Mechanic

I liked the looks of this design since seeing the animated preview. Seeing it as a real working prototype only makes it look even better. The coaster looks to have a vastly different ride experience from one side of the train to the other. It's almost like a twin track coaster with only one track. That will open up the theming possibilities and should help with re-ride appeal.

Ok, so this is about a month late, but better late than never. I considered posting this in the "Random" section, but considering this section has "Donkeys" in the title, I hope this is actually the right place. We hauled the family out to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm last month and had a really fun time. (Scroll down if you just want to see the pictures and ignore my mindless rambling.) Despite the farm being only about half an hour up the road from where we live, I'd never heard of the place before. I actually stumbled onto it quite by accident. The previous weekend my youngest son played one of his junior league football games against the Wheatland Pirates. While watching the game I would occasionally hear a train whistle off to the south. During half time I walked a ways across the athletic fields and saw a pretty good sized mowed field full of cars. This also gave me a better view of the entrance area and the road leading to the farm. We didn't have time to visit that day, but I figured maybe we could make it back the following weekend. And so we did. The farm is, as the name suggests, primarily a pumpkin farm. They have orchards of various fruit and nut trees as well. The "themed" area where most of the visitors spend the majority of their time includes several arts and crafts shops, lots of different places to buy food to eat at the farm or to take home. (We brought home a great dutch apple pie and some apple muffins) They have a petting zoo, corn maze, a couple slides, several playground areas, pig races, and of course the aforementioned train. Hay wagons pulled by tractors will give you a ride out to the pumpkin patch so you can choose that "just perfect" pumpkin to turn into jack-o-lantern to scare all the neighborhood kiddies on Halloween. Goofy photo op cut outs can be found almost anywhere you look. Bishop's is definitely geared toward families with younger children, but we still had a really good time. My mom says it was the most fun she'd had in quite a while and really brought back memories for her of growing up around animals and a farm when she was a kid. The website link I posted above has a few pictures that I've borrowed since I'm not a big picture taker. I hadn't realized until I got home how few pictures I'd actually taken while we there. On to the pictures... Edit: The pictures came out backwards from the way I viewed them in the preview. View the pictures from bottom to top for full effect. (Not that it matters that much) The raging torrent of Coyote Mountain stream. Or is it the gentle trickle of a Coyote? You decide. Panning for gold. Well, actually you pan for marbles, but close enough. Splash Mountain's got nothing on Coyote Mountain. Ah, who am I kidding? Yes it does. In fact it craps all over Coyote Mountain to the 10th power. Is that a train I see? (pic from their website) yep, there's the train. (pic from their website) "On the go." Haha! I get it now. That's really funny! Ok, maybe not so much I did mention the pig races, didn't I? A rusty old tractor. Cool. So cool we need 2 pictures of it. I wonder if anyone ever took it in the caboose? Some of the animals you can pet. And now.. The moment you've been waiting for.. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the astounding, the amazing, the unbelievable, Donkey with a goat on its back! (Keep down the applause please.)

John Peck, I also find it odd that you couldn't fit on Tatsu, yet you fit on Batman and Riddlers. I am a tight squeeze on Batman and I require considerable assistance to get the OTSR closed far enough on Riddlers, but I fit on Tatsu with a couple of clicks left over. FWIW, I'm 6' 2" - 260. While I do have a gut, that's not what causes me an issue with most restraints. It's the retstraint pressing against my chest that makes it difficult to close it far enough.

I saw one train on the transfer track. It was one of the same old trains that the ride has been running with for a long time now, the yellow one. Who knows what's in store though? Despite SLCs being generally despised, I've always liked this ride. I thought last year's move of the queue entrance to the Medusa plaza was a good idea. Seeing the ride getting spruced up more with new paint is even better. If they do get the new style trains, that would be awesome.

I've been happy with the packages I've put together with getawaytoday.com. If they don't list exactly what you're looking for, just call or email. I've found them to be very accomodating and price competitive.

You could see a few layers of old paint in some of the sections where the prep work had stripped it down to bare metal. Oddly enough, the picture that your link points to is exactly where we saw the painting going on while we were watching.

During our visit yesterday we saw a single worker in a crane bucket repainting the track on Kong. You could see that they'd done quite a bit of the upper part of the lift hill already, although the part we saw being painted was much closer to the ground. The track color was the same red as before, but obviously looked much better than the rest of the faded out red paint. I didn't see where they'd painted any supports yet so I can't comment on what color those may be getting painted. You could see where large patches of paint had been stripped away from both the supports and the track. I assume that was the result of pressure washing, or whatever other process they use to prepare for painting. I'm glad to see this ride getting a fresh coat of paint. It desparately needed it. I'd have taken pictures, but didn't bring the camera yesterday.

Very valid points Robb. I must confess that if I was only making one visit to a park, and it happened to be at a busy time of year, then I'd probably spend the money on the Qbot. Conversely, the price of the Qbot will make me more carefully plan so as to try to avoid those busiest days. I guess that's a win-win for the parks because they're going to sell out of Qbots on busy days anyway so they're not losing anything from the people that don't buy them, while possibly encouraging more attendance than they may have otherwise had during the slower times of the season. Another bright side is this makes the TPR trips look like an even better value. (Knowing that you set up trips with perks like the Qbots included.) While current circumstances have once again precluded my taking a TPR trip this coming year, I do still look forward to one sometime in the future.

Like PeoplemoverMatt, I'll be more likely to try and hit the park on less busy days and avoid shelling out the bucks for the Qbot. On the bright side, the $1 ride lockers look like quite a bargain now, don't they?

I've got to say that I'm really floored by those Qbot prices for SFGAd. And SFMM's will be even higher? Yikes! I'm well aware that I don't HAVE to buy the Qbot, but I'd be considerably more inclined to buy it if the price were a little more reasonable. Hopefully, the discount offered to passholders will make the price a little more palatable.

Has anyone heard anything more about the 200 foot tall S&S El Loco coaster possibly coming to the west coast as mentioned by the S&S rep at WCB earlier this year? There was a little chatter about it at the time, but nothing since as far I'm aware. This was recently discussed briefly in the SFMM update thread and I've moved the discussion here at Elissa's suggestion.

Fair enough.

No.

I've personally had no issues with Kong giving me a bad ride. The only place that my head got bumped moderately hard was on the final right turn before the train re-enters the station. I like the ride and have never really understood the SLC hate, or Vekoma hate in general for that matter.

My avatar is a depiction of three mile island converted into an amusement park. Here's a larger version of the same picture.

^ Yes, at WCB the S&S rep mentioned the possible installation of a 200 foot tall El Loco type coaster at a west coast park. This was accompanied by some "in the know" type grins from the assembled park management. (For whatever that's worth.)

I guess I hadn't missed anything. I was just surprised that the story never seemed to go anywhere. Given the current economic climate, I could see the deal falling through. Sorry to have strayed off topic. I just figured the SFMM thread might be the best place to ask.

Has there been any sort of additional information about the 200 foot El Loco possibly coming to the west coast that was mentioned at WCB? Not that the ride was necessarily going to be at SFMM, but I just hadn't seen any more discussion/speculation on it and was curious if I'd just missed it. I did do a search but didn't find anything very recent. Thanks.

Of the new stuff that I'll actually get to see and ride, Terminator at SFMM is the ride I'm most looking forward to. (I trust it will be up and running by the time we take our annual mid summer trip to SoCal.) I'm also looking forward to next year's WCB. This year's event with EVERY operating coaster in the park open for night ERT was simply awesome. I can't wait to see what they'll do to try to top that.

Q1) Are you Male/Female? Male. Q2) How old are you? Too old. (44) Q3) When you go to a theme park, do you prefer riding wooden roller coasters, or steel roller coasters? It depends on the park and the coasters, but I generally prefer steel coasters. Q4) Of all the different roller coaster trains, which do you prefer and why? Seated, standing, inversion etc… I prefer a regular sitting coaster train primarily for aesthetic reasons. They generally look sleek and fast. Q5) What’s your most favourite ride? Space Mountain at Disneyland. Q6) When your on a roller coaster what do you think is the most THRILLING part of the ride? (Gives you the biggest buzz/rush?) Being at the back of a train and getting pulled over a drop. Q7) What do you think is the most SCARY part of the ride? (Makes you think twice about it?) Seeing how much some rides move makes me a little nervous sometimes. Like how the tower sways on Superman at SFMM, or how the track shakes in the "wing over" section of Flight Deck at CGA long after the train has passed, or the way the structure of almost all woodies shake and sway as the train moves along the course. Q8) Do you think roller coasters are LESS scary and thrilling after you’ve ridden them once before? In general yes, but the ride experience can differ from one visit to the next, so I'm sometimes caught off guard even on rides that I'm reasonably familiar with. Ghostrider at KBF comes to mind as a coaster I never really have a handle on as to what to expect each time I ride it. Q9) Do you like the idea of an extreme roller coaster? (Think roller coasters crossed with extreme sports) It would depend on the execution of the theme. That general idea is already in place with the Tony Hawk Big Spin coasters, and the Evel Knievel coaster. I'm sure there are other examples as well. In at least the case of those coasters I listed, being themed to an "extreme" sport (skateboarding and motorcycle stunt jumping) doesn't make the rides "extreme". Q10) Themeing… Is the theme important in the overall ride anticipation and ride satisfaction? Absolutely. Again though, the execution of the theme , or lack thereof, goes a long way in determining how effective it is in enhancing the ride experience. Q11) Queuing… Do you like to see the ride whilst in the queue? Or do you prefer the sense of not knowing what is going to happen? A little of both, but I'd lean toward the latter. Q12) Because of the direct proportionality between rides and queue length, do you prefer short ride/short queue, or long ride/long queue? I don't believe the premise of the question is entirely accurate and I don't feel that I can give a good answer without a little more information about exactly what it is that you're asking. Random examples off the top of my head: TTD is a short ride with (usually) a long wait. Colossus at SFMM is pretty long ride with (usually) a short wait. I believe the quality, or perceived quality, of a ride experience has much more to do with how long I'll wait in a queue than the actual ride length does. (If that's what you're asking) Q13) Is there anything you would like to see improved/changed with roller coasters? More attention paid to efficient operations and queue management / enforcement. It is disheartening to see a coaster obviously designed for efficient operations (Tatsu's double station immediately comes to mind) routinely operated in such a manner as to render its design mostly useless.

The coaster fanatic ballot helper is awesome. I had read a tutorial one time before on how to fill out my own ballot, but it seemed like a lot of trouble and I didn't feel like putting the required energy into it at the time. Thanks for the link to the ballot helper Robb. It made it easy enough that I had no excuse not to do it.

"The Magic" is as real as you believe it is. I choose to believe. I tip my hat and offer my sincerest thanks to all the cast members that choose to believe as well. When I look over at my wife during the fireworks show and see a small tear running down her cheek while she has the biggest smile you can imagine, I know that none of us have believed in vain. For us, the magic is real. Maybe not all time, not every single minute, but during the moments that it is real, and you feel it, you know that it can't be denied. If you feel differently, I respect your right to do so, but I feel so sorry for you that you miss out on what I feel is the whole point to begin with. As for the picture, I honestly wish I'd never seen it, but that's what I get for looking. Good discussion so far. I've enjoyed reading it.

The Jungle theatre has been underutilized for some time now, and the current viewing area for the tiger show is much too small to accomodate summer crowds. This plan makes perfect sense. It should work out well.

Yeah... Hmm... FAIL!