KarlaKoaster

I wondered if they'd do a smaller, more exclusive event but it's almost an impossible ask for them to put together events at the moment with so much uncertainty. Plus we've had enough horrors for the year, right?

There's a similar thread here: https://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19078&p=60152&hilit=roughest+coaster#p60152 Don't take this the wrong way but when you join a forum, it's good to hang out a bit and get to know members first. Introduce yourself, get involved in some of the threads and tell us what your roughest coaster is etc. This would be my advice for any forum, not just this one. Or in fact it would be my advice for any social situation whatsoever.

You are no longer able to take your mask off while walking around eating and Drinking. Disney have closed the loophole by updating their face coverings guidance to say: "You may remove your face covering while actively eating or drinking, but you should be stationary and maintain appropriate physical distancing."

Yeah, although parks here don't generally use metal detectors at the entrance, Thorpe Park has really needed them for a while now. I've not visited for a few years so maybe it's changed, but on my last visit you were just randomly selected to be screened, it was never mandatory to go through them.

Scum. What normal person goes to a theme park with a knife? I literally hate the kind of people this park attracts now. The single bridge in/out of the park clearly caused bit of a problem here in that there was a crowd of people who couldn't leave the park, but also maybe meant it was easier to track down the people responsible.

B&M have been smoothing out their transitions for years now. I think the vests just make an already less-snappy ride yet more passive. I really like B&M though so this isn't a criticism, however I'm not really a fan of their restraints now.

I had totally forgotten about this one, and now this thread has reminded me, I realise I've also totally forgotten the layout. Really looking forward to seeing this one! I feel Intamin have really matured over the last few years but are still those playful rapscallions that we love them for.

Yep, that's right, I think some of the latter turns have been reprofiled too.

If you insist... Money saving tip: It's $5 to feed the Sea Lions at Sea World but you can now feed the gators for free! [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew]-Facebook No mask, but she's taking social distancing seriously. One out of two isn't bad.

Photo: mramusementmedia Photo: mramusementmedia Photo: skywalkingadventure Thought I'd post a few photos I've stumbled across on Instagram. They show the trains on track (complete with vest restraints) for the Transformers coaster which is a modified clone of Incredible Hulk. They also show ride vehicles for the Jurassic Park dark ride. Originally this was going to be a new ride system but they have opted to use the same tech (and layout) as Spiderman. There are loads of pictures on Themeparkx which I am unable to post here, but it shows how much progress has been made, including on the Jurassic Park powered Mack inverted coaster which I am looking forward to seeing - such a great ride system with so many possibilities.

Primeval Whirl (and that whole area) are a massive zit on the face of Animal Kingdom. Primeval Whirl itself is probably my least favourite ride at any Disney park.

I watched a vlog today (yeah yeah, I know, but I enjoy the 5% of vloggers who aren't annoying), and one useful takeaway that I wanted to tell people was that in terms of masks, the neck gaitor styles which are quite popular are not allowed, not even ones with ear holes. Just thought I'd let anyone considering visiting know.

Surprisingly, Intamin never used to have sensors on their restraints, even on rides where your life depends on it. I always found this surprising.

I wasn't sure where to post this, but in the UK the government have today announced that VAT will be cut from 20% to just 5% for the hospitality sector until next year. Along with restaurants and pubs, this of course includes theme parks. The cut will not only mean admission will be less (in theory, anyway, I suppose the parks could put prices up to offset these savings), but most things within the park too such as food and drink. Idea is to encourage people to support the hospitality industry.

I think this is the year to cut parks a bit of slack. There are going to be a lot of things that are annoying and disappointing. We're enthusiasts and should understand better than anyone why some of these changes are necessary.

Thanks for a great report. I'm really impressed with Six Flags' use of technology at park entry. With the camera-based temperature checks and the new Evolv bag scanners it's totally frictionless and requires almost no staff interaction. Compared to Seaworld they seem to be taking it really seriously and that message seems to be filtering down to the guests too.

Behind the Thrills has posted what appears to be a lien filed against Seaworld by Bolliger & Mabillard which seems to endorse the theory that a Surf Coaster is on its way at some point: So far we know B&M have trademarked the name 'Surf Coaster' and that Seaworld Orlando received a shipment of parts labelled 'SF-A' (Surf Coaster 1). So far enthusiasts have been speculating on this being a new stand up coaster (and there was a pretty bad fake 'blueprint' circulating around), but I've always backed the idea that it could be B&M's take on the Blitz Coaster, and the lien mentions that this is a launched coaster. All these little clues seem to be giving credibility to the idea that we'll be seeing a new B&M product soon, although coronavirus could have the final word I suppose.

I've seen video where they slip down and your nose comes out, but that's it. Generally they seem to go down rather than up. So long as they are snug they should be fine.

Agree with larrygator that it just makes commercial sense not to open it this year. Not only is it one of the worst rides when it comes to social distancing, with half the season gone and the rest of the season likely to be a washout it doesn't really make sense to open this year because by next year the hype has gone. Also it makes sense to take a rain check on this year, because then at least by pushing everything back a year they don't need to worry about getting (or not getting) any new rides next year. I'm actually surprised not more parks in America have pushed back ride openings, I think almost every park in the UK has.

Some good news. The park have received a £247,000 grant from the Heritage Emergency Fund which is run by the National Lottery in the UK and set up in response to covid with a percentage of lottery ticket sales going towards charitable causes. They have also raised £129,203 via a fundraising campaign meaning they have a total of £376,203. The trust backed the formation of a new smaller company, with the aim of raising money to re-open the park. BBC News article

To be honest, I didn't intend to 'change anything' by posting, but I get what you're saying in that I shouldn't get frustrated with things that are out of my control. But having seen people make observations about other parks and the way they're handling things, I thought I would do the same with Indiana Beach, particularly in the context of this conversation. Anyway I'll take your advice and let it go

I was curious about the reopening too and found a video on a well-known coaster channel which showed what I would describe as decent crowds on the VIP day, but also a living breathing petri dish of potential covid infections. I am not sure I have ever felt so uncomfortable watching a video. I felt like Ace Ventura when he found out Finkle is Einhorn. Virtually nobody was wearing masks (staff included) and social distancing didn't exist. I don't mean it was there and people were ignoring it, it just wasn't a thing. Every table was being used, every seat on every row on every ride was being loaded, masses of crowds swarming around bottle necks, huge queues with no spacing... unbelievable. Un. Believable. I hoped to see a heartwarming video about a small park rising from the ashes, but instead it was like 8 minutes of torture porn showing everything that is wrong in humanity. I hope that when our ancestors look back at our generation they can laugh at the fact that we could so easily have defeated coronavirus by wearing masks and giving each other space, yet we'd rather go to a theme park and get up close and personal with a load of strangers just as the number of cases begins to spiral out of control again. Honestly the self entitled privilege of people is difficult to swallow. Shame on vloggers like this who should be setting an example by practicing social distancing and wearing masks but are putting their 'likes comments subscribes' before anything else. And shame on the park too. As much as I want to wish Indiana Beach every success in the world, seeing staff not wearing masks, the ACTUAL OWNER of the park putting his arm around someone as he did the opening ceremony in front of a crowd of non-socially-distanced neanderthals and every seat being loaded on every ride makes me worry for humanity. If I turned up at a park and it was like this, the first thing I would have done would be to leave. And then shower. So yeah... sorry about this rant but I feel really strongly about this. I look to things like the Indiana Beach reopening as a positive news story during a terrible time. At times I feel like these are the only things that keep me going. But it turns out Indiana Beach is part of the problem and not the solution. I really want to support smaller local parks, but not at any cost. I've not linked to the Youtube video for hopefully obvious reasons but hope it's OK to use these screenshots instead. And I hope nobody catches covid just by reading this post! Huge non-socially distanced queue next to non-socially distanced tables At least the guy in orange in the bottom right has made his own mask out of his hand Every single row being loaded. Station and queue both busy with no social distancing At least this guy is wearing a mask even if it isn't covering his face Park management setting the gold standard

Oh my god, BDG, you have just won the coveted 'best post I have read for a really long time and maybe ever' award. Congratulations. Honestly the picture I posted looked like an explosion at a spaghetti factory, so thanks so much for putting so much work into explaining what we're looking at so clearly.

I couldn't hear much because of the wind noise, but if you can hear a clunk over every hill then it's just the antirollbacks lifting up/falling back into place with the airtime that this coaster apparently doesn't have. You can also hear a similar clunk towards the bottom on Dive Coasters and on the slow inline twists that Wing Coasters have. (Now that my street cred has totally gone, I'm doubling down on the nerdiness)

Here's a picture posted by Michael Mack on Twitter of the new Piraten in Batavia ride at Europa Park. There is also a video on his timeline showing the ride in action. I'm not sure if this will feature the rocking boat technology they showed off recently, but this tweet suggests it might. I think it would be a wasted opportunity not to show off this new tech, so fingers crossed.