singemfrc

Some rides are just odd like that. I fit easily into almost everything, but Delirium at CGA is a tight fit for me for some reason and the Intamin Impulse coasters (V2/SFDK, Wicked Twister/Cedar Point) are a very tight fit because of how the OTSRs come down. Being "fat" isnt a problem, but having thick thighs/legs causes the OTSR not to come down all the way. I saw many people much smaller than me looking very confused walking away from Wicked Twister without getting to ride. I lucked out that the combined strength of myself and the ride op got the restraint down, that was a very fun ride.

I agree. I got there at night and was trying to ride Millennium Force right before the park closed and it broke down about 30 minutes before closing. At a lot of places they would have just shut it down but the MF crew got it back up and running and cycled it and got us on the ride just in time, I was very grateful.

The park posted a great video today in honor of Dragster's 10th anniversary. There's a cool split screen nerd shot of the motor pulling the cable as the train launches.

I've been wanting to head back to CGA for another couple laps on Gold Striker (which is really growing on me as one of my favorite coasters) but want to hit CGA and SCBB in the same day once Undertow happens. Starting to wonder if it will open this year at all.

I bet the line during ERT is longer than during normal operating hours

I'm guessing they couldn't submit for the permit until they had the part installed that they were waiting for from Maurer and started cycling the trains. Had that not been necessary they likely would have had the permit long ago. I do remember seeing not too long ago the park side that the permit was the last thing they were waiting on.

Its the permit..same as with Gold Rusher, they're waiting for the state to give them the go-ahead and don't know when they'll get it.

Mean Streak beat the stuffing out of me last Sunday, far worse than Roar or even Kong ever has. For some reason it kept lifting my whole body off of the seat and then slamming me back first against the seat-back. It felt like it was trying to fracture my spine or something..it wasnt just from airtime or hills, it was doing this rapidly just from the shaking/rattling of the vehicle. I was making the Hades 360 face throughout the ride and just wishing for it to be over. The people in the front seemed to be having a much better time, I think the back row was a bad choice.

Yep I can vouch for that, station waits all around all day today except 15-20 mins on Dragster and Maverick. Will definitely try to come back on this day next time if I can, it was perfect. Lengthy TR follows. Highlighted the rides so you can just read what you want. I was SO CLOSE to a rollback on Dragster today! I got on the train, they decided it wasn't working, then had us get off and get back in the que. After about 45 mins they tested the train I had been previously sitting in and it went through no problem so they loaded up the train behind it from platform 2. When they were getting ready to launch we on platform 1 boarded a train behind them and I sat there in the train and watched them stop and roll all the way back. Everyone who was on it looked absolutely thrilled with rolling back..I was so jealous..I missed a rollback by that much! Still, was pretty cool to even watch one like that. Our train that launched after them barely made it over the hill. Dragster was not liking the wind today, I was lucky to get three rides in as it was up and down most of the day. The operator told us "As you're cresting the top look down at Millennium Force 'cause they'll be 11 stories below you." So I did, and he was right..it was a weird sensation to be looking DOWN at Millennium's lift hill! Due to the aforementioned light crowds today I was able to easily ride every non-junior coaster in the park, with multiple rides on the bigger ones. Corkscrew wasnt bad, I got a huge pop of air on the first drop, I still dont know how but even my feet flew up. Iron Dragon was pretty boring I thought, Gemini was a little better as was Mine Ride. I didn't have the best time on Magnum, but it was partially due to the fact that I rode it late in the day when I was already pretty tired and sore so that ejector air was kinda painful. Had I rode it earlier it probably would have been more enjoyable. A lot of the pain was caused by Mean Streak..man some people had been saying it was less rough lately but that was easily the roughest most painful ride I've ever had on any coaster period. I was totally doing the Hades 360 face the whole time. It was throwing my back agaist the seat back repeatedly, I felt like it was trying to give me a hernia or something! I was in the back row, and I know I might have a different experience in another row or another train or at another time but I found that first ride so painful I didn't want to risk another one like that. I think that ride will probably be my last. Mean Streak Henry boggles my mind. Raptor was my first ride of the day during early entry, and I think it's definitely better than the Batman clone at Magic Mountain. It's a better layout than Flight Deck at CGA, but I think Flight Deck edges it out in intensity. One weird thing in operations I noticed...in the morning they were only loading rows 1-4 they werent allowing anyone in the back rows. They said they don't use the back rows 5-8 when it's cloudy..really? Bizarre. So I had to come back later to get my back row ride in. When I came back several hours later (after seeing trains cycle with riders in the back row) I went up to the station only to find they had just started switching back to rows 1-4 only again. I told the op who was assigning rows I came from a long way away and had been waiting for a back row ride so he took mercy on me and allowed me to go sit by myself in the back row, thank you! Blue Streak was pretty awesome too, it was exactly as people here have been describing lately..it's short and sweet with great pops of air and I like the classic feel. Wicked Twister does indeed have fast lane now! It's not special or upcharge or anything, its just FL like any other ride. It joins the main que after the last switchbacks in the fenced in path. My home park is SF Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo so I've ridden V2 several times, and as expected I thought Wicked Twister was quite a bit better. On V2 the back row is the best as you go further up the straight tower and get some nice hang time, but on WT I found the front seat substantially more intense than the back and much more fun. There were a LOT of people being denied rides on 'Twister for the seat belt not buckling, and they were not large people. Those seat belts are just so short that a lot of people had trouble getting it to buckle. Its not your stomach/gut that gets in the way, its the thickness of your thighs. I know there must be a specific reason it's that length, I wish there was a way to lengthen it just an inch or two...it didnt seem to be missing by a lot. I think Mantis might have a bad rap. I rode in the front row and didn't find it the least bit uncomfortable. It was the smoothest standup ride I've had (Vortex, Riddler's Revenge) but Riddler's has a better layout in my opinion. Some poor sap in the train in front of us lost his lunch so the crew had to get the hose out. First time I've actually seen that happen in person though I know it happens everywhere almost daily. Funny some of the GP around me started saying things like "Wow this ride must really be intense!" hehe..no I don't think that had anything to do with it. GateKeeper was another pleasant surprise. I heard a lot of 'meh' reviews but I thought it was quite a good ride. I found the right side more enjoyable as I liked being turned under on the first drop. That first airtime hill was surprisingly nice too. I did stumble on one of the locking vests today they apparently hadn't gotten to..it was front row right inside on train 1 which they were not running on Saturday..it didn't tighten too much during the ride so it didn't bother me..I only noticed once we hit the brakes that I didn't have any slack like with my two previous rides. Millennium Force pretty much lived up to the hype for me. I actually got in last night at 8pm so I snuck on to a night ride after hearing from several people that it was a good night ride, and it was. I think I liked it more in the day time though on my Sunday rides as I'm a sucker for a good view like you get of the lake on that lift. Got great air and relentless speed, it was exactly as expected, which was excellent. Maverick was the highlight. It really is a fantastic coaster, the airtime is excellent, the first drop is unmatched in my experience, and only one turn after the MCBR was slightly uncomfortable. The second launch in the tunnel was a lot more forceful than I was expecting, a great surprise. I loved how they run the operations loading two trains simultaneously. In comparison to Magic Mountain, I was at SFMM just last weekend so the differences were really quite glaring. SFMM is good at piling up thrill coasters, which they do well, but CP beats them in pretty much every other regard, especially capacity/efficiency. On every single ride the ops were clearly trying to dispatch trains as quickly as reasonably possible and I didn't witness any unnecessary stacking all day. The employees seemed much more friendly and willing to chat with guests, frankly they just seemed to enjoy their job more than SFMM employees. I liked the crew hoodies a lot of the ride ops were sporting, a very nice touch. Ride Count (Including 1 ride on MF and GK last night): Raptor - 3 Gatekeeper - 3 Maverick - 3 Dragster - 3 Millennium Force - 3 Wicked Twister - 2 Blue Streak - 1 Mine Ride - 1 Gemini - 1 Mean Streak - 1 Mantis - 1 Magnum - 1 Corkscrew - 1 Iron Dragon - 1

I apologize in advance for the oversized photo, Im in a motel room on a crappy laptop and don't have any tools with which to resize - it's not that I didn't think about it! Mods if you want to/are able to resize for me awesome otherwise Ill change it when I get home. There's a fast lane "gate" right to the left of this photo similar to other rides. I will definitely ask about this when I'm there today. Wicked Twister Fast Lane Entrance?

^ Thanks maybe I will trim another 20 minutes or so off. Im just at some random place on Milan, about 10 mins away. You remind me though it was weird when I drove in today at about 8pm I went to show my pass for parking and they said "Nah dont worry about it just go on" and then I kept getting waved closer and closer and I ended up parking so close (the slanted spots right at the main gate) I was sure I wasnt supposed to park there. I didn't see any reserved signs or parking placards though so I figured I was safe and all turned out well. Just one of those "it can't be this easy" moments. I noticed tonight there was a Fast Lane entrance for Wicked Twister, I thought it wasn't included...is it an upgrade or something?

Agree. Apocalypse has gotten really rough and Colossus has somehow gotten smoother. (Not smooth, but smoothER.) Ive really enjoyed my last few Colossus rides and cannot say the same for Apocalypse.

I just rode it for the first time, what a great ride! Pretty cool that I rode MF right as it was winning the award I got in from the airport and got to Sandusky about 8pm so I had time for only a couple of rides. I wanted to make the night rides count since tomorrow when I do the full day the park closes before dark. I only got two rides in but the first was a front row ride on Millennium Force and the other was a front row right ride on GateKeeper. Millennium Force was as good as expected..smooth as I was expecting and with plenty of floater air Seemed fast, but then I have no other times riding it to compare it to. GateKeeper was a bit better than I expected, I've heard a lot of 'meh' reviews but it was significantly better than average! It seemed quite a bit faster than it looks from off the ride. I look forward to riding tomorrow in the day time when I can see the lake too. Fairly busy out there tonight, when I got there GK Raptor and MF had hour waits, Twister, Iron Dragon, and Cork Screw looked to be about 30 mins. I didn't go further back than MF with the amount of time I had. Planning on getting there at 10am tomorrow with early entry opening at 11..is that early enough? Ive heard there can be quite the line sometimes but tomorrow should be a much slower day I think.

I'll be there tomorrow, that's great news!

I'm going to be at the park for the first time this weekend and am flying out Monday morning. Does anyone have a highway that should be avoided or sought during Monday morning rush hour? I was planning on taking the turnpike from Sandusky back to CLE...just don't want to get stuck in bumper to bumper all the way there and miss my flight.

I looked when I was there on Sat and I didn't see the train on the lift, unless it was at the very bottom..I think they had removed it.

I'll be there this Sat and Sun, if I see one I will get it for you.

^ Maybe YOLOCoaster as well due to the hang time, but not as much. It may seem dorky, but thats why I literally tie my phone to me when riding anything where this could happen. I have a small pouch my phone goes into that fits into my pocket and it attaches to my belt loop with a key ring so that if it comes out of my pocket it just hangs 6" in front of me and doesn't go anywhere. I mainly got it for Superman: Ultimate Flight at Discovery Kingdom which has some significant hangtime (and in the TPR video, someone actually loses their phone!)

^ ^^ I will also take your advice and test this next weekend. Ill try to ride front, back, and 5/1 and see which is best. I should also get a chance to do both a night ride and a morning/afternoon ride.

Hopefully they put something up on the SFMM site so potential park goers can known the ride is closed before they get to the park.... (did they do that the last time a ride was closed long term?) The website does indicate that X2 is closed, it has since last week. I guess it wrongly indicates Apocalypse is still closed, but better that than not indicating X2 is closed. I will give the park credit they are definitely making an effort to let people know it's down - it's on the website, its on the ticket booth outside, there's a big sign at the front gate and at guest relations and also obviously near the bridge as well as the Flash Pass office.

It's just my opinion, but I don't think the backwards Colossus has anything to do with a "last hoorah"..I think they were already planning on doing backwards Batman with the touring chassis and figured since they already have cars that can run backwards on Colossus why not do both at the same time and make a bigger promotion out of it since it doesn't cost anything more and could potentially bring more guests in. If they could run both sides of Colossus (one forwards one backwards) that would really be impressive. I would really love to see a backwards and forward side running simultaneously, that would really add to the ride for me. I don't know when the last time they've run the right side was, but I took a close look at it when I was riding the left side Saturday and it looks extremely weathered. The rails look like long abandoned train tracks (they basically are), you can tell just by looking at them that no wheels have touched them for quite a while, and the lift chain is bone dry and appears rusted. I don't know how much work would be required to get it up and running, and I wonder if there is a reason why they've avoided using it for so long (such as it had a mechanical/structural problem and they figured easier to just use the left side than fix the right, better than nothing)

^^ There are multiple X2 signs like that around the park, and they also covered up the X2 signage in the Flash Pass office. I know that what you hear from employees should be taken with a grain of salt, but multiple employees I talked to on Saturday at the front gate and in the sky tower told me X2 would be down for "a long time". It's also worth noting that I didn't ask about it, they just volunteered that information. ^ I did witness Apocalypse running on Saturday. I heard Friday was it's first day back running. Pretty good operations around most of the park Sat, everything was running two trains except for Scream, Tatsu used both sides of the station although not simultaneously. They used the west side of the station in the morning and the east side of the station in the afternoon..it was just oppressively hot that day so if they did that to have the guests wait in the shade, much appreciated. The one terrible operation on Saturday was S:EFK. Even with FP it was over an hour wait after being checked in..completely ridiculous how slow the dispatches were. It looked like they were training a new person to operate the ride, maybe they should find a better time to do that than mid afternoon on Saturday of Labor Day weekend. YOLOCoaster had long lines throughout the day which was expected since X2 is down. I got there early enough to sneak in with a 15 min wait in the morning when the gates opened but by the time I got off it was up to 90 mins and never got below 45 the rest of the day. If it was cooler I'd have waited 45 mins for a second ride but in that heat I decided one lap was enough, I'll be back in spring for backman and get a couple more Yolo rides then. Oh, one more bit of news from the Flash Pass office - since YOLOCoaster is now the platinum upcharge ride, Lex Luthor has been permanently placed in the regular flash pass set, it no longer requires an upcharge at all. On a related note, even though YOLOCoaster is normally a Platinum only upgrade, on Saturday they were offering it to Gold FP holders as well..dont know if it was just because it was a busy day or what, but if youre getting gold any time soon it might be worth asking. EDIT: Apocalypse was the one other coaster running one train, reportedly due to damage to the other train.

The highlight for me is definitely Colossus running backwards on the B&M trains (which may be done for the last time this year). A close second is Gold Rusher in the dark, very underrated.

^ How could it not be SF's decision to move their own train?