DILinator

Wow! I'm not sure I've seen such vibrant, or "as if you are there" photos before! Excellent! Thanks for sharing!

This beauty! The amazing, and thrilling, Yukon Striker!

I'm glad that some of you have read and enjoyed the TR! It's certainly a lot to put together, so it's nice to know some people at least liked it! As for the WMG surprise, I edited it, just to be on the safe side, since it's true you never know who might be reading it, and not know. I was bummed to have it spoiled for me, and thrilled my kids didn't know. So I get not wanting to ruin it.

I think B&M's all have good to great forces, and Banshee absolutley is snappy and intense! Ya'll crazy! Lol If anything, the early B&M Inverts and Stand-Up weren't engineered as well as the newer models, which is why they have stronger, and not as pleasant to the average person forces. The newest B&Ms I've ridden have shown me a maturity in design, that they deliver strong forces, without being too intense for the average rider, which is who parks are installing coasters for, remember.

Sorry about the double-post, but I wanted to go ahead and post my EPIC CW TR, Part 1, and just so happened to be the last person to post here. Enjoy! Ok, so here goes! I tend to be a bit long-winded, so bear with me as I try to put this TR together for my first trip to Candada's Wonderland since 2008, and my kids' first trip out of the States, period! We headed out from Mid-Michigan early this past Saturday, the 7th of September, and made our way across the border to Canada's premier amusement park! We didn't have any issues with customs, and were through it in less than a minute. It's about a 5 hour drive to CW from Lansing, and may have been a little bit longer in the end, due to the seemingly perpetual heavy traffic in the Toronto area. And let me just say, every time I've been to the Toronto area, I'm stunned by how wild and crazy the drivers are! Trucks speeding around like they're Jeff Gordon, people zipping around, cutting people off and giving zero cares. I've driven around LA, and around Chicago, but the craziest traffic I've ever had is still the Toronto area! Wild! We got to the park around 3:30, and headed to the Season Pass Processing, to get our Platinum Passes activated, and in hand, and then headed into the park! I expected the park to be crowded on a Saturday, and having heard the stories about how busy this park is all the time, and it did not disappoint! With our free FL+ to use the next day though, we focused first on riding things that either weren't on FL, or didn't have long lines. Before that though, we walked around the entire park, taking it all in, checking out line lengths, and enjoying the atmosphere. As I mentioned before, this was my kids' first time to the park, and my first time in 11 years. So there was a lot of new and exciting things to see for all of us! First stop: Medieval Faire! It wasn't time to ride this beautiful coaster yet, but it was awesome finally seeing it in person! Yukon Striker from a distance (back by the path between Vortex and Muskoka Craft Burger and Beer Bar.) It's such a photogenic and beautiful coaster, pretty much visible from all over the park. Fantastic! Vertical Loop goodness! I loved to take pictures of this amazing coaster! Expect more to follow! One of the most notable things from my first ever visit way back in 2006: the mob of fish in this creek! As many as there were this visit, there were three times as many that first visit! Still pretty wild! A view of the first ride we'd get on as we approach it, Wonder Mountain Guardian! On our way around the park, I made sure to stop by Muskoka Craft Burger, Beer Bar, and Chippery, to get a craft beer! While it was nice to get a beer, I'm pretty sure they poured the wrong beer for me, and I didn't notice it until after I tasted it. Not being a big fan of IPA's (yeah, I know... I'm not a very good Beer Snob apparently!), I didn't care much for what I got. But after paying $13 for it, I wasn't about to let it go to waste, so I drank it up as we completed our circuit around the park! Let me just say, that the new area around Yukon Striker is simply fantastically done! The way the coaster swoops over the path, which is set up to take in the fantastic view of the coaster drop, and its interaction with Vortex, is just perfect! I know people have given the coaster crap for its finish, but I thought that post-mid-course finale was great, with a fun near vertical drop, a pop of air into that fun part where you soar over and around the pathway, able to interact with people staring up from below! I think this coaster is great, from start to finish! But I'm getting ahead of myself now... So we checked out the lines for YS as we walked by it, and even the FL+ line was way out onto the main pathway. So I was nervous for our attempt to get on the next day, but figured the crowds wouldn't be nearly as bad. That was not entirely the case, however, but I'm getting ahead of myself again... Making our way back around to the center of the park from, beer still in hand (just my hand, not my kids' to be clear!), we decided to make our first ride of the day Wonder Mountain Guardian, since it isn't on FL, and the line was only about 45 minutes. I knew what to expect, but I'd intentionally been making sure the kids didn't know what to expect, other than a hybrid coaster/shooting dark ride. It worked to perfection, when they all were shocked at the surprise at the end! While I thought on the whole, WMG was only "ok", with the shooting part during the interior of the mountain looking very bare bones, going down the first drop backwards was fun, and the end was super fun! It was my first time doing something like that, so it was a fun new experience for me, as well as my kids! One funny tidbit from the WMG experience, was thinking I was doing great, and feeling bad that my youngest son Daniel, who was sitting next to me, wasn't getting anybody. Silly me... Dan is my biggest gamer in the family, and it was actually HE, who was schooling me! I had the lowest score of our group, and he had the highest, so that was pretty amusing, and showed just how much I've fallen behind my kids in that video game department! After our fun first ride of the day, we made our way back around to Medieval Faire to pursue some more easy riding. First off though, we took some photos in the photogenic Wonder Mountain area. I posted this the other day, but I'll post it again, because I think it's really photogenic, and one of the better pictures I took on the trip! A side of the fantastic Leviathan sign that I'd never seen in pictures before, so I didn't know until this trip that Leviathan's tail morphs into the ride's coaster track! Pretty neat detail, on what it probably still CF's best entrance sign! Once back in Medieval Faire, we checked out Leviathan's line, and it was still quite long. So we went next door to Dragon Fyre, which we walked into the station for. While old Arrow loopers are often among my least favorite coasters, this one wasn't the worst I've ridden, and with the exception of the corkscrews, was actually pretty good. My favorite part of the ride though, was realizing that the lift hill of Dragon Fyre, directly lines up with the drop of the first hill of Leviathan! I thought that was a pretty cool touch, and for our ride, we even had a near-synchronized drop with Leviathan, as that dropped directly in front of us, and then we dropped over on Dragon Fyre. Well done, CW! About this time, we decided to eat, so we went to the King's Feast, and got an order of Chicken Tenders and a drink to share among the four of us. We had the All Day Dining plan for the next day (two of them, actually), so I didn't want to waste too much money on food that first night. It timed out perfectly, because no sooner did we get our food, and sit down at our table under the covered area, it started to absolutely downpour! Everybody came flooding from the midways into the shelter, filling it up quickly, so it was nice we just happened to already be sitting under there. By the time we were done eating, the rain had blown through, and we were ready for our next ride! Since it was right across the way, and had virtually no line, we went to ride Wilde Night Mares, but my oldest son Ian, didn't want to, because he's still a little skittish about some flat rides. So I just went on it with my daughter Faith, and other son Daniel. We absolutely loved it! It was definitely our favorite flat of the entire trip, and we would go on to ride it two more times the next day! There's just something about being in a cage, with no restraints, and just centrifugal force holding you in place while you're up in the air looking straight down! Our favorite flat at CW in action! Wilde Night Mares! Note how different the sky is for this picture, than the ones I posted from earlier. After getting off of Wilde Night Mares, we went to Drop Tower, and dragged my oldest along with us. He's been terrified of Drop Towers, and hadn't ridden one ever before. He was still very nervous, and unsure if he wanted to go through with it, but appeared to be ready to give it a try. We ended up deciding the wait was too long though, as it was moving pretty slowly, and we got out of line. We'd be back though, the next day. The only question was, would Ian finally get on his first drop tower??? Our plan all along has been to go on Leviathan, regardless of the wait, for our last ride of the night, so with the time we had left, we figured we could get in one more ride on something, just so long as it didn't have much of a wait. I led us down to Vortex, to check it out, and see if the line was lower than it was earlier, when it filled the queue and spilled out into the midway. As I suspected might be the case, it was much lower, and before long, we were on the best remaining Arrow Suspended coaster, in my opinion! We grabbed the back car, where the action is the whippiest, and off we went, up Wonder Mountain! This was the coaster that was my favorite after my first visit in 2006, and was my second favorite my last visit in 2008. Well, this great ride has held up, even after all these years, and delivered a very fun ride for all of us, and the kids were excited to have a much more exciting Suspended coaster than Iron Dragon under their belt! In the end, it still is my favorite non-B&M coaster at the park, and my only regret is not making it back to ride a second time in the front, the next day. Before we get to the next day though (and don't worry, I'm splitting these days between two posts, so you're almost to the end of this post!), there was one more ride to get in: our very first ride on Leviathan, to close out the night, in the dark! Waiting in line, as night falls, excited to finally get on our last of the North American Gigas! We got in line for it about 15 minutes before close, and waited about 30-40 minutes for our turn to ride. As darkness fell over the line, and the coaster, the excitement ratcheted up a bit, and people were clapping and cheering every dispatch out of the station, and past the crowd below! It was fun to be a part of that end of operations excitement, and it definitely built hype! When it was finally our turn, we were able to get the very back row, and as the train departed, we clapped and whooped it up as we readied for our first go-round on this giant thrill machine! Up the 300 foot hill we went, and then it was time, and down we went! I loved the tunnel at the bottom of the drop, and the glowing eyes were an awesome touch! That was definitely an excellent touch on this coaster, and I'd love to see them add something like that on Orion at some point as well! Tunnels are just great! At any rate, we blistered through the course, taking every element aggressively, and when we'd finally hit the legendary 100 foot high brake run, it was such a rush! I particularly loved that banked and curved speed hill, and going over that airtime hill, and zooming down towards the people walking the path in front of the park below! The only slight "boo" part was that one trim on the way back, but other than that, Leviathan hauled, from start to finish! We got off of the coaster, extremely pumped, and my oldest Ian and myself purchased Leviathan shirts from the shop at the exit. We all agreed, it was a fantastic finish to a fun fraction of a day at the park, and we were so excited to come back the next day, to fully tackle the park! I'll wrap this first part of my TR for now, and I will do everything I can to make Part 2 a little shorter, and more succinct! I have more pictures to share, and more coasters and rides to relate our experience on, but will try to do a little bit better at condensing it all down for you. I hope those of you who read the whole thing enjoyed it, and thank you for reading! I'll leave you with one last look back at Leviathan from the parking lot!

Glad you enjoyed it! I actually have a ridiculously large, two-part photo TR I'm working on, and I'll post part 1 later tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. Hopefully I don't scare people away with how large it is! It's the first time I've done one like this, so hopefully it's interesting at least! As for which wooden coaster to RMC, I think it should be Wilde Beast, for obvious reasons! As much as I didn't care for Minebuster on the whole, it wasn't awful, and I think it's good for parks to have at least one wooden coaster, so I'd much rather that one stay, than Wilde Beast. Hopefully whenever CW gets another coaster, it'll be RMC Wilde Beast, as it could completely be re-born as a Twisted Timbers-like coaster!

Oh yeah, if you're a big fan of MF still, after all these years, you should definitely love the B&M Gigas as well! People give B&M crap over being forceless these days (I don't agree, FWIW), but the Gigas absolutely pack a punch still! There's room for both Fury and MF in my Top 5, and Leviathan jumped right into my Top 10 as well!

They don't have SV, RMC, or even B&M Hyper levels of airtime, but honestly, they all still have strong airtime in various parts of them. Couple that with super speed, and you have some extremely aggressive and fantastic ride experiences!

Having just gotten on my last North American Giga myself last weekend, I agree with Bill that they're all kick a$$ rides, and among the best in their park. The only outlier for me personally is I-305, which I don't care much for. But it's still a massive coaster that kicks your a$$, for sure. I also prefer SV to MF, ever so slightly, and Behemoth is nearly as good as Leviathan too. But the bottom line is a Giga is going to be a great coaster, regardless, and I have no doubt Orion will be at worst, the second best coaster at KI, and likely will be the best! Leviathan is better than anything at KI (at least in the day) in my opinion, and I'm pretty sure I'll like Orion even more, making is a Top 10 coaster for me!

^That would be great! I'll definitely let you know when we're going, and I can be flexible about it, within that week I'm looking at. Pretty much the days between Memorial Day 2020 and that following Friday (Holiwood Nights). I'm looking to have us do St. Louis (City Museum, Gateway Arch), Six Flags, and Worlds of Fun some combination of those three days (Tuesday the 26th, Wednesday the 27th, and Thursday the 28th.) Obviously, you don't know your schedule now, but once it gets closer, let me know, and we pretty much choose which day we go where, to accommodate your schedule!

^Exactly! I honestly don't know... It just seemed like a strange decision from a continuity standpoint (there's the writer/filmmaker in me flaring up!), but again, I like the end result, regardless of whatever Gwazi actually means!

I'm loving the look and expected experience of Ice Breaker! SWO just keeps getting better and better! It was already in my Top 5 parks, and that was before Infinity Falls, and now this! Once again, SEAS are just on FIRE lately, and show no signs of slowing down! One thing I'm a little confused about, are the references to "diving" and "predatory heights". That led me (and many others) to think it'd be called Gyrfalcon, which completely fit the arctic theme, and both those hints. This name though, doesn't seem to imply any of that... Maybe I missed it somewhere in the extended announcement... At any rate, this is another spectacular addition to the park, and it's hard to believe that by the time my kids and I get back to SWO and BGT next year (hopefully!), after having just been to each park April of last year, they will have two new major attractions each! Very impressive! EDITED for misspelling "Gyrfalcon"

This is likely going to be a park I return to for the first time in forever (early 2000s, don't remember the exact year offhand) next year, probably during the week after Memorial Day. My kids have never been, so I look forward to showing them the greatness of Mr. Freeze, and actually experiencing it backwards for the first time myself! I also haven't ridden American Thunder ever, so I'm definitely looking forward to that coaster! I know a lot of people seem to have a negative opinion of the park, but my memory of it from my one and only visit many moons ago, was that it was a nice little park! Prettier than most, and with a decent collection of rides. Considering the ride collection has only gotten better than when I went there last, I'm looking forward to another visit! I dig Catwoman's Whip as well, so I look forward to checking that out! If any of you Mid-Westerners (and I know there's a number of you out there, here) are interested in meeting up with us while we're there, that'd be fun, and I'll be sure to follow up with you when I know a more definitive date!

This looks like a fantastic addition for SWSA, and while I don't have any plans for a Texas trip in the next year or so, I will definitely be going to SFSA for the first time, whenever I make it down there again!

Thanks to everybody who replied with info about my questions regarding SFGAm! It's definitely given me a lot of food for thought, as I try to plan out this upcoming trip, and make it the best time I can for my kiddos! One thought I've had, especially given how busy the Fright Night weekends get, is whether it would actually be more advisable to wait, and go the first weekend of November. That's when I went to the park last, back in 2016, and while it was busy, it wasn't too bad. Certainly not nightmare level. An additional thing I noticed with that weekend, is that it's a Member Appreciation Day that Sunday, and I noticed that they have ERT on Maxx Force this month's Member Appreciation Day. Has anybody been to those this year, and if so, is Maxx Force always available for ERT, or do the coasters change? I'm definitely open to waiting and going that weekend, if it'd make for a more enjoyable visit, so if anybody has any further thoughts on postponing until November, or what the Member Appreciation Days, please feel free to share! Thanks!

Not a whole lot of new information, but it's cool to finally have a name to call it, and know some official stats! As others have said repeatedly, this park is already awesome (my 3rd favorite park, currently), and they're about to get a world class RMC coaster that could very well be among the best 3 coasters in the world when all is said and done! It's really pretty mindblowing to think about, and that's not even touching on the fact that they're a definitely one of the few parks left that could legitimately get a Giga coaster in a few years! All of you who live down there, and get to go to this park on the regular are sure blessed, and I definitely think I'm going to try and bump up my next trip down with my kids to next year, instead of 2021, because I just can't wait to ride this thing! As for the name, and apparent theme change, it absolutely is a little puzzling! While I LOVE going with a Crocodile theme, and also appreciate the tribute to Gwazi (which has always been a cool name), it does end up seeming kind of odd, given what Gwazi is supposed to refer to. Regardless of that, however, in the grand scheme of things, the colors are cool, the logo is cool, and I'm sure this thing is going to ride beyond cool, which relegates all of the name/theme issues to minor semantics, ultimately unimportant. Iron Gwazi is going to be a special coaster, at a special park, with a lot of other great coasters, rides, and attractions, not to mention the fantastic animals! If you couldn't tell, I the SEAS parks, and BGT is my favorite! I'm rocking my Kumba shirt today to celebrate the exciting news! Hats off to BGT, for bringing us this addition, and I look forward to a POV, or at least a layout (like we've been given with Pantheon, Ice Breaker, and Texas Stingray) in due time, to fill in all the missing pieces currently!

^Absolutely! I've already used it two times at CW, and I've only paid the initial fee at this point. As long as you don't fall behind on your payments, you'll be good to go!

Hey, I haven't seen this explicitly stated anywhere, but what time will the announcements be made? Can't wait!

^,^^ Thanks for the FP info! That's kind of what I was wondering, what the actual experience was like, how to best strategically use it, and whether the Regular was worth it (it didn't seem like it would be, so thanks for confirming that.) So, I take it that there will still likely be some people in the FP line, who also had set their FP time similarly? That's what I'm getting from the 10 minute wait comment. It actually seems like a pretty efficient system, if you can time it right, and make it work for you! If anybody can give any insight into any of the crowd questions, or the best way to do Maxx Force (since that's not going to be a FP ride anyway), that'd be great! Thanks again!

Hello again, SFGam regulars! I got SF Memberships for myself and my kids for next year, during the Flash Sale, and need to go activate them, and take advantage of the goodies this season. So I've targeted October 4th and 5th for my trip to SFGAm, as it's before the blackout dates in October, but far enough away I can budget for it. I know that Fright Fest will be going, and it's a Saturday, so it will likely be crowded. Still, I wondered what kind of crowds to expect, as this would be my first time going to GAm during the Halloween season. Do the Haunted Houses (which we won't be doing) take people away from the coaster lines much? Or do they have negligible effect, since they're an upcharge. I also have questions regarding the Flash Pass at SFGam. I've never used a Flash Pass before, but understand the basics of how it works. However, what I was wondering is whether the Regular Flash Pass where you wait the length of whatever the line currently is, is worth it? Or should I get either Gold or Platinum to make it worth getting? I can't afford the Platinum regardless, but I could perhaps see doing the Gold, if it had a noticeably tangible effect on wait times throughout the day, greatly enhancing our experience on a very crowded day. I know that Maxx Force isn't on the Gold or Regular FP, but is any coaster or ride really affected by the FP, other than Goliath? Because if that's the only coaster we'd really need to FP on, I'm not sure if it's worth it. With our Membership purchase during the Flash Sale, we also got the one free skip the line pass per person (and I got an extra one for getting a Platinum Membership), so I was wondering how those worked. Do you just go through the FP entrance and get right on the coaster? Is there still a wait? Are all coasters included? These were just some of the things I was curious about in advance. Would it be advisable, in anybody's opinion, to wait until the beginning of November to go instead, in order to avoid bigger crowds? Or would they still be pretty substantial? I went a few years ago around that time, and found the crowds manageable, though the food stands were so busy all day long, we couldn't get anything to eat, and got hangry, and left the park early. One last question, and thanks in advance for any and all answers to my questions! I just like to be prepared in advance when I go on trips, especially when my kids are involved. Regarding Maxx Force, would it work to get to the park a half hour before open on the Saturday (whether in October or November), and go directly to the coaster, which is not far from the front gate. and get on pretty quickly? I was just curious how that type of strategy has worked out for anybody who's tried it this year. Additionally, with regard to the Golden Tickets, that get a friend in free, do you have to go to the ticket sales with the friend, before entering the lines for the park, in order to redeem those? It's a small distinction, but one that could definitely add some time to the beginning of the day, and scuttle any plans to get on Maxx Force quickly at park's open. Thanks again for the help, as I look forward to making another trip out to this fun Six Flags park!

Me. And my wife. MF over Steel Vengeance along with Maverick, Valravn, and Top Thrill. Fight me. You guys were definitely the ones I was thinking of when I made my earlier post in regard to that comment! I love MF too, and I absolutely think it's a more non-enthusiast friendly coaster than SV, which is why it places high in the Golden Tickets year after year. I don't have any insider info about payola or anything else I've seen referenced throughout this thread, but honestly, I've always felt like the GT's were more for the GP anyway, and the majority of people attending Amusement Parks other than our small enthusiast subset. We finally have the fabulous TPR Poll now for us enthusiasts, and I think that's great! This way we can see how fellow enthusiasts feel about coasters, since we're the ones dedicating a decent portion of our lives and attention to them. However, I do think there's a place for the Golden Ticket Awards as far as the rest of society goes, and from looking at the results, they are very reflective of my interactions with non-enthusiasts in regard to parks and coasters, of which I have a great deal more interaction than enthusiasts (at least in person.) So, for that reason, I don't see them as worthless, and unnecessary. Just a more mainstream, non-enthusiast perspective on what's "BIG" in the theme park world.

^Yeah, I completely know that! I know Rawkin personally, so I know how she feels about it! I was just adding my commentary on the mocked "controversy", based on my recent Leviathan experience. Sarcasm may not always be the easiest thing to deduce online, but I wasn't exactly born yesterday, especially in regard to this hobby!

This. I used to love Friday nights during HalloWeekends as I could get on Millennium Force 3 times at night in a half hour time frame. It was great. These days, MF gets an hour wait even when the Haunts are open. Same for Valravn, Maverick and probably Steel Vengeance (didn't get to visit HW last season). I had this same experience. I remember going to CP for a Friday night Halloweekends in the mid 2000's, and the park was dead. 8 total rides on MF, 6 or 7 of which (I don't recall exactly now!) came back to back, getting off of it and then on again right away! Those were the days! I just avoid the park entirely now during this time of year, especially since I feel like Haunt at KI is a lot better, with all of the great night ride coasters, and it's not nearly as busy, at least early in the season.

^There is a processing fee you're charged in the initial payment, along with that first month's fee. After that, it's just the monthly amount, which they'll automatically take out the same day every month, based on whenever you bought the pass on the payment plan. I'm doing that from CW myself! I'm too tired right now to do a full TR with pictures and everything, but I do plan on doing something along those lines over the next week from my trip to CW over the weekend with my kids! However, here are a few thoughts off the top of my head about the park, from my trip... -CW is an interesting park to me, in that most of its coasters range from "Meh" to "AWFUL!" to me, but it's still an amazing park, thanks to its natural beauty, awesome collection of flats, and of course, that Top 3 Trinity of B&M Greatness! Seriously, my kids and I, particularly my oldest who is the most "enthusiast" of them, had the hardest time deciding how we ranked those three coasters against each other! They are all awesome! Not quite SV, Maverick, and MF awesome, in my opinion, but definitely not far behind as far as we were concerned! They definitely make a trip to the park worth it all by themselves, but the great flat collection, and the other fun coasters like Vortex and Thunder Run (my son said it should've been called "Wonder Run", and I agree!) are just icing on the cake! -Yukon Striker was the most surprising coaster experience for us. We all like Valravn, and ShieKra, the other Dive Coasters we've ridden, so we were expecting to like Yukon Striker the best. However, it just took our breath away, and blew us away from our first ride, and distanced itself in a major way from the other Dive Coasters! It's a world class coaster, period, not just a world class Dive Coaster! Bravo to CW and B&M for collaborating on a fantastic coaster, with a perfect design for the park that it's in! My oldest has it in his Top 10 coasters, and he's ridden over 120 now, so that's pretty impressive! -Leviathan is often regarded as the "worst" Giga, and it was the last of the North American Gigas that we got on. But it is in NO WAY an inferior ride! While Fury is a very tough act to live up to, Leviathan absolutely compares favorably to Millennium Force in my opinion, and is absolutely an elite, world class coaster! Anybody concerned about Orion need not be, as the stats on that are similar to Leviathan, and it appears to have even better elements in its layout. Plus, as YS proved once again, B&M is really stepping up the intensity and variety of their elements, and I have no doubt Orion will follow that trend. But getting back to Leviathan, it was absolutely fantastic, and after much deliberation, and going back and forth on it, both myself, and my oldest son regarded it as our favorite coaster at the park, narrowly edging out Behemoth! -As for Behemoth, it was already highly regarded by me, but this trip absolutely reinforced it as my best of the best B&M Hypers, narrowly edging out Mako, which I had put above it last year due to recency bias, but I'd forgotten just how great Behemoth's layout was, particularly that fantastic finale! It's interesting to me that this coaster was the first of the three CF B&M Hypers, yet it seems to have the best layout and elements, at least in my opinion. My oldest son still prefers Diamondback to it, but I think the ending of Behemoth gives it the edge, in my opinion. -The flats. Awesome, as advertised! Our favorite was definitely Wilde Knight Mares! We rode it three times, and could have ridden it a bunch more! So much fun, not much of a wait ever, and that classic flat ride experience that the newer flats just can't give. Sledgehammer was also a big favorite of ours, even though it Rocky Balboa'd me a couple of times to the side of the head! It's a shame there aren't more of these out there, because it really is a fun flat ride. Our third favorite flat, was the fun Skyhawk. My oldest didn't want to flip any, and my younger two kids weren't able to get any flips. I got 2, and really had to work for them! I did get a ton of hangtime though, and it was a standout flat to me as well! I would love to see more of these added to other parks (MIA, anyone???). On the other end of the spectrum, Shockwave was a let down. I'd ridden Electro-Spin at Carowinds, and though it had a MUCH better ride cycle! Maybe it's all about the weight of the people in the arm, but we only completed one complete flip, which was a much different experience to my ride on Electro-Spin. So perhaps it does give great rides too, but riding with four other kids (two of my own, and two others) probably didn't do it any favors. -I have a new LEAST FAVORITE COASTER! Just when I thought Green Lantern was the worst currently operating (sort of) coaster, and when I thought Great American Scream Machine at GAdv was my worst coaster experience of all time, Wilde Beast comes along, and literally made me want to get off desperately before it was even half over. Seriously, I have never had such an awful, and negative experience on a coaster in my nearly 40 years of riding, and I wouldn't wish that experience on anybody other than my worst enemies. I am not trying to be over-dramatic, or speak in hyperbole here, but I actually was in misery riding it, and when I hit the brake run, I told my son (who also hated it - all my kids did) that I don't know how they consider that coaster safe to run, and put actual human beings on. It was THAT BAD of an experience to me! Son of Beast? MUCH better! At least the first half was decent, and the loop was fun. Wilde Beast was like that last part of SoB, but stretched out to the entire ride. I would liken my experience to putting rocks in a box, and shaking it violently (and my body is the rocks!) They can't RMC, or even just burn to the ground (please let me light that match!) this coaster soon enough in my opinion! Yikes! For the record, I did ride this at least twice before, and don't even remember it much, positively or negatively. But the last time was 11 years ago, and I must say, it must have aged VERY badly since then! -The last thing I'm going to mention, is the crowds. I'm NOT a big fan of the Fast Lane system, but I must say, I think that FL+ is pretty much a necessity at this park during most days. We went on an overcast and chilly Sunday in September, and the park looked like a Disney Park at times. It was even more crowded on Saturday, when we popped in to activate our passes, and spend four hours in the park. So while I may not like the FL system as a general rule, it was definitely a necessary evil for us this trip, and I was very grateful to have the free ones we got for getting our Platinum Passes. We all definitely felt spoiled, and I was glad to be able to give my kids that fun experience, and we were able to ride tons more than we would have otherwise (back to back to back walk-ons of Leviathan at one point!) I just told them not to get used to it! I know that was already long enough, but I had a lot of thoughts, and probably have more as well, but I can share anything else whenever I do the TR and pictures. Bottom line is that it was an awesome trip, made even more awesome thanks to FL+, and CW definitely should be proud of their B&M Trio, even if both of their Wooden coasters need to go the way of the dinosaurs (Minebuster didn't seem too bad honestly, after Wilde Beast - but it didn't seem good, either!) This is definitely one of the premier CF parks, and while it's delivered a good time every time I've gone (2006 as Paramount, 2008, Behemoth's first year), this is definitely the best the park's ever been! I didn't even see any line jumping, which was an epidemic the last time I was there. So two thumbs up from me and my kids, and hopefully I'm back sooner than 11 years next time!

I've said it elsewhere, and to a number of people in person, but I'll go ahead and say it here. I am predicting this coaster will be themed after/named for Lions, and will feature the concept of "King of the Jungle" in some way. I think this fits with the fact they're replacing a coaster that partially had a Lion theme, and even though Kumba can refer to either Tigers or Lions since it's apparently Swahili for "Roar", they don't have an explicitly "Lion" themed coaster anymore, while the Tiger half of Gwazi now is represented by Tigris. Additionally, the track color being purple would go along with a "King of the Jungle" theme, since it's a color often associated with royalty. Just my guess. Could be wrong, but it definitely checks out on a lot of levels. As for the name, it's hard to say... King Gwazi (if they retained the old concept, but without it dueling, that may not make much sense)? Jungle King? Simply "The King"? Who knows... Maybe I'm way off base, but it's fun to guess! I just know I am super excited about this coaster, as a huge fan of the park already, and RMC in general, and can't wait until Thursday to find out more!