ginzo

Why don't you tell me how you really feel. Stadium taxes are a scam. They raised our sales tax here by 0.5% to pay for the new stadium for the Bengals. Why I'm forced to fund a football team when I have zero interest in the sport is beyond me. The hotel tax is only a fraction of Santa Clara's proposed contribution. I imagine the lion's share of that $136 million came from local taxpayers.

Sleep deprivation isn't fatal unless you get into a car wreck or something of that nature.

I'm not holding my breath for extreme -g forces on a B&M coaster.

Maybe you could make a mini trip out of it. Hit some of the other SoCal parks along the way. Just an idea.

Ha. Good old Mel. He's trying to out crazy Tom Cruise.

How many years did that thing run without lap bars? How many other flumes have lap bars? I think it's especially insidious with Ripsaw because of the little bunny hops at the bottom of the last drop. The lap bars only add safety to idiots trying to jump out of the log. Otherwise they just restrict you from getting out of the log in an emergency situation (log capsizes, starts filling up with water, etc.).

It's a message board. It's all pointless to a degree. Six Flags in many instances is guilty of many of the same things that CF does. Concessions are expensive and bad. Buildings and rides aren't always well maintained. Rides are added on top of parking lots. But, CF does these things to a seemingly greater degree. They epitomize blandness. I also give Six Flags more slack on their weaker points because I think they have better rides in general. If you take away Cedar Point, the CF chain is weak. Six Flags, on the other hand, has several strong parks: SFGAdv, SFGAm, SFOG, SFOT, etc. And, apparently SFMM has new management that is committed to turning the place around. Both Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain RR probably have more thought and creativity put into them than everything in the CF chain. I'm not one to complain about clones of really good rides. My post was more about an overall pattern of mediocrity.

For me it's the other way around. I poke fun at Cedar Fair because of the lame things they do: their general lack of creativity, non-existent theming, brake raped and generally mediocre rides, overpriced bad food, sterile park environments, and overall lack of attention to detail. And a bad name yes isn't a problem in itself. However, Disney rules the theme park game in no small part because of their incredible attention to the little things. Cedar Fair could learn a lot from them.

When we stayed there a few weeks ago I remember them giving us our parking pass at the gate to our resort. You could try driving to your resort first, getting your parking pass, and then driving to one of the parks without actually checking in. This would cost you very little time. If you're going to the Magic Kingdom, you're probably best off using the resort's transport (bus, monorail, or boat) because that sequence of parking, taking the tram, then taking the boat/monorail into MK is an incredible time waster. You should be able to use the resort's transportation without checking in also.

I can't wait to see the generic name they come up with for the B&M next year. Really Large Coaster Bird

I'm sure it's an OK deal for them. It's just a funny press release. Personally, I wish they'd go the Universal/Disney/Busch route and start peddling some nicer food.

^^^^Jay, it's really nice for someone in your position to take the time to post here. My only visit to SFMM was last January and there were definitely many things that needed some improvement. Based on its beautiful location, SFMM should be one of the best parks in the world. Good luck. Oh, and replace Psyclone with an Intamin woodie, please.

It sounds like strange bedfellows to me. Six Flags is presently better at building these partnerships than actually attracting guests to their parks.

At least they aren't putting lap bars onto Splash Mountain unlike some other parks are.

And predictions from "the dismal science" are notorious for being wrong. Cedar Fair doesn't seem to have too many problems charging more for their season passes. They even raised the cost of the Maxx Pass significantly over what they charged last year. And Cedar Fair engages in concession rape almost as much as Six Flags does. I think they could get away with raising their season pass pricing a bit. When you give something away people assume it has no value. There was a recent study claiming that people enjoyed the same bottle of wine more when they were charged more for it. As for the main story, this is a bummer. The current management regime seems more than capable of turning Six Flags around. But it's going to take time. And they just don't have the money to sit around and wait for their long term strategy to pan out. Sad. This is supposedly why many firms are going private. It allows them to run smart long term strategies without having to worry about the cocaine-addled weasels of Wall Street smacking their stock when a piece of bad news comes along. SIX closed at $1.77 yesterday.

I have a feeling it will have the same U-bars that El Toro has. The OTSR is another possibility though OTSR on hyper coaster = Fail

It's easy for the guy who has Montu, Kumba, and Sheikra in his home park to speculate on the veracity of our memories. Another interesting thing to note is there don't seem to be many people who think Kings Island is better today than 20 years ago. Oh, and yeah I didn't renew my season pass either. I definitely would if they get a hyper coaster though.

If you're super cramped for time, you could do it in 2 days. Allocate 1 day for Kings Island and a half day each for Holiday World and SFKK. Kings Island is probably going to be the hardest to get all the credits at. So, don't do Kings Island on a Saturday. Holiday World and SFKK should be easy to do on the same day. As for hotels, I'd suggest Santa's Lodge near Holiday World. It's really cozy and clean, but avoid the nasty buffet at the restaurant. You should consider hitting Indiana Beach either in addition to these parks or in lieu of one of them. It's a great place, and is closer to Indianapolis than HW, SFKK, and KI.

Thanks for sharing the pictures. They make me wish I had a time machine.

I don't think anyone here will give you grief for saying that. However, as you visit more parks your view of Cedar Point might change a bit. There is more to a park than just having the most coasters.

I had a similar problem on my most recent trip to Cedar Point. Several major rides were closed when the park opened and Raptor was closed all day. The lines were just nuts. I saw a 90 minute queue for Blue Streak at one point!

In addition to GT, he also had a speaking appearance at MIT. Though apparently it basically turned into a crowd full of students laughing at the poor old nut case.

^You should consider not throwing a tantrum every time someone expresses distaste for Cedar Point or Cedar Fair.

Interesting stuff. Next time UF should book this guy: http://www.timecube.com/

As someone who just spent 5 days on the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan, I can assure you that unruly kids in the nicer restaurants are a serious problem there. We did 4 signature dinners and had problems at nearly every one of them. The attitude seems to be the following: The table next to you spending $300-$400 on dinner? F' em. It's Disney World!#!@#!@# Babies are supposed to scream at the top of their lungs for the entire meal here. And kids are supposed to stand on their chairs and throw stuff around the room. As long as mom and dad are having fun chugging 5 bottles of wine, to hell with the rest of the room. Now granted the root of the problem is the jerk parents who turn their kids loose at Jiko, Artist's Point, etc. But getting rid of the kids solves the problem in a roundabout way.