matterhorn Blitz is a Mack wild mouse themed to a Swiss farm, with animatronic farm animals in the queue. It was charming. An elevator lift takes you up in a small tower and then you have a typical wild mouse. We skipped the Super Splash since I rode one at Plopsaland and my riding partner didn't want to get wet. But we did ride Poseidon, a water coaster. It felt like a fairly typical family-thrill level ride but with a splashdown at the end. Also did, for some reason, Alpenexpress Enzian, a powered family coaster. Should have done Pegasus instead. After the coasters, I started hitting the dark rides. Many of them had 0 wait. Madame Freudenreich Curiosités was a cute ride with dinosaurs, seemingly with jobs. Good animatronics, especially Madame Freudenreich herself. Piccolo Mondo has a general Italy theme. I barely remember it but it was okay. Abenteuer Atlantis is an interactive dark ride where you shoot at various underwater creatures. Again, it was okay. Their Ghost House (apparently similar to Haunted Mansion) was closed unfortunately. And I ended up missing Snorri Tauren and I apparently shouldn't have because its said to be one of their most advanced dark rides. Pirates in Batavia was definitely a highlight for me. It might be considered a POTC knockoff but its a good one. Lastly, Voletarium, is a flying theater attraction that has you flying around various scenes across Europe. Pretty well done even if the theme wasn't that interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing KI get a similar attraction. Before leaving, we hit up Voltron again as that was clearly the highlight of the park. This was definitely a great park but I think I was more impressed by Phantasialand. Europa Park definitely has more to do but it almost felt like a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none, Voltron being the exception. With Voltron, this park's coaster lineup, were it in the US, would be somewhere in the mid top 10 among US parks. Before Voltron, though, it would have been similar to how many enthusiasts feel about KI in terms of coasters: consistent quality top to bottom but lacking an elite ride (not that I agree with that). Of course, this is ignoring the overall quality of the park, the dark rides, theming, etc.

I doubt we'll see an investment in metal detectors and lockers over this unless they were already tired of people losing items on Banshee in general (which might well be the case I suppose). This sort of incident is rare and I would think they would first look to improve the security of lockout zones. I had the same thought about where he got in. Basically there's no one watching that area by the old SOB station and few guests go out there. I've had times where I walked through the tunnel towards The Bat and there wasn't a single soul in sight.