KDCOASTERFAN

Dominator is actually running well so far this year without the vibrations in the 2nd half that have been present the last season or two so that's a plus.I guess due to the valleying incidents the park is playing it safe by running only one train on backlot for the time being.

I'll have to see if there is any difference on my next visit on may 5th as by then the park will be open til 10 pm....I wouldn't say that I305's disabled guest entrance would count as "merging" the line since it's more or less direct access into the station.

And just one more person we don't have to worry about in line. In all reality fastlane is better suited for flats than for coasters as the regular line moves faster per cycle than running it does on the coasters & one probable reason for this is the lack of a station to have to wait in.I didn't mind it too much on windseeker or the eagles but am not happy with it being on many of the coasters.

Avalanche is being added to fastlane...looks like one more ride that may be off my ride list.

^I still don't get what's up with backlot's white train since it's valleyed twice now in the span of a couple days...I guess red is still on storage while blue has yet to be added for the season. Nice to hear that you rode windseeker & found it to be a good ride,I noticed the same thing with the seats swaying too since it was rather breezy up there but it never did get close enough to hit the knees fortunately...now I'm just waiting to snag a night ride on it.

While that looks fine on paper in practice it doesn't work since instead of shopping or eating people are stuck in line for rides that move even slower than before.

That & the two competing parks(BGW & SFA) will have just come off of heavily marketing their coaster additions for 2012soit's be a good way for KD to answer back.

Not to mention windy,at least up in my area....it only got up to 46 degrees for a high today here.

I hear that volcano had a rollback again too.

Actually I do... It's mainly because the haters have only had bad experiences with FP-type systems. If you read their comments, you'll read how some parks used to reserve trains for FP-users to ride and leave the regular line to get longer and longer. Clearly those parks aren't doing something right because most experiences I've had with FP-style systems were positive. The industry was doing fine until about 12 years ago when these systems were first implemented,when you visit a park waiting in line is just a fact that can't be fairly avoided & it wasn't until the parks saw they could make a quick buck off of offering line cutting passes/lo-Q systems etc. that this class warfare within the industry got started with disney giving them the stupid idea in the first place.

Well this should not be happening at all,seems like they're starting to run windseeker using the SF style of "reserved seating" which goes against the policies set forth for how the system is set up to operate.....besides a high capacity flat ride,unlike a coaster shouldn't be operated in such a manner to begin with.w I can just see a ROS type situation happening in which guests in the main queue will eventually be forced to wait every other cycle to ride & if no fastlane users show up then the ride will simply cycle empty every other time.

Give it a few weeks & things will be up to speed,aside from fastlane being a problem at some rides overall I had a decent visit saturday & hope to get more rides in come next month when the park goes to it's 10 pm closing time.

I could see a 200ft. windseeker being added in the future to cash in on this new ride concept,as for using the vest restraint on apacolypse I don't think it's possible due to the riding postion coupled with the flexibility of the vest vs. the rigid harness....with all due respect one can't fault the park for using PTC's on Roar,those were the only wooden coaster trains available at the time of it's design & construction.

Has any park even done this in last few years??? I remember this practice at SFOG when they first started Flash Pass and yes I hated having to wait one or two more train cycles so they could ride. But the majority, if not all parks learned how crappy this practice was and have improved upon it. Some people just have their minds made up that they hate something and refuse to listen otherwise. If they want to improve upon something then don't try to fix what was never broken in the first place....there are ways to improve capacity on rides without having to resort to offering expensive front of the line/line cutting passes & perhaps one way to do it might just be to revert back to the "pay per ride" arrangement that the early parks of the turn of the 19th/20th century had used? By offering the unlimited access to rides by means of a pay one price admission(something SF pioneered with the opening of SFOT) the total park attendance has jumped to huge numbers compared to the earlier "pay as you go" concept that previous parks had been using & with the increased attendance comes increased wait times for rides.

As I recall from the DIY show "project extreme" that ran a few years ago the wind speed is indeed 28 MPH max for DZ so that's pobably why it's been having problems lately. A kidzville expansion/PS retheme definitely makes sense for 2013 and is needed since they didnt do much for 2010 except rename the former nick central attractions & then 2014 would be a good year for a new coaster to debut at the park...plus it would fit in with the whole family rides one year,thrill rides the next philosophy that the park has been using for quite a while now.

I here ya on the age thing & some rides taking their toll on the body,both Dominator & flying eagles sure did a number on my stomachsaturday afternoon.

With that in mind they should just select a different ride to add to the system since volcano would be too hard to adapt. I was checking out KD fansite's facebook & it seems backlot had a rollback/valley just before the 2nd launch area,I seem to recall volcano also having a rollback saturday as it was down most of the day.I guess the winds coupled with stiff bearings can be contributing factors in today's rollback situation.

We did go there FIRST THING at opening both days and that's when all of this happened. Wow. That's the only response I have. Wow. All the more reason why they need a B&M invert & to get rid of fastlane. Funny thing at KD is that all of their launchers have poor capacity to begin with.

That idea may look fine on paper but in practice it doesn't work any better as I saw in 07 on ROS because eventually one too many people begin showing up at the ride all at once & the ops can't simply limit FL/FP riders to one group every other train & resort to loading an entire train at once,or being instructed by supervisors/managment to do so. The key to making it work fairly & smoothly is to severely limit the number of passes sold per day & if it cannot be done thenthe system should be abandoned in favor of what has always worked since the first themeparks opened for business in the 60's & 70's.....which is to make every guest wait in the same line with preference being given to disabled guests of course as that had woked just fine up until 2001 when SFI first invented this idea as a means of making a quick buck.

That area is now the Grizzly and Dinosaurs Alive entrance plaza as the Grizzly queue has been cut in half basically. Overall it looks very nice! Also, I was at the park opening day (Friday) and Saturday, and I can say Fast Lane is suprisingly being ran much better than I ever expected. I think what KD has come up with is completely fair and I don't see this causing many problems at all, unless they change it later on. Even on Volcano they were only accepting one "group" of people (those who were together) per train to keep the regular line moving (although that might be because the back 2 rows are closed). I plan on posting a full length report (with a few photos) once I get unpacked and situated. Windseeker, Dinosaurs Alive, and Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia were all better than expected and there are tons of improvements throughout the park. And yes, what you've heard is true, the park was suprsingly packed! Looking forward to your TR & the pics....sure the new plaza looks great & technically it's the same distance from the entrance to Grizz's station but the fact that it's much more open till you pass the sign just makes it a much better walk IMO & the former arcade sure needed the new paint job.If it weren't for the $5 charge I would do the DA attraction but that's five bucks I'd rather hold onto for later. I so wish I could've ridden windseeker at night just for the lightshow but alas I didn't get to thanks to being stuck with someone wanting to ride FOF....one thing that I don't really get is why the schedule is no longer printed on the park maps this year.

Fastlane guests board intimidator-305 from the disabled guest entrance & are then merged onto the platform.

^What needs to be done is to get rid of the system alltogether & run rides at full capacity when possible...waiting in line is a reality at amusement parks but the wait doesn't need to be ridiculously outragous so as to even have a need for such a system to begin with. Perhaps the parks should go back to what worked for the early parks of the day & go to a pay per ride basis instead? that in itself would limit the number ofguests visiting the park to begin with & make the waits tolerable....it's only been 50 years or so since six flags introduced the concept of the pay one price,free rides all day to the amusement industry & back then the parks were so spread out across the nation compared to today so far fewer people actually visited on an annual basis.

Good point with regards to part 3,not to mention it'd probably cost far less to relocate than to repeatedly hire lawyers & conduct sound studies as part of their opposition to the project.

We're still waiting to see which Brazilian park bought & would install two face from SFA.

It took us a while to find it but it's indeed through the former arcade building,tht arcade was never busy so it's a really nice change & refreshing look to the area & you no longer have to hike a mile just to get to grizzly's station..