singemfrc

It's not as though there are a dozen 4D coasters in the Six Flags chain - this is the only one. If the chain breaks, they're going to have to purchase a new one anyway, the cost is likely to be the same. The difference is just having it on hand ahead of time and the difference will only be the cost of storage. And how much money do you think that bad press, decreased attendance, and lost season pass sales at the park over a 6 month period as a result of their marquee attraction being unavailable cost them? I would guess more than the cost of storing the chain. That's why I suggested X2 and Twisted Colossus have a spare chain, because they are marquee attractions for which their downtime will have a noticeable effect on the park's attendance (And Goliath to a lesser extent). I'd say YOLO, but it doesn't use a chain. If Viper or Revolution blow a chain and are out a month, their downtime doesn't have nearly as much of a financial effect on the park.

With the frequency that I hear about chains breaking at parks all over the place, to me I consider the chain a wear and tear item. Not having a chain on hand is like not having extra wheels on hand. It's not going to last the life of the coaster, so unless it's a chain that can be easily obtained and replaced in a day or two, I want to have a spare on hand - especially if it's a high draw coaster and/or has a custom chain that would take a long time to replace. I wouldn't call having one extra chain on hand an excess of inventory. For me looking from the outside in right now, if I were making that decision at SFMM I would definitely have spare chains for X2, Goliath, Green Lantern (Cause I'm sure that's a funky one), and TC. For TC I would still only keep one chain on hand even though there's two lifts - if one fails, replace it with the spare and order a new spare. Not likely both will fail simultaneously.

Most of them have gold pass early entry, but just at your home park. We get early entry at SFStL (it's about 15 minutes early for us). I was at SFMM last Thursday, and I got to take advantage of the early entry using my Gold pass purchased at SFDK. Discounts that are loaded onto your card such as BAFF are home-park only, but free parking and early entry can be used at any park in the chain, its just that the park would only notify their locals of the discount in the first place. This goes for Six Flags and Cedar Fair. I use my SFDK gold pass at SFMM all the time and I've used my CGA Platinum pass for parking at Knott's Berry Farm and for parking and early entry at Cedar Point.

Well this was surprising - I was watching the video that Our Mountain posted of the chain being installed and commented that I wonder how long it would take them to replace that huge chain when it breaks, and they said that they brought the same thing up with a park official who said that SFMM actually - I'm not kidding - ordered a spare chain to keep on hand in the event that one fails so that the only down time will be the time it takes maintenance to replace it I'm pleasantly shocked. Perhaps X2 was a wake up call and they've adopted a new policy. If not for all coasters hopefully at least for the unique ones that would take a long time to order and receive a new chain.

Yes that's correct, it was previously announced that the schedule would be 05/16 for Gold Pass holders only, 05/17 for all Season Pass holders, and 05/23 for the public.

Yes, YOLOcoaster's line is the most consistently long, so it's best to do that first thing. X2's line will get shorter later in the day. Lex Luthor is definitely worth doing. I won't spoil all the reasons why, but the best thing is if you get lucky and a superman car goes up the tower while you're near the top and the whole tower sways. Apocalypse used to be great but is in pretty bad shape. If you never get to ride woodies at all or if there's no line, go for it; but otherwise you're not missing much.

I didnt think of that, but yeah that would be even better.

It will probably be the self pay kiosk where you just walk up and pay at the machine before you go back to your car. This will be a nice time saver! Boardwalk will also save some cash not having to pay parking fee collectors on top of the money saved from less ticket sellers. Sad that a few people probably lost their jobs, but at least those arent usually "career" jobs anyway.

Yeah I dont see X2's popularity waning at all any time soon. It's remained the park's most popular coaster since 2002, which is incredibly impressive. Consider the park spent something like 10 million dollars to redo it in 2008 instead of scrap it - and this is Magic Mountain we're talking about - that's how committed they are to keeping it, and I don't blame them. I'm not sure how popular Eejanaika and Dinoconda are compared to the other coasters at their park but if it's anything like X2 I'd think parks would want to build these things. They may be ridiculously expensive to build and maintain, but at least at SFMM it looks like it's worth the effort.

The only coaster that commonly doesn't open on time (Though I've been lucky in my visits, its always been open for me) is X2. If you're getting there before open, watch the test cycles. If you see the employee riding solo on the safety ride before the park opens, it's a good bet it will be open with the park. If you don't seen trains cycling before the park opens, assume its closed or opening late. Like someone else said though, the best bet anyway is to ride it in the afternoon. Everyone still runs there first in the morning so for the first half of the day it has a huge line and then towards late afternoon/early evening it usually dies down to 15 min or less if it's not an unusually busy day overall. So my favorite plan is to hit YOLO first and then work my way back to X2 at around 4 or 4:30. On a Thursday I doubt it will be busy enough to warrant doing SRL's with a friend. Maybe Riddler's, if only because the SRL is a virtually guaranteed walk-on, so unless the station is completely empty it's still an improvement. --- Regarding the chain break(s) - I agree that I believe X2 took a much longer time to replace the chain for because it's an unusual sized chain that no other park would have, perhaps outside of Asia. Not that those 2 parks would share with Six Flags even if they had one - and Fuji Q is the only park in the world with a worse reputation for operations than MM anyway, I'd be shocked if they had a spare. I bet the replacement was made from scratch when the incident ocurred. In hind sight maybe it would be an idea to have S&S to have one spare chain on hand that they could send to either SFMM, Fuji Q, or China Dinosaurs Park (The only 3 parks in the world with a 4D coaster) in the event that a chain fails. WIth only 3 in the world it wouldnt be hard to have 1 spare total, ship it when needed, and then just remake the spare to have on hand for the next failure. Wing riders probably use a heftier chain than say a floorless or standard sit down B&M, but I'd also not be surprised if Cedar Point had a backup chain on hand regardless, cause that's just the kind of thing Cedar Point (and Cedar Fair in general) does. 2.5 days is pretty damn impressive though even for CP. Also, what the hell caused GateKeeper's chain to break so early? That's definitely not just wear and tear on a coaster that new. With that said though, I expect finding a ready chain for Goliath will probably be much easier than X2, I doubt it will be down for more than a couple weeks even if they need to have it shipped from Europe.

V2 is closed, not sure why. I wouldnt think theyd schedule rehab on that for April, but who knows. Crowd-wise I dont think it really matters what day you go. Tuesday is forecasted for potential thunderstorms though, so high chance of things closing, or possible even the park closing entirely - I'd avoid that day. Definitely hit up Superman right when the park opens, that's by far the best coaster in the park. Roar is much improved too, it has a reputation for being really rough, but some retracking done last year made a huge improvement. Check out the animal shows if you have the time, it's what makes SFDK unique. I checked the park's Facebook and Twitter pages and couldn't find any recent construction photos of it, but from what I've seen with the other Super Loops, it shouldn't take very long to set up and get running. This one was posted on the SFDK Facebook page on March 12th, it's the only one I've seen.

I am trying to buy my tickets and platinum flash pass online but i cannot find anywhere on the website how to add X2 onto it? How much extra is it...and do you know how i add it to my check out cart? You have to purchase that in person at the Flash Pass office. It's either $10 or $15 it's gone back and forth.

Yeah. Took longer than a typical chain break, I assume because of an unusual chain for that huge motor.

I saw multiple reports that Goliath's lift chain broke last night, it might be down for a while. Hopefully not as long as X2.

Yes, it is. Saturday during Spring Break? Nahhhh, mosey on down.

I don't know, but, and it's not nearly as bad as Apocalypse, but I noticed over the weekend that Gold Striker at CGA looks considerably more faded and dreary than it did at the end of last season. I dont know how much lack of rain can affect the color of wood if at all. The type of wood and how it was treated also plays a role in that. Yeah I forgot to mention that too. Apocalypse and Gold Striker are both GCI and I believe use the same wood. Ghost Rider is a CCI..it might be using a different type of wood. I'd be surprised if CCI was using better materials than GCI, but then again I don't know for sure that this color change is necessarily a sign of "lesser" wood. Less appealing to the eye maybe, but it probably would still be just as sound. Boy we really are geeks for even thinking about this aren't we?

I don't know, but, and it's not nearly as bad as Apocalypse, but I noticed over the weekend that Gold Striker at CGA looks considerably more faded and dreary than it did at the end of last season. I dont know how much lack of rain can affect the color of wood if at all.

That, and it depends on how you're sitting in the seat. The grey out comes from the train banking to the right going into the helix and then the G-force sucking the blood out of your head. If you keep your head straight (perpendicular to the car), the effect is maximized. If you tilt your head to your left so that your head is perpendicular to the ground as opposed to the car, it minimizes the G-force's effect since the blood cant be sucked out of the side of your face. If you grey out on Goliath and don't want to, that's a why to help curtail it.

I really enjoy Goliath. I don't find it thrilling at all, but it's fun. The station is always nice and cool on hot days and the ride itself is smooth, so it's a relaxing coaster to me. I don't think it would work at all at a park like Cedar Point, but amongst all the YOLO Inversion stuff at SFMM it's a welcome contrast for me.

Yeah it got crazy when people started showing up en masse for the stadium. My plan of showing up early for CGA and just staying parked and walking over to Levis Stadium worked GREAT though. So much so that if I go to a non-49ers event there in the future I will try to visit CGA the same day even if I wasnt otherwise planning to. We parked right in front of the FD lift by the #4 parking marker which was equally close to CGA and Levis and were able to get out of the parking lot immediately after Wrestlemania..I was blown away how easy it was. Overall as long as you arrived at the park before the traffic got bad it was a fantastic day at the park. Everything opened on time, everything was running two trains except for Vortex, the weather was perfect, even the Grizzly crew was hustling. Lines were as short as I could reasonably expect - we started off heading straight to SP processing since I knew that would be the nastiest line of the day (and it was by far) and we got in and out of there in about 90 seconds flat, went to Gold Striker, about 2 train wait the first time and 20 minute wait the second time. Next we headed over to Grizzly and timed it perfect so that we just had to wait about 10 mins for them to open up which is perfect cause a station wait is usually longer than that anyway. We then hit up Demon which was about a 10 min wait, walked over to Eagles Flight and skipped over to Flight Deck which was about a 5 minute wait, then walked over to Vortex which was a 15 min wait due to 1-train ops and line jumpers, then walked over to Gold Striker again and got a third lap in with a 15 minute wait. Very bearable crowds and queues all around, couldnt have asked for a better day really.

I took that as something like a complete refurbish and retrack, possibly with topper track. I don't think they would go as far as drastically changing the layout in a total RMC remake. Maybe also new trains at some point. There's quite a bit that could be done to it without changing the fundamentals of the ride. Personally I think a topper track refurb would be the best possible solution. The current layout is already pretty great, the roughness is really my only complaint with the ride.

Sounds like a good plan! I'm making someone else drive so I can watch movies on my phone in the car whilst stuck in the aforementioned traffic. Essentially a free limo

PSA: SP Holders can purchase up to 4 BAF for $19.76 tickets online for 3/28 and/or 3/29.

Orange County Register: Boysenberries, Ghost Town and rides: Knott's Berry Farm's future? It's all about preserving its past http://www.ocregister.com/articles/knott-655625-park-ride.html I love that KBF is treated special, because it is special. Ouimet basically says Ghost Rider isn't ever going away unless its popularity practically disappears completely. Also pretty much rules out any radical RMC conversion, though I don't think topper track would be out of the question.

I'm going that day too. I dont expect it to be too crazy at opening. Wrestlemania starts at 3:30 so I think if you're out of there by 1pm or so it shouldn't be as bad. For people showing up to the park after that I think it will be an absolute nightmare. I'm going to both, so I'm planning to get to the park before it opens and then just walk to the stadium (And hopefully my gold pass will cover parking for both!)..I expect it to take a long time to get out of there after Wrestlemania is over. I think a lot of non-wrestling fans will choose Saturday over Sunday for their opening weekend needs, so the crowds might be lessened for that reason, but then you've also got people flying in for Wrestlemania who might, like me, decide to go to CGA before the event next door, so who knows how packed the park will be. If nothing else I will get my Gold Striker fix!!