Thanks Nikkipoooo for the insider tips 
It is just a load of fun in that out of control kind of way! It is a must-do every time we go. But the absolute must-dos at Cedar Point are Millennium Force and Steel Vengeance. Two greatest roller coasters I’ve ever been on, each for completely different reasons. Pure adrenaline. There are plenty of other great rides there, but don’t miss those two!
King’s Island finally tore down Viper. Wow…was that coaster horrible. And next year, Orion opens, which I’m excited to ride. Their first Giga. And while the Beast is classic and way fun, it will require several chiropractor visits afterwards. 
Mystic Timbers is a great recent addition, although I wish it were a bit longer than it is. Still, a lot of fun. As is Banshee and Diamondback. And Flight of Fear is almost a clone of Rockin’ Roller Coaster if you like that.
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ryan1, I forgot you are a big rollercoaster enthusiast to.
We’ll try all of those in August for sure. Any parks worth visiting we are missing?
I really wanted to include Kings Dominion on this trip, but I feel that we can’t visit that park without going to Washington D.C, the kids have never been there, or Busch Gardens Williamsburg, that to me feels like a trip on its own.
We did a family trip a few years back, 5 parks in 6 days. Of course, Cedar Point and King’s Island. But also Six Flags Great America (Chicago), Six Flags Great Adventure (New Jersey), and Hersheypark. We enjoyed all of them for different reasons.
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Wow 5 parks in 6 days, that sounds like fun, I can do that if I have buddy that is into rollercoaster, but if I do that type of trip with my family, it will be hard to get them on the road for one of those again lol
Oh, my family is used to it. 
BTW, here are my trip reports from CP and KI this year:
And, if you’ve never been, Silver Dollar City (and Branson in general) is a great family vacation destination.
Wow Ryan, you got step by step report, that is so cool, I’ll check it out when I get to the office.
I looked at Dollar city before, but is in the middle with nothing around it, so it has to be a trip just for that park. That is a lot of driving for a single activity, it has to be good for us to do that. I’ll look into it.
No…there is a lot to do around Branson itself, not just SDC. You could spend a few days there, easily. Many shows, the Titanic Museum, etc. But since you are coming from Toronto, you could do some stops “along the way”…Six Flags Chicago, for example.
Alternatively, there is Dollywood down near Gatlinburg. It is owned/operated by the same family as SDC…but we’ve never been to Dollywood outselves, so I can’t speak to the details.
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I guess you are right, I just looked at it and is a 15 hours drive but the road goes really close to Chicago. I hate driving back after the vacations, so I always try to make the ride back the shortest one. We could drive all the way to Silver Dollar City, then drive up to Six flags Great America, a few days in Chicago and drive back home from there. Thanks
If you’re just looking to ride “big, bad, shiny” roller coasters, then Busch/SeaWorld, Six Flags, Cedar Fair should have you covered. However, there are a lot of parks that have “charm” and are unique in their collection of other rides, their maintenance of the rides they have, or for some other reason. Knoebel’s in the middle of PA, Lake Compounce in CT, Holiday World, Silver Dollar City, and Dollywood, for instance all pack AMAZING smooth wooden coasters (Phoenix, Boulder Dash, Voyage, Outlaw Run, Lightning Rod respectively) which are all top 10 wood coasters. I absolutely adore some of the other little things at Knoebels’ like the flyers, the bumper cars, and the brass ring carousel. That said, when I first got into coasters, I didn’t understand at all why I should care about an old medium sized wooden coaster instead of some steel thing 1000’ tall with 71 loops, but after a while, my tastes have changed. There are SO many big loopy, droppy rides and so few well maintained wooden coasters that I’m much more willing to go out of my way for the latter rather than the former.
I should say Dorney is a nice park and never has lines, but it’s kind of the worst of both worlds. Nothing terribly unique and nothing terribly jaw dropping. Talon is fantastic (my favorite invert, though I think the whole invert genre is a little overrated) but everything else, including Hydra, Steel Force, and Possessed are sort of generic and clones or near clones of lots of other rides.
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Outlaw Run (at SDC) is jaw droppingly amazing. It would easily make my top 5 or maybe even top 3 wood if it didn’t have those unnecessary rolls stuck on the end (which make me nauseous and don’t add much to the ride). Even with those rolls, I probably rode it 6 or 7 times the day I was there.
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Thanks ApolloAndy you are a walking enciclopedia when it comes to rides and parks wow
I feel I’m scarred when it comes to wood rollercoaster, I heard El Toro is amazing, but everytime I think of wood coasters all I have to go on, is the reference of the two from Canada’s Wonderland.
Btw this may change in the future, but as you described well, all I like to ride, and I think I can talk for the rest of the family as well, are the bad, big and shiny coasters.
We will be riding Orion at Kings Island but we are going to miss Iron Gwazi and Icebreaker by a few months.
Btw I removed Dorney park from the New York City trip, thanks
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El Toro is amazing. Do it!
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Yes. El Toro is amazing. Tied with Phoenix for my favorite wooden coaster anywhere. Maintenance makes such a huge difference in wooden coasters. Most of the large corporate chains do a mediocre to horrible job of it after having built monstrous wooden coasters, which is why you see so many RMC conversions popping up at the large corporate chains, now. El Toro is built a completely different way from a traditional woodie where the pieces of wood were bent in a precision factory and shipped to the site (Called an Intamin prefab) rather than being bent on site. It is smooth as glass and astounding. You will NOT be disappointed.
I am old enough that I almost exclusively ride wooden coasters in the front row (smoother) and there are a LOT of terrible, terrible wooden coasters out there but the few good ones really are that good. If I had to mix my rankings, they would look like this:
#1 tie - El Toro (Wood)
#1 tie - Phoenix (Wood)
#3 tie - Voyage (Wood)
#3 tie - Boulder Dash (Wood)
#5 - CI Cyclone (Wood)
#6 - S:RoS (Steel)
#7 tie - MF (Steel)
#7 tie - Phantom’s Revenge (Steel)
#7 tie - NTG (Steel)
#10 - Outlaw Run (Wood)
Major coasters I haven’t been on include: Fury 325, Maverick, Steel Vengeance, Lightning Rod, Twisted Timbers, I305, Intimidator (Carowinds), Mako, Goliath (Great America). Gotta wait for the kids to get a little bigger before we make those a priority over WDW.
The best wooden roller coasters really are THAT good, but are hard to find and aren’t in your typical stops (save El Toro).
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Thanks ApolloAndy for sharing such a wealth of information about wooden coasters.
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I hang out on coasterbuzz.com a lot and that’s pretty much where I learned everything I know.
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Maverick is really fun, but it can be surprisingly rough for a newer coaster. It’s not bumpy like an older wooden coaster but it’s got a TON of sudden twists and turns that can make it pretty hard on the neck, even with the redesigned track section after the second launch (for those who aren’t nerds, they had to actually shut down the ride and replace a whole section of track in the first season because there was a twist coming out of a blind launch and it was just way too rough). My suggestion to make it less rough is to keep your head back and actually brace yourself with your arms by holding onto the restraint and pushing yourself back into the seatback. Trying to put your hands up is not the best idea on this one. The original restraints would actually bruise your arms if you put your hands up… the redesigned ones don’t do that, but it just doesn’t really add anything to the experience.
Fury 325 is awesome. It’s got the great B&M restraints (like Leviathan and Behemoth) and it’s just a really fun ride. I don’t know if I’d say it beats Millennium Force, but it comes close. I wouldn’t go to Carowinds just for that, but if you’re in the area or doing a full tour of Cedar Fair parks or something then it’s definitely the high point. I really don’t remember Intimidator at all… even looking at photos isn’t bringing any memories to mind.
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I lived in NYC for a few years and my BFF was always up for a Six Flags trip… I love, love, LOVE El Toro, and I really like Nitro, if only because I love the restraints (same as Leviathan). Bizarro is a fun ride, but it’s got headrest speakers like RnR and I just hate the blaring sound… we rode 3 times in a row one day when the speakers were broken on one train, though. I really like Joker, my BFF does not… I think that one’s really a personal preference thing. I like it because it’s different, and I also don’t ever get motion sick. I’d say that since you’re doing Cedar Point you can skip Kingda Ka, though… you cannot actually feel a difference in speed or height over Top Thrill Dragster (they’re the exact same ride, but Kingda Ka is a little taller and faster) except that somehow the little bit of extra sped makes it a much bumpier ride. Dragster is just the better ride, even though it’s not as tall. We almost never did Green Lantern or Superman, because I just hate stand-up coasters and B&M flyers are not fun at all.
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I actually used to avoid Maverick. The restraints were awful, and it was rough. Then they replaced the restraints, it it was not really any better. But then they replaced the restraints again, and my son convinced me to try it again. I was skeptical. But it is AMAZINGLY better now. It can still toss you a bit, but now everyone in my family loved it, including my wife who is usually sensitive to roughness.
It wasn’t actually in the first season, it was before it ever opened. It was designed with a barrel roll, but the designer rode it (apparently the designer insists on always being the first person to ride anything he designs) and when he got off it, said no one else can ride it. But they had already designed and built the track to replace the barrel roll, so they were anticipating having to make the change anyhow. Only the designer ever got to ride it with the roll!
Totally agree with this. I’m usually a hands up all the way kind of guy, but Maverick is not the ride to try it on! It is a much more enjoyable ride if you are holding on.
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Yup… they’re always first. It was torture working during pre-season and seeing the new rides cycle empty, but then it got even worse once the designers rode and the rumor mill started up about when the crew would get to test ride. And then the day would come! Maverick was a year or two after I left, but I can imagine how disappointed the crew must have been.
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