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Jack Crouse's fund is nearly at $20k! Thank you to everyone who has helped! Can someone bring the campaign up to this milestone? If we could get a number of people to donate just $10 or $20 that would help a lot! https://www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse Update from today: Tonight's update... Jack has had all his test done and they still haven't found where the blood in his stool was coming from. They have had him off of heparin (blood thinner) for 2 days and right now his bleeding has subsided. Now though his lungs are not allowing the ventilator to expand them like before. So we have to try and get more fluid out of them. Chest X-ray was still not good. What little improvement was there is not anymore. Maybe due to the extra fluids and blood he was getting to combat his mysterious bleeding. Later in the day today Jack was having some oxygen level problems so they adjusted his bed and that seem to help. Now hoping for a restful night for him. That being said, the doctor informed us that it is still only day 7 on the Ecmo which is still early in the treatment and they hope to know more by Friday. Thank you again for all your words of encouragement. It really means a lot to my family and I Jacqi Crouse

^ And just to double check, looks like Scott was on the creative team, but in shows & entertainment: Director of Production (Creative Services) Busch Gardens Tampa SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment November 1993 – December 2014 (21 years 2 months)Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area -Various titles held during tenure at Busch Gardens Tampa from Front Line Performer, to Supervisor, to Director (2009-2014) -Spearheaded the creative development and installation of shows and events -Researched, negotiated and contracted performers, directors, designers and producers -Participated in strategic planning and development -Coordinated cross-departmental communication and brainstorming sessions -Taught communication and interview skills classes -Participated in the development of companywide projects (You Are the Message, Summer Nights Task Force, Howl-O-ScreamTask Force etc.) -Participated in the creation of Howl-O-Scream and contributed to the creative development and operation for the first 15 years (acting as Creative Director for 8 years, Creative Producer for 2 years and Media Spokesperson for 15 years) -Highlighted Projects ---Angels of Peace (Ice Show) – Producer/Writer (winner of the 2014 IAAPA Heart Beat Award) ---Iceploration (Ice Show) – Producer (winner of the 2012 IAAPA Heart Beat and Best Sports Show Awards) ---Rhino Rally– Trainer/Writer ---Sights and Sounds: A Rainforest Adventure– Writer/Performer ---For the Birds (Bird Show) – Writer/Trainer

I'm not sure how removing a train would be a step in the wrong direction. If anything, I would have to assume that everything they are doing is step in the direction to get the ride done. I say this with every ride that has seen a delayed opening: A few days/weeks/months NOW will not matter in the long-term lifecycle of the ride and will be mostly forgotten about once the ride is open and people are LOVING it. Remember how Falcon's Fury took an extra 3 months to open? Yeah of course you don't because no one cares NOW since the ride open and it's AWESOME. How many people come August will be talking about the short delays on Lightning Rod? Zero. They'll be too busy riding it and loving the crap out of it.

I can tell you that people like Brian Morrow who have been working for SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment since 2006 and heads up their creative team is still there. He was responsible for attractions such as Manta on both coasts, Falcon's Fury, Verbolten, Cheetah Hunt, the new Cobra's Curse and Mako and pretty much everything SeaWorld/Busch has done for the past 10 years. So while they might have laid off a couple of lower management people from their creative team (and honestly, I'm not sure who since the same people we work with now have been the same team for years) they didn't lay off any key people. The only person from the creative team I can recall getting the axe during that round of layoffs was Scott Swenson at Busch Gardens, and he headed up "entertainment" and did events like Howl-O-Scream, but wasn't part of the attractions creative team, at least as far as I was aware.

And which dark ride did this replace? They all sort of blend together in my head.

Martin was out at Ferrari World today for the opening of Benno's Great Race and sent us this video. The ride looks like a lot of fun! Do we know who is responsible for it?

You know Jack through his photography, but now his family needs your help! www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse

Today Jack update: Please donate: www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse

That's GREAT for your nerdy coaster geek and families with older kids. But leaves very little for your 4-7 year old age range. Sorry you don't understand this. Even more sorry the park doesn't understand this. Take a look at a park like Six Flags Over Texas: Shock Wave - 42" Judge Roy Scream - 42" La Vibora - 42" Mine Train - 42" Pandemonium - 42" And that's not even including the "kiddie" rides. Thats a GREAT selection of rides for younger riders. It would be nice to see parks have more for smaller kids to do outside of "kiddie" rides.

I don't think that had anything to do with it at all. I mean, I don't see how something that happened in 2009 is really affecting decisions made in 2015/16.

I know for a fact the ride manufacturer sets the height restrictions. You are right that a park *could* negotiate with them to create a solution for a lower height restriction, but it's up to the ride manufacturer to decide if that's something they are willing to do or not. And yes, I do blame the park somewhat as well, as they could have gone with another ride to deliver a 42" ride, but they chose not to. More reasons why I feel this ride just makes no sense to me. Even BGT has a much better balance of coasters in their collection with rides for 38", 42", 46", 48", and 54". But this wouldn't be the first time a park in the chain has oddly unbalanced attractions for their guests. Explain to me why a park like SeaWorld Orlando, aimed almost entirely to families and younger kids, has three giant 54" B&Ms that younger kids can't ride. To a coaster nerd that's a dream, but as a regular visitor to that park, I can't tell you how many times I've seen parents go measure their younger kids there only to find out they are several inches too short. You know, the more I think about it, this ride doesn't really affect me personally since my daughter is now tall enough to ride and it's not a coaster I will go out of my way to ride anyway, it's just disappointing to me because I feel the Busch/SeaWorld parks are smarter than this yet they've been making some really odd decisions lately. I can't be the only who thinks that Mako/Cobra's Curse somehow got switched at birth and should be swapped back, right?

Today's update on Jack: https://www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse Please take a moment to read his page and consider donating to help him and his family. Thank you!

That's disappointing. This has always been one of my biggest complaints about GCI woodies. It makes zero sense to me that a 40" kid can ride "Tower of Terror" but a 42" kid can't ride any of GCI's woodies, which don't even come close to the intensity of a woodie like Knoebel's Phoenix or Twister, which are also both 42" IMO, it just shows extremely poor design and a lack of understanding of park guests from GCI and I'm shocked there has never been an attempt to correct that.

You're not the core demographic of the park.

And height requirement. The more I think about it, the more I do hope this ends up being a 42" ride otherwise it really won't make sense at all.

Great stuff!!!

Trust me, the people who are being down on this ride have not been begging for Dorney to put in a GCI. And there's a big difference between being "negative" and being "disappointed." Like I said, I'm sure the ride will do very well by the park and will be liked by many, many people, normal guests and enthusiasts alike, but this type of ride isn't my favorite. I actually don't dislike any GCI woodie, they just don't blow me away. But I have fun on every single one of them... Looking at the list of GCI woodies, turns out I've been on every single one of them. To be honest, they all ride about the same to varying degrees. Some better than others, but really, they are all VERY similar in many ways. I will say this, though, some of my favorite rides from them (El Toro, White Lightning, etc) have been some of their smaller rides. The length is the stat that really gets me. They have proven with rides like El Toro that it doesn't need to be tall to be good, but White Lightning IS short and I always felt that was more because of the limited space they had, and also, it's a ride that you can easily re-ride over and over, so that ride being short isn't that big of a deal. But if I had to wait in line an hour for White Lightning or El Toro, honestly, I'd like it a lot less.

Thank you to cfc (Chuck) for bringing us to $17k! Now can we hit $20k? Help make it happen! https://www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse No donation too small!

We are nearly at $17k! No donation is too small. $5 - $25 will really help Jack's family! Please donate: https://www.gofundme.com/jackcrouse

Funny you mention those trains. Those trains took a ride that used to be 36" with the PTC trains and raised it to 42" with the junior Millennium Flyers. So while those could work, I'm still upset that those trains had such a high height restriction to them as well. Raising a coaster height 6 inches especially for a ride meant for little kids is ridiculous IMO.

No you didn't. White Lightning is a super fun ride with some little "pops" of airtime here and there, but it does not have ejector airtime. If you think White Lightning has ejector airtime then you don't know what ejector airtime is.

GCI have built 22 different roller coasters. How many of them have ejector airtime? Zero. I think that answers your question!

Actually, I just noticed something, that update on the TPR park index was after Verbolten was opened. I forgot that ride is also 48" which replaced the 42" Big Bad Wolf. So if this new GCI woodie also ends up being 48 or even 46" then they still have not filled that gap that Big Bad Wolf left when it closed. And sorry, but your comment comes off as little ignorant to how parks should balance their attractions. Sure, "kids" can ride, but slightly older kids. If it ends up being 48" that means there is still no coaster for kids to ride between 38" and 48" and IMO that's a horrible balance for the park. Even BGT has Scorpion & Sand Serpent for 42" kids and they will be adding another 42" ride Cobra's Curse this year. If this new woodie ends up being 42" then I would agree it's a perfect fit for the park, but at 46" or 48" sorry but that's dumb. If you're going to build a 48" woodie in 2016 and you actually want to get people excited when their other choices are rides like Loch Ness Monster & Verbolten, a 45MPH cute family woodie isn't going to do it. You put a 42" height restriction on that ride, and it suddenly becomes the best thing that's ever happened to kids ages 4-8 years old. And the parents will appreciate it too because they aren't stuck in the "kiddie area" and have their child's "first big coaster" they can ride with them. Brothers or sisters will have a cool fun ride they can take their younger, shorter sibling on, etc. That's the only way this ride makes sense to me, IMO. Think about this for a moment. You know I'm right.

I have to assume this was part of the deciding factor to go with GCI. In TPR's overview for BGW in the park index, you mention the park lacks a big "family" coaster. Do you think this could potentially fit the bill? That needs to be updated. It was written before Verbolten was added which also perfectly fits that bill. It's like I said, I think the ride will do great for the park, I'm just not the biggest fan of GCI woodies so this announcement doesn't overly excite me personally. Will I ride it when I'm there? Sure. Will I *like* the ride? Absolutely. But GCI has never made a coaster that I *LOVE* - I "like" all of them, and in fact I'm super happy to have a fun ride like White Lightning down the street from me, but they've never made a ride that makes me go OMFG I *NEED* to go ride that!!!! Considering that Joel Manby is that the helm of Busch/SeaWorld now, I guess I was just expecting this announcement to be the "Outlaw Run/Lightning Rod of 2017." So there is that... They are? I thought most GCI coasters were 48" - Anyone have some time to look into that?

I have to assume this was part of the deciding factor to go with GCI.