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Mods put this trip report on the front page

That's why the sunglasses come in handy.

I don't really do trip reports anymore (does anyone?) but we finally visited this wonderful park again for the first time since pre-Covid to (finally!!) check out Pantheon as well as the parks now-happening (thru Sept 12th) Bier Fest, and as expected we had a great time. Can you go wrong with beers and new Intamin hotness? The threat of rain all week kept crowds super light and we managed to stay in the park open to almost close on Saturday and again from open on Sunday til about 4pm. During that time it only rained once for about 20 minutes. The longest we waited for anything all weekend was maybe 20-25 minutes for the front row of Pantheon. In short, Bier Fest was magnificent and Pantheon is insane. For the event, you can buy a $40 lanyard that gets you ten 6oz samples of beer, and while the weather was mostly sunny/partly cloudy it was humid AF so we found ourselves dipping into both the Festhaus and Grogans Pub to soak up the air conditioning and fill up on samples. At both spots we found random locals brewers were popping in to talk about their breweries and give out more samples so of course we were trying all of those too. Lots and lots of beer samples. Soooo how about a few photos of the world's most beautiful theme park? Or uhhhh... the place we always go before Virginian theme parks... Yippee! Feels good to be back at one of my favorite parks anywhere. Grogans Grill and their dollar hot dogs were the real MVP of our weekend. Shout out to the cashiers for not enforcing the 2-per-transaction rule. It's like 11am and I'm already double-fisting! Was great to finally meet Chuck/ @cfc after all these years and share some rides and brews! We always start the weekend at Griffon. This ride is so good. At some point we made our way to the craft hall in the Festhaus. Because you need something to soak up all the beer. You can use your Bier Fest lanyard to sample ANY of these 30 taps or anything on tap at Grogans. @coasterbillstill got a flight PSA: Alpengeist is the best invert. Some of these are just screenshots from videos I took for an Instagram reel. At least Lochness Monster looks good... Alright enough f*cking around, time for this absolute insanity. Pantheon is excellent and shot right into my favorite coasters. Great pacing, unique forces, not a moment wasted. I only ever rode in the front (or close to the front) but there is air all over this thing. The backwards launch is downright absurd. The operations left a little to be desired after experiencing the well oiled crew at VelociCoaster late last year but they were cranking trains pretty quickly. The trains are comfy, and as a larger dude I had no issues and didn't really have to be stapled on any of my rides. There is so much to like about this ride. The zero-G after the first launch is loaded with hang time and the outward bunny hops are good fun and a great way to get things started. The stall feels like it goes on forever, and in the front of the train we were getting some intense ejector at the top of the outward banked hill over the Rhine River. The missus, who we thought might not even ride this, not only rode multiple times but also declared it as one of her all times favorites by the weekends end and is still talking about it three days later. Thumbs up from row 1. I know you're dying to ask - How did it compare to VelociCoaster? Beyond the fact that they're both new Intamins with multiple launches, top hats and stalls? They're pretty different rides. I do prefer VC overall. I like Tempesto, but we never made it on. I didn't get any photos of Apollo, but that we did ride a bunch and it was phenomenal as usual. We did ride this fabulous contraption a few times as well thanks to the low crowds and non-existent wait. At some point on Sunday we finally made a stop at the black forest and for the first time ever I was treated to a walk-on for this ride. Still one of my favorites here but after some beers the indoor section actually gave me a little vertigo and a skipped a re-ride with the group. Shout out to @PKI Jizzman Thanks for reading. Sorry if some of the photos are small. Go check out Bier Fest if you can!

Well, one way to reduce the amount of people in the park. . . Send them to the hospital.

Awesome pics of a great weekend. Jesus that last picture of me... I was feeling the beers for sure.

I definitely miss the days of you and @coasterbill writing in depth reports. I do understand how tedious it gets writing all that and sorting through pictures though. The information with a side of humor was always appreciated! Before I went to BGT in April I actually went looking for Bill's BGT reports and had to delve back like 10 pages to find his TR thread lol. Anyway, great TR and really looking forward to getting down there for Pantheon. Probably won't be till next year unfortunately.

Now come down to Orlando to rrrreeeaaalllyyyy make sure you like Velocicoaster better ;D Glad you guys had a great day, Pantheon is so much fun. I'm so excited for more of those swing launches. The backwards air hill in the launch is crazy!

I did notice that it was a bit of a rough landing coming off that hill (both my rides Tuesday were in the back row) but nothing this extreme. If there was some warping in that part of the ride then I don't know how they missed it if they had to carefully inspect the whole coaster for damage after the derailment.

I think Valleyfair has a good niche and I think cedar fair notices this. Why drop a lot of money when the park is doing fine with cheaper events and additions? From a purely corporate perspective, I think if a park like valleyfair is able to easily get by with the occasional 100k investment into an event compared to a 10 million dollar roller coaster, why even bother? I think the biggest shock to me was the removal of haunt. Valleyfair seems to have a very kid-gloves approach to security now as compared to when I started my time working at the park, and I think that contributed to the removal of haunt. Good security is expensive, and sometimes events like the 2018 fight night at haunt can give valleyfair bad PR. Even so, third party security contractors can make things worse and I genuinely believe the temporary agencies that were hired in during the 2018-2019 seasons did more harm than good during haunt. Looking at the security guards most of them don't have much outside of a radio, body cam, and maybe pepper spray. This is a pretty stark difference to how they were equipped and would deal with situations in 2014-2017. I think a lot more is handled by Shakopee PD and Scott Co Sheriff's Office as they have officers patrolling the park as well. I could certainly see Valleyfair raising prices to keep trouble makers out similar to what Six Flags and Knotts has done. This isn't to say valleyfair isnt making things happen though. The park i started working at in 2014 and the park I left in 2021 when I ended my time there is a night and day difference. I started at a park that was disorganized and had a very mom-and-pop feel, and now it feels like valleyfair is an organized corporate business. I'm still holding out hope that haunt will return given the negative feedback that decision made and that we will hopefully get something new. I do think the marketing "false teases" are annoying and the dead horse has been beaten enough. This is my sole opinion and no one elses. Not trying to represent anyone or any company.

I weep for the lawn. Exterminate it quickly.

We had to put our cat to sleep tonight. I was the last thing she saw. I was wearing a Pirates of the Caribbean shirt with the silhouette of a skull on the front and text on the back reading "Dead Men Tell No Tales." RIP Kisses. October 2008-August 26, 2022 1:09 am. We adopted her when she was about 9 months.