willh51

Definitely! Go to Kings Dominion and be sure to stop/stay by Busch Gardens. That would make a great weekend. There's also a ton of stuff to do in historic Williamsburg other than the amusement park and water park.

The front of those trains are awesome!

East Coast Bash was awesome, and SFOG is fairly close...I'm definitely interested!

That's really exciting that they upgraded the ride; a nice dose of respect for such a groundbreaking attraction. It's great to see both sides with new trains and that it's going 104 mph! Just another reason why one of these days I'm going to take a random flight to LAX and finally go to Magic Mountain (this summer seems like a good time, right?).

^You know, I completely FORGOT Bizarro had a soundtrack and you're 100% correct, it's very annoying. Doesn't Great Adventure have a ton of land to expand? But, I understand why they're sticking Green Lantern up front, as they don't want a Drachen Fire problem where the ride is so far off the beaten path that no one goes to it.

I deserve this job because I'll kill anyone to run three trains without stacking on Tatsu.

Great Adventure is bar FAR the best Six Flags park I've been to (haven't been to Magic Mountain or Great America), and I really want this place to do well in the long run under whatever management. If there's no chance that a ride will run, sure, I'd rather they remove it. As much as I hated seeing Chiller go when it did, I can't say they didn't try their best to make it workable. From what I understand, Houdini is fun and gets long lines when it is open. The park has so much potential, rides-wise, and also because it's actually a pretty park, grounds-wise. The Medusa/Bizarro make-over was a good call, now if they'd only give Rolling Thunder a GCI-overhaul like Thunder Road. The area around GASM is probably the "ugliest" in the park, and I hate the big circus tents near SUF, but I think Green Lantern being placed here should revitalize that area.

Nice photos, Intimidator is looking good. I actually think that new turn looks even more fun, but we shall see. I dare it to move from my #3 to #1 coaster on April 2! On a side note, whoever runs the Kings Dominion facebook page has to HATE posting stuff. Every post gets smartass "remove the trims" replies.

And I thought the Disney Cruise I went on was cool. That looks amazing!

Looks fun and will definitely be complemented by some heavy themeing.

Vortex looks awesome in the first picture, almost as if the rails are glowing. I haven't been to Kings Island since the year they installed Son of Beast (it wasn't open) but would like to go back.

Thanks for the information Robb and John, those things were just stellar investments. I always wanted to ride the one at Great Adventure, but it was always closed as well. I actually thought they'd removed the MM one until I saw Robb's picture from over the weekend. During that period when MM added Thrill Shot, X, and Deja Vu, I bet the poor maintenance guys did their fair share of cursing corporate.

Random question: Is Thrill Shot ever open at Magic Mountain?

I won!!! This was the first time I got to play because I always get disconnected. I got a clear ball with some sort of wrapped gift inside. What a cool thing!

We do now. I just confirmed with Neal over at SFMM that both sides will be going backwards. Oh thank God, my OCD was getting out of hand about having mismatched sides. I was afraid that if both sides didn't go backwards, at least from the start, then MM wasn't really planning on running both. It would be cool to turn the old cars into some sort of themeing. It would also be cool to own a Ferrari, and one seems about as likely as the other.

It's too bad they didn't add a little overbank turn after the cameblack near where there is grass and those vans are parked in the shot of the full site. Either way, looks like a fun ride, and those brakes are pretty hot.

I'm not sure they could even launch the old cars backwards in terms of them having a lap bar. I know the launch isn't that drastic, but I have visions of people wacking their faces on the seat in front of them.

It works! It looks weird to see it running with that shortened train though. I don't think I've ever seen a coaster run with a partial train.

I was looking at them and thinking...'88? '79? Then there was Goliath.

Kings Dominion - Intimidator 305 Carowinds - Afterburn Freestyle Music Park (defunct) - Time Machine

I liked Led Zeppelin a lot for what it was: a decent, gorgeously painted B&M. Strangely enough, it ran much better under Freestyle than Hard Rock. The drop was pretty good, gave me that real stomach in my chest sensation. The reason why it wasn't that great is that it had the B&M rattle, which kicked in after the very smooth cobra roll, and it was pretty forceless. Each time I rode, the trim before the zero-g always pulled hard, so that element wasn't too great. Also, it seemed something was misaligned after the midcourse, so there was a pretty big jerk on the downward helix. The whole end of the ride was pretty pointless, too. Just a slow helix and flatspin. None of these things made it un-fun, but it certainly wasn't the best B&M. On the plus side, the elements before the zero-g were excellent and it was the best "audio" coaster I've been on.

Riddler's has only 1 train currently. I can't remember where the first train was off the top of my head, but the other is in NJ for Great Adventure's Green Lantern. It sucks because the last time I went, there was a 1:30 min. wait and a line for Single Rider at least 45 minutes long! Forgot about that, thanks. That's a questionable decision anyway, but whatever Six Flags... I'd run my own personal B&M at capacity all the time!

Oh man, your trip report includes pretty much everything negative I heard about the park in the early 2000s. I still have yet to get to Magic Mountain but I also hope it's just the winter blues. I understand the rides have maintenance periods in the off-season, but Riddler and Tatsu at least have three trains so there is no excuse to just run one. Also, I have a feeling Six Flags forgot that changing all the ride signage and stuff actually costs money. Yeah you're saving for IP stuff but you still have to rebrand your coasters and rides. Unless you just cover them cheaply, which they appear to have done. Tacky.

That looks insane! Togo can make a coaster so long as there are no lateral forces. I thought for a second that the lift wasn't going to speed up. At the rate it started it it would take 10 minutes just to reach the crest.

Nothing crazy for me really. Stuck on Big Bad Wolf's second lift for 10 minutes, stuck on Hydra's brake run for 20 because they couldn't release the other train's restraints, stuck on Intimidator 305 for 15 because they couldn't get the locked light to go on or off. Most interesting was probably getting stuck on Top Thrill Dragster, front row, on the launch for 30 minutes. Something broke right before we took off (the train in front of us launched). They offered us water and such and would have let people off but we all wanted to stay. Anyway, we finally did launch and returned to the station to cheers. None of these were anything out of the ordinary, but that's all I got.