Last night at the very end of the D23 Experiences Showcase the long anticipated Villains Land was announced for Disney’s Magic Kingdom. The details were VERY sparse with no opening date or specific attractions announced, just mention of 2 attractions, shopping and dining. However, if you zoom into the top left of the concept art shown last night it’s very obvious there is a coaster in the works!
Continue readingPat McAfee, the popular and sometimes controversial ESPN host, spent nearly 20 minutes of his June 30, 2024 show talking Kennywood and its rides. The show was commenting on a tweet by a local news channel showing The Racer roller coaster apparently being held up by a cinder block. It was obvious Pat loved the park and talked about his childhood visits there that devolved into watching a POV of the ride and reviewing the park in general. The viral story started with a Facebook post by oneBURGH and resulted with the park briefly shutting down the ride, a state inspection and some non-structural repairs.
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Today (July 21, 2024) is opening opening day for Phoenix Rising at Busch Gardens. Phoenix Rising is is the new family suspended roller coaster by B&M. The ride is in the Pantopia area of the park in the area previously occupied by Sand Serpent, a couple of kiddie rides and the original Phoenix looping starship by Intamin. There will be many articles today celebrating the new Phoenix Rising, but I wanted to take a few minutes to remember the original Phoenix. Perhaps I can also take credit for being a bit of a future teller in the name of the new coaster?
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On June 16th at 2pm participating parks simultaneously dispatch coasters as part of “The World’s Largest Ride” to celebrate the anniversary of LaMarcus Thompson’s Switchback Railway, the first modern roller coaster. The event is organized by American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) and this year is the 3rd annual celebration of the event. About 20 parks participated this year including Wild Adventures of Valdosta, GA where I participated.
Continue readingUpdate September 2025: It appears Canada’s Marineland is selling most of its rides. Bill Ossim of Rides Plus, LLC is handling the sale with details like pricing managed through a formal inquiry process for qualified buyers. There have been some reports of pricing online with family rides going for $75,000 and thrill rides as high as $2.5 million.
I visited Six Flags Over Georgia on Saturday, May 18, 2024 and was able to check out the construction progress on the new Georgia Surfer coaster by Intamin. It was surprising to see a flurry of activity on a weekend day, so they must be pushing hard to get this done. There were now retaining walls in place, concrete footers poured, the beginning of what appeared to be a water retention area. No track or supports were seen anywhere, but I can’t imagine we’re far away from seeing the installation of the first few pieces.
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Update April 2025: So the construction walls ended up being for a new area of the park called Wild Oasis. It is sort of a reincarnation or Jungala complete with a new version of Wild Surge called Tree Top Drop. Is the Giga still coming? Maybe. The future of Kumba is still uncertain and there’s also the area of Scorpion that could be used as a station to have a Giga sprawl all over the park like Goliath does at Six Flags Over Georgia. We’ll have to stay tuned.
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Busch Gardens has released a first person rendering of what it’ll be like to ride their new Phoenix Rising family roller coaster later this year. It looks like a fun little ride by B&M in the spirit of similar family inverts like Dragonflier at Dollywood, Freedom Flyer at Fun Spot Orlando and Swamp Thing at Wild Adventures. It’ll also feature onboard audio which can be awesome if you’ve ever ridden something like Big Bear Mountain.
Continue readingI saw the above video where YouTube star Mark Rober tested the fastest seat on a coaster, but subsequently got kicked out of a park for having his cell phone out on a ride. As a big fan with a 7 year old son who loves him too it was honestly disappointing to see. The parks though have good reason to take this seriously though as there have been a number of major injuries caused by foreign objects on rides with lawsuits looking to hold the parks responsible.
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There are a lot of coaster clones out there from the numerous iterations of “Batman” at the Six Flags parks to the Sky Rocket II rides across Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. However, the one that may be the most numerous is “Spinning Coaster” by Italian manufacturer SBF-Visa. This simple figure 8 spinning coaster seems to be everywhere from family entertainment centers to small amusement parks. By my count on Caosterpedia there are at least 66 installs of the several different variants of this ride all in just 10 years from its 2014 debut.
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BGT Safari 