super7

Ugh. More cheap video based attractions. One can stay home a watch videos.

The skunks have been at KI for a few years. Usually around the Oktoberfest pond. I spotted one at Kings Dominion this year as well at their old Action Theater building.

Most American parks removed their cable skyways in the 80s after the Magic Mountain and Six Flags Mid America fatalities. These are great rides. Hopefully they make a comeback in the US wIth these more modern systems. The announcement voice and the chime during the Disney ride is VERY annoying. Lol Thanks for posting the video. These are nice looong rides. One could spend hours just riding them around.

The out And back layout is uninspired. They could have used the terrain of the valley to build one of the worlds most unique coasters. Instead, the are installing a Cedar Fairs least interesting Giga. But a Giga is a Giga s d this is just that and nothing more.

They are stating the helix was the finale. Its really the middle of the ride. It was an upward helix, which loses speed instead of gaining it. A downward helix is usually more exciting. the It is however a shame when coasters get their length cut. Six Flags is the champion of shortening coasters when they re track them with their Rocky Mt. conversions. Like everything Six Flags do, they retrack as cheaply as possible. Cedar Fair has been much better at keeping their original length until this.

Best Amusement Park – Europa Park - agree. That place looks amazing. Best Landscaping – Busch Gardens Williamsburg - agree Best Christmas Event – Smoky Mountain Christmas, Dollywood -disagree. Christmastown at Williamsburg is much better. Music that you can hear everywhere in the park. Music and lighting schemes that change in every themed section. High quality entertainment and talent. Best Shows – Dollywood - Definitely disagree. Their shows are hokey and horrible. They may have more shows, but they are low quality and almost painful to watch. Busch Williamsburg, some Cedar Fair parks (Kings Island, Kings Dominion) and even Hershey's shows are light years above Dollywood.

I agree that Cedar Fair has improved King's Island from the great damage that Paramount did to the parks. Namely, their installations match the theming of the areas. The coasters they have installed have been good coasters, but they continue to neglect installing true family rides. At least Paramount didn't kill the train in this park...... But overall this park is pretty run down compared to King's Dominion. KI has the better rides, but KD is a gorgerous park full of trees and amazing landscaping. KI definitely isn't that. The International Street at KD is one of the most wonderful places in any theme park. Full of nice, shady places to sit and relax and interesting buildings. KI's is quite the opposite with those horrid white picnic tables in the blazing sun, right in the main walkways. The entire center of KI is a open field with little trees or shade. KI is really an ugly park. It could use some investment in landscaping and infrastructure, not to mention the restrooms that smell like urine.

That's been the pattern with all of these 6 flags conversions. They go cheap (not big) and shorten the rides. I would take Viper at Great America anytime over this conversion. The Cedar Fair conversions so far seem to be the full coasters.

Dollywood used to be one of the parks on the top of my list, but with the Lightning Rod fiasco (trying to build a coaster more complicated than it should have been just to advertise "first-ever," low-quality entertainment (at a park that bills themselves as a showpark), and various other quality issues that have went downhill in the last several years, I have headed to other parks this year...

It's a shame these parks keep thinking they have to do something "never done" before. This looks awful with spinning cars for various reasons. It would have been a great ride with Blue Fire trains. This definitely looks like a great formula for injuries. There is no way that these inversions are designed to be taken at every possible angle......

Remember 6 Flags business philosophy. Install anything at a lower cost that they can hype up in advertising, while not considering guest experience. VR and double rides on American Eagle are some examples. Both crippled capacity and made bad overall experiences because of the wait times. Most of their recent installations seem to be cheaper, low capacity rides like the free spin coasters. Goliath in Chicago is an excellent example of a "hyped-up" coaster being built on the cheap side (short ride with only 2 trains) with horrible capacity in a huge metro market. 8 passenger trains, 6 Flags mediocre operations and slower lines due to Flash Pass sounds like a miserable couple of hours waiting in the Texas heat..... I personally quit going to 6 Flags parks a couple years ago because of their philosophy. It carries over into the general condition of the parks, the lack of landscaping/weeds growing, run down buildings, lack of live entertainment etc. But they can hype this coaster up and advertise it as a "first"

Carowinds..... Fury, Intimidator, Goldrusher are great rides. Afterburn is good if you like inverteds. The new County Fair has some great flat rides. Nice Skytower. Great landscaping, especially the flowers. Food is edible for a Cedar Fair park. That's about all there is good to say about this park. Over the years, the soul has been ripped out of this park, and there is little for non-thrill riders to do. Much of the beauty and theming of the park has been removed as well. This park used to be built around water. Now there is hardly any. It is good for a bout a 6 hour visit. Then it gets boring.

How long did you have to wait to catch the monorail and the corkscrew coaster trains passing at the same time to get that pic?!

It's great they were able to use the building, queuing and theming from Timber Tower. It is really well done with the water and the stream.

While they were at it, they should have built a better berm between the pathway going up to Timber Canyon and the new parking lot. Since they built those lots, that pathway feels like it under the parking lot. Which it is. Dollywood always had such excellent isolation from the parking lot before that.

Ugh. I didn't realize that Kong was also video-based. Hogwarts Express is among the worst of the worst video rides IMO. A slow train ride with no real scenery. The slow train rides are some of my favorite rides. But where at Disney & Busch you get to ride a train around the park and see the scenery, this is completely like watching tv in a chair. IMO Universal is probably the worst theme park value in the USA. They theming of Islands of Adventure is amazing. Not so much at the Studio park. But the pure number of video base rides, given that the prices are as high as Disney, makes it a horrible value. Top that with their Express Pass is an additional fee......

Is this yet another video-based attraction at Universal? Too many of their attractions are glorified movies, instead of real experiences. At least Twister was a real experience. Is another video-based attraction going to replace Disaster as well?

This would be a great addition to the resort. It would also serve as an attraction/ride as well as transportation. Like the monorail..... In looking at the Doppelmayr site, the US if far behind other parts of the world as far as aerial tramways go.

In most cases the reason are the park's neighbors. Germany is densely populated and our parks are almost always very close to residential areas. That makes sense. I can see on the satellite that Europa has housing right beside it. Etc.

I wonder why the German parks close at sunset. Nighttime is the best time at theme parks.

I think Busch Williamsburg will do great upkeeps on the train. Considering the park is over 40 years old, it feels like a newer park. This is one of the best maintained parks in the country.

Same here. Also doesn't KD have a train? That would probably be in the top 5-6 there. No train, no cable skyway, no monorail. All removed by Paramount. I believe the lack of rides like this at KD plus the light schedule of live shows is why they struggle with attendance. The parking lot has been about 1/4 full in my visits there, including peak season. The park has a good number of (mediocre) coasters, a small collection of flat rides and a lot of kiddie rides, plus the waterpark that is included in admission. It has gorgeous parts, especially the entrance, but other parts of the park are not that nice where they have removed trees (the former Wayne's World area) and where they have removed water (the water park used to be a stunning giant lake). IMO the different groups of management went the wrong direction with mostly coaster additions to the park, while removing true family rides. Busch Gardens seems to do much better on attendance, with less coasters and more of the other stuff.

In all of my visits over the last two years, Rebel Yell does not race. The park operates both sides all day long (which is more than can be said for King's Island), but one side of the lift hill goes up faster than the other and the trains are completely apart during the entire ride after the lift hill. It's a shame and i would imagine a relatively simple thing to fix. But it takes away greatly from the experience of the coaster. As far as King's Dominion getting big new coasters, I-305 failed to pack them in and usually has a minimal wait. KD doesn't get that great of attendance. The park lacks in many areas, and Busch is right down the road with a better overall appeal to a larger group of customers Busch accomodates thrill seekeers, kiddies, non-thrill riders, live performance enthusiast, and has decent food to eat! KD is a coaster park, and their coaster lineup isn't that great. KD would be foolish to continue to invest in coasters and nothing else when they are getting a poor attendance with this formula. To compete better with Busch, the elements that Paramount ripped out need to return so everyone can be entertained there, not just coaster riders.

Hopefully inside the shed is some Disney-quality special effect where the overgrowth comes alive and tries to devour the train Well anyhow it would be nice for the first and only season that It actually was functional lol. It's nice they are keeping this "in the woods" after they massacred to many trees to create the open space around Diamondback. The only thing they could have done better is to have a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooonger tunnel, Beast-style. But maybe that will come in the future! In the beginning Beast's 2nd tunnel was 2 short tunnels and the helix finale was not enclosed. I have NEVER ridden a GCI that I didn't like except for Gwazi. And that was only because of horrible maintenance and neglect, not because of bad layout or design. CGI's twisters are especially fantastic to look at and have such create turns, banks and crossovers.

Phantasialand is an amazingly themed fantastyland and a complete escape from reality. It really points out how most chain amustement parks in the USA are really just glorified parking lot carnivals with some landscaping.