AmyUD06

2nd. Vortex all the way.

Hm, is that the origin of the "Anticipation Turn" element LOL?

Thanks everyone for the tips! My time off from work was approved, so the trip is booked! I was able to get a hotel cheap enough right in Santa Monica, a block off and a half the beach, so yeah totally excited. Final Itinerary: -Arrive at Burbank Airport on Wednesday, 12/8 at 12:45 -Check in to hotel, then check out the "Boardwalk," Pier and 3rd Street Promenade. -Back to the hotel to get changed into proper nightlife close, check out bars. -Thursday, 12/9, full day at Knotts Berry Farm (Fast Lane included on my Platinum Pass) -Friday, 12/10, full day at SFMM (Platinum Flash Pass purchased) -Fly out at 9:00 AM on Saturday, 12/9. One new question: Any idea how many of the kiddie coaster credits I can get at these parks, or do they all require a child? Yeah, I've heard about the traffic issue. At least there's no non-EZ-Pass tolls like down in Florida. I do love me a good beach, and will bring my beach gear, but it's only supposed to hit 60 degrees on the days I'll be there so I'm not entirely sure if that's beach weather haha. Thanks a lot of the bar recommendations! I've really only got one "night out" but I'll try to hit as a many as I can. I'll definitely check out the 3rd Street Promenade too. Thanks, I'll definitely plan ahead. I'm used to getting to parks super-early anyway haha. Normally I'm not a big chicken person, but with all of you recomending it how can I pass it up? Thanks again, everyone!

EDIT: Trip reports are done! 1. Flight out, Santa Monica Beach and Exploration. 2. Knott's Berry Farm 3. Six Flags Magic Mountain, Flight Home ***** Original Post: So, now that I'm all COVax'd up, I may have an opportunity to get the most out of my CF Platinum Pass with all-park Fast Lane and my SF Season Pass with a trip out to the LA area, December 8-11. My itinerary would be as follows: Wednesday, 12/8: Fly in to Burbank airport, hit the Santa Monica Pier before checking in to my hotel near Knotts, and then check out the bar scene at night. Thursday, 12/9: Full day at Knott's Berry Farm Friday, 12/10: Full day at SF Magic Mountain Saturday, 12/11: Fly back home. I cannot vary the start and end dates at all, and given the park hours for this week this seems to be the best way to try to tackle all three. And though I may be able to do the trip around New Years, I figure this is the better time to go for crowds. Of course, I have a few questions: 1. I'm correct in my belief that flying in and out of Burbank would be much less of a headache than going through LAX, right? It doesn't hurt that flights are substantially cheaper. 2. The hours for Knott's on Thursday are 10:00 AM - 8:00 PM. I presume this is enough time to hit all of the coasters, dark rides, and the flume with a Fast Lane? I know I'll likely be missing out on Xcelerator. Any general tips on ride order or cool things not to miss? 3. The hours for SFMM on Friday are 10:30 AM - 8:00 PM. Will this be enough time to hit all of the coasters (and flume if its open) with a Platinum Flash Pass? Or would Gold be enough (Platinum is only $40 more)? Any general tips on ride order or cool things not to miss? 4. Any suggestion on cool/unique bars to check out in the area, particularly of the LGBT-focused variety? I'm not much of a foodie so I don't really care about that, but always appreciate a well done bar. 5. Any other general tips for surviving a few days in LA for an East-Coast-er who is generally predisposed to not like anything about California? Thanks in advance!

On another topic, I may have the opportunity to visit this park December 10th/11th. Is it safe to assume that, as a year-round-park, everything runs during Knott's Merry Farm (except of course whatever rides are closed for refurbishment)? I know I'll miss out on Xcelerator, but this is the only time I could make it work and I just have this feeling that Montezooma doesn't have long to live and want to get on the only Scwarzkopf shuttle loop left in the US.

True, but it wasn't always there....it used to be on the other side of the peninsula where Millennium's queue line is now. On that side all you had was views of the Marina and Famous Dave's....maybe the move was a downgrade haha. EDIT: Nevermind, it wasn't Famous Dave's back then.

They have them at Dave & Busters in NJ and Philly, and probably a bunch of others. It's not that traumatizing in person haha.

That's one way to run a Paratrooper....LOL. I'm curious how they operate/load it. Is it... "Okay, we'll load/unload one car, then move it a tiny bit, load another, repeat until full, then run it up to speed, then reverse the process," resulting in a whole lot of boredom, or... "Let's load/unload one car, give it a few good spins, then load another one," resulting in a super-long ride time.

As much as I rag on Parques Reunidos, I agree they're better than Six Flags. I can only imagine the fate of their three woodies (You get a seatbelt, and you get a seatbelt, and you get a seat belt!) and Noah's Ark.

I'd argue that they did quite well, both from an enthusiast and GP standpoint. They added lots of themed (sure, not Disney level) attractions in the Days of Thunder rides, Italian Jobs, Flight of Fears (Flights of Fear?), and the Tomb Raider rides (especially the one at Kings Island). They also proved to be innovators in the industry with Volcano, Stealth, Son of Beast, and Hypersonic XLC (even if the latter two didn't work out that well). I mean, I love what CF has done with the parks in terms of major coaster expansion, but there's nothing to say Paramount wouldn't have done the same had they stayed in the game. Having been in my mid-teens to early 20s during the Paramount Era at Kings Island and Kings Dominion, I do look back on it fondly.

Mind forwarding the link in that e-mail to me in a PM?

Not sure how much better of a price than a $70 Basic Season Pass/$80 Gold Plus Season Pass (if you need all parks) you think you're going to get, but I think I bought mine last year for $60 in mid-December. I can't remember if that sale started on Black Friday or not.

Are you trying to say that Spanos' reign saw improvements to customer satisfaction and the guest experience? Could have fooled me...Six Flags in the past few years has been Six Flags as always from the trips I had to their parks.

Same thing across all CF parks, I think. Kings Dominion's Mac Bowl was charging $15 for one scoop of mac & cheese this year when in 2019 it was $12 for two (if not three) scoops.

Juneteenth should not noticeably increase crowds.

Would something like Maverick be out of the question, with a launch-lift and a straight-launch? I'm just looking at those two straight sections in the middle and that's what comes to mind.

Remember that CP still has the vastly superior Cadillac Cars drive-em attraction at the front of the park as well.

In a move that probably surprises no one.... https://fox8.com/news/cedar-point-changes-skyfox-captures-something-missing-from-the-park/ Click the link for flyover video and a still capture. 500 foot coaster that spans the entire park, from the old Wicked Twister spot to Frontier town, all but confirmed.

Knoebel's has neither air gates nor seatbelts on like 99% of their rides. Just sayin'.

*shrug* It made more sense than a comic book character in the Old West section. From the original press release announcing the ride:

Yet another "Riddler Revenge" without the necessary possessive inbound. The re-theme into Bizzaro made no sense either. Man do I miss the days when Six Flags didn't try to be "DC Comics the Amusement Park."

Photo TR: The End of Haunt 2021 After working one of my University's football games, I made the 4 hour drive down to Doswell for my last Halloweeny amusment park trip of the year. But first, a note about my hotel: With the on-property Travelodge being closed for the year, and a disappointing stay at the Days Inn across VA-30 at the beginning of the month, I decided to stay a little farther away this time, and chose the Best Western Plus Thornburg in Woodland, VA. A quick 20-minute drive down I-95 from the park, this hotel was worlds above any of the places right near Kings Dominion. Quality rooms, breakfast buffet (that was actually operating, not "closed due to COVID" still like many other hotels), and there's actually more than a Burger King and 7-11 right near by. Highly recommended. Anyway, I got to the park on Saturday around 8:30, and found the lot more full than I've seen in a long time. Making my way into the park, I found this line for Intimidator 305: Yikes. I'd never seen the line for this ride that far back, even during opening year. Even the Fast Lane line was nuts: It proved to be a 23 minute (wait-and-ride) for a back row experience. Still awesome. I did a lap of the park, coming back to Blue Ridge Tollway for a 3-cycle wait. Unfortunately, not a Haunt this year, but still a bit eerie in the dark woods. I love how this one weaves through the forest, unlike the drive-'em cars at some parks (*coughKingsIslandcough*). I was quite hungry, so I decided to stop in Mac Bowl for some delicious custom mac & cheese (got with shredded cheddar and bread crumbs). Though tasty, this is probably my biggest disappointment about Kings Dominion: in years past, $12 would get you two scoops of mac, three if you weren't getting a protein. Now, $15 gets you one scoop of mac, regardless as to if you're getting protein or not. I get it, budget crunch blah blah blah, but seriously? Next up I decided to take in the Ruckus show, which I had skipped on my last visit due to not recognizing any of the musical acts listed in the show description. Which was probably the right move, as I in fact did not recognize any of the songs in the 3-song, 7-minute long set. Definitely not my preferred genre of music. That said, the dancing was on point, so it was decently entertaining. Here's some photos and videos of the show: VID_20211030_215845820.mp4 VID_20211030_220609374.mp4 Continuing around the park, I decided to hop on Drop Tower (one-cycle wait). It had been a while since I went on this parks drop tower, and it was a lot more intense than I remembered. I then made my way back up to the front of the park, and got a ride on Dominator (20 minutes wait-and-ride for row 2, left edge). Always a solid ride, and probably my favorite floorless that I've been on. This was the standby queue: I also noted that the park was playing a song that sounded a whole lot like the Mystic Timbers queue music in the Dominator area; I'm not 100% sure it was the same song but if it was, nice touch. At this point, it was 11:00, and having been up since around 4:30 AM, I decided it was time to beat the traffic out of the park and make my way back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. The next day, I got to the park at 12:45 (for a 2:00 opening) to be greeted with this sight: Hooray for another busy day. After parking (I was the first car in the season pass lot, at least), I made my way to the designated smoking zone and kill some time (and some more lung cells) and snapped this awesome picture of Dominator testing: Once inside, I noticed the preparations for Winterfest have begun. Planet Snoopy and Candy Apple Grove had many of their lights strung up, and the conversion of the fountain into the ice skating rink has begun: One of my goals for today was to hit all of the adult flat rides. First up on that agenda was Berserker, a walk-on for row 7. Decent cycle with two complete rotations. Next up was another ride on Dominator, a half-train wait for the back row, left edge. Amusingly, this ride was triple-stacking the entire early afternoon. It was clearly the end of the season and employee enthusiasm has dropped off from earlier in the year. Though, I did get to snap a pic of the Tiki Twirl supports and some track in the parking lot: Now that the rest of the park was open, next up was a ride on Woodstock Express, a one-train wait for back row. Chatted with another enthusiast with a Kings Island shirt on, whose first visit to Kings Dominion was today, and then made my way back to Intimidator 305, for a 20 minute wait-and-ride for front row. This is definitively the place to ride this coaster. Made my way down the back half of the park, grabbing an Auntie Anne's pretzel, and then hit Rebel Yell (right side) for a two-train wait for the front row. Next up was Twisted Timbers, with a one-train wait for the back row. I then decided to try Delirium for the first time on my life. I had a bad (read: sickening) experience on a ride that spun me sideways in the past, and have generally avoided anything that does since, but since trying out some spinning coasters earlier in the year, I figured I'd give this a shot. Had a one-cycle wait, and wow this was a lot of fun. The spinning is so slow that I didn't really notice it. I really need to try some of the bigger versions of this style of ride now. Hopped on Bad Apple, their Troika, for a walk-on ride. These are always so much fun. Twisted Timbers was next, a 25 minute entry-of-line-to-retrieval-of-phone-from-the-locker for front row. I really can't decide if front or back is better here, both present such intense rides but in different ways. Then I got on Wave Swinger for a half-cycle wait, and then made my way to Grizzly for the busiest I've ever seen this station in years: This provided a 19 minute wait-and-ride time for the front row. Still not as bad as it used to be in years past. Next up I decided to take in the Blood Reign Haunt opener and the Heads Will Roll Show, honestly my biggest drive for coming back to the park again. This show is just so incredible. I'll spare you more pics and videos of it, since I captured it pretty well in my report from October 3rd, but yeah did not disappoint. Okay I lied, here's a quick clip of their rendition of Roar by R.O.A.R., showing off the female lead's stellar pipes: PA310005.MP4 Now that it was dark and Haunt was in full swing, I took a stroll through the Safari Village scare zone, uprising, and then a quick ride on the Scambler (walk-on) with it's way-out-of-date lighting package. I then took in the 8:30 performance of Heads Will Roll, capturing the entire show on video utilizing an actual camera and mini-tripod clamped to one of the stanchions holding the velvet rope. The video came out incredible, even if the audio wasn't as good as recording on my phone (WTF?). It's a little big to upload here, but if anyone is interested in seeing it, PM me and I'll try to find a way to get it to you. After that, the park was nearing it's 10:00 PM closing, so I decided to try to grab another walk through of the Grim Woods maze, and did so as a walk-on. That said, they weren't really holding people or grouping them, so it ended up being one big conga line through it. Still, lots of actors, and I was pleasantly surprised to see them actually using the oven prop at the end of the Hansel & Gretel section as a hideout for an actor. And that was about it for my trip. I left after that, deciding to head back to my hotel since I needed to be on the road early. Thanks again, Kings Dominion, for the best Halloweeny park experience of the year. Bring back the Skeleton Key rooms, and it'd be a solid 10 out of 10. See you in a few weeks, KD, for Winterfest!

Glad they saw the error of their ways. Now they just need to offer an all-season, all-park Flash Pass.

It's Darien Lake man. Opposite world.

Thanks! Luckily tomorrow is my full day at the park, tonight was just a little bonus after checking in to my hotel. I don't think I've ever seen I305s line that long, even opening year. In the two and a half hours I was there, I managed to get on: -Intimidator 305 (23 minutes including ride time for back row) -Blue Ridge Toll Way (3 cycle wait) -Drop Tower (1 cycle wait) -Dominator (20 minutes for row 2 left wing) I also got a bowl of Mac & Cheese from Mac Bowl, and took in the Ruckus show after skipping it on my last trip here. Not bad, if you think about it. It was busy, but not to the point where you were always shoulder-to-shoulder with people on the midways. Hell, they didn't hit capacity tonight (unlike last Saturday). I took off around 11:00 to beat the crowds out of the park (I've been up since 5 AM and really didn't feel like sitting in an hour of traffic to get out of the park haha).