coasterbill

Damn right... preach

They're not resting on their laurels but they seem to be a conservative company. They've recently entered the world of Giga coasters and Banshee is a major step up from what they've been building lately in the intensity department. That being said their conservative approach has led to very reliable rides, very few delayed openings and very positive reviews from everyone besides enthusiasts. This seems to be working well for them.

I feel bad for the operator. Was it their job to know the rules? Yes. But this issue probably never comes up and I'm sure they were just trying to be overly cautious which make sense given past incidents involving disabled people being injured or killed on coasters.

Hey everyone! We're planning on visiting Orlando over President's Day / Valentines Day weekend (we know... we know) and after doing some research and trip planning I'm seriously considering visiting the Magic Kingdom. (For what it's worth the "crowd calendar" thing seems to think crowds at Magic Kingdom will be low on Friday but Orlando itself will be packed). I'm hoping the experts can help us out a little bit and let us know if this is worth doing or if we're better off just scrapping this idea completely. So this is the basic plan. We live in New York and we're no strangers to long drives. I took Friday and Monday off from work so we're planning to leave my office at 4:00 and start driving. The drive should be about 16 hours. I'm expecting to stop around 1 or 2 in the morning and start driving again around 7 AM. So if everything goes perfectly we should get to Orlando around 1:00 in the afternoon. I know that's really optimistic and it's a Holiday weekend (though we'll be finished driving before Rush Hour on Friday) but even if you add 4 hours to that we'll still be in Orlando by 5:00. We do drives like this all the time... a few weeks ago we left my office at 4 on a Friday to go to Dollywood the next day and got there by opening all while getting a hotel and sleeping for a good 5-6 hours. We almost never stop unless we need gas so we're prepared for the drive. Last year we drove to Orlando through Kentucky and made it a 25 hour drive to get around a huge snow storm. This has to be a dramatic improvement over that... lol Originally the plan was to only visit 2 parks... Sea World on Saturday and Busch Gardens Tampa on Sunday (I know it's strange to skip Universal and Disney but my girlfriend and I each picked a park we wanted to go to and those 2 won... she loves whales so there was no way she wasn't picking Sea World and Busch Gardens Tampa has Kumba so that was an easy decision for me. Plus Cheetah Hunt was closed when we want last year and I'm yet to ride that or Falcon's Fury which wasn't open yet. Anyway I was looking around for things to do on Friday night and there's no shortage on I-Drive but then I noticed that the Magic Kingdom was open until 1AM. That means that even if we got into the gate at 6:00 (we could check into out hotel after we leave the park so we don't even have to go there first) we would still have 7 hours to spend there and if all goes well we could be there even earlier. My girlfriend has never been to Disney and I haven't been there in 10+ years. I know it's best not to rush this park but my thought is that rushing it is better than not going at all. We've decided that the rides we absolutely have to ride are - Mine Train - Big Thunder - Splash Mountain - Space Mountain - Haunted Mansion - Pirates - Hall of Presidents (I'm kidding, don't worry) If we have time we'd like to ride more (Jungle Cruise comes to mind as does Barnstormer because I'm a filthy credit whore) but anything other than those 6 rides is a bonus. So here are my questions 1) Do you think this is feasible or should we just say screw it and play Miniature golf or something and then go ride White Lightning and drink all night at Fun Spot (we did that last year)? 2) How long should we expect to wait for those rides (not exactly... just a ballpark obviously). I assume Splash will have a short line once it gets dark since it's February but I really have no idea. Keep in mind that it's the Friday of President's Day weekend. 3) If we buy our tickets through the Disney site I assume it will prompt us to select the day we're going and then they'll send us the information for Fast Pass plus correct? I don't really know a thing about this system but what I'd like to do is book some of these rides in advance and do it after 7-8pm so we know we have enough time to get there... is that realistic? How far in advance do you think we need to book? 4) Assuming I'm understanding Fast Pass Plus correctly, what rides do we need to book on that system? 5) Is there any concern of the park hitting capacity this day based on the high crowd prediction for Orlando as a whole (excuse my ignorance)? Thanks everyone, and I'm sorry for all the dumb questions but my Disney knowledge is non-existant. I also know that the park has extra Magic Hours but 3am is a little late if we want to be at Sea World at 9am the next day and we're not planning on staying at a Disney resort anyway (just a hotel on IDrive that seems nice like the Courtyard Marriot we stayed last year). Any additional tips are great as well because I know next to nothing about Disney.

Why do they need to challenge themselves more? Every coaster they build lately is a massive home run with everyone except enthusiasts that make up .001% of park attendance and those people are already going to the parks anyway. B&M is doing just fine. If they don't name this ride DiveHawk 223 then I'll be so disappointed. And here comes the flood of people whining about Gatekeeper (the most popular ride in the park that came with a beautiful new entrance plaza and ride area and is amazingly reliable) in 3... 2.... 1...

I happened to notice yesterday that this park has been added to Google Street view. This may be old news but I had fun looking around... it makes me really want to get out to this park because it really doesn't seem like a Six Flags park at all and it's location is beautiful.

... anything is possible if you believe (Is what possible? A new coaster? How should we know?)

Thanks for posting that great brochure! Does anyone know of any Intamin Gondola Cableways that were built in parks? When it comes to detachable cableways in theme parks I can't think of a single one that isn't a Von Roll (or if it's a newer ride a Poma or Dopplemayr but sadly there aren't many "newer" skyways). Sorry for the amazingly nerdy question.

In the Loop posted this 2 days ago. facebook.com/inthelooppodcast

This is terrible. I hate all of it. Just kidding... love you shogo, now finish something.

I don't know that anyone was really complaining. Everyone seems to be excited about this ride.

I agree with everything you said. Fast, fun and forceless... and there's nothing wrong with that. That uneventful helix would make Steel Force proud though.

If I were Tony Clark I would purposely "leak" hints about it being called Divehawk 223 for the next year or so (like with Centurion). Please do this... please.

Exactly... full queue in the morning (pushing 2 hours sometimes), 5 minute wait / walk on at night. It's pretty typical and not indicative of the ride's popularity. Raptor is one of the top 5 rides in the park based on the ridership stats they posted for 2013. By the end of the day everyone is tired of walking and the rides are isolated by themselves in the front of the park and a long walk from everything else. Combine that with the fact that everyone probably rode those rides already, there are a ton of other rides to ride and the fact that the rides chew through the lines in no time at all and you end up with short waits at night. We love riding Raptor and Gatekeeper at night... especially if the Sky Ride is running so we don't have to walk to them.

Raptor has always been the same way because of the location in the park so it's not a shock to see Gatekeeper in the same boat. Both rides chew through their lines in no time with 3 32 passenger trains and really fast crews. Both rides can get down to 5-10 minute waits at night but location is the big reason why.

I really love this even though it's probably going to be totally forceless. I think it's a shame that Cedar Fair hasn't built many Intamin rides lately but Cedar Point already has 4 awesome Intamin coasters. They also have a forceful old school B&M in Raptor so even though the newer B&M coasters aren't overly forceful, Cedar Point isn't lacking in that department. Maverick and Dragster have that covered and Raptor, Wicked Twister and Magnum aren't far behind. Since they already have all that and this ride would be totally unique to the park and the area (thanks to that holding brake element especially) I think it's the perfect fit. Plus, forceless or not these rides are amazingly smooth and a ton of fun. Gatekeeper seems to be an absolute home run. Everyone would agree that it improved the look of the front gate and the ride area exponentially and the ride itself is a highly popular, very reliable people-eater that did over 2 million guests in it's first year. It also provides a very smooth ride according to everyone except enthusiasts who complain about B&M rattle being rough and in the next breath tell you that Magnum Xl 200 is their favorite coaster. Some enthusiasts complain about it but they probably make up about 0.001% of the total attendance. The idea that Gatekeeper wasn't well received because enthusiasts don't think it's forceful or don't like the incredibly comfortable restraints because "they hurt" is insane.

If the second tallest coaster in the world is your "guilty pleasure ride" then my "guilty pleasure rides" are El Toro, Millennium Force, Maverick, Phoenix and Intimidator 305.

Ryan would obviously know best but I assume they do since they put canvas up on it, presumably to keep heat in. I know they're using the lift motor house for something because they just painted it last year (and in Six Flags fashion did such a lame job removing Rolling Thunder that it has white pieces of wood sticking out of the roof. When they painted the roof they decided that rather than fixing that they would just paint them white).

Impressive, I figured it would take awhile for someone to come up with a "Wild Wind" coaster.

As many times as I've ridden Skull Mountain this fall was the last time I ever really appreciated how much fun it is in the back row. It has some pretty good airtime on the first drop and while the ride is a little short (in terms of duration) it's a lot of fun.

But then how would they force you to walk past all the games and food places on the boardwalk?

Wow, I don't think I've ever got one of these before. Okay... here you go.

If they would just lose the Golden Kingdom theming in the former "Frontier Adventures" area this wouldn't bother me but it's just so stupid that there are 2 parts of Golden Kingdom that aren't anywhere near each other. The Old Country thing is totally closed off and doesn't bother me at all but this drives me insane. It's not important, the park will never fix it and financially there's no reason to do so but that doesn't make it any less stupid.

Intimidator at Carowinds?

Actually it looks like we have a press release that backs up exactly what you're suggesting... From Great Adventure History The link from the official site is gone but a quick search for "The Devil Is in the Details at Six Flags" confirms that this came right from the official park website. So it sounds like it will go in Plaza Del Carnival, and I'm sure it's going exactly where Boldikus is saying. Personally I prefer this location to the old one.