u/MrRaven95

I made this park several years ago, and thought it had been lost to time when the hard drive it was on crashed. I recently found a back up however, and was able to restore the file to share with you all. With multiple themed lands and even the shops and stalls named to match the area, I feel this is by far the most ambitious thing I've done in RCT!

I'm feeling the urge to buy RCTC or download OpenRCT2 to see what I could possibly do with a version of this park made with features introduced after the original game!

Decided to have some fun and made Kiddie Park! A park filled with only gentle rides (and the train acting as a gentle ride) for kids to come to and have fun!

The four robots from Team Danby are put into a Pro League group! We have in order Foxtrot, Slammo!, Predator, and Apex. Who do you think will win?

Nice to see Fireball running again! Hopefully it'll reopen soon.

At the end of June I took a road trip through the American Midwest, visiting five parks in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. First, I spent two days at Cedar Point, then I went to Michigan’s Adventure, and followed that up with Indiana Beach, then I indulged in the delights of Holiday World before heading to the final park…

Park #5 Kentucky Kingdom

I’ll be honest, this park wasn’t part of my original plans for this trip. I was going to end it at Holiday World, but after looking around I saw that Louisville was the closest place with an airport to Holiday World, and Kentucky Kingdom is two blocks away from the airport. Seeing that, I quickly added it to the itinerary. I also stayed at a nearby hotel, which allowed me to walk to the park and not pay for parking. This park has an interesting history, changing hands several times and even being abandoned by Six Flags. The park has survived a lot, and is currently going through changes from what it once was into the vision of a nice park aimed more at young families that Herschend seems to have for it. Because of that, some sections are very fresh and recently redone while other sections look old, worn out, and/or empty as they await their renovation. I also noticed on Google Maps there was a section of the park that once had an SLC, river rapids, and Larson Loop that appears to be empty and inaccessible right now. I wonder what they’ll do with that spot? The lunch and drinks I had was unfortunately typical theme park fare. Not the best flavor wise and overpriced. The cinnamon bread on the other hand was delicious and lived up to the hype. It’s the baby of a cinnamon roll and a loaf of bread and it is delicious! I went during a pretty bad for Kentucky heat wave, so the grand majority of people were at the waterpark, which left the lines in the theme park somewhat short depending on the ride and operations. I got here shortly after opening, but in the end left early before riding everything. While I was able to handle the heatwave just fine, six days in a row of amusement parks had taken their toll on me and I was worn out.

Good things about Kentucky Kingdom

Cinnamon bread. Beyond that the operations in the back half of the park and Flying Fox were very quick with the friendly operators all on top of things and quickly getting the rides going. The back half of the park has been done up rather nicely in the area running from the path over the road to Wind Chaser. The children’s area and Flying Fox have received the same treatment in the front half of the park. Finally, this park is for the most part laid out very well. Especially considering they have to work around a road running through the middle of it.

Bad things about Kentucky Kingdom

You may have noticed that I had to specify what parts of the park had good operations. That’s because with the exception of Flying Fox, the front section of the park had terribly slow operations that rivaled Six Flags Over Texas. It consistently took them 3-4 minutes to unload and load Lightning Run, and the guy at the car ride only let two cars on the course at a time despite having three cars in operation. The front half of the park has several sections that haven’t received any renovation yet, and look worn out or a flat out empty. While most the park is laid out well, Kentucky Flier and Skycatcher are for whatever reason on the other side of the waterpark and picnic pavilions from everything else.

Thoughts on the roller coasters:

Lightning Run: Really? This is the coaster that managed to overcome my sports strap and nearly take my glasses? Not Top Thrill 2. Not Steel Vengeance. Not Thunderhawk, Steel Hawg, or The Voyage. This thing. So yeah, this thing packs a surprising amount of air time in its course with a fun little layout.

Wind Chaser: With the current path this park looks to be taking an RMC honestly feels a little out of place here. This was a fun ride, though, with some good twists, turns, and air time moments, and that barrel roll first drop was awesome! That said, I see this was a dueling coaster when it was wooden, and I feel it was a missed opportunity to only convert one side as a dueling RMC would be really cool.

Woodland Run: Why have I never heard anyone talk about this underrated gem before? I could see that GCI put a lot of work into this ride to renovate it, and it ran beautifully! It’s a speed demon that charges through its course and was a lot of fun to ride. It might even be my favorite coaster in this park!

Flying Fox: At just barely a month old, I think this is the second youngest coaster I’ve ever ridden. For me it wasn’t that exciting outside of the first drop, but it looks like it’ll be a good family coaster for younger enthusiasts or people looking for tamer thrills. I like the theme and color scheme here.

Other rides of note:

Tin Lizzies: A simple car ride with some nice interaction with Lightning Run and the path to the back half of the park.

Garden Carousel: This classic carousel had many wonderful and beautiful hand-crafted horses on it to look at. It also had a couple spinning tea cups as an option to ride along with a sleigh that rocked back and forth. The ride itself has a rather dark color scheme that I wasn't too fond of though.

Spring Fling: I absolutely love that this ride has its swings themed to look like wooden shoes! It was a fun swing ride, too!

Cumberland Express: A very small train ride, but I still rode it anyways because I love trains and always try to ride them. Oddly, the person driving this sits in the first passenger car instead of the engine. The engine looks to still be driving the train, though, so I guess it’s either remote or there are wires connecting the two. The ride itself was a nice, but very short, little loop around some nature scenes and gardens. You can watch a POV of the nice little ride here.

Roller coasters I missed:

Hollyhock and Roll: This little family coaster looks like it would have been a fun ride to go on. I did intend to ride it, but six straight days of amusement parks took their toll on me, and this ride was passed up because I just needed to go rest.

Kentucky Flyer: For whatever reason this ride is located across the waterpark from everything else. This one ended up being passed up for the same reason as the coaster above.

Other things I missed:

Mile High Falls: Looked like fun, but I wasn’t quite in the mood to potentially get soaking wet.

Bumper Cars: I tried going on this ride, but it’s in an area of the park that’s rather desolate and hasn’t been renovated yet. Because of that there was no one else in line with me to do this ride with.

Final thoughts on my trip:

I’m very happy that I took this trip to see these five parks!

Cedar Point and Holiday World are parks that I’d love to return to someday, and would do so in a heartbeat!

Kentucky Kingdom feels like a park that’ll be worth a revisit in a decade or so once it has finished its transformation.

Michigan’s Adventure and Indiana Beach felt more like one and done parks unless they add a big must ride attraction.

At the end of June I took a road trip through the American Midwest, visiting five parks in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. First, I spent two days at Cedar Point, then I went to Michigan’s Adventure, after that was Indiana Beach, which brings me to…

Park #4 Holiday World

How I didn’t know about Holiday World until the late 2010’s when I learned about The Voyage I do not know. You’d think a park with Christmas and Halloween sections would have been brought to my attention long before that. Maybe I did hear about it but forgot? Anyways, this holiday themed park was on my radar for not only the wooden coasters here, but also the waterpark which has been consistently fighting Schlitterbahn back home for the title of best waterpark. Add to that the theming I’d heard about in each area, and I was sold. Plus, this place is a locally owned park independent of any chain. You definitely gotta support these types of parks! It was fun driving out here, too, because if you come from the closest interstate, you’ll be driving through countryside until you go around a curve and suddenly The Voyage and Thunderbird are in the distance greeting you. I went on a Monday and encountered a lot of people here. The day I went was the day a heatwave hit though, and most people understandably went to the waterpark, so the lines weren’t ever too long in the theme park, but were exceptionally long in the waterpark.

Good things about Holiday World

Oh my goodness, where to begin? How about the free things they offer? First, they offer free parking! Second, free sunscreen! Why does no other park do that? Third, unlimited free water, soft drinks, and Gatorade throughout the entire park!!! What sort of black magic did they use to pull that off?! How have they successfully done so for 26 years??? I visited the day a heatwave hit, and having unlimited free access to Gatorade everywhere made me able to breeze through the day! The theming of the park is absolutely wonderful! Not only are the rides well themed in appearance and name, but the music fits each area, and they put a lot of detail into the little things. Each area really felt like the holiday I was in. I was also amused when I heard Grim Grinning Ghosts playing in a non-Disney park. There’s plenty of shade throughout, and the areas without as much shade have plenty of places to get out of the sun. The food here was not too terribly overpriced, but everything I ate was fantastic! Their desserts were delicious and their meals top notch. (It’s the first time I’ve seen a place successfully do Tex-Mex outside of Texas!) The staff here was friendly, well trained, and quick on the ride dispatches. The rides were also well maintained, too, with only one ride closed for extended maintenance and another that went down but was fixed within an hour. The waterpark has some fun slides in it, and they have several spots with water intentionally being sprinkled onto paths to cool your feet with. Finally, it very much deserves the clean park awards it has won. After the previous park, this was quite the turnaround in terms of performance!

Bad things about Holiday World

Nothing’s perfect, and though the good massively outweighs the bad, Holiday World does have some small flaws. While the rides in the waterpark were fun, the water was room temperature, and thus didn’t cool me down much. The Thanksgiving area feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the park (though this may change once Cannonball opens) and Thunderbird felt disconnected from the rest of Thanksgiving. The park was well laid out outside of that though. These last two are more personal gripes, but as one who’s favorite holiday is Halloween, I wish that area was a bit bigger, but I still loved it. The Christmas area, while nice, contained only kiddie rides some shops, and a restaurant, so there wasn’t much of any reason for me to stay there outside of leaving and entering the park.

Like with Indiana Beach before it, I can’t fault Holiday World for the behavior of guests. The guests I encountered here were all well behaved and friendly with the exception of the lines in the waterpark. The problem was the single rider lines for the waterslides were filled with groups pretending to be single riders trying to skip the long queue lines. This caused the single rider lines to take longer then the regular queue line, which wasn't fair to actual single riders like me. I just hope the park addresses this issue in the future.

Thoughts on the roller coasters:

The Raven: As you might guess from my username, I really like the name of this coaster! The theming was cool, and the run through the forest was pretty nice. There were some rough parts, especially the turn by the lake, but I can tell that this ride is being taken care of. Overall, I liked this ride. That said, I am not a fan of PTC trains and their tight seats, and feel they’d be so much better without that divider in the middle.

The Legend: The turn from the lift hill to the first drop is cool, and the helix was intense. Like Raven, it’s clear that it’s being taken care of, but there are some rougher spots on its track. I love the actual bell they ring as the train departs and the vibe it adds to the Halloween section of the park overall. That said, while the coaster was fun, I rank it third of the three wooden coasters here.

Thunderbird: This one was all right, but not the best. I don’t know if I just picked a bad row or something, but it was very rattly. If I rested my head against the seat it hurt from the shaking, and if I leaned forward, I could feel the tie for my ponytail getting shaken loose. The head and footchoppers were good, though, and I loved the slow barrel roll right at the end of the ride.

Good Gravy!: I like the theming on this one and love the gravy boat train! It’s nice and smooth and not strong at all on the forces, which makes it a good family coaster for those who have graduated from Howler but aren’t ready to ride the bigger coasters. If you get the chance, read the nutrition facts on the cranberry can the coaster goes through!

The Voyage: Unlike the previous parks where I went straight for the big-ticket coaster, here I decided to save what I figured would be the best for last. To no real surprise this is indeed my favorite coaster in this park. I’ve wondered how the train manages to speed through the second half of the course after the MCBR, and having seen the coaster in person now I see the second half is a downhill run. Clever design! The stories you’ve heard about this ride are true. This coaster is an airtime machine that hauls through its course. The MCBR just allows you to catch your breath before it hauls through the second half of the ride. There were a couple small rough in the bad way spots, but the coaster is moving so fast that it didn’t really matter.

Other rides of note:

HallowSwings: I absolutely love the pun name for this ride, and the theming reminded me of celebrating Halloween in elementary school as a kid!

Lewis & Clark Trail: A nice car ride. It was a bit on the basic side, but the cars controlled well, and there was some nice shade on the route.

Rough Riders: Admittedly one of the weaker bumper cars on my trip, but I like the theming here. The cars were themed to horses and buffalo that you drove counter-clockwise around the small arena.

Holidog Express: This train ride was short, and practically a circle, but I won’t pass up on a train ride no matter how small! The ride itself has many statues made for the park decades ago depicting different fairy tells. They were quite fun to look at, though I don’t know how the operator was able to list all of them off on the microphone so fast! You can watch the ride and see the cool statues here.

Gobbler Getaway: The dark ride for the park, and a creative take on the shooter dark ride. Your shooters are turkey callers to harmlessly draw turkeys out of their hiding places after they ran off just before Thanksgiving dinner. The ride is quite long for what you usually get on this type of ride. Plus, in the end, the farmer couldn’t go through with killing the turkeys for thanksgiving dinner, and orders a pizza to the turkey’s (and human’s) delight.

Mayflower: After the one at Michigan’s Adventure was closed, I got to ride a swinging ship placed over some water. Once again, I loved the theming here.

Roller coasters I missed:

The Howler: The sole operating roller coaster that I missed. Outside of riding Holidog Express, I just didn’t do anything in Holidog’s area since it’s a kid’s zone. It looks like it might be a nice kiddie coaster, though.

CANNONBALL!: Obviously. One of many incentives to return here someday.

Other things I missed:

Frightful Falls: Like my visit to Knoebel’s in 2024 and my home park of Fiesta Texas right now, the log flume was down for extended maintenance. A shame, too, as it was the only ride I wasn’t able to ride in the Halloween section of the park.

Turkey Whirl, Star Spangled Carousel, and Firecracker: The three rides I really wanted to do, but ran out of time to ride. Turkey Whirl really hurt to miss since it’s a custom made turkey tilt-a-whirl that looked so fun and charming!

Tippecanoes: It’s a kiddie ride, but I wish they had an adult version of it because it had a nice old school charm to it!

At the end of June I took a road trip through the American Midwest, visiting five parks in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. First, I spent two days at Cedar Point, then I went to Michigan’s Adventure, and after that was…

Park #3 Indiana Beach

I’ve been wanting to take a spin on both Steel Hawg and The Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain ever since I found out about them, and this place almost completely closing for good back in 2020 made this place a high priority target for me. This park had an odd, quirky charm to it, and it honestly felt a bit like a Roller Coaster Tycoon park that someone just met the objective on. There’s a bunch of things tightly stuffed in everywhere whether it be rides, shops, restaurants, paths, ect. They used pretty much all of the space available to them and then a little more. I came here on a Sunday, so it was a little crowded, but the waits weren’t too bad for the most part. Arriving an hour after it opened, I had about six and a half hours to ride what I wanted before I had to get going to my next destination. The weather was sunny and getting hot, which was a bit of a problem here, but I made it through. Also, if you’re using something like Google Maps to get here, be advised that it’ll try to take you to the handicap and pay to enter preferred parking instead of the parking that is completely free and also the main entrance to the park.

Good things about Indiana Beach

First off, they offer free parking! As long as you don’t mind parking on grass, that is, and if for whatever reason you do there’s preferred parking that’s paved, but will cost you $20. The main entrance to the park from the free parking is a nice-looking suspension bridge, too, which is to my knowledge unique. The place has an interesting mixture of newer rides, older rides that are somewhat hard to find these days, and a couple unique attractions that you will not find anywhere else. The park is laid out rather well for the most part as the majority of things are along a straight path that runs almost the entire length of the park. Beyond that path there are some other paths on the northern end, but it was easy to find my way around everything despite things literally being built on top of each other. The food I had here was a bit cheaper than what I tend to find at my home parks, and while the pizza was about the same the ice cream was definitely better. Finally, the park had like a half dozen different arcades they had split their many, many arcade machines up between.

Bad things about Indiana Beach

First, I would like to thank the person whose trip report about this park in early to mid-June alerted me to the complete lack of drinking fountains. This allowed me to prepare by bringing my full water bottle along and drinking that throughout the day. Still, it’s rare to see a park have no free water whatsoever, and that disappoints me greatly. Beyond the water, a bunch of the rides were broken down, broke down on me, or just never opened. Since I was there for only one day, I don’t know if this is a regular occurrence, or if I was unlucky. Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that in the six and a half hours I was here a ride I wanted to ride was either closed, broken down, or broke down while I was in line for it ten times. The staff here is rather lax about critical things and several of them looked bored, uncaring about their job, or just under-trained. It’s not fun to look at the ride operator while the ride is going only to see them leaning on the control panel with a bored expression as they look at one of the other rides, or the people running Hoosier Hurricane who barely checked the restraints and then sent the train out without saying a word, and then there’s the staff member who just didn’t care that one of the people on the bumper cars was breaking several rules. Add to that the people working at Steel Hawg struggling to figure out how run the ride and the guy for the sky ride being rather unclear with his instructions, and there were several times I just did not feel safe. The place also was just not clean inside or out with a lot of trash in places. Finally, though the park had a lot of arcade games, about 50% of them weren’t working at all.

Though I can’t really fault the park for this, another thing that brought the experience down for me was the numerous problems I had with other guests here. Especially since I usually don’t have many problems with other guests outside of school trip days. I had originally typed out the issues I had, but for brevity's sake I had about nine negative interactions with other guests (some were single guests and others were a problematic group) compared to only two positive ones (and one of the positives only happened in response to a negative interaction.)

Thoughts on the roller coasters:

Cornball Express: This one was all right. Nothing really stood out to me about this one. It rode all right for the most part, but there were a few bad spots in the course that could use some TLC.

Hoosier Hurricane: First off, thank you to the guy who let me ride with him after other guests stole my seat. I like how the ride runs almost the entire length of the park, and the s-bend between the lift hill and drop to fit it around the structures in the park is another thing that gives a Roller Coaster Tycoon vibe. This rode very similar to Cornball Express with it being a bit rough with some spots that need some TLC. While it did start off fast, I feel that it lost steam near the end of the ride.

Steel Hawg: First off, I love that this small park in the middle of the Indiana countryside successfully claimed the title of steepest roller coaster drop in the world for a year. This ride was hit with the double whammy of having a late scheduled opening time, and also having mechanical issues that delayed that opening further. When I noticed the ride was finally going, I quickly hopped in the slow moving because they only have one working car queue line. Then right before I got on it broke down again. I waited it out since I really wanted to ride this ride, and then finally got to ride my first El Loco model! This ride was as crazy fun as it looks online, and I had a blast! If I ever somehow achieve my crazy dream of owning my own theme park, I'm putting this coaster model in there somewhere. The drop was intense, the outer banked turn was interesting, and the hang time on the two inversions was crazy! As an added bonus, this ride had super comfy restraints!

Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain: This was one of the many rides that suffered from mechanical issues throughout the day. Because of that it didn’t open until very late in the day, and broke down again while I was waiting in line. This oddity of a coaster was one of the main reasons I was here though, so I toughed it out and eventually got on the ride. Everything about this ride is unique in its own bizarre way. From the cage cars with forwards and backwards facing seats with a seat belt as your sole restraint, to the elevator lift, to the multiple turns that looked impossibly tight. The whole thing was a unique and interesting experience, and I’m glad that I was able to ride this one-of-a-kind coaster!

Other rides of note:

Antique Autos: A car ride that takes place almost entirely over water is another one of the reasons this feels like a Roller Coaster Tycoon park. It was a bit hard to get these cars to move as you had to stomp the pedal to get going, or else you slowly cruised along, but it was still a fun and interesting ride.

Den of Lost Thieves: A rickety old shooting dark ride that I’m honestly surprised didn’t derail given how some of the cars were handling the turns. The ride was ok. Mainly because it was very hit or miss (pun intended) on if the target would react to you or not even at point blank range. I did enjoy having an outdoor section that allowed me to look out at the park while still giving me some things to shoot at.

Dodgem: This one is the style of bumper cars where you have to go in a circle. I tend to not like these as much as the ones that let you go crazy anywhere, but this one was still good for the most part. Interestingly, instead of a solid barrier in the middle to promote going in a circle, it was three or four cones on spinning tires, which allowed you to shortcut the circle.

Falling Star: On the tamer side of things, but had some surprisingly good negative g’s on it and a fake out ending.

Rocky's Rapids: This log flume, like the one at Michigan’s Adventure, is a rather basic and ordinary flume with a nice drop. I did not like the amount of gum that has been stuck to the walls of each tunnel, however.

Skyride: One of two ways to get across the park without having to walk. This one gives you a nice view of the park, but it’s rather rickety and the restraints are on the poor side.

Spackman Express: The train for this park is the other way to get across the park without having to walk. I like that they have two options for this, and this one has a nice little spooky section behind the haunted house. While the station by the kiddie rides is clearly marked, the station at the southern end of the park is not unless I missed something. Like the parks before it, I recorded my trip on this train for those who wish to watch it.

Dr. Frankenstein's Haunted Castle: For whatever reason this is a $4 upcharge. I like haunted houses, so I paid the fee and went in. There wasn’t too much to this one. It was three stories tall, but mostly just filled with dark hallways to feel your way through, blacklight paint, and the occasional small scene. The eeriness came more from being alone. Halfway through I found a family lost in a confusing room filled with multiple doors, and we teamed up for the rest of the haunted house. (They were nice and one of the few positive interactions I had with other guests here.) Overall, though, this wasn’t scary, just dark. It did get me really good one time though. At a scene with a monster rock band, you can walk out onto a balcony that I didn’t know is designed to lean a couple inches forward to make it seem like it’s breaking off the wall. That was scary. In the end though, even at $4, the upcharge on this ride felt like a rip-off.

Roller coasters I missed:

Tig'rr Coaster: They were running one car that only sat two people, so the line for this coaster was moving extremely slow, and then it broke down after 20 minutes of waiting with a large line still in front of me. By the time it reopened it was late in the day and the line for it was even longer. Ended up having to pass it up so I could ride Superstition Mountain.

All American Triple Loop: Besides being scheduled to open late in the day, this coaster also broke down on me when I entered its line. By the time it had reopened, I was having to take care of a developing headache, and sadly passed this coaster up because everything I’ve heard about it sounded like it would just make my headache worse. It does look cool though.

Cyclone: This one just never opened up. Didn’t see anyone working on it either. It was just closed, which is a shame because it looks like a fun, classic steel coaster.

Other things I missed:

Water Swings and Paratrooper: Two rides that looked cool and were placed sticking out into the water. I wanted to ride them, but just ran out of time.

Shafer Queen: I kept forgetting to keep track of the time and kept missing this boat! A shame, too, but I have no one to blame for this but myself.

At the end of June, I took a road trip through the American Midwest visiting five parks in the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. First, I spent two days at Cedar Point, and now it was time for…

Park #2 Michigan’s Adventure

Michigan’s Adventure was the second stop on my travels. I found out about this one several years back thanks to Shivering Timbers. This park is actually the whole reason I took this trip this year. I was planning this trip for next year, but after Six Flags sold this park to Enchanted Parks, I suddenly found myself with a time limit for using my premiere pass to get into here. Since none of the parks on the trip I was planning for this year were sold off, I just swapped this year’s and next year’s plans. The park itself is kind of in the middle of nowhere with not too much nearby. You follow your GPS and a couple signs to get there and then turn a corner and get greeted by Shivering Timbers suddenly towering over you. This was the park whose visit fell on a Saturday as I figured this place wouldn’t be too busy even on the weekend, and I was right. While there was a crowd, most people here went to the waterpark (which I skipped) and everything but the water rides was either a walk on or a short wait. A cool, but sunny day, I got here just after opening, and had several hours to spend before I needed to head to my next destination.

Good things about Michigan’s Adventure

The park has a nice selection of rides and what looks to be a good-sized waterpark. The lake in the middle made for a beautiful view of Wolverine Wildcat and Thunderhawk. The staff here seemed to be doing well for the most part and adapting to the changes the Enchanted Parks sale has brought. The place was also pretty clean for the most part. The place definitely loves the Peanuts gang, as not only was there a whole section called Camp Snoopy for them, but the gift shop at the front of the park was Peanuts themed as well. Even though I couldn’t use my premiere pass for the 15% discount on food, the food here was cheaper then at Six Flags parks and came out to about the same cost as it would have with my discount at a Six Flags park. Judging from the lack of things around them and how far out Shivering Timbers goes from the park, they might have a ton of space for expansion, too.

Bad things about Michigan’s Adventure

While the food was cheaper, it was very subpar grade school cafeteria type food, and the worst of the parks on this trip. The park was also weirdly laid out, forming a C around the lake in the middle of the place. This oddity made the train basically required to ride in order to get from Shivering Timbers and Wolverine Wildcat over to Thunderhawk as your other option was to walk through the entire park. I love trains so I won’t complain, but if the train is down then you’re screwed. I don’t know if it’s because of the change in park ownership, but merchandise for the park itself was almost nonexistent, and all the merch was Camp Snoopy themed. Finally, the arcade was rather small and sad looking with not much to do there.

Thoughts on the roller coasters:

Shivering Timbers: This coaster needs some TLC, and I hope Enchanted Parks will give it that in the coming years. The first couple drops had clearly been retracked a few years ago, and were rougher in the good way then the bad way, but were still showing signs of wear and tear. The turnaround has steel track that caused it to be unnaturally smooth in that area. The return trip on the other hand…OH BOY. The return trip was rough, and the bunny hills near the end were absolutely brutal. The worst part was a pot hole in the track between two of the bunny hills that hurt my back pretty good. The helix at the end looked cool being a helix down that then transitions into a helix up halfway through, but at that point I just wanted the ride to be done. Sorry to those who love this coaster, but I feel that it’s overrated.

Wolverine Wildcat: This one gave a very similar ride to Shivering Timbers. The first couple drops were retracked a few years ago, one of the turnarounds had steel track, and the bunny hills at the end were very rough. My back made it through this one though! I did have fun talking with a couple fellow enthusiasts in line who were doing the same one two punch of starting the day with Shivering Timbers and following it up with this coaster.

Thunderhawk: I maintain my belief that the SLC coasters have a great layout greatly hindered by poor track quality and bad cars. This one hurt to ride, but not because of it being headbangy. The restraints pinned my arms to my body, so every lateral crushed my upper arms between my body and the restraint. The layout was good, and the track not so rough, but those restraints really hurt.

Zach's Zoomer: The junior wooden coaster, it kind of gave the opposite ride that ST and WW did. It started pretty painfully rough, but got less bad rough and more good rough as we went through the course. Oddly, at the end of the ride the operators somehow messed up stopping the train. I’m not sure what exactly they did, but the restraints wouldn’t unlock and they had to send us through the entire coaster again to fix the problem. So, I got to lap this coaster, but not by choice.

Other rides of note:

Dodgem: This one had a cops and taxi cab theme to it for whatever reason, but it was an absolute blast and the best of the bumper cars I rode during this trip. It was pure chaos in there, and the ride lasted a good while, too.

Flying Trapeze: A fun swing ride. It’s hard to go wrong with these.

Grand Rapids: The guy at the station warned us of the coming waterfall. I thought he was talking about the waterfall you can see by the entrance which barely grazed my boat. After some fun rapids we neared the end of the ride, and I found out that the guy was warning us about the four waterfalls at the end of the ride. With two sticking over each side of the water channel, there was no avoiding them, and everyone got soaked. At the very least, like Cedar Point, this one had a place to put your shoes, socks, and other things you didn’t want to get soaked, which was very appreciated.

Logger’s Run: A very simple log flume with not much to it, but it was nice and relaxing with a fun drop at the end.

Rocky Point Mini-Golf: A nice mini-golf jutting out into the lake. I played one of my worst games ever, but the course was well taken care of and looked nice.

Swan Boats: If I’ve ever done swan paddle boats before, I was too young to remember it. The ride was nice, though rather tiring.

Timbertown Railway: A nice little train ride through the woods. As mentioned above, it holds an odd distinction of being by far the shortest path between the major coasters at this park. While other trains with multiple stations usually have a path running near them, your choice here was to either ride the train along the eastern edge of the lake, or walk around the other three sides of said lake. I recorded my ride on the train here if you wish to watch it.

Trabant: I got my second ever zen ride on something other then a car ride or log flume on this fun ride. Still hope to get a zen ride on a roller coaster someday.

Roller coasters I missed:

Corkscrew: After my terrible experience with Cedar Point’s Corkscrew and getting beat up by the other coasters here, I decided to skip this one for my own wellbeing.

Mad Mouse: I wasn’t feeling much like riding a wild mouse. Putting it low on my list of priorities, I just ran out of time to ride this one.

Woodstock Express: Maybe this family coaster would have been fun, but I didn’t do anything in Planet Snoopy except a quick walkthrough to see what was there.

Other things I missed:

Scrambler, Thunderbolt, and Tilt-A-Whirl: All fun looking rides, but I ran out of time to ride them before I had to get going to my next destination.

Sea Dragon: This ride was closed the whole day, and that was really upsetting because it’s a swinging ship on a lake! That’s the perfect setup for a swinging ship and it was closed!

Back in May I took a short trip to visit both Six Flags Over Texas and Frontier City. A month later at the end of June, I departed for my second, grander trip. A tour of five parks, some major destinations and others more local parks, in the American Midwest states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky. I was also wise and finally bought a sports strap so I could keep my glasses on and properly see what was happening on the coasters.

Park #1: Cedar Point

Cedar Point was the first stop on my travels. I’ve known about Cedar Point since I was a kid and saw the then new Millenium Force on the Travel Channel. Skip to 26 years later while hearing about this park all the time over the intervening years, and you can say the place had definitely been hyped up. The hype was real, too. I could feel the hype building up inside of me as I drove from my motel to Cedar Point. Each sign I passed for the park making the hype even bigger. Driving onto the causeway and seeing Millenium Force, Gatekeeper, Top Thrill 2 and the rest in person for the first time just sent me into peek hype mode as I finally made the long-awaited trip to Cedar Point. With two days, a Thursday and Friday, set aside for this park, I had one goal: ride every roller coaster. Both days here were cool and overcast with a chance of rain, and a thunderstorm in the afternoon of the first day closed the rides for a couple hours, so I just went back to my motel to take a nap. The second day had no rain delays, but I did have to leave around 6 to get to my next destination.

Good things about Cedar Point

The coasters were for the most part amazing! This place lived up to the hype that I had built up for it over the years. Not every coaster was a huge hit, but the grand majority of the coasters were good, great, or absolutely amazing. The food I ate was quality wise on the higher end of Six Flags fair, which was nice. While Cedar Point doesn’t have too much going for it theming wise in the front of the park, I really enjoyed the old west frontier town at the back of the park. The different specialty shops in that area really added to the charm, and I enjoyed watching a glass blowing demonstration. The park’s layout was long, but they have two rides to help you get to and from the back of the park. The staff here is well trained and definitely on top of everything to handle the large amount of guests on each ride. Finally, they had a really good arcade.

Bad things about Cedar Point

The park has a lot of roller coasters and kiddie flat rides, but I feel there was a bit of a gap between them. I feel the park could use a few more intermediate flat rides to bridge the gap. The use of ai was disappointing and forced me to be rather picky as I analyzed and scrutinized the merch to make sue I was buying something that was made by a human. Finally, when you hit the path split to the Millenium or Gemini midways, you’re pretty much on the path you chose until you reach the very back of the park unless you backtrack. I feel a connecting path from Camp Snoopy through that island Millenium Force runs through over towards the Trail Tavern could help with getting guests around the park, and revitalize whatever is going on on that central island outside of MF.

Thoughts on the roller coasters:

Siren’s Curse: I went straight for this ride on my first day there, and got to ride it with only a 15-minute wait before the lines got too long. Simply put, this coaster is amazing, and it’s tied for my favorite coaster in the park! Now I really need COTALand to fully open up so I can make the drive to finally ride Circuit Breaker. The new age Vekoma’s are all very impressive, and I’m really happy my home park is getting a family Vekoma soon. Hanging there pressed into your restraints, looking down at the ground for several seconds is such a crazy awesome feeling, and the rest of the layout did not disappoint! The on-ride audio just made it that much better! I don’t know which is the more thrilling way to ride, though. Sitting in the front, tilting down, and staring at the track and empty space between you and the ground, or sitting in the back, tilting up, and staring down the entire train at the ground. I also saw a double rainbow over this ride later in the day.

Millennium Force: The coaster that put Cedar Point on the map for me 26 years ago. While Cedar Point lived up to the hype, Millennium Force didn’t quite do so. I think I set the bar too high for the first giga coaster. It was a fun ride, and the cable lift suddenly speeding up for the last 70 feet caught me off guard. The wind in my face as we sped up to almost 100mph felt great, and I enjoyed zooming along the layout. That said, it just felt like it was missing something. Like it was lacking in positive g’s, air time, and laterals that should have been there, but weren’t. Stil happy to have crossed it off of my bucket list though, and the ride’s lift hill is still one of the coolest looking parts of a coaster out there.

Steel Vengeance: Holy air time, Batman! This coaster was a blast! I love good airtime on a roller coaster, so of course the coaster with the most air time ever is going to appeal greatly to me. Combine that with the headchoppers throughout the ride’s wooden support structure, and I enjoyed this ride a lot! That said, RMC’s restraints could be a little less restrainy. My home park has Iron Rattler, one of two RMCs to use Gerstlauer trains with extremely comfortable restraints. Steel Vengeance meanwhile has the RMC shin guard restraints, which were a bit uncomfy for a tall person such as myself.

Cedar Creek Mine Ride: A mine train with a nice layout that needs better restraints. For whatever reason the restraints on all three rows of each car are connected to each other. If you pull the restraints down in row one, you pull them down for rows two and three as well. I’m a slightly overweight adult male, and the two people behind me were a couple ten-year-olds. Due to this, in order to properly secure the ten-year-olds they had to jam the restraints into me on a crushingly painful level. While the ride was nice, being in pain through the entire thing dampened the experience a bit.

Gemini: Judging from what others have been saying, I seem to have been lucky that Gemini was racing both days that I was there. I honestly wonder what the percentage is for either side winning, because the way it’s set up even though both trains leave the station at the same time blue gets to the lift hill and over the first drop before red. When I rode red, we were behind for the entire race until the bunny hills right before the helix at the end, where we passed blue up and barely won the race. Meanwhile, when I rode blue, we lead the entire race and beat red by several seconds. Regardless, it’s a really fun ride and I hope it stays around for years to come. I also unlocked the achievement “high five someone racing on the other train.”

Magnum XL-200: I went in with high expectations of enjoying this monumental ride. It is the original hypercoaster after all. Unfortunately, this ride was a very rough and janky experience. Literally every transition was rough. The top and bottom of every drop, the bottom and top of every hill, every turn, and even the mid-course brake run all jerked me violently through rough transition after rough transition. Even the drop and turn out of the station was rough. It saddens me that such a monumental coaster rode so roughly, and once was enough for me. There were cool lighting effects in the tunnel, but they were hard to enjoy through the janky transitions.

Corkscrew: Oh god this one hurt! The restraints were not built for someone who’s 6’1” and squished me down. I couldn’t squish back into the seat, though, because its odd design jetted out in the middle and forced me to arch my back backwards to fit in the tight restraints. This awkward position really hurt, and the roughness of the ride made it even worse to the point where I was practically begging to be let off the coaster as we sat on the brake run waiting for the other train. I have not had this bad of an experience on a coaster since I rode Time Warp at Canada’s Wonderland. I will not morn this coaster if they scrap it.

Blue Streak: This one was all right. It definitely has its place in history being the coaster that rejuvenated Cedar Point and lead to it becoming the coaster juggernaut that it is today, but the coaster itself was just alright by today’s standards. It’s well taken care of, and had the good roughness for a wooden roller coaster.

Valravn: Really, Cedar Point? You put a tilt coaster right next to your dive coaster? Well, at least it has a cool raven to go with it. This one felt oddly short. It felt like they barely held us for a second on the dive, and we were at the mid-course before I knew it. It’s still a fun coaster, but it just felt like it could have been longer. It was admittedly interesting trying to gently calm down the woman next to me and talk her through the coaster, as her family tricked her into thinking Valravn was one of the tamer coasters, and the vertical drop was part of Siren’s Curse. I sympathized with her as my Dad did the same thing a couple times when I was a kid (not the best way to get the credit for California Screamin’) and congratulated her on making it through the ride at the end of it. I also rode on the edge of the train, so there was no track underneath me for the whole ride! Though that didn’t help the poor woman.

Iron Dragon: A fun coaster, but definitely overshadowed by the many coasters around it. The first half of the ride is rather tame and doesn’t swing you too much. Thankfully after the second lift hill the ride has better forces and swings, but overall, it’s an alright coaster in a park that has surrounded it with great and amazing coasters.

Maverick: Since this ride constantly has one of the longer lines in the park, I tried to use my daily fast pass on this one, but for whatever reason you need a fast pass plus for this ride. Not willing to spend the extra money on such a thing, I just hopped in the line ten minutes before the park closed on my first day when it had quieted down to just a 25-minute wait. I enjoyed the two launches, and the layout was intense, but the over the shoulder restraints were very headbangy, and I came off the ride somewhat dazed from that.

Top Thrill 2: The world’s first strata coaster. Seeing just how insanely long the line was for this ride (the sign for the wait time starts at one hour) I used my premiere pass’ early park access, and went straight for Top Thrill 2 at the start of my second day, and by that, I mean I walked in a somewhat slow fashion taking my time some because the 420-foot-tall top hat was absolutely intimidating me. Even getting in the line before the park officially opened had a 45-minute wait to it. I was still scared by the 420-foot-tall tower and 120 mph speed I’d be going to get over it even as I got on the train. Oh man am I glad I still got on it though! This coaster was crazy in an awesome way! I was not expecting the air time at the top of the hat and on the way back down! Even crazier was being on the spike staring down at a flipping drop tower! This ride also almost took my hairband from me, as most of my ponytail had come out of it and it was hanging on by an inch of hair.

Gatekeeper: Oh wow, this coaster was a blast! I love that Cedar Point put a roller coaster on top of their entrance. It’s a great way to brag about being one of the places to go for roller coasters! The ride itself was fantastic, and I absolutely love the feeling of being next to the track in the open air that a wing coaster gives! Flying through the keyhole elements was awesome, and I like that they served as head and foot choppers on the return trip as well. Absolutely loved this coaster, and have it tied for my personal favorite in the park!

Wild Mouse: Being a spinning wild mouse, I went in with low expectations for this one, and was very surprised by just how good this coaster turned out to be! It’s the hidden gem at Cedar Point overshadowed by the other, bigger coasters. The track is smooth, the turns are, unusually for a wild mouse, banked, and the car was somewhat off balance so we got some good spins on it. Even if you’re not a big fan of wild mouse coasters, I recommend giving this one a try!

Woodstock Express: Yep, I even rode Woodstock. It’s a nice tame family coaster with some fun twists and turns. Pretty smooth for an older Vekoma, it’s good for the kids to ride and enjoy until they’re tall enough to ride the bigger coasters.

Rougarou: I’ve heard a lot of people say that this coaster is painful and rough, so I don’t know if I got lucky or the roughness was overexaggerated, but this coaster was quite fun. Good speed, fun inversions, some airtime, and not painfully rough at all. Plus, it’s cool to look at with its bright orange loop right there next to the path.

Raptor: Despite this being at the front of the park, this ride was so far down my list of priorities that it ended up being the last coaster checked off the list. I’m having trouble remembering specifics about Raptor. I think this ride stunned me or something, because I remember coming off of it somewhat dazed and don’t remember much of the layout outside of the cobra roll. I didn’t black out, and I don’t think I greyed out. I’m just struggling to remember everything about this ride other then the wind in my face feeling really good.

Other rides of note:

Cadillac Cars: A fun, tightly packed, nicely themed car ride that I enjoyed driving along.

Cedar Downs Racing Derby: I’ve never ridden a ride like this before, nor even heard of one before. It was quite the fun experience, and I liked how it was basically a more thrilling merry-go-round.

Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad: I’ve loved trains ever since I was a kid, so I was happy to see that this park uses live steam locomotives instead of faux steam like so many other places do. I like how well the railroad pairs with the Sky Ride for helping people get from the front to the back of the park and back. The first half of the ride going to the back of the park was nice as you travel by a couple coasters and get a nice view of the lake. The trip back was better though, due to the presence of Bonetown, several scenes set up with skeletons going about their daily life. I really enjoyed looking at these scenes as we wound our way through the coasters back to the station. I recorded my ride on the railroad for those who wish to watch it.

Coliseum Arcade: I like arcades a lot, but tend to just look at the ones in parks since I can do arcades outside of parks, but can’t do roller coasters elsewhere. Still, Cedar Point had a huge arcade that also included a half round of mini golf and mini bowling. There was also a side arcade filled with claw machines and a mirror maze. The maze was rather straight forward, but dark, and the mini golf was fun.

Dodgem: A fun, large, a chaotic bumper car ride that was really fun!

Sky Ride: It’s nice to see a park with one of these still running, and it made for a nice way of getting through the front section of the park to either skip the crowds going in, or rest your weary legs on the way out.

Thunder Canyon: An alright river rapids. I think I won the lottery here or something because I saw people coming off this ride soaked, but I barely got wet on it. I do appreciate the space to store shoes and socks at the entrance to the ride though. I wish other river rapids had that.

Roller coasters I missed:

Wilderness Run: The 18^(th) coaster, and the only one that I didn’t ride. I was so dedicated to riding every coaster that the only reason I didn’t ride this one was because it had a height limit of 4 ½’ unless you rode with your kid, and I don’t have a kid. Still, 17 out of 18 isn’t bad at all.

Other things I missed:

Calypso, Matterhorn, Troika, and Wave Swinger: All flat rides that looked fun, but I just ran out of time since the coasters took priority.

Pipe Scream: I’m honestly somewhat surprised they didn’t try to count this one as a coaster. I personally don’t think it counts as a coaster, but I know some parks try to count rides like this as one.

Roto Whip: I love the rare in the present-day Whip ride, but this one was just a kids version with a kid height limit and no adult counterpart…

She's gonna win the pokècup! (Art by arzyparzy)

Yeah, I know this is rather late. Life is busy, and it took quite some time to select 20 photos out of the 240 I took to share here, and store them in my phone's favorites. Then my phone updated and unfavorited all my photos for some reason so I had to re-select them all again.

Anyways, Roller Coaster Rodeo is an annual event at Six Flags Fiesta Texas at the start of June that has been going on for a few years now, but I had never been to it. (Either because I forgot about it or money was going to other things.) I finally got around to it this year with a day pass for Saturday eager to spend some time at my home park surrounded by fellow enthusiasts.

After getting there early enough that I had to queue for the parking lot, I was able to pass through guest relations and get my pass and RCR merch. After that I headed to Sangerfest Hall in Spassburg for breakfast, and was quite pleased with it. Everything but the pancakes (which were overcooked) was above par for Six Flags, and this was one of the only times anywhere where I did not have to salt the eggs to give them flavor. Wish I could have spent more time enjoying the food, but the first item on my agenda was about to start.

The first item on my agenda being the Dr. Diabolical's Cliffhanger lift hall walk. Dr. Diabolical is my favorite coaster in the park, and I jumped at the chance to walk up it. The walk up that steep staircase was physically exhausting on the way up, and mentally taxing on the way down, but the view was so worth it! You could see the whole park and surrounding area from up there, and it looked beautiful in the morning light. We could see different rides doing their morning tests, and watch fellow RCR guests riding the rides in DC Universe. Amusingly, a fellow guest noticed that from up there we could see Steel Eel at Sea World San Antonio on the horizon. During this time I took a video of Iron Rattler's morning test run, and uploaded it here a little while back.

After that I briefly enjoyed some time at the DC Universe Jamboree before heading over to Crackaxel Canyon for the Iron Rattler Cliff-Top Drop and Construction tour. During this we were allowed to freely roam around a back section of the park around two operating coasters and a coaster to be. The construction site for Werewolf Gorge looks a lot bigger on the inside then the outside as not only can you see the whole thing, but the hill gives an optical illusion making the plot of land look smaller at the bottom then it really is. There were a bunch of helpful signs showing approximately where on the layout you were standing. Meanwhile, we were able to get extremely close to Roadrunner Express and Iron Rattler along with part of the railroad and Gully Washer's station. It was fun waving at the people on the rides, talking with fellow enthusiasts, talking with park management, and just being on top of the cliff that surrounds the park.

After a short lunch break, it was time to enter Fiesta Bay Boardwalk early and explore Pirates of the Deep Sea on foot with the lights on. It was cool to get to see and admire the different little details on the ride that you normally don't get much time to see. I was one of the first people to go in, so I wasn't able to stop much since there was a large line behind me, but thankfully I was able to go in a second time near the end of the line and really take my time looking at everything. I also spent some time talking with one of the RCR guests who happens to work on the railroad in the park.

A little later, the Backlot BTS Tour started in the Boardwalk as we got to travel into the maintenance building for Fiesta Texas' rides. During this we passed the parking lot filled with different things getting work done on them like logs from Bug's White Water Rapids and a spare train from Metropolis Transit Authority. We also saw the Son of Siebert sign behind Poltergeist, which is still there even after Jeffrey Siebert left Six Flags. In the maintenance building we saw work being done on trains from Iron Rattler, Pandemonium, Poltergeist, and Dr. Diabolical. There was also a spare train for Boomerang at the ready for whenever the current train needs extended repair time. They had a wheel from Dr. Diabolical on display too that had been damaged after it ran over a dropped cell phone. After that we got to walk behind Pandemonium and Wonder Woman. Even though the ride has been gone for almost 25 years, there are still footers from Joker's Revenge behind the boardwalk, and someone else noticed that the walls of Pandemonium's maintenance bay has faded paint from the ride's funhouse queue line. The foundation and footers from the old Power Surge ride are also visible behind Wonder Woman. During this time I got to talk with Josh, one of the leaders at Fiesta Texas, who got his start as a ride operator on Joker's Revenge.

After this we headed back over to Crackaxel Canyon for the Lights on SAW Haunted House Tour. This was the one miss of the event for me. If the lights really were on here it made zero difference in visibility, and the lack of scare actors, animatronics being randomly on or off, and long line of people going through it made it rather meh and forgetful.

After a break from activities, during which I rested for a while in the RCR Lounge and rode some rides, it was time for the Big Rodeo Dinner in the Picnic Grove, a part of the park I hadn't been to since I was a little kid. Like breakfast, they fed us very well, and the food was way above par for Six Flags with delicious chicken, sides, and cobbler for dessert. There was also a raffle during this time where I tried to win stuff from Dr. Diabolical, but sadly my luck failed me once again. There was also concept art of a proposed building themed to and shaped like Texas that was to be built near the park before La Cantera Resort and The Shops at La Cantera were built instead, and concept art of an unbuilt Togo coaster on display as well. After talking with leadership some more we all took a group photo before moving onto the next event.

The next event was getting to watch Blockbuster Blasts Firework Show from a special reserved viewing area. The fireworks were nice, but overall I found the show to be ok. They paid the rights for songs from different movies, but not for any scenes from said movies, so we got things like "He's a Pirate" being played over a silhouette of a generic pirate sailing a ship and the Indiana Jones theme being played while they showed an image of a generic treasure map.

Finally, after that was the Roller Coaster Rodeo Main Event. Two and a half hours of exclusive ride time for the entire park minus the kiddie rides. At this point it was just me and a bunch of fellow enthusiasts and every ride was a walk on. I went straight for the go-karts in the boardwalk as those normally have an upcharge, but the fee was waived during the main event. After coming in first, I worked my way across the park admiring the scenery with all the lights on and riding my favorite coasters and flat rides. Highlights were Poltergeist, which I rode in the front row for the first time instead of rows two or three like usual, and now will never be able to ride it in any row but the front ever again because the launch is absolutely crazy in the front row! Combine that with the green track glowing in the eerie green light cast upon it at night and Poltergeist reminded me why it's one of my favorite rides in the park. Iron Rattler was another highlight. Dropping off the cliff three times is already crazy, but outside the station there is pretty much no lighting on the ride at night, so you do the whole layout with only ambient lighting from the rest of the park as you plummet through darkness. The tunnel at the end was pitch black! (Yes, I've done night rides on these two coasters before, but they're still a highlight.) Dr. Diabolical was also fun because it's a great coaster, and a bunch of us were joking about how this event has given Dr. Diabolical more fear an adrenaline for her army of robots then she knows what to do with, and how she's confused why people are willingly doing laps on her machine.

In the end I spent 16 hours at Fiesta Texas, and was incredibly sore the next couple days, but it was worth it.

Final thoughts: Though I had to pay for this event instead of being able to use my prestige pass, the price I feel was for the most part worth it. Getting two delicious meals, four different tours, merch, a lounge filled with free snacks, literal hours of exclusive ride time, a raffle, a show, and time spent talking with fellow enthusiasts and park leadership was well worth the price. On the other hand, though I did enjoy the lift hill walk, it was $30 extra dollars for that experience, and I feel that I paid too much for it. I'll definitely be back for all three days of next year's event instead of just Saturday, but will likely skip the lift hill walk unless they lower the price.

Continuing on from my visit to Six Flags Over Texas (I went over SFOT here for those curious.) I continued north to the second of two parks on this trip, Frontier City. A little old west theme park on the north end of Oklahoma City. I'd known about this place since my family passed it on a road trip in 2019, but had never been to it before. So, in late May I decided to fix that and used my premiere pass to have a fun day at this little park.

Though the park opened on time a severe thunderstorm had just passed, so we had to wait about 15-20 minutes until the rides were given the go ahead to open. This gave me the time to do a loop around the park and refine my plans for the day. The park isn't that big, but it's well laid out in a loop for the most part and easy to get around. I enjoyed myself here, and while it was far from the best park ever it was still a nice place. The staff was friendly and the operations were pretty good (especially compared to Over Texas.) The food was your typical Six Flags fair, but I wasn't expecting much there. The magic show and old west shootouts I watched were good fun, too.

That said, this park is in need of some investment. I know Six Flags only operates this park, but being there you could tell just how low this place is on Six Flag's list of priorities and funding. Their newest non-kiddie coaster is over a decade old, and there is a large building that used to house a coaster in it that seems to only be used for fright fest now. The place barely even has the Six Flags branding on it, and is the only legacy Six Flags park that doesn't have Six Flags in the name. The poor place is a bit neglected, but the management is still doing the best with what they got.

My thoughts on the roller coasters:

Wildcat: This ride thankfully wasn't as rough as I feared it might be. A nice little run through the woods, but nothing much beyond that. The splashdown at the end was drained though, so the brakes right before it painfully slammed us to a complete halt before we slowly went through the empty pond. I did enjoy the stuff in the queue line talking about many other wooden coasters around the world.

Steel Lasso: A fun suspended family coaster. I quite enjoyed this one! Even though it's from 2008, it has the smoothness that Vekoma has become known for, and I feel is a good coaster for people starting to get over their fear of coasters, or kids who have graduated from kiddie coasters looking to ride something bigger. It's not too forceful, there's more swoops and fun helixes then big drops, and the wind in my face felt great!

Diamond Back: Does anyone else find it odd that this ride's entrance is in the gift shop at the front of the park? It kind of felt disconnected from everything because of that. I've never ridden a shuttle loop before, let along a launched one, so I was eager to ride this. I find it interesting how the train is basically just pushed into the drop at either end by a device attached to a cable. Though I typically like to ride near or in the back row on coasters, I rode front seat for this one, and it was crazy seeing the track right there. Going forward the drop and loop weren't too bad, but like with other shuttles it was a completely different, and scarier, experience going backwards. Congrats on making me legit scream in fear, Diamondback.

Silver Bullet: I almost missed this one as it decided it didn't want to wake up after the thunderstorm had passed, but it finally opened late in the day. This one has some crazy laterals that will throw you around the car, and if you don't have anyone next to you it'll hurt some. That said this coaster was just so much fun! The loop, the drops, and turns were all great, and it's well taken care of. While I couldn't lap it due to being older and not able to take the laterals thrown at me as well, it was fun to see the group of teenagers at the back of the train who were enjoying lapping the ride multiple times.

Other rides I rode of note:

Rodeo Roundup: A nice set of bumper cars, though due to light crowds (I went on a Friday while school was still in session) there wasn't many people on this one with me.

Quick Draw: The park's sole dark ride was ok. It was a shooting dark ride, but there were several empty gaps between scenes with nothing to do or look at.

Tin Lizzy's: Honestly the worst car ride I've ever ridden. The track is just a small loop around the ferris wheel with a tunnel under the path leading up to said wheel. The one car they had on the ride didn't have a working steering column, so I was left to helplessly bounce back and forth on the guide rail.

Tornado: A fun tilt-a-whirl. I enjoy these things and this one produced some great forces!

Mystery River Log Flume: A nice little flume with some mining scenes to look at as you pass under the merry-go-round. Has a good splash at the end.

Renegade Rapids: This was a let down of a river rapids. It looked nice, and had a cool cave, but there was barely any way to get wet. The worst part though, is that you have to leave your stuff where you get on the ride, but the exit is in a different area at the bottom of the lift back to the start of the ride. I had go walk around half the ride and through the entire queue line again to retrieve my belongings! Who thought that was a good idea?!

Prairie Schooner: A swinging ship, and the first ride I've managed to get a zen ride on that wasn't a car ride or a log flume. One of these days I'll get a zen ride on a roller coaster, I swear it!

Roller coasters I missed:

Frankie’s Mine Train: The only coaster I didn't ride. It's a little kiddie coaster, so I was fine with passing it up.

Other things I missed:

Casino: Down for extended maintenance.

Ol' 89er Express: No clue why it was down all day, but as a train fan this one hurt.

Grand Carousel: Like Silver Bullet, this one hit the snooze button, and didn't start working until right before I was ready to leave.

Gunslinger: Just didn't get around to this one unfortunately.

Hello there, I've never done a trip report before, but I've enjoyed seeing people share their experiences at different parks, so I've decided to share my experiences from the two trips I took this summer. Despite living in Texas my whole life, and playing this park's scenario a lot in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, I've never been to the original Six Flags park, so I decided to correct that with the first of two amusement park trips for the year.

This was the first of two parks in my first trip. I spent two days here, and enjoyed myself for the most part. This visit was in late May, so I unfortunately didn't get to ride Tormenta, but as I mentioned before I live in Texas and have a premium season pass, so I'll definitely be back for it.

The park is looks nice for the most part, but does have its problems. The operations here are extremely slow. Most coasters were running only one train, and the ride ops took several minutes to unload and load each train. The two I rode with multiple trains running (Batman and Titan) had you spend more time on the final break run then the coaster itself as you waited for them to take care of the other train. Especially notable for Titan since it has a clock and a sign with Speedy Gonzales in the station that counted down how fast the ride ops were supposed to be getting each train through the station. They never got close to making that time limit. New Texas Giant had such a long line that my daily fast pass was basically a requirement to ride it, and I had to rope drop Runaway Mountain on the second day before its line got too long. This extended to the flat rides too, as several of them took 3-4 minutes to get going each time.

The park's layout was somewhat confusing (not helped by the map in the app showing all the employee only paths and paths that flat out don't exist), but I managed to get through. The western half of the park has a lot of shade and older style buildings that are nice to look at, but it felt like there were large stretches with no rides, and just some restaurants and shops in them. The east half of the park was lacking in shade, but had no stretches of path lacking rides. The Tower section meanwhile was nearly a ghost town as most of the rides there either weren't working or were an upcharge. There's also the part where literally no one bothered to check my season pass when I showed up the first day. I entered in the afternoon since I drove up there in the morning, but how do you forget to check if someone walking into your park has a ticket or not?! The people at the front gate did check my pass on the second day, and security was doing their job both days, but the fact that happened is still wild!

Food was your typical Six Flags fair and price, though the Taiyaki with taro ice cream was really good.

My thoughts on the roller coasters:

Judge Roy Scream: A simple out and back woodie. It was the good rough for the most part, but there wasn't much that stood out to me about it outside of it being cut-off from the rest of the park.

Mini Mine Train: Runaway Mine Train was down until halfway through my second day here, so I rode this little guy instead. It had some good kick to it that I wasn't expecting for a kiddie/family coaster and gave an enjoyable ride.

New Texas Giant: As one park employee jokingly said, this ride isn't new anymore nor is it really a giant now thanks to Titan and Tormenta. The first I-box RMC, it has some early installment weirdness to it (no pre-lift and zero inversions) but the ride was quite fun. It's still rather smooth, and you zip through the whole layout with the train speeding right back up after the mid-course. Compared to Iron Rattler at my home park, this park wins in ride time with its much longer ride, but Iron Rattler is the more enjoyable and intense of the two. The restraints were super comfy though!

Titan: HOLY COW THE G-FORCES THIS THING PULLS! I've never fainted on a coaster before, and I don't think I've greyed out either, but I feel this coaster was the closest I've ever gotten to that. The helixes fought me and I fought them, but in the end I made it through. Outside of the helixes the ride gave good airtime, but I'm not sure how much I can ride this ride. Definitely can't lap this one, that's for sure. Also not much in the way of theming on this one unless parking lot counts as a theme.

Runaway Mountain: I love the appearance of the building on the outside, and it's always interesting to ride a coaster in near complete darkness. The ride seemed tame at first and lulled me into a false sense of security of it being a tame family coaster before it yanked me down a steep, curved drop halfway through and hauled through the second half of the course. Overall it was all right.

Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast: The reverse side was closed, but I still enjoyed the side I was able to ride. It was a very intense coaster, and left me a little rattled in a good way. That inverted top hat is crazy! I also liked the theming that's been added to the ride recently, though the constant ice cream truck jingle outside got annoying fast.

Batman: the Ride: Both of my home parks have this coaster model in them, but I've never ridden one with the Batman theming before. This coaster model is intense fun like usual. Compared to the two clones back home I like this one more then Chupacabra and about the same as Great White. The multiple trench runs near the end definitely helped up the excitement factor on this ride. That said, while the theming on the outside was nice, the inside was for the most part rather barren.

Runaway Mine Train: This classic coaster was interesting to ride. Each section gave a different feel to it, and the ride got batter as it went along. The first section is rather janky and hurt my back some, the second section gently coasts around and lets you admire the scenery, and the last section has the fun hotel scene before the exciting finale where you plummet into an underwater tunnel. Despite the jank in the first part I liked this one.

Aquaman: Power Wave: I'll admit that this one feels like a bit of a stretch to call a roller coaster, but whatever. It packed more of a punch then I was expecting, and I was impressed by just how fast the water filled up for the splashdown at the end. I somehow barely got wet, and discovered that the shirt I was wearing was very water repellent.

Other rides I rode of note:

El Aserradero: It was fun to ride the original log flume through the woods around it. I can't remember which side I rode though, but it's a fun a piece of amusement park history.

El Sombrero: A fun flat ride that I wish they'd clone over to Fiesta Texas. Their entrance area needs a non-coaster ride in it.

Dino Off Road Adventure: This one kind of stood out since it doesn't fit in with anything around it, but it was still an enjoyable car ride.

Pirates of Speelunker Cave: I honestly did not know about the Speelunkers before riding this, and was very caught off guard and confused when the ride completely changed its tone after the lift halfway through. It was good quirky fun though and I enjoyed this dark ride. Wish my home parks had something like it.

Justice League: Battle for Metropolis: This one was all right. I liked the concept behind the story, but it felt like too much was going on inside to try and keep up with everything going on. There were also some things that need repair.

Roller coasters I missed:

Pandemonium: Though I like this coaster model, I have this ride back at my home park, and unlike Batman this one had nothing going for it compared to the one at Fiesta Texas. It was simply passed up to focus on the rides I don't have back home.

Shock Wave: The big miss outside of Tormenta. I really hope this coaster opens up again soon because it looks like such a fun and enjoyable ride!

The Joker: Besides having the coaster this ride is cloned from back home, I'm not a fan of the freespin/4th dimension coasters at all. I'll pass on the credit for this one.

Tormenta: It sadly wasn't open yet, but it was very impressive to look at. It's crazy just how tall the drop, immelmann, and loop are. The fact that the mid-course break run is about as tall as the highest point on Dr. Diabolical back home is mind boggling.

Wile E. Coyote's Grand Canyon Blaster: It's a kiddie coaster with a 4 1/2' height limit and I'm a 6'1" man with no kids. I was fine with skipping this one, but wouldn't have been able to ride it if I wanted to.

Other things I missed:

Six Flags & Texas Railroad, La Fiesta de las Tazas, and the other half of El Aserradero: All were closed due to the construction of Tormenta.

Catwoman Whip: Every time I tried to ride it it broke down on me. :/

Oil Derrick and Roaring Rapids: Both just weren't running at all on my days there.

This was on display during Roller Coaster Rodeo (I just kept forgetting to post it here.) According to the higher ups at the park it was created by Togo when the park was still in its planning stages, and apparently was once considered for the Rockville area around where part of Superman sits today. That means Togo designed a coaster for the same general area of the park twice and was rejected both times.

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As for the layout itself, the inverted first drop through the rings looks awesome, but the rest of the ride isn't too impressive. Given how rough Togo coasters can be it was probably for the better that this wasn't built.

Filmed this during the lift hill walk for Dr. Diabolical's Cliffhanger.

I found it in the Grapevine Mills Mall near Dallas, TX. It was a fun ride, though there was absolutely zero brakes on this cup even when the ride was stopped.

The building ZDT's was in now lies dark, empty, unused, and for sale. Every attraction with the sole exception of Switchback has been removed. The silos the climbing wall was on remains with the holes from the climbing wall all over them. The area the waterslides were in and one building in the back have been converted into a doggy day care. The area the go karts and other rides were at are now vacant buildings and empty plots of land. The only signs left that there was something here are the paintjob and Switchback. It also appears that Switchback's trains have been removed from the coaster and stored somewhere.

On the topic of Switchback, I really hope that someone announces they've purchased the poor orphaned coaster soon. I know four parks were looking at buying it, but we don't know if any of those deals have gone through or not. I'd love it if it stayed in Texas at one of the many parks we have here, but I'd be happy to hear of anyone saving this one of a kind coaster.