Posts by Ethan

Holiday World has announced that they have relocated their Zamperla Vertical swing ride over to the surrounding area of the new Thunderbird B&M launched wing coaster. The ride, currently called “Sparkler” in the 4th of July themed area of the park, will be renamed and rethemed to “Crow’s Nest” in its new home alongside Thunderbird in the Thanksgiving area. Sparkler originally opened in 2012. This should certainly bring some additional life to the new midway while providing outstanding views of the park’s shiny new B&M flying around it. The ride has already been moved to its new home and the park has a video of the transformation.

This is one of the surprises that Holiday World has thrown in with the new coaster, and they are still teasing some near-miss ride elements that will be added to Thunderbird prior to its opening.

Track work on Thunderbird itself was actually completed last week. This, along with the installation of the Crow’s Nest ride are certainly making the new area of the park take shape. The 2015 season is fast approaching!

Whether you like it or not, Windseekers are taking over the Cedar Fair chain; Six of out of the twelve theme parks currently operate or are building one. Cedar Fair is hooked on these 300 (excuse me, 301) foot swing sets, and it’s understandable why; simply put, it’s a gimmick, and the general public eats them up. I can already hear “Dude, did you hear some guy fell out of that thing?” “No way! Lets go ride it!” on the midways of Carowinds.

Anyway, the two Windseekers currently under construction are making decent progress. Both just hit the milestone of their first piece of tower being installed and have “gone vertical.” With the theme park season just around the corner, it’ll be fun to watch these things fly up. Hopefully they’ve worked out the kinks from the last set and these two will have a smooth season.

So, here are some pictures of the “30 or so feet of OMGs”:

Carowinds (via Carowinds Amusement Park on Facebook)

Kings Dominion (via @KingsDominionVA on Twitter)

Dollywood’s Wild Eagle is one of the most anticipated attractions for the 2012 season. The B&M Wingrider has been quietly, andcertainly quickly chugging along with construction and, what may come as a surprise to some, track work was recently completed. The final piece was lowered into place last week. These B&M’s seem to fly up in no time!

Photo: Dollywood

Along with...

Cedar Fair has announced the purchase of 61 acres adjacent to Carowinds parking lot, which will “enable the Company to achieve future development and expansion of the facility.” For anyone familiar with the Carowinds area, according to the Charlotte Observer, the land is located between the season pass parking lot and I-77.

There are a long list of possibilities for the land,...

Dollywood’s upcoming S&S Screamin’ Swing, “Barnstormer” is already well into construction. It appears that most of the rides structure is now up, and work of the surrounding “barn” is now underway. At this rate, there’s pretty much no question that the ride will be ready for the park’s opening day. You can see more photos on the Barstormer website.

Are you excited...

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The first 2 Cedar Fair parks out of the gate with their announcements today, Knott’s Berry Farm and Canada’s Wonderland have both announced “Windseeker”. The two $5 million rides are pretty much exactly the same, both 301 feet tall, spinning its 32, 2-seat swing arms at 8 rotations per minute. They even share the same blue/gray/yellow pain scheme.

Windseeker will be...