abovethesink

I've read that the park filed permits for a 309' structure in the La Vibora plot. Obviously there can be unexpected hurdles and solid plans can change unexpectedly, but barring something unusual, the giga dive seems to definitely be happening here.

I am not going to complain about a new RMC if that comes to pass, but that would also mean the SLC/Volare plot would skate by once again. I really want to see them both ripped out for good and replaced by a single new coaster. Regardless, looks like we will be making our second trip ever to the park in early August as long as AlpenFury is running. I am also realizing now that despite being there two years ago, we somehow have six credits still waiting. The two new coasters weren't there, of course. Wonder Mountain and the Boomerang were down. We chose to skip the hang and bang for road trip time and this time we should have the three year old twins with us, so kiddie credit.

Sounds like the park is working with Intamin to give El Toro a full retrack over the next three offseasons. I fully anticipate the new Six Flags investing huge in this park, so hopefully this is the turning point away from this inefficiency scrapping mini-dark age into a new golden age for the park. I can dream, anyway.

I only have two rides on Nighthawk from two or three years ago. First one was right as it opened and I liked it a lot. Second one was later in the 99 degree day and it was running crazy fast in the heat. Too fast, based on how I felt. It was pretty violent and I was quickly just bracing for it to be over. I rode Batwing last summer on a 104 degree day and had the same exact experience as my second ride on Nighthawk in the heat. So, at least on crazy hot days, I don't really like the model. Always sad to see any kind of coaster die out and you gotta figure Batwing is on its last legs too, but I won't shed too many tears for this one in particular.

I mean you're right, but in a kind of pointless way. People aren't going to stop engaging with their passions and hobbies. So we will just bitch and continue to give them money.

There is a lot of confidence in various theme park nerd communities that Kingda Ka and Green Lantern are gone at the end of the year. Not only that, but that the park isn't going to announce it either. I can't say I would be shocked about either of their removals, but to do both together quietly is eye brow raising. Green Lantern could be snuck off from a lineup as big as SFGA's, but Kingda Ka? This leads me to believe that they are waiting on good news to annouce in the pairing. The rides do butt up against one another and run along the parking lot. All I am saying is that there is going to be a lot of backlash for sneaking Kingda Ka off in the middle of the night, if they are, and from a PR perspective, Fury Northeast would do a lot of good to undo that damage.

Purely from the fit perspective, there are a number of parks in the new chain that would benefit from a relatively largescale floorless being moved in. I don't know about the future of Green Lantern though if it is removed. The ride is almost 30 and it has already been relocated. This puts it around the point where we have seen B&Ms need serious track work, if not straight up an entirely new track. Green Lantern has over 4,000 feet of track, so this would be a sizable investment for a Michigan's Adventure-Darien Lake level park despite it being a relocation.

In 2008, give or take a year, I road Canyon Blaster at Great Escape with a friend. His restraint popped right back up after the first drop and was up the whole ride. This was hilarious to me as I had ridden the ride a bunch of times before and knew it was foreceless. He was in no danger. But he was panicking and I was dying laughing the whole time.

Flashback is closing for a month for a paint job and then is receiving further refurbishment for the 2025 season. When asked if it is getting a new train, the park's social media responded with the emoji with its mouth zipped closed. Pretty wild that this park is suddenly getting investment.

We took a spontaneous visit up to La Ronde yesterday. It is actually the closest park to me as I live pretty near the NY-Quebec border, but I had never taken my coaster buddy, my 14 year old son, up there because... well... La Ronde. This was my first time in nearly 15 years too since no coasters had been built. The last time I went in was the year the SLC was moved there. This means that this was also my first time with Google Maps to lead the way. I remember being somewhat stressed out driving through the city and trying to navigate routes in French on a paper map, but this time it was a breeze. The only thing I found even a little confusing on the day was parking, but we figured that out fairly quickly and were in for rope drop on Sunday forecasted to be dry and in the mid 60s. Vampire - One of my strongest memories of La Ronde was how fast their Batman clone was running the last time we were there. I figured this wouldn't be the case when we hit it cold. We should have had the front seat, but as we went to kick off our crocs on the other side, a few others filtered in behind us and stole our spots. No one's fault, really. The station was empty other than us and we were on the other side of the train. They didn't come up until we had crossed over to kick our loose shoes off and couldn't have had any idea what row we had taken. Oh well. We moved to the back and HOLY BATMAN it was already hauling. I've ridden a bunch of these and never experienced one that moves like this one. We hadn't experienced anything yet, either. The very last thing we did before leaving at the end of the day was circling back to get our front row ride now that the thing was warmed up. After just waiting for a couple trains thanks to the light crowds and four wide, two train ops on this one, we did just that. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That was one of the most aggressive rides on anything I have ever experienced. It was an absolute blast, but it was also incredibly painful! I have never had blood run to my feet with that intensity. I kept having to rub them together and move them around because they felt like they were going to straight up explode. Incredibly forceful. I do not know what La Ronde does or, maybe more likely given the rest of the place, doesn't do to their common Batman, but that thing is nuts. I couldn't have possibly gotten back on immediately. Just crazy. Toboggan Nordique - This Zamperla wild mouse had a pretty short line that we end up waiting 50 minutes in due to its horrendous capacity made a thousand times worse by the sleepwalking, low effort operations. It is a bad ride too. We had just ridden the same model earlier this summer at Morey's Piers and I am almost falling asleep trying to even write about it. I should have just waited on a bench and let my son go get the credit. These aren't painful or anything, just incredibly... nothing. Boring, I guess. Monstre - Oh boy. I actually had fond memories of this one. It was just so darn weird that I thought it was funny. Kind of like how a bad movie can be so bad that it becomes good, Monstre does so little with its enormous, two track frame that I remembered being entertained by the weirdness. That was a long time ago now, though, so I was curious to say the least. I let my son just the "parcours" (side), and he chose Parcours 2 while I got to make terrible dad jokes about how the line being a parkour course seemed a little unnecessary. A word that I would equally attach to my ride. It isn't that this thing is consistently rough, and yes the bizarre layout is still kind of amusing and still very dumb, but there are now a few serious lateral jolts that are hard to predict and don't agree with my back to say the least. We got off the ride and as I was about to send him to ride the other side by himself (both were operating with one train, but the lines were short), he announced it wasn't worth the credit and that he didn't want anything to do with it. Okay then. Goliath - This is why I finally came back. For all the faults of La Ronde, I have extremely great memories of this B&M not quite hyper. I truly loved this thing. It holds up too. After a marathon walk through the long, empty queue, we got a station wait accompanied by the "entertainment" of watching a trio of young, teenage boys keep trying to sneak back onto empty seats of each train while we waited. Two of them succeeded twice, but the third grabbed the seat of someone who was just off putting their stuff in the bin on accident, caused a scene, and got tossed. His buddies bailed with him when he couldn't try anymore after their last ride. Anyway, Goliath lived up to my memory. We ended up dubbing this thing "The Phoenix of Floater". It is a simple layout. Airtime hill, airtime hill, airtime hill, airtime hill, etc, with a turnaround in there in the middle. They all hit too. From our backseat, with me on the outside, I floated up and over every single hill, often for extended sequences too. Really great. If you like floater, you will love this B&M. If you want something more to your layout, you might be bored. I love floater and in fact really only ride for airtime at all, so this is in my sweetspot. Great ride. After our first ride, we grabbed some poutine next door, which was better than I would expect from Six Flags, and jumped right back into the backseat after. I was in the middle this time and did notice I got a little less sustained floater, while my son said the ride was much better on the outside too, but I still thought it was great. I could marathon Goliath forever. Dragon - I got a little lucky here, navigationally speaking. While my son was still eating, before we got back on Goliath, I decided to go check some nearby signs to see where Dragon was. It wasn't on the sign, so I figured somewhere else, but I did see a sign for some restrooms which I needed. I went back to my son, told him I would be a few minutes in the bathroom, and went to use them. I quickly found them attached to Dragon. Okay then. As for Dragon, my first takeway is maybe take a broom to all the immense cobwebs in the queue. Jeez. Second. after maybe a twenty minute wait, we lucked into the front seat by being the last ones held out of the station from the previous train. I didn't really remember this one and now I know why, but it is kind of cute, I guess. It is a powered coaster that drives you through a few indoor helixes and turns around a couple light up dragon statues, through a dragon's mouth, and back to the station accompanied by loud audio of dragons roaring and shooting fire. It is dated, but I often find that charming. I wouldn't wait very long for this, but with a short queue and my son needing the credit, I am glad we did. Also worth noting, the roaring is very loud even out in the queue. My two youngest, at least until my wife gives birth, are two year old twins. Not that they are tall enough anyway, but I could never get them on this thing as they stand now because they would be scared of the noise. It is a pretty aggressive sound for what ultimately is a kiddie coaster, which is interesting. Le Boomerang - I told my son I would not be riding the SLC after Monstre bothered my back a bit and tried to get him to just go get the credit, but he hates those things and refused without me. We weren't going to bother with the kiddie coaster and had already written off Monstre side one, so the Boomerang was all that remained. After another short wait that wasn't as short as it should have been due to slow operations, we boarded. This is one of the weirder ones for me. First, it barely even has a station. What is that thing? Second, I was scared of headbanging due to it still having the old, original, and terrible Vekoma boomerang trains. Put the vests on all of them, please. I am happy to report my fears were unfounded and I did not bang my head once. Unfortunately, they put on the goold old triangle wheels on this thing. It tracked terribly and was downright rough. I'll take that over the headbanging anyday and the ride wasn't absolutely awful or anything, but it was definitely the roughest Boomerang I have ridden from a wheels bouncing on the track perspective. Still fun though and as intense as always. After Le Boomerang, we circled back for our aforementioned front row Vampire ride and then exited the park for the slightly under two hour ride home. All in all, La Ronde wasn't too bad and we only needed about five hours to do what we wanted. Goliath and Vampire are great. Nothing else is really remarkable, but the crowds were light and the food we had was good. I don't speak French, but I generally find it easy now to navigate places not in a language I understand as I have done it a lot over the years many times now. Plus, even though they often seem to lack confidence and try to avoid using English, most everyone in the Montreal does speak it well enough if you need to address someone in English. I did have some issues staying connected to the GPS satellites on the way home for some reason, but we were lucky in the sense that it kept happening in long stretches of staying on the same road. Plus, once we crossed back into NY, we were literally on the road we live on anyway. 45 minutes down it through a few towns with a bunch of turns, but you can just follow the road number signs at that point. I recommend a visit to La Ronde if you have never been, but you probably won't want to go back just to go back. I'll be back when they finally break their drought someday (RMC MONSTRE PLEASE), or if/when my younger kids start credit whoring like us and need them. Until then, even though we go to Montreal from time to time, au revoir La Ronde. You might not be a very good park, but you're also not as bad as many make you out to be. One final caveat: My two previous trips, again over a decade ago, were full of the worst crowd behaviour I had ever seen at a park. It was more amusing than offensive to me as someone largely unbothered by what other people do, but if people cutting in line or in general being rude bothers you, you would not have enjoyed those trips to say the least. I don't think much as changed, sadly, based on other reports I have read or watched on Youtube over the years since then, but we had such surprisingly light Sunday crowds that we had no problems and only saw the things mentioned above.

Damn, this came from left of left field. Did the new Six Flags redirect the tilt from Mexico to Cedar Point in order to wash the bad PR taste of TT2, I wonder?

On that topic, I'd be interested to hear in what everyone else does in terms of "hands up" or not on rides. For me, I put my hands up for negative Gs to float. Sometimes I will do it more than that because why not, I guess, but it doesn't really do anything for me other than during airtime and hangtime.

I was at Knoebel's a little over a month ago on Friday, August 2nd. It was a surprise stop that we didn't tell my son and his friend about before their day at Hershey the next day for my son's 14th birthday. Despite noticing the signs and knowing we must have been close to the park, they didn't put two and two together until we pulled into to park which was pretty funny. I won't do a full trip report like I have been because I didn't do much. I got the two credits I didn't get on our first visit due to covid closures in Flying Turns and Black Diamond. I also got a couple rides on Phoenix, but otherwise we were only there a few hours in the on and off rain and I wandered around seeing the sights with my pregnant wife. We wanted to do the gondola, but it understandably never opened due to the weather. We found a museum, got some reasonably priced food and later a milkshake to split, did some shopping, and watched an abbreviated kids' costume show that was adorable before a downpour abruptly ended it. As for the coasters, the two new ones both exceeded my expectations. Flying Turns isn't super thrilling or anything, but a couple moments of banking high on those walls are pretty wild in a unique way. I think this is my favorite of the bobsled style coasters I have done now. Black Diamond is dated and campy as hell, but I love that and a few of the effects like the spinning tunnel really still worked on me despite their age. It is also barely a coaster. My (first trimester) pregnant wife could have easily ridden it safely, but she didn't want to when I mentioned it. I also didn't realize until I was boarding that I didn't even know what the ride was in there and I am glad that was the case. As for Phoenix, it wasn't running as insanely as it was on our first visit which was a hot, hot summer day versus this cooler, rainy one. I still loved it. I just laugh hysterically the entire ride on that thing. What a classic. I had enough tickets for three rides, catching two in the magic third row and one in the front. All were great. I am at 273 credits and still have Phoenix in my top ten favorites.

We were at Hershey Park a month ago now, August 3rd. Rain was forecast and it came. Basically we had from 10-2 and then from 8-10 with the middle of the day being a complete washout. Oh well, we did with it what we could. Wildcat's Revenge - We followed the running of the bulls, so to speak, to gate drop the new RMC for our first rides. My son and the friend we brought for his birthday weekend rode together in the back row and I waited for the same row in the train after them. This was an amazing ride, even cold right at open. It is violent in all the best RMC ways. I hit it again later after the rain finally ended at dark and got two more amazing rides. The best ride of the three was my first night ride in the front, so maybe this is a front row RMC? Storm Runner - This was my third trip to Hershey. The first was when Storm Runner was new and the second was during its extended Covid breakdown, so it had been a minute to say the least. The launch was just as punchy as I remembered. The ride was also just as short as I remembered. Forceful, fun, and brief. It is probably shakier than it was way back then, but it isn't bad and otherwise was as I remembered. We tried to hit the rethemed Boomerang right after, but it broke down while we were next in line and we never came back. Sky Rush - At this point, the boys ditched me. My son needed Lightning Racer, I did not, and we knew our window to ride would be short. They went off to the back of the park while I hit up Sky Rush to try the new restraints. The line looked long, but it moved quickly and I got in in probably a half hour. The new restraints improve my experience and I moved it up into the 30s in my top 50, but I am still left confused as to why people love or hate this so much. It is intense and short, I guess, but after that amazing drop it doesn't do a lot with the little track it has to work with. Good ride, but not one I get the passion about. I ended up getting another ride at the end of the night in the front which was good too. From here, I went and found my pregnant wife who had wandered to ZooAmerica and then caught a sea lion show. We met at the monorail and took a ride before walking to Chocolate World to get lunch and beat the rain. We had tacos which were good, did the free Chocolate Tour ride which is cute, and then decided to kill some more time waiting for the teenagers by doing the train 4D movie that I can't remember the name of. That was fun and well done, though not worth the steep price probably. While we were doing the movie, the skies opened up to a torrential downpour with no signs of letting up for hours according to the forecast. Chocolate World filled up to the point that it was difficult to take a step in any direction. Not wanting to brave the rain for the car, we decided to wait in the epic Chocolate Tour line that was flowing out chaotically into the general area so the boys, who ran through the epic downpour and had found us, could do it. What else was there to do at that point? It took a while, but we made it through. By then, it was after 3 and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. We had 6 PM Chocolatier reservations. The boys decided to go brave the park and see what they could ride. My wife and I opted for car naps. When it was time, we met in the restaurant and ate. I had the salmon and it was really good, much better than I expected from what I had read. After, we all ordered one of the ridiculous milkshakes, ending up with a photo op with all four flavors on the table. Stuffed, we wandered back into the park. Candymonium - While walking to Candymonium, a woman leaving handed my son and his friend two flash passes that they didn't need anymore. They didn't end up working, for some reason, but the ride op at Candymonium took it as a glitch and they got to skip one line out of them at least. We were separated again by that and the two of them rode quickly. I waited in a line that would have been 20 minutes probably, but right before my train the weather struck again. I ended up sitting in the station for almost an hour. I was at least rewarded with two rides, however, as there was a weird delay between restarting the ride and reopening the queue. When we got back from our first ride, people were just trickling into the station and they sent us on a second lap. I really like Candymonium. I really like all B&M hypers and I think Candymonium is a good one. The ending is a little subpar and one of the two rides had the trims hit hard, but I get tons of floater and the trims almost completely ignored us on the second ride which made for a wilder ending. From there, I ran to the back for those night rides on Wildcat's Revenge (where I saw some of ElToroRyan's crew if you guys watch any coaster Youtube stuff) before deciding that I wanted to try to get on Great Bear and SuperDooperLooper with the under an hour I had left. There was basically no one left in the park, so it was just a matter of closing the distance power walking. But then, an opportunity presented itself... Cocoa Cruiser - In the dark alone, I took a wrong turn and there it was. The one credit I did not have at Hershey Park by this point. The kiddy coaster. I sheepishly walked up to the empty station and asked the ops if I could ride without a kid. They said yes, so I had a zen ride in the dark on the kiddy coaster. I am approaching 300 and this is my most shameless credit, I think. One lap would have been fine, but it does three and I rode them. SuperDooperLooper - What a fun ride in the dark! I remembered the old Schwarzkopf as a really fun inversion followed by aimless meandering and this is exactly what it was, but the wandering is more fun in the dark, unsurprisingly. Unfortunately, while I remembered that much correctly, I did not remember where Great Bear's station was. With minutes to go before the park closed, I did not have time to get over there and instead jumped in the front row line for the previously mentioned front row ride of SkyRush. I did not have to wait long as a trio boarded and they yelled for a single rider. That's all I got in, but it was everything that I made a priority at least. It would have been nice to get in things like Fahrenheit, Comet, Laff Trak, etc, but the day was what it was with the miserable weather. We all still enjoyed our day. It ended with sitting in the parking lot listening to the blaringly loud New Kids on the Block concert while we waited for the boys to find us. Their music isn't for me, but it was still fun to eavesdrop while waiting. All in all, it was a good day despite the weather.

The ride was run recklessly at its old home south of the border. My undestanding, and someone correct me if I am wrong, was that it was being run trimless 100% of the time in a way it was never meant to be. It is a sad history, but I don't think it is super relevant in considering the safety of the ride going forward.

Live in the mountains. The 40 degree nights never go away for long. We have them on and off all summer still.

I don't think anyone has ever bought a Maserati because of thoughts on depreciation.

They forgot the world record of the tallest B&M Dive Coaster ever announced on the date August 15th, 2024 at precisely 10 AM.

I am very pleased with this. While the nerd in me will always want the next great thrill coaster, this fills a nice gap for SFNE in terms of having a launch. I think this will be a pretty popular attraction in the park for sure.

Road Trip Day 6, Part 2 - Nickelodeon Universe (American Dream) - 7/18/24 If you want to catch up, Day 1 was King's Dominion, Day 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Day 3 was Six Flags America, and Day 4 was Morey's Piers. Day 5 was a quick stop at Sesame Place followed by the rest of the day at Dorney Park. The first part of Day 6 was Luna Park/Deno's at Coney Island. Reports are in their respective threads. The trip was myself and my oldest son, soon to be 14. The trip as directed by Google Maps from Coney Island to the American Dream Mall did not go well. Traffic didn't move at all for long stretches and it took over 90 minutes longer than anticipated. I would guess this is probably normal midday, but truthfully I have no idea and would defer to anyone more local or experienced with the area on that. Regardless, we eventually made it to the mall, picked somewhere pretty random for paid parking in the garage, and began what would be a very long walk to find the park itself. While I should have done a little research to park nearer to the rides, it was nice to see the mall busy and seemingly thriving. I had not paid any attention to the development of this place since its first year or so and I still remembered the mall as described as a weird ghost town. This is not the case any longer. Along the walk in the mall, we came across a funny surprise. This would be the Arena Football League championship game being played I believe where there is normally a skating rink. The game featured Albany in it too, the closest thing we would have to a local AFL team. We briefly stopped to watch the teams warming up before continuing to Nickelodeon Universe. When we did arrive at the park, I was probably more annoyed than I should have been to see the signage and realize I HAD to buy my passes online first. I just wanted to go up to the workers in the booth to buy them, but I wasn't allowed to do that. It is a small thing though and was quickly forgotten about in favor of a larger complaint when I saw that TMNT Shellraiser was closed. I had been told by someone online to expect Shredder closed, which I obviously didn't care as much about, but I realize now re-reading what they said that they were probably accidentally swapping the names of the two rides in their head. Oh well, I guess. We were there, so we decided to get the credits we could. Slime Streak -- We started with this fun family coaster and its weirdly tight trains. Truthfully, this one is a more impressive ride to look at than it is to ride, but it was fun and quick. I felt bad for the ride ops too as I watched train after train, dispatch after dispatch be slowed to a crawl thanks to the riders completely ignoring the ride ops' instructions not to mess with the lap bars. Shredder -- First, we got in line for Sandy in the back of the park, but it broke down while we were in line. Then we walked over to the halfpipe, but it broke down while we were just getting in line. Shredder it was, then! While I have well documented my dislike for spinning rides in these reports, I was looking forward to his one at least due to its size. It looks even bigger than its stats too standing next to it in that weirdly lifeless metal box that is Nickelodeon Universe. The ride didn't disappoint, either. It mixed sections of spinning with fun other forces and felt like a really long ride while on it. Shredder delivered. Timmy's Half-Pipe Havoc -- I thought that if I would have any reaction at all to this Intamin Surfrider, it would be that I would feel nauseous from the repeated back and forth launches like I sometimes to on an impulse. Plus, the seats spin too. Nope! We both loved this thing. It is short and simple, but the launches that went fully up the spike ended in really fun floater airtime again and again. I love throwing my arms out and going limp on moments like that, just feeling the float. Fun ride! We hit it a couple times while waiting for Sandy to hopefully reopen. Sandy's Blasting Bronco -- That didn't happen quickly though, so eventually we wandered over the the drop tower. That thing sucked. Cool view at the top, of course, but the drop/launch sequence was largely boring and forceless. From there, we left the park to go find some food and ate Five Guys. After eating, we returned and Sandy's was thankfully open again. After a short wait, we hopped on and both really liked this one. It needs the caveat that it is weirdly rough for its age though. Sandy's tracks pretty poorly. Despite this, the launches and layout were disorienting and fun. I liked this one quite a bit too. While it was a let down to find TMNT would not operate, I liked the other coasters well enough that I am still glad we stopped by. Now we have an excuse to return too, if I am looking for a silver lining. On our way out, we stood and watched the football game for maybe a half hour. A woman approached us to buy tickets, but their setup was such that you could get a good view standing all around outside of their roped off area. We wouldn't be sticking around for the whole game either, so we declined. It was about 6:30 and I gave my son two options. We could find a hotel, get up and go to Playland Park, and then drive home. This would get us back on Saturday as originally hoped, though we could have stayed out until as long as Monday. Or I felt good enough to make the six hour drive home right then and there if he wanted to instead, which he did. Playland Park will have to wait for another trip. Hopefully it doesn't close! Thus concluded our 2024 road trip. We did eight parks in six days, even with cutting Castaway Cove on the Jersey Shore and Playland Park near NYC. It was a great time. I also learned on night two that we are expecting our fourth child. I am super excited about that, but next summer we will have a few month old baby and three year old twins, so good luck to my 14 year old and I in trying to get another trip like this in for a couple years probably!

Road Trip Day 6, Part 1 - Luna Park/Deno's - 7/18/24 If you want to catch up, Day 1 was King's Dominion, Day 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Day 3 was Six Flags America, and Day 4 was Morey's Piers. Day 5 was a quick stop at Sesame Place followed by the rest of the day at Dorney Park. Reports are in their respective threads. The trip was myself and my oldest son, soon to be 14. I have to admit, my approach to Coney Island in general was pretty dumb to start. I had Google Maps route me to the park, naturally, and it did that well enough, though traffic was predictably slow. I then drove along the outside of the park looking for any parking and ended up blocks away, nearly out of gas, with the search entirely fruitless. Eventually I re-directed it to find me gas, which it did, and there while pumping it finally occurred to me to specifically search for Luna Park Parking. That brought us to a big, mostly empty, and surprisingly reasonably priced lot literally right next to the rides. Not my best moments on the trip, that is for sure! Also, this place is well known for being expensive and it was, so I won't bother complaining any more about that going forward. Soarin' Eagle -- After buying our wristbands for the day, we decided to get this one out of the way immediately. To my relief, it was either better than Time Warp or I was much more prepared to hold myself in place this time around. I think it was more the latter, but maybe this one just tracks better too. I am not about to ride either again to find out. "Better" does not equal good. What an uncomfortable monstrosity Zamperla cooked up with this design. I am thankful these never spread further. As easily placed and cheap clones, we could have had a whole bunch more of these than we did. Tony's Express -- Steeplechase was closed and would remain so for the length of our visit. This was a little disappointing as I like the launch on the one at Darien Lake, but it was not some huge loss. We decided to end to the closest far end of the boardwalk, which brought us to this Zamperla junior coaster. It was a predictably uneventful ride. That isn't to say it was bad though or anything. I bet younger riders will like this one a lot. It just isn't for enthusiasts. One note that I thought was funny: There are bins and out of habit I started to throw in the items from my pocket into them before boarding. The older woman running the ride objected and discouraged me from wasting my time with that. She is right, of course, in that a ride like this poses no threat of having stuff fly out of your pockets. At the same time, I have never experienced a ride op insisting I have my pockets full on a ride before! Thunderbolt -- I had heard terrible things about this good looking Zamperla thrill coaster, so my expectations were really low. Sometimes those are the best kind of expectations to have. It isn't that this is a good ride, mind you. It is janky and uncomfortable as hell with a weird and ridiculous restraint system. It is just that I thought it was going to be so terrible that I was pretty pleasantly surprised to find it was only kind of bad! If they could rework those stupid seatbelt sort of vest restraints, this would be a tolerable ride for me. They really dug into my shoulders in a painful way though and it wasn't like the thigh clamps were exactly comfortable either. Bad combo for sure. Circus Coaster -- This is listed as a family coaster, but it is more a kiddie coaster. We did our laps and got our credits. Cyclone -- Ah, the main event. The world famous Coney Island Cyclone. For some reason, this one took us a minute to find the entrance to and we ended up doing a lap basically the wrong way around the big structure before finding it. Oh well. Then, we boarded only to be stuck strapped in for about ten minutes as a maintenance man ran onto the track and did something before we got the all clear. Finally, we rode. I wish I could say I loved it like many do. It was a pretty mid ride for me, but I am on the bigger side for what can fit in this trains and I was pinned down by the restraints to the point that airtime was impossible to feel. Mostly I could just feel the laterals, which I rarely love, and the few really bad rough spots on the coaster. My son, who next to me had all the room in the world beneath the restraint, really loved all the airtime he got. I think this is probably a good ride for most. For me, I got a fun and out of control, but kind of uncomfortable and entirely airtimeless ride personally. Deno's Wonder Wheel -- The only non-coaster I am giving its own section to on the entire trip, I loved this classic ferris wheel. We rode one of the cars that does the drop and it was a wonderfully unnerving experience. I have been riding rollercoasters my entire life and have not found much nervousness and/or fear with any of them in decades at this point. When I find something that brings any amount of that back, I am glad for it. Deno's Wonder Wheel was very much that. It repeatedly felt like we were about to fall clean off that thing in the best way possible. Highly recommended. Phoenix -- This modern Vekoma family suspended coaster was one of the sneaky highlights of the trip. It was a glass smooth and forceful ride within the context of the family coaster category. As a plus, the ride operator sent us again when there was no one else in line upon our return to the station. When individual rides are as expensive as they are at Coney Island, that was a very pleasant surprise. Also, it is worth reminding anyone reading this in anticipation of a future trip, Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park is a separate business pretty much right in the middle of Luna Park. The tickets/wristbands that you buy at Luna Park will not work here. There were also two kiddie coasters here that we decided not to even go see if we could steal credits on. We had bigger plans for the day and didn't want to waste the time. Tickler -- As I like to do, I left the spinning coaster for last just in case it were to make me sick. It didn't. In fact, it didn't really spin much at all. Instead, the rotation sort of took the edge off the normally hard wild mouse turns and didn't do much else at all until we were on the very bottom level. As someone who doesn't like the hairpin wild mouse turns anymore and has never really liked spinning, I was very happy about all of this. I am left with a strange review of the Tickler to give then. As a spinning wild mouse, this thing faired pretty terrible. As I ride I would personally enjoy, it was better for those failures. The last thing worth noting was that there was a good little pop of air time dropping down to the last level that I didn't expect and enjoyed. From here, our plan was adventurous. We wanted to get to Nickelodeon Universe and maybe even Playland Park before it closed. Traffic didn't cooperate, unfortunately, and Playland Park ended up being cut from our trip entirely, so Nickelodeon Universe later in the day would be our last stop in the trip.

I would be happy if the delay was for this reason.

No one wants rushed construction, but you could start it... earlier.

Road Trip Day 5, Part 2 - Dorney Park - 7/18/24 If you want to catch up, Day 1 was King's Dominion, Day 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Day 3 was Six Flags America, and Day 4 was Morey's Piers. Day 5, Part 1 was a quick stop at Sesame Place. Reports are in their respective threads. The trip was myself and my oldest son, soon to be 14. We had been to Dorney Park once before when my oldest son was very young, so probably 11 or 12 years ago. Of all the parks I had been to, Dorney was probably the one I somehow remembered the least. I knew the lineup and knew I had ridden everything in terms of coasters, but my only strong memory was not a true coaster, but Demon Drop, and I was excited to have a chance to get back on it. We stayed across the street at a Holiday Inn Express and had an easy walk to the park across a busy road. Talon -- As I said, I had no memory of this park for the most part, which quickly showed up when we took a bad route to Talon and ended up some kind of dead end next to what looked like the waterpark entrance. Woops. A backtrack got us in the right direction and we boarded this B&M Invert without much of a wait at all. This is a very good ride! My son absolutely loved it, putting it right up there with his favorite invert in Montu. I wouldn't go that far, but it was excellent. We got front and back and preferred the front. The rattle was almost non-existent up there and I always like seeing the chopper effects coming best on inverts. Wild Mouse -- I think this is the only coaster I sat out on the trip. I don't care for the ride type and already had the credit. Plus, I knew it would be our longest wait of the day, sadly, and figured I would be happier on a bench. Since I didn't remember the ride really at all, I probably would have ridden it again if it would have been unique to me, but it is the same model as SFNE's. I didn't pay close attention to time, but it was probably close to an hour before my son came out of the exit. He said it wasn't worth the wait, unsurprisingly, but credit achieved. Hydra the Revenge -- Holy rattle, B&M. Other than the standup conversions, this was the worst B&M rattle I have experienced. Hydra isn't aging well. As I have said in the other reports on this trip, thankfully these generally don't really impact me. Hydra might have if I had tried to lap it though. It was strong. As for the ride, the roll out of the station is fun and the layout is good. The only sit down/floorless I really love from B&M is Kraken, so this slotted in as expected. I liked the ride. It was good. I would expect most people to like the ride if the rattle doesn't bother them too. Unfortunately, it was after Hydra that we walked to Demon Drop and learned it was down and closed. We would not get on to my great disappointment. Thunderhawk -- I was looking forward to Thunderhawk. I have generally found that if a century-ish old woodie is still around, that is because it is a good ride. The bad ones get ripped out over time. Many of the good ones get to live. Unfortunately, I didn't really care for this one. It wasn't awful or anything, but I was surprised how many twists and turns this thing made. Usually the older woodies stay fun for me largely by not turning. They go out and back with a slow, high turnaround, but Thunderhawk was built to weave its way around its track and the old woodie laterals are not my cup of tea. I am not saying this is some modern GCI twister layout or anything, mind you, but it did twist more than I would have liked and wasn't super comfortable for it. Also, the paint job that looks a lot like new wood made me laugh. No idea if that was intentional. Steel Force -- This Morgan Hyper was the largest disconnect between my son and I on the trip. For me, this ride was fine, but a little boring. It wasn't rough or uncomfortable. The first drop was good and it started to have airtime a couple times. My son liked it a lot though. He somehow felt a lot more airtime than I did, somehow, despite sitting right next to me. I left the ride largely without thoughts on it at all. It was a thing I did, a credit on the list. He really liked it though, so I am glad for that at least. Iron Menace -- The new for 2024 B&M dive with a beyond vertical drop was the reason for my long delayed revisit to the park and, with an asterisk, it did not disappoint. Let me start with the note: A ride op was directing what row to enter, so we didn't get to pick. In both our rides by pure luck, we were placed in the front row in the exact middle seat and a seat next to it. I have read this thing has an alarmingly strong rattle for a new B&M and that the shaking is strongest on the outside seats and in the back of the train. Well, that means we got the smoothest seats possible both times and the ride was smooth. The layout was also really great, I thought. Griffon has remained my favorite dive after all these year, standing up to newer challengers like Yukon Striker and Valravyn, and this trip reaffirmed this for me. If Iron Menace was longer, and the ride is as smooth and comfortable as we experienced it, it would challenge Griffon. Alas, it is over in a blink and far too short to truly contend, but I really the short track that is there to ride. Hopefully they sort out the rattle before it gets worse, if it is as bad in other seats as I have read. Possessed -- We end on a pleasant surprise for me. I had only previously ridden Wicked Twister at Cedar Point for these Intamin impulse coasters and it made me sick, more like a spinning flat ride than a rollercoaster. I was not looking forward to Possessed for this reason, but I ended up really enjoying it! I especially liked putting my arms out and essentially going limp at the airtime peaks on the spike. Fun ride. All in all, it was a pretty quick and enjoyable stop at Dorney. We went out for dinner and considered going back into the park to see if Demon Drop would open, but we ended up deciding to just rest after going day after day on this roadtrip. Dorney is a nice park and hopefully I am back in less than a decade. Coney Island, Nickelodeon Universe, and Not-Rye's Playland Park were remaining on our agenda at this point.

Something seemed wrong and it was alarming. It was happening to my son, the people around us, and I found others online at the time. Reddit probably. But it was a few years ago and I can't find it now. I don't even remember what year. 2021, maybe?