coasterbill

I think whenever a ride is brand new there are going to be some kinks which is probably why rides break down more than normal on opening day. Combine that with ride operators that are unfamiliar with the ride and breakdowns are understandable.

The Sky Screamers at Great Adventure and Six Flags Over Georgia are both 242 feet tall exactly.

It's running now, the webcam is showing a train in the dive loop.

No way, people love holding brakes. Myself included, I think that's the thing that really sets dive machines apart, and many people find them terrifying.

I actually didn't mind that ride but I was really talking more about Von Roll skyrides than those Hopkins things. I expect better from Von Roll than the New England Skyway.

I never said you didn't know what you were talking about, but I'm surprised that you'd consider it so rough that it belonged in the same category as those other rides which are all horrible. I've ridden Dominator quite a bit myself (thanks in part to that awesome ERT session with TPR 2 years ago), the most recent being last October and I've never found it rough. In my opinion, even B&M's that have a little rattle are generally nowhere near as rough as rides like Mind Eraser... that was my point.

I know at Dollywood when they have ice and snow during the Christmas event, Thunderhead is always the last coaster to open back up so I think that's probably the cause. Snow and Ice seem to be more of an issue for wood coasters than steel coasters. Then again... I'm no expert, I'm just making an observation.

Even if you think Dominator is rough (which it's not), is it really so rough that you're grouping it in with those other coasters?

El Toro is amazing, but it has gotten a little shaky in the wheel seats. I'm a little concerned that Six Flags won't take proper care of this coaster and down the line it may not be quite as amazing as it is now. Hopefully if your story is true, it shows that Six Flags is planning on doing some semi-major maintenance on the ride. But we still don't have a source, so I'm going to go ahead and ignore this RMC thing until we have one. Yes, most likely because we had ice and snow in the morning.

Unless my eyes are playing tricks on me, it kind of looks like they're putting in a ride sign for Monster in the lower left corner of the picture. I'm not sure what else that big rectangular object would be right near the entrance.

I have i305 as my #6 steel coaster behind Millennium Force (yeah I know), Maverick, Kumba, Raptor and Tatsu. I absolutely love it, but a few other steel coasters managed to top it (It's #8 overall, as El Toro and Phoenix are my overall #2 and #3).

I can definitely see a wingrider where chiller used to be... ideally using the observatory for a keyhole element of some kind. It seems like a perfect fit for this park since we pretty much have every other type of coaster. I don't think a RMC coaster makes any sense since we already have El Toro... a wingrider is the obvious choice.

Before we get ahead of ourselves... is there a source for this at all? Who saw them? I'm really not buying this. lol

The lift hills are not still up, the only thing still up is a tiny section of the pullout of the first drop. Also, the path to Zumanjaro is going to follow the coaster's old path from the final brake run by Tiger's Leap market all the way to where the coaster track crossed over itself. Then where the pull out of the drop was crossed over by the return run of the ride the path will follow the initial run out from the bottom of the drop all the way to the first turnaround which takes guests right over to Kingda Ka's tower. Basically if you look at that image the path follows the portion of track closest to Kingda Ka... most likely so the park could avoid removing trees as the town always gives them a hard time about that. Most of this area will be taken up by the new path. I don't see why they'd put a coaster there when they could put one where Chiller was.

You're right about the plaque, I thought it was an ACE plaque since it looks just like the one near Thunderbolt. Oops I never knew that about Time Warp and Double Trouble. Thanks for the insight. And I agree with you blaming Six Flags for the lack of Cabins.

I love the fact that Son of Beast has a tombstone. That brings joy to my heart.

That would be the New England Skyway... the world's saddest excuse for a skyride and the proud recipient of the not so coveted Six Flags plaque for some reason. Sadly the plaque doesn't mention the fact that the ride is internationally recognized as being Von Roll's saddest skyway, it chooses to focus on the fact that it "delights" guests with it's ridiculously short journey over a few buildings, giving guests a great alternative to walking a few hundred feet (I'm paraphrasing here but I'm sure it's something like that). ** Okay so here's the thing, I love Von Roll skyways... including this one. But let's be honest, I think Von Roll kind of phoned it in when they built it. I love this ride but only because I feel bad for it because it's just so sad and pathetic. Also, I can't believe how few cars it runs. I've never seen a von roll skyride operate with one operator at each station... responsible for catching the cars, pushing them over to the load /unload position, opening and closing the door, loading guests and dispatching the car... all while still being able to slowly walk back to the catch position and still having to wait for the next flying purple bird cage (I mean car) to show up.

That's a shame. If you're stuck using that type of Gondola I'd probably lower the towers a little bit... they're generally a lot lower to the ground than Von Roll skyrides (which are around the same height of what you have now). If you can add on some more cars that might help too since they are usually very close together on those types of rides. It's a shame RCT3 is so limiting with Skyrides, I never realized that.

Based on the webcams the Bat is running, but I'm not sure if it's running with riders or not.

This ride looks completely out of control. WOW!

Mystery mine at #128? Am I the only one that thinks this ride is ridiculously underrated? It probably has the best theming of any coaster in the country outside of a Disney or Universal park (or at least it's up there), it has an awesome finale and it has a drop after the first lift that takes even experienced riders by surprise. Is it just me? lol

Great video and photos. The theming of the ride area looks very nice by Cedar Fair's standards. I'm impressed.

Please excuse my ignorance of RCT3 as I'm a RCT2 guy, but are there any custom skyride cars you can use that look more like Von Roll cars because those are horrendous. I know this is no fault of yours by the way but I had to ask, as far as the park it's very nice as a whole. Nice work.

This is 2 years in a row now right? If you factor this in it makes RMC and Intamin look even better. Not only are their rides taking up the majority of the top spots in the steel coaster poll but we can safely assume that El Toro and Outlaw Run are actually ranked even higher than their other coasters given the wood coaster results which were almost a first place tie.

^^^Bizarro seems much slower than it used to be for some reason. It also rattles quite a bit. Really though the big problem with Bizarro now is the new trains. For taller people, the trains are very uncomfortable and the lap bar is very thick and awkward. The headrests also take away from the ride if you're not in the front row, though this is a minor issue. I used to list Superman as my favorite coaster, but now it's barely in my top 20 and dropping fast. It's a very good ride but it's not what it used to be for a lot of different reasons. There's no one thing that makes the ride worse than it used to be, it's a combination of things... the biggest of which is that the ride just feels sluggish now.