Rai Fox

This part of things just seems well intentioned but kind of pointless. They're going to block off half the seats and enforce that we keep a distance between everyone else on the ride...including the people we came with, that we live with and drove to the park with, etc etc? They'd be able to get much closer to normal capacity if they could just let groups distance from other groups. I suppose it's not like they can trust people to have common sense to just keep distance away from people they aren't normally on top of. Half the country has shown to have none of that at all.

That sounds interesting, I wonder what that construction could be referring to. They had mentioned over the off season that they were upgrading all of their restrooms (which, as much as I love the park...did badly need it), but I wouldn't be surprised if they were taking the chance with the extended downtime to get some other projects done too. As far as I've seen they haven't actually announced anything as of yet, though.

Knoebels has announced that the campground will be opening on June 11th, but the park will not be open yet at that time. There's no mention of the cottages, which I assume won't open until the park does since the office for them is in the main park, not the campground. Some sign of progress though. Still hoping for something closer to normal by time my end of August cottage reservation comes around...crossing my fingers hard as I can here.

RI Gov Raimondo just made her own address and mentioned none of this, so I don't know if the earlier announcement actually will affect all states or he was just assuming. At least MA though. Of course, it's not 4 yet, so...

The current response does not necessarily have to go into affect until the virus has disappeared entirely. That may never even happen anyway. As mentioned earlier in the thread, this is about "flattening the curve" and giving healthcare time to deal with the situation. Hospitals and healthcare professionals can not currently deal with a huge surge of patients. The goal is to slow it down while healthcare finds ways to deal with the virus, and builds up resources. We don't know how long it will have to be, but again, it's not "until the virus is gone." It is still going to get worse before it gets better. I work in healthcare and a coworker was just on a call with the governor of Massachusetts. Official announcement is coming at 4 today but it sounds like all New England states are going to be on complete lockdown after this afternoon; essential businesses only allowed to open, shelter in place, etc. We just have to hope that such a drastic response means it can be over sooner... Personally I've had to cancel a convention and park trip for May; another for end of June is looking very iffy right now and I'm starting to feel resigned to losing that too. If this stretches further and I don't get to Knoebels in August/September, though...well, I suppose by that point things will be bad enough that not getting on Phoenix will be the least of my worries. ...No, Phoenix is still a priority.

Carowinds has theirs back up now. Definitely closed.

Even if they don't eventually close, I'd be very surprised if it doesn't drive business down significantly. People are going to be uncomfortable with lots of people gathered in one space, their jobs will be discouraging travel. There's almost certainly going to be a significant impact.

It's starting to look that way, and I worry how it's going to affect smaller parks. The big ones are going to take losses, the investors are going to lose money (boo-hoo, so sad), but the parks are still going to be there. The parks without deep pockets could really suffer, though.

Looks like a miniature Power Surge stuck on the end of a regular Booster. Yes please. Name your price, I want on.

Definitely Six Flags New England Lake Compounce Knoebels (Back to the Glass House cottage for a week! Can't waaaiiiiit!) Kennywood Six Flags over Georgia Probably Dorney Park Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags Great Escape Camel Beach waterpark Morey's Piers Possibly Canobie Lake Park Six Flags Fiesta Texas Schlitterbahn New Braunfels Six Flags Great America Six Flags America

I'm not a /huge/ fan of Tornados...they just don't seem to spin nearly as well as a good teacup ride...but it's replacing about the only ride at Knoebels that I won't mind seeing go, so...sure, that's fine. And as has been pointed out already...it's going to be the best Tornado in the world anyway.

I made the mistake of going there Saturday. The only adult rides open were the teacups, Houdini, the Scrambler (which they were literally shoveling out of the snow when the park opened), and Riddler. It wasn't the end of the world since I have a membership; I mostly just wandered and helped myself to "free" food and treats...but I would have been furious if I'd paid to take a family to the park and found virtually everything closed. There were a lot of very unhappy people in the park. Not great.

I just hope it's not Satellite. The talk of how differently things work at a pay per ride park does make me wonder if it's limited capacity is a big problem for the park. On the other hand, there's probably not a lot else that would fit in its footprint, and despite its age I don't think I've ever seen it not running, so hopefully its safe. Italian Trapeze seems unlikely to me, didn't it just get completely torn down and refurbished? Maybe I'm wrong about that; I thought that's what its extended downtime was about though. 1001 Nachts is really the only ride I can think of that doesn't consistently run with a full load. Seems like the most likely candidate; maybe that's just wishful thinking though since it's about the only ride I wouldn't miss myself. ...Well, Unless Cosmotron was upgraded to a better version of the ride, anyway. That Wisdom Himalaya inside is such a clunky, slow disappointment compared to almost any other similar model. That doesn't stop it from attracting riders though, so probably not.

My old high school did one at SF Great Adventure for a senior trip...slightly odd because SFNE was much closer to us in RI (would have been the year it was renamed it to Six Flags, too, I believe). I remember it being pretty great; they bussed us down there and let us loose in the park with basically no supervision, we just did as we wanted all day. On the bus ride back, we had a page or two of basic physics questions to fill out. It was pretty transparently just a field trip that someone had managed to sell to the school administration as something educational.

Seconding/thirding/fourthing/whatever we're up to on not trying to cover the entire country at once. You're just spending too much of your time and energy on travel; unless you're superhuman, you won't be able to really enjoy the parks that way. As far as American Dream/Nickelodeon Universe, it hasn't really been open long enough to say if it's worth your time yet, but it doesn't look like it'll be a good fit into a budget trip as it stands; it's anything but cheap for what you get, going by current prices. If you're going to be in that area, though, you won't be far from Knoebels...If you're just looking for coasters, you almost have to hit it just for Phoenix. If you're looking for more than coasters...well, Knoebels has the best flat rides, food, and scenery, too. It's also one of the most affordable parks around, for a budget trip. Overall though, I can completely understand the enthusiasm for getting to as many parks as possible at once, but I do think you'll have a better time if you focus on making sure you can really enjoy some of them, than just dragging yourself zombie-like through them all.

It's still too quiet; it's very hard to make out over the ride noise.

As opposed to all the necks and spines it had its way with over the years...

Looks like a Moser Speed Flip. Wow. The Twin Flip was more flipping than I could handle, and this thing looks like it makes that look like something out of kiddieland. Amazing, but I think I'd be out of commission for hours if I dared ride that one.

I really wish I didn't agree with this, but...yeah. I used to absolutely love the place, they used to do so much right, but...I don't know if it's park management, or Parques Reunidos sticking their noses in, or what...it's just not same. It's starting to really get that feeling that the staff and management just don't care about it. Maintenance is really suffering; Boulder Dash is a shadow of itself even on "good" days, lighting packages are falling apart (the ferris wheel is an absolute tragedy right now), food isn't the same as it was. It's hard to get over losing the incredibly unique sky ride, harder since they haven't done anything to replace it. I've had a season pass for LC for the last ten years or so, I've spent SO much time here; hell, my avatar is a crop from art of the park...but it's just really hard to come up with any reason I'd want to go out of my way to get there now, apart from the Haunted Graveyard (well, and stopping at O'Rourkes diner on the way...) Meanwhile, while LC seems to be falling apart, SFNE seems to be getting better every year... I don't see this ending well for LC if they don't turn things around.

...whaaaat? I can deal with Boulder Dash being a bit sluggish, I can deal with the skyride coming down. I can make myself okay with losing Enterprise and Lights Out, I can suffer through most of the changes. But no more real potato patch fries... I give up, SFNE is my home park now. (only sort of half joking. Seriously though, potato patch fries are huge, wtf were they thinking?)

Yep. I spent a /week/ there last summer with friends. We figured we'd spend maybe a day at the park and the rest of the week doing other stuff in the area, but ended up spending several days at the park itself, and I still need to get back for more ASAP.

Managed to get to KI Saturday night. Crowds were sort of nuts but manageable with Fast Lane Plus. Managed to hit all the coasters except Flight of Fear, and the Stunt Coaster which was down all day. Almost everything was running at 10/10, even Vortex was surprisingly good...by Vortex standards, anyway, enough to make me a little bit sad that it's leaving. A LITTLE bit. The Beast was absolutely crazy. Rode it late at night; it was such a clear night that the moon and stars made it far less dark than usual for a night ride, but it felt just as surreal anyway and it was absolutely tearing down the tracks, even with the trim brakes; it seriously felt like it was going to tear itself off its tracks around the helix, absolutely glorious. Every time I think I've found another coaster that can beat the Beast at night, it proves me wrong. The Bat was running like a brand new coaster too, Racer gave the smoothest ride I've ever had on it...Banshee had a noticeable shuffle going on but not enough to be unpleasant, still a great ride. Other than the coasters...ops were generally pretty great, running fast on everything but Diamondback. Diamondback was stacking but I don't think it was the ride crew's fault; as usual the restraints meant that nearly every train they had to try to stuff someone into the restraints or make them take the walk of shame. To their credit they were finding a way to get people into the car nearly every time. The guy dispatching the train was having a lot of fun too. "Hey, remember that night when it was 45 degrees and you thought it was a great idea to ride Diamondback? Yeah, that was tonight...have fun!" It /was/ cold enough that it was hard to breath at 80 mph, but...no regrets! Food has come a LONG way at KI, too. We hit a few snacks around the park and they were all pretty decent, then got dinner at the new Miami River Brewhouse and the food was, at least by park standards, genuinely good, without being any more expensive than food elsewhere in the park. Overall, probably the best night I've ever had at KI apart from the somewhat overwhelming crowds, but I can't blame the park for me being there on a holiday weekend.

Something here appears to be manipulating the links improperly - it's doubling the HTTPS:// part. No idea why. Just copy and paste it into a browser instead of clicking; that should work.

Almost, I think! Think I might have been behind you; I had the gray and blue knoebels hoodie.

BD was running for all of 5 min tonight, but went down again now. Ops said they expect it back up soon. We'll ses! Edit - open now! Almost no one In the park, will be closing at 9 but plenty of chances to ride until then, if you don't mind a little rain.