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Your worst spite

Today I walked up to Flamingo Park and see Pinball X closed.

Pirate Ship completely folded up. Kid's rides in pieces. Starflyer pieces scattered around the base of it. 5 rides open with the biggest flat being a dodgems, Pinball *looked* like there was nothing wrong with it but it's area was completely fenced off with no one in it.

Didn't even ask if "the roller coaster will open today". I did the Ghost Train then walked out. The park was surprisingly busy having half their lineup folded up.

Not entirely sure on when it'll be open, but I'm betting a Saturday in late June at the absolute earliest. I had my "Flamingo Park backup" scheduled for later this month, but I'm dreaming if they'll get it open by then!

Ironically both of my most recent spites have been spinning coasters with Rockin Roller in October being the other. Don't die on me, South Pier!
 
Booked a trip to Australia in 2019. It seemed to be a perfect situation. The prices were fantastic, Australia was at the top of my wife's travel bucket list, the timing would allow me to run the Sydney Marathon, and I could ride DC Rivals Hypercoaster which was at the top of my bucket list.

A short while after booking the trip, Village Roadshow updated their maintenance schedule and, sure as the world, DC Rivals was scheduled to go down for annual maintenance while we were there. I watched the schedule like a hawk for the next several months as they tweaked the timing by a few days here and there. Ultimately, they didn't tweak it enough. I missed it by a few days. I could do nothing but stare at it in its non-operating glory. I'm still immensely bitter.

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Guess I should add a painful post here. As those of you who read my trip report know, I just did a UAE trip and Formula Rossa was closed the whole week I was there. We didn’t let it get us down somehow, but objectively speaking that’s a pretty epic spite.
 
Two times at Knotts, now two times without Ghostrider. So that was pretty spiteful, but what hurt even more is that we had already bought Fast Lanes and Xcelerator was closed as well. Then Disney spited when we couldn't even do that as a back up plan!
 
Two spites from my Spain trip a few weeks ago. One was this:

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It just sat there closed all day, and there was no work being done on it or anyone around to explain what was going on. Sure, the weather was crap that day, but PortAventura was still doing all they could to keep all the other rides operating (and Red Force was running when I took this photo), but this looked like it'd been abandoned. Cost me my #150th credit.

The second, and while not a coaster, was still one I was looking forward to:

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Stood in line for it as it did the morning test run, and then the staff came out and said it couldn't operate because it was too windy. Had to brave that weird booster-like bucket thing instead, which was pretty terrifying.

(Also, I accidentally spited myself of Tibidabo at first since I went to Barcelona on a Tuesday and it turned out the park was closed that day. Could've sworn I originally saw differently on the calendar, but I came back on Thursday and the park was open, so I still got the creds).
 
LiveForTheLaunch said:
Two times at Knotts, now two times without Ghostrider. So that was pretty spiteful, but what hurt even more is that we had already bought Fast Lanes and Xcelerator was closed as well. Then Disney spited when we couldn't even do that as a back up plan!
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That hurts. Ghostrider was part of my last park trip before 'the event' kicked in, and for me was by far the best ride in that park by miles.
 
Tonkso said:
That hurts. Ghostrider was part of my last park trip before 'the event' kicked in, and for me was by far the best ride in that park by miles.
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Yeah I have no doubt it is because apart from Xcelerator, which was also shut, the only objectively "good" thing in the park is Hangtime, and even that would be considered mid-tier in a lineup at a better park. Luckily their log flume is awesome and the park is well kept, because there's not much else redeeming there to be completely frank.
 
Let me set the scene.

Summer of 2018.

I had not yet become an "enthusiast", per se, but I was heavily growing into my love of roller coasters. My family had just taken a trip to Italy, and since my dad was on deployment in the middle east at the time, we took a stop there for a week or so, to spend some time with him and, at my request, visit Ferrari World. That part trip went off without a hitch, and we headed back to his apartment for a couple of days to spend some time with him and see what his life was like there. We had a fun last couple of days, said our goodbyes, and flew back to the States.

So where's the spite?

Well, what I neglected to mention was that his apartment was in Manama, Bahrain. A less than 15 minute drive from the legendary Jungle Storm, soon to be dismantled not 3 months later. And I, in my ignorance, walked happily past it, not knowing the glorious terrors that could have awaited me, had I only known.

I only realized this almost two years later, when it was casually brought up in conversation. The realization of my foolishness almost brought me to tears.

It. Was. Right. THERE. I will never forgive my 13 year-old self for this. Ever.
 
@Eyebrows, if it makes you feel any better, I have a similar story from my pre-proper enthusiast years.

I was quite into coasters from when my dad first showed me rcdb in early 2009. So for the first two years and a bit, rcdb was the only window I had into the world of coasters. In early 2011 I went on a family trip to Florida with my parents. It was half a week in Orlando, where we visited Cape Canaveral (pretty poorly planned, as we could've been there for Discovery's launch had we switched Miami and Orlando around) and a theme park of my choosing (Busch Gardens Tampa).

Again that all went well, but what I didn't know at the time was that we would drive really close to Dania Beach Hurricane on our way down to Miami. And I only realized that I narrowly missed out on a pretty good wooden coaster in its final season a year or so later when I joined sites like this one and TPR where a lot of people were still raving about it.
 
I've had a few sore misses myself over the years.

Naive me skipped Mean Streak in 2015 after other park guests gave advise to not ride it. Sure enough, it was gone after 2016.

The following year, I went to visit friends in Edmonton, and naturally took a morning to visit Galaxyland. It was the first day of school for the Alberta kids, so we practically had the park to ourselves. Operators let me on Mindbender but forced me out after one determined at the last possible second that I was too scrawny to ride. Didn't leave too upset, as the thing was legitimately terrifying, but years later I need another excuse to fly out again. Mindbender's been having a long stint of non-operation, allegedly due to some much-needed parts, so I've no return timeline yet. The real spite was not being able to brag about visiting that park without saying, "I couldn't ride Mindbender".

In July 2019, I went substantially out of my way to visit Indiana Beach en route to Indianapolis. I woke up at 4 and made the 8 hour drive with minimal stops. While I was entering, Steel Hawg's midcourse screwed itself over and promptly shut down for the day. Have no shortage of excuses to return now but once again, frustrating. A few days later on my return trip, however, Kennywood made up for the missing credit by unexpectedly reopening the dormant Sky Rocket (blew apart its launch room in 2018 and took awhile to recover).
 
2019, I had been an enthusiast for like 3 months, and Beast night rides was this mythical must do as an enthusiast. Heading back to visit my future in-laws in Dayton Ohio; couldn't wait to Kings Island and ride the beast. We head to the park, this is just before Xmas and they've got Winterfest going on. The park is packed, and I keep following the signs to get to the beast (its also dark). On the way there, I see Diamondback, and its not running. Like clearly didn't even open for the day. Kind of bummed, but didn't care too much cause I wanted beast. Keep walking and I come up on Mystic Timbers with what I'm told was a 2 hour wait. Screw that I tell myself, keep walking to get to Beast...following the claw marks and all. I even see this cool sign that says its the 40th anniversary of Beast. Ride is completely down like I saw at Diamondback. I'm crushed...my girl tells me I gave this sad kid look she's never seen....like waking up for Xmas as a kid and finding out that Xmas had been cancelled. She asks someone why the rides are down. It is at that time I find out that Mystic Timbers is like the only ride open for winterfest (I had no clue....) So we go and wait 2 hours in line for Mystic. Well that was when I got completely blown away by Mystic, like I had no clue yet that woodies could be that good.

I would get my beast night ride redemption "repoening" weekend July 4 2020. I actually almost got spited again; we go to ride and its about an hour before park close and fireworks show is in like 40 minutes. We go up the fastlane line (we had fastlane bought before Cedar Fair shutdown all FL passes for 2020), get to the station and no one is inline, they're actually offloading what they said was the last train of the night. I kind of throw a hissy fit when they say that was the last train. I find out that they have to close early for the fireworks as they launch them near where the beast runs out into the woods; ride ops also forgot to close the fastlane/mobility access lines. I see a few calls being made on the radio, and we're allowed to ride beast. Our first beast ride is a Zen Ride at near nighttime! Lightning bugs are buzzing around and fireworks are going off around us in the distance (outside Kings island). Orion lighting package is rocking a red white and blue theme which we can see from the Beast. It was such a special ride for us that when we're pulling back into the station, I'm actually in tears.

So beast ends up being both my biggest spite and redemption ride. Unfortunately, no ride since has been nearly as good since that one Zen ride.
 
This is probably not as bad as some of the other but i got spited by Kumali (train was being torn apart when i was there last year) and technically the new 10 inversion coaster at Flamingo Land. And the Dino Roller was closed as well!
 
Spites with me come with the Texas RMC's, had some bad luck involving (some of) them! Texas Giant for example I was too scared to ride as a young kid, that drop freaked the crap outs of me... which is weird because I rode Mr Freeze in that same visit XD. Then Golden Lasso, when I went to Fiesta, was closed off, I saw it running earlier that day but bam when I get there it's closed... likely I'll be going to Fiesta in 2 months though, so ya'll wish me some luck so I get to ride that intensity beast
 
I lied - Pinball X wasn't my worst spite.

Instead it's been Rampage at The Big Sheep, and Rockin Roller at Botton's Pleasure Beach. Rampage was under construction with a significant portion of trackwork done when I visited TBS for the first time, then a few years later in 2021 got rained out - as an ex-indoor coaster with a custom layout it was never designed to run in rain.

Rockin Roller had covers over the cars, and was listed as 'closed for the day' before the park even opened.

I would say Rampage is the worse spite, but those power mice do look like pretty fun rides.
 
I don’t want to tempt fate, so I’m not going to type out what I’m trying to say word for word…

But let’s just say I’ve been VERY lucky.

Came close though. The first time (I think it was the first time) we went to ride Icon in opening year, we headed straight for Icon and got on. It then went down for the rest of that day!!!

Baron broke down on me multiple times in the pre show. To the point I was handed a fast pass to return, used it, broke down, given another, used it broke down, given another… Eventually got on though. :)
 
Actually forget Kumali and the 10 inversion coaster, i finally decided to shamelessly get the Octaunauts cred and i was spited by that! Shocking and i'm still furious to this day. ;)
 
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