GAcoaster

Looks like they welded the parts together while they await a replacement support:

Their 49th anniversary commercial mashup is kind of fun: https://www.facebook.com/reel/641141934345599

And now Congo Rapids is open (and I think that's my picture they're using):

Holy crap, someone checked their photo from the week before and you can see the crack starting-- This shows it either wasn't inspected very well or recently. Thank goodness these rides are "over-engineered" by B&M.

This is scary: Interesting to see it cracked ABOVE the weld, not at the weld where you'd expect a crack might occur. I'm guessing it was just a bad batch of steel or something. This is why so often coasters have trim brakes added to them-- the stress can damage the structure.

Both Carrowinds and Worlds of Fun are celebrating their 50th this year and I like what they've done in both parks.

As of two hours ago the park posted Kingda Ka has reopened!

For those interested in following the progress of the park here are some great people to follow: Bioreconstruct on Twitter-- does pretty much weekly flyovers of the park under construction as well as all the Orlando parks: Alicia Stella's Parkstop website is an amazing place to get all the latest info. She does an amazing job digging through permits and trademarks as well as having a network of sources to keep everyone up to date on all the latest for Epic Universe and all the Universal parks. She uses Biorecontruct's aerial photos and creates videos explaining all that's happening, and if you join her Patreon she shares additional info beyond what she shares in the videos: Sometimes I can't believe all this is happening literally less than two miles from where I live! I almost thought we had seen the last new theme park built in the US, but Universal is all in on building more and more. Comcast has decided they love the theme park business.

SFOG has FINALLY started demolition of the old concrete basin for their Splashwater Falls ride (which has been gone for years), so chances are that will be the site for the new ride for 2024. I know there was speculation it could be an S&S Free Spin since it would fit easily in that spot...

I have a feeling the chain wide stuff will be smaller things with just the big parks getting big investments. SFGAdv, SFMM, SFGAm, and SFOT make up a huge percentage of the chain's attendance and I'm guessing are the priority.

Apparently there's word of "something big" for 2024, which makes sense between the lack of investment for this year, and the competition (Dorney and Hershey) both adding new coasters either this year or next year, and it being the park's 50th. I expect news will leak soon...

Clearing has been going on at SeaWorld Orlando for a while now in the Antarctica area for a new coaster. The new ride would replace the Empire of the Penguin trackless dark ride (which was kind of a dud) with a coaster code named "Project Toboggan". The sleuths at ParkFans have determined it will be a launched family B&M sit down coaster, the first in the world for B&M to be a family/sitdown with two abreast seating. This will also mean SeaWorld Orlando and Great Adventure will each be home to five B&M coasters... Check out the great info on ParkFans including animation of the coaster (which seems to have a small dark ride portion):

Dorney got approval for their new coaster for 2024 which will be located in the old Lazer and Stinger were. The rumor at first was a Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster, but now it looks more like it could be a small B&M Dive Machine... The coaster will be 162' tall at its highest point and the footer plan looks to be a B&M. That would make it slightly larger than the one Six Flags built at SFFT last year. ParkFans did a great analysis and has more info:

First it was Kimberly Akimbo co-opting GA's logo, now it's Weird NJ with GA, Action Park, and Lion Country Safari all represented: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuDE1YROV4Z/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

It's good to hear people are enjoying this. It really looks like they not only "borrowed" the SeaWorld parks calendar of events graphics, but also their events.

The launch is really the most force, the camelback is relatively easy.

Ka is testing and SHOULD reopen soon...

Atlas Obscura just posted a story on the Haunts of the Jersey Shore: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/jersey-shore-haunted-houses?utm_medium=atlas-page&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1NcUf7uJfKOWo2DgUmpc4EoW7IEPiI3vwSCbbH3919m3OTc4ypQ-aPNQg

I've been hearing family coaster taking over that area, but not a boomerang. I'll be curious to see if Sand Serpent is relocated to one of the Sesame Place parks. A Mack mouse would be an easy fit for either one.

The year this is for almost all parks were operating without any government restrictions (except some of the Asian parks). The restrictions the Disney parks were under were all self imposed, while Universal saw record attendance. It was proof that the demand was there, especially if new attractions were opened. The results should have been: MK- WDW- 17.1 million Disneyland- 16.9 million IOA- UO- 11 million DHS- WDW- 10.9 million USF- UO- 10.8 million EPCOT- WDW- 10 million DAK- WDW- 9 million DCA- 9 million USH- 8.4 million SWO- 4.5 million BGT- 4 million KBF- 3.9 million Canada's Wonderland- 3.8 million SWSD- 3.5 million CP- 3.4 million KI- 3.3 million Hersheypark- 3.2 million SFMM- 3 million SFGAm- 2.5 million SFGAdv- 2.1 million

I'm trying to understand why they are still keeping them ranked based on 2019 numbers- it's good to see GA's numbers, but at the same time I'm sure it has fallen below #20 with only 2.1 million attendance. Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and several Cedar Fair parks and even Six Flags parks that had higher attendance last year.

I haven't had time to really look at all of it yet, but Great Adventure is shown as being down 26% with attendance of just 2.1 million... https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:bcfc7503-92ff-3bfa-8938-93c321fe6008

The old sets of boats were always a "must do" for me as a kid. There was much more challenge to driving the boats. The cars not so much...

Nice to see the continued investment by SWP in Sesame Place.

When I was working as a Merchandise Lead at SeaWorld it would happen all the time, usually at the busiest time of day, and it's never fun to have to figure out if it was the guest or the cashier at fault.