tuxedomask5432

Thanks to Robb, Elisa, and Brad with Six Flags for setting everything up for us today! This was my first TPR event, and it did not disappoint. I loved the water cup challenge, even though not a drop remained in my cup. I loved night ERT on Goliath, and GASM was running better than ever this evening! I'm so happy to meet new friends including Rebecca, Jonathan, and David. Can't wait for more fun next time.

So I had my ticket ready a while ago. Then, I just saw this huge list of every great ride at Six Flags Over Georgia. And now I'm dying to find out what rides we'll be riding at night. Seems like something I never get to do even though I go to the park on a regular basis. Countdown begins . . .

I just rode it today, and I agree that it's like a wild mouse on steroids! The layout was Definitely more extreme than Dollywood's Mystery Mine. The restraints made the ride exciting and free! I loved all of the inversions. Can't wait to go back and ride again. I hope more parks catch on to this technology of restraints.

I was wondering if anyone had any insight for the Season Pass Holder preview coming up this Friday on the 27th. Does it start right away when the park opens? Or will it more than likely be later in the afternoon. Please advise!

I concur, I rode Ninja in the blue train today, and it's great in that magical row. Instead of headbanging it feels more like the train is shimmying beneath you. I was almost tempted to ride it again. Is the other black train still crappy?

I'll never forget watching "3,2,1 Contact" on PBS as a child. One one particular episode, they featured an old school "free-fall" drop tower ride (park unknown). Of course no one can forget an episode of "NOVA" with Drachen Fire and Grizzly. Some television show in the 1990's (some today show type program) featured professional WWF wrestlers marathoning rides on Batman: The Ride at SFMM. And I remember how the reporters on the show mentioned that the G forces were so strong that they distorted their video camera's image. Finally, here is one that many not know of: "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" (1968) This movie filmed a few scenes at Dorney Park and featured rides on the Thunderhawk, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Scrambler, and The Pirates Cove. Apparently, a "Kid's Bop" video featuring "Move Along" by The All American Rejects was filmed at Dorney Park as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorney_Park_&_Wildwater_Kingdom

Yay!!! 17/20 and no cheating!!! Somehow, I got the Japanese spelling question correct, and that North Korean park question tripped me up too.

Thankfully, I got that credit back in like '93 when it was still called The Red Devil Roller Coaster. Granted, it poured down rain the entire time, but I got a few solo rides in. My friend here in Charlotte went out there before that coaster went SBNO. She said that she was also the only one riding the coaster. Upon approaching the station, she realized she wasn't slowing down. The ops informed her she would be riding again. Apparently the station breaks were not working and she said like 15 guys had to physically stop the train from moving. INSANE.

Wow, that was lots of fun to read and see. I've only been to the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. However, the last time i was at EPCOT it was 1989 during its "golden years" I don't think that I can imagine what it must be like without Journey Into Imagination. My family spent HOURS in that attraction, due to the very unique interactive exhibits. I can't say that Horizons was all that interesting, so I don't believe I would miss that attraction. Overall, I think that EPCOT is not very interesting for children. It seemed like we were walking through an overgrown museum exhibit. But I'm glad you had a good time.

Yea, I rode Hurler on friday as well. The ride seemed plenty exciting to me. Looking back, I had no idea that a trim brake was installed on that ride. Knowing this information, the ride did seem less aggressive on the banks before the turns. The first bunny hop certainly gave a ton of airtime, and squashed my full bladder. I had a feeling that Intimidator would have "check" brakes installed at some point. I don't think it will detract terribly from the ride. Goliath's (SFOG) did not during its first season, and Diamondback's was not bad either. The mid-course was the biggest detraction on Kings Island's installment, hopefully it will not be one on Intimidator.

So yea, the coaster is coming along great. And this still is the Carowinds discussion thread, not just the Intimidator discussion thread. So I want to know if anyone went to Scarowinds last weekend, and if it was stupid busy like I heard it was. Also, i'm going this friday . . . .EEEEEK. And i'm worried its going to be REALLY busy. I've never been before, can anyone enlighten me? And what should we do if there are alot of people? Are there any attractions that crowds tend to stay away from, or that the lines move quickly? Thanks for your help!!

Oops, well I took those down. Enjoy the rest of my photos.

Hi all, Please bear with me as this is my first photo TR and I took all the pictures with my Nokia 5310 Xpress Music phone. I went to Cincinnati to visit my sister and her husband, but mostly to go to Kings Island for the first time ever. It was General Electric Day and the park was completely DEAD. I wasn't complaining about coaster marathoning, but my mom and sister sure got sick from it. I rode Diamondback 5 times that day in 5 different seats. I felt like the middle gave the highest percentage of airtime overall, while the front had some really decent ejector. The back had an out of control feeling on the first drop and some floater air for the remainder. As I've been anticipating riding The Beast since my childhood, my high hopes were somewhat dashed by the excessive use of trim breaks throughout the entire ride. Gone was that out of control feeling I saw on old videos, gone was any iota of airtime. The final helices were definitely the highlight of that ride. Anyway, onto the photos. Marquee! As you can see, the park was "sold out." Thanks for reading! Further conformation that Kings Island is preparing for the Christmas crowds. Goodbye park, and one of the two smoothest Vekomas I've been on. The other one is also at this park. Geez, you think that Kinzel would get a bigger head stone, seeing as he's finally landed a world class coaster at Carowinds. I saw the Carowinds version of this car pulling into the "Arowinds Tire and Lube" place the other day. Confirmation that Kings Island will be open for Christmas this year. Yup, Ohio residents hate Michigan this much. Plastic Junk Dora Crap Uh oh, King's Island is having a sale! I wonder what's inside. Darn, I just missed the sun. YAY, fountains at sunset. This ain't your mother's nursery. Freaky clowns and stuffed animals. Its the Eiffel Tower, sponsored by General Electric. Uh, watch out for this Bone Collector I like this Diamondback logo the most. Yup this was the entire wait for Diamondback. What on earth is that girl up front doing with her mouth?!? I guess that wont be necessary. This was my wait for Diamondback. This is reserved for Son of Beast next year. Oh no! Diamondback is exploding! YAY ARROW! The first drop on this ride was insane. Its Vortex, THROUGH THE BEAST! Yup, there's the ride op coming to talk to us. So The Beast had a safety cut out, and I was forced to sit on it for 10 minutes. Here's a lift chain nerd shot. YES, FINALLY. I've been waiting my whole life for this. What is this place, a used car dealership? Due to no lines, there were multiple re-rides without leaving the station. The gents behind me rode this 10 times in a row. Two times in a row was enough for me. YAY for Arrow! Shouldn't this thing be lit up? Further confirmation that Kings Island is Area 51. As if you were allowed to smoke before this point. This is where they are holding the engineers from RCCA. I love these signs. It just goes to show you how the American general public will try anything, if there is no sign telling you not to. YAY for indoor LIM launched coasters! This was my first one. How can they denote this area as its own "land" and not have it labeled as such on the park map. LONG lit tunnel, these ride ops were the slowest all day. The extensive menu from LT. Dan's Bar, where they served Beer, Wine, and LIQUOR?????? As you can see, Kings Island really cares about the decor for their beer drinking, cigarette smoking patrons. YAY for BEER! For GE day, they were running this special. The funny part is, the price was only $5 during the morning. Apparently, Area 51 is now a ride called Delirium. I love drop towers, and this one was insanely tall! Yea, the Action Zone is full of it today. Just looking at this jumbled mess of twigs was thrilling enough for me. Cedar Fair has decided to rename Son of Beast, Club Blood, in honor of its unparalleled safety record. This is the "scenery" from the Railroad Diamondback from the K.I. Railroad

X's queue was alot of switch backs, and pink walls with lots of yellow slogans. At least before they changed the themeing. The line was painfully long (3 hours) and seemed to be such a short ride. The whole time I was waiting, I kept seeing Viper's trains cycling wishing i was on that instead. I was a big fan of Mind Bender's queue at SFOG before they changed it to Riddler theming. There was an awesome sign of this man comming out of an iron lung type device with multiple holes. The man was like all elastic, and his head was coming out where is legs should be, etc. The line itself was ALL underneath huge trees and shaded. You couldn't see the ride from any point in the line, making it seem a lot more exciting once you got on. Also, There were big wooden posts that made up the barriers that were useful as stools. Now the queue is all wobbly metal railing that snakes through a somewhat shaded area which reveals the first drop and the first loop. LAME.

How many children have ADHD and are NOT taking medication??? This past weekend, I was at the beach and my two cousins were so doped out they didn't eat, nor were they bouncing off the walls either. Although I disagree with these solutions, won't most of these kids be on meds in order to cope with such a "BORING" situation? Standing in line is not always boring. The games you play to keep yourself distracted, the sights and the sounds of the rides in motion, and the anticipation right before getting on surely makes standing in line at a theme park different from standing in line at the bank. The only thing that irks me about lines is when people cut in front of me, or its a line that never seems to move. Although flash and disability pass requires those people to wait the same amount of time, the general public just sees those people taking the spot they were about to get in. What will people say when a child who appears perfectly normal on the outside, just waltzes into their seat?

So here's an interesting article through the BBC about children with ADHD that are allowed to go to the front of the line at theme parks, because they cannot "wait." What does everyone else think about this? Here's the article and the original post http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8232633.stm

When I went to Cedar Point in 2007, there was definitely NO shortage of children playing and riding rides in planet snoopy. As a child, Hanna Barbara land at Carowinds was great, but wasn't really much more than a few signs with the ride slogan and a character portrait. Peanuts is timeless, and even if kids don't know who they are right away, their parents will tell them all about it. Nickelodeon is a Viacom label as is Paramount Parks, so they never had to purchase the rights to utilize the the Nick characters. But now, when I go to Carowinds, half of the characters they feature don't even have airtime on regular Nickelodeon (maybe Nicktoon Channel). Truthfully, after Cedar Fair purchased the parks, I could see them ditching the Nick label as a cost cutting measure.

YAY! I only live ten minutes away. It will be like having my own hyper coaster in my backyard. After a 7-mile driveway, of course. I love the 2nd twisting drop, the wicked Panoramic U-Turn, and the inclined helix finale. Trims don't really ruin Goliath for me that much, and after September 13th, I'll know what to expect more after riding Diamondback. I think that hearing this discussion is interesting, as some people are criticizing a concept that used to be a rare thing. Its funny to think that we live in a time now where people are actually bashing hyper and GIGA coasters, because they're so common. During the late 80s and early 90s, the only hypers in America were Magnum XL-200, Desperado, Steel Force, and I guess Steel Eel (not over 200 ft.) These coasters, very expensive, were not built that often. I mean the world has been getting a new hyper-coaster practically every year since 2000. A LOT of the general public still fears going up high, and the pure sensation of speed will serve to bring tons of people to Carowinds. Way to go!!!

I really enjoyed riding Maverick at Cedar Point, and Stealth at Thorpe Park. The sensation of airtime, even with the OTSR, was especially prominent on Maverick. Some people have noted a "Karate-Chopping" effect with these devices. I never hurt my neck, like people have said, but received a few bruises when not holding onto the restraint's hand-holds. Maverick's twisted horseshoe roll (one of the more extreme transitions) could have caused most of it. Despite all that, I felt safe, relatively free, and open during the ride. I think the restraints will work fine for the new coaster, which I think looks awesome. The pacing is relentlessly fast, and barely slows down, especially in comparison to MF's huge overbanked turns. Although there's only 5 or 6 ( I can't remember) moments of airtime, the rides speed and abundance of positive g forces should make up and provide for an exciting ride. I guess I'll have to make a Virginia trip next year.

I guess this is what happens when you try to design a wooden coaster like a steel hyper coaster. IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Man, I'm kinda upset about not being able to ride Son of Beast during my first trip to Kings Island. But, from what my sister has said about the ride, waiting in line to ride an earthquake coupled with a headache is just not worth it. Seems to be leading a similar path as the Rattler did at Fiesta Texas. Of course, would Cedar Fair be willing to completely alter the track's profile in order to save the mess that Paramount left behind? Like others have said, it would be beneficial and financially sound to replace it with something else. Maybe they could utilize the wood to create a whole new coaster. I guess that's left to be determined.

Geez . . . and I thought I had seen all the pictures there were to see of the construction site. Thanks for pulling that up for me. Kind of makes me a little discouraged now. I've wanted to ride a B & M twister coaster, but not the neutered Raging Bull.

I'm just making an observation based on these two photos: http://www.carowindsconnection.com/download/file.php?id=210 http://www.carowindsconnection.com/download/file.php?id=213 I don't see a footprint for an out and back coaster, it dosen't seem long enough and the sanctioned off "dirt" area ends between the Putz HQ Theatre and Taxi Chase. Does anyone HAVE any pictures of the footers poured near the south gate?????? I would like to see these alleged footers. I'm praying for a Hyper Twister Coaster. With all the out and back B & M's we've had built in the last 4 years a twister would be a welcome addition to the company's portfolio.

I'm going to Kings Island during General Electric's company outing on the 12th and 13th of september! I'm so excited! No lines, except for the major, new attractions. And I've never been to Kings Island before!

Hello All, If I get to verbose please bare with me. I don't have any pictures, and I had a VERY interesting experience in a VERY short amount of time at Carowinds, the evening of the 6th. If you insist, you can skip down to the bottom where i speculate about the track site. I've hit up the twilight pass at Cedar Point when I visited there, some of my co-workers at a restaurant/bar I work at were going to Carowinds twilight deal. Fortunately, I just happened to be there when they were talking about it. Of course, I couldn't turn down their offer, and it was only 26 dollars! So we were through the gate by 4:30 and the park closed at 8 o'clock. Unbelievably, one of the female coworkers (there were 2 guys and 2 girls all together) had a bout with nostalgia and wanted to ride the Kaleidoscope (scrambler). I like those rides so, I had no qualms about doing so. Then we skipped Vortex and traveled to the Carolina Cyclone to get things warmed up, especially since the ladies did not want to ride the hurler. Upon arriving to the station I was filled with dismay. The station platform was totally full, and the rest of the rides seemed to have walk on lines at first glance. Our party came to find out they were only running one train, which was terribly unusual as ALL of the other coasters were running two trains, even Thunder Road on BOTH sides. In the station, we had planned on sitting in the last seat to get that nice pop of air on the first drop. Unfortunately, there were very rude teenage patrons who had no concern for those around them and added three people in front of us, in line. They were also cursing, and using the open restrains as hand holds pushing them down in front of other boarding patrons. The ride was fun, and a nice warm up. And luckily we were rid of the rude teenagers. Next, we walked over to the Carolina Cobra, and I was very excited as I've never been on a traditional Boomerang (I know, I know). I've been on Deja Vu at SFMM and SFOG and thought they were both superior and shocking rides. Of course, while standing in line this ride seemed VERY shocking too as it climbed up the 2nd spike. The ride's fallback lever made its usual clacking sound, but then the train suddenly LURCHED to a complete stop with 2 very loud sounds. I assume these sounds are some kind of brakes to keep the ride from rolling back and stalling in the cobra roll. But the violent motion in which the whole train shook and the coaster as well, was slightly unsettling. So since we were on a time constraint, we quickly abandoned the line in hopes of coming back later. We continued to TOP GU . . . er After Burn (which is what I had after dinner this evening) and had a one train wait to board the 7th row. The ride was phenomenal and takes my number one spot for an Invert. Batman clones have extreme forces much like this ride, and much more than TDDragons or Raptor. The Layout of After Burn is what makes this coaster, the steep terrain, the ravines and tunnels you plunge through (even though the mist was off). After jumping off that ride, we continued to Thunder Road, where one sat out and three of us sat in three different seats on the 3rd car. I picked the middle cause I was seeing if the theory that applied on The Great American Scream Machine at SFOG (sitting in the middle seat on a car) worked with thunder road. It CERTAINLY did for me, and I enjoyed a rather smooth ride, especially after they rebuilt most of the ride. The transitions from new to old were noticeable. My friends who sat on wheel seats, had a very rough and terrible experience. And it gave the lady a stomach ache. We did spot the track thats been placed in the staging area and it appears to be only a low grade incline to a brake-run so far. But, we continued on to Nighthawk (UGH). This had the longest line in the park (even more than cobras) due to the extremely long loading times. Of course, even if they had dual stations, they would never hire 6 people instead of 3, just like SFOG! The RIDE, very forceless and shaky, would not have been missed by me, since I endured it for the first time last summer. But so many people can't get over the novelty of riding on your back and flipping over on your stomach. Next was Cobra, since we were right around the corner, via the pathway that used to be the circular lake surrounding former Smurf Island. We got on this time (the very back) and we didn't get stuck! One more credit for me. The ride was fun, but not as exciting as the SUPER INVERTED boomerang. Not too terribly shaky at all, except for one side of the cobra roll. To speed things up, we were getting through the park quickly as we only had 40 minutes left. We hit up Carolina Goldrusher (FUN), Vortex (full of vibration and a minor ear banger), and the other gentleman that was with us rode the Hurler with me. He had never been to the park so i tried to take him on as many coasters as possible. I must say that the Hurler was running way faster than the video on my http://www.youtube.com/user/tuxedomask5432 page. But it felt like the train was tearing through the track and some transitions were rather violent. AS for the construction site. I'm not sure if my depth of field is off but I don't see the parameters traveling all the way to the south entrance. And it dosen't seem like they're pouring any more footers further down the parking lot in that direction. Perhaps I'm wrong, and they will expand further south later. Now, the area seems to be an hourglass shape area in which to build the coaster, with two bulbous endings and a narrow neck. I HOPE we get a B&M Twister hyper, like Raging Bull sans trim breaks, at least for the first 5 years. Well thanks for bearing with me all who have read. Hope you have a pleasant day.