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Some notes from my visit during passsholder Saturday: Park hours 11-10. Parking opened at 10:10am. Last year rides opened up around 10-15 minutes before scheduled hours but not this time. Also they usually play the national anthem before opening which is hilarious to see reactions from everyone..but maybe I missed it this time? Someone please report on if this still happens haha. The pretzel at the Brewhouse is great, comes with beer cheese (not shitty neon ballpark cheese) and mustard! Adventure Express has added lights/themeing in the second tunnel. Food/bev lines were insaaaaane. We are smart here on TPR, we don't eat at peak hours! This made no difference. I ended up staying to close, and I think I had my pretzel around 8pm at the brewhouse which I didn't have to wait long for, but that's the advantage of the bar. Hopefully the park can get more help, but I am not sure if that's the issue. I believe that dining plan is bought by 70% of passholders. Racer was running fantastic. Like as good as the Hurler & Racer 75 retracks in 2018. Gravity Group did an awesome job. Beast gave me on of the most painful rides ever last year, and typically I only ride in the front to make sure that I never get a bad ride. 2020/social distance didn't allow you to wait for the front seat. 2021 we can pick our seats, hooray! The 2 front row rides I had were great. Diamondback running with full trains makes it feel like an above average B&M hyper again! Banshee running with full trains is great but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did last year. I had some amazing glass smooth rides in 2020 but 2021 it's back to the usual Banshee. I really think that it's not a rough coaster, those vests just hug you into the seat so tight you feel every imperfection on the wheel/track. That first drop is wicked! Love to see Drop Tower running consistently. Delirium was down/testing. Windseeker is even more fun with Orion right below you. Boo Blasters was a fun ride to revisit, it's okay for what it is. Knotts bringing back Beary Tales gives me hope that KI could take advantage of fhe omnimover base here and restore the Phantom Manor. But when you're winning golden tickets for your kids area I doubt they'll ever change it. Orion is essentially a brand new coaster for 2021 for the GP so the only thing slowing down the ride's operations is the walk of shame. The lines we've seen for it so far are pretty impressive, but remember it's not just Ohio locals coming to KI regularly. You've got Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan folks coming in. I'll be curious to see how lines are during the week but if you want more than 2 rides in 1 day without waiting 2+ hours just budget FL. Orion has a good looking light package at night and the park added more lights in the helix calling it 'Orion's Belt'. It's just a really fun re-rideable coaster that's focus is on speed. The first drop seems endless, the wave turn is taken at 1000%, the speed hill gives good air and the final sideways hill and jump into the brakes are the stand out airtime moments in my opinion. Mystic Timbers still hauls ass. No one spotted my Fuji Q hoodie except for 1 older dude in the beer line who just wanted to rant about Kingda Ka being the best and was still very mad about Rebel Yell being changed to Racer 75. Where we the cool nerds at??

Since when is it okay to generalize an country of 300 million on a fucking roller coaster fourm? The are caring people and assholes in America just like any other country. Rode Skyrush for the first time since opening year, I hated it then but found it much more enjoyable this time, and it still felt very intense. Wonder what they did do it.

I saw a couple of YouTubers giving detailed analysis of why the moon landing was faked, or insert your chosen conspiracy theory here. Must be true.

Steel Curtain is expected to open this Friday (possibly with single train operations) if anyone is planning a trip.

Good to know! Thank you!!

(after the video) Oh my. Wow. I mean. Oh. My. Damn. It's. I mean. Wow.....

Nah there was a whole thread about it, no point in talking about it for this one bc well we dont know where its gunna go and yeah I've seen the YT coaster community going nuts about the (we dont know how yet) record breaking ride thats coming to CP....we of course dont know that and I uh..................lets just say dont put much stock in the YT coaster channel community lol OR your post was top tier satire that I missed! Oh yeah I have no idea why anyone would do Cedar Point without FastLane unless you're local. When I was younger I 1: had less $ 2: had some weird ass moral objection against it. After caving the first time I can never go back. I'm with yall I can't fathom how people can deal with CP without it. It just makes the experience so much better. I do think back to how Id get 1 ride per coaster, how much of the day is just spent in line, and of course needing 2 days (sometimes + night) all the hotels etc now, damn can get the whole park done in a day if I want, multiple rides on everything, cuts down on overall cost too.

I kind of understand the frustration. That "last ride of the night" on your favourite coaster is a really great way to end a day at Cedar Point. Not having that cheapens the experience. That said, people gotta understand that every place is understaffed right now, and that will continue to be true for a while as we struggle to restore all the infrastructure like childcare so that people can return to work, as well as vaccinating the remaining population. At Cedar Point specifically a lot of their workers are European, so of course the travel sector will need to be restored before the park is able to run fully staffed again. Would be nice if people thought about this stuff before they yelled at some kid about how their day at a theme park was only 99% awesome.

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So how early have they been cutting ride lines? It seems like they’ve been posting a wait time until park close for everything in the app even after they close the rides to get people to walk over there and give them one final kick in the balls on the way out. I love that actual news stations are dragging them for their horrible opening weekend. I don’t really feel bad for anyone who went in with unreasonable expectations as this happens every single year, but I enjoy watching them get called out for it.

I love how one of the best coaster types ever is still alive and well to this day. (fight me)

Some more footage of Monster to look at while we count down they days until opening.

Y'all got some impressive numbers, but I think I have the best ride About 3500 miles for Olympia Looping, seven cars front row in the rain. Incredible work of engineering that ride is.

First day at Kings Island for 2021 is in the books. All around, despite being very busy, I got two rides on almost everything I wanted to (Banshee was down when I went by for my second lap), closed out the night in the only way you should at this park, and even got myself an awesome grilled cheese donut. That said, it was thanks entirely to having Fast Lane...without it, the day would have gone very differently. Full report coming in the next few days. Now to try to wake up for the 8 hour drive to Kings Dominion to check out their passholder preview tomorrow. Yeah that's not happening.

Just had my longest wait of the day (with FL+): for two sandwiches at Tom + Chee at around 45 minutes LOL. Cedar Fair, if you're listening, I've got a great idea to make some more money: Fast Lane for restaurants. Make it happen.

MONSTER.

I finally returned to Knott’s yesterday after 433 days (yes, I asked Siri how long ago was March 7, 2020). It felt so nice to be back at the park. I have never gone this long without visiting Knott’s since I was a toddler. I will NEVER take parks for granted again! It was a wonderful visit. Oddly enough, the slowest moving line was Silver Bullet and the fastest was GhostRider. Quite the contrary on a normal operating day. The upper and lower floors of GhostRider’s building were extremely socially-distant, only utilizing a few switchbacks, and they were keeping an empty row between parties on the train. It moved very quickly. The line started outside the building and I waited approximately 30 minutes both times. Still a wonderful coaster that will forever be one of my favorites. I cannot believe the re-tracking was 5 years ago now. It still runs like the day it reopened! Silver Bullet was a bit more frustrating. The line still moved quite well, but I don’t understand why are they are loading every other row on this coaster. It just doesn’t make sense when people are much closer together (and for a longer period of time) in the queue line. But at this point, I didn’t really care. I was just so excited to be back at the park. Hopefully they start loading all rows again soon and this coaster goes back to being the capacity monster of the park. Even at half capacity, it keeps the line moving “enough” to not be unbearable. Xcelerator and HangTime were both running very well, and their respective queues were quite manageable. Xcelerator was never too far down the ramp. They are also running two trains, which is nice to see, but really does not help capacity too much for anyone familiar with this ride’s block system setup and operation. They were loading one party per car, which is actually quite similar to pre-COVID days. A few empty seats per train but it felt like pretty normal operations. Same goes for HangTime. This coaster hardly ever filled every seat pre-COVID. There was always an empty seat or two per row, so this coaster’s operations felt normal as well. They just weren’t grouping pairs of two or singles. The line was never more than 20 minutes. Managed to get a front row ride. This is still a wonderful addition to the park, and I will never get over how much of an improvement it is to Boomerang. One of the best additions the park has made in the last decade. And the lighting package, of course, is fantastic. It really livens up the Boardwalk. I didn’t wanna brave the line for Bear-y Tales. The new facade and theming seems very nice and much improved over Voyage to the Iron Reef. But I’m just not a big dark ride person, and the line was not worth it to me yesterday. I know how slow-moving it is from my experience with Iron Reef. I will ride it eventually. I am moving to Florida next month, but I plan on returning to California around the Holidays for a bit. Hopefully the park is open to out-of-state visitors by then. But Bear-y Tales does seem like a great upgrade. I am excited to ride it eventually! Overall this was one of the best visits to the park I’ve had in a while. Part of me actually enjoys the socially-distanced lines and how quickly they move. Even pre-COVID, the cattle pen queue lines were never enjoyable. I’ll attach a few photos from yesterday. If you are a SoCal resident and a pass-holder, I HIGHLY recommend visiting before it opens to everybody on the 21st. Crowds are very reasonable, all rides are open and running at decent capacity, and food facilities hardly had lines. The 10pm closing was also great for night rides! Knott’s is BACK!

Just got back in myself...due to work and Springfield traffic I didn't get into the park until 6:40. Decent amount of cars in the lot upon arrival. Be aware that the tram is closed, so be ready to walk. They also currently have two big tents set up for temp checks and security. Can't wait to go to Ohio and not deal with this crap. Everything was quick and was in the park in no time. Headed to the North End first and started at Wicked Cyclone. Two trains with every other row closed. Line at that point was under the crossover which was about 20 minutes. Lucked out with the back seat. You could pick your row but they were only letting 12 people in at a time so you still need to be one of the first into the station to pick what you want. This thing still never fails to amaze me with how much steam it loses by the end of the ride. It's a great coaster, but just so weird compared to other RMCs which tend to go batsh*t right to the end. Good to be back! Hopped on Skyscreamer which was a walk on and had a great ride. We had a nice San Diego afternoon with temps in the 70s, so a pleasant breeze 400 feet up. On the way out, Pandemonium had a 30 minute line, so headed past to Flashback. Skipping every other row but it doesn't matter because no one rides Flashback anyway. Goliath looks to be going the way of the Dinosaurs. They fed this dino the "Temporarily Closed" sign for Goliath. Must be getting a more permanent one. Wandered up to Tomahawk which was also a walk on. It's laughable how little it swings these days, but they make up for it by having it spin in "Gravitron Mode" for 2 straight minutes. Anyone miss the old concrete path with the horseshoes carved in? More boring pavement at New England's Blacktop Capital. They could've really gone all out on the New England theme by littering this area with potholes. Headed towards Gotham where I found Harley Quinn and Batman both down temporarily. Got in line for Riddler and despite running at full capacity, the dispatches were a bit atrociois due to only having 1 ride attendant (yet half full Cyclone and Superman had 4). Ended up being about 30 minutes. A little bit of jackhammering but fun ride. Batman was back up so hopped in line for that. Would've been like a 10 minute line but it had another (rather short) breakdown which turned it into 25 minutes or so. Also hit Joker which only had a 5 minute line. Crazy as usual. Love how close Harley Quinn gets to Joker. By then it was already pushing 9, so I made my way to DC. App said Superman had a 10 minute line, and with that said I had a heart attack when I walked down the stairs and saw the line back to the Superman logo near the locker building. Turns out they weren't using any switchbacks but it still ended up being almost 40 minutes. Every other row closed but they were filling the station and letting you pick what you wanted. Went for the back and enjoyed the OG Intamin Masterpiece. LightSabre The Ride Ended up calling it a night after that as it was pushing 10. They still had the line open, so kudos to them for keeping it going till closing which wasn't always the case in the past. Gotta say things went pretty well tonight. Good sized crowd and the park was strict about masks and social distancing, and people were more observant of that here than I've seen at any other park. Looking forward to "normal" park days in Ohio though. All major rides open except Blizzard River I believe. Overall was impressed with the staffing level, although the one area they struggled was on the food side of things. Lots of stands closed and the open ones had huge lines. All applicable coasters running two trains and they're doing their best keeping capacity up with the restrictions in place. Something new to look forward to in the next week! Goodnight SFNE. Good to be back at the ol' home park.

Jersey Devil Update: Six Flags Great Adventure on Twitter

Kings Dominion is a very good park with some great rides but KD and BGW are headed in very opposite directions right now. Those things can both be true.

^Great report, thanks for keeping us updated on how this park is evolving.

^Ahead of Millie, of course, because "where is the airtime on that thing?" *be sure to like and subscribe as it helps with the algorithm*

I have no clue what kind of mental gymnastics people are doing to make a perfectly flat huge park with tons of space a "challenging location". They just really want this coaster at Cedar Point so they can get off it and immediately film a hype vlog where they declare it the 7th best coaster in the park.

Avalanche closed for the season is confirmed. At the top of the Avalanche page on their website (and on the roller coasters page) it says... "Avalanche will be closed for the 2021 season." https://www.kingsdominion.com/play/rides/avalanche