Episode 278 - Random Tangents 1

Something new we want to start this year is the Random Tangents podcast episodes where we discuss and have questions about things going on in the amusement park and coaster world.

Today we have three.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the 125 Roller Coaster Challenge Trimmed and Staple Podcast. I'm Paul, and today we are going to do something we did in the past. Basically, we like to call it a random tangent, where we uh pick between three to five different things that's going on in the coaster world and talk about it and give you our thoughts and uh ideas and the whole nine yards. But before we get started, guys, we are trying to get to 10,000 subscribers this year on the YouTube channel. We're off to a pretty good start. We're about 7,700, uh, only 2,300 more to go. Sounds like a lot, but you know what? We are dropping um, you know, new um content about two to three times a week of with full length. And then, of course, you know, if you like shorts, there's the membership option for 199, or check us out on um all the different social medias tickety talk, uh, Facebook, and even Instagram and stuff like that. And if you want to know where we're going to be, guys, check out X. That's uh 125 Roller Coast. No ER on X. However, for all of our other social media, we keep it very simple for you. It's one, two, five, roller coaster. There you go. Now we did all that stuff. Let's talk about random tangents. And today we've got four. Four random tangents I'd like to talk about there. And the first one is the enchanted parks. So if you do not know, uh Six Flags spun off or sold. We don't know exactly what that is. If you do, let me know in the comment section here. Uh, eight of their parks. Now, a few of those are the slitter bonds, uh, but the big ones, of course, are Michigan's Adventure, Worlds of Fun, uh, Six Flags St. Louis, also Six Flags uh Great Escape. La Ronde kind of got spun off, but they're not really part of Enchanted Parks. Uh, they're actually um with the uh the group that used to have the Kennywood, uh, because it's international on that end there too. So these parks have been split off, gone from the group. And a lot of people are like, what's going to happen with them? Well, they actually finally did something on the Enchanted Park staying front there. They actually have a pass now for not just uh the Six Flags uh St. Louis Park or Worlds of Fun park, but also a group uh for all of those parks. So Worlds of Fun and St. Louis. If you're in Missouri, um, I think it's like $69 for this pass that gets you into all of them. That is a huge breakthrough. And also a nice little uh um chunk of change there that you're uh saving there from the Six Flag stuff. Um now, from what I understand, if you have a Six Flags membership or pass, they're still gonna honor it this year. Now, if I'm wrong, please let me know. I was looking up some stuff, I was getting mixed singles, but from what I gathered from the press release and the information, if you are actually um bought, say you bought a season pass for Six Flags St. Louis and now it's no longer Six Flags St. Louis, um, that pass still works for this year. And of course, you can probably upgrade to the multi-Atchanted Parks pass. Um, now I'm curious. I have a uh membership, a legacy membership there. I have uh Diamond Elite VIP, other people have Diamond Elite, some people have, you know, whatever the legacy memberships are for Six Flags. I'm wondering if those are going to be um accepted at the Enchanted Parks for this year. Um, I'm gonna definitely reach out to probably Great Escape. That's probably the best chance I have to get somebody on the phone here. But like I said, uh that is big news. A lot of people are like, okay, did they move them in here just to dissolve the parks? My gut, and that's why this is a random tangent. I'm giving you my thoughts with this, not just information that has been given. My thoughts are this is a great sign for those eight parks because of the fact why would they merge them together like this if they weren't going to keep them? Uh, you know, it I my thought would be if they're lists looking to liquidate on that end or sell them off one by one, they wouldn't have created the enchanted pass. So the fact that they are investing in not just a park here, a park there, and like I said, some of these worlds of fun is you know, Kansas City's park there. You got St. Louis's park with St. Louis, uh Six Lags St. Louis. Um, these are decent parks. Uh Valley Fair was part of Cedar Fair. Uh the fact that that got spun off. Michigan's Adventure was always the bottom feeder, but still a solid park, and it has a great, I always heard it would have made money up there. And of course, Six Lights Great Escape is a fantastic um park right outside of Albany. Um, I I'm kind of a little bummed that Darien Lake and Dawny Park didn't get added in here. Uh, maybe it might have been better for them if they were part of Enchanted Parks, but that is my gut is this is a good thing for these parks. It shows that I I think the ownership who bought them is looking to keep them, which is a fantastic thing. Now, second random tangent is something that uh kind of hurts my heart a little bit here. Um, I was notified by uh one of our viewers or uh subscribers that they reached out to me. He's like, hey, what's going on with Niagara Amusement Park up there on um the uh island over there in uh Niagara, you know, basically right on the Canadian border there. Uh used to be Martin's Fantasy Island. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, well, they're no longer taking tickets and everything's like wait to be seen and the calendar's not there anymore. That's not a good sign. That is not a good sign that right when you should be launching, you know, and also from what I understand, they're not hiring. So this kind of breaks my heart because if you have watched our channel or listened to our podcast before, I love Niagara. I love Niagara Amusement Park so much that my go-to hat, I have, you know, maybe one, maybe two, I have one, but maybe two hats that when I'm walking around the parks, the one I go to is Niagara Amusement Park. Every park I go to, I'm advertising this park. I have been there since they opened up the gate again. It was just a water park. And then I've once or twice a year, I make sure I go to Niagara Amusement Park. But the sad part is now I do go during the week. I do have to, you know, disclaimer here, I do go during the week. So I don't know how it is on a weekend, but every time I went to Niagara Amusement Park, even though they had Silver Comet running great and they invested in uh getting the mouse coaster up and running and uh expanding out here, and and you know, they have all these parts for other rides in the parking lot and all the love care. I mean, it's a beautiful location, the whole nine yards on Grand Island. I don't see the crowds. And I know last year they started doing like discount, like you can be uh you could ride, and you can see the shows, but you couldn't ride or something like that. Um, you know, like a spectator pass, and then I know they're doing Grand Island discounts. If you're from the Grand Island area, uh you got discounts, they do the same thing with Clementon. And they're trying what they can, but I always said if you don't support the park, it's not going to be around. And I'll be honest with you, my go is telling me the one that was going to possibly disappear first would be Clementon. I'm wondering if the Sahara Sam's merger with that is helping Clementing because Niagara had everything running and everything was going good and everything was beautiful and everything was landscaped great. But when I went to Clementon last year, most of their dry rides were not running. Uh the carousel was uh was moved, but it wasn't running. Um they had a space for a big ride in the middle. Um, you know, that didn't, you know, I didn't I don't know if that came because I always go early in the season. I don't know if that started moving there. Uh Hellcat had to be is getting RMC'd, not tying tracked, but um, or not tying tracked, not um IBOX track or anything like that. It's getting you know RMCs coming in there and working on making it you know functional again. And the log flame was down. So if you would have put a gun to my head and says one of the IB parks is going to disappear, I would have definitely picked Clementon. So if you know anything about what's going on with Niagara, anything that's going on with Niagara, please let me know in the comments section, you know, on Instagram, Facebook, anything like that. Any information you have, I would love to know just because I love this park. And the fact that this park um is not currently uh selling tickets tells me that it might be on its way out, you know, or maybe taking a hiatus for a year. I don't know, but if you know anything about it, let me know. And the third random tangent has to do with Six Flags Great Adventure. Now, I might have been wrong here. So you got Project Purple, which is coming along really good. I was there on Monday, I'm filming this on the 10th. Um, to drop it on the 11th, uh 12th, probably. Um I'm gonna drop this episode. And I was there about a week ago, and the amount of track work they're doing is fantastic. I uh when you go on El Toro, you can see the whole thing from up there, and it was looking pretty good. Now, I don't know what it is, I'm hoping that it's not what people are saying with a spinner that goes upside down with launches. Um I I that might be too much for a 52-year-old body to take, but um, it's gonna be what it's gonna be. But the big thing for me is the boardwalk, and they have five rides coming in, and I thought they all were coming from Six Flags America. However, I did notice something. So um we all know that uh Raging Cajun is gonna be called called uh Barrels of Fun, and that might be my 400th coaster at the rate I'm going. I have gotten no new credits this year uh with any of my travels, and it's already April. Um so that might be number 400 there. But then you also knew that the Frontier Flyers, uh, no, the Burbist Street Flyers or whatever that was, uh, is now coming and going to be called the Flyers over at um Great Adventure. You also know that uh Steam Warlord is turning into Twists and Turns or something like that. That was going to be saved. And then the Wave Swinger is turning into the Wave Swinger. I thought the Roundup that they were putting in the boardwalk area was Riddle Me This, which was over by the Harley Quinn area of the you know DC section of right next to Harley Quinn, the big pendulum ride over at Six Flags America. However, when I was walking, I remember they had a roundup. And I was walking around, I'm like, oh, that roundup's gone. So let me know in the comment section, is that a Six Flags America roundup? And then I'm trying to think, you know, what other rides might be saved uh from the death of Six Flags America. Like, I do believe that uh Hurricane Harbor Maryland had a brand new water coaster, and I I cannot believe that that water coaster would not be used either at King's Dominion, Soak City, or at Hurricane Harbor over at Great Adventure or another park. That was that came in the same year as the Steamwirler. So I find it incredible that they would get rid of something like that. Now, the rest of the water park, I don't think anything of that's going to be saved. I think the only thing that might be saved is um that water coaster. But, you know, is there a carousel that could be saved? Is there uh the kitty coaster? It could that be saved? Let me know in the comment section uh what you think on this end, uh on that end, with uh in regards to uh what else could be saved of Six Lags America. And let me know if you know they just moved the roundup into the boardwalk section there, or is it the Riddle Me This and they got rid of their other roundup because it was old and beat up. Let me know in the comment section if that is Six Flags America's roundup or if it's Great Adventures Roundup being relocated. So there are three random tangents, guys. This is a smaller episode, but the next episode we're going to do is all about our trip to King's uh King's Dominion, which was our first full-fledged amusement park that we got to do this year. So once again, guys, make sure you follow us if you're uh listening to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, anywhere like that. Make sure you follow us. We're doing two to three episodes a week. We like to keep it within 15 to a half hour. Uh, we like to do the quick hits. Uh sometimes we go to 40, sometimes this one's going to be maybe under 15. But uh we like to keep these short and sweet so you can listen to us on your drive home. Uh also uh make sure that um we are still keeping this on YouTube, but we're only going to do the three most recent episodes, and then we're going to kick them over to the members section. Uh the memberships are growing. Thank you guys so much. Uh, it's only $1.99. You can get uh podcasts, you get exclusive shorts, uh, you also get exclusive uh full-length videos, at least two a month. So if you like our content on YouTube, then membership is a great way to go. Or if you just want to, you know, support us in any way, that is fantastic. So, on all guys, this is Paul, and I can't wait to see you in the queue in 2015.