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Rumour of Kingda Ka's removal

JoshC.

JoshC.

Strata Poster
Part of me doesn't even want to post a random rumour from a random Twitter user, but I have seen it in a couple of places now.

There's some talk of Kingda Ka being removed at the end of next year from SFGAd.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1837608958145843400

The rumour goes that the high operating and maintenance cost are off-putting following the merger, along with it soon to be losing the tallest coaster in the world record. The removal, along with Zumanjaro, would pave way for a Mack Xtreme Coaster "tower coaster", which was also suggested Kings Island, the rumour goes.

As I say, I don't usually give daylight to random rumours, and I don't know how trustworthy said source is. But maybe one to keep an eye on for now...

Although presumably whenever the park do choose to scrap KK, they'd give plenty of notice to get a bump of people visiting for a last ride.

Edit: Moved to new thread. - ECG
 
JoshC. said:
I see no need to create a thread for this. Part of me doesn't even want to post a random rumour from a random Twitter user, but I have seen it in a couple of places now.

There's some talk of Kingda Ka being removed at the end of next year from SFGAd.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1837608958145843400

The rumour goes that the high operating and maintenance cost are off-putting following the merger, along with it soon to be losing the tallest coaster in the world record. The removal, along with Zumanjaro, would pave way for a Mack Xtreme Coaster "tower coaster", which was also suggested Kings Island, the rumour goes.

As I say, I don't usually give daylight to random rumours, and I don't know how trustworthy said source is. But maybe one to keep an eye on for now...

Although presumably whenever the park do choose to scrap KK, they'd give plenty of notice to get a bump of people visiting for a last ride.
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I'm quite sceptical about that, Kingda Ka is currently the world's tallest and fastest rollercoaster (2nd to Falcon's Flight) and that is a good selling point especially in North America.

It could happen with the Top Thrill 2 fiasco but if Kingda Ka is running without issues, I'd keep it going for as long as possible.
 
Dan Nguyen said:
The park hasn't confirmed this leak yet but it was posted to the website, then quickly retracted shortly after
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The possibility of Kingda Ka closing and the Top Thrill Dragster being redone into Top Thrill 2 which isn't going well right now is making me think whether Stealth at Thorpe Park and Rita at Alton Towers may close down completely or be converted into LSM coasters in a few years?

In the case of Stealth, it has been dwarfed by Hyperia in terms of height and speed so we may be preparing for a Stealth Removal or Overhaul for the long term? 🤔🤔🤔
 
owenstreet7 said:
The possibility of Kingda Ka closing and the Top Thrill Dragster being redone into Top Thrill 2 which isn't going well right now is making me think whether Stealth at Thorpe Park and Rita at Alton Towers may close down completely or be converted into LSM coasters in a few years?

In the case of Stealth, it has been dwarfed by Hyperia in terms of height and speed so we may be preparing for a Stealth Removal or Overhaul for the long term? 🤔🤔🤔
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For now, there's no need for Merlin to do anything with their hydraulic launch coasters.

They own 3 of them (Stealth, Rita and Desert Race), so they have shared expertise across the group. It probably also means they have a good level of rapport with suppliers for spare parts.

For Stealth, it still has a huge place in the park and is popular. The park are also happy to play the "most powerful launch on a coaster in the world" card (although that claim is up for debate). And, simply put, 75% of the park could be reworked / removed before Stealth.

Rita is a bit more up in the air, in that it was a bit shoe-horned in and there's been a couple of rumours of its removal / being sold. But again, there's no need to currently.

There's plenty of hydraulic launch coasters still out there, most run by smaller parks. They're not in any danger of being removed yet either. So a bigger chain with no history of major issues with hydraulic launches will be absolutely fine.
 

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- Orginal Post from Gary C Riggs Jr

https://www.sixflags.com/greatadventure/newsroom - SFGAdv Newsroom

Don't know if there is much credence to this, but it has been rumored that Six Flags Great Adventure is removing Kingda Ka in the near future.

I have seen it posted in the Great Adventure fan Facebook page that there has been talk of removing the ride at the end of the 2025 season.

I have just seen the post above on the roller coaster enthusiasts Facebook page which does give the rumors more substance. With the park removing the post from the website perhaps this will not happen, but I just hope they at least hold off until next year in case it's true.

I get that is a stupidly expensive ride to operate and maintain, but you would think such an iconic coaster is worth saving.

Edit: Merged with existing thread. - ECG
 
The newsroom looked different when I went there.

W4UIjFs.png
 
JoshC. said:
For now, there's no need for Merlin to do anything with their hydraulic launch coasters.

They own 3 of them (Stealth, Rita and Desert Race), so they have shared expertise across the group. It probably also means they have a good level of rapport with suppliers for spare parts.

For Stealth, it still has a huge place in the park and is popular. The park are also happy to play the "most powerful launch on a coaster in the world" card (although that claim is up for debate). And, simply put, 75% of the park could be reworked / removed before Stealth.

Rita is a bit more up in the air, in that it was a bit shoe-horned in and there's been a couple of rumours of its removal / being sold. But again, there's no need to currently.

There's plenty of hydraulic launch coasters still out there, most run by smaller parks. They're not in any danger of being removed yet either. So a bigger chain with no history of major issues with hydraulic launches will be absolutely fine.
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Rita is still very popular at AT too. I was at the park Friday and the queue time was pretty long all day with no downtime and 2 trains ops. It was also running incredibly well, I was pleasantly surprised.

Be a sad day when there are no more Hydraulic launch coasters around, LSMs just don’t have that same acceleration and punch to them.
 
Was just chatting about this in another convo - my honest wager would be, whenever the time comes for KK's launch system (because it will be the launch system, RIP Formula Rossa) to be retired, Six Flags make the same gambit as Top Thrill and modify as a swing launch LSM system. With some caveats: Zamperla is anything but the "guaranteed" vendor on the project, should another firm want to enter the fray. If anything, TT2 is indeed a prototype, that could make a KK conversion go more smoothly.

We celebrate Intamin Accelerators for their raw speed and performance... which has shown to tear these coasters apart as we get closer to 20 years in age across the field. 😅 Just as RMC saw a market opportunity in converting crap, beleaguered Dinn and CCI coasters to vastly superior ride experience; a similar market opportunity could open for Accelerators.
 
There was a smaller accelerator already converted to LSM when moving parks. I wonder who did that 🤔

Checks RCDB and oh look it's Zamperla who updated ThunderVolt
 
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CanobieFan said:
The real potential loss of Ka actually comes from losing Drop of Doom
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I wonder if they'd just leave the tower up and just tear out the launch, hill, station and stuff. Could allow them to keep the drop tower and release the infield for new attractions. It's one of the options I'd bat around if I was in those meetings...
 
Hixee said:
I wonder if they'd just leave the tower up and just tear out the launch, hill, station and stuff. Could allow them to keep the drop tower and release the infield for new attractions. It's one of the options I'd bat around if I was in those meetings...
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Would also save them a load of cash, scrapping is expensive. Really hope it doesn't go for a few more years though
 
To be honest, when/if Falcon's Flight opens, sure, Kingda Ka may lose its height record. However, I am not expecting FF to have exceptional uptime, given how insanely huge the ride is and how many factors can go wrong making it a nightmare to operate, so now that Formula Rossa is still closed and the reliability of FF is still up for debate, if I were Cedar Flags I would keep Kingda Ka as it is, no matter the costs

Kingda Ka is an icon, and that brings people in. I even have non-enthusiasts friends who have been to the park so that they could go on Ka for bragging rights. I am sure it would be the equivalent to Cedar Point getting rid of Millennium Force.
 
TPoseOnTantrum said:
The merger will go down as yielding some of the craziest and most dramatic decisions in theme park history since 2000's-era Six Flags.
View attachment 34706
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Surely they wouldn’t close it next week?

I can only imagine that Kingda Ka is an iconic enough ride that if the park closed it next week without warning, there might be significant backlash. We all remember what happened with the Wild Mouse at Blackpool… I’d hope Six Flags might have learned from Blackpool’s PR mistakes in this sense.
 
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