PKI Jizzman

Here is my list. I think next year I need to do a complete overhaul of how I have things ranked, I just see them as tiers outside of Maverick and Velocicoaster. I've been on so many this is so tough to decide but it's a good problem haha. https://coasterpoll.com/u/zach-boothe5a58d32c77fae/rankings?shared Velocicoaster #1 Maverick #2 Outlaw Run, Millennium, Fury, Eejanaika, DoDoDonpa, Skyrush, Hakugei, Steel Vengeance, Time Traveler round out my favorites.

They result in more ride time so I'm all for the back and forth. The miscalculation is the stupid comfort collars.

VelociCoaster re-invented the top hat IMO.. that looked like just a standard element with a 'meh' on paper 150ft height, and yet it ended up being one of the best drops in the world with that sharp steep drop launching you to the moon. Same with that roll over the water - it looked awesome but the experience in person was just so unexpected. I cannot wait to try out Pantheon!

I went to KC a week after my Carowinds trip, it's not fair to compare hahaha. Man those burnt ends at Scott's Kitchen and Catering at Hangar 29 were so gooddddd. Mac's is amazing, their onion rings were so good and they give you some little marble sized hush puppies. I'll let someone else chime in regarding downtown, I haven't explored downtown. If you're ever going through Spartanburg, SC on the way to Charlotte check out https://www.mycarolinabbq.com/ We stopped in the area on the 2018 TPR trip and I had just enough time to walk there. They had cheerwine BBQ sauce, authentic Carolina mustard sauce, and the pulled pork was to die for.

Stellar photos, love all the different angles. I was so wow'd by it in person, I forgot to take photos of most of the ride

Suffolk Punch was delicious for food and beer, but it's in a very bizarre and grimy area of Charlotte that I hadn't seen before. We were harassed by undesirables at stoplights multiple times on the way out of SP on the way to the airport, so your experience may vary. I love love love the local bbq chain Mac's Speed Shop about 10 minutes away from the park - so friendly every visit, an awesome happy hour, tons of local craft beer, and great bbq!

What a nice present to welcome me to Orlando, SWO Sorry for the hold up, everyone It will be a nice addition to the park and bring some action to that arctic area and overall each coaster will look nice with the new paint. Ice Breaker's layout has me curious, it reminds me of Prowler and Mystic Timbers with the punchy out and back.

I think it's more about how the helix was deigned and the support structure's ability to flex differently for different weighted trains, and they didn't have the technology back then when it was originally built. Remember this ride was designed in house by hand.

Glad he loved it! It's so difficult to compare a RMC to Velocicoaster, but let's just hope the TPR poll certifies Velo as #1 overall ;D

Gravity Group has the Beast project. The drop is going to be a bit steeper and the new pre cut track will be used. All around good news! "The world’s longest wooden roller coaster, The Beast at Kings Island, is receiving 2,000 feet of track refurbishment this winter. The Gravity Group, which installed 600 feet of its new engineered precut track on the park’s Racer roller coaster last winter, is breathing new life into the ride’s first drop and through the first tunnel and turn towards the second drop and 540-degree helix tunnel, while Kings Island’s carpenters are retracking approximately 1,090 feet of track in other sections along the 7,359-foot long course. The first drop will see a change from 45 degrees to 53 degrees. This change isn’t being made to add more speed or thrill element to The Beast, but to come in lower in the tunnel to provide the proper parabolic arcs due to reprofiling of the track in that area of the ride. This change, along with The Gravity Group’s vertical track design, will deliver a buttery-smooth transition through the tunnel and onto the second drop. The Beast helix crossover will see a redesign and installation of new bents. With the redesign, the forces through the structure will be more evenly distributed to the foundation, the rigidity of each bent more consistent and therefore resulting in a smoother ride experience. The original design of The Beast had the upper and lower track in the helix on top of each other. In order to simplify the geometry of the crossover, the lower bents will be upper bents until the tunnel." https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2021/december/beast-of-a-project-this-winter-at-kings-island?fbclid=IwAR05SXIvqUyhFqpVCAx_sg_E1we7_g5PoOMpd7e6TdY2aZ6x72XHPx2kcqI

Wonderful report! That looks like a dream vacation to me!

That was my experience over 2 weekend days in June, too. It's such a bummer to have a park so beautiful and filled with elite attractions ... but also comes with the worst operations/management in the industry. Cheetah Hunt was down 75% of day 1, Montu was down 75% of day 2, Sheikra went down off and on as well. Really hoping the park rebounds in 2022 with Gwazi opening.

Hopefully relocating to Orlando Oh yeah, I need to ride Pantheon.

Hmm lots of supports... I'm excited for whatever they are adding. Honestly it's a tiny ass park with 4 amazing adult coasters in a few flat rides. It really needs more substance despite having 4 amazing unique coasters.

After riding Time Traveler and Copperhead this year, these new Mack launched coasters are really high on my list now. I've heard nothing but great things about Manta, it looks amazing!

That's what I was alluding to beyond the FITH rebuild project, I don't know much about it other than it seems to be happening. Exciting times for the future of SDC!

Anyone gone to Winterfest this year? To be honest it hasn't really crossed my mind until now, and this weekend looks raaaaiiiinnnyyyy.

Almost 90 seconds of ride time, that's awesome. The first inversion is going to be so funky, the next twisted speed hills have way more speed than I thought they would have! Usually I'm not this geeky, but how about the sound of the backwards launch! vrrttttt new Intamin fart. The #1 element I overlooked on Velocicoaster wsa the normal top hat - that drop is incredible and I can't wait to try Pantheon's. The finale looks truly wild with those quick twists, like Storm Runner 2.0. Can't wait for a return visit to BGW!

Thanks everyone! I believe it was about a 3.5 hour drive to the 'New England Cottage" I booked through my Chase travel portal. Our group consisted of 4 guys, but Branson seemed to have a lot of cabins/cottages for a good price. If you can book where we stayed - definitely do it! https://bransonsnantucket.com/ The 'cottage' turned out to be a stunning little three bedroom house in this Cape Cod themed gated community on a hill overlooking one of the huge lakes and it was only a 5 minute drive to SDC. The funny thing is that it's mainly a time share - so I guess they have some inventory that if unsold/booked goes out to travel sites. When checking in we "didn't qualify for any of the couples activities" so being a group of 4 guys allowed us to skip any upselling/boat/show tickets, haha. There were 2 awesome restaurant bar restaurants offering crazy good deals for happy hour (I think 2 beers and a quesadilla was $15) and great views of the hills and water. Saturday Night we planned on just going into the park for the atmosphere, hoping that we could get a ride or two in on Time Traveler and Outlaw Run, but that Saturday night was one of the busiest days in park history, we learned the next day. It was so crazy Saturday night that even people we had the Time Savers/Fast Pass were leaving early - and we had some gifted to us for the last 2 hours of the park opening. With 1 train ops both days and lines closing early we were just able to get 1 ride on Time Traveler and one or two on Outlaw Run before the park closed. With a 10pm closing I'd bet the ops didn't get out until after midnight and the frustration was pretty clear on the op's faces. SDC and their clocks... Outlaw Run at night simply must be experienced! Wow. Even thought it's short on length, to me it feels like a complete top tier coaster. ~ Sunday! Surely all of those good ol Branson folks will be in church leaving the park open for ERT in the morning right? Wrong! It was a solid wait to get in to park and we headed straight for cinnamon bread at opening. It's been a while since I was at SDC but I didn't know that they held church services multiple times on Sundays, so there was already a healthy crowd in the park. Cinnamon Bread took about 30-40 minutes to get, the line was just outside of the door. I already ranted about this but the new location has the workers making bread, deserts, cashiering, anddddd nowww making Starbucks drinks. It just takes forever now that the workers have the juggle a number of tasks which leaves the warm cinnamon bread getting cold while you wait to get through the line and pay. Many of the fall featured food items ended up being sold out by the time we had waited in a 15-20 minute line to get said item - you only find out at the window. All around I am not sure any of us had a meal at SDC that stood out, which was a bummer. One train ops run as fast as they could all day but it was still busy and we had pre-purchased time saver to get in as many rides as we wanted to. The lantern tour was truly a highlight, it was very informative, entertaining, fun ghost stories, it was just a long tour. I don't mind tours going over the pre set time, but the lantern tour started at 5:30, ending at 7pm with the 9pm closing. Since the tour went long, we didn't get out of the cave until after 7pm which left us in a bit of a time crunch to get dinner and night rides. It didn't help that again the lines closed so early without warning - Time Traveler closed around 8pm. But it was very obvious the staff was overworked and wanted to go home. There were a few times a certain crew lied to other guests telling them 'this is the last ride of the day' and 'maintenance will be here to put the ride to sleep by the time you're back' but the coaster ran until a few minutes before close. It was great to get back to Silver Dollar City. I know the charm seems to be a bit lacking this year and I understand long time fans are missing some of the old nostalgia that is slowly fading away. A crazy busy year combined with lack of staff that is sure to showcase a park's imperfections and I'm excited to see how they are going to refresh/rebuild some of the current attractions. It was too cold for Mystic River but wow it looked incredible. This is the original Cinnamon Bread location right? Woops, guess they moved! Ah, here you are. They're featured on the Today show now, so everyone knows about it. There's t shirts, coffee cups, all sorts of commercialized stuff to buy. Here it is, just getting cold while I wait for 3 employees to make/serve the bread, cash people out, and make Starbucks drinks. I wish they would separate those just getting bread from those getting coffee and bread. This seems like a great place to have breakfast. This whole area is simply beautiful. It's amazing how huge this attraction is. Holy shit there's actually people on it! So it was about 47* this time in the morning... but the water is 52*! Come on in yall! If you saw my Insta/or others, there's a guy who's only job is to sit at the base of the drop and tell people at water cannons how many people are on the incoming raft. You have a high likelihood of coming off this ride drenched due to splashes or most likely, full pressure water cannons haha. So so pretty day or night. Okay so yeah, definitely too cold for Mystic Rivers, so let's get to the main reason I'm here! Still flying through those barrel rolls into the brakes. There were still plenty of leaves on the trees mid October, the weather was really nice! Outlaw Run front seat just hits different! About to be chucked off a cliff into the Branson hills! Look at how open the front seat is. The views are amazing and I love how you take the inversions in the front. You've gotta come ride this beast! One train ops everywhere, only one arm working on Barn Swing..... Fire in the Hole has some fun drops but this ride is currently in 'ultra creepo' mode since many lights, sounds, and theming are not working. At times it's just....quiet. So you just hear the ride and the smell of that building.... freakYYYY! The wait time for Powder Keg was comically long. With one train, and this is the only crew that had slow ops - but the ops seemed to be pieced from other rides (different costumes). I just felt bad for the regular line - it was probably 2-3 hours. Powder Keg just didn't seem to have the punch I remembered and the rest of the layout is more of a family coaster. IF there's one SDC coaster I wouldn't mind leaving, it would be PK. You certainly are an interesting one! One of the best settings for a coaster, here we are! The park is seriously missing a lot of charm. I really really hope they bounce back in 2022. Seeing the inversions at eye level really lets you appreciate the size of the cobra roll. Awesome first drop, smooth, forceful. "Oh, I've never done American Plunge! It doesn't look too wet! And it's a walk on!" .. .. . . Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Even when splitting our 4 into 2 logs, we all goat absolutely soaked and the initial shock and cold was so intense I think my scream scared all of the bats out of Marvel Cave. That was a baddd decision! Thankfully it was approaching the warmest part of the day and my flannel held shed some water but we were all soaked. Hell no we were not about to double down on Mystic Rivers! Let's go back in time to reverse that bad idea. Looking back, I enjoyed TT better during the day - I think you feel the spinning a bit more. Flooded Mine seems to be in good shape! There's some impressive effects that surprised me! Getting close to dinner time, the Time Saver line dropped down to just a few people, so we took advantage of that with 3 quick rides before our Lantern Tour. I don't think there was a single ride where we didn't have people coming out of the Time Saver line. The entrance is really squished in next to TNT so were people just mixed up or just not paying attention? Every ride is so different - front to back, the different weighted cars, man just so much fun! Bigger in Texas? Pfffttt come to Branson! You know you're in for a good time if you're here! The lights are about to go... Out! Definitely worth the $15 for the lantern cave tour if you're brave enough for it! So much to learn about and explore. So happy everything worked out how it did to make SDC what it is today. You have the historic cave, new tech in Time Traveler, Mystic River, classics like TNT, Fire in the Hole, Wildfire. I wouldn't mind if SDC didn't put up a new attraction for another 5 years and just focused on bringing back the charm, organizing the food & bev better, and paid employees more to ensure for a better attraction experience. No one wants to be stuck listening to the clocks ticking for more than 15 minutes! Thanks for reading! -Zach

Hey TPR! As the season was winding down it was time to plan one last trip for the 2021 season. Initially the plan was to visit Kennywood, but then they decided to close Steel Curtain and half the park. Lagoon was the next choice, but flights were insane and the last of fast pass during Halloween events was a bit too risky. Then, we were reminded of SDC and Time Traveler with rave reviews coming in from Ride to Happiness! Our plan was: Fly into KC Friday, go to WOF for a first time visit during Haunt. Saturday drive to Branson for SDC at night. Sunday full day at SDC. Monday drive to KC and fly out. Oh boy some of Sean Whalen's sheep spotted in the wild! Arriving in KC, we got bbq right by the airport at Scott's Kitchen (https://www.scottskitchenandcatering.com/menus/) and the burnt ends were better than I could have ever imagined. Definitely go here if you want legit KC BBQ! The highway and roads in KC are a bit bizarre and so is the entrance to Worlds of Fun. The parking lot funnels you down into the woods to the new entrance. First impressions - this park is so pretty! Lots of Haunt decorations Let's go to the coasters! Slowly but surely checking off the B&M custom inverts. Patriot was one of four coasters I wanted to ride at WOF. I honestly haven't heard anything overly positive about Patriot, but I was pleasantly surprised! It's positioned on the side of a hill, it has some fun twisty bits and dips, and had a great flow to the layout! It's definitely not close to the top tier of inverts but it was a lot more fun than I anticipated. Already off to a good start for the evening! A nice sunset ride and by the time we were onto the next thing, it was dark. But you could still tell the park was very well taken care of. The park had a lot of fun Haunt food and drinks - and lots of local brewery tents! One of the many haunts, and just like any other park in October - it was busy. But not insane for a Friday. The park is really wooded outside of where Mamba sits. Timberwolf we get it you vape Really good looking sunset here in KC! Timberwolf wasn't bad, but we did wait for the front seat. It just didn't have much to offer and felt like a superior version of the Grizzly layout. Orion, is that you? That's as high as it goes lmao It's pitch black out here, it's time to see Jesus! Prowler starts with some wild laterals right out of the station. Come on Cedar Fair give this park some love!!! October 2021 - Prowler was funning fantastic. It's right up there with Mystic Timbers, Gold Striker, and Renegade for me! What an incredible night ride. While others wanted to get the little credits I decided to check out a nearby 'scare zone' that was obviously the dino alive path by boomerang. There was a TON of love given to this Pumpkin - blair witch themed walk through in the woods! This was way more than a scare zone. No one seemed to notice it since it was wedged between the boomerang and other haunts Then, things got really scary! This is what I get for skipping lame credits Thankfully it decided it was more scared of me and ran the other way. Skunks are fast! Damn! Sadly at this point in the night Mamba still hadn't moved and the ride op told us it would not be running at all, it was some sort of air brake issue. The crowds really poured in so our idea of a chill Friday night didn't really pan out so we voted to return in the morning in hopes that Mamba would be working. We found 54th Street Grill which had a ton of local KC beer on tap and a happy hour that went all night. We got a TON of food for cheap! Definitely a good spot to check out even if it's a bit basic: https://www.54thstreetgrill.com/kansas-city-mo-zone-rosa.html Seeing the park in the daylight was stunning! It felt like a Busch park! Please open please open please open please open please open please open please open At this point we were starting to creep in on our SDC night time. I wasn't sure if it was laziness or cold temps but the team didn't get Mamba open until about an hour after park opening. But it was well worth it! Mamba was really great! The layout is a smaller version of Steel Dragon 2000 and both front and back seat offered surprisingly good airtime. I think Mamba was the one where Morgan really got it right because their next coasters were - Steel Eeel, Steel Dragon 2000, and then Superman Ultimate Escape. Don't sleep on Mamba! Back over for more Prowler since we're here. Even early in the morning it was hauling, and we got a ton of rides in back to back! The flume looked like a lot of fun, would love to visit this park when CF invests in a new ride! Alright time, to get on the road to SDC! So final report: Patriot 1x Timberwolf 1x Mamba 2x Prowler 6x Worlds of Fun is an easy park to access flying into the KC airport. I'd love to visit again on the way to SDC and see more of the park in the daytime, it's really pretty. There's trees everywhere, a little Moroccan village, fun topiaries, and beautiful foliage everywhere. I know the park is getting some extra touches for their anniversary season so I can't wait to see how it looks!

Damn! That's crazy! Nice find.

I'm not sure who made Grizzly at CGA, but currently Kings Island is listed as the builder.

Well we have never had those drone photos to see what's going on every off season, that account is pretty new so it's cool to see those photos. It's encouraging to say the least, but KI is constantly giving Beast attention. I'm hoping it will run as good as it can for the 50th anny.

It has certainly had its ups and downs the past few years, and I've experienced some rides as bad as when the coaster was in its worst shape with Paramount (imo) making me legit nauseous, and only backwards Batman has accomplished that in my life time. I'm confident that KI truly wants it running really well for the 50th anny season, glad they are spending $ to make it happen.

So, what prize are we going to give Velocicoaster for #1 coaster? Can't wait to see the results, I am sure Ride to Happiness and Untamed will give it some tough competition!