"Spring Break" 2026
Our trip kicked off early Friday morning as we made our way down south to Georgia. We had every intention of hitting FunSpot this day; however, the traffic we encountered made us hold off until after Six Flags Saturday.
Our hotel was directly across the street from SFOG, which was actually pretty cool, despite how lackluster the hotel was otherwise.
SFOG was a gorgeous park with some alright rides. I was, however, incredibly excited for Monster Mansion, which did not at all disappoint. Goliath's second half made it a top contender for best hyper. Superman was great and everything I hoped a flying coaster would be, I just wish it were longer.
FunSpot is located just south of Atlanta. We ran from SFOG down there for about an hour to lap ArieForce One. I have never had a coaster live up to expectations and then exceed them.
After we left FunSpot, we made the four hour journey up to Charlotte, North Carolina. Carowinds actually straddles the North and South Carolina border, with Fury 325 crossing over into South Carolina during the ride.
This was my second trip to Carowinds after having visited for the first time during Winterfest back in December. Carowinds is absolutely one of my favorite parks, it is neck and neck with Kings Dominion for my favorite park.
Here we met up with our friend, Kurt, who was on a similar trip to ours. We had a fun time running around the park with him in the morning before I split off post-lunch to get some rerides on my favorite coasters.
After leaving Carowinds, we drove the four and a half hours up to Kings Dominion. Like I said prior, this park is tied as my favorite park. It is incredibly similar to my home park, Kings Island, but also very different. It feels like home but different. It is a gorgeous park with an intriguing lineup.
I finally got to get on i305 (now known as Pantherian), on this trip. I cannot decide if i305 or Fury is my favorite giga coaster. They are both incredible coasters. Pantherian is like Millenium Force and Maverick had a baby, I did not want to stop riding it. This coaster has been on my bucket-list since I got into rollercoasters so being able to finally ride it and experience the infamously intense G-forces was a dream come true.
We spent a day and a half here and I definitely could've spent a week. We also got to meet up with our friend, West, who is a local to the park on day two. I highly appreciate him making time to come see us.
Georgia
Carowinds
Kings Dominion
KI Opening Day 2026
The Kings Island 2026 season kicked off on April 17 at 12pm. We arrived at the park somewhere around 11:30am, as passholders are absurdly dedicated to kicking off the season. Reports started rolling in between 6 and 7am of passholders being camped out at the parking gates. While I am always excited to get the season rolling, they do not open the parking lot until 11 and nobody is in the park until noon, I truly will never understand the commitment to the bit, but hats off to the dedication of some fans.
It took me a whopping 35 minutes to get my ADA accommodations once I was inside of the parkm which is quite unfortunate as I need my ADA because of the pain standing causes my joints.
After this, I rushed over to Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare. Despite having never ridden the original Phantom Theater, I had been following the development of Opening Nightmare very closely. There will be a full review of this on the "Thoughts" page later.
After this, I met up with my best friend, Elizabeth and her mom. We made our first coaster (at KI) for the season, Diamondback, which is actually where we met three years ago.
Once Elizabeth and her mom went home for the afternoon, I found Kurt and Gavin. I don't actually remember what all we did until close, except for getting absurdly orange mango ICEEs and riding Phantom Theater one more time.
The park opened at 9:30 for passholders and 10 for daily ticketholders. We arrived around 9, for the same reasons as the previous day.
This day I was able to quickly grab my ADA before the park opened and avoid the line.
I was hoping to ride The Beast first thing, as it underwent some more retrack in the offseason and has been closed most of the day Friday. However, it opened a bit late, so in the meantime, I rode Diamondback with various groups of friends.
Gravity Group continues to do amazing work in order to maintain The Beast's reign of terror. I managed three rides on it Saturday, one of which was Gavin's very first Beast night ride- iykyk.
It did rain for a bit during the day, which I think, in collaboration with the new ride, helped eat up most of the afternoon crowds. For a few hours, everything was a fifteen-minute wait or less, as most people don't enjoy riding rollercoasters in the rain. I capitalized on this. However, once the rain cleared up, and lines began getting long again, we weren't super keen on being cold and waiting over an hour for anything we'd already ridden multiple times, but we still had several hours until the park closed and we could get our Beast night ride. During this time, we caught up with friends and rode some of the sillier rides that we'd normally skip on busy days. We also made sure to catch my friend Jessica and her band Hi-Fi Honey performing in the Festhaus.
All in all, it was a fantastic opening weekend.
