User blog:RCTFan2002/Whatever Happened to... Episode 6: Whatever Happened to Kings Paradise?


 * Inhales* So....it's been over 5 months since I last posted a new episode for this series. Well, better late than never, I guess?

I'd go into a long and winded apology and explanation for why I hadn't updated this in so long, but I'm sure that's not what you came here to read about. So instead, let's try to pick up the pieces from where we left off and just jump into it. This week, we'll be focusing on the RCT3 park Kings Paradise by Fraroc, with some help from Stacy4554, who provided me with some ideas for this episode. Kudos to them for all their help on this :) So let's get started!

Kings Paradise
Last time we saw Kings Paradise, it was 2010, and the park's "newest" coaster, Silver Stallion, had just opened in the Olde Frontier section of the park, to smashing success - and I say newest with air quotes due to the fact that the coaster was just a repainted and relocated Flight of Fear, aka Joker's Jinx, aka Star Trek: The Ride. Just a few months after the coaster opened in the new area, there was already hype and speculation about a new coaster being added for 2011, and another one being removed from the park for future expansion. However, the park's resident blogger, CoasterInsider reporter Robbie Fletcher, just upped and stopped updating after his visit to the park on May 7, 2010, leaving 12 years' worth of blanks to fill in. Why did he stop updating? What happened to him? What happened to the park he apparently loved so much? To that, I'll let Robbie's little sister, Melanie Cooper, nee Fletcher, explain.

By Melanie Cooper, posted July 2nd, 2022, 6:36pm EST
Hello everyone, my name is Melanie Cooper, and I'm a 38-year-old secretary at a small office company in Cranston, Rhode Island. While I'm new to this site, expect this to be my only post on Kings Paradise, because I'm not as much into theme parks and rollercoasters as I was when I was younger, plus the fact that I now live in Rhode Island, which is all the way across the country from Wyoming, doesn't help things commute-wise (the only major theme park that I can consider close by to where I now live is that other Cedar Fair park in Newport - I think it's called Newport Pleasure Gardens or something like that?). But I did visit this park a few times back in the '90s and early 2000s when I was a kid, along with my brother - you all may know him as Robert Fletcher. Yes, THAT Robert Fletcher. I know he used to post updates about this park on this site every year, because he loved to visit it so much. He was so excited to see the park's new coaster for 2011 too, talking about it at the end of the last post he ever made to the website:

CoasterInsider REPORT

5/7/2010

Pictures show that Kings Paradise will get a new coaster for 2011!

''We have some new pictures of Kings Paradise taken by someone who did a trip report at the park! Lets take a look at them!''

''Silver Stallion is a big success! Even though everyone knows it's really Flight of Fear/Jokers Jinx/Star Trek''

''Hope is fading for Steel Python. The ride has been removed from the park map, and is currently classified as SBNO on the Roller Coaster Database. Something tells me the end is nigh for the 21 year old Arrow looper.''

''And also, big news! B&M style track has been spotted where Flight of Fear used to stand! What is it going to be? The park already has an Inverted coaster and a Floorless coaster. A flyer perhaps? It remains to be seen!''

That was the last post he ever made to the website. He told me that he'd planned to return to the park a few weeks later on Memorial Day Weekend to post another update about the new rumored coaster, but unfortunately, that never happened, because, well...he got involved in an accident just a few days before his trip was planned, and...he died. That's why he never updated again after that post.



I know we probably should've made a post about it under his account back in 2010 explaining what happened, but in all the chaos following the accident, I guess we just forgot. I only realized it just now when I saw some of his old photos he'd taken from the park back when we first visited back in 1997 came up on my web search, and I figured I might as well owe it to him and to all his followers that I finally close this tale once and for all.

That being said, let's get into what happened at Kings Paradise over the last 12 years, starting from Robbie's last update in May of 2010. 2010 saw the Flight of Fear coaster being relocated to Olde Frontier as Silver Stallion, and Steel Python, the park's Arrow multi-looper, remained Standing But Not Operating for the entire season, after a few years of declining popularity and care from the park owners. At the same time, new B&M coaster track was spotted behind the park, causing many people to speculate that a new possible B&M flyer or dive coaster would open at the park in 2011. On August 20, 2010, Cedar Fair confirmed that Steel Python would be removed from the park that season, but not for a new coaster - that would go somewhere else. The coaster would be subsequently scrapped following the park's Halloween Haunt event that October, with it's three trains being sent to KP's sister parks Kings Island, Canada's Wonderland, and Kings Dominion for their own Arrow loopers.

As for the new coaster, it would be announced just days following the announcement of Steel Python's removal, and in 2011, Intimidator 275 opened in a whole new area of the park located all the way in the back of the park, where Silver Stallion originally resided. However, the most surprising part of the coaster was that it wasn't in fact a B&M coaster of any kind like many coaster enthusiasts had expected it to be, but rather a completely berserk 275-ft tall Intamin launched coaster. The track had been modified and customized by Intamin to look more like B&M track to allow for a much smoother and more "gliding" ride experience. The coaster starts off with a small turn out of the station and into a pre-launch section, where the train would pause for a bit before going into a 90mph launch straight up a 275-ft tall top hat element, before dropping back down and going into a series of intense and sharp turns, dives, and helices, before entering a 180-degree turn back into the final break section of the ride. The ride is actually a lot shorter and more simplistic than it looks at first glance, with only a 95-second ride duration, but apparently, it's considered one of Cedar Fair's most intense rollercoasters ever built, due to it's fast launch and it's 275-ft vertical drop straight down the top hat element, with most cosaster enthusiasts comparing it to Kings Dominion's Intimidator 305 and Cedar Point's Millennium Force in terms of intensity and speed. It currently remains to this day one of KP's most popular coasters, and was even featured in an episode of All-American Amusement Parks in 2016.

Also new for 2011 was the flat rides Riptide and Skyhawk. Riptide was a hand-me-down Huss Top Spin relocated from a European traveling fair, and Skyhawk was an S&S Screamin' Swing ride, both rides located in Intimidator 275's brand new plaza. While not as popular as Intimidator 275, both thrill rides also featured great success from the crowds that season.

Also, in 2011, NightFire, that launched coaster that was a clone of KD's Volcano, had it's name changed yet again, because it turns out that the name NightFire was actually taken from some old videogame called 007: NightFire (A/N: real game) that Cedar Fair did not hold the licensing rights to. Cedar Fair initially claimed that they were unaware of the name being already taken, but they were forced to comply and change it anyways to avoid going to court, so starting 2011, NightFire was now called Eruption: Blast Coaster, as a sort of reference to KD's Volcano, I guess. The ride was also repainted yet again from blue/black to yellow/blue due to the name change.

Later that year, a tremendous plot of land was cleared in the spot where Steel Python used to be, with many people assuming that it'd either be a new coaster (extremely unlikely though IMO, since the park literally just added a new coaster that year and rebranded another coaster as new in a new area the year before that) or, more likely, a new park area expansion. In a way, those who speculated the latter were right.

In 2012, Soak City, the park's official waterpark, opened in the area around the lake that Steel Python had previously occupied. Also, interesting fact, Steel Python's old building ended up being reused as the official entrance building for the waterpark, or at least the outer facade of it was - the entire inside of the building was gutted and renovated for the change to occur. This new waterpark was considered by many to be a much-needed addition to the park, as it was one of the very few parks in the Cedar Fair chain lacking a waterpark at the time. All of the waterpark's attractions and slides, including some gift shops and restaurants, a wave pool, a surfing simulator, and a typical Tornado slide, would be built around the lake that Steel Python was also built around, giving off massive Geauga Lake/Wildwater Kingdom vibes. The waterpark quickly became the most populated area of the park when it opened Memorial Day Weekend, 2012, being packed with crowds all summer long.

In 2013, WindSeeker opened at the par. A 300-ft tall Mondial WindSeeker ride found at most of Cedar Fair's other parks, this ride occupied the cleared land across from ThunderStrike's queue entrance. A new pathway to WindSeeker would also be constructed from the pathway that Racer's queue entrance was on, providing guests with much easier access to the ride as well as the entrance to ThunderStrike, instead of having to walk all the way around past Ricochet and the main street area. Even though WindSeeker looked like a thrillseeker's fantasy due to it's massive, intimidating height, it was actually tame enough that families and even older children could ride it as well, causing the ride to appeal to the best of both worlds. It proved to be greatly popular in it's opening season. However, 2013 would also see Jr. Racer, the park's Alan Herschell kiddie coaster, being dismantled towards the end of the season, leading to many assumptions that the coaster would be removed for good. Cedar Fair, though, officially announced in October of 2013 that Jr. Racer would not be getting removed but would instead rebuilt as part of a new area expansion in that very spot as part of the 2014 additions.

In 2014, Planet Snoopy opened to the public, as a complete renovation of the area where Jr. Racer used to be. The coaster, now known as Woodstock Express, would be rebuilt in that exact same area, albeit rotated 90 degrees, as new pathways would also be built in the new area surrounding the ride, connecting the all-new area to the entrance plaza of Venom Rail, the "main strip" of the park, and to the area where Drop Tower: Scream Zone (formerly Drop Zone and Dare Devil Dive) and Turnover (the park's HUSS Enterprise) were located. The new area would also include several prominent new attractions dedicated entirely to little kids, such as Kite Eating Tree (a Zamperla Jumping Star), Joe Cool's Dodgem School (a kiddie bumper cars), Woodstock's Airmail (a Zamperla Samba Tower), and Charlie Brown's Wind Up (a Zamperla Loli Swing), as well as an all-new Peanuts-themed gift shop and a small eatery, and an old kiddie ride, Little Tuggers, being incorporated into the area and rebranded as Lucy's Tugboat.

Amazingly, this is the first time since the park opened way back in 1971 that it's had an official children's area - up until then, the park had never had an actual kiddie area or any kiddie rides at all, other than Jr. Racer and Little Tuggers (even during the Paramount and Six Flags years, which I always thought was kind of strange). Needless to say, the 2014 season was a tremendous success for the park.

However, near the end of the season, it was also announced by Cedar Fair that Hurricane, the park's S.D.C. family coaster, would permanently close at the end of the season (following Halloween Haunt), to make room for a new coaster in 2015. Since Hurricane sat in the very back of the park, facing a huge open plot of land, removing it would create a whole lot of potential for new coasters to take up it's spot. Thus, on November 1, 2014, the day after Halloween Haunt ended, Hurricane and the pathway leading to it were fenced off, and the ride would be dismantled and sent off within the month, being relocated to a small family-oriented amusement park in Renton, Washington, where it currently operates to this day.

In 2015, Hurricane's replacement, a Gerstlauer Infinity coaster by the name of CliffHanger, opened to the public. The first Gerstlauer Infinity to open in the Cedar Fair chain, the ride immediately became popular at the park with many coaster enthusiasts, who praised it for it's tight inversions and fast-paced ride experience, with lots of sudden turns and dives, but criticized it for being too short, the ride time being only approximately 75 seconds or so total. Despite this rather minor nitpick, CliffHanger turned out to be a major success for the park, being the park's most popular ride during the entire season. While Hurricane's old pathways would be reused as the exit path of the coaster, a new queue line and building would be constructed next to the pathway.

2016 didn't see any large additions that year. The only major addition to the park that year was a small flat ride - a Larson Flying Skooters to be exact - named Professor Delbert's Frontier Fling, which was located in the Olde Frontier area, right next to Rodeo Roundup, a Hrubertz Round Up ride that opened with the area in 2004. The ride wasn't that big of an addition, but it still proved to be very popular in the area with people of all ages, specifically families with younger kids. 2016 also saw some somewhat needed improvements around the whole park, including Raging Tempest getting a repaint and Z-Force being given two new trains by Chance Morgan to replace some of the ride's original Arrow trains (as of 2022, all the original Arrow trains from the ride remain in storage).

On July 29, 2016, Cedar Fair announced on Facebook that Venom Rail would close permanently on August 19th, and encouraged everyone to get their last licks on the 33-year-old coaster. While a few die-hard coaster enthusiasts were saddened by this news, other people claimed to have expected this, seeing as to how Cedar Fair was on a roll with removing Togo standup coasters from their parks, such as Shockwave at Kings Dominion and SkyRider at Canada's Wonderland, over the past few years. Nonetheless, Venom Rail gave it's last rides on August 19th as promised, and was quickly dismantled and scrapped as the end of the regular season came and went. Many theme park enthusiasts expected a new coaster to take Venom Rail's place in 2017, but some people pointed out that since the land that Venom Rail was on was located right next to the Planet Snoopy area, it could be a new kiddie area expansion or something similar.

2017's addition seemed to be sort of a compromise between the two suggestions. While Cedar Fair had originally planned on adding a major wooden coaster by either GCI or Gravity Group in Venom Rail's old spot, worries about the noise bothering kids in the Planet Snoopy area right next door prompted them to tone the idea down a bit. Thus, in 2017, Kingsnake, a GCI family wooden coaster, opened in Venom Rail's old spot right next to Planet Snoopy, with it's entrance and queue line being built in the Intimidator 275 area and it's exit path basically being Venom Rail's old entrance pathway reused. At 42 feet tall, with a 48 foot first drop into a small pit in the ground and a max. speed of 36 mph, the coaster was not big or loud enough to intimidate little kids in the nearby kids area, but was also thrilling and exciting enough to garner the attention of most thrillseekers and coaster enthusiasts. Therefore, Kingsnake proved to be a well-enough success for the park during it's opening season.

2017 would also see the removal of two of the park's older flat rides - "Enterprise", the hand-me-down Huss Enterprise that opened in 1989 with Steel Python, and "The Frenzy", the Intamin Looping Starship ride that opened back in 1986 after Kings Entertainment bought the park from the Anders family (A/N: This is the Ranger ride that's seen next to the parachute tower in the pictures of the park, I just thought a Looping Starship would be better and make more sense for a KECO park). While both rides were very popular back in the '70s and '80s, the same thing couldn't be said over 30+ years later in 2017, especially with all the other, newer, better attractions surrounding them. Enterprise and The Frenzy would both be closed off to the public during Halloween Haunt and quickly removed from the park. The Frenzy's parts were sent to Kings Dominion and Carowinds for their own Looping Starship rides, while Enterprise was sold off to a park in Europe.

2018 saw the addition of several small family flat rides, such as Krasy Kars (yes, it's spelled like that intentionally), a bumper cars attraction that was added right next to the carousel, Bad Apple, a Huss Troika that served as The Frenzy's replacement, and Pipe Scream, a Zamperla Skater ride located across from Drop Tower: Scream Zone, serving as Enterprise's replacement. Many park guests are able to see the ride from the nearby Soak City due to the fact that the ride was basically located right next to the waterpark. However, 2018 also saw ThunderStrike, the park's 32-year-old Dinn Corp. woodie, begin experiencing moments of "downtime" - at least, that's what the park called it at the time - as the ride would be frequently closed off from the public for most of the season while supposed "inspections" were being done on the ride. Of course, all the coaster enthusiasts began to go crazy at this news and start making assumptions about an RMC hybrid coaster coming to Kings Paradise in 2019...

...and they were right, as in August 2018, Lightning Bolt was announced for Kings Paradise in 2019. As an RMC conversion of the old ThunderStrike, the new coaster would feature a 90-degree first drop much like that of Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point, three inversions (two barrel rolls and a zero-g stall), and the double helix element after the first airtime hill, which had received criticism during the last few years for it's shakiness and bone-rattling roughness, would be completely removed from the ride and replaced with a banked, dipping turn that would go back up and straight into a barrel roll drop. The helix right before the brake run would also be removed from the new coaster and replaced with another banked turn. Even though the removal of these two helices drastically decreased the ride time by at least 10-20 seconds, it also provided the new ride with a more smoother ride experience. Needless to say, coaster fanatics were absolutely excited the moment this ride was announced, and when Lightning Bolt finally did open in May 2019, the new coaster found itself packed with eager riders and guests the entire season, with the queue time for the ride never dipping below an hour at the bare minimum on one of KP's busier days.

Originally, for the 2020 season, Cedar Fair had planned on adding a small expansion to Soak City, featuring a new multi-slide waterslide complex with AquaDrop body slides and tube slides, much like the other slide complexes found at other CF parks (Dorney Park, Cedar Fair, Carowinds, etc.). The new attraction was slated for a June 2020 opening date - however, with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the U.S. in early 2020, Kings Paradise found itself shutting down for the entire season due to lockdowns and COVID restriction protocols, and as a result the waterslide complex was abandoned mid-construction. However, construction on the ride would continue later on in late 2020 and the start of 2021, with the complex, called Paradise Plunge Point, finally opening to the public in June of 2021. While the park as a whole saw a noticeable decrease in attendance during the COVID pandemic, the new waterslide complex still brought many guests into Soak City during the summertime.

As of today, in 2022, while no new attractions have opened up at either Kings Paradise or Soak City this year, with Cedar Fair still recovering from the pandemic and all, some touchups have still occurred at the park this season, such as Ricochet being repainted from yellow/dark blue to green/dark red and being renamed Apple Zapple (just like it's KD counterpart did), and Racer receiving a semi-retracking by Gravity Group as well as new Timberliner trains to celebrate it's belated 50th birthday (the coaster opened in 1971, but the park didn't do anything in 2021 due to the pandemic). Many people have already started assuming that a new major coaster of some sort is expected to come to the park in 2023, and with Eruption: Blast Coaster not being open at all this season, maybe that assumption is not that far-fetched at all? I mean, I know Eruption is the only one of it's kind left after Volcano's sudden removal in 2019, but the coaster has reportedly suffered from so much downtime and maintenance problems in the last few tears, just like it's sister coaster did, and with the COVID pandemic kicking Cedar Fair's financial assets in the n*ts and all, I could unfortunately see them deciding to axe this ride as well in the very near future, to save themselves money on ride repairs. But I don't know for sure yet, we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyways, that's about it for the story of Kings Paradise over the last decade or so. While I don't have any plans myself to visit this park again anytime soon, I just know that my brother Robbie would be so happy to see me finally close the book on this story of one of his favorite amusement parks, after it ended so abruptly to begin with (A/N: 4th wall break anyone?). Kings Paradise has certainly seen it's ups and downs over the last few years, and hopefully it'll continue to fare well in the next few decades or so.

To everyone who followed my brother's original updates on this park on CoasterInsider all those years ago, thank you so much for supporting my brother during all those years he was on there, and for taking the time to listen to me finally finish his story today. I hope it served you well, and as for me...I think I might take a trip to Newport Pleasure Gardens sometime soon and make a trip report out of it.

Thank you all once again for listening,

Melanie Cooper (nee Fletcher)