redfoot12

Question: Do you have any proof that Cedar Fair dropped Intamin? I mean, sure, they haven't ordered a ride from Intamin in a while, but that doesn't mean they dropped them. They could always go back to Intamin if they wanted. But as of now, Cedar Fair loves B&M, and will probably keep buying from B&M for a while. I'm sure Fury325 is a great addition for Carowinds , even though it is a B&M. Remember coaster enthusiasts only count for a small fraction of what parks actually earn. I'm sure the GP will eat this thing up. At Banshee Bash I was talking to the Kings Island president and I mentioned that I liked Kings Island better than my home park KD but still thought I305 was my favorite steel. I then said I guess we won't be seeing too many more Intamin coasters at Cedar Fair and he kind of smiled and nodded.

2014 will mark the highest number of new credits in a single calendar year for me. I currently have 84 new ones but with doing West Coast Bash and a couple of parks on my move from Virginia to Colorado, I look to get close to 120 new ones by the end of the year. I was wondering if people could post what their highest count for a single year is and some of their major milestones, coasters, and parks and trips. Going to parks like, Cedar Point, Kings Island, and SFGAm helped balloon my count. Milestones for me include Raptor as credit #150, Whizzer as #200, and *Goliath SFMM was #250. Favorite new coaster ridden this year is Bizarro at SFNE, which scrapes in just under I305 as my #2 steel. Favorite park visit was either Holiday World during the Mini New Hotness or Knoebels during Mini East Coast. *Knott's during WCB was up there as well. *I ended up with 116 new credits for 2014! I'm actually impressed by this. I'll be amazed if I ever get above 50 for one year. We shall see... * = edits from initial post

I've only seen POV's of Leviathan and Fury 325 (obviously) but Fury definitely has much more going on and I'm a lot more excited to ride this. My coaster ignorance may be showing but at some parts of these video renderings of Fury I thought B&M was "borrowing" from Intamin--I305 and MF. As for similarities to B&M hypers, can't comment. I definitely favor the older ones, Apollo's, Nitro, and Goliath to the "newer" ones. That said, I've only ridden one of those--Diamondback--and I still had fun on that. I'll definitely try to get to Carowinds as I still have Intimidator to ride as well. Also, boo to anyone in this forum who said Carowinds should have gotten a wingrider instead.

So I'm in the midst of planning my first trip to SDC--half day next Tuesday and full day on Wednesday. Any tips on ticket discounts or cheap but decent places to stay? I see that next week is "Southern Gospel Picnic" week, where you can buy admission tickets for $40 each. Park closes at 6:00PM so I'm guessing any type of "twilight" entry will have ended. Any thoughts on what the crowds might be like? Should I wear my Danzig T-shirt? Thanks to anyone who responds!

Why are we still discussing this? Didn't it happen like four pages ago? Surely by now Centurion Fury 360 Swarm BANG has gotten another rumored name or something we can talk about instead, right? Also.... What's a "Jarsh"?

So my flight arrives that Friday, September 5 at 9:55 AM. I haven't quite figured out what I'll be doing that day but wouldn't mind meeting up with a group somewhere. I think I saw someone mention a USH trip. I think I'm going to put Disney off to a trip where I have more time. Is anyone going down to Seaworld and Belmont? I really want to ride Manta.

Based on age, body shape, past ride experience, I say roughness is subjective. I hated Wildcat but liked Voyage.

Hah! I almost posted the same thing. I kind of liked seeing that post book ending the thread and no one ever responding.

Nice report. I'm in the market for a new home park when I move to Fort Collins. Maybe I'll choo-choo choose Lagoon.

I rode Anaconda a couple of weeks ago and the post-mid-course break section wasn't as awful as I remembered. Maybe they took measures to smooth things out. It really wasn't the painful experience I've had over the past 15 years.

^ It's not too baffling. How many $20 million coasters has SF installed at any of their parks since El Toro? Pretty sure the answer is none. I think Tatsu and and El Toro were cited as the last of those types of installations by Six Flags management. Edit: Just saw that El Toro cost $12 million (according to Wikipedia). That actually is pretty baffling when X-flight cost $16-18 million.

The park operations today though were pretty bad, especially on Intimidator and Volcano. Volcano and Intimidator were both down when I went this morning, so I went on The Crypt, Avalanche, Anaconda, and Flight of Fear a few times. Intimidator finally opened, but they made the most asinine decision by only operating one train all day, so lines got pretty backed up on that one. Flight of Fear was a walk-on in the beginning of the day, so I made sure to ride that about four times. Volcano's lines after it opened were approximately two hours (probably because they were only doing one train). I also think it's incredibly idiotic that Avalanche and Anaconda were running two trains today, while I305 and Volcano were only operating one. Wouldn't it make more sense to operate two trains on roller coasters that are extraordinarily popular and actually have lines? I probably didn't get to the park until around 1pm. Volcano's line was probably around 30-40 minutes and was running 2 trains. I305's line wasn't too bad by the time I got there even though it was running 1 train. I waited about 15 minutes for the back seat. On lightly crowded days I don't think it's uncommon for 305 to only be running a single train operation.

I finally made it to the park today to process my Platinum Pass. Light crowds today. As I'm going on Sunday with some friends I only rode Dominator, Volcano, and I305. Nice, quick visit although Dominator seems to have gotten a little rougher these days.

Thank you for tolerating my stupid. I figured that would be the case but just wanted to be sure before purchasing.

I had this stupid question too and was about to ask Come on Robb and Elissa--let the stupid begin!

Based on my visit to Elitch in 2010, six hours is more than enough time to get to the major coasters and rides.

^^If I can do this I won't be there as long as you guys, probably just a long weekend (Thursday-Monday). I'll track you guys down a bit closer to the event to see if we can get some overlap.

We are in the planning stages for this and since we are coming from a couple thousand miles away we are making a vacation out of it. We're looking at the Los Angeles City Pass which if purchased at Universal includes 2 days there, a day at SW, and a 3 day hopper pass at DL for $328. Do you have time for that or just the one day? That's pretty much what I'm thinking about doing since I'm flying in from South Carolina. That seems like an awesome deal!!! I don't know if you guys know each other and I don't want to intrude, but I'd like to be included for possible pre and post Bash meet-ups. Assuming I actually make this work.

Personally, I would go for Disney. LA County Fair: Let's face it. We all are going for just the food. There's some nice exhibits, but its all about the food. Disney might help with that remedy. Sea World/Belmount: I'm disgusted you'd bring this up. They torture their wild life! Joking aside, unless you need the credits, this wouldn't be my first choice. Manta is a REALLY good coaster so there's that. Belmont is a nice little boardwalk park with a nice beach, but the Giant Dipper isn't a very comfortable ride IMO. Universal: I'd wait a couple if years until Potter opens. Disney: Good food great rides. Go for this. Hope this was helpful. Thanks for this little guide. I was trying to decide my add-ons as well. This may finally be the year I go. I will be moving to Colorado in August and already checked flights from Denver to LAX. Relatively cheap. I even have friends I could possibly stay with in LA.

Speaking as a "guest of exceptional size", can you make an assessment or guess-timate on what proportions people being turned away were? I'd hate to miss this ride on Mini New Hotness.

I agree about Pat Jones being a nice lady. I remember chatting with her opening weekend of I305. She seemed overwhelmed with joy that KD had gotten such a top-notch coaster. She really loves this park.

Football fans have "armchair quarterbacks." Coaster enthusiasts have "armchair park operators." Word. Some of the people on here and other places (fan site and Screamscape) are comparing the "alleged" new ride's capacity to Apollo's Chariot. I only see that as an issue if the park announces and markets the ride as the next Griffon or Apollo's. We're only two years removed from the park introducing a pretty high capacity attraction in Verbolten. It's not like this "horrible decision" (Lance's words) will cause people to not attend the park. If the line is too long for the park goer, they'll go ride something else.

Some of the resistance to the type of coaster in speculation strikes me as enthusiast elitism and snobbery. It's not like the installation of this clone will be taking up the space or denying the opportunity for any future attraction.

I've only been to BGT once and was expecting it to blow BGW out of the water. Maybe it was the homer in me, but I thought BGT only really edged BGW by a little. Granted, I haven't visited BGT since 2006. I still find Apollo's Chariot as great as it was its first season. I was actually a little underwhelmed by Montu, given its reputation. I will say that Alpengeist for me has gone way down hill for me over the past 5-6 years and I'll only give it a token ride. Also, I really was hoping for something along the lines of Cheetah Hunt instead of Verbolten. How's Kumba running these days? I remember loving the hell out of it but have the nagging suspicion it may have roughened up a bit over the past 8 years.

While Mach Tower was, indeed, a debacle, Verbolten has been quite a hit with visitors, and has been quite popular (the only real griping I've heard about the coaster has been among coaster enthusiasts, but let's face it--that's the enthusiast community for you). The park did make some mistakes with shows. Entwined hasn't exactly been a "hit." But I live in Williamsburg, and I haven't detected a "general malaise among long time fans" (at least not among locals). I think the "malaise" mainly stems from some of the fan sites, like the one linked to earlier in this thread. The author of that article does bring up some good points but I'm wondering if it's just a case of people expecting a brand new expansion, like a new country, and then only getting a "low capacity clone" for their worries. Again, I think BGW will put their own spin on this attraction and I think I will enjoy it regardless of the issues brought up. I've liked the majority of Premier rides I've ridden and nothing from these "clones" says anything different to me.