A.J.
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Posts posted by A.J.
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Here's the train in question. It's on the coaster Galaxy Express 999 (based off of a cartoon with the same name I think), which is in the Aqua Stadium indoor complex in Tokyo. It has a tire-propelled launch into a small loop.
I'm not familiar with ASTM standards, but if they were to use this train design they may have to heighten the backrests.
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You can get to RCT3 Mac's folder structure by right-clicking its application icon and clicking "Show Package Contents".
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Wait, so does this mean I'm an official roller coaster "expert" now?
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Magic Mountain can also advertise having the largest inversion on a launched coaster. I don't think that they'll have any problem generating hype.
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Hey everyone!
So, I decided to do a last-minute end-of-regular-operating-season park trip! Since I love waterparks and I haven't gotten to one this season, I decided to drive out to Tannersville (eastern PA, just outside of Stroudsburg) and go to Camelbeach Mountain Waterpark!
For those of you that don't know, the Camelback Mountain Resort is a ski resort located in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. When the snow melts, the resort is operated as a waterpark called Camelbeach! The ski runs are literally created around all the permanently-installed waterslides. They also have "extreme" upcharge activities like a 4000' long zip line, a smaller zip line, ropes courses, and an alpine coaster!
Another cool thing is that most of the slides are terrain waterslides! There are very few slide towers that are built high up. They're pretty much all below the tree line.
Now that introductions are over, let's get on with it.
I got in the park, and immediately had this advertisement in my face -
Well, I would buy a season pass, but there's less than a week left in the season, I think.
The park is laid out in a fan shape. All the slides are built on the side of the mountain in a horizontal line. So, it kind of has "Hersheypark Syndrome" in that there is little level ground - also - to see everything you have to go all the way to one end, and to exit you have to go all the way back to where you started. I decided to do the logical thing and go straight down the line.
Starting with - this! It's the Checkered Flag Challenge!
This is a very casual mat racing slide that sits next to a snow tubing run. I actually won the race I was in! The problem here is that the queue line is too wide. People clump up and no one is ever too sure if they're able to go forward without being rude.
Moving on, I was faced with this -
Long queue, steep ground, no shade.
The queue in question was for the park's two newest attractions. I skipped them, promising to return.
Here's the Titan. I believe it was the longest waterslide in the world at one point, hence the name. It's loads of fun going back and forth down the mountain.
But, there's a problem with it. Titan is a large raft slide, manufactured by Proslide (I believe). When it opened, you could stuff a family of five or six in the rafts and everything would be cool! But, now, there are new rafts that have four dividers, so only four people can ride at once! This not only splits up bigger families who want to ride, but also reduces capacity, which means hearing a lot more buzzing letting you know that the conveyor belt is going to start.
Feeling a little waterlogged, I had some lunch (no, Elissa, I will not complain about food prices THIS time even though the food was expensive), and moved on to what I believe is the best complex in the park.
This is Triple Venom. Three speed slides, two of them being similar to each other. The red slide is completely dark while the blue one is translucent. Those slides were cool, but the center slide is totally where it's at. Three hills, each faster than the one before it, can only mean one thing - airtime!
Going over the third hill (maybe even the second one) will send you airborne. Now, I'm sure many of you have been on uphill water coaster slides which have a little bit of airtime. Let me tell you, it's really something to experience this sort of airtime with no car, no tube, no anything! It's a wild ride, and if you're not prepared you might not land correctly -
Looks like fun, right? Well, it is, until you hit the splash zone when all the water goes up your nose.
Another great slide complex is conveniently located right next to Triple Venom! It's one of the older complexes in the park, but it's still good fun.
Four tube slides. Singles and Doubles on all of them, and Triples on the red and white slides. If you're ever by yourself, you should definitely try singles on the red and white slides. They're wider than the others to accommodate the triple tubes, so when you have a single tube you spin around a lot!
Very funny...
The nice thing about my trip today is that the black slide was far and away the most popular slide in the complex, which meant waits of less than five minutes for the other three! I spent at least thirty minutes at this complex alone.
Speaking of old, the park's oldest slide complex is right next to the tube slide one. There are two mat slides there.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, waterslides can in fact have downtime! Imagine that!
Along the way to the opposite end of the park, there are lots of other small things to do such as a volleyball court, an olympic-sized normal pool, and other things - all of which can get very crowded (today especially). There's also one of these -
Astonishingly, the low-low-low-low Flow Rider looked to be the least-popular attraction in the park today! I had seen advertisements in the front of the park for standing lessons, but I wasn't interested.
Also on this end of the park is Kahuna Lagoon, the park's wave pool, which I didn't take a photo of. The wave feature was running very sporadically throughout the day, but when it did run, it was awesome! I positioned myself right where the waves would break, and I got completely wasted by them. So much fun!
On the left end of Camelbeach's fan shape are this pair of bowl slides.
Spin Cycle is a tube bowl -
- and Vortex is a body bowl.
These two slides had the longest queues of the day. I waited a half hour for Spin Cycle and enjoyed it as per usual. However, I could not go down Vortex because of safety reasons. I wear a compression shirt when I go swimming because of my, um, skin tone. Sunscreen has never worked and in order for me to avoid sunburn that could lead to consequences down the road, I have to wear a shirt. I wear a compression shirt because it's light and tight.
Moving back toward the two new attractions, I noticed that one of the mat slides has opened up.
Even though they had water running down both slides, they only had the one open.
At this point my feet were becoming very sore. However, I'm a man, and I just shut up and dealt with it. Onto the new slides!
The Dune Runner is a cloverleaf slide with several bumps, much like the slide on Triple Venom. The cool thing about this one is that you can get the rafts spinning - and it's fantastic!
The Sandstorm is a ProSlide Tantrum slide. It's now my second-favorite slide in the park. If you have an unbalanced raft (especially with three people), you get spinning incredibly fast going through the tight downward spiral and then get massive upward travel inside the funnel WHILE you spin!
I spent the better part of an hour waiting for and doing these two slides, but it was worth it.
To end my day in the waterpark, I decided to spend time at Camelbeach's semi-new water fort, the Pharaoh's Fortress. I probably spent two hours there entertaining myself, spraying random strangers with water guns, dumping water buckets on unsuspecting parents, and other nasty things. I have spent way to many hours of my life in water forts like this, especially the one at Hersheypark.
After enjoying myself in the waterpark, I had one more attraction to get to at the Camelback resort. This year, Wiegand built an alpine coaster right here in the Poconos! I've been waiting a long while to get an opportunity to give one of these a go!
For the sake of my own personal safety, I ditched my backpack with all of my stuff in it and went up the mountain alone.
Let me tell you what - it is extremely difficult to go fast on one of these things. It's not that the cars themselves are hard to drive (it's a tracked ride for crying out loud). There's this constant sense that you can and will die if you keep the speed up passing by the signs that say "slow down". You really want to keep going faster, but your body parts have minds of their own! It's a psychological issue, at least for me.
It was certainly an exhilarating experience!
Like I said earlier, the resort area (called CBK) had some zip lines and ropes courses. I didn't try them out.
So, there you have it! A great way to end the normal season, with slides and an alpine coaster. And THIS!!!
IT'S A THING!!!
Some notes from the trip -
- The waterpark could really use some more high-capacity attractions. It could really help controlling the queues, which were fantastically long for the entire day. On a Thursday even!
- Speaking of the queues, there is no shading whatsoever, a consequence of the park pulling double-duty as a ski resort. Even if they just used portable tents, it would help! Or, they could pull a Hersheypark and use mist fans. It was only eighty degrees outside, but the sun was baking on my shoulders all day.
- More on the queues - they were not the crew/lifeguards' fault. All of the guards at the slides were pleasant and efficient - and they had fun with the guests! When I went down Titan alone, one of the guards filled an entire large bucket with water and dumped it all on me! I haven't been treated that well in a theme park in a while.
- The park is NOT a place to go if you have problems with your legs and/or feet. All of the queues are very steep climbs, which is another ski-resort-waterpark consequence. My legs became tired only after two and a half hours!
- Doing all the cool stuff at Camelbeach is really expensive. The alpine coaster alone costs $14 for a driver!
Thanks for reading!
- The waterpark could really use some more high-capacity attractions. It could really help controlling the queues, which were fantastically long for the entire day. On a Thursday even!
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Some things should just be left alone - like The Boss's layout.
Wouldn't it make more sense for Gravity Group to do a refurbishment of The Boss (if it really even needs it)?
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That's another thing - has the Arrow train done anything to improve Ninja's ride quality? It seems like it's a "pick your poison" coaster now...
I wonder if the next-generation Vekoma trains would improve the experience.
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Roller coasters end too quickly. There's not enough time to savor the intensity and sheer fun of a coaster - unless the one you're riding is over 6,700 feet long.
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The ride's almost finished. There's just a bit of supporting to do - I'm not going to go all-out with a catwalk building unless I'm really bored one day soon.
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I was bored, so I made another one. Dare Devil Dive is in yellow, Vild-Svinet from BonBon-Land is in white, and Huracan from Belantis is in pink.
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For all we know, Magic Mountain could want to keep this project incredibly close to their chest. There could be parts for their new attraction anywhere in the immediate vicinity of the park. Or, parts could still be sitting at whatever plant they're supposed to be made in, and Magic Mountain might not want them to be shipped until an official announcement is made.
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The answer? Nee-ope!
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Unfortunately it's really not all that popular. We've visited the park twice this year (both on weekends) and the ride had a station wait both days while rides like Kingda Ka and El Toro had hour waits. I think it's a great coaster and most people seem to like it, but it's location in the park is awful. I'm confident that if they were to put a big headline coaster or thrill ride back there the lines for Bizarro would get very long.
I'm not using this to justify these rumors, just making an observation.
Hey, no worries. If it's any consolation, when my buddies and I went there in April I believe the queue was over an hour long in the mid-afternoon. Your queue times may vary?
Maybe someone in the Six Flags Over Texas community was having "old-school B&M lust"?
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This is probably me being stupid, but how did this whole "Bizarro is getting relocated" rumor ever come about? It seems a bit ridiculous, considering that Bizarro is still pretty popular.
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Those who are familiar with the project - has the ride's potential layout changed much from the rendering back from a long while ago?
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Yeah, this totally looks like an "old interesting things featuring retro lunchboxes" museum. Thanks for sharing though! Best terrible puns ever.
I'd bet that the horses would be going to another museum (they're Herschell horses, maybe they're taking a vacation to New York), or maybe they're going to a fair or a rodeo or something to be put on display for a little bit. Fun game!
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While having water squirters in one of those mazes is cool, wouldn't it make getting through the maze a whole lot easier because you can just look up and see where the water features are?
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When you click on a 3DS object in the editor, clicking and dragging the cyan-colored dot will let you make it larger or smaller.
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Harrisburg is a culmination of all the awful Pennsylvania roads in one place. Miserable city. Took us far too long to navigate.
Downtown is pretty bad, but a lot of the interstate system around the city (I-81, I-83, PA-581) is pretty straightforward. The section of I-83 that's to the south of downtown is in pretty bad shape though.
Back on topic... um... does anyone know what the newest flat at Hershey is?I'm pretty sure the newest major flat ride is the Howler, a Wisdom Tornado. If I recall correctly, it was installed in 2008 along with Fahrenheit.
Of course, you could pull a Six Flags and call the relocation of the Tilt-A-Whirl a "new" ride...
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If you go to ride Skyrush by yourself or with one buddy, the best thing that you can do for yourself and everyone around you (in my opinion) is to ask around to see who's a group of two or three in the queue. Usually, you won't have to move very far behind, and most guests don't mind if you only have to move a tiny bit ahead of them to join the group (as long as you're not rude about it).
It's always a heap of trouble to be in an odd-numbered group, especially on a four-across ride like Skyrush. Three people? You leave a seat open. Five people? Someone has to be the loser and go alone.
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I don't understand why everyone is giving the death stare to Boomerang. I understand that most enthusiasts don't like it, but if it isn't operating at a loss, there really is no reason for it to leave, right?
Granted, I have no idea if it's operating at a loss or not, but still, wouldn't it have been gone years ago?
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For the people who are thinking knoebels has wasted too much time and money on flying turns look at it this way, this project has not hindered the park from installing new rides, and they have even had significant flooding and storms thrash the park. They have pushed forward for so long and the flying turns haven't hurt them at all so by all means why give up now? After this long it seems more foolish to give up than to keep trucking.
Absolutely. It's certainly a very ambitious project - and since it has not affected (at least to my eyes) development around the rest of the park, I'm just being patient. As far as I'm concerned, Flying Turns is just a bonus in an already-fantastic amusement park.
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Anyone catch the Hidden Mickey in this pic?
I FOUND IT!!!
Do I get a cookie?
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Methinks that the trains on this coaster (as well as Kvasten, Jimmy Neutron, etc) don't swing. Vekoma calls all of their below-track coasters "suspended". Suspended Family Coaster, Suspended Coaster, Suspended Looping Coaster...
Six Flags Fiesta Texas (SFFT) Discussion Thread
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
Psh, I've totally evolved past this!
I use Adobe Illustrator now.