coasterbill

Stick a fork in this place.

Kingda Ka is open.

Since you have express anyway it doesn't really matter if you have early admission on those two rides. Those early admission offerings are actually kind-of bad considering so many hotel guests have express passes and the rides that everyone wants to ride that don't have them are in the other park. My honest recommendation is to just get to the IOA gates an hour early and rope drop Hagrid's.

Hopefully

Of course it’s not...

The reason that nobody mentioned Elitch Gardens is because they all have to go back to ride the other 3-4 coasters that were closed when they went there the first time.

Bonus days look fun...

I feel like the ride is probably closed for staffing, but I guess there's always a chance that it totally f*cked itself again. Even if it is closed for staffing though that should tell you something about the park's opinion of the ride.

Basically any park could theoretically add something cool enough that it would get me to go there but barring something amazing being a built, a few come to mind. The first park that comes to mind is probably not what you were expecting, it’s Holiday World. The fact that people voluntarily drive like 15 hours every year to go to Holiwood Nights actually blows my mind. If I had ERT on those wood coasters for hours I seriously don’t even know what I’d do all night. I wouldn’t get a beer because they don’t sell that. I wouldn’t buy a Christmas ornament because why would a park named Holiday World in a town named Santa Claus with an entire Christmas “themed” (lol) section sell those (maybe that’s changed lol). I guess I’d ride the okay log flume and Thunderbird for hours. I don’t know... The park is ugly, Voyage is fine, Legend sucks and Raven is actually one of the worst wood coasters that I’ve ridden (at least that’s how everything rode a few years ago). I hate that place. I used to be convinced that people just talked it up to justify the fact that they drove to the middle of a cornfield to ride a bunch of bad wood coasters in an ugly park but they go back every year so I guess I’m the crazy one. Also, before someone shows up and says that Raven is running way better now and that I really need to ride Voyage on the one night out of the entire year that it runs the way that you think it should be running when I ride it: ... no, I don’t care. I’m not driving 137 hours to the middle of nowhere to go to that place ever again. Also, if I’m in the area and finally get back to Kentucky Kingdom I’m still not going. I’ll stay at Kentucky Kingdom because I like that park or go to Kings Island or go cow tipping or whatever the hell they do near Holiday World that’s not Holiday World. Aside from that’s, let’s talk about the big one... La Ronde. Yes, La Ronde is the worst park I’ve ever been to but if they built basically anything noteworthy I’d probably go for two reasons: 1) It’s in Montreal. I love Montreal. La Ronde got us to Montreal but we’ve since been back many times. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve driven straight over the Jacques Cartier Bridge literally within 100 feet of that dump and not gone but gone into the city for awesome food, drinks, sightseeing and whatever else. What a great place. I’ll take any excuse to go there. It’s also a lot closer than Holiday World. 2) It’s Six Flags and I get 4 line skips. I’m sure the process of picking them up will be maddening and overly complicated because it’s La Ronde but realistically I should be able to get in and out of that place in like 2 hours, ride the hypothetical new ride that’s going to get me there, ride the only other good coaster and then probably ride that Dragon thing like twice with my other line skips because it’s actually so stupid it’s fun. Then I could get the hell out of there. I hate that place but I pass it enough that I mean... whatever, fine. PS: Viper is not going to be that hypothetical ride. It’s the worst ride in the world so that ride and that park deserve eachother. Honorary mentions: Conneaut Lake but that won’t be a problem for long. I won’t quite say Lake Compounce because they’re only an hour from the house but if it’s even possible to put a park one hour from the house on this list, they’re trying.

Let’s have some fun and see how much it costs to buy a day ticket and a skip the line pass at a variety of parks on a random day. Let’s say... tomorrow. Of course, Disney isn’t offering this tomorrow so we’ll just tack $15 onto whatever the price is. Also, we’ll go with the lowest level of skip-the-line pass at every other park since Disney’s pass doesn’t include every ride, sort of like regular Cedar Fair Fastlane. Also, we’re assuming a one day one park ticket at all parks. Sound fair? Alright, let’s go... Disney (after taxes and fees) and plus the $15 is $155.58. Compared to: Millennium Force, Steel Vengeance and Maverick not included. Dragster wouldn’t be included if it was open. It’s an upcharge too. This skip-the-line pass also isn’t good. You’ll probably wait 45 minutes with Fastlane for Millennium Force. Orion, Flight of Fear, Beast and Antique Autos not included. Busch Williamsburg, and this is just the one time per ride Quick Queue Universal is more than double the price. This is also just an awful ticket. It’s “unlimited express” but this is only good for admission to Islands of Adventure. Express doesn’t include Velocicoaster or Hagrid’s and you can’t ride the Hogwarts Express at all because it’s not a park hopper. If you wanted the express pass that wasn’t unlimited and still didn’t include those rides then here... this is way, way worse than what you get at Disney and it’s STILL MORE EXPENSIVE. TWICE AS EXPENSIVE. Who’s ready to get Hersheypark Happy? Keep in mind, this skip the line pass is terrible. It’s single issue per ride and it only includes the coasters, a dark ride, a flat ride and 2 water slides. You can’t mix-and-match either. You can’t go and ride Skyrush twice and use your Boomerang pass. Nope. Enjoy your Boomerang. ... are we done here? They’re within $20 of basically every park, even crap like Valleyfair, Dorney and the American Dream Mall.

I'm going to assume that this is a mistake. Right? Right?

If it's my home park, no unless friends are visiting from out of town and they have it. If I'm visiting a park I rarely get to, yes (unless it's a Six Flags park that's not super crowded since I get 4 free line skips anyway).

I think it's entirely likely that Disney will end up offering some type of additional perk to resort guests. They haven't even launched this yet and even if it launches without that it might get added in later.

It's not a net positive over the old system. I think it's a net positive over having no Fastpass at all. Plus, price increases are inevitable at Disney.

Correction... Busch (Or at least SeaWorld) actually does offer $11 skip-the-line passes. They just don't tell you that or advertise it at all. If you buy an unnecessary locker at one of the coasters (you have to buy it even if you don't want it) it prompts you to buy $10 single use line skips and asks you how much. It's the dumbest system for anything that I've ever seen in a theme park. This doesn't change your point, I just wanted an excuse to broadcast this asinine thing to the world.

This is for one peak-season day for a family of four at Universal. One day... Disney is charging $15 "BUT IT DOESN'T INCLUDE THE MOST POPULAR RIDES!!!!" ...oh, how terrible

I hate this park. The dark ride is cool. Sidewinder is fun when it opens. They also like to open it late every day (like... scheduled) and then not announce it. They need to hurry up and close.

Lol Nevermind. I guess it’s just Intamin things

Per Queue Times, Xcelerator has been closed all day. I’d imagine that’s not a coincidence.

Absolutely. I thought it was just me.

This looks great! Also, I haven’t been in a few years so I’m not sure if this is new for this year or not but it’s great to see Scorpion running for the event.

Imagine being there for 7 hours with a skip the line pass. How would you fill 7 hours? You would have to ride Mako like 25 times.

I'll still go, but my hype-level for this did drop quite a but just now. I'm shocked they're not running all of their coasters since they only have three and Busch Tampa is running eight this year. With 4 houses and 2 rides (and only one that anyone really wants to ride at 1:00 in the morning) what exactly are you supposed to do for 7 hours?

SeaWorld and Six Flags are also making money because they decided to actually open their parks this year while Cedar Fair is not. For comparison- Q2 income: SeaWorld: +$82 million dollars Six Flags: +$70 million dollars Cedar Fair ... a $59 million dollar loss Some things are not their fault. The membership program is just inherently more pandemic-proof than the Season Pass model but nobody could have really predicted this. Also, Canada's Wonderland's inability to open wasn't their fault. That said, those two companies are in much different positions than Cedar Fair.