Just over the Missouri border outside St. Louis in the southwest corner of Illinois you’ll find the town of Grafton with Aerie’s Resort and Aerie’s Alpine Coaster. This Wiegand mountain coaster opened in September of 2022 and is currently the only mountain coaster in Illinois. The coaster sports 3,885 feet of track in a beautiful resort setting that offers insane views of the Mississippi River below.
Continue readingOne of my favorite creators, Ryan the Ride Mechanic, is donating 100% of the proceeds from his YouTube channel for one month to Toys for Tots. The month runs from October 13th until November 13th, meaning you’ve got about a week left to help participate. Ryan’s stuff covers everything from deep dives into how things like the upcoming Siren’s Curse tilt coaster will work to analysis of ride issues like the crack on Fury 325 last year. Ryan uses his years as a ride mechanic, a great sense of humor and CAD (cardboard-assisted design) to explain the engineering behind some of your favorite rides. The money goes to a great cause and it’s great content, so head on over to the Ryan the Ride Mechanic YouTube Channel and watch a video or two!
Dynabrook Greenhouse & Pumpkin Patch in Harrodsburg, KY looks like an amazing place to spend a fall day. However, unlike you standard pumpkin patch that may have a hayride, corn maze or maybe a small flat ride, this place also has a roller coaster! The coaster is called “Happy Bee” is a powered coaster made by Chinese manufacturer Henan Beston. The roller coaster isn’t anything huge of course, but the fact that they have a permanent coaster at a pumpkin patch is pretty cool.
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Halloween is approaching when people like watching their favorite scary movies. One of my favorites is Zombieland with its great blend of action, horror and humor. I recently saw some online buzz about the “real Zombieland experience” at Dubai’s Motiongate theme park with their “Zombieland Blast-Off” launch tower ride based on the Blast Off ride seen in the movie. The park even launched a “fears becoming reality” advertising campaign. There’s just one problem, the only place to get the real Zombieland Blast Off experience is at Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Georgia!
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Universal has announced the opening date for Epic Universe as May 22, 2025 and details are now coming out about who, how and when people can get tickets. They’re also releasing details and rates for the signature Helios Grand Hotel. There are are two ways you can get access to Epic Universe in the early days. If you’re a current Universal pass holder starting today (October 24th) you can purchase single day tickets to the park!
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Six Flags Over Georgia GM Greg Fuller announced at Coaster Fest 2024 that it will repaint its iconic Goliath roller coaster. The ride will sport a completely new color scheme or turquoise blue and tarpaulin grey. At a price tag of $1 million this will be part of the park’s 2025 capital investment (along with the delayed Georgia Surfer). The paint job will begin after Fright Fest and will be ready for the 2025 season. The colors are hard to make out from the slide from Coaster Fest, but the RAL Colour samples below should give a better idea of the new colors.
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I had the chance to experience the “VRoller Coaster” at Virtual Reality Adventures in Las Vegas and came away extremely impressed. Virtual Reality Adventures is located in the LINQ Promenade near the High Roller Ferris Wheel on the Las Vegas Strip. They offer several VR experiences with one simply called “Roller Coaster” that looks unassuming enough, but really packs a punch. During this experience you experience 3 coasters with first what I believe is Goliath at Walibi Holland, second being Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Studios in Florida and finally the Big Apple Coaster located at the New York New York Resort in Las Vegas.
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Busch Gardens Tampa announced it will be opening a new area of the park called “Wild Oasis” in Spring of 2025. This appears to be a retheme of the old Tree Top Trail area in Jungala which by no means is a bad thing! We reported months ago about construction walls being up at Tree Top Trails with speculation of what was to come and now we know the reason. The area is set to be called a “realm” which is interesting and will contain climbing areas, water features, new animal habitats and a reimagined drop tower.
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Are you a fan of Busch Gardens? Are you a fan of Minecraft? Then you totally need to check out MCParks Busch Gardens Tampa for Minecraft! MCParks uses teams of Imagineers, Technicians and Guest Relations to faithfully recreate the park experience. The park uses a variety of resources to to create a one block to one meter virtual recreation of the park. You can see this demonstrated in the picture above with the faithful recreation of Falcon’s Fury!
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So back in 2023 I wrote about an encounter I had with a Busch Gardens ride operators at another theme park discussing the unexpected closure of the mini drop tower ride, Wild Surge, located in the Jungala area of the park. He told me Wild Surge was actually damaged by a fire in December 2022 and showed me pics on his phone of the damage to the ride. I finally tracked him down and got permission to share them here.
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BGT Safari 