Zand

Make it EIGHT rides...Dare Devil Dive will be torn down this off-season as well according to new demo permits. I can't help but wonder if they have a plan for Superman. It is one of the more popular coasters in the park from a GP perspective (it's been there for 22 years but people are still mesmerized by the fact it DAGUM FLIES!!!) but the throughput sucks and it isn't the most reliable coaster in the park. Plus it is really out on an island surrounded by many vacant plots of land. The Boardwalk section of the park is a little worn out at this point. I wonder if they build a new section around Superman (including whatever Kingda Ka's replacement is), or if Superman will also take a hike.

Based on the latest Coliwood Studios post... Green Lantern is just a lift hill at this point. And the first track removal of the Kingda Ka airtime hill has taken place. I believe the top hat detonation is scheduled for 2-3 weeks from now. Also the demo on the Lakefront Skyway Station is beginning. Oh and Cyborg is gone if anyone cares.

Officially announced? No(t yet). But instead it's just hiding in social media replies where they hope as few people will see it as possible because that's that the new Cedar Fair-led Six Flags chain does. I guess at least they didn't flat out deny it this time, maybe that's a start towards actually communicating with customers? Edit: According to comments on Facebook the park is giving people refunds on season passes. I'll give them kudos for doing the right thing as far as that goes.

Kings Dominion has officially cut WinterFest starting this year. Of course they've been selling season passes for months with "includes Haunt and WinterFest" listed right at the top, but hey... I'm sure once they decide they haven't already taken enough away from Great Adventure then HITP will probably go away there too.

I rode the Looping Starship at Great Adventure when I was 6 (I'm not even sure if I was really even tall enough for it but I think I wore a hat or something) and after experiencing those horse collars, I refused to ride anything with even a simple OTSR for like 5 years after. I was convinced that any ride that went upside down was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I finally got over my fear of OTSRs when I was 10 or 11, but thank you Looping Starship for disturbing my childhood The horse collars didn't really bother me as an adult because I could kind of hold it off myself, but it was a bit traumatic as a 6 year old hanging upside down basically by my ribs.

Another classic goes silently in the night.

Shellraiser has been closed for an entire year now. Let's charge 4X what Great Adventure charges for a pass.

I mean if I went to guest services maybe they would give me a refund in that situation, but obviously not worth going to bitch over 2 dollars. But this very situation happened way too many times at Kingda Ka and is just a general annoyance. And in this case there's a much better B&M hyper 200 feet away that doesn't require you to get lockers, so sometimes I just say forget it and don't even bother.

It's kind of like a bad 3-bench wooden coaster in that sense. If you get a middle row non-wheel seat then it's glass smooth, but get rows 1 or 3 of either car and you're probably coming off with a splitting headache. Bad thing is with the moving station it's luck of the draw, and there's a 67% chance you're coming off with a headache.

Happy New Year! Few closing day thoughts... The new train on Nitro (D train) runs noticably faster than the others. In the morning I rode A train and it was moving so slow that there was literally no airtime in the first half. The good thing was it was moving so slow that the mid course didn't engage at all, so it absolutely hauled through the bunny hills with excellent ejector all the way through. But then I rode D train and it literally felt like it was a hot summer day. Big airtime on every hill even in the middle of the train and you could really feel the bone crushing positives in the helix. And it just kept getting faster right up to closing even with temps in the 30s and a whipping wind. Easily the best rides I've ever had on it. Marathoned for the last hour and finished with 17 Nitro rides, a great edition of this New Year's Day tradition. Between the jaw dropping sunset rides and the pitch black night rides it just doesn't get any better. Got the last train of the year in the front row (I think this is the 3rd year in a row I've been on last train). Batman running slightly slow in the cold, but always fun riding many consecutive times without getting up. Row 7 had a bad wheel, but 6 and 8 were fine. Dark Knight is using the preshow again which I haven't seen used in years. Only problem is the preshow is so long that the folks that are let into the station are all cycled through and then they just run empties for a while even though there's a 10 minute wait outside. With Ka out of the picture, Devil might be the biggest piece of shit in the park maintenance wise. I did get two rides on it, but two other times I was on the train, it advanced to the end of the station, and then they never sent it and made everyone get off. It's really not the biggest problem ever when the ride is a walkon, but what pisses me off is they get $2 for a locker every time and then you don't get that money back when the breakdown occurs and you never end up riding it. It's a big reason why I rode Ka way less than I should have in it's lifetime and honestly there's a lot of times where I don't even bother with Devil and just ride Nitro more instead. Hopefully the free double sided lockers make their way over here. Park was very dead overall, flats were typically a walk on (and at times not being ridden at all with the ride ops just sitting around waiting, I got zen rides on Jolly Roger and Skyscreamer). But kudos to the park for having everything open on that side of the park (except Harley Quinn for obvious reasons). It was sad looking over at Ka knowing it seems to have officially been sentenced to death sometime in February, and that no one will ever see it from inside the park again. Sounds like opening day will likely be March 15th and employees seemed pretty confident that Flash will open with the park. If that is the case I hope to find myself down there opening weekend!

Right now it has a 2 hr 20 min wait which is the second longest on Universal property behind 2:30 for Velocicoaster. Possibly anecdotal, but a couple weeks ago when I was there VC was about 35 minutes and RRR was under 5 minutes, which is more or less what it typically is outside of a shitshow holiday week. I think it draws the GP a little bit due to the way it soars over that entire end of the park, but the new thing will probably do much better numbers based on how popular Velocicoaster is amongst everyone.

I think being able to choose the music is fun and the ride has some good forces and is weird to the point of being interesting, but I can't deny it's rough as shit and pretty uncomfortable. I used to skip it a lot of the times I was there but I think I have a new found appreciation for it after Bill told me to ride it with the ramblings of Kermit in the background. It's really a good time late at night during HHN sailing over the sea of people in the lines. I'll kind of miss it but its replacement is pretty much guaranteed to be eons better. On an unrelated note, I saw someone post on Twitter yesterday that Poseidon's building should be turned into a Chamber of Secrets experience and I really don't hate that idea.

Update: Universal confirms on Twitter that Rockit will close in September. Rather...uhh...refreshing to see a park company actually announce a ride closure in advance!

Twister is officially gone. All that's left of the condemned Boardwalk rides is the station, lift hill, and loop on Green Lantern. Those will probably come down after the park closes next Wednesday. And then it's on to Ka.

I believe it has been (unofficially?) confirmed to be an Intamin similar to Tokyo Drift at USF. Which sounds pretty great to me if true!

Iron Menace has been largely bitched about all year. It didn't really bother me but plenty of people have been pissing and moaning about how rough it is.

Someone on the Great Adventure Connoisseurs page found an implosion permit scheduled for the 3rd week in February. Not sure how legit it is. So we really have no idea still what the true plans are for Kingda Ka. Somewhere between TT2 makeover and 456 foot steel tower go boom.

RIP in pieces Anaconda. Also, has anyone seen the test videos of Rapterra's launch? Thing bounces like crazy. What's up with the new B&Ms being so janky lately?

I was about to congratulate Great Adventure on making it through an entire weekend without crashing or derailing a coaster. They ALMOST made it, but now...

Also seeing reports on Twitter that Harley Quinn Crazy Train derailed last night. It's just one thing after another at this place. Maybe Cedar Fair knows what they're doing by closing Kingda Ka because it was probably getting close to also derailing (but at 128mph) and launching its train into the baboon habitat.

In a recent survey from Great Adventure one of the questions was something along the lines of "what attractions would you NOT miss if they were removed from the park" and I was like "haven't you removed enough already?!?" I also pleaded with them to not replace Kingda Ka with a shuttle spinner

I don't really have doubts that Cedar Fair will turn this park into something resembling Kings Island or Canada's Wonderland in the next 10 years (and that's a good thing) but the way this whole year went from beginning to now was a disaster for the park and I don't think it can be understated. Aside from the new coaster coming for the 50th anniversary that in typical Six Flags fashion was pushed off over and over until being delayed a whole year, the park was also to refurbish the Ferris Wheel and Log Flume, both park originals. The Ferris Wheel started the season looking like an eyesore and was finally ready to go in...July? The Log Flume spent the better part of two years closed for refurb and finally did open this summer...the last week of August. Meanwhile, the operations at the park were a trainwreck this year. One train ops were the rule rather than the exception this year. You can call the park a dump all you want and I'm not inclined to disagree, but one thing they've always done well is run coasters to their maximum capacity almost always. One train ops on Nitro during some parts of Frightfest was just the icing on the cake. Oh...Frightfest. The park was supposed to debut Frightfest Extreme or whatever they called it in mid September with a separate gate and all that. They ended up pushing that off to October because surprise surprise... mismanagement and disjointedness. TLDR: This whole season was a failure from opening day right up to removing 6 rides with no notice. As far as the closed rides... I get it, Kingda Ka was a maintenance nightmare and ultimately not that great of a coaster. But it was still renowned among more than just enthusiasts (I mean...it was the #9 trend in the country on Twitter last Thursday) and generally if a park is shutting down a ride like that out of choice instead of out of necessity, they would tell you that it's on its last season. We know that the decision was not made at park level, but the lack of communication from above is where the problem is. Also, the tallest drop tower in the world (which spent most of the season closed for some reason) was a part of these ride closures but they just kind of forgot about it in their press release. Is the world's tallest drop tower that much of an afterthought to them that they did not even acknowledge it's existence? Lastly, I think there is more angst about the removal of the Skyway than there is about the removal of Kingda Ka, especially amongst park regulars. If you want to be a premier theme park, you need to have transport rides. Great Adventure has no trains or monorails, and now it also has no Skyway. 18 years ago this park had 3 thriving kids areas, two world class brand new Intamins to round out one of the best coaster lineups in the world, and also still had FIVE active show theaters (which has dwindled down to three inactive and two demolished show theaters). They were so close to being a Cedar Point type destination and then Six Flags went bankrupt and the park went to shit. Other than a handful of somewhat decent additions over the past 10 years, the park has been in a slow decay ever since 2007 and this year just felt like the biggest down slide of all of them, and to end it like this is...yes...a kick in the nuts. Like I said, I believe Cedar Fair will lead this park the right way in the next decade. But I also believe that the next few years are gonna hurt. I'm not ready for the inevitable removal of El Toro in the next few years, but I know it's coming. This is a result of Six Flags f*cking off with the maintenance for its entire existence. I hope the payoff in the long run makes this park the destination it deserves to be.

Just surreal how much of this was suddenly taken away. There's 4 defunct rides in this photo taken 12 months ago from another defunct ride (plus Twister not visible). I know we should be looking to the future but whatever they're building better be mind blowing. As it stands right now, today is a top 5 bad day at a park that has had a LOT of bad days. The park slapped everyone in the face for their 50th anniversary and Cedar Fair finished off the season by kicking everyone in the balls to go along with it.

Not so sure now...ElToroRyan got a clarification email from someone at the park saying Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro will also be removed. But like...why not say that in the initial press release? They clearly marked Lantern, Twister, Parachutes, and Skyway as "removed" and Kingda Ka as "retired" and didn't mention Zumanjaro at all. The communication from this park about...well...everything is atrocious. But if what they said to Ryan is true then that's 6 ride removals in 1 year which is...not optimal. I don't care what you are replacing them with, 6 removals including the tallest coaster and tallest drop ride in the world is too much. And considering they were actively telling people last week that Kingda Ka isn't getting removed, it's just awful communication.

Now that the park has officially used the term "retired" instead of removed for Kingda Ka, the question now is... Intamin? Zamperla? Someone else?