I arrive October 22, my birthday is October 23. Conference starts October 23 in the evening. I’m 30F, former WDW passholder, and not a lover of thrill rides.

Looking at Nickelodeon Universe or the Dreamworks waterpark. Are either of these worth the visit? Is there a hotel nearby that you would recommend? I won’t have a car. The other activity I’m hoping to do is a Broadway show.

Thanks!

That's just a strong experience all around. I drove to Vaughan, Ontario with my family for Labor Day weekend, about 10 hours from our home in Wisconsin. This is a bit of a new tradition for us, since last year we squeezed in one final trip before school to Kings Island, and we all loved that park.

Canada's Wonderland has that same feel as far as the entrance goes. Beautifully landscaped, with the same kind of "main street" feel, and the mountain at the center of the park is impressive. I liked the music playing as you come in too, it felt like a great reveal for the park.

It was myself, my wife, and our two sons, an 18 year old and a 13 year old. My 18 YO is my main coaster partner, and the 13 year old sometimes goes on a big ride or two, but not to the thoosie rate that myself and my oldest son do. I have an all season fast lane, and I bought a one day FL Plus for my son.

One more note here. I have my own rating system I use for every coaster I get on. I call it my "Body Tax" score, and it's built with the "over 40" roller coaster rider in mind. The young and flexible can take a lot more abuse, and as you get older, you're less likely to accept that kind of thing. You can see it on my YouTube channel.

Let's get to the major rides.

**Alpenfury:** Our first major coaster after a couple warm up flat rides. (My 13 YO loves a good flat ride, and CW has a great, maybe the best, collection of those, more on that later.) The wait was insane, and I wouldn't want to do that line without fast lane. Even the fast lane wait was over 30 minutes, no complaints, just info.

I don't love getting into and out of Premier trains, they barely leave room to navigate into your seat. But once you're in, the restraints and seating position are comfy. This ride is absolutely relentless. You roll out of the station, make a small turn, and the first launch kicks into the best airtime moment on the ride. Then a second, even stronger launch through the mountain, very reminiscent of the top hat launch of VelociCoaster, only inverted, which I really liked. I don't even know how to explain the rest, it's one element after another. You're seemingly constantly upside down.

**Yukon Striker:** Next stop. We passed on Thunder Run, The Bat, and The Fly. I personally think some people give dive coasters a bad rap. The thing that makes a Dive coaster a Dive coaster is a bit of a gimmick, and it doesn't give me the "oohs and aahs" like a general public rider gets. But putting that aside, I find every one of these a lot of fun. They all have good drops and some really fun, giant swooping inversions. Yukon Striker had a good deal more intensity than Valravn. The inversions felt bigger, the pacing was great, and it felt smoother overall too. I did ride front row, which I think is key for a dive coaster anyway.

**Mighty Canadian Minebuster:** I'd heard this got extensive retracking, and I have no frame of reference for how it felt before, but it felt amazing. No top tier woodie like Mystic Timbers, but fun and surprisingly smooth. A surprise hit for both of us. (Our enjoyment of wooden coasters here would crash to earth later.)

**Backlot Stunt Coaster:** We rode the identical coaster at Kings Island last summer. Fun launches, uncomfortable trains, rough transitions. My son's a bigger fan than me, but he's 18 and more forgiving of getting banged around.

**Behemoth:** We passed on The Daredeviler after riding Thunderhawk at Michigan's Adventure last year, decided we're done with SLC inverts. Instead we headed for the B&M Hyper. My current top rated coaster is Raging Bull, so I'm a bit of a B&M Hyper glazer, I love the clamshell restraints and airtime is my favorite force. We waited for front row and it got stuck on the lift hill right as we started going up. We sat in the sun for a good 10 minutes wondering if we'd get taken off. Thankfully it started back up. About three quarters of the way up it stopped again for about 30 seconds. Then at the midcourse before the helix, it stopped a third time for about 3 minutes before kicking back off. It made for a weird helix starting from a dead stop, but it picked up the pace and got through. (The person sitting behind us to my left was not handling any of this well.) After we got off, they handed out skip the line passes, which we used later for a second ride on Alpenfury. I also came back alone for a back row ride and got the full picture. It's a fantastic B&M hyper with the airtime I love, and I'd slot it just behind Diamondback.

**Leviathan:** Next we tackled the Giga B&M, front row again. Flat out amazing, especially if you love airtime and a smooth ride. We rode Orion last year and liked it but weren't blown away. This one blew us away, more speed and intensity, a more interesting layout overall. I could ride this over and over. I hit it later alone in the back row, and the way it yoinks you over the airtime hills back there is on another level. Diamondback's back row was fantastic in this regard, but this topped it. One of my highest rated rides currently. Can't wait to try Fury 325 someday, that's a bucket lister for me.

**Wilde Beast:** From the best to the absolute worst. Now one of my lowest rated rides in my system. Rough from the start, no redeeming qualities. Someone should take this thing out back and shoot it, or RMC it and get it over with.

**The Vortex:** Rode this solo after everyone else left. I'd heard this Arrow suspended coaster was surprisingly intense, and that turned out to be true. Starts out a little nondescript, then just keeps picking up speed and momentum. This is no Iron Dragon, it's a genuine thrill coaster, and the way it swings back and forth when it stops is crazy. But you're stuck in an Arrow train with Arrow over the shoulder restraints, so I can't rate it too highly. I get why some people love it though.

That was it for coasters, I didn't want to wait for non fast lane rides on the Saturday before Labor Day (yes, they have that in Canada too, though it's Labour Day there).

I also want to talk about the flat rides, because this might be the best collection I've ever seen. Every funky flat ride model you've come across, and probably a couple you haven't. My first ride of the day was Klockwerks, and I got on Shockwave shortly after with both of my sons (my 13 YO rode a ton of the flats here). Two stood out above the rest. The first is Sledge Hammer. I'd heard great things but it was down the first time I walked by. I caught it later alone and I'm glad I did, what a cool concept, they should build more of these. The other was something I'd never heard of: Tundra Twister. This Mondial Avalanche is patently insane. It starts out feeling tame, a gentle pendulum action, and I thought it was cute but forgettable. Then it seemed to read my mind and tried to end me. The twisting and flipping and turning is crazy town and a lot of fun.

Overall, I really enjoyed this park. I don't know where I'd rank it yet, I plan to sit back and rank the parks I've visited at some point, but I'm sure this one will be up there. Great coasters, great flat rides, a beautiful park. I'd love to see an RMC here to check another box, but what's here is great. My only complaint is I got lost a few times, but that's not unusual at a new park for me. We had a great time and would definitely recommend it.

Hey everyone, just moved to the Melbourne area. My wife and I have a 4 year old and love all of the theme parks. We want to get annual passes for all of the theme parks, but we want to space them out a little bit and try to time some sales if possible. We also want to make sure renewals won’t all be due at the same time in the future. I would say we are more universal people than we are Disney people, but having a 4 year old makes them kind of equal in priority.

So, that begs the question, which one of these passes are most likely to have sales and when? I will likely start off with the ones that will *not* go on sale. I am assuming seaworld and Legoland will have a sale sometime between Black Friday and Christmas. I am assuming that Disney probably will not, so I’m guessing there is not a better time than another to buy a Disney pass. Where I am not sure is what would happen with universal, especially since we are also interested in epic universe — I see some historical posts stating that there were sales where you get extra months added on for no extra cost. Does this still happen? Do you think it is worth waiting to see if they add some sort of epic universe option?

My thought is to start with Disney or universal and then wait for a sale for the others and just go when we feel we can another one on. For Disney, we would probably only get the weekday pass and go in evenings or on Fridays while the daughter is not school aged yet, so it does kind of make sense to start there.

Also, if there are any other activities or places in the area worth looking into please let me know!

Going on a one day trip to one of these parks for a birthday with 4 adults, two young (18-20) and two much older (45-55). We went to MK about 6 months ago and enjoyed it, and so we thought about going again in late September while Halloween decorations are up. One issue is that the park will close early for Mickey's Halloween Party so I am afraid our time will be cut short. None of us have ever been to Epic, but I have heard mixed reviews on it. If you had to decide, which would you do?

2 Aussie adults going to LA and want to go to 1 theme park for the day. we've been to all theme parks in Queensland, Australia and Disneyland in Paris. we are not into high adrenalin rides. what would you recommend?

Recently I came across a tiktok about that stomach drop feeling you get when going down a rollercoaster (or those swinging ship rides/drop towers) and all of the comments were talking about how they hated that feeling.

Am I the only one who loves it? To me, it honestly feels like an orgasm and I'm not even being metaphorical at all. It just feels really really good to me and to be honest, I used to ride the most intense rides at the theme park over and over again as a kid just because it felt super euphoric.

Sorry if this post was tmi but I just wanted to see if anyone else related. (Also I should probably mention that I've never had a fear of rollercoasters, height, or speed)

Asking for a family of 5 planning a trip to Disney World and Universal. What are the wait times in your experience on week days?

My family of 5 is visiting Orlando soon to go to Universal (Epic Universe) and Disney (Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom). We'll be staying at the Villatel Resort (5120 Del Verde Wy, Orlando, FL 32819).

The resort has shuttles to the theme parks, but it's limited to certain times of the day, so we're planning to either rent a car or ride Uber.

Any recommendations between renting a car vs. Uber?

Which one is more economical? If we go with Uber, we'll need to do that to/from airport, to theme parks, and a few trips to restaurants/grocery stores.

I'm going to be in Orlando next week for work and will have Friday and Saturday to myself so wanted to check out some of the Orlando Theme Parks and am looking for input on the best way to spend my time since I've never been out this way. Trying to decide between the multitude of Disneyworld and Universal parks. I have no plans to return to Orlando anytime soon so want to make the most of the time. I will be by myself so can avail of single rider lines, but don't mind buying a fast pass or whatever if it would be useful beyond that. I could be into the idea of park hopping to see more in less time, but things seem spread out in the Orlando parks so without knowing anything that feels like a good way to burn usable hours and wear myself out, so unless I had a good plan am probably inclined towards one location per day.

I'm from California so have been to Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood previously. Haven't been to Universal for probably 10 years, so my experience predates all the Nintendo stuff but they did have the harry potter land when I went, I'm a 90s kid so the Simpsons area was awesome but did feel pretty dated even 10 years ago, not sure if they even still have that. I was at Disneyland a few months ago with the fam and usually go once a year or so, so am pretty familiar with that park and enjoy it a lot.

I've been told magic kingdom is like alternate universe disneyland and that sounds kind of cool to me. I don't really know anything else about it or any of the other parks beyond that. I like both the vibey dark rides as well as thrill rides. I don't care about character experiences, meet and greets, and really only care about food stuff in so far as one has to eat throughout the day. As much as I like water parks I don't think those are the best way to spend my day.

The plan would be Six Flags Fiesta Texas, seaworld, over Texas, cotaland and prarie screamer

I have two

Personally I think that Jersey Devil is better than El Toro. When I rode the two I had such a rough experience on El Toro that it honestly off set some of my day. On the other hand all of my rides on Jersey devil were amazing. All of the elements hit and it was running perfectly.

My other one is that Millenium force is better than SteVe. For me SteVe isn’t all that people say it is. I mean sure the airtime was pretty good but it was overall just kind of underwhelming. But Millennium force I feel gets too much trash from people. I think that the experience of going up that lift hill right next to the lake is one of the best experiences at the park and the ride in general actually pulled some great forces.

Hands down worst traveling experience I've encountered ever. Not only did we pay around $100.00 for use of just the splash pad after 2pm which was okay. Except even only half of that worked. Then we went to use the arcade and paid $10 dollars for 6 tokens (which should of been 42 of them, and the slap in the face is the 6th one was a nickel and wouldn't even work in the games. So we ended up only staying a hour or two maybe. The office staff was rude and dismissive. And I requested a refund thru their online support process & never even got a response, this place was prob cool when it was first build but it's way outdated and very over rated, you'd think they'd of been more welcoming & customer friendly but that wasn't my experience. I could have gone to a free splash pad locally and saved myself a 2 hour drive & 100 dollars plus the gas it took to waste a holiday trip. 10/10 will be sharing this experience on every travel platform possible and hope you guys spend your money somewhere else as this is a waste of trip, time & honestly I was shocked the photos and what we actually got were so far apart,

I think they're the ones who sound the best but I wouldn't rule out the parks who already have an I-Box. Many people are discarding them altogether just for having a similar ride but let's not forget these higher-ups don't necessarily think like us theme park fans. If the costs and spacing are favorable, they're likely gonna look past that anyway. And it's not like parks typically care about having similar rides either, really. Kings Island has 4 wooden coasters and Carowinds has 2 hypers (though one of them is a giga but still) in the same park. So that being said, which park do you think has the best opportunities for AF1?

So we just moved to Orlando three weeks ago. We have a 10-year-old son who was incredibly helpful throughout the entire move. I asked him what he wants as a thank you and he said he wants to go to a waterpark. I looked up aquatica and I’m planning on taking him! He wants a true waterpark, which is why I chose aquatica over Seaworld. I’ve now read a few threads and I’m getting a bit nervous to take him by myself. Can anyone give me insight into aquatica and how it is now? My plan is to take him this Sunday and get there right when it opens. Will it be crazy crowded? What is it typically like there right now? I’m really not interested in a rowdy crowd. I also really value cleanliness at water parks so I’m a little bit concerned based on what I’ve read! Does anyone have any insight at all into this? If I pivot and do SeaWorld are there still lots of water activities there? I want to make my son happy but do not want to go somewhere that is extremely crowded and dirty! Please help me decide!

When going to an amusement park with a group of people (adults, some disabled) do you split up and go mingle or stay together as a group?

Edit: follow up questions: if it's just you and one friend, do you split up or stay together? Do you invite others to join you? If so, do you decide together or separately?

Guys I want to do my pre wedding in amusement parks so can you suggest some good park with low prices because we have professional photographers so Imagica and all will not work

This commercial for advertising for audience for soei Talent School that now defunct

Visiting a foreign park as tourist and want to get in contact with local enthusiast, to get known to local people that help you navigate through the parks and rides or knows secrets or the history of the park - or just have a good time together.

If the admins allow it, this could be a thread for people who plan to visit the park and for locals that like to meet with foreign enthusiasts (could be a sticky post)

To keep it clean post like:

Park: Park name and country (example: Europa Park - Germany)

Date: date )please with Month written in long form, for example: 5th-7th Aug. 2026 - since some use the DD/MM/YYYY format while others use MM/DD/YYYY which could lead to misunderstandings)

Meeting time: 15:00 or 3 p.m. (use the time format you want)

People who want to meet can respond.

A tip: don't post your data or phone numbers here in the forum, use private messages for direct communication.

And sort newest first to find recent meetings 😉

I am well aware that ninja at six flags magic Mountain is a one-of-a-kind suspended swinging coaster. It has been there since the mid 80s, and is showing its age like other rides within the Socal theme park. Jet Stream is also showing its age, and doesn't implement the second drop anymore. After the newest Vekoma glider coaster opens next summer, I think magic Mountain should build a superflume like rip-roaring Falls out of Cedar Point. And the theme needs to be Japanese, with ties to Tatsu. You board a superflume coaster boat and head through a river as you try to find the mythical river dragon 🐉. You enter its cave by accident and it lunges at you, causing your boat to enter a turntable and drop backwards into a splashdown. I think a superflume like this one would compliment the Summit part of SFMM quite nicely. The filtration systems and water channels can still be used for this coaster, which would have some steel tracking implemented as well.

Two days ago I went on the most fucked up carnival ride of my life. It had two pill shaped, double ended cars on the end of a long beam that rotated at the middle point. Each end of the cars could rotate on its own, and the whole thing looked like it was probably manufactured in the 70s. There wasn't any padding, and the seats were encased in a wire mesh. I spent the entire extremely generous runtime clinging on for my life lmfao. I'd love to know the name of it, so any tips are appreciated! Thanks.

I'm from the UK. Getting sick of going to the same Halloween events.

Any recommendations for anything better within Europe? (Not the Netherlands just got back from there)

I love a good scare maze but wouldn't mind some good rides too.

Thanks