RAWKIN_coaster38

Funny story about Beast lift: when we were there last, the lady and her son in front of us commented about it being so slow we needed to push it. I said, "Row!" and we gave it a good "row" and right at that moment the lift sped up. It was one of those perfect timing moments. My 2 c. about your comments: Diamondback is not rough at all. If slight jiggling is considered rough, then everything at KI and basically everywhere is "rough." Banshee back seat is a lot worse. Also, I agree with you about Mystic being great. I seriously can't choose what I like best between my three favorites (DBack, Beast, and Mystic), but I think Mystic is definitely underrated because it's a super solid ride! We were reflecting about the groupers too. I honestly feel they might be doing this to train their new employees and get things running smoothly for the busier season. I don't remember there being assigned seating on all of those rides with light crowds later in the season.

I agree! I think Time Traveler is going to be over-shadowed this year by all the crazy RMCs opening, but I really was blown away by the ride. RMCs are awesome, but you pretty much know what you're getting going into them. I love that Time Traveler gives a unique experience every ride. The experience pretty much had everything I loved about X2 when I first rode it, minus the soundtrack. I try not to mention it much because it's an unpopular opinion, but I really loved X2 for years because of the sideways + diagonal + backwards crazy inversion experience. I also loved the drop and the few pops of airtime that could be taken at just about any angle. Very underrated ride, and I hope Time Traveler gets the credit it deserves as the season goes on.

In response to user asking, "Is there a magic seat on the Beast?"

Or if they draped a rosary on it and sprinkled some holy water.

^I personally loved Firehawk a hell of a lot more than the one crappy ride I got on Nighthawk. Here we are! Very good numbers! Great numbers! When taking about throughput it should obviously be noted that the coasters aren't all on a level playing field though. Mystic Timbers had a massive advantage. If I remember correctly, Diamondback and Mystic Timbers had a daily 30 minute Early Entry for half the year and then Banshee and Mystic Timbers got it the other half so just during the regular season Mystic Timbers had a lot more operating time than everything else as it got a full season of Early Entry. Then (possibly more importantly), Mystic Timbers was the only coaster operating for about 25-30 nights during Winterfest. The numbers are great for a wood coaster and I don't want to take anything away from that, but they did have way more operating time than anything else. I'm sort of more impressed with the Beast numbers. Great job by that crew. It's also a testament to the popularity of the ride. Racer only beat it by 200,000 riders despite having a theoretical capacity of 24 additional riders per cycle and the exact same style of train. I'm surprised Firehawk didn't top the list last year. Just kidding. Obviously.

^I hear people all the time say, "But what about earthquakes in CA??" when I bring up tornadoes around here. Your stats prove tornadoes are more deadly. Now CA wildfires? That's a different story... I think what makes these disasters more scary than smoking or driving is the perceived lack of control. You can choose not to drive or maneuver to avoid an accident, but if a tornado appears above you, you have no control and little time to react. At least hurricanes give more warning, it seems. However, I wouldn't want to get caught in one of those either. Anyway, I'm glad no one was killed and it's generally pretty rare.

^That's the one I was referring to. Twisted Twins being a steel structure I'm sure helped its case a lot, but 7 years is still a long time. I'm skeptical about Gwazi coming back, but I'm no coaster engineer and RMC has done some pretty amazing transformations in the past. Also, even if the markings are for demo, that suggests to me that BGT has big plans for the area. Since someone mentioned SOB, it came down and Banshee went up within two years. Why spend the money to demo unless they plan to use the area for something else, or leaving it up is some kind of hazard/liability?

^^Thanks for the heads up that in-person might be more expensive. Looking around at other CF sites, it appears that CGA has the cheapest FunPix. Why is that? Fewer rides that have photos? It's been a while since I've been to the park, so I can't remember all the rides that have them. Last year I purchased my Platinum at CP, but when I went to KD and purchased the FunPix, they swapped my pass out for one that says Kings Dominion on it. I still have that one even though I renewed at CP. It would appear that it doesn't matter what your pass says, as long as it is Platinum. We had no trouble buying season drinks at KI even though our passes were both "from" different parks.

Anyone here into FunPix? Last year I purchased FunPix on my Platinum Pass (originally purchased from CP) when we visited KD, and FunPix still worked at every CF park I visited. I noticed season FunPix at CGA is only $40 vs. Kings Island $48 and CP $60, my next two CF parks. Is there anything stopping me from purchasing FunPix on my Platinum through CGA to save money? Looks like Platinum Dining add-on is the same across parks, but FunPix pricing is different at every park. I see nothing on the sites that suggests FunPix pricing is different for Platinum vs. Regular/Gold. I will most likely be at the park in May, and could hold off on purchasing it until then if it's a matter of purchasing at the park. EDIT: when I just entered my pass number and went to check-out, price is still $40. Did I just find a loop-hole for FunPix pricing?

Okay that in itself just gave me a huge incentive to get Diamond Elite next year. I've always wanted to do the dolphin swim but have never pulled the trigger on it. Plus two skip-the-line passes each visit to any SF park and haunt wristbands every visit.... too bad they didn't roll this out a couple of years ago when I lived closer. I would purchase in a heartbeat if I knew I'd be visiting Six Flags enough.

Personally, I love the sign! Can't wait to see it in person! I bet it'll look awesome at night as well.

Gwazi has been SBNO for 3 years already (Tiger longer), parts of it were taken and used for other rides/attractions in the chain, and I believe I saw a photo of part of it underwater at some point recently. Granted it's not impossible to come back from any of this (Twisted Twins was SBNO for 7 years before Storm Chaser and I believe part of Cheetah Hunt was also underwater at some point and it's fine), but I'll definitely be way more shocked if this is actually getting RMCed than I was when I heard Mean Streak was.

I'm not from the Midwest and tornadoes scare the crap out of me. I would be that woman freaking out while my Midwestern boyfriend is driving and doing something dumb while saying, "Babe calm down." I realized I didn't know what the proper tornado + driving protocol was, so I just looked it up. Also, I've watched the video several times and I don't know how to tell it's a tornado?

We went on Friday and I can attest that it was much less busy than last year! It didn't take long at all to get in the park and find a decent spot. We got in the park shortly before opening. We rode Diamondback, Beast, Vortex, and Firehawk in the first hour with only station waits. Flight of Fear, Adventure Express, and even Racer looked to have longer lines than we wanted to wait for, so went to Banshee next. It was about a half hour wait, but went pretty fast. Mystic Timbers and Stunt Coaster were down for a while, so we went to get blue ice cream, which ended up being our longest wait of the day at about an hour. For some reason, we had never gotten around to trying the blue ice cream. We either didn't feel like having ice cream or didn't think we'd really like it since we're pretty much plain vanilla people. Ended up loving it! Definitely will get more next time we're at the park. Peeked in the new BBQ place which had a line extending out of the entrance. Didn't want to wait in it to not eat anything because I'm vegetarian, but it looked nice! Next, we waited for Mystic Timbers. Last year on preview night it was a 4-hour wait. Friday, it was "only" an hour, and we got my favorite shed ending. After that, we headed home. Everything was longer than we wanted to wait and we were too tired to hang out for the fireworks. Overall was a fun day with great weather. Less than a week later we're getting snow again. Here are a few pictures I took: Diamondback refurb'd trains look and feel great! Urgent Scare truck spotting! Definitely missed this place during the off-season! Diamondback is still my top B&M hyper. Blue ice cream, blue tongue, and equally blue shirt! "Hey! HEY! I see you up there!" Excited for many more visits to come!

Just drove to SDC from the Cincinnati area and it took a good 9 hours. Idk about you, but that's a whole days drive for me. KI is great if you've never been, and KK is about 2 hours away. Their water park looks nice, but I didn't go on any slides when I was there. It's also nice because the water park is integrated with the theme park, so you can easily pop between the water park and coasters. So basically you could comfortably do KI and KK in two days, depending on how busy KI is when you go and if you're planning to get FL or anything. I guess that would leave yourself open to drive/fly to SDC or another distance park after that, but you could also go to CP and spend two days there instead. Also, I'm not a big water park person so I can't really speak to any of that.

^If these two are a hit, this opens up opportunities for a lot of land-locked and small parks to get exciting new coasters.

Great report! The food looks amazing and any event with wine in it is a win for me. So are the Jungala rides open again? Good news to hear any part of it has reopened!

2015. Totaled my car in what "should" have been a fender bender. Love the car I have now better than the other one! When was the last time you spent more than $1000 on a single item?

I was wondering if/when someone would bring up the survey, and in what thread. I got that survey too, and I'm a SFDK passholder. I didn't piece it together as a Superman alteration, but when I first saw the video and some of the questions, I couldn't help but think that Six Flags might be attempting to break their own height and speed record. I might be in the minority, but I'm into that kind of thing so I'd be totally down to see a taller, faster, and longer version of Kingda Ka. There were also several questions related to what I prefer in ride elements such as "weightlessness" vs. "twisty track" vs. inversions. Also wood vs. steel vs. hybrid and dueling coasters vs. single, level of theming, speed, and height. It was an overall interesting survey. Also, interesting to hear about the possibility of big plans for 2019. Would be exciting to see Magic Mountain get something really note-worthy (and trip-worthy) again.

Seriously. If it can still snow in the Cincy area as of last night (snow still on the ground right now as I type this), I can't imagine how cold it is up there. Hoping the weather gets itself off enough that we don't see any more of that white stuff in three weeks. I feel like since people judge every coaster based on its POV then I am perfectly allowed to rank this ride as my #1 anywhere in the world, even though I've never ridden it. I mean, LOOK AT IT. Sans an underground tunnel or something it's everything one could ever want in a coaster. If anyone bitches it will probably just be them saying they didn't fit in it or that it's too long and too intense. THIS. I always maintain some level of reserve when waiting to ride new coasters so I don't end up disappointed since my expectations were too high, but I honestly don't see myself not liking this thing. Also of note all the RMCs I've been on have started their premiere seasons out running slower/having operational glitches. Joker opening weekend was a nightmare and let's not even go there with Lightning Rod. I fully expect this thing will not run as well on opening as it will later in the season, or even next year, and I fully expect people to b*tch about how it's too slow or not forceful enough or whatever, ignoring the fact that many of RMCs started the same way but ended up better/faster in time (i.e. Storm Chaser's finale). I'll be mainly disappointed if I spent $75 to be there at the first-rider event just to have it be down the whole night or too cold to operate. At least the money goes to charity.

Never, but Netflix last night. When was the last time you had to take care of a drunk person?

That's a fantastic-looking train! CoasterMania can't come soon enough. I, personally, don't like to watch POVs of coasters that I'm riding for the first time in the near future; I don't want to spoil the surprise. Is that just me, or does anyone else think that way, too? I normally would watch the POV to get excited, but I can't get any more excited about this than I already am! Plus since it's so close within reach, I might as well just wait to ride it.

The last really amusing one I pulled off was maybe 2011 or 2012 when I moved my brother's car and then put his keys back, making him think his car had been stolen (didn't go off as hilariously as I thought). My FB prank last year backfired dramatically. From other people? I seem to remember there being some funny ones last year, but it maybe was the year before. This year was "meh" for me with it being Easter as well and me working, so I didn't really see any "pranks" until a few days later when it was already over. When was the last time you asked Siri a question?

Would be great news if it's true. I'll reserve excitement for if/when we find out more.

It's also an older film. Not sure how updating animation on those kinds of things goes, but a lot has changed since the late 90s/early 2000s when Dino Island was first a thing. I'm still pumped to ride it again, cheese and all.