KDCOASTERFAN

I think Carowinds will beat KD,they've already gotten more parts in place.Clint posted an update to the KDfansite FB page & it appears that two more tower sections have just been put into place so KD is finally starting to catch up.

The last thing SFA needs to do is remove any more rides...if anything they need to start replacing the flats they've lost over the years.

I rode TR last year & found it to be a rough ride.

Figures that Qummet would hire someone from Disney to be their new marketing director,still I hope she's able to do a good job as a good marketing strategy will really help the parks alot.

Ten weeks to go till opening weekend.

^Not sure but wasn't that building in the left side of the 2nd photo a part of the SM exit/merchandise shop?I wonder if they'll reuse it as an entry portal for the new coaster?

With that in mind I don't get why they don't just move the phase one waterworks slides over to the phase two site behind rebel yell so they can use that land to expand the grove & be able to add a few more flats in the process...speaking of which phase one of the waterpark first opened 20 years ago back in 1992. Since they cannot build south of hurler(on the west side of the park) any future expansion will have to behind phase two of the waterpark for additional flats or coasters,unless they start removing older rides in favor of new ones.With DA going next to grizzly I wonder if there will still be any land between DA & WWC left for expansion in the old virginia side of the park?

I think it's because they're not allowed to develop the land directly south of hurler.

A somewhat decent update but for some reason KD's youtube page seems to be far more focused on covering DA construction than windseeker as their videos recentl have only given information on windseeker for all of 30 seconds to a minute tops while giving two minutes or more to talking about DA or DA related merchandise.

True on that,I still remember one of Burke's excuses for closing SFAW wasdue to lack of room for expansion....well if they had removed some of the outdated rides to make room for new ones then perhaps that park could've been saved? but of course they couldn't do that if it meant SFMM or SFGRADV wouldn't get that next coaster they wanted.

There are 8 pieces that the swings run on. Ontop of that, there is a maintance platform and the red "ufo". Including everything, there is a total of 10 segmements of the full tower. Carowinds put up 3 pieces yesterday for a total of 4. If you or anyone has other questions about WindSeeker feel free to PM me! Seems like KD is falling behind as there hasn't been any updates on their construction since the base segment was installed.

The massive debt incurred by buying parks and outfitting them with large rides could have conceptually worked if attendance was capable of stabilizing. Attendance dropped in 2001, 2002, and 2003, negating much of the gains from the huge capital expenditure years of 2000 and 2001. They sold SFWOA for a fraction of what was spent to create the park/resort because the continuing fall of attendance made the place as Six Flags had constructed it impossible to produce a profit. I would say it is factually incorrect to say that SFWOA then was sold for any other reason than that it was an underperforming property. With that in mind premiere should never have purchased SF from time warner in 98 as premiere already owned/operated a total of 13 parks prior to the SF aqquisition while all SF had was SFMM,SFOT,SFRADGV,SFGRAM,SFSTL ,SFOG,SFFT & SFAW. Looking back on it the parks that premiere parks had could've grown well on their own as Adventure world(now SFA) was starting to get new rides between 93 & 98 & there's no telling how it,and the other 12 premiere properties would've evolved had the two chains remained separate.

Wild one's first drop was reprofiled before the start of the 92 season due to the county deemin it too intense.

^Well therein lies the problem,using your statement regarding new rides as a draw to get people to return. SFO/SFWOA was doing well as far as keeping up the additions through 2001 & people were coming but SFI shifted their focus starting in 02 because the economy went bad & 9/11 didn't help.Prior to the 02 season SFI was spending 150/200 million on cap ex so all the parks got a little something but that changed with the reduced budget of between 80 & 100 million being spent chainwide per year...usually 60 million of it went towards 2 or 3 B&M's per year for one or more of the "big four" parks like SFMM or SFGRADV & attendance dropped at the newly flagged parks like SFDL,SFEG,SFKK,SFWOA & SFA(SFNE continued to get decent rides like a floorless & spinning coaster probably due to the popularity of their ROS coaster) As a result this is why SFI sold the underperorming parks of SFEG,SFDL,SFWOA & all the European parks in late 03/04 so they could continue spoiling their big four at the expense of the remaining smaller parks...a trend that,more or less continues to this day.

One of the reasons why SFI ended up filing for bankruptcy a few years ago was because they WERE spending too much money on their big 4 parks & not enough on the others in the chain in the years between 2002 & 2011 & as a result attendance at those parks(cough SFA cough) had dropped in recent years...no new rides for years on end= no new,and fewer repeat customers. One of their reasons for doing this was free advertising in the form of those discovery channel shows but now that they are no longer producing them there's no longer a real national marketing incentive for the parks to invest in such large rides any more.

So barring any inclement weather conditions KD should get their's up in a matter of days to at least a couple weeks.

I think the park could use a decent launcher along the lines of TTD but perhaps not as tall as 400 feet given the problems TTD has had so something in the range of 350 ft may do & yes the park does need a new invert with better capacity than volcano. How many tower sections do the other windseekers have total? I'm gonna have to look at pics of CP's or KI's to guage the progress of construction time remaining for KD's.

I wonder how soon after that the park may choose to go over 400 feet?

How many individual tower segments do they have to install? I'll have to take a look at the CP or KI construction pics to find out but does anyone know?

I thought carowinds had some pretty decent coasters & I sure wouldn't mind having afterburn there in trade for volcano.

SFI has only moved two standups in recent years mainly because they were short on funds to build brand new ones.

Vortex is major alright...a major pain to ride.

Look at the latest update in the cedar fair discussion thread....it was confirmed by Quimmet as coming to all CF parks in 2012....KI was their test market in 2011. I hope this is like Disney's Fast Pass that they only accept the passes at a certain time. I doubt it,my guess is it'll be exactly like SFA's system was where you go up the exit & are assigned a seat & riders waiting in the station don't have access via the station gates.

Look at the latest update in the cedar fair discussion thread....it was confirmed by Quimmet as coming to all CF parks in 2012....KI was their test market in 2011.

SFA would be the exception then. Flash Pass has been extremely successful for Six Flags. Visiting KI shortly after they implemented it showed it worked well for them too. SFA did a terrible job of implementing the system at least back in the early part of the decade...on the last year I was a passholder there they had a horrible policy on ROS for instance of reserving one whole train for flaspass users only & if nobody showed up they disptached it empty. KD tried & failed back in 01 to add a similar type of line cutting system on select rides like volcano & hypersonic & had to cancel it shortly after starting it due in large part to fights breaking out in the queus for those particular rides.I don't see how it's gonna be any better if they try it again this time around.