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What are these “facts” you bring to the conversation? I don’t like them, I’ll pretend they are fake news.

Catching up on this since I was on the road through much of September. Really enjoying it so far. It reminds me of being happy to be traveling in Europe again! Awesome sights, fun rides, great people. Keep it going, can't wait to see the rest.

We had a great time at both Carowinds during the day and Scarowinds in the evening on Saturday 10/1! It was our first time at their campground with our RV and we were both wildly impressed. The transportation was quick and easy. The shuttle bus allowed us to come and go as we pleased to the park (well, during the day at least.) Here are a few pictures and thoughts to share: - We rode Copperhead Strike opening year and I thought it was a solid B+. Not sure if it’s running any different or if it took a few extra rides to process, but we just loved it! It was a walk on during the day and probably a 30-40 minute wait with 2 trains running (3rd in the transfer bay). The launch felt like it had a bit more kick than usual for Mack and any animated theming elements seems to have held up. - Iron Gwazi and Steel Vengeance still trump Fury for me, as they have a bit more bite to them, but the blistering speed, length, and all the things people love about Fury still hold up years later. I was impressed they were running 3 trains on both this and intimidator even though during daytime hours there had to have been less than 1500 people in the park. I will say that after experiencing Orion, that coaster has significantly more kinetic energy and atmosphere with the Imascore soundtrack (I’m a sucker for those) and the general area theming. Still a testament to how perfect of a ride Fury is. - Intimidator has always been a middle of the road hyper for me. It was running really smooth and I never quite appreciated the first turnaround the way I did this trip. Super cool sensation that’s different than Mako down the road from us. The layout is a little bland and the theming a tad difficult for me to get excited about, but a great coaster that also dominates the skyline. - I rode Top Gun in 1999 and it was fantastic and the ride really hasn’t changed much since then. The station and queue seems abit haggard, but the ride itself looks and feels perfectly maintained. For a compact layout, I really prefer this to the Batman clones. The trench dive gives a respectable nod to Montu which is appreciated. - We quit drinking 9 months ago which has freed up extra money during our park visits so decided to splurge on a VIP bungalow after having a great experience at KI. This was even better, as it was private and even had a TV. In my advanced years it’s been good to take a breather between rides and we really enjoyed it. Definitely worth the $79. - I always enjoy riding our old favorites like Goldrush , Carolina Cyclone, and even Hurler. We had a zen ride (is it called that if it’s just two of you? Might be a stretch…) where I took someone’s recent advice to ride front middle. It was AWESOME - I worked Mantis briefly during college and this really didn’t feel any more uncomfortable. I’ve had some brutal rides in the past. We came back and did it again and had another great ride. - For Scarowinds, we enjoyed ourself because we budgeted in Fast and Frightlane (worth every penny, as always), but frankly the event felt very low budget and light on decor. Thankfully it was included in our platinum pass. The park was packed but not as busy as I expected for a Saturday. Paranormal Inc. was the standout house with a really cool pre show. My second favorite was Depths of Darkness, with the premise that you are in the mind of a serial killer. I’m a sucker for well done fogging, lighting and sound and I thought this was great - just skimping on the actors. Very likely because we walked in shortly before close. Overall, Carowinds was a wonderful time as always and the park is just so comfortable and easy to navigate. There were some IROC certified trainers at the coasters that seemed to be smothering and terrifying their trainees and slowed dispatches to a crawl, but who am I to judge. As much as I love to visit parks that are inherently more charming than Carowinds, such as Kennywood, Waldameer, Hershey Canobie and Lake Compounce, I love knowing that I can go to most CF parks and the rides are running at or near capacity. I know CP can be a crapshoot these days, but my visits to Carowinds and KI rarely is there ride downtime and I don’t think I’ve ever seen single train ops. Taking a weekend to fly to Pittsburgh to get a credit only to show up knowing there is a 50/50 shot of Steel Curtain running one train, with that similar foolishness going on over at Phantom/Thunderbolt too, I’ve found myself avoiding those parks because we just don’t have the patience. Just a personal preference and not trying to be b*tchy. As a huge Afterburn fans, we’re really looking forward to Aeronautica Landing livening up that section of the park. The area is already fenced on off so hopefully they can get a good head start. On Monday, we did make a stop at Lake Shawnee Amusement Park for a tour, which was fantastic. I think most on this forum have heard of it, but the site has been featured on Travel Channel/Ghost Hunter shows. I have never had a paranormal experience in my life, but we actually experienced some activity on the swing ride where a small bag was spinning/swaying fairly violently as our three dogs approached. It was not windy and the other items hanging from the swings weren’t moving - spooky. The guide said the little girl who passed away when the ride was hit by a delivery truck during operations was likely excited by the dogs. The guide seemed relatively unphases and continued his spiel. I can’t say we felt the same level of ease/calm, but super cool. I don’t have a video but my mom is my witness as she saw it on FaceTime. Anyways, here’s a few pictures to share! Next stop, Dollywood today and tomorrow. Quick photo op before opening! Empty station at Vortex. I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. It’s still got that whip, especially row 8 right side. Fury as it’s about to start it’s morning tests Money well spent! Enjoyed hanging out here and the ambiance of a Boomerang really made the experience Obligatory PSL post. I don’t have a great picture of the swings, but here is the Ferris Wheel at Lake Shawnee located in close proximity. After our tour, we were allowed to walk through their haunted attraction which was pretty cool. Highly recommend if you are off the beaten path! Quick last shot on the outskirts of the campground.

Hi Everyone! Wow...uhhh...sorry but I got way distracted with some work stuff, and my whole plan of putting out all my trip reports from this year's "Coaster Desert Escape" totally went out the window. So let's just pickup where we left off at...Holiday World! Now, I'll be honest. Holiday World was a park that I had heard a lot of people talk about, but it wasn't high on my list of park to visit. I don't know I just never felt a huge urge to visit it. But when during the trip planning process we decided to go from St. Louis (where we watched a baseball game which was AWESOME!) to Kings Island...I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit another park. Especially when that park has Voyage...I mean no matter your opinion of the thing, every coaster enthusiast has to do it at lease once right? So after enjoying the free parking (yay!), and having a rather strange opening experience where they forgot to have someone come and drop the rope at opening time (Is that normal?), we headed to the far back of the park for Thunderbird! Now while enjoyed Thunderbird (best steel coaster in the park you know...) and I thought the launch was fun, I was actually a little underwhelmed. I thought the layout and inversions would do for me, but it just...didn't. I actually prefer Wild Eagle at Dollywood, because outside of the T-Bird's launch (which is better than WE's lift hill in my opinion) Eagle's layout was much more intense and unique than Thunderbird's. So after that interesting start, we headed to the star of the show at Holiday World which is of course... ...Voyage! Now, having heard a LOT of different things about the ride, mostly praise but some criticism, I was curious to see what I thought. And first off I want to say, yes voyage is ROUGH. I don't care if its a "good season" or a "bad season" for the ride, I thought it was rougher than it should have been. Yes, I get it, it's a big old honken ride, in a park with two other wooden coasters. And no, it wasn't grossly rough (like cough cough Timber Wolf cough cough), but definitely unpleasantly rough. I do have a high roughness tolerance, so it didn't bother me too much, but I was disappointed by it. Maybe I was under the false impression that HW was on parr with Knoebels when it came to wooden coaster maintenance, I don't know I guess I expected it to be smoother all around. The roughness also made it definitely a front row ride, as not only could I then enjoy a smoother ride, I could also form an appropriate opinion about it's famous layout. And that is: the first two ills are all right, but not all that great, the spaghetti bowl didn't do anything for me, and only when we get the the last third or so did I really see why people rate this ride so highly. Someone is probably gonna now say "But trim-less night rides at HolliWood Nights!", and to that I say (A) I didn't think the trims dampened it all that much, and (B) having the trims off wouldn't solve any of the problems with the first half of the ride. All in all, I thought the Voyage WAS the best in the park, but definitely not my favorite wooden coaster, with it currently sitting at number 4 just beating out Legend. Speaking of Legend... ...that was our next stop! I had originally thought I would actually like this more than Voyage, which I know is a bit of a a strange notion. But you see, I have always been fascinated with this coasters layout. On multiple occasions I have heard Tremors at my homepark be called "An improved version of Legend", and to that I say NO! Legend does pretty much everything that Tremors does, except the tunnels, better. Better first drop, better laterals, better speed, about the same on airtime and theming. However, I will say that despite all of the things going for it, there are a couple things holding the ride back. First is it's rough, definitely rougher than Voyage. Again, not grossly rough, but rough enough to take away from the ride experience. Secondly, the elements just don't seem to "pop" as much as they should. Hill that you'd think would have lots of airtime, have are mild, and turns you'd think would slam you around fall flat. I know a lot of people want to see Legend RMC'ed, but I personally would really want it to get the "Ghostrider treatment" from GCI. I know GCI has already done some work on the ride, but if they took the whole "let's retrack and reprofile most of the ride to make it more intense and ride smoother, plus through on some sweet Millennium Flyer's" than I think the ride would really benefit, and that's also what I most want looking to the future of Holiday World. After riding one of the world's most pointless log flumes (and I thought my home park's was bad), we rounded out the coaster collection with the original reason people went to Holiday World, Raven. I don't think there's a whole lot that needs to be said about Raven at this point, short but sweet, a little rough, and the fifth drop is great but the rest of the ride is showing it's age. I do really like the queue for the ride in the old house, but other than that I walked away from Raven exactly as I expected too, it was good but also just kinda "there". Aside from the coasters (and Frightful Falls, "can't forget that one..."), didn't ride a whole lot at Holiday World as we had to drive to Cincinnati that night and we didn't want to do it late at night. We did manage to ride Gobbler's Getaway, which I thought was a nice shooting dark ride although a lot of the effects seemed to be broken which was disappointing. We didn't do Splahin' Safari due to lack of time and interest, but from what I could see it definitely looked like one of the best outdoor water parks that I have seen. Definitey on the list for next time I get to Holiday World. Some other thoughts on Holiday World: - While the park was clean (as advertised), it was really only super clean in the parts that most people are, but if you look in some areas...it's not clean. Looking at all those Pepsi cups under Legend's station as an example. - Loved the free soda and thought it was a cool idea. More parks should do that. - The park as a whole was nice looking, but it kinda looked like they scrubbed all the detials off everything. Aside fromt the Christmas entrance area, pretty much all of the other buildings in the park just felt kinda "plain". Not that that's a bad thing I just thought it was an interesting phenomena. To finish out my thoughts on Holiday World I want to do something kinda different. Over the years I have heard a lot of comparisons between my homepark (Silverwood) and Holiday World. You don't hear it a much anymore, especially since Voyage and Aftershock opened, but there are still a lot of similarities and some interesting differences. So since I've been visiting SW for a very long time, let's compare the too! - The first one is pretty easy, and that is Holiday World definitely has the better water park, no contest. There's just no way Boulder Beach can compete with Splashin' Safari's 3 water coasters and all it's tube slides. There's just no way. - I think Silverwood has the more rounded coaster collection (2 woodies and 3 steel, vs. 3 woodies and 1 steel), while Holiday World has stronger rides overall. I like Voyage and Legend better than Timber Terror and Tremors, with Aftershock and Tremors coming ahead of Raven and Thunderbird, and of course Stunt Pilot beats them all in my book. - Both parks have nice landscaping, but Silverwood is for sure the prettier of the the two. SW not only has the cleanliness of Holiday World, but also a huge chunk more of landscaping and detail. Overall, I think I prefer my homepark a bit better (although I'm probably REALLY biased...), but Holiday World is still a good park, and a fun place to visit. I'd be curious to see where the Koch family goes from here, as they seem more willing than most independent park's to swing big when it comes to additions. Thank you to @jarmor and @mikeykaise for the help and advice on visiting, I really appreciated it! Whew! Finally got this one done! Hopefully should be able to get the last one done from this trip, plus the ones from a last minute trip I did in September, and an update from my homepark done real soon! See you then!

Last issue of Amusement Today has an article about the new Zambezi Zinger and other information about 2023 at Worlds of Fun. Enhanced theming throughout the park, renaming of Orient to East Asia, Africa being split into three sections, new bird show, history display in Tivoli Theater lobby, 50 Days of Celebration for the 50th Anniversary including the 50 Nights of Fire show and more.

^ Primeval Whirl sat rotting for a while. . right in the middle of Dinoland.

I can see that. That, and people not really paying attention to the traffic directors feverishly waving people through who leave a ten car gap in between their car and the one in front of them. "This guy in the florescent traffic vest and cone is waving at me to go through a single lane. I don't know what to do!" For anyone who has never directed traffic, consider yourself lucky. A quarter of the driver's don't listen to you when you wave them through to go faster. A quarter of the driver's don't listen to you when you tell them to stop or change directions. The ones who don't change directions hold the line up by stopping, rolling down their windows, and saying, "Can I go through here?" It's not difficult by any means, but you just have to try to your best to turn your 'give a fucks' off and realize people are just going to do whatever they want to do, no matter what, until they cause an accident. It's frustrating.

Thanks for the TR. I always walked away from Holiday World feeling indifferent. The wooden coasters are unpleasantly rough, which is probably the perfect way to put it. I'm disappointed to hear about Gobber's Getaway being neglected. It was always one of my favorite dark rides, having a more unique themeing. I can't understand why parks have such a difficult time maintaining Sally rides, since they seem so analogue, especially the animatronics. Although some enthusiasts love HW, I think others leave feeling underwhelmed or indifferent, because it's geared more toward families. It's an affordable weekend getaway. It's a perfect park for families with pre-teens, in an area where there's not much else to do.

It is a 2022 perk. So yes this year. It is not a 2023 perk as far as we know.

Agreed 100%. I live 90 minutes away from CP and 4 hours from KI. I honestly feel now that KI is the better park. It's beautifully maintained, the employees have been very polite, FL+ works brilliantly here by depositing you in the station more often than not, Mystic Timbers is my current #1 overall and is an amazing ride, and for some reason, I'll take Diamondback and Orion over Magnum and MF any day (even though MF is a fantastic ride). Hoping to get down there for Haunt soon... Thanks for the TR!

^ When I went on September 16th, they were charging the FL price for FL+ if you were a Platinum Pass holder... not sure if that has changed as on my visit last week I didn't need it and I didn't notice anyone in the Point Plaza gift shop purchasing it (the main FL booth at the front gate was closed on both of my Thursday visits). I'd go and ask just to be sure. Worst they can say is no!

Focus on theming sounds fantastic. I always loved the Jules Verne original theme idea of including the cultures of the world in one park under a name that suited the theme. Worlds of Fun literally meant fun from all parts of the world. My first experience at the park was notably different from the Midwest/Colonial theming at SFStL. While I have made my opinion on Prowler Junior clear, I am happy to hear about the other improvements that will certainly add charm and culture to Worlds of Fun.

I read that article and it sounds great! Between Zambezi Zinger and the renewed focus on the lands and their identities, Worlds of Fun is high on my list of parks I want to get to next year.

Cedar Point 10-1-2022 A few weeks ago I hatched a plan for a trip to Ohio. I really needed to justify the expense of the Platinum FL+ pass. Timing was great as my town had a lot of flooding and power outages due to Ian. I visited 5 breweries in Cleveland with a local friend the night before and was still in good shape by the time I reached CP. Raptor and Magnum never ran that I saw. It was a really windy day. FL+ was pricey! I decided to grab a couple of rides on Steel Vengeance first. I would probably do the pay locker next time. The lockers in the queue were a PITA. Love the first drop! Then it was on to my favorite coaster...Fantastic as always! Wait was about 15 minutes for FL+. The regular queue was already at 90 minutes. After a couple of rounds with Maverick, it was time to feel the MF'n Force! Second best ride in the park, IMO. And why not take a ride on Valravn? Lake Erie was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli... After a few more re-rides, I took a break for a late lunch. I have a dining plan, but the lines were so long that I went to Famous Dave's. After lunch I walked a round a bit and caught a ride on Gatekeeper. I worked my way back to Maverick and the FL+ wait was 45 minutes. So I bailed and decide to start heading towards Kings Island. I took back roads for a lot of the trip. I decided to route through Dayton to stop at Toxic Brew Company. Delicious as always!

Glad you could at least salvage some of your cruise!

Actually it does. The Disneyworld carousel was originally PTC #46 "The Liberty Carousel", made the rounds at several parks, Disney bought it in 1967 when it was 50 years old and spent 4 years refurbing it, stripped the horses down to the wood and made each one unique..................sound familiar

So we just got back from a 2 day cruise on Royal Caribbean Independence of the seas and had a pretty awesome time. It was originally a 3 day cruise, scheduled to leave Friday and come back on Monday morning, but Hurricane Ian delayed departure by a day so we sailed out Saturday Morning and back on Monday. They credited us back 2/3 days of the cruise fare, and I think maybe 1.5 days worth of our drink package? I don't remember all of the details but the whole trip ended up being very cheap when it was all said and done, so it was worth it. We originally had just booked an interior room since it was kind of a last minute trip, but after the delay we figured there would be a lot of cancelations so we asked about a room upgrade. I believe we were told that there were only maybe 2200 people on the boat vs the 4000+ person capacity, so they upgraded us to a balcony for $50.00. Got a nice look at the Carnival ship with the Bolt coaster on the side during sail away which was cool. Not sure if I'll ever make it on that ship but it's cool that Carnival offers that now. The sailaway was really fun because there were like 5 ships all leaving at once, probably because of the delayed departure. The weather was absolutely beautiful the whole trip, sunny, no rain, incredibly calm seas, and the boat being half empty was really nice. It still felt like there was a good crowd, especially in the bars and casinos, but dinner and the pool deck were empty which was nice. We didn't do any of the specialty dining options other than some wings in the sports bar since it was such a short cruise, but all of the food in the buffet and main dining room was good. Nothing was bad but nothing was "great" either if that makes any sense? For a 2 day cruise it was fine, but on a longer sailing I probably would have tried the steak house or something. Here's a picture from our 8pm dinner seating where the dining room was basically empty lol. There was a family next to use but yeah, the place was dead. We didn't get to go Cocoa Cay which was a bummer, I was really looking forward to seeing that place, but I'm sure there will be another cruise in the future for that. We sailed to Nassau and back, but never got off the boat in Nassau because we stayed on the boat to watch the Jags vs Eagles game. This trip was originally supposed to have been a trip to Philly for that game, but we cancelled that trip for various reasons and booked the cruise instead. Glad we did because the weather in Philly was awful and the Jags blew the game (typical), so I'd rather watch that from a boat in Nassau than from the stadium in Philly. We did the drink package, so a pre-dinner martini on the balcony was pretty awesome. The drink package as a whole was really nice, and we drank way too much. I think the fist day we had like 28 charges on our account, so yeah the all inclusive package was worth it lol. The ship was great, I've been on 1 Disney cruise, 1 Carnival, and this was my second on RCCL, but this felt like the nicest most modern ship I'd ever been on. I loved how the whole interior was open end to end with bars and shops and restaurants everywhere. It really didn't feel like a cruise ship on the interior. The ship was also really easy to navigate considering how big it was. I remember our Disney ship being much more confusing. The activity schedule was a little limited since the cruise was cut short by a day. Grease was the musical on our sailing but we didn't have a chance to see it (I love musicals but Grease isn't my favorite so it's fine). We did check out the juggling comedians show, an adult game show thing, and played Bingo. Other wise we pretty much just gambled and ate and drank, drank a lot, for 2 days. I did take advantage of short lines for the Flowrider Saturday morning when we were in port, that's always fun even if I fall on my head. So all in all a very short trip, but still a lot of fun. I've only ever been on 3 day cruises because it seems to fit our scheduled better but I really want to try a longer sailing in the future sometime.

Should have sprung for extended warranty.

To be fair, Top Thrill Dragster did make an amazing case for why it's important to have great insurance.

Magic Mountain doesn't exist in a vacuum. I'd be worried about it if these kings of things were only happening there, but operationally the chain as-a-whole is in the worst place it's been in in about 15 years. The CEO miscalculated and nobody is coming to the parks so they're scrambling to cut budget, making the product worse which makes the prices even more insane and hard for people to justify and the cycle is going to continue until someone else takes over.

It is a little off topic but if you live in LA, quit watching KTLA. Big station but little heart. Two happy looking but fired faces.