CoasterGuy06

When I was there Wednesday it opened late (between 11-11:30). I Rode it about 1 after a 45 minute wait. Both trains were running. When I came back by that way a little after 3 it was down, and from what I heard it was pretty much down the rest of the day. I was planning on staying until closing, but by 8pm they were telling people it would not be back up again that day.

And the ride closing is.....

Those stairs were actually built for the very short lived Dino Domain walk through attraction that was only there for 1999. There was a building up there too that was used as the haunted house for Scare Fest when they had it (last in 2004). When Stratos Fear Screamer was built in 2001 you also used those steps to get to the attraction, but when Southland Entertainment split the park up in 2003 they blocked them up. Plus I had to use them everyday when I parked next to the old haunted house

Arrow showed Vekoma how to make their track so they didn't have to ship it from the US. I believe RMC is still making the track for all their rides.

It was repainted in 2007. It just seems like it was a really terrible paint job that did not hold up.

To be fair, the old Ninja Trains were nearly 30 years old.

Sunday is a Bring A Friend Free day. It will be crowded. If you get there early you should be able to get on most rides with minimal waits the first couple of hours, but it will start to fill up after Noon or so. I went last year on Mother's day and was able to get on Batman, Mindbender, Goliath, Ninja, Great American Scream Machine, Superman, and Dahlonega Mine Train by about 12:30. The lines started picking up then, and as I was only there to try Batman Backwards I left.

Good to see they're still triple stacking Diamondback this season

White Water West still makes log flumes through their division the have with their Hopkins Rides purchase. They built one in Canada in 2014 and their built a Super Flume (like Fiesta Texas and Dollywood have) in South Korea in 2015.

But did those trains actually lose seats though? I thought they received new trains back in 2009 that didn't have seats there, as that was where the audio box was?

I'm guessing the fact they keep putting "Ninja" is a hint the name is going to change. They don't put any other ride in quotations. Maybe they will use a name that still has a theme that will allow the statues to still make sense.

No real news today.

The park's all time attendance high was nearly 20 years ago. Why would they enlarge the actual park area when they are likely to stay in the 3-3.5 million a year range for the foreseeable future?

^Mindbender received a plaque during the 2008 CC.

Supposedly Goliath's trains are getting major work done this year that is causing them to take longer for rehab. Again, they have literally cut their off season in half. It's much easier to get trains done with a 21 week offseason (Carowinds) vs a 10 week offseason (SFOG). I'm sorry, but I enjoyed riding coasters in December when I was in Atlanta. If the trade off is fewer trains in March then I'll take it. But maybe that is just me.

Part of the problem is they have had several weeks of offseason disappear thanks to Holiday In The Park.

My understanding is each park's contract with Panda Express has different expiration dates, and Chop Six is replacing them as they expire.

Yesterday the park posted the schedule for the new rides opening on their twitter account. Source: Six Flags Fiesta Texas twitter

"The New Revolution" is the VR experience. The coaster is still Ninja.

I saw an interview with Fred Grubb recently where he said that as of now they are no longer offering Topper Track repairs to existing wooden coasters because of how busy they are with new builds/ full layout conversions.

Apparently Valleyfair received the old Ghost Rider trains. Those lap bars do look old, so I guess it's true.

^Exactly. The first season I was a rides supervisor I we had to keep a downtime log. The day with the most downtime by far was opening day, and a lot of it was because new employees would call rides down because of a noise they heard that was actually a normal noise, they just were still getting use to the ride.

1. Preview Day is a Wednesday and Thursday at a seasonal park that depends on local employees, with opening day on Good Friday. I'm guessing most schools are out for Spring Break, hence them being open for those days. I'm also going to guess based on experience that many of those employees had spring break plans prior to them being hired by Six Flags too. 2. They are literally giving you a two weeks notice. Remember when Cedar Point gave a whole 4 days notice that Maverick's opening was being delayed? Magic Mountain extended their hours less than two weeks ago AND added three extra BAF days because they were so busy. Also a park like Cedar Point has thousands of employees that live right on park property. It's very easy to have them stay longer. As someone that use to be a supervisor at a park that had large amounts of young seasonal employees, you can't just tell a bunch of high school kids "Hey we're busy so we need to to stay an extra hour or two even though your parents are waiting in the employee lot to pick you up."

Ninja would at least be the 4th coaster to get painted on my list (after Scorcher, Superman, and Goliath), however Batman, Scorcher, and Mindbender have all been painted more recently than Ninja. I guess it is time for new paint.

Canada's Wonderland wanted to build a B&M invert in 1995. Cedar Point had a 200 mile exclusive window on inverted coasters, and CW was in that zone. They got their Vekoma SLC instead. Story was told here.