coasterbill

Six Flags should clone Dick Knoebel a few times and then have the clones run all of the parks. ... or do we have to talk coaster clones? lol

I don't know that I agree with this... I actually think you're short changing both parks a little. I305 (any time) and the Beast at night are easily some of the best rides in the world. Both parks also have some crappy coasters though (Vortex, Hurler and Shockwave). I actually don't think Cedar Point (since you brought it up) has any crappy coasters as of a few weeks ago except for maybe Corkscrew but I hate mentioning that since kids seem to love it and it looks amazing over the midway so I never want them to remove it.

I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they went with 75 feet for this thread. If Phoenix was an option then this thread would (rightfully) turn into the Phoenix appreciation thread and if it got any less than 95% of the vote with people who have ridden it I'd be shocked (I say 95% because I'm sure somebody would still pick something stupid like Yankee Cannonball just to be different, lol).

No it's not... if they said "More coasters than any park in the Midwest" then that would be a simple coaster count. Declaring yourself the "Coaster Capital" of a certain area can mean anything. They can just say that it means they have the best coasters in that area which is a claim nobody can dispute because it's 100% opinion based. It means whatever they want it to mean. Anyway, I'll stop repeating myself but this "Coaster Capital" stuff is ridiculous.

Part of me hopes Cedar Point never does anything with Mean Streak just because it's fun watching enthusiasts bitch about it and act like it's one of the worst coasters they've ever ridden. The ride's not good by any stretch of the imagination but there are a ton of rides out there that are far worse. People only complain about it so much because it's at Cedar Point and it takes up a ton of room. Fun Fact: If you ride in the front and lean forward with your back off the seat back the ride is much smoother than Blue Streak (though it's a stupid way to ride a coaster). it's still boring, and Blue Streak is still better but Mean Streak is smoother so it's roughness is a little overblown.

Why would you bother the park with a question like that?

I love the diversity of KD's lineup. After I305, Volcano, Flight of Fear and Dominator there's a pretty big drop off in coaster quality unless you're a glutton for punishment like me and like Anaconda. That being said the supporting coasters are still a lot of fun. I've always been a fan of Backlot, Grizzly is running great, the mouse and Rebel Yell are good little rides and who doesn't enjoy Avalanche? The only coasters that suck are Hurler and Shockwave and even those are sort of okay. I also really enjoy the flume (is there a flume anywhere with a nicer natural location?), Windseeker, Drop Tower (this one is really good), the Flyers which are very snappable, the Crypt, Berserker, Bad Apple and a Boo Blasters where the pointers and targets actually work. The Eiffel Tower of course is very nice as well. I actually think this park is a lot nicer than Kings Island as there are a lot more trees (especially around Old Virginia and the main entrance area) and the coaster lineup is better too though it's close and certainty debatable. I'm a big fan of Kings Dominion and agree that it's very underrated.

There's no crown to steal because Six Flags just made it up and it could mean anything... I didn't even know there was an average for Six Flags Dark Rides... how many are there that are noteworthy besides the one at SFOG?

That has to be around 10-12 hours, or something like that. But you could stop at some other parks on the way there or back (KK, HW, Dollywood). Nope... only 7 1/2 hours. I don't get why more people don't take long road trips. We do it all the time, really just about every weekend. They're not expensive and sometimes the journey can be just as much fun as the destination. This incredibly scenic drive is a perfect example. I hate to get all philosophical here but life is too short not to do something because of a 7 hour drive. With a car you can be in a totally different part of the country seeing a ton of cool stuff in less time than a standard work-day. How cool is that? Just get in the car and go... you won't regret it and once you start making long road trips they become routine and you won't be able to stop making them. It's addicting.

There's nothing insane about it at all. I've never had an issue with long drives and the more you do them the more you realize a 7 hour drive is no big deal... not only are road trips awesome but driving on I-77 through West Virginia is really scenic. It's a great drive.

Thanks for your response (I was hoping you'd be the one to respond since you're the best one to ask). I hope the weather holds up at Great Adventure, I'd hate to have to go somewhere like Six Flags New England on the last weekend of the season. lol

Wow I always though it was possible riding the different models of these. Curious which cable snapped? Now this may be an excuse to get a good flyer model that isn't from the 40s like one from Larson international. Snapping the cable just means you basically let it become slack and then it gets pulled ahead violently creating a crashing sound. The best way to do this is to get it flying really fast by pointing the sail in the exact direction the flyer is flying when it's up in the air and then when it comes back down turning it perpendicular to the way you're flying to create a wall and act as a brake. When you do that it suddenly the back dips a little and it gets ripped forward really, really hard... it's awesome. Usually once you get it to happen once or twice it just can't stop "snaping" and just starts crashing through the rest of the ride, even when it's up in the air... especially if you point the sail straight into the wind and speed it up again and then "brake" again when it gets near the bottom. At Lake Compounce this is almost impossible. At Knoebels... holy crap.

Okay so I have a question for the real Great Adventure experts out there (like employees, ex-employees and Yoshi level experts lol). This Saturday is our last chance to ride coasters this season so we're going somewhere no matter what the weather forecast is. I've been trying to avoid going to Great Adventure because their new closing rides early for no reason policy really rubs me the wrong way but we don't have any other options because Saturday is supposed to be cold, raining and miserable so Hershey and Dorney will likely not run the coasters (Hershey because of the cold and Dorney because of the rain) and Knoebels apparently ended their season last weekend. So we're stuck with Great Adventure but the forecast calls for 47 degrees, a 90% chance of rain and 15 - 25 MPH winds. I know the forecast can and probably will change but assuming it holds up do you think the park will remain open all day and do you think they'll run the coasters (with the exception of Kingda Ka). I know there's no way to know for sure but if you think closing early is likely I'd rather not make the 2 1/2 hour drive. I know the park has been known to close early in awful weather and this forecast is amazingly bad but it's also a Saturday during Fright Fest... what does everyone think? Going Sunday is unfortunately not an option.

Unfortunately since the debate about what park has the better coasters is completely opinion based they can claim whatever they want. If Waldameer for example wanted to say that they were the coaster capital of the lake Erie shore they could do that because it could mean anything. They could rationalize that they're just saying they have the best coasters on the Lake Erie shore (not the most) and since "best" is an arbitrary term nobody could question them even though everyone and their mother knows it's a ridiculous claim because of Cedar Point. I love how people act like Six Flags won't remove a coaster because this title is important to them when the chain has proven that they're willing to call anything whatever they want in the name of marketing (and who could blame them?). Do you really think the same chain that's debuting 4 exciting, innovating super loop roller coasters next year won't remove a coaster because then they couldn't in good faith call themselves the coaster capital? That's ridiculous... they can call themselves whatever they want. And even if they did care they could just debut an exciting steel super loop coaster in 2016!

Is there any talk of putting a bathroom further back in Gotham City? It seems ridiculous that if you're at Batwing you have to walk all the way up near the Round Up to use a bathroom (the placement of Batwing is just so ridiculous). The back of the park really needs some bathrooms and shade... plus like you mentioned anything to break up the long, boring pathway system they have back there would be a very welcome addition.

Why don't people realize that things like "Coaster Capital" are completely arbitrary terms that can mean a ton of different things and therefore any park that wants to call themselves the "coaster capital" can unless someone trademarks the phrase?

Great report and photos. I've always loved this park.

No, and that's the crazy thing... I mean it was smoother than Volcano. And I don't consider Volcano rough. It was really... really smooth. Like I said I just got off the ride confused about why I liked it so much. I'm sure it's a combination of my height and the seat we sat in but for whatever reason I loved it.

It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of this park but we visited for about 2 hours yesterday on the way home from Kings Dominion and I'll give credit where credit is due... the new area is a lot better than I expected. When we got to the park we went right to Ragin Cajun as we needed the credit and the new area is actually pretty nice. The station and "theming" for the coaster itself looks like it was painted by a 6 year old but somehow it sort of worked. The ride itself is a lot of fun and I love it's paint job. It adds a ton of life to what used to be the second ugliest part of the park after Gotham City (which is still some kind of sick joke). After the ride we headed to Hurricane's and got some Hurricanes since we needed them to get us through our Six Flags America experience. The new bar is really nice, the drinks are very good and the souvenir cups are pretty awesome too. I'm a big fan of Hurricane's and was kind of jealous that Great Adventure doesn't have a place like this. After we left the bar we rode the flyers and while you can snap them we were a little spoiled by the ones at Kings Dominion the day before. Finally we headed back to Superman for a back seat ride and while they were running one train the ride ops were a lot of fun and they were pretty quick at loading and unloading it. The ride itself was awesome as usual. Unfortunately after that we had to leave as we had a long drive ahead of us. So the park is still kind of a dump but it's improving. Every single coaster was running one train except for Wild One, the mouse obviously and possibly Mind Eraser since we never made it over there and I can't say for sure. Everything in Gotham City looks terrible and needs a paint job but the new area is nice and it's obvious that the park is trying to improve... they have a long way to go but I appreciate the effort. I was actually kind of impressed.

Thunderhawk at Dorney. Re-track it, remove the trims and let it fly... too bad this won't ever happen because even with the trims they can't maintain the ride so I highly doubt they could maintain it properly if it required even more work than it already does. This ride has great airtime in the front car but right now it's too painful to enjoy.

We made the 6 hour drive to Kings Dominion this weekend and visited on Saturday. We always try to visit once a year as we really enjoy this park. The park was packed, but that's nothing Fast Lane Plus couldn't fix... I really think this park has my favorite skip the line program of anyone. The way the Fastlane lines are set up you don't wait more than 10 minutes for anything and this is on a Haunt Saturday when it's over 70 degrees and every single coaster had a line spilling out the entrance (even rides like Grizzly and Anaconda which unfortunately weren't on the system). Just to give you an idea of the crowds... Volcano had a 2 1/2 hour wait, Intimidator had a 90 minute wait that went all the way out to Flight of Fear... even Windseeker's line was all the way over to the Skycoaster. All of those rides were less than 10 minutes on Fast Lane plus. It was worth every penny. I won't bore everyone with the details of everything we rode, but there were a few stand-out things from our visit. We didn't do any of the mazes but we did watch the Skeleton Crew show which we're a big fan of. 1) I305 is flat out amazing. Everyone knows this already but it has to be said. 2) Dominator is my favorite floorless by a wide margin. In the very back row this ride absolutely rips you down the drop almost like it forgot it was a B&M for a second and the hang time in the loop is really awesome... I love the pop of air off the mid course too. This is a very underrated coaster as it unfairly gets grouped in with all of the other fun but forceless floorless coasters. 3) Flight of Fear is awesome. I don't know why this ride is so much smoother than the one at Kings Island but it really is. This is another highly underrated ride. 4) I want to sincerely apologize to Kings Dominion for what we did to the flyers. We may have ridden these more than anything else in the park since they were on Fastlane. While they're not on the same level as the ones at Knoebels you can really get these things snapping and they make some great crashing and banging sounds along the way. 5) Any park that leaves the flume open in October deserves recognition for being awesome... so good job Kings Dominion. This is one of my favorite flumes and we ended up riding it 3 times. In the middle of the day it had a pretty decent line (though not for us) and we ended up on the last log of the night since the ride closes at 7 PM. That ride was pretty cold but still a lot of fun. 6) I want to preface this by saying that I know this ride sucks... but I really, really liked Anaconda. I could hear everyone else on the train groaning... my girlfriend who was sitting right next to me hated it, but for some reason it didn't bang my head once. I'm 6'4 so maybe that has something to do with it... I really don't know but I loved my ride on Anaconda and could have ridden it all day if it were on Fastlane and if my girlfriend wouldn't have ended up with head trauma. We rode in the first row of the back car... I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. I just got off of this ride confused about why I liked it so much. 7) We rode Grizzly for the first time in years and really enjoyed it. I don't know why we don't ride this more often... the location is ridiculously stupid though. 8) Do those mushrooms ever sing or do they just sit there? Overall we had a great day at the park as we always do. I actually really like going during Haunt because of the long hours (10:30 to Midnight). Between that and Fastlane Plus we got a ton of rides in.

Was Ka the only line that closed early? Also, are they turning away Flash Pass users who have reserved it (or does it just say "full"). If it's just Kingda Ka it's no big deal, but if they're closing lines early when the park is that packed then I'm not interested in spending money on a Flash Pass we can't even use the last 3 hours the park is open because we'd be worried about being turned away and would have to just get in the stand by line to guarantee a ride.

We drove 6 hours to go to Kings Dominion yesterday and would never have bothered to make the trip without Fastlane since it was a Saturday during Haunt. We both work Monday to Friday with limited time off so we almost always have to go to parks on Saturdays and Fast Lane means our visits won't suck. There's nothing to complain about here.

I'm not sure if G forces are the reason nobody has gone 500 feet. I think it's more likely a combination of other factors one of which being the fact that strata coasters have proven to be an unimaginable maintenance nightmare especially in their first few seasons where the highest return on investment would come. Kinga Ka is only 44 feet short of the 500 foot mark but after seeing how it performed in it's debut season who would buy another one? I'm suprised Six Flags rolled the dice on Kingda Ka after try saw what happened with Dragster where Cedar Point went as far as putting a special page on their website letting people know if Dragster was broken or not. So who would buy one of these? Cedar Fair probably learned their lesson, Six Flags probably did too and wouldn't spent that much on a coaster anyway (plus why beat your own record?). Busch and Merlin probably wouldn't go this route? Who's left? It would need to be a company with a lot of capital to spend so there aren't too many options. Sure you could break the record with a different coaster type but who would build it? I think a standard full circuit 500 foot coaster may be cost prohibitive so it would probably need to be a brand new coaster type or someone would have to be crazy enough to give Intamin a call. BTW... I'm not talking about a Polar Coaster, I'm talking specifically about a coaster that actually drops 500 feet.

The suspended is by far the most aesthetically pleasing ride in the park (though the Sky Ride is a close second with the multi colored cars and straight layout). Very nice... especially the transfer area.