coasterbill

It's become a tradition for us to visit Dollywood during Smoky Mountain Christmas so for the second year in a row the answer is Wild Eagle as the last ride of the year... unless you want to get really technical in which case the answer is Blazing Fury. Everything else closed due to temperatures but even though I do count it as a credit it doesn't really feel like a coaster.

I'm not sure why not either but in any case whatever they did with that ride worked. I don't know if they sold their soul to the devil, prayed for guidance from the Intamin gods or what but that ride is ridiculously awesome and smooth despite some really bold, fast paced elements that would be nightmarish on any other Arrow.

No they don't... why would you bother with mindless mumbo jumbo like doing your due diligence? They should just build it and assume it will all work out. Then if it doesn't they can just send one train on each ride before alternating with another ride that will then send one train so only one of their star attractions with already limited capacities can run at a particular time... crippling capacity and making the guests absolutely miserable.

I sometimes have to slouch depending on the ride but headbanging is never a big issue for me anymore due to my height. Vortex is the only ride that's so incredibly terrible that despite being 6,4 it still punishes my head. The only ride where the slouching is a problem is Corkscrew at Cedar Point because of that awful airtime hill (who thought that was a good idea?). I don't consider Arrow loopers to be smooth (except for Tennessee Tornado) but I generally enjoy them now because of the lack of head banging. Vortex really needs to be put out of it's misery though. What an awful, awful piece of crap.

We only live about an hour away so we'll definitely check this out one day next year... if nothing else it's an excuse to get some more rides on Wooden Warrior.

You poor thing.

So is this basically Dinousaurs Alive?

I beg to differ... Me too because Twister will never be replaced with anything ever.

I agree. The Cedar Point and Carowinds live cameras are amazing. I wish more parks had them.

Alpengeist's lift doesn't bother me either, and even if they slowed the second half down a bit I still really enjoyed that part of the ride and think the ride overall is amazing. I love the snappy cobra roll and that hard snap into the mid course.

I have full confidence in Cedar Fair and B&M getting this open on time. They did it with Leviathan, Gatekeeper and Banshee... there's no reason to think they won't do it with Fury 325.

I share this sentiment. I enjoy meeting some coaster people every once in awhile and did just this year at Six Flags New England and Great Adventure and had a great time because we got lucky and hung out with some cool people but there are also a lot of people involved with this hobby that annoy the crap out of me (the fanboys you mentioned) and I would assume you'd run into the same thing. When enthusiasts do thing like refer to everyone else as the "GP" like they're above them because they're not seasoned coaster dorks or correct people on coaster related things (and this happens constantly... I mean constantly) it's almost cringe-worthy for me. The hobby is supposed to be fun but people take it way too seriously and completely miss the entire point of it. To add to this there is a major sense of entitlement in this community where people feel like the parks owe them new rides, exclusive perks or access to information the parks don't feel like releasing. This site in general is better than most with this but it still happens. While I don't go out of my way to hide the fact that I'm a coaster enthusiast I don't really bring it up unless other people do and even then I don't focus on the subject too much.

I had the same thought. This will immediately become the most terrifying star flyer in America.

Right, so like I said... "broken for long periods of time".

Thunderbolt says Hi. And the difference is that when Goliath breaks down it REALLY breaks down and stays broken down for long periods of time.

Maverick is a lot of fun to play, thanks for sharing this.

Doesn't seem so bad... and Ninja is awesome.

The problem is that they didn't need to do anything... all they had to do was leave it alone. Instead they spent a ton of time and money making the ride horrible with absolutely no upside whatsoever.

The Zacspin was causing a ton of error trappers just by being open so it was just sitting closed. I tried to fix it a few times but that ride was doomed from the beginning. It caused way too many crashes. Thanks for commenting! And I agree about gunslinger being better than Abassi but I'll always love that coaster for some reason. Don't be at all surprised to see Sunset Valley re-vamped one day. It would be an enormous undertaking but I'd love to add better foliage, architecture and layouts to that park and re-release it. if that does happen it's release will be years away though so I'm not making any guarantees. lol Thanks! I played around with the idea of a Hyper (it was a small-ish, compact one like Skyrush) but even that overpowered the rest of the park too much. Right now the park does have a dive coaster well over 100 feet, an old school, intense and snappy invert, a modern GCI with tunnels and a station fly-through, a classic wood coaster, an arrow multi-looper and a huge wingrider so I feel like it's still a solid coaster collection. I also have a few family coasters with Buzzsaw, Goldrusher and Golden Eagle and a kids coaster over by buzzsaw that I just totally re-vamped. I really did try to get a hyper in this park but it wasn't worth it from an aesthetic standpoint. For guests who want a 200 foot drop though there is a 200 foot S&S drop tower which is the tallest ride in the park.

I'd be willing to bet that capacity has actually decreased for the simple fact that the crew was brutally bad this year. The first and second season when they had the old train they were awesome... so awesome that I couldn't believe I was at Six Flags New England and not Cedar Point. Now they're typical, slow and miserable SFNE ride ops.

Maverick feels more intense to me than I305. Those quick transitions are awesome on I305 but even more abrupt and awesome on Maverick. Maverick also has that second to last hill that banks so much it's probably illegal in the other 49 states. I305 is awesome too but Maverick... holy crap I love that ride.

Great update! I can't wait to visit this park again next Spring.

I thought I did a good job of explaining why I don't like this park. It's a shame though because I used to like it and really want to like it again but it's just so badly run. They cut corners everywhere where they shouldn't cut corners but then decide to blow a ton of money on stupid things that totally backfire or things they just completely don't need. 1) A new train to make the best coaster in the park one of the worst coasters in the park that also leads to it being closed for half a season and opening weekend of the following season. The new train wasn't marketable anyway so even if it wasn't a disaster they wouldn't get a return on investment on it AND it has the same amount of seats as the old one so I don't see how this is "increasing capacity". 2) A new train and name for the best coaster in the world that took away from the ride experience (the train, not the name). They also spent a lot of money on effects for it that worked for approximately 2 months. 3) A huge building for a wild mouse coaster they didn't even get permits for that they had to tear down. Also, they can say that they're looking into flats all day long but call me when they actually add some. New England Sky Screamer was a good start but it's the only flat ride they've added in 10 years so I'd really like to see a few more before I get excited. I agree that it's similar but it's really way worse. Great Adventure removed a lot of rides from that 1999 "War on Lines" when they added a ton of them but that never bothered me because they were all closed all the time anyway so I thought of them more as lawn ornaments than rides. Plus while they did remove a lot of rides in the last few years they've added a lot back in. They added 4 flat rides with Adventure Alley, they also added a drop tower and the the safari and another flat ride (um... I mean coaster but we all know it's a flat ride) next year. Six Flags New England on the other hand hasn't made any steps to add any flats back into the park.

There's a difference between intensity and pain. The only ride that I can think of that's often criticized for being "too intense" is Intimidator 305. I know most people on this site love it (myself included) but there are a lot of people that don't enjoy that first turn. Rides like Skyrush aren't disliked because of intensity, they're disliked because they're painful.

This ride really seems like a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding and steadily declining attendance with a cheap, quick fix but that doesn't mean it won't be a great ride. I'm actually really looking forward to it.