Kings Island 2020

I am very happy that Orion is nothing like I-305 at Kings Dominion. It's just not that interesting of a ride, imo. This revelation has me even more excited now.

eightdotthree said:

I remember seeing the POV video for Millennium Force and thinking that it looked awful. Then I rode it and fell in love. I still love it almost 20 freaking years later.

Orion looks sweet.

Thats because the POV video did in fact look awful. CGI has come a long way since then.

Here's the MF promo in question which looks OK from a graphics perspective but apparently they had no coaster physics engine whatsoever back then.

My favorite was the Raptor video.

I was speaking of the POV video that was released before opening day. If I remember correctly I had to download it and watch it with Quicktime. :)

Revisiting my last comment about Cedar Fair and Intamin. It’s been almost a DECADE since CF announced projects involving Intamin. That was the year of Shoot the Rapids and Intimidator 305.

Wow.

The levels of butt hurt in the community over this coaster is just unbelievable.

PointMan said:

The levels of butt hurt in the community is just unbelievable.

FTFY

PhantomTails said:

Here's the MF promo in question

That promo is still sweet after almost 20 years. John H did a great job with that. They should play that in the queue and in the station on a big screen.

It’s out there...

HeyIsntThatRob? said:

It’s been almost a DECADE since CF announced projects involving Intamin. That was the year of Shoot the Rapids and Intimidator 305.

Wow.

That's actually strange to consider. You made me think of this post I made over at the "other" buzz almost 13 years ago today (which did not include Maverick or Shoot the Rapids), when Intamin seemed to be the only player in the market that Cedar Point would go into business with.

And my god, it's weird to read words you wrote over a decade ago. I was so new to this whole coaster-community thing. :)

Orion will be great, I have no real doubt about that.

The most interesting thing about the Cedar Fair 2020 capex is just how low key it is, aside from this ride. I don't remember thinking that about any other year.

I don't like the shade of blue on this ride.

Vater said:

I don't like the shade of blue on this ride.

Rick_UK said:

The most interesting thing about the Cedar Fair 2020 capex is just how low key it is, aside from this ride. I don't remember thinking that about any other year.

I know they’ve publicly said that they’ll be spacing out large cap ex like this moving forward, which I think is a good thing. They’re focusing on making the parks an overall better experience. They’ve been working hard at getting parks where they needed to be. Carowinds, for example, had some of the worst capacity in the chain. They’ve added about a dozen new flat rides (family, kiddy, and thrill) plus two major amazing coasters, and a revamped amazing water park. Going forward I think spaced out larger rides and coasters with smaller additions of flats and attractions will just add to what’s become a great park.

@Tek I think that's a fair assessment, but I don't think it will be this slow every year. One major coaster across the chain every year would be quite a serious shift and I suspect wouldn't align to public expectation.

^

I don't think the GP is really aware that Carowinds, CGA, and CP are all owned by the same company.

I don’t think you’ll see more than two, possibly three coasters a year across the chain. But more than likely one or two.

PointMan said:

I don't think the GP is really aware that Carowinds, CGA, and CP are all owned by the same company.

That's not what I was referring to, if the chain adds one coaster per year, 'the GP' would be aware that their home park was receiving a new coaster every 12 years - which bar the kids at Michigan's Adventure, that would be a step change.

The patrons of MiA, WoF, and VF obviously wouldn’t have a problem, especially since it’s been 8-11 years since those parks for new coasters.

And then there’s Dorney

As for other parks, I could definitely see parks getting new coasters every 5-7 years. And people will still go because the company realizes that events that sell additional things like food raise per caps.

Fair shout, it has certainly been a while in some of the smaller parks. The insanity of three coasters in four seasons at Cedar Point was great fun at the time, but it's certainly not going to come around again any time soon and that's entirely sensible.

No new coaster at Cedar Point until 2023 - 2025 would certainly be an interesting move. I'll watch with interest, Merlin have done something similar with their UK parks slashing capex across the board and some might suggest they haven't compensated for it in other ways.

The coaster community is all up in arms about it, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out with other visitors.

When I was a kid, most parks only had four or five coasters at most, and we liked it.