coasterbill

I think El Toro's restraints are perfect. I wouldn't change a single thing about them and I wish more coasters would be built with exactly the same type of restraint. This might be the first time I've seen anyone complain about them. I find those restraints and the trains on Millennium Force (and the original SROS restraints before they modified them a million times) to be perfect.

I'm very disappointed in Farneheit. It looks like so much fun but every time I ride it I'm underwhelmed and I can;'t put my finger on why that is. I love the lift and drop but after that it's really nothing special.

Well, it did go upside down that one time...

Streak Hawk.

I was hoping for another March Opening but kind of figured that wouldn't be happening. It doesn't really work out with the Spring Break schedule and opening day last year was freezing and kind of dead. Oh well, I'll be there on the 5th, can't wait!

That's too bad... I wonder why they'd remove it.

I didn't hate Anaconda but I'm a pretty tall guy and for some reason I never get much headbanging on arrows. About 10 years ago when I was still growing I hated them so I think my height plays a role. Last year when we rode Anaconda I mentioned something in the brake run about how it was actually pretty decent and my girlfriend looked at me like I was an idiot and said that it was the worst coaster she's ever ridden... so I guess it just depends. She hates every Arrow looper except for Tennessee Tornado which we both think is great.

I'm amazed at the way Outlaw Run seems to be beating El Toro in most of the polls of mutual riders. I haven't ridden Outlaw Run yet but if it's really better than El Toro then I need to buy a plane ticket like... yesterday. Then again I can't totally go on other people's opinions because a lot of people are putting Boulder Dash ahead of El Toro and I don't even think it belongs in the same discussion. It's a great ride, but it's not El Toro. Then again, I guess the fact that people disagree so much is what makes this fun.

Slow day at the office... El Toro is still my favorite. El Toro and Phoenix are miles ahead of everything else for me. I dropped Thunderhawk way down from last year after riding it this year, they've let that ride go to hell. And after finally riding Roar at SFA I now have a brand new worst wood coaster! RANK THE FOLLOWING RIDING SENSATIONS <-LEAVE Abrupt Airtime_____________________________,y,y,1 Out of Control Feeling/Directional Changes_,y,y,2 Floating Airtime___________________________,y,y,3 Sensation of Speed_________________________,y,y,4 Lateral Forces_____________________________,y,y,5 Positive G's/Loops_________________________,y,y,6 COASTER NAME PARK LOC <-LEAVE My Favorite Steel Anypark Anywhere **,y,y,1 El Toro SFGAd NJ,y,y,2 Phoenix Knoebel's PA,y,y,3 Thunderhead Dollywood TN,y,y,4 Boulder Dash Lake Compounce CT,y,n,5 Twister Knoebel's PA,y,y,6 Apocalypse S. F. Magic Mountain CA,y,y,7 Comet Great Escape NY,y,y,8 Lightning Racer - T Hersheypark PA,y,y,9 Lightning Racer - L Hersheypark PA,y,y,10 Thunderbolt SF New England MA,y,y,11 Comet Hersheypark PA,y,y,12 Wooden Warrior Quassy CT,y,y,13 Leap the Dips Lakemont PA,y,y,14 Wild One SF America MD,y,n,15 Blue Streak Cedar Point OH,y,y,16 Flying Turns Knoebel's PA,y,y,17 Yankee Cannonball Canobie Lake Park NH,y,y,18 Skyliner Lakemont PA,y,y,19 Rolling Thunder SFGAd NJ,y,y,20 Rebel Yell Kings Dominion VA,y,n,21 Thunder Road Carowinds NC,y,n,22 Racer Kings Island OH,y,n,23 Big Dipper (SBNO) Geauga Lake OH,y,n,24 Cyclone SF New England MA,y,y,25 Thunderhawk Dorney Park PA,y,y,26 The Beast Kings Island OH,y,n,27 The Grizzly Kings Dominion VA,y,n,28 Dragon Coaster Playland NY,y,n,29 Sea Dragon Jungle Jacks Landing OH,y,n,30 Woodstock Express Kings Island OH,y,n,31 Ghoster Coaster Kings Dominion VA,y,y,32 Kiddie Coaster Playland NY,y,n,33 Hurler Kings Dominion VA,y,n,34 Colossus S.F. Magic Mountain CA,y,y,35 Hurler Carowinds NC,y,n,36 Mean Streak Cedar Point OH,y,y,37 Wildcat Lake Compounce CT,y,n,38 GhostRider Knott's Berry Farm CA,y,y,39 Cyclone Luna Park NY,y,n,40 Wildcat Hersheypark PA,y,y,41 Roar SF America MD,y,y,42

You bring up a good point but correlation does not imply causation. I think the fact that the parks have built bigger and more impressive looking rides is the reason for the decline in line length of the (still very popular) Batman rides. There are plenty of intense B&M coasters around the country that are still incredibly popular. If the GP always preferred "forceless" rides to forceful rides, how do you explain the popularity of Intamin rides? Surely everyone in line isn't an enthusiast, so I think it's unfair to say that the GP prefers forceless rides. Forceful Intamin rides like Kingda Ka, Top Thrill Dragster, Maverick, El Toro and Bizarro always have huge lines even though there are a lot of other less forceful rides for people to ride in their respective parks. In many cases these rides are the most popular or one of the most popular rides in their parks. The Batman rides are still popular, but in every park they're in there have been newer, taller, faster rides built that cut down on the line length a little bit. Still, I highly doubt any of those rides are going anywhere anytime soon and I doubt the fact that they're forceful is a negative factor in their decreased line lengths.

They couldn't be smoother, I seriously have no idea what any of these people are talking about.

At first I thought it was strange that I didn't notice this since I go there all the time, then I realized it's because I've never had anything other than beer at BWW. This won't have any impact on me, they could switch to Wal Mart's off brand soda for all I care. As long as they continue to offer a ton of beers on draft I won't notice. Of course I understand why a lot of people would be annoyed by it though. I just wanted to point out my apparent alcoholism.

That's why I said "pretty much every ride", because there are always exceptions especially with hypercoasters like Raging Bull because as long as a ride is the tallest coaster in the park people will always be drawn to it.

One of Nitro's trains ran terribly near the back earlier this year but later in the year it was back to normal. I'm not sure why it took them so long to fix it. I'd expect Diamondback to be back to normal on opening day.

I don't see this happening in the foreseeable future. The rides are still very popular, they're as smooth as ever and are generally very reliable. Plus, since most Six Flags parks already have them they can't even move them to other parks. Sorry but I see no point in this at all, they're still great rides. In my opinion the lines have just gotten shorter because the parks keep adding more and more rides so people don't need to keep re-riding the same ones as often throughout the course of the day. Pretty much every 10-20 year old ride at a Six Flags park has a shorter line now than it did when it opened.

Agreed. It seems that some people say Vekoma because of some rides like SLC and Boomerangs, even though so many of their rides are good. Intamin has made so many good coasters but what about: 1st gen free-fall some multi inversions some zacspins Kingdaka to list a few mistakes. Intamin takes risks, and when you take risks you're going to have a few duds. But you're also going to get some amazing rides. And by the way, a lot of people love 1st gen Free Falls and I really have no idea why you would ever put Kingda Ka on this list as it draws hour+ lines all the time even though it's about a decade old. Actually none of the things you mentioned are really duds. I think they're just things that you personally don't like. For me, I haven't had the "pleasure" of riding a Golden Horse coaster so I'll go with Togo because they made Viper and that's by far the worst ride I've ever ridden.

This is just my opinion but honestly, no. I think people are trying to turn this into something it's not to make themselves feel like they're fighting for a cause that's much more important than it actually is. They're trying to draw parallels to things that are infinitely worse than this will ever be (like slavery). Animal cruelty is horrible and should be and is treated very seriously. I just don't think what SeaWorld is doing could be considered "Animal Cruelty" in any way, shape or form. Based on that response that was posted a few pages back and a lot of other responses that have come out over the last few weeks it seems like they treat the animals very well. The fact that the pro-SeaWorld people are acknowledging criticism from anti-SeaWorld people while the Blackfish people have no interest in even hearing the other side of the story leads me to believe that the pro-SeaWorld people are much more credible. I honestly feel like people are just starved for attention and want to feel like they're doing something important even though they're really not. If they wanted to make a difference there are a million better causes they could be supporting but they wouldn't get the same amount of attention since this is the issue CNN has decided to make a big deal about and report on.

I think Stereo is my favorite. Nice work.

This is true of every B&M coaster, so why buy a boring Wingrider? Because a lot of people don't find them boring at all, and since they bought a Wingrider for Dollywood it's not too farfetched to assume we might see one at SDC if they consider Wild Eagle to have been a successful investment.

I really kind of like this thing. It's partially because of my non-existant expectations going in because of the boring looking layout combined with the fact that Morgan is known for building some really dull coasters but for what it is... I kind of like it. I don't know why.

The two parks that really come to mind are Dollywood and Cedar Point. Cedar Point is great. I can't think of another park where they have someone walking around with a headset making jokes and constantly talking about the ride. The Raptor and Millennium Force crews are awesome, though the Dragster guy was pretty funny too. He's clearly an enthusiast and kept referring to TTD as the "World's best strata coaster" while later telling everyone to "Enjoy their ride on Kingda Ka". The Millennium Force guys were really adding to the experience talking about how it was the best coaster in the world and mixing in some jokes that were so corny and terrible that they were actually pretty good. "Hey what's my favorite color? Clear." At Dollywood, everyone is just ridiculously nice. The operator on Thunderhead was an older woman (probably in her 70's) and at one point she had everyone singing happy birthday to someone in the train and then at the end said "all right well we're gonna let y'all have some fun now" and dispatched the train. The crew on Tennessee Tornado was great too, they kept talking about how much better the ride was than Wild Eagle and since crowds were light and they were running one train they asked everyone in the station where they were from and what their favorite ride was. They would then proceed to explain why you were wrong if you said anything other than Tennessee Tornado. Also, we marathoned the heck out of Wild Eagle and the ride operators got to know us. On the last train of the night we were the only ones riding and one of them took a picture of us on the train with my phone in the station and after we got off the ride and made it all the way to the gift shop we heard one of them yelling for us behind us. He thought we had left a souvenir cup and he ran all the way down the stairs to give it to us. We told him it wasn't ours but thanked him and he said "okay well here's a free cup then, thanks for coming to Dollywood!". I wish I got his name because the higher ups at Dollywood need to know about this guy, he's awesome.

I'd love to see another Wingrider coaster. They're extremely reliable, high capacity rides that seem to be very popular. Personally I really enjoy them even though I'm in the minority among enthusiasts.

This is off topic but do all of these rides break down frequently? The one at Great Adventure breaks down all the time. It's very rarely closed for an entire day, but for a B&M invert the amount of down time this ride has is insane.

I'm not trying to be rude but I'm starting to think people just don't read anymore. This is what Robb said... You don't need to pitch to us about why you think it's acceptable to like the show because the general consensus is that nobody cares what you watch as long as you're not creepy around children and start conversations with them about the show. Nobody thinks it's unacceptable to like the show. We may think it's weird but I we don't think it's unacceptable.

Wow... I didn't even know this was a thing. I don't know if that makes me feel old and out of touch or fortunate because until now I never knew this ridiculous group of people existed.