coasterbill

In theory, but Kingda Ka is also Kingda Ka. Generally the first few days of the season for Kingda Ka feature a ton of breakdowns throughout the day. Regardless its nice to see the ride open again.

Great Report! I'm glad you had a good time. I like Magic Mountain, probably because I go there very infrequently and always spend the day running around trying to ride everything and not stopping to notice the general crapiness of the place that's always brought up here.

Great report! That sounds like a really cool trip.

The Full Metal Jacket audio clips on the lift hill are the only good thing about X2.

PETA is spending $17,500 on a poster at the San Diego Airport to tell people to avoid SeaWorld. Link Personally I think this is a great use of $17,500. Thank god they didn't spend the money on anything frivolous like actually helping animals.

Millennium Force may not be the reason they haven't topped 310 feet (though it does seem that way), it's very possible that they just don't see the financial benefit in doing so. Once you build a coaster that's over 300 feet tall you have a great marketing angle. It's the tallest and fastest coaster in the southeast, 300 is a nice round number that you can put out there in the media and on merchandise. If they go to 350 feet instead of 300 feet that probably won't encourage any additional people to visit the park. They're already going to get everyone's attention when they top 300 feet. From the park's point of view, why would they make the extra investment when it won't lead to any more of a return on that investment? If they could break a record they might go higher but it won't be anywhere close to the tallest coaster in the world. Calling it the tallest "traditional" or "gravity driven" coaster in the world won't appeal to anyone because most people don't know or care what that means... there's no reason why they would go higher or faster than they need to. Plus they're pretty close to a major airport so I'm not sure what restrictions they need to deal with on that front.

You bring up a good point, but the New York Penn League almost exclusively plays night games. This year the Cyclones only play 2 day games at home all season (they do that every once in awhile so they can have camp-days and school groups go). They do have a few 5:00 starts on Sundays but for the most part they only play when the waterpark would be closed anyway... and like I said earlier it's rare to see a home run with any distance. They usually just end up being wall scrapers as most of the players are rule 5 draft guys who are used to metal bats, have no plate discipline and are just getting acclimated with the league. If the park threw them a little cash or even bought a few signs in the outfield it probably wouldn't be a big deal to make them start every game at 7:00. It's actually a fun league to watch but the skill level is only one step up from rookie ball.

New York can get very hot in the summer. Already we're having a lot of days in the 70's and 80's. In June, July and August it's in the 90's or above more often than not. It can get very humid too, especially in August.

I'm a RCT2 guy myself so forgive the dumb question but why all the clones (mostly from Cedar Point)? Is it just because they look a lot better than most RCT3 coasters do as far as transitions? Overall I really like this.

I'm so jealous of anyone who's at the park today. I don't even think they have 200 cars in the main lot (they might not even have 100 but it's cut off) and the forecast is pretty good except for a passing afternoon storm. Next year I need to visit the park on a weekday in May.

You couldn't pay me enough to ride an SLC in Baghdad.

I honestly really think all of the parks in Orlando are good for eachother. Disney is the big draw but people are very likely to visit Universal and Sea World while they're vacationing in Orlando and having those other options probably makes Orlando even more appealing than it already was. I'm sure when Harry Potter opened a lot of those people who may not have even gone to Orlando otherwise spent at least a day at a Disney park. I wouldn't think this if they were regional parks but I think in this case the competition is helping them, especially because many of the people that are staying a few extra days to visit the other parks are staying at a Disney or Universal resort. Even SeaWorld has "partner" hotels and while I'm not sure what their agreement is with them, more people having more of a reason to spend more time there can only be a good thing. speculation>

It's so nice to see other people appreciating how great this ride is. It's such an underrated coaster, I haven't ridden Banshee yet but it's actually my favorite invert out of the ones I've ridden (which include Montu, Batman, Alpengeist and Afterburn at Carowinds plus a few others that aren't as highly regarded like Talon and Silver Bullet). I love every B&M invert I've ever ridden but Raptor is my favorite because it's a pretty long ride and it never lets up. I actually agree with your evaluation of every ride at Cedar Point except for maybe Gemeni which I really enjoy when it's racing.

Six Flags has a lot of room for improvement but you should absolutely visit the parks. If you're expectations are so low that you feel like they're not worth going to then you'll be pleasantly surprised with the parks themselves. Besides the coasters, the parks are far from great but they're still a lot of fun to visit... and the coasters are amazing. Please note that I'm not talking about Six Flags America. Six Flags America is a horrible excuse for a park and you should never go there unless you're credit whoring.

I'm sure this could be done, though hopefully not in the form of a big ugly net that takes away from the view from the stands. It's really one of the more beautiful ballparks in baseball (minor league or otherwise) just because of it's unique setting.

The distance to left field is 315 feet. Looking at this on Google Maps you can safely assume that it will be another 200 feet to the coaster which is slightly raised so I think it's going to be fine. In the New York Penn League it's rare to see a home run travel more than 350 - 400 feet. We have season tickets to a Penn League team a little further north (The Hudson Valley Renegades) and trust me... you don't have to worry about 500 foot home runs. The only one I've ever seen that was near that distance was hit by Evan Longoria (and we all know how he turned out). They estimated it at 500 feet but had no way of measuring it so they probably just made it up to get some publicity. That being said... it's amazing that nobody has been hit on the Skyliner at Lakemont yet. Not only is the coaster much closer but the players are much better. This probably will become a legitimate concern if they build any amusement attractions between the stadium and the coaster though.

This is a beautiful coaster. I love the design of the lift hill supports.

Ejector. It's absolutely ejector which kind of defies the laws of physics but... it's ejector. But the thing that makes them awesome is that the ride doesn't slow down and you don't return to your seat until you're almost on the ground. No matter how many times you ride it you don't feel like you're going to be able to stop in time. Despite the fact that it's a drop tower with ejector airtime that stops on a dime it's actually a very comfortable stop.

My favorite seat on Magnum is actually the very front seat but it's still pretty painful. The ride is painful in every seat but it's not so painful that it ruins the ride for me. I still think it's probably the most overrated coaster in the world though (X2 is close). I consider the ride to be decent... but I think Raptor, Magnum, Maverick, Millennium Force, Gatekeeper, Top Thrill Dragster, Wicked Twister and maybe even Gemini are better rides. Still... Magnum is a very unique ride and it's cool because when you're on it you know that you're riding a piece of coaster history.

The Zipper is the king of all flat rides.

Even if they did this there's no reason to believe the ride would operate in the rain. Cedar Point has plenty of coasters with magnetic brakes and they close them all in the rain anyway (though Dragster and Millennium Force would probably need to close anyway due to their speed and the fact that it would be very uncomfortable for the riders). Maverick has no excuse. They even closed Snake River Falls in the rain when we were there because it was lightly drizzling. They just love closing everything in the rain.

El Toro has always been a little slower in the morning and the El Toro drop over Rolling Thunder is the same as it always was... even on opening day when the coaster is usually a bit slower (it was last year). In my opinion if the coaster seems slower it was probably early in the morning, a cold day, a near empty train or your imagination (though Ryan can shed more light on this as he knows much more about the ride than any of us do).

This ride looks a lot more impressive than I thought it would. I love the sign.

This looks great. Hopefully we'll be able to check the place out in the next few years.

After reading the latest trip reports from this park it sounds like they'd be better off fixing the coasters they have so they're not running so rough than adding a new one. Hopefully this is part of any 2015 plans they have.