netdvn

Sigh... I was hoping this was gonna be one of the few parks that Six Flags didn't get involved with since almost every single major park being "built" using RCT has either been a Six Flags park or gets bought out by the chain. I would've preferred Herschend or Blackstone myself considering the amazing attention to detail being put into the project (and the fact that it could totally work in conjunction with Dollywood). Oh well...The project looks amazing nevertheless.

Busch has always traditionally stuck with B&M because of their reliability. Because B&M has pretty much run out of new options for the Busch parks to install, it's very likely that Busch will be the first US chain to pick one of these up. Now with Blackstone investing some money into the chain, there may be a difference.

OTSRs are not that bad, not everything can have a lap bar you know. And.....your are calling B&M rides forceless!? You seem to have strange expectations for this ride....but thats my opinion. Trolling people on TPR is about as fun as trolling people on Omegle. EDIT: On second thought... Gardaland is spoiled because they get a B&M prototype while SFA gets the shaft.

I can't believe this ride has OTSRS. OTSRs always make any ride worse. What? B&M is doing a wing-walker prototype? I bet it will be as forceless as all the other new B&Ms being built. No rings? No heartline roll lift hill? I'm already disappointed. They better include seating for service animals.

I posted this in someone else's BGW help thread. Hope this helps you. As for places to eat, there is a good restaurant in the San Marco area (near the bridge that connects San Marco to Oktoberfest) that also comes with a pretty nice show if you'd like some entertainment with your meal. As for Quick Queue... I've never had to use it personally because I normally hit the park at a dead time or I ride everything early. Crowds shouldn't be too bad early in the day though (crowds may pick up later when the locals get off work and Illuminights takes place).

Woke up early for summer classes. Favorite morning radio show was 100% static/interference from a radio station hundreds of miles away. Listening to my favorite morning show host that quit last summer back on the air again in PA Chemistry test... I suck at taking tests. Headphones crapped out on me at the worst possible time TPR and a school day ending right before lunch. Homework + babysitting =

Today, I just realized that iPod-style headphones are the absolute WORST headphones ever. Even the really well built ones like Phillips have a tendency to crap out on you after about a year of use. This is the FOURTH pair of earbud headphones that I've gone through where one side goes dead. Two cheap pairs (which is expected) and two decent pairs (where one got fixed). It really pisses me off. But at least I get to listen to my two favorite morning show hosts again.

No.... Adding rides doesn't do anything but put the park into more debt. On top of that, you need to build the right ride for the park in order to keep churning people through the gate. And the park needs to figure a way to make money off of this investment (whether its jacking up food and parking or something else). Again... Look at my Magic Kingdom example... The park hasn't gotten anything major since Splash while the other Disney parks get all kinds of E-Ticket attractions, yet MK is still ONE OF THE MOST VISITED PARKS IN THE WORLD. Not just the US, not just North America, but the world. Until SFA can get its reputation straight, I don't see a new major ride bringing anybody in.

^ - Nobody said that from what I read. The park isn't big enough to support a large capital investment simply because the park doesn't make enough money to get one (compared to the bigger parks in the chain). - Adding an 305-sized coaster will attract people to the park, but the real question are 1) "Will it attract enough people to pay off the ride as soon as possible?" 2) "Will it attract people with money (families) or people that don't buy stuff as often/don't have much money?" 3) "What if the ride cannot be paid off?" What are the alternatives?" Again, keep in mind, SF added tons of new big rides in the late 90s/early 00s and look at where it got the chain as a whole... A full-year haunted house is an interesting idea, but winters can get pretty cold up in Maryland. I'm not sure if people are willing to go out and visit a haunted house in the middle of winter.

Then explain why Magic Kingdom is still the most visited park in the world when the last E-Ticket ride they got was in 1992. SF added a ton of new stuff to the park in the late-90s, early 00s so there wasn't a lack of continued investment anywhere. At least until CF took over. This issue arose not too long ago, but IIRC, the park didn't have that big of an issue with the 49ers a few years ago when Paramount owned the park. That would've been the perfect time to invest in a large-scale family coaster or something similar. I mentioned that because everyone was praising Weber for "not neglecting all the other parks in the chain". The fact that SFA doesn't have that high of attendance compared to SFMM and SFGAm means that they can't build major projects without going into more debt. Parks like MM and GAdv are big enough and attendance is high enough that SF can do more with these parks (like testing new ride concepts or building prototypes) without that much of an issue. Parks like Fiesta Texas and SFA aren't big enough and don't have high enough attendance to warrant big projects on a regular basis like the flagships. Six Flags tried to overbuild their parks in the 90s, early 00s and that only got the chain into more trouble. Building new coasters on a regular basis isn't gonna guarantee a higher attendance like some people have said before.

If Weber was smart, he would continue to focus on building family friendly rides and keeping the parks well-kept. The Six Flags parks are going in the right direction whether SFA gets a new ride or not. Now let's talk about this so-called "neglect". 1) Those that support overbuilding SFA with new rides every year have to realize that SFA is still one of the smaller (if not the smallest) SF park. It's pretty much been stated before, but smaller parks don't make enough money to pay off the costs of a brand new high-profile ride like I305. 2) KD (and KI to an extent) were the flagship parks of the Paramount chain, so they got more rides than the other three. Both CW and Carowinds didn't receive many major attractions as often as KI and KD did. CGA is pretty much in the exact same state as SFA. Not only have they not received anything major for about a decade, but their flagship coaster was removed a few years after it opened for a waterpark expansion. Not only that, but the park cannot expand and it's current state may be in jeopardy. 3) Keep in mind that new rides don't make a park better. Magic Kingdom hasn't received a new major attraction since Splash Mountain (which was built in the early 90s), yet it's still the most visited theme park in the world. You could say the exact same thing about Cedar Fair. While they're throwing away $25 million on that maintenance nightmare called Intimidator 305, parks like California's Great America can't even get a brand new GCI. Couple that on top of the fact that their flagship roller coaster, Stealth got removed for a water park expansion and the fact that they haven't received anything in a long time, Cedar Fair can't seem to run a park chain properly without abandoning some of their smaller parks. And that's not mentioning a small Cedar Fair-owned park in Michigan that's only received a major addition once this decade and didn't get another major addition until 10 years later while other parks get massive B&M's and Intamins. Everything else seems to have been covered pretty thoroughly.

^ Running of the bulls... I'm guessing some sort of bull-themed coaster (El Toro, Raging Bull, El Toro Europe). This is an issue that I'm really trying to work out. I've been trying to follow your advice and working with color as well as making some of the lines bolder in order to make things easier to see. So far it's working out pretty well and I'll definitely use it more on complicated drawings where the subject is hard to spot because all the details blend together. I've got some new drawings posted on my Facebook fan page and my Flickr page (including some of my experimental color drawings). Don't forget to become a fan on Facebook for regular updates and check out the Flickr page for more detailed descriptions of my artwork. Click here for the fan page.

Voted twice.... If you want a bit more exposure, you could stick a link to the site in your sig so that everyone can see it every time you post.

You have to realize that... A) America is a sue-happy nation that will file lawsuits over the dumbest things (like spilling hot coffee on your lap). B) The average person doesn't know any better. They see a ride accident, they automatically think the ride is unsafe. They hear horror stories, they stay away. Let's put this into perspective. Trimless I305, while a perfectly safe coaster, was known for causing people to black out. Most people think that the ride can kill you if you black out; therefore, they stay away. They fail to realize that it is possible to black out on less-intense coasters, but that doesn't stop them from saying X ride is dangerous because of Y. The exact same thing happens with accidents like this. C) The news media likes to blow things out of proportion. Because accidents like this are rare, it's easy for them to point the blame on the manufacturer or the park for negligence and to treat the people who were blatantly disregarding the rules as the victim because they died.

Crowds at BGW are really inconsistent. I've gone to the park on weekends where I can hit all the major rides in under two hours and I've gone midweek and the park is extremely packed. On weekends, the park should be fairly busy, but manageable; however, I highly recommend preparing for the worst. Try hitting all the major rides/attractions (coasters/water rides) earlier in the day when crowds are light (follow the openings of the different lands) so that when the crowds pick up, you can do rerides for all the big stuff and check out the shows/attractions/smaller rides. You can get all the info you need on the park map.

Richmond Road also has a ton of hotels to check out and it's in the touristy area so there are a ton of restaurants/cheesy tourist traps to check out. The Bypass Road hotels are much closer to the park in relation to the Richmond Road hotels, (many) are brand new, and really close to the colonial area in case you decide to spend some extra time checking CW out. There is quite a selection of restaurants (Golden Corral/Unos/Hooters) but you have to drive a little way away. There are also a couple new hotels in the Capitol Landing Road area but the older hotels do look a bit dumpy and you will have to drive a bit to get a bite to eat, but the area is quieter and it's closer to the park. As for hotels close to the NN/WMBG Airport (Jefferson Avenue), there are a couple new Marriott hotels close to the highway and a few older, but decent-looking hotels in the area. There's also plenty of shopping (Wal-Mart, Costco, shopping mall) and a ton of restaurants in that area as well. It's still a 15-20 minute drive to the park without traffic though. If I-64 is packed, you could take Warwick Boulevard, which will take you straight to the park.

Looks like I just missed some drama regarding the TPR Europe trip... Why does this always have to happen when I'm gone?

... which eventually caused their heads to explode from the sheer awesomeness and ...

^^ I was wondering about what happened to that Rib Roast comic you were working on last year... Looks like you've been spending the past year making more funny strips.

^^ This song... I've heard Rockit has a pretty good audio selection and everyone seems to like X2 and Cali Screamin's soundtrack. Even then, if you'd rather hear screaming and ride noise, you can still hear it standing on the ground... or ride a different coaster.

I finished this map a while ago and it's been sitting in my computer for a while now. Roller Coasters - Prototype G - Intamin Giga prototype... 300 feet tall, has a unique floorless train design, the park's signature coaster. The ride was inspired by Intimidator 305. - Draco - B&M custom diving machine, complete with tunnels, loops, and a massive splashdown finale into a tunnel. - Ruin Rampage - Vekoma suspended coaster... The most intense Vekoma suspended roller coaster ever built, the ride sends riders careening through tunnels, flying through turns, and down small (but steep) drops. The ride was designed to run on high-speeds - Washout - Mack family water coaster... Similar to Expedition Everest without a backwards portion and more water splashdowns. And don't forget to become a fan on Facebook. I try to update the page with random Facebook exclusive drawings as well as stuff I post here, some theme park related, some not. NOTE: Because of TPR's image size restrictions, I can't upload the full-sized image without cutting some of the details out. EDIT: View a full-sized version of the park map on my Flickr page.Here's the link. Just for fun (and to advertise my Facebook page)... Lugia used Aeroblast...

I hate it when I come in at the tail end of a conversation, there are people in the other chat rooms, or the person on the other end is sitting idle. That seems to be happening on a regular basis for me as of a few weeks ago.

All my friends know that I love theme parks and roller coasters because I love to draw them and show them off to everyone. In fact, the only friends that don't know I love theme parks are the people that have never seen my artwork before (not counting TPR of course). Even then, I don't really see this as a social stigma since as it's been stated before, everyone has a dorky side whether its movies, cars, sports, video games, or roller coasters.

My question mark key stopped working. Now how the hell am I supposed to code HTML*question mark*

With all this talk about Formula Rossa, any word on the racing Maurer coasters?