coasterfreak80

Of what I've ridden, hands down Wicked Twister at Cedar Point.

My friends and I cannot believe that SFOG is spending so frivolously on these lame "kiddie" rides (Monster Plantation and the new Thomas Town) and not giving us anything exciting like most of the other SF parks. This park has the most disappointing "collection" (if you want to call it that) of flat rides of any park I have ever visited! Aside from some kiddie rides and a couple water rides, the only thing worth riding is a handful of decent coasters, Acrophobia and perhaps the wheelie. Why aren't we getting a new coaster or flat ride for 2009 or even 2010???

Tennessee Tornado takes First Place for being the smoothest Arrow looping coaster Rob or I have ever ridden. I already have a soft spot in my heart for classic Arrow loopers (although most are rough) but this one was amazing. The transition between the three inversions was seamless. The last inversion, the usually painful "sidewinder" on all other Arrow and Vekoma models, was smooth as silk. Rob and I both tensed for the impact but there was only a graceful follow-through. We both looked at eachother in shock and screamed "That was F*ing amazing!" Rob's right; you are totally welcome to hit SFOG with us anytime.

^^^^^ Thanks everyone!

"Not just credit run"...very true! We found Dollywood to be so much more than just a handful of coasters (although amazing as they are). There is so much to see and do here. if you even remotely like anything country, you will love this park!

^ Thank you, Matt, for confirming the number of attendees. It sure didn't seem like 78 people though!

Thank you, ma'am! It was great to have met you. We hope to come back again soon!

Wow, DBru...obsess much? I have been proven wrong by a child. Forgive me! The Tower looked completely normal to me as I have never seen it before.

The top of the tower was definitely there. However, the actual ride vehicle was grounded. Apparently, the ride had been closed since Tuesday prior and had only operated two hours that particular day. Even the park staff that we talked to had nothing nice to say about the HUSS ride; the consensus was that it's always broken down.

I'm not sure anyone could answer WHY, but here is some interesting info on the ride: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Tornado

Thank you! No, not really. We had a picture from Friday night but it was too dark to post.

This past weekend, Rob (coasterbear30) and I both attended the Dollywood: Thrills in the Hills event which took place June 6th, 7th and 8th. Included in the event was ERT on Friday night, Saturday morning and Saturday evening on Dollywood's coaster collection. Sunday included ERT at Splash Country next door but Rob and I decided to skip this extended portion of the event. Because pictures are better than long texts (and that's what we're all here for), we've decided to post all the pictures with brief descriptions instead of giving a play-by-play of the entire event. In short, the coasters at Dollywood were great. Thunderhead became both of our number one for wood coasters. Mystery Mine was impressive, with great effects and an amazing ride experience. Tennessee Tornado was by far the smoothest Arrow looping coaster we've been on. Blazing Fury was lackluster at best (and I know this is such a classic but, dang were we bored)! The Veggie Tales kiddie coaster had a sick helix. Just kidding! But at least they let us ride it without a child like most parks we've visited. In conclusion, we were most impressed with the most friendly and professional park staff we have ever encountered. Special kudos go out to Zayne (from the Tennessee Tornado), Charlene (from Thunderhead), Ashley (from Customer Service) and Pete Owens, Public Relations Manager who put the event together and answered all our "coaster dork" questions! On to the pictures! Good night, Dolly! Thanks for a GREAT weekend! Friday Night Lights... is that an ORB on Rob's face? Hmmmmm. Lumber Jack Lifts. Scott says "Lumber Jacks are HOT!" River Battle pre-operation. The line for this ride never slowed down so we never rode it. We just used the water cannons to shoot people in the face while they tried to shoot us back...unfortunately, they couldn't see well enough! LOL One of the several water wheels throughout the park. TPR-approved donkeys! Tornado onride photos. Second loop, through the trees. Tornado gets two thumbs WAY up from Scott! Tennessee Tornado through the trees. Lift hill porn again. This was probably the hardest coaster to photograph! Morning ERT on the Tornado was awesome. We actually were able to ride this four times in a row without leaving the station. During Mystery Mine ERT, we were literally the only two people on this train. Too bad that a Tennessee ruling has forced the staff to require guests to leave the trains and go back to the entrance for another ride. Signage at night. Mystery Mine through the trees! Small drop out of the loop. The hangtime on this loop was crazy stupid! Dip right before tiny bunny hop under the tressle. Final helix following brake run, heading back into the Mine. This helix...much smoother. Head-banger! The first vertical drop into this turn was insane! This damn annoying bird! He wouldn't shut up. Pete Owens, Public Relations Manager leading the tour for us. Heartline roll goodness. Look how low this ride is to the ground right here! Surprisingly, this was a completely smooth transition into this element. Under the drop after the second vertical lift. Vertical lifts are insane! This is the motor for the first vertical lift. Lift hill porn! Under the first vertical lift. This is beside the drop under the rock crusher into the painful brake run. This is under the drop right out of the station into a short brake. Phhhhft! Dummies! GRRRRRR! Hold up that train, girl! A Mine wheel assembly. More wheel porn! A Mine train being held under the station on the transfer track. Scissor lift from underneath the station. This is the Mine's "transfer track" to a holding area directly beneath the station. The trains are literally lowered and pushed forward. Onward to our walk-back tour of Mystery Mine! ERT nighttime rides are amazing! After the first drop, the ride doesn't seem to slow down until the brake run. The experience is completely out-of-control. And the tour is over. Simply an amazing experience. Much more complicated than we ever imagined. More coaster dork shots. Another coaster dork shot of Thunderhead wheel assembly OR wheel porn for some of ya'll. Tie dye much? "Sorry River Battle boat; you are not allowed to be a Thunderhead train!" Support structure shot. "I AM the train coming, Rob" View from the first brake run to the transfer track. "I hope there isn't a train coming!" Lift hill from the brake run. Does anyone else have this shot? Harry was telling us about the braking system and the process of tightening the over 600,000 bolts on Thunderhead. Amazing! Two words: airtime galore! This section near the end of the ride had intense ejector airtime. View of Mystery Mine from across the Canyon. View of the first overbanked turn from the brake run. First and second brake runs. Final brake run prior to transfer track. Sunrise through Thunderhead... a new spin on "through the trees" shots. Beat this, biotches! Coaster dork shot! This control operates the transfer track only, Lee says. Lee and Harry were maintenance workers explaining how the transfer track works. Don't tell him we said this but it looks like Lee is doing "Thriller"! Glamour Shots! "Millenium Flyers rule my face!" Rob says "This is freakin' amazing! What a great first enthusiast event!" A Thunderhead train being held on the transfer track. A look back at the station. Walking from the station house to the transfer track. Ditto. Running a Thunderhead test train. Arrival at Thunderhead for walk-back tour. Entrance to Timber Canyon. Saturday morning, 7 AM, bright and early. We are on our way to Thunderhead for our walk-back tour. Can anyone spot the ACErs? LOL Friday night, waiting for ERT on Thunderhead. Unfortunately, it had just rained and there was still lightning in the area. Ultimately, we weren't able to get ERT on Thunderhead but the park called the maintenance workers back to Blazing Fury to allow us ERT on it instead. That's what we call "Customer Service"! Our gifts included a Thrills in the Hills T-shirt, Dollywood backpack (not pictured), lanyard, schedule of events and button (also not pictured).

^ That's brutal, dude! Nasty! They're all like that though.

Thank you! No, I guess we missed that one. Doesn't look like it was too big of a loss though. I like Fireball at SCBB better than the Delirium at CGA though. The ride program was much better at SCBB.

We saw that train ride and couldn't believe that so many people were standing in line for it. Instead, we took another ride on the woodie. I really liked the curved loading station for the ride; I have never seen one in person like that before. I thought the trains were really ugly though.

It isn't great quality and you cannot see the face but this dude was 6'4" at least and all muscle. WOOF!

Mechanic and dpxtreme: Thanks, guys! I appreciate your support on the inversion matter but, to everyone else, let's please not debate it. Robb shut down my last topic due to arguing whether an element was an inversion or not, and I definitely do not want a repeat of that experience. Thanks again! Scott

And finally, Sunday we drove to Vallejo for the last park on our trip, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. We unfortunately missed Tony Hawk's Big Spin by a couple weeks so there will not be any photos here of that ride. This was Rob's second trip to this park and my first. Unlike the other Six Flags' parks, this was a great mixture of thrills and animal exhibits...similar to a small Busch Gardens Africa/Sea World. Roar was our first coaster of the morning and was the longest line in the park both times we rode. This was my first time riding Millennium Flyer trains and they are the most comfortable wood coaster trains. Every wood coaster should have them! We hit V2 several times in a row as it was a walk-on. Although I have argued with several people, including the web master of www.rcdb.com, I consider the heartline roll on this coaster to be an inversion. I was definitely INVERTED during this maneuver! This was Rob's favorite Intamin inverted coaster. My favorite is still Volcano. There were several more coasters to mention throughout the park, including the popular B&M Medusa (with the unique Sea Serpent inversion). Of note on this ride, a swarm of bees had overtaken the start of the lift hill and had us all scared of being stung. The train literally parted the swarm as we went up the lift! Boomerang, as with all other boomerang models, was terrible and barely worth the credit. We missed the Roadrunner kiddie credit, again because of not having children with us, even though we stood in line for 10 minutes waiting to ride. We did manage to get the other kiddie credit on Cobra without a problem. Here there was also a great assortment of flat rides, including a top spin. Unfortunately, at least half of them were closed the day we went. I refused to ride Kong, a Vekoma SLC, because it wasn't worth the hour and a half wait just for a credit. Sorry guys; I'm just not that big of a credit whore. The worst top spin program ever. BANG-A-RANG!!! In the swarm... Inversion...period. Coaster horizon.

No. This is one of the only flat rides that we didn't hit. We have one here in our home park SFOG.

On Saturday, we took a drive over to the coast for a half-day at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. It was a beautiful California day, perfect for a day near the water. The park, for our first boardwalk, was pretty clean. One thing we must mention is that this park employs THE HOTTEST security guards we have ever seen! We decided to start our day towards the end of the boardwalk with a kiddie credit and worked every ride on the way back to the front. Plenty of suspending, spinny-go-pukey, hip-smashing flat rides to choose from! Especially one called Rock-O-Plane, which had spinning metal baskets of near death. We definitely felt like the rickety thing was going to fall over at any moment. I (coasterfreak80) earned my 100th credit and Rob (coasterbear30) earned his 75th credit, both on the Giant Dipper. We felt this historic coaster was fit for such a momentous occasion. The ride itself was, on average, a good one; not as rickety as some other (considering it was built in the 20's) but not as smooth as a few. Hurricane, the park's other "big" coaster, totally sucked. The banked turns were side-splitting, the drops were gut-wrenching and the 80-degree curving drop was excruciating. Aside from this, the park was fun and offered plenty of good flat rides. More to come... OUCH! Has anyone seen the Lost Boys? interesting... 75 100 Holy $h|t dude, we're gonna die! This is the scariest ride ever!

Last month, we took a week long trip to San Francisco, CA. Rob (coasterbear30) and I (coasterfreak80) decided that, while in the San Francisco Bay Area, we would visit some of the nearby theme parks: California's Great America in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz Boardwalk and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. That Friday, we started with CGA and took a local friend, Rhett, along. The park had absolutely no crowds and each ride was a literal walk on. We soon decided that, according to us, the reason may have been due to the lousy selection of roller coasters. Don't get us wrong, the rides were okay but certainly not up to par with the larger Cedar Fair parks. Vortex was uninteresting, Invertigo was a tad painful, Grizzly was the most boring coaster EVER, and Demon was one of the most painful steel coaster in existence. On the other hand, Psycho Mouse was surprisingly fun and Flight Deck was (although not as good as it's sister at Carowinds) great. Survivor The Ride was awesome; in fact, the entire assortment of flat rides were kick-ass! We missed both kiddie credits due to one being closed and the other due to ride ops nazis who refused us to board the trains without children. We hit every credit in this park that we could in less than two hours. More to come.... Go catch! HMS Endeavor Scott and Rhett about to scream. FKA Drop Zone Rob loved Delirium...all four times. Hip-smashing goodness. Rob and Rhett love spinny-go-pukey rides. POS Die, Demon, die! The power of Christ compels you! Lift hill porn. Not as good as your sister, Afterburn, though. YAAAWWWNNN! IAM SOFA KING WE TODD ED! Vertical loopage with a side of Vekoma head trauma! Sleeping before we even rode it! Looks like we're in the right place.

The worst steel coaster I have had the misfortune of riding was the Demon at California's Great America in Santa Clara, CA. As if the first drop and two loops weren't painful enough, the side-splitting LURCH into the first corkscrew is by far the worst pain I have ever experienced on a coaster thus far and is possibly worse than... the worst wooden coaster of my riding history, which is the Georgia Cyclone at Six Flags Over Georgia.

Very true!

I stand corrected. According to Wikipedia, Sheikra's second drop is 81 degrees while Griffon's is 87 degrees. Odd.

I'm pretty sure that's not accurate either. Griffon's second drop looks like much less of an angle than Sheikra's.