Pufferfish

^It's odd that you say Darkastle has bad lines, I've never experienced it with a line longer than 30 minutes and when I was there yesterday we never waited more than 10. If that 10 minute wait bothers you, Darkastle does have a single rider line. For food at BGE, I recommend Trapper's Smokehouse in New France or Festhaus in Germany. Recently, Loch Ness monster has been the first ride to open at 9:30 so you can head on in early for it and get a good couple walk on rides before the main rope drop. After the rope drop, I recommend the same as everyone else, go to Griffon first, then Alpengeist. Make sure you don't miss Escape from Pompeii or Corkscrew Hill. Both are nice rides and sometimes overlooked for the larger attractions. Save Corkscrew Hill for sometime in the middle of the day as it's queue line is a great way to escape the heat. Other than the rides, make sure you do the shows! All of the shows are really good and you should try to hit most of them. Also, remember this is one of the most beautiful parks in the country. Be sure to take some time to just sit back and take in the views. The train is a great idea to do this. I hope this helped and I hope you have a great trip.

Seriously, I'm just happy that after all these years of neglect under Paramount, we are finally getting a NEW coaster, and that's not the best part, it's a hyper! Seriously people let's not bring KD's coaster into this. They are both completely different rides by completely different manufacturers. Let's keep this discussion aimed at the amazing looking, tallest B&M in America. I'm very excited, this is finally giving this park the signature attraction it has always needed as well as a good supplier of airtime, Hurler doesn't cut it. Intimidator is sure to be a very good ride and it gives me something to follow through the off season. No one complained this much about Cobra...

If you really downloaded the first one, put it up here! That video was the greatest video ever, the second one, not so much. If I had remembered that Youtube sucks I would have downloaded it. That's what I get for not thinking. Anyways, this is now my favorite Intamin.

I was just there yesterday and I couldn't have asked for better crowds. Everything was about a 15 minute wait or less, save for Corkscrew Hill. I got my final rides in on BBW and let me tell you, if they do put a flyer in its place it had better be as good if not better than Manta. BBW was my first "big" coaster and I still love it very much. It's ending is one of the best finales on any coaster period. If whatever replaces it isn't up to this standard, I am going to be very unhappy with the park. RIP-Big Bad Wolf. 25 years of being one of my all time favorite coasters.

My list isn't complete yet as I'm probably going to head down to Myrtle Beach in the next couple of weeks or so and add 2 more parks to this list, but so far it's been a total of 12 parks: -Magic Kingdom -EPCOT -DHS -Animal Kingdom -USO -IOA -SWO -BGE -Carowinds -SFOG -Dollywood -Cedar Point

For me it's either Swamp Fox or Cannonball. Cannonball is slightly more nostalgic for me but Swamp Fox gives more airtime. Anyways, both are excellent rides and stars on my list of woodies. Other than those 2 I have also been on Blue Streak, GASM, and Fairly Odd Coaster at Carowinds. Blue Streak I found slightly underwhelming, but still a good ride and a classic. GASM is also a good ride but only in the proper seats, otherwise you are in for the beating of your lifetime. Fairly Odd Coaster is a junior woodie with a couple nice pops of airtime, other than that, there's not much to say. Overall, I love John Allen's works. I believe him to be one of the best designers of wooden coasters and I have made it my goal to hopefully ride every one of his creations that are still operating.

Let me start by saying, I ended up really loving this park and I personally don't understand most people's hate towards it. This first part will just be me expressing my opinions of the park and resort area. I will post pictures when I can next week. Let me begin by saying, the drive to the park was very interesting. To avoid traffic my gps took us through amish territory. This was a very interesting drive and I got to see a lot of Ohio that a normal person might not see. Overall it was about a 10 hour drive with a couple of stops for food/bathroom. One thing I didn't like about the trip was I-77 through WV. There were a total of about 4 toll boths we went through and had to pay $2 each time. Once we finally got there we checked into our hotel for the trip, Breaker's Express. I found the room to be very decent and well kept. The beds were extremely comfortable and the customer service was great. After checking in, my dad took me over to the park and dropped me off for the couple remaining hours. Here is my first complaint towards the park. They need to add a drop off/ pick up line so you don't have to pay to just drive in and drop someone off. Now the park. When I was growing up, I had always dreamed of this place. Ever since I gained an interest in coasters and watch a show about Magnum, it's been killing me to get here. So that first step through the gate was very sentimental to me. The park itself was pretty clean. Amazingly clean considering the massive ammount of people that was at the park. I found most of the landscaping around the park to be fairly nice and added a relaxing feeling into the standard fair atmosphere. The main midway was pretty lacking though and felt way too busy. I ended up avoiding this area for the most part of the trip. Now, onto the rides. Magnum: I have wanted to ride this ride for a very long time. It proved to be just as good as I had imagined. Decently smooth with a couple of bad transitions and airtime on almost every hill. I must say the third hill is one of my favorite moments of airtime on any coaster. (8/10) Gemini: I found this coaster to be the surprise of the trip. It is rarely ever talked about, but is extremely fun. It had excellent airtime on every drop. It is also probably THE smoothest Arrow coaster I have ever ridden. Also, during the day, they were always racing. (8/10) Blue Streak: Your standard out-and-back wooden coaster. I have a particular fondness to classics, but this one fell short for me due to the lack of airtime on the first drop. It would have been better if it still had buzz-bars. (6/10) Mean Streak: This has to be THE worst coaster I have ever ridden. The seats are hard as rocks, the layout is long and boring, and the cars jackhammer like crazy. I litterally almost found myself crying in agony from the pain this thing was causing my back. It was entirely forceless and extremely excrutiating. (0/10) Woodstock Express: Not much to say here. It's your standard model Vekoma rollerskater. (4/10) Corkscrew: While not as smooth as some of the other Arrow loopers, this one has a great first drop. It provides a little more airtime than your standard Arrow looper. (6/10) Iron Dragon: I love Arrow suspended coasters. This ride may be slower than most of them, but it's still a lot of fun. (6/10) Raptor: This was probably the biggest dissapointment of the trip. I had heard so many good things about this ride and was prepared to really like it. It started out pretty good, but ended up just under preforming. Also the final transition from the helix to the break run did a number on my head. It's still better than Alpengeist in my book though. (7/10) Mantis: First off, let me say this is the most strict stand-up I've ever ridden. The girl made me pull my shorts up so she could make sure the seat was planted firmly in my groin. Thankfully I tricked her and was able to get it down a little bit from right under me. The ride itself was a pretty good standup. It gave me a nice greyout between the loop and diveloop. (7/10) Disaster Transport: This was my first bobsled. It had good speed in a couple of parts, but the ride itself was fairly tame. The theming was pointless, but overall a nice family ride. (5/10) Wicked Twister: Good forceful launch and great floater airtime. What more could you ask for? (7/10) Mellinium Force: Everyone who says this ride is boring and forceless are now liars in my opinion. This ride officially has the best first drop on any coaster I've ever been on. The speed is great and it gives a nice grey out in the back seat. Overall this ride was one of both my dad and I's favorites. (9/10) Top Thrill Dragster: Wow, just wow. Even though it only lasts 20 seconds, this was probably the best 20 seconds of my life. Nothing compares to the feeling of being launched at 120mph. Also, the entire top of the top hat supplied me with airtime. Excellent ride and now one of my top 10. (10/10) Maverick: Officially my new number 1. This ride was amazing from start to finish. The great speed, the wild transitions, the amazing airtime. It was all great. The only way it would be better is if it didn't have Intamin's crappy OTSRs. The second Stengel Dive can hit you hard and right on the neck too. (10/10) Overall it was a great trip and this is now one of my favorite parks. Pictures up later.

On the Montu VS Afterburn thing, I seriously think that Afterburn is better. The first half of Afterburn is much more intense than Montu's and also, Afterburn's batwing actually goes underground and doesn't have a trim before allowing Afterburn to carry more speed through the element thus making it more forceful. The only part I thought was really noteworthy of Montu was the drop off the midcourse and the second vertical loop. The rest of Montu's finale is taken slower than Afterburn's finale. I mean, sure Montu is better themed, but afterburn supplies the better ride. If you don't believe me, go ride Afterburn at night after the track has started to cool down a little after a full day of operation. It will blow your mind.

^ He is also the man responsible for Disastor Transport's theming and this would explain the 12E being on the shipping container.

It's potentially cool because it appears to be a post apocalyptic world that uses the icons from the parks in dark settings as well as the characters. I like the very nightmarish concept art. Although this appears to be more a mixture of both the cyberpunk and steampunk sub genres. I could imagine that with this setting you could make a pretty decent action game. Although a lot of people may be turned off seeing some of their favorite characters and icons being used in such a dark setting. I for one am now slightly excited about this and I hope it ends up as twisted as American McGee's Alice. I enjoy a good mind f***.

This is not biased okay. I do really love my ride. 1. Afterburn 2. Montu 3. DD 4. Alpengeist 5. B:TR

Actually, what he said was technically correct seeing as how KD's doesn't rotate.

Here are some pictures of the shipping container. I will go back on Wednesday or Thursday to get better pictures. All I had on me today was my cell phone. Lightning is hot. This is from the side of the crate above the shipping label. I'm thinking big too. Big is nice. This is a picture of the front of the crate.

^ I really see no grounds for that statement. In what universe does the color of the track have anything to do with how the ride preforms? Also, I'm sure there are a few people out there that would argue with you about Silver Bullet sucking. Mediocre and forceless, sure, but sucky it is not. I really don't care what it's called or what its color is, or even what type of ride it will be. All I care about is that after over 5 years of neglect, we are finally getting something NEW.

Skycoasters are really good on the first couple of swings. I think they tend to give better airtime than drop towers. After the first 2 swings though, they're not much to write home about. I'd say it's worth it to pay for your first time, but after that, I wouldn't pay much more than $10 for one. Except of course for the really awesome one at Old Town.

I just hope they get it open son because it's starting rumors amongst the GP. Even down here I've heard some of my coworkers say that they are tearing it down, and it takes forever to convince them otherwise.

Did they seriously stamp an ad on the side of Mindbender's beautiful trains? If so that makes me so mad. I'll have to try tearing some of it off when I go back next month. Parks need to have respect for history!

Yay! I was in the update! Seriously though, I'm glad you all had a great day at the park. It was very cool meeting up with you guys and hanging out for a while. Come back anytime you want, Carowinds welcomes you.

Well, I'm getting up in less than 6 hours to get to work so that I can help deliver some very awesome ERT. It's going to be great seeing you all and I will probably be able to hang around with y'all for a bit after ERT. I tried to get the ability to have Robb certified to drive during ERT, but for some reason or another no one approved. Oh well, see you all at Afterburn at 8:15 am. Oh one more little tidbit, for all you acers out there, the seats for people who ate a little too much gravy are in rows 3, 4, 5, and 6. See you all in 8 hours .

After several new credits for me this year, even though there are more on the way, I think I can give a pretty good top 10. 1. Shiekra 2. Apollo's Chariot 3. Goliath (SFOG) 4. Manta 5. Mystery Mine 6. Afterburn 7. Kraken 8. Thunderhead 9. Hulk 10. Mindbender (SFOG)

I'm glad you had a good time at Carowinds. I'm sorry you had that bad experience with that one associate. You really should have reported him to a supervisor. Also, saying that Thunder Road was rough, where exactly did you sit? When riding Thunder Road, sit in one of the middle rows in each of the cars, the ride in said rows is much, much smoother due to not sitting on wheels. Until GCI finishes with the reconstruction, they've only done about 1/4th of the ride, those are the only safe seats to ride in. Row 11 is the best!

The most intense in my opinion is probably Manta. It is the best flyer I've ever experienced and its pretzel is about 3 times the intensity of S:UF's pretzel. Now I could be a copy cat of everyone else and name a couple other Florida B&Ms, but I'm going to be different and name one no one has mentioned yet. Afterburn. Think Montu with a higher speed in a more compact layout with a more intense batwing and no trim break. Especially now with the new wheels on blue train, and the fresh grease, it's a g-force machine. After that, I would have to say B:TR at SFOG. It would be a great ride if it were better kept and operated, but it is still one intense little invert.

I saw Transformers last night at 1:00 am. My god was that movie good! It was so good, I never even realised that it was 2 and a half hours long. It was packed with action from start to finish and with very great sexual humor mixed in as well. It was so funny in some parts it was hard to stop laughing. I was so happy, it felt just like I was watching an episode of the original series. I liked it so much better the first one. Best sequel by far. 10/10.

Could it be a projector reel?

It looks like a speaker.