KDCOASTERFAN

With a disabled rider it's far different than with someone who "pays" to cut the line since the disabled rider has a valid reason for being permitted to use an alternate entrance to board an attraction....besides with a disabled rider there aren't streams of them all attempting to board at the same time so that analogy doesn't hold water.

From my experiencein dealing with KD's fastlane it wasn't that bad but I expect that to change come peak season as most if not all of their rides in the system currently use either separate entrances to merge into the station or,as is the case with Dominator & intimidator they use the maintenance staircase(Dominator) & the disabled guest entrance(intimidator 305)it still leads to slower moving main lines however as the station fills up faster. As for windseeker both carowinds,as well as KD lucked out in getting this ride & it is IMO a must ride attraction at least once per visit....I can't wait to ride this thing at night.

This sums up why the system is a good thing. Locals have season passes to visit whenever they want on slow days, but people from out of town don't have the luxury of flexible scheduling. This eases the burden of doing the whole park in one day (something that's literally impossible to do at CP anywhere from mid June to early August). And for the ones concerned with "large groups of people clogging up the line," let me provide some simple math. Millennium Force holds 36 people. Even if group-ageddon walks up with 72 people and the operators let them all on at the same time, that's only two more trains you have to wait, or about 3 minutes. And if those same 72 people were in line in front of you, guess what? That's two more trains to wait, about 3 minutes! But that's never going to happen. It's always small handfuls of people that walk up with these passes, never "giant groups." Then they merge into the station and pick their row, leaving you anywhere from 12-17 rows to choose from, meaning you won't have to wait any longer than usual. Even at places like BGW, BGT, or SWO, where they have specific rows reserved for Quick Queue people, normal guests can fill in those rows if there are no Quick Queue holders waiting on them, therefore reducing the wait! I know the big butthurtness comes from people who either 1. don't want to spend the extra money or 2. can't spend the extra money, but if the issue is money, maybe you should find some cheaper hobbies. I'm not rich by any wild stretch of the imagination, and I think these systems are a godsend. Therein lies the problem...some of us are limited to only visiting on a saturday,when volume will be at it's heaviest.

Of all the comments that have been brought up regarding the new Fast Lane, it's the ones pertaining to the park catering to the upperclass that annoy me the most. This is nothing new at all for Cedar Point or ANY other amusement park. You can say the same thing about parks that offer a Season Pass and a Platinum Pass. The Platinum Pass that costs more, gives you more perks like early entry. So if you have a regular pass, you are stuck watching all those with "more money" playing and having fun before you get your chance. Another is on-site hotels. Breakers Hotel is a lot more expensive then the Holiday Inn in Sandusky, so does anyone that stays off property feel degraded from those at the nicer hotels? Bottom line, this is nothing new and happens at all parks. Fast Lane is not creating a class system anymore then what I mentioned above does, and if one of these offerings did, it would be the PLATINUM Pass. The price point for this is also not catering to the rich or "well off", it is a damn good deal. The best example was give a few posts ago about how it would be cheaper to get the pass and go one day instead of going two days and spending money on a hotel. That may be true but season passholders at parks have not been given "front of the line privileges for the entire day as a perk of being a passholder

I've never noticed rides with fastpass lines have this problem before. If anything it makes the line slightly longer, but it doesn't affect much other than that. You will still have to wait an hour for a popular ride on a busy day regardless of fastpasses. That "slightly" longer wait becomes a huge wait when you have large volumes of people using the system all at once on a given ride & as a result they have more people piling up than the ride can handle per cycle. I put up with seeing this between 01 & 07 at SFA where,no sooner would one group be seated then another group would show up waiting for the next train & even though seats were blocked off it took longer to load the rest of the train as a result

Since when do third parties decide what the park should get and feel they have the ultimate say-so? Santa Clara, you've dealt with these bozos 4 years ago. Put your foot down and let the park do their business. Prudential is distracting Cedar Fair's plans more than our screaming and rattling wood would distract that office complex. Im sure their double panes glass cuts out most of that noise anyway. morning rant> I agree but prudential may have the upper hand here since they have the money to hire lawyers & lobbyists to argue on their behalf....same thing goes for the sound study that they allegedly conducted in an impartial manner.I so hate the fact that businesses come into the park's area & tell them what to do when,going into the lease they should know what they're getting into beforehand....SFA has the same problems with housing communities nearby that weren't there when the place first opened. If anything the park played a crucial role in the development of the area & prudential should give them credit for the interest in building THEIR offices on the site to begin with,but like any business prudential sees CGA as a competitor that must be hampered from success in any way possible even if they're not even a part of the same respecitve industry.

I wonder if they're going to try to bring it up to standards?It might not be structurally possible to do so however. Edit: Got back from my first trip of the season a few hours ago....windseeker was great & not as scary as I'd feared it to be,the 45 degree tilt can really be felt in the outer seats up there but my only complaint is the rather short cycle time once at the top of the tower. Crowds were light to moderate all day with FOF & I-305 having the worst lines of the day not made much better with fastlane,BLSC was really backed up so I skipped it,rebel yell southside was running great today & rides like new & grizzly ws running well today as well....I love it's new entry plaza made possible by DA's placement in the area.

It's still gonna upset a lot of folks who,just when they get near the entrance to a ride station after a longer,slower moving line have to see yet another group of people being escorted by ops through the fast lane entrance infront of them. Yeah but if those people had been in the line the whole time, the wait would have been the same, anyway. Not exactly,all it's gonna do is make it even harder for non users to even get to the line....the rides are being reconfigured with an additional fastlane queue that will supposedly merge with the main queue but that main queue will be forced to move slower because the ops are probably required to allow a certain number of FL users to merge per cycle or per line movement (which ever comes first)and then what happens when the FL queue fills up faster than it can be merged? Edit:Another problem with the system arises & that stems from the unlimited use policy,in theory FL users could very well board the ride,ride it,exit & jump right back in the fastlane queue before the main queue has a chance to even move which would in effect freeze the regular line.

As crazy as this may sound, that was my favorite thing in the park at the time where I was too scared to ride Ghoster Coaster (then Scooby-Doo) but too short to do any other coaster. That cave has a LOT of sentimental value to me and I will be sad to see it go, assuming it DOES go. Ever since Yogi left the cave it hasn't been the same....sad to see yet another piece of the park's history go by the wayside. I'm hearing that crowds are quite large for today's opening....windseeker had a line at one point going all the way past the skycoaster,I dread what it's gonna be like come tomorrow when I'm down there.

The could also fit a good solid flat or two back there... realistically, they took out one flat to put in the windseeker, but it's not that huge a footprint. You could probably fit two flats in the area currently occupied by the Hypersonic Station and maintenance buildings (blue roofed in the picture). They could put a lot of stuff back there. That section of the park was dead at ECB two years ago and I doubt Windseeker will be enough to bring the crowds back there. They will either need a lot of flats or a coaster to bring all the people back to that area. I honestly think an Intamin accelerator is feasible if they go a few years without a major addition. A coaster like that would be a significant investment so it's a question of would the park want to save money for a major addition that could be used for improvements or not. Doesn't hurler's back end come awefully close to grizzly making a path near there unfeasible?That's thesame reason why a path connecting mind eraser to the ROS/Batwing area was & never will be done at SFA.

It's still gonna upset a lot of folks who,just when they get near the entrance to a ride station after a longer,slower moving line have to see yet another group of people being escorted by ops through the fast lane entrance infront of them.

Actually they could just use the old hypersonic station area,along with part of the ride's originalpath(on the outbound leg) to shoehorn an intamin hydro launcher there. Ughh....I am sick of the spacebar on my laptop sticking & having to go back & edit my posts as a result.

^^Looks like there's not any room to expand over there at all & they can't build south of hurler so that side of the park is pretty much filled unless they decide to remove an attrtaction currently there.

Just how much land did they use up in between WWC & Grizzly for the DA attraction? I hope they left some room back there for a future ride installation because they need something other than two water rides on that side of the park.

How About producing a documentary for the mid-atlantic parks? SFMM & KBF have been on too many of these shows over the years,still I'm game for watching a new park show so just let us know what the title & air date is when you get a chance.

Yes there will be a roof over the station. The station will probably be the highest station at the park (typical B&M style) where you have to climb steps to get the platform. The trains are ready from what I've heard too. I assume that park is getting all the electrical together and construction of the station will be in full swing, and landscaping and themeing around testing. The park has plenty of time to have this ride ready for opening. Good Job SFA!!!!!! It wouldn't have been the tallest station if Python was still there. If anyone remembers the Adventure World days, Python was one half of Lightning Loops from Six Flags Great Adventure. To get to the station, you had to climb at least 50 feet of stairs to reach the station. Python stood were Two Face used to stand. I remember riding python quit frequently between 1996 &1998since the ride almost never had a line but I hated having to walk up & then down those stairs....if the line was backed up on the stairs the whole thing would shake violently whenever a train was launched.

I agree! But I will admit I like they have taken the time to get their park back into some sort of good shape. Compared to years ago this park has did a 180 degree. Now, they have their self together lets get some new rides in!! It was the lack of new capital,along with the terrible management turn that the former owners at Premier parks/SFI took that drove me away,now if they just follow this up with more new ride investments & expansions in the ride side of the park it might be enough to get me to return within a couple years to try the place again. As far as this coaster is concerned I'm not too interested in it,not just because it's an older ride but after riding vortex at Carowinds last year I actually found it to be worse than shockwave at KD....could've been just a bad seat though.

^It might but remember,not everyone in KD's target demographic is a park hopping enthusiast like some of us posting here are.

I usually take advantage of the reduced costs toward the end of the season to get mine renewed.

Now let's hope that the park makes up for a decade's worth of no significant additions & follows up with another new ride next season.They still need a replacement for two face after all & were supposed to get a coaster a couple years back for the "tween" market after all.

Sorry for the double post but I had to chime in on this one. This coaster "war" between the two parks is truely pointless & if this rumor is true(I doubt it) then it may really hurt CF because that takes more money from the cap ex budget that could be put to better use at one of their other parks,same thing goes for six flags as well.

You forgot "Flight Deck", "Time Warp", and "WindSeeker"! The nae windseeker ws chosen by the manufacturer,not by CF as the generic model name for the ride.

I'll be at KD saturday,april 7th.

Man I'm not liking the sounds of this & hope KD isn't gonna run theirs like this...with Carowinds now open I'm suprised no opening day TR's have been posted yet.

Don't the intamin pre-fabs use nylon wheels? if so then GCI or any designer can use them just as easily.