#gci

[flojector]

Dollywood Night

[xanahannahdu]

The Guild of Calamitous Intent’s new member, but it’s this loser:

[tacoma-narrows]

Tac Talks Coasters - Post 141: #29

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Mystic Timbers at Kings Island!

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Opened: 2017 Manufacturer: Great Coasters International Height: 109 ft (33 m) Speed: 53 mph (85 kph) Length: 3,265 ft (995 m) My most recent ride: 2024

Now that we're into my overall top 30 following Shellraiser yesterday, you know we're getting into the REALLY good stuff hehe. And what better way to exemplify that than with one of the best wooden coasters I've ever ridden: Kings Island's Mystic Timbers!

I haven't ridden too many coasters from Great Coasters International (or GCI), but I love what they did with this one. Compared to the twister layouts of the other three GCIs I've done, Mystic Timbers is an out-and-back layout. This allows it to focus more on airtime moments rather than the laterals, banked and crossovers that most GCIs are based around. This allows Mystic Timbers to really shine in that department, and it's location also helps it to feel more fast paced and out of control.

Like a lot of coasters at Kings Island, Mystic Timbers has its station near the edge of the park and runs out into the woods. This takes it far from the park's pathways (and lights) and really makes you feel like you're out there in the middle of nowhere. With that as well, very little of the ride is actually visible from inside the park other than on the train, in line for the park's rapids ride, or from the top of the park's Eiffel Tower. This makes it so that you really don't know what the ride will throw at you until you're actually on it.

Part of what makes Mystic Timbers so great, or rather the main thing, is it's numerous pops of airtime at a breakneck pace. After you go down the first drop, you rise into one fairly large hill that crosses over the lift, banks to the side and then sets you up on your course through the woods. Pretty much every other hill after that second one is significantly smaller, meaning that the train has a lot of speed to just fly over these smaller hills all the way through the rest of the ride and each one offers a great pop of air.

Another great move with the layout is while most out and back coasters just have huge airtime hills all in a straight line, Mystic Timbers keeps you guessing with pretty much all of its hills being banked or twisted in some capacity. So not only are you getting awesome airtime, but you're also getting tossed side to side all the way through the ride. The ride also runs really smoothly, especially for a wooden coaster, so that makes the experience all the more enjoyable as well.

When Mystic Timbers was first announced in 2016, Kings Island ended the announcement with another teaser, saying "What's in the shed?" This shed would come at the very end of the ride and was suspected to tie into the ride's theme of a lumber company that was abandoned after "mysterious and unexplainable events" began happening there. Kings Island said that the details of the shed were not going to be revealed until the ride opened in 2017.

This caused speculation to run rampant among coaster enthusiasts and it was thought to be anything from a drop track to an inversion of some kind. However, what it ended up being was,, very different from those ideas to say the least. To be blunt, it was a glorified brake run. The ride's final brakes were in the shed, and as you move into it, there's loud audio and flickering lights. Then, as you turn back into the station, a big screen at the end of the shed shows one of three animations. These are bats that swarm the train, a giant snake that lunges at riders, or a living tree that tries to grab you.

It is a cool visual, and it's definitely way better than a normal brake run that's for sure. But at the same time, with how much Kings Island hyped the shed up, it does feel a bit underwhelming in that regard. Also, it's just kind of a weird end to the ride. I imagine most people who ride Mystic Timbers who aren't coaster enthusiasts don't really know the ride's story, so the shed feels out of left field. In my experience it just causes the ride to end with a bit of a weird taste in my mouth so to speak. Like the ride itself is awesome, but then you're hit with the shed at the end and you're just left kinda like "huh"

I think the shed idea works better on a ride like Copperhead Strike at Carowinds where the show scene is the first thing you see and then go into the ride afterwards. But even with the shed at the end, it still adds to the character of Mystic Timbers and it definitely doesn't detract from the experience of the ride itself. Mystic Timbers is fantastic and many people put it as their favorite coaster at Kings Island. And while I can completely understand that, there are two other coasters at the park that I put just a little bit higher on my own list. But you'll have to wait and see what those are and where they land hehe :3

Thanks for checking out today's coaster post! Keep an eye out for tomorrow's coaster!

[usafphantom6]

Commander of the 102nd Guards Aviation Regiment Aleksandr Georgievich Pronin and deputy commander of the unit Pavel Grigorievich Grimov direct flights by radio from the Chaika command post. 1943

The Russian Air Force still operates in much the same way today.

@Destroye83 via X

[whats-9plus10]

Let’s give season 8 a year or two because our Venture Bros budget is on thin ice

[hyper-coasters]

Busch Gardens Pass Member Exclusive Collectors Plates.

The original Gwazi design, with two trains. Man, I miss that lion & tiger duo so much. It's nice to see such a throwback! This was one of my first big coasters! It still ran with both trains my first time riding it, but I don't remember it after that. The original Gwazi closed on February 1st, 2015, with deconstruction beginning in 2019. Did you know the frames of the original Gwazi trains have been reused on Texas Stingray, at SeaWorld San Antonio?

Python! I have not ridden this coaster, but borh of my sisters quite liked it, and have positive memories! Python closed on October 31st, 2006. It seems like it was another veru photogenic ride for the park.

And finally, one of my favorite rides prior to its closure. I even remember back when Sand Serphant was Cheetah Chase, back before Cheetah Hunt was constructed. I don't think I have seen any Sand Serphant merch since the rides closure.

[rushthehollow]

rivertown, kings island

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Venture brothers has ended a d you get the call to do the final season. What's your outline?

Dean goes back to school and takes to super science like a duck takes to water. He gets mixed up with the wrong crowd and has to make a choice whether to major in Protagonism or Antagonism. As the grandson of both Jonas Venture Sr and Force Majuere, he faces immense pressure from both sides. As Mantilla's test tube son, he is the heir apparent to the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and the new Council has their eyes on him.

Hank crashes at his Uncle Monarch's place for a semester and becomes 21's unofficial Number 2, a surrogate 24-in-training. He's not committed to being evil, he's just looking for something to do and a Guild internship happened to come open. He and Dermott are assigned together as Sub-EMA Level 1 arches, a GCI jarhead vs an OSI grunt.

Sally Impossible returns. Before JJ died, they eloped in a private ceremony, so she's Sally Venture now. She learned she was pregnant shortly after his funeral, and gave birth to Jonas Venture III on Spider Skull Island. He and his half brother Rocket (son of Richard Impossible) are real whiz kids, super genius child savants who give Dean a run for his money when they enroll in the same classes. Jonas III is the big man on campus, everybody loves him; there's a lot of legacy nepotism attached to the Venture name, and he hogs the limelight from his cousin, which may be what pushes him towards villainy.

Rusty is pushing 60 and wants nothing more than to retire from super science once and for all, but his attempts to make peace with Malcolm fall on deaf ears. The Monarch would be lost without him.

Augustus St. Cloud rises through the Guild ranks and becomes unequally matched against Billy and Pete White. He can either choose a new arch, or collude with the OSI to help boost his enemies up to his new level. They don't have what it takes to drive in the super science fast lane, so Rusty takes them under his wing, which is a complete disaster; the blind leading the blind.