willh51

Remove Mantis' first-drop trim Remove Mean Streak's first-drop trim Remove all trims on Loch Ness Monster Re-open Big Bag Wolf Make Hydra not rattle Lapbars on Kingda Ka Lapbars on Revolution No trims on Apollo's Chariot No trims on Alpengeist Newly designed trains for Arrow Loopers with lapbars only

That Ninja/Intamin Mega Lite transition was amazing.

Definitely. It's actually painted specifically to look faded.

I don't think Chang would need any replacing, and I imagine they won't paint it yellow again, but Six Flags has done stranger things. Something tells me it's not for Freestyle Music Park's hyper.

Best: Raptor's Vekoma turn into the brakes Maverick Flight of Fear - love the intensity of the helix, corkscrew, brake-run slam finale BBW Worst: Hulk kind of just dicks around after the midcourse Great Bear Wicked (only ridden via YouTube, but really?) As for Volcano, it's a waste of kinetic energy but I kind of like it.

Nice shot of Griffin's second immelman, that's badass. I was at the Halloween celebration two years ago and it was awesome! Great ride operations and sweet, no-charge mazes and characters.

Memories of Whirlwind at Knoebels... It's probably end-of-the-line time for these anyway. Not too thrilling compared to its newer brothers but I did enjoy this model when I was first getting started on coasters. Always thought the 1-train capability was funny, but I guess the ride is approx. 48.1 feet long.

Apparently, the Gerstlauer trains are much easier to maintain than the PTC trains. Not sure how the Millennium Flyers stack up in there, though. This is obviously something a lot of parks care about, especially smaller parks.

Wow, that looks awesome. I was in Munich this summer and would love to go back for Oktoberfest. A liter of Paulaner Wit then Olympia Looping sounds fun.

Holy crap, that video is not something Cedar Fair is going to want on the net. It seems like they were pretty much OK until the end when the kid's seat moved, which is concerning. I can't imagine getting hit in the face going that fast, thank goodness neither lost an eye. I wonder how long it took to get them out of the seat? I've been on a Volcano rollback and people were freaking out about that, I can't imagine if someone was actually injured. Now is it "that big of a deal." I'm honestly not sure. It's definitely not the same as getting "stuck" on the lift for a couple of hours. It seems like some new environment-specific cable change regulations might need to be looked at. Or maybe this cable was just poorly constructed. I honestly can't remember, but it seems like the the cables on these rides (at least TTD, KK, Xcelerator, all of which I've ridden) are completely uncovered. Is that the case?

You know those hypothetical topics about what you'd built in your own park that everyone moans about... Well it looks like this park did it with a GG woody, Intamin Mega-Lite and B&M Dive Machine. Holy crap.

That is 100% awesome that you got to hold pandas. Did that place have any red pandas, besides on the billboard?

Why was I member here so long before actually visiting on a regular basis? I love reading this stuff! If this provides even close to as much fun as I had last October on Apollo's Chariot at night (which is heavily trimmed), it's going to be awesome. Plus, Carowinds finally has another high capacity ride - Carolina Cobra and Nighthawk, Vekoma fun though they may be, don't exactly pump guests through. It was mentioned earlier, but I, too, am surprised there wasn't a splashdown. Not that it's necessary. And as for a Mega-Lite, hello Freestyle Music Park (wishful thinking but man they look amazing!)

Off the awesome shelf.

Should look amazing along the front side of the park, can't wait for 2009. I wonder which of the two will open first? My money's on Carowinds'.

Oops, thanks for pointing that out. I actually saw what you had written and meant to put $30.

To beat a dead horse, that video is appalling. I cannot believe they are selling that for $30 - rather I can't believe tons of people haven't stormed guest services after viewing their "souvenir." Why the hell don't they just show you on the ride the entire time? The animations are terrible. I have to wonder if the park planned to film the ride with guests for TV commercials and these videos but didn't have time because of all the delays. Regardless, they should have kept the video shop closed out of respect for their patrons.

I still can't believe KD is getting a Giga, it's just phenomenal - I can't wait to ride this thing. And Carowinds' project is going to make for a helluva summer in 2010 around this area. I305's 85* drop should be insane (think that view on MF!), and anyone who says you can't get air with an OTSR hasn't been on Time Machine in the back row or Storm Runner. And if it shares some qualities with Maverick (my #1 with SROS at SFNE), I'm all for it. As for the name, it's brilliant. I know people who will go just because of the Nascar reference. Plus "Intimidator" isn't a bad standalone name at all. Only suggestion I have is to turn the Congo into "Intamin" alley.

THANK YOU! My home park looks to have hit this out of the ballpark.

I went back to the park Sunday (my Hard Rock Park trip report from last year should be around here somewhere), which was the last day of the 2 for $17.76 admissions. I got there right before 4 p.m. and there were tons of cars in the parking lot and people waiting to buy tickets. They had most of the booths open. The staff up front were very, very friendly and everything, for the most part, still looks nice in this area. I had to wait an hour to ride the Time Machine right when I got there. I think there was some sort of breakdown because for a while they were cycling empty trains. Unfortunately, the large fans don't do much inside the queue, so it was hot as hell in the downstairs room. Upstairs they were using all five decades to load people, but to my surprise, you only walked through the former preshow rooms and onto the train, no videos. I rode a total of five times and got to hear music from the 70s, 80s, 90s, & 2000s. The 60s track is on a YouTube video, so it does exist. The ride experience was the same as last year, though I thought the drop was absolutely killing it Sunday. In the back row I was getting some serious airtime - great stuff. The rattle is still there, though not much in the front, and they still trim before the zero-g and have the damn midcourse on way too hard. I liked most of the new songs, the 70s and 2000s tracks were the best. Time Machine had 2-train, SLOW operations. It would seem to me that 27 people don't need to direct people to their squares, and maybe a few more could be used to load the train. At least they filled all the seats. The two guys loading were slow, and although friendly and saying "enjoy your ride," they were complaining about their rotations, etc. Not sure if the preshow rooms are gone for good or just not open yet, but something needs to be done about the loading on this coaster. Trains were sitting there empty, dispatches were terrible, etc. As for the third train, it was difficult to see, but I'm not even sure it was in the maintenance bay. Great operations on Round About, the cars barely stopped moving and they were calling people up to fill all empty seats. The guy next to me was talking about coming here last year, etc., so I don't remember what song played, but something was on. Soak'd had a huge line so I skipped it. Iron Horse had a short line, one train operations but fast loading. Already starting to rattle like hell though, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" played but stopped abruptly on the second lift. Overall, it was nice to see a good crowd there, but it was the last day for discount admission and the crowd thinned to "should have been walk-on but wasn't because of the loading" for Time Machine later in the day. The park looked pretty good but was a bit dirtier than when I went last year, which is understandable as there were a lot of people there to drop bottles, etc. One thing I did notice is that it is apparently OK to smoke wherever you want in the park, including in lines. I half expected someone to light up a cig on Time Machine. People were bringing drinks on the ride (the ops did comment about it and complain about the people "up front"), sitting on all the rails, etc. I'd recommend getting some staff on this. It doesn't bother me, but I did notice people complaining about having smoke in their face. I only went for a couple of hours but it was nice to see a crowd and some families. Here's hoping they are making money and can add some high capacity stuff, namely of the water variety. It would be nice for the cheaper prices on concessions to stay, too. $1.99 for a bottle of water is cheap at a theme park.

Well that brings back some memories, thanks Robb. I bet that would've been cool sans trims in the first year or so, but when I rode it in the final season it was slow, slow, slow.

But the legend of Drachen Fire says it was "amazing?" - Mind Eraser at SFNE was awful - The Georgia Cyclone was brutal when I rode it back in 2003, but I've heard it's been retracked a bit since then.

Those trains on Tornado are awesome! If it's anything like Volcano, I bet it's a blast. Maybe someone in the US will build one, though it's unlikely as most parks who could afford one already have a B&M or Vekoma. Nice to see the Vekoma Whirlwind in action, this same model at Knoebels was one of my first coasters. As for the Volare, those things just look evil.

I haven't done the PA parks in three years now and definitely need to get back to Hershey. Wildcat and L-Racer are definitely awesome, though I think I liked L-R more than Wildcat, which was sick when I rode it opening season. I wouldn't be surprised if Kings Dominion actually gets something like Fahrenheit, which wouldn't be such a bad thing I suppose.