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Alex26841

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  1. I went this past Friday and it was pretty darn busy, but nothing like what I've heard Saturdays have been like. My GF works for Cedar Fair and we were able to get some Fright Lane passes, which were a godsend, because the maze lines were loooooooonnnngg. All looked to be an hour+. Fury's wait was about an hour all night. Sunday seems like the day to go if you can swing it. As far as the mazes go they were all fairly decent aside from The Reaping, which was straight up not good. If it's got any sort of wait at all I wouldn't bother.
  2. I don't think there's any video out there but there's a thread on Reddit from a guy that was in line when it occurred. He didn't seem to have a good view of the incident though, but estimated that the first train was travelling around 10-20 MPH and the "crash" or bump was fairly loud. He didn't think it was enough to cause much damage to the trains or seriously injure anyone, but it seemed to be more than just a gentle bump.
  3. Hmmm. I'm not even shocked honestly. Although I should be. Disappointing though, for sure. I'll probably head over this Sunday then to get a few more rides since that will seemingly be it's last day of operation for 2021.
  4. Queuetimes.com always seem to be really inaccurate for Carowinds (maybe for most parks?). The wait times almost never match up.
  5. So... what's up with Maxair? Has the excessive downtime just been a thing these last couple of years? Or has this been the deal for a while now? It seems like it was always running back in the 2005 - 2010 era with no problems. Does Delirium at KI have similar issues? I actually got to ride MaxAir my last visit (May 2019) but it was closed both days I was there in May 2018 and I wondered why at the time. I wonder what the shelf life is on these things...
  6. (OK, these pictures are no good but I had zero plans of writing a trip report or anything... but here we are) So we ended up going Monday instead of Saturday. Every Louisville native we met throughout the weekend gave us a puzzled look at best and a flat out stank eye at worst when they found out we were stopping there, but eh... we had fun. I knew the line-up was stacked with airtime, which is all I really enjoy honestly. I'll try and keep this brief but I tend to ramble on these things. FearFALL (X1) - I'd heard Larson drop towers were pretty good and this thing definitely delivered. I'm pretty much desensitized when it comes to 99.9% of rides at this point but this one had me a little on edge with the fairground aesthetic and feel haha. The tower felt taller than it should have and the drop was stomach-wrenching. I'd put this up there with Falcon's Fury and KI's drop tower as one of my favorites honestly. Lightning Run (X3) - Our first ride was in the front seat and my final 2 rides were in the very back (which I preferred overall). This thing was great... and it's hard to believe more of these were not built. Butter smooth but still wild as hell... it felt like a shrunken down Phantom's Revenge / RMC hybrid with legit ejector airtime. The home park is Carowinds and I'd take this coaster over anything there aside from Fury 325. The first drop in the back seat might be my favorite drop anywhere. Super fun ride. Unfortunately the wait took about an hour the first time because they were only running one train. They tried to add the 2nd, and after about 20 minutes of downtime they finally got the transfer track to move 4 inches to the left before they said "nah, it ain't happenin'" and the maintenance guys just gave up and walked off. Kentucky Flyer (X2) - Nice little family coaster with some legit airtime pops. I've had two somewhat recent hip surgeries this year and one of the hops had me in some pain because I flat out wasn't ready for it and my restraint was laughably loose, but we enjoyed it overall for what it was. T3 (X1) - LOL. I mean, I knew what I was getting into... but even then I feel like I wasn't truly prepared. My morbid curiosity got the best of me. Holy shit this thing is terrible. We waited for the front and the pre-recorded operator spiel said something like "the front row is the most extreme seat on this ride. Please make sure to ride with your back against the seat..." along with other defensive-riding instructions. I told the GF just to skip it when we were about to board because I didn't want to ruin her day. The ride op told me they'd been getting broken / bloody noses from people headbutting the metal handlebars on the restraint... and afterwards I was like "well that makes sense". Absurdly intense, and it felt like the wheels suddenly became square about halfway down the drop. My restraint also tightened so badly my legs were starting to go numb on the break run. Just a laughably terrible coaster all-around as expected, but hey... I did it! Thunder Run (X2) - Sleeper hit of the day by far. I'd heard it was underrated and we ended up loving it. Those PTC restraints were about 2-3 inches off my body and holy crap I was EJECTED every time on those first couple of hills. The track was smooth overall with just the right amount of ruggedness. They clearly take care of it. I guess this is sort of what Hurler was supposed to be. A legitimately good coaster I could ride all day. Storm Chaser (X4) - We got 3 rides in the very front and one in the back; I'm definitely more of a back seat guy but the front was better overall IMO. This was only my 2nd RMC and I knew it would be fairly wild but I was still surprised by just how powerful and violent it felt for it's size. I've had an 11 PM, trim-less, lubed-up ride on Steel Vengeance on a warm summer night and the ejector airtime on this was just as good if not better than that insane SV ride. The first half is freaking awesome in every way; unfortunately everything after the double up over the entrance is almost TOO wild and borderline painful with the absurd airtime, but I loved this coaster overall. And because it's in such a weird spot it was a walk-on all day (I'm sure this is usually the case). I know opinions vary all over on this but I could have (and probably should have) rode it all day. Someone on Reddit mentioned it as feeling "crazy broken intense" and that pretty much sums it up. It was absolutely hauling. Overall impressions - We had fun. The park was absolutely slammed and the layout is odd for sure. It truly does feel like a water park with some rides randomly sprinkled about... the general layout and ride placements felt like a poorly planned out Planet Coaster creation haha. The operations weren't great but I've seen worse. I do love how every single major coaster here has the same standard operating procedure... first drop followed by a stupidly powerful airtime hill that tries it's best to yeet you off of the ride. I'm here for it. I'd be shocked if we ever went again, but it's hard to beat that out-of-state 2-day deal for $40 and I'm intrigued to see what Herschend does with the park. We were glad we stopped by.
  7. Looks like we're going to be making our first visit here tomorrow (have a few hours to burn in Louisville so we figured why not) for a quick stop and I was also curious on weekend crowds. I don't think I've been to a park on a Saturday... ever? I intentionally will always avoid it, but I just figured the crowds would be manageable (and maybe that's a bad assumption). The weather looks super nice for tomorrow. I'm sure someone will answer you prior but I'll try and respond back later tomorrow night to let you know how the crowds were.
  8. I think it's an initial cost issue, and I'm guessing the maintenance costs down the road are higher than usual as well (we saw what happened with Colossos). I don't think we're going to see another pre-fab built... I mean, it's been 13 years since the last one. They still list the model on their website so I'm sure they'd build one if they found a customer, but there's got to be some pretty strong reasons for why it's been a decade and a half with no bites. I really thought those were going to blow up in the mid to late 2010's. GCI and GG (and for a short while RMC) then completely took over that market. As far as the SFFT ride goes... this does feel like we might be seeing the first Axis here, but I know someone brought up the Gerstlauer "record breaker" and that's an interesting thought too. I guess it was said it wouldn't be near the quarry wall though, and that certainly could have made the ride's placement a "challenging location".
  9. My last visit to Cedar Point was late May 2019 on a Tuesday and Wednesday so my last impression of the park was obviously a good one. But I also remember a decent amount of people preferring KI even in the early 2010's, which was always sort of strange to me, but hey... different strokes, etc. King Island is without a doubt one of the better overall parks in the country though. Well rounded for sure, and I can't disagree with anything in your post.
  10. I know this discussion was had a few pages back and it's been done to death at this point but growing up with King's Island being my "home park" (2.5 hours away, lived in WV)... I just never understood how people could prefer it over Cedar Point. And I'm talking about when both parks are operating at their max efficiency. I mean... it almost just seems contrarian haha. KI is a great park for sure; don't get me wrong. And maybe I just burned myself out on it a bit as a kid. But Cedar Point always had the better atmosphere and far better ride line-up IMO. The last few times I visited CP I went on late May weekdays and it was walk-on city with pretty much everything fully staffed, so... it's hard to have a bad time in that situation. I think my last visit to KI was 2018 (hadn't been since 2009) and unfortunately I only got one ride on Mystic Timbers but I really enjoyed it. Would LOVE to get a night ride on that thing. It's definitely my #1 at the park. This might get some eyerolls but Banshee rattled the ever-living crap out of me and was a one and done. Might stop in for a visit in July since my GF is wanting to go (she hasn't been in well over a decade) and I'd like to check out Orion, but my expectations would be set pretty low considering I live approximately 13 minutes from Fury 325 haha. Anyway, it's good to see that King's Island seems to be doing well relatively early on this season while things are still a bit wonky at parks.
  11. For anyone that's gone to Carowinds this season... has the Drop Tower ever been open? We actually moved to Charlotte last fall and we're planning on heading to the park this Sunday, and I've noticed it's been listed as "closed" every time I've checked wait times this year. Obviously it's not a huge deal or anything (I was just curious) but I've always liked that you can literally just walk right onto that thing at any given time and marathon it basically.
  12. Rode Intimidator at night for the first time at Scarowinds in 2014 and it was a pretty solid hyper. Still behind Diamondback and Apollo's Chariot for me as far as B&ms go, but pretty fun. Rode it last July a few hours after riding Fury and besides the first drop it could not have been more boring. The trims were hitting super hard and I just couldn't believe how... painfully average it was. I think we rode it 3 times. Same ride every time.
  13. So... since it appears that flume is being removed, I feel like they wouldn't blatantly say they're removing it like they just did unless a new water ride was coming in next year to replace it. I think that's probably what's coming in 2017. What's the name of that flume? Haven't been to the park in forever and it's not listed as an attraction anywhere.
  14. I've always thought this would make a pretty interesting ride and it's pretty straight forward but I'll explain anyway. Basically, the trains are loaded at the bottom and they are 4-D trains / wing seats. The seats rotate throughout the ride so that the riders themselves are always sitting straight up. The train is lifted up the tower and since the seats stay flat it would basically feel exactly like a drop tower and you'd get a great view of everything as you rise to the top. Once at the top the train releases and you get a 300-400 foot free-fall and head over to the other spike, where you'll get another free-fall and it goes through a few more cycles on gravity alone. Not super original; basically a boomerang / half-pipe / drop tower / 4-d coaster hybrid on a huge scale. I just think the airtime and views on it would be pretty sweet. Damn, I'm bored at work.
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