Leaderboard

Kings Dominion has formally announced that Project 305's new name and theme will be Pantherian! https://www.kingsdominion.com/rides-experiences/pantherian Kings Dominion announced the new name for the park’s tallest roller coaster will be Pantherian starting in the 2025 season. The name comes from the legend of the jungle cat and fully incorporates the ride into the theming of the Jungle X-Pedition area of the park. "We've been eagerly anticipating revealing Pantherian as it joins the highly anticipated, record-breaking roller coaster Rapterra in filling out the adventures of our Jungle X-Pedition area of the park,” said Bridgette Bywater vice president and general manager of Kings Dominion. "The 2025 season promises to be a 50th anniversary celebration filled with new thrills, and unforgettable experiences.” The Jungle X-Pedition area was introduced in 2022 and each ride in the area represents a temple to Jungle animals from an ancient culture. For Pantherian, the intense speed, rapid shifts, and raw power mimic a large panther on the hunt. The ride's transformation comes with a new logo that shows an image of the jungle cat and new paint colors for the ride's support columns and track. Pantherian was originally opened in 2010 and is one of the tallest and fastest coasters on the East Coast, with a first drop of 305 feet and a top speed approaching 95 mph. The ride operated under the placeholder name Project 305 during the 2024 season. Guests can enjoy unlimited rides on Pantherian during 2025 with the purchase of a 2025 Gold Pass.

Some notes from a fun week at Universal! Sunday night we rushed over from the airport in order to ride Spiderman before it closes for refurb. Love that ride. Luckily we still had time for one more ride before closing and decided it was as good of a time as any to finally get a night ride on Hagrid! A posted 90 minute line ended up being closer to 50 which was nice. This ride is amazing at night. It almost should've been built as an indoor coaster because I feel like the darkness really accentuates a lot of aspects of the theming. Monday was a pretty typical IOA day for me. It's probably my favorite park I've ever been to and other than Velocicoaster, my other favorite activity is watching people get destroyed by that high pressure waterfall on Popeyes right by the footbridge down to the lagoon. I could stand there for hours. Tuesday at Studios I don't have much to report other than I had a really weird ride on ET. The cars started stacking right at the "Welcome Home You Have Arrived" dude. And the rest of the way the cars would pull forward like 30 feet at a time and then come to a jarring stop. Very strange. Thursday night we had a fun night with @coasterbill at HHN (preceded by a great Velocicoaster night ride). This was the first time I've ever done Halloween mazes outside of SFNE or Lake Compounce, and what a difference. The level of detail put into the sets was just incredible. The thing I didn't like is that they just conga-line everyone through each maze. I can see why, as the lines are insane and I can't imagine how long they would be if everyone went through in small groups. In 5 hours we were able to do 3 houses plus Gringotts, Mummy, and Rockit from the singles lines. Very busy, but overall a really fun event. Also on Thursday I snagged tickets for Epic Universe on my birthday (which will be the 2nd week the park is open). Really excited to see it for the first time.