willh51

^I think a lot of people agree. Millennium Force is great but I definitely prefer 305.

So they were stuck on the lift. Too bad it wasn't lift #2; the paper would have described the situation as "riders stuck inside out on a large, painful spike."

It takes effort to stack all three trains on Nitro. [At least it was running all three!] I agree with the Wing Coaster speculation for Great Adventure. I do hope they get a unique design, though. I suspect it'll be similar in scale to X-Flight but a different layout would be nice since the park is one of the chain's best and deserves a unique ride. I'd like to see them incorporate the Chiller site and maybe corkscrew over the midway to where the Intamin drop tower was. Maybe do a helix or something over there.

I've never understood the whole "one train till summer" model that Six Flags often follows. The park sets it opening date months in advance. Why in the world can't they get the rides open and running at full capacity? And I understand rides break down early in the season as the kinks work out, but trains in pieces on the ground is a different thing entirely. The rides are WHY people come, especially when they are the "not hotness," and if the first few weekends are going to be throwaway weekends then they should be priced accordingly. I get all the arguments about summer staffing, crowds, etc., I just don't care anymore. Thankfully my home parks - Carowinds and Kings Dominion - are much better about this. The woodies often have one train (and don't need two early on) but the big rides usually have two or three.

I believe Magnum had a little bump a few years back due to a train sliding through wet brakes into another. [Found an article in the Sandusky Register from 2007; park cited "excessive moisture on the tracks."] Ever since then Cedar Fair has been REALLY conservative on their rain policy. Carowinds is very similar, even for the magnetic-braked rides . From personal experience I know Dorney changed sometime after 2007. I used to ride Talon in the absolute pouring rain and now I've seen it go down in a drizzle. On a side note, a buddy of mine was at the park the other day and was disappointed that light rain and wind caused most of the rides to remain shuttered till the late afternoon. Gatekeeper never opened. Winds were max 20 mph according to local weather. Now I don't know anything about the operation of the ride, but Cedar Point is on a peninsula where it's frequently windy. I hope they haven't set themselves up for a lot of bellyaching if Gatekeeper is really quick to go down due to wind.

Wow those are some crazy wait times! 3.5 hours for Nighthawk?! Intimidator didn't even have that long of a line on its opening weekend. Glad you had a good time though and great to hear Thunder Road is racing. I will have to get there later in the season.

I really like that all black paint scheme on Viper. I haven't been to Darien Lake, and didn't realize it was so pretty.

That station looks like a temporary outhouse, but whatever. Those open areas/building without a wall directly behind the turn into the station. What are they and are they going to be part of the queue? That is going to be an intense launch, though, and I it appears it will go zoom right out of the station. I was imagining a short trip forward first. That it looks like you'll hit the final turn going 75 miles per hour, encountering 10 lateral g's, may even add to the excitement.

I thought Cedar Fair was a three-click kind of company!

Great videos, especially Wodan. And you can't say S&S doesn't try some crazy ish, even when it kind of hurts. I'm a bit behind, but I think I like your traditional camera better, Robb. Although, I do like the higher perspective that really gives you a sense of what is around the track. I especially like the ascent into the Cobra Roll and dive into the trench on Kraken with that new camera, that gives you the true headchopper effect.

Why would a park like Six Flags Magic Mountain get rid of their Batman though? It's a popular ride that they recently painted and likely isn't a huge maintenance hog. Some of the roughness is probably due to the rolling stock. I wouldn't be shocked to see it running in reverse for 2014 if the SFGam gimmick goes well. And, Great Adventure's Batman regularly pulls in a huge line and is arguably the best ride in the park. This topic is speculation of course, but parks just don't remove coasters for the hell of it. Vortex at Carowinds isn't going anywhere soon either. And hell, if I age as gracefully as Kumba I'll be doing alright. What you see now is older Arrows leaving because they've reached the end of the lifespans. B&M coasters have a longer life span, so unless something happens that necessitates a removal (i.e. HRP closed), they're probably going to stay or switch parks for the next half a century. I can't wait to ride a "historic" Batman: The Ride.

I've seen Led Zeppelin test within the last year when I was driving in that area of Myrtle Beach one evening, but who knows what condition it's actually in. I remember Geauga Lake staff commented about how bad Six Flags left X-Flight for them. Hopefully Hard Rock/FSMP has taken better care of LZ, it's a beautiful coaster with a good first drop and decent pacing. Nothing that special, but perfect for a small park.

Please have a train full of people with those sunglasses. That may be the best thing I've ever seen.

I had a lot of fun watching Diamondback test a few years ago. I don't think we're quite there yet in terms of activity level for me to start watching the web cam for Gatekeeper. I don't hate the station, at least it'll allow the breeze from the lake keep things cool in the summer. And really, none of the rides have elaborate stations at Cedar Point. Maverick is the the top of the line, maybe?

Even if it wasn't confirmed...Premier has been moving away from OTSRs ever since they retrofitted Flight of Fear, Mr. Freeze, etc. More importantly, that dive into the tunnel looks awesome! I wonder how far the back car will come up on the reverse launch?

That looks just about perfect. Beautiful queue and station house, too! It's also nice to see the trains aren't (or don't appear to be) El Toro restrictive to big boys like myself.

Sweet Lord absolutely not.

However this thing rides, inverts, does-or-doesn't have an indoor element that gives back massages and pours various Pepsi flavors in riders' mouths, it LOOKS insane and should provide some nice pictures!

Definitely! I got sick as hell after having my head bashed to death on King's Island's Flight of Fear. A few years later they gave it lapbars. Problem solved! If I ride too much in a day I can always get nauseous. I may have gotten sick after riding Phoenix at Knoebels once...but that was only temporary.

Forgive my ignorance, but how, exactly, does one retrack a steel coaster? I have heard of track work being doing around welds and such - Kings Island tweeted a picture of them working on Top Gun recently - but is Vekoma going to replace whole pieces with better shaped elements? Those new trains are probably a must, too. Nice to see they're doing this I guess. I've never been to the park, but the ride looks quite striking.

All those neon-colored paint jobs look especially crappy when they start fading and get dirty. Boomerang definitely needs some new trains. More than any other I've ridden, Knott's version left me unable to brace my head from a side-to-side assault. Hopefully the Boardwalk area will look less pavement-y in the coming months.

The Official B&M Facebook site just posted this: So, this are the new experiences: - Batman The Ride going backwards at SFGAm - Hollywood Dream at Universal Studios Japan going backwards - The Swarm at Thorpe Park with 2 rows going backwards Now, what do you think of the word BACKWADRS?

I always get the sense that each Six Flags park and its management is so straddled by the company's corporate restrictions. I don't feel that as strongly at the Cedar Fair parks, and certainly not Disney or Busch. I think an example of this is the inconsistency everyone keeps discussing; an inconsistency that can be seen at one park on different visits. Great Adventure is one of the better parks I've been to, but I've had wildly different experiences. Rainy weekday in June? They've already hired the staff and serviced the rides, so Nitro is running three trains with no wait. A crowded weekend in the fall? Medusa has a two hour wait because one person is checking restraints and only one train is running. I'm sure the park's GM doesn't want this discrepancy, but when the money doesn't come in/projects don't get authorized by the suits, you get all the crap we always bitch and moan about on here. Why is Two Face's station rotting in a field? Probably because Six Flags corporate doesn't give the park enough money to make removing it a priority. Another thing that I dislike about Six Flags in general is their lack of "heritage" for lack of a better term. Keep in mind that I'm completely ignoring fiscal common sense here, but I dislike the chain's general propensity to give their rides a few good years before letting them slide into a decade of crappy operations and maintenance (I don't mean safety here; just retracking wooden coasters, etc.). They've improved this somewhat recently, with make-overs of rides like Superman: Ride of Steel and the Rocky Mountain treatment on Texas Giant and Rattler, but it irrationally annoys me that Nitro looks like faded poo and Batwing is barely functional. You think Matterhorn would still be a popular ride at a Six Flags park? As for the clientele, these are regional parks so you're always going to get the LCD crowd that may be less prevalent at Disney/Universal. This also has a lot to do with prices. Six Flags is actually pretty affordable compared to other theme park and outdoor attractions. (In the early 2000s it was all "Bring a Diet Coke get six tickets for $0.38!") Since most everyone in the area can afford to come, they do. Not all of them are respectful and fun to be around.

Also, with Jurassic Park 4 just announced, this is a perfect time for a promotional tie-in.

I wonder if we'll see a large-scale coaster with any of these expansions? IOA hasn't put anything in since opening. I remember driving by when it was under construction and having my mind blown by Hulk's twisted green track. I'd never seen anything like it. I could see a large Wing Rider in Jurassic park, but it doesn't appear like that's happening in the near future.