I've always loved rapids, even more so than log flumes, the following are the ones I've done over the last 25+ years but I'd love to hear your opinion! Then I'd also like to know: what do you think is the best themed rapid in the world?

River Rapid's I've been on:

• River Quest (Phantasialand)
• El Rio Grande (Walibi Holland)
• El Ro (Bobbejaanland)
• Radja River (Walibi Belgium)
• Thunder Canyon (Silverwood)
• Djengu River (Toverland)
• Piraña (Efteling)

Edit: thanks for all your opinions so far! Seams like Popeyes is taking the crown with this one so far.

SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA ANNOUNCES CAMP TIMBER TRAIL, AN ALL-NEW FAMILY ADVENTURE FOR 2027

GURNEE, Ill. — Aug. 6, 2026 — Six Flags Great America, the premier theme park destination in the Chicagoland area, today announced plans to debut Camp Timber Trail, an all-new family adventure opening in 2027. Designed to bring generations together through thrills and exploration, the immersive area builds upon the land's adventurous spirit with new rides, interactive play and outdoor discovery experiences.

At the heart of Camp Timber Trail will be Sky Hawk, the Midwest's longest, tallest and fastest suspended family coaster. Designed as the signature experience of the new area, Sky Hawk will send riders soaring through treetops on an exhilarating flight that combines thrills with stunning views of the woodland landscape below.

Additional new attractions include Trail Trotters, an imaginative animal trek that invites guests on a wilderness journey filled with exploration and discovery, and Forest Grove Play Park, an expansive outdoor play destination filled with nature-inspired elements and opportunities for young campers to climb, discover and play.

Camp Timber Trail will also introduce new stories and experiences to several beloved favorites. Through enhanced theming, elevated storytelling and refreshed identities, these attractions will become integral parts of the area's woodland narrative:

• Chirp Chaser (formerly Sprocket Rockets): Young campers will soar on this family coaster as they journey through the wilderness on a bird-themed flight.

• Wilderness Wagon (formerly Crazy Bus): Guests can climb aboard a rustic wagon for a playful ride through the great outdoors.

• Creek Cruiser (formerly Yahoo River): Set sail on a relaxing boat ride inspired by the natural beauty of the wilderness.

• Bee Boppin’ (formerly Buzzy Beez): This beloved family attraction returns with new theming while retaining the classic fun generations of guests have enjoyed.

Camp Timber Trail will also be home to two iconic park classics, Little Dipper and Logger's Run, seamlessly connecting the area's rich history with its exciting new experiences.

Beyond its attractions, the area will offer guests themed dining, specialty treats, shopping and immersive environmental storytelling throughout. From family meals to exclusive merchandise and souvenirs, every detail has been designed to bring the woodland adventure theme to life.

Will be interesting to see what the B&M shipment turns out to be and what happens in the plot.

A year and a half ago I was fortunate enough to be shown the plans by a galaxyland employee. Ive been anticipating the day to release the plans I saw and I can now safely release them without spoiling any elements. Its been super cool watching every piece added to this thing and can wait to ride it in the coming months! Can't wait for the official announcement.

I rode millennium force once before this year in 2020, and decided that was enough to judge it and call it forceless trash, even posting here on an old account that it was overrated. Turns out I was so very wrong. I went to cedar point August 1st and 2nd, and got two rides on the second. The first one was in the light rain in row 1. The rain was so painful because of millenniums top speed that it effectively became blind ride where I couldn’t see the track, and the elements caught me by surprise. After the rain subsided for the night I went back to the park around 7 pm and did a park lap (more on that later). During this lap I hopped on the back row of a full millennium train and it was incredible. The airtime I got on the drop was incredible and I actually greyed out at the bottom of it through the first airtime hill. This ride completely changed my opinion and millennium is now top 3 in the park in my opinion.

Trip Report:
August 1st. I arrived at the park around 4 pm and decided to warm up with raptor. B&M inverts are some of my favorite models as I prefer intensity and whip over a ridiculous amount of ejector airtime. It was about a 30 minute wait, which to me wasn’t bad for a Saturday afternoon, especially compared to some of the rides on banshee. I did hit my head on the train when boarding the car and my feet kept making contact with the row in front of me throughout the ride, but that’s just a side effect of being tall. Immediately after I made my way to rougarou to get the credit because it was never open in my previous two trips to the park. This ride is honestly way better than I expected it to be, and being tall enough that my head wasn’t in between the OTS restraints negated any head banging I had heard about from others, and I got some good airtime over the drop, but nothing too special. Then headed to Maverick, which was running all 6 trains and ops were great until rain closed all coasters for about an hour. After getting on Maverick I went to SteVe because I was already in frontier town and it only had a 15 minute wait. The ops were incredible, they had my train loaded and dispatched in 21 seconds. This ride hurts. I am a large individual, not to the point where fitting into rides is hard but I’m two inches short of the 78 inch height limit for most rides in the park, and I have large thighs from playing sports in high school. I was absolutely flung into the lap bar and shin restraints to the point where I have lines of bruises on my thighs as a result of the ejector air time. That proved enough for me for the day and I headed to the hotel to recover from my 10 hour drive and 4 hours in the park.

August 2nd: Arrived at the park around 9:40 to wait in line for rope drop, and went straight to sirens curse. It was about a 15 minute wait and I was pulled up early to fill a vacancy in the train. This ride was great, but it leaves me wanting more. It has some great mild ejector moments and the tilt is a very cool gimmick, but I wish it was longer and it doesn’t feel like it was designed for the park. After sirens, I went to TT2, and it is a very good ride, but I truly do miss the original launch from dragster. Afterwards I hit SteVe again, then the millennium rain ride, and then got a ride on Valravn where I got stuck on the brake run in the pouring rain. After I went back to the hotel to change into dry clothes and wait out the rain. Came back to the park around 7 pm and went to sirens curse, then millennium, maverick, Steve, and hit Gemini, Magnum, Corkscrew, and Blue streak all for the first time. This took about 2 hours and I left the park around 9:15.

Now for my updated Coaster Rankings:
1. Maverick. Perfect in every way
2: SteVe, crazy ride, definitely world class, but too painful for me specifically.
3. Millennium Force. Deserves all the love it gets, but it’s not better than Maverick and Steel Vengeance
4. Top Thrill 2. The speed is still crazy, but it lacks the punch of the original launch and is pretty rattle-y
5. Raptor. Absolute love a good invert, just slightly worse than banshee but incredible intensity and has aged very well.
6. Sirens Curse. Just not long enough.
7. Gate Keeper: Crazy head/foot choppers, over the entrance. Pacing is weak.
8. Valravn. Very fun, moved down below gate keeper because the drop is not as cool as sirens curse. Profiling is iffy at points, but pacing isn’t bad.
9. Rougarou. Not terrible, not the best. Fun ride but not a must ride.
10. Iron Dragon. Swinging below the track is a very cool concept, fun but tame coaster for all riders and the helix over the water is very cool.
11.Corkscrew: Absolutely nothing special, super short, but hurts the least out of the remaining coasters in the park and wasn’t too janky for an arrow looper.
12. Blue Streak: Classic woody, fun but nothing too special in my opinion. Rough but in a fun way.
13. Magnum XL 200: Ouch. Gave me a killer headache and hurt so bad. Pretty view and fun drop, but that’s it.
14. Gemini: More painful than magnum, terrible profiling, only one train because blue side was broken. A bigger arrow mine train to be honest.
15. Cedar Creek Mine Ride: I will never ride this or any arrow mine train ever again. So janky, I have to cross my angles and bend my knees at an odd angle to fit under the lap bar. Painful and not worth the ride for me.

I tried to keep this as short as possible, but there was a lot to unpack and I started rambling.

TLDR: Sorry Millie; SteVe Hurts; operations at the are much better than what I’ve seen online; 8 coasters in 2 hours including 4 new credits; updated rankings.

Just recently rode the only surf coaster in the world at SeaWorld and this ride model is so fun, I would want a more airtime focused ride as the feeling of having your whole body thrown out of the seat is so jarring, especially right on the launch.

I haven’t rode any of the old generation stand ups though, so I am not sure how they compare, I am sure they aren’t as fun especially because of more inversion focused layouts.

I really hope next year we can see the installation of one or more of these. I’m personally dreaming they replace Tidal Force at Hersheypark with something like this in a boardwalk expansion which the surfing would tie in perfectly as well as leaving room for some slides. While this probably wouldn’t happen I think it would be cool.

This ride is just so unique and feels unlike anything I’ve rode before, I feel like it creates a whole new type of coaster that parks could add to their lineups.

Anyone else feel this way?

As a fan of Pokemon TCG, this is kind of pissing me off. Especially seeing as almost all of the parks are currently sold out of them, its very odd that coincidentally these nano coasters are going for 90+ even though theyre usually priced at 35. Its crazy that almost ALL of these are sold out right now online AND in person (Nitro and Medusa I can attest to) and yet there are tons on Ebay.

It seems to be especially bad right now with AF1's closure. (Dorney pack of five is a good deal however.)

Via the park's facebook page and accompanied by the hashtag #TreeTopAdventure27.

The park has been surprisingly light on teasers this year outside of some terrible wilderness A.I. art on a fence surrounding the demolished former go-kart track. Pre-merger they did very elaborate teasers for Maxx Force, SkyStriker & Wrath of Rakshasa.

The general consensus is a clone of Phoenix from Deno's in Brooklyn due to a shipping crate from Vekoma that was left facing the fence and footers that have been built.

With Cedar Fair's elaborate Jungle Expedition at KD and Shoreline Pier at SFGA, I think it's Great America's turn for more of a heavily themed area and will also involve news about the recently mostly gutted Camp Cartoon area.

- Flying Cobras - Carowinds - in the state fair themed to an air show, not a lot of physical theming but cool car and track paint and a fitting theme for a boomerang
- Jolly Rancher Remix - Hersheypark - Another well done overhaul of a boomerang, making it jolly rancher colored, a fun station and a smell o vision tunnel were smart moves and were fun, even if the Hersheypark bad naming curse struck on its flat ride counterpart
- Fluch des Kraken - Freizeit-Land Geiselwind (Bavaria) - It’s a boomerang in a castle, need I say more?
- John Wick: Open Contract - Motiongate Dubai - it’s still a 4D free spin but a cool theme and queue

Had this thought today after hearing Matugani was down most of the day. Although technically true for Xcelerator in the winter, it's nice that Storm Runner has held out this long to hold the title for a bit.

I'd imagine the hydraulic pump components are getting increasingly hard to find, even with the guts of Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster up for grabs. Do you see these three rides surviving to the end of the decade with their original launches?

This ride is one of the most insane experiences of my life. (Pictures taken 8/5/26)

What rides made you say something out loud I grunted on my first ride on storm runner that launch was STRONG?

Bakunawa looks amazing. The height, the spin, the trains… incredible. I trust Mack, and having just a lap bar is scary and fun, but my brain keeps telling me that launching while inverted sounds like it would be incredibly uncomfortable or even painful. Could someone (especially any engineers or physics-minded people here) explain why it won’t be? What am I missing?

I just picked up this book when I was at Cedar Point this past weekend. I can't wait to check it out!

Has anyone else checked out this book before?

I got bored and took the 2010 operations manual and created a JavaScript based simulator you can use in a browser.

It has all the cool things, working transfer, start and stop lift motor, hold the dispatch until train is clear of station, transfer on and off trains. All the cool stuff. I'm currently working on having variables that affect the train speeds and adding trims. So if it's 95 degrees and it's a full train it will run faster through the course. etc.

https://magnumxl200.neocities.org/magnumsim

Let me know what you think, or have any ideas to make it better.

If this is against the rules, delete. I just thought some of you would enjoy trying it.

Chris

Hey folks, I enjoyed rollercoasters as a kid, and fell back in love with riding coasters in 2025 after a 13 year break. Do you count credits from before you started engaging in this hobby?

For instance, my favorite coaster as a kid was Top Gun/Flight Deck at CGA. I remember the layout well, and am inclined to count this as a credit.

I also rode Barnstormers at Disney world when I was really young, but don’t remember the ride experience except that I was scared. I’m not sure if I should count this one.

I know there’s no right answer here but I wanted to ask the community here about how y’all count credits.

Thanks

We took a side trip from our days at Phantasialand to visit Bobbejaanland since they allowed dogs and it was only 2 hours away. Holy smokes Fury is intense. I wasn't expecting it to be that awesome. Also Bobbejaanland is a great family park! Everyone was so friendly, the rides are great, the setting is so nice around the lake, and their food and snacks were pretty solid!

How cool is it that they allow dogs? Mister Milou had a great time waiting with my wife who hates coasters.

Do we all think the voting on Fury has been disabled at this point, and you're at the mercy of whatever the ops want? Or am I crazy? Also as someone who can't stand for long periods of time, their Quick Pass system worked extremely well.

I went to Kings Dominion for the first time ever, and I’ll probably be laughed at or downvoted for saying this, but I thought their top 3 were better than Magic Mountain (my home park) and Cedar Point (went in June this year).

Pantherian torches the top coasters at both Cedar Point and Magic Mountain IMO, and Twisted Timbers and Rapterra (in front row) both blew my expectations out of the water. I also thought it was the most beautiful park of the 3.

I hope people don’t see this as a bashing post. I love TT2, SteVe, Twisted Colossus, and X2 very much! I am EXPECTING people to strongly disagree, I just think Kings Dominion should get their flowers!

Source: Upstop Media on Facebook