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Why is everyone discussing CP potentially changing of the launch on Dragster when that had nothing to do with something coming off the train when it hit the brake run?

Local parks? Pretty much never. Parks I'm traveling to and only have a day or two at? Abso-f*ckin-lutely.

Lines, yeah..

When parks initially started introducing them, and I wasn't making quite as much as I do now, I hated them. Now, that I'm pretty financial comfortable, I pretty much always get them regardless of the weather forecast or anticipated crowd level; at local parks that I have season passes to, I have the all-season Fast Lane/whatever option when its available. My time is much more valuable than money. My personal tolerance for waiting in lines is about 15-30 minutes. After that I start to get annoyed. Since I often go to parks alone, there isn't much worse than standing in an hour+ line without anyone to talk to to pass the time. Even when I am with friends, eventually we run out of things to talk about.

I'm going to assume that this is a mistake. Right? Right?

Website indicates Fury 325 will not run during Scarowinds. Good move or bad move? Dont worry, Hurler will be open.

New motor installed on Skyrush last night. Park is hoping to have it open in the next week or two.

I don't think it's completely crazy to assume something will change, just a question to what. Could be a line re-route (which given the coasters history probably should of happened sooner), which kept similar issues with Kingda Ka at bay. I'm sure something will be different, just will take time to know what. The ride is very high in maintenance, is iconic, popular and has all of these positives and negatives surrounding it. Maybe a retrofit would fix some of these issues, maybe more can be done with what's already there to expand it even more. It's an interesting situation which I'm sure will result in some kind of change or removal, time will tell though. I'm interested in what's to come, but I really hope the person injured pulls through and relatively speaking ends up being okay. I couldn't imagine how I'd be feeling if it was my loved one or even witnessing something so traumatic.

Pretty much this, though occasionally I won't. I didn't when I visited my sister in SF two years ago and we swung by SFDK and CGA for a few hours mostly because I knew going in both parks were gonna be pretty dead and there were only a couple rides I wanted to get multiple rides on (Joker / Railblazer). When Rikki and I did two weeks through the Netherlands and UK, I bought fast passes for every park we went to that sold them.

Hey everyone! After 2020 ruined Alex and I's trip to Disneyland, we started to put together fantasy European trips for when the pandemic ended but we realized we would probably have to settle for something in the USA for 2021. Between WDW, Gwazi, Ice Breaker, and then Velocicoaster, Florida seemed to be the unanimous destination when we could travel safely in 2021. I haven't visited Disney World since a kid in 2002, and we all love Disney, but now does not seem like the time to go. After looking at the (lack of) available parks to visit for our time frame, limited hours, no shows/fireworks, etc we just ended up putting it off for another time. I have so much to do in Orlando, haha. So then the plan became clear - Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Universal over a week. We had slight hope for Gwazi, but we know how that turned out. Ice Breaker seemed real with the employees riding, but we know how that turned out. Despite that, who cares, it'd be nice just to see a friend I hadn't seen in 2 years and go to a new theme park. Day 1 Tampa non park day. So what do you do in Tampa when there's no sporting team in town? Bar hop, I guess. I had looked into some 2 hour boat tours around the city or to see dolphins but the cost + weather risk wasn't worth it. We stayed at the brand new Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens right across from the park. and OF COURSE our window perfectly framed the closed Gwazi Even though I had blocked it from my mind months prior to the trip seeing it in person, closed, yet ready to go was infuriating. Don't worry, BGT had many more ways to piss us off. I highly recco the Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens, they were really friendly and even though they hadn't opened up the full breakfast spread they gave you as much food/drink as you asked. Rooms were clean, shuttle to the park, but honestly you could walk too and from the park. BGT is in a rough looking neighborhood but we didn't have any issues walking back after park close and getting some delicious stuffed pitas at Zeko's Mediterranean Grill. Of course this is our hotel view. We had lunch on the water at Jackson's Bistro, very solid spot for a fish sandwich and then headed over to the convenient cable car/lite rail to check out Ybor City. Tampa's TECO Street Car is free and vintage cool. For a Friday happy hour, Ybor City was absolutely dead. Probably more chickens in the street than people haha. We had some good drinks and bounced around, but the whole area seemed more industrial like. It's a big port city but whenever I visit BGT next I won't bother spending any time outside the park. Day 2 (BGT Day 1 of 2) Busch Gardens Tampa/Africa had been on my list for so long. It's got the legendary B&Ms of America! Not only that, the surplus of animals, encounters, an INSANE looking drop tower, Cheetah Hunt, Tigris, Cobra's Curse, these pretzels everyone raves about, and a beer/cocktail lounge overlooking the Serengeti! Needless today I was absolutely hyped. Of course being Florida in mid June, we knew it would be hot. We were prepared with Quick Que for both days. Right away we saw that the sky ride is down, which is a mega bummer considering the park's layout and the heat. Headed over to Cheetah Hunt first, but it was down. Cobra's Curse! Oh, it's down. But at least they had 4 employees out there giving mixed messages on if the ride would even be open the next day. Okay Montu! Hooray, it's open! Montu absolutely tore down Banshee, Afterburn, Batmen, Alpengeist, Raptor, and the rest of the inverts I've been on. Having had some of the best Banshee rides a few days before, they're just built differently. I'll gladly trade those slow barrel rolls for the original B&M invert trains. The drop had a nice whip, the loop and immelman had me seeing spots, the zero g roll is absolutely perfect, the batwing underground is taken incredibly fast and then you're treated to a mix of inversions, dips, and turns underground until the end. Amazing. Loved front and back equally. We checked out some nile crocs, lions, hyenas, and tigers on the way to Falcon's Fury. Falcon's Fury is probably the only attraction on the planet that gives me anxiety waiting in line. 1) because it's a crazy Intamin tower, it will breakdown throughout the way 2) it's way taller than I ever thought, I guess I didn't see the stats! it's 330ft!!! Holy shit Falcon's Fury was absolutely incredible. It feels like you're being shot down AND the pull out (don't be nasssssti) is super smooth. Next to DoDoDonpa, I've never experienced the sensation of fear + adrenaline + euphoria like that. It only took 2 rides for us to notice not the lack of staffing, but the lack of good staff. These ops were not happy at all. Montu's capacity should be 1,500 per hour and the ops weren't really interested in checking your restraints until a train stacked. Falcon's ops were so miserable we thought the ride broke down every cycle because they'd kinda point and look at something in the op booth or on the ride and we people would ask "did it break?" they'd just laugh, as if the ride needed a smoke break every time it ran. Even the automated voice over was mixed up. The welcome back would play as you go up, visa versa. I'm sad to say those Twisted Tails pretzels didn't live up to the hype, but with the lack of quality food in the park, I think we had those for 3/4 of our meals. They were good, not great and you had packetted mustard and cheap nacho cheese (upcharge) to pair. Disappointing. Scorpion was a fun Schwarzkopf. Stanley Falls was up next and 3 of us in 1 log got absolutely SOAKED head to toe! Thanks to the florida heat I think we dried off in an hour. We checked out the cool avian exhibit and completed a lap around the park to see if Cobra's Curse or Cheetah Hunt were open. The crappy service continued as our friend with us who needed to use a breast pump was run back and forth across the park trying to find the right nursing station, and when she finally got to the right place the quality/privacy was not good. Cheetah Hunt even with Quick Que was almost an hour wait. Stand by was 2.5. Only 1 station was being used and boyyyy were they taking their sweet time. They also didn't care to tell people not to smoke in the queue or on the ride and let people take as many on ride photos or videos as they wanted. Cheetah Hunt was a ton of fun! The front provided some great pops of air while the back gave the best experience coming off the tower. Is there supposed to be water back in the canyon section? Was there? It is a great family coaster and gets even better at night! After that long wait for Cheetah, we took some time to relax at the Serengeti bar. Apparently there's a restaurant opening on the 3rd floor ...eventually. It's a really great bar for beer or mixed drinks, you can even get a beer flight or two! Yes, multiple beer flight options! We also experienced the only employees with life here today, great bartenders. Another ride on Falcon's Fury, another pretzel, and it was time for Montu! Montu doesn't have the most impressive stats on paper, but man this thing looks huge in person up on the hill. It absolutely lives up to the hype, great intense inversions and even a dope B&M lite stengel dive into the tunnel that spits you out into the helix. BEAST! So that's two old school B&M's that have OTSRs and don't touch your ears. Sheikra blew all of the other dive coasters I've been on out of the water, especially the ones with vests. It's beautiful, feels bigger, has airtime on the inversion, man this park has amazing coasters! Alright that's enough for right now, I'll update again soon! -Zach Free booze samples and it's good booze? Sure go here if you must stay in Tampa! Mmm, good beer. It will terrify you, but you will be rewarded. Wow wadda thrill. The pop up bubble in the tiger exhibit must be visited. LOOK AT EM! Pawb. Some beautiful bird friends in the open air aviary. My favorite animal. Look at these dino-bunnies. Goofy, weird, stupid. Derpy, lazy, friggin cute. Your plumage is stunning ma'am LAZY!!! You walk into the park and are greeted with this. OPEN IT!!!!! Cheetah Hunt has a 3 hour wait! There's no ride in the area of the park too! So frustrating. What. A. BEAST! rippin' Your gradeschool science book Absolutely HAULING The train ride is incredible, but they were only running 1 train. 30 minute dispatches. Fuck. After sleeping in and most of the day with the kangaroos, Cheetah finally woke up. Thanks for scaring me, Intamin. Montu sunset rides gah, so good! After walking 12 miles in the 95* heat because the park's transport rides are broken, we were as sleeby as this yeen.

Considering that's mostly locals who do nothing but add to the congestion in the parks, screw 'em!

I made that point and no one paid attention. May the odds forever be in your favor.

^This is not the year to ASSUME anything!!!

Light-Green Weakass Snake, . Few things in this world give me more Joy and an Erik and Smisty Oddventure.

I did notice that! I nearly commented on it, too. You brought it up, sir. You brought it up.

I paid $49 for my last SF season pass. Hard to imagine they will be deeply discounting that. I think you are right, Bert. Has to be a membership offer. Was thinking of switching back to membership next year anyway.

Honestly, I've ridden both TTD and Red Force and the launches don't feel that different. Maybe if you rode them back-to-back you might notice a difference, but the Red Force launch still packs plenty of punch.

Home parks, or parks I get to fairly often, not usually... But sometimes on vacation I will, especially when I know I won't be back for several years... Upcharging for an upgraded experience is everywhere... I'm really surprised that it took parks as long as it did to start cashing in...

for my home and other local parks? almost never - unless I'm meeting up with friends from out of the area (and they've bought it so I add on to be with them). when I travel to a park out of State - almost always (at least 1 day of the visit). as to the question: "Do I hate them?" No. . I don't. If someone is willing to pay the $$ to skip the lines? good for them. I have that option too, and if I chose not to purchase it? that's on me. I *do* however get a bit annoyed at the SF chains "you get 4 free skip the lines because you're a member" stuff (as Bill mentioned above). I realize that too, is a benefit that was given to those who were PAYING for Membership (and then bonused up to make up for Covid). . but still. . . that can be a bit annoying when I'm in line at SFFT, and suddenly there are 40 people ahead of you on a low capacity ride, right when you're next in line)

If it's my home park, no unless friends are visiting from out of town and they have it. If I'm visiting a park I rarely get to, yes (unless it's a Six Flags park that's not super crowded since I get 4 free line skips anyway).

I have only bought them in advance on CF's President's Day sale. I have purchased FL+ in person at Cedar Point on one occasion and Kennywood once. Now that I have the means to do so, I wouldn't hesitate to buy skip the line passes, especially at faraway parks. If a park is so crowded that fast passes sell out, I'd rather be somewhere else anyway. Most of my faraway park visits are midweek and generally not as crowded. When you think about the number of rides you can take with a skip the line pass vs. without it, it's a no-brainer for me.

No argument there, the look from the front left seat is hands down one best in the world. Competes for me with Top Thrill Dragster, Millennium Force or Wodan.

Well, well, well.. As I am also a local, the front left seat might be good. But the best seat (for me) on that ride it the back left. You have airtime from about the top of the lift hill (because the train accelerates so fast) until the very bottom of the first drop. On a hot, sunny day this feeling stays on multiple hills. Plus, if you don't look where the train goes, of you are unexperienced or if you just let the forces win over your body, you got that out-of-your-seat-feeling when the train slaps you over the crest of the lift hill. *drool*

Never. I hate them with a passion hotter than the sun. (The only possible exception would be for a foreign park that I may only go to once in a lifetime.)

I do everything I can not to buy them, but they're a nice option to fall back on if otherwise I wouldn't get on a ride/rides. I agree you're paying money for nothing essentially, but if I were to visit a theme park, pay admission then hardly get on anything, I'm essentially paying admission for nothing too. I can only think of a few examples where I've got Fastpass; Parc Asterix (15€) when I could only visit on a busy Saturday, Thorpe Park (approx £5 x 3) when it was unexpectedly busy and the queues were a non-covid-compliant mess, and Halloween Horror Nights when it was my only way of getting on everything. I'm glad to see the back of Fastpass, it was an unmanageable mess and I hated planning my days in granular detail two months before I visit. Genie+ at the moment is reasonably good value and not the devil incarnate but it is another twisting of the screw by Disney. I found Boobash far more objectionable. But I am not keen on it excluding some rides and you having to pay extra. Would I pay for Genie+? Probably yes, it will be the only way I can ride everything. Would I pay for the extras? Probably not, I would attempt to rope drop those.

This came up in my Facebook memories today. 5 years ago, my son (4 at the time) was standing in line for the kiddie swings and dancing around like he had to pee. He insisted he didnt have to. I took his word for it and sat down on a bench. A minute later, I hear him crying on the ride, and this is what I found when I got up to check on him.

Well, this is a downgrade. After two decades of having access to free fastpasses, I can’t imagine the majority of returning guests will like this.

I try not to, which I do by going to parks early/late season and weekdays if I can. That's a lot harder now when you work, but yeah got no issue with them, to be cheap I try to avoid em but if its a weekend esp during peak months, I'll get one, also I sometimes will if Im solo just bc ya know....alone and wanna move quick. Exception being Cedar Point I literally always get one there.

I hope you have TSA pre-check. That probably buys you at least half an hour. I once successfully started a day at 10 am open at SFMM to ride Twisted Colossus and Full Throttle and catch a 1:30 pm transcontinental flight ...out of Long Beach

I would almost suggest doing a taxi from the airport as there's usually a line of them waiting at the airport and you can just jump in as opposed to waiting for an Uber/Lyft. Also, I wouldn't do this as it would give me way too much anxiety to have fun on the coasters but to each their own!

If you do it, I would order your Uber/Left as soon as you deplane so it's waiting for you when you get to the ride share lot. I don't think you'll have any lines that early in the morning, so 1 hour should be enough time to accomplish your ride goals.

^Maybe people just like alliteration...like Denver Disappointment!?!?

I say go for it. Crowds shouldn't be bad at opening and the coasters are relatively reliable. Plus, Saturday is probably the best day to travel into/out of LAS, since most people there are staying over the weekend. You really don't need more than an hour at Adventuredome, anyway.

I think we all saw this coming. It is very unfortunate that the accident even happened to begin with. I'm really hoping for the best for that woman and her family. I am just going to throw this out there. What do we think the possibility of a major overhaul is? It seems like Intamin's modern LSM technology can get the train to the same max speed in that length of track (I mean, have you seen Sandy's Blastin' Bronco's launch?), not to mention being significantly more reliable and honestly, probably safer as well given it has no moving parts. I wonder if the park is considering anything along these lines - such as replacing all the track but the tower with an entirely new system if that is even possible or plausible. I can't see them just removing the coaster entirely, because it is way too iconic and popular and significant, but I also don't know if they're willing to keep dealing with all the crap this coaster brings for much longer. I wonder when enough is enough.

Directly from the Disney parks blog article posted before this debate ensued: "The Space 220 restaurant is located adjacent to the Mission: SPACE attraction, and takes fine dining to a whole new level. Your immersive experience begins as you check in to the Space 220 Departure Lounge in Future World. From here, you’ll board one of two “Space Elevators” that will transport you in what seems like 220 miles above Earth to Centauri Space Station." That phrase is worded awkward as hell, but there lies the answer.

you ever notice how the zoo's with carousels always seem to call them "Conservation Carousel" whoever thought up and sold those signs, must have made out like a bandit! and thank you for not being horny for any of the offerings in this update - as you were looking at animals? that would have been weird

I do not believe it is supposed to be the space station, though they share a similar distance from Earth. The ISS sits around 240 Miles. The number could come from Math though. That distance could be the sweet spot for large/heavy things to have a balance between the Earth's gravitational pull and the centrifugal movement of the object. OR! It's totally arbitrary!! LOL

^^ That right there is why we've decided that our once in a lifetime trip will basically mean the hotel is a place to store our stuff and crash. Half the 'Korean pensions' are basically just mats on floors anyway so our only requirement is not overrun with bed bugs and according to our friend in Tampa (who says 'the wrong side of the tracks' can apply to literal tracks), a relatively safe area if we op for a cheap area.

This is for one peak-season day for a family of four at Universal. One day... Disney is charging $15 "BUT IT DOESN'T INCLUDE THE MOST POPULAR RIDES!!!!" ...oh, how terrible

Dang, what's going on with you? If an over 18 year old car would drive next to you and lose a part, would you really blame the manufacturer of the car? Wouldn't there be other people to talk to first? You are writing that you don't know who is to blame for the defect, but start your post with "what is going on with Intamin these days?"? How can you do that if you don't know when the part was built, when it was security checked for last time, and, the most important, why it came loose? Would you really blame Intamin, Cedar Fair or a technician if the train hit a bird while descending causing the part to come loose? You don't know nothing - as much as I and the most other of us do - and go for a full rant on everybody including the argument diligence in your first post here? Cedar Fair disassembles all of their coaster trains of all their coasters every offseason to every nut and bolt. Everybody following them on socials or going to Winter Chill Out knows that. Perhaps you can explain to us how they can work even better and how you can prevent loose parts months later. The only correct thing you wrote is the fact that it should be unacceptable that guests are hurt in amusement parks. And I'm pretty sure that Intamin, Cedar Fair and the TTD technicians agree on that without a beep. I even would include the riding guests, too - which you excluded. I'm also sure that they act and think before they write. Because of this, they will make sure to exactly know why which part came loose because of which reason before they talk to the people. And even then, the involved people are the first ones to talk to. Not the ones unaffected by the accident.

I don't even mind if it's not on all the rides. When we were at Disneyland last month we waited in line 45min for Space, 45min for Indy, 30min for Matterhorn, we didn't have the patience to also wait 25+min for all the 'smaller' rides. If I could wait in line for some big rides and walk on the smaller ones that would help balance the day.

Day 4 - Holiday World! So, we've gotten past the one real disappointment of my trip. From here on out, while there were some...oddities and difficulties, the rest of the days and parks were good! Holiday World was the next stop...and I probably don't need to tell a lot of people that that's a good one. I went in with high expectations. Fourth part of the week and not any less excited to see coasters on the horizon there. The Voyage definitely looks impressive from back here! Coming in from the parking lot, you're reminded that you're in the presence of a legend. So...does it deserve its one-time top spot? I was here before opening, but there was already quite a crowd. There seemed to be far more people here than at Silver Dollar City by midday, despite being a smaller park and a Wednesday now. That's just 2021 though, can't predict anything. Cute entrance area with all the christmas decor. All things considered it's less weird in July when it's Holiday World. There was just no way I wasn't heading straight to Halloween though. Halloween all year round...that sounds like paradise to me. This was something of a mistake on my part, as everyone else did exactly the same thing. I could have avoided a lot of time in lines if I'd been smarter like I knew I should have, but...Halloween... Another sight I've waited so many years to see. It almost felt surreal to walk through this gate now. Nothing like the train passing right overhead to get you all excited! And...through the course...and...stopping...here...for...five minutes? I don't know what was going on with The Raven. The operations were beyond unacceptable. With two trains running they had between six and eight minute dispatches for most of the time I was in the queue. Trains sat stacked in the waiting area for five minutes at a time. From out here I couldn't tell why...but they were still running, so I stayed in the molasses line. After the dark stairway up, we're finally in the station. It's...actually sort of dingy. After SDC, I suppose I expected a bit more. At least give it a little cleaning, Holiday World. This coaster deserves more respect. These people had just spent twice as long waiting to get off the ride as they had riding it, so there was no enthusiasm left when they got back into the station. Still not keeping me from being eager to get on though! This was where the problems became clearer. The ops were checking a row, stopping to have a little chat, checking another, going back to the first row to talk to a rider, starting their checks over, getting halfway down the train then releasing restraints to let someone out to put a bag in the locker and starting over again... Once again, this was not understaffing, which I swore not to complain about given the situation this year. This was just embarrassingly bad staffing. The coaster did its best to make up for that though. Despite not being being anything like a big coaster anymore, the care the park takes of it is obvious. I can't imagine any (real, not hybrid...) wooden coaster running smoother than The Raven does. The course out to the lake is gorgeous and scenic. It's not a forceful coaster, it won't be trying to throw you out of your seat...it's a bit more like a smaller version of the Beast where it's more a high speed ride through the woods (only without the trim brakes), but with the setting this works beautifully. I wish I could have gotten in a night ride on it, but the park wasn't open late enough. Maybe next time! Unfortunately, at the end of the ride, I found out that not only were the trains being stacked for several minutes at a time...the holding track before the station was surrounded by wasp nests. I'm not sure what kind of wasps these were; they were small and apparently not aggressive, not really bothering anyone, but people were absolutely losing their minds about them. Having people swat wasps in your direction while you're locked into a ride does not make for a fun experience. Meanwhile the ops locked everyone in the train in front of us into the ride...then unlocked them all to let a kid out out and check their height, and tell them they weren't tall enough to ride, then started plodding down the train to slowly check restraints again. I don't like being critical of people, but in the space of four days I'd now seen the best ride team I can remember (Prowler!) and now the worst. I hope it was just a bad day for them... Still...The Raven? Yeah, lives up to the legend. Well...not literally, because the Legend is around the corner and it's even better...we'll get there. Across the way, Holiday World's rather nicely painted scrambler looked to be running a pretty good cycle, but that was quite a line for a flat that I'd see at basically every park during the week. Pass. Yep Much more interesting. This caught my attention on the way though and from the path it looked like the line was pretty short. The ride appeared to give good views of the coaster it ran beneath too, so...I could make time to do that first. Unfortunately, this was not really the queue. This is the queue to get into the queue in the station. It ended up being close to an hour wait. I probably would have waited anyway, since it was a decent looking flume, but I wasn't expecting it yet. The final drop passes right through the Legend's lift hill structure... And ends with a respectable splash! Out on the course, you do get some nice views of The Legend. And...some more comical graves. Well, it is Halloween land here. And then some really nice views of The Legend. Unfortunately, in the entire time I was on the flume, no trains made it out onto the track. One finally hit the lift hill just as I was climbing toward my own drop. Of course I headed right over to The Legend after that; no more delays. It was, unfortunately, running with the same kind of operations as The Raven had been, which explained how none of them had been running while I was on the flume. The Legend did, at least, have the excuse of having only one train running. Once I finally did get on though...I loved the start of the ride, at least. The first drop is still pretty spectacular, and then it's into a spiral drop that was apparently a world's first. It also found the spot where Screamin' Eagle had messed up my back and doubled down on it. I'd sorta known that was coming. I spent the rest of the ride trying to keep from making that worse, so I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. The Legend is not what I'd normally call a rough coaster, definitely not something I'd normally complain about, but it was just a bit too much for my still-sore back. I sort of have to reserve my opinion of the ride then; I'm pretty sure it's one I would have absolutely loved if I were more up to it. As is, it was mostly pain and trying to avoid pain. Lunch sounded good, and after SDC I kinda thought I was going to avoid burgers at theme parks known for good food. On the other hand...the jalapeno cheese curds they had here too were just too were calling to me. One burger would be fine. The line was sloooowwww, but...jalapeno cheese curds. I ordered the deluxe cheeseburger (or whatever they called it) and took it over to a table to find I'd been given a completely plain burger with just cheese and no toppings at all. I considered going back to get that fixed, but another 20-30 minutes in line seemed less than ideal when there was a lot I still wanted to do in the park and the limited opening hours were ticking by quickly. Fortunately, despite being plain, the burger wasn't actually bad at all, and the cheese curds were awesome. I was sort of expecting them to have almost no jalapeno to appeal to everyone, but they actually had a decent bite. A little bit oversalted, but really tasty anyway. The water park was open now, and now the lines were thinning out quickly. Still, better things to do than a scrambler. Pretty nice looking Wave Swinger, but not today. Oooh, maybe Wednesday was the right day to come here after all. Noted for later. I hadn't gotten off to a great start at Holiday World, between operations and my own back (and bad decisions), but on heading back towards Thanksgiving, things turned around entirely. Heading to the back of the park, you cross a bridge past a decent looking raft ride that I figured I was going to want to get on later when it started to get really hot. ...And right under The Voyage. Even the turns at the very end of the ride before the station look impressive... ...and that first hill... Hard not to be impressed by this one. Station is sort of a letdown again. Silver Dollar City really has screwed up my standards, I guess. I was a little concerned about my back after The Legend, but I couldn't possibly come here and not get on this ride, and I'd been hearing that it was running very smooth now. That turned out to be true, fortunately. Despite the ridiculous speed the Voyage keeps up for most of its length, there's barely a bump on the track; it's running like it thinks it's an RMC this year. Sheer speed and air time are fanastic, and the far section with the low ground turns is a nice change of pace in the middle of what would have been good even as just and out-and-back. The coaster users the terrain to pull off an interesting trick and comes to an almost complete stop at what seems to be barely above ground level, where is shouldn't even be able to get going again...before deciding to haul ass once more for an entire second half of the coaster. I'm still not entirely sure how it does that. Objectively speaking...The Voyage is probably the greatest wooden coaster I've ever been on. It does everything right, it goes on seemingly forever, and I absolute love it. The part that's going to get me strange looks is that it's still not my favorite...though it's definitely way up there...but even after that, I'm still giving it to Prowler, at the very least for this trip. I know...but The Voyage, while great, is mostly paced and predictable in its elements. You have big hills with big air time at the tops of them, right where you know it's going to be. Myself, I just love the GCI style layout with the smaller, quicker movements, laterals and pops of air. Probably not going to be a common opinion though...and the Voyage is almost inarguably an amazing coaster in every respect. It definitely turned my initially questionable day at HW around instantly. I'm guessing this is where Pilgrim's Plunge / Giraffica was. I would have loved to get on that, but then, from what I hear even if I'd been there when it was standing, seeing it running wasn't likely, so... One more coaster...Thunderbird! Which I keep going to call Wildfire. Not quite. It's not a coaster I've seen a lot about, but the launch into the immelmann here is pretty good start for a coaster, especially with the seating position way off to the side. Having been on Gatekeeper and Thunderbird, I'm not sure I've entirely formed an opinion on Wing Coasters yet. They definitely seem to be mostly a gimmick more often than not...but on some elements it really does work. The launch alone, with no track anywhere near you, is...different, and pretty fun, and the twist through the barn later in the ride makes for a pretty good headchopper. I'm not sure I'd want them to exactly replace standard coasters, and definitely not a good invert or flying coaster...but I suppose they have their place. I went around for another ride in back and on the opposite side here, since there wasn't much line as there had been on the other coasters. Still fun that way, but launches are just more fun in front. Not running. Well, I suppose no great loss. Looks like Holiday World still has quite a lot of land to build on back here if they want to. Even standing practically under Thunderbird, though, it's The Voyage that you can't ignore. Looking back towards the middle of the park, it's a nice looking place even with the "hole" in the middle where their big water ride used to be. Hopefully they do something with that soon. I'd just assumed that Gobbler Getaway was the turkey themed tilt-a-whirl and the sign was just in an odd place that looked like it would be over the ride when you looked from the front of the park...which actually does work from most angles. It's not though; turns out this is another shooting gallery dark ride that I had no idea existed. Here, a slightly creepy animatronic grandma and her also slightly creepy but very content looking cat tells you the story of...well, a bunch of people going looking for turkeys trying to escape thankgiving dinner. It's not exactly high fantasy. Once inside, it's a little odd with overly bright, almost Garfield's Nightmare ish colors, and a lot of 2d props and scenes. Your cars are equipped with "turkey callers" instead of guns, and instead of actually looking like you're shooting at anything, whenever you hit a target a turkey pops out hiding behind or somewhere near it. It's a bit silly, but for a family friendly ride where they may have wanted to avoid actual guns, it's cute and works well, and unlike a lot of these every target appeared to be working, some of them with some cleverly hidden turkeys showing up. Pretty well done. It seemed like a good time for the raft ride, even though I expected a long line at this time of the day. Instead...it was closed...but just as I snapped this picture the maintenance guy came by to pick up the closed sign and gestured for me to head into the queue. Well, okay then! I'll take that sort of timing! Lots of sprayers on this one for bystanders to soak the riders with, but I figured getting on the first raft after it re-opened, I'd be able to avoid being anyone's target. (No such luck there. Some people were apparently as eager to the ride open to have targets float by again as I was to ride it!) They were still just getting ready to let people on again when I got to the station, but it was only a moment of waiting. Out of the four raft rides I'd been on over the last few days, this one was probably the most forgettable. Nothing close to Mystic River Falls, and not nearly as wet as Six Flags St Louis'. It was probably better overall than Fury of the Nile, but I at least remember the Egypitian cave from that one, where thi was fairly bland and just coursed past trees and rocks, with some prop saloon buildings at the end. Still a decent ride though, and a good way to cool off, though most of the water came from the guest-controlled geysers rather than any intense rapids. It was about to head back for the dole whip, but when I did, I caught a sign I'd not seen before. Big Red Floats WITH dole whip? I can't imagine much better than that. If you haven't had Big Red, it's a red creme soda that people frequently insist is bubble gum, but is actually lemon and orange with the vanilla (...which...does somehow end up tasting bubble gum ish). It's great stuff (though...not quite as good as the local Catawissa Red Cream you can get at Knoebels. Juuuuust sayin'). Unfortunately, despite the sign you apparently have to ask for Dole Whip in it, and the "default" if you just ask for a Big Red float is just vanilla ice cream. It still tasted great though, and their vanilla ice cream was pretty good anyway. Oh, what the hell. There was basically no line at all for Scarecrow Scrambler now, and it did look like it was running pretty fast. Not a bad way to spend ten minutes or so. Some classic, common rides are everywhere for a reason, after all. I considered trying to get on The Raven again, but after the earlier lines, it was well after 5:00 by this point and the park was only open until 6:00, so I decided to just avoid the traffic at close and head on out. Still more parks to do...and my back clearly needed some more time in bed. ...no idea what this actually is and I'm sure the reality would be disappointing anyway. I'd promised a few people from the Midwest that I was going to try Culver's while I was out there, and since I was out early, this seemed like the perfect time for it. Mushroom swiss burger. It was very good for fast food, and I can see why locals like it so much. Not quite Whataburger...but probably second only to it for fast food burgers so far! Headed off to the Red Roof Inn in Georgetown. The room was tiny and barely even had room to move around the bed...but again, comfortable and clean, and at the price, no complaints at all. Tomorrow would be Kentucky Kingdom!

Keep in mind the age of these rides, their environment, frequency of use, the load forces on parts, etc... It's obviously not a rollercoaster, but I run a canning line at a brewery. You'd be amazed what happens to a simple sealed bolt after a few hundred thousand actuations. Stress fracturing can often not show up until just before the part fails, rust can do some weird things internally, just friction can so some absolutely insane things. (for example, I go through 3 pairs of stainless bolts holding our keg machine ramp, these wear completely through just from vibration of 12k kegs a year) Manufacturing defect? Naw, the level most of these firms operate at isn't that. Park neglect? At best - maybe. Could be a monstrous number of factors as many of these rides have sat still for longer than usual then suddenly put back into operation by teams that may be less experienced than usual. Unless they're completely stripping and rebuilding every single one of those trains every off season, it's really hard to catch some long term wears.

Iron Gwazi opening date may be announced soon. Rumors say it'll be running during the Halloween event. Q&A event with staff on video floating around where they suggest it's coming soon and keep an eye on social media.

It's satire.

This is exactly why parks buy Intamins instead of B&M's. B&M's aren't reliable, and it's why Cedar Fair won't work with them anymore.

I am sadly assuming its vest restraints?

They're counting down the years until they get a new coaster.