King’s fall

On November 14, 2024 – just days after Kingda Ka had closed “for the season” – Six Flags Great Adventure issued a press release confessing to what fans had feared: yep, Kingda Ka would never re-open. Aside from rumors (or we can now confirm, leaks) issued by coaster community insiders, fans had had no official notice. No merchandise. No celebrations. No last rides. Kingda Ka was just… dead. (And along with it, the park’s sky ride, parachute ride, and the Green Lantern stand-up coaster.) 

A quote from the park’s spokesperson, Brian Bacica, noted, “We understand that saying goodbye to beloved rides can be difficult, and we appreciate our guests’ passion. These changes are an important part of our growth and dedication to delivering exceptional new experiences.” 

In a portion of the press release subtitled “Sunsetting the Former ‘King of Coasters’”, the park conceded “Kingda Ka, ranked as the world’s tallest and fastest coaster, has delivered more than 12 million rides since 2005. The ride’s retirement […] makes way for a new signature attraction – a multi-record-breaking launch coaster – to debut in 2026.” 

Considerations & conspiracies

We’d be remiss if we didn’t address at least a few dangling plot threads here.

The first is the most obvious. The principle of “Occam’s razor” says that the simplest and most obvious explanation is usually correct. To that end, fans initially read “between the lines” to surmise that, hey, Kingda Ka was probably just getting the same treatment as the equally-troubled Top Thrill Dragster had gotten to become Top Thrill 2. After all, wouldn’t the result of turning Kingda Ka into an LSM-launched multi-pass stratacoaster be the “multi-record-breaking launch coaster” Six Flags has promised? 

A bit of evidence seemed to support the idea: among the list of rides Great Adventure had planned to close, there had been no mention of “Zumanjaro” – a 415-foot-tall Intamin drop tower physically grafted onto Kingda Ka’s 456-foot tall top hat. Aha! A “wink” to fans that the physical tower would remain and be incorporated into the “new” launch coaster. 

… but when Screamscape reached out to Six Flags for clarification, they provided it, acknowledging that – oops! – they forgot to mention that Zumanjaro would be removed, too. 

So sure, it’s still possible that Kingda Ka will receive a “Top Thrill 2” style reengineering by Zamperla or another company, and that that manufacturer just doesn’t want the liability of Intamin’s drop tower being stuck onto “their” new ride. But at least for now, it looks like there’s no sleight of hand going on here; Six Flags really does plan to fully remove Kingda Ka, pulling down the 456 foot tall coaster altogether. 

And listen – by most estimates, steel coasters have a “shelf life” about 25 years before serious track work is required. At Disneyland, Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were both rebuilt from scratch at about that age; in 2016, Universal Orlando rebuilt its then-17-year-old Incredible Hulk Coaster from scratch. Similarly, Busch Gardens Williamsburg famously demolished its Lost Legend: Big Bad Wolf citing a 25 year lifespan, and did major reengineering of its Loch Ness Monster in 2024 to prevent the same.

Especially as rides that endure as much wear and tear as Intamin’s Accelerators (and in places that freeze and thaw every winter at that), both Dragster and Kingda Ka were going to need substantial investment to survive anyway. Cedar Point’s ride got it. But at least for now, it’s looking like Great Adventure’s won’t…

Speaking of which, second is the impossible-to-ignore ramifications of a major change at the corporate level. On July 1, 2024, the bitter rivals of the Coaster Wars – Cedar Fair and Six Flags – combined in a corporate “merger of equals” overseeing a gobsmacking 27 amusement parks.

Fans never dreamed they’d see the day when Cedar Point would be a “Six Flags” park. But though the newly-combined company adopted the Six Flags name, it’s technically majority owned by shareholders of the former Cedar Fair, trades under Cedar Fair’s ticker (FUN), and helmed by Cedar Fair’s CEO, Richard Zimmerman, who insists that there are no plans for the Six Flags name to be applied to legacy Cedar Fair parks… 

And indeed, it seems far more likely that Cedar Fair’s M.O. will win out across things like annual pass programs, food and retail strategies, and capital expenditure schedules. Already, the new Six Flags has announced its plans to do a “comprehensive portfolio review,” ensuring the chain is right-sized and that it’s investing strategically in parks with the most potential.

Cedar Fair has used this strategy for decades, identifying a flagship tier of parks like Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Carowinds that receive major cap ex projects every 2-3 years, a mid-tier occupied by Kings Dominion, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Canada’s Wonderland who see major movement every 4 – 5 years, and small local parks like Michigan’s Adventure, Worlds of Fun, Dorney Park, and Valleyfair that rely on still-quality, but far smaller and less frequent investment. That’s also yielded a lot more local control, with parks receiving custom creations rather than off-the-shelf installations.

Legacy Six Flags parks endured a different strategy, which was to pretty much buy in bulk and set down Larson Loops, S&S Free Spins, and other catalogue installations across the whole chain without much nuance or “local” consideration. Headlining attractions still did happen, but often piecemeal and one-off rather than being products of a longstanding relationship with a manufacturer, and the ease of applying DC superhero names to off-the-shelf coasters provided a thematic getaway car, yielding two Green Lanterns, three Wonder Womans, five Flashes, six Jokers, ten Batmans, and eleven Supermans across the chain.

So it’s possible that – playing by the old Cedar Fair ethos – Great Adventure has been either downgraded to a park that doesn’t need a ride like Kingda Ka or – just the opposite – that Great Adventure will be bolstered as a new flagship that needs to be right-sized to begin to rebuild with quality-over-quantity at the forefront. 

And frankly, given the experience, expense, and embarrassment Cedar Fair has endured due to Zamperla’s botched transformation of Top Thrill Dragster, it’s highly unlikely their company (even if under a different name) would now choose to apply the same “fix” to Kingda Ka… unless, of course, the combined company meant that Zamperla was able to offer to do Kingda Ka at a deep discount as a mea culpa for Top Thrill 2… Hmm…

So… what’s next?

Obviously, we’re a long way from seeing the full picture of what will replace Kingda Ka. The promised “multi-record-breaking launch coaster” could take any number of forms. Especially today, amusement parks tend to find whatever niche “records” they can muster (i.e. “the first and longest spinning multi-launch family coaster on the East Coast”). It’s entirely possible, too, that we could see Zamperla (or given their track record with Top Thrill 2, another manufacturer altogether) reengineer the structure of Kingda Ka into a spiritual sequel.

Likewise, it’ll take years before we can really understand the new Six Flags’ plans for its parks – including how we’re likely to see capital expenditure schedules adjust to a now-combined portfolio of 27 parks. What new “tiers” will emerge? What cadence of investment will they undergo? And whose M.O. – Cedar Fair or Six Flags’ – will the newly combined company establish when it comes to the cost, quality, and localization of its additions (and almost certainly, further subtractions)?

With so much unknown, it’s far too early to either criticize or congratulate the new Six Flags for its strategy… but we can certainly say that the sudden and unannounced closure of Kingda Ka has left a sour taste in the mouths of enthusiasts who surely feel as if they shouldn’t trust Six Flags to make efforts toward fan communication at all, much less to preserve and care for the parks they know and love…

So what do you think will become of Kingda Ka? Will this ride be reborn in the style of “Top Thrill 2” or should we brace ourselves to see one of the world’s two stratacoasters meet the wrecking ball? How do you feel about Six Flags’ surprise closure of this iconic coaster? Do you feel like Cedar Fair’s quality-over-quantity ethos will win out in the end? Or do you wish Six Flags had just left Great Adventure alone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!