King of Ka

Titan Track on Boulder Dash seems like awesome news. Even if right now it's only the first drop, it shows that Palace is willing to put money into maintaining and improving BD.

Confirmed?

Hi all, I'm looking to plan a trip to hit up Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Kings Dominion, and Carowinds. Right now I'm planning it as a solo trip and aiming to keep it to about 4-5 days total. Based on the parks' calendars, I'm currently looking at mid-April as an option. My focus will definitely be on riding the parks' coasters and any can't-miss flats, but ideally I'd like to have time for more than a full-on credit run. I'm hoping those of you familiar with the parks can help with some info. I know that KD and CW just switched to year-round ops and obviously crowds have been hard to predict for the past few years, but: Would a single full day (8 hours minimum) at each of these parks be sufficient? Should I plan on buying Fast Lane/Quick Queue for any of them? Is there any downside to waiting until the day of to make that decision? How would the above vary based on a weekday vs weekend visit for each park? If I had to pick one park to do an extra half-day at, which should it be? Any thoughts on those, or any other ideas/opinions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

^ Agreed. And even if we are treating "the park" and "the operators" as separate entities, having read the report I'd diagree that "nearly all" the fault lies with the operators. Of the five causes listed in the report, in my opinion insufficient training/operating procedures significantly contributed to at least three of them. The lack of training/procedures for clearing the ride between cycles, and on the different error codes and how to handle them were both major contributing factors. I get it -- at the end of the day the computer told the operators to look at one specific seatbelt and they still managed to miss the fact that the belt wasn't actually on a person -- but the fact that they didn't understand what the error meant and that their solution was to restart the system and immediately cycle the ride with passengers says quite a lot to me about the training standards and safety culture at the park. The most fascinating detail of the report to me was that an almost identical incident nearly happened two years ago and was reported to the park, but the email didn't get through because of an error in how the park's ecommerce services were set up. No way to know if that email would have mattered if it had gotten through, but it's chilling to think about the butterfly effect of that error.

Anybody heard any updates on Toro? Was planning on getting back to the park for the first time in 5+ years this summer, definitely hoping there's some good news but sort of expecting it'll be down for the rest of the year.

Hi everybody! My wife and I are planning on visiting Kennywood for the first time this Saturday. We'll be landing in Pittsburgh at 11 and then taking a rental car right from there to the park, so we'd probably be getting to the park right around 1. I had looked into the Coaster Tour a few weeks ago when they weren't being sold on the website. I just checked again today and now both the coaster tour and ultimate VIP tour packages are being sold, but are unavailable for this Saturday. Does anybody know: 1. Does being unavailable mean they're sold out, or is there just a minimum number of days in advance you need to purchase? Should I expect that they'll be sold at the park? 2. If they are available at the park, what are the chances that any would still be available by 1? 3. If I'm unable to get either, is it still worth going to the park? I don't mind waiting in lines, but if everything is going to be 2+ hours I might rather spend the day sightseeing in Pittsburgh. If anybody has a good rule of thumb in terms of "If the parking lot is X full, the park is slammed" that might also come in handy. Any other tips or tricks for the park are also greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Always love the list, it's fascinating to see how the rides I remember as being the "elite" rides from a decade+ ago when I got into coasters move around, with some holding on to top spots and others kind of falling off the radar. As a heads up, I'm getting a 404 error when trying to see my rankings via my profile page. Let me know if the issue is on my end.

I admit that I definitely care more about rankings/stats than the average enthusiast (and more than I should), but not including any SLCs or Boomerangs feels like an oversight to me. I think "Fav SLC" is a good option for enthusiasts with high ride numbers, but I agree with AJ that it isn't super friendly to casual enthusiasts. With that said, even I can't imagine caring about the ratings of specific Pinfaris or other small random rides. Not grouping rides and filtering out anything too small/insignificant, which I think is how the list is currently set up, avoids catering to the extreme completists while also not eliminating significant rides for being unpopular.

Any Compounce locals have opinions on crowd size for a Friday vs a Saturday? Debating which day makes more sense for an after-5 entry, especially now that BD is permanently one-train. Also has anybody used the after-5 discount this year? They never advertise it on their site but I assume they still do it?

Free soda makes me like a park a hundred times more. Partly because it's awesome to be able to grab a soda or a water whenever, but even more so because it's just so much the opposite of the Six Flags "These are the smallest cups we could buy" free water policy. It's nice to be able to enjoy a park without feeling like you're constantly being taken advantage of.

Ok so just based on the info at hand and ignoring the possibility that you want to do stuff outside the amusement parks which affects your timing, here's my reaction to that itinerary: 1. If you're looking to not be rushed and want to go to Hurricane Harbor, do the safari, and see lots of shows, you probably are good budgeting that amount of time for SFGAdv. If you're going to be mostly focused on rides though, I think two half days and one full day might be a little excessive. Depending on when you leave Maryland and when you want to leave for Connecticut you can really get most of a full day at the park either of those two days, so having both of them plus a full dedicated day is probably overkill. 2. I really recommend you try to slip in a quick visit to Quassy on your way to LC. If you do it as a credit run for Wooden Warrior (an extremely fun little coaster) you can easily swing the whole stop in under an hour and for less than $10. 3. I also recommend trying to be at LC on a Friday or Saturday night. Boulder Dash is a good ride during the day but a world class ride at night, so anything you can do to maximize your BD night riding time is a plus. Also, those nights are more likely to see Boulder Dash running two trains, which usually makes up for the additional crowds. 4. With those three things in mind, I would look into the possibility of cutting that third day at Great Adventure and instead using that day to drive up to Lake Compounce with a stop at Quassy on the way. If you're able to leave Jackson by 9 (or even get started the night before) you should have enough time for a visit to Compounce. It's a little bit of a risk that you run out of time there, but I think in most cases doing it that way would give you sufficient Compounce time while letting you cut out a night at a hotel and get a ride or two on Wooden Warrior. 5. I would think about cutting Great Escape entirely. Obviously it's tempting with a SF pass and being closer to it than you usually are, but ultimately I don't know that there's anything there which is worth the extra 2.5 hours driving. IMO the extra time at Knoebels or a stop at a different park (Dorney, Morey's, Rye Playland, Coney Island) is probably going to be better value for your time and money than GE.

I lost a phone on Skyrush and Hershey mailed it to me two days later, not a scratch on the thing and still 15% battery when it got to me. I'm not certain where on the ride I actually lost it so it was probably just at the bottom of the lift hill, but that kind of ruins the magic of the whole thing so I pretend otherwise to myself

^ I've been following it closely, here's what's been reported either by the park or in the news stories I've found: • The ride (or possibly a different part of the park's electrical system) was struck by lightning, which caused an electrical issue on the ride • On Saturday the park said they were waiting on parts, which apparently arrived on Tuesday • In the most recent article I've seen, a park spokeswoman was quoted "In order to repair Boulder Dash, we're in the testing phase, they're doing a lot of testing, trouble shooting, just to get to the bottom of what the problem is and we're anticipating that the ride can be re-opened in the very near future" Doesn't sound especially good right now, I'm sure they have the whole maintenance crew working overtime trying to get it back up though.

^ Awesome thanks for the help!

Oof that's rough... how much of a wait should I expect for a Friday night with one train?

Also missed out on BD today... thinking of going on Friday the 14th, assuming BD is back up will it most likely be running two trains or only one? I know the park can be stingy with that second train so if it's just going to be the one I'd probably postpone my trip until Saturday.

Yeah personally I've never gotten the wristband when I went to Knoebels and I don't think I've ever spent enough in tickets to justify it. If I remember correctly, you can swing by a Weis market in the region surrounding the park and get $20 books for $16, which means that for the $46 rides+coasters wristband to be a good deal you would need to spend like $57 of face-value tickets in a day -- unless you want to marathon the coasters, I don't think you'll hit that ceiling. Also I think $30 in tickets a piece is the way to go, you can always buy more and save any extras you're left with, they'll still be good when you fall in love with Knoebels and decide to come back next year ! Have fun!

Quite a bit of driving on this trip! Here are some some quick thoughts. When to visit SFGAdv, Knoebels, or Hershey, assuming you're visiting in the middle of the summer SFGAdv: Budget for a Flash Pass, visit on a weekday, and see if you'll need the FP OR visit on a weekend and almost definitely buy a FP Hershey: Visit on a weekday, consider doing the preview the night before, especially if you're unable to do your main visit on a weekday Knoebels: Visit pretty much whenever. The park will be crowded on weekends but in my experience if you give yourself a full day at the park you should manage fine. Knoebels vs Hershey We've had this discussion other places, but here's what it comes down to for me: if you're focused solely on coasters, go to Hershey. IMO it has probably the most all-around fun coaster collection in the northeast, although if you're not into Skyrush you might feel it lacks an "elite" coaster. If you want to have a really fun day at an amusement park, go to Knoebels. It's a totally unique park with a world-class woodie, a solid second tier of coasters, and one of the best and most interesting collections of flats in the US. Particularly on a trip filled with big chain parks, I think Knoebels would be a breath of fresh air and most likely a more enjoyable day than Hershey. Honestly both are top-notch parks. Other thoughts So, knowing nothing about where you have or haven't been yet, what else you're doing on this trip, or how you approach large-scale coaster trips like this, I'm going to say that I think this trip is slightly off balance. It seems to me like you're doing a lot of long drives and skipping a lot of worthwhile parks along your route. Just looking at what you were planning on doing so far, it seems like without adding more than 2 hours of driving you could visit Holiday World, Kentucky Kingdom, Waldameer, whatever of the PA parks you end up skipping, Dorney Park, Six Flags America, Busch Gardens, Kings Dominion, and a few others slightly further away. I think if I were planning a trip like this I would consider cutting out SFGAdv and Knoebels / Hershey, and saving those for a dedicated Northeast trip involving PA, NJ, NY, New England, and maybe Virginia to go on some time in the future. The northeastern US is a very park-rich part of the country so it feels to me like you're doing a lot of driving there to barely scratch its surface. I think if you focus this trip into more of a midwest/south trip you'd end up being able to hit more parks more efficiently, and then come back and really get what the northeast has to offer in full!

A good number of the bigger coasters don't allow seat choice (WC, Goliath, B:TDK), but on the big one that does, Bizarro, I really highly recommend you spend the extra 20 minutes and try the front at least once. My last time at the park I got one ride third from the back, one ride third from the front, and one in the very front. The back ride was great, and the third row ride was meh, but the front row ride was AMAZING! Being in the front just showcases the power of the ride so much better than any other row, that one ride instantly went into my memory as one of my best all-time roller coaster rides.

Breaking off from the new coaster talk briefly, has anybody else ridden Boulder Dash this season? Is it really as bad as CPmillenia94 was saying? I rode in early August last year and while the ride was a bit rough I didn't find it painful or even uncomfortable really. I'm bringing some friends to LC in a few weeks and I'm really hoping that the ride hasn't taken that big a step back!

Before I recommend any others: The Flop House If you like comedy podcasts and haven't listened to it, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's by far the most consistently entertaining show I've listened to, and I'm on my third or fourth play-through of the entire series. Other things I consistently listen to, in rough order of preference: Hockey Marek vs. Wyshynski Comedy Mike and Tom Eat Snacks If I Were You Comedy Bang Bang Car Talk I could honestly go on forever breaking down my opinions of podcasts, but those are what I'm listening to at the moment.

I'm not sure if you're still looking for advice on which parks to visit, but looking at the route you have planned out I'll say that unless you're specifically trying to keep costs down by sticking only to Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks, you're passing up a few very good parks along the way. The big ones that jump out to me are the aforementioned Hersheypark and Knoebels, Lake Compounce, Quassy, Darien Lake, Waldameer, Kennywood, and Six Flags America (I might be missing some). Personally, I think if I were doing this trip I would plan on cutting out SFNE and Great Escape and instead do something along the lines of: 1 Dorney 2 Hershey 3 Knoebels 4 CP 5 KI 6 KD 7 BG 8 SFGAdv With the option to add Waldameer, Kennywood, and/or SFA without going far off route, or to do SFNE, Compounce, and Quassy as a separate "leg" at the start of the trip. In regards to your other questions, I think you might need to get a little further in the planning stages before people can really chime in with useful specific information -- you're covering a pretty significant swath of the country, it's hard to know where to start. Good luck!

If you're able to leave somewhat early I really don't think you'll have an issue. You might miss out on some of the food and some time to explore, but in my experience to hit the rides you're most interested in (including a few Phoenix rerides) should only take three hours or so, unless the park is swamped or Flying Turns has a huge line. If you leave CP by 9 or 10 I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Every time somebody asks this question I get to hear about at least three new foods at Knoebels I haven't tried, it's amazing how many there are! For snacks I'll also thumbs up the Travelin' Taco, and suggest the fried cheese on a stick (I got mine at Totem Treats near the amphitheater).

I will definitely be trying one of these next time I do the Philly-Boston drive! Googling around the main place I'm seeing is Ted's, is this where you went Larry?