AndrewRnR

The coaster will be fun but as a long time fan of the park I'm almost as excited to see the new entrance area. The drive up the causeway is great then you walk up to an entrance area that was quite dull. Am I reading that right? Did the official blog use the word "cuz"?

Maybe I misread something but I thought the Six Flags and Apollo offers are separate - not a partnership. In regards to them making a horrible offer - I think it is the other way around. With the dual-track approach Sea World is looking to create competition between investors and companies interested to achieve a higher value - I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Sea World leaked the Apollo/SF news on purpose to get investors talking.

With Six Flags I'm not surprised, to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if Cedar Fair or even Disney showed slight interest - it makes great business sense that anytime your competition is up for sale to take a look. Doesn't mean they have intentions of buying but it makes perfect sense to look around to know the market. Regardless of who purchases it or if/when it goes public things will change - as they always do when shareholders are involved. I work for another company owned by Blackstone and there has been some talks about going public and about the many changes that would happen by going through that process. Six Flags may sound "bad" but shareholders can stall a lot of things as well.

Would Gwazi's 5 minute dispatch times increase or decrease with Six Flags?

In the photo its the spot on the top (opposite side of road where White Lightening's lift will be) - I drove by on my way home and it is being used as a laydown area for the construction.

Fun Spot announced today that they are expanding (on top of their current expansion!). They bought another 10-acres of land - no plans yet for its use. Here is the Facebook post:

^ Agreed... I seem to remember the guys from GCI saying in one of the IAAPA videos (don't remember if it was the TPR one) that once it goes vertical it would take only a few weeks to have the structural fully up since it is steel.

I can see Festival Bay from my office and end up there a few times a month for lunch at Fuddruckers. The mall is dead and is a dump (it was a dump when things were there). You cross over the turnpike and you are in one of the worse areas in Orlando. In short the area is trashy. The type of people that usually visit that end of I-Drive is not the kind I envision that would enjoy the cusine of food trucks. (I say usually but putting a prenium food experience in an area full of outlets and junk stores doesn't seem to add up). Put it down I-Drive near the convention center and I think you got a hit.

I used to work Big Thunder Mountain (FL) many years ago and the break room was/is between the two tracks so you have to cross to enter or exit. No hand signal needed to cross - there was (still is) a lantern hanging above the track indicating if it is safe to cross or not. The lantern turns to red as the train hits the final brakes (about 500 feet back from the crossing). If the attraction ever was in manual (maintenance) mode or reversing trains the light would be a flashing red indicating abnormal operations and not to cross. Restarting the ride after an e-stop meant resetting the lifts manually from the top of each and there would be moving trains going up as you were going down. In my year there we never had a close call at all - it all comes down to being safe and being aware of your surroundings.

The highlight of the day at Europa Park had to be, hands down, the walk through everyone spent several minutes trying to figure out what it was/should we do it for it only to be a 20 foot long walk through. I can't even remember the name of it - it was that good!

Raptor has always been good but not great (it always seems to shuffle and second half is slow IMO). However on the TPR trip this summer the Raptor clone in France made me realize how great Raptor could be - smooth and no brakes made for an intense ride all the way through. I know most of us walked away thinking "way better than Raptor" and it's a clone.

^^ Most coasters have a button for each row. It works fairly well for Rip Ride Rockit here in Orlando so I don't see why it can't be used (or at least tested) elsewhere as well.

I work close to Fun Spot so I try to swing by to/from work every few days to check out construction. They moved from the pushing dirt phase to putting stakes into the ground. Picture isn't great but it is looking towards the site of the first drop. They are also selling annual passes this Friday for half off... $59 gets you unlimited GCI rides (and go karts too) for all of 2013.

I decided to spend the afternoon at BGT and took a spin on Gwazi - thought about the Hades news after the ride. Gwazi was crap with PTCs, saw a major retracking about 6-12 months prior to the MFs being added, and then received decent about of retracking about 6-12 months after being added. The ride is still brutal - on newly retracked areas too. The interview with Alan from RMCC and the comment that you can't just switch trains makes me wonder (I work in marketing, I'm not an engineer so forgive me if this is stupid) is there more to it then retracking to get desired results from a new type of train? Does the structure have to change from a difference in forces?

Haven't seen this posted yet but there was a small article in the Sentinel the other day about the coaster saying grand opening is expected for June. Source: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-11-01/travel/os-dewayne-bevil-fun-spot-roller-coasters-20121101_1_wooden-coaster-wood-coaster-steel-coaster

Thanks for the update! I know riding Leviathan then walking over and doing Behemoth myself and my non-coaster enthusiast friends really noticed a difference in terms of the rides being smooth... and after hearing everyone rave about the ride for the last few years I was taken aback by the rattle.

They usually raise the prices this time of year so that they can market next year as "same prices as last year" - instead of raising them in the offseason. And Ouimet has said they will be doing a lot more revenue management in the future so I expect more things to happen like this.

After riding Colossos on the Europe trip this summer I decided I must get up SFGAdv and ride El Toro. I'm limited with time but was going to fly up the weekend of Sept 22/23. I'm planning on driving down to the park on the 23rd but need some local experts help: 1) I know FrightFest starts on the 22nd... Should I expect crazy crowds? I'm going with Flash Pass regardless just trying to decide if it would be worth getting one of the higher levels. 2) What's everyone's thoughts on travel time (driving) from the park to the Newark International Airport...My flight leaves at 8pm. Directions say it is just over a hour drive. Is that true? I figured leaving the park around 5 would get me to the airport shortly after 6 and give me time to return the car and get to the gate (I'm not checking bags). Thanks!

^ I agree. I was there this weekend and we did most of the park without FastLane on a very crowded day by getting there early - they opened gates at 9:20ish for International Street. We waited for rope drop/walk back to Leviathan (10am). WE got right on (by the time we got off the queue was full) and looped our way around the park finishing the park shortly after 1. On a different note... is Behemoth running bad as of late? I set the bar quite high for it and my first ride (middle of train) it was very rough (I thought it was similar in roughness to Silver Star at Europa) and barely any airtime. Second time towards the back it was smoother but still not as great of airtime as some of the other B&M hypers. I thought maybe I was being overly critical but my non-enthusiast friends got off after the first ride and said "never again - that was really rough!" Maybe we just had sat over a bad axl - I wasn't expecting Nitro or Goliath (SFoG) but at-least thought it would be better than Diamondback or Intimidator.

I'm flying up to check out the park this weekend and was hoping someone with knowledge on the park can help me out. I have a platinum pass but it seems they have removed all 2012 pass benefit information from their website. They mention ERT... is that daily? Bring a friend days... are any this weekend? If not they talk about ticket discount... what would that be? Thanks! I tried contacting the park but didn't get a response.

UO raised ticket prices again today... just one dollar this time to one-up Disney's increase earlier in the week! Source: Orlando Sentinel

They slowly started giving up around 1997. That's when the ride lost its first preshow room with the audio-animatronics to make room for the maze (I believe that is when the audio was killed off). For the first few years of HalloWeekends they still used the first part of the queue during the first part of the season but it wasn't the same (nearly everything was removed except for some posters). I want to say 2000 was the year the neon-colored jump suits costumes for employees was switched to the standard uniform. In 2002 they added 3D painting to queue and sold glasses. Long story short - its been fading for many years now. Its a shame - back in the day with the full queue and audio-animatronics explaining the story as well as audio throughout the ride - it was pretty good! As for rumors about a sea-side coaster... they have been around ever since I started following the park back in the mid-90s. Many of the rumors usually point to a recreation of the Cyclone which once stood on the site of Disaster Transport. I attached a photo I dug off my old website.

I have the old ride entrance sign for Jr Gemini... picked it up at a charity auction many years ago. No one was really bidding on it since it was Jr. Gemini but being my first coaster I gladly snatched it up.

I believe there is some talk about it in the Cedar Point: Queen of American Watering Places book (I don't have it with me at the moment). How many parks were operating in the area back in '74? Sure today Cedar Point rules the market but back then there was several parks within the Detroit area alone (among many other in Ohio) so strangely there would be less competition now. I'm sure back then critics weren't saying "why would they build a park within 2.5 hours of Cedar Point" but rather "why would they build a park so close to Boblo, etc." Here is a list of past Michigan parks: http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/amusement.aspx

I would agree with you on Gwazi with the Millennium Flyers until recently - they've done some track work on both sides and I've had some really great rides on Gwazi in the last month or two (mainly the first half of the ride). Prior to this current retracking it was retracked a year prior to the Millennium Flyer trains so I can't help but wonder if a year of PTCs running didn't set the MF trains up for success? Wasn't there some brief rumors last year that Holiday World was exploring possibility of having Rocky Mtn. work on Voyage? Some groups toured the Rocky Mtn. facilities and saw Voyage on a project list but HW quickly said it was only an option they explored but decided against it. (If I remember correctly).