Show Notes

Busch Gardens Tampa is closing Kumba, one of the most beloved B&M sit-down coasters ever built and the fourth-oldest operating B&M in the world, on August 2nd. Mike and EB spend the first drop giving a 33-year-old classic its proper send-off — the terrain-hugging layout, the iconic photo op under the corkscrew, the fact that it opened the same year Mike graduated high school — before digging into what "Kumba's Revenge" and a $100 million investment might mean for the space it leaves behind.

From there, the news gets genuinely interesting: a strong rumor that Disney World's Space Mountain could get fully gutted and rebuilt from the inside out (with the guys making the case for why the purists are wrong this time), a D23 session themed to the Carousel of Progress that's being hosted by none other than Coaster Radio's own announcer, Neil Patrick Harris, and a reveal date for Six Flags Great Adventure's mysterious Project Purple — teased via a barnacle-covered shipping container reading "GVV," which may or may not stand for a name neither host can bring themselves to like.

After the break, EB dives into a genuinely enormous care package from a listener packed with park maps, hats, collectible coins, and ceramic bourbon poker chips, before the two get into the show's real centerpiece this week: BlooLoop's list of the 26 best theme park attractions in the world. It's a sprawling, hotly contested countdown spanning six continents' worth of dark rides, and Mike and EB don't hold back — disagreeing hard on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, defending Pirates of the Caribbean's 60-year-old technology, and debating whether a ride that's been open for a matter of months deserves to be crowned the single best attraction on the planet.