The Great Zo

Thanks David! Yep, a bit of upkeep here and there would make a difference. You live in Florida, I live not even three hours away in Ohio, and you made it here before I did. That says something, though I'm not quite sure what. Admittedly, nothing at Camden was as frightening as my experience on the dearly-departed Dragon Coaster at Beech Bend in Kentucky. I think your home state wins. Or loses, I guess. Yeah, I saw that in some old reports too! It's peculiar. Maybe we'll eventually lose the rest of the PARATROOP sign in a year or two also.

Thanks! This is just a short one-off report, still hoping to finish my stuff from California last year, but 2019 might get in the way soon. I read your report from last year and there were definitely some similarities in our experiences. I didn't even mention the restrooms in my report, but yours was still accurate a year later. They did have two ops on Big Dipper, though, and they were checking restraints the whole time. It's insane that I even need to mention that. Aside from those two new rides, this place really is a bit of a time warp. The price is right, though -- it's hard to argue against the place when admission is under $20.

Camden Park / Huntington Trip Report Addendum OK, as I like to do, here's a quick look at a few other things you might want to see in the area. After all, if you're making the road trip to Huntington, you might as well explore the area a bit. I found downtown Huntington very nice -- and that's not sarcasm at all. I've visited a lot of mid-size rust belt Ohio Valley cities, most of which are decades beyond their best days. I've seen some that are almost beyond repair. Huntington isn't one of them. They've revitalized the downtown, there's some good local restaurants, and some nice parks as well. So, a quick look at Huntington, as detailed in the captions below. A distant view of downtown Huntington from an overlook on Kinetic Drive. The Cabell County courthouse. Huntington City Hall. A train engine on display at Heritage Station, a mixed-use development that also houses the city's tourism office and welcome center. Pullman Square, a public gathering space and retail center. There were several well-rated restaurants near Pullman Square and 3rd Ave / 4th Ave, and it actually wasn't easy to pick. Backyard Pizza won out, and it was a great choice. Creative pizzas in a wood-burning oven? That's a winner. Huntington is protected by a flood wall. You don't want to see the Ohio River above 72 feet. But, you can head down for a view over the water if you want. They were setting up for a concert at the riverfront park, so it clearly gets some use. Want to see the spot where three states meet? Virginia Point Park lets you view Kentucky (left), Ohio (right), and West Virginia (foreground) at the same time. I know, real exciting stuff. Watch some boats on the river! Or, if you're into college football (or just saw the movie "We Are Marshall") you can visit the site of the 1970 plane crash. The runway where the plane was trying to land is just at the top of that hill. I'm gonna end with this one, because it makes no sense at all. This display was at a pediatric dentist's office that we just happened to drive past. If anyone can figure out what dentistry has to do with wild animals on a jungle rafting trip, I'd be curious to hear. Thanks for reading!

Pictures, continued! Here's the detailed facade of Haunted House. Or is it Hawnted House? There's a gravity-powered drop just before you pass by Satan himself! The park has a carousel. It's housed in an open pavilion. It has lots of horses. Some of their saddles are losing paint. The green horse is interesting, though. There's also a chariot, featuring that classic West Virginia palm tree beach scene. Another flat at the park is the Paratroop. Short the "ER" on the sign, but the ride still looked like it was running fine. SBF Visa spinners are proliferating like rabbits. Slingshot is so modern and bright for this park. Ride sign picture. Spinning... More spinning... Rattler is also a very modern-looking ride. I had wondered if this was one of those inverting frisbees, but it was not. Two-ride shot! Rattler is the type of ride I'm inclined to skip on hot days, and it was a hot day. It's one of the park's newer rides, and it was drawing some of the better crowds, even if it never quite filled the gondola. Sideways airtime. Spinning and spinning... Airtime and hairtime. OK, let's get to the good coaster -- Big Dipper. Here's the ride entrance. Like its smaller cousin across the park, there is no ride sign. I am somewhat baffled by that. Big Dipper is an ACE Landmark. A straight-on view of the Big Dipper station. The last row is conspicuously missing. The NAD train hits the brakes... ...and pulls back into the station. Actually, the rest of the train seemed to be in pretty good shape. It's just that back row that had me puzzled. Manual brake operations! Big Dipper is a tough coaster to try to photograph -- there really aren't any views to be had of the majority of the ride, aside from views at sharp angles like this. At the top of the lift. There's a small first drop, before the coaster makes a 180-degree turn to head into the second drop. This second drop is the one part of the ride that is /very/ easily accessible for photography. The walkway is right next to it! Probably too close! It's quite the jolt of air in the back car. At the bottom of the big drop. Heading back up the next hill. Here are a few distant shots of Big Dipper from the sky ride. Another photography challenge -- lots of wires in the way. There are a few open looks, though. Another Big Dipper view. More Big Dipper. More wires in the way. I did the best I could to focus past them! Big Dipper is a classic "don't make 'em like that anymore" coaster, and it's the one thing I can legitimately say is awesome about Camden Park. There's a set of flyers. Half of them are painted with some kind of bird icon. Half of them are not. They didn't look particularly snap-able -- they ran a fairly tame cycle. The Scrambler did not appear to be operating. The park also has a few kiddie rides scattered around. This is what I think is the main midway -- a small pavilion with shops and games on either side. Games! More games, and a souvenir shop. The Happy Clown Toy Store, which doesn't creep me out at all. Did not stop to eat at the West Virginia Grille, but we did get some free water. I presume this is a stage, so maybe they bring in some music on occasion. Oh, and this has got to be the most unique attraction at Camden Park -- a Native American burial mound! It's from the Adena culture, and has been estimated to be 2000-3000 years old. That's it from Camden Park. Goodbye, creepy clown!

I started off my 2019 theme park season with a bang last week (June 26), making my first-ever visit to Camden Park in Huntington, West Virginia. This isn't a park that gets a ton of traveling enthusiasts, as it's a long ways away from anywhere in particular. Hopefully those of you who have yet to visit will enjoy this trip report. I'll be as fair as I can, but keep in mind that I'm reviewing a park that was featured in a post-apocalyptic video game. My visit to Camden Park was short -- just over an hour and a half. It was part of a long one-day road trip along the Ohio River that I did with a friend, spanning various sites from Cincinnati to Huntington. With that said, I had enough time to ride everything important, and get enough pictures for a fairly comprehensive TR. My first impression of the park was the big fat clown sign on the way in. If that doesn't set the tone for the afternoon, how about the ticket booth attendant who may have actually been asleep standing up when I approached to purchase admission? He claimed he was reading a book on his phone, but that's an unlikely excuse around those parts. Doing the math on my 15% discount coupon took a bit of time as well, but soon enough, we were on our way into the park -- on a hot summer afternoon with light attendance. We decided to clear out the back half of the park first, starting with the one ride I figured might actually have a line -- the Log Flume. They were running 3 or 4 boats and the dispatches weren't too slow, so I figured we'd be on in a few minutes with only about 10 people ahead of us. My prediction was not to be, as Boat #5 had taken on a good bit of water and needed to be drained. We got to witness this process play out in real time, as the boat was brought most of the way up the lift hill, and then manually bailed out with a small bucket. Low-tech is the way they do things at Camden Park. That was fun to watch. As for the ride, it's alright -- not bad for a small park. It's short, but it has two drops, and is custom-built -- not one of those semi-portable models. The first drop is small, but perfectly designed to send a wall of water over the lip of the front of the boat, soaking your shoes to the core. The second drop is larger, but generates only a pleasant mist. On a hot day in June, that didn't feel too bad. Our second ride was Lil' Dipper, the park's kiddie woodie. It runs NAD trains with seats that are a little too small to comfortably fit two adults, but a little too big to fit just one. That provides quite a bit of room to move on the coaster's rather shaky turns, though the small bunny hills are kind of fun. This ride was running half-empty trains, so we could have gotten on again, but we wanted to keep moving. Skyliner is the park's chair lift, and I'll never pass up an aerial observation ride of any kind -- especially for photography's sake! You can get some pretty good views over the back half of the park from this ride, including the log flume and the kiddie woodie, as well as the park's train. You'll also get a great view of the mini golf course, which appeared to be in a general state of disrepair. The chair lift operates as a full loop, and the turnaround is at the far edge of the park's property. I did some photography of the rides in the back, but we opted to skip the other flats (due to lack of interest), the train (in the interest of time), and the mini golf course (in the interest of it looking like it's seen better days). Next, we headed to the front of the park to get a ride on the one coaster I was really looking forward to -- Big Dipper. This ride dates back to 1958 and probably hasn't changed much at all since then. It's still running with a NAD train, manual hand brakes, and fixed restraint bars. The coaster was actually running really well -- smoother than the kiddie woodie, even. It gave a pretty enjoyable ride, which helped distract from the peeling paint all over the ride's wooden structure, and the fact that the seat in the last row of the train has apparently been missing for years. This is definitely a back seat ride, because the big drop contains one of those WTF airtime moments you sometimes hear about on older, sketchy wooden coasters -- like Cyclops at Mount Olympus. It's a crazy, sudden jolt, and it's the single best thing about Camden Park. The park's next coaster, if you want to count it as such, is Haunted House -- or is that Hawnted House? Honestly, I couldn't tell you for sure -- the way it's written on the sign is somewhat ambiguous. The neat thing about this ride is that it's a gravity-driven coaster / dark ride, so I guess it counts as a credit. The not-so-neat thing is that it's perhaps the least thrilling / exciting haunted dark ride I've ever been on -- and I've been on Ghost Hole at Coney Island. Heck, Boo Blasters at Kings Island is more frightening, though that's probably because the guns on that ride barely work half of the time. But I digress. Yes, we also rode Slingshot, the requisite every small park is buying one SBF Visa spinner. Nothing wrong with these rides. I think they're a good fit for parks like this. With more time, we might have gone on a few more rides, but there wasn't anything else too unique that I couldn't find at other parks. I finished up my pictures and we headed out of the park to start the drive back to Cincinnati. So, how can I sum up this review? Any dedicated coaster fan should experience Big Dipper in the back row. Well, second-to-back row, since the back row doesn't actually exist. But is anyone going to make the trip to Huntington, West Virginia, just for that? Yes, you are, because you're on Theme Park Review and you're probably a coaster nut. Adjust your expectations for the rest of the park, and have a great time! On the way into Camden Park for about 100 minutes of fun. If you look closely, you can see sleeping-ticket-booth dude. Here's the park's main entrance. Quite the line to get in. My full Camden Park ticket, before the right section was removed by the employee at the entrance. Park map! So, we'll start with the log flume! Here is the little splash. If you're in the front row, it's deadly. Say goodbye to dry feet. The big hill (which isn't all that big) is not quite as wet. There's a splash. And then it's done. And then you're refreshed by the good clean West Virginia water. A side view. Splash goes up. Splash comes down. Here's the station for Lil' Dipper, the kiddie woodie. You wouldn't know its name just by looking at the station, because there's no sign for the ride. Lil' lift hill. DO NOT STAND! Because, with these restraints, you pretty much could. An overview of the ride. At the top of the lift. A little bit of herky-jerky airtime. A lotta bit of shuffling around the corner. Pulling into the brake run. The park also has a Whip, which we did not ride. The roof of the ride is themed to "decrepit West Virginia barn-quality sheet-metal that an EF0 tornado would rip apart." Some interesting artwork on the side of the Whip. The Skyliner sky ride was up next. The ride offers fantastic aerial views of the Ladies restroom. To the right is one of the picnic pavilions. Further to the right is the parking lot. That's basically the entire crowd for the day. To the left is the kiddie woodie. A typical half-empty train. Right below the sky ride is the mini golf course. Its official name is "West Virginia Adventure Golf." It looks like quite the adventure. It has a few cute set pieces, but... Yikes. Yeah, that's not gonna do. Interesting use of rust as an accent color on the sky ride supports. Wonder if Kings Island is considering that for their new giga? It's the turnaround! We're halfway done! A view to the park's train. It offered a scenic ride around the pond, and we might have gone on it if we had more time. The far end of the pond -- and a Coke ad. Here's a wider view over the pond, with a few rides across the way. There are swan boats, but none of them were in use. The ride op must have found some other way to pass the time. The Tilt-a-Whirl was running. It is very, very blue. They also had a George Foreman Grill thing. Not really interested in riding one of these. The north end of the park also has a Rockin' Tug The train pulls back into the station. The log flume splashes down. Lil' Dipper climbs the hill. The side of the train is about the only place you'll find the ride's name, and it uses the full "Little Dipper" spelling. There are also horses. And pony cart rides. One picture of the train engine, and now we'll head up to the front half of the park.

Wow, that looks good. Some of the best parts of Twisted Timbers and Storm Chaser, with a few new twists thrown in. #HARDGAAN shirt guy on the left knows what's up.

A pre-season blog post from Tony has this nugget:

Some A+ long-zoom shots in this set. Lots of nice composition. The gull on the Pink's sign is a favorite. Great post!

This is fanboy controversy I can get behind!

I don't know. Personally, I'm kinda disappointed that this thread hasn't turned into 600 pages of armchair surveying, civil engineering, computer-aided design interpretation, trigonometric mathematics, NDA-violating, FOIA-requesting, PDF-downloading, glue-sniffing enthusiast speculation. Would really liven the place up.

My rankings! TOP 25 1) Millennium Force 2) Expedition GeForce 3) Steel Vengeance 4) Lightning Rod 5) Medusa Steel Coaster 6) El Toro 7) Outlaw Run 8) Kärnan 9) Wildfire (Kolmarden) 10) Helix 11) Fury 325 12) Storm Runner 13) Skyrush 14) Phoenix 15) Top Thrill Dragster 16) Maverick 17) Goliath (Walibi Holland) 18) The Voyage 19) Intimidator 305 **) Colossos (Heide Park) (wasn't officially on the rankings) 21) Banshee 22) Montu 23) Phantom's Revenge 24) Kingda Ka 25) Kumba 26) Incredicoaster I admit that I seem to under-rate a couple enthusiast favorites (Maverick, I305). Two RMCs I consider mid-tier (Twisted Colossus, Twisted Timbers) didn't make my top 25 despite high finishes in the overall rankings. But I'll never apologize for having Kärnan in my personal top 10 (was #63 overall). Whoever put that thing together is an evil genius. BOTTOM 10 (#1 is worst) 1) Hades 360 2) Bandit 3) El Condor 4) MP Xpress 5) Soarin' Eagle (Luna Park) 6) Temple of the Night Hawk 7) Crazy Mine (Hansa Park) 8) T3 9) Nighthawk (Carowinds) 10) Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril I guess I have something against Nighthawks.

And I had Steel Vengeance #3 overall behind MF and GeForce.

Great work and some interesting results! A ranking I would love to see is just straight-up ridership numbers. Which coasters had the most people marking them off as ridden?

I am losing count of the number of regular people (completely outside our little hobby) who have asked me about the new giga coaster coming to Kings Island next year -- asking me the question as if it's a sure thing, asking me what a "giga" coaster is, and asking me if it's going to look like the videos they've watched on the internet. As best as I can figure it out, over the past several months, several local media outlets picked up on some of the coaster nerd speculation online, grabbed one or two of the fan-made animations from YouTube, and ran with it as unapologetic clickbait. I've been trying to tell people that yes, it's very possible Kings Island gets a large, expensive, 300-plus foot tall coaster in 2020 (or maybe 2021). But everything they've read and seen about it so far is questionably sourced, to say the least.

Kumba and Tigris look great against the crisp blue sky. Glad Kumba and Montu are delivering, they are among my favorite B&Ms. And I have never noticed that "support to nowhere" -- good catch!

It's already better than the actual How To Train Your Dragon land at Heide Park!

Kids axe throwing seems like a totally sane idea. Nuclear Pineapple is probably the best crayon color name in history. I have also been to the MSP observation deck. It's very decent-ish. Thanks for sharing!

And I thought Cars Land and the Wizarding World were immersive. This is an order of magnitude beyond that. Disney might need to hire a few more accountants with all the money they'll be making on that merch. Most of all, I'm excited to see this go into Florida. Disneyland is already a fantastic park, but DHS needed something huge, and it's got it on the way now. I used to think 7 days was the right length for a WDW vacation, but by 2020/2021, I may have to bump that up by one or two more.

This park already has one of my favorite coaster collections in the world. Now you're going to add a high-end RMC to the mix? That's almost unfair.

That would be a shameful defense for a park operator, because it's literally part of their job to know the forecast and not operate rides in situations where the winds are expected to become too strong for safe operations.

The NWS forecast issued yesterday afternoon for coastal San Diego County was for winds of 15-20 MPH with gusts of up to 30 MPH. Three peak wind gusts from nearby locations last evening: San Diego International Airport / 33 MPH / 6:20 PM Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport / 23 MPH / 6:35 PM Scripps Pier (La Jolla) / 44 MPH / 6:20 PM Ultimately, if Bill's got the right number here: ...then with a forecast for 30 MPH gusts, they should have never been running the ride.

I've been to Knoebels three times now, and I am still missing some rides ... and snacks. Yep. And now it's a Johnny Rockets.

Big lens, zoomed all the way to 250mm, and just trying to hold the center of the lens at the holes in the bars as much as that was possible. Not easy, especially while moving! Whole lot of 1/1000 stuff. Thanks! Thanks, that was one of my favorites too! Awesome stuff Zach, and your 2018 visit to Disneyland was something I referenced before my trip. Thanks Bert! If time permits, I'm hoping to continue this trip report with other stuff I did in California (including the zoos/parks in San Diego) but we'll see how things go with prepping for my 2019 travel plans.

Disneyland -- The Actual, Satisfactual Grand Finale! For Real! So, just two items of business left to attend to. First up -- fireworks. See the fire hydrant at the bottom right of this picture? That would be my tripod stand for the fireworks, and it worked out pretty well. Oh, and the umbrella at the left side of the picture? We moved it out of the way. Don't tell anybody! It's going to be hard to caption a whole bunch of fireworks photos, so I'll keep it pretty simple and just enjoy the show. Explosions are awesome. This is probably my favorite photo of the batch -- such a nice mix of colors, and a long-exposure Tinkerbell trail to cap it all off. More fireworks. Fireworks and spotlights. Red and yellow. Fire! Very green. Very pink. X marks the spot. Fireworks, continued. Lasers! Oh, and the weird green things at the bottom of the pictures? Those were crowd control cast members waving their lighted batons. Nothing I could do to get them out of the frame. One more Tinkerbell trail. A huge finale! That was a really good fireworks show, and I love how it was themed to the various attractions at Disneyland. Hanging out by the Rivers of America, waiting for Fantasmic to begin. This was my spot to see the show, and I did this one long-exposure picture of the stage area before it started. The show has started! Lots of lights and water features. A big scene with the Columbia, which has been turned into a pirate ship. Daring acrobatics. Fights on the main deck. Bright blue and green lights. The skull and crossbones tells the story! Photography during Fantasmic is not easy, but if you catch the spotlights and the fog just right, you can get some cool effects. A romantic scene. First, we dance. Then, we light absolutely everything on fire. The dragon was awesome. The big finale with all the Disney characters on the Mark Twain. The monochromatic "Steamboat Willie" Mickey is a nice touch. More fun with spotlights. Everyone waves things around in the air. We have chipmunks! Buzz almost seems out of place on a historic steamboat. The Mark Twain rolls off into the distance... ...and our Disneyland vacation comes to an end!

Disneyland -- The Grand Finale -- More Pictures! The main plaza had a bunch of these artistic flags depicting rides at Disneyland. Here's one for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy. And one for the Haunted Mansion. Back for another swing through Disneyland. "Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy." Looks like we're starting things off with the Dapper Dans. Or is this version the Cadaver Dans? Snap those fingers. I think they're getting ready to attack. False alarm. No question, these guy have a good time. Random history thing! It's a petrified tree! It's an actual piece of a petrified tree from Colorado. Pretty cool. I guess the Swiss Family Robinson just weren't selling the tickets, so Tarzan it is. It's pretty similar to the treehouse in Florida, but the views from up top are a little more open. Hanging lanterns in the treehouse. A bell and a book. A very angry cat. It growls at you just to make sure you're aware it's angry. I feel like we're intruding on someone's home. The view west from the top of the treehouse. I spy a Haunted Mansion... ...and a Splash Mountain. The view north! More Star Wars stuff under construction. Work was ongoing... Big Thunder Mountain rises above the trees. A train crests the lift. So, how about one more ride on Big Thunder? Yep, good idea, as always. Train #1 looks like it's about to derail. I. B. Hearty. Piano Player Wanted: Must Play Good. Bartender Wanted: Must Shoot Good. I wonder which is their higher priority? More buildings in this little mining town. Rainbow Ridge is just a bit over that-a-way. First, we'll climb this hill over here. I think we've found the top. We've got tortoises. We've got snakes! And we've got more construction photos because this photo set just can't get away from them. This is gonna be spectacular when it's done. Explosives, you say? The Columbia, all docked up. The Mark Twain, giving rides around the Rivers of America. That's one ride we didn't get on, but we got so many views from other rides in the area that it wasn't a huge deal. It's a nice-looking boat, and only nicer when used in the show at the end of the day. The pilot house on the Mark Twain. Paddlewheel Excursions. Boat, train, spaceport! Oh boy, more construction photos. Hey, got a construction worker in this one! The main stage for Fantasmic, which looks like a whole lot of nothing during the day. Hopping across the water to Lafitte's Tavern on Tom Sawyer Island. The view back the other way to New Orleans Square. On the island, there's a little tree house. Also, a suspension bridge! There are pathways that go all around the island. Space Mountain behind the Mark Twain dock. A few smaller boats along the edge of the island. Meanwhile, the train passes around the other side of the river. Hoop-Dee-Doo, here's Fort Wilderness, up on a hilltop on the island. An old lantern. It's all about the little details at Disneyland. The top of the hill also has lots of pirate ship overlooks and play areas. Here's one spot with a good view of the river. A viewfinder I don't need. Meanwhile, the Mark Twain passes on by. It's a different view from up here. Oh, and one other view from Tom Sawyer Island -- the Splash Mountain drop tunnel! Admittedly, harsh contrast and tough focusing made these pictures difficult. Did the best I could. A wall of water. This is why they call it Splash Mountain. It's not "moderately wet" mountain. You might get soaked. Might as well enjoy it! Alright, scene change. One final trip to California Adventure for the special Halloween version of Guardians. Yep, all the creatures were on the loose, and they played it for laughs. It was a lot of fun, and I love the way they mess with the queue! Well, the Hollywood Tower Hotel this ain't. But I have no complaints -- I'm glad the two coasts have different versions of this great attraction.