A.J.

What about that Sunday of Labor Day weekend? That particular day is advantageous only because I wouldn't have to take a vacation day afterward to drive home (because I sure as heck am not driving six hours after a full day at the park).

Hey peoples! Unless Dollywood's expansion is slated for 2020 for some reason, I'll be making my now annual out-of-state theme park trip to Six Flags Over Georgia. It will be my first time! I'm looking to go for one day during a weekend in September, but BEFORE Fright Fest. The dates I'm looking at are September 1st (Sat), 2nd (Sun), 8th (Sat), 9th (Sun), or 16th (Sun). Of those dates, which do you think would get me the most bang for my buck? I really don't want to have to purchase a Flash Pass, but I want to be able to ride all the coasters at least once.

Giving yourself a little room to breathe is MAYBE POSSIBLY okay, so long as the restraint is just resting on your lap or chest like it's supposed to (I hold the B&M vests a little forward during loading so they don't crush my skinny Ginger chest). But, if your lap bar falls further down during the ride or you get stapled by an operator in the station, suck it up and deal with it. Safety is more important than airtime in every case.

Don't you mean the t- t- tra- tram t- watch the tram car please?

Sorry, was more speaking for myself, as it's four hours for me versus Dollywood's eight.

Honestly, Wildwood Grove being rumored for 2019 and Lightning Rod's current troubles are making Six Flags Over Georgia look really good for an autumn trip this year.

Yeah, at the time of this writing Bloomsburg, Elysburg, etc are still getting whumped. I'm optimistic, though the photos that my family members keep sending me make me double take every once in a while.

It's a good guess. Obviously a quick model / render of the entire layout was all that was needed for planning purposes, you can see that they have a representative model for Sledge Hammer showing the clearance envelope of the swing. I'm sure we'll get better imagery later down the road when they announce the name / theme.

Theme park landscaping is tricky. You can absolutely make an area feel lived-in even if it's brand-new. The most recent example of this is Disney's Hollywood Studios' Toy Story Land. Of course, it's themed to a toy scaled backyard, so there aren't really any shade trees necessary, but from a landscaping standpoint the land looks like it has been there for years. You can especially see this when you look at photos of the last S-Turn of Slinky Dog Dash. All of the foliage is so grown-in, and yet the land hasn't even been open to the public for a month. Another reason why new additions seem "barren" is because pathways and plazas are just so much wider now, in general, compared to, say, even ten years ago. The park gets larger, attendance grows, and the "new" people need space to move. In my world, there are general "rules of thumb" regarding how much space a guest should have in their bubble. The new shade trees placed in the land will grow up eventually. I highly doubt that Dollywood is going to lose their identity, or their setting, or their charm, as a result of the expansion.

You'd be surprised about how much magic can happen with good lighting.

The area is predicted to get a few more inches of rain before it stops late in the week, but central Pennsylvania is in a high risk area for flash flooding today so it might be worse around Knoebels. I suspect that the rain will be gone soon, but whether the parks will be open, I have no idea. Here's hoping!

Front and center is my favorite spot. That last little untwisted hill along the creek is surreal in the front.

A tiny, walkable RD&E (retail, dining, and entertainment) is a much more accessible and lower-commitment destination than an expansive, expensive theme park. If the place is clean and safe, and if the staff are friendly, I could see why visitors to the area place it on the same level as Dollywood. Having quick-and-easy attractions, such as their large Ferris wheel, their XD theater, their escape room, and their selection of unique stores to just walk through and admire, certainly helps. I may be thinking the wrong way, but I could totally see a family or vacation group splitting up during the day with children, teenagers, young adults and some parents going to Dollywood, with other adults, seniors, and stroller-pushing parents going to The Island.

I'm assuming that the stuff above is for the upcoming Rocky Mountain coaster. Sounds pretty good.

There is a lock that the flipping seats engage with at the end of the ride so that they remain upright, but it looks like the person was flipping too fast for it to engage. There really should be another mechanism like a brake or something that they can turn on in emergencies to force the seat rotation to slow down enough so that the lock will engage and force the seat upright. That is most certainly a "this is why we can't have nice things" moment and I'd bet that the person is feeling pretty pleased with themselves now that no one will ever be able to match that number of flips in a single cycle. That video has a music track over top of it, I'd be curious to know how many times the operator shouted, "stop flipping your seat you doofus" before they were actually able to lower the ride down.

Agreed. The discount on ticket books is really only worth it if you're only going to use a single book in one visit, such as if you were a local dropping by for a few hours.

Don't read much into it, the video is a NoLimits sim with what appears to be the classic / modern (Schwarzkopf) steel coaster track.

Vekoma acts as a broker / dealer / salesperson for Rocky Mountain, helping them to gain a foothold and / or presence in European (and I believe Asian) markets. From what I've come to understand, Vekoma doesn't have anything to do with the design / engineering of Rocky Mountain's coasters, nor is Rocky Mountain responsible for the crazy wackiness of Vekoma's more recent installations.

Oh, yeah, definitely. It's likely just a different flavor of the same sort of I.P. agreement that results in film or brand-based attractions in parks across the world. Sometimes a specific brand or I.P. holder wants a ride, sometimes there's a mutual agreement... It really just depends on the situation, to my understanding. Obviously the Steelers are important to the city of Pittsburgh, so this particular theme fits Kennywood like a glove.

Between this, Sky Rocket and Phantom's Revenge, Kennywood is definitely becoming the place with the most "wonderfully weird" coasters. I think it's super-cool that they're tying the coaster together with a themed area. Looks fun!

The family launch coaster is there, it just shares the same name as the old coaster. https://rcdb.com/15214.htm

Okay, with the three-hour early entry and the free snacks, it's definitely worth it to me now. The price is comparable to a daily ticket, yet it appears that you are able to experience more, especially if you stay for the entire 3 + 3 hours. Glad you had fun!

Oh for goodness' sake, they're flat rides. Prototype flat rides. Prototype flat rides with a manufacturer warranty. If you seriously think that a few flat rides that are having trouble getting running properly is going to cause Six Flags to go bankrupt (EDIT: talking in hyberbole, not literally), you need to go ride New Texas Giant or something and then reconsider what you were thinking.

Some of those quick-transition overbanked turns look pretty good, as does that run there at the very end. People go absolutely nuts over Millennium Force, and it seems to be more of a "speed" coaster than an "airtime" coaster. I don't think that Energylandia has anything to worry about with this one, it looks pretty great.

Yeah, it was so strange. I was driving on Interstate 10 from California to Florida and I started seeing billboards for Buc-ee's like it was some huge major attraction. Let me tell you what, those are the largest gas stations I have ever seen in my life. The one to the west of Houston on Interstate 10 has over 1,100 feet of gas pumps. I don't recall, I had to have seen at least one hundred pumps as I drove by. Sheetz definitely has central and western Pennsylvania to itself. The northernmost Wawas in Pennsylvania are up in the Pocono region, and the westernmost are near Lancaster. Sheetz is pretty much everywhere else in the state.