A.J.

Yes, that thing. Like a Bobkart but running on an actual track.

At first glance this seems to be similar to a Maurer Spike system (EDIT: this thing), but I've never heard of this kind of attraction actually spinning the cars around. Looks like fun!

It's certainly curious - speed slides like those typically have extended shallow run-outs at the end as opposed to splash pools. It's definitely an...unpleasant experience to be gliding along at 20 MPH or more and suddenly be dumped head-over-heels into a pool. With the run-outs, you really only have to deal with water getting shot up your nose. Still unpleasant, but not disorientating.

I'm guessing you never heard of Wildfire at Kolmarden Zoo, Sweden... To respond with a little more clarity, Wildfire is a "topper track" wooden coaster like Outlaw Run, Lightning Rod and Goliath, so [insert SUPER AWESOME MARKETING ADJECTIVE HERE] Cyclone will indeed be the first I-Box renovation outside North America (unless one opens before it in the 2019 season).

If you weren't a coaster person or familiar with the layout you'd swear that the indoor spiral is actually a vertical loop. It certainly feels like one.

Speculation alert. Proceed with caution. In regards to the coaster itself, the weight limit might have something to do with that top hat, and how it appears to be only a few (less than ten, maybe) feet shorter than the lift. Usual "I'm no engineer" disclaimer but I'm picturing a Windjammer Surf Racers type situation where any conditions that are "less than ideal" would cause the train to valley between the first drop / top hat or stop on the top hat's crest. Maybe Intamin designed the coaster based on the park's own requests - mainly, that the coaster fit inside the "shorter" part of the building, and that it go over top of the Tower Bridge model, and that Intamin themselves specified the weight limit so that the coaster could operate without a problem. Now, the fact that the weight limit doesn't seem to be properly communicated by the park is another issue entirely.

Visible from Interstate 4, too? Yee-owch.

For those of you that aren't able to make sense of it, it's Fuji-Q's Takabisha with a custom spinning coaster intertwined within its layout.

I'd be on the side of coincidence, personally.

No Rocket Racer? Legoland, I'm disappointed.

You realize that not every roller coaster has to be "OMFG-crazy-three-minutes-long-ejector-inversions-stalls" to be world-class, right? I realize that I'm slightly biased being from central Pennsylvania and all, but, well, you know what argument I'll make.

I use Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook for personal, LinkedIn for professional. That's it, I personally see no need to use any other platforms. While I certainly do post photos of stuff (recently, myself posing with Oswald and a photo at the end of World of Color), I generally take photos for documentation purposes. For that reason I have had little use for Instagram. Tumblr, as wonderful of a platform for sharing creative endeavors as it is, is just full of loonies (in my opinion). Most of my other activity is liking / reacting / commenting to Facebook updates that other people post.

Hey everyone! For your amusement, appreciation, whatever you prefer... The 2017 Golden Ticket awards winners. Check out the press release here for full results. The highlights: Best Amusement Park – Europa Park Best Water Park – Schlitterbahn New Braunfels Best Children’s Park – Idlewild & SoakZone Best Marine Life Park – SeaWorld Orlando Best Seaside Park – Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Best Kids’ Area – Planet Snoopy, Kings Island Friendliest Park – Dollywood Cleanest Park – Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari Best Halloween Event – Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Orlando Best Landscaping – Busch Gardens Williamsburg Best Christmas Event – Smoky Mountain Christmas, Dollywood Best Food – Dollywood Best Shows – Dollywood Best Water Ride – Valhalla, Blackpool Pleasure Beach Best Water Park Ride – Wildebeest, Splashin’ Safari Best Dark Ride – Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Disney’s Hollywood Studios Best New Ride of 2017 – Amusement Park – Mystic Timbers, Kings Island Best New Ride of 2017 – Water Park – Thunder Rapids, White Water Bay (Fiesta Texas) Best Carousel – Grand Carousel, Knoebels Amusement Resort Best Indoor Roller Coaster – Revenge of the Mummy, Universal Studios Orlando Best Funhouse/Walk-Through Attraction – Noah’s Ark, Kennywood And the top ten coasters per category - Steel: 1. Fury 325, Carowinds 2. Millennium Force, Cedar Point 3. Superman The Ride, Six Flags New England 4. Iron Rattler, Six Flags Fiesta Texas 5. Expedition GeForce, Holiday Park 6. Leviathan, Canada's Wonderland 7. Nitro, Six Flags Great Adventure 8. Diamondback, Kings Island 9. New Texas Giant, Six Flags Over Texas 10. Maverick, Cedar Point Wooden: 1. El Toro, Six Flags Great Adventure 2. Phoenix, Knoebels Amusement Resort 3. Boulder Dash, Lake Compounce 4. Voyage, Holiday World & Splashin' Safari 5. Lightning Rod, Dollywood 6. Beast, Kings Island 7. Ravine Flyer II, Waldameer Park & Water World 8. Thunderhead, Dollywood 9. Outlaw Run, Silver Dollar City 10. Gold Striker, California's Great America And, finally, some tidbits - Perhaps due to a slight bias toward coasters, Mystic Timbers handily beat Flight of Passage for best new ride. Though, Thunder Rapids vs Krakatau was a much closer race for best new water ride. Santa Cruz, Morey's, and Blackpool were in a near-dead heat for best seaside park. Dollywood and Knoebels were in a dead heat for best food. Intimidator 305 placed as the 13th-best steel coaster, behind Apollo's Chariot and Phantom's Revenge. Wicked Cyclone tied for 14th-best steel coaster alongside Georgia's Goliath, Twisted Colossus came right behind it in 16th. Perhaps based on the majority of votes being from the US, Taron placed 21st. Poor Skyrush nearly bringing up the rear at 23rd. Goliath at Great America placed 13th for wooden coasters, Balder placed 16th. New Ghostrider came in a three-way tie for 18th place alongside Troy and White Lightning. Three Great Coasters coasters ranked the same!

I'm indifferent toward live streams myself but hey, if you have the bandwidth and phone battery they're really engaging for the casual viewer. I know that a lot of people that really only engage with Theme Park Review's big social media channels enjoy them a lot.

That's exactly why you don't see what would put it above the rest. On paper, it's underwhelming. It's a mom-and-pop amusement park in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, with gravel pathways, no "big" coasters like Intamins or B&Ms, and no major haunt attractions. AND YET... It has (in my opinion) the best roller coaster in the entire world, a modern interpretation of a legendary wooden coaster, a reproduction of a coaster lost to time, a wacky and fun looping coaster right in front of the park, one of the best classic dark rides in the world, a selection of flat rides that would put many other parks in the mid-Atlantic to shame (including Dorney Park), above-average food (Bill, show him your Pierogies map), and a comfortable, relaxing atmosphere that will let you actually enjoy your day. Do what you want, use your free entry, but respectfully, you're missing out. Not to mention that Knoebels is literally only a fifteen-mile drive from Centralia.

Fastpasses are now tied to the individual park ticket, and they take your photo at the gates now too.

This is absolutely NOT a good suggestion, as good as your intentions seem to be. This is a layout that Six Flags paid lots of monies to have conceived, designed, engineered and constructed in the course of several years to their specifications. It is highly unlikely that anything about this layout will change upon construction - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if track is already being fabricated as I write this. Roller coasters aren't made just for us. They're for everyone. Whether a coaster ends up on our top ten lists all depends on the team behind the design, the manufacturing team, and the maintenance team, but in the end it's what's best for the park. Always.

The big thing on the Saturday is the coupon pack / combo. Take your Club TPR card and when you buy any all-day ride pass you get two slices of pizza, a drink, a games pass and a spin on the Haunted Mansion all for free. I have always liked going to Knoebels at the beginning and the end of the operating season, and the area is just downright gorgeous in Autumn.

It's 10 stories tall, so it counts as 10 credits. It's actually 2 credits... One forward, one backward.... Forty-eight. One forward, one backward, multiplied by twenty-four seats.

I make it a priority to take first-time riders on Phoenix on the ride in the very back seat just so they can experience the sheer terror of the double-down.

In the end, it doesn't matter exactly which park the ride ended up in, because Skyline sold their first major attraction. Congrats to them, can't wait to see it built.

This is probably my favorite color scheme out of all of Rocky Mountain's coasters. Love the natural wood and the colored track. And it's not red, orange, or brown, so... Methinks that the reason why this coaster "feels" shorter is mainly because the trains don't crawl over the tops of the hills any more like they do on most older Cyclone layouts. That being said... At least based on on-ride footage, this one -looks- to be the "least intense" of all the Rocky Mountain coasters, only because the hills seem more graceful than normal. Nothing super-crazy, this one looks to just glide through the track, which makes it a win in my book. As much as I like getting yanked out of my seat on Skyrush and El Toro, this seems much more smooth and fun.

I'm somewhat biased but I absolutely adore World of Color. It's really great during the second showing because there are nowhere near as many people around than there are for the first.

Looks kind of like the Black Mamba of flying coasters (appropriate). Until the Stingray layout, flying coasters had always been very drawn out and graceful. Perhaps Vekoma's newer generation of flying coasters might grab some of the market share that would typically go to Zamperla Volare coasters?

Slight tangent, I had a weirdo dream last night where Air had a pretzel loop and the operator neglected to lock the ankle restraints. Not sure how that came about.