Kennywood 8/19/19

RC Madness said:

I agree that parks are overly sensitive to lightning delays. Planes seem to keep taking off during lightening storms, public transportation keeps rolling, the concert keeps playing and things stay on schedule. But it is the amusement park and the soccer game that needs to stop? Frustrating...

Kind of a silly comparison. Planes and buses can get struck by lightning without injuring anyone inside. (Though, as bigboy stated, even airports will shut down for storms.) If a ride is struck by lightning with people on it, it's not going to be pretty because they aren't insulated from the strike via some sort of metal shell.

yawetag said:

Personally, I'm not against the erring on caution that's taken for both sports and parks. Even when BGT shut down for almost two hours while the sun was shining overhead, I still understood why they did it.

I am all for erring on the side of caution. However, I have been to BGT during those “weather closures” when it’s sunny and the radar shows storms 30 miles east in Lakeland that never even come close to the park. That’s just absurd and unnecessary.

The Kennywood issue is a passing downpour at 2 or 3pm will immediately close the park, even when the sun us out an hour later for a beautiful evening. I’m all for calling the day early when the weather is a wash, but Kennywood will close the park when hours of nice weather are just an hour beyond the storm.

And then you have Cedar Point, which will almost always stay open regardless of weather. But if so much as a drop of rain falls, almost every coaster will close to wait out the rain. The B&Ms usually keep going, but the Arrows and Intamins (minus Millennium Force, which usually stays open) will close for, no exaggeration, 15 seconds of sprinkling rain drops. This is not a chain wide policy either, but seems to be a Cedar Point only thing that stemmed from the 2007 Magnum train bump.

I think that management, both current corporate and local are more than a little hinkey with what happened with the macro burst a few years back. It could also be related to the parks liability underwriter as well. What the average person might consider asinine is really an entity being overly cautious.

It's Palace Entertainment (the US subsidiary of Parques Reuinidos). Kennywood was never as bad with rain, even after the miacroburst, under family ownership. It's my understanding that all of their parks now close at the first sign of rain.

Did you get a lap on Phantom's Revenge? How is it running?

Yes, we did all 7. And it was running fine I suppose. I maintain the trains are some of the most comfortable, and with the best restraints out there. With our band we had FOL access, but were forbidden in all cases from taking the front seat. So for some reason we took the front seat of the last car and those airtime moments toward the end were killers. But fun. I remember that ride as having the slowest lift ever, and that seemed to be corrected.

Kennywood on 8/15 was fine. Heavy downpour for an hour, I spent it in the Exterminator tunnel. Rode Steel Curtain twice, it was amazing. Got on all coasters despite park being kind of crowded due to marching band days. Used that to an advantage, though, while they were eating dinner and dressing for their parade, we rode everything/anything we wanted.

Plenty of shelter during the rains in that park too.

I have pictures but the only way to add them is to specify "source." Um, my PHONE?

"Source" is looking for a URL. The photos can't be posted directly from a device, they have to be hosted somewhere online.

Beyond “amazing” how was Steel Curtain? I’m not a big fan of loopers, but it’s unique enough to pique my curiosity.