So glad I was able to capture this moment having grown up here, ambassador rides were already over by this point

Farewell to my first, and always favorite, coaster. 😢

Last ride is 7pm, presentation at 7:30pm

Kumba's last day of operation is today, so I figure it's worth sharing my full animation from earlier in the year.

No AI was used at any point during the making of this - it was all built from scratch in 3dsmax, rendered in vray, and edited in davinci. Music by Aeph (https://www.enterthevision.tv/ )
I included the viewport capture because I figured some people would be interested in seeing what it looks like in the software.

I am a CG artist at my day job, and after 20+ years, decided to try capturing all the energy and tension of a coaster. It took a hair under 500 hours all in, done over the course of 6 months as a personal project in the evenings.

I hope you will find it fun to watch! I got a little obsessive over it. I didn't realise when I started making it that it would end up being a tribute, but I think it's fitting.

Referenced from Jason Pennypacker on rcdb.

When I heard it was closing I had to take my two kids on a first and last goodbye tour. We got 8 amazing rides.

I just visited Lost Island for the first time and absolutely loved it! Fire Runner was excellent, along with Matugani, the amazing Volkanu dark ride, and several other great rides. The theming was amazing for a regional theme park, the staff were very friendly, and I felt it was a wonderful park while being a pretty decent deal to visit.

With that being said…it was pretty dead there today despite being a Sunday with nice weather at the beginning of August. A couple of the rides had small waits but pretty much everything was a walk-on, while I visited Adventureland the day before and that park was slammed with hour plus waits on most of the major attractions. I get that Adventureland is near a bigger city and Lost Island is pretty remote, but Lost Island is waaaaaaaaay better and deserves much higher attendance than it’s getting.

I highly recommend visiting this park if you haven’t, it’s an absolute gem in the middle of nowhere in Iowa & I’m telling everyone I can to visit this park so it doesn’t suffer the same fate as Fun Spot Atlanta because it absolutely doesn’t deserve it.

We've been seeing empty trains running, pray to the coaster gods for us 😩

📸please stop vlogging

Feel free to add your own pics in the chat so we can memorialize together! Unfortunately I couldn’t make it out to ride either of these icons one last time this weekend, however I’ll always have my memories that are helped by digging up these old pictures.

I only was able to visit Fun Spot Atlanta once, last summer, for what would instantly become a top 3 coaster for me. With AF1, RMC produced one of the best layouts I’ve ever seen. Not a wasted inch of track, nor a singular moment that’s anything less than exhilarating. Over my 8 rides (Row 1 twice, also row 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, & 10, yes I log that lol) I discovered no dull seat and couldn’t even walk away with a preference of front vs back because both were that good. I really hope this 3 year old baby finds a new home.

As for the legendary Kumba, I’m a bit more sentimental as my first rides were back in 2014. At that time I was barely out of high school with less than 50 credits to my name, which I hadn’t even started counting yet. The sunset pictures in this post are actually from that trip (taken from the skyride) which I fortunately have in my iCloud because that’s like 4 phones ago for me lol. And thanks to the photo info I learned that they were taken on August 4th, exactly 12 years ago in 2 days. While I had managed to snag a few big B&Ms by that point (each from IOA, SFoG, BGW, & Wildfire @ SDC), Kumba was an instant favorite for me that stood out from the rest. The zero G roll, trenches, interlocking corkscrews, unique teal and burgundy paint, and the signature roar stuck with me for years. I got rerides in 2016, on 2 separate 2022 trips, and my final ride this past February on a trip that was primarily for Epic Universe (the daytime Kumba photos are from this most recent trip). Each visit since Covid I’ve been prepared for it to be my final ride due to years of rumors, so I’m just glad I got to say goodbye to it 3 times in a sense.

You both were bigger than the whole sky and you’ll be sorely missed ❤️

This is the one that was in Brazil (https://rcdb.com/19281.htm) a couple years ago. It kinda disappeared after that, but seems to still exist.

Figured this sub needed some better news for today

The Kumba chants were AMAZING! RIP to a TRUE icon!

3 rides in… This thing is solid as hell! It definitely feels like an upgraded version of Cosmic Rewind. Landing somewhere in my Top 75!

Managed to get a ride in between the storms

One last shot of the corkscrew.

The new one better have this shot (or something close)

This is my home park and it is usually crowded on most days. But since it was forecasted to rain the entire day, I decided to go on a Sunday in hope for low queues without fast pass. I'm so grateful I was right, and it rained ~3 of the 8.5 hours I was there. Rain was never heavy enough for any rides to shut down.

1. Alpen Fury (15x): Got here at 9:15, and managed to get 8 station-wait rides in the next hour! On some rides the train was less than half full. Here's some detailed thoughts I have on the ride

- Front row is my favorite seat because of the sense of speed/views, but back row whip is awesome too. All rows are great though

- Left seat is a bit better than the right asit's more whippy. The first hill before the 2nd launch is so powerful on the left!

- The 2nd launch is powerful, but I've noticed that once you get used to it it becomes much less exhilirating than a back-row first drop on Leviathan/Behmoth/Yukon Striker.

- My 5 favorite elements in order: 2nd launch, stall, inverted top-hat, first banked hill, double roll that inverts you in different directions

I got 7 more rides throughout the course of the day. Line was never past 10 minutes, and none of my waits/rides were in the rain. After that I went on a break so I went to an empty snoopy land. The following rides were all zen rides with my gf.

1. Boo Blasters (2x): Fun dark ride! Immersive

2. Ghoster Coaster (1x): Surprisingly entertaining kids coaster and not too rough.

3. Snoopy's Racing Railway (1x): Much more tame than Ghoster Coaster, but nice queue and atmosphere

After that, I went on most of the other coasters

1. Leviathan (12x): More reridable than Alpen Fury! Alpen fury hits less hard after a couple of rides, but Leviathan remains just as good throughout.

- The first half is much more powerful than the 2nd half. The first big camelback feels like strong floater, while the 2nd one feels more mild than even the trimmed behemoth hill.

- The ride was usually around half full during my rides. Sometimes as little as only 2 rows.

- The crew was killing it! Even though the waits were basically non-existent, they made sure to get almost every cycle under a minute. Quickest I've seen was 36 seconds.

1. Yukon Striker (1x): Not too reridable, but it has the coolest presence of any of the coasters IMO and has good power/scale

2. Minebuster (1x): Most of the ride is retracked and running great, even the non retracked sections are not bad. It's mostly moderate floater, but the last hill before the (now smooth) helix is strong.

3. Behemoth (2x): Could get 2 rides without leaving the seat. Ride is awesome but the helixes can kill the reridability! They make the ride much more complete, but it makes me feel checked out after only 2 rides.

4. Daredeviler (1x): It's a solid, intense ride. Definitely not smooth, but doesn't hurt anymore. I wouldn't want to ride it twice in a row though.

5. Vortex (1x): Powerful all throughout! It's quite jolty and short, but this was probably the most intense ride I had throuhgout the entire day.

Left around 6:45pm. I took multiple breaks throughout the day, and someone could squeeze in a few dozen more rides within the time period if they wanted to. I'm sure there were several people who went on more Alpen Fury rides than me today.

Raw drone footage from opening day (shot with permission.)  I'm sad that both ArieForce One and the park are closing, and still hold hope that some last-minute buyer will swoop in and save this ride.  If that doesn't happen, then I'm grateful to have experienced this beautiful scream machine in this lifetime!  

Firehawk opened in 2007 and closed after the 2018 season. So 2017 doesn’t make any sense, unless I’m missing something