kenban

Ed Hart has publicly stated a dislike of launched coasters and that he does not intend to install one in the park. The chances of the attraction being a launched coaster are very small. Anyways the permits filed by the park state Raptor and I have seen nothing which even suggests any involvement by Intamin.

I really wish I had some magical way to get this through thick peoples heads. No one is asking people to wear some giant respirator, or anything difficult to breathe in. Just wear a basic face covering. A cheap disposable mask is good enough, and there is no need for it to be uncomfortable, just find something basic, and wear it correctly. Quite literally anything is better than nothing. I was wondering were the slow operations due to cleaning between dispatches? Because if anything I would prefer people wear masks, and parks just give up on wiping down the trains. This is a respiratory illness, getting this through a contaminated surface is a lot harder then breathing it in. The way the virus gets on the surface is from droplets from their nose and mouth anyways, its not like it can actually go through the skin, or that the virus has even been detected in sweat. Stop the virus at its source, through a mask, and there is no need to constantly clean anything. Also the virus can only survive for several minutes outside of the host in heat, and sunlight. For outdoor attractions in the summer, dispatching the train empty every other cycle, or using different rows each cycle is likely just as effective as all that cleaning, and a LOT faster. If people would just wear masks in public, washed their hands, and stayed a few feet apart when possible we would be able to get back to normal a lot faster. The faster this is over the sooner you can stop wearing the mask, and go on a vacation, and even fill every seat on a coaster train.

Almost zero possibility they will be ready that quickly. But at least they have the ability to open. If they could have gotten then information a week or two ago, it might have been possible.

Because they work there? Have you ever looked at the average age of Dollywood employees? Without the elderly I have no idea if the park will have enough employees to operate. At the very least it would lose a significant percentage of its regular employees. One quick comment about the rest of your post, your skin acts as a barrier, even someone with the disease as long as they wash their hands regularly will not spread the disease through touch alone. You also cannot get the disease by just touching an infected object, you have to transfer the virus to a part of your body which can be infected, but that is as simple as rubbing your eyes. The part of the the response which is complete theater and unneeded is not what you think or want it to be. Its the constant cleaning, especially outdoors its completely pointless, and unneeded. Outdoors during the summer due to heat, and sunlight the virus is inactive within minutes of leaving the hosts body. Indoors cleaning is needed but just going behind individuals and cleaning what they touch is also useless. The primary source of the virus is your mouth and nose, which is why a mask is important, at least when you are around other people. Also since a mask does a better job protecting others and not the wearer why its important for everyone to wear them.

As a warning according to the Six Flags website the upgrade to the next tier on memberships is only for the rest of the season. Here is a quote from their website... Just replace platinum with whatever the next tier in the program is for you. The exception is regular members who do not have gold yet, and that is a permanent upgrade. Obviously this is subject to change, but at least right now do not expect your keeping that upgrade.

Planning Commission Notice It clearly states the park is removing an attraction, and building a new attraction. I am pretty confident that the ride being removed is Possessed. The other item which sticks out to me is that it lists the height as 106 ft tall, while Switchback is only 64 ft tall, so its going to be a much bigger version, or the height in that document is a mistake.

I think it is possible the Ohio parks do open this year, but it will not be normal operations. There is also little chance it will be in May like they have announced. If its anything like Universal Singapore, we will see restrictions on anything that can generate a crowd, and direct interactions. My understanding was the only parts of Universal which were operating were the rides, food service, and shops. No shows, no parades, no tours, basically no live entertainment. With those restrictions, I could see how Cedar Point and Kings Island might open this year. But it will not be what most guests are expecting or used to experiencing.

The extreme infectiousness and the wide range of impacts (from asymptomatic to needing ICU) are different than SARS and MERS, among others. You totally took that out of context and reacted to something I never said or discussed. I am talking about the structure of the virus, the link in that paragraph discusses the lipid structure which provides a coating on a corona virus. That specific sentence is about how nothing I have seen suggests that the structure of the protective layer on COVID-19 is somehow different then on other corona viruses. My post was purely a reaction to seeing individuals continuing to state that warmer weather and heat will have no effect on the spread of the virus. The problem is we already have a good amount of evidence that is just not true, which I tried to provide links to actual evidence to show how scientists have shown heat appears to effect the rate of transmission, and also tried to explain why heat has an effect. Like I stated in my post, "the rate of transmission slows, but does not stop". While I did not come out and state it, direct person to person transmission will still occur, heat will have little effect on that, and having large groups of people in close contact if it is indoors or outside is still a bad idea. Since I also did not say it, people should wash their hands regularly, wear masks, and practice actual social distancing. Going outside with friends for activities is not social distancing. Putting your hands in running water for a few seconds is not washing them. I am not going to speculate on how this ends or when and what businesses will reopen, including amusement parks. There are just too many unknowns at this point in time.

Researchers have been looking at the rates of infection and have seen a clear trend in warmer cities/countries vs cooler areas. How accurate any of those studies are is questionable, but when they all point to one conclusion its hard to not expect some change. Here is a study about how quickly the virus dies at different temperatures and on different surfaces. At 40f the virus is basically in hibernation and shows little change even after two weeks and it dies in less than 5 minutes at 160f. This likely is accurate and lines up with other corona virus's like the cold and flu. The problem is the rate of transmission slows, but does not stop, and you actually have to be in the heat for it to have an effect. Large indoor gatherings like conventions, or church services will still see massive transmission because of air conditioning and close quarters. Because this is a new virus humans have no defenses and it is very easy to spread. The other problem is looking at the number of cases in a location is worthless on its own, for instance Australia looks like it has a lot of cases and is seeing a lot of community spread but if you look at where the cases were acquired the majority of it occurred overseas. Last time I looked at the numbers 60-70% of the cases in Australia were acquired overseas, which suggests little community spread. Also scientists largely figured out why the spread of the cold and flu changes during warmer weather a few years ago. You can read a little about it here. This explains why the virus is so long lived in the cold as seen from the study I linked earlier. At 40f and below the coating on the outside of the virus hardens into a shell which protects the virus. At 70f the shell turns into a gel and above 105f it is a liquid. While this is a new virus, nothing I have seen suggests it somehow is completely different from all other known versions of the Coronavirus.

I am not doubting that they charged you extra, because this is not the first time I have heard of it occurring at this park. But what you highlighted does not allow them to charge extra unless your changing the day or time. That text is specifically about exchanging your ticket. Looking through the information online I cannot find anything that allows them to charge extra just because they raised their prices between when you bought your ticket and your visit.

Do you only experience issues while riding roller coasters or do you experience vertigo or nausea at other times, maybe from being in a certain position or from movement? Did you suffer an impact of some kind? If your experiencing issues outside of just coasters you might want to speak with an Audiologist. Something like BPPV which is estimated to cause 20 percent of dizziness issues is easily treated.

I wonder if either of the food service buildings will have actual second floors, the concept art makes it look like they do but it could easily just be a facade. If the second floor is real its most likely offices or park services of some sort. When I was looking at the concept art for the French Quarter Connections, I was thinking that is how I would hide a dark ride addition. Build a big store/restaurant complex which has a second floor and the ride could be built basically out in the open without anyone knowing it is happening. There is not enough room for something like that in this location, at least without tearing down more then just the current food service buildings. But sometime soon, likely in the next few years, the park is going to rebuild the other side of the midway.

The whole point of this deal is to pay off that loan and pay for expenses due to the lawsuits. The loan to build Kansas City used the Texas parks as collateral. If they defaulted on the loan then the lender would have received the Texas parks. It was better to do it on their own terms.

Based on where you wish to visit I would 100% just use the train. They are frequent, fast, and reasonably priced. Tokyo has a fantastic subway system. You will be stuck using buses in Nagoya. Public transportation in Japan just works. Trains/buses/subway etc are clean, cheap, and on time. I do not see any way in which renting a car would save you time or money.

The only good news is that I can state that the crazy individuals at KIC got that part right. The peak of the coaster is at 1035.9 feet, and the ground under the peak is 750, both numbers are from sea level, simply subtract one from the other and you get 285.9 feet. All I want them to answer is one question, except for how tall the supports are how does that change the coaster? What difference does it make? Under this same logic, Lightning Rod is only 80 feet tall. This is part of the point of a terrain coaster, exploiting the height of the terrain to make the supports shorter. The more I look at the blueprints the more excited I am for this coaster. The layout looks good and it’s always nice when the coaster is not next to a parking lot.

This report claims Volcano Bay went from 1.5 to 1.725 million. Volcano Bay only opened on May 25th of 2017. So they added almost 5 full months to the schedule and only went up 225 thousand people? I doubt even the people who wrote this report believes those Sea World gains are accurate, it looks more like a correction because they got the 2017 numbers too low. Because the entire chain was only up 8.5%.

Because they publish months after the annual reports so they just copy the chain wide from available data. Those numbers are accurate since they come from the chains. I suspect TEA then just makes up the rest to try to reach those numbers. They have still not published the 2018 report. Honestly neither Knott's or Magic Mountains numbers have ever made sense to me, why would a Six Flags park in LA open most of the year (they have not published numbers from a time when it was open all year) get lower attendance then Kings Island, Cedar Point, or Canada's Wonderland all open around 140 days a year?

My math says the lift is just about 300, could easily be a few feet off so its possible its like 310. But either way there is a small slope in front of the lift. I think that slope is where the records will come from and the drop is likely around 330, might hit 340 feet, could even give it a higher top speed then Fury.

I guess I should point out part of the reason everyone on KIC is freaking out is that they have the foundation layout for the lift hill and drop. According to the document the lift is at 40 degrees with no way to determine the drop but people are assuming something between 80 and 85 degrees. The footers have locations accurate to fractions of an inch. According to trig the lift is only 285 feet tall. It’s a giga style coaster and not even a real giga. The document was filed with the city so they could start construction soon, so it pretty much has to be real.

First quarter 2019 investor call transcript is out. https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2019/05/08/cedar-fair-lp-fun-q1-2019-earnings-call-transcript.aspx Only one line stood out to me. According to the CEO, That is a LONG way off the estimates from 3rd parties. Cedar Fair announced chain wide attendance was 25.9 million last year so 23% of attendance is Knott's alone. Makes me wonder what the real attendance is at the other big parks in the chain.

Either the scale is wrong or that is not a giga. EDIT: I should point out I believe the issue is the scale is wrong

CSF is nice enough to label the lift, transfer, and station track pieces which makes it very easy to identify those. Plus transfer track does not have bolt holes at the ends. That second image shows how the track flares out, this is going to heading towards the lift hill, looks like it is straight out of the station onto the lift. That transition to the larger size is how its pretty obvious this is going to be for a giga.

That depends, do you consider it possible for the coaster to have two stations, and two sets of transfer track using two different sizes of track? As long as your a reasonable person, it is impossible. We have no way to know for certain this is going to Kings Island, but there is no way this track is for Hershey.

Sorry I thought I was clear, it’s speculation based on the topology of the land, and the clearing that has been occurring over the last few days. There is a little more backing it up but in the end it’s all educated speculation.

I made this using the Warren County GIS website. I turned on a topographic overlay to show why I think the coaster is going where it is. The Purple area has already been cleared and can be seen in the photo above, the red outline is where I think it is going and based on reports is already partly cleared. The blue line is The Beast and the MCBR is the part where the blue and red are parallel. FYI according to Google Maps, that distance from far south to the northern tip of where Firehawk was located is 2,600 feet. Which is about the same length horizontally of Fury 325. If the designers wanted flat ground that is the best that is possible in this area of the park.