ginzo

Excellent post. Unfortunately, the smaller parks are being gobbled up as of late by larger companies. And at least one of the smaller parks, *cough* Holiday World *cough*, tries to act like a big corporate park. Thank God Knoebels is still keeping the faith because everyone else is selling out fast.

Yeah, I have a lot more photos. I just kinda forgot to finish this. I'll try to get them up within the next few days.

And having more megapixels isn't going to matter unless you're blowing the images up to absurd sizes.

Based on the large queues Maverick had last year and the fact that some people still haven't been on it, I think that's a very likely scenario. Unfortunately for me, Maverick is all I want to ride at CP. To me, it's their only spectacular ride.

Disney is animating a PKD story? Talk about strange bedfellows: Disney and PKD.

The D40 is apparently an excellent camera. I'm probably getting one next month. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

fixed You forgot about the Screechin' Eagle.

Very true as price controls could cripple our supply if other oil thirsty countries, like China, were willing to pay over what we were capped at. One thing the government could do to improve the situation is to lower fuel taxes. But we know that's not going to happen.

If true, that is horrid. They've had several months to get SROS fixed. I was going to go to SFNE this weekend, but the airline I had tickets on went under. It sounds like they may have done me a favor.

If they keep up with Cedar Point's policy of shutting the park down for half a day every time it drizzles and refusing to give refunds or rain checks, then it wouldn't surprise me if a class action lawsuit is filed against them. I'd sign my name to that if given the chance. I understand their concern, but there's no reason they can't run one train on their magnetically braked coasters coasters in light rain conditions.

And those three coasters get the same "F" that Desert Race does.

Thanks for the pictures of Heide Park. I'm really looking forward to getting my second Intamin woodie credit in this summer. As for Desert Race's OTSRs even though there are no inversions: FAIL FAIL FAIL

So, your video is like White Castle in a DVD?

This DVD is so good it gave me norovirus and I'm not even suing Guy.

Yeah, Cedar Fair isn't responsible in any way for rides they own, operate, and maintain.

Although I agree with most of your exegesis on Knott's, I don't understand why you're embarrassed. Do you have anything to do with the decline of the park? Not likely. The solution is to just not go there anymore. Give your money to good parks instead. One thing that frustrates me about Cedar Fair parks is that they make people think that all roller coasters beat the hell out of you. My local park is Kings Island. I can't even begin to tell you how many people have told me they don't like roller coasters anymore based on their experiences with rough rides at Kings Island. Their story is always the same: "I used to like roller coasters when I was younger, but I just can't take the beating anymore." I also hear a lot of complaints about the restraints on newer coasters.

Walk on El Toro = greatest day ever.

Parks have been renting out to private parties for decades. Kings Island has had the P&G days for more than 20 years. While it sucks that your friend pulled a Clark W. Griswold, those companies pay quite a bit of money to rent the parks out. It's hard to say a business practice is bad when it brings the park far more revenue than they would have normally received on a given late season day. That's just more money for the park to buy more rides with. FYI: Your friend could have probably gotten in that day at KD. The companies often give out multiple tickets to their employees, and swapping or selling extra tickets isn't unheard of. Had your friend hung around for a while and not bothered anyone, he may have found someone selling or giving away their extra tickets.

Whatever money that would bring in would be pretty trivial in comparison to the ~$10,000 that Stricker's charges for their private events. The niche you're describing, coaster enthusiasts willing to drive to the middle of nowhere who also can't make it on the two public days, adds up to very few people. If they did do such a thing, it would be done as a courtesy. And they frankly have little reason to care about coaster enthusiasts as we are unlikely to ever rent the place out.

Do it Andy Kaufman style. Read The Great Gatsby in its entirety to the students.

And even if they did restore the track and remove the trims the ride still wouldn't be as good as it was when it used buzz bars and no center dividers. I remember the year they put in the ratcheting lap bars. That was sad.

I'd imagine that they'd have to tear it down and rebuild the entire thing and use Intamin trains for that to happen. The criticism is fair. Kings Island chose to brake rape the thing instead of paying to maintain it properly. It used to give a crazy bat-out-of-hell ride, but is now basically an overrated wooden mine train. I grew up riding the thing and it was my favorite for many years. Now I wouldn't blink if they tore it down entirely.

Anyone remember that episode of the Simpsons where Homer got stuck in the enclosed slide? I think they wound up having to take the slide apart and crane out the section he was in. I'd probably ride this sucker. The loop looks a lot more tolerable than that old school one from the 80s that people have posted pictures of. I'd probably spend a good 20-30 minutes watching people come off the slide to see if they looked injured or not though.

Agree about Steak 'n Shake. The burgers are average at best and their fries are weird. In-n-Out is great though.

I've seen it pretty darn crowded for so-called ERT, but it was mostly congregated around Raptor since that's the first big ride by the main gate.