coasterbill

The back wheel seat is smoother than the front wheel seat in each car, but the middle rows are the best by far. I think the ride is far from rough but some new track at the bottom of the turnaround would be a welcome sight.

Well this came out of nowhere, apparently (probably in response to Great Adventure) Christmas Candylane will feature 4 coasters this year! Wildcat, Cocoa Cruiser, Laff Trakk and sooperdooperLooper! Link

Well I am... when people don't like the same rides I do it really hurts my feelings. Generally it causes me to cry or even scream myself to sleep at night. I demand a public apology and you'll be getting a call from my attorney. ... as soon as I find an attorney.

I know the Bobsled is a mess, but it's still funny to me that with all the terrible coasters they have they're most likely going to remove one of only 2 good ones for something new.

fixed When did Hershey get Magnum Xl 200? This is the first I'm hearing about this. (The seatbelt trick made me flip flop harder than John Kerry but whatever, don't judge me).

The more I think about this, the more amazed I am. Just to recap... - The guy knew the nature of the ride. Not only could you plainly see the type of trains it had just from looking at it, but he had just ridden it. - The guy jumped a fence and entered the ride area even though as I just said, he just rode the ride and saw how close it got to the ground and could plainly see the location of the track. - The guy jumped another fence with signs all over it warning him of the danger he was in even though he shouldn't need a sign because he just rode the damn ride. Even if he didn't just ride the ride you could see by looking at it that you shouldn't be standing under the track. It's the same thing as standing on a train track except here trains come by even more frequently. And here's what I think is the craziest part about it... Not only is everything up to that point unimaginably stupid in it's own right, but this is where it goes from "unimaginably stupid" to "so incredibly stupid that I wonder how he could function on a daily basis" stupid. So let's say you just decided that you were going to jump 2 fences that warned you of the fact that you were pretty likely to die if you jumped them and now you're standing under a coaster track. Now let's say that coaster is Raptor which is so unbelievably loud that the roar of a nearby train can be heard all over the park. Someone please explain to me how someone is now standing under the coaster track in a double fenced in area looking for a phone and they... 1) Aren't paying any attention to where the trains are even though it would be obvious to anyone that one coming by would result in certain death 2) Don't hear the ridiculously loud roar of one of the loudest coasters ever heading right for you that's so loud that even if you weren't paying attention you couldn't ignore it. Especially if you were standing right under the track and knew you were standing under the track because not only is it right above your head but you're standing under it on purpose because that's why you picked that spot to look for the phone. I just can't understand how anyone could be this stupid. It's really pretty amazing.

Oh god... "While we were in the area waiting for Fury325 to stack so we could report on how riders were precariously stranded 20 feet in the air on the brake run we witnessed another coaster literally falling apart in front of our very eyes (Pans over to Intimidator)."

Because it's Kingda Ka.

I couldn't agree more. I'm glad it re-opened so quickly.

It's being reported by a ton of sources that Raptor will open today (and may even be open already).

Yeah it's gone from the website but it's hosted by Pixelcaster and I think they just iframe them in... http://pixelcaster.com/live/cedarpoint/index.html http://pixelcaster.com/live/cedarpoint/index2.html http://pixelcaster.com/live/cedarpoint/index3.html I would think they would return to the website soon. They're not pointed at Raptor so what's the harm? EDIT: Pixelcaster hosts some pretty cool non-theme park webcams too like these... Old Faithful Cam Yosemite Falls which is clearly not falling right now...

Cam 1 is on Gatekeeper and Cam 2 is on Gatekeeper / Wicked Twister. They have been for as few days... not that I spend too much time watching them at the office or anything. The live cams weren't on Raptor. As far as security cameras I have no idea.

This post literally made me spit water all over the computer screen laughing. And I'm not even upset about that... Anyway I suppose I should be sympathetic or something so here goes. I'm sorry for the family. I'm sorry for anyone who was on the train and was either physically or emotionally impacted, I'm sorry for the people that didn't get to ride Raptor because someone decided to be an idiot... um. Yeah that's it. That's all I've got. As far as the guy that got hit, you have to be a special kind of stupid to jump multiple fences and then have one of the loudest roller coasters ever sneak up on you when you just climbed over a bunch of signs telling you you were in danger and you're literally standing under the track.

Fixed Just kidding. But... not really.

Steel Force is the world's tallest, fastest and most boring mine train coaster if you ride it anywhere other than the front seat. In the front seat though it's a great ride.

Every time there's a new post in this thread I'm afraid to click on it. I always worry someone might have found a 2016 teaser that says something like "Standing Room Only 2016" or "Something SHOCKing is coming to Dorney" or "WAVE goodbye to your man-parts #dp2016". You know... something corny and annoying like that.

Dorney wasn't excluded... the checkboxes in the "Ride Removal" box for 2016, 2017 and 2018 imply that Dorney would have a checkbox in the top few rows (addressing new rides) for 2017, 2018 and 2019. They probably just figured it was implied.

Great Report! And I'm glad that Mean Streak trick worked for you... sadly you can't do anything to make the layout any less meandering / dull but at least it doesn't beat the crap out of you.

I wasn't sure about Rougarou. I assumed the reason Mantis stayed open was that there was always an extra block since it was designed for 3 trains and only had 2. I'm glad to hear they still run it un the rain.

I'd be interested to try a Free Spin so I'd be happy with that addition but I really, really want a wing coaster (and yes I know I'm in the minority and I don't care).

Okay now they have my attention.

I agree with this completely and I'd love some insight as to why some Cedar Fair parks like Kings Dominion run everything in the rain while Cedar Point closes just about everything. The only coaster at Cedar Point that should close in the rain is Top Thrill Dragster because other parks in the chain run everything in the rain including Arrow rides (like Magnum)... Kings Dominion runs Anaconda with all trains in the rain, Vortex at KI runs all trains... why is it okay there? The rain policy at Cedar Point is so ridiculous that when we went in 2012 Snake River Falls closed in a slight drizzle, and because I couldn't help myself I asked if the ride was down because of the rain and the person at the front confirmed that it was. Snake River Falls... What makes the policy more confusing is that it's inconsistent. The only coaster that's consistently closed in the rain is Dragster, with the others they might as well flip a coin. I believe Wicked Twister is usually open (as it should be) and Raptor is usually closed but aside from that I see no consistency at all. As for wind, yeah that one's a little nuts too. Of course I get it on Sky Ride and Windseeker... I don't get it at all on Dragster. If it rolls back, just launch it again. Why shut it down at a certain wind speed? If you send a few trains and they all roll back it makes sense, but if they're all clearing and then the wind speed gets "too high" but trains are still clearing I don't get why they care when they used to run it in all kinds of wind. With the other coasters I wish they'd use their best judgement. If it's cold and windy early in the season then Millennium Force and Gatekeeper can really crawl over the high points but if it's 80 degrees in the summer and both coasters are hauling through the course I doubt a 5mph increase in wind speed when it's been windy all day and the coasters have been hauling is really going to make a difference. Raptor is a tough one as it really can crawl into the mid course. Again, I'm not an expert but these things make no sense when other parks in the same chain don't care. I don't expect every park to be Great Adventure where the wind policy is "Keep Dispatching until it Valleys", the rain policy is "Keep Dispatching until the riders drown" and after last year we now know that the sleet policy is "Tell the riders there's nothing they can do to stop the pain and if they want to ride anyway... lol dispatch" (though I love that policy). But a happy medium would be nice. I know some ride ops from Cedar Point are on here though, maybe they can offer some insight.

My opinion of Dorney is that it's a good park that has the misfortune of being very close to a bunch of parks that have much more to offer. There's nothing wrong with Dorney, it's very clean and well maintained and the rides are fun but when you put the coaster lineup against Hershey or Great Adventure it doesn't come close. When you put the flat ride lineup against Hershey or Knoebels it doesn't come close... and now Hershey has a waterpark included with admission and they're also competing with a few free-standing waterparks like Camel Beach, Hurricane Harbor and Action Park. I haven't seen the numbers but I would think Dorney's revenue is mostly from the waterpark. Their waterpark is quite good, and the fact that it's included with theme park admission is a big plus for them. Sure Hershey has this too, but if people are looking to go to a waterpark in the Allentown area they're not going to travel to Hershey when they could just head right over to Dorney. I would think for the dry park people would be willing to go a little further. Dorney probably does better numbers than we think, sure the coasters never have lines but walking around the midways the park's never dead. The flats seem to have lines... the park really seems to appeal to families pretty nicely and even though Hershey does the same thing now the fact that you get 2 parks for the price of one seems to be their draw and their advantage over Great Adventure and Knoebels (which outside of the enthusiast community isn't as well known). From an enthusiast perspective of course Dorney is looked at as pretty generic. Very few rides stand out... the flat ride selection would be more appealing if Knoebels wasn't crushing them in that department, the only rides I would consider overly unique are Demon Drop (which somehow is the parks biggest draw to enthusiasts), Thunder Creek Mountain as a terrain flume is pretty cool and Hydra I guess. Hydra's layout is actually totally unique and nothing like any other B&M... the problem is it's still a pretty middle-of-the-road coaster. Luckily enthusiasts make up a tiny percentage of the market so the fact that it doesn't have as much appeal to enthusiasts doesn't matter.

Wildcat has a fun layout but it's rough... it's not over-the-top rough though so I'd concede that it's decent. I think it's the worst coaster in the park... but it's still not that bad.