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I visited IOA last Wednesday. As a person who has mostly visited SF, CF parks, I have to say the theming and detail blew me away. Animatronics and effects that work? Great ride ops? Check and check. I did not watch POVs of the coasters right before the trip. The rubber tire lift/launch on Hulk was a nice surprise. The drop track on Hagrid's was unexpected as well. I've been trying to branch out so I rode Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey. It really messed up my stomach more than any other coaster I've done. So I spent my necessary downtime waiting for Flight of the Hippogriff. It is genius to split the Harry Potter stuff between two parks. The star of the show and the real impetus for the visit was, of course, Velocicoaster. It did not disappoint. This coaster has a bit of everything. Intense and smooth generally don't go together when discussing coasters, but they do here. It is certainly a world-class coaster. I got two rides in the last row and two in the middle. You do have to have more than one ride just to figure out what happened. Not sure I could pick a favorite element. It is amazing throughout. Full trip report with pics will follow at some point. Final thought on the cost of the ticket (that I thought was high before my visit): You get what you pay for.

Th challenge is building it in a way no one can see it because thats their current business strategy.

Since I'm home with COVID now, I have nothing but time! I have started transferring old video tapes to digital format. Here is one I shot at Kings Island in May 2000 right after Son of Beast opened. There are 3 defunct coasters in this video: Son of Beast, King Cobra, and Vortex. Enjoy! 2088453902_KICoastersMay2000.mp4

^ Judging by the concept art, the building in the middle with the cylindrical bits around the outside looks to be the Arendelle castle. That'll do a decent job of hiding the majority of the green monster. Maybe it's part of the ride building for Frozen Ever After? I'd assume that's mostly housed in the North Mountain, though. Backstage offices? That's a lot of HVAC madness on the roof for a simple office building, though. Maybe it's Walt's cryogenic facility.

Had a great day at BGT Thursday. I knew going in that Sheikra and Montu would be closed. But my vacation is "use it or lose it" so I went for it. I got Cheetah Hunt x4, Cobra's Curse, Tigris, Kumba x3, Scorpion x3, Sand Serpent, Falcon's Fury, and took the train ride. Cheetah Hunt was a blast. Park was pretty dead. I have been easing in to dark ride and flat rides. Falcon's Fury was my first drop tower. I have never researched drop towers, so I was surprised by the face down drop. I sat down by the entrance to Iron Gwazi to take a break and they started testing, first empty cars, then with what I assume were employees. Why must they torture an enthusiast with 199 coasters under his belt so? lol Guess I'll have to go back later this year. Photo trip report will follow eventually.

That's just what Disney does. They match the building color to the visible surroundings. Here's Guardians at Epcot, matching the lower trees, taller trees, and the sky. If you're in the park and actively looking for it you'll see it but otherwise it fades into the background.

Linnanmaki This was the park I was most excited for in Finland and it did not disappoint. The park is located in the heart of Helsinki atop a hill. So you have a mix of the city's energy and stunning views. The park is small in terms of land, but it's very dense and many rides are stacked on top of each other. My first day there was quite busy, but I returned for a few hours after Sarkanniemi on a rainy day and the park was a complete ghost town so I could marathon Taiga. Taiga is easily the star. This Intamin multi-launch coaster feels like Velocicoaster crossed with Helix. You have some of the best inversions of any coaster, several nice moments of airtime, and impeccable pacing. And the ride's placement on the hill allows the ride to offer great views and suddenly increase its speed throughout the ride. This is definitely the best coaster in Finland. Taiga was much needed since the park's other coasters, while unique models, were decent at best. Kirnu is a ZacSpin run correctly...unlike the former Green Lantern that is now being scrapped. This one actually rotates and the final flip is downright wild. Ukko is a fun Maurer SkyLoop. It offers great hangtime at the top and good positive Gs going through the station. The restraints are less than ideal though since they sit on your stomach rather than your lap. Salama is a Maurer spinner. The layout circles above the rapids ride. This one had a decent drop at the start, but it didn't spin as much as some others. Linnunrata eXtra is a weird Zierer coaster built inside a former water tower. There's a little space theming and if you ride in the back, there's one or two drops that will whip you down since the trains are so long. Vuoristorata is a classic scenic railway. This one still operates with brakemen, but this one is run super conservatively. The operator had to push the train with his foot on some of the turns. As a result, there were only 1-2 spots of airtime, but it was still cool to ride a piece of history. Pikajuna is a Mack powered coaster that offers some nice views of the park's other coasters. Tulireki is an abomination. It's the only Mack E-Motion coaster remaining and I can see why there aren't more. The vehicles are able to rock both side-to-side and forwards-and-backwards. This makes the ride feel like a shopping cart riding down a cobblestone road. Even if it tracked smoothly, the ride would be awful since it's trimmed extensively. The park had some nice flat rides. The best was Kingi, the massive Moser drop tower. The view was incredible and I floated the whole way down. Magia was another cool one. This is a Technical Park Moondance. I rode one of these at Playland's Castaway Cove a few years ago and was blown away by the centripetal force and sustained positive Gs. This one started off similarly intense, but the final 2/3 were much more mundane. There were a few dark rides too. There was a classic haunted house, a walk-through, and Taikasirkus. Taikasirkus should be avoided if you have a phobia of clowns. You pass what seems like a hundred clowns while hearing the same song on repeat. And there's even one scene where the clowns are scooping up elephant turds. Hurjakuru is a fun rapids ride. It has a themed tunnel at the start, some themed sprayers, and a massive waterfall.

While the ride wasn't the greatest, I will miss how it looked on the park's skyline.

TITANIUM [X Dimension Coaster] Planet Coaster [Construction]

I had a blast on Cornball express in early August last year. Maybe not the smoothest, but the front row is a blast. Rare that I prefer it up there. There's one or two spots that will surprise you with the airtime. Probably rode it 8 or 9 times before we took off.

Earlier this summer, I took a day trip to Maine to hit all the parks that I had to skip in 2020 due to covid. I had a goal of visiting Aquaboggan, Funtown, and Palace Playland in the same day since they're all within 15 minutes of each other. However, I made one critical error. I visited on a Monday. As I would later find out, this is the busiest day of the week for Aquaboggan and Funtown. Aquaboggan does a half off promotion on Monday, so that made sense. However, I was confused why Funtown was so busy. The line for Excalibur stretched back to the Camelot bridge and the park had to close the line for it early. In my past visits, I've never had to wait more than 1-2 trains for Excalibur. And many of those visits took place on summer Saturdays. Aquaboggan This is a fairly small water park, but the rules are far more lax than corporate parks. The park allows you to ride backwards down most slides if you so choose, which is one of the reasons their halfpipe slide (Stealth) is one of my favorite slides out there. Those halfpipe slides are downright freaky when you go down that steep drop backwards. The park's other slides are located on a hill. For 2021, the park added a new addition in Yankee Ripper. For this slide, you lug this heavy sled atop the hill, travel down this relatively steep drop, and then skim across the water. If you don't keep your balance, you will comically wipeout in the water at the end. If I didn't get to Aquaboggan at opening, I would have had difficulty riding everything in a short period. But because I got to the park a half hour before opening, I was able to ride all the major slides in about 90 minutes. Funtown U.S.A. Excalibur received a lot of trackwork this past off-season and I'm happy to say the ride is running better than it has since the early 2000s. In 2019, the turn under the lift hill was brutal. Now, it's very smooth and the ride carries more speed through the rest of the layout. Excalibur is a great coaster when it's running like this. The ride has an excellent setting in the woods, some strong airtime in the first half, and powerful laterals in the second half. I spent most of my time waiting for Excalibur, but I also took rides on the park's best non-coasters. Astrosphere was a spectacle as always. Dragon's Descent is still one of the most forceful S&S drop towers. Thunder Falls is a great log flume, but you have to watch out for the geysers at the end. And then the kiddie swing ride still has Donald Duck on top pumping gas. The one weird thing with this park is that it's impossible to get free water unless you're pregnant or a veteran. That was especially annoying with the water fountains turned off. In the past, water cups cost 25 cents but now they charge as much as a soft drink. Palace Playland But at least Funtown doesn't charge to use the bathroom like Palace Playland. My visit to Old Orchard Beach was more about getting the food on the boardwalk. The Shack makes amazing lobster rolls and Pier French Fries makes (you guessed it) amazing fries. I did intend to take a few laps on Sea Viper, but the park's signature coaster was closed. The park's kiddie coaster was also in pieces. I'm unsure if that ride ran at all in 2021 and I wonder the ride is on the way out now that they have the SBF Visa spinner for kids. I did ride Power Surge, which is still one of my favorite flats in New England. The base no longer spins on this one, but it runs a pretty long cycle and offers a disorienting experience with plenty of flipping.

Kemah Boardwalk I was trying to figure out how to cram Kemah Boardwalk into my December Texas trip figuring it would be on weekend only operations. But much to my surprise, it was actually open on weekdays still and it was an absolute ghost town. As a result, I was able to marathon Boardwalk Bullet to my heart's content. While that ride was fully staffed all day with two operators, the other rides had a limited quantity of rotating ride ops, which was completely justified given the crowd levels. Adding Kemah Boardwalk onto my Texas trip was one heck of a detour, but Boardwalk Bullet was worth it. I only got two rides on this wood coaster back in 2018 due to crowds and time, but this time I got well over two dozen rides on this Gravity Group creation. It's impressive Gravity Group crammed a coaster of this scale into just one acre of land. This ride may be one of the finest layouts ever made given the available space. Boardwalk Bullet is running like a dream. I rode Boardwalk Bullet both during the day and night. And with full trains and empty trains. And it ran consistently regardless of the time of day or train load, which was great to see. The ride is remarkably smooth despite its twisted layout and PTC trains. The ride has many pops of airtime. The large drops are incredible in the back row, but I prefer the ride up front since the airtime is more consistent start to finish. The coaster also feels ridiculously fast because of all the near-misses and it seems to go on forever. It just barely missed my top 10 wood coaster list. 9 out of 10 The rest of Kemah Boardwalk is a compact cluster of flat rides, many of which are from Chance. The best flat ride is the Drop Zone drop tower, which is one of those intense Larson/ARM towers with a powerful drop. It also helps the ride offers a great view of Galveston Bay. The only ride I wasn't able to experience that I wanted to was the Observation Tower. This ride was closed in my 2018 visit and it was down for maintenance this visit, although it was testing non-stop all-day. I imagine the views of Boardwalk Bullet and the bay are incredible. The one other ride of note is the park's train. Kemah Boardwalk is more than just an amusement park. It's a full-fledged entertainment complex with a hotel, shops, and restaurants. The train ride gives a tour of the entire complex and it even includes a themed tunnel with a shootout. I was not expecting that! While Kemah Boardwalk alone may struggle to fill an entire day for coaster enthusiasts, Boardwalk Bullet is a coaster well worth the trip.

Kalahari Round Rock Since I saw a few people discussing the pricing of the Kalahari parks, I thought it would be a fitting time to discuss my experience at the chain's newest location in Round Rock, Texas. I visited just over a week after it opened on a weekday. Depending on the day you visit, prices can cost upwards of $120-130 if you aren't a hotel guest. This is to minimize capacity so on-site guests can enjoy the water park with very little waits. I suspect the fact I visited during an off-peak period before many people knew the place was open is why I could get a day pass for just $50. That's still expensive for a water park, but it's significantly better than most days. This was the first Kalahari I had ever visited. While the water park looked hideous from the outside, it looked pretty good on the inside with the vibrant color schemes on the slides and murals on the walls. Since I visited during 2020, I arrived right at opening. I didn't want to risk dealing with crowds in a water park, especially an indoor one. I didn't have to wait in a single line. The only downside to arriving so early was that the Sahara Sidewinder drop pod slide was closed for a rather weird reason. Maintenance had forgotten to unlock the ride for the day, so the employee couldn't operate the ride. I kept checking if the slide was open, but maintenance never showed up to open it, which was a bummer since I love these drop pod slides. The park has two main slide towers. The first featured my favorite operating attraction in the Tanzanian Twister, a body bowl slide. I always love these slides for the fast initial plunge and awkward final plunge into the splashdown pool. 8 out of 10 The other body slide on this tower is the Zig Zag Zebra. This was an average body slide with a few decently forceful turns. 6 out of 10 The tower also had a series of tube slides. Stingray was one of those slides with a giant wall and it had a thrilling drop. The others were slightly better than average since the park allowed riders to experience them backwards. Not many places allow that. Across the park is another slide tower. This one features two of the park's most extreme body slides. The aforementioned drop pod slide was closed, but Screaming Hyena was open and it had a very steep and thrilling drop. 7 out of 10 This tower also included a tornado slide, another family raft slide, and a mat racer. None of these were standouts, but they filled out the lineup nicely. Beyond the kiddie rides, there was one other water slide off on its own. I forget this slide's name, but it was a shockingly long name for a water slide. I liked how this slide was built among this fake rockwork and I was surprised these body slides had a rather high drop off into the water. 6 out of 10 I mainly visited Kalahari since I had an extra day to burn and the state's major parks were closed on weekdays, but it was a fun water park. The park has an extensive slide line-up covering most genres outside of a water coaster. While the slides are fun, none are truly unique to this park and they all can be found elsewhere. It's just rare to find them all in one specific park like this. So I wouldn't recommend adding this on a Texas theme park trip unless you can get a great deal on a hotel room.

ZDT's Amusement Park November 28 saw a major storm system come through Texas. I gambled I would have the best luck in San Antonio since there were multiple parts there. Fiesta Texas closed after just 2 hours. SeaWorld San Antonio closed 5 hours early and never opened any rides. When all hope seemed lost, I called ZDT's and asked if Switchback was open. I expected it to be closed, but the staff enthusiastically confirmed the ride was open as long as I was willing to get wet. So I drove an hour east and was greeted with a near empty parking lot. ZDT's was a ghost town. I give the place major credit for honoring their hours and staying open. Every single ride was open except the water slides due to it being winter and the silo climb due to the rain. Switchback is the reason ZDT's is on the map for most enthusiasts. It's extremely impressive Gravity Group found a way to cram this coaster into this tiny park. Not only is the park limited in terms of acreage, but they want to honor the site's former history so badly that they will not demolish old structures. As a result, Gravity Group made Switchback a shuttle coaster out of necessity with some super tight turns. And the ride even blasts through a former grocery store twice. Switchback is still running smooth and it's a unique ride. The first drop gives great airtime in the back and the following bunny hills alternate between sustained floater and aggressive ejector pops. The spike offers some great weightlessness. And then the return run is weak on the airtime, but the visuals of performing those tight maneuvers in reverse is quite the sight. 8 out of 10 I also took a spin on the Dizzy Toucan frisbee above. This looks like a children's ride, but it's an aggressive little attraction. It just keeps popping you out of your seat and it's better than frisbees 3-4 times its size. 7 out of 10 I didn't spend too much time indoors, but it is cool how the wristband includes unlimited arcade games. That is something you don't usually see. The one indoor attraction I did was the MaxFlight simulator that allows riders to design their own virtual roller coaster and ride it. This brought back memories of Cyber Space Mountain at DisneyQuest. The key is to add as many inversions as possible. 6 out of 10 ZDT's is well deserving of a pit stop on any trip to the San Antonio area. The park may be small, but it dabbles in a lot of different areas and it has some of the nicest staff around. And as I saw, don't be afraid to go on a day with rain.

SeaWorld San Antonio I was in San Antonio for 4 days and the original plan was to only spend one of those days at SeaWorld San Antonio. However, I needed 3 separate days to actually ride all three of the roller coasters. My first visit had torrential downpours all day. Fiesta Texas closed after just 2 hours of operation and when I arrived at SeaWorld, I was told the park would not operate any rides in the rain. So that gave me the opportunity to really soak in the animal exhibits. The weirdest part about SeaWorld San Antonio is that Discovery Point isn't actually in the theme park. It's a free admission area to the left after you get through the main entry plaza. I returned the following day and 3 of the 5 major roller coasters were operating. I knew Journey to Atlantis was down due to it being December, but Steel Eel was unexpectedly down due to mechanical issues. That allowed me to focus most of my attention on Texas Stingray. I admittedly rode this in some of the least ideal conditions for a wood coaster (half loaded trains, cold temperatures), but the trains held their speed very well throughout the course. I loved the first drop in the back. It's rare to get a straight drop on a GCI and it delivered some nice sustained airtime. The first half had a mix of floater airtime and stronger pops. The second half's airtime wasn't as consistent, but it was still fun. And the ride is impeccably smooth considering it just opened. 8 out of 10 One tip with Texas Stingray is to avoid riding after one of the orca shows concludes. The ride is adjacent to the stadium and the end of the show caused the line to quintuple in length. Combine that with the fact that SeaWorld was running just one train on most coasters and skipping rows between each party, lines crawled if you didn't time them well. Texas Stingray did get the second train added and it became a walk-on by nightfall. I got several rides before it closed due to low temperatures. Wave Breaker had the longest line in the park since it was running just one train, but it's a fun ride. The ride doesn't have any airtime or laterals, but the launches have more zip to them than you'd expect, a few of the turns pull some good Gs, and I love the ride's placement over the water. 6 out of 10 Great White is a solid Batman the Ride clone. I think I've ridden almost all of these Batman clones by this point, but I always look forward to riding these inverts. They're consistently smooth and forceful. Great White was no different. 8 out of 10 I returned the following weekend for Steel Eel. And I was not disappointed. Steel Eel is still my favorite coaster in the park. The sustained floater airtime on the drops is fantastic. You do hit the unpadded seats rather hard after each airtime moment, but I was willing to take the pain for that level of airtime. 8 out of 10 I was also visiting during the park's Christmas event so beyond the coasters and animals, the park had some beautiful light displays scattered across the park. Of the 3 SeaWorld parks, I think the San Antonio one is my least favorite. The operations tend to be the spottiest and the park feels a bit hollow at points from all the empty space. However, the park is actively working on the latter with their new additions that are filling in the dead spots in the park. And this park has plenty of room to grow. The only thing limiting it is how much SeaWorld wants to invest. Of the 2 San Antonio area parks, I far prefer Fiesta Texas, but I'll always make sure to pop into SeaWorld for at least a quick lap on all the coasters.

This was after they started clean up but you can still see some of what happened. Crushed the ride pretty good.

Ugh. We got snow today. And we get another round tonight. Expecting a total accumulation upwards of 12" or more. UGHHH.