CenturyFlyer

Not one state is currently in the "Yellow Tier."

From now on, every one of my posts will be in BRIGHT YELLOW TEXT. All joking aside, the update is welcomed by me! Hopefully it will make people more receptive to joining.

You've got to be kidding me. I don't want to get my hopes up, but this could be seriously awesome. One of the first things I think of this flat is the horn at Kennywood, but I doubt that Knoebels would keep that feature if this pans out.

Nice report! Are Nitro operations this year as good as they were last season?

That was very thoughtful, InsaneCoasterJunkie. I can't wait for the day when when we see Waldameer expanding again. Right now, though, I'll just be happy if they decide to open next year.

Can't you still get pierogis at the Round Stand in front of the Haunted Mansion?

Oh well, I guess it makes since with most parks not looking for the "next big thing" to buy this year. The cost to plan an exhibit, transport it, and set it up and tear it down wouldn't be worth the return on investment. I'm not sure if government restrictions played into this choice or not. After Chance, GCI, Larson, and Premier stepped down, I'm sure that they really started thinking if it was worthwhile to try and hold it. I'll miss the pictures and video this November.

I don't want this to become the main discussion thread for La Feria, but I thought I'd share this listing of Cascabel (Kennywood's former Laser Loop). https://www.usedrides.com/rides/217016?fbclid=IwAR06NCkg25gu-uMcmEqdyxkIk5G4AqY9z7Zm1Av3UFrs7kOigUTnLHkHtYw I haven't looked to see if there are any other rides from this park listed. 490k. For a forty year old coaster. With a flywheel launch.

My experience with waits on an August weekday: Maverick was 30 minutes. Millennium Force was a walk-on. TTD was 20 minutes. Steel Vengeance was an hour at most. Non-access pass coasters were all 15-25 minutes. I guess that I just lucked out... anyhow, thanks for the report! I'm glad that you still had a fun time given the circumstances.

Gotta love how the webcams are changed during the season. Right now you've got a view of the Marina with Valravn, Raptor, and Blue Streak in the corner as well as a view of just the launch track of TTD with 75% of the Iron Dragon layout and a lot of Rougarou. Interesting choices.

Man, I do love Twister... and Phoenix... so much. Twister is for when you feel up for a great dose of wooden coaster intensity, but it's nice to know that Phoenix will always be right there if you want to take a "break" from the laterals. Knoebels really does go for quality over quantity, and I enjoyed the SFA report too! I will have to go there one day just for the experience and because it's really not that far away.

Without Fastlane two days ago, I managed to ride Steel Vengeance four times (twice with a pass), Maverick twice, Millennium Force twice, and Top Thrill Dragster twice. I also did Gemini, Raptor, GateKeeper, Tiki Twirl, Valravn, Magnum, and Cedar Downs. The only thing I'm bummed that I missed out on was the Sky Ride! The main reason I was able to ride so much was thanks to my mom, who was really nice and went around and got passes for me in the morning while I waited in the SV standby queue. So you'll get the best experience this year if you visit with someone who doesn't want to ride anything and doesn't mind walking miles around the park to wait in lines. (We did get to ride Maverick together. ) A few notes about SV: they were still giving out passes when I got off my second ride at about 11:40, so I snagged one at the last minute for 3-4. Also, I really lucked out with a walk on SV ride at 11:35 following the initial wave of people waiting in standby, which took about half an hour. However, by the time I looked into a third lap, the line had extended halfway through the long tunnel. Still short, but no longer a walk on. Also, be aware that the standby queue is always shorter than when people start to use access passes. It seemed like the line thinned out behind us when I got in line for the 1-2 Maverick slot at about 1:40, so it might be worth trying to get something different than 12-1 SV and 1-2 Maverick times, as that may be what the majority of people do. A few other notes Gemini was racing but offsetting trains. One operator would tap the brake to make sure that their side's train would stay behind the other one. It ruined the fun! I wasn't keeping track, but it seemed like Maverick cleaned and cycled empty all of its six trains more than once per hour. Assigned seating makes it easier to ride in the front or back. I did both on all of the rides I got multiple laps on. That being said, you still might have to let people go in front of you for the back row of SV, as they will tell you to go to a different row if you ask for it when someone's there. A photo dump of some unusual shots follows. I hope that you enjoy it! Overall, I had a great day and was grateful to be given the opportunity to visit on the last Tuesday of the season. The longest line I waited in was just over an hour for SV when I used my access pass at 1:35. Not bad. However, the saddest thing is that the general atmosphere of the park in August feels much less energized than it did last year. Hopefully, we will one day be able to return to a CP that feels like a party every day. Light crowds on the midways Note the pure mayhem that occurs at the 3:30 pass distribution time. Scooters, guitars, and other things MF barely filled a train each cycle with an empty station and queue. If you really like this ride, grab several passes and do a marathon in the second half of the hour! Had to get this shot! Here's the slight offset of the Gemini trains. Tiki Twirl rules. Cedar Downs - no thanks to the operator who took ten minutes to start the ride as I guess she was determined to make it the last cycle of the night. Band organ is working this year! Yep, I used a filter.

I did enjoy Wildcat when I rode it... in 2016... at 12 years old. I also find it hard to like Lightning Racer. The dueling is the best part, but even with that, I don't find it to be a great wooden coaster. Man, after reading all of these reviews I wish that I had gotten another ride on Candymonium! But I did enjoy myself more at Knoebels that same day, so what's a guy to do?

^ Nope, but it is definitely on my bucket list and from what people here have said, I expect that I'll enjoy it when I eventually visit. I didn't want to try to squeeze too much into one day with the virus procedures in place and have no qualms about waiting a bit to go there!

Thanks for reading!!! You're right; a wall of words is monotonous, and all pictures can be too easy to scroll through.

Just a random thought - isn't it kind of cool how Orion and Diamondback are on the same sides of the park as the Racer track that shares their color? (blue east, red west)

If Steel Curtain does open, it would be sometime after Labor Day.

I haven't been to the park yet this year, but are you absolutely sure this happened? The coaster doesn't seem to have a reopening in sight. Sent from my SM-J737T1 using Tapatalk

It's no problem since I write the reports for myself anyway - just add the pictures and post! And what can I say... people made the shed sound bad, but I appreciated the nice theming. ^ I hope that your trip works out next year! Voyage was my biggest bucket list ride too, and it didn't disappoint.

Waldameer is having a very lean season so far, at least according to this story. If you get the chance the visit, I encourage you to do so! Somehow, though, they are still open every day throughout August.

I initially hesitated from putting up these pictures because my phone camera quality is pretty bad, and I left my "real" camera (though it's not perfect either) in the car. But I figure that there might be someone out there who enjoys them, even though we've all seen the same pictures of Cedar Point a million times. I'll be sticking to the captions here, but I wrote a few paragraphs over in the discussion thread if anyone cares. I wasn't meaning to but caught one of the new eateries in this pic. Here's what someone meant about the trees by the Saloon being gone. Now you can see Millennium Force as clear as day. I didn't get a chance to ride Steel Vengeance this trip because it was a Saturday. But I did get lucky enough to ride the train! Rougarou was testing. I was thrilled to see TTD running, so I got to ride it for the first time ever! Up... ...and down the tower I was not expecting it to be so intense for some reason. Silly me. There's a new exit path that loops you around GateKeeper and gives an opportunity for some nice pictures. Obligatory shot

Thanks for the report! It's fun to read ones of places that I may never visit. Those ground markings look really complicated, but if people followed them good for them.

You made me look up the "living wall," and that's pretty cool! I'll have to check it out if it comes back in the future.

^ Thank you! Indiana Beach has been in the news this year for a wide variety of reasons, and while pretty much every park isn’t having the season they wanted to have in 2020, Indiana Beach just might be getting their wish. Of course, the elephant in the room is that there’s barely any measures being taken related to slow the spread of the virus, and my dad and I got lots of looks for wearing masks, although it’s not hard to tune other people out when you’re focused on the Cornball Express! Leaving our hotel near Louisville (considered hitting KK and would’ve if it opened at 10), the four hour trek to Monticello, Indiana took a long time, but once we finally reached the park at noon after driving through lots of backroads filled with corn, it came out of nowhere. It’s awesome how the trees pretty much shield all views of the park from the south parking lot until you come out onto the suspension bridge. This is definitely what you want to do if it’s your first time visiting. Welcome to Indiana Beach! Dad and I got our temperatures checked and made our way across the slightly bouncy bridge. It was especially cool to see Cornball, Hoosier, and Tig’rr all cycling at once. When we reached the pavement of the boardwalk, one of the first things that we noticed was the lack of shade that characterizes Indiana Beach (the Blackpool Pleasure Beach of America?). It was a hot one that day. The Flying Bobs from Coney Island was pretty far along in its construction, with the cars being added back on, so it should be up and running soon. The sign was lit up. There was a bit of a line, but I wanted to cross Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain off my list as soon as possible. Dad and I were seated in the rear-facing seat of the second car for our first ride (seems like a good spot), and this coaster is wacked out in all of the best ways. I loved all of the little darkride touches and was not expecting there to be as many as there was. There were lots of colored lights inside the mountain and even a revolving barrel, although it wasn’t rotating. Lost Coaster is truly awesome and is a ride that I would’ve ridden many more times while at Indiana Beach if its capacity had been better. This sign looks newer. Wanting to do Steel Hawg next, I couldn’t resist my first ever ride on Cornball Express while passing by. Aided by the suggestions of others, I picked the front row for our first ride. I knew that I would like this coaster and was tempering my expectations, but it easily clinches the top coaster spot at Indiana Beach for me. I got four more rides throughout the rest of the day – both benches in the back car, row 1.2, and a final ride in the front. The airtime in the back row is still good, but the only place where it’s really top-tier woodie status is in the very front. Steel Hawg is all by itself away from most other rides, and to my surprise, they were running two cars. I tossed my camera in the locker block on the platform and set off in the back row of a car. The beyond-vertical drop was sudden and somewhat disappointing, but the hang time on the inversions was awesome, especially the final one. I also got a nice pop of air when coming up into the mid-course brakes on both of my rides that day on Steel Hawg. Frankenstein’s Castle was one of the things that I was most looking forward to checking out at IB, and it did not disappoint. Stopping to look at every detail, it took us twenty minutes to walk through. The room of doors was such a cool concept, and it took us a while to figure it out. My favorite room, though, was definitely the final chamber with the animatronic band and how you passed through it on multiple levels. Frankenstein’s Castle isn’t as fun the second time you go through it, but being a first-timer definitely made it one of the best things at Indiana Beach for me. There's also this guy. There's a nice view of some of the flat rides on the water when you come out on the balcony of the walkthrough. One of the arms of the Scrambler didn't have a controlled spin and was only slowly rotating with the motion of the entire ride, if that makes sense - a weird sight! Leaving the Castle, we got in line for one of the non-wheel seats of Hoosier Hurricane. I found it funny that once your lap bar was checked, you were unceremoniously released to the lift hill; no spiel, no “all clear,” nothing. I was not expecting this ride to be good at all, and while it maintained nice speed throughout, the forces just weren’t there. Another positive was the anniversary sign and hurricane banners in the station. There was also a large “25” sign on the structure to denote the ride’s anniversary last year. We didn't ride the log flume because the line stayed long. Overall, Indiana Beach had some nice crowds and by far felt like the “busiest” of all of the parks we visited on this trip. With only one credit left to ride, we made our way up the ramp to Tig’rr, the only Schwarzkopf Jet Star left in America and one of only three in the world. We stood in line for 15 minutes, watching the cars race around the bend from the unload station to enter the load station. They were moving quite fast. They were also running two cars, which was something I was not expecting to see. There is definitely a Schwarzkopf “sound,” just as there’s a B&M sound, and you really heard that on the low to the ground turns of this ride. So that brings us to what happened next. Indiana Beach has the loudest brakes of any park anywhere. Lost Coaster probably comes to mind if you’ve ever visited, but the fact is that the wooden coasters and Tig’rr also have unusually noisy brakes. And see the boxes that hold them? They don’t exactly impart confidence. But still, you never really expect anything bad to happen when visiting an amusement park, even when that park is Indiana Beach. So ANYWAY… imagine my surprise when a Tig’rr car with two kids failed to stop on the brake run, whipping around the turn at what looked to be 25+ miles per hour and hit the car in the load hard enough to force it to the lift hill. Although they looked distressed, the kids in the car that overshot the station waited for a while before making their escape. Luckily, no one was hurt by this incident, but sadly, I did not get the crash (bump?) on video. As we left the queue, we saw the unload operator frantically explaining to the kids’ parents, and I heard him say something like “He told me not to hit the brakes…” Okay, I’m no coaster programming expert, but there shouldn’t be a way for brakes to be manually released when a ride is operating as normal, or should there? Or maybe Tig’rr isn’t computer operated, and there isn’t a law like Pennsylvania has to prevent two cars from operating on the same track if the ride isn’t controlled by a computer. There is a feeling you get in your stomach when you see roller coaster cars collide. It isn’t good. Tig’rr reopened two hours after this because the new owner is not a fan of downtime. I got coaster credit #131. Back to your regularly scheduled programming…. Still shaken up from what had happened at Tig’rr, I rode Air Crow and didn’t get any good snaps whatsoever, but what do you expect on a Larson flyer. The park has a new museum with all kinds of memorabilia and signs as well as some of the pickets residents used to petition to save the park. It was very neat, and the lady inside was very welcoming and was very willing to explain everything to us, especially once we told her that it was our first visit. Some of the awards IB has won over the years. Sorry that you can't really see them. It's in one of the old game rooms. We did the Sky Ride now, so we boarded our chair with its minimalistic restraint. A view of Steel Hawg Since the Sky Ride drops you right at the Ferris wheel entrance, we did that next. The Water Swings feels unsafe because it’s one of those tilting Chance Yo-Yos, and the tilt on this model makes your swing rock back and forth, so it feels like you’re going to go plummeting to your doom in Lake Shaffer! Don’t miss this if you come to Indiana Beach! Check out the boat skirting the park! It wasn’t a must-do for me, but since the line was short Dad and I took a ride on the Antique Autos.Check out the sick decals on the cars. We found this funny given what we saw happen to Tig'rr! Indiana Beach is very photogenic. While on this ride, I saw Tig’rr going, but when we walked over after it wasn’t yet open and maintenance workers were leaving it. I got two more Cornball laps in the meantime. One time in the station I heard this gigantic boom that must have been from a firework, and you could feel it rattle your body. With that over with, we walked to the Den of Lost Thieves. Capacity is not this attraction’s strong suit, as seems to be a theme at this park. Now, this was by no means a great shooting darkride, but you still can’t go wrong with a Sally ride, even if it’s not maintained very well. And even though the interior of this darkride feels dingy, I did get a good number of targets to go off. For park history nerds, I like that the old Bill Tracy “hush puppy” cars (like the Waldameer Whacky Shack) were retrofitted to add the interactive element. It even includes this infamous target. On Tig’rr, I noticed that the operator who supposedly caused the collision was back at the panel once again. I escaped unscathed, and enjoyed this zippy – if somewhat forceless – piece of steel coaster history. Lost Coaster had a shorter line this time for what was my last ride of the day. The ride operator wasn’t wearing a mask and didn’t ask if I was okay riding with another group (I didn’t, but it’s the thought that counts…) But the worst part was when he forgot to check the restraints of the second car somehow and had to e-stop us when we were halfway out of the station. We waited for 15 minutes for a maintenance guy to come up and use a key to send us to the elevator lift. It didn’t help that I was stuck with three annoying kids, one who was coughing up a storm. The op was bopping his head to the music, though, so at least he was having a good time. Leaving the park after seven hours there, we took lots of pictures and video on the suspension bridge before saying goodbye. Indiana Beach was such a cool place. It was a traditional park that I had wanted to visit for years, and although some of the rides felt c. 2000 (not old, not new), the park overall does have a vintage feel. There are several completely unique rides that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, and the way attractions are layered on top of each other just creates the vibe that there’s always something new to discover. And I didn’t even go in the Fascination parlor. As a bonus, we stopped to see the carousel in Logansport, Indiana, which is one on which you can still catch the brass ring. With the machine at Kings Island not in the best of shape, it was nice to get at least one classic carousel on this trip. This carousel is from the late 1890s/early 1900s and was made by Dentzel. After Indiana Beach, it was nice to have some order with most of the people wearing masks, and the carousel was maintained very well. Highly recommended for a quick stop if you’re in the area! We actually didn’t even know that it existed until we entered the town and saw that their sign had a picture of a carousel horse and said to “catch the brass ring.” Thanks for reading! I hope that you enjoyed the report.

We continued our summer 2020 road trip by going to Holiday World, our first of two parks in Indiana. Making our way to Thunderbird, I was impressed by the large vertical loop and also noticed that Crow’s Nest was closed. Once we walked through the queue, we were boarding the seats of this wing coaster very quickly. We were on the right side, I think in the second or third row. I was not expecting the only B&M launch to be as good as it was, and the forces through the loop and following turn were particularly good. My favorite part was definitely the “barn” that you fly through at the end and the hangtime that you get on the accompanying in-line twist. Voyage and Thunderbird were the only rides in the park running two trains, and we ended up stacked on the brake run for a few minutes in the sun. For whatever reason, the Voyage queue is listed as having no wait time (ride right now!) for the last hour or so of park opening, which is kind of an issue because it makes everyone from Splashin’ Safari come over and ride it. Combined with slow operations, this resulted in a 30 minute wait at the end of the night, but I was still able to work the inLine system to allow me to get one final ride after the long wait. But even with this, I got about 15 rides on a weekday. But wait! We can't forget the star attraction of Holiday World! If you go the lower level of the station, you can get some nice shots of the train flying by. This was my first time being in a different time zone, which was nice because it bought us an extra hour since we were coming from the east. As soon as we got out of the car, the first person that we saw was wearing a mask, but that trend would certainly not continue throughout the day. It's really hard to imagine any of the people that we saw at the park wearing a mask without objecting! We did wear them. *2000 through 2003* It will be a sad day when Holiday World takes this sign down. We joined the line for bag check and to enter. This process moved very swiftly and was quite impressive for a park like Holiday World. They did not take your temperature at the entrance. Once we entered the park, we received our inLine reservation wristband, and I entered those into my phone. Peeking through the trees This Wave Swinger is better themed than the one at DCA. It was awesome to be walking into the Thanksgiving area for the first time. Voyage was our first ride of the day. We waited for our time to come up, entered the queue, and were assigned the front row. This was a smooth ride to start our day, and wow, was Voyage good. There definitely was an edge of roughness, but like Ravine Flyer II, this only made me enjoy the ride more. In fact, Voyage was pretty much a bigger, better Ravine Flyer II. Voyage is my new favorite roller coaster. I'm repeating everyone else, but I have to say that it’s a fast, completely out of control experience that never lets up. The roughest spots that I could notice were the area following the second tunnel, some of the 90 degree banks, and the heavily banked turn that dives underneath the bridge to the Thanksgiving area. I recommend row 11 of train B. Leaving Thunderbird after what would be my only ride of the day on it, we reserved a time in 50 minutes for Raven. This was one of the roughest spots of Voyage. Legend has a unique first drop. This is a quaint entry plaza that I think was partially redone recently. After lunch, it was time for Raven. Dispatches were slower than they probably usually are because there was never a line in the station, so the crews had less motivation to hurry. The virtual queue system had hour-long wait times in the morning which decreased to less than 20 minutes by the mid-afternoon. However, the nice thing was that you could reserve another ride as soon as you were scanned into your current ride’s line. Anyway, I knew that Voyage would be a standout ride at Holiday World, but I was not expecting Raven (and eventually Legend) to be stellar rides as well. The airtime on the first drop was awesome. The turnaround over the lake was very rough, almost to the point of being unbearable. I was excited about the fifth drop, but even after a ride in the back seat, I didn’t think that it was as good as the first drop. I thought that the turns coming back to the station would be boring, but instead, they provided some great lateral forces. Raven ends while Legends throws a few more dips at you, but I was very impressed by my first CCI nonetheless. I actually like Raven more than Mystic Timbers. At the right time, we went to Legend in the Halloween section of the park. Entering the queue, I once again noticed the park’s trademark narrow switchbacks. With the ringing of the bell, we started out on the first of my four Legend rides of the day. And Legend was another smash hit for me from Holiday World. I had never thought of CCI as a company that could design rides this good, and I am now a bigger fan of their coasters than GCI! As with Voyage, Legend uses tunnels to perfection throughout its layout, and while there are a few rough spots – most notably some of the transitions into the recent trackwork and like Raven, the turnaround – Legend had all of what I look for in a great wooden coaster. The unbanked helix is long and sustains great forces, and the GCI-like finale is an awesome way to end the ride. My mask actually flew off and into the seat behind us, but it was caught in the seat divider, so I was able to instantly reach back and grab it. Again, just as I wasn’t expecting much of Raven, Legend exceeded my expectations in every way possible. Again, I liked it more than any of the woodies at KI, and it’s currently my #5 wooden coaster overall. As soon as we had gotten in line for our first ride, I signed up for a second one, so I jumped back in the queue shortly after we disembarked the train. However, someone threw up before lunchtime, so I was stuck listening to fiddle music (It could’ve been worse!) for half an hour. I dunno, but that seems a bit on the longer side just to clean up a mess. Maybe it was a really big one. As you can see here, they advanced the train on to the lift hill to clean it. This worked out, however, as I waited in the virtual queue for Thunderbird during the delay (and barely made it there after my second Voyage ride). I loved Holiday World, but the virtual queue system was a huge pain in the butt and is what made me skip Kentucky Kingdom in the morning. It was a pain seeing trains with several empty rows go out and knowing that you still had to wait 10 minutes (although this was the exception rather than the rule). I hope that when things get back to normal here they will bring back standby as an option and not continue the entirely virtual system. That was really the only con of our day, though! I didn’t mention the free drinks, but we definitely used that all the time throughout the day. Ever since I had seen it on Great Old Amusement Parks and heard about the Voyage, Holiday World had been probably the highest park on my bucket list after Cedar Point to visit, and I can now happily say that it has one of the most exemplary collections of wooden coasters, too, including my all-time #1. Let's hope that I can come back soon. Indiana Beach is our next stop, a park that I didn't expect to visit in 2020... I love the history behind this Calypso, but the ride itself is pretty boring, especially when compared to the forces of the Cedar Point model. This ride just felt clunky. Gobbler Getaway was one of the “don’t-miss” attractions on Dad’s list and mine, so we walked down there, got in the “Ride right now!” line, and I made a reservation for Voyage. I found it interesting that the cars were the same body molds used by Sally for the Mystery Machine ride vehicles for the old Paramount Scooby Doo rides. I was disappointed by the lack of a laser sight on the guns, but it honestly just made me want to ride again to try and improve my skills. This ride is just great fun! I really appreciate how there are scenes at the beginning and end of the ride that drop the interactive component entirely and are there for you to just enjoy. Gobbler Getaway is by far the best interactive darkride I’ve ever been on and is the perfect thing for one of the best theme park sections in the world! It even takes your picture, a rarity in a non-Disney darkride.