Electerik

Nice TR. I see you have lots of self taken photos. I've gotten pretty good at that myself, despite people constantly stopping and offering to take them for me.

Wow, Skyline looks really interesting. Thanks for the photos!

Eh, whatever. It's not that bad. They needed a new name and they wanted to stick with a music theme. There's been a lot of posters claiming they could do better, but the only examples I'm seeing are generic, difficult-to-copyright names like "Music Park." I'm sure the new owners, and the vast majority of the general public, don't associate the term Freestyle with any particular type of music, but will instead just read the name as "all types of music park." The logo is pretty basic, but as another poster pointed out, so are Six Flags' and Cedar Fair's. Maybe they want it to be basic so they can put little triple doodles on sidewalks and park benches. As for failure...well, yeah, they might. But remember, they don't have to make as much money as the previous owners did, because they spent far, far less to buy the park than the previous owners did to build it. And finally, while I'm being contrarian, I'll leave you with this thought: I'll take funky and slightly amateurish over slick and corporate any day--especially since slick and corporate already failed so hard. /Where are all the folks who normally complain about people complaining about names?

Mmmm...ass pizza.... Actually, I think the moral is that things without buttons are free. I'm gonna go order some T-shirts now. Thanks for the TR, you've got some great shots there!

Sure, but they've known that since they built Millennium. And then they built three more--the last of which has probably been the most reliable of the bunch. He may have said it, but I would take it with a grain of salt.

Hey, thanks! Lots of photos of the rides I don't care about. /I guess that's all that's left.

I don't do anything. I don't even put my hands up. You'd think I was riding the bus. /I'm a bad coaster lay.

Thanks for the photos! Personally, I don't mind that they're from last year, as I've never been to the park anyway. You might have wanted to run a spell check on that initial description, though. It was a bit tricky to read at times. Anyway, I know Raging Bull doesn't usually get a lot of positive attention, but it looks really fun to me.

I'm thinking I could be a really cerebral werewolf. Like, if there's a full moon out, I'll be all hairy and crazy and jumping around and stuff. But then, on the nights when the moon isn't full, I'll just look like a regular guy walking around. Maybe I'll seem a little off, though--which will be much more effective and creepy than lunging out at people. And if anyone talks to me, I'll sadly whisper, "I'm a werewolf," and shed a single tear.

I think it sounds pretty nice. This one sentence, however, is really odd:

Aha! After all our talk about whether it was wise to spend money on improving an older attraction, Six Flags outsmarted us. This was always their plan. Once you have more than five or six coasters, you can paint one a different color and rename it, and the GP won't even remember the old one! /Evil, but at least it's smart evil.

But why do you have a Dollywood pass?? Oh well, make sure to drop me a note before you utilize it. The entire four years I lived in Orlando, I held none. I worked at Universal, which also got me in to the Busch parks there (they two companies have an agreement to let each others' employees in for free). And when I wanted to go to Disney, I'd either trade comp passes or find a friend-of-a-friend to get me in. It almost made up for not making much actual money.

I'd never heard that before. A quick internet search suggests that Magic Mountain did get permission to use the Looney Tunes characters when they opened, but never actually used them for the first ten years or so. Not arguing. Like I said, I'd never even heard of it until you brought it up. But does anyone actually recall seeing any Looney Tunes stuff at Magic Mountain in the early days?

So as I sit here contemplating my fourth annual/season pass for this year, I find myself wondering how many of these little plastic cards everyone else is carrying around. Obviously, some people travel more than others, but I assume almost everyone here has at least one. I currently have a Dollywood Gold Pass, a Busch Gardens Europe Platinum Pass, and a basic Six Flags Season Pass--with the one I'm contemplating being a Cedar Point Platinum. I do believe that if I follow through on that one (which I almost certainly will), it'll be the most I've ever held at one time. So how about you? Anyone have more than five?

^^^ I guess it depends on which qualities you value more in your fellow drivers. In my experience, California drivers are more aggressive, but they're also (for the most part) more alert. (Which is also describes how I drive. Guess where I'm from.) California driving is different than most other places, but which you prefer probably says more about you than about the actual place. For example, my personal driving hell is North Carolina, where you might actually have to run into someone else's car two or three times to get them to realize that someone else is sharing the road with them. /First in Flight //Last in Driving

Insel How confusing. Why don't you just speak English? /I kid, I kid. //Thanks!

Who could ask for more?

Great reaction shots, as always, Hanno! /So what's the German word for "island"?

The main reason Disneyland is so loved is that it literally is the first "theme park." Highly debatable. But would I agree that Disneyland is special. Well, the point I was addressing was the idea that DCA's lack of a central theme was the problem. To which I countered that Disneyland doesn't have one either. So what you're saying (if I understand correctly) is that Disneyland doesn't really need one because it's just awesome. Which, if true, actually backs up my point that DCA may not be that great, but not because of its lack of a central theme. So...thanks for agreeing with me.

Yeah, the roads and freeways in California do tend to be more complicated and congested than those in Florida. But, speaking as a native Californian (who has also lived in Florida), people do still manage to get around. Just build in some extra travel time, in case of traffic. /Oh, and don't worry about getting a car with cruise control.

Fair enough. It's just not my kind of park. And you probably would hate what I would do to try to improve it. But by "dark ride," I certainly didn't mean Dark Knight. And I think you're right in your implication (intentional or not) that Cedar Point would build a lame coaster in a box, call it a dark ride, and then draw the conclusion that people don't really like dark rides and/or just don't want them at CP. After all, that's pretty much what they've done with their few recent attempts at theming. /What CP really needs is more trash cans. //It's worked so far.

Really? You think that's a bigger hole in their lineup than, say, a dark ride? No offense, but I've never understood the mentality of, "This park has 85 coasters and nothing else. What they really need to be awesome is another coaster." /Bring back Pirate Ride! //Or San Fransisco Earthquake.

Among other good points, I think you've really articulated why the last name they should want to use would be "Hard Rock Park." "Dude, Hard Rock Park is closed...didn't anyone tell you? "Oh, Pencil Shaving World...yeah, I don't know much about that. It's new, I think." The Boyd's Bear store here in Pigeon Forge eventually went out of business because the employees of every hotel, restaurant, and shop in town told were telling their guests that it was closed for a solid year before it actually was.

So no silverware then? /And why were talking about deodorant earlier?

Okay, I'm getting tired of beating up on this kid. How about this? It's only necessary to use the train's electric motor in three places: Load, Stalactites, and Unload. It is, however, totally possible for the operator to use it just about anywhere. But, having said that, there are a couple if things to keep in mind: 1. Most of the ride is downhill. So power applied on these sections is just going to make it so you have to brake harder later on, since going too fast in some areas of the mine can be very, very bad. 2. If you were to do this a lot, and consistently throughout the day, you would run the risk of draining your batteries and taking that train out of commission for the rest of the day. And it wouldn't take much of that to find yourself rather quickly back in Camp Snoopy. And yes, I did know some ops who would throw the train into fourth in Explosion Tunnel (usually rookies). But the thing is, you can only keep it there for a second or two (max) before you're back in neutral and braking hard. So it doesn't really do much, except possibly make you look cool to your friend who is sitting behind you on the train. I must also concede (in earnest) that things might very well be done differently now. But, to the best of my knowledge, the ride itself has not been changed. Which means that the ops must conform to some standards, regardless of how different their approach might be. Good enough?