Six Flags Magic Mountain — The Los Angeles-area park will open the world's tallest pendulum ride, CraZanity, in the Boardwalk section of the park. Similar to the Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth Zamperla Giant Discovery that opened at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo this season, CraZanity will top that ride's maximum height of 147 feet with a record-setting 172-foot maximum height. The park announced earlier this month that it will switch to 365-day operation in 2018, becoming the first Six Flags park to be open every day of the year (weather permitting, of course).
Six Flags Fiesta Texas — The San Antonio park previously announced that it would install Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster, a Rocky Mountain Construction Raptor, a single-rail coaster with a 100-foot drop and top speed of 52 mph.
Six Flags Over Georgia — The park's Georgia Cyclone is getting an RMC make-over for 2018, Twisted Cyclone, featuring a 75-degree initial drop into a reverse cobra roll, three inversions and 10 airtime moments along 2,400 feet of track.
Six Flags Great Adventure — The New Jersey park will debut Cyborg Cyber Spin, which will be America's first 3D Tourbillon spinning ride, a triple box design that allows the gondola to spin around three separate axes.
Six Flags Great America — The Chicago-area park will open what it is calling the world's largest loop coaster, a 100-foot Larson Giant Loop. (See the comments for an explanation why the park did not announce the name of this ride.)
Six Flags New England — The Massachusetts park getting HARLEY QUINN Spinsanity, a 147-foot Zamperla Giant Discovery.
Six Flags Over Texas — The Dallas-area park is also getting HARLEY QUINN Spinsanity, but this installation appears to be another Tourbillon 3D spinner.
If you focus on the seats, you're basically tracing a sphere on Six Flags new 3D spinner rides. (And I doubt they'll run in that lightning!) pic.twitter.com/uve2V3UmpL
— Theme Park Insider (@ThemePark) August 31, 2017
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom — The San Francisco Bay-area park is keeping the theme rolling with HARLEY QUINN Crazy Coaster, which appears to be the first installation of the Skyline Skywarp.
Six Flags America and Six Flags St. Louis are getting Hurricane Harbor upgrades.
All the new @SixFlags rides, announced this morning: https://t.co/FhsajmHB4C pic.twitter.com/3BnqvlaGIr
— Theme Park Insider (@ThemePark) August 31, 2017
Six Flags also is kicking off its annual Season Pass sale today, offering up to 70% discounts on pass prices, as well as free upgrades to Gold Level. Visit your local park on sixflags.com for the details.
What looks good to you?
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For weeks, they have been hyping that "a storm is coming" and showing statutes wearing little life vests. This new coaster is also going to be in the Mardi Gras section of the park. I think it is called the Hurricane.
The optics literally and figuratively are not good for Six Flags Great America.
Six Flags is definitely taking advantage of the DC licenses, but I do wish they did a little more in organizing attractions and theming the areas around the DC-themed rides. I don't begrudge them using Harley Quinn, but I do think they're overdoing it a bit, especially since the most widely recognizable version of the character right now (Suicide Squad) is from a movie that is about as non-family friendly as it gets and the hateful nature of the character from that movie is not what I would personally want associated with a theme park attraction.
As for the DC license, it's their big draw and obviously they're going to use it. Six Flags is heavily invested in the teen crowd and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a breakout character.
What really surprises me is that they didn't add any more versions of Justice League around the country, or any other unique dark ride. Six Flags got tons of accolades for the rides, but just like Cedar Fair did after Voyage to the Iron Reef, they abandoned the dark ride concept before applying it across the entire chain.
You also need to remember that a lot of these parks are running out of usable real estate or have holes in their current park footprint that just can't accommodate a major coaster installation. In those situations, tear down rides is not typically part of Six Flags' M/O, so they're filling in with small flat rides instead.
I do think the RMC Raptor - Wonder Woman and Twisted Cyclone look like substantial additions for 2018, and while Cedar Fair probably has them beat for must-see attractions for 2018, Six Flags will continue to draw big crowds.
Also, Great America is a key case of the space issues, they've had to remove coasters in order to fit in new ones because of the lack of space and some fights against that but it's how things work out.
As for the Justice League rides, take this with a grain of salt but here is what I heard: The original contract was for 7 installations, with a cost per ride in the $10-15 million range. Six Flags did consider ordering additional rides, but it would have cost more per installation for various reasons (fewer rides on the contract, technological advances, etc). This, combined with the fact that maintenance on the rides is far more expensive than most coasters, and that most installations have experienced significant popularity drops after their opening season led Six Flags to look at other options.
Great America usually get something pretty significant most years and it looks like that will continue. While it isn't the flashiest, Great America takes pride at having some different and interesting coasters. This will fit into the profolio nicely.
The only reservation I have about this is location and size. This is going in a pretty small footprint and this is going to tower over almost everything on that side of the park. Great America has generally been kept nice looking by visuals. They do put a lot of work into keeping the buildings pretty spotless. Having a coaster track just tower over the railroad bridge next to it might look....odd
Everybody get something at Six Flags while over at Cedar Fair, some parks always gets something "the have parks" while "the have not parks" get squat. (Michigan's Adventure and Dorney Park for example)
So I ask you this regardless of what is your home park? As a fan, which do you prefer??
However, the 2 chains are a bit different in how they approach their guests. A Six Flags season pass (regardless of park) entitles holders to admission to any park in the chain. There's no up-charge for this benefit. They do charge different amounts for different park season passes (Great Adventure, Great America, and Magic Mountain passes are all more expensive than America, Fiesta Texas, and Georgia), but the nationwide access is the same. You do have to live within a specific radius of your "home" park, which is why a lot of folks from Baltimore, MD and Wilmington, DE purchase cheaper passes to Six Flags America, but spend more days at Six Flags Great Adventure, where passes are almost twice as expensive.
Cedar Fair sells individual park season passes, which are typically more expensive than most Six Flags parks' season passes BTW, but also offers a Platinum Pass at a significant increase in price that allows those guests access to all Cedar Fair parks.
So, while financially, I really like the way Six Flags does their passes, especially since I live closest to the park in the chain that has the cheapest season passes, I can see why Cedar Fair does things the way they do, and from a purely business perspective, it makes a lot more sense - invest where you're likely to get the most bang for your buck. I would notice that while Six Flags does make sure to give every park something new every year, the most popular parks routinely get the biggest additions.
Cedar Point - famous for being the roller coaster capital of the world. Needs continuous investment in record breaking coasters (but also need to be more reliable, hence no Intamin's). Also in such a competitive hospitality marketplace the hotels are way out of date and the park looked out of date (especially the kids areas) so those needed to be freshened up.
Carowinds - a booming marketplace that needed more development on all fronts.
CGA - was on the brink of becoming a parking lot, Kinzel neglected it because he was going to sell it to the 49ers developers but Ouimet saw it could be a decently profitable park with some new attractions and freshening up.
Canada's Wonderland - another huge market that needed some major new attractions and family rides.
Knotts - Was in an identity crises and needed to get back to its roots to attract people back there. Park needed to be freshened up and atmosphere restored - what tourists thought Knotts was not really what it actually was.
Michigans Adventure - a park that attracts families with kids, not much potential return on investment for big new rides.
Valleyfair - a mediocre park that will get a new ride once in a while and will continue to be mediocre.
Worlds of Fun - a mediocre park in a a mediocre market that will get a new ride once in awhile and continue to be mediocre.
Worlds of Fun - a mediocre park in a a mediocre market that will get a new ride once in awhile and continue to be mediocre.
KI & KD are a bit harder to categorize, big parks with good markets that seemed to be on a good track. So basically keep doing what's been working.
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