Review: Hurler at Carowinds & Kings Dominion
In 1994, the Paramount-owned Kings Dominion and Carowinds opened two wooden roller coasters dubbed, Hurler. The ride’s original theme was connected to the 1992 movie and Saturday Night Live skit, Wayne’s World. Back when it opened the sparse warehouse-like station had a few exterior touches to make it look more like a Hollywood studio building. The most overt tie-in was the video of Wa...[Read More]
Remembering ShockWave at Six Flags Great America
While most posts on Coaster Critic focus on “what’s new” in the world of theme parks, I wanted to take a moment to highlight something we seldom think about—defunct rides. Whether it’s the short-lived rush of Hypersonic XLC or the existence of the mysterious Tomb Raider: The Ride, these thrill machines may be removed from park maps, but they’ll always live on in our collective hearts. My original ...[Read More]
Carowinds to Close Thunder Road in July
Yesterday, Carowinds announced that they will be closing Thunder Road. It is one of the few remaining wooden twin track racing roller coasters. After 39 wonderful years and nearly 40 million scream-filled rides, Thunder Road will give its last race on July 26. The ride is being retired to make room for future family-fun attractions. Please join us this summer as we say good-bye to this iconic coas...[Read More]
Koch Family Buys Former Alabama Adventure
Last month, Koch Family Parks, purchased Splash Adventure and its former amusement park area Alabama Adventure. Dan Koch referenced 5 year plans that include saving one of my all-time favorite woodies Rampage. Dan Koch, president of Splash Adventure, said in an interview today he wants to bring back the Rampage wooden rollercoaster that was once the focal point of the park and garnered national ac...[Read More]
Poll: Great Adventure Removes Rolling Thunder – Classic or Clunker?
Six Flags Great Adventure to Remove Rolling Thunder I’m still getting caught up with all of the Six Flags announcements. In the Zumanjaro Drop of Doom announcement, I noticed the mention of Rolling Thunder’s removal: To make room for the newest addition to Six Flags Great Adventure, we must bid farewell to a classic. Rolling Thunder, our classic wooden coaster, will close to the public...[Read More]
Rumor – Cedar Fair Planning to Remove Arrow Looping Coasters
If an interesting rumor from Screamscape turns out to be true, that aging Arrow looper at the Cedar Fair park near you may be on the way out. Here’s what Lance posted last week: (11/6/12) According to an anonymous spy source, Cedar Fair is said to making plans to retire Vortex at Kings Island (1987) and Anaconda at Kings Dominion (1991) sometime in the next few years. Apparently they seem to...[Read More]
Hurricane Sandy Damaged New Jersey’s Casino Pier
Casino Pier Amusement Park Sustains Heavy Damage from Hurricane Sandy Images surfacing on the Web have shown part of Seaside Heights, New Jersey’s Casino Pier washed away by Hurricane Sandy. The aerial image below shows part of the pier ripped away and the Star Jet roller coaster now sitting in the ocean. Star Jet was a compact E&F Miler roller coaster that RCDB is already listing as def...[Read More]
What Are the Best & Worst Defunct Amusement Parks?
A while back I asked you about your worst defunct and best defunct coasters were. A reader suggested a similar post about defunct amusement parks. And after my last post about Freestyle Music Park appearing on Revolution I thought it’d be fun to hear from you on the topic. Thankfully, there haven’t been a lot of amusement parks go defunct in the last decade or so. Here are a few that c...[Read More]
Abandoned Freestyle/Hard Rock Amusement Park on NBC’s Revolution
People are fascinated by abandoned amusement parks. It must be the juxtaposition of a normally happy place looking sad, abandoned and creepy. One of the most recently abandoned parks in the country was the backdrop of recent episode of NBC’s Revolution. The show is based on an apocalypse caused by the end of electricity and in turn all electronic devices. Last week, our heroes found themselv...[Read More]
What’s the Worst Defunct Coaster You’ve Ridden?
Last week, I asked you about the best defunct roller coasters you’ve ridden. This time let’s take a look at the other side. Good Riddance! Kings Dominion’s air-powered launch coaster, Hypersonic XLC wasn’t egregiously bad, but it was overhyped, way too short, and often out of commission. For those reasons I wasn’t sad at all to see it go. Hypersonic was crammed into t...[Read More]
What’s the Best Defunct Coaster You’ve Ridden?
Roller coasters like Wildcat, Disaster Transport, and Son of Beast will be or have already given their final rides this year. With all of these roller coasters retiring in 2012, it got me thinking about the best roller coasters that I’ve ridden that are now no longer with us. Let’s discuss our favorite defunct coaster this week and least favorite next week. It’s So Hard to Say Go...[Read More]
Happy Roller Coaster Day 2012
It’s August 16th, National Roller Coaster Day. On this day 114 years ago, Edwin Prescott patented a looping roller coaster, which later became the Loop-the-Loop at Coney Island. There’s information out there on the interwebs that lazily report this as the day that the first roller coaster was patented. From what I’m gathering, this day was tied to Prescott’s patent for a lo...[Read More]