hoppedup

I will never doubt the wisdom of TPR. My daughter and I have been here all day. I'm glad we decided to give it a full day's attention. Phoenix x 4 so far. Row 1 was amazing. Smooth and tons of airtime? Sign me up. Ops are great and waits have been at most two cycles. We walked on Impulse and Twister. We waited maybe 20 minutes for Flying Turns. We are purchasing our first merch of the trip and may even spring for pictures. What an amazing park. We'll be back.

Full disclosure: I've been to Canada many times. The last visit there was an incident with a local that is what it is. But it may prevent me from returning for a couple of more years.

We are probably going to do a Canada trip in the next 2-3 years that will include staying with friends in Québec City, Montreal (Longeuil), and Ottawa. We will probably still have Platinum CF passes and SF memberships then, so I figure we'll do that then. That trip will be more outdoor activity and tourist oriented with whale watching, rafting the Ottawa river, Montmorency Falls, maybe a night at the Château Frontenac, etc. I know we will be closer to CW on this trip, but I'm pretty sure we are sticking to the U.S. this time.

While we're on the subject here is the revised plan for Trip B: Trip B: August 16-25 Thursday afternoon: Drive toward King’s Island Friday: King’s Island (Mason, OH) Saturday: King’s Island Sunday: Cedar Point (Sandusky, OH) Monday: Cedar Point Tuesday: Cedar Point> Waldameer (Erie, PA) Wednesday: Niagara Falls> Fantasy Island (Grand Island, NY) Thursday: Darien Lake (Darien Center, NY)> Conneaut Lake (Conneaut Lake, PA) Friday: Kennywood (West Mifflin, PA), drive toward home Saturday: Finish drive home (home by lunch) I know you guys know where the parks are, but I typed up an itinerary of each trip for the ex-wife, so I included locations. I plan to use FL+ at KI and CP as needed (these don't actually sell out from what I've read here, right?). I know I could've gotten KI on a weekday the week before, but this is the only time that worked for both of us. KK got axed because the State Fair is in town and that sounds like a shit show. Holiday World bit the dust with KK. They will probably be added to next summer's first trip: DW>KK>HW>SFStL>WOF>SDC. That allows for multiple days at KI and CP.

I didn't even think about parking. It looks like about the cheapest we could get tickets would be $39 and then $11 to park. With taxes and fees, it would be $103.48. I love wooden coasters, just not that much.

Spinning on any axis makes anything less enticing to me. If we do The Joker at all, it will be the last thing we do that day. Canobie Coaster, thanks for all the tips. Lake Compounce is under consideration, I just wish they had ride tickets like a lot of smaller parks. That's a lot of cheddar for two woodies. My daughter hated Tempesto (I liked it) so I'm pretty sure Sky Rocket II coasters are off the table.

Kinda figured. I hated Vortex and Georgia Scorcher was not great, either. So I plan on skipping stand-ups unless a majority says it's good. My last ride on Nighthawk was not pleasant and I've read that Batwing is very similar, if not identical. So, no good argument. We will also be skipping all Wild Mouse coasters and will ride every wooden, adult-sized coaster no matter how rough. I will be searching each park's thread for tips on how to tackle them based on a coaster-only approach. And will take the standard "go to the back of the park and work to the front" approach if I come up empty. I've already bookmarked boldikus' guide to SFGAdv. If there are any others, feel free to send them my way.

The first trip is nigh. Current itinerary (version 37 or so) Saturday, June 9: Leave Greensboro NC around noon. Get 3 hours or so in at SFA Probably skipping Mind Eraser, Apocalypse, and Batwing unless someone has a good argument for any of them. We will plan on riding ME at SFNE since it appears to be much better from what I've read here. Three hours should be enough, I think? Sunday, June 10: Knoebels. Monday, June 11: Dorney/Hersheypark preview Tuesday, June 12: All day Hersheypark, drive toward SFNE Wednesday, June 13: All day SFNE, maybe Wooden Warrior at Quassy first, drive toward SFGAdv Thursday, June 14: All day SFGAdv Friday, June 15: Flex day. Back to SFGAdv if we didn't get everything in or just want more. Philly touristy stuff if not. Drive south a bit Saturday, June 16: King's Dominion because it's on the way and we have Platinum passes. Drive home Sunday, June 17: Relax Monday June 18: Carowinds b/c it's close and I took that day off as well We have platinum CF passes (and platinum dining) and Gold SF passes. I realize there is some backtracking in PA, but I really wanted to hit HP, SFNE, and SFGAdv on weekdays. From the map it would seem to make more sense to do HP on Sunday, then Knoebels, then Dorney, but I assume crowds at HP will be a lot lighter on a Tuesday. One other option I've considered is dropping SFNE from this trip and going to Kennywood at the beginning. As for the second trip, Kentucky Kingdom and Holiday World are out and two days each at KI and CP are in. Maybe 2.5 days at CP.

Terrible analogy. SFGAdv is still a good park.

Just wanted to chime in and say that the US National Whitewater Center is really close to Charlotte and it is a ton of fun as well. There is whitwewater kayaking and rafting, climbing walls, zip lines, ropes courses, mountain biking, live music, food, craft beer and more. There is a $5 parking fee so you can go in and look around pretty cheap before you commit to an activity pass ($59) https://usnwc.org/

1973: 1. Great American Scream Machine (SFoG) 2. Carolina Goldrusher (Carowinds) 3. Zambezi Zinger (Worlds of Fun) - now Broca at Colombian National Coffee Park I've ridden the first two but will probably never experience the third.

So kinda like riding Vortex at Carowinds versus Georgia Scorcher? We will probably do DL unless weather cuts into time at another park for some reason. I know. That was a joke. I assume the video is shaky from the rocking action of the moose. Good to know. I've enjoyed all the Arrow loopers I've ridden, even Carolina Cyclone. The only one my daughter would re-ride was Loch Ness Monster. It has been my favorite so far.

We are definitely going to do Maid of the Mist. If the ROS blows the SFA one away then we would definitely ride it. We actually have two flex days built in to this trip for things other than coasters or stay an extra day at a park if we need. This trip has two full days at KI and two and a half at CP with FL+ budgeted for every day if need be. I guess we could probably just ride Predator last. I watched a Moose on the Loose POV. Looks pretty rough, very shaky. It looks like we can get out-of -state tickets for 19.99 for Fantasy Island. I guess that might not be so bad if the coaster is really good and we can get several laps in on it. I wish all the smaller parks would offer per-ride tickets.

My daughter asked if it were possible to visit Niagara Falls on one of our trips this summer. I think we can make that happen since we dropped a couple of parks. I figured Darien Lake would be a no-brainer since we will be so close. As I read more, it seems like we will have already been on a better Mind Eraser at SFNE in June, a Ride of Steel at SFA in June, and that Predator is terrible. We don't care about boomerangs. So we would be going pretty much for Viper, Motocoaster, and the new Eurofighter. We will be riding pretty much only coasters. My daughter hasn't found an Arrow looper she likes (I've actually enjoyed them all), so I'm wondering if that lineup is worth a visit. Is Predator that bad? For comparison, I recently rode Hurler at Carowinds for the first time. It's the roughest woodie I've been on but it was tolerable. I figure a half-day at the falls and a half-day at DL if we decide to do this. Or skip DL and get the drive to our next stop (~4 hours) done early and get some rest. We would be there on a Thursday mid-August most likely.

I’m only 20 and this new slang is getting over my head Sorry it is the cat's pajama's, the bee's knees, top drawer.

Mac's Speed Shop is tits. We have one in Greensboro that I can walk to. Best wings in town and killer beer selection. If we didn't have platinum dining passes we would have gone there to eat on our recent trip. The one on Sandy Porter Rd. Is closer if you're going from the park to lunch: http://www.macspeedshop.com/steele-creek/

https://www.kingsdominion.com/tickets-passes/season-pass-bring-a-friend-days

Carowinds app was useless. It said "Let's go! No line" for every ride I checked all day even when Intimidator's queue was out to the entrance sign and Fury 325 was probably at 90 minutes. Luckily we got multiples on Fury, Intimidator, and Afterburn with our longest wait being about 30 minutes. We have Platinum passes so we bailed around 2:30 when the lines were getting ridiculous. We also have platinum dining passes so I opted for the ribs at Harmony Hall. They were not as good as the smokehouse at BGW, but not bad for a theme park. We walked through Camp Snoopy on our way to Afterburn and it looks really good, best looking area of the park IMO. I guess I will echo some of the above sentiments and say that as someone who just wants to ride coasters, this park is Fury, Intimidator and Afterburn and not much else. I wanted to ride Goldrusher for nostalgia reasons (it's been over 30 years), but the line was crazy by the time we thought about it. My one ride on Hurler convinced me Carowinds should RMC that one and get a new woodie. Fury 325 is probably my new favorite. I thought I preferred more compact inverts with lots of inversions, but this coaster changed my mind. I'm sure I will be making trips to Carowinds a few times this year just for Fury and Afterburn.

Don't know if it's typical, but we arrived at 9:30 this morning and the park was open and Fury was running. We walked on and then had a station wait for the 2nd ride before 9:45. No ERT was listed for today and everyone was going in. In other news, holy hell the airtime on Fury 325! What a great coaster.

I looked at the Amtrak option. Only train runs Cleveland to Sandusky 3:45 a.m. to 4:55 a.m. Return train is almost as early as well.

Sure, why not? If something goes wrong at 100 feet or 450 feet the end result will be the same.

1995-2017: Got married. Got into whitewater kayaking, recording live music shows and a few other hobbies. Had a kid. 2017: Divorced for 4 years. My 15YO called me one day and said she had just been to Carowinds, had a blast and wanted to go back. I suggested KD and BGW since I never went to those as a kid and they had commercials on our local TV station all the time. We rode Dominator first and I was hooked. It was a Proustian moment, for sure. Then we did Volcano and I305 and I realized coasters had changed a lot in 22 years. Two weeks later we had Platinum Cedar Fair passes and SF Gold passes. We went to Dollywood and SFOG in November. We are taking two ten-day trips this summer hitting 14 new to us parks and possibly over 100 new coasters. The bug has bitten hard! We are only an hour and a half from Carowinds so we can go there anytime we like. KD is only three hours so it may get a few visits this year as well.

I guess I need to revisit I305. I took 22 years off from riding coasters and it was the third one I rode after that break. Now I have 35 more coasters under my belt. It seemed super intense when I rode it. My daughter didn't want to re-ride I305 so we got many laps on Volcano, Dominator, FoF and Backlot the day we were there. We will probably stop by KD in June on our first big trip this summer since it's on the way home, even if it's just to ride TT and I305. 1995 - Last coaster ride was Thunder Road at Carowinds 2017 - Next three coaster rides: Dominator, Volcano, I305

I thought this was a pretty neat read about Sevier County's recycling and waste program and why you don't see recycling bins at Dollywood: https://blog.dollywood.com/index.php/2018/04/20/why-you-dont-see-recycling-bins-at-dollywood/