coasterbill

It looks like it's getting scrapped. Fine by me, I hated that ride.

Everyone is already praising Intamin but nobody is mentioning the fact that it appears El Toro just got voted the best coaster in the world. Mitch notes that and while I haven't looked too far into this, I think it's reasonable to assume that the majority of people who voted in this poll also voted in the wood coaster poll and Mitch stated that in the wood coaster poll ...so we can assume that it won pretty handily. If I'm interpreting this correctly, then that's another huge notch in Intamin's belt. --- Also, a few comments on the steel coaster poll... I've said this before but Bizarro isn't running as well as it used to, and I wouldn't be surprised if this coaster starts to drop off soon. It's still a good coaster, but I don't think it's worthy of it's #2 position. Please explain how Top Thrill Dragster is at #29 and Kingda Ka is at #72. I understand one has lap bars... but that seems like a ridiculous gap. SooperDooperLooper is at #213? I feel like this coaster should be much higher. The Vekoma flyers seem to be grouped together in the 230's but I always thought these were great coasters, especially when compared to the Superman Ultimate Flight coasters which are some of the most boring coasters ever built but got ranked at 129. To each his own I guess.

Good for them! The Seadragon rides are really the best of the swinging ship rides. If they're run correctly (meaning they don't run it like they do at Knott's or the Santa Monica Pier) you get great floater air in the end seats.

We went to the park for the first time in 11 years this past Saturday and even with the Platinum Fast Pass and the upgrades for X2 and Drop of Doom (which aren't included in the standard Flash Pass at any level) it was hard to ride everything in a day. We did it though, and had 2 hours left to re-ride our favorite rides (Apocalypse, Tatsu, and Ninja). The only non coasters we rode were Drop of Doom and the flume (because we're from New York and the fact that we could ride a flume in the winter blew our minds). The reason it was so difficult to ride everything was the one train operation (and slow moving station waits) on Scream, Apocalypse and Riddler and the ridiculously slow loading time on Green Lantern (which is a terrible, terrible ride by the way). There's no way we could have rode everything without the Flash Pass. For the price difference, just go with the Platinum so you can re-ride.

We went to SFA on a weekend in August when they were running one train on basically everything and everything was still a walk on... I'm sure they get crowds sometimes but while I'm completely speculating here, it stands to reason that flash passes cost less in parks that don't have as much of a demand for them. If every ride has a 2 hour wait on a regular basis I'm sure they'd raise the price.

So my girlfriend and I went on vacation to LA / Hollywood / Santa Monica last week (we're from NY and wanted to go to the west coast) and while we were there we spent a day at Knotts and a day at Magic Mountain. I know California isn't the most popular place in the world on these boards but we actually had a great time out there (and at both parks). I figured I'd give a mini-trip report. We were both blown away by Knotts. The park is much smaller than we thought it would be but it's very nice and feels a lot like a family owned park. I think Magic Mountain had better coasters but we had a lot more fun at Knotts. The horse drawn carts and mine ride were very nice surprises and I was very impressed by Silver Bullet (we rode it in the front which may have helped) and Pony Express as I went into these rides with absolutely no expectations. Xcellerator was also great (as we expected) but I think our favorite ride was Montezooma's Revenge. I knew this ride was very popular with enthusiasts since it's a classic but didn't really expect it to be as forceful and fun as it was. The loop is really intense and the pull outs on both drops are very tight (almost RCT like). I liked the coasters a lot but this place was more about the theming and atmosphere than the rides themselves. Operations were pretty solid, I like the fact that the ride attendants wear themed uniforms and they seem to be pretty quick when loading and unloading trains. I know it's a common complaint that this place has lost some of it's charm but as a first time visitor that purposely did as little research as possible on the place before our trip I have to say this place feels nothing like a Cedar Fair park and is still very "charming". We'll definitely be back.

The ride wouldn't need to be trimmed if it didn't have those restraints. I'm not saying the park wouldn't trim it anyway since it's SFMM but I think that ride would be one of the best in the park if they took off the OTSR's and turned off the trims.

Easily Phoenix. It's still one of the best in the world after all these years.

... YOLO!

Testing Skyscreamer's new lights. From the park's Facebook page.

The only place I remember seeing that was Absolutely Reliable News and Rumors.

Adventure Express has to be the worst and I think El Toro is definitely the best. Between the OMFG ejector drop and the brakes that ride feels like it's going to rip itself apart (in a good way) but I think Phoneix deserves an honorable mention, that last run of bunny hops is a ton of fun.

As Wes already pointed out, more people have complained about the people complaining than have actually complained. Say that five times fast.

You can always tell who's ridden El Toro and who hasn't

Great work as always. I love the red and green lights to indicate open and closed gates.

To be fair, I did say that Talon was better. I think Laser used to be the best coaster in the park before they removed it, but other than that I think Thunderhawk is clearly their best coaster if you sit in the right seat (middle row, front car). Hydra isn't a bad little ride but it's forceless and the jojo roll is uncomfortable. I always thought impulse coasters were lame and obviously Stinger is a terrible ride. Steel force is the world's tallest and fastest mine train. It's amazing how a ride that impressive looking can be that boring. You get more airtime on the Seadragon than Steel Force.

I totally agree. I've probably ridden this coaster more than any other coaster since we've had Six Flags season passes since 2000 and used to visit that park about 5-10 times a year. Superman used to give an amazing ride every time we rode it but for some reason it's not the same as it used to be. The new lap bars are really uncomfortable but I can look past that, my big issue is that for some reason the coaster just seems to drag through the course. We've had some great rides on Bizarro this year but on some days I actually had more enjoyable rides on Batman (is it just me or does that ride get better with age... still nowhere near my top 10 list but it's a solid ride), Thunderbolt and Goliath. I'm not sure why this coaster feels like it drags sometimes, maybe it's because it actually does, maybe it's because we're spoiled by the fact that El Toro is the same distance away and it makes Bizarro's airtime seem underwhelming or maybe it's a combination of both but this ride doesn't appeal to me the way it used to. Is it still great? Absolutely. But I don't think it should be listed at #1 anymore.

Whoever photoshopped the top of that arch did a real bang up job.

Fixed it for you Please tell me someone else remembers this thread.

Wow, I didn't even remember posting this here. Unfortunately I don't have this version any more. A lot of changes have been made to this park since then. Sorry

Off topic, but are there any other Chaos rides still in operation? I'm surprised to see that they still have theirs.

Is there any love out there for Thunderhawk at Dorney? This coaster is running great since it was re-tracked, and sitting in the first car leads to ejector airtime on the top of the first turnaround and a few other pops of airtime throughout the course. Even with the trim brakes, this is a good coaster, probably the best in the park besides Talon. Even though it's dwarfed by Steel Force it offers a much more exciting ride.

Great architecture! I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

I normally don't really like NCSO parks (though I can appreciate the level of difficulty and creative problem solving) but I have to say that screen is very impressive. I love the building and the support on the crossover on the wood coaster is a nice touch as well.

I don't know if we all said the same things about Great Adventure. Great Adventure has problems but they have different problems. I've never seen Great Adventure run one train on any of their major coasters with the exception of El Toro during Fright Fest this year because a restraint got stuck closed and they had to repair it. It was back on the track within an hour. Great Adventure usually runs all of the trains on all of their coasters (except Kingda Ka, they usually run three) no matter how many people are in the park (and I go between 5 and 10 times a year as it's my home park). That park is not without problems (lack of lighting, train stacking on Bizarro, trash on Midways during Fright Fest, Golden Kingdom being 2 separate sections that don't connect to eachother anymore, flat rides being under-staffed) but they usually run the coasters (not named Bizarro) very efficiently.