A.J.

Six Flags does very well with the perception of value. I couldn't even count how many people were walking around with Diamond / Diamond Elite member lanyards when I visited Six Flags Over Georgia. Those people think that they're the top of the world because Six Flags has done a fantastic job in upselling that higher-level membership, and also because of the little things like showing your badge to a team member and being thanked for it. The concept of "owning" a season pass isn't exclusive to Six Flags (just look at Universal's recent passholder advertisements), but they do a really good job of making guests feel special for the least amount of money, even though we here likely have a different expectation of what "special" treatment really can be.

One could argue that Rocky Mountain's highest-profile project was New Texas Giant, which immediately put them as a new company on the map.

So...where's that "waiting for parts from Europe" sign? Knoebels' Facebook page

Orlando traffic has been the absolute worst this week. I live 7 miles from where I work and it took me 45 minutes to get home Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, AND I don't even have to use Interstate 4.

2013. Close enough. More recent photos look about the same to me, but with fresh coats of paint here and there. The one arm of the Roto Jet-like ride is still missing its vehicle though.

Oof.

There will be a restaurant attached to the NBA Experience but as of now it won't be branded as being part of it. https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2018/10/looking-ahead-city-works-eatery-pour-house-will-open-at-disney-springs-in-2019/

To you (and us), sure, but to everyone else? I feel like losing that big amusement park in the heart of the city is going to be rough.

I wonder if the city of Denver would be willing to put some money into Lakeside based on this. I haven't been there in years, but if it's still basically the same as it was, it could really use some love.

Funny story, I prefer back seat on White Lightning but front seat on Mine Blower. But honestly, the queues are often so short that you can get multiple rides in minutes.

Okay, everyone, we believe that we've come up with a solution. In the 2017 poll, we found that the existing four Intamin Mega-Lite coasters (Kawasemi, Piraten, Mega-Lite and Fly Over Mediterranean) were skewing the results and taking up valuable spots on the top 25 coasters. Since we wanted to have as wide a representation as possible for that top 25, we decided to group those coasters together into one entry when the time came to get the results. Together, those coasters placed 14th on the combined ranking. If we hadn't grouped them, Shambhala, iSpeed and Iron Rattler wouldn't have been in the top 25. For 2018, we will be doing a similar thing for any "clone" or that has three installations or more. For example, the Superman flying coasters and Crystal Wing will be "grouped" in this manner, since there are four examples of that layout, but Manta and Acrobat will not be. We will also be doing some curation as to which layouts aren't clones exactly but are similar enough that they should be grouped (such as S&S El Loco coasters). How does this affect you as a voter? Short answer: it doesn't. All of this work is happening behind the scenes, and we are doing this in such a way that every individual coaster will still be available to search for and rank. So all of you completionists out there can rest easy. This method will also allow us to make sure we aren't using any hardcore coaster jargon as to not alienate our casual voters. Look for more details coming soon! Only two more weeks!

Looks like a trailer-mounted version to me.

Dropped into the park this morning, and, well, they actually went there.

That could be something added on as part of our "random stuff" info dump at the end, but regardless of which harnesses or trains are used, an SLC is an SLC and a boomerang is a boomerang. Breaking them up like that is splitting hairs, and really, is the difference between the 225th-ranked coaster and the 250th-ranked coaster that significant? Breaking it up in that manner won't magically make Great Nor'Easter rise to the top 100.

Six Flags is now effectively offering rain checks for people that buy tickets for a specific day. If guest relations considers the weather to be "bad" or "unpleasant", you can change your selected day to another one before your visit. I don't believe that this applies once you use your ticket to enter the park, though. https://www.sixflags.com/weather

On the contrary, studying theme parks all day is actually my job! Agreed with Robb. I feel like they're "kind of" different because you can control your speed, and in terms of layout, they're definitely on the more extreme end of the powered coaster spectrum. For what it's worth, we don't have Sky Dragster (the one at Skyline Park) on our poll and we don't intend on putting Bolt or the Ducati coasters on the poll either.

Hey everyone, I'm in the early stages of planning a big trip. When does Liseberg typically post next season's opening dates and hours?

Tennessee had some earthquakes last night. It didn't seem like anything major (apart from people's photos being rattled off of their desks and nightstands), but Dollywood was in the affected zone. According to the USGS, Pigeon Forge felt the equivalent of a magnitude 2.5 (out of 10). https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/se60247871/executive https://apnews.com/7d15bfe851284a90a80cc0699f359745

Honestly, I love the pretzel loop, but after being spoiled by Manta, Superman Ultimate Flight is rather boring. I'd rather ride Georgia Scorcher than that. But Superman, Georgia Scorcher, Blue Hawk, and Dare Devil Dive are all about even for me. Great American Scream Machine is, well, you know. Dahlonega Mine train is boring too, but it's a mine train.

That's where a bit of curation comes in. Being the team that's making this thing happen, we also have to ask ourselves about coasters that aren't clones, but are so freaking similar that they might as well be. Perhaps every variation of the Intamin Half Pipe (Half Pipe, Surfrider, RC Racer), or every Arrow mine train, or Mack water coasters and SuperSplashes.

So, from the start we set a cutoff as to which coasters were "rankable". That cutoff is the approximate size of a Mack / Maurer wild mouse. We generally don't include anything smaller than that unless it has some significance in the coaster world. The whole "ranking Pinfari coasters" got blown out of proportion a bit. As of the time I write this, there will be only two Pinfari coasters on the list - Tornado at M&Ds in Scotland, and Super 8er at the Prater in Austria. Both of these coasters are compact but certainly above our cutoff in terms of size, and Tornado has two vertical loops to boot. Will they rank on the low end? Most likely. But they fit what our working definition of a "rankable" coaster is, and so they'll be there. We absolutely do not believe that it is worth anyone's time to rank every blasted coaster in the entire world. But at the same time, we don't want to discriminate either, as we want anyone to be able to vote and have their vote counted. As for the SLCs, Boomerangs, etc thing, we're working on a solution that we hope will satisfy both sides of the argument.

At least with the 2017 poll, we felt that each user's privacy was more important. Anyone who wishes to post their top ten coasters can do so in a thread or in their forum signature if they so choose. There's no need for that sort of information to be posted publicly without users' consent.

Not sure what we'll do (yet), but some of my own thoughts for discussion: There is certainly some precedent to eliminating or grouping those low-ranking clones like the suspended looping coasters, boomerangs, and Volares of the world, for sure! But, to me, choosing to include the outliers like Great Nor'Easter and Speed of Sound introduces a level of curation that -might- come across as snobbery (Robb and Chase, please give your input on this too). Sooner or later I'd bet that everyone will ask us the question, "Why isn't my favorite SLC an individual entry on the list anymore?!?" and we'll be right back where we started. Also, consider that, to a casual user that wants to participate, a boomerang might be only one of twenty coasters that they've ridden in their life. To them, it's Sidewinder at Hersheypark. A casual fan might not even know what a Vekoma Boomerang is, so if we were to do it Mitch-style and treat the entry as "favorite Vekoma Boomerang", that user could search for Sidewinder and get no results. 98 to 99 percent (don't know exactly) of the 1,000+ coasters on the poll last year received at least one vote, and a bunch of the lower-ranked clones did have enough votes to receive numbered rankings. The coasters that didn't receive any votes at all were from some new Fantawild parks, Energylandia, and Legendia, among others. We now have sorting and filtering on the big list, and you can even scroll through parks in alphabetical order and click one to get all of the coasters we have listed for it. But we're certainly continuing to look at ways to make the experience friendlier than it currently is. And just as a refresher, our listing includes any coaster that is the size of a wild mouse or larger. So, no Zyklons, no Wildcats, no Wacky Worms, no Vekoma junior coasters (with exceptions), no SBF spinners, no Miler coasters (also with exceptions)...

Perhaps next season the fronts will be short and stout like Outlaw Run and Wildfire.

There's something to be said about how Disney is developing this attraction and the others as part of both expansions. I've always preferred the way they do things - they would much rather bring us as guests into the animated world as opposed to bringing characters (and the uncanny valley) into our world in a "photorealistic" way. Their way, to me, is much more immersive.