A.J.

As a recent Rocky Mountain convert I'm pretty stoked about this one. Nothing massive, just a really freaking good new coaster.

I'm going to brave the crowds on Saturday. I must have the Lobster Bacon mac and cheese, and that glorious pop art tart.

Also, with two days of time there, I would say to not even worry about a "battle plan". Just go and enjoy it.

When I was about to leave on Saturday, Kumba was pretty close to a walk-on BUT Montu was 45 minutes. Hit-or-miss, really.

Yeah, the Fun Spot parks are several-hour parks at worst. Perhaps you could check out some of the other "free" stuff in the Orlando area like Disney Springs to pad out those days. Or go with the $169 "unlimited" SeaWorld / Busch Gardens ticket and have a fourth day be Adventure Island or Aquatica. EDIT: Or, have a third day at Universal and go to Volcano Bay.

Example, Avatar Flight of Passage, you have one person at the entrance to the caves pulsing guests (but only when it's crowded). However, you don't see any more cast members after that until the up / down link chamber split. At Kumba, I think I saw five people total. There was one person at the entrance greeting and checking heights, two people checking harnesses (one for each side), one person standing around, and one person in the overhead booth. In a pinch, I would bet that you could run a coaster with a crew of three people. But it's definitely a benefit to have that fourth person at the ride entrance.

Firehawk removed, Big Bad John added. The Jet Star 1, Jet Star 2, and City Jet models are too small to be considered for the poll.

So I caught it on the only weekend out of the entire year that it was scheduled to be down. Phooey! Good to know about Kumba, I wasn't planning on visiting again until the middle of March anyway.

Let’s get this thread back on track... Made a visit to the park today. It was pretty serviceable in the morning but by the time I left in the early afternoon, the crowds had picked up. Even Montu had a 45 minutes wait, alongside 50 minutes for Cheetah Hunt and 75 for Cobra’s Curse. SheiKra appears to be down for scheduled maintenance, the splash pond is drained. Kumba and Montu kicked butt as usual. Cheetah Hunt had a bit of a fart and had to be cycled a few times empty before reopening. Tigris’ first tower is about halfway finished. No visible work happening on the Gwazi structure as of yet but there’s a crane in there somewhere.

If I were to spend the entire day I'd get to the parking lot before opening anyway, the last time I was there it was literally a thirty-second walk from my car to the tram stop.

Don't give us any ideas.

Yes. Best word filter ever, Steel Vengeance's enthusiast nickname is so silly. As for the new coaster itself, I'd air that very few guests will care that it's Rocky Mountain's "highest profile installation" in their history. It's a new, insane, awesome Rocky Mountain coaster replacing a rough, boring wooden coaster, what more is there to say?

Fatamorgana itself is a spin-off of the Condor flat ride, with two arms of outward-facing floorless seats in addition to two arms with the "regular" tubs, and it was built that way new. I'm curious about the new tilt seats because of the way the outward-facing seats are currently set up. The way they designed the seats / molds / shells in the circle makes it look like they're basically going to have to replace the entire assembly for each arm. Not that they can't do it, mind you (they certainly can), but those sorts of little changes are fascinating to me.

Yes, and if I'm not mistaken, the trademark was for "Twisted Tiger" which implied one coaster and not two.

Tilting seats? How are they going to do that?

You don't have to already be admitted the day of to take part in the After Hours events. They're hard-ticketed events along the lines of the Halloween and Christmas parties, they're effectively separate admissions. Because of that, you buying an After Hours ticket for a Saturday doesn't have anything to do with your annual pass, it's as if you were to pay for general admission on one of your block out days. However, you are allowed in for a few hours of normal operation before the "after hours" event begins. They obviously can't stop people hanging around in the park after the normal day is over, but after a certain time they will only allow people with the event wristbands on the attractions. Keep in mind that Hollywood Studios is the Saturday park, Animal Kingdom is Tuesday / Wednesday and Magic Kingdom is Monday / Thursday. They don't offer After Hours for EPCOT [yet].

You ride a Rocky Mountain coaster and everything flows so well that you don't realize you're in an inversion until you're actually upside down. You ride, say, HangTime at Knott's where you come out of a cobra roll, traditionally a half-way point of a looping coaster, right into the final brake run. It's not that multi-inversion coasters aren't popular anymore, because they ARE still popular. It's just that the inversions themselves are now so seamlessly integrated into the layouts of this decade's new coasters.

Hey everyone, we're issuing a "last call" for any corrections or additions (such as Python at Efteling, which is now added) before the poll opens. www.coasterpoll.com Again, here's what we're mainly looking for: coasterpoll.com website issues Missing coasters and parks Coasters and parks with misspelled names Coasters and parks with inaccurate / out-of-date names (Ricochet > Apple Zapple) Coasters that closed in 2018 or have been SBNO for an extended period of time Let us know!

From what they have listed on their website, the big one is the age restriction. Anyone under 16 years of age has to be accompanied by someone 18+, and they verify this with an ID check. As part of their policies, adults "are responsible for [their children's] conduct and well being". Then there are various minimum / maximum height and age restrictions for certain slides and ball pits. See for yourself: https://www.citymuseum.org/visit/policies-and-restrictions/

Agreed. Every time I ride through Kraken's roll on an end seat and get pulled up and out a bit, I'm reminded that Kumba's roll is just on such a higher level. Nearly everything about that blasted coaster is a complete riot. It's one of only three coasters where I have had to legitimately catch my breath at the end, the other two being Skyrush and Twisted Cyclone.

I guess the point I was trying to make about Pacific Park was that being operated by Premier Parks hasn't seemed to ruin it. People still love going there. It still has that appeal. Granted, it's a slightly different situation in terms of ownership, I guess Premier Parks now fully owns the City Museum. Call me an optimist but I feel like less changes will happen on the front and and more will happen behind the scenes. The Post-Dispatch article said that Premier Parks also wants to leverage the talents of the City Museum artists for some stuff at the other parks. I know that, generally, indie park acquisitions = bad, but I'm willing to play the skeptical optimist role on this one.

Kumba, Alpengeist, Montu, et al are pretty much the opposite of dull. They kind of meander around a bit after their last inversions but that doesn't make them any less exhilarating.

For those that don't keep score, Premier Parks owns a bunch of smaller regional water parks in North America, as well as Wild Waves, Elitch Gardens, and Magic Springs. They also own Pacific Park at the Santa Monica Pier. One would think that there had to have been some clauses in the agreement to keep the character of the City Museum intact. Also, the continued success and "one of a kind appeal" of Pacific Park, another small regional attraction that's important to the local community that it resides within, makes me think that Premier Parks won't completely ruin the City Museum. We'll see, of course.

Traditional multi-loopers aren't popular anymore. Most of this decade's big, scary looping coasters have some sort of gimmick to them, whether it's a launch, a beyond-vertical drop, or a unique seating arrangement. Back in the 80s / 90s, the inversions were marketable AS the gimmick. Today, not so much, and that's a shame, because I would love to see B&M do another Kumba or another Dragon Khan.

All this "is it worth it for the Diamond Elite membership" talk and I'm just sitting here with my gold season pass for all the parks with parking that cost me less than $75.