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Everything posted by coasterbill
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Roar at SFA is complete crap. Honorable mention goes to Son of Beast, Gwazi, Hercules and the Coney Island Cyclone.
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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
No. We went last year with beautiful weather Friday, Saturday and Sunday and had very reasonable waits all day every day (60-90 minutes for Maverick, MF and Dragster). The only lines longer than that are for Raptor and Gatekeeper if you're dumb enough to ride them first thing in the morning. We'll be back this labor day weekend, we're making it a tradition. -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Believe me I'm not trying to hide the fact that I'm speculating, nor was I there for the accidents this ride has had but there are a lot of reports of parts falling from the ride (isn't there a video of this somewhere) including during the incident last year. I just can't see Cedar Point continuing to throw money at this ride. -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I'd normally agree with you but this isn't the first time this ride has broken down in spectacular fashion that put riders and bystanders in serious danger. It's also incredibly unreliable as it was closed most of last year due to a cable snap. I'm not pretending to be an expert on the mechanics of the ride but this just keeps happening. -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Does anyone know why this ride has so many more problems than the other Screaming Swings? In any case this ride really needs to go. At the rate they're going it's going to kill someone. It's terrible that someone broke their leg and it could have been a lot worse, especially because it had enough force to smash through the fence where people stand to watch the ride. -
Vekoma Roller Coasters
coasterbill replied to kingdakacor's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
The Giant Inverted Boomerangs are insane rides. The one at SFNE sucks now thanks to it's new train but when it had the old trains it was very smooth. -
Funny you say that as that was probably the main inspiration for it. I really wish I had more time to work on that micro, I feel like if I had the chance to add more details I would have had a better chance to advance (though I was up against some great competition so I can't say that for sure). I'm glad you enjoyed it regardless though.
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Thanks so much for the kind words. I really appreciate you always checking out my stuff and giving me feedback. It makes building a lot more fun. As far as the invert I'm really happy with how that turned out. Robbie from NE helped me with the layout (I redesigned it a few times) and it's finally at a point where I'm satisfied. Now I'm going through that process with the wingrider. PS: Nice to see Moonlight pier get some love. lol
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Sorry to hear you guys had issues with the stream. I believe there is still an archived version up at that same link. I don't know how long it usually takes for that to expire. Anyway I have some new screens but I also wanted to let everyone know that my new NCSO park (Whispering Pines Family Fun Park) has been released. Feel free to check it out. I had a lot of fun building it and I hope everyone enjoys it. If you feel inclined I'd love to get some feedback on it (either as comments or votes) as I'd like to try more NCSO parks in the future... maybe of a larger scale. Overview Here is the link to the park. Anyway enough about that, I have some new screenshots. You may have seen some of these as they've been floating around in a few places but I realized I never posted them here. Please let me know what you think. Sunset Vista is a park that's been under construction for almost 2 years now. Throughout the project I feel that I've improved a lot (which is mainly due to the great feedback I've received here and in my streams... so thank you) and because of this I've found myself going back and re-doing older areas of the park to bring them up to the level of everything else. This entrance area is almost unrecognizable from the last screenshot I posted of it. Every building (including the main gate) has been replaced, ride entrances have been removed and queue lines have been re-routed. I've also added two signature attractions, the carousel ride and the S&S tower complex which is guaranteed to make a visual impact when guests pass through the gate for the first time. And here is the area prior to it's complete renovation. I've completely updated the Wildcat plaza and given the ride a more fitting station and queue. A classic Wildcat car has been put on display in front of the ride to showcase the long, unique history of the ride. This is what that area looked like before. Americana Alley is another completely revamped section of the park. This area features the majority of the games and flat rides in the park as well as the classic Wildcat coaster. In this screen, you'll notice that the classic scrambler and tilt-a-whirl attractions have received face lifts. This is what that area looked like before.
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Holiday World (HW) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Wow, I think we need to head out to Holiday World next year. I love Wingriders and this one looks like it's going to be the best one yet. -
Holiday World (HW) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Over 600 viewers now... I hope all of this hype is for something amazingly stupid like a new Churro stand. If so this will instantly become my new favorite theme park. -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Well it doesn't look like it's raining any harder but Raptor is closed now... and Blue Streak is open. lol -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I love watching the live cams when it rains to see how completely stupid their rain policy is and admire how it changes randomly every day. Mantis is open and Dragster is closed which are the only things that ever stay consistent. Blue Streak, Mean Streak, Skyhawk (WTF?) and Iron Dragon are closed even though they were all running in the rain a few weeks ago. Maverick and MF are open even though when we were there the ride ops literally had their hands out to see if it was raining and after they felt one drop Maverick closed for over an hour. The best part is that Raptor transferred a train off and it's open in the rain which is something that never happens but since they just make stuff up I guess why not? I would love for someone to explain how this policy actually works. I feel like at this point the ride ops at each ride just flip a coin and that determines if the ride is going to close or not. -
It seems like as soon as people see the headline "Six Flags Attendance Drops 8%" they just go on to list everything they dislike about Six Flags and chalk the decreasing attendance up to everything they listed. There are a lot of issues with that line of thinking. First of all, let's get this one out of the way. This has been addressed but any complaints that would be limited to the enthusiast community aren't the issue. 99.9% of park guests have no idea about relocated coasters, recycled ride names or the same ride being built in multiple parks. Also, complaints about low quality food, high parking prices or bad operations don't make much sense either. For there to be an 8% drop this would have needed to get much worse in the last few years and I don't think it has. I think all of these things have been standard for at least 20 years. Why would it all of a sudden be an issue this year? We've had bad operations, lack of landscaping, up-charge lockers, Flash Pass and price gouging for years. This is nothing that would cause such a substantial drop all of a sudden... people didn't all of a sudden get "fed up" at that high of a rate if they hadn't for the previous 20 years. To explain a drop like that you really need to look for big differences between last year and this year (or 2012 - 2013 assuming some people aren't going this year based on an experience they had last year). I think the biggest factor here is the economy as it would seem that a lot of parks are going to have down attendance this year. Based on the article it seems like Cedar Fair's numbers are down, Sea World's numbers are down and Six Flags' numbers are down. Sure there will be parks in those chains with big jumps this year (Probably Kings Island and Six Flags Great America for example) but overall the industry seems to be down. We'll leave Disney and Universal out of this as they seem to be in their own universe and playing to a different, vacation market. DIsney also had a large new addition while Universal may have had the single biggest expansion in theme park history with a major powerhouse of an IP. Only time will tell on that. This isn't just a Six Flags problem, this seems to be an industry wide problem (though it may just be a standard fluctuation and not a big issue that needs to be addressed as last year was a generally good year for the industry. The fact that profits are up is a great sign too.
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Great report. I love seeing trip reports from out-of-the-way parks like this one.
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I don't know why these people think that Six Flags cares about their dumb petition. If they thought the ride was so great then how come nobody was riding it? If the ride was as popular as these people want the park to believe it was then they wouldn't be messing with it because it would have huge lines every day and it would be a major draw for the park. I'm sure that the only number the park cares about is how many people ride the ride. If there aren't enough people riding it to justify the cost of operating and maintaining it then the ride isn't going to be around for very long. Ridership is all that matters, petitions that try to pretend everyone in the State of California is in love with the ride and will never go back if they remove it are pointless when Six Flags knows that actual ridership numbers.
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Quassy Amusement Park Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
After 5PM on Friday's is 50 cent rides, hot dogs and sodas. None of the food is that great so I'd get some 50 cent hot dogs if you're there for the promotion. As far as other rides there's nothing too special. Big Flush will get you drenched even though you ride it in regular clothes but if you're okay with that then it's worth a ride. Personally I can never turn down a ride on a Paratrooper and they have a pretty good one but most people don't enjoy them as much as I do. PS: Ride Wooden Warrior in the very back car. -
Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Kings Dominion is probably getting a new name for the waterpark and maybe some new slides to go along with it. This will then lead to pages upon pages of complaining about how long it's been since they got their last coaster with a few complaints sprinkled in about how they didn't get any new rides in the dry park this year either and if BGW builds a premier launched coaster then Kings Dominion will be in big trouble. I think that just about covers it