Xcoaster

So "Twist Coaster Robin" looks to have a 19m tall, 93* first drop, with a maximum speed of 62km/h, followed by a barrel roll, dive loop, and outside banked "reverse Kant curve," for a total ride length of 313m. It opens Spring 2014, and appears to be a custom S&S El Loco coaster, with 4 seater cars. And from the images and description, it'll have some landscape interaction. My thoughts - the layout looks a little weak (assuming the trees aren't hiding something), but it'll be a fairly unique addition for the area and a great fit for the park, especially since they've been a bit lacking after removing two coasters over the past few years. And honestly, this is a huge improvement over the pointless SL Coaster and the terrible White Canyon. I think this is just what this park needs, and I'll definitely make a point of revisiting once this opens (unfortunately, my next trip will be too soon). Thanks to spongey (Aussie Steve) for mentioning during the 2013 Japan tour that he'd seen teasers for a new coaster during his visit and that there was construction happening in the former SL Coaster area; I've been checking their site for news since then. It seems my calling is finding news from Yomiuriland.

Very interesting question, and I have no idea! Good catch and I hope someone else can answer this question; now I'm curious, too. The upside down triangles indicate windows that can be used for fire escapes, that way the fire department knows where to aim their ladders. Quite a few buildings have them. But yeah, when I first saw them I also thought they indicated the building's sexual preference Great TR so far! It's good to see that you got to experience plenty of culture in addition to coasters. Looking forward to more!

I was on that train too! They gave you a front of the line pass on any other ride? We asked one of the ops and she said we could come back and skip the line on just Superman. Yeah, it just said "No YOLOcoaster" and had the number in our group (5). We used it on Scream, since it only had the one train going. There were several employees handing out the passes, which is probably why they each did things differently.

Even back in July I didn't notice Apocalypse being rough (granted, I only rode once), but on Saturday it felt like it was shaking consistently through the entire course. Could it be related to whatever caused the recent closure? Regardless, I enjoyed my rides on it and could've ridden more. It certainly wasn't unrideable, and I'd still take it any day over Roar or Ghostrider, but it clearly needs some work. So during lunch they had an informal Q&A with Neil, and the following questions came up: Q: Sky Screamer? A: No, especially given the problems Knott's had with Windseeker (yes, I know that they're made by different manufacturers, but still, there you have it). Q: X-Flight (ie. B&M Wingrider)? A: No, not in the foreseeable future, since they already have the 4D aspect covered with X2 and Green Lantern. Q: Dark ride? A: They're considered it, but since they're going for the Thrill Capital thing, they weren't sure they'd be able to make a dark ride thrilling enough to match the rest of the park. Q: Water ride? A: They've considered it. Q: Batman backwards, one train or two? A: Two Q: RMC (Colossus or otherwise)? A: They didn't really confirm or deny anything. Unlike previous years where they were obviously very enthusiastic about RMC, this year they were pretty quiet on the subject. Q: Colossus racing? A: Not next year. Q: Deja Vu's spot? Flashback's spot? A: They have plans for those spots. Anyways, I had a fantastic time at WCB! Crowds were lower than I'd expected, and I had at least one ride on almost everything (except Green Lantern, and X2 of course), with five rides on YOLOcoaster (and could've gotten more rides if I'd wanted to). I also really enjoyed my first time on LL:DoD. Everything was running pretty well, except Apocalypse, and one train on a few rides (Apocalypse, Scream, and probably a few others). Colossus was especially smooth, and I got a couple nice spots of airtime. Also, we got stuck once on S:EFK. We launched about halfway down, then started braking, barely went up the tower, went back into the launch section, then went back toward the tower. From that point they had to slowly winch us back to the launch section, then the magnets took over from there in getting us back to the station. After we got off they gave us a skip the line pass for our group for any ride in the park besides YOLOcoaster.

If I really like a coaster and it's at a park I don't visit often I'll try to ride it 3-5 times, unless if there's minimal wait due to ERT or lack of crowds, in which case I'll try for more. I think the most I ever did in a day was 25x on Silver Bullet (yeah, Silver Bullet. It was media day, I think). My highest total ride count is probably either on Xcelerator or Goliath, at about 100x. My least pleasant marathon was 10x on Megaton at Mitsui Greenland in order to get my name on a stick and on their website. I probably should've shot for the 15x for the picture, but after 5x I started to get sick of it. And as a result of TPR trip ERT, I've also gotten a lot of rides in on great coasters like El Toro, Phoenix, Thunderhead, Boulderdash, Maverick and Colossos (each time was about 10-20 rides, I think).

I'm definitely in for Scandi. Mini New Hotness also sounds pretty cool; I would join that one if Scandi didn't work out (which shouldn't happen; I'm submitting my vacation request ASAP). It includes several parks I haven't been to, and several I'd love to go back to. Plus, the price can't be beat. Weird Parks of Japan also sounds like a fun itinerary, and it includes several parks that'd be difficult to reach on my own (Adventure World and Enakyo Wonderland especially). Plus, I went to New Reoma World and Washuzan Highland this last time, and I liked both quite a lot, as New Reoma World has an awesome Space Mountain ripoff (with no lift hill and Tron-ish theming) and a great suspended dark ride, and Washuzan Highland has an incredible view of the inland sea and the Seto Bridge. I'm not sure what I'll do for 2015, as Spain, Korea and Mexico are all very enticing. I definitely want to do China in 2016.

They're smaller, but should they really be lesser if they're cuter? Great photos, some really cute animals. The tiny monkey was probably my favorite.

SFMM is my home park, so, no, but I think I do like it more than most do. It's certainly has one of the best coaster collections around, so no complaints there, even if it is a little more quantity than quality. My favorite park is Europa Park, which couldn't be much further away. Also, I suspect I'd be less likely to ever claim any home park as my favorite, mostly because it'd probably lose its freshness.

I took a road trip up north a couple weekends back and got my first Gold Striker rides in (only twice, unfortunately). I was worried that it was all a lot of hype over another so-so GCI, but it truly was a great coaster. It's probably my favorite GCI now (only Thunderhead and Der El Toro really compare for me, though I haven't been on Prowler or Knight Valley's yet), and it's certainly in my top ten wood coaster list. Congrats to the locals, you probably now have the best coaster on the west coast. It's also a good sign that GCI's designs seem to be improving over time.

I bought my tickets and booked a room at the Buena Park Courtyard for Saturday night. This will be my first year going solo (usually my dad joins me), so I'm hoping to see some familiar faces. Also, I'm pretty excited that I'll have several new rides to experience, since Drop of Doom was closed on my last visit, and this will be my first visit to Knott's this year. Plus, I'll get to boost my YOLOcoaster ride count (currently at 1x).

Today's passholder newsletter had "BIG Announcement August 29, 2013" in the upper right corner. So there's something happening. More stiltwalkers? The second half of YOLOcoaster? 2013 Fright Fest mazes? Backwards Batman? Wooden Goliath? It seems like everyone else is rumored to be getting an RMC, so that's what I'm continuing to hope for, despite the park having been pretty tight-lipped lately.

* Most transitions on Arrows, Vekomas, and Japanese built coasters. These companies should avoid making turns. You're going through a nice straightaway or some drops, but then you see a turn coming, and there's some abomination of engineering connecting the two. Yay. Brace for impact. * Helices. There are some very good ones, especially if they have banking, but usually I just find them to be boring (SROS @ SFA & Darien Lake, Apocalypse @ SFMM, former Rattler) or unpleasant (Ghostrider). * Cobra Rolls / Boomerangs. There seems to be a fair consensus here that these are rarely a good idea. On the other hand, I do like the Sea Serpent on Medusa West, since you don't have the transition between the two half corkscrews, but I guess it isn't as useful of a ride element, since it doesn't work as a turnaround.

^^ I was curious what that trolley was, I saw that today. ^ Yeah, it looked like the queue was kind of, almost, ready. The station looked the same, as far as I could tell. Went to the park today, mostly to ride YOLOcoaster for my first time, and convinced a couple non-coaster-nerd coworkers to come with me instead of going on Sunday. Got to the park around 1030 (I was aiming for 945, but I slept in) and things already looked pretty busy (since I haven't visited during the summer in years, I guess anything looks busy). I got my season pass/membership processed within a few minutes, and made it to DC Universe by about 1100 to meet my friends. On the way I saw that YOLOcoaster was advertising a 2hr wait, but everything else looked pretty quiet. It was also already hot, and it only got hotter (it hit at least 95*F). Since I wasn't hearing from them, I rode Green Lantern, since it looked to be a walk on, and then waited some more. My ride was relatively comfortable (not landing crotch-first always helps), but about as exciting as usual. I don't recall any flipping. Also, they were only loading every other car at this point, which was annoying. After meeting up, we rode Batman, which was also only loading every other train. Again, I get that it was early and not super busy yet, but it just comes off as lazy if the train is on the track, sitting in the station, empty. I had a pretty good ride on Batman, but one of my friends said it was less comfortable than he remembered, and he ended up sitting out Scream later, since I said it was a similar experience (just mostly a lot lamer). Afterwards we headed down to the bottom and rode Colossus (only the left side was open, but they had two trains at least) and Scream (only one train). Colossus was running very smooth, and I got a few decent pops of air. I'm still hoping it becomes Iron Colossus next year though. Scream was about the same as usual: dirty, a little rattly, and a so-so ride. I still wouldn't mind if they sent it to another park. Also, Lex Luthor was still closed, as expected. Maybe I'll finally get around to riding it during WCB. My nauseous friend then felt it was time for a break, so we left the park for lunch. We went down the street (the same street that goes to SFMM), and went to a hip, vaguely Korean-ish place called "Rustic Eatery" (I know, incredibly bland, awful name). The meals were mostly plates, sandwiches, or salads with choice of grilled meat (with several nice options, like tri-tip and pork belly), sauce (yakiniku, something that looked like sriracha, or just plain seasoning), and freshly baked bread (rustic sourdough, or french bread). I had a pork belly sandwich with yakiniku sauce on sourdough with the side salad (which was awesome, with a lemon/olive oil dressing), and it was delicious. Highly recommended; I considered coming back for dinner. Coming back around 130pm we checked X2, which had a sizable queue (the sign said 1hr), then went up to Ninja, which was only about 25 minutes. Had a great ride on that, as usual, then went over to Superman, which was also about a 20 minute wait. Again, lots of fun, I really love the ride since they turned the cars around. Afterwards I bought some sunblock since my skin was broiling, and we went down the hill and around to Goliath, which was about a 30 minute wait. Pretty good ride as usual, lots of air on the airtime hill in the back car, greyed out a bit in the helix. From there we went to YOLOcoaster, which by now was posting a 30 minute wait, which ended up being pretty accurate. We rode in the back car. Overall, it was better than I expected, though I still wish it was a bit longer. But everyone seemed to love it, and it's a definite addition to my must-ride attractions in the park. The launch was pretty good (extremely quiet) and the loop was really awesome (I know, it's just a loop, but it really was cool) with tons of hangtime (it seems like the train barely makes it through) and an incredible view of the upside-down horizon. The twisty bit afterwards was nice, and the dive loop was pretty fun. The backwards launch into the dive loop was great with the hangtime in the loop, and the tophat had some good airtime. I'd prefer to just enjoy the airtime instead of hitting the brakes during it, but it did give the ride an appropriate sort of YOLO!!! ending (kind of like the ending to Eejanaika, where you face-plant into the brakes. Afterwards, we made our way to X2, which was posting a 30m wait, and was probably even shorter than that. We waited a bit on the stairs, and then a couple trains in the station. I had a good ride, but after riding Eejanaika a couple times a couple weeks ago, I think I'm going to have to definitively give Eejanaika my nod for preferred 4D coaster (previously I'd say I liked them about equally). All the effects were either off or barely working (music). Plus, Eejanaika has several spots of added flippiness that really make the ride that much more awesome, and both my rides on Eejanaika were much smoother than my last few rides on X2 have been (especially comparing the endings of the two rides, where X2 can be especially brutal on a bad day). Granted, they're very similar rides, the outside seats still probably suck on both, and if you'd only been on either one a couple times before riding the other you'd probably never notice any differences, but the small differences were enough to make me slightly prefer Eejanaika. Plus, being in Japan (albeit, Fuji-Q), just makes it seem that much more special. So at this point we were mostly done, since the other guys had already ridden Tatsu, Apocalypse, and Goldrusher before I'd arrived, but I mentioned that I wouldn't mind finishing up on Apocalypse, and everyone agreed that it was one of the park's best, so we went over there. After about a 20 minute wait, we got on, and had a great ride in the back of the train. And as a last bonus ride, we decided to hit up Riddler's Revenge. This had at least a 30 minute wait, and the ride seemed to box my ears a lot more than normal (maybe because of how I was riding, I dunno), but everyone else was pretty happy with it. Anyways, we called it a day after this, and left at 7pm, just as Hurricane Harbor was closing. Random note, I noticed a ton of official yellow-polo'd SF photographers around the park today. Besides the entrance area, there were at least 3 around YOLOcoaster Plaza, and I saw at least 6 or more just wandering around the park. I also saw quite a few stilt walker characters (probably at least 6 characters, only one of which was present in the now ubiquitous "stilt-walker photo"), though it was hard to tell if they were all different people, or if they were just changing costumes all day.

I came home yesterday to a great surprise, my very first (and second) bag (and box) of crap! Thanks Robb and Elissa, the crap was awesome! The bag of crap! What wonders await inside? I also loved that it was labeled as a bag of crap, for all to see. OMFG! So much Geauga Lake stuff! I don't think I have this many souvenirs from any other park I've visited, and this is a park that: A. No longer exists; B. I've never visited. Neat! The hat and bum bag are especially stylish, and the magnets are already in a place of honor on my fridge. But wait, there's more! I was also greeted by the even more mysterious, and unusually hefty, box of crap! Seriously though, it was pretty heavy. After ever so gently dumping the box's contents onto the floor, I discovered it was stuffed full of brochures, flyers and pamphlets from theme park companies at IAAPA. Wow! Here's everything spread out on the floor. Altogether, it took up most of the floorspace of my admittedly humble living room. Included were brochures and flyers from the following: Intamin (love it!), Zamperla, Mack (yay!), GCI, B&M (extra fancy), Gravity Group, Rocky Mountain Construction, S&S (plus DVD), Proslide, Whitewater, Maurer Söhne (plus DVD), Sally, Gerstlauer, LoQ, and OCT. There were also Sally chocolates, magazines, IAAPA programs, map, and booklet, and awesome lanyards from Intamin and Maurer Söhne (I wore my Intamin lanyard to work today, and plan on wearing it consistently in the future). I love it! I spent the next couple hours reading through everything. One of the true gems of the collection was the brochure from the Chinese company, OCT. Most of their products were rip-off dark rides, simulators, and shows. Farewell to My Concubine looks to be a show with similar effects to Mystery Lodge at Knott's This Midway Mania ripoff darkride will inspire sweet and warm love. I'm also trying to figure out why the ants are trying to fight for deinsectization. Anyways, thanks again!

Sorry about the bump Are you sure? We only showed up in one image, but we're there.

A bit late in the day and still unfinished in a few spots, but I couldn't miss out on posting something for Star Wars Day. Also, the 4D is supposed to be an S&S Free-Fly. I couldn't figure a better way to do it without actually making a new ride vehicle. I'm still working on the park name.

Hercules still holds an honorary spot as my #1 least favorite coaster (it had been Flashback). I think I managed to make it even worse by taking my only ride in the back row (I think this was my first terrible wooden coaster, I'd just assumed all woodies were best in back). All I could recall of the ride prior to watching that video was my amazement and horror at that first turn (it was remarkably fast and ridiculously rough). After watching the video, I can understand why I didn't remember anything else about the ride (nothing else happens). It would've made an interesting project for RMC though.

Someone made an S&S Free-Fly mod for RCT2?? Sorry, no, I wish there was. I'm just doing my best using the in-game 4D coaster. Maybe Theme Park Studio will include a Free-Fly? I'd love to see what could be done with a longer, themed layout.

Great timing on the Tranan video, I was trying to build an S&S Free-Fly yesterday in RCT2. It turns out that RCT2 doesn't have a very good track/train combination for it. Anyways, looking forward to Scandinavia 2014!

Keeping with the rest of the claims about the ride, the claim that it's the first-ever release of an original song for a roller coaster isn't entirely true: Even so, I'm glad they're putting some extra effort into the ride. Maybe it won't fall apart in a year?

I probably wouldn't have been able to make it this year with the usual dates, so I'm all for the date change. Thanks!

Of my major "new for 2012" coasters, Skyrush, Manta, and Verbolten all exceeded my expectations, with Skyrush now in my top 10. Wodan was good, though it didn't reach my unrealistically high initial expectations. Divertical was about what I expected. Swarm was pretty lame, especially after riding X-Raptor, which I loved. OzIris was also pretty disappointing, considering it looked unique and was getting great reviews. So I guess Swarm or OzIris would be my winner (I was personally more disappointed with Swarm, but OzIris is probably more overrated). Though I suspect Leviathan and X-Flight would give them a run for their money. Sorry B&M. Hopefully I'll be adding Veil of Dark to my list before the year is out, but I don't think that one has really been rated either way yet.

This is basically what was being rumored lately (even the announcement date), so for me there's no anticippointment compared to the Full Throttle announcement. So that's already a plus. I'm still a little disappointed that they didn't go for a more interesting family coaster (a Gerstlauer Bobsled would've been so awesome) and that they didn't opt to put the scrambler back in the box. Before Adventure City closed their mouse, we had 4 wild mice nearby (2 by Mack, now adding a 3rd), plus 2 or 3 more if you count the fairs and 'Raton Loco' down in TJ. But overall I think it's a good choice, and I'm stoked about the flyers, as I said earlier that flyers would be my top choice for the second flatride. They're very rerideable because each ride is unique, a bit of a challenge, and not at all nauseating. Also, I really do like the change in atmosphere shown in the concept art. Previously the boardwalk was a bit too dominated by towering attractions (Sky Cabin, Xcelerator, Supreme Scream, Boomerang, RipTide, ex-Perilous Plunge) with nothing to keep your attention on the ground. This should make the area a lot cozier, going back to a similar layout to before, with a few flats along that stretch of land. It should help make the boardwalk start to match the rest of the park. Regarding their claim of 5 family coasters: "Go Small! Go Knott's!"

Is Star Jet now considered marine salvage? A couple months ago as I arrived at Funtown Pier it started raining, and they shut everything down for a few hours. At the time I was annoyed since I had to keep feeding the meter, but now it turns out they were justified in being cautious. My rides on Star Jet weren't great (the first in the front was decent, the second in the back was pretty bad - not a favorite Miler of mine), but I thought it was really cool being out over the water. The looper was pretty bad. I'm mostly disappointed about the dark ride, since it seemed to have had a lot of effort put into it. Mighty Mouse was pretty good too (the same can't be said for the mouse still standing on Casino Pier). Overall, they were very nice pier parks, and with not a lot of those remaining, hopefully they, and the rest of NJ, can turn it around and be better off for it.

I'm planning on Texas/Midwest. Mexico sounds awesome ( ), but the dates definitely won't work for me.