netdvn

Yeah... Because the US government would totally love to weaken their own economy, weaken their own country, kill thousands of their own citizens, and waste valuable time/tax money to pull a stunt like this off. If something of this size & scale was to true, it would create a massive PR nightmare for the government, something that the government hasn't really tried too hard keeping under wraps. Outside of the images of Osama's corpse, the government doesn't seem to be hiding anything anyway.

I really wish CF would do something with that water park. Last time I was at KD (in 2004), the water park looked kinda nasty and the park had an overall rundown feeling. I'm not really sure of CF renovated parts of the water park along with the Grove area this year to make the park look less tired or if the water park has changed much outside of new slides in the years I haven't gone, but I would've personally preferred seeing that lake over the water park. I heard a rumor a few years back that the old water park was gonna be removed and the lake re-expanded, but unfortunately, I don't see that happening. Seeing all those old pics, the park looked like it was in a better state back then. Can't wait to head back to KD soon to see how much the park has changed though!

Mega-lite is just Intamin's way of saying Mega Coaster below 200 ft. Blue Fire's official ride name is Blue Fire Megacoaster, so Mack is probably referring to Blue Fire on it's website. I DO agree that it gets confusing at times though, especially when two other companies classify Mega coasters as coasters 200 ft +. Technically yes if we're going by Mack's description... I'd probably classify it as a family launch coaster like Pony Express or Italian Job.

^ I don't really like the NTAG abbreviation either. I'm a bit more partial to TG2, since the upgrade is only gonna be "new" for a few years. As for the cost... Evel Knievel was worth about 7 mil. Terminator Salvation cost about 10 mil (possibly including theming). On a somewhat larger scale, Voyage was $8.5 mil. Ravine Flyer 2 was $6 mil. So a technically new steel coaster for that price is about equal if not a little more expensive than an average brand new wooden coaster or a small scale, high-thrill steel coaster (Wicked, DDD, Sky Rocket). So is this a good investment that'll pay off in the long run? I'd say yes. MILF?

Current record sits at 10,676 seconds. I had it running in the background for a few hours while I was Web surfing. This song is catchy!

Considering Oktoberfest IS a giant carnival and the area at BGW is based off of said carnival, it works. Heck, Oktoberfest is the carny-est section of the park anyway (along with Festa Italia). Just add a Schwarzkopf and some extreme rides and you'll have an authentic Oktoberfest replica. The tower is getting taller and taller every day! It's a bit taller than Griffon at this point, so BGW is working at a good pace to get this thing up and testing. I can definitely see the tower getting topped off by this weekend.

I was at the park yesterday and made some observations. The tower isn't hexagonal in shape, it's actually round like the Intamin towers... The brakes on the sides just make it look that way. The tower itself dominates the Oktoberfest skyline. It looks like just the brake sections are up right now and the tower already goes over the trees. Hopefully this doesn't mean that the brake sections take up a good portion of the ride. I'll be at the park today (no pictures though) to note any progress.

If money was no object and the TPR trip could go anywhere in the world, I'd choose the top 5 parks I want to visit most. Tokyo Disney Sea Europa Park Phantasialand Silver Dollar City Cedar Point If we were limited to a specific part of the world, I'd love to either do a China trip or a Germany/Italy trip.

Last time I checked, I've nyan'ed for 6370 seconds and counting! A pretty good feat if I say so myself! I really can't get enough of that song.

From what I've seen so far, the tower looks fine. The ride isn't really finished yet and the ride is supposed to have Oktoberfest's white stripes down the side and a yellow piece on top (at least according to the park map). But from what I've seen so far, it doesn't look bad at all. At least not bad as KD's gaudy (and faded) Nickelodeon color-scheme at least. I'll have a better look at the tower later today when I'm at the park, but so far it looks great from a distance and in pictures. Verbolten >>>>>> Generic CF and new Blackstone names.

Hello world! How are you doing today? I'm totally doing really well myself.

I was at the park on Saturday and the decoration around the station has been painted blue/white. The park was pretty busy that day with all three parking lots full of cars, but the weather was beautiful.

1) SFA does compete with BGW, it's just that BGW competes with KD more despite being in different markets. Even then, all three parks can coexist with each other. You can say that SFA competes with KD, Hersheypark, and GAdv more though (in terms of large parks). 2) SFA needs a new thrill as much as SFGAm needs a new thrill. Both parks have gone on long enough and survived without a new thrill ride and both parks have gotten pretty nice investments in recent years. I'm pretty sure something slightly bigger than upgrading SBNO waterslides will come in the second anniversary year. Considering SFGAm is the most profitable park in the SF chain, it looks like SFA's following that strategy. 3) KD seems to be the only park that advertises in the Williamsburg area too. Even with Mach Tower coming, you never really see ads for BGW and the ads that do play (generally radio ads) don't mention anything about it.

I'd just stick with TG2. It rolls off the tongue and doesn't sound like an EZ-Pass ripoff.

The people commenting are just trolling you guys. No point in getting your panties tied up in a knot over four comments. As for the new ride, I'm waiting for more clues to come out. I'm seeing some kind of hypercoaster layout (maybe the rumored second B&M coaster).

I recall reading a thread posted on SFAFans that one of their administrators linked to TPR. He basically wandered around the park taking before and after shots of the different areas of the park and noting the changes. You could clearly see the changes that the park went through from the height of the Burke era to the present. Buildings that were left to rot in the early 2000s were repainted and upgraded. Paths were repaved and there were new planters placed throughout the park. Heck, the Hurricane Harbor area was literally transformed from a drab, dated looking waterpark to a nicely themed, brighter water play area (maybe even on par with the Busch parks). If anyone has the time to find it, please post a link! Now about the employees... Any job is bound to have its bad employees, but SFA must be doing something wrong if they keep hiring the same bad employees year after year. And on top of that, SFA shouldn't be the only one to blame when it comes to bad service. Any company isn't gonna tell it's employees to do a bad job, so the employees themselves are equally at fault. Lastly, let's take a look at CGA. CGA's lost two coasters in the past 10 or so years under both Paramount and CF (this includes their flagship coaster and an inverted boomerang) and (I think) a small handful or rides. Plus a water park expansion underneath one of their former coasters and a children's area retheme. I only recall two new rides built in the 2000s (Survivor and a Wild Mouse). They're in a similar spot as SFA, except their park may get paved over in the future, yet the locals seem to act a lot more mature when it comes to their problems. I don't hear of them demanding new coasters or crying foul every time they remove a ride or go another year without something new. I've also never heard of any of them getting banned from posting on their Facebook page. - Makes me wonder what's their secret to acting more mature?

Am I the only one here that actually likes the wooden coaster? It makes the park feel like a more traditional park. On another note, the Arrow coaster looks like it takes up way more space than the woodie. Maybe if you tried a more compact layout for that, the other rides wouldn't look as cramped. The park seems a bit on the small side. Maybe utilize space a bit by putting rides on top of rides (like Indiana Beach or Blackpool). A launch coaster would be great running above some of the coasters/rides. Add some more foliage to make the different areas look a little less bare. Overall I really like the woodie! Maybe it's just me.

Wow! Complaining about getting some attention? That's definitely something I didn't expect to see in the SFA Discussion Thread. Everyone here is always complaining about being "neglected" and spouting doom and gloom, but Thomas Town and the waterslide upgrade doesn't sound like neglect to me. SF's highest performing park hasn't gotten a major coaster since 2002. Every single addition they've received since then was a family ride/attraction. SF's treating SFA the same way. OK the service does suck, but that doesn't mean that SFA's being neglected by the parent company. I kinda feel the blame should be focused on the employees more than the parent company, since the bad service seems to be consistent to only SFA. On another note, the doom and gloom is a good read.

Some of you guys have no idea what I look like. Taken in Grand Bahama last summer.

Congratulations on getting the job Zach!

US (around 30-40 states) Canada (three provinces) Mexico Bahamas (Grand Bahama and Nassau) Hopefully that will change by next year.

I recently got a job at BGW operating rides. I work in the Oktoberfest section of the park running the swings, bumper cars, and area kiddie rides. When Mach Tower opens, I'm gonna get training on that as well. A big minus is that the job is pretty fun, although it can get demanding on busy days, but interacting with guests from all over the world totally makes up for it. Making friends with coworkers is also a pretty big plus along with the free admission I get to all the Busch parks! The kiddie rides are less stressful than the big rides, but the big rides have microphones so you can interact with the guests a little better (and two people running the ride on busy days). Overall, this is a pretty fun job for what it's worth. I'm looking forward to Mach Tower and the summer season kickoff.

You need 50 posts to appease the Title Fairy. Your layouts have potential, but I'd highly recommend either making your layouts simpler or more compact to make them not only look a bit more realistic, but look better in general. A highly drawn-out, complicated layout doesn't look as good as a compact layout (which is kinda why I prefer your compact coaster layouts more than the drawn out ones). It makes the park look a bit cleaner too! Also I'd recommend adding scenery and theming around the paths since they look a bit on the bland side. There is potential, but keep working on it.

Did Afterburner-style rides even exist in 1993? I remember seeing Top Spins about as early as 1996-1997, but I don't recall seeing Afterburners around that time. This is a pretty great looking park so far though!

I got my hands on a few new brochures/maps recently. Once I can clean up my closet a bit and find a few stamps, I'll be back in the trading business.