chickenbowl

Woah... China is getting so many coasters....

When I was there a two weeks ago I saw a ton of green track in the parking lot - Looked to be all the track for the ride.

Banked s-bend: the ride

Made some great (unexpected) work on my bucket list this year! The one's in black were completed this year! North America: Six Flags Mexico Canada's Wonderland La Ronde Kennywood World's of Fun Kentucky Kingdom Holiday World Lagoon Waldameer Europe: Liseberg Europa Park Holiday Park Walibi Holland Heide Park Hansa Park Phantasialand Mirabilandia PortAventura Disneyland Paris Alton Towers Thrope Park Kolmarden Djurs Sommerland Asia: Tokyo Disneyland/Sea Fuji-Q Tobu Zoo Lotte World Everland Ocean Park Hong Kong Disneyland Shanghai Disneyland Happy Valley Shanghai Knight Valley Ferrari World Universal Studios Japan Nagashima Spaland

Vampire is a mirror of Batman. All Batman the rides start with a left off the drop ...Vampire starts wit hthe left and all the rest of the turns are reverse of Batman...ie a mirror Ehhh. You're right, but I'd still consider it a clone in this context

Congrats Jake, I think you might be the first person to have ridden them all! I haven't rid LR of Wildfire, but I definitely agree with you next two (and where you placed Goliath haha)

When I visited in June, 2015, I found a TON of trails around the peaks of both mountains. They also have mountain biking if that's your thing. The one day I paid to use the gondolas certainly weren't enough for me to fully explore. The whole town of Whistler is home to a ton of outdoor activities and a great village area with tons of bars! I hope I'm not getting off topic, but I am pretty much in love with the whole Pacific Northwest and everybody should know about it! I'm happy to visit my company's headquarters anytime (WhiteWater West is based in Richmond, BC). Also, the Coaster at Playland in Vancouver is absolutely worth your time. It's my #5 woodie and basically Canadian Phoenix!

It's fun but it's not a Von Roll and I find those to be much cooler. The fixed grips at Lake Compounce and Knoebels are both great rides though. Yep, definitely a chairlift as opposed to the miniature Gondola style of Von Roll. But if we are mentioning Gondola's now, I have to mention my favorite - The Whistler, BC "Peak 2 Peak Gondola." It's built by Doppelmayr as compared to other swiss transportation companies like Intamin or Von Roll. This thing has two Guinness World Records (World’s longest unsupported span, 1.88 miles and World’s highest lift of its kind at 1427ft above the valley floor) and is pretty nuts! It even has a glass floor in two of the cabins...

Great info Dollywoodmech2. I hope these sensor issues can be solved as soon as possible. Glad to know it's not the coaster itself.

I understand that when you've only ridden one RMC, this thread isn't really fun. So I get why you speculate - But let me tell you, predicting where these RMCs will rank will never be right! These coasters surprise you in ways you'll never expect! Also, you have Outlaw Run and Medusa Steel WAY WAY too low!

You're right, Lagoon's is the only park with one, BUT Carowinds will also be opening one next year too!

FINALLY they put a ride in that vacant spot! That's a very unique flat ride, and it looks great for Knott's! Is it ironic that it's a Mondial ride in Windseeker's spot? ^Yes

Bayside Sky Ride is a bucket list ride for me. And to top it off it's recently been brought to my attention that you can bring beer on it. Can you imagine riding that ride when that picture was taken sipping an ice cold beer? I could die happy. I'm lucky to live within 1 mile of the Bayside Skyride, the view of Mission Bay is great from up there - I also love being able to walk around that park with a beer! If you're in San Diego and also love Skyrides, I recommend in Skyfari at the SD Zoo. It's my favorite out of the 9 Von Roll type 101's I've ridden and certainly feels the tallest! You cross a large canyon and get great views inside animal enclosures (namely hippos, gorillas, and chimps).

We will count down the months until Mean Streak re-opens... Speaking of which, only 19-months left! (...according to people on this site ) You could get pregnant and have a baby TWICE before it opens

Cedar Point to ride their new RMC! Other than that, Dollywood to get to actually ride Lighting Rod.

Fire Dragon is my favorite coaster in Orlando (haven't ridden Mako) - It would be a huge shame if this coaster was removed and not relocated... I never got the chance to ride it when it dueled, but it 's still an amazing coaster regardless. I feel like getting it to duel again is a far easier solution than removing the whole damn thing.

Awesome TR! Looking forward to the less talked about Mountain Coasters!

^ Oh god, not the coaster enthusiast paradox... Our own hype is our biggest enemy? In all seriousness, I could agree with what you're saying.

I think I might know why they're working so fast... No wait, they're totally not opening next year, definitely just completing major demo and erecting track 17 months before opening - Super normal time-frame... I'm fully expecting an announcement before the end of the year, hopefully right around close-of-season (aka next week)

Oh man, I wish! I think Monday was a maintenance day at the park, because lots of rides were closed. I missed the Santa Claus ride as well as the Soarin ripoff...

Thanks everyone! I really love my job! Jake, your quick-trip TRs definitely inspired this one a little bit - I finally had the correct content to make one!

That's terrifying. I wish Kolmarden the best of luck trying to get this all sorted out. This is a huge bucket-list coaster, it would be devastating if it had to come down.

Pete Owens confirmed it's a Zamperla Family Gravity Coaster, which is the single helix model - Same as SDC's and a ton of other parks. There's never been a custom layout for that model, don't expect anything different.

^^ Thanks, Elissa! My plan at this point was to complete some repairs onboard Quantum for the next few days before arriving in Shanghai. I had 11 hours between docking and my flight departing from Pudong airport (under the 24-hour visa-free transit) to explore Shanghai a little bit. Although Shanghai Disneyland looks incredible, the idea of rushing around with limited time (and without any company to enjoy the park with) it didn't sound ideal. Instead I chose to have a few hours at Happy Valley Shanghai! Two custom B&Ms, a Mega-lite, a Gravity Group, an Intamin Mine Train? Hell yeah! Here's how all that went: The unexpected theme of this trip ended up being "Wake up to an incredible view every morning" I met a colleague and we took a taxi to the cruise port. Rainy morning, but I've made it to Quantum! Here is the view of beautiful Kochi as we departed Japanese policy (like many countries), is that once you depart on vessel you cannot return to Japan without entering a different country. That's why I was required to plan my visit to Quantum from Kochi to Shanghai vs the more preferable Hiroshima to Kochi the days before. It's surreal spending time on a cruise ship this big. Very cool experience Here's a view from the Solarium (This awesome greenhouse/multi-level pool complex) Here's a view of the FlowRider, which I was mostly underneath for two days! Behind you can see the iFly indoor skydiving ride, super neat! Other neat things onboard include this robotic bar. Chinese tourists apparently aren't too into drinking. This ship was built in 2014, so everything still felt brand new and beautiful. It was filled with random cool stuff like this giant bear. I forgot to take a picture of the large observation crane called the "North Star" that swung guests over the edge of the ship! One morning I looked out and saw some southern Japanese isles - These seabirds flew alongside our ship for hours! This is the view I woke up to my final morning of my trip. 5:30am outside of the Port of Shanghai somewhere. Alrighty, I made it into China! It's bright and early and I'm on my way to Happy Valley! Took a bit of time, but I found myself at the entrance. Admission was like $35, not bad. First coaster I walked to, Fireball. The sign said "Temporarily closed for monthly inspection." I saw no employees at the ride all day - It never opened. Oh well! Considering that any of these parks were all essentially "bonus" for me, I wasn't really bummed. Perhaps my heart grew cold after watching Lightning Rod test 13 times without opening a few months ago? Either way, I couldn't be bummed when I had a Mega-Lite waiting for me around the corner! But first I made a stop at this (near) clone of SheiKra! SheiKra was my favorite Dive Coaster (out of the 3 US models) so I was expecting this one to be really fun as well! Maybe I have a recency bias here, but I felt that "Diving Coaster" slightly exceeded SheiKra in terms of airtime and positives. SheiKra still wins with smoothness and setting/theming. The drops felt the same, great floating airtime! I love having a little space with the classic restraints to come all the way out of your seat ...coughValRavncough... The extra airtime I felt was in the exit of the Dive Loop (it felt stronger than SheiKra), the transition into the MCBR, and the little pop into the diving helix at the end. This part of the ride is essentially the only part that is different than SheiKra. Where SheiKra keeps elevated and slowly turns over the backstage road, Diving Coaster dives back down providing a pop of airtime and decent positives for the low-the-ground helix before hopping back up into the brakes. This one definitely ended up as my favorite Dive! I walked by the photo booth and almost cried from laughing... I'll send you a prize if you can spot me here! Hint: I'm the only person not crying/holding on for dear life I continued my way back around the park. The natural setting was really great here - I think the trees have grown in a lot since opening. This rockwork theming and vines were beautiful! It was strange because within the gift shop inside this mountain, the rooms felt half-built/dilapidated. OK - I've made it! I'll preface this by saying that ever since TPRs first Tobu Zoo/Djurs Sommerland TRs in 08/09, I pledged to myself that I NEED to get on a Mega-Lite. Unfortunately, one has yet to be built on my home continent, so I've waited... 8 years! During my last-minute planning of this trip I saw that I had the potential to ride two of them! I eventually came to the conclusion that I'd skip the Kawasemi (in order to check out other bucket-list Japanese stuff) if I got on this Chinese one. So here I am. Not going to lie... It's incredible. The ejector. The positives. The transitions. The trains. Everything. The first drop has a bit of airtime to start it off. It was followed by crazy positives (which Chinese people just fall over the lapbar during. Apparently nobody can hold up their upper-bodies). The large twisty hill had floater, but was such a neat element. The following straight hill had ejector, very reminiscent of Maverick's in shaping. More positives, then more floater on another twisty. Next came the insane 4-part ejector buffet: Two small, twisty hills, followed by two small straight hills... PERFECTION! You end with one last pop into a long swooping turn into the brakes. I think there's 9 spots of airtime packed into this sub-100' masterpiece. There's seriously hair-time all over this thing. It lived up to ALL expectation I garnered over 8 years. But wait, there's still more coasters! This one was fun - The vines have grown in since the old pictures I've seen of this I rode my first Intamin Gyro Swing - Easily my favorite pendulum ride. This one had a ton of positives! And here's the elusive B&M Family Coaster. (Oh wait, most post-2000 B&M's are family coasters, huh? ) It was fun, although a ripoff layout of the Vekoma one, this one felt snappier and more forceful than the Vekoma version. There was a crappy Zamperla spinning mouse too, but here's "Coastal Ant" - My first Golden Horse coaster. It truly lived up to the high standards of this reputable company! This thing looked neat, but I didn't ride it. I bet the views are really cool! Ok - Credits done. Let's get more rides on this Top-5 coaster! Did I mention that they make you do this stretch-dance in order to get your upper-body a bit more flexible before enduring all the crazy airtime/transitions?! I ended up with 5 rides in my couple hours at the park. Operations are terrible, but everything worked out. I also got two more rides on this beauty. This coaster honestly looks like the park designers saw a picture of SheiKra in a catalog and said "We will take this" - The paint is even the same! Got some skewered chicken wings! They had some great spice to them One last look at Fireball. It at least looked fun I took the subway back across town and ended up on the Shanghai Maglev to the airport. This train is the fastest in the world - 267mph. It was insane. In under 7.5 minutes, it traveled 19 miles. I actually caught a quick glimpse at Disneyland, but we were far past by the time I tried to snap a picture After that I flew home to San Diego via LAX. Another super long flight! But, I got to see the sunset twice! Well that's it - Super quick trip, packed with like 20 coasters! Thanks for reading!

Thanks for the encouragement! I hope you have fun on our Independence ride - I'm typically designing the rides on my computer in the office, so it was awesome to go on site for a little bit!