BuffaloCoastin

Flip flops - take em off Otherwise - leave em on. Although, I wouldn't wear flip flops unless I planned on getting wet. I totally agree that people should be required to wear shoes whenever they contact any kind of floor. Coming from someone with disgusting feet, I can safely say that feet are disgusting.

^ We had that happen a few times. Once while I was up there a conveyor belt snapped off. They really need to clean out a lot of the SF regime that's still there.

I was there that day! Naturally, working in the sweltering heat at "the only ride with a long line," Grizzly Run. 90% of the season I was at Mind Eraser, but putting me at Grizz was a spontaneous supervisor decision on that particular day.

They traded two prospects and a first rounder. Good deal for them. Speaking of good deals (not really at all), how bout them Leafs last night? They were God awful, basically getting trounced by the Rochester Americans. Go Sabres.

I bowl varsity for my high school, and I've been bowling since I was 4 or 5. Albeit, I only started taking it seriously a year ago, before that it was recreational. I only carry about a 165, and if it's not for school I rarely get time to get out to the lanes. High game is only 244, and I've only topped 600 (606 I think) once. I wish I had more time, since it's a great sport.

My sister's looking for something similar to replace a CRT. We looked at this one, but that's 15 inch. Something like this doesn't look too bad, but I dunno how shipping is for overstock. You'll definitely be better off searching your circuit cities/best buys for sales first, I'd think.

He's pretty good, too bad he plays for the Habs. I liked the music. But in all seriousness...go sabres.

I love how it travels in a straight line, striking every single person on the path. Gotta love the lack of AI, where the people have no idea that the coaster's track leads right into the path and that a train is running, and also that they might consider moving off the path or past the no entry sign. Hoorah, RCT, hoorah.

PKI, you neglected to wait for me to finish...tisk tisk. And yes, I realized afterward i didn't take nearly enough photos, but then aain we all know what this stuff looks like, right? //Adam

Saturday, June 24 Raptor We had ERT for staying in the hotel, and we planned on using it on this sunny Saturday that promised to be at least twice as crowded as the day before. We were in the park by 5 after 9, but MF was still down, so the exclusive rides were TTD, maXair, Skyhawk, and Raptor. Figuring most guests would head to TTD, we guessed that there’d be no wait for Raptor. Bingo. Jumped on once on last row and once on first row. The front row ride was possibly the best ride of the trip to date. Val wanted another ride, but when we got back to the front of the queue it was 9:32 and the GP had been allowed to enter, the line had several hundred people already in it. Screw that. We got to maXair where there was only a 2 ride wait, but before we got on someone lost their breakfast in the seat, so we had to wait for clean up and 2 empty runs before we got on. Gotta say, this is one of my favorite flats, and the wait may have been worth it. Now that the crowd had really formed, we’d have to wait a while for anything. We’d done most everything, so since it had started to heat up Soak City sounded like a good idea. Soak City After a short break in the hotel, we used our day 2 passes to get in and got quite toasted. We rode all the tube slides (I think) and then the Zoom Flume (the 4 man slalom-type slide), which was probably one of the scariest rides I have experienced because it gets so close to the edge. After a ride around the lazier of the tube rivers we decided to rest for a while. Falling asleep in the sun turned out to be a bad idea. I was red for a few days. We went back to the hotel and hopped in the pool there to cool down. We grabbed some food and headed back to the park. Nothing painfully important would happen until we decided to try our luck with Power Tower again. Green side was up, and it turns out we were luckier than we thought. On the way up, we noticed that the greater powers that be were smiling upon us, as MF was going up the lift. We forgot all about PT, and Val and I discussed MF, even on the way down. We high tailed it in that direction. There were 2 rent-a-cops posted at the entrance discouraging loiterers. When we asked, they said it was only the first of many test runs, and they probably wouldn’t be open the rest of the day. BS. We figured we’d try back after a quick ride on CCMR, the last remaining coaster aside from MF. Woohoo. We mistakenly took our time getting back, as when we turned the corner in Frontier Town it was evident that the queue was open. Jackpot. Millennium Force, Part Deux Mike and Val in the MF queue. Observe the contrasting excitement. We missed the opening by probably 10 minutes, but still waited just under ½ an hour to get on. Since the wait for the rear was no longer than the wait for any other car aside from the front, we hopped on there. Again, I forgot the difference 100 feet makes. The air was more significant than I remembered, as well. Just an all out awesome ride from start to finish. As planned we checked in for dinner, but we had a while to wait for a table at Friday’s so we got in some mini-golf with the free passes we had. Nice course, but, well...it’s mini-golf. Then we sat down to eat. Didn’t wait long for food, and the waitress seemed upbeat and interested, although she annoyed the hell out of me by the end. We still tipped generously. Without further ado, it was back to the park. We spent some valuable time waiting for Keith’s parents to meet up with us at TTD, but they didn’t actually want us to wait for them, so we blew the time we’d have had for 2 rides. They wanted to see the light show, as did Mike and Keith. Val said he’d rather get in line than wait “to see some crappy fireworks” and I agreed. We had to decide between TTD and MF, and ended up going with the overall better ride... Millennium Force, Part Trois We scooted over to MF, which had a much longer line now. It wasn’t bad, as they had a DJ taking requests and we could see all the fireworks anyhow. Waited 60 minutes to get into the station and another 30 for front row. Finally, at 11:08 PM (just missed the closing of the queues) the blue train departed the station, Val and myself at the head. Best. Ride. Ever. I don’t think I’ve ever had a coaster experience like MF in the dark in the front row, and I know our German friend won’t be forgetting it anytime soon, either. From Val's myspace. It pretty much says it all. In the dead of night Val and I retreated to the hotel room, and somehow beat the others (who had decided their final thrills would come from Mean Streak and Wildcat) back. We watched Scary Movie 2 and hit the sack. Sunday, June 25 We got up, consumed the remaining breakfast hot pockets, and hit the road. We were home in exactly 4 ½ hours, and thus my miraculous Cedar Point trip came to an end. Final Ride Count: MF (2) TTD (2) Raptor (3) Mantis (2) Magnum (2) Iron Dragon (1) Mean Streak (1) Blue Streak (1) Corkscrew (2) Gemini (1) Wicked Twister (1) Disaster Transport (1) CCMR (1) Wildcat (1) maXair (2) SkyHawk (1) Power Tower (each side, 1)

I found that this was one of the last things I did over at TN before becoming relatively inactive in the coaster community. It's winter and many of us have no access to thrills until it thaws outside, so here's a little nostalgia for myself but also something to look forward to for fellow Northerners... I'll try to keep to important details, because you all really don't need me to review what it's like in the 4th car on Cedar Creek Mine Ride. Plus I've done everything but TTD, Skyhawk, and maXair so it wasn't much of a revelation for me. I’ve separated key experiences... Thursday, June 22 Went to my friend Keith's house for the night. Making the trip would be Keith's parents, Keith, their foreign exchange student Val (from Germany), my friend Mike, and myself. Friday, June 23 Left Cheektowaga, NY for Sandusky, OH at 5:45 AM. We nearly flew there, as we were in the parking lot at Sandcastle Suites by 10:15, and we had stopped at McDonald's for breakfast at the Ohio border. Check in was at 4, so we had most of the day to frolic. Keith, Val, Mike, and I bought the tickets from the hotel and headed up the boardwalk to the Magnum entrance. It was supposed to pour all day, so we wanted to get started quickly in case mother nature wasn't friendly... Magnum XL-200 Did it as the first ride because Mike and Keith wanted a "warm-up" before TTD, which appeared to be fully operational. We walked on to the last car, and Val enjoyed his first ever American roller coaster. Not a bad start, if I do say so myself. Top Thrill Dragster As you can see, no clouds in the sky, just TTD. Why waste time? Val and Keith were now pumped and I was prepared to conquer the only coaster at CP that I hadn't. We unintentionally tricked Mike into riding because he asked if it was “that coaster over there” (pointing to Iron Dragon), but it looked like he was pointing at TTD’s brakes, so I told him it was. I was happy to see the wait was posted to be an hour and 5 trains were running. We waited for a rollback, but didn't see a single one the whole weekend. At least it was running almost the whole time. We got 2nd/3rd rows on in exactly an hour. I must say, although the ride itself isn't that great of a coaster, the experience of waiting for the launch is one of the greatest thrills I have ever experienced. It seems like forever before the takeoff, and the launch is fantastic. "Wow" was the only word out of my mouth for several minutes. So, how do you measure up to that? We ended up lining up for Power Tower, but both green towers broke down within minutes of each other, so we rode the red side. Val called it "lame." I think it's pretty tame as well, so we vowed to return when it was totally operational. We decided to eat before crossing the park to find something more thrilling for our German friend. 4 $10 hot dog and chicken finger meals later (Sky Ride refreshments), we made our way to MF. Millennium Force...? Walked over there, line was closed and employees were informing people that the ride was closed indefinitely, and at least for a few hours if not all day. Damn. After that disappointment, we did the usual CP run-through in true thrill seeker fashion, trying to hit every coaster we could in the limited time frame. We got on Mantis, Iron Dragon, Skyhawk, Mean Streak, Gemini, maXair, Disaster Transport, and Wicked Twister before our heads were spinning and it was time to check in at Sandcastle. We took the longest route up the boardwalk back to the hotel, grabbed some drinks and watched some World Cup. Once our stomachs were settled, we figured it was safe to return. Still hadn’t rained and it was fast approaching 5 o’clock. Hooray for weather forecasts. Upon return, Val suggested Magnum again. Why the hell not? We figured since it was a walk on anyway we’d do the front row. Good deal. Then I insisted on Raptor, so we made the trek in that direction. We took a wrong turn and ended up in front of Blue Streak, so Keith insisted we ride in the name of conquering all 14 coasters (sorry WE and Jr. Gemini). We did walk on to the front row before queuing up for... Raptor Again, absolutely beautiful day at the Point. The wait was a whopping 40 minutes, and it was starting to get hot, but Raptor (or “Rapster” as Val called it) would be worth it. We got second row because we were tired of waiting and got the expected great ride. I forgot how much better a Beemer Invert was than my standard SLC. I’d be reminded again later, though... We hopped on Demon Drop and Corkscrew before heading back to the hotel for dinner. Burgers on the grill saved us a bunch of money we would have spent on food. Keith’s parents joined us for the evening at the park. When we headed back we basically followed their agenda for a while, riding Wildcat and re-riding Mantis, which wasn’t as painful as I’d remembered, and Corkscrew. As darkness approached, we check on the status of MF: no progress. We determined TTD would be the best course of action, but Mike disagreed. Keith’s dad accompanied the three of us as we queued up at around 9:15. The wait was no longer than half an hour, and there was much rejoicing. Hopped in second row and rode it in the dark. I should have been expecting everything this time, but it was still almost as thrilling as the first ride. We figured that was a good way to end Day 1, so we headed back to SS to get some sort of shuteye. Read on...

I haven't heard of such a thing, but I'll certainly be riding it asap. It'll just remind me of poker, I assume, as I play on Full Tilt. Looks pretty fun, and MFI has been building quite a collection flats in the last few years. They are catering to typical thrill seekers, which is always good to see from a family type park that I frequent.

Our pleasure to help, Herb. Just to look at it with a thrill seeker's mindset, I'd think DL has a slight advantage ride-wise. Great Escape has more coasters, but only 5 real ones in Bobsled, Boomerang, Comet, Crack Axle Canyon, and Steamin' Demon. Boomerang and Demon have equivalents at SFDL, the Boomerang and Viper. Comet would be the only worthwhile reason to pick Great Escape I'd think because it's probably way better than DL's woodie, Predator. Crack Axle was actually moved from DL to GE because it wasn't very good and still had huge lines, and Alpine Bobsled is, I assume, a typical Bobsled coaster. Compare those last two to Mind Eraser (a Vekoma SLC) and S:ROS. The nod clearly goes to Darien. But again, it depends if thrills is all you're looking for. There isn't much shopping anywhere near Darien (it's surrounded by farms, if you were unaware), but it does have a very nice hotel (haven't stayed there but my dad was on the crew that built it). Glad to be of service, and I hope you have a good time in NY. //Adam

I was beat to that joke. Darn. My best dark coaster experience is 11:00 PM on MF, but we'll say that doesn't count. For me, it's definitely Rock 'n' Roller Coaster @ MGM. This was the ride that first got me into coaster enthusiasm and was my favorite for a short while (until I went to CP, in other words). //Adam

As aforementioned, there's isn't too much in between the two locations. If you're only looking for one park, I'd say either SFGAdv while you're in NYC or Darien Lake while heading towards Niagara. I haven't been to any parks in Eastern NY, but I can tell you that Darien Lake is just off the I-90, which you'd be taking a lot of the way to Niagara Falls. Although we don't really know what's going to happen since it was sold by Six Flags, it is a pretty good stop with 5 coasters (when all are operational) including the Intamin Hyper (the original) Superman: Ride of Steel. Martin's Fantasy Island and Marineland will be the closest to Niagara Falls (the former is on the way, the latter is in NF on the Canadian side), but they don't offer much in the thrills department. Marineland might be a nice side trip anyway, you know, if your idea of a romantic getaway is looking at beluga whales or something... //Adam

Cool, I've been a member since day 3. Now I've returned 2 years later. Rock on. //Adam

Only been on two of them, and Vortex > Iron Dragon, so that'd be my vote. //Adam

Looks pretty accurate to me. Try your hand at MF or Raptor? You might eventually be able to do an actual CP recreation if you had the time. //Adam

Yeah, I did know about SFDL. That was pretty big news here, and something I've been calling for and hoping for for 3 years or so. My fingers are definitely crossed when it comes to the new ownership. I also knew about CF buying Paramount, so I'm not that out of it. I wasn't aware of some of those things, like Coney Island and a few things timetrial had pointed out. My goodness, where have I been all these months? I definitely have catching up to do.

I didn't have the news ahead of time, but I happened to have jeopardy on when I was at the computer, and scrambled over when I heard the category. I kicked myself for not getting all the answers, and I almost didn't get off my answer for the Holiday World one (yea, I yell the answers at the TV and try to beat the contestants, big whoop wanna fight about it?) because when I saw it i didn't read and rattled off HW coaster names. Obviously I don't penalize myself in my subconscious for yelling 2 or 3 wrong answers before correcting myself. //Adam

Wow. It has been quite a while. I now I hadn't been a huge poster at TPR in the past, but still, the past was something like last spring. After my trip to CP last June, I haven't given any thought to any roller coaster anything, and now I feel like I've been missing out. I just read a generic looking email from Rob saying something like "TPR misses you" or something, and I felt a wave of nostalgia, so I decided to check it out. Thing is, I don't know where to start. I haven't been keeping up on anything in the Theme Park world since early last year. I used to be able to recite stats and news from parks I'd never have a chance of getting to. Now I feel I need to be refreshed. I was wondering if anyone out there in the TPR universe could give me a quick run through as to what's been going on in the world of coasters (maybe a link or two to some key message board topics)? I'd really like to get back into it, but I don't know where to begin. Thanks a ton folks, I'll be seeing y'all on the boards soon! //Adam

There were several "links" between Thrillnetwork and here, I know I checked it out a couple of times, especially after we had a Coasterchat featuring guest stars Robb and Elissa (This was like 2 and 1/2 years ago). I came back and stayed when Robb held the first video contest that he advertised on TN. It was about that time that I ordered the Coaster Season 2003 DVD, which was great combined with the portable DVD player and 5 hour drive on the way to vacation. !Viva la TPR!

^ Interesting analogy. I'm going to take a different viewpoint here, as I consider myself an enthusiast", but I have only been to 1 SF park, being Darien Lake (my home park). SFDL is the reason I don't like Six Flags. Horrible maintainence, unenthusiastic staff, broken down rides, new attractions are few and far between (last coaster: SROS in 1999). It was so bad the one time I went this year that I don't plan on going back, and I gladly didn't get a season pass. The park gets worse and worse every year. Maybe some SF parks are great, but shouldn't they all be held to the same standard? I'm not going to compare them to any other chain until I've been to enough parks to do so, so now my general review is this: Six Flags blows.

Voted: B&M Although I haven't been on that many coasters of any particular type, I do know that B&M has the biggest variety (Invert, Sit-Down, Stand-Up, Floorless, Hyper) that are all equally good, whereas Intamin is known mainly for hyper/giga/rocket coasters.

I’ll try to make this as short as possible, because it’ll be hard to keep your interest with a lack of pictures. We left school at about 8:15, and got to the park around 10:45 (not bad, considering we were planning on 3 hours). The park looked crowded, as expected, but we were not going to be deterred, there was a plan to follow. If only we knew the plan would be quickly blown to bits... Italian Job Stunt Track After almost getting lost twice, we finally found the entrance to the queue to IJST tucked away next to MCMB. We entered the queue, and as is always a bad sign, people started leaving in masses. We asked what the problem was, and sure enough, there was some sort of malfunction, we saw empty trains being tested. We were told it would be about 2 hours until the ride was operating, and the line was supposedly 2 ½ hours long from where we were – I don’t think so. After the day’s first disappointment, we journeyed towards the other end of the park, somewhat following the plan. I was with 2 other people, and it needs to be said that one is an average rider (nothing too outrageous, but he’ll ride most things) and the other is not a fan of heights, meaning he’d ride nothing all day. We jumped in line for the first coaster we saw, seeing it was: Thunder Run All I’ll say was we didn’t know what we were in line for until halfway up the queue, and the ride in itself was pretty lame for our standards. We then journeyed to find something our friend Ryan would actually ride. He picked the teacup-like ride, and while the other two went on, I took the opportunity to use the “washrooms,” as they are called in Canada. They got off, and we headed to the nearest coaster (although Ryan refused to ride, again): Dragon Fire Yeah, it’s an Arrow Looper...The only good things about it was that it wasn’t too rough and there was absolutely no line. At this point, we grabbed some Dairy Queen and decided to try to find more people (there were about 140 other people on this trip, we had seen none of them since we entered.) Almost immediately we saw a few classmates and a bunch of Freshmen, so we chatted it up. They too had apparently achieved very little, and had just gotten off Vortex. This was one ride I couldn’t pass up on, so I grabbed one of the freshmen that hadn’t ridden it yet and we jumped in line. Vortex There’s just something about suspended coasters that makes them...special I guess. Vortex seemed really fast and whipped around the turns like nuts. Personally, I loved it. We got off and found most of the other group riding a flat. After they got off, they desperately wanted to ride The Bat. My dislike for Vekoma boomerangs failed to outweigh my desire for a credit, so I joined in. Of course we were met with a 30-minute wait... The Bat It’s a Vekoma ‘Rang. ‘Nuff said. After this, when I realized I was one of few that did not want to go to the water park, I gave up on being an enthusiast/credit whore for a couple hours to go along to try and find other people. We casually walked the park looking for stuff to do, people to see, etcetera, and we ran into a couple of people that wanted to ride Tomb Raider. Since I missed out last year, I was only obliged to join in. Here comes disappointment number 2: Tomb Raider: The Ride We waited ½ hour and when we entered the station, I thought I was experiencing Deja Vu: “Attention guests waiting to ride Tomb Raider, the ride will be experiencing a temporary delay due to unforeseen circumstances. We are awaiting the arrival of a mechanic and should be up and running again momentarily.” Well, after sitting for 10 minutes, we asked the ride op what “momentarily” meant. She admitted it meant anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to the rest of the day. Screw that. What a jip. So, feeling somewhat defeated, we went to Splash-works to plan out the rest of our adventures. We met up with a ton of our friends there, and formed new groups. I went along with the people determined to get the most rides in the least amount of time. Where were these people before? We planned to go cross-park to hit Drop Zone, another attraction I missed last year. It was quite a hike, but the 6 of us made it: Drop Zone The line was manageable (20 minutes), and after hearing that damn recording that we laughed at because it said you couldn’t have implants on the ride, we boarded. All I can say is: “Holy _____ (insert word of choice)” What a ride. In all of 30 seconds I think it was the best drop tower I had ever ridden. We were able to get in a few rides that I won’t bother to summarize because I think you all know what they are, or nobody’s made it this far in the TR: Cliffhanger (Got really wet, but it cooled us down) The Fly (Wild mouse, whoop dee-doo) Psyclone Sledge Hammer After SH, it was about time to leave. We had to be on the busses by 7, so for now it was “Goodbye Canada, thanks for the disappointments!” All in all, I added 5 credits (I got 4 different ones last year), and In my humble opinion, Drop Zone was the best ride in the park. We never got to ride Italian Job or Tomb Raider. Oh well, that’s Canada for you, eh.