We used to camp at Kings island (they took out the campground a number of years ago) . The best time to go always seemed to be first thing Sunday morning. be in when they open. We were able to get off and on on a number of coaster every time.

I’m surprised at all the responses! It has been amazing to me as a coaster enthusiast at how these two hobbies seem to mend together. I know several other coaster enthusiasts that are also pinball collectors. Pretty cool!

I have been doing coaster trips for over 20 years now, so I’ll have to list some favorites just like the others!

Here is a BIG tip regarding Cedar Point. Sigh. This place has been my favorite for years. However, last year they decided to start offering tons of discounted tickets and discounted season passes. Though this is great that it gives people who may not have been able to afford to go before a chance, it has made the park more crowded than ever before. If you go, you need to go as early as possible and knock out a ride or two before the lines get real long. Cedar Point has always drawn huge crowds with long lines but the difference now is the implementation of the fast lane system which allows people to skip the lines by paying $100+ on top of their ticket price. Due to this, the lines move much slower than they used to because you have so many people paying to skip the regular line. Please give yourself a few days here if you go. Get there early, and head to Steel Vengeance first which is currently my favorite coaster then immediately go to Maverick which is right next to it. Maverick can have downtime issues and due to this and the slow moving line this can be one of the longest waits in the park (besides Steel Vengeance).

Two parks with probably the best all round package in the USA: Dollywood & Silver Dollar City. Not the most rides by any means but both parks each have one of the best wooden coasters out there (Lightning Rod, Outlaw Run). They also have friendly employees, great food, wonderful locations, and good shows if that’s your thing.

Classics: Check out Knoebels and Kennywood in PA. I saw others mention these so I won’t rehash everything.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg- Great selection of rides, theming, food.

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay- Some of the best coasters in the country and all with short waits if you go at the right time.

Six Flags Fiesta Texas- This to me is the best Six Flags park. It doesn’t feel like a Six Flags park it’s so much more. The Park President is THE best and cares about everything and everyone.

Holiday World- The best 1,2,3 punch for wood coasters. Free parking. Free soft drinks. Free sunscreen. Huge water park with awesome water coasters.

Kings Island- Several great coasters including the classic Beast wooden coaster. New this year is Orion, a steel coaster with a 300’ drop which is sure to be great. This park has improved so much over the last decade!

Other favorites:

Hersheypark
Six Flags Great Adventure
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Carowinds (Fury 325 is REAL good!)
Six Flags over Georgia

I left out the Disney parks and Universal which I also highly recommend but not so much for large coaster thrills (even though there are some). I’m sure im forgetting something!

Are you looking to do an all coaster trip or interested in other stuff too? If so you might be better off hanging along the coast rather than the mid-west. How many weeks are you thinking? That would be a long haul for 1 week. Seems like most friends that have taken a trip to Australia or NZ spent at least 2 weeks there.

Cedar Point is THE Best amusement park! 2 days is what you will need. Been going here my whole life. Been all over the world and this park is worth the low ticket cost for all you can ride.

I just finished booking my son's and my first "big boy" trip after years of doing WDW. Last year at WDW we did a day at Busch Gardens Tampa and thoroughly loved it. I hadn't been there since ~1995 and though he wouldn't go on the bigger rides (Kumba, Sheikra, Montu) we loved rides like Cheetah Hunt and Cobra Curse. It made the subsequent days on rides like Thunder Mountain a bit boring, though we love going.

We have Six Flags New England locally and this year he did all the big kid rides (Batman, Riddler, Wicked Cyclone which is amazing, Superman...etc.) so in April we're going to do our first "non-Disney" Disney trip as we're hitting all the parks that aren't Disney - Busch, Universal, Islands, and Seaworld.

Having said that, I can't stress enough how good of a value Busch/Seaworld is compared to Universal. Our one day at Busch last year was a package that included a stay at a nice hotel down the road with a decent breakfast included, parking at the park, and both of our tickets included. Package price was $205. If you figure the hotel was about $150, parking was $25, and having a similar breakfast would be about $25, basically park admission was free.

Universal is a must for us as we're in the last Harry Potter book, and there's a closing window for an 11yr old wanting to run around with his dad with magic wands. So I booked a 3-night, 4-day package at Universal's Royal Pacific (3rd time I'll have stayed there) with park-to-park tickets for 4 days. I opted for the Royal Pacific because it comes with their unlimited FastPass free (included only from their top 3 hotels). We are going during my son's April vacation and I don't want to wait in lines. I also checked out their value resorts, but after you add in the Universal Express pass, it's virtually negligible in cost, so why not stay at the premium resort and be next to the CityWalk.

The Universal package was stupid expensive, and realized it was cheaper to go Mon-Thurs vs. the Wed-Sat I was planning so I went for the cheaper days. Still, the 3-night stay, 4-day ticket w/ park hopper and the included unlimited FastPass cost a whopping $2550! I'm still ok with it because it's going to be a blast and we will have those memories forever.

Meanwhile, our Busch package I got for the rest of the trip reminded me of their incredible value. We're staying down the road from Busch at a very nice hotel from Fri-Mon and will go to Busch Sat-Sun. Also included is their basic FastPass which gives 1 cut per ride per day. There are enough rides there that this is ok with me, especially with 2 days there. Also included is breakfast, parking at the park, AND A 14 DAY PASS to both Busch and SeaWorld. This means now our last day or two at SeaWorld after Universal are included and they also include the basic FastPass there. Total package for the 3 nights hotel, the 14 day ticket over 2 parks with basic FastPass was only about $700. When I add on a hotel for the time after Universal when we'll be at SeaWorld, it's about $1000 total.

For thrill seekers going to FL, Busch/Seaworld is a no-brainer. Between Kumba, Montu, Cheetah, Sheikra, the new Iron Gwazi (hopefully open when there), and a bunch of other rides at Busch, and Mako, Manta, Kraken, and the new Ice Breaker (also hopefully open) at SeaWorld, that's a ton of thrill rides. Then factor that I'm basically spending $1000 for 5 nights and a bunch of days in the parks with the FastPass and other perks, that's a killer value. Meanwhile I'm spending 2.5x that for half the time at Universal and would've been even more if I chose the days I initially planned instead of the Mon-Thurs I chose. Fuck, Harry Potter allows Universal to rake me over the coals.

Another thing this (obviously biased) Sandusky native has always like about Cedar Point is that it's NOT a theme park. While there are some individual rides and areas that are themed (most generically instead of with a particular brand), the park itself is not themed - Cedar Point is its own brand. The closest thing I've ever heard to a theme was the phrase you'll hear the ride operators say when they tell you that Cedar Point is "America's Roller Coast." That's my favorite theme of all.

This thing will jar your bones and loosen your fillings. Definitely a nice variety of coasters at Hershey park. Great bear is also an awesome "ski lift" style one like Alpengeist in Busch gardens.
Like others around pa I have to give a shout out to Kneobels. The family not only runs a world class operation with small town charm, they operate a wood mill that provided the lumber for, and built themselves, the twister and flying turns.

My son has a channel where he reviews coasters. He is an extreme enthusiast but we have not been to as many parks as some of the other youtubers. We do have Magic Mountain and Knott's coming up in March.

Here is a link to his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzW6_DrFdkcCgis0viovL8A

Knoebels in central pa is really nice as well

Pennsylvania has a fantastic mix of new and classic coasters amongst its parks

Kennywood just built Sreel Curtain with the world's tallest inversion, but they also have Phantoms Revenge. And 3 classic woodies.

Just north of Kennywood is Conneaut Lake park, home of Blue Streak. A classic woodie with an attitude. Great coaster with a Century Flyer train.

Even further north in Erie is Waldameer, home of Ravine Flyer II and a few other coasters

Hershey is set to open Candymonium this year to compliment their other 14 coasters. Grear variety here, but can get crowded

Knoebels had the best wooden coaster Phoenix, an airtime machine. They also have Twister, Impulse, Black Diamond and the only wooden bobsled coaster Flying Turns.

You have the worlds oldest opersting coaster at Lakemont park in Altoona. Leap the Dips, a must for all coaster enthusiasts. You can also catch Skyliner here, John Allen's first full size coaster. You catch mega air out of the first drop!

Cant forget Dorney Park in Allentown and also Dutch Wonderland near Hershey/Lancaster area.

I think two would be more than enough time.

Cedar Point has a sister park here in Charlotte called Carowinds. While it doesn't quite measure up to Cedar Point in the volume of rides it does have some that are world-class in the Fury 325a and Intimidator.

It depends on the time, schedule, goals and financial resources screaminr has for the trip. Given the significant travel distance to just get to the U.S. and the large number of parks worth seeing, those factors will have to be balanced accordingly. Plus it might be wise to take Saturdays and Sundays off not only to avoid the most crowded days, but also to schedule intentional downtime. Don’t want to burn yourself out with an “always on” plan. I’d even suggest arriving in the U.S. on a Saturday and then taking the rest of that Saturday and all day Sunday off just to deal with jet lag, time zone change, etc. Then dive into your first park on Monday.

Cedar Fair offers a platinum annual pass, which allows entry to all of their parks for a season. It’s rather inexpensive, depending on how many days you have for doing parks. One summer, we left home after work, Arrived in Cincinnati in time to sleep and do Kings island in the morning for the day. We then drove to Carowinds for a day at that park. Kings Dominion was next up on the trip, then we circled back to Cedar Point on the way home. On travel days, the passes allowed for evening entry to look around the park, try a few rides, and set up a game plan for the next full day. Depending on your travel itinerary, they have a really good set of parks, spread across the country.

You could slip in the DC area six flags also, the Wild One is a very good ride and there's a couple other things of note. Kind of a dump, usually zero lines, worth stopping by.

So for PoV’s Theme Park Review is very good (you just have to accept the guy’s “Weeeeeeee” through most of them). He has a lot of older videos on coasters that are now defunct and newer ones he usually does multi angles and typically hard mounted. Also for oddball Asian coasters you’ve never heard of MiyaPA Masane has some incredible videos.

I’d also HIGHLY recommend Defunctland and Expedition Theme Park for history videos. Both similar in content, different in delivery, but great.

This, 100%. Not the biggest, fastest rides, but Free parking, FREE admission, affordable food and drinks. This is truly a blast from the past, with some worthy coasters. I live 15 minutes from Dorney Park in Allentown, and would rather drive the 2 hours to Knoebels.

Chris

I agree! I dont know why people hate on this park. We went last October, zero lines and great coasters. Got to ride Batwing, 1 of only 2 remaining Vekoma flying dutchmans.
Superman RoS is a great ride as well.

I would add in a day each at both Dollywood and Kentucky Kingdom (Kentucky Kingdom would really only need to be 5-6 hours on the way back from Dollywood to Holiday World).

As I mentioned above, Theme Park Review is one of the more comprehensive PoV channels as Robb has traveled globally for years. If you don't want to spend $6K on your next pin, Theme Park Review just announced travel packages to both Europe and Asia to hit up some of the major parks and some of the smaller ones. You'll probably end up on his next series of PoV's.

https://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77317

Not a fan of banned from ACE Robb Alvey. He may be well traveled but he thinks himself the only expert on rides.

I agree with this as someone who has also been to most of these places. The Beast at night is more than spectacular. Orion looks to be great.
Season pass hold for Cedar Point most of my life and they’re coasters are the best along with their park cleanliness/professionalism.

Agreed. My mom always told me not so say anything bad about people, so here are my positive thoughts on Robb... Um...well...Any other topics to discuss?

Just like when Disney under that moron ex-GAP CEO Pressler went from scheduled preventative maintenance and parts replacement to "replace only when needed" and killed people on Thunder Mountain Railroad. Disney had it right for decades before he got there, but his extensive experience in denim told him there was a better way...and people died.

When I saw the TPR recommendation I was like....ohhh no lol

Check out CoasterForce instead especially their newer videos!

That's an awesome piece of history. Does that guy really stand the entire the entire ride? That's crazy! LOL

Sure it's not the fastest, but still. Why have lap bars then?

Edit: I see it looks like that they are running the brakes, is that correct?

Chris

Yes, the guy standing is the brakeman.

Michigans Adventure is a smaller Cedar Park but has a few nice coasters, short lines, a nice water park with access included and my favorite out and back wood coaster...

EA532748-3664-449E-A64B-A9A588BFE5EC-3383-0000061BD8BC7EBB.png

That is one hell of an out and back! And a nice helix at the end too! I will have to check that out.

Chris

Sorry man!

ca0ff3ee1ad2332ab131ad3116380c3e (resized).jpg

It's also (now) my favorite out-and-back wooden coaster - and I've never ridden it as I hadn't heard of it before!

Two things I found really awesome while riding it for the first time (virtually):

1. It seemed like every time I was expecting to enter the turnaround, there was another hill first (happily fooled me TWICE!)
2. On the back leg, the "step up" hill fooled me - I was in my rhythm of "up then down" but when I was anticipating "down" that one climbed UP the REST of the hill and THEN went down. Love it, love it love it!!!

On the return there is also a moment where the track has a side to side twist that jostles you pretty good...hard to appreciate on video but on the ride you will know!!

Are any of the theme parks open this summer?

Just a note to roller coaster fans. Lakemont Park, home of the world's oldest roller coaster is open this summer. And Leap the Dips is ready. The rides are open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays thru August.
If your traveling thru Central PA, you can knock that one off your list.