coasterbill

I highly doubt Kingda Ka will be open anytime soon. I don't see it opening until June but that's just a blind guess.

I think this ride is only hated so much because of the high profile park that it's in. The coaster does suck, but there are a lot of wood coasters that suck a lot more than Mean Streak does. I'd much rather ride Mean Streak than something like Roar at SFA, Wildcat at Hershey, Gwazi or Ghostrider... and even those coasters aren't completely terrible (except for maybe Gwazi and Roar).

You can never go wrong with running lights. That's great to see!

Kinda Ka has been very successful for them. I've never been to Gradv but I'm assuming along with Nitro and El Toro they're the most popular rides at the park. It's hard to judge which rides are the most popular, especially since they all have different capacities. While you don't sound too far off I wouldn't be surprised if Superman was ahead of Kingda Ka and/or El Toro in terms of popularity. All of the rides are extremely popular but Superman frequently has some of the longest lines in the park despite it's good capacity. I think that ride is brutally dull but people seem to love it.

I'm only suggesting Conneaut Lake because it's a quick credit that's not out of the way. Coney Island would be a whole day, it's out of the way and you need to go over some expensive bridges to get there and deal with NYC traffic. It's also really expensive because of all of the different operators and insane price of ride tickets. That was my thought process... I'm not comparing them. lol

I love Skip-The-Line systems because they make park trips possible that wouldn't be worth the time and money otherwise. I know a lot of people say "Don't go to parks on Saturdays in October or during the summer" which is a great plan, but for people like me it's unrealistic. When you only get 2 weeks vacation and you want to do day trips to parks you're going to end up going to a lot of parks on Saturdays. For example, we have Cedar Fair Platinum Passes and every year we like to go to Kings Dominion which is about 6 hours from our house. Because of I305's closure this year we weren't planning to go, but them when we heard it would be open for the Haunt event we decided to make the trip. The only way to go to the park without taking a day off was to leave from work on Friday, drive to the hotel near the park and get there around 11pm, spend Saturday at the park and drive home Sunday. If it weren't for Fastlane we would never have gone because going to a park on a Saturday in October is usually a terrible idea. Every ride had an hour plus wait, Volcano had a 3 hour wait, the place was a mob scene... but we got like 20+ rides on I305, 10+ rides on Volcano and tons of rides on the other major rides too. In total we probably had over 50-60 rides that day. If it weren't for Fastlane that day would have been a disaster, but because of Fastlane we had an awesome day, an awesome weekend and we didn't even have to take time off from work.

I've never heard of it but it says on the website that you can use it anywhere EZ PASS is excepted so it looks like you're all set. I only brought it up because we have an insane amount of tolls up here and a lot of them let you go through at highway speed with an EZ PASS. As far as Coney Island I'm sorry but the place is a complete dump. It's much better but it's still a complete dump. Going to Hershey instead is a much better idea. I couldn't support this idea enough. I had one more idea by the way... have you ever been to Conneaut Lake? When you drive from Quassy (which you should hit after Lake Compounce obviously since otherwise you'll need to pass Lake Compounce to get to Quassy)... you can go 1 of 2 ways to Waldameer. Either you can take 84 to 17 to 86 or you can take 84 to 80 to 79 and it's about the same amount of time. If you do the latter, you'll pass right by the place and can probably stop and get the credits in less than an hour. This is an added bonus since the park probably won't be around much longer. It sounds like you had a good plan there, but I always like to look for little credit stops that are right along the route I'll be taking anyway which is why I bring this up, and why I brought up Bowcraft.

I like that idea a lot too if you have that much time... and if you're a complete whore you can still throw Bowcraft in there just because it's right off the highway. If you're an even bigger whore I actually thought of something else you could do... but you have to be willing to whore like nobody has ever whored before. On Day 7, I feel like you could totally add in Rye Playland if you really wanted to. They generally open at 11:00. If you get there at 11:00 you could ride the 4 coasters in an hour and be out of there. Personally I'd suggest taking a spin on the Old Mill and Derby Racer too but even if you do that you could be out of there by 12:30 or 1:00 at the absolute latest. From there you're only an hour and 10 minutes from Quassy. You can ride the 2 coasters and leave in 30 minutes. Let's say at that point just to be safe it's 3:00. From Quassy, you're only 30 minutes away from Lake Compounce which really isn't a full day park anyway unless you do the waterpark. If you get there at 3:30 or even 4:00 you'll have plenty of time to ride everything you'll care to ride assuming it's June 14th or later... if it's before that then forget about this plan because Lake Compounce and Quassy close at 4pm earlier that week. Lake Compounce is a nice little park but honestly Wildcat and Zoomerang are nothing special so you don't need a ton of time. They have some fun flat rides and a great (30 minute long) Skyride but Boulder Dash is the star of the park and you'll have plenty of time for re-rides. EDIT: Also, on Day 5 if you want to be a whore you can just ride the rides at Morey's and then whore your way north because there are a ton of credits right along the Jersey Shore and technically you'll be heading towards Great Adventure even though you'll be doing it in a really screwed up way.

I thought of one more, the rapids ride at Dorney. Of course every rapids ride gets you wet and has the potential to soak you. From the path you see some waterfalls and you realize that if the boat is turned the wrong way you're going to go under them and get soaked. This is normal for rapids rides. What's not normal is what you CAN'T see from the path. This ride is just waterfall after waterfall after waterfall that covers the river completely and guarantees that no matter what every single person in every single raft is going to get so incredibly soaked that they might as well have just jumped into the wave pool with all of their clothes on. It's the most ridiculous rapids ride I've ever seen.

I hate to rain on this conversation about how the station is still intact but...

If you go for 2 days and have Fastlane Plus both days you're going to have an awesome time. You have nothing to worry about. This change on Maverick is going to help a lot and none of the other rides really have any major problems to speak of unless the park is just insanely packed (like during October).

Okay cool. Sounds like fun! I'm not sure how long you have but this is what I came up with. Day 1 - Drive to BGW / KI Day 2 - Busch Gardens Williamsburg Day 3 - Kings Dominion Day 4 - Six Flags America for a few hours (that's all you'll need, this park sucks and it's never busy), then drive to Hershey Area. Maybe go to Chocolate World or just relax. A great alternative would be to stop at Baltimore's Inner Harbor on the way and spend some time there. You can check out the aquarium, Camden Yards or Fort McHenry where the Star Spangled Banner was written depending on what you're into. I highly suggest getting some crabcakes though. This won't be out of the way at all. Day 5 - Hershey Day 6 - Six Flags Great Adventure Day 7 - Quassy and Lake Compounce Day 8 - Six Flags New England Day 9 - Dorney and Knoebels (spend most of the day at Knoebels. Dorney WILL be dead and you can ride everything in 3 hours). The only thing you need to ride besides the coasters is the Log Flume and Demon Drop if you're into that kind of thing. lol Day 10 - Drive home, hit Waldameer for a few hours on the way back. (This is a LONG drive but Waldameer is really out of the way). Just a few random tips. - This leaves out Coney Island but honestly Coney Island is nothing special. If you have more time than this then you can do it but I'm assuming you have 10 days for some reason. If you have more time hit Coney Island and spend some time in NYC. - Personally, I think Six Flags America sucks but I know it's going to be hard to pass the sign on I-95 when you have a season pass so I'd suggest going there and getting it out of your system so you never feel the need to go back. - Do not get the skip the line system at Dorney or Six Flags America. You won't need it. For the other parks, just see what the crowds look like when you get there and make a decision. - At Knoebels, just eat everything. Don't even eat meals, just eat throughout the day. The food is great. - If you're a credit whore I highly suggest stopping at Bowcraft on the way to Dorney. You can get 2 credits in 15 minutes and it's right off the highway. They have a coaster called "Crossbow" and it's pretty decent. Also, a few driving tips. - I know they have it in the Chicago area but if you don't already have one make absolutely sure your car has an EZ PASS. If you're renting a car make sure that car has an EZ PASS or order one and hold it up to the windshield. You're going to go through a million tolls and your life will suck without an EZ PASS. They're usually free but you need to put 10 bucks on your account. This will work at every toll plaza in every state you're visiting. - If you do what I suggested and you're going to drive from Six Flags New England to Dorney then make sure you take the Tappan Zee Bridge. If your GPS tries to tell you to stay on I-95 the whole time and go over the George Washington Bridge throw it out the window and buy a new GPS. Doing that is a horrible idea but the iPhone GPS loves the George Washington Bridge for some reason. - On I-95 in Virginia near Washington DC they have reversible HOV lanes. If these lanes say "Open to All Traffic" make sure you get in them or again... your life will suck.

I really don't see the chain dumping any real money into this park because the attendance probably won't ever give them a return on their investment. Obviously I don't have access to their attendance figures but based on my visits and other people's trip reports it seems like the single reason this park is still in business is Hurricane Harbor as that's always where the majority of the park's guests are. From a business standpoint, why would it make any sense to dump money into the park itself? All they need to do is add occasional upgrades to Hurricane Harbor which are much less expensive than large theme park rides and occasionally add flat rides or cheap / relocated coasters to the park itself. The only reason they'd invest in the park is because they think it could be a major player in the region and they're willing to take a risk. While they tried this for awhile with major investments like Batwing and Superman I think at this point it's clear to them that it's not worth the investment which is probably why they've stopped adding expensive rides.

Do you have a general idea of what order you're planning to visit the parks in?

Actually that's probably not the case. SeaWorld would most likely have to get rid of it's whales... either by sending them to certain death in the ocean or holding them in sea pens. SeaWorld is located in a cove... maybe they would be allowed to set up a pen there but obviously I have no idea.

Now we're talking! This thing is going to be massive.

Awesome! I love Pink's and it's nice to see the park expanding it's dining options.

While I consider myself informed, I've never been big into political arguments. I'm not the kind of person that gets angry over things politicians do and I'm the last person to stand on a soap box and complain about their incompetence... but this is truly stunning. How is it that a member of the State Assembly has nothing better to do than to champion a made-up cause without doing any real fact-checking? I'm not an expert on whales and I don't pretend to be, but going to Gabriela Cowperthwaite for "fact gathering" is like going to the Republican National Convention for "fact gathering" about Democrats (or vice-versa). All you're going to end up is twisted facts, complete lies or a list of cherry picked things from the last 50 or so years that are blown out of proportion even if they're completely irrelevant today. On one side you have Jack Hanna, the family of Steve Irwin, the family of Dawn Brancheau and hundreds if not thousands of marine biologists and animal experts. You also have countless Killer Whale trainers and former trainers and people who were in the movie who's words were twisted and taken out of context. On the other side you have a bunch of people who watched a 90 minute propaganda film and now consider themselves experts and a few former Seaworld employees that had very limited interaction with Killer Whales. While I'm no whale expert, all of the people who are whale experts are on SeaWorld's side. This is one of the best videos I've seen on the subject from a former trainer with no ties to SeaWorld. I'm more likely to believe a former trainer than someone with an agenda who has never had any real interaction with killer whales. If this bill passes and these animals are sent to sea pens, then they'll be exposed to diseases and ocean conditions they've never seen before. If the experts are right (and they probably are because they're experts) then the whales are likely to respond very poorly. I understand that there are a lot of stupid people out there, but it's frustrating when our elected officials are just as stupid and closed minded as people on Twitter who watch a 90 minute one-sided movie and consider themselves whale experts.

You're not the first person from NC I've heard raving about this place but I have to admit I thought it was terrible. I don't mean to be a New York pizza snob but with very few exceptions pizza just isn't worth getting if you're not in the New York or Chicago (in the U.S.). The only way to pull off Pizza outside of those areas seems to be to do something a little different. The problems is that everyone tries (and fails) to copy New York or Chicago Pizza instead of putting their own twist on it and they can't duplicate it. I don't know why, some people say it's the water... the elevation... whatever, but nobody can duplicate it. The only Pizza I've ever had outside of the New York or Chicago area that I've enjoyed are Grotto Pizza in Delaware (it sucks in Pennsylavnia but it's great in Delaware). They put their own twist on it and it worked out great for them, and Cesari's at Knoebels. Cesari's is very much a NY style pizza but for some reason it's good anyway... probably because the food at Knoebels defies the laws of nature and is always amazing.

I don't think it was announced, but construction has begun. From Keansburg's Facebook It's new paint is very striking. It reminds me a lot of Cedar Point's old Wildcat.

1) Millennium Force 2) El Toro 3) Phoenix 4) Maverick 5) Kumba

I just lazily go with what RCDB and Coaster Grotto (yeah I still use them for my coaster count) say. If you want to get technical I would say Intamin 1st gens and Disko's could be considered coasters but I think some common sense has to be used when defining coasters, there can't be a clear cut set of rules.

The "Stand with SeaWorld" Facebook page is asking for people to vote "no" in this poll. I figured I'd pass it along, not that internet polls mean anything. Link

You just keep holding out hope... lol

The GP aren't half as dumb as the people on this board think they are. The problem is that the dumbest people are always the ones with the loudest opinions so we assume that's a representation of every non-enthusiast.