coasterbill

Yeah, I expect this ride to be exactly the same unless you haven't been on it yet and you ask a coaster dork about the refurbishment in which case the old version was way better and it's a shame that you didn't ride it before they ruined it.

I feel like the park gets slightly uglier every year and all you ever here is "But wait until it's done!". Between cutting down tons and tons of trees and not even always clearing them, Wildwood Grove (just... all of it), removing the theming elements and leaving an abandoned track piece on Mystery Mine and this it seems like they're much less focused on aesthetics and small details lately. I love the park, but it does seem like it's taken a few steps backward recently in that area.

As someone of Irish descent, I feel that putting a Saint Patrick's Day land with a leprechaun coaster into a park that doesn't serve beer is highly offensive.

I know that we all want to laugh, but maybe he’s using a 56k AOL free trial dial up connection and he hit the post button 5 days ago. Be nice.

I love the Retro Squad more than I should as a concept.

My get says that no coaster anywhere has a finite lifespan. I'm sure they just weigh operating expenses (which rise every year) vs whatever metrics they use to determine how much revenue the ride generates and eventually they just can't justify it anymore (especially when they need to start replacing track pieces on steel coasters). There are probably other factors too like the tax benefits of depreciating the ride hardware that eventually come to an end / insurance costs and tons of other things that we never think about. It's easier for a park to say "This ride is at the end of it's service life" than "Yeah, we're losing money on this ride and don't feel like dumping any more money into it". Band-aid fixing this clunker year-after-year seems in-line with the Six Flags playbook.

I actually had that same thought. I don't know if you're serious and I don't know if it's likely, but actually I could almost see it... especially since this story has some major plot holes. lol

The Columbus Zoo actually has 2 coasters now, but more importantly it's just a great zoo. I could see not wanting to do that since it's another day with a ton of walking when you want a break, but if you're up for that I had the exact same suggestion.

So they repainted Kumba in 2019 and it still looks brand new (seriously, it looks great and you can still tell that it was *just* painted) but they had initially planned to paint it again this year for no reason and the unnecessary repaint was cancelled because the ride is closing forever? Does this story seem odd to anyone else?

What are your other plans on Sunday? You definitely don’t need a full day for that drive. I get if it’s not a theme park because you want a break, but you should plan something.

It's accurate. They open the coasters for the season when they feel like it. There's absolutely no real schedule.

Great update!

I love Raglan Road. Great update!

They just repainted Kumba like 3 years ago. Give me a break...

No, that's a super great idea. Just do me a favor before you go and private message me your personal information so I can take out a life insurance policy on you.

Good, now remove the other shitty haunted house too. Uh… I mean, oh no. It’s such a classic.

PSA: It's going to be 81 degrees and sunny tomorrow and they have 3 coasters open to the public plus Pantheon one time for certain guests and a bunch of understaffed food booths. It's going to be an apocalyptic shitshow of epic proportions and I want to let everyone know right now that if you show up on here Sunday night or Monday complaining that you went and had a miserable time I'm going to laugh at you... hard.

$80 for Timesaver Unlimited is still a great price. Their skip-the-line pass has always been under-priced. It seems like even on summer weekends and Holidays, the highest it gets is $85.

Considering the fact that you can't buy in advance anyway if you want that Platinum Pass deal there's nothing to think about here. Budget for it and buy it if it's busy (which it probably will be). I'd actually suggest buying in advance a few days out if the weather looks good if that were an option, but I don't think there's any way to get that discount unless you buy it at the park. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't think anyone in this conversation disagrees with getting Fastlane. Let me be clear: Yay Fastlane. We love Fastlane. Fastlane at this park is great. We all think you should be ready to buy it, Boldy and I have just gone to this park a lot in March and know that there's at least a 50% chance that the park will be so dead that every single ride will be a walk-on AND there's no benefit whatsoever to buying it before you get there at Kings Dominion. Actually it's better to buy it at the park anyway since you don't pay a processing fee and you get the added benefit of checking to see if anything is actually beyond the merge points before you buy it. It's not likes he's going in October. It's late March. If it's 44 degrees and cloudy there will be six people in the park. If it’s 70 and sunny, sure… buy it when you get to the park. The park agrees with us that it might be a ghost town that day which is why Fastlane starts at $65 and it’s selling for the absolute bare minimum price for all of March. This is an argument between a bunch of people who agree with eachother. Lol

Yup. This park is really good at being an absolute ghost town in March. Be prepared to by Fastlane but it's available at every shop and not going to sell out so there's literally no reason to buy in advance anyway. Just go and see. If the Timbers line is beyond the merge point, buy Fastlane.

This is their alternative. Your phone would also just die in that line and Apple would announce 2 newer versions of your phone anyway by the time you got your Flash Pass.

I'm very curious about these single rider lines and honestly, I'm pretty sure I hate this idea. Don't get me wrong, I like single rider lines at Disney and Universal and other competent parks, but by a show of hands... how many people think that they're going to add brand new staircases up to El Toro, Nitro, and Medusa? Right... so either they're going to run them up through the exit which would be a clusterfuck and would make everything slower or they're going to (I guess) run them through Flash Pass which will also be a clusterfuck. I feel like all this means is assigned seating, more bad grouping leading to tons of empty rows like during Covid and likely no improvement in capacity. The only good news here is that these lines will operate for approximately 6 minutes per year. Tl:dr: I love it in theory but don't trust them to do it right. El Toro MAYBE can run it to connect with the ADA ramp, I doubt that the other rides will even make that much of an effort. Even then, they're going to end up assigning seats on that ride.

It may not be mobile only but even if it is, their current system is an absolute horror show where lines are frequently over an hour long to skip the line. I welcome absolutely any attempt to fix this hot mess.

For anyone looking for the Jersiest thing to ever exist: lol