themeparkman25

I just was at this park on the 29th and I absolutely love it, but the one thing they weren't very good at, and especially on Time Machine, was throughput. They single trained all day, albeit it wasn't too busy, but they still weren't very fast. I will post my TR soon, probably today (friday). For awhile I was indifferent as to this parks destiny, but after going, I am definitely pulling for this park.

I think the biggest bummer of the trip is that cyclone at lakeside will be closed!

Woohoo! Honorable mention, how exciting! There were a ton of great pictures, everyone I thought did a great job! This was a fun contest, I look forward to upcoming photo contests too. Jordan Darrington!!

Big Mike, I am in Denver, so on Saturday August 1st you should be at Elitches, where I work. Metro Station is playing at Elitches that day at 7pm that night, and generally the park seems to pick up steam as the day progresses. Just thought you should keep that in mind but definitely come find me, I work in the south section of the park by half pipe, tower of doom and twister. Cool! Jordan

Big Mike, just a heads up but on August 1st Metro Station will be playing at the park, so it will probably be busy (busy days are more fun to work!). I am sure you can and will get everything in but I just thought I would let you know. Looking forward to meeting you. Jordan

If I may answer, it is different colored wrist bands. White is the all day pass and then the different colored bands correspond to different times. The park PA announces when a wrist band becomes void. Sorry for stealing anyones thunder.

I am by no means a fan boy of WoF, but timberwolf isn't that bad of a ride (and I rode it in May). Yes it feels underbanked in sections and the huge helix is lame, but in the front it offered some awesome airtime and other fun moments. I would agree it is not the best coaster in the world, but at the same time it is definitely not the worst. About Patriot, I would agree it was tame but did you get some floating off the hill above the station and would you not agree it is really really smooth? I have ridden Alpey, Montu, Raptor, Silver Bullet, 3 Batmans and Patriot and have to say it wasnt my favorite but it wasn't the worst (sorry batman, you don't suck but you don't really rock). Oh well, prowler rocks and that is all the matters! Great TR, looks like you had fun.

If anyone is going to be at SFOG on monday (7/27) or Freestyle Music Park on wednesday (7/29), you should let me know. I couldn't find anybody to go on this trip with me, so I am going stag and everyone knows a little company makes it more fun. Even if it is for just part of a day.

Post some pictures!

SUMMER TRIP #3---Cowabunga Bay To start off, I want to send Shane by greatest thanks for his hospitality and to continue, a congrats on this park, it was truly awesome. We got to the park shortly after opening and was quickly greeted by friendly staff, an inviting atmosphere and the worlds biggest splash bucket! The pricing was very reasonable for tickets and offered many options for entry. Upon entry, there was a hearty helping of chairs and shade which was nice in the hot utah sun. Enough with the boring stuff though, on to the play structure and other amenities! So after a good 4-5 hours of running around in the structure, I still feel there are levels, bridges and attractions I did not get to experience. This place was HUGE. All the bridges and platforms had guns and hoses and dump buckets everywhere which was really fun to start a little battle with other people. The slides had buckets you could dump above them which made both riding and watching more fun. On top of that (literally), the two dump buckets were fun with constantly dumping water. Overall, I have to say it was probably the most fun play structure I have been in, even above aquatica. Besides that, the park offered delicious food, private cabanas for rental, an enjoyable lazy river, a wadding pool and again a very inviting atmosphere. If you have the means to check this place out, by all means DO IT! Not only are you supporting another TPR member, but it was honestly a lot of fun. Thanks again Shane for your hospitality. To the MODS- I am not sure what the size of panoramic pictures are, so if these are too large please just tell me. They were the only real way of showing how cool the place as and I want to share that through the pics. Next trip: SFOG 7/27 and FMP 7/29 I apologize that this picture is not straight, but it is of the back end of the structure...where the big bucket dumps. From the back end of the park looking at the lazy river, the bug and everything else. Entry midway. The park is really colorful which really invites people inside. You can't say that doesn't look inviting. You would be known as a liar. Worlds biggest splash bucket. There is definitely a lot of water that comes crashing down when that thing tips. This slide was fast, dark and full of water. You can also see places where the park could expand. Cool angle of the structure. It was cool finally seeing this place besides pictures posted on here. Cool sign.

SUMMER TRIP #3--- LAGOON AND COWABUNGA BAY As summer is sadly almost coming to an end, I had two remaining trips I wanted to do this summer including salt lake city and atlanta/myrtle beach. Being somewhat in the vacinity of utah, I decided to take a buddy from work and head out west to check out lagoon and cowabunga bay! My last trip of the summer will be THIS weekend to SFOG and FMP, I literally cannot wait. Lagoon: I really did enjoy this park and thought it was a great park for the city. The entry region was very fun feeling with the classic carnival type midway while still having a modern feeling with a nice jumping fountains area. Above you saw a multi colored chairlift traversing the park, pretty! Upon walking in, to your left you would see a fairly well wooded midway that had a ton of classic games to play. To your right there was a horror house, a bumper cars, more games and finally a classic (PTC?) merry go round. It was very home-y feeling and it felt even better when you saw families carrying coolers in with food. And then of course you had Roller Coaster and all its two colored wood chillin' right there as well. In the south section of the park you found roller coasters such as Fire Dragon, Wild Mouse, Spider and Wicked as well as rides like an enterprise and the chairlift terminal. We headed that way first! This area seemed to have lost its densely wooded characteristic when all the coasters were put in, every one of them (for the most part) was a wannabe Scream!. Though the rides were not sitting atop a parking lot, they were sitting on top of slabs of concrete and couldn't quite pull it off like a gci. The park still carried the carnival feeling to me for this midway with just its general feel and layout. In the north section of the park there were attractions (both regular and up charge) like the Rocket, Samarai, Top Eliminator Dragsters and a huge ferris wheel. This midway was much better wooded in my opinion and felt more modern compared to the south. However, this section was mostly up charge with the catapult (slingshot), sky coaster, go carts and the racers which kind of pulled it down a little. Regardless, it had a mondial topscan which I have to say, is now my favorite flat ride ever, so that pulled it back up. The ferris wheel was gigantic (see pictures) and offered a great view of the park, the great salt lake and also slc (salt lake city, not hang n bang). In the middle of the park was the kiddieland, a general assortment of flat rides, a ton of terraces, pioneer town and a zoo? Kiddie land was nice, though nothing unique and then of course it had typical flats like a chance turn of the century and a huss ship ride. But the thing that took me was the zoo! You hop in this tiny train (for real, I am 6' 3" and I barely fit) and cruise around the pond, which is really dirty, and see all sorts of animals. Pretty cool, though it is no BGA. Overall, I thought this was a really enjoyable park that had a nice selection of rides and had a very classic theme park feel to it. The only thing I really didn't like about the park was its pricing. It was 42 dollars for one day which just seemed really steep for a park of its size. Next up: Cowabunga Bay!! To conclude, a pretty cool dragon! Next up, CB! Of course, its the typical flat ride at night picture! Jordans favorite!! It definitely could have taken my hands off though if you held them up. All you NL fans, see the pump in this track? The kid is in his friends lap! Colussus the fire dragon! This was a fun coaster for sure. It was a pretty coaster though. I gave vekoma the benefit of the doubt and thought that mini slc would be better than big slc. I was wrong. Through the trees. Have you noticed how perfect the weather was? I am a ferris wheel fan, especially really really big ones! Whizzer > Jet star but it was still a fun one. We got stuck on the lift!!! I enjoy these coasters, and this one was definitely a fun one. It was named Wild Mouse. The launch over the hill was crazy and offered some nice airtime. This coaster was awesome! Wicked was a fun coaster with a lot of airtime, a fun zgr and some overbanked turns. I think this picture is cool. This was my first maurer spinning coaster and it was pretty enjoyable though I think I still prefer gerstlauer. It was sitting on top of a former parking lot, I love that themeing. Classic coaster with a lot of history behind it, I enjoyed this coaster. Roller Coaster through the trees from the chairlift. This is what you walk by when entering the park.

I will be working at elitches on the morning of the 1st, I will be in the south section of the park and would be honored to give big mike a ride on something!

I don't care who is ripping anything, I would just like to see two big threads to eliminate all the tiny (and IMO pointless) threads. Chuck Norris is cool, until he too gets hit in the head by a bird/goose on apollos charriot.

So here is my recent thinking, and it is TPR relevant! I don't know about you guys but I think in the Roller coaster, theme parks and donkeys thread, there should be two brand spankin' new threads. One titled "I need advice, want to help? and the other "Thread for things not worthy of their own thread". Ya, that way there aren't a hundred little threads for people asking for advice on going to parks and then there aren't 284 threads over minor things that can just be addressed in one mega thread. Agree of disagree?

It looks like you hack nothing, is that correct? And then also, it seems like you have absolutely every kind of scenery in all 3 of the rct2 programs, how did you pull that one off?

^How is it 15 minutes? RCDB says FMP and family kingdom are 3 miles apart?

^EPIC win.

FMP's website says you will soon be able to download the FMP iPhone app, but what would someone do with that?

Ghost- I will be trying something new with this model and instead of using sheets of balsa wood like I did for SheiKra, I will be using styrene. Matt (mcjaco) turned me on to it and I actually got a sample from the company to see if it is what I am looking for. I will use a heat gun to bend the plastic into the shape I want it to be, which should let me get a pretty accurate zgr. Why would you say go with afterburn? Belgian- The would be awesome, but there are a couple issues I would have with that coaster. For one, its half above ground and half beneath ground meaning I would need a HUGE base board of styrofoam to carve out all the tunnels. For two, I just don't think there is the digital media needed to build it. All the other models I have hundreds of thousands of pictures of the track along with POV's, off rides and other videos. If I could figure out how to do it, it would be an awesome coaster but realistically I don't see that one happening. rckrazy- Patriot is definitely one I am considering. Again though it is built on a hill so I would have to use styrofoam as a base and shape it as needed, but it wouldn't be anything too substantial. A positive though, I have ridden it and have my own pictures which would significantly help in the building. I haven't looked into Great Bear that much but from the pictures I have seen it seems fairly long and to run in and out of other rides and coasters. Flight deck, relatively small layout? I am not sure.

I would agree that that is an awesome coaster, but then my concern with Katun is its massive footprint. From looking at google earth on mirabilandia, I just remember it being a very drawn out coaster and not very compact. Again my primary concern is the doorway I will have to remove it from eventually. I kind of put Katun in the larger invert category along with Montu, Alpey and Raptor whereas I am looking for the smaller (MCBR-less) inverts like Silver Bullet, Talon and Afterburn.

Maybe this is the right thread for this, maybe not but who really cares. My random thought of the day is: Wouldn't it be nice to be scared on amusement attractions again? They're so second nature, I have such a hard time being legitimately scared on anything. I just think it would be nice sometimes to ride an intamin drop tower and be worried about not stopping.

I don't know if you have lost interest in these or not, but I need some help here in deciding whats next. I have already pretty much decided in my mind that this will be a B&M invert, but there are so many to chose from! I am looking for one with a smaller footprint, preferably where I can fit the base out of a door way haha. I am also looking for one that is thrilling, has nice aesthetics and would be fun to build. So far I have glanced at Talon at Dorney, Afterburn at Carowinds and the standard Batman coaster. Each have pros and cons to them, but I would like everyones opinion on what they think I should do. Do I do Talon because it is well colored and relatively easier, or do I do Afterburn because it has a better layout? Batmans would be fun, but I don't know if I would have as much fun with those as I would another custom invert. There are so many inverts out there, let me know what you want to see! I promise there is a concluding TTD update coming up soon too.

I shook Champ Baileys, the cornerback of the Denver Broncos, hand and then proceeded to give him a ride on the boomerang!

^Did it even cross your mind that they completely omitted the percy and flos relationship? You know which one I am talking about. I agree, horcruxes were poorly explained. Without the book, I wouldn't have understood the brief description they gave.

^I just saw it last night, HP6, and I agree with you. I thought they had assume cinematography and did overall a fantastic job of following the story. However, I do not agree with the corn field scene outside the burrow and nor do I think they handled the final battle scene correctly. The field I can live with but I am let down that Snape could just walk out of the castle without being touched. If anyone is on the verge of wanting to see it and not wanting to see it though, you must check it out. Definitely a fantastic movie, I give it 4/5.