Satchboogie3

^I understand that they might have had a reason to close early, assuming the weather wasn't supposed to be awful all day, but that doesn't mean it was a good business move. If they closed because of the poor turnout... that is just a cheap decision. I immediately thought, "If it is raining all morning, but is expected to stop in the early afternoon, then there might be a decent amount of locals who might show up for the evening.) Now, I agree that you really have to plan on things like this happening, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't still be upset about it. Personally, I think parks shouldn't ever close that early. What other type of business do you know of that closes very early because of a low turn out? I can't think of any. Casino's, restaurants, stores, etc. Even if there wasn't anyone there, they would still remain open. I just believe that all business should be run with the customer as the #1 concern, not cutting costs, etc etc. If it was in fact weather related, well, that's just the way it is. Most parks have some sort of weather policy where they will close certain rides or even the entire park.

^ I just don't under stand that "Can't run an empty train" garbage. I have been on many many empty coaster trains (just myself on the ride) without problems, yet I do sometimes still run into this. I mean, they cycle the trains empty before they open the ride (after the dummies), so why the heck couldn't they run a train with one/two people? It just seems that every time I have run into ride ops saying something like that, it struck me as "we are lazy and don't want to bother cycling near empty trains all day... so just wait for more people." I really don't think it has anything to do with safety.

Has anyone ever heard of a park closing due to poor turnout? I think it's beyond ridiculous. It's like a restaurant closing for the day because no one came for breakfast. I've been to plenty of parks when very few people showed up and they ALL still stayed open... until the scheduled closing time. I remember once being at SFNE on mothers day a couple years back, it was raining lightly all day and there were maybe 1 or 2 dozen people there. I was with a friend and we rarely saw any other visitors, yet most of the rides/coasters were open and the park didn't close early. Last year Great Adventure had trouble and started to close earlier. When I visited the park, they closed an hour early... without advertising it. They just closed the rides at 9pm and told everyone the park was closed. Needless to say, there were a LOT of angry people, so the park decided to just hand out free tickets.

^I've never heard of a park closing at noon because of low attendance. I can understand if the weather was really bad (lightning) and was expected to continue, but almost always, the park will still remain open.

I'm going to also go with "El Toro" for the most extreme and abundant airtime on a any wooden coaster I've Ridden, with "Phoenix" as a close second. For steel, no doubt "Superman: Ride Of Steel" at Six Flags New England (or now Bizarro!). The only coaster I've heard that rivals the amount and intensity of airtime on Superman is Expedition GeForce... but I haven't ridden that yet!

I'm voting for Janice, with Renee in a close second.

Me too!

I love those photos, great job! I now have a great Maverick desktop background!

I like to react vocally. I'm definitely a Whooper/Yeaher, but I'll just say whatever comes in mind, whether it be "Holy Sh*t, Oh yeah Baby, etc). For rough coasters, I will sometimes say "OMG, I'm going to die", "My Neck!", "Why did we ride this?" etc. I just enjoy myself, being silent is just too boring and sterile.

Magnum XL-200 is underrated? Really? Apparently none of the coaster enthusiasts got that memo. I know I definitely underrated Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure. I never remembered the awesome ejector air you get from the first drop sitting in the back.

Nice TR, I can't believe you got free food! That's so unlike Six Flags, it's like a not-evil twin. The Dark Knight definitely has to be my least favorite coaster now. I skipped it last year because I refuse to wait 1+ hours for a lame credit, so seeing as everything else was closed when the park opened, I headed over there... and it broke. So later in the day I finally got on it and it ate my hat. I was busy making fun of the lameness of the ride when we hit the first dip and I felt my hat for the last time. I (briefly) met you in El Toro's station right before the park closed, I was wearing the black TPR hoodie.

El Toro right as the dark crept into the park Saturday as they were closing. No better way to start the season and end the day!

Hey Big Mike! It's was great meeting you! I'm Kyle, I'm the second from the right in the El Toro group photo. It was nice to finally get the coaster season started, although I am a little disappointed I couldn't get my rides on Nitro and Kingda Ka. The drive was still worth it, though. Hey Jay, nice meeting you as well. I can't wait for compounce lake to open, its going to be a LONG month+. I'm sure this has probably been asked/posted already, but any chance you (Big Mike) are going to make it to opening day at Lake Compounce?

Nice TR! I was there as well, I think I was one of the guys in the TPR hoodies at Rolling Thunder. I saw you guys waiting in the front of the line for El Toro when the park opened. I was doing the same, but left after 20 minutes or so to go to... The Dark Knight, which conveniently broke down when I got into the station... so back to El Toro I went to wait. All in all, I thought it was a pretty weak opening day, but all the great TPR people made it worth the trip (6 hours from NH).

I'm considering going to opening day at SFGADV Saturday.

No, it does make sense. There really isn't anything to suggest that the coupons have a fake name. I agree that it seems a bit weak to replace it the Superman theme with Bizarro. It almost seems like they wanted to re-theme the ride, but not break the Superman name/theme that it is so famous for, so they picked Bizarro, so it could be extremely similar to Superman - its an imitation (then again, it is clever, i guess). They could even still use "Ride of Steel" in the name as well.

I have liked roller coasters since any time I can remember. When I was little (after the really kiddie coasters), I remember really wanting to ride the "big roller coasters" all-by-myself. The park I remember most as a child was Canobie Lake park in NH. I loved the Corkscrew and remember how excited I was to ride it alone for the first time. For a short period of time when I was little (and skinny), I did get nervous riding some wooden coasters (yankee cannonball, coney island cyclone, etc), afraid of flying out of the train. Once I got a little bigger though, it was no longer a concern. I really didn't become an "enthusiast" until after my first trip to CP in 2000. I had gone to many parks before that (my favorite being Busch Gardens Williamsburg), but it was finally getting to the "roller coaster capitol of the world" and riding the "tallest roller coaster in the world (Millie)" that turned me into the "geek" I am now.

I go by ratings. If you look at the top 10 ranked roller coasters of 2009 (Mitch Hawker) in BOTH wood and steel, 10 of those 20 roller coasters are Intamins. Intamin had 5 in the top 10 Steel (B&M was next with 4), and 5 in the top 10 wood. No other company has both a Top 20 wood and Top 20 steel roller coaster. The fact that Intamin now produces better wooden coasters than all of the companies that ONLY make wooden coasters (many of which have been around for a long long time) is amazing. Sure, B&M have more roller coasters and many different types, but I go with quality over quantity. I also go by my favorites of each category, where, again, intamin wins. (steel: "Superman: Ride of Steel", Wood: "El Toro", Hyper: "SROS", Launched: "TTD", Looper: "Storm Runner", Inverted: "Alpengeist", Floorless: "Dominator", etc. I also believe floorless, flyers, dive machines, etc are just gimics. I'll take a good sitdown/hyper over any of them.

The new maps are a huge improvement. They look really good. The only strange thing is missing roller coasters and some that are way off. I was looking at the Great Adventure map and the layout for El Toro is way off and it also isn't drawn very well, same for basically the rest of the coasters on that map (when compared to the SFMM map and other maps). It just looks weird because there will be one very accurate, well drawn coaster next to one that look like they just quickly sketched it.

I can't figure out for the life of me if this was supposed to be serious or sarcasm. First I see "SFA and Flight Deck" and laugh, then I look up and see real choices for New ride, fail, and spin.

I like the original better. Brighter, bolder, and far more striking.

Ahh, Memorial Day? You mean I have to wait almost 2 months after opening day to ride my favorite roller coaster? Thats BS. All they needed were new trains... This off-season has been enough for me, and now this. Yuk. (I kinda liked the red (yes even faded) better than purple and blue. I just want my Superman back!). The real question, though, is will anyone actually start calling it by it's changed name? I know I'll probably still refer to it as SROS. Edit: All they are doing really is repainting/adding some simple effects and new trains. Why would it take so long just to do that? Is it the train fabrication that is the reason? I just don't like it. If it is the paint/effects, just hire more mexicans!

You caught me! Yeah, I guess I did skip Raven. So Raven 10 and GhostRider 11. Better? Ranking anything beyond the top 3-5 is hard.

Steel: 1. Superman: Ride of Steel (SFNE) 2. Nitro 3. Apollo's Chariot 4. Millennium Force 5. Magnum XL200 6. Storm Runner 7. Alpengeist 8. Montu 9. Top Thrill Dragster 10. Kumba Wood: 1. El Toro 2. Boulder Dash 3. Phoenix 4. Raven 5. Ghostrider (based on my rides in 2000) 6. The Beast 7. Comet (Great Escape) 8. Legend 9. Coney Island Cyclone 10. Lightning Racer (Honorable mention: Yankee Cannonball - Canobie Lake Park) Overall: (this is tough!) 1. Superman: Ride of Steel (SFNE) 2. El Toro 3. Boulder Dash 4. Nitro 5. Apollo's Chariot 6. Phoenix 7. Millennium Force 8. Magnum XL200 9. Storm Runner 10. Ghostrider (based on my rides in 2000).

The closest I've ever come to blacking out was getting lightheaded during Goliath's (SFMM) "Helix from Hell".