coasterbill

The rumors began around this time last year. Wasn't Gatekeeper constructed and testing at this time last year?

Honestly does Six Flags just go out of their way to make sure new coasters won't be open by opening day? If Cedar Fair can have a 25 million dollar inverted coaster ready by opening day and Dollywood can have a new coaster open by the middle of March when the park didn't even close until January (though construction was pretty far along) how is it possible that Six Flags can't re-locate a wild mouse and have it ready for opening day? I'm not hating on SFA, every Six Flags park does this... but it's ridiculous.

I have a stupid question about Timblerliners.... is there any proof that these actually enhance the ride experience at all? People act like when a ride gets Timberliner trains it will all of a sudden become smooth and awesome (like they hoped would happen with Voyage) but from what I've read on here they've done nothing to help Hades and most coasters with Timberliners have always had them so it's impossible to know if the trains are the reason for their success. Is this the goal with Timberliners, or is it just that the track will require less maintenance once the trains are added so the hope is that the rides will maintain their smoothness once they're re-tracked because the trains are easier on the track then others (mainly PTC trains)? Someone please enlighten me.

This is looking great.

It wouldn't be the only thing shooting up in Coney Island.

I haven't been to Fuji Q or Mt. Olympus so I feel like my answer won't really be all that impressive, but I have to go with Lakemont park. Skyliner and Leap the Dips are both solid coasters, but everything in this park has either fallen into complete disrepair or is operating but looks like it could collapse at any moment. I want to love this place, and I do love Leap the Dips... but this park is horrible and they don't take care of anything. I can see why Del Grosso's is always packed while this place is always dead. Lakemont is such a dump. Honorable mention goes to Six Flags America. Lakemont is clearly much worse but at least they're not a huge corporate park with a large budget. With the resources Six Flags has, there's no excuse for Six Flags America being so bad.

Obviously this is coming from Theisen's attorney, but if this is true then the place needs to be shut down until reasonable safety procedures are put in place. I almost feel like they need to have a third party handle day to day maintenance and safety checks since they're clearly incapable of handling it themselves.

The "best" part about it being labeled a coaster and not a flat ride is that they'll be able to shut it down immediately if a raindrop falls anywhere in the state of Ohio.

Though the second example can be an honest mistake, I guess I could see why you'd have a problem with these things... ...but I have no idea why you'd have a problem with these things. The fact is, your favorite coaster is always a matter of opinion. If someone likes coasters with a lot of loops, then who are you to tell them that another coaster is better? That's unbelievably arrogant. For example, my girlfriend who has now been on about 150 coasters thanks to me dragging her to a ton of parks doesn't always agree with the "enthusiast opinion" of what rides she's supposed to like. She thinks Gatekeeper is the greatest coaster ever built. She likes it better than El Toro, Millennium Force, Intimidator 305, Maverick, Kumba, Bizarro, Phoenix and obviously many others. I don't agree with her ranking at all, but at the same time I don't have to because it's a matter of opinion. If riding Gatekeeper makes her really happy then that's awesome! When enthusiasts take issue with other people's opinions on coasters on coasters and imply that they're "wrong" for thinking certain coasters are better than others then they're taking a hobby that's supposed to be fun way too seriously.

The singing mushrooms look great. I love the direction Cedar Fair is heading lately. For a long time they were ripping the charm and individuality out of their parks and they're finally doing something to pay homage to the unique history of some of their parks.

I don't see this happening but even if it does, who cares? It's not going to effect the ride experience at all. It may add to loading times a little but it's not the end of the world.

We rode Hulk a few times last month and thought it was great. It wasn't rough at all. We actually thought it was the best coaster at Universal orlando after Mummy. We actually liked every coaster at both Universal parks, they have a very good collection.

Well I wouldn't think so since 99% of the ride takes place in a tunnel at this point.

I'm always shocked to see a Wild Wind that's actually operating. I'd love to ride one of these one day just to say I did it.

I don't think I ever had a BAD ride on SOB. Of course as a general rule, I sit in the front row, or as close to the front of the train as possible on wooden coasters. You've never sat in the back for El Toro? Oh you poor thing. Actually yes, I have. Of my 3 times, my best ride was in row 4 on El Toro. I was expecting more from El Toro. Voyage gives a much better, out of control ride. So you've never had a bad ride on Son of Beast and you prefer Voyage to El Toro. Are you sure you're not just one of those people that loves being in pain? lol

This is an amazing looking ride.

It makes a nice contrast to the Golden Kingdom where there are no lights at all. It's so dark back there and in the Kingda Ka queue that I almost feel like it's unsafe. If someone trips and falls I could easily see them filing a lawsuit against the park and for once I'd almost agree with them for doing it. The only light in the main Kingda Ka queue comes from a light in the parking lot hundreds of feet away which really doesn't do much of anything and from the moon if it happens to be out that night. This is the darkest guest area in any theme park I've ever visited. Photo from Great Adventure History

This is a really great thread. As someone who's never ridden the coaster I never knew much about it or it's troubled history.

This park is on my bucket list for sure. This looks outstanding.

Unless I'm misreading something I think you're both saying the same thing. Right? Richards.adam made it a point to say that he wasn't talking about the people with no common courtesy but he thinks everyone else deserves respect. So basically you're both saying that you like people that follow the rules and are polite and respectful and you don't like people that don't. Am I missing something?

I would argue that the GP loves standup coasters. I can't think of a standup coaster that's not incredibly popular no matter how terrible it is (except for the one at SFA but no ride ever had a line there). Green Lantern is one of the most popular rides at Great Adventure, the same goes for Riddler's Revenge at Magic Mountain and Mantis at Cedar Point... heck even Shockwave at KD always has a line spilling out onto the midway and it's BRUTAL. I personally hate standup coasters but they're all really popular. I'm really surprised there aren't more of them but I'm not complaining.

In 2013 I visited Six Flags New England, Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags America. I have a mixed reaction to that question because I had different experiences at every park. I would say that Six Flags New England absolutely got worse which isn't really a surprise as it's been moving in that direction for years. Goliath was closed for half the year, they lost their Top Spin and replaced it with nothing and most importantly the level of service got even worse. The park put new policies in place like the front seat line for Batman which gave the ride ops yet another policy to ignore and another opportunity to be rude to multiple confused guests on every ride cycle. We also saw one train operations on more coasters even more frequently than in the past. Six Flags America really didn't change at all. I don't care for the park and operations are still bad but that's always been the case. Six Flags Great Adventure dramatically improved. They spruced up a lot of things around the park, added lights to Kingda Ka's tower, added the most popular family attraction in the park's history, increased capacity on Bizarro by removing the back seats and have really improved their already solid operations. On almost every visit we saw both sides of the Skyride open, all of the parachutes operating on the Parachute drop and fast, friendly operators on every ride. While it's not on the same level of Busch, Universal, Herschend or Disney this park is one of the crown jewels of the Six Flags chain. It's not perfect... but it's constantly improving.

Don't worry, it won't be Spiderman quality. It will be much better.

What a great policy. There's nothing worse than pre-purchasing skip-the-line passes and figuring out you don't need them. Kudos to Knott's and Cedar Fair.

It should be labeled Golden Kingdom Outpost presented by Nationwide Insurance.