Goodbye Kingda Ka?

But there is no doubt that in 15 years TTD and Ka will no longer be their parks big draw. They might still be the tallest but i would hazard to guess, not the most popular. What will the parks do with these giants then?

We are seeing similar thing occurring today at SF:MM. rumors have been pointing to the removal of SM:The Escape, due to lack of popularity and opperating and maitance costs, for years. It was too a record breaker and MM's major draw just 10 years ago. But soon it might be getting the ax.

Very seldom does a coaster get modified to add track length, but I believe Ka could use more track with inversions. It truly is a one trick pony and I probably won't ride it again unless there is absolutely no line to it. I'd say Rolling Thunder will get the axe in the next few years unless they re-track it. Last time I rode it (2 years ago) it was the roughest coaster I have ever ridden (above and beyond the roughness I remember Hercules at DP producing). *** Edited 11/12/2007 2:56:54 PM UTC by jshorerzd***

In gadv there are other coasters that would be taken down first like rolling thunder or the scream machine. KK still generates over 1 hour long lines. why would they take it down?

Taking down Rolling Thunder won't be easy with El Toro built over part of it now. I wish they would have removed it and Viper for El Toro and maybe another good wooden coaster.

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majortom1981 said:
KK still generates over 1 hour long lines. why would they take it down?

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Ha, ha. With Shapiro, are you kidding me? Ride KK while you still can. If a ride gets over an hour in line, that doesn't mean anything to this guy. That ride could be next.

You have got to be kidding me!

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Spinout said:

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majortom1981 said:
KK still generates over 1 hour long lines. why would they take it down?

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Ha, ha. With Shapiro, are you kidding me? Ride KK while you still can. If a ride gets over an hour in line, that doesn't mean anything to this guy. That ride could be next.

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There is not ONE ride that is being removed this off-season across the chain that generates a queue time wait of an hour or more.

Truth be told, for Kingda Ka to be removed so prematurely (it opened the same year that Snyder took ahold of Six Flags), it would be more of a financial loss than a gain to remove it.

^ How about DeJavu in SFGam. Of what I understand (due to the fact it was broken down everytime I went) When it was running the line was the longest in the park. Even longer than Raging Bull wich definitely is longer than an hour...

The ride is going nowhere fast. As long as it stay popular, and bars any major maintence issue or a massive calamity it will continue to operate.

The likelyhood of another one of these being built at the height of these two will probably never happen. The cost far outweighs anything else when it comes to rides, ie the building and the maintenance. Realiability and safety are major concerns when you build a ride, because the word does spread through the public and sometimes media when a ride is not doing very well in the view of the public.

With that being said the new trend in the industry is to make rides more oriented to the family and good thrills, however, both of those gargantuans never were really all that thrilling in the first place.

The ride is going nowhere fast. As long as it stay popular, and bars any major maintence issue or a massive calamity it will continue to operate.

Take out the part about "popularity" and you've got it right.

Mamoosh kingdka is popular. Maybe not with you but it is. It still generates multiple hour long lines .

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Mamoosh said:
The ride is going nowhere fast. As long as it stay popular, and bars any major maintence issue or a massive calamity it will continue to operate.

Take out the part about "popularity" and you've got it right.

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I think he's got it perfectly square. Ka will continue to run unless/until something happens.

Honestly, I think the 2 major reasons Ka is still up and standing are: 1) coroprate saw the Chiller removal as a more pressing issue, and 2) Ka had no additional "critical failures" in '07. I anticipate another major breakdown would likely spell the end of the world's tallest/fastest coaster (or at least its operation at GAdv).

As popular as Ka is (and I readily admit it is), consider the headaches caused by the excessively long lines and the unpredictable downtime. That offsets alot of the benefit of having such a marquee attraction. Ka will stay...for now. SF undoubtedly saw what happened to GL, and doesn't want a mass exodus of rides to do the same for one of their flagship parks...
*** Edited 11/13/2007 3:20:59 PM UTC by rollergator***

I definitly agree with the idea that TTD and KK will be the tallest coasters for a while if they stay up. It just costs too much to get coasters that high by any means. If they keep that in mind, I think both coasters will remain standing until something comes out that can get just as high for less money.

BUT, I think if one of them did come down, it would be KK. I'd bet that, in attempt to remain "family friendly", Shapiro would rip it down to build a frickin' Barney and Friends land in it's place...lol. JK.

If Shapeiro where that stupid he would break his newly aquired record. SFI lowest stock price ever.

^Is SFA going to get rid of anything over this offseason? How about Skull Mountain, and Batwing? Those are both nightmarish rides. They also have that Octopus, and I think they have trouble with that other Flume Ride (big boat), and you know about Two-Face (bad publicity).

^I think you meant Typhoon SeaCoaster...IIRC, they removed the turntables this past offseason(?), and I'd imagine that has helped tremendously with reliability and capacity. The weird part about SFA's water rides is they always seem to be closed (the S-T-C notwithstanding).

Mamoosh kingdka is popular. Maybe not with you but it is. It still generates multiple hour long lines.

I haven't ridden Kingka Ka so I don't have an opinion of the ride. But don't be foolish in thinking that long lines automatically equals popularity. But really that's beside the point. Popular or not if the ride has too much down-time or becomes too-heavy a drain on the park's maintenance budget it will be axed.

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kRaXLeRidAh said:

There is not ONE ride that is being removed this off-season across the chain that generates a queue time wait of an hour or more.

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Really? I had GAdv. as my home park for 3 years and I distinctly remember more than an hour for Chiller the majority of the times I was there.

And Deja Vu? Been on all three and had at least hour long lines most of the time (for maintanence, if nothing else).

Now the long lines were more because of bad capacity than good ride, but still, they had long lines.

Like others point out, lines don't necessarily mean "POPULAR". Lines usually go with low capacity.

Yeah, but when the ropes are cut in the morning, guess where the crowds head en masse.