While I try to make it on to every ride possible during a visit to a new amusement park, ride operations and crowds often dictate just how many I get to.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about being a full-fledged dork for roller coasters is the unrivaled excitement and anticipation felt before riding a coaster one has never experienced before – especially after watching countless POV videos and knowing each ride’s history.
This level of anticipation is what makes visiting new parks such a thrilling, novel experience – you truly don’t know what you’re in for and how much you’ll like a given coaster until you see what it’s like for yourself.
While POV videos are certainly great and are a fantastic way to get new, anxious riders prepared for what they’re in for, they are definitely nothing like hopping on the real ride – especially for those who prefer riding coasters at night.
It’s hard to think of a more memorable, thrilling coaster experience than what my wife and I got a couple of summers ago, getting the chance to ride The Beast during nighttime, the famed wooden coaster at Kings Island nestled in forests in the back of the park.
With an essentially pitch-black environment, what was already an excellent ride during the day turned into an unforgettable experience, and one that reminded me just how much I love roller coasters.
With that said, trying to get to as many rides as possible, especially in a larger park such as Kings Island, requires a bit of strategy and luck – and I haven’t always had the most luck during visits to new theme parks.
After crossing out a handful of new theme parks in recent years, greatly aided by having an all-park season pass to Six Flags parks in 2024, I was able to get around to the vast majority of coasters that ranked highly on my bucket list – though there’s still a handful I feel that I missed out on, and would love to get another chance to ride.
One notable omission from this short list is the newly-opened Wrath of Rakshasa at my former home park of Six Flags Great America, located between Chicago and Milwaukee. While I visited Great America a handful of times in 2024, I did not get a chance to make it to the park in 2025 before my wife and I relocated to Northern California, still leaving me without a dive coaster credit.
Beyond that, here’s a look at a small handful of coasters I didn’t get the chance to add to my credits list during visits in 2024:
Joker, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
Having originally opened in 2016 as a Rocky Mountain Construction reimagination of Roar, a wooden coaster that previously ran at the park, Joker helped to breathe new life into an aging ride by adding inversions and steeper drop angles, much like what has been seen in other coasters by RMC across the world.
I was looking forward to getting on Joker quite a bit, having previously enjoyed other RMC masterpieces such as Goliath, Twisted Cyclone and Twisted Colossus – though I ultimately didn’t get the chance to pick up this credit during our visit to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, which is now technically our home park, located around a 2.5 hour drive from where we currently live.
Visiting on Labor Day weekend in 2024, our visit was defined by large crowds and remarkably poor operations, with Joker alternating between not running at all and one-train operations. After burning around 35 minutes waiting in line when no trains were being dispatched, we ultimately decided to make the most of our day on other coasters, leaving Joker behind.
While I’m sure I’ll make it back to Discovery Kingdom at some point given its relative proximity to where we currently live, Joker is truly the only thing I felt I missed out on in the park – and I’d much prefer a visit to the soon-to-be-closed California’s Great America in Santa Clara.
Wonder Woman Flight of Courage, Six Flags Magic Mountain
Arguably one of the best and most complete theme parks in the world, it’s hard to get a better dose of everything coasters have to offer than what you can get at Six Flags Magic Mountain, located in Valencia around 25 minutes north of Los Angeles city-proper.
I’ve gotten the chance to visit Magic Mountain twice over the years – on a high school marching band trip back in March 2013, and again with my wife on a vacation to Southern California in January 2024 – the latter of which gave me the chance to catch up on all of the new additions made to the park since my previous visit.
The notable omission in that quest was Wonder Woman Flight of Courage, a single-rail coaster from Rocky Mountain Construction that opened for the first time in July 2022 – making it one of the park’s newer coasters.
Unfortunately for myself, Flight of Courage was closed for the duration of my visit to the park, a ride I was particularly looking forward to as I have yet to ride a single-rail coaster.
While I hope to finally get that novel experience with a ride on RailBlazer at California’s Great America, Flight of Courage looks like an absolute blast that ideally completes the impressive portfolio offered by the park.
Banshee, Kings Island
One of the larger inverted coasters ever made by Bolliger & Mabillard, Banshee is also among the more recent iterations of the model, having opened long after the slew of Batman: The Ride clones in April 2014.
Coming in at a height of 167 feet with a 150-foot plunge that reaches top speeds of 68 miles per hour, Banshee packs a bit more of a punch than its Batman counterparts, which typically top out at around 50 miles per hour with a height of around 100 feet.
With Kings Island being such a massive park, missing out on Banshee was simply a matter of prioritizing other rides, instead opting to wait in long lines for Flight of Fear, Orion, Diamondback and Mystic Timbers.
Though inverted coasters rattle my head a bit more than most other rides, this still would have been a nice ride to either start or end a day on, with prohibitively long lines ultimately leading me to decide I was going to miss out on it.
Having said that, Banshee would be my top destination on another visit to the park, standing out as the lone large coaster there I didn’t get a chance to get on.
Leave a Reply