Mark9

I'm surprised that Vekoma don't want to work with Cedar Fair after 2025 to be honest, you'd think their wanted growth in America would stop them building a ride at Cedar Point. Bit of an odd choice considering Valravn is right there (even if that ride is pretty bland) an is a real crowd pleaser.

Not nearly ambitious enough. I say this as someone who wears red tinted glasses when it comes to Chessington. I think it's mad to replace Wild Asia. This is a park that cannot afford to run Tiger rock and Rattlesnake on quieter days. So they knock down Wild Asia. An the rumoured replacement theme fills me with a sort of mehness.

I find that we're having this conversation really concerning, particularly for the UK market as a whole. It kind of came and went but the attendance report for parks was released and some key sentences in there are quote below and I find this to be our ultimate problem is that whilst the European parks are exceeding expectations, the parks in the UK aren't despite investment. I was at Europa Park and Efteling over the last two weeks. Both parks very busy, every ride open (well apart from one but Efteling isn't a seasonal theme park). Rides open on time, fully staffed. If you think it's an unfair comparison, well it isn't. Its the same time of year, Merlin is the third biggest worldwide operator. It's going to take some bold action for our parks to return to a place where they are not only highly profitable but successful. And one of the realities of the Merlin parks is the Annual Pass creates so much drag across the parks. I think a significant look needs to take place as we've seen places like Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Phantasialand either remove entirely or price accordingly and the respective parks have never been so profitable..

Yep. I find myself really frustrated getting off Hyperia now because with just another little bit of track, it would be a top 10 ride. It delivers so much until the stall and then it just gives up. We live in an age where manufacturers absolutely ace endings and Hyperia just doesn't.

Tiger Rock and Rattlesnake look on in sadness.

Shame. It's time is well and truly up and it needs to go.

1. I'm a theme park enthusiast. I get far more out of a well themed, story based area then just a ride in a big field. I can enjoy things like Fury 325 and Afterburner but my god, I would much rather be riding Baron 1898 and Nemesis. They send shivers, they make me feel connected in a way that a stat heavy machine never can. I prefer family theme parks to thrill parks and I like the variety and imagination that goes into family rollercoasters. 2. Theme Park hotels and staying the night is part of the experience and have become vital to a theme park trip to feel right. Over the years I've stayed at many Disney resorts, Europa Park, Dollywood, Efteling for example and I find them so engaging and immersive. 3. I love hitting parks hard in the first few hours and then relaxing and putting my feet up in a beautiful restaurant or in a bar and just reflecting. One of my star memories is at Toverland, sitting outside the Flaming Feather in the beautiful sun and just relaxing with a beer and chicken wings watching the rides go by. A park that doesn't have a lovely restaurant to sit back and chill isn't worth visiting in my opinion. 4. Theme Park road trips are hard. Just doing day after day after day of theme parks is exhausting and relaxation days are key to making the most of parks.

The amount of staff they need to run Rumba alone is ridiculous but is part of the course for all water rides with no restraints now. I'd bin off Rumba to be honest, it has such little value now at the park.

Probably should have kept it open till 9pm to be honest. Even though we were one of the luckier ones to get in the queue with 20 seconds to go, it would have made me feel a tad bitter if we had missed out. I love the other rides so would have just done them, but hyperia night ride was the prime selling point.

That's really impressive actually. Especially as the intamin website reckons it can only get 1000 people per hour and Intamin heavily over inflate the capacity normally. Well done Stealth team!

The cry of a dying theme park. Opening later is much more preferable than cutting the night time riding which is one of Scarefest selling points.

I currently live in Stratford and my local park is technically the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. But there's no rides unless you count one of the Tube Lines or the Elizabeth Line. So actually my local park is actually Chessington. I've not visited this year as all the things said about it this year makes it sound like it's on the verge of closing down.

Don't let Hyperia hear you say that.

The Thirteen crew smashing it I see. Kinda glad that the most accessible of the Towers coasters has a capacity that high.

Give people a reason to stay till 9PM and people will. Maybe night rides on Hyperia will be enough.

Can you name a single ride that runs flawlessly every day, for its entire existence?

I'm sure you've all heard of Kings Island. It's a part of the Six Flags chain now, but in June it was one of the premier Cedar Fair parks, sitting right under Cedar Point as one of its main gems. Its line up also reflects this with three B&M's, a GCI, an Arrow, classic woodies and several classics and frequent investment that Michigans Adventure could only dream of. Before my visit I heard about the fantastic operations, full train operations, how they operate the park flawlessly. Well spoilers. They don't. I recently embarked on a 9 park USA trip and out of all of them, Kings Island sits as the most disappointing. But why? There's several reasons but first let's start with the rides themselves. The five main attractions are Diamondback, Orion, Banshee, Mystic Timbers and the Beast. Like Canadas Wonderland & Carowinds, the park has a hyper/giga combo and in my opinion this is the weakest combo of the three. Diamondback is the hyper coaster and is the best coaster in the park. It has a lot of air time, it has the second best layout (Behemoth, Diamondback and Thunder Striker) and is generally well paced and landscaped. Orion is pretty good but is too short. It also doesn't share the same principles as Fury 325 and Leviathan. Those two rides despite being gigas, keep relatively low to the ground and have fast paced corners interspersed with good floater air time. Orion on the other hand feels like it's missing the last third of the ride. It has a strong two thirds but hits the breaks way too early. It's a shame because it has good air time hills and an intense helix. I know some may say that I should enjoy what a ride and not what it doesn't. Too some extent I agree. However I rode Fury 325 a week earlier and that is a complete ride. Orion just lacks that something. And finally Banshee. I feel fortunate to have got on this, a week prior to my trip, a guest had actually got into the ride area and was killed by a train. I found Banshee incredibly disappointing actually. It is a huge B&M invert with a beautiful colour scheme but my god it is so forceless. I don't really understand how they went from Oz'Iris which is a top tier invert, to this in just two years. I had two rides on Banshee and neither really did anything for me. The only bit I really enjoyed was the slow zero-g roll at the end of the ride. I can't even say that the restraints were the problem because they weren't. Banshee is the only Invert to feature the new restraints. Here the ride lacked that kick that inverters like Nemesis, Katun and Afterburn feature, that whippiness and aggressive pacing that takes them to the next level. I'd heard fantastic things about Mystic Timbers and to be fair this is pretty good. I liked the way the ride goes off into the woods (which is a very popular American woodie feature) and I liked the pacing. The shed itself is naff though and it feels like it's done purely because the train has to sit in the break run for 60 seconds so they attempted a show element. The Beast is probably Kings Island most iconic ride and we'd heard all about the legendary night rides. We only rode this at night for context so I couldn't really tell you what the layout does without watching a POV. It was absolutely class at night though. There's clearly an aura around this ride and night rides are legendary. Hundreds of people waiting way after 11pm to get on this ride. IMO it didn't disappoint and was a highlight of the trip. There's something so peaceful and yet nerve wracking about being on a ride and not having a clue of where you are going. It's just you, the stars and the night sky following you and the 35 other people traversing through the woods. It felt like a proper moment where theme park passion comes alive and you get off feeling so much better for having done it. With the highlights ticked off, next comes the lesser talked stuff. The Bat is an arrow suspended and is my least favourite of the five remaining. It never felt like it got going and lacked the swing that Vortex (at Canadas Wonderland) or Vampire has. Invertigo never opened and hasn't been open since my visit so that could be dead. The two wooden duelling coasters named Racer were excellent and the park clearly looks after them as they rode fantastically. Adventure Express was a very good arrow mine train, with actual theming and a non janky, exciting layout. I love an arrow mine train and each one is so different from the last. Truly unique. Backlot Stunt Coaster was just like the other two I have ridden, this one did have working effects though which makes a difference. Flight of Fear was fine, apparently reopened after track welding work. It's not a favourite but its relatively well themed and has a good layout. The new ride, Snoopys Car thing, was a good Vekoma boomerang and there was a good level of kiddy coasters in this area with Woodstock Express and Woodstocks Air Rail. On the face of it the rides aren't the problem so what exactly was it that wasn't clicking about the park? Well simply put, I think whilst the park does run full capacity on rides and it does have very engaged ride teams, I don't think the way they operate their rides is particularly effective. For example the team absolutely blitz it down ride platforms, shouting to lift lap bars when trains park. But sometimes this frantic, over the top activity just creates confusion for park guests and puts them on edge. You stress out a park guest, they start to behave in odd ways. They start to do things like exit vehicles in the wrong way. They don't do seat belts up, they may try to walk up lift hills. It also starts to throw off other park employees. One example I have is we were waiting front row on Diamondback and we were told we wouldn't be on the next train because of disabled guests. Okay fine. But the disabled guests never turned up. The platformers just put the bars down, in their frantic race to roll trains. The miscommunication, the frantic action meant groups who have positioned themselves to ride together are thrown off, it means a premier seat goes out empty (one you are waiting longer for anyway) and to me is not good park operation. Just rolling out trains is no good if you aren't effectively filling the trains to maximum capacity. The other gripe I have is the idea that running three trains is how you deal with capacity but actually, the rides are effectively designed to have a train sit on the break run for 2 minutes whilst the one in the station loads. I've always found it curious that you effectively seat people for 2 minutes and ending the ride not in the giddy high of what they have just experienced, but in boredom because the adrenaline rush is over and they've been sitting in the breaks for what feels like a long time. The only hypers I have seen to run a good three train service is Silver Star and Nitro. All the others, particularly at Cedar Fair just run three trains out of obligation but with no actual benefits of doing so. Reliability was also a clear issue with numerous ride closures throughout the day. I can take poor reliability with good communication but the real issue was the impact that had with Fast Lane. The service at KI is relatively affordable but the problem is where the end of Fast Lane is. At Kings Island, it was nearly always at the ride platform and everyone seemed to have this problem of scanning their wrist bands. So the batching process was essentially paused whilst huge numbers of people pass through the skip the line service. Frequently trains would be waiting in the station for more guests to load because batching had effectively stalled. Because Fast Lane is obviously prioritised, it meant they had first choice on front row and back row so stand by is effectively left with all the in-betweens. That's if the disabled entry people didn't nick your seats on every train. Here they can choose what row they go in. Because despite there being a batcher, the communication only took place that you wouldn't be on the next train, the batcher wouldn't necessarily not load an area of the train for the disabled guest. So you were hobbled frequently by exit riders. We also had a park wide power cut with only two small flat rides unaffected. For about two hours no rollercoaster was available. So when rides did reopen, they were immediately hit with massive queues and fast lane waits. Add in the frequent break downs and it made for a more frustrating day then it needed to be. Adventure Express only on one train and was advertised as having long waits at the entrance. Racer seemed like a gamble whether they were running both sides or not. All of the issues we faced at Kings Island had not been present at any of the parks we had been to previously. It was really eye opening and frustrating because it should have been a highlight park, for many it's a bucket list park. But I came out of it preferring a lot of the other parks like Dorney and Carowinds. Kings Island didn't even really have the ride hardware, that real stand out attraction to put the more negative thoughts out of my mind. Is it worth a visit? Yes. But it isn't outstanding.. Thank you for reading. 😃

I do miss the old days however I'm very appreciative of the accessibility of theme park enthusiasm now. When I first got into rides it was a very white male dominated environment. Whilst that is certainly still true to some extent, I'm glad that meets through Towers Times for example seem much more diverse then before. I miss the discussion on forums though and twitter is certainly no replacement as opinions there are very much ingrained. The amount of people that tell me Zadra is top tier RMC... it just baffles the mind

I'm sure the park are too.

Yikes.

Re-opened yesterday according to the app.

Two trains of thought here. Hyperia is the best UK rollercoaster if you think purely from the rollercoaster itself. Could it be better, yes, but actually it offers something completely unique to anything else the UK currently offers. Nemesis: Reborn remains my favourite UK rollercoaster because it offers an overall better experience from a theme and layout perspective. You could build Hyperia anywhere, but Nemesis Reborn, is truly unique.

Had another day at Thorpe for my birthday on Friday and a few more thoughts about operations. I'm kind of blown away by Thorpe's operations at the moment, I hope that somehow they are getting the feedback that the hard work the staff are putting in is having a positive effect. For example, I've been pretty complimentary about Inferno and Stealth so far this season and that remains the same. What iIwasn't expecting was Colossus and Samurai to be operating so well. I don't normally bother with those two (because people I'm with never want to ride them) but I was keen. Colossus was exemplary, especially as a ride that always struggles to operate well with its bulky restraints. We joined the end of the queue just under the first corkscrew and the operator announced it was a 45 minute wait. Back in the day that may have been true, but on Friday it ended up being 10 minutes from that point to on the ride. The ride wasn't stacking for ages like it used to, the staff were just on it. Samurai, bless the poor platformer. By themselves, completing all tasks and yet was efficient and speedy. Mightily impressed. The Swarm seems to be less consistent so far, it happened to be good on Friday but I've seen it have bad stacking on other trips.

No one remembers Inferno spending most of July stuck at top of the lift hill in 2003 or when Saw had its 'I don't care about block breaks moment' on its open day in 2009. No one will remember Hyperia's issues in a couple of years time. These are annoying opening issues and whilst it's frustrating, people have to grow up a bit (on twitter at least) and show a bit of maturity. I've seen conversations about it needing more testing time. No amount of testing time would have bought about a lot of the issues the ride seems to be having at the moment.

Your experiences on Inferno and Stealth kinda reflect the years they are having so far. The operations on both have been stellar so far so it feels like something has changed in management for them both to be nearly flawless. Inferno is probably at the peak of its thrill levels now, it is running beautifully at the moment and is feeling very intense.