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So we were at the park 6/6 & 6/7 for the ACE Spring Con. Probably not fair for me to give a lot of opinion on operations since we had most everything at some point on ert and had just been there over Christmas so not like we were trying to get on everything in one day. It was busy enough on Sat that with no evening ert we left about 5 since we had to drive on into Orlando. The only thing I am aware of that was down both days was Falcon's Fury (and for you Lorikeet aficionados the interactive part of the exhibit was down due to caution over the avian flu that has been spreading in the wild). IG was insanely fun and exactly as expected and our meal in the big, and wonderfully air conditioned tent, near IG was pretty good. Lots of the food festival stuff was pretty good too, but I tend to enjoy that sort of thing. The bigger news is for anyone that might stay at the Hampton Inn right across the street. As has been discussed the area around the park "ain't the greatest of neighborhoods", but I thought Hampton Inn, known entity, fairly secure. And several of the other attendees were there as well. Most of you are probably familiar with the typical free hotel breakfast you get there. Came down to eat, nothing special UNTIL about 5 women came storming in all at once through the lobby and were grabbing food left and right. Immediately the ladies that ran the breakfast area started screaming at them that the police were being called and 3 of the women bolted for the door, the fourth grabbed a few things but got out quick, but the fifth casually kept eating and claimed she was being harassed even though she was clearly stealing food. Turns out the 5 "ladies" were local prostitutes that are sent in by their pimp on a regular basis to steal food. Not exactly high priced call girls either since the brazen one that stayed had some open sores on her neck and she preceded to eat right out of the pan of eggs over and over which of course then had to be dumped. In the end she took about 5 plates of food out to said pimp, yes I saw him, and caused a ton of wasted food since she touched about everything. Thing is if she had quietly come in an just gotten a plate of food I'm not sure most of of us would have noticed. Anyway if you like a show with breakfast apparently this is a regular thing, if not you might want to avoid. Since it was during an event I've dubbed it the "Thoosies and floosies variety hour" AND this was the day after a strange meatball incident at the Tampa airport involving a man dropping a whole crap ton of meatballs from a carryout container all over the jet way as we exited the plane which happened right in front of a man exiting with his service dog. Needless to say said dog was completely incredulous that his owner expected him to bypass free meatballs that were all over the floor and available for the taking. Use your imagination for the chaos that ensued.

Looks like the Schwarzkopf is almost about done with the painting. Photos are from Indiana Beach Facebook group.

^ Personally I thought it was interesting and wish I could have spent more time reading and looking at things, but my children wanted to get through quickly to get to the zoo section and the playground. I understand why some people would have no interest at all in the Ark Encounter, but I'm a Christian and it was designed for my demographic, so I can understand why people would be really interested in it and why some people would have no interest at all. Hard to know from a forum what people would be interested in, but it is a thing between Kings Island and Kentucky Kingdom that some people may be interested in. If you're not that's fine, you can always just drive right past that exit and that's fine too.

There are more to parks than coasters. I'll put in in CF terms, maybe that'll help: Cedar Point, without any argument, ultimately has the better top-tier lineup of coasters than Kings Island. No one will question that. However, many people believe that KI is the overall "better park" - I'm one of them. KI just blows CP out of the water in terms of ride operations, Fast Lane offering and access design, food operations, food offerings, layout, overall quality of of coasters, and type of adult flats. Others really love Knott's Berry Farm for all of the shows and the historic Ghost Town section. Point is, you can't judge the quality of a park simply by it's top two coasters.

^ You know you're allowed to reply to more than one thing at a time, right?

Have to agree unless "desert wasteland" at SFMM and "crack house chic" at SFGAdv is considered theming.

I love TTD and it sucks that it's closed for the season. I would understand wanting to put off the visit, but you still got MF, Maverick, and SV. SV is worth the visit alone. I'm sure your husband will still have fun want want to go back. KI is my second favorite park behind CP. KI has a good coaster collection, good operations, and is aesthetically pleasing. It's definitely worth a visit. Mystic Timbers is great and it's one of my favorite wooden coasters. It feels much faster than it is, strong laterals, nice pops of air, and smooth. Really good during the day and even better at night. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I love The Beast. It's one of my favorite wooden coasters and my favorite at KI. It's more about speed and feeling out of control. Not much airtime to speak of. The helix is one of my favorite moments on a coaster and is lateral bliss. The Beast is a better experience at night and it's my favorite night ride. I would say go in with moderate expectations.

^I know right?! It was actually pretty cool of SeaWorld to do. There was a covid rule that the events had to be outdoors and they stepped up and gave a decent price to many of the local schools so they could still have the dance.

Since the beginning of narcissism, which was somewhere between man creating fire and making things out of sticks.

Just got back from Pirates of Speelunker Cave preview. Overall pretty good. It is a continuous loading platform with a single dinghy. 1 boat is 2 people x 2 people and they are pretty small compared to the old Yosemite Sam and the Gold River Adventure. Remember that one where they had 2 big boats joined to form 1 train? This one is just 1 small boat per train. It seats 4 big people but smaller guests can fit 3 to a row. It is not a 2-side alternating platform anymore. They used the left side for scenery. The ride ops were dressed like Pirates today but towards the end of the day they were training the employees assigned to this ride and they had special uniforms. All ops get Hawaiian shirts. It even has that new ride smell. The queue line theming is unbe-freakin'-lievable. Best queue theming at SFOT. The new wood smell even smells like a pirate stranded on a beach. Season Passes have its benefits. 2-3 hour lines on every ride today but only 5 minutes for this one. Mentioned above by @bert425 yeah the POV shows it. You would not expect this level of theming from 1. Any Six Flags park 2. THIS Six Flags park. 10/10 calming dark ride. It's air conditioned and you get a little wet (giggity) on it to cool off in the scorching Texas heat. Pictured: Little of Pirates queue and station. I'm still giddy that Single Rider Lines are back.

Although I like the theming at SFFT, I'd stop way short of calling it incredible. Nice theming for a SF park, but nowhere near parks like Silver Dollar City, Dollywod or even Knotts.

^I will say that last year the way they ran the event they were able to open up a second section of the park for private events and run both simultaneously. Kristen had her homecoming dance in the Antarctica area with Kraken included while Howl o Scream was going on on the other side of the park!

Everyone likes different things. I totally get why people might prefer Magic Mountain or Great Adventure just because of their insane coaster lineups, I just never thought I'd see the day that someone told me they liked Magic Mountain because of the scenery and theming.

I hate that people are now talking about nostalgia with a coaster that opened in 1996. How old am I and when did this happen? Anyway, everyone is entitled to their opinion and we all like different things. It's important to respect that, but my nuanced, measured response to this would be counterpoint: fuck that awful ride .

Did you happen to snap some pics of it to share because. . .

Magic Mountain has scenery and theming?

besides, this is one of my favorites at the park. . .talk about a fast and fun mine train. . and that final lift hill!

TTD is a one trick pony, and I've ridden it maybe 3 times in multiple trips to CP (MF, Maverick, and several others, I greatly prefer to TTD. . hell, I've even ridden Cedar Downs WAY more than TTD. . LOL. . and that's not even a coaster). Kings Island is amazing, and think it's a better park than CP - especially for a non enthusiast, since they don't have as many "extreme" coasters as CP does. . and most of KI's coaster collection is mid-upper tier thrill, with don't' miss ones such as Orion, Beast, Diamondback, Bat, Banshee, and Mystic Timbers. I'd throw Adventure Express in there too. . a very fun (and fast) Mine train coaster. As well as some amazing flats including Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. .which is unlike any other version (think Disney Omnimover like Haunted Mansion, crossed with shooting dark ride). If I had to choose? I'd go to KI. .. and yeah, no comparison between Mystic Timbers and any other coaster. . the trains are great (no wheel seats, so wherever you sit, it's smooth). . .love that one.

Visited CW for the first time since 2016 on Friday and had a decent visit. Here's my observations: Good - Yukon Striker is outstanding. In my opinion, this is the best B&M dive coaster that I have been on (that list includes Sheikra, Griffon and Valravn). The first drop into the underwater tunnel is a great thrill with an imposing headchopper visual, the "inline twist" element (?) was disorienting and the ride as is of course tradition was glass smooth. I also got a kick out of the mobile Loose Item bins. More rides should use something like that! - Leviathan was still running beautifully. While I feel it is the weakest of the 3 B&M gigas I have been on, it still boasts an incredible first drop (again into a tunnel offering a nice headchopper effect), the train flies through the course and even has a moment or two of nice floater air, and like Yukon Striker, the ride is as smooth as a baby's bottom. Great stuff, especially riding in the front seat. - Vortex was running great. I seem to remember a pothole on a portion of the track, but the train flew and swung smoothly through the course. Like its twin at Kings Island, the ride is too short, but is still quite fun. I like the new mine car-style theme on the trains too. - SledgeHammer is awesome. I know it may not be a popular opinion, but this one of a kind Huss Jump2 is a unique ride experience that offers some unusual sensations all without being nauseating. My only complaint about the ride are the absurdly bulky restraints. They are a bit too claustrophobic and can cause some headbanging on the "jump up" moments, but overall, if this ride is operating, I say ride it. Average - Behemoth. What happened here? Perhaps it is early in the season, and perhaps it was because temps were in the low 60's (Fahrenheit), but Behemoth seemed to be running a bit sluggish. It's a good ride still, but it didn't seem to fly through the course like Diamondback at Kings Island. Heck, Intimidator at Carowinds seemed faster than Behemoth. Bad - Ride Cycle times. It seemed that most of the flat rides here had painfully short cycles. Psyclone literally swung 5 or 6 times and then slowed to a stop. Soaring Timbers went around 6 times and that was it. The carriage didn't even flip. And the Swing of the Century's cycle timed in at 47 seconds. Yes, the park was semi crowded, but these are just crazy short ride times. On the plus side, SledgeHammer runs for about 2 minutes and Klockwerks ran a respectable cycle, but most other rides were not even worth lining up for. - Carrousel "music". I didn't know if this should be considered bad, but the park's beautiful Antique Carrousel (the sign did have two R's) is lacking a band organ or recorded music, so one of the ride ops sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" while the ride spun. Now that is an odd choice of tunes! - And finally, the food lines were simply insane. Thankfully I had a very limited amount of time to spend at the park and ended up eating elsewhere, but jeez, those lines looked like they could sap at least 45 minutes out of your day. It was great to be back in Canada again and I hope to visit CW one more time before the season is over. The park is well maintained, the employees were friendly (and were all wearing masks), and the ride selection is definitely one of the more varied ones in North America. I see Duran Duran is playing the Molson Amphitheater in August, so a trip to visit the CNE, Wonderland and a concert with newly inducted Rock And Roll Hall of Famers sounds like a plan to me!

I finally made it there yesterday. I can confirm it is indeed reopen. It was running very well.

I ended up taking tndank's advice, and although I wasn't able to get the passholder rate at Cabana Bay, it did end up saving me about $500 off my previous lowest attempt. I took a look at all the different deluxe hotels and sure enough, Portofino Bay was the cheapest with that passholder rate discount. The others didn't have it available for the dates I was looking at. In any case, the trip has been booked! Thanks again everyone for your help, and looking forward to finally getting back to Universal next month and getting our first rides on their elite coasters. Robb's recent video has definitely amped up my excitement.

My brother and I made our first visit of the 2022 season to Canada's Wonderland on April 30th, which was Opening Day. Below are some photos of the new facilities that have been built over the off-season, as well as the new large dining facility that is still well under construction, and some other changes around the park. Here is a look at the new dining facility under construction. It will be themed to a mountain lodge and will be able to seat many people when it opens. Here's a side view of the new dining facility. It looks to be massive from the ground and above! Nearby the new dining facility behind Wonder Mountain a new Coca-Cola Refresh station was constructed during the off-season. It is tucked away off the path and looks like it has always been there despite being brand new. In order to make room for the new dining facility behind Wonder Mountain, the Mountainside Bakery (formerly Cookie Café prior to 2016) was demolished. Instead of removing it completely, the park constructed a new building across the path which will be home to the new Cookie Café. Across the Windseeker in Action Zone, a new structure was built across from Windseeker. It replaced an older structure which was home to Fast Lane sales. I believe this new structure will serve the same purpose and possibly more! For the 2022 season, Dairy Queen is no longer at the park. The locations have been replaced with park-ran ice cream shops serving soft-serve ice cream and sundaes. Pictured above is the Swiss Dip shop on International Street. Below is Arthur's Sundaes & Cones in Medieval Faire. Also new this season, The International Marketplace Buffet in Medieval Faire has been retransformed to the All's Well Hall, which it was known as in the 1980s. I love seeing the park continuing to revert rides, attractions, and facilities to their original names over the past few years! Also, the Tim Horton's location in Kidzville has been replaced with Tree Top Café. It will now serve Starbucks. More photos from opening day can be found on my blog, Amusement Views.

Almost got in a car accident today. Someone in the right lane tried to make a left turn while I was in the left lane in their blind spot. Hard brake with skid marks, the tire sound and lots of honking, I was probably inches away from t-boning them. You cant make a left turn from the right lane, idiot

A few pies we made the past few weeks!

Some stupid unexperienced medical network bought out all the local hospitals and clinics, and a year later, our hospitals and clinics are now closed. With no heads up whatsoever. I have got to get out of this hellhole.

They will never redo wildcat because it sits in a crucial part of HP's lineup. LR will also never be redone because it too sits in a crucial part of HP's lineup. If Wildcat does get replaced it will be for a Zeirer launched family or similar. Certainly not an RMC. That area of the park has been themed to an old timey boardwalk since it's inception - wildcat literally perfectly captures that energy. LR does as well. HP treats WC like it's a historic woodie - and if they keep doing that - WC will eventually be a historic woodie . Best one could hope for is replacement of Storm Runner with an RMC launcher. Now that HP has popped their top on very similar rides in the same park Im expecting a B&M wing and B&M dive up next.