u/Which-Counter9047

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Possible for locals this is a known place. But we just went off of a Google search for nearby places. But we really liked our meal here. Moderately priced, and for me the wings were totally as advertised. I got them "trashed," which sounds like they basically fried them twice. Everyone else in our party liked what they got as well (sandwiches / burgers). The homemade ranch was also as advertised really, really good. Even my salad was good, especially considering it is more a sports bar type place.

Highly reccommend if you're looking for a place just outside the park that isn't fast food.

How has it worked for others when going to Enchanted Parks with your pass that you bought before the sale? Bought Gold Passes under the MVP sale last summer. What pass did you scan to get into Enchanted Parks? Trying to head to 6 Flags St. Louis this weekend. I tried adding my 2025 Gold Passes to the app under 6 Flags St. Louis, and it did not let me. I have my pass up at every other park I've gone to, and have no issues getting parking / getting in to any park thus far--but have not gone to any now Enchanted Parks.

Any insight / experience appreciated.

Considering making the trip from Chicago this weekend. Has Mr. Freeze been running pretty consistently this summer? I checked queue times, and unless I am just missing it I dont see it listed?

Any insight appreciated.

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My wife and I are celebrating our anniversary next week with a few days at Cedar Point. We'll be there for 3ish days. One night we'd like a "nicer" sit-down place to go for dinner. Doesn't need to be super fancy, but something beyond just quick-service in the park. Could be around the park, or nearby. How is Bay Harbor? Looks like a place on the pennisula but not necessarily in the park itself. And I've read there's a couple of places in Breakers?

Looking for any insight from regulars.

First time visiting next week: Which rides require no loose articles? TT2, Steel Vengence, Siren’s Curse and? Do those rides have free lockers? What can you put in those free lockers? When we went to Kings Dominion, Twisted Timbers had free lockers, but you could NOT put even a small fanny pack in there.

I generally just use zipper pockets with my phone / keys / cards, but my wife tends to want to bring a small fanny pack.

Just trying to be prepared! Watched some videos online, but seems that some policies have changed thru the years.

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Wrath music was finally playing in the queue last night when we got in line. Unfortunately didn't get to ride as lightning sighted in the area so we left the park before the big storm came in. But it appeared as though the music / lights were even queued up with the ride itself. Was going to take a quick video, but got out of line pretty quickly when it shut down.

After a night and a day at Kings Dominion, we got up early to hit Busch Gardens right at open. We knew we only had (1) day here as I had gotten (1) membership and (1) extra ticket along with using (2) of the free bring-a-friend tickets to get in for the day. So we rope-dropped, and also got the all-day dining plan.

Some general notes on the park:

- This park just looks great. It is really a true theme park with country-themed areas, shops, rides, and food places. All the greenery around the park just makes for a great setting for a park.

- Holy crap is there alot of walking around this park. You better really committ to going to another area because it could take you quite a while to get there and back. Combine that with the elevation changes and/or stairs, you are really going to get a workout just walking around this park.

- The app for Busch Gardens sucks. In looking on it, and even on Queue-times.com, you'd have thought Pantheon was closed all day and the day before. Same thing with Big Bad Wolf. I never could get my pass properly loaded into the app, just had to go web-based. When the 6 Flags app is actually functional in comparison, man you're really in trouble.

- The ops for this park are just below par for what should be a premium regional park (and they price it as such). Their skip-the-line system makes no sense to me. Looks like they just load in through the exit or a separate entrance, but do not ever queue up with the regular line. The ops just decide to load part or all of the train from the "quick queue." And sometimes that or the ADA would continually take the front / back row--so if you were specifically waiting there, you'd have an even longer wait. Luckily the day we went did not have super-long lines ever, but I can see how frustrating it would be if it actually was busy.

Ride Rankings:

1) Pantheon - 3 rides - This is truly an elite coaster, and was my favorite of the trip. I'll admit I've never really sat down and ranked all of my rides, other than knowing my top rides in my head--but this is likely top 5 for me. The multiple launches, the speed, the airtime, the inversions are all just awesome. That backwards spike makes me wonder how crazy that 400' spike is on TT2 (I'll hopefully experience soon). I do wish it was maybe 1-2 more elements longer, but overally is an awesome ride. Odd that they closed this ride at 7:30 when the park closed at 9:00? Why would you close the best ride in the park early? Wish we could have gotten a few more rides, but the app seemed to incidate it was closed, so we didn't even know it was open until we got over to that side of the park around mid-day....and it closed early.

2) Verbolten - 2 rides - Objectively this probably isn't the 2nd best coaster in the park, but just as a pure ride, it is really, really fun. The combination of launches, indoor / outdoor sections, the drop track, it really is just a fun family ride. I never did the original, but enjoyed the indoor theming / effects. Everyone in our group loved this ride....we tried to get one more before close. Got in line, only ~15 min. wait. Ride went down--all of us in line waited...and waited....and waited. About 15 minutes after closing, people started exited the line. No announcement....we up to the front, and the worker just said, "Ride is closed, park is closed." Having experienced the great customer service from KI a week or so earlier, we asked if they could get us over to another ride like Darkoaster (which was probably still running / emptying out its queue 15 min. after close)--nope, see you later, we don't care. Just shows again why KI is one of the best regional parks around when it comes to operations and customer service.

3) Alpengeist - 2 rides - This might be my new favorite invert. I've always held the OG Batman as my favorite invert. And I still do really appreciate the OG's super-fast pacing and changes of direction. But the extra lenght of this one along with the snappy inversions really elevates this ride. It's also super smooth despite being very forceful.

4) Griffon - 2 rides - I'll have to say on a ride like this, no reason to have the B&M vests, the old OTS restraints work really well, and you actually get some pops of airtime. The super-wide track / trains seem to make this ride as smooth as can be with 2 great drops. It's a pretty simple ride, but what it does, it does well. I probably like it better than Wrath at SFGAm, even though Wrath really does have a better layout.

5) Appollo's Chariot - 1 ride - This is one I really wish we had just run back around and done twice in row. It's hard to go back to things at this park just due to the size of the park. B&M was really cookin' when they created their first two hypers. Super smooth, great setting, nice drop and airtime. I put Raging Bull ahead of it, but we basically walked onto this with a station wait--something we almost never get with Bull.

6) Tempesto - 1 ride - I know this a ride type that has been cloned quite a bit, but this is my first time on one, and I really liked it. It is ackward getting into the seats, which seems to be a re-occuring theme with older Premier rides, but I didn't find the restraints particularly uncomfortable during the ride. It has some unique elements and does the most with its small plot of land.

7) Loch Ness Monster - 1 ride - Love the fact that they updated this ride and have keep it going. The loops are very unique, and is pretty smooth for an old Arrow.

8) Big Bad Wolf - 1 ride - This is a nice family coaster with a cool setting. Compared to some of the other B&Ms it's pretty smooth, but still feels like a brand-new B&M should be smoother. Fun ride, probably a great first inverted coaster for kids.

9) Darkoaster - 1 ride - This is a fun indoor family ride. It's a little repetitive, but it has some fun launches, and the AC'ed line on a hot day I'm sure is a really good respite. We went first to this as I'd heard it gets one of the longest lines. Consistently throughout the day it had some of the longest wait times (if you can belive the app.....which I'm not sure about). Not worth a super-long wait, but enjoyed it for what it is.

10) InvadR - 1 ride - This was actually on of our longest lines, and where we saw BGW's really odd ops in action. I was hoping for more here as I love Mystic Timbers. It has the elements to be a good family coaster, but was just too rough. Difference in maintenance. Decent layout, some pops of airtime, and laterals, but not the most comfortable ride.

We did catch the Irish dancing show, and I thought the food I had (BBQ) was really good. Honestly this is the type of park I'd reccomend at least a day and a half or 2 days to really see everything. We saw a few of the animal exhibits, but didn't have as much time just to explore. It truly could be a destination elite regional park, but it is held back by some suboptimal operational issues. But it has some great rides and great theming, I'd would like another trip here to see more. I'd be weary of going on a super-busy day, however.

And that was it for our Summer Road Trip. My wife and I have a short trip for just the 2 of us to Cedar Point in a couple of weeks, and we were thinking of making some day trips to 6 Flags / Enchanted Parks St. Louis / Mid-America and Michigan's Adventure while they are still on our pass.

After 3 days in Cinncy visiting family and Kings Island, we headed to DC for a few days of your usual site-seeing around the capital. It was my first time, and overall was enjoyable. The highlight was a bike tour around all the monuments and memorials around the mall. Last year, we had originally planned on a short 1/2-day to 6 Flags America, but obviously that part got canned.

After DC, we headed down to Doswell, VA to the sister park of Kings Dominion. We stayed right on site on the KOA Campground in one of the cabins, and actually had a really nice time there sharing with the other family we had traveled with. It was a little tight with 8 of us, but if you were traveling with others, you could easily pack 3-5 adults with 3 full beds and 2 futons (probably more if there were couples).

We got to the park late on a Tuesday night, were actually able get 4 rides an hour before close. We spent the whole next morning / mid-day here...but it was VERY hot, so we left our cabin for a few hours, and went back to close the park. It was not crowded at all--our longest wait was ~20-30 minutes for Rapterra mid-day. We stayed at KOA throughout our time outside of DC. So stopped by the park again for a morning after a day at BGW.

Some notes on the park

- The park entrance looks great. It is clearly very similar / the same as Kings Island, but still an iconic entrance into the park. You have to give it to the original Kings Entertainment parks--Kings Island / Dominion, and Canada's Wonderland--they all have great entrances. I think CW is the best, but the Kings parks also look great.

- The park in general was very clean, and overall well staffed considering the crowd level. But I will say this is the most "6 Flags" like former Cedar Fair park I've been to--in that it just seems like it has sort of patch-work theming and you can tell the different visions from the different ownership groups. As others have said, the Jungle area is well themed overall. But both Flight of Fear and Pantherian are obvious add-ons to the back of the park with no other connection to the rest of the park. And Backlot Stunt Coaster sticks out like sore thumb in that area--seems like a re-theme would be doable, change the cars to jeeps, and re-dress the theming around the ride? And the other areas are lightly themed. Dominator was obviously just plopped in the parking lot with no connection to any theme of any area....again, more like a 6 Flags park IMO.

- Speaking of Jungle X-Pedition, it feels like 75% of the best coasters are in this specific area. It is nice that you can easily go around the area by Rapterra and ride a number of rides. And a short walk to FoF, Backlot, and Panterian (sort of). But the right side of the park feels very empty in comparison. I know there are a couple of water rides over there, which really aren't my thing. Do they not own the property just to the right of the entrance? Just feel oddly unbalanced.

My ride rankings:

1. Panterian - 3 rides - I'll admit I went back and forth beween this and TT as my #1. My son preferred TT. Alot in our group liked Rapterra the best. My sister-in-law legit blacked out on her only ride. I grayed out on every ride. It's hard to beat just the pure intensity of this ride. I probably still perfer Fury, and maybe even Leviathan to it. But the intensity, the speed, and the quick changes of direction are like no other ride I've been on. Feel lucky we got the rides we did. It was open the Tuesday night we got there (last week). It was open most of the next day we were there, but shut down that evening. I was going to head back there to get a front row ride as the lines were not long. We came back on the Friday morning before we drove back to Chicago. The ride op placed in the entrance said it was closed most of the previous day (last Thursday), and it never re-opened before we left.

2. Twisted Timbers - 5 rides - Wow, this ride also intense. My son and I both loved it, especially our night rides. My wife, who loves Goliath at SFGAm, did not like the 2nd half at all, especially the ending. The restraints killed her thighs. I'll admit I don't love the restraints, and the ending it not even really airtime--it's more like violent negative G's. The unique drop is great, and the first 1/2 with strong airtime is great. I do appreciate the intensity of the ending, but I can see how it's too much for others. The back row especially, which one of the ride ops reccomended at the end of night after a front row ride, it particularly intense.

3. Rapterra - 4 rides - We did both sides the first night we got there, and I do prefer the left side due to getting higher on the top hat. It has a nice launch and cool inversions....but there is a noticable "bounce" throughout. Reminds me of the outside seats on Wrath at SFGAm. It's not unfortable, and didn't seem to bother anyone in our group. I can still enjoy it--just not as smooth as old B&M's. But it consistently had the longest lines whenever we were there--so obviously GP love it. It does not touch Thunderbird at Holiday World IMO. It is a little odd the park added yet another launch coaster right in this area, but it does seem to be popular.

4. Flight of Fear - 4 rides - I wasn't overly impressed by the one at Kings Island. Maybe my expectations were just lower, and it had basically no wait whenever we went on it, but I enjoyed this version better. It's still a bit janky, and getting slowed down to a crawl on the MCBR is not my favorite, but the launch and first half of the ride is fun, and the ending inversion is cool as well. My wife made the comment that this is the type of indoor coaster we wished we gotten instead of Dark Knight at SFGAm. It's especially nice to have a cool AC'ed queue and an indoor ride.

5. Dominator - 3 rides - Just overall a solid ride. My first just pure floorless coaster (not dive). Pretty smooth overall, and some forceful inversions. I'm not as big on just pure positive G's, but this is a nice ride.

6. Backlot Stunt Coaster - 3 rides - this is now my 3rd version of this ride I think? I honestly can't remember which one just paused instead of fully stopping on the show scene (I think CW?), but they should reprogram this one to do that well if they aren't going to run the fire effects / etc. But we all legit almost grayed out on the upward helix, and it just a fun little ride. If they rethemed to a jungle-type theme, made the cars into Jeeps, it would fit right into the area. Honestly surprised more parks didn't get a similar family launch coaster from Premier--seems sort of ahead of it's time.

7. Grizzly - 1 ride - Man, I'm probably going to surpise some people here, but this one did not hold up to my expectations. I went in telling our group it was like a "mini Beast," and it did not hold up all to The Beast. It was not overly rough--you could tell it had some retracking done. But it was just very uneven pacing. It was fast, then slow, then pause...just a very odd pacing to the ride. Perhaps should have given it another try, but again, given that it is sort of on an island on the other side of the park, just didn't feel the pull to walk all the way over there.

8. Racer 75 - 1 ride - Actually was pretty smooth and a nice ride. But was not racing....sort of defeats the name? I get it, but that makes these ride much better--especially since this version the two sides seem to stay closer together longer.

9. Reptilian - 1 ride - This one also drew some of the longest lines in the park--which I can understand given the low capacity. I actually appreciated the uniqueness of the ride. Probably a nice little family ride. Probably would have done it again given smaller waits.

10. Tumbili - 1 ride - Not a huge fan of these freespins. I'm not always keen on the spinning, but this one is small, and I think we only got 1 spin on our ride. It was a walk-on, so no problem, but I wouldn't wait a long time for this. It does look cool in the area!

I didn't venture back into the kiddie area / rides as I'm pretty sure I've done clones of them elsewhere. Overall we really enjoyed this park, especially since it had very short waits on all of our visits. It gives very smilar vibes obviously as Kings Island, but outside of Jungle X-Pedition, it doesn't feel quite as "put-together" as KI. Now, it's not as though KI is super well themed either, KD just feels a bit uneven. But if the Jungle area is any indication of where they are heading, I think KD has a great future ahead of it (I hope).

I will say this....I am worried about I-Project-Panterian 305. Just in the time we were there, it seemed to have some issues staying up. It seems like it has had good uptime this year, but obviously still has some issues. It is undoubtedly an elite coaster....but is NOT a favorite of the GP. My in-law had no interest in riding it again after my SIL legit blacked out. It never had a long line. Rapterra is clearly the most popular ride in the park. TT may even be a bit too intense for alot of the GP that come to this park. The locker / bag policy on that ride also turns some people off. Panterian is in the back of the park, isn't that popular, and clearly is a maintenance headache. They did just put a bunch of money into retheming it, so I hope they keep it for a long time...but I could also see them cutting their losses and just closing off that are of the park.

Also, the crowd levels and seemingly the content of the people that frequent this park also doesn't speak well for it staying long-term. If this ride was at SFGAm, Cedar Point, or even Kings Island, undoubtedly it would have an hour wait all day. If you look at the history of KD, they just seem to be snakebitten with their top rides....Hypersonic, Volcano, Panterian...I hope I'm wrong and I can come back and ride this again. But coming from the chain that killed Kingda Ka....I wouldn't put it past corporate to "Zimjob" this ride.

AND, even though I really like this park, and like what they did with Rapterra and the entire Jungle area, I could definitely see SF selling this park as it doesn't seem like they draw the crowds corporate wants. Competing again BGW as well is tough just given all the things BGW offers from an event, theming, and overall vibe perspective. Again--I hope not, but I wouldn't put it past a corporate that cut the original "Fair" out of Cedar Fair. I'm not sure this is the type of "growth" park they want to keep in the super-chain. Even though I think it could be.

The family and I took a pretty long (week plus) road trip to Cinncy, DC, and Virginia. The first stop was Cinncy to visit family, and also a couple of trips out to Kings Island. My wife and I had gone there a couple of times in the late 2000s, but went again for the first time last fall with the kids. We spend a few days there that weekend, so nothing was new to us, but we did travel with my wife's brother's family, so everything was new to them. Some notes:

- Mystic Timbers continues to be my favorite ride in the park, and is definitely better at night. I just love the out of control nature of it, the airtime, and laterals. I'm not even usually someone that prefers woodies to steel, but this might be my favorite woodie (maybe only 2nd to The Voyage).

- I go back and forth on whether I like Orion or Diamondback better. I really wish Orion was just a couple of more elements longer as I love the first drop and the speed of the ride. It feels like the type of giga we'd get at Great America, haha. I like the airtime and length of Diamondback no doubt, it sort of seems like it depends on the ride for me and how hard the trims hit.

- Kings Island is likely my favorite regional park. Unlike my home park of SFGAm, multiple rides had THREE trains running, even when isn't super busy--I think Orion, Diamondback, Mystic Timbers, Banshee, and Beast all had three trains. Am I missing one? FIVE rides all running three trains! We can't even get two trains on many coasters 2 months into the season, and NONE on three trains. I am jealous! On top of that, seemingly everything is open, it is clean, looks great, and just has a great vibe.

- Finally got a ride on Invertigo. This is an intense ride! Honestly might be my favorite boomerang. I wish more parks had installed this version. Decently smooth as well considering.

- We missed Phantom Theatre as no one else in my party seemed super interested, and had a pretty long line most of the times we were there. We'll probably be back again, I would like to go through it.

- I've given Banshee multiple tries now, and it just is not a ride I love. I'm surprised many have this as their favorite in the park. It's not even my favorite invert--that would go to Batman or my recent ride on Alpengist (later in this trip). I don't dislike it--fun drop for an invert, cool inversions--just not my cup of tea.

- We got (2) Beast night rides. We did one last fall, but continues to elevate the ride a ton. I had heard about the waiting for the fireworks, but didn't realize it when we first got in line on the Thursday. That is a long wait (probably an hour for us) sitting there not even moving, but it is an awesome ride at night. And the retracking definitely makes it smoother.

- The 2nd night ride, we had actually gotten in line for Orion--which also shuts down for the fireworks. And we waited....and waited...and waited. Finally at like 11:00 p.m., they told us the ride was down for the night, BUT offered to walk us to the Beast for a night ride! We were looking forward to night ride on Orion as we'd already done the Beast and Mystic, but I appreciate them not just sending us home after waiting for almost 90 minutes. That is customer service! It was about three trains worth of people walked over, and looked like they'd just finished the Beast's night rides from their line.

- We went to the park (4) shorter times over the (3) days, and I honestly think this is the way to go if you have time flexibility. One of the YouTubers I follow that lives in FL and visited a bunch of parks on a road trip mentioned the same thing: Go a couple of hours before closing when you get there, and you likely can get in a bunch of rides with short waits, then do the same the next morning. We went Thursday night, Friday morning to mid-day, back Friday evening, and then again Saturday evening. We really only faced longer lines Friday mid-day as it was a holiday (Juneteenth). Especially if you have a season pass, I think this is the way to go.

We also visited the Cinncy Zoo on Saturday morning, which is a really nice zoo if you have kids or just like animals.

Love this park--if they installed a true #1 elite coaster like a launch coaster like Alpen Fury at CW, I think it could rival just about any regional park. That, a ground-up RMC, or a tilt could really make this a destination park.

Next stop was its sister park Kings Dominion!