New Park Attractions For 2020
This article wlll include all new park attractions for 2020 that we are aware of. Park representatives may send their info for inclusion to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Mason, Ohio - Kings Island announces Orion Giga Coaster
Thrill-seekers will experience a new level of excitement when they visit Kings Island in 2020. Joining the world-class line-up of coasters at the park is Orion®, one of only seven giga coasters in the world, a class of coasters having a height or drop of 300-399 ft. The park makes the announcement in honor of National Roller Coaster Day, August 16th.
Orion will plunge riders down an exhilarating 300-foot drop before sending them on a high-speed journey over seven more hills at speeds of up to 91 mph. Racing along 5,321 feet of track; it will be Kings Island’s tallest, fastest and longest steel coaster. You may get to the Orion announcement page by Clicking Here.
Sandusky Ohio - Cedar Point to Celebrate 150th Anniversary in 2020
The biggest celebration in Cedar Point’s history is about to hit the Lake Erie shoreline as the second-oldest amusement park in North America commemorates its 150th anniversary in 2020. All next season, the park will honor its past while embracing the future, providing the same family fun that has entertained generations and shaped the amusement park industry for decades.
As Cedar Point looks to the future, it will celebrate its grand sesquicentennial by introducing a multitude of new family entertainment and memory-making experiences.
Guests will enjoy a fully-immersive nighttime celebration along the Main Midway, try new, delicious and innovative food options (along with a few throwbacks of old), take home new memories with a complete line of nostalgic souvenirs and merchandise, step into a reimagined Town Hall in Frontier Town and climb aboard a river expedition for a new generation.
The New Gold Pass
Cedar Point’s 150th anniversary wouldn’t even be possible without the loyalty of its guests over the past century and a half. To celebrate this very special year of commemoration, the park is introducing the new, limited-edition anniversary Gold Pass. This $99 pass has been created to not only celebrate the park’s once-in-a-lifetime milestone, but also for families looking to return “home” to Cedar Point to keep current traditions, start new ones and make lasting memories together.
The Gold Pass provides unlimited access to next year’s season-long celebration – but it also offers unlimited visits to Cedar Point and Cedar Point Shores Waterpark for the remainder of 2019, including HalloWeekends®. It includes free parking, discounts on food and merchandise, bring-a-friend admission discounts and exclusive ride times. The Gold Pass also comes with access to “Golden Entry,” the opportunity to ride some of the park’s best attractions 30 minutes prior to posted park opening time.
The new Gold Pass is available now at the park and at cedarpoint.com. For more information on the 150th celebration Click Here.
Charlotte NC - Carowind to debut longest mat racing water slide in the Southeast
World-class water slide racing is coming to Carowinds in 2020 when Boogie Board Racer, the longest mat racing slide in the Southeast, debuts next summer at Carolina Harbor waterpark. On Boogie Board Racer, guests will ascend to nearly 60 feet, grab a mat, and choose one of six lanes where they’ll wait for the green light to begin an exhilarating competitive ride. Racers will zoom through tubes, high-speed chutes and a thrilling 360-degree loop. A final drop brings them to maximum acceleration before they reach the finish lane to splashdown.
Boogie Board Racer is the first new attraction in Carolina Harbor since the waterpark was expanded and re-themed in 2016. The brightly colored slide will be located near the park’s newest roller coaster, Copperhead Strike. The slide was custom designed for Carowinds by White Water West, a Vancouver-based world leader in water park attraction design.
Also new in 2020 is Grand Carnivale, a nighttime international festival and street party celebrating global culture in grand scale, with signature beverages and a special menu. The Spectacle of Color full-scale parade is a highlight of the festival, with extravagantly decorated and brightly lit floats, and lavishly costumed street performers who will draw guests into the action, tossing beads as they travel through the park to the beat of lively music. The festival will run nightly June 13-July 5, 2020. For more information Click Here.
Whitehall, MI - Michigan's Adventure to open new kid friendly Camp Snoopy in 2020
Michigan’s Adventure will debut its new Peanuts® themed kids’ area, Camp Snoopy, for Spring of 2020. Camp Snoopy will feature five family rides, including a family-friendly roller coaster and beautiful natural landscaping with plenty of shaded seating and pathways that offer something to explore around every corner.
Camp Snoopy will feature five new rides aimed to please families with kids from toddlers to tweens:
- Woodstock Express: Little thrill seekers can join parents and grandparents on this family roller coaster with plenty of ups and downs, just like the flight of Snoopy’s best bird buddy.
- Beagle Scout Lookout: Adventurers will board a version of a colorful hot air balloon and float high in the sky.
- Mud Buggies: Kids will climb aboard their very own all-terrain vehicle for a bouncy ride.
- Camp Bus: This fun family ride takes passengers soaring up and down and all around on a wacky bus with Snoopy in the drivers’ seat.
- Trail Blazers: Riders will buckle in and zoom around a track, like an off-road expedition.
In addition, the new Beagle Scout Acres will feature a large climb-and-play structure with lots of interactive features and things to climb. For more information Click Here.
Hershey, PA - Hershey Park to open Candymonium, it's 15th coaster
Candymonium is the tallest, fastest, longest, and sweetest coaster in Hersheypark®. From the distinctive Hershey’s candy theme to the memorable thrills around every turn, we’ve masterfully assembled the finest ingredients to create a one-of-a-kind Bolliger & Mabillard hyper coaster. Candymonium opens inside Hershey’s Chocolatetown summer 2020! For more info Click Here.
Cedar Point Voted “Best Amusement Park” Once Again
SANDUSKY, Ohio (June 28, 2019) – Cedar Point has once again been named “Best Amusement Park” in USA TODAY’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. The park beat other famous travel destinations in Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and more.
In addition, Cedar Point’s world-record-breaking Steel Vengeance hyper-hybrid roller coaster won the “Best Roller Coaster” award. This comes just after its “Best New Ride of 2018” recognition, chosen by readers and voters in Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards.
The historic Hotel Breakers, Cedar Point’s beachside resort, also captured the top spot in the “Best Amusement Park Hotel” category. The iconic property offers spectacular views of Lake Erie, the famous mile-long Cedar Point Beach and the world’s best amusement park destination.
Cedar Point, Steel Vengeance and Hotel Breakers were chosen to be included in the 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards by a panel of experts that includes a combination of editors from USA TODAY and travel industry contributors. Online voting for the awards lasted four weeks and readers were allowed to vote for their favorites in each category, once per day.
Adding to these accolades, Cedar Point has been issued TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence for a fifth consecutive year. The Certificate of Excellence is awarded to businesses all over the world that consistently deliver great service. According to TripAdvisor, approximately ten percent of total businesses listed on the travel site earn top reviews on a regular basis.
With 2019’s Certificate of Excellence, Cedar Point has been “inducted” into TripAdvisor’s “Certificate of Excellence Hall of Fame,” which recognizes businesses that have received a Certificate of Excellence for five consecutive years.
“We’ve made it our mission to be the top destination for family fun, and these awards help validate our team’s efforts,” said Jason McClure, vice president and general manager of Cedar Point. “We’ve been a summertime tradition for almost 150 years, and we won’t ever rest on our promise to deliver an exceptional experience for our guests.”
Kentucky Kingdom Celebrates 30th Anniversary!
WHAT A THRILLING RIDE IT’S BEEN ...KENTUCKY KINGDOM CELEBRATES 30YEARS OF FUN!
By Adam Birkner
Louisville, KY -Nestled in a town known for bourbon, race horses, fried chicken, and the legendary Muhammad Ali,Kentucky Kingdom, an amusement park and water park, is gearing up to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2019. The park will open for the season on Sunday, April 28.
The park’s roller coaster history, with ups and downs, challenges faced, and accolades received along the way, is one of the great comeback (and comeback again!) stories in the amusement industry.
In the summer of 1987, the original Kentucky Kingdom, a small 10-acre park,was opened by a group of Texas investors.Between an unseasonably wet and hot summer and overzealous hype from the operators(the park’s small size and ride selection did not measure up to its pre-opening advertising campaign, which centered on “Disney Comes to Kentucky”). As a result, the inaugural season lasted a grand total of six weeks before the park was forced to close due to poor attendance.
The park remained closed for two years, but the 1990’s brought a new owner, Louisville businessman Ed Hart, and a new era of growth. Although he might be the only amusement park owner in the world who suffers from motion sickness and doesn’t like to ride rides, Hart broke new ground inthe amusement industry, including introducing North America’s first suspended looping coaster (still in operation today at Kentucky Kingdom). He was also one of the first to build a water park as an integral part of an amusement park, rather than as a stand-alone, separately gated attraction. In other words, only one admission price was charged for both parks.Throughout the tenure of Hart and his team in the ‘90’s, the humble 10-acre park grew to more than 63 acres, attendance rose from 130,000 visitors in 1990 to 1.2 million in 1997, and the park received numerous awards and recognition as the fastest growing theme park in the world.
Following its sale to a national theme park operator in 1998, Kentucky Kingdom’s attendance slowly began to dwindle,and the park once known for introducing first-of-a-kind rides and other innovative concepts began to stagnate. Arguably the park’s most impressive marquee attraction of the 1990’s, the stand-up steel coaster called Chang, was removed at the end of the 2009 season. This was ostensibly to make room for new water park attractions, but in reality,it was the final nail in the coffin, as the national operator shortly thereafter filed for bankruptcy and abruptly closed and abandoned the park.
The park remained closed until a group of investors from Louisville, including Hart, came to the rescue. They were encouraged by a group called “Save My Park,” which was formed by hundreds of former guests and employees of Kentucky Kingdom who wanted to see the park reopened and put pressure on both state and local government officials to do so.The investors (Hart, Ed Glasscock, Bruce Lunsford, and the Al J. Schneider Company, a major Louisville hotel operator) brokered a deal with the state to invest at least $42.5 million to redevelop the park, with an additional investment of $70 million over the course of the 50-year lease. As it happens, over the course of only five years, their investment has already exceeded $64 million.
Hart and his team reopened the “bigger, better, and wetter” Kentucky Kingdom in the summer of 2014 and have continued the proven strategies of the park’s 1990’s "golden era." The water park (Hurricane Bay) was doubled in size and many new rides and attractions were added. They include Lightning Run, a first-of-its-kind Hyper GT-X steel roller coaster; Deep Water Dive, the second tallest body slide in the world with a Skybox™ launch (in 2017, Universal Studios installed one that beats this height record by only one foot); and Storm Chaser, the first coaster in North America with a barrel roll drop right off the lift hill, named second best amusement ride in the world in 2016 by Amusement Today.
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Kentucky Kingdom is adding its sixth coaster, the Kentucky Flyer, one of the most anticipated new rides in the amusement industry in 2019. With this addition, Kentucky Kingdom has introduced three new coasters in the past five years. As Hart likes to say,mimicking a famous line from a 1990’s political campaign, “It’s the coasters, stupid!” Besides the coasters, however, Kentucky Kingdom has added 24 new attractions since reopening, as well as many new amenities for its guests. Now the proof is in the pudding. The new Kentucky Kingdom is once again among the top tourist destinations in the state.
What else is in store for Kentucky Kingdom? If you ask Hart, he'll tell you, "Hang on! It's going to be a great ride!"
GOCC Will be having our Mid Summer Scream event here on August 17th... Watch the website for details.
Coaster History at Kentucky Kingdom
Copperhead Strike POV Video
Our friends at Carowinds have passed along a POV video of their new Copperhead Strike coaster to share with you... Will you be riding it this summer?
