prozach626

Bro, I'm not trying to discourage you, but this isn't the year to go. Like it or love it, Pritzker is very strict on COVID mandates. A lot can happen between now and the end of the month. We're one surge away from another full lockdown, with little warning. I wouldn't distort your fond memories. Busch Gardens Tampa might be a better choice this year...

Great pro tip! Without a doubt.

^God, I'll soon miss those days when parades and shows weren't our thing.

It almost seems less embarrassing at this point to let Pantheon sit for a least a few more months before announcing its opening. Instead, guests get to see it completed, but SBNO, and wonder why they would wait until March to open it. I understand there's a market strategy and other unknown financial influences, but damn. I would want to save some face and just open the Ffffing thing, even if it meant staffing sacrifices elsewhere.

Who's "we?" Maybe next time he won't do a TR at all, since you referred to it as exhausting to get through.

I loved Knoebels, but I can see why people would like Holiday World better. This is because I don't see very many parallels between the two, which is why it would be easy to pick one over the other. They seem completely different to me.

I didn't even think about the tower needing paint, but I guess it's not perfect. Being it's the centerpiece of the entrance and park, them making sure the paint is in great shape is just another reason why this park is amazing. Are there any plans for COVID restrictions in place? My vaccinated self will begrudgingly wear a mask for the Haunt. If there are other noticeable measures beyond that, I'll wait for this to pass for another few months at a time, before visiting again. I won't visit any parks ever again for another sanitized soaked train loaded every-other row. Miserable.

It's a very standard element. It doesn't give you a feeling of nausea, or extreme tickle, if that's what you're worried about. Inverted drops on Wing Coasters and barrel roll drops on RMC coasters seem much more intimidating. The only inversions that I can genuinely say still scares me are pretzel loops on flyers. The tickle is so intense and uncontrollable for me. I know it's coming and there's nothing I can do about it. That, and the nausea of flyers is why I don't care for them.

If your one and only goal is credit whoring, Worlds of Fun may be a "never again" park for the foreseeable future. ^This x100. My main guess is he's a young person whose main priority is riding as much as possible, like many of us started out. Also, I agree with everything Bill said about Holiday World. I call it "Thunderbird Park." I've had nothing but seriously painful rides on Legend, and I can't comprehend how anyone over the age of 15 would want to tolerate it more than once, let alone like it. Voyage has a great layout, but it sucks. The only time I was ever able to truly appreciate it was after pounded two 4 lokos in the parking lot. I can't comprehend why people love the mediocracy of Liberty Launch. I had one good ride on Raven. Ever. Why has nothing been done about Pilgrim's Plunge yet, instead of building water coasters elsewhere??? There are the most redneck clientele I've ever seen, but they don't sell beer. There aren't even any decent restaurants that sell beer nearby!! I don't want to swim in the same water as those people. Decent, and I do mean decent, hotels are not close. Even the log flume sucks, because it's so mediocre. Why the hell do people call the Thanksgiving dinner in the dining hall delicious? Their family Thanksgivings must have blown. It's 'not bad,' but the lunch lady does not make delicious meals, unless you're talking about square pizza. HW is less than three hours from us and we never go. I enjoy telling this to people who drive across the country for it. I like Thunderbird and the Turkey Shooting (yes) Dark Ride. I'll drive six hours to KI and four hours to KK all day long, before going to HW. As a matter of fact, we pass HW for both. Suck it. The biggest tragedy is I will have to go back for our daughter, when she's old enough.

"Murderous steel" wow.

It's in the middle of the pack in deaths since the pandemic, but luckily none of this has been political.

The chances of our 'one flat package' falling through is greater than any two flat package scenario ever playing out. I wouldn't get excited over any markers.

I'm late to the game, but you might be right about this being the modern day boomerang... I don't have a problem with this addition, but I bet people aren't complaining about a wing ridger now.

^SFFT and SFOT (partially) seem like a good one-two punch trip for that reason.

COVID is surging, mask mandates are coming back, and Lightning Rod is acting like a pile of shit. Looks like things are almost right back where they were a year ago.

Finally the coaster enthusiasts are right about Wicked Twister. They've called it year after year since 2003.

It's satire.

This is exactly why parks buy Intamins instead of B&M's. B&M's aren't reliable, and it's why Cedar Fair won't work with them anymore.

My wife and I went to KK yesterday (Saturday). If you don't care about the storyline, skip to the asterisks, where I wrote more about general observations. It was our first visit since Storm Chaser opened, and our second visit total. We intentionally made a relaxing day out of it, with no intent to marathon... which we haven't really done for years. Louisville is a short 4 hour job from our STL area home. We got there Friday night, and left Sunday morning, giving ourselves a full day at the park and time to enjoy a couple nights out. We hit rope drop and immediately went on Lightning Run (front), Thunder Run (mid/non-wheel), and Storm Chaser (walk-on mid, intentional due to intensity), which we rode once each. We also hit up Kentucky Flyer, and got a walk-on double front row ride without getting off. What a blast of a little coaster. It was also my first time on Timber Liners, and I really appreciate their comfort. We hit the water park around 1130, which we rarely do, but we thought it looked pretty cool on our first visit. I recommend getting chairs near the far side lazy river and Kentucky Flyer area. It's much more quiet. We rode three slides, hit the lazy rivers up several times, and I got a lot of sun/passed out in my chair quite a bit, which is exactly what I wanted to do. (burned AF, though) After scouting out food locations for a while, the only place we could find somewhat healthy, outside of generic salads, was the taco place. The make-your-own rice bowl was decently healthy. It wasn't as good as Qdoba or Chipotle, but it was good enough. Around 5:00 we changed back to our dry clothes. We grabbed a couple Yuenglings at the open-air water park bar, which I really like. The beer was fresh and cold. We relaxed with our beers until the water park and bar closed. I wanted to ride Kentucky Flyer again, but it wasn't worth the 30+ minute one train operation wait, probably due to the water park clearing out. We hit Wind Chaser, which is very fast. The cycle length was perfect, since we can't tolerate too much spinning. This was our first ARM type of swing ride, and we really liked it. We waited about 30 minutes for Lightning Run, our longest wait of the day by about 15 minutes (low waits due to timing/planning). It could have been a ten minute wait, but the operations sucked. We'd ridden in the front our first ride, but the back was the way to go, with two beers in us. We closed out the trip with Storm Chaser. Still barely feeling our beers, we chose the back, which I didn't think I would ever do again after our first trip. It was violent AF, but it was the best ride I'd had on it, out of our 5 total (ever). We had dubbed it as 'a little too much' on our last trip, liking LR much better, but this trip I was really digging it. We could have ridden more, but we got the exact kind of stress-free experience from the park we wanted. We left at 6, to give us time to get cleaned up and get dinner somewhere nice. ******************** HERE ARE THE THINGS WE NOTED ABOUT KK and LV*************** *The park was incredibly clean, outside of the water park changing rooms, and nothing looked like it needed immediate attention. *Food options were limited and very generic. Although, we didn't get the pretzels, which looked of higher quality, or the cinnamon bread. We're hitting the beach next week and we didn't want to let ourselves go. *Several restaurants and stalls, including the bourbon whatever bar in the water park, were closed. ***OUR ONLY REAL CRITICISM***The staff SUUUUUUUUUCKED, and I mean almost all of them. The majority were not friendly. One Kentucky Flyer control panel operator was laying his head down and closing his eyes after dispatching. The Sky Catcher operator didn't even say the safety spiel. Many of the service staff and ride operators would say absolutely nothing to you, when attending to you, taking your order, or giving you your purchased merchandise. There were only a couple times where we heard something similar to either, "Enjoy your ride," or "How was your ride?" -One the soda stations had three kids working in the area handing out cups, and I still had to reach around and grab my own cup. Later, we saw 5 gathered at the same station. They were blocking the line, referring to each other in racial slurs, and using the worst kinds of profanity. WTF Not exaggerating. We saw this multiple times per day. "Short staffed...?" The kids at the taco place looked irritated we were interrupting them to order food. -I can honestly say they were the worst staff we've ever encountered and I hope it was an off-day. I always felt like an inconvenience. I always felt like I worked harder to be polite (please/thank you) to the staff than they did not. Despite no reciprocation, I still maintained my usual politeness. -Midway through, we just accepted the staff for what it was, and lowered our expectations. I only saw one manager. I thought about pulling a Karen on the kids being completely inappropriate and obnoxious by the drink stand, but I'm sure she's heard enough of it. She's having to deal with the sort of work force climate where anyone with a pulse will have to do. *The offering for families and kids was the most appealing, personally, I've ever seen. It matters way more for us to pay attention to that now, than it did in the past, so that may factor into it. It wasn't just the selection of rides that made it really appealing, but it was the way they were distributed throughout the park. Because of this and the short drive, Kentucky Kingdom will probably be our first family trip when our daughter is old enough, and that will include driving past the Holiday World exit. (sorry HW fanboys) *Patrons weren't smart enough to listen, or use the logic of "seatbelts first; lapbars second." This was crazy on LR, leading to 5 minute dispatches. *There are interesting types at this park. I don't mean to offend anyone, but on both this trip and the last, we've found people from Louisville to be generally rude and less socially inclined. The rudeness is typically not what we've experienced from a lot of traveling in the south. We're usually really friendly and social during our trips, but we stopped making attempts to do so. *2 out of the 3 beer locations open didn't have anyone old enough to serve. Put a cup over the tapper or something to let people know they aren't serving. Common sense. *Did I mention the staff sucked? *There are a ton of trees and foliage. *A lot of the pathways and cut-thru's are really narrow, making you think they're not paths but queues. However, this is because the park seems very immersive and the paths seem to really wrap around all of the attractions nicely, putting all of the rides on display. Everything seemed to be placed very naturally, and until we figured this out, the layout seemed kind of weird. What I mean is don't expect that you have to stay on the main loop or pathways. You can generally just kind of point yourself in the direction you want to go and easily wind yourself around the pathways when you get the formula down. *Herschend seems to have made no distinct impression on the theming, and I don't think they should. *Nothing seemed run down. All of the colors were bright, but they might need to be thinking about refreshing the paint on the ferris wheel in a year or two. It's still on the acceptable side, but it's a prominent visual centerpiece I hope they don't neglect. *Most food options are generic *The out-of-state ticket option is a phenomenal deal. *About half of the rides opened after 12. (staffing, due to 3-5 people on one drink station not doing anything but being obnoxious.) *The lazy river near Kentucky Flyer had no rafts, despite it being awesome. Why? *The area near Storm Chaser still feels incomplete, and the combination of gravel and weeds in plain view under the layout is straight out of the Six Flags playbook. *The parking can be confusing AF during an event, or at least it was with the massive classic car event. *The quirkiness of the crosswalk and pedestrian bridge add to the personality. *The placement of the waterpark in the middle of the park also seems unique, and it blends in so well. It's so enticing in this way we vowed during our first abbreviated trip to hit the water park next time (this time) we visited. *Massive jets landing and taking off, feeling almost close enough to touch, adds even more to the memorable uniqueness, in addition to the already mentioned. Overall, Kentucky Kingdom is somewhere in between a small - midsize park and it does it soooo well. It's clean, quaint, and aside from the Storm Chaser area, extremely cohesive. The small scale flats will always keep me from feeling like I'm in a larger park, but they're blended so well into the environment and there are so many of them. Kentucky Kingdom feels like what a corporate park would feel like, if it were trying not to feel corporate. I'm torn between thinking the park needs one large standout coaster or another family coaster. I think the former would really balance out the park, but the latter would even strengthen the family market, which Kentucky Kingdom's offerings already hit right on the head. Regardless, I can't wait until our daughter is old enough to participate in a couple years. We'll be back.

Wild West Express has been on my bucket list for a while, so this is great news.

I don't see 220 being a problem at all at KI. You have to think, you're dealing with vest restraints and clam shells. I also don't see many people having problems on Millennium Flyer (GCI) trains. I would only be concerned with Flight of Fear, and even then I think you're fine.

Glad you liked it. The one real tragedy about I305 is its dead end location, out away from the park. Just imagine how much better it could be if it interacted with the park, even a little bit. I think that's part of why it isn't as popular as it seems like it should be.

Any thoughts on how crowds will be on Saturday? What's the best way to go about securing a chair in the water park?

Flash pass. Raging Bull in the back row for an extremely underrated first drop.

Let's hope so.