bigboy

Not only did they know he was spending money with Cedar Fair, they didn't care. But they called anyway.

Don't make any solid plans until the operating schedule comes out. They ran that second week of spring break last year because a handful of local school districts and schools in Oklahoma had a different break than most of the local districts. I don't believe that is the case in 2017 or at least not to the same degree as this year, so there's a good chance the park may only run one week. If they run 2 weeks, aim for the one that's opposite of when Arlington, Fort Worth, and Dallas are on break. I haven't been on Judge this year, but it got some attention last off season and I remember hearing that it was riding much better.

I wouldn't be so sure that this is for a new bumper cars ride for a few reasons: the permit was applied for in December 2015, issued in January of this year, and expires in December of this year. That doesn't sound like something new for next year. The old bumper cars building had been used for a haunted house and was demolished because the city would no longer permit for such use. I think it's more likely that this permit is for a new, semi-permanent building for a haunted house on the old bumper cars site and the label "Bumper Cars" is being applied purely for geography reasons. Finally, the park is listed as the general contractor. It's highly unlikely that the park would build a new ride or the structure for a new ride in-house, but they typically do the haunted house construction in-house. That's my two cents.

There's a benefit to not having a human inside of a hot costume that requires frequent breaks. That likely requires a doubling and tripling up of staff that would no longer be necessary.

It's probably worth noting that the guy behind this proposal has been turned away before for not being able to pull the money together. I would put this in the "believe it when it happens" category.

Uber would be your best bet. No public transportation to the park and a taxi would probably be a lot more expensive than Uber. You could maybe save a little by taking the Trinity Railway Express commuter train from downtown Dallas to Centreport Station and then Uber from there. You would just have to decide if it's worth it to take twice as long to get there to save 10 or 15 bucks.

That's good. They may be giving good rates to sell out their rooms this close to the event. I wouldn't recommend walking to the park unless you're south of 30 and west of 360.

The AT&T Stadium traffic tends to be worse closer in to the stadium and more of a problem on the north and west sides (away from the park). If you approach the park from the Six Flags Dr. intersections near 30 and 360, you should be okay. If there's traffic getting into the park, it will likely be because the weather is nice, the park is busy, and there's a bring-a-friend promotion. If you're going to be driving yourself, look for hotels farther out. The DFW area has no shortage of decent hotels and I would think you could get the price down if you stay farther out.

Vintage?!?! That map is from either 1990 or 1991! (has Texas Giant - opened in 1990 - and the dolphin/dive show arena - removed after 1991 season) That is a cool map. Glad you had a good day at the park. I'm betting the long operating hours, cool weather in the morning, and the fact that it was the last day of spring break made it a great day to visit.

Backstage area, but the pic was taken from a public path. If he panned up and to the left, you would see the top of Shockwave's lift. The road goes around the back of the amphitheater to the park's ice plant and eventually dumps out by the warehouse and maintenance shops.

Even with the RMC coasters, it's a unique, custom installation each time. If they build 3 a year for the same customer, the redundancy in the process between them all is going to be minimal. I can almost buy that argument with the Sally and S&S products, but you're still talking about manufacturing less than 5 in a year for the same customer. That's not bulk in my opinion and you're still looking at a scale of production where there's very little room for discount.

Just my strictly amateur opinion: You buy things in bulk that are manufactured in bulk at a relatively low cost: toilet paper, soda, ink pens, yogurt, etc. You don't buy in bulk $15-20 million dollar pieces of equipment like roller coasters that each have their own unique location, design, engineering process, and fabricated parts. They're priced according to how much they cost the seller to design, manufacture, and build. My guess is that there's very little room for "buy 2, get the next half price!" bulk discounting.

Yeah, they purchased it at least 15 years ago.

The first one was in 1985.

Are there any parks outside of Florida and California that have daily operation in April? This area generally doesn't have enough tourism business with school in to justify daily ops beyond May through August.

In 2015, they started opening daily on Thursday, May 14, with Memorial Day being on the 25th. In 2016, Memorial Day isn't until the 30th, so daily operation may not start until around the 19th or 20th.

Yeah, I think the airport is closing in on 5 inches since 3:00 yesterday afternoon. Light to moderate for sure. The rain is supposed to start clearing out late in the day on Saturday. The flooding goes away as quick as it rises, so as long as they can clean it up in a reasonable time, I wouldn't expect anything to be closed Sunday. If tonight and most of tomorrow are a rainout, Sunday crowds could be pretty heavy.

The weather has certainly been good to the park the last several weeks, but that's about to change. The rain is supposed to move out in the late afternoon on Saturday, so that night might be one of the best to enjoy Fright Fest without the shoulder to shoulder crowd.

I've heard that the city is making the park tear down the bumper cars building because of its poor condition. There's plenty of room for both new rides in that area, especially if they push into part of the parking lot area for the old shopping center.

Assuming Crazy Legs is staying put and getting rethemed where it's at, I think it's a pretty safe guess that the other 2 rides will go on the former site of Flashback and Bumper Cars. I heard months ago that the old Bumper Cars building will be demolished soon.

Interesting. Maybe the heat is clearing the place out in the late afternoon. We may give tomorrow night a shot. I heard from someone I know at the park earlier in the summer that Justice League may have an extended shutdown in August to straighten out its issues before the busy fall season. Sounds like it may not be needed.

What ^he^ said. Except that they're looking to add additional space, not replace what they have. And that's what I've heard was the plan for that space since they took it over, so I would be surprised if it didn't turn out to be true. I've heard at the very least that the shopping center will be coming down soon because it's in such bad shape.

If what I've heard is coming next year is true, everyone might want to turn down the excitement a few ticks about their plans for the shopping center.

Standard procedure on all of the coasters in the park since the season after the NTAG accident. It was a rule for the park back in the 90's that went away in the early 00's, the theory being that there are 2 people in the last loaded seat on a train that can see any incident that might happen along the way. A little silly, yes, but it's just something you have to deal with at the park. And, honestly, there's little difference between riding in the last seat or the second to last seat on any of the coasters in the park, including NTAG and Titan.

The track movement on Shockwave has nothing to do with its age. It was designed to have give and it has always done that. Many wood coasters did the same thing. There were parts of the Texas Giant structure prior to the redo that swayed a good 2 feet after the train went through. For all I know, it still does it. I haven't really paid attention to it.