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I did a search and did not see anything on here about this..... Ran across this on another board: http://www.amusementtrader.com/index/listings/page1478.htm I know they are selling "FreeFall" but I cannot imagine SFMM selling one of their "Icon" rides. This has to be a case of "wrong picture!" However, if this is in fact true, I had better finally ride this thing the next time I go.....

This is a bit of a surprise, I thought all the big new rides for 2007 were pretty much announced and underway. If this does in fact turn out to be a coaster, I don't think it will be a wooden coaster as they already have two, and I don't see a rocket coaster either after the issues that Kingda Ka has had. If the $16-20 million budget rumor thrown out earlier in the thread was correct, I am guessing one of three things: 1. B&M Floorless Coaster-maybe something unique but more likely a Medusa or Scream clone. If I remember correctly, SFOT was supposed to get a Scream clone a long time ago. I have not been to SFOT in years but if I recall right, the one ride they were really missing was a multi looping coaster. 2. B&M Flying Coaster-either an S:UF clone or a unique layout. I think the clone is more likely. 3. One of the old rides taken out of Astroworld, maybe the old stand up that was Batman there and used to be Shockwave at SFMM. It will be interesting to see. I'm guessing a mid sized B&M coaster, considering that B&M as of now is only working on two new coasters this season (Griffon and the one in Japan) and their rides have proven to be successful for the other parks in the chain.

Before it was even announced that Herschend was not interested in SFMM, somehow I had a feeling that they would not even consider it.....I could have seen Herschend buying Knott's when it was up for sale as it would have been a better fit for them at that time but I just could not see them trying to turn SFMM around. It would take them about as much money as it would cost to buy all the parks to bring SFMM to the level of a park like Silver Dollar City in regards to theming, landscape, etc. HFE has not only Silver Dollar City and Dollywood, but I think they also operate Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta (originally slated to be made into a Silver Dollar City type park at one time if I recall right) and I think one or two of the WhiteWater parks. One thing I will say; HFE is one of the smartest and best Theme Park companies out there at the moment, IMHO; they really understand the concept of balancing a park with thrill rides and family rides, focusing on the atmosphere, food and entertainment and customer service to create a really immersive experience. As far as SFMM, I was really thinking Busch would buy it as they and Cedar Fair are the two that I think could turn it around. Honestly, at this point I think SFI should just keep SFMM, get all the rides running to capacity and not add any new ones for a few years, and fix it up. Yeah, easier said than done, I know, but to me that makes more sense.

This was actually a really good year in some ways and not good in others: Parks Visited: Knott's, SFMM, SFOG Park Most Visited: Knott's Coasters Most Ridden: Tatsu at SFMM, Silver Bullet at Knott's New Coasters: 4, Tatsu at SFMM, Goliath at SFOG, Deja Vu at SFOG and S:UF at SFOG. Tatsu and Goliath made my top five, Tatsu made #2, second only to X and Goliath #5. Best Events: Coaster Solace/West Coast Bash, Tatsu Media Day and Campout, The two parties Robb & Elissa had (one after Solace and one in August) and Halloween Haunt at Knott's. Best Rides: 24 rides on Tatsu at Media Day, Goliath at SFOG, the rides on X at West Coast Bash, ERT on Silver Bullet at Solace. The Bad: X at SFMM running one train for most of the summer and then closing in August, not to reopen until January; operations at SFMM going steadily downhill during the summer and still not improving; Tatsu operations becoming very poor with long waits even in Flash Pass line. Plans for 2007: Hopefully getting a chance to visit both Busch Gardens Europe and Busch Gardens Africa in the summer of 2007 and getting to ride Griffon, looking forward to X reopening in January, looking forward to Coaster Solace and WCB in March.

The coaster I can think of that I most underestimated was Tatsu. While I was expecting it to be a lot of fun and a good ride, I was thinking it would end up having an intensity level of Scream or Silver Bullet-fun with some some forceful moments but not terribly intense. It ended up being one of the most intense, as well as the one of the best coasters I have ever been on. The only other two I can think of that surprised me were X the first time I rode it (it actually exceeded the high expectations I had of it), Silver Bullet, and California Screamin' at California Adventure. The only coaster I have ridden that did the opposite-that was not as thrilling as I expected it to be was Deja Vu. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good ride-but I was expecting it to be more intense than I found it to be. And then there was the one coaster that I ahd heard was rough but did not look all that bad turned out to be the single most painful experience I have ever had on a coaster: Ninja at SFOG. Ouch.

I read something the other day on Screamscape saying that unfortunately it would probably not open again until next year, due to issues with the lift motor/gearbox and the trains. As much as I would like to see them have it open sooner, I would rather see them fix all of the issues (new trains, full rehab) and then reopen it. They could be waiting until the park is under new ownership, if that is in fact what is going to happen.

I won't consider the park to be dead if they don't have X back up and running by the end of the season, but I would consider sending a letter to corporate about it. That ride is one of the reasons I keep renewing my pass every year and it irks me when I go and it's either closed or running one train in the peak of the season. I agree on the "giving Shapiro a raise" part. I was never a fan of Shapiro; in my opinion, he has a vision to take SF to the other extreme and exclude thrillseekers the way that the old management excluded some families by failing to offer a well rounded park with a good balance of family attractions and instead buying up property like mad and adding coaster after coaster. Not only that, he talks a good game in regards to improving the parks but has not seemed to deliver anything but higher prices, corporate sponsorships and a few parades over the long term. I'm actually hoping they sell it to Busch. Not so they can get a Dive Machine , but because Busch does seem to know how to balance a park so that both thrillseekers and families are happy, make intelligent financial decisions about running a park, and do those little things that really do make the difference.

Those are some good pics; this is coaster for 2007 that I am most excited about. If all goes as planned, I will get to ride it next summer (and possibly the original, Sheikra, as well). So far as I know this is one of only two B&M coasters going in for 2007, and the only one in the US, compared to the 6 they built for 2006. Come to think of it, it seems to be a lighter year than usual for new coasters in general; Griffon, Maverick, Renegade, Mystery Mine and another wooden one I cannot recall the name of at the moment are the only "big" coaster installations I can think of opening in the US this year.

It is really tragic to see how operations have been at SFMM this summer; things seemed to be going pretty well up to and including Tatsu's opening, but this has not been one of their better seasons, in my opinion. It's bad enough that they have had all the issues with X this season (running with one train operation for a great deal of the summer and then having it closed now for almost two months), but the past couple of times I have been, they have had serious operations issues with Tatsu as well as not so good operations elsewhere in the park. As a result, I have not been to SFMM as much this year; I have used my Knott's pass twice as much this season and even though they don't have as many coasters, nine times out of ten when I go there, all of them are open and running efficiently and park operations are a lot smoother overall (at least in my experience). I'm still going to get an Xtreme Pass for 2007, but I am really hoping that either the current management will fix some of the issues that are wrong or the park is in fact sold to another company who will make some needed improvements. I'd just like to see them get Tatsu running as efficiently as it was when it first opened and get X running consistently with two trains-in my opinion, they should just work with S&S and take the time to improve the trains based on the modifications they made for the ones for Eejanaika. Regardless of whether SF keeps the park or not, whoever is running it in 2007-it would be great to see them really step it up next year and fix all the things that need to be fixed. Don't worry about new rides, coasters, or attractions; they already have a great collection of coasters. It's kind of depressing to see a place that has such good potential go downhill like it has over the past few months.....

Xcel is open, and running good. Rode it last Saturday with about a 15 minute wait for front row. Daytime hours during Haunt is one of the best times to hit Knott's for short lines. I'm going to go for a few hours just to do the coasters this Sunday before Haunt.

None now.....about the only thing I won't ride is that SkyCoaster thing or the Thrill Shot at Magic Mountain, and most carnival/fair flat rides. The only coaster that ever had really, really shaken me up pre-ride was Xcelerator at Knott's, to the point that the attendant checking my restraint asked me if I was okay. Oddly enough, I knew the ride was safe, and it looked like more fun than anything else, but I had had a nightmare before the first time I rode it where I had been standing in the station waiting to ride, one of the trains was launched too fast, and derailed-shooting right off the track at the top and landing in the street outside the park. The dream kept playing and replaying as I waited in line.....overpowering my rational thinking, and by the time I got on my face had gone white. When we took off, I think my heart skipped a beat but after that I was fine, I loved it and wanted to go again. I have had mild butterflies on other rides the first time I rode them, notably Supreme Scream and X, but in the case of both rides the nervousness went away during the climb up to the top and never returned. Supreme Scream I rode the first time with some friends and one of them said something funny and made me laugh as we got near the top, which took the edge off and then I loved the freefall sensation. On X the first time (middle of the train and at night) I had mild butterflies because I didn't know what to expect, but let out a scream about 75 feet up the lift and any anxiety left, I was just excited to ride it. My friend was extremely nervous, though. I got really disoriented and my mouth had gone dry when we hit the brakes, but I immediately wanted to ride again. Now both my friend who I rode it with the first time and myself can't get enough of X in the front row and even though I don't look straight down on Supreme, I love the view looking out and the drop. Three coasters I have yet to ride make me nervous: Millenium Force, Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka, and only because of the height being over 300 feet, but I'm sure that someday when I get to ride them, I will enjoy those too. In my experience, generally, the scarier a ride looks the more fun it ends up being. I feel safer on any coaster at any theme park than I do driving on the LA Freeways!

I don't think this has been posted yet, but I just ran across it: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=249752 This is a video taken of the CGI video of Maverick. In my opinion-I'm really surprised; not at all what I expected. However, it should do well for Cedar Point and be a good addition to their collection.

This list was revised a little in the past year..... 1. X-SFMM 2. Tatsu-SFMM 3. Silver Bullet-Knott's 4. Scream-SFMM 5. Goliath-SFOG 6. Xcelerator-Knott's 7. GhostRider-Knott's 8. Riddler's Revenge-SFMM 9. Batman: The Ride-SFMM and SFOG 10. Canyon Blaster-AdventureDome/Las Vegas

Best-X (Runner up: Tatsu) Worst-Psyclone (It was good the first year or two it was open, but I'm not sure what happened after that!)

I was thinking this was going to have a Zero G Roll for the second inversion as the rumors had been saying-but my guess is that the Immelman is the only inversion that will currently work with such wide trains. Nonetheless, this looks like it will be quite an awesome ride. Looks like they have taken the Dive Machine to the next level like they did for Flyers with Tatsu. The whole ride looks good, and I'm sure the floorless trains will enhance it, but that second Immelmann over the water and then the little airtime hill into the splash look particularly interesting. And that has to be one of the coolest logos I have seen in a while.

I have been following the updates on this for a while and I can honestly say that I have no idea what CP is up to this time other than it is some kind of Intamin steel coaster. Initially, I thought something like Colossus at Thorpe Park in the UK that would take the "most inversions" record.....but now I have no clue. It will be interesting to see what the coming weeks reveal; I would expect them to announce soon but I'm sure they actually like all the speculation and buzz that is taking place in countless places online!

I think it would be great if they sold the patent to B&M and see what they could do with it.....

^No hangover, but I did sleep in today.....got home very, very late due to construction on the 5 and was running on about 3 hours of sleep!!! I wish I could have been at SFMM yesterday when I had originally planned to, about 9:15! I left about a half hour later than I had planned, the person who was supposed to come with me flaked, and then I hit some really bad traffic on the 5 North that I was in for a couple of hours. I ended up getting to the park around 11-and parked all the way down by Scream's cobra roll. I ended up going right for Flash Pass (got my 4 free ones and bought 4) and then headed up for X, to find out that sure enough, as I had heard rumors of that it was closed Went to Tatsu instead, and got a good ride on row 8, outside left. Then I went to the Hurricane Harbor gate at 12:45 and waited until about 1:30 seeing if anyone was meeting up there. I didn't see anyone so I went down and got a ride on Scream, hiked up to see if Sky Tower was open (it was closed) and then went and got in the Flash Pass line for Tatsu where I ran into some people from TPR. After that ride, as I was leaving, ran into Eric (EBL) and we rode Tatsu, Scream, and Goliath, split some garlic fries at the Food Court, and I went for one more back row ride on Tatsu (this time on the right side) and finding some people to give my last two Flash Passes to before leaving, hiking back out to the car and heading over to the party. The party was awesome and it was great to get to talk to both people I know and new people. Just like post Solace/West Coast Bash and the Tatsu event, this one was a great deal of fun. Robb and Elissa deserve a huge round of thanks for putting on these events. A few observations/things I noticed about SFMM yesterday: -Tatsu is still a great coaster-all four rides I had on it were awesome and especially that last one in row 8/right side-which was like riding the tail of a whip. From all the comments I heard, it seems like Tatsu is a huge hit with both the GP and enthusiasts. They actually had all three trains running, although the crew was not as efficient as they could have been. Does SFMM realize what a good thing that they have here? I would think they would want operations to really shine on this one. -2nd row on Goliath I experienced a full blackout in that last helix, probably one of the more intense rides I have ever had on it. -First ride on Scream had a lot of vibration/rattling-second ride did not have that problem. They had what appeared to be new train cars down below the tracks, I wonder if they are doing some refurb? -Noticed a lot of food stands closed down; as busy as the park was I would think they would have more open. -Also-they REALLY need to assign someone to maintain the cleaning of the eating area in Food: Etc, by Goliath; that was one of the filthiest eating areas I think I have ever seen. -I really wish they would work with S&S to do whatever is necessary to keep X up and running reliably. While I love a lot of the other coasters at SFMM, X is still my favorite and it would be nice to see them get it operating more consistently. -Throughout the time I was there, I noticed some employees who were genuinely enthusiastic about their jobs (e.g., the ops on Scream, and a few of the ops on Tatsu-one of them actually said, 'Enjoy your ride on Tatsu!' when they were checking restraints) and others who seemed as if they just did not want to be at work at all. Sounds as if you guys were able to get a lot of rides in by getting there early.....S:TE and DejaVu are the only coasters at SFMM I have never ridden (I have only been on the DejaVu at SFOG) so it would have been nice to hit those as well as the Sky Tower (which was closed when I tried to go up on it later in the day). Ah, well. One of these days.

No question about it for me-I personally love Silver Bullet at Knott's. That has become my favorite coaster/ride there. Front row, outside seat at night is still a great ride experience. It's not the most intense coaster in the world, but I like the way in interacts with the rest of the park, the smoothness, and the way it was laid out. Plus, it gives a good sensation of "flight" to me, has some good inversions, and is just an overall "fun" and very re-rideable coaster. To be fair, though, Silver Bullet is but one of three inverted coasters that I have been on-the other two being B:TR at SFMM and SFOG. B:TR is still a great coaster-still in my top ten-but I prefer the larger, drawn out inversions such as the ones on Silver Bullet.

Thanks again Robb and Elissa for a great party and your hospitality and generosity-had a great time! The food was great, the DVD was very entertaining (The more I keep hearing and seeing about these trips, like the UK trip, the more fun they sound), and it was great to get to hang out with both familiar and new people before, during and after. Sorry I missed the run to Tatsu when the park first opened, left about a half hour later than I should have and hit some really, really nasty Northbound traffic on the 5-which ended up putting me at the park around 11. Again, thanks for a great time!

Definitely the "butterfly restraints" on X-they give a great feeling of security but are very open at the same time. Second runners up would be anything on a B&M coaster (especially restraints on the flyer and hypercoasters) or the Intamin T Bar restraints on Xcelerator.

Waffles.....when I was back East a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of eating at what appears to be the Southeast's version of Dennys, a little place called Waffle House that is always open. The waffles are good and the other food wasn't bad either. They do night to work on maintaining their sign at one of the ones I went to, as currently it says "Affle House". Beyond that, I rarely eat waffles although once I bought some frozen Eggo waffles. I think I ate two and the rest are still somewhere buried in my freezer.

This is being posted a lot later than I wanted to post it, but I have been having serious internet access issues up until this morning that have kept me from doing too much of anything online. After not having more than a couple of days vacation for three years, and watching my boss (who has been with the company I work for for one year as opposed to my three years) take at least three one week vacations in that time, and dealing with serious job burnout, I thought it was time I put in for some time off and get away. My family lives in Alabama a little over two hours away from SFOG, and I started my week's vacation a day early by coming out here last Thursday and made plans to spend the weekend in Atlanta with my Dad (my Mother unfortunately cannot travel due to health concerns right now, or she would have gone as well; I would have asked my cousin, who is a coaster enthusiast, to go also but he's currently on vacation at Cedar Point). We ended up leaving Chilton County (where my folks live) at about 9am, thinking we would get to the park around 11am, but I did not know that Atlanta is actually another hour ahead-I had always thought it was on Central time. After a brief stop at the Georgia Welcome Center where my Dad was able to get a good discount ticket for the park, we made our way towards the park. Once we got about five miles from the exit, traffic slowed to a near halt as the freeway was merging to one lane-putting us at the park at nearly noon! This was nearly as bad as some of the LA traffic that I have dealt with before. The $15 parking was expected, but was offset by the free poster sized map we got ($5 inside the park), and we fortunately were not too far from the entrance to walk up. The entrance area with Goliath looks great; I had thought it would look cluttered but it didn't at all to me. My Dad got his ticket, I got my Xtreme pass scanned and we went in, and after a brief check of my camera bag we made our way to Goliath first and then the other rides in the park. To keep this from being too terribly long, I am just going to give my impressions on things one by one rather than a detailed description of the whole time: The Park-WOW! SFOG was the first theme park I ever went to as a kid and some things, like how nice the park is kept, have not changed. The landscaping and the attention to detail is very well done. This has to be one of the cleanest and greenest Six Flags parks I have been to and it seems to have improved even more since the last time I was here. Trash cans were being emptied as they filled up. Ride ops and attendants were all extremely pleasant and seemed to care a lot about Customer Service. Great atmosphere; themed music in some of the ride queues; and little to no graffiti or defaced property. Nice balance of thrill rides and coasters and family rides and attractions. All rides operating, with more than one train and efficient operations, and the rides that shut down briefly were up and running soon after. Test seats were placed at the front of all of the major coasters, including Goliath, S:UF, B:TR and Scorcher; why in the world does SFMM not do some of these things?!? Goliath-AWESOME coaster! With this and Tatsu, B&M is on a roll this year. Lived up to all my expectations and the hype and then some. Easily the best hyper I have ever been on, and now my favorite non-looping coaster. Beats the heck out of Goliath at SFMM, and I wish we would get one like this in Southern California. Line moved fast with very efficient dispatches (longest we waited without QBot was 1.5 hrs on Saturday and shortest was 10 minutes on Sunday) and I was amazed to see the constant attention given to the trash cans in the line. The ride itself-seats and restraints are very comfortable and minimalist yet secure, very smooth, and tons of airtime. Favorite parts were the first drop, helix (which made me gray out a few times), and the overbanked horseshoe, although the whole ride was good. The trim did not kill the ride and the "netting/fencing" which I imagined might detract from the ride experience I did not even notice while riding. Interesting theming with the concept of the "time machine" going from the 1950s to the 2000's. Rode once on the front right seat, once in the very back row left seat, and then all the rest of the rides were in the back row left seat, hands up and feet out! Ride ops were a lot of fun, talking to the passengers and getting them ready to go, yet being very efficient and using the headset mike correctly. (The Silver Bullet crew at Knott's could learn a lot from this crew!) This was my first hypercoaster, and the first B&M coaster, hypercoaster and first coaster of any kind my Dad had ridden in at least 10 years and he loved it as well. A huge hit for the park, and solidly in my top five coasters. S:UF-Very good coaster, but nothing compared to Tatsu. Saturday they were running both sides of the station and all three trains, and line moved pretty efficiently, Sunday they were running two trains and one side and the line seemed to move slower. Rode both second row and back row, back row was better. Drop and Pretzel Loop as well as the turn and drop right after the Pretzel were good, after that the ride seemed to lose steam somewhat. Still a very good coaster and my Dad said it was his second favorite ride there, probably mine as well. The final verdict: SFMM has the better flyer, but SFOG has the better hyper IMHO. B:TR-For some reason this one seems more fierce than the B:TR at SFMM, just very, very forceful. Rode front row, left seat both times, Saturday we waited an hour, Sunday I literally walked on the ride. This has to be the longest queue line I have ever seen in my life, and I thought the theming was well done. Georgia Scorcher-A pleasant surprise; it's not as big or as intense as Riddler's Revenge at SFMM but it's a great little stand up. I loved the 90 degree banked hill just before the flatspin. Waited 20 minutes Saturday and walked on the ride Sunday. Acrophobia-I rode this one by myself on Sunday and it was a one cycle wait. Not as tall as the drop ride I am used to (Supreme Scream at Knott's) but very well executed and effective. Ride ops do a great job psyching people up. I loved the slow rotation on the climb up and the seats tilting forward was just so not right to me! The drop itself was not as intense as I thought it would be and seemed to be really short, but overall a great drop ride. I loved the signs in the queue. Deja Vu-as soon as we saw Deja Vu cycle on Saturday, first thing my Dad says is that's what he wants to ride next. I had never ridden the Deja Vu at SFMM, and thought I would finally ride this one. We got in line and wait was going very slow, he said it was too long to wait (looked to be over two hours at that point, sign said three hours) so we backed out. When I went back on Sunday, it was open later in the day and had about a 40 minute wait so I rode it. I was put in seat 2B. Ride turned out to be pretty good (although a little rough on the inversions), but it didn't live up to the expectations I had; I had expected it to be a lot more thrilling on the drops. I would definitely ride it again at SFMM if I was with people who wanted to go on it or using the single riders line. Ninja-and the award for the absolute worst steel coaster I have ever ridden goes hands down to this coaster. Ride LOOKS awesome with the location and the shiny new paint job but it was extremely painful to the pount of not even being enjoyable. We rode front row and when we got off had to sit down for a half hour; my Dad had to sit out the next few rides because it gave him a headache. All through the park I heard people complaining about how rough the ride was. I know Shapiro is not big on adding new coasters, but I think they really should consider taking this out and replacing it with a floorless coaster at some point and time. Mindbender-Great classic coaster. I am not as big of a fan of the Schwarzkopf coasters as many, but this was the best one I have been on. Favorite parts were the horizontal loop (once used to advertise this ride as "the only triple looping coaster") and the last loop and tunnel by the waterfall. Short wait, was on and off in about 15 minutes. Monster Plantation-I hope and pray they never take this ride out or retheme it to a brand name cartoon character. Still a great little ride and one of my favorite dark rides. The animatronics and figures could use a little work and TLC (I noticed the bird/monster that suddenly swoops down at the boat after you enter the Marsh and scared the %^$* out of me when I rode when I was younger was taken out) but overall, a great dark ride. Would be great to see SFMM get something like this. Georgia Cyclone-Ouch. Rode mid train and it was a walk on, and I was thrown and shaken around so much I felt ill after getting off. Sky Buckets-nice to see a park still running these. Crime Wave-well done Wave Swinger and one of the better ones I have been on. Skipped Thunder River, the Log Jamboree, Splashwater Falls, Mine Train, Freefall, GASM and the other few flat rides but rode everything else at least once. Sunday after staying at the Baymont we had planned to go to the Georgia Aquarium and the World Of Coke, but decided not to and ended up going to eat lunch at the Varsity (best onion rings I have ever had, period), drove around Atlanta for a while (I was amazed to see really nice new homes for sale at $140-150,000!), and then headed back towards the park. As much as my Dad had enjoyed Saturday, he said he was too tired to go back Sunday and did not want to pay to get in again, so he rested and did some stuff he wanted to do while in Atlanta, and I went into the park from 3-9pm and managed to take a ton of photos (that I will post when I get home) and get a ton of rides in, mostly on Goliath, all in the back row. There were only a few negatives I experienced: -The lockers by Goliath where one person told me the $10 fee ($5 deposit, and $5 locker charge) was for all day use, and another tried to tell me it was only while riding Goliath. They ended up letting me keep it, but $5 for a per ride locker is ridiculous! Sunday I used the $10 wristband lockers across from one of the smoking areas. -Smoking areas and policy; I smoke, and I got really angry more than once when I saw one person after another either smoking in a non-designated area or while in a queue! I think the reason for this is how they have their smoking areas set up: there are only two small areas in the center of the park right next to each other. While I am grateful that they have these and I had no problem walking over there when I wanted a smoke, I think they could use one or two more small areas in different locations set up more the way they are set up at SFMM. -This isn't the fault of the park, but one of the times I rode Goliath, sat next to some kids who were spitting on people exiting the ride from the brake run. It wasn't pleasant and I felt really uncomfortable. The only things ride wise I wished the park had were a floorless coaster (would be great to put one in place of Ninja), a 4D coaster like X (they could probably fit one over between Gotham City and Deja Vu) and although I myself am not a huge fan of flat rides, they really need to get a few more as they only have the Crime Wave, Wheelie (which was broken most of Saturday). Even without those, this is an awesome park, very well run and one I will definitely visit again next time I am out here!

^^Thanks very much for all the advice.....I would have responded a lot sooner but I am just now able to get back online and post for the first time since the day I posted that message (Friday!) The computer I am using at my parents house is a 2001 Compaq with an early version of Windows ME and a whopping 64MB of RAM and a seriously outdated version of IE. I was completely unable to access this forum or any others until I installed Firefox on here. After I had posted that initial message on Friday, I came back and looked at the reply, wrote down the names of the hotels you gave me and was about to post a response back, but and system was very slow, decided to reboot first. When I rebooted, I would come back to TPR and when I clicked to enter the forums, I kept getting a DNS error.....same thing was happening with my AOL (could not login to Webmail), and just about every other site I went to. I have tried my best since we got back from Atlanta on Monday morning to fix the IE errors on this machine to no avail. I finally ended up calling my friend long distance this morning and he suggested Firefox, and thank God it worked! Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the tips. We ended up staying at the Baymont and found it pretty good, and ended up eating at the 24 hour IHOP a few hours after we left the park (we had left at 10:30pm and got lost looking for a way to get to the Varsity without having to take the still packed freeway). Had I realized that I got the 20% discount on food and merchandise in the park with my pass sooner, we probably would have eaten in the park! As it was I bought a ton of Goliath stuff-on ride pics, coffee mug, shirt etc. The park itself was great, and I am going to post a TR in the main forum (I am probably not going to be able to access my pics or my server until I get back to LA on Sunday afternoon). The only bad parts were the terrible traffic on the Interstate going to the park (one lane for miles) coming from Birmingham, the crowds on Saturday (as opposed to Sunday when pretty much everything was literally a walk on between 6pm-9pm), and a dispute over the cost of Goliath lockers. I looked for you guys througout the day Saturday but did not see you, but from your trip reports it looks like you had a great time as well. I can understand why people have so many good things to say about SFOG.

1. X-I have not found a coaster that still thrills me as much as this one; the first drop alone does it for me but I enjoy the whole ride. Still my favorite at SFMM, and anywhere for that matter. Front seat on this is still IMHO worth a long wait. 2. Tatsu-Replaced Scream as my 2nd favorite at SFMM very quickly after a few rides. I can honestly not find one flaw with this ride; smooth, thrilling, combines large "floating" inversions with intense forces. I would not be a bit surprised if this makes a lot of top ten lists. 3. Scream-Even though I wish they would landscape the parking lot, it doesn't kill the ride for me. Fun with moments of intensity (especially the Zero G Roll!) and usually little to no waiting.