coasterbill

Great pictures! I've never been to this park but it seems like it has a completely screwy layout.

I305 is on Fastlane but the front seat isn't included because of the fact that the line for the front seat starts outside the station so you can't really get in line for it from the Fastlane entrance which is inside the station. Fastlane rules at Kings Dominion, they let you right into the station on pretty much everything. We used it at a Saturday in October last year when the park was mobbed and they sold out of Fastlanes and it still turned an hour plus wait for Stunt coaster, I305, Avalanche, Windseeker and Flight of Fear into a one train (cycle) station wait. On Volcano, it turns a 3 hour wait into a 20 minute wait and the most you'll wait for Dominator is 10 minutes. I couldn't recommend Fastlane enough.

Keep in mind that I am higher off the ground in a truck and like I said, the fact that the lift hill traveled away from my view point, hid its height versus the full on side view you get with Diamondback. Plus I was traveling south it might look different traveling north. I seem to only ever travel south on I-75. Northbound I'm almost always way over on I-81 and then back into Ohio from the east. You also need to remember to calculate the angle of the horizon in relation to the highest point on the lift hill and divide it by the hight of your truck plus the height you have your seat adjusted to and then multiply that by the year Son of Beast opened divided by the year it closed and then square it by the height of Banshee's brake run. And remember to carry the 4.

Obviously there's a grey area here, but personally I love it. We're living in a really exciting time for coasters right now because for the first time ever the 2 types of coasters that have been very strictly defined for over half a century are merging together to make insane, modern, super-intense rides. I'm not sure why people are so up-in-arms about it. The only thing I can think of is that they're worried about their favorite wood coasters getting beaten in the wood coaster polls by coasters they don't think belong in those polls. I'm citing this as the reason because it's the only thing that makes any sense. If it's not for the sake of "fair polling" then there's no reason why anyone would care if a coaster is wood or steel. But if that's really your concern, it doesn't make any sense UNLESS you think steel coasters are better than wood coasters and wood coasters need some type of handicap. My prediction is that as wood and steel become less defined it will become less and less about best wood coaster polls and best steel coaster polls and more about best overall coaster polls... and I don't see why that's necessarily a bad thing. Sure it's change, but change isn't always bad... in this case it's exciting.

Back row of Kumba... but back seat all the way on the right (near the unload platform). You should be taking notes, there will be a quiz afterwards. I'm never the kind of person to care about ultra specific seats... but the things that ride does when you're in that seat are probably illegal in most states.

I think Cheetah Hunt is open again but I'd ride it first as it's an Intamin and it breaks down frequently. There are automated machines throughout the park that let you purchase the quick queue. We got it on our visit but am not sure we needed it. It came in handy a little but wasn't all that crowded. It's worth noting that it's not good for Scorpion or the Wild Mouse which have low capacity so once you ride Cheetah Hunt I suggest taking the skyride back to those rides and getting them done early. The other lines are usually pretty manageable since the other coasters are mostly B&M people eaters. Edit: I'm not sure if you've been to the park before but ride Kumba in the back row all the way on the right side of the train (near the unload platform). I promise you'll leave the ride angry at B&M for building the crap they build now instead of more rides just like Kumba. The ride is great in every seat but in that seat it's completely insane. You're welcome. Edit again: I just saw your post in the favorite inversion thread where you said your favorite inversion was a barrel roll. I said the same thing, but you don't even know the meaning of "barrel roll" until you ride Kumba in that seat.

I agree 100%. They're horrible rides.

Yeah or they could just leave it exactly like it is because it always has a full queue and they now have a parts train if they need it.

I'm noticing that you and the people who agree with you are all from places other than California. I'm from New York and the 2 times I've been to SFMM I've loved it too, but my guess is that's because I don't live near the park and haven't had time to notice all of the problems. If you are visiting from far away you're too busy running around (probably with a flash pass) riding all of the coasters to notice much else. You also wouldn't know the park well enough to compare it to what it was like in previous years (hey remember when there used to be a tilt a whirl here, and a monorail, and a skyride... and now there's just smoking areas and abandoned stations?). EastCoastKid kind of proved my point by complaining about Great Adventure (which is one of my home parks too). Great Adventure is the best Six Flags park I've ever been to, but because it's my home park there are things about it that bother me because I know the history of the park. The fact that they closed down Old Town and have left a rotting Music Express there for years bothers me, the fact that all of the signs in Nitro's queue and on the lift are gone bothers me, the fact that they have 4 loading stations for Kingda Ka and never use more than one station bothers me and the fact that Golden Kingdom is 2 separate areas that aren't connected to eachother at all bothers me... but if I were from California visiting for the first time I probably wouldn't notice these things. In the case of KK's loading station I wouldn't know that it was permanent so I wouldn't care. I'd be too busy using my platinum flash pass and running around to get all of the credits to notice small details like that. I think that's what's going on when we visit Magic Mountain. You may be right in the fact that people are being too hard on SFMM (though that's not really up to people from all the way across the country to judge), but when you live near it it's hard to avoid it sometimes. I always try to look at Great Adventure objectively and because of that I really like the park. Then again, we have El Toro... and when you have El Toro it's easy to overlook the rest of the park.

For all of the conspiracy theorists out there, why do you feel like Cedar Point needs an excuse (like decreasing ridership) to get rid of Iron Dragon? It's their ride, can't they just do whatever they want with it without caring what enthusiasts think? They'll say something like "we're moving in a new direction" or "we have exciting new things planned for re-developing Iron Dragon's former location" and that will be that. Personally I'd rather they keep Iron Dragon but the park can do whatever they want with it.

Agreed, it's really cool hearing from someone on the inside who's willing to give us real answers on park operations and not just the standard PR responses.

You're right, but like I mentioned in my last post I highly doubt they'd want to put one there with it's awful capacity since that park sees huge crowds. I could be wrong (they have a wild mouse in a box) but I really don't see that ever happening.

Minus the trees, flower boxes and people in the park.

I like Sheikra too. It's not even comparable to Kumba or Montu and it's a forceless gimmicky coaster but it's gimmicks are actually pretty cool (the 90 degree drop, wide trains and splashdown), the view from the top of the lift is breathtaking and it's almost as fun to watch as it is to ride.

I think it's important to point out AGAIN that this thread was bumped by a BRAND NEW MEMBER that had no idea how ridiculous this thread has become. I know I can't speak for Robb or the rest of the TPR team but yelling about bumping threads when the thread was bumped with a well thought out post from a brand new member is not a good way to get new members to stick around and become active members of TPR. I agree that if Darien Laker bumped the thread again talking about new coaster ideas we should all be rolling our eyes, but a brand new member bumped the thread so can we please try to be nice and not act like a message board full of crazy people that yell at everyone? Again... I'm not trying to speak for anyone running this site, but can we think before we start making demands about what threads we'd like to see people posting in?

I like the idea of sending Flashback to Six Flags over Georgia. Unless I'm forgetting one it's the only park in the chain that doesn't have (and has never had) a traditional boomerang with the exception of Magic Mountain and Great Adventure where the ride would probably be impractical because of it's limited capacity. Other than that, I guess I like the predictions of a small premier launched coaster and a RMC coaster (probably replacing Cyclone) but they've done a lot of work to Cyclone lately and Flashback for some reason frequently has a full queue so it's possible that ride won't be going anywhere.

I kind of like the fact that it doesn't have one. It's just another thing that makes the park unique.

I think Cedar Fair's new marketing plan is to throw in the word "coaster" as many times as possible when talking about their new-for-2014 non-coaster rides. I suppose it's not fair to say this is an insane claim before the ride is even built but...

DarienLaker, I'm not sure if you noticed but that's DoomMonkey's first post on TPR. They weren't here for the endless discussions about new fantasy coasters at this park so it might not be necessary to respond like that. First of all DoomMonkey, welcome to TPR! We're glad you're here. Second of all, I actually think you have a lot of good ideas. I'm not sure if you've been reading the forums a lot before signing up but if not, the reason for that reaction is that for some reason people are obsessed with bringing up new coaster ideas at this park. Obviously you had no way of knowing this and if it were any park besides this one nobody would react like that. It's just funny that it happens to be this thread. Darien lake seems to be a magnet for speculation. lol

Those are some great pictures. I can't wait to check this expansion out.

Sand Blaster in Daytona Beach last Monday.

You say being stuck with Intamin's way like that would be a bad thing. I love RMC but there's nothing wrong with this either

I like it but there's no theming (which is fine since the coaster doesn't have a theme). In this case it looks like they're going for an old cathedral, vampire castle kind of look and while I'm not exactly confusing them with Universal or Disney, it's more than I expected.

Maybe 2015: Dark Ride 2016: New 56 inch height requirement for Blue Streak 2017: Arson

Nice to see Ninja getting some love, I actually think it's one of the best coasters in the park.