Twenty-Year Top 20: The Best Coasters of 2002

It’s that time of year again! Welcome to our 4th Annual “Twenty-Year Top 20”, where we rank the top coasters that turn 20 years old this year! 2002 was an extremely strong year, with the “Coaster Wars” at their peak – our favorite coasters in several countries, respectively, made their debut twenty years ago. Let’s get started!

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New Scares for Knott’s Scary Farm 2022!

The most immersive Halloween experience in Southern California, Knott’s Scary Farm, returns with unimaginable new scares and terrifying twists for its 49th frightful year. Every inch of the park transforms into everyone’s worst nightmare as the most horrendous monsters await around every corner ready to turn you into their next victim. This year, guests will come face to face with their most horrifying fears as they brave through the park’s 17 haunted experiences, including five spine-chilling scare zones, nine monstrous mazes, and three sinister shows. Knott’s Scary Farm is back for 26 terrifying nights from September 22 – October 31.

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Cedar Fair 2023 Additions and Announcements

This week Cedar Fair announced exciting additions and improvements for six of its twelve amusement parks! The 2023 additions mark some of the largest chain-wide investment we’ve seen since Covid-19 put a damper on the amusement industry. We’re excited to see Cedar Fair continue to invest in their parks and look forward to experiencing many of these offerings next year.

All verbiage and images are courtesy of their respective parks unless otherwise noted.

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Dorney Park – 2022

Dorney Park holds the distinction of the first park Cedar Fair acquired outside of the 2 parks that are the company’s namesake. With roots back to 1860, Dorney Park is one of numerous examples of the American trolley park, parks developed by trolley companies to help drive weekend traffic. While it has an impressive collection of roller coasters, Dorney is known for being one of Cedar Fairs lesser parks with their newest coaster addition being the relocated Vekoma inverted boomerang Stinger which was removed from Dorney in 2017. However, like most Ohio enthusiasts, me and my friend Pete have Cedar Fair platinum passes, and it seemed a no-brainer to see what this historic Pennsylvania park has to offer.

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Carowinds Opening Weekend

In the Midwest and eastern U.S. we are always excited for the reopening of our seasonal parks and the start of another coaster season. Among the parks with the earliest season opening is Carowinds. So on March 11th my friend Pete and I made the trek from central Ohio to this unique Cedar Fair Park. We arrived very late on Friday night and went to bed with visions of Fury 325 in our dreams.

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Weakest Links of The Cedar Fair Chain


This past summer Alex, Sean, and Sven recorded an episode of Coaster Kings Radio discussing attractions they consider the weakest link at many major theme parks. Inspired by this episode we’ve decided to expand the concept to more parks starting with the Cedar Fair chain. Do note that we’ve decided to exclude kiddie coasters/rides while they might not be the best attractions, they do serve an important role at most parks.

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In Defense of Rougarou

Here’s the hottest take we’ve got:

We think Rougarou is the best Floorless coaster in the USA and possibly the World.

Is it? That’s irrelevant – there’s no true way to measure that figure. This article, like all “best/worst” statements, is subjective and merely an opinion. But to say we enjoy Rougarou more than any other Floorless coaster is a fact – and here’s why:

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Knott’s Scary Farm 2021 Details!

Southern California’s largest immersive Halloween experience, Knott’s Scary Farm, returns with innovative new scares and bone-chilling thrills for its 48th frightful year. Terror comes to life as the theme park shifts into your worst nightmare, with horrifying monsters and hair-raising scares looming around every turn. This year, guests will have to confront their greatest fears with 15 haunted attractions, including five sinister scare zones, eight mesmerizing mazes, and two seasonal ride overlays to some of your favorite park attractions. Knott’s Scary Farm returns for 27 terrifying nights from September 16 – October 31.

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The Missouri Triangle: Part 2 – Worlds of Fun

In part one of this series my friend Pete and I started our Missouri trip with an amazing Thursday at Silver Dollar City. Friday’s park was one of Cedar Fair’s mid-tier parks, Worlds of Fun. Worlds of Fun opened in 1973 at the height of the regional park boom. Despite some dramatic changes since the park’s 1995 sale to Cedar Fair, Worlds of Fun still very much feels like a product of the 70s. Loosely themed to Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, the park is divided into various international regions such as Europa, Africa, and the Orient. These areas are more distinguished than I expected and are united by a streamlined 70s aesthetic. For coaster enthusiasts World of Fun features some impressive coasters including the tallest full-circuit coaster in the state, Mamba and the well regarded GCI woodie, Prowler. The biggest question for the two of us was how did this Cedar Fair property compare to it’s Ohio siblings.

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Lost Coasters of California – Part 9: Stealth

Paramount Park’s 13 year foray into the theme park business resulted in a significant number of successes and industry oddities.  The application of Paramount theming in existing regional parks gave us two significant B&M Top Gun inverts and the world’s first major linear induction motor launch coaster, Flight of Fear.  However their tendency to experiment and take additions in different directions also resulted in a string of failures and disappointments.  Kings Dominion opened the late Volcano, The Blast Coaster in 1998, a prototype Intamin inverted catapult coaster that never seemed to run reliably throughout its 20 years at the park, and the ill-fated prototype air launch coaster Hypersonic XLC in 2001.  Carowinds opened a Setpoint suspended water coaster in 2000 called Flying Super Saturator which lasted less than 10 years.  Canada’s Wonderland still has an odd collection of mid-size coasters for the world’s most popular regional park including 1995’s SLC Top Gun and 2004’s Zamperla flyer Tomb Raider, The Ride.  The chain’s flagship, Kings Island, received one of the most notorious failures of them all, 2000’s wooden hyper coaster, Son of Beast.  That same year the chain would add a unique prototype to Great America, the world’s first major flying coaster, Stealth.  

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