Hilltopper39

I love everything about this, call me crazy but don't mind a Boomerang especially with those new trains/restraint. Throw some nice color on it and add in a tunnel and it should look great. And I love the placement of the flat ride right under the Cobra Roll. I don't know how much fun those new Zamperla Time Warp (or whatever they're called) are but they're cool as hell to watch, so this should be a nice looking area when it's all done.

Here I thought the Village People had some kind of crazy following that I didn't know about but yeah it really was the perfect storm this weekend.

You can add Jacksonville to that list. I believe the current lease expires in 2030 so there's already talks about whether or not they're goin to renovate the existing venue or build a new stadium. I hope that they'll go with an upgrade to the existing stadium with a massive shade structure similar to Miami, but we'll see where the negotiations go, and how much the city is willing to put in. But yeah Sofi looks amazing, we try to make it to one Jags road game a year, and we're at the Chargers next season so LA may be in play with travel restrictions and everything getting back to normal (hopefully). I kind of prefer to visit cities with the stadium downtown so we can get a hotel and not leave the area for a few days, that worked well for us in Cincy and Nashville the past couple of years. The horror stories from LA with traffic and parking and location and all that kind of scare me away but Sofi might be worth the inconvenience for a trip. Especially if the game is the right time of year and I can do a day at Scary Farm. Just gotta wait until April and make some travel plans.

Yesterday Ice Breaker was only 40 minutes when everything else was like an hour plus, if it had stayed a 48 In height requirement it probably would have had the longest line so maybe we should be thankful for that lol. I'm hoping that they switch it back to 48", or maybe even 50" at some point? I mean to market it as a 48" and run it that was during previews has to mean that their intentions were to operate it that way long term before "something" happened. Hopefully there's some kind of slight modification that will get it back to 48" because that park desperately needs something in that height range. Super fun ride though, I was very surprised by it. Got one ride in the front seat and thought it was really a fun little coaster. Side note, yesterday at SeaWorld was one of the most crowded parks I've ever seen. Inside the Shark Encounter Exhibit the conveyer belt was turned off for some reason so you had to walk through the tunnel, and it was just a massive traffic jam/cluster F like I've never seen before. People were opening up the emergency exit doors and walking out into the backstage areas with the filtration equipment it was so bad. Ended up taking like 40 minutes to just walk through the exhibit. The parking lot was at capacity around 3pm and people were parking on the sidewalks and in the bushes and stuff, there were cars lined up parked on the side road BEFORE the toll booths. I've been praising SeaWorld for years but I finally had a day where I showed up just said nope. We got one ride on Ice Breaker so it wasn't a complete waste but man that place was crowded. I mean I know it's a holiday weekend but is a Sunday of Presidents day normally this bad? It might be a long season for the parks in Orlando.

Great pictures man, were you working the event? Either way pretty awesome to get to attend a super bowl. Sofi looks incredible, would love to make it out there for a game one of these days.

I've never seen childcare offered in my experience but SeaWorld and Busch Gardens do offer day camps in the summer and over spring break. They seem pretty fun, if I lived closer I'd probably put my kids in it try try it out, but that may or may not work for you. Here's a link to the camp pages, they're a week long, Monday through Friday, around like 8am to 3 pm. A full week at just SeaWorld or Busch Gardens might not be ideal but I could see someone doing a week in Orlando and dropping the kids off at SW in the morning while the adults head off to spend the morning/afternoon at Universal or Disney, then pick the kids up and do whatever in the evening. Hope that helps. https://seaworld.com/orlando/educational-programs/day-camps/ https://buschgardens.com/tampa/summer-camps/

Yeah this past summer there was a day when stuff was open and closed randomly for high winds. I totally understand the policy but it seemed fairly inconsistent that day which was frustrating. We were in line for Kumba when it closed for winds, waited 10 or 15 minutes and could see that Tigris was still operating so we walked over there only to have Tigris close by the time we got there, all while looking up and Falcon's Fury was open the whole time. It is what it is, just can be frustrating. How were the lines for the passholder previews this past weekend? I feel like I saw some pictures on twitter of long lines prior to opening stretching all the way back to the entrance plaza but couldn't tell how long the actual wait was. Anyone stay the whole time to know if the lines were lighter at the end of the preview window?

I'm really interested to see where Iron Gwazi lands on this poll next year. It might be the same case with Velocicoaster in 2021 where there weren't enough head to head comparisons with the rest of the field because of travel restrictions etc. etc., but I have a feeling by the end of 2022 there will be plenty of people who have ridden both IG and VC that their respective rankings head to head based on preference would be fairly accurate even if their overall rankings with the rest of the field remain slightly skewed. I mean the VC results this yeas surprised me, and people seem to LOVE the newer RMC's, so maybe IG ends up ranking way up there next year like people thought VC would this year.

I was curious about Mako too but in the steel only poll it looks like Mako went from 46-48 in 2020 to 2021, and Phantoms Revenge fell from 27th to 32nd. It seems like I remember Mako being higher in previous years but that could just be my bad memory as those rankings stayed pretty close.

Always interesting to see these results. One thing that stands out to me is a couple of steel coasters that fell HARD out of the top 10 from 2020- 2021. Medusa Steel Coaster went from 6th to 24th DC Rivals Hypercoaster dropped from 8th to 54th I'm guessing there is a statistical explanation for this that has to do with the number of riders of these coasters being diluted with more entries into the poll for 2021 but pretty interesting drops regardless. Most everything else in the previous years top 20 stayed pretty close to the same position give or take a few spots, but dropping out of the top 10 by 18 and 46 places was pretty unexpected. Hyperion also moved up from 24th to 15th so the movement for foreign coasters wasn't all one direction.

I think that's what I'm leaning towards, Cheetah Hunt is my daughter's favorite in either park (for now) so at least that gives us a chance to get on that first thing with a minimal wait. And for me that makes the longest leg of the drive early in the morning, 3 hours to BGT, then 1.5 hours from BGT to SW, then only 2 hours to get home at the end of the night. She's out of school Monday so if we stay til close and marathon Mako and don't get home til midnight who cares.

Thanks, I've never encountered that but something to keep in mind. All my trips there the past year have been on weekends and most of the major stuff opened on time, though I do recall Scorpion/ The mouse not opening until a few hours later one of those days.

Trip planning question, thought I'd throw this one out to some of the more experienced travel experts here and see if anyone had any thoughts. I'm planning on taking my daughter to hit BGT for the Iron Gwazi passholder previews AND to ride Ice Breaker at SeaWorld Orlando in the same day, either Saturday the 19th or Sunday the 20th. Any suggestions on plan of attack for this? The Iron Gwazi passholder preview is from 12pm to 6 pm, and Ice Breaker will have just opened to the public that Friday. Option A: Be at BGT at opening, rope drop for Cheetah Hunt and Cobras Curse, then ride whatever until noon. Hit the IG preview at noon for a few rides depending on the lines then head to SeaWorld, probably arrive around 3 or 4 then just standby for Ice Breaker hoping the line isn't too bad for an opening weekend. Option B. Go to SW first thing in the morning, rope drop Ice Breaker, take a few laps on Mako/Kraken/Manta, then drive to BGT and probably arrive around 12:30 or 1. Hit the IG preview, and maybe grab a few rides on Kumba and Montu until we decide to leave. I can't really decide if one approach is better than another, the opening weekend lines for Ice Breaker is kind of the only unknown factor. I can't imagine it being more than 45-60 minutes at most at any point of the day but then again these days with a new ride opening, and that being presidents day weekend, it's hard to tell. Anyone got any thoughts/suggestions on this?

I am interested to see what kind of ride system this attraction uses. Test Track? Maybe, I was thinking something more along the lines of a trackless dark ride like Runaway Railway, or maybe Rise of the Resistance with no height requirement might be the best fit. We've seen what WDI has done over seas with the trackless dark rides, the animatronics they could make for Zootopia this thing could have a lot of potential.

Yeah the pass options for SW can be a bit confusing but even the Gold level for the Florida parks is relatively cheap so I'm not complaining.

Man I never realized so many people were so critical of SW parks. I mean, I'm not as well traveled as some here but last year went to Carowinds for a weekend and SW/BGT multiple times and the overall experience at both chain's parks was pretty similar, really couldn't tell you which one was "better". I mean I've never had a bad day at SeaWorld in the last like 3 years, operations are efficient, it's always clean, looks great, it's pretty quick and easy to get some food (which wasn't the case at Carowinds), and the kids have fun. I see PianoJohn's point about the entertainment not being what it was once and that's a fair criticism, but at Carowinds this year on a Saturday in the middle of the summer I don't remember any entertainment. I don't really think the sale will go through, but don't really see one chain as being superior to another by any means.

Yeah I don't really have anything bad or good to say about this, seems like new pass offerings in SoCal with Knotts and SWSD could be a really nice option to offer people there. I wonder if any parks would get rebranded? I'm guessing probably not to a SeaWorld park, but maybe Worlds of Fun adds some animal exhibits and becomes a Busch Gardens park? I could see that maybe working. Is it possible SeaWorld would be interested in building some stand alone branded aquarium attractions to existing Cedar Fair park kind of like SeaLifes? I could see a year round SeaWorld Branded aquarium in Charlotte, Kansas City or Minneapolis potentially being successful.

That's always been my biggest criticism of the Legoland parks, I mean I get what market they're going for but after kids turn like 7 or 8 or something it's a lot less appealing. I've got younger kids, and we've been to the park in Florida and had fun, but we don't really feel the need to go back anytime soon especially when tickets are as almost as much as SeaWorld/BGT or even Universal. Legoland Billund has the Polar X-Plorer coaster, and one of the parks overseas has a cool indoor dark ride drop tower ride if I remember. I just wish the American parks would build some more "family" rides that are slightly more thrilling. Something like Fire Chaser at Dollywood, or a cool themed log flume, or a smaller S&S swing maybe. If they built some kind of major "family" attraction we'd probably go back because the park is nice, but until that happens we'll keep spending money other places.

Steel Eel in San Antonio also doesn't have a covered station as far as I can remember.

I'm guessing management at the park is, I doubt they'd let someone out there to just start painting a coaster without some kind of approval first.

I'm still a little bitter about the Passport to Thrills thing. I've had my pass for like 4 years, didn't cancel during the pandemic when the parks clsoed, probably went to the Florida parks at least 12 times last year maybe more, went to HowlScreams at Seaworld, brought friends, spent a lot of money and all that, but since 3 of those visits weren't between September and December then I'm not eligible? Yeah, thanks. I mean I get it, it was a promotion to drive attendance at the end of the year and all but still. There's plenty of other preview days available so it's not that big of a deal, just kinda ticks me off a little (especially now knowing that it's on a weekend that I'm free and would probably go).

Is the 12th one of the Passport to Thrills events?

Welp, I know what I'm doing for Spring break which conveniently is the week of the 14-18. Also it's nice to see the passholder preview schedule announced this far in advance and it's pretty extensive. As frustrating as it's been waiting on this thing to open it's nice to have some opportunities to get on it before it opened to the public. I wanted to go ahead and get my oldest a Busch Gardens/SeaWorld pass this year so we might just go ahead and grab one and hit a preview. Ice Breaker opens the 18th, so might be fun to knock out IG and IB on the 19th, seems doable.

I was mostly just making a joke, but this is Six Flags we're talking about so ya never know......

All these changes because some dude went viral for eating every meal for the last 4 years at Six Flags for $150/year lol. Next time you get a deal that's too good to be true don't tell everyone in the world about it.