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Good news Xcelerator has reopened.

Had a wonderful visit to Hansa Park today. Operations were fantastic with Kärnan and Novgorod running 3 trains, resulting in fast moving queues and the longest I waited was 30 minutes for Kärnan. I rode Highlander for the first time and really liked it, not the most forceful droptower, but very long drop, beautiful views and I love the on-board audio. Kärnan was running great, and they have really nailed the show on the lifthill now, with soundeffects, music and projections in the ceiling. This is my 6th visit and I have yet to see Kärnan having any downtime, surprising considering how complicated that coaster is! As for covid measures: Masks in queues, on rides and indoors. They were not using the interior queue on Kärnan and Novgorod, on Kärnan they used the single rider entrance bypassing the interior queue so you end up directly in the bagage area, they were still running the preshows. On Novgorod they had a member of staff by the entrance to the building managing the queue, then you walked through the inside queue and directly on the ride. Two negative things at the end, Nessie was only running one train, and all the restaurants with inside seating was closed. I had a great day, and Kärnan looks fantastic in the dark!

https://coasterpoll.com/ Hey everyone! The TPR Coaster Poll will be back for 2021, as it is every year! And like every year, we are currently going through the process of making sure everything is up to date for when voting officially begins! With that in mind, we are looking for feedback from the TPR Forum community! Here's what we are looking for: Coasters that are not included on the poll but that should be / should have been. The rule has always been that any coaster that is larger than a standard-sized Wild Mouse (Mack compact mobile, Zamperla Twister Coaster, etc) qualifies, and we intend to keep that rule in place. Coasters that have closed or gone standing but not operating (SBNO) during calendar year 2020 or early in calendar year 2021, unrelated to recent world events. Any coaster that operated for the majority of the 2021 season qualifies for the poll, even if it closed at the end of the season. Coasters that have reopened during calendar year 2020 or 2021 after having been previously SBNO, unrelated to closures surrounding recent world events. Coasters that have been renamed, rethemed, or relocated during calendar year 2020 or 2021. We have put a lot of effort into making sure every qualified coaster is counted, but we always miss a few! So we appreciate the community's efforts in spot-checking our work. We're looking forward to seeing the results in early 2022! Thanks a bunch, and please comment if you have questions or concerns!

^I dunno, looking at Velocicoaster and Beijing's Jurassic coaster, I think Orlando won there. I know they have the Jurassic version of the Spider-man ride as the main ride, but for the Mack coaster, they could have at least put some plastic dinosaurs on some of the rocks in the pit area to liven it up a little bit. I'd even settle for some of the employees as these guys: It'd be stupid, but I'd laugh and that would probably make it more memorable than what they got.

There had better be some Alien Robot Mummies in this ride or I'm going to be very disappointed.

This is Universal. They've already blown this decade's budget on new, original attractions in Asia. The best you'll get is a slightly modified import of an existing attraction or Jimmy Fallon 2. Choose wisely.

LMFAO. Lambasted? By "a bunch of veteran members"? Come on dude. @coasterbill pointed out that it wasn't unusual for the park to do this and that they posted it on their website that this is a thing. Exactly one other member pointed out that Knotts also does this. I would hardly call that lambasting. If you're gonna talk shit on here you might wanna have the receipts to back it up.

Obviously, everything at Knoebels except for Impulse. Thunderhawk at Dorney. Sky Princess or whatever they're calling the woodie at Dutch Wonderland these days, probably their Vekoma family invert too. Great White, Rollie's, and Runaway Tram at Morey's. Wild One at SF America. Runaway Train at SGAdv. That's about all that pop into mind off the top of my head

Glad you had fun and sorry about LR. Took my son 3 tries to get it As a short person I HATE the restraints on MM, there is so much space between my shoulder and the restraint that it jams me up and actually gives me bruises on the tops of my shoulders. Don't pass up Dragonflier next time though, no joke, it is a very very fun coaster. Hope you got to see some of the Smokies and the surrounding area.

I forgot to mention this since my last post; my wife, who notoriously is NOT a huge fan of coasters, decided to try her first hyper when we went back in September. (No, not Skyrush. That particular hyper ended my father's coaster-riding career and she's well aware of that.) She ended up trying Candymonium towards the end of the night, and... um... well... let's just say she survived, but she's in no hurry to get back on it, or any similarly tall coaster, ever again. She wasn't a fan of the floater airtime, the minimal restraints, her legs dangling free, and quite obviously the height. She enjoyed the wooden coasters (but we weren't sadists enough to recommend she get on Wildcat), Laff Trakk, Trailblazer, and to a lesser extent SooperDooperLooper. She also recently rode Invadr and Verbolten at BGW and enjoyed both of them. With those ones under her belt, does anyone have any other suggestions for coasters across the Northeast she might potentially enjoy, preferably ones without a huge height or multiple inversions?

New signage hung at the park yesterday about the new vax/mask requirements: The new rules are just one more incentive to avoid the park on weekends, IMO. I typically swing by the park on my way home from work during the week, and it sounds like those days won't be affected for now. If I get the coaster itch on a weekend, I'll just drive a little further to Knott's. In other news, it looks like a Tatsu repaint is in the works:

I spent an entire day at SFOG wearing a mask. it's NOT that big a deal, folks. either wear a mask if you go those days that require it? or don't go those days.

Real answers: Honolulu, Fairbanks, any Island nation or city extremely far north or a place where people can’t leave like the Gaza Strip. What I want to say: Montreal

Definitely going to ride it and not going to Google what it is! Appreciate it!

Had a fun quick visit to KI on Friday since I'll be out of town the next 2 weekends. Goal was to beat the crowds for the first hour, see how busy it would get since the opening night of Haunt was the same beautiful weather and most coasters were 15-20 minutes or less. Got up to KI around 530, they had already opened parking and it was already looking a bit busy. They were holding everyone at the front fountains, brought out monsters at 6pm, and the park opened to wherever you wanted to go. By the time I got to Orion it was a 5 minute wait and the scare actors next door at CHAOS Labs were begging for someone to choose their Haunt over Orion, so I decided to be the first experiment. I went through this one twice since I couldn't believe how bad it was the first time. It was really just smoke and mirrors and actors in lab coats. This building has had some good haunts in the past - the board game one comes to mind. Skip this one. As tempting as Orion was I wanted to see how the popular Kill Mart was doing to I made my way down there to find another 0 minute wait. Despite only a dozen people in line, they were trying to get huge conga line going but I slowed my walk down to give some space. If you can get some space, the Haunt will generally be so much better. This was a big step up from CHAOS and Kill Mart was just as fun as I remembered. There's not a scene that isn't covered wall to wall with different department + zombie decorations. Check this one out. Slaughterhouse was next as I made my way around the park, and this one just doesn't seem as good since it was moved from the previous spot in Action Zone across from Banshee. I guess it's just easy to bring this one back year after year, it's pretty tired, especially if you remember the old gems - Trail of Terror that want back beyond Orion and the old Dino Alive, Massacre Manor. Maybe we can get the Paranormal show from Knott's here next year. Madame Fatale's Cavern of Terror is your chance to explore the old Tomb Raider The Ride building. This Haunt I hope keeps going as long as the building still stands. It's packed with scare actors, there's awesome detail in each room, it's fairly long, and you can still see the details of the theming inside from TR:TR. This one is missing a good finale, but I'll let it slide. Easily the best haunt and most unique at KI. Don't miss it. It was about 715 at this point, I didn't have to wait more than 5 minutes for a haunt and they aren't too long so the crowds were still filling into KI. Diamondback was my last stop of the night and I waited 5 minutes for a great ride as always. So for 90 minutes at opening I was able to get a lot done! Had I waited 20 minutes for Orion at the start the haunt lines would have probably filled up a bit more.

So word on the street is that there is a giant wooden fence all around SideWinder, and also that the park has started to repaint SDL a nice bright shade of white.

What follows is one of the most difficult trip reports I've ever compiled. Why? Because of the place itself. Literally every photo Smisty and I took of it is interesting. Not because we're amazing photographers--although, obviously, we are--but because every square inch of the place is a study in joy and decay. So get ready for lots of weird analogies, because we're going to.... Lakeside Amusement Park First, a quick reminder of the weather conditions during our trip to Denver: hot and choked by wildfire smoke such that you could stare directly at the sun without (obvious) eye damage. So some of these photos may seem washed out or oddly colored. But that's just what things looked like at the time. In the background, you can see Lakeside Speedway, which apparently used to be a big moneymaker for them, but then some people died and now sits abandoned. Welcome to Lakeside! It's here, about halfway to the entrance of the park, that you start to wonder if this is maybe a bad idea. The, um, "entrance." Okay, imagine that every park you've ever been to is a person. Some are ugly, some are beautiful, some are tall, some are short, some are trans, and some are in Canada. Now, maybe you've seen photos of, or have even visited, an abandoned amusement park or two. Those are dead people. But Lakeside is none of those things. Lakeside is a zombie. Why is no one riding in the front seat? I didn't ask. I don't want to know. This ride is closed for maintenance, but it's open. Analogy. The wildcat or whatever is closed, the little ferris wheel thing is closed and the truck is a question mark, but the dead end murder path is open. Striking the right tone here is already proving to be difficult. Because I love this place. It's amazing. It's like going back in time but then realizing that everyone you meet is riddled with diseases that will kill them before they make it to 30. It's hard to even describe it. Like, if everything here worked and someone actually cared about "show" this could honestly be one of the best amusement parks in the world. But as it is, I half expected Haley Joel Osment to be waiting for me on my way out to reveal that I was the ghost all along. Let's play, "Was it Open?" No, the answer is no. But at least the Whip looks like we can ride it! Hey, what park is this? This looks beautiful! You probably already know that this park is famous for its Art Deco architecture, signage, and lighting. Of course, we weren't here late enough to see the lighting, but I have no doubt that it is beautiful and also that half of it doesn't work or only partially works. This mirror maze looks a smidge too easy for me. Lakeside features two defunct and completely-stripped full-sized ferris wheels. So that's a thing. There's no ride here. When did it close? Who knows? What was it? Well, Speed Boats, obviously. What does that mean? I have no idea. Only two missing ride vehicles? Attraction of the Month, ladies and gentlemen! You could tell me that this place was themed to The Shining, change nothing, and I would totally buy it. In the background, you can see the Tower of Jewels, which is, obviously, haunted. But also is--or rather was--the park's real entrance. Can you go up there? Ha ha, no. Why do we not use this entrance any longer? I don't know. Maybe we just like the dirty dirt dirt one better. Or maybe it's because there's two flights of stairs between this and the park proper with no visible ADA lift or ramps. I mean, it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to add one of those things. But then again, Lakeside does very much smack of being out of money in RollerCoaster Tycoon and just sitting there waiting for a new person to come through the gate so that you can build a new bench, so who knows? If you really want to cry, look up the list of rides that used to exist in this park. Did I peek behind a fence to get this shot, or is this just smack dab in the middle of the park, naturally visible from every direction? Based on what you've learned so far, which seems more likely? The park has a couple of eateries and some redemption games, but no traditional fair games (that I recall) and absolutely no gift shops. But seeing as how Lakeside is both the best and worst place we've ever been, we had to have a magnet. So we bought some extra ride tickets and will just create our own. Analogy. This might be a good time to mention that rides don't actually have queues here. Just an entrance gate and an exit gate and people lined up down the pathways wherever they feel like it. This park is like the saddest old dog at the shelter and I just want to take it home and love it but it costs 100 million dollars and it definitely has heart worms. Wild Chipmunk's ride vehicles each hold exactly one preteen Elvis-impersonator. Why did we not come here at night? Oh, right, because we're old and we go to bed super early. My first and last Vettel coaster. Not because it was bad, but because there aren't any more. In fact, this ride is kind of amazing. I mean, there's no airtime or anything. But it's fast and relatively-smooth and it exists in a park with 3 non-functioning ferris wheels and no gift shop. Basically, all of their maintenance budget goes here. Actually, I doubt that anyone here uses budgets. But they keep this ride running, and that presumably keeps the park running. Somehow. And I'm glad it does. I think this photo nicely sums up Lakeside,. And yes, I'm pretty sure that I could've reached over that fence laid my hand on the track with no effort. But I didn't, because I don't want to know which of us is real.

I actually kind of agree with @u4icmusic I know a lot of people don't go for the coasters but they have nine of them so they clearly look at them as important drivers of attendance. They have shown based on the work that they're putting into the ride that they're not satisfied with the ride's performance at all. If they found the status-quo acceptable they wouldn't be doing all of this. I'm sure they're not happy with this recent downtime or this ride in general.

I think they have. The last few visits (pre pandemic) it seemed different than 2012-2017. Still good, really good. But not the same and not as good,

And I would take the traffic in LA (just drove all over for a week there) over the people in my hometown that simply Do. Not. Know. How. To. Drive. Lots of volume in LA but at least drivers know how to merge and are relatively courteous about it compared to St. Louis. In fact we kind of had fun driving all around Hollywood when we made a stop at the La Brea tar pits on our way from SFMM to Belmont Park in SD. Funny how differently we all view the same thing, lol.

Anything that requires a road doesn't work well in LA as long as the sun is shining. We've hung out at the Chicken Dinner Restaurant for an extra three hours just so we didn't have to deal with the traffic between Knott's and Victorville.

^Yeah, I wouldn't do public transportation, it just doesn't work well in LA. Go for that shuttle service for LAX and use Uber around the park.

It's not a big deal, I'm sure I won't need it during the day hours based on queue times, and the entire trip is essentially free with my plat pass. Not used to dealing with this type of thing from CF and really having to find where in the fine print it is displayed... especially when there is no one on their phone lines or socials to get a direct answer. Must be a pretty damn good event! Glad I didn't redeem it right away in the morning. $230 + tax to have FL all day on Saturday, woooooowie.

Why? why do they need to do anything with it other than operate it when they feel like operating it? it's not affecting their crowds (like much at all), since majority of the crowd tends to be less "thrill ride" oriented and more "show/food" oriented. once some enthusiasts think that it's a "huge black eye" - and it's not even all. For example, weather or not LR is working, won't change my plans for when I finally get to go to the park, and it doesn't change my opinion of the park at all. it's a THEME park, not a thrill park. seriously, this would be like me bitching that my one time (so far) at Tokyo DisneySea was ruined because Journey was down on my visit. There's SO much other stuff to do and experience in the park, that one ride - even the star attraction in the park - not being avail doesn't change that. tho I'd bet if Dollywood changed the recipe for Cinnamon Bread, or stopped carrying it? THAT would be a "huge black eye" to many of the guests.