At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, workers at Silver Dollar City operating cranes and lifts laid the final track for the Branson-area theme park's new roller coaster, park officials said.
Laying the final track means that the coaster, dubbed Time Traveler, is "about 50 percent" complete, Silver Dollar City spokeswoman Martha Hoy Bohner told the News-Leader.
"We hope we'll have it ready when the park opens next year" at the beginning of the 2018 season, Bohner said.

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A fixture of Kennywood for more than 40 years, the Log Jammer, will make its final plunge Sunday. The West Mifflin amusement park announced Thursday that the amusement park ride, which allows riders to sit inside a hollowed out log that floats along a water-logged chute, will make its last, thrilling drops down its trademark 53-foot chute as Kennywood's season end.

The Log Jammer opened in 1975. It was billed as the park's first million-dollar attraction.
"It is a bittersweet decision, but one that in time will create some exciting opportunities for our guests," Kennywood General Manager Jerome Gibas said in a statement. "While no final decisions have been made regarding what will replace the Log Jammer, Kennywood is committed to enhancing our guests' experiences while preserving our signature balance of modern thrills and traditional family favorites."

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Early this morning, Jim Reid Anderson has returned to make all of the announcements for 2018!  Before he got to the announcements, though, he said that Six Flags is making a renewed effort that this and years into the future will feature something new for every park in the chain.  He then went on to announce the following:

Twisted Cyclone at Six Flags Over Georgia - An RMC Iron Horse at Six Flags Over Georgia

World's Largest Super Loop at Six Flags Great America (presumably named Hurricane Force 5 but because of the hurricane in Texas, was held off)

Cyborg Cyber Spin at Six Flags Great Adventure & Harley Quinn Spinsanity at Six Flags Over Texas - A Tourbulon Cube style flat ride

Pandemonium at Great Escape - A new flat ride that spins and twists

CraZanity at Six Flags Magic Mountain - the world's largest frisbee flat ride

Harley Quinn Spinsanity - Giant Discovery frisbee flat ride

Wonder Woman Coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain - Latin America's first 4D free-fly

Carnivale en Folie at La Ronde - a small flat ride package

Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster - previously announced RMC single rail

Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom - The first Skywarp from Skyline attractions (also a single rail coaster)

Splash Water Island at Waterworld Concord - a new water play area with a bucket

Typhoon Twister at Six Flags St. Louis - a Proslide water slide similar to Colossal Curl

Wahoo River at Six Flags America - a new adventure river

Legoland California Resort’s General Manager Peter Ronchetti announced at today’s press conference that 2018 will be a year of enormous growth! In January, a new 4-D movie launches, followed by the opening of Legoland Castle Hotel in the spring and, just announced, LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure submarine ride is opening in the summer! LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure is Merlin Entertainment’s single largest investment in any Legoland Park and will take passengers aboard a real submarine where they will be submerged underwater and immersed in an ocean habitat.
“I’m extremely excited for our guests to experience LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure submarine ride,” said Ronchetti. “For the first time in the United States, we are bringing our guests onboard a real submarine where they’ll go underwater to discover a truly amazing world filled with more than 2,000 different real sea animals, including several species of stingrays and a variety of exotic sharks.”
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A water ride inside the Dollywood theme park will be permanently closing after the summer season.
Officials announced Tuesday that the River Battle, featuring rafts equipped with crank-operated water cannons that allow riders on one raft to spray others, will be replaced with a new attraction that has yet to be announced.
The ride first opened in 2008 in the Wilderness Pass section of the park. The ride's final day of operation will be Sept. 4.
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Good news for thrill-seekers: Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and its stomach-churning roller-coaster collection will operate every day of the year, starting Jan. 1.
The expansion represents an attempt to transition from a niche regional theme park to a major destination resort like Southern California rivals Universal Studios Hollywood and the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim.
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In light of a recent efforts to remove Confederate symbols from American cities, Six Flags has decided to stop flying the Confederate flag, as well as other historic flags, at its theme parks. On Friday, Six Flags said they replaced not only the Confederate flag, but the flags of four other nations that were originally part of the park's branding.
Six Flags is, of course, named after the six nations who at one time or another ruled over Texas. Those nations were France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.
Until Friday, the version of the Confederate flag flown at the theme park was the first national flag of the Confederacy, aka the Stars and Bars, and not the battle flag that has become synonymous in modern times with representing the southern states in the Civil War.

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PRESS RELEASE:
They’re back. And they’re back with a VENGEANCE! Once intimidated and disrespected by the musings of Maverick, outcasts Jackson “Blackjack” Chamberlain, Chess “Wild One” Watkins and Wyatt “Digger” Dempsey have returned to FrontierTown to right the wrongs done to them and their fellow FrontierTown Folk.

The three are bringing with them a roller coaster forged so big and so bold, an entirely new category of thrill ride has been branded: the hyper-hybrid – the world’s first steel-on-wood hybrid roller coaster to stand over 200 feet tall. Mirroring Blackjack’s impressive height, Chess’ unconventional and wild personality and Digger’s blazing speed of the draw, this new machine is now the force to be reckoned with. The law-abidin’ folk of FrontierTown have a new leader – Steel Vengeance.

This Wild West thrill comes action-packed with a height of 205 feet above the prairie, a 90-degree initial drop down to the earth, almost 30 seconds of airtime (the most on any roller coaster on Earth), 4 head-over-boots inversions, ricocheting movements left-to-right, up-to-down and side to side…it’s a roller coaster only Cedar Point could build – and you have the chance to saddle up and take the ride of your life beginning in 2018!

Height: 205 feet
Speed: 74 mph
First Drop: 200 feet
Inversions: 4
Length: 5,740 feet
Duration: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
Height Requirement: 48"
Trains: 3
Riders per Train: 24
Riders per Hour: 1,200

​Coaster Records Broken
1. World's tallest hybrid roller coaster (205 feet tall)
2. World's fastest hybrid roller coaster (74 miles per hour)
3. World's steepest drop on a hybrid roller coaster (90 degrees)
4. World's longest drop on a hybrid roller coaster (200 feet)
5. World's longest hybrid roller coaster (5,740 feet)
6. Most inversions on a hybrid roller coaster (4)
7. Fastest airtime hill on a hybrid roller coaster (73 mph)
8. Most airtime on a hybrid roller coaster (27.2 seconds)
9. Most airtime on any roller coaster (27.2 seconds)
10. World's first "hyper-hybrid" roller coaster
Park Records Broken
1. Most steel roller coaster track at one amusement park (57,865 feet/11 miles)
2. Most roller coaster track at one amusement park (60,423 feet/11.4 miles)
3. Most rides at one amusement park (71)
4. Most roller coasters over 200 feet tall at one amusement park (6)
5. Most roller coasters with a first drop of 90 degrees or more at one amusement park (5)

Silver Dollar City has announced a MACK spinning roller coaster that will break many records! 
​
PRESS RELEASE:
FASTEST, STEEPEST & TALLEST COMPLETE-CIRCUIT SPINNING COASTER IN THE WORLD FIRST and ONLY with a VERTICAL LOOP – A 95-foot tall loop FIRST and ONLY DOUBLE LAUNCH – 0 to 47 mph in 3 seconds; 30 to 45 mph in 3.5 seconds
​
• FASTEST: 50.3 miles per hour
• STEEPEST: 10-story, 90° Vertical Drop
• TALLEST: 100 feet tall, custom designed for mountainous terrain

INVESTMENT $26 Million
TRACK LENGTH More than half a mile - 3,020 feet
INVERSIONS THREE - Most Inversions EVER on a Spinning Coaster (one Dive Loop, one Zero-G Roll and one Vertical Loop—first and only in the world)
LAUNCH ELEMENTS Two Linear Synchronous Motor (LSM) Launches (one horizontal and one inclined) RIDE DURATION 1 minute 57 seconds (Dispatch to stop & unload)
VEHICLES/TRAINS 360° Spinning Vehicles with adjustable magnetic spin control Total of 3 trains carrying 16 passengers (2 per row; 2 rows per vehicle; 4 vehicles per train)
SEAT/RESTRAINT Individual Lap Bar Restraint (Class 5)
MINIMUM RIDER HEIGHT 51"
MANUFACTURER MACK Rides GmbH & Co KG, Waldkirch, Germany 

PRESS RELEASE:
On the outskirts of Candy Apple Grove sits the remains of the once thriving Hanover Hill Orchard. No one can say exactly happened that day back in 1950. What destroyed half of the harvest in a matter of seconds? What shook the ground, turned over tractors, shattered glass and nearly peeled the siding off the warehouse, all without warning...all without a cloud in the sky? Strictly “off limits” for decades, this land of local legend is finally open to the public! You are invited to experience Twisted Timbers, an exclusive tour of the now famed Hanover Hill Orchard. Take a ride through previously forbidden grounds where you’ll experience the unexplainable and see evidence preserved from that fateful day. Hold on tight because this is a tour with the twist. This is Twisted Timbers.

Steel and wood combine forces to bring you our newest rollercoaster – Twisted Timbers. This hybrid coaster is the first of its kind in the mid-Atlantic and uses the latest technology to combine wood supports and steel track to give riders an experience that is impossible on a traditional wooden coaster.

​Twisted Timbers sits at the edge of Candy Apple Grove and gives riders a one-of-a-kind experience. Plummet down a 109-foot-tall barrel roll drop that sends you twisting across 3,351 feet of track with two more inversions and 20 airtime hills at speeds of 54 miles per hour. Hold on tight, because this is a ride with a twist… this is Twisted Timbers.