Electerik

I thought it was much better...so maybe it's my fault! /Well, I did fill out the poll.

Well, it is, kind of. The first half is comprised of mostly smaller elements. They're still fun, but the real problem is that they're poorly suited to a ride with over-the-shoulder restraints. The second half works a lot better in that respect, but is rather short. I do like Mystery Mine (especially the dark ride parts), but it's very weird.

I grew up with Disneyland. I miss Disneyland. Congratulations on the job and the new girlfriend! Weirdly inconsistent picture sizes, though....

I've worked on a few rides that have seperate loading and unloading platforms, and it never ceased to amaze me how many people would ask, "Do we come back here?" (Usually because they wanted me to hold their stuff.) But seriously, you just waited in line for an hour, and every ride vehicle comes into the station empty. Figure it out.

This is going to be a very general, non-park specific comment...but most ride ops learn rather quickly not to get involved. It's hard to prove, and if you call out security, they usually just talk to the person and let it go. Meanwhile, you've lost way more in capacity (by dealing with the line jumper instead of running the ride) than you'll gain by managing to get rid of the offending party (assuming you even do). And keep in mind that the ride ops probably didn't see much. I know it seems like they did (or would) while you're in line. But they're only occasionally glancing that way--they don't have everyone around you memorized. If they stare, you might think they "know," when really they're still trying to figure it out. Even someone going under a railing could just be someone already in line screwing around. It's hard to tell when most of your attention is (rightfully) on the ride. If a park is serious about line jumping, they post people in the queue to deal with it. But most don't, for cost reasons--and then try to fool themselves into thinking that the ride ops can deal with it. /Just my experience. You're mileage my vary.

^ Forgive my lack of Wall Street knowledge, but wouldn't a "demerger" be a good thing? The parks are spun off as their own company, and still run by the people who run them now, just without a parent company...? What am I missing?

I sent in a couple. I only take pictures for fun (and to post on here) anyway. I doubt they'll use them, though. I get the feeling that they're more interested in "normal people having fun" type photos, and mine are pretty coaster geeky.

Okay, back on topic! GIS for "coaster spanking."

Quite. They're really missing an avenue of additional suckiness there. /Yeah, yeah...I know I'm alone on this soapbox.

I've only kind of been paying attention. So BPB spanked some guy's fan site?

I've been on quite a few wooden coasters that I thought were pretty good in the front seat, but terrible in the back: Hurler, Predator, Texas Giant (hmmm, all Summers/Dinn). I have a hard time tracking differences in trains unless I'm really riding a particular coaster a lot. I've mostly noticed it on coasters I've worked on (where I'm both riding a lot and actually paying attention to which train is which). Even weather can make a difference on bigger rides. I opened Millennium Force, and quickly found that it had almost no airtime (after the first drop) on windy days, but really good sustained floater air on calm days.

I guess giving stuff away free does actually work. Because my girlfriend watched this with me and really liked it. So I just ordered a couple of TPR DVDs that I'm (gasp!) paying for.

Wow. I don't think I could handle that. I haven't even been to a Six Flags in five years because of how easily offended I am by bad operations. So how will you handle this park on future Japan trips??

Hank's Gourmet Root Beer. It's made with pure cane sugar, and tastes slightly vanilla-y to me. I'm sure you can get it lots of places, but I discovered it at La Tolteca in Williamsburg, VA.

What is your Favorite..... Wooden Out & Back- The Voyage Wooden Twister- Cornball Express Wooden Racing/Dueling- Kennywood's Racer Mine Train- Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Wild Mouse- Any Arrow Mad Mouse Bobsled- Disaster Transport! Stand Up- Georgia Scorcher, I guess. Floorless- Griffon, but only because I haven't ridden SheiKra as a floorless yet. Mega-Looper: Hulk, I guess (even though it's not that great). Flying- SFOG's Superman Ultimate Flight Suspended- Top Gun/Flight Deck at King's Island Inverted/SLC- Top Gun/Afterburn at Carowinds Hypercoaster- Millennium Force Arrow Multi Looper- Tennessee Tornado Launched Coaster- Montezooma's Revenge Favorite Drop Ride: Disney/MGM's Tower of Terror Indoor Coaster- Disneyland's Space Mountain

That makes sense. And yet, what if you've only ridden a particular ride under great conditions? Do you let others peoples' opinions that it's normally not that good sway you? I admit that I do tend to base my rankings on my most recent rides. But that makes it hard to compare coasters that I haven't been on lately. Anyway, I really don't have a point--except that I think they're interesting questions.

I'm going to make real effort to get to El Toro this year. But Eagle Fortress probably isn't going to be any time soon.

So is this thread kind of asking which parks only have one good ride? Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure*! (*Actually, they did have a pretty good Pirate, and I really like the Arrow Mad Mices.)

Since we’ve just finished up Mitch’s poll for the year (and all the debate which follows it), I find myself wondering how other people rate coasters that they’ve had varying experiences on. Which is to say, do you rank a coaster based on the best ride you’ve ever had on it? On your most recent ride? On some kind of average? For example, when it first opened, I had literally hundreds of consistently amazing rides on GhostRider. When I moved from California, it was still unquestionably my favorite wooden coaster. Going back a few years later, it was very much less good on the two rides I got on it. So, hundreds of great rides several years back, versus two ho-hum rides a few years later tells me the coaster has slipped. (And I’ve heard from multiple sources that it’s slipped even farther since.) And yet, on average, my rides on GhostRider have been very, very good. In my memory, it’s still the best wooden coaster I’ve ever ridden--yet the idea of declaring it to still be my favorite at the moment seems questionable, at best. The first time I rode Raven, it shot to number two on my list. A few years later, I had dull and uninteresting rides on it. On that same trip, I rode Cornball Express, and declared it my new number two. I’ve recently gone back to Holiday World and found Raven to be great again, but I didn’t make it back to Indiana Beach. So how to compare Raven (which I’ve had mixed rides on over three different occasions) to Cornball (which I’ve only experienced on one occasion)? Obviously, these are personal decisions. And I’m not asking for someone to make them for me. But I am curious to know if anyone else wrestles with this kind of thing. Thoughts?

I don't know if they still do the Jungle Cruise-esqe live spiel or not, but Columbia used to be one of my favorite things at Disneyland.

Psst...the packages may be a bit different, but they've pretty much always done that, with the buoy and all. It is cute, though. Erik "yeah, I used to work there, too" Elness

Since I only live about a mile away from it, I suppose Dollywood is currently my "home park." So I'm going to say Blazing Fury. Okay, okay...Thunderhead.

Haven't really had anything bad happen to me on a coaster. But I once had a ride op fall through the floor right in front of me while on Batman's Knight Flight at Six Flags Ohio!

Back to the topic at hand, there's really only one book that I was ever particularly impressed with. It came out in 2001, so it's just a bit older than the original poster was looking for--but the focus is on history and older-style parks that have survived, rather than "the latest and greatest." The American Amusement Park, by Dale Samuelson What I really like about it is that it's not just "the Russians built ice slides and then there was this one wooden coaster that had a loop, but no one wanted to ride it." But rather, there's a lot of info (and rare-ish photos) on early U.S parks like Luna, Dreamland, and Pacific Ocean Park. I also like that later sections focus more on places like Lakeside and Rye Playland rather than just Cedar Point and Magic Mountain.

For what it's worth (and at the risk of a total threadjack), I think the slow death of ACE has been an inability or unwillingness to adapt itself to the internet age. Magazines and books certainly have their place. But I get almost everything I need here. TPR is, for me, RRC and ACE all rolled into one. Not to speak for the Alvey's or anything, because for all I know they may already have plans to do it--but what would a TPR magazine (or book) really provide that the website can't? Hell, TPR's DVD are more timely than any current coaster magazine.