AmyUD06

Well technically I'm driving from State College, PA, through Knoebels, then home to northern DE on Sunday July 2nd. Then to Wildwood on Monday the 3rd and back on Wednesday the 5th. Yeah, I know I'm in for some major traffic on the way back (not planning on the ferry), kinda just hoping that the 4th being mid-week cuts down on the traffic load. Mid-Trip Update So far the trip has been great...got my first rides on a RMC and B&M Wing Coaster, blasted through 9 major coasters at CP in 4 hours on my first day there (without a FastLane), got blitzed and made some new friends on day 2 at CP, and managed to knock out everything I wanted to do at KI (again without a FastLane) including night rides on both Mystic Timbers and The Beast on day 1 so I'm able to make day 2 into a recovery day. Might try to go back to KI to get on some flats and a few more rides on Diamondback, Mystic Timbers, and the Beast later on depending on if these storms hold out. As for photos, Ride Sign fanboys will be overjoyed once I post them all (mostly was just keeping track of what order I did things), but here's one of the few others. Diamondback doing its thing.

I used to loathe skip-the-line programs with a passion. Then I used one, and now I'm in love and can't live without them. If you buy Season Passes well before the season, it's kinda like the FastPass fee is your daily admission LOL.

EDIT: Whole Trip Posted! Part 1 - Alpine Slide!!!!!! Part 2 - SF Great America Part 3 - Harley Davidson Museum Part 4 - Ferry & Michigan's Adventure Part 5 - Cedar Point Part 6 - Kings Island Part 7 - Kennywood & Knoebels Part 8 - Wildwood Enjoy!

Quick Hydrus Review: Meh. Yeah, it was forceful enough, and smooth enough, but over FAR to quickly for $10 a ride. You go into the breaks with so much speed it just feels like there should be more coaster to it. "Underwhelmed" I guess is the best word to describe it. Oh well, rode it once, won't be again.

Aww, boo hoo. http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2017/06/american_dream_megamall_hit_with_another_delay_report_says.html#incart_river_home

Well, Morey's has vest restraints and with the retracking is as smooth as butter. Still a little jostling but no headbanging or anything headache inducing.

Don't be skeptical...it is scary smooth now.

Probably anything ridden prior to the early 2000s when I really started to get into this hobby. Back in the days of dialup, downloading a POV was virtually impossible. Damn young'uns.

My guess is that it's similar to the situation with Revel/TEN in AC compared to all of the other recent ownership changes in that town (namely Blastien's moves) - the right person isn't greasing the right palms. This is NJ, afterall.

I'm calling Photoshop. "Comming" is spelled wrong, and their website just shows "Aqua Trax / Desert Trax" underneath the ride title. Add in the fact that the spacing is off, and that they almost never refer to specific parks in their ride descriptions, I'm highly suspicious.

Not on El Toro/Kingda Ka. Not anymore. Went on both just a few weeks ago with all of the following on my person: 2 wallets Plenty of keys 2 mobiles phones Pack of smokes 2 lighters Pair of glasses Bunch of coins Some things were in zippered/buttoned jacket pockets, but most were just in un-fastened jeans pockets. Don't give the kids working the entrance gate reason to pay attention and they won't stop you. SFGAdv hasn't instituted metal detectors like Universal or Morey's (yet).

Did you completely miss the past few pages of the thread that basically summed it up as "you cannot predict the weather at Cedar Point"?

No park needs fewer smoking sections.

No, because the wind would push it back down once it reached horizontal, barring any sort of crazy wind event with alternating direction of gust in the exact right pattern. Also, if that video was indication of the amount of sway in a 60 mph wind gust, you'd need winds well over 150 mph to even get it horizontal. On other words, a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane. Also consider that the cars are not clamped to the cables in any way, so that as they approached 200 degree rotation the cars would fall off the cable to their doom.

Quick trip report from this last Sunday (July 3rd). Not going to mention everything I did, just the highlights: Nor'Easter: Still good with the vest-style restraints, can't wait to see what the retracking will bring. Cygnus X1 (aka Gravitron): The no-fun-police need to lighten up here. Let people get sideways and upside down if they can. Musik Express: Thank you for not converting this to a programmed-speed control system, and to the operators who listen when I ask them to turn it up to 11. New Go-Kart Course on Adventure Pier: Meh, not bad but I liked the old one better. And please update the cars with the newer ones used at the Go-Karts on Mariner's Pier. Great White: The retracking has taken this from a "must skip" to a "must ride." It's like it was new again. Ghost Ship: Gonna catch a lot of flak for this, but I seriously didn't see what the big deal was. Not a lot of actors, and the ones that were there I could see coming from a mile away. Got a bigger scare out of the one actor inside Dante's Inferno. I miss the mini-golf course. Swim-Up Bar at Ocean Oasis Waterpark: Okay, maybe someone can explain what's with their "we're not allowed to deviate from the menu at all" policy is when it comes to making mixed drinks? I understanding having a limited selection of liquors due to space, but you should at least allow your bartenders to make what they can from the available supplies. Guest Services couldn't explain it either. Not Morey's, but Flow House Bar at Splash Zone Waterpark: Keep awesome, staying open late, and having reasonable drink prices. Best place to drink on the boardwalk by far, and top 3 in the Wildwoods all together.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why they call Joker-style coasters "4D" coasters? Though you gain spinning, you're losing lateral movement, so really the car still just moves in 3 directions.

Don't take this the wrong way, but if you're that concerned about the additional tenant fee, you might not really be grasping how expensive the basics in Vegas can be.

In the good ol' days, waiting in line was cigarette time. Now I need to take time out of my itinerary for breaks in the designated zones for second-class citizens.

The cars on Arrow/Vekoma trains have the wheel bogies attached at the front end of the car; the wheels of the 2nd car back serve as the "rear" wheels of the first car, and so on, except the last car, which has a "dummy bogie" attached to the rear coupling so it doesn't drag. In the Morey's Piers incident, it was that "dummy bogie" that separated while the train was making it's 1st/forward run, causing the last car to drag and basically tear the back part of the frame/fiberglass off and drag the rest of the train to a halt. And yes, the couplings between the cars see unequal force (successively greater the farther back) while the car is being pulled/held backwards up the initial spike. On the 2nd spike, there's a chain lift that "drops out" to release the train, but I don't know which car(s) have the catch pawl. Logically, it would be the "front" car, to try to equalize the total stress each coupling experiences during a full cycle....but this is a company that ripped off the basic designs of another company that didn't have the grasp of physics that we do now.

For me, it's a combination of growing up going to SFGAdv and watching it slowly decline in every possible area except for coaster quality/quantity. The service, pricing, food, non-coaster rides, arcades, scenery, parking situation....everything is worse now than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. Working there for 6 years didn't help.

Water Bolliger (B) and Claude Mabillard (M) were employees of Giovanola when Shockwave was developed; Intamin only built the ride based on Giovanola's designs, which was somewhat common back then. Did they design/invent this track style themselves? I don't know, but I'd think it's likely since Giovanola or Intamin haven't used it since they left. What is obvious is that they liked it enough to keep using it when they left to form their own company in 1987/88. I

I'd say it's better that SFGAdv in terms of crowd quality. Dorney really only gets Philly and Trenton "thugs." SFGA gets NYC, Philly, Camden, Trenton, and Asbury/Neptune. Not to mention the juicehead crowd, which often can be worse. And metal detectors or not, I still feel safer in Dorney with their actually-trained-to-get-involved, Act 235-certified, security guys.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had this thought. Initially, as seen, the staffing levels probably won't change much...but once they get the kinks worked out of the system there will be a lot of positions that no longer have a use. Plus, I know the technology has gotten a lot cheaper, but there is no way that RFIDs are cheaper than paper or plastic cardstock. Guess Disney isn't feeling the crunch like almost every other player in the industry, or they're counting on the offset from decreased labor costs.

Should be glad you got this trip in...should be interesting to see what remains after this weekend.

What's with the "Safari Audio Tour: Play Track 4" sign? Don't tell me they stopped broadcasting the audio tour on AM radio and instead are charging people for CDs? Though it is SF, so it certainly wouldn't surprise me.