JFrombaugh

Does anybody else think the Time Traveler theme (if it is not in fact being used for this new 2018 coaster) would fit in very well with something like an S&S El Loco, possibly indoors? I could see there being something like the first drop being themed to a "wormhole" or something, and then when you go past some obvious cardboard cutouts of Roman architecture on the block brake runs you realize that you've been "taken for a ride", both figuratively and literally. One of my fears is that, if this is in fact going to be a spinning coaster with similar stats to Blue Fire as the rumors suggest, you could end up going too fast while on the coaster itself to really appreciate the theming, especially the "fake time travel" storyline. For this reason I'm really hoping that there will be at least a couple of slow themed sections a la Mystery Mine/Verbolten, or maybe even something like a midcourse elevator lift thrown in.

^Weren't there a couple of names filed for Outlaw Run before they decided on Outlaw Run as well? And it'll be awhile before I forget that Carowinds filed the trademark name "Centurion" long before Fury 325 before it was officially revealed. In any case, I agree 100%...which is why I'm hoping that this is what's happening with these "names" for this new coaster.

Hmm, so judging by that news article, SDC has also filed for the name "Top Dog", which to me sounds like it would be the "rodeo" theme: So it looks like they are indeed messing with us enthuisiasts. Personally, I still think they're ultimately going to go with the silver mine theme. It would fit in the best IMO (especially with the revelation that the track will cross over Thunderation), it's already been pretty heavily alluded to that SDC would really like to make its own version of Mystery Mine, and judging by the responses for it on this and other fan sites I would be pretty surprised if one of the other two themes really did win out in the survey. As for the rumored spinning, if it were me, I would opt for the turntable platform loading option shown in the Mack Xtreme Spinning Coaster promo video, and have there be a non-spinning side of the station - both to increase capacity and so the many people who are skeptical about putting spinning cars on a Blue Fire-esque layout can still ride it. It would be easy enough to work it into the theme with something like a "Choose your ride vehicle" split in the queue.

"Ohhh holy anal sex sheep sh*t f***ing monkey bastard sh*t!" (Manhattan Express) "Oh crap. I actually said the 'oh crap' before we've even left the station. I'm pretty sure worse things are gonna come out of my mouth when we're actually on the tilt..." (Gravity Max) "AAAAAHHH LOOP DEE LOOOOP!!!" (old POV of Venus @ Space World) "This is like something I'd build in RCT and it would tell me people won't ride it!" (Atomic Coaster)

So if this is in fact true, it sounds like this will indeed be like a cross between Cobra's Curse, Mystery Mine, and Verbolten. Doesn't say whether or not the cars will actually spin the entire ride, or if it'll have a backwards section or anything like that. From the sound of it, the silver mine theme won out in the polls, and I agree that was my favorite one too (though I have to admit the time travel one would've been pretty funny & amusing). Regardless, it sure sounds like it'll be an awesome family coaster that will fit in very well with the rest of the park's lineup! SDC is still a park on my must-visit list, so I guess I'll have to make the drive up to Branson in 2018 to check this thing out! ..............PSYCHE!!! GOTCHA!!! (Sorry, I couldn't resist, I'm getting bored here with the off season and the prospect of a fairly uninteresting 2017 season save for Wave Breaker) Seriously though, I think something like this would be awesome, especially if the level of theming is as good as it seems like it will be...fingers crossed.

If you remember, Texas Giant was closed in 2009 before opening in 2011 as NTAG. Same with Wildfire, announced in March 2014, opened summer 2016. Both of these have much longer & high-profile layouts compared to most of the other conversions/new coasters from RMC that were done in less than a year. Here's a post from Screamscape explaining why SFStL hasn't given the RMC treatment to the Boss yet: So assuming CP wants to keep most of the original structure and basic layout pattern of Mean Streak intact (like SFOT did with NTAG), I would definitely put my money on this being a 2018 project. It would explain a lot...like why they've closed Mean Streak as early as they did and still haven't announced the layout yet, instead choosing to focus on promoting the water park expansion for 2017 while all the extensive prep work is going on.

I can think of two specific ones off the top of my head: When I went to CP in August 2008, the lady who was operating Maverick was really enthused and interacting with the riders. She had a pretty funny-sounding high-pitched voice and made all the normal station announcements more interesting, in particular making double sure we knew to put all our loose belongings including glasses in the bins in the station. "I am not saying this for my health - you will lose them on the ride! I don't care if you're blind without your glasses. It's better to be blind for the next two minutes than for the rest of the day because they flew off your head on the 95-degree drop!" And on my last visit to SFOT one of the best ride ops was actually the guy on the slow train tour of the park. He advised us against standing up or trying to jump off because the train moves at "a blistering speed of 2 mph!" Also "While the train is in motion, please refrain from throwing items such as coins, empty soda bottles, and younger siblings over the side of the cars, because if you don't want those items, then what on earth makes you think that WE want them??"

OMG...the last few pages aren't just a bunch of complaints that it isn't a Mack Power Splash or a Dive Machine with a splashdown??? Run for your lives, the world is ending!

It sounds to me like those photos are teasing a Dive Machine for 2017. Personally, I wouldn't complain if SFFT gets one, I've always felt it would fit in great with the rest of the park's lineup (especially if they do a midcourse vertical drop down the walls of the quarry, that'd be pretty awesome).

Has it even been confirmed that Mean Streak is getting demolished specifically to make way for this new Water Park? Because I for one would have been very surprised if CP really did do that rumored RMC transformation of Mean Streak in 2017 so soon after Valravn this year. It's not like anyone's really gonna miss Mean Streak regardless, and it makes sense for them to go this way with the plans as well - because they can take a semi-breather this coming year and focus on expanding the water park instead, then use any leftover cleared land for a completely new coaster in 2018 or 2019. I think it's about time CP got a high-quality "traditional" woodie (i.e not an I-Box RMC).

Last one I had was about me getting to ride a pair of RMC I-Box dueling coasters. I forget the name of the ride itself but the theme was a duel between a White Knight and a Black Knight, so each Knight had a coaster - basically Twisted Colossus meets Dragon Challenge. The I-Box tracks were painted to correspond with their knight, the trains were decked out in their respectively-colored armor, and the stations were painted their respective colors as well, with suits of armor and other weapons hanging from the walls to add to the theming. I remember both coasters were 175 feet tall and climbed the lifts side-by-side, but "White Knight" dropped only 145 feet while "Black Knight" dropped 165 feet, and passed under White's track in a headchopper as the two tracks crossed each other. I also remember that White's top speed was 65 mph and Black's was 70 mph. Black Knight also had a couple of inversions, while White Knight had none, instead focusing more on airtime. The two near-miss moments I remembered were: 1) Black Knight's Zero-G-Stall passing directly above one of White's airtime hills, and 2) an "opposing" High-Five, where each color went through its respective "90 DEGREES!!!" turn in opposite directions (I remember this was one of the highlights of the ride). I can't remember the exact layout of each track beyond that so I don't know which one enthusiasts would've considered "better" as such but I remember thinking that both were really awesome coasters...and needless to say I was disappointed that they didn't exist when I woke up. Maybe I'll just have to recreate them to the best of my memory in NL2 sometime...

For me it would have to be Lightning Rod. Dollywood is still a park on my "must visit" list and this thing just made it even more so. The landscaping looks amazing, and I really like the way they incorporated all the airtime hills and "90 DEGREES!!!!" turns into the big hill and forest...especially that quadruple-down.

I agree 100%. If these had been one-off occurences, that'd be one thing, but if it's happening all over the park and adds up to make a bad visit, it does reflect very badly on the park as a whole (especially if you've already read bad reviews of the park around the same time period on this board). What further compounds the issue is that even "good" Six Flags/Cedar Fair parks can have bad days. Many if not most ride ops at the large corporate chain parks in my experience are high school/college students, many of which would rather be on Facebook than dispatching the trains. A lot of medium-sized family-run parks (like Lagoon and Dollywood), by contrast, seem to hold their staff to much higher standards, emphasasizing efficiancy and friendliness (and I believe we've had that discussion in other threads about bad operations). Speaking of which, I really need to get up to Lagoon and ride Cannibal.

There's a lot of threads on here about horrible park operations, incidents, etc. But how much would you say it affects your impression of a given park in general? For me, being only a "semi" enthusiast with just a little over 100 credits, I have so far only experienced isolated incidients of poor operations at the parks I've been too (a number of annoying ride ops, texting in the station, slow loading on one or two coasters, etc.). For the most part I usually try to let those kinds of things slide and just enjoy the park, but I know some people are more easily annoyed than I am, and the little things can and do add up. The reason I ask is, I just read Coaster Grotto's updated review of Thorpe Park, and apparently the webmaster of that site had such a bad experience with customer service during his 2012 visit that he vowed never to return: http://www.coastergrotto.com/reviews/thorpe-park.jsp While I think that basing an opinion off just ONE bad visit is a little harsh, I do agree that it is justified and at the very least will affect your overall impressions of the park. Most people will only go to a given park once a year at the most so therefore a park's staff should strive to be top notch 100% of the time. But the thing that worries me is this: Having SFOT as one of my home parks, I've heard a lot of people have noticed that the operations there have really nosedived compared to years past (like Thorpe Park). Same thing with Indiana Beach, which has been on my to-visit list for awhile now...

Even with the sporadic rain policy notwithstanding, Cedar Point in general seems to be pretty hit-or-miss from what I've seen. I've had some really enthusiastic crews that were hauling butt and having a great time with the guests, and I've been stapled to death. It depends on who you get. And I'll have to second SFOT in recent years too. Slow loading seems to be a constant problem with Flying Coasters in general. I first rode Tatsu in 2006 when it opened, and the line was in excess of 2.5 hours. At first I thought this was just due to rider demand, what with it being arguably THE star new coaster of the year in general, but when I got to the station I discovered the last three rows were roped off for Fastpass users, making the line go slower than it could. Not to mention the horrible dispatch times. Haven't ridden a S:UF yet, but from what I hear it's mch the same way, especially the one at SFOG. I've seen Air at Alton Towers operated with little-to-no stacking back in the days when I was lucky enough to live in the UK, so it should be possible to do the same on the Six Flags B&M Flyers. Also, when I last visited Kings Island in the summer on a weekday Firehawk was the only coaster that had a wait time of over 1 hour. Even Diamondback and Beast were ~45 minutes.

The "Lagoon Roll" on Cannibal. It was actually designed by Lagoon's In-House engineers, hence the name. Haven't been on it yet, but it looks awesome!

Looks like an awesome ride, kind of like a mix of S:UF/Tempesto and Iron Shark. Also, is that a "Banana Roll" at 0:13 in the video?

The drop right after the Dive Loop (0:35 in the video) looks like it's got some insane ejector air.

Does anybody know what the capacity for this thing will end up being? The cars seat 12 people, and there can only be one in the elevator at a time, so assuming they average one dispatch every 90 seconds (I'm not sure how efficient Lagoon's ops are overall), that'd be...480 people per hour. Yeah, expect some long lines, especially just after opening. I've heard that on Wicked they assign you to rows to help with the low capacity, do you think Cannibal will have assigned seating too? On an unrelated note, my prediction is that the "secret element" will be a Thirteen/Verbolten-style surprise drop in the elevator section. I've always thought that would be a really cool element to have on an elevator lift, it could really freak out some GP into thinking it broke LOL

Fantasy Island in the UK is the only park I've been to that had universally bad operations. I went there to ride their two awesome vekomas in 2006, and found everything closing in the rain, Jubilee Odyssey stuck on the lift hill, Millennium Coaster taking forever to dispatch...but the real kicker is the way the market is integrated into the park, resulting in a lot of shady dealings going on, right in the middle of the park. I've heard many reports that Thorpe Park has really gone downhill under Merlin Entertainments as well.

It seems my computer got a virus. I got back from Christmas vacation and when I turned my computer on it started acting up, looking around for various settings to restore. When I restarted, Windows couldn't start because the System file was "missing or corrupt", and it's been that way since. I've heard about how many viruses add a certain value to the startup registry so that the virus runs when you start Windows, perhaps that's what happened. I'm trying to find the Windows software disk, it says I can attempt to repair the file with it...God I hope I don't have to reformat the hard drive, because I've got some files on there I REALLY don't want to lose... Now I could upgrade to Windows 7, but that'll cost me quite a bit of money out of my savings for IntimidaTour...money that I'm not sure I can spare since the second deposit of $750 is coming up in a couple months. I'm typing this from my laptop...thank god I still have that!

My favorite football team the Philadelphia Eagles just lost 20-16 to the Dallas Cowboys (a rival team that I hate with a passion) on Sunday Night Football and are now 2nd place in the NFC East. You might say "It's just one game, get over it", but what pisses me off more than anything about this loss is that the Eagles might have won if it wasn't for that 4th down turnover that Andy Reid challenged and lost (which cost the Eagles their final timeout and led to the Cowboys touchdown that put them up 20-13). It looked to me like McNabb clearly made it over the first down line before his elbow hit the ground (judging from the Eagle logo view that the announcers pointed out) but the referees didn't bother to use the chain measurement on the logo (or if they did, it wasn't shown) and placed it back behind the line, giving the Cowboys the ball. I apologize if my rant offends anyone on this board who is a Dallas Cowboys fan, but this just annoyed me tonight.

Name: Joseph Frombaugh Age: 20 What is your roller coaster count? -96 What is your home park? -Kemah Boardwalk or SFFT What is the nearest big city? -Austin What is your occupation? -Student About how many times a year do you visit a park (including your home park)? -Depends on how much money I’m able to save that year and how big the trips I do are - my home parks are pretty standard IMO and I only go to them once a year at most About how many times a year do you travel to a park that is not your home park? -Also depends on money When you travel do you go primarily to amusement parks or do you also try and hit other sites? -Would go primarily to parks if I was in charge, but the people I’m with usually want to sightsee as well, and there are some sightseeing trips I’d like to make What is the farthest you’ve traveled to go to an amusement park? -Ohio Does roller coaster time get in the way of family time? (Do you choose to miss your children’s or family’s sporting events, holidays, birthdays, etc…) -No Do you have any other major hobbies? -Yes: World of Warcraft and other video games, collecting action figures and other various things, boating, cycling Do you get feelings of sadness in the offseason? Do you even have an offseason? Do you travel during the offseason? -Sometimes I do, not old enough to travel by myself quite yet Do you consider yourself friends with someone you met who works at an amusement park? (Or reverse it, if you work or worked and an amusement park have you made friends with enthusiasts?) -No Would it bother you to go to an amusement park by yourself? -Not at all, in fact I’m often a sad and pathetic single rider on many coasters even if I’m visiting the park with others Have you gone to an amusement park by yourself? If so have you ever ran into another enthusiast and tagged along with them? -Yes. I haven’t run into any other enthusiasts to tag along with, but I’ve found some people in queues that were nice to talk to. Do you find it easy to make friends with other enthusiasts? -Tough to say, I can have quite a strong sociable streak when I'm with people I feel at ease with and who share a common interest (like coasters!) but that doesn't mean I'm outgoing by nature - often I am very shy and it takes me awhile to warm up to new people. I reckon the IntimidaTour (my first TPR Trip!) is gonna be very interesting... How do you get your coaster news? -Internet How many different forum sites do you regularly post on? -Mostly just this one! If there was a poll that asked a large pool of enthusiasts what their favorite roller coaster is, what do you think would be the top 3 responses be for wood? And for steel? -Wood: Voyage, El Toro, Thunderhead -Steel: S:RoS/Bizarro, Millenium Force, X2 Same scenario but for amusement parks, what would be the top 3? -Cedar Point, Holiday World, SFGAdv Have you ever “stole a kid” to get a credit on a kiddie coaster? -No, and I don’t even usually ride kiddie coasters unless I’m with someone else that wants to Do you cut other categories out of your budget to make trips to parks? (Entertainment, fast food, holidays, tobacco or alcohol, etc…) -Yes, but it’s often kinda spur-of-the-moment, and I'm a big spender Before you visit a new park do you research the park finding the best way to navigate the park, get the best deals, or what days to go? -No, I usually only care about the coasters and park operations Do you feel the roller coaster enthusiast community is a warm and accepting community, or a negative and discouraging community? -Kinda both in many regards, depends on who you meet Do you like to talk about your hobby with people who are not roller coaster enthusiasts? -Absolutely

^^Sorry, I thought you meant that if enough people rode bikes to work - pedal or motorcycle - then they'd build smaller parking spaces that could be used by both types of bikes.

^Back in the days when I worked as a sacker at Kroger (painful memories ) I sometimes rode my bike into work. They had a bike rack outside the store that I would just use, and U-Lock my bike to it before going into work. I'm a pretty avid cyclist. While we're on this subject of parking, that reminds me - I'm living with my Dad up in Austin now, and am attending Austin Community College. The South Austin campus is within walking distance of my Dad's apartment, but since classes fill up fast here, most of my classes are at the more distant and larger Northridge and Eastview campuses. Anyway, parking at the Northridge and Eastview campuses is an absolute nightmare. It's not uncommon to spend 10-15 minutes circling around the various lots (and there are about seven or eight of them total!) trying to find a place to park. When you get there 15 minutes early and are still late to class, you know it's really getting out of hand. But that's just the first half of my rant. Last week at Northridge while trying to find a spot I saw a guy backing out and leaving, so after he was out I quickly pulled into it. But someone on the other side who apparently wanted that space blasted his horn at me like he was entitled to have that space even though I was closer to it. Parking can be a real rat race sometimes, if someone beats you to the spot you want, it sucks, but just move on. It really annoys me that so many people down here are egocentric and hypocritical in believing in their own freedom, but not nessecarily in the right for others to have the same freedom.