AndrewRnR

The park did a major retracking to both sides (at separate times) the fall before for one and the winter a year before for the other prior the arrival of the new trains. (Extract times may be slightly off but you get the idea). I can't imagine running PTCs on a newly retracted ride for several months/year helped for the arrival of the new trains.

You'll have MORE than enough time. I swung through the park yesterday afternoon and was in and out (mid-afternoon) with a ride on all the major coasters in about 2 hours. 1.5 days is MORE than enough. I would pencil the .5 day to something else if you can - some cool brewery tours in the area. As for private events I don't remember the park ever being closed for a private event (during a normal operating day - they host plenty of events post-closing) so you'll be fine there.

^No need to get there a hour before early entry - any kind of line doesn't usually form until 15-20 minutes beforehand. If you get there 30 mins before you'll be way ahead of the pack especially considering tomorrow is one of the slowest weekend days of the year. Don't know where you are staying but if you are off point - park in the back and go in one of the back entrances, or walk from the main lot to the marina entrance - puts you halfway back in the park at opening

Read about this in the paper today and thought of everyone going to Scandi... Norwegian Air Shuttle just announced service out of Orlando International to Oslo starting next year and they are offering some pretty cheap flights for the summer. The few dates I tried came in around 650/700 USD roundtrip for June. Granted you'd have to fly from Oslo to wherever the trip starts but to jump the pond it may be worth looking into for those in Florida. Hope that helps someone!

The rain policy was drastically changed (to be much more conservative) following a small accident with Magnum back in 2007 (on the day Maverick opened). Before that rides ran in light/medium rain (save for lightening) but since the accident was chalked up to rain the park instantly began not running rides at all in the rain or reducing down to one train operation. I was there on Sunday and a light drizzle caused Millennium Force to shut down instantly. The difference between Iron Dragon and a B&M - really any Arrow vs a B&M is that Arrow's brakes are spring open/pressure close vs B&M which are spring close/pressure open. Since Arrow brake's are set to open without force the park must see that as more of an issue in the rain. (Also why, for example, you will see on Magnum the cars chained up at night - so that if the air pressure is lost the train doesn't roll down the track).

I rode first train out on Millennium Force the other morning and it was running much faster with more airtime in late afternoon of the 80 degree day. If you want to be an uber nerd a quick way to tell how fast it is running is by timing it - depending on the weather ride time will vary upwards of 10 seconds. It usually averages around 60/61 seconds from top of lift to brakes, it sometimes starts out north of 65 seconds on a cold morning and will get down to 57 seconds as a warm day goes on. It is a catch-22... you can usually grab a few rides on first thing during ERT but they won't be the best vs. waiting in line later in the day (Or just buy Fastlane!). (And no I didn't time it regularly for the numbers... those were given at a CoasterMania Q&A back in the day). I looked this past weekend throughout the park and couldn't find them.

Not to sound rude, but I think you are over-thinking this. I've lived in Florida for over 6 years and I can count on one hand the number of times hurricanes have impacted operations to the point parks had to close early. Most people outside Florida think hurricanes = Florida, but in reality they don't hit as often as most believe, especially in the Tampa area. Cheetah Hunt is reliable from what I've seen in my visits - like any other complex coaster that has multi-launches it will experience some issues here or there but long breakdowns aren't the norm. There is no need to run - anytime this time of year, save for a holiday or during HoS, lines will be more than manageable. I rarely have seen Cheetah Hunt over a hour wait - and that has been on some pretty busy days. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

^ That should be more than enough time for the park. With having B&Ms, a Intamin that runs 4-5 trains and the many shows, the park handles crowds very well and even on some of the busiest days lines don't get too crazy - with the exception of maybe Cheetah Hunt. But a Friday in October... you should have the park nearly to yourself during the day.

Not sure which announcement is more exciting... Medusa or a Mexico TPR trip!

^Most of the marina was actually dug into the peninsula vs building out and more recent additions are floating docks that aren't permanent. I'm sure if they really wanted to they can find a way - but in all my research on the park they never really touched the issue save for having the U.S. Army Corps help on some projects in the 50s and I sense it just isn't worth the legal battle that it would take.

I'm excited for the new additions. They help fill in an area what I always considered weak at Cedar Point - the family demographic where kids are too big for Camp Snoopy but are not ready for the big time rides. No they can't - the city doesn't own the land, the state controls the lake through a trust and at least from the few court cases I saw while living in the area a few years back was that it isn't the easiest thing to convince to state to let you build out in the water.

One interesting note in that press release is that they recently opened a "satellite" corporate office in Charlotte (makes sense why I've heard about corporate jobs opening in Charlotte). That's where Paramount Parks was headed up and Cedar Fair weighed the option of moving the operations to Charlotte back in '06 (I'm sure the CEO living nearly on-site didn't weigh in ). Could we see Cedar Fair move out of Sandusky down the road? Certainly makes it easier for executives to fly in and out with a large airport and more than just water park resorts that stay open in the offseason.

Wasn't there rumors of Rocky Mountain's involvement a few years back when Holiday World's name was spotted on their client list? I believe Holiday World confirmed they did have some conversations but that nothing was coming from it... Sounds like a perfect time for some more conversations. I can only imagine parks are taking notice that they can have Rocky Mountain come out and give new life to rides and save on future maintence vs buying an relatively unproven train design and as we have seen with Hades where track was replaced (final helix comes to mind) Timberliners don't stop the need for regular upkeep. As I said in the Mt Olympus thread Hades trains seemed to bounce all over the place and the amount of plastic didn't seem to provide a solid design to absorb all the vibrations - I'm no engineer so I'm guessing here but I'm not sure a light design like Timberliners can handle the big forces.

I wouldn't place total blame on PTCs... There are some great rides running PTCs (just got off Viper at SFGAm and that's quite smooth with PTCs for example). Rides with PTCs may require more maintence but can still provide good rides. I've ridden the Rattler and Boardwalk Bullet as well - those seem relatively smooth compared to Hades. They may say Timberliners may not destroy the track as quickly but the newly tracked areas of Hades isn't smooth by any means - not sure if that's the Timberliners, the construction, lack of maintence or something else. Have you been on Hades? I would say go ride it and then compare to old Rattler and such but I don't wish a ride on Hades on anyone!

I just rode it last night and this morning and if it was any worse before the Timberliners I don't even want to think about what that could've been. It is brutal - Timberliners, lazyboys, whatever you put on that ride isn't going to change it - even the newly retracked (or rebuilt sections like the turnaround) were nearly as bad as the "old sections" - surprised about that since Timberliners were suppose to reduce stress track. I look at it like a pothole on a road... doesn't matter what car you drive it will still jolt you.

Between this, Dollywood, Kentucky Kingdom and possible Cedar Point and Darien Lake additions, the greater Ohio/Central region seems to be the place to be for 2014!

Great report - never heard of Little Amerricka before! I'm flying up to the Dells this weekend and might have to stop on my way down to Six Flags.

I think the timing of announcements can't always be attributed to the project being built - if anything it is a "new" trend to announce next year plans in the summer. Before the internet (read: before leaks revealed plans well in advance) and up until a few years back most plans for new attractions were announced in the fall as a way to drum up season pass sales when they were put on sale in the fall - most of the major Cedar Point rides comes to mind (Mantis, Wicked Twister, Top Thrill Dragster, and Maverick) were all announced after Labor Day. Millennium Force wasn't scheduled to be announced until the fall but when photos of track being hidden in the woods behind the park appear the announcement was moved forward to late July. And just because you could see construction from a nearby road has nothing to do with announcement schedules - sometimes parks like to play into that - Cedar Point was going to announce Top Thrill Dragster in mid/late 2002 but the buzz over track showing up and heavy construction pushed the announcement back to early 2003. Or in the case of Silver Dollar City were they denied anything was being built despite Outlaw Run's construction well in progress. Announcements all come down to the park's marketing strategy - do they want to ride the wave of mystery from buzz the construction is causing? Do they want to be in front of leaks? Are they trying to push season pass or group sales?

Makes sense or not that, it is what the story said - I'm sure as a designer at the park when marketing switches a ride name you wish you had the money to go back and switch colors but I think his point was even if there was money they wouldn't have switched because of Raptor. In other news... it has been announced GM and VP John Hildebrandt is retiring at the end of the year. Great guy who had Cedar Point in his blood. He has worked at the park since the 60s and his passion always showed if you ever had a chance to talk to him. Many years ago when I lived up north he was a great mentor to me and would always invite me up to his office to talk the industry despite me just being some teenage at the time. His replacement will be Dorney's current GM - Jason McClure.

Molly Orange is a color that has been around well before Magnum. It is a "real color" (in the sense it wasn't invented for Magnum) and is actually frequently used for hot rod cars and is readily available (in the process of my guitar getting painted it was even listed as one of the options). Going back to Magnum I would have to guess Arrow didn't pick the color - Cedar Point did. I remember reading (and probably have it saved somewhere) an article when Mantis was under construction with the guy who picks all the colors of park and he joked he should've picked different colors for Raptor because green would've suited Mantis better.

Blackfish opens in Orlando next weekend (ironically at Downtown Disney) and I'm not going to lie - I'm interested in seeing it. There is two sides to every story and I'm interested in hearing this side - does it mean I agree with the movie? Nope, but I think it will be interesting to see exactly what they have to say.

Props to CNN/HLN for bringing you on. It seems with anything in the news these days the media are constantly trying to grab sound bites or quotes that stirs the pot. They could've went for the "roller coasters are dangerous" route like most of the stories I've seen and read but they completely by bringing you on. And to add to the regulation note posted - one executive once said (can't remember who) something along the lines of regulations or not accidents cause the industry and guests harm so everything is done to prevent them. With or without federal oversight I'm sure Six Flags is taking this equally as serious - accidents arn't good for business.

This exact subject was discussed just a few pages back. Cedar Point doesn't own past the "average water line" into the water. It would take going through a lot of red tape for something they could just as easily build on land. I remember these discussions on forums and Usenet groups back in the 90s - and yet the park always finds ways space to add things.

Thanks for sharing your point of view - interesting stuff. I guess I never realized it isn't so much the larger size but how the larger body dimensions come in contact/don't come in contact with the restraints.

We don't know what happened so no one can be in "trouble" yet. And not to sound blunt or take away from what happened - things happens and companies move on. See any of the many previous accidents over the years - most of those companies are still around.