Cedar Fair and the previous Taft Parks

I know this isn't much, but long ago Kings Island had two metal caged tunnels that were covered with ivy and they had a mist system in them. Those seemed to give the park a unique quality.

Arbors. Early on most regionals has those things, used mainly to separate one area from another as well as provide shade, benches, and the occasional mister.
I believe Carowinds still has theirs and Six Flags over Georgia may have theirs, too. Kings Island recently put a chain link tunnel leading marking the new entrance to White Water Canyon. It isn’t very pretty though.

It lacks charm.

Kings Dominion still has their ivy covered tunnel. The original was replaced just a few years ago.

I find it interesting how the majority of the Taft parks are turning into superparks under CF's ownership, but CF is mostly ignoring the previous parks other than Cedar Point.

Or, it’s one step at a time.
Or, it’s knowing which side your bread’s buttered on. I don’t know which parks you perceive as “ignored” but the conversation always turns to MiAdv, doesn’t it? And the answer is that they are profitable in their own right, pretty much as is. Building a “super park” in western Michigan wouldn’t make much sense. They don’t get that much business and they are the most seasonal of the bunch.
In other words, put your money where it will do the most good.

While it’s fun to pick on MiA, I think the statement holds fairly true, at least on the dry side, for all pre-merger CF parks save CP and KBF. None of the others, at least that I recall, have gotten anything exceptionally noteworthy since the 200x years. I’m not saying it’s bad decision-making or anything like that, but to just use the example of my wife and I, of the four different CF parks my wife and I have or will have visited over last year and this year, only one was not a former Paramount park, and it’s because they not only great parks to visit repeatedly, but they get new, exciting attractions.

That said, I think they were in dire need of many of them. I always found it interesting that for the former Paramount parks, they could have surprisingly large coaster collections and yet still seemed to be lacking some hardware that parks much smaller than them had for years. I found it odd that the only ones with B&Ms prior to CF ownership were Carowinds and Great America.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Knott's. It actually has a higher attendance than CP. I'll be going there for the first time in October.

Just as an example, I went to VF for the first a month ago. I was pretty astounded at how it pretty much mirrored CP early 90's, but never seemed to progress past the 90's. It was eerie...

Wild Thing was their Magnum.

Excaliber and Gemini are the same models and are extremely rare models

Same Power Tower... pretty much clones.

Steel Venom came later, but its their Wicked Twister.

Corkscrew is very similar at both parks.

High Roller is pretty much their Blue Streak.

Like every park they have their obligatory kiddie coaster.

Pretty much the only thing that VF has that doesn't have an equivalent at CP is Renegade.

But I think that the park is in bad shape from a popularity standpoint (I don't necessarily dislike it from a technical standpoint). I flew in on Thursday and wanted to head over, but they were literally shut the park down as I was walking in. They claimed that it was due to weather, but t wasn't thundering, and there was barely anybody there, I think that the rain was just an excuse. I checked their Twitter and they've been doing this throughout the summer. I went back on Friday and it was pretty empty.

Double Dip said:

I know this isn't much, but long ago Kings Island had two metal caged tunnels that were covered with ivy and they had a mist system in them. Those seemed to give the park a unique quality.

King's Islands arbor tunnel was located behind the blue ice cream stand in the snoopy area. They are trying to get two smaller ones going on the entrance to Whitewater Canyon, but they seem to be growing slowly. As mentioned above, both Kings Dominion and Carowinds retained theirs. Both have been replaced I believe over time. Fortunately they survived at those parks. Its a nice place to sit in the shade on a hot day. Heat hurts the attendance in southern parks, maybe that's why the 2 southern parks retained theirs.

Looked like they are trying to “grow” another one between Mystic Timbers and Diamondback, leading back to White Water Canyon.