Rai Fox

I actually sorta would. The last time I got on Wildcat, it was running better than I've ever heard it given credit for, not even what I'd call rough at all, and I genuinely really liked it. I guess that makes one of us.

I'm not sure when they were opened but Knoebels seems to have some new cottages available now, and at least one of them looks really nice. I know when I did the trip a couple years back, a few people around here had mentioned that they might be interested if the cottages were a little classier inside. Take a look at the interior pictures for the Conway now. https://www.knoebels.com/stay/knoebels-cottages I've got the Glass House booked again later this summer, and I'll be happy to get back, but I admit I'm a bit jealous looking at that one now. Maybe next time!

There's video of it. I don't remember if we're not supposed to link to videos on Facebook, or just certain other sites, so I won't direct link, but it's at https://www.facebook.com/groups/TexasThrillSeekers/

There's video, just shy of 30 seconds, and it's upside down for the entirety of it, while the rest of the ride is not moving, so it's not that. Hopefully it wasn't much longer than that for the sake of anyone caught on it in the heat now, but it definitely wasn't an ordinary ride cycle.

Got it! Should be able to take those suggestions easily enough! Good thing I like catfish too! Yeah, I'll fuel up before I leave the KC area; I found a decent looking little motel in Branson so I'll just make that trip in one shot and not worry about any questionable stops on the way.

I really know nothing at all about any of the areas I'm heading to outside Chicago itself, so that's very helpful, thanks! I'll plan on leaving WoF early then and find somewhere close to SDC. Shouldn't be too difficult. The ABVI is the one in St. Robert; I'll stay with that then. Going to try to book these places Monday, so if anyone else knows anywhere I should be avoiding, please let me know! Also, anywhere along the route I really should be going out of my way to stop for food? (Or food at the parks?)

I really would love to, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any practical way to make that happen with Voyage with Holiday World right in the middle of the "line" of parks. I think it'd required switching up which parks I get to, and since I'll be getting to the Ohio Cedar Fair parks in October...I might just have to settle for missing the night rides this time. Outlaw Run should be no problem, SDC is open late according to their calendar!

Possibly, but I think I'm going to be coming to them from the west. Holiday World is also only open short hours at the time; as much as I'd love to get there for night rides, it's going to be in the middle of the trip, so there's just no way I'm getting there on the weekend. Also given that it's going to be in the middle of a long trip with a lot of long hours and driving, I think I'll just take them on two separate days, and if I have a little extra time those days to rest up, that will probably be for the best. Helpful advice for Holiday World though, I'll definitely keep that in mind.

Bloomington Indiana, between Holiday World and Indiana Beach. Too bad, I'm always up for good Mexican!

It's tempting, but adding another park and a full day drive means dipping into another week of vacation time, so probably not. Adventureland will probably have to wait for another year. BBQ though, that's a definite.

That might be doable! Night rides are always worth going through a little more trouble for. Unfortunately moving the trip up a week probably isn't going to happen; half my department is already out that week so I have basically zero chance of getting that time off. Reversing the order though isn't too big a problem; it's more expensive to rent a car out of Chicago than Kansas City, but not that much more.

I think I'd want to do them over two days, yeah; I want to take my time at Holiday World. Adding another day onto the trip isn't difficult; I'll just be heading home on Sunday instead. I don't mind the drives at all either, I just don't want to overdo it and be driving half-asleep by the end of the week, if I'm not going to have anyone in the car with me. Pretty sure this will work out fine though!

I hadn't even given any consideration to Kentucky Kingdom. Definitely an option though, either trying to get both in a day, or adding a day on to the trip (though that would mean SFGAm on a Saturday, instead of a Friday, which might be worse crowds at a big park, but there's always fastpass...) I'll look into that, thanks!

That saves about three hundred, but I'd need to stay over another day too, and then make the 7 1/2 hour drive from Chicago to Kansas City again. By time I figure in the extra hotel and gas, I'm not saving a lot of money; probably not enough to deal with the extra full day of driving. Thanks though!

It's 2021, things are slowly getting back to normal...sort of...and I have vacation time and money saved up, after a year and a half with no parks at all. Seems like a good chance to get to some that have been on my list for years! I've yet to get to any of the parks west of King's Island, apart from Texas, so a midwest road trip sounds great. It's also looking expensive and like there's going to be a looooot of driving, but that's just how it is, I suppose. Current tentative plans are to take the week from July 31 to August 7th. 7/31 - Burn some saved up airmiles flying into Kansas City. Pick up a painfully overpriced rental car, because it's 2021, get a good night's rest at Best Western near the airport. 8/1 - Worlds of Fun. Not the most important park of the trip, but hey, I'm right there. Stay at Westbridge Inn halfway to 8/2 - Silver Dollar City. One of the parks I've wanted to get to for years now, one of the ones I'm most excited about. Sleep at America's Best Value Inn halfway to 8/3 - Six Flags St Louis. Got that Six Flags membership, may as well use it, and lots of great looking if not often discussed coasters here. Dragging a local friend to this one too. Stay at Best Western on the way to 8/4 - Holiday World. The number one on my list and the reason I wanted to put this trip together in the first place! I was just starting to think about doing this when Robb's video of the Raven showed up in my inbox and convinced me to really look into it... Might be able to get someone I know in this area to come along too. Stay at Fairfield Inn and Suites in Bloomington, on the way to 8/5 - Indiana Beach. Really need to get here and show the new ownership some support! Stop over at a Best Western outside of Chicago, before 8/6 - Six Flags Great America, after picking up a friend in Chicago. This one's a must do even without it being essentially free with the membership. Stay at Country Inn and Suites by the park 8/7 - Fly home from O'Hare. map - https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1HDZihc4XTqGWtiKcuBNw5XYgKWMV18E7&usp=sharing It's looking like a fairly intense trip. Most of the parks are 3-3 1/2 hours apart, so I'd be driving 2 hours in the morning and an hour or more afterwards each time. Most of it will be a solo trip; I've love to bring others with me to make it more fun and help spread out the costs, but I don't really know anyone that's up for a week of full days of parks and coasters, though a few parks I'd likely be grabbing a local friend for. Going to be pricey too...a "cheap" rental car is about $900 for the trip, plus gas, plus hotels at ~$700 over the week, on top of the actual parks. Airfare at least is covered already. Normally I'd say it's definitely worth it, especially after a year and a half of isolation and boredom, but I'm a little concerned that it might be less worthwhile this year, with park operations not really at their best and crowds so high, so I'm waffling a bit. What do you think, still worth doing even if the parks aren't entirely at their best? Any parks that I'm forgetting about in the area that I should be doing instead? Any other particular plans or advice?

I was literally right in the middle of planning for a trip out to Holiday World and the other parks in that area, looking up hotels etc, when this one popped up in my email. Definitely even more eager to get there after seeing this one, looks like it's running amazing!

Guess I'm the only one around here that still really enjoyed the ride, even with the new trains. I must just have some incredible luck; I've never really gotten a particularly rough ride on it, even in 2019, and it was running every time I made it to the park. Just a bit frustrating, with SFNE and Lake Compounce being my home parks, to see yet another ride being removed without anything to replace it.

I'm just planning things for later in the summer and fall, so I don't think there's a huge gap between idealistic and realistic here. Got a cottage booked for Knoebels again at the end of August; that's the really important one, and I'm fairly sure things will be at least semi-normal by then. I really want to get out to Indiana Beach and show them some support too. Other than that, I'm figuring I might just save up my vacation time and travel money for fall and see how many halloween events I can get to. With the air miles I have saved up now, it's pretty much anything goes there. I'd love to see SFFT for Halloween. Maybe Knotts too, though I'm leanings towards saving that for when I can be there for the Boysenberry festival.

I'm sure it's not the only problem, especially in light of all the other parks Parques Reuinidos has been butchering lately, but I'm pretty sure that was the last year that their long-time head of maintenance was at the park. The moment he left everything started falling apart. Jerry Brick had said at the time that they were having a hard time finding someone to replace him, but even if they can't find someone locally, I don't really understand how a global company like Parques Reuinidos can't manage to help with that at all if they actually gave a crap. There's NO ONE at all competent and willing to move to a decent area in the middle of CT? Whatever the causes, LC is in an absolutely pathetic state, and seeing my home park coming apart at the seams is just sad, and it isn't looking like it's going to improve any time soon... If you'd told me ten years ago that we'd get to a point where I much prefer going to Six Flags...

Supposedly the structure on the inside of the lighthouse was pretty much made of rust and unsalvageable because of the way the lighthouse stayed so wet inside. At least, that was the reasoning from one of the park managers a few years back. Of course, if the lighthouse itself was solid you'd think they could just rebuild, but...Lake Compounce, the last few years...

It's definitely not for this season. There are pictures of it on Reddit and it's in extremely rough condition. I don't see any way it's operating this year. Hopefully that means Knoebels is planning to properly restore it and add it to the park for good. One more amazing flat ride saved from the scrap heap. I'm particularly happy about it since according to comments I've seen elsewhere, it seems to be the old Bayern Kurve from Fun Spot Indiana...which was, I believe, purchased from Riverside Park when it became Six Flags New England...My first Bayern Kurve and among the first adult rides I ever rode. In a year like 2020 that just keeps finding new kinds of crap to throw at most of us...leave it to Knoebels to literally find a piece of my childhood rusting away in a lot and decide to fix it up.

I'll be curious to see if he bases that on when there IS an effective vaccine, or when everyone has it. We're most likely very close to one of those, but the other is a long way away.

No surprise here, it's going to depend on where we stand with getting rid of COVID. Right now there's a fairly decent chance it's effectively eliminated by early summer. Assuming no surprises and trials continue the way they do, we're likely 2-3 months away from having an effective vaccine, but then several months more at best from having enough to get to everyone. If that all works out, we could have a fairly normal season next year. I doubt many parks are going to have the money to invest in big projects, but on the other hand we might see some interesting ideas from parks that really want to be the first place people think of when they finally get a real summer again. The corporate parks are likely going to be able to push money around and temporarily hide their losses if they want to spend money next summer, so you probably won't see huge changes at Six Flags and Cedar Point, while the small ones are going to have to trim things back a lot more for a bit. Of course, if the COVID vaccine doesn't work out and we have another summer like this one...well, then there will be less parks competing for guests in 2022...

The comments on their facebook post are a bit worrying. All people complaining that they have no intention of wearing marks, straight up saying they'll pretend to have medical conditions to get out of it, whatever. It sucks to expect the park to do everything they can to keep you safe, but know other people are going to willfully screw it up with their own selfish idiocy.

I'm seriously excited for this. I love Splash Mountain but I have no real attachment to any of the characters or the story in the ride. The Princess and the Frog was a lot of fun though, and any ride with a chance to feature Keith David doing a Disney Villain song...yes please. No idea what it would actually end up looking like but some of the proposed (entirely unofficial, not made by Disney) concept art going around earlier looked amazing, too.