News The King Is Dead: Kingda Ka (& Zumanjaro) Closure & Demolition Confirmed
- Thread starter Python_Survivor
- Start date
Direct Link to Embedded Media Source
...what?
(For context, Gregg runs Park Journey and likely wrote that first Tweet)
God it's year of our lord 2024 and I'm still being exposed to the GA Conno page...
These are the same people that swear up and down the park is going to close but will still visit 15 times a year.
Funny I think most of us feel like we lost even though we were right. I kept telling people that I really wanted to be wrong in my belief that it was going.
Newsflash for that guy: from what I saw in the park over the weekend, a lot of these thoosies did not "Win." @horsesboy nailed it above. Credibility and following are important to many, sure - but I'll bet there are plenty such thoosies that wish they were wrong.
I'll admit that I very much dreaded what I would encounter at the park last Sunday. So much so that I purchased a Flash Pass for the first (and perhaps only) time in my life. I was completely unwilling to deal with a bunch of people that I expected to be vlogging, taking glamour shot selfies, and puffing out their collective chests about the ride closing.
I did not witness much of that at all. Instead, I saw people who were genuinely upset about this ride's potential closure. The final launch was the polar opposite of my expectations - rather than using their cameras to record themselves talking, almost everybody stood by and watched in solemn silence. Eyes welled up. People comforted one another. Even though I harbored no ill will towards content creators whatsoever before, I did exit with a newfound appreciation for their doubtless love of the hobby.
Good on them for doing their best to spread this information far and wide. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who really appreciated that opportunity to get their final rides in.
I'll admit that I very much dreaded what I would encounter at the park last Sunday. So much so that I purchased a Flash Pass for the first (and perhaps only) time in my life. I was completely unwilling to deal with a bunch of people that I expected to be vlogging, taking glamour shot selfies, and puffing out their collective chests about the ride closing.
I did not witness much of that at all. Instead, I saw people who were genuinely upset about this ride's potential closure. The final launch was the polar opposite of my expectations - rather than using their cameras to record themselves talking, almost everybody stood by and watched in solemn silence. Eyes welled up. People comforted one another. Even though I harbored no ill will towards content creators whatsoever before, I did exit with a newfound appreciation for their doubtless love of the hobby.
Good on them for doing their best to spread this information far and wide. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who really appreciated that opportunity to get their final rides in.
I will have to take your word on KD. I last visited that park in 2004.
This season Ithere were few improvements at GAdv and it seems CF is hellbent on adding to the list of the park's many issues. GAdv will now be down 6 rides. Flash whenever it finally opens will reduce that number to -5, assuming it doesn't run into complications. Even if the new coaster replacing KK is actually built and runs ok, the park is still down 4 rides. As I said they need to add much much more than two coasters no matter how super fancy they may be. This is not even counting the other non replaced ride removals from previous years such as the splash down and second flume removals.
If you thought GL was low capacity, just watch the Flash ask you to hold his beer. A shuttle coaster was a poor choice for a crowded park like GAdv.
The park's operations took a huge nosedive this season. For months most of the coasters only operated single trains causing long, slow moving lines. Half the park was closed until mid May. I certainly hope GAdv's operations were not the industry's best as that would be setting the bar really low.
As for HH, it has a really short season which makes it not very reliable to make GAdv a multi-day experience. HH is not even open every day until 2/3 of June is over, has short operating hours, and closes promptly on Labor day. Not to mention HH is quick to close for the day at the slightest possibility of a storm. The Waterpark also suffers staffing issues, slow dispatches, and tube and raft shortages.
Fixing a park takes time. Don't expect CF to magically wave a wand and fix all the issues. Why do you think they're extending the 50th anniversary to next year? They know this year was a bust and they're trying to make up for that.
That being said, the ops at Nitro, JD, Batman, Skull Mountain, KK, Toro, RMT Justice League, etc were all on point and amazing this year. Yeah it sucked to see closed rides and 1 train ops, but those crews should be commended on how great they are. Nitro, Toro and KK barely stacked all year. You can't really say that about a lot of parks. It did help that the park wasn't too crowded so that made the closed stuff sting a lot less. I still avoided the rides with long waits if I had to.
And speaking of low capacity, why does GAdv get flak for building a low capacity coaster when Hersheypark can run with Laff Track, Fahrenheit and Cupfusion without issues? If the lines for Flash are long, skip it and go to a ride with a short line. I don't complain about Laff Track having a 70 min wait on the slowest days at HP. I just skip it and ride something else. Nitro, JD, Toro, and Batman all have fast moving lines. Go ride those instead.
I can't speak for HH as I've never been but there's a theme park, a safari, that massive indoor golf facility, and outlets if you get rained out. You don't have to stay at the water park all the time.
Last edited:
I think the two posts above make good points for both sides of the coin, but I have to emphasize this point in particular. For any rides with more than one train on them (some took longer than others in that regard), the crews have been absolutely HAULING this season. Ka was probably the best it's ever been. I've been bombarding the park's compliment form with pages upon pages of praise for the dispatch teams over the past several months.
Just a terrible take. Just imagine if nobody said anything. This new would've just come out of nowhere. At least this way people were given a heads up, even though that should've been Six Flags' job.
Not just this year. The operations crews have been on point since COVID. It really helped that the higher prices scared most of the public off the past few years. That's why we let our HP passes expire and are doing multiple trips to GAdv instead. I went to HP in April and it was a 20 min wait in the damn station at Candymonium. Next day we ride Nitro and not only is it a walk on, but the park is running 3 trains and not stacking.
- Nitro running 3 trains without stacking.
- KK hitting dispatch intervals on a regular basis
- Batman never stacking on the brake run.
- Toro crew rushing down the platform at all hours of the day
- RMT and Skull Mountain operators being insanely enthusiastic.
- Oh and let's not forget the free lockers at Toro so I don't have to pay for one at that ride anymore.
I made my first trip out to great adventure thanks to these "baseless rumors". I'm super thankful for the risk a lot of these influencers took on their reputation to push me towards a legendary credit.
It's the one thing that I'm glad did not get gutted with the managerial changes since the bankruptcy. Great Adventure's operations have always been at or near the best from my experience as both a guest and a previous ride op. They always told us that guests interaction with ops employees the most out of all the departments in the park. They may interact with 2 admissions people at most if they leave and come back, they may only interact with 2 or 3 games employees or foods employees, but they interact with an average of 12 ride ops a visit so the ops have the biggest impact on a guests' experience.
While we're on the topic of appreciating forewarning of this closure, I'm going to say that I owe an immense debt of gratitude to this forum community. I don't have the wherewithal on social media to be able to tell where rumors originate from or whether they are worth believing. The measured takes and discussion in this thread really helped me plot my course of action last weekend.
I became particularly convinced when posters like @b.mac started laying out entire plan proposals and exact dates. With a full week's notice before the closure, I was able to take the necessary time off from work and cancel all of my previously planned activities across those last operating days to make sure I would be there for all of them. My originally intended 1 visit for the weekend turned into 4, and I relished every single second of them.
Because of the adequate buildup, I was able to fully focus on enjoying my time on my favorite ride. I got a lot of laps in and met some great people. On Saturday, my mom (a self-described chicken who was there for the safari and whose preferred ride speed is that of the Jolly Roger) decided to shock everyone and give Kingda Ka a try. She wound up really enjoying it and created a memory that neither of us will be forgetting any time soon.
My final on-ride photo from Sunday might have proof of the most genuine smile I've ever had plastered across my face.
A big thank you to all involved for their diligence and willingness to share information on here.
I became particularly convinced when posters like @b.mac started laying out entire plan proposals and exact dates. With a full week's notice before the closure, I was able to take the necessary time off from work and cancel all of my previously planned activities across those last operating days to make sure I would be there for all of them. My originally intended 1 visit for the weekend turned into 4, and I relished every single second of them.
Because of the adequate buildup, I was able to fully focus on enjoying my time on my favorite ride. I got a lot of laps in and met some great people. On Saturday, my mom (a self-described chicken who was there for the safari and whose preferred ride speed is that of the Jolly Roger) decided to shock everyone and give Kingda Ka a try. She wound up really enjoying it and created a memory that neither of us will be forgetting any time soon.
My final on-ride photo from Sunday might have proof of the most genuine smile I've ever had plastered across my face.
A big thank you to all involved for their diligence and willingness to share information on here.
I physically couldn’t because I would risk losing my job. Which absolutely blows.
I know Kingda Ka's removal is a big loss for coaster lovers everywhere, but I wanna give some flowers to Green Lantern.
It feels like yesterday when I found out that Great American Scream Machine was being torn down for a new coaster in its place, and then when it turned out to be Chang from the recently-closed Kentucky Kingdom.
Green Lantern was not my favorite coaster, and it got worse as the years went on, but I never expected it to be removed.
Also it's ironic that they remove just one year after they fixed up the entrance sign. For reference, this photo below is what it looked like 2 years ago:
And here's the sign being fixed earlier this April:
It feels like yesterday when I found out that Great American Scream Machine was being torn down for a new coaster in its place, and then when it turned out to be Chang from the recently-closed Kentucky Kingdom.
Green Lantern was not my favorite coaster, and it got worse as the years went on, but I never expected it to be removed.
Also it's ironic that they remove just one year after they fixed up the entrance sign. For reference, this photo below is what it looked like 2 years ago:
And here's the sign being fixed earlier this April:
Last edited:
Yeah it was actually probably the quickest sends I have ever seen on any coaster and there was still strict and careful enforcement of rules including loose articles in the station with several people caught and quickly and professionally send out to store them in a locker before restarting at the back of the line.
I had some pretty long waits at GAdv this Spring. April was really bad with single train operations on all the open coasters, slow dispatches on all the open rides, the northern half of the park being closed, and several other closed rides like Skull Mt in the southern half. The park was so bad I skipped going for over a month there after a particularity bad trip in early April and didn't try it again until late May. I only went after hearing positive reports of some improvements on the old GAHistory forum. Late May was when park operations did begin to improve and more of the park opened. However, GADV had a very rough, near disaster 2024 season opening. Granted GAdv was not the only park with a poor spring opening in 2024.
Hopefully next Spring of 2025 won't be a repeat of the 2024 Spring that had widespread downsizing.
Hopefully next Spring of 2025 won't be a repeat of the 2024 Spring that had widespread downsizing.
Last edited:
I just really hope they'll sell pieces of the track, ill drop the cash for one.
Is this the new Six Flags/Cedar Fsir? Mass ride removals with no prior announcements? Less park capacity.
This closure was an absolute business fail. They could have announce it months ago and increased attendance for final rides.
This closure was an absolute business fail. They could have announce it months ago and increased attendance for final rides.