I think selling this to the public as an upgrade/successor to Kingda Ka is an uphill battle even if I didn't love it.
It will be, but that would be any coaster ever.
Ryan Eldridge was very clear-eyed about this in that interview with
@Coaster Chall. He talked about how it makes him uncomfortable when people refer to this attraction is a Ka replacement and the actual Ka replacement will be a long series of capital investments into the park over years to come, not one coaster.
I have long had this theory about "legendary" coasters—roller coasters whose prestige/reputation/legacy move far beyond simply that of other great rides and into this even more elevated state of notoriety amongst regional or even sometimes national audiences. In all my years following this industry, I have yet to see what I would classify as a "legendary" coaster be successfully replaced by a ride that was ruled a suitable replacement at the time of the replacement's opening.
One of the best parallels to Ka I can provide here is Kings Dominion's Volanco. Like Ka, Volcano was all over the Travel Channel specials back in its heyday; as with Ka, Volcano was used in all sorts of print media to depict the very idea of a roller coaster; and similarly to Ka, Volcano quite literally come to represent the park it was housed within and the very idea of a roller coaster in the minds of many, many people regionally, at minimum.
Like Ka, Volcano was also closed completely unceremoniously under what would be best described as questionable circumstances at best—and like Ka, not only did its destruction bring down the park's premier coaster, but it essentially killed an entire themed area of the park and took down one of the park's most iconic structures along with it.
As with Ka, I never thought Volcano was a spectacular coaster. It was a gimmicky ride with one crazy trick built to take some records, but the finished product became an icon—it, like Ka, was a truly legendary coaster.
Kings Dominion charted a pretty painful course in the wake of Volcano's closure. Tons of people—just look at responses to their social media posts during this period—felt the park was being neglected or even that the place was failing. Volcano's site sat dormant for years and the park made other, less flashy investments into culinary, theming, environmentals, etc. During this period, the high-thrill flat ride, Crypt, across from Volanco was also shuttered unexpectedly with zero notice provided. Again, another contribution to the "the park is failing" narrative.
Eventually Kings Dominion announced a coaster, a cloned 4D FreeSpin that wasn't even being built on Volanco's site—it was going over where Crypt previously was. General audiences hated this announcement—it was perceived as a Volcano replacement since it was the first coaster added in the wake of Volanco's removal and it was clearly nowhere near the quality of Volanco.
When Tumbili opened though, people did start to see something. Kings Dominion had set out on an enormous effort to massively retheme the entire area of the park around Tumbili with elaborate scenic, deep lore, great eateries, improved merchandise and stores, multiple smaller attraction rethemes, etc. Tumbili was whatever, but the park was building something far more impressive around Tumbili.
Fast-forward to Rapterra's announcement. It had been a good handful of years since Volcano's closure and along came a unique-but-really-not-jaw-dropping-looking B&M launched wing coaster. It was going to be a great addition to the park's lineup, sure, but it wasn't gonna revolutionize the park or anything. Once it opened, as with Tumbili, guests were again greeted with enormous thematic change—not just in the very well-presented Rapterra, but also spreading this new focus on consistent thematics to even more additional, near-by attractions.
Tumbili and Rapterra have both been compared very unfavorably against Volcano. Checking on Captain Coaster, Tumbili sits at #753, Rapterra sits at #406, and Volcano sits all the way up at #160. On paper it's clear: both coasters added in the near decade that has followed Volcano's closure have failed to replace Volcano. Even amongst thoosies, both are seen as massively inferior attractions. I'm positive general audiences have the same sentiment.
That being said, if you dropped someone into Safari Village at Kings Dominion in 2017 and asked them to rate the park experience of that quadrant of the park, I am confident the numbers would look abysmal. The rides were good, but the area was nonsensical, it was trashy, there was blacktop everywhere, the food sucked, the rides made zero sense together, there was minimal effort everywhere you turned—the only good, non-ride-hardware thing in the entire area was Volcano's mountain structure itself.
If you drop someone into Jungle X-Pedition today, you get a very, very different,
dramatically more positive reaction.
Volcano's replacement was never Tumbili. It was never the smattering of ride rethemes. It was never the excellent eateries or the renovated shops. It was never the significantly improved guest experience. It was never the class-leading entertainment product, Let's Get Wild. It was never Rapterra. Volcano's replacement was the nearly 10 years of gradual iteration on and improvement upon an entire quadrant of Kings Dominion that occured in the wake of Volcano's destruction. Oh, and Kings Dominion likely still isn't done—the reverberations of Volcano's death will likely still cause more improvements to the area in the years ahead.
I prefer Volcano over any individual part of Jungle X. I think most people agree with that. Jungle X should be evaluated as a much larger undertaking though and I don't think I'm alone when I say that if you gave me the choice between Volcano and Safari Village as they existed in 2017 and Jungle X as it exists today, I'm picking Jungle X every time. In my assessment, the park is just dramatically better overall now because of that project.
I don't know if Phantom Spire is more akin to SFGAdv's Tumbili or its Rapterra, but perhaps both are poor comparisons. As I think I made a compelling case for many pages back, I believe Phantom Spire will likely settle in above Ka in the Captain Coaster rankings. Despite that though, due to Ka's status as a legendary coaster, I believe that in the minds of many locals, it will still be perceived as a lackluster replacement. Again, as I've made the case for previously in this thread, I don't believe there is any coaster that could realistically be built in the United States in 2027 by a traditional park operator which could immediately compete with the legendary status of Ka.
That said, if Ryan Eldridge is correct and this is the start of a long-term cap-ex schedule in which the park plans to emphasize theming, storytelling, aesthetics, guest experience, entertainment, culinary, etc alongside a strong focus on a bunch of new ride hardware, I am CONFIDENT that when offered the KD question posed above, SFGAdv folks will want to keep the SFGAdv of 2034 over trading it away to get the SFGAdv of 2024 back.
Six Flags is signaling and claiming all of the right things right now. All signs are currently pointing precisely to the KD turnaround playbook. If they do actually pull off the KD strategy, in 10 years, Ka's memory will be fading and the park will be in a dramatically better place than it is today.
I understand that SFGAdv locals are jaded. They've been screwed over for years, there's no doubt. I understand having a difficult time imagining what a decade+ long upward trajectory could look like at SFGAdv because it has been promised many times before and it has never materialized. I understand the skepticism. It is reasonable. Your feelings are justified. My own feelings of doubt and skepticism and disbelief at how foolish Kings Dominion's handling of Volcano were similarly understandable, justified, and reasonable back in 2018.
Now though, in 2026, I bring experience to this discussion. I have seen first-hand the path a park can successfully walk to redemption—even when its sins involve the destruction said park's single most iconic, beloved, and legendary attraction. Ka put Great Adventure on the map in the same way Volcano put Kings Dominion on the map—they're both now gone and that really fucking sucks—hell, in both of their cases, it may even been entirely unjustified. Regardless, there IS a path back—the miracle CAN be accomplished—and as someone who has lived through the successful running of that playbook—as someone who has VERY closely followed a park that has pulled it off—I tell you with 100% sincerity that SFGAdv is signaling in no uncertain terms that they see the same path KD has previously walked in SFGAdv's future.
It could all fail. The economy, society, leadership at the new Six Flags, etc—it's all fucked right now. And even if external factors don't derail the plans, any one of the tons of little decision points that will be required along the way could ultimately lead to failure. Hell, there's a good chance a fair dash of luck is required for the stars to align here too. I'm clear-eyed about all of this.
That said, the ABSOLUTE BEST thing we can hope for right now is for SFGAdv to be pointing themselves in the right direction and for there to be people at the table internally who see the potential of a true transformation of SFGAdv. Both of these things currently seem to be true in my assessment and, hence, I am happy to let them cook for now. When they make missteps—which they will—I'll be right here alongside you to criticize the corporation. I have no love for the publicly-traded mega-corporations that have seized control of the often-historic, beloved, important works of art dotted around our country we call amusement parks. That said, when a park is talking the right game and appears to be charting a course in-line with other parks that HAVE found success, dwelling on their past failures and criticizing the individual steps before they're even vertical seems entirely self-defeating.
