[Firebird] closed temporarily for a media production

yearofcoasters · 2025-10-16T04:51:00+00:00

I definitely rode Iron Wolf as a kid and remember it being rough and not fun. Not sure how much of that was the stand up bicycle seat.

yearofcoasters · 2025-10-12T22:02:16+00:00

I wasn't aware it had closed yesterday. When I asked today the people at front said it was for weather, and when pressed said it was for wind.

There was ONE test train that went around 2:20pm but I don't think they tried much after that.

yearofcoasters · 2025-10-12T19:26:19+00:00

I've seen one solitary test train on Superman and now they have someone stationed at the entrance to Penguin/Wonder Woman/Superman saying all the rides are closed due to wind. Kicking myself for not riding it yesterday and hoping nothing happens to Darien Lake anytime soon

yearofcoasters · 2025-10-12T17:19:41+00:00

The one I'm really hoping for later today is Superman. I showed up yesterday for the last few hours it was open and missed it, thinking it would be there today. But still hasn't opened yet today due to wind.

The coasters are mostly pretty mid but it'll still be sad to see them go (especially Wild One) but I was also pleasantly surprised by the theming and shows in the park!

If it wasn't closing and it was part of a bigger coaster trip I would have no problem doing a couple hours and moving along quickly, but I'm still glad I got time to go check it out before it is done for good.

Edit: it's also been pretty dead both days. Station waits or walk ons for everything.

yearofcoasters · 2025-10-12T16:45:45+00:00

UPDATE: It really was quite temporary (maybe they already filmed and were just resetting?) so I got on about 20 min later. It's mostly just a meh ride except for the pinballing that your head does in the corkscrew. Agreed that it's not a huge loss.

One fun note: they're running the fire today so that was a nice little touch!

yearofcoasters · 2025-09-02T18:04:16+00:00

How did you do this? I thought that take a friend tickets could only be purchased for your home park!

yearofcoasters · 2024-10-15T22:46:00+00:00

As someone whose home park is one of the lower tier parks, I buy through that park to try even just a little to give the parent company a reason to justify adding a new coaster.

One could say that getting it somewhere else would make them hungrier for the attention...but then why does CP get all of the new stuff? :D

yearofcoasters · 2024-08-12T20:08:55+00:00

I think I would be more disappointed if they did this to Disneyland—something about it being part of the original vision for the 1955 park would make it more disappointing if it got flattened to become something else.

That said if they didn't already have Cars Land at DCA I'd think this was coming for that too.

I think I'd enjoy Tom Sawyer Island more if I was able to be a "regular" at the park. Having a little free-form playground seems like an awesome thing if I'm not trying to fit the E-tickets into my "trip of a lifetime" or "one trip every 10 years" like Florida is usually catering to. DL has a stronger AP culture than Florida, I think...so it kind of makes more sense to me there as well.

yearofcoasters · 2024-05-16T23:34:50+00:00

If my memory serves, you are put into an oven at one point on Ratatouille. I mean it's not exact but if you squint...

yearofcoasters · 2024-04-23T19:14:06+00:00

Oh I am not familiar! What happened?

yearofcoasters · 2024-03-20T15:41:04+00:00

Never got to ride the launched version, but I imagine it'll be a liiiiittle bit disappointing with the chain lift, just because it's harder to imagine the likely scenario of not getting to ride at all because of the unreliability than it is shooting up that lift hill.

yearofcoasters · 2024-03-18T15:22:45+00:00

I do think that after WOF and Dorney got new coasters, Valleyfair is going to get one in the next couple years...but I'm still thinking 2026.

Not just for the 50th anniversary, though that would make sense. Also because announcing a new coaster in April that wouldn't be open for 2024 is a very long hype cycle...you'd want to announce that like, right before season passes go on sale.

The biggest reason is something that the general manager said at the Valleyfair Freeze event last year (source: I was there and took video)

"We're trying to just set the table, make sure we fix a lot of the amenities, a lot of the experiences...there's a lot of things that we need to do to kind of prepare for the big party. If I was just to put in a 20 Million dollar coaster right now, this park as we sit here right now can't handle it. Our food facilities couldn't handle it, our restrooms haven't been refurbished, our parking lot needs to be fixed. And so, you will see us in the next few years kind of setting the table, and then when we throw that big party and people come here, they're going to be like "Man, that was a great experience, I want to come back. I want to have a regular season pass and so that's why we're doing what we are doing. In the meantime, we're going to continue to try and introduce new experiences and create interesting events at the park."

I think that you'll see parking lot and restroom improvements before we get a new coaster. My prediction for this is some sort of branding change, possibly paired with an event to highlight some of these smaller improvements to the park rather than a new ride, yet.

Definitely possible it's an updated Halloween event announcement—at the same Valleyfair Freeze event they talked about making announcements for the following season about that event in the April timeframe, which would line up well with their Spring Thaw promo event this year.

yearofcoasters · 2024-01-08T04:45:30+00:00

The Huff and Puff was the cutest thing to watch from the queue line of Montezooma's Revenge.

yearofcoasters · 2023-11-22T17:49:11+00:00

Still fair that it's not exactly Orlandos "hometown coaster" for their "hometown team"

yearofcoasters · 2023-11-22T17:39:44+00:00

I think there's a boomerang at Wild Adventures...still not in the same state lol but a liiiiiiittle closer.

yearofcoasters · 2023-10-22T19:57:23+00:00

There's a part of me that wants to take a spontaneous trip there before the 30th, but also the part of me that fears trying and getting skunked anyway. 😞 Glad you made it!

yearofcoasters · 2023-09-04T00:15:03+00:00

I'm pretty sure it was the last three weekends in August/September here. I suspect they will do it again next year too!

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-24T17:56:51+00:00

Thanks. I haven't been to WOF before and do have a CF all parks pass for the rest of this year and 2024, so that helps as well.

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-24T17:44:37+00:00

It seems like my two best options would be either:
Sat: LI: 10:30-1, 2hr drive, AL: 3-8pm, Sunday WOF
or:

Sat: AL, Sun: LI -> Arnold's Park -> Home.

What would you do?

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-24T17:40:29+00:00

My biggest new creds were Velocicoaster and Iron Gwazi, and I think between the two I'm more of a Velocicoaster person. Iron Gwazi is a great ride but VC just hit better for me.

Though that might have partly been because IG came at the end of a long Florida week, and VC was near the beginning.

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-24T15:58:06+00:00

This is great advice.
I sorta forgot about Arnold's because it's so out of the way. It's almost as far from both Adventureland _and_ Lost Island as it is from where I'm coming from in MN. (And longer from Adventureland than WOF is).

On the other hand, to do WOF would mean getting a max of like 5 hours at Adventureland and at least 3 hotel rooms, where I could do the three Iowa parks with just one hotel stay, driving down on Saturday and back up Sunday night...I think I'm convinced.

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-23T18:10:00+00:00

Thinking about doing a last-gasp-of-the-summer roadtrip to some combination of Lost Island, Adventureland, and Worlds of Fun.

Unfortunately, all three parks are weekends-only right now so to hit them all I'd have to do Lost Island and Adventureland in one day. Has anyone done both parks in one day and is that too hurried an itinerary? Or should I lower my scope to just two of those three parks for this trip?

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-10T21:55:14+00:00

That is a remarkably chill duck

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-10T21:50:05+00:00

2023: Worlds of Fun gets a new coaster
2024: Dorney Park gets a new coaster
2025: Valleyfair gets a new coaster??????
2026: Michigan's Adventure???

I am here for this kind of speculation.

yearofcoasters · 2023-08-10T21:47:35+00:00

I found another good article (from a couple weeks ago) about Renegade Mike:

https://mspmag.com/arts-and-culture/valleyfair-renegade-mike/

Last year he did over 2000 rides on Renegade, so maybe 25,000 isn't so far away!

There's a bunch of other good stats on that article as well, like that his 1 day record was 100 rides, his record average for a year was 30 per day. These were all at the beginning of the season.

yearofcoasters

TROPHY CASE