Start the speculation of the new dark ride in the crypt building 2015!!

Would be awesome, with a great line through the cave area:

Start the speculation of the new dark ride in the crypt building 2015!!

Honestly, if they dressed up the box to make it look less like a box, I would be all for it. A dark ride themed to coal mining or whatever Rivertown is supposed to be themed to would be nice, IMO.

Seems like they've been revamping some of Boo Blasters recently. Could just be part of getting ready for the haunt, but they were things that could stay there long term. I noticed more skeletons, and other various props that looked they had been updated or added. I wish the guns worked better. Seems like the outer right gun on 75% of the cars I've been on works terrible (and we typically ride at least once, sometimes more than once every trip w/ my son in the middle or far right and me on the outside)

Cedar Fair shouldn't be attempting theming on a Disney Level. Different park, different audience, different budgets.

However, they should attempt strong theming in small bunches and make it so that things are easy to maintain. Take Banshee for example, adding a couple of "graveyards" along the course of the track would be fairly low cost, and considering the nature of the ride, throw in a handful of tombstones, perhaps some low growing trees and there really is no maintance to that level of themeing. But do it right, so that you feel like you're flying thru a graveyard, perhaps during the bottom of the pretzel loop thingy and it would work great. Take it a notch above and add fog machines at night time, and all of a sudden you've got a ride that would be extremely popular at night.

I was very pleased when Cedar Fair brought the Bier Garten back to Oktoberfest this year. I felt very happy to see something German return to the old German area. The area's themselves need to be themed, nothing big, maybe a some background music and rides that fit the area, etc. I do not think they will go all Disney and add a huge amount of theming for every ride, but minor low cost theming (Celtic graves on Banshee).

^^Why is it that Kings Dominion's Boo Blaster guns have laser pointers and they all work, but KI has such trouble with them?

You see theming with Banshee? The station, yes, but no more or less than Diamondback or Firehawk or Maverick.

Cedar Fair honestly hasn't been terrible at intra-ride theming in the past, where they actually decided to go for it. Maverick has - really - a decent attempt at theming, and it's successful (or was back when the launch tunnel worked). If all of Cedar Fair's additions strived even to match that level, I'd be happy. In the case of Banshee, that'd probably mean a few graveyards back in the woods, some red eyes and fog at night, zero-G rolls over old cracked tombstones, brushing past old bare trees, and a mausoleum tunnel or two.

What Ouimet probably meant is that his parks will never be Disney parks. They won't have immersive themed environments that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. That's not the clientele of these parks. Regional parks with a regional budget. A family ride at Kings Island is WindSeeker or Dinosaurs Alive. It might take the form of a reasonably-budgeted dark ride, but it won't be Haunted Mansion or Tower of Terror or Radiator Springs Racers. And when Cedar Fair builds a roller coaster, it's Banshee, not Big Thunder Mountain. It just is what it is.

I agree with Terp - it's too early to tell where his evolution will lead. But I think we can safely say none of the Cedar Fair parks will ever get an Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man or a Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey or a Cars Land.

I went to Cedar Point in August and road Maverick. The launch tunnel worked. Did you mean it did something besides relaunching you? Just curious since it was my first time on that particular ride.

Maverick opened with railroad crossing lights, a sound package to sound like a freight train (or stampede), flashing blue lights at the end of the tunnel and thick fog and mist.

After a week the mist effects were turned off because they kept setting off the fire alarms.

The sound package and lights soon followed.

Also mind you look at the Maverick announcement POV, there was supposed to be alot more than just that tunnel...

Heartline roll, water elements, rocks, structures, ect...

None of that

Well, it did have a water feature on the heartline roll rock elements. It also disappeared.

It was ugly, so it was a good choice.

From TPR

I wish I could have ridden that. Did Sander and Kinzel ride it?

Structure at :24

Overhead structure at :26

Structures at :33

Overhead Structure at 1:05

Heartline Roll 1:06

Walls @at 1:14

Alot of it wasn't put in..

But Maverick is an awesome ride on its own. It could be a parking lot coaster and you would have the same forces if it had the theming it does. Some rides would be pretty bland without any theming like BLSC but Maverick can live without a few lights and props.

Sandors did for sure. I don't know if Dick did.

But Maverick is an awesome ride on its own. It could be a parking lot coaster and you would have the same forces if it had the theming it does. Some rides would be pretty bland without any theming like BLSC but Maverick can live without a few lights and props.

BLSC is bland with theming.

I don't mind Maverick sans theming..

If it had this theming though...I'd be very very happy...What I really don't like is seeing, hey, this is the ride, sweet, look what we are ganna do, then it doesn't show up. This is why I take renderings and CGI stuff with a grain of salt. Until it's there, confirmed, and proven, I'll wait to see if KI uses tombstones with fog and stuff every night for Banshee, and CP with some of their changes to stuff for their 2014 artistic rendering...

IF they opened I305 with it pulling over 6g's in the first turn I wonder how intense that heartline was?

The Heartline was intense...Rumor has it for what I heard working there was when Intamin's employees got on it, one blacked out completely, and then they looked at it and also realized it was ganna tear the trains up...Again, second part was what was said, first part was rumor I heard quite alot, and to me kinda made sense (they tested sans people fine, once people testing commenced, it got pulled)

And already had replacement track designed and fabricated...

Props to Intamin for trying to go extreme, instead of taking the easy way out and doing it forceless.

They KNEW it was unlikely to work. Alternate designed and built track already ready....

IF it would have it would be the best coaster on earth!

At least one poster here has it as his favorite coaster--but only in the front seat.

I prefer I305. The lack of height knocks maverick down my list.

Speaking of theming...

Remember when the type of new rides were chosen (and at the very least, named) with respect to the themed land they were to reside in?

Here's some concept art for new rides to be installed in 1973:

Main Gate Restaurant

Bayern Kurve

Flying Dutchman

Kenton's Cove Keelboat

Taft has left the business.

Here's another timely article:

http://www.themeparktourist.com/news/20130906/14246/big-debate-does-theming-add-experience-park

Be sure to check out the poll results.

Only 60 votes, and from a VERY biased, targeted audience. Not that I disagree with the results.

Well if you have a crappy coaster you need something to make it better.

A awsome ride will speak for itself.

Taft has left the business.

Unfortunately.

I had a feeling when Cedar Fair bought KI that they would continue away from what KI presented itself as upon inception. KI is still no doubt still a beautiful park with great landscaping, but it's solely an amusement park anymore, and now does not dramatically differentiate itself from any of the other amusement parks across the country. Possibly the only way it does is through its stalwart holdings from previous owners (i.e. Beast).

To me, in the long run, you win through thorough placemaking - environments, story, and show. The KI clientele is much different than it was years ago, when you had a much broader demographic. Yesterday, families were going for a whole day (or few days), traveling through multiple storylines (lands, eateries, shops, total presence) - today a much smaller demo going for cheap quick thrills and not much else. Yesterday, families and kids enjoyed the whole park in multiple ways, today they're continually pushed off to one section.

The funny things is, yesterday's park wasn't even that elaborate in it's production, but they continually stuck to their plan, marketed it that way, and built out as much as they could. And it worked - well.