roller-coaster

Texas Stingray at SeaWorld San Antonio is a Great Ride and Educational Experience

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Texas Stingray entrance sign at SeaWorld San Antonio
Texas Stingray entrance sign at SeaWorld San Antonio

The Texas Stingray roller coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio (SWSA) opened in February 2020, just before Covid, and is the tallest, fastest and longest wooden coaster in Texas.  The ride Designed by Skyline Attractions and manufactured by Great Coasters International (GCI) includes a 100 foot drop, 3,379 feet of track with a max speed of 55 mph while experiencing fast-paced twists, up to 76 degree turns, sixteen gravity defying airtime moments and a 100-foot tunnel. In 2024 Texas Stingray reached #26 on Golden Ticket’s global rankings of best wooden roller coasters. However, in addition to being a fantastic ride, it also provides an excellent educational experience about the Texas Stingray through signage and the design of the roller coaster train itself!

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Peanuts Characters to Remain at Legacy Cedar Fair Parks as Six Flags Entertainment and Peanuts Worldwide Extend Licensing Agreement to 2030

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Camp Snoopy with dog in canoe
Camp Snoopy (Image courtesy of Six Flags)

Six Flags Entertainment Corporation announced it has extended its licensing agreement with Peanuts Worldwide for another five years. The new agreement extends Six Flags’ position as the exclusive amusement park partner for Peanuts™ in North America meaning guest at Knott’s Berry Farm, Carowinds, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Dorney Park, Canada’s Wonderland, California’s Great America, Michigan’s Adventure, Valleyfair, and Worlds of Fun will continue to experience the iconic Peanuts characters until at least the next decade.

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Spending National Roller Coaster Day 2025 at Lake Winnie Riding the Historic Cannon Ball Coaster

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The Lake Winnepesaukah amusement park in Rossville, GA (affectionately known locally as “Lake Winnie“) is a beautiful park located on a 9 acre lake. The park is family owned celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and is filled with history, nostalgia and character. The park’s best known attraction is the Cannon Ball wooden roller coaster built in 1967. On National Roller Coaster Day 2025 on August 16th we felt like getting some rides on the park’s historic Cannon Ball coaster was a great way to celebrate.

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Get Your Engineering Cub Scout Adventure Loop at Fun Spot America Orlando with White Lightning!

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Fun Spot America Logo
Scout in front of White Lightning sign at Fun Spot Orlando

Earning the Arrow of Light “Engineering” adventure loop can be one of the most fun and exciting activities in scouting and highly educational, especially increased focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Did you know that one of the recommended adventure activities in the cub scout handbook is to have scouts build their own roller coaster? A theme park is a great place for the scouts to explore and learn about engineering and Fun Spot America Orlando is a perfect real world laboratory for this adventure. Earning the “Engineering” Adventure Loop at Fun Spot Orlando is as simple as watching a few YouTube videos, discussing some questions, riding a roller coaster and participating in the park’s “build your own roller coaster” activity (or doing your own at your next den or pack meeting). This is essentially a prepackaged adventure that is sure to be memorable for scouts.

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Review of the Georgia Mountain Coaster: The Perfect Addition to Downtown Helen, Georgia!

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The Georgia Mountain Coaster is Georgia’s first and currently only mountain coaster. This may be the first mountain coaster in Georgia, but it will have everything you love about mountain coasters in areas where they are more commonplace, like Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. What makes this coaster special is location location location. It is located in the heart of Helen, Georgia, a popular German themed tourist destination in Northern Georgia and it’s LITERALLY on Main Street. You can easily walk to it from all the popular shops and restaurants and it’s the only pedestrian accessible coaster I know of other than Ripley’s Mountain Coaster in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee. However, even though it’s very close to everything, when you’re up on the hill it still feels quiet and isolated.

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Six Flags Launches $55 Season Pass with Access All 40+ Theme and Water Parks with “MVP” Sale!

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My local park, Six Flags Over Georgia (SFOG), has launched its latest season pass sale with the Most Valuable Pass (MVP) sale which will get you into 40+ parks until the end of 2026 for just $55! You can also do it as a membership at just $5.99/month with these prices good through September 2, 2025. This is such a good deal it almost seems like a mistake as last year you’d pay that just for SFOG and $100+ more for the All Parks Passport to get into all the other the legacy Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks. To top if you’ll also get a bonus free “bring-a-friend” ticket. If you get this pass the map below is your potential list of parks to visit immediately.

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Use LogRide to Track Your Roller Coaster Credits, Theme Park Trips and Tons of Other Stats

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LogRide theme park app logo
LogrRde Logo (courtesy of LogRide)

How do you track roller coaster credits, rides and parks visited? I’m a huge fan of the LogRide App. LogRide can track your rides and parks visited and currently catalogs 4,600+ parks, 5,600+ roller coasters and 74,800+ attractions worldwide. It’s super easy to use and comes in both a free version as well as a “pro” version for $0.99/month which gives you enhanced statistics. The app is easy to use while at the park and even has an Apple Watch version. The amount of data here is intense including trip reports, miles traveled on coaster track, total inversions and even steps walked inside of parks. You’ll also find ride information pictures and reviews from other users along with current wait times and show times for many parks. LogRide will quickly become your go-to app inside parks, sometimes more than the theme park’s own app!

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Review of the New Wisconsin Dells Mountain Coaster: A Fast Ride Through the Woods on Wisconsin’s First and Only Mountain Coaster

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New for 2025 is the Wisconsin Dells Mountain Coaster, which is Wisconsin’s first and currently only mountain coaster. This may be the first mountain coaster in Wisconsin, but if you’ve ridden a mountain coaster in a place like Pigeon Forge this Wiegand creation will feel very familiar to you. That’s not a bad thing though, this is a really fun coaster in a great location. You could summarize this coaster with two words, smooth and fast. Some mountain coasters take a bit to get going, but from the moment you’re released from the lift hill this coaster is flying and doesn’t slow down until the bottom while giving a glass smooth ride.

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Superman IP Likely to Pay Dividends for Six Flags with New Superman Movie #1 at the Box Office

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Superman: Ultimate Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia

Intellectual property is a big deal for theme parks as guests come to immerse themselves in themed worlds of their favorite characters. The largest license at Six Flags is DC comics and with that comes characters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. On July 11th the new Superman movie debuted and box office results of $122 million domestically had it #1 this week with the 3rd biggest opening of 2025! Having the IP of a #1 movie in your park is never a bad thing!

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No More Virtual Queues at Disney World!

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Standby at Haunted Mansion at Disney Magic Kingdom
Lightning Lane at Haunted Mansion at Disney Magic Kingdom

It was announced earlier this year that Disney World’s Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind would cease using the virtual queue system on February 25, 2025. This followed a similar previous announcement in September 2024 for Tron Lightcycle Run. This means there are currently no rides at Disney World using virtual queue for the first time in years and every attraction will have standby lines available. It also ends the stress for many of waking up at before 7am on the morning of a Disney vacation and feverishly hitting the refresh button to try to get a boarding group to ride the lastest Walt Disney World rides sometime that day without paying extra. Virtual Queue was the only “free” way to ride without paying for a Lightning Lane Single Pass, which could cost $100 or more for a family on top of a regular Lightning Lane Multi Pass (formerly Genie+).

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