RAWKIN_coaster38

I don't think it's a matter of "could some close?" but more a matter of "which ones?" Major retail companies are going under because of this and parks are even more restricted than retail because of the necessity of in-person business and shorter operating schedules. I think some of the smaller, summer-only parks will close but I have no idea which ones. I could also see some of the larger chains ditching their less-profitable parks, especially parks that can't operate year-round due to winter weather. I have no idea which parks will go under and I just hope that when they do, some of the larger parks can acquire the rides rather than let them rot away somewhere. Side note: I could also see some of the larger parks running partial-operation of their rides (like they do for some of the Christmas events) to save money until attendance gets back up, or am I incorrect in assuming they could save money this way? Or if parks do wish to hire less staff, maybe they'll run some sort of rotating schedule for ride operation. I'm not sure if that would be worth it at all, since they would still have to pay to maintain all the rides.

It's definitely not AS bad as SLC's with the old restraints, in that the side-to-side headbanging is eliminated. But the trains still don't track well, so you'll still be tossed and shuffled around, and the lap restraint gets tighter and tighter throughout the course, making the brake-run quite uncomfortable. What he said. It does seem to be a matter of opinion, but I consider it as bad or worse because of the tightening restraints. Honestly, I find T3's trains worse than standard SLCs. Growing up riding Kong at SFDK, I got pretty good at bracing so that I could ride without hitting my head too badly, but I don't see any way I can ride T3 and not get hurt. Every time I've ridden T3, I've felt hurt the rest of the day.

Only one more month, we can do this.

It's been a while since I've surfed these boards, but I wonder if the park will go ahead with the project once they have a clearer picture about what their season is going to look like. SFDK has the benefit of being a year-round operated park so I wonder if we could see a non-standard ride opening (e.g. in winter or early spring) to help encourage people to start coming back to the park? Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but at this point, anything is possible. Also, if any of you are interested in the animals, Captain Lee has been posting some really neat live videos on Facebook. I've seen some with the baby lions and the other day, he shared one from Alligator Isle with them feeding the gators and a GIANT snapping turtle. I always make a point to look at the gators but I don't think I've ever seen that turtle before. It's definitely been cool seeing some of the different views of the enclosures that you don't get as a regular guest.

Yes, it's (605) 475-6968 Did you call the number?

Thank you for sharing! Love the photos, and I think this is a great idea. Count me in with the people that can't really remember the details of a trip enough for a full TR unless I post it within a week or so. Plus, most people probably don't even read them and just scroll through the photos/read captions anyway. Keep 'em coming!

I can't speak for the flyers at Dorney, but I can for sure say the HW flyers are nothing compared to the Knoebels flyers. Flyers are my favorite flat so I ride them at almost every park I go to and I have yet to ride any that get even remotely close to the awesomeness that is Knoebels flyers. That being said, I did think they were better than most I've ridden and we did get some decent snapping on them.

Assuming we're not counting plane tickets, on Cyber Monday I bought a new TV. When was the last time you felt jealous of someone?

Yes Do you still have cable service?

I didn't see any construction when I visited on December 20 but we also didn't get to go to the back of the park which is where I'm guessing it's going to be. Here are a couple pictures of the parking lot in question. It was really weird seeing the parking lot all decked out with solar panels. I think it's really neat and should be awesome to shade the cars in warmer weather, but shade wasn't necessary on the cold day we visited.

2016, my brother's wedding! When was the last time you rode a coaster?

Just catching up on this thread after being MIA for a while. I visited WinterFest four times this season and while it is a bummer that more rides aren't open, it was still a nice event. There were a lot more lights and pretty displays this year compared to last year. Still, I don't think we would have visited if we didn't have passes. I have a lot of photos I haven't shared due to laziness but maybe in this boring Ohio offseason I will catch up on posting TRs and share them. Also, this year I visited Kings Island more times than previous years with 17 total visits! It helps that I'm dating someone who visits the park allll the time. He went over 60 times this year! Here's a pic from our visit on NYE. We didn't stay until midnight mainly because the rides closed at 10, it was really cold, and we wanted to go to Fountain Square to ring in the new year. Here's our last coaster ride of 2019. Last ride of the decade for us! Cheers to even more KI trips and coaster trips in the Screamin' 20s!

Some time I'll probably do a full WInterFest trip report, but I haven't taken enough photos yet. I've gone the last two Fridays for a few hours each time and it has been COLD. After our last ride of the night on Timbers last week, I checked the temperature and it was 28* and dropping! So yeah, KI does still run Timbers below freezing, but I think it has to be above freezing at least to open it. While we have one less coaster open this year, the park looks amazing. There are more lights and decorations than previous years, and a ton of cute things to pose with. Orion is starting to look really good, but I do agree that it looks pretty darn similar to Diamondback. Still, it's cool seeing Orion and Diamondback basically sandwich the park. Here are a couple photos from last night, taken by Adam Lucas from FYE because he has an iPhone 11 and my XR is jealous of his night mode. You can see Orion peeking behind Diamondback. Vortex is still there but it won't be long before this view will change forever. The XR is jealous... The plaza looks gorgeous during WinterFest! Also, if you want to be a crazy a$$, you can join us with FYE on Friday the 13th for the Mystic Timbers "Polar Plunge." Basically strip down to warm-weather clothes and ride Timbers in the cold. You can message me if you'd like more information.

There are so many potential puns here, it isn't even funny. Well one thing's for sure: Orion looks a hell of a lot better than Firehawk ever did. And while Orion kinda matches Diamondback from a distance (at least in the video), it does not match Diamondback at all in person. Seriously, those track pieces are pretty darn massive and it was a little surreal seeing them while in line for Field of Screams.

Okay I take it back, Diamondback and Orion look the same.

Sorry for the double post. Here's a picture of the aforementioned topped-off Orion taken by Josh from FYE Coasters. Photo credit: FYE Coasters Whoever said that Orion wouldn't look too much taller than Diamondback, sorry but it looks like you're wrong. Diamondback is technically closer to the main gate (at least I think so? I'm bad at orienteering and spatial reasoning) but it doesn't tower over the skyline in this same way. It seriously looks like Orion is just a little past the entrance even though it's way further back. Super cool! I can't wait to see it in person at Winter Fest!

Well the TPR poll doesn't include defunct coasters, but if it did I honestly would rank Vortex a little higher than I did last year. News of its closing got me on it again and I got some better rides on it as a result, but it still wouldn't top my best 100 or even 150. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

This looks so cool! Is it kind of like the Free-Fly coasters in the sense that different conditions/weight distributions could affect the amount of spinning differently each ride? Or more like X2 in the sense that it flips at specific moments triggered along the track? I've always loved coasters that give one-of-a-kind experiences. Can't wait to see one of these constructed at a park!

Dollywood probably on November 16th and 17th. After that, next would be KI Winterfest.

Like DILinator said, the fog on Friday was unreal! I got three rides on Diamondback and I think those are the best rides I've ever had on it. There was just something so cool and unique about diving in and out of the fog. I'll share a couple more fog pictures. I mayyyy have taken another one that I probably shouldn't have, but it was just so cool. Diamondback was shrouded in fog, but halfway up the lift you came out of it and could see everything. The whole park had a blanket of fog around it but the surrounding areas not as much. I think the fog from the fog machines and maybe moisture around the park naturally and the weather were all perfect conditions for the fog to just stay put in the park. You could barely see anything The Eiffel Tower looked so dang cool! My last night of Haunt :'( I'll miss it, but it was a good season! Also, the Friday night Vortex ride we got was no joke the best ride I've ever had on it. I was expecting the usual headbanging but it didn't bang me at all. There was still airtime on the drop and good forces, but it didn't try to kill me. It was almost as if it's like, "Hey, wait, I'm not so bad after all!" But forreal, I guess it could be considered an ideal last ride? If I don't try to go on the last Sunday to use the FL I still haven't used and it tries to kill me then.

Bonus non-theme park report: USS Nightmare. I've never done a true non-theme park haunt (local haunt, standalone, whatever you want to call it) but I've been wanting to try one. After reading some of the horrific descriptions of some independent haunts and having a few bad experiences at theme park haunts, I was very nervous to try a standalone haunt and wanted to build up my courage over a few years of successfully going to theme park haunts before branching out. I decided this was the year and when I saw an ad for the USS Nightmare, I knew I wanted to try it. The story of the USS Nightmare is that it was a commercial dredge boat called the William S. Mitchell that operated in the 1930s on the Ohio river. The captain had his young daughter, Anna, on board with him. One day, in what is termed as the "Mitchell Massacre", the boat went out of control and hit into a bridge. When local authorities were finally able to gain control and board the vessel, they found mutilated bodies and burned clowns aboard. Many people died, but the daughter was never found. So yeah, pretty f-ing creepy if you ask me, but I loved that there was a supposed true story to feed into the haunt. I found a friend who was down to go, and we got some liquid courage downtown before going to the haunt. First of all, they were only open until 11 but said as long as you had your ticket and got in line before 11, you were good to go. We barelyyyy made it in time, but we were definitely the last ones. SPOILERS??? The experience starts out with them telling a little about the history, and then putting you in an "elevator" that thumps around for a bit. During the course of the experience, you travel between both decks and there are various parts where you can choose paths and some maze-y parts where you can get lost. I think because we were the last ones, the actors sort of ushered us through more quickly, because in some of the maze-y parts they jumped in to tell us which way to go. Of course there were creepy clowns, plenty of scary animatronics and jump scares, and some pretty cool effects including a mechanical ledge that "dropped" us a little. There were some very dark portions where you had to feel around, ducking through doorways, fog that looked like water, strobes, the whole nine yards. Some of the animatronics were a little off and triggered just after we walked past, and it seemed that there were more that didn't go at all. There was a HUGE one that we passed twice (once on the lower deck and once on the upper "drop" deck) but the second time it wasn't moving at all. I'm kinda okay with this though because animatronics scare me a lot. All in all, I thought it was a really cool experience with some cool effects and sets. However, even though I definitely got jump scared, I didn't actually find it as scary as my mind had built it up to be. My friend isn't easily scared and didn't get scared even once. The website says the experience takes 30+ minutes but it took us more like 25. I wonder if that's because we were the last ones and they wanted to get us through faster. Hopefully I'll get to visit more of the local haunts this year (and maybe even try the more extreme USS Nightmare "RIP Experience"??), but I would definitely recommend this as of now. $20 isn't too bad and even though it might not be that scary to a lot of people, it was still a lot of fun! I figured I wasn't allowed to photograph inside, so I just took photos of the outside.

Agreed! I hope it works out well for them. I would love to see them gradually expand it and add more haunts. It was! And I liked all the Mardi stuff too. Small world! Hello, delayed! Thank you for joining the madness Also, I don't know how you guys manage to drink so much at KI Haunt every year. Everything is so horribly priced, it's hard to rationalize more than two or three. But maybe because I go so often, if all my beer purchases were reserved for one night instead of spread throughout the month, I would definitely get wasted. Hopefully you can next year! There aren't too many opportunities to ride Storm Chaser at night, but it was a ton of fun!

I felt like posting in the KI thread this time, so here is a recent mini trip report from KI Haunt! Bonus photo because you all are the best!

I visited on the park on Friday and while I'm not going to do as long a TR as I usually do, here's some pictures and story. The night was reasonably in the 70s when I arrived at the park, but I had checked out the weather and the app told me it was supposed to rain and dip down into the 50s and even the 40s. I felt ridiculous arriving in a full winter coat but I've been to several rainy, cold KI Haunts before and I wasn't going to play. I'm not gonna mess with cold weather haunt The night started pretty busy with annoyingly long lines for the coasters and haunts, so I bunkered down at the show with a cocktail and food truck burrito and waited for my friend to arrive. Picture of the men, as promised I had the drink with Fireball and apple cider, and while I'm not a huge Fireball fan, I thought the combo was actually pretty good. Also, the burrito truck was on point!MMMM burrito By the time my friend arrived, the park had gotten significantly colder and wetter I was very grateful for my coat. If you've never ridden Diamondback in any amount of rain, you will easily get soaked and it will HURT if you're not prepared. Cold Anyone else experience rain Diamondback? Also cold I also convinced my friend to try Beast in the front, which was a horrible idea on that night but I was reasonably feeling the cocktail and beers I had consumed so I still enjoyed myself. Rain Beast hurts but it's the fastest I see it run Also, we had to do Vortex of course, and it was terrible. Even my friend who's a fan agreed that it was terrible. NNNYUUHHH Probably not going to miss this Earlier in the night, I had done Field of Screams and ended up in the dreaded "conga line", but as people left because of the cold, we were able to get some solo walkthroughs of the haunts with little to no lines. Because of the rain, they had diverted the scare zone actors into the mazes, so there were even more scares than usual! (Although pirates in Cavern of Terror was a little strange). Mermaids in the cavern? Seriously, if you can handle the cold and wet, rainy Haunt nights are the best! Oh, one more thing. Close to closing, we went to go ride Beast again and it was closed. We got lucky and made it to Diamondback in time, but I found it weird that Beast would close (presumably because of the rain?) but Diamondback wouldn't. I'll include a terrible picture I took of Orion from Field of Screams. I'm not the best at night photos and it was particularly dark with the rain, so you'll have to come see for yourself to get an idea of how huge these pieces look I believe this piece is the bottom of the drop?

Thats what I did I don't know. I'm just of the opinion that a ride shouldn't need any sort of "trick" to be enjoyable. I don't want to have to get on thinking.. "okay, as long as I'm riding between 6-615pm, it's August, the sun is at a 45 degree angle above the left support and I press my back into the seat while I shove my face in against the right restraint, I cross my legs and wear a mouth guard I'll have a good ride." /s We had that issue on T3 recently. When there are too many "tricks" to remember, it's easy for me to forget what they are and have a bad experience. I couldn't remember which row was supposedly better, so we rode in the front, which I think was the worst choice we could have made. However, T3 is just horrible overall so maybe it wouldn't have mattered all that much. I'm wondering if KI will immediately dismantle/destroy Vortex or leave it SBNO for a while. They wasted no time on Firehawk but they were also prepping the land for something new.