coasterbill

Personally, no, I don't want to have to set my alarm for like 6:55 AM on vacation even if I do just get to go right back to bed, no I don't want to only have the option to ride one time and no, I don't want to pay like $130 for a day ticket where I may not get to ride the best ride in the park. I think all of that sucks. Here are the wait times for the last seven days, but people have been reporting that the ACTUAL wait times are always about 1/2 of what they say they are. This is not worth all of those headaches in my mind. They're insane at rope-drop but otherwise very reasonable. Quite a few times since it's opened, there have been longer posted waits for rides like Slinky Dog Dash, Flight of Passage and Jungle Cruise. That old system sucked nuts and I'm glad it's gone and hope it stays gone forever. I get why some early-birds would like it but I am not one of them.

So as we were saying this morning…

I actually kind of agree with @u4icmusic I know a lot of people don't go for the coasters but they have nine of them so they clearly look at them as important drivers of attendance. They have shown based on the work that they're putting into the ride that they're not satisfied with the ride's performance at all. If they found the status-quo acceptable they wouldn't be doing all of this. I'm sure they're not happy with this recent downtime or this ride in general.

This seems kind of-reasonable. I kind-of expected worse when you throw in the day-one hype and flood of bloggers.

It looks like the demolition work has begun...

I'll let the hype die down for a few years but I'll probably check this out at some point. They had me at "Patina Group".

I mean, they have free courtesy cups... I can't complain that much, we just wanted a bottle since we were heading into a queue and knew we'd want to sip it for awhile. I just picked it up without a posted price and laughed when I realized that Harry Potter water was like twice the price of all of the other water bottles in the park for no reason. It's dumb.

A few quick thoughts from our visit this weekend: - Royal Pacific has me spoiled. This was our first time staying on property thanks to a passholder appreciation deal but I'll probably do it again. We didn't take advantage of Early Entry since we had Express and having early admission to two rides with Express in the park that nobody wants to rope drop isn't worth getting up an hour and a half early but I'm glad it's a thing for the early birds. - I highly recommend staying at a resort where you can take the boat or walk back from HHN. It's worth it just so you don't have to sit in that parking garage, Also, the walking path is really nice. It's amazing how this place is really in a very built-up area and hides it so well. - HHN was a blast. I have no real "favorite" house. Everyone always explains the backstory and the legend and the storyboards and all that but if you're not familiar with the IPs I mean... you go in, the sets will be awesome, a bunch of shit will jump out at you, Everything blends together a lot. I don't care about the nuance of it but it's a blast. We actually did every house except one without Express despite a rain delay that closed most houses and most rides, even most indoor rides because the gift shops clogged up. At one point I think the only things open in the park were a few mazes up front, Gringotts and Men in Black. I think the only house that we didn't do was Horror in the Heartland. We had 10 minutes left before close and we were next to Mummy. We almost walked all the way back there but we had been in the park for 16 straight hours so we just walked-on Mummy instead. it was the only ride we did during the event but riding Mummy is never a bad life-decision. - Tooth Fairy is a lot better this year than last year - Hulk needs air conditioning - Why can you buy a Coors light in Hogsmeade but not a coke or a water that isn't $6? - Over the course of two days with Express we rode everything we cared to ride, plus multiple rides on Hagrid's and Velocicoaster. Velocicoaster is amazing. The more I ride it, the more I love it. I'm not great at ranking coasters and while I'm not *sure* if I'd call it my favorite, there's not a ride that I can confidently say is better either. I think it's best in the front, but the back is also insane. Everyone knows that the roll is sick but that top hat... man. In the back, it's the coolest moment of floater ever. It's stong and weird. It feels like you're in outer space. Then during the drop it abruptly switches from wild, crazy, twisty floater to El Toro in 0.0001 seconds. Also, in the front you get ejector airtime while upsideown in a dive loop. That's normal, right? lol - The Bourne Stuntacular is jaw-droppingly good. You couldn't pay me to watch those movies. I basically don't care about action movies at all. This doesn't matter. The Bourne Stuntacular is jaw-droppingly good and one of the best things at the entire resort. Lines were short all weekend for most rides (of course, since we had free express passes) and nothing was generally over an hour, not even Hagrid's. I still believe that the best rope-drop ride is Hagrid's... It seems to be more popular than Velocicoaster though it's close. Note that if you're going soon, this does seem to be their "offseason" during the week. Rides like Gringotts, Hagrid's and Hulk were all running at reduced capacity on Monday and rides like River Adventure and Mummy were only using one platform. Lines still weren't bad, and maybe some of it was mechanical but it might make the waits a little longer than they should be so bring your patience. The Gringotts line moved painfully slow and every pre-show ended with an akward silence for 5 minutes before we were let out because the line ahead of us wouldn't clear. Being new, Velocicoaster is running at full capacity as are many other rides though so it's hit-or-miss. Overall we had an awesome time. This is a great time to go to the parks.

Oh actually yeah, it operated on 9/3 for part of the day, then it broke for awhile. Since then it the only days that it opened were 9/10 and 9/11 but hasn't opened since. It hasn't been closed straight through but it's it's been screwed up for awhile.

Based on Dollywood Wait Times it looks like the last time it was open at all was Saturday.

They bought a Galaxi, apparently (unless these are parts from the old one but it looks like it's been painted in that case). - Midwest Coaster Fans

It's nice to see them offering some combo packages and discounts. Honestly, $149 for the 2 day combo is reasonable.

River Adventure is a must-ride for us every visit but I avoid those other two like the plague. I love flumes, but I have limits. lol

I think one thing that people are overlooking when asking for Knoebels or Gene Staples (lol how is Quimera looking?) to come and save this ride is that it's probably in a dilapidated condition where Knoebels would have to dump tons and tons of money into it just so it could be the fourth best wood coaster in the park. Would it really make sense for anyone to save this thing when you can get a cheap new GCI for probably only a few million more that can be custom-fit to a specific spot? Look, I'm sure with enough work this ride could be a lot of fun. I'm not trying to crap on it but I'm just being a realist.

I believe there is a media event for Howl O Scream tonight. That may not be a nightly occurrence... but it also might because, well... SeaWorld.

I don't know the specifics of what's wrong with this thing, but considering it's Kennywood I think it's fair to assume that the park probably shares in the blame along with the manufacturer. I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt on anything.

Gatekeeper is not having a good time this year. It closed early on Sunday and was closed all day Monday with no sign of life anywhere around the ride. Hopefully this is a good sign for the weekend... Webcams

That's insane but I'm glad you got to ride it.

I feel like this is a great excuse for them to paint it in the spring and open it for the season somewhere around mid-August. lol

The posts from this "rally" are the pick-me-up that the world needs right now.

If you go to Dollywood from Minneapolis your route takes you within like 5 minutes of Kentucky Kingdom anyway. I'd say to go to those two parks, though really if you can do one full day at Six Flags, one full day at Dollywood and like 3 hours at park open at Kentucky Kingdom that's all you need anyway. I may also be biased because I just don't really like Holiday World. Also, book refundable rooms and watch this website. Obviously, if Lightning Rod is closed for the day for a few full days before your trip then maybe change your plans...

Wicked Twister closes forever tomorrow. On a related note, nobody cares about Wicked Twister...

It's helped, but the ride is also going to use one load platform perpetually forever so it's not like it's ever going to be a capacity monster no matter what.

It's annoying because this event should be great if they opened the whole park (minus the midway with key west, Turtle Trek and the dolphin rehab area and Pacific Point and a few other animal areas obviously). Imagine how cool that Antarctica section would look with fog and creepy lighting and a house somewhere but... nah, screw it. I get why they want Infinity Falls open because the ride actually has a really cool vibe at night but at the same time it's more fun to watch than it is to ride once it gets dark (or actually ever).

This is really just stunning to me. I guess they’re trying to play it safe with this event and not open the entire park incase it bombs, but you do have to balance that with putting out an actual good product when HHN is literally right down the street.