AmyUD06

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.

Man that brings me back to the late-80s/early-90s and my youthful summers at Action Park in NJ. I miss everything about that place...the danger made it fun. On another note, the Olympic Park website says this about their Alpine Slide: "This European-style alpine slide is the first of its kind in North America." Maybe it's the first metal one, but they're about 30 years late to the game here.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100725/NEWS01/7250333/Three-kids-injured-on-Ocean-City--Md.--ride Sounds like the initial lift cable snapped and two kids on the ride got whiplash from the train hitting the brakes in the station, while a third in line was struck with Debris. No one seriously hurt. Nowhere near as bad as when the one in Wildwood dropped the truck off the last car.

I'm guessing this Ghost Ship business completely removed the mini-golf course that was in that building? If so, that's a shame.

Given that just about every CF park has at least one GoKart track, I don't think the argument of "not liking rides that guests can control" holds up. As for Dorney's last bumper cars, yeah they had traditional ones located in the building that was also The Coaster's (aka Thunderhawk) original station. They were removed when that insanely awesome yet fire-tragedy-waiting-to-happen building was taken down. IIRC that was near the beginning of the Cedar Fair Era.

There are (were, at least) go-karts under the Pier right where those boardwalk construction pictures showed. And it looks like they sealed up the steps. And that was, IMHO, the best go-kart track layout in Wildwood too.

+1 to Demon Drop going to Dorney. -50 to removing the only remaining gas-powered, tank-control bumper cars in a 250 mile radius, when they've got plenty of open space in the old Laser footprint. Plus I'm trying to envision what else is going to have to come out to put DD in that area. Maybe a few restaurants, or table area, but also maybe the century-old duck/fish pond.

Far too many instances of the word "remove."

As usual, impressive use of support parts to create scenery elements, however. Unfortunately, also as usual, the coaster itself is blah. I say this on every ride you post, but you have the mechanics of the game down and your support-construct scenery is top-notch. You really should try building something other than these 10mph "jet" coasters.

My guess is that the entire track section that spans the two supports will be connected on the ground, then lifted up with multiple cranes then put into place. But I know nothing about construction/engineering so I could be completely wrong.

Why does everyone think SFA should go? I found it to be a very nice park, and it's in a very large Metropolitan area. With a little more investment and advertising and non-apathetic staff and a full time police force, they could be the dominant over King's Dominion. Fix'd.

In addition to the above comments: -Too many trains for the amount of block sections. Getting stopped on the lift is never fun.

There is. The button I circled below adds a new track node prior to the one indicated as the "First" node by the purple cone.

+infinity to suggestions to make small out-and-back coasters. (In this program) Intamins are one of the toughest coaster types to make smooth (except may B&M Inverts). Start Did the idea ever occur to put in a brake run (even if not a block section) BEFORE the turn towards the station? That would eliminate the death turn I highlighted below, even if you didn't want to try banking it. Everyone here is trying to help you; don't be so defensive. Seriously look at the pictures from your ride I highlighted below and try to help me understand how you thought either of these were acceptable or "pretty good because it's better than your past stuff." I'm not trying to be a prick, but you are not seeming very accepting of much-deserved criticism. Mods: Sorry about the size, but at 800x600 high-res users wouldn't be able to read the G readout.

Did you even ride this before uploading it? Wow. Yeah, everyone's coasters suck at first...but some of those transitions look like they had zero effort and test riding put in to them, and what's the excuse for the 10g lateral unbanked turn at the end? I also am amused by the over-supporting of everything except the top hat, which is horrifically undersupported. In your defense, I am going to go against the grain here and say that using pre-fabbed elements is not the end of the world. Real coaster designers do the same thing, and then tweak them to fit the current application. There are only so many ways to make a loop/zero-G/cobra/top hat/etc etc. Below is the first coaster I felt was good enough to post about. It has a lot of pre-fabbed elements, and a minimal amount of pre-fabbed supports, but you'll notice that I took the time to make the transitions as smooth as possible. Turbulance v1.0 (Arrow Compact).nltrack

+1 for the back, especially if you leave a nice gab between yourself and the lap bar.

Instead of connecting two beams/tubes to the same node, Make each beam/tube have their own nodes, and then overlap them.

What I do is complete a part of the coaster, then press the "c" key to complete the coaster, test it in the sim for g's and keep repeating until the element is nice. Alternatively, you could set the coaster type to "shuttle" (and set trains to "1") which will allow it to run in the simulator without a complete circuit.

I greatly miss the original station for the Coaster (aka Thunderhawk) at Dorney. Curved loading platform, no air gates, queue line running around the bumper cars, the tunnel below said bumper cars before the lift hill. Then they had to go and screw up the ride with the new station that puts the loading platform back before the transfer track, which necessitated the change from lift-skid brakes to the modern clamp-on-fin style and the HORRIBLE trim on the final bunny hills. It used to be awesome flying into the ending tunnel into the building, hitting the skids and stopping 20-30 feet from the train that was in the loading section (if the ride ops were on their game, that train would already be gone and they'd slide you right into the loading section without coming to a complete stop). Sadly it doesn't seem as if any pictures of it exist anywhere on the internet.

And the mysterious DE State Fair Coaster. Any ideas?