BrownStreak

I like your photo of the rapids' station. I think that's the first time I've seen two-sided straight loading! Usually its turn-table or a single straight platform.

Kinda funny to see this update! I'm an OTR Truck Driver and I just passed this park two days ago on the way to a pick-up location in Erie...

I just wish that they'd: A) Bring back trains similar to the old Beast trains (four rows/ car) or at least B) fix the station so it works better with the newer trains!

If you are ever doing a long drive out near Vegas again, you should definitely try to route yourself to drive I-15 through the tiny slice of NW AZ. Why? Because that tiny corner is the Virgin River Canyon and as a trucker who has driven in every state except Hawaii (duh), Alaska (duh), Maine, and South Dakota, I can say that I-15 through the VRC is the most spectacular interstates drive in the country (during the day! at night its like 'I want my mommy!'). Northern California on I-5 near Mount Shasta is probably my 2nd favorite.

I swear I'm not being mean here, but that woman in the 'flight attendant' costume looks exactly like a drag queen I know. Where in the park do they wear that?

^Thanks for getting that song re-stuck in my head! The Ride Ops Office for TLC was behind one of the show scenes in that ride and you'd hear that song loop over and over and over and over and over... ...Its taken me years to get that song out of my head and now its back!

I don't know if they still do the Dolphin Feeding the way they did it when I was last there, but I would absolutely suggest doing that as one of the first things! They are 'starved' for attention early in the day and are more playful with guests.

I am quite familiar with this park's layout; however, I am a tad confused as to where they put this. I had thought it was going where IW used to be;; however, the shot of GAE's lift hill seems to debunk that theory...

OMG! Its a Ricochet/Corn Popper with sideways facing seats! The basic model has always been one of my favorite 'classic flats.'

Just experienced a flash back to that episode of the Simpsons where Bart and his buddies are on their way to Knoxville and Nelson insists on seeing Andy Williams. Bart explains Branson as being 'Las Vegas if it was designed by Ned Flanders' if I remember correctly!

I am hoping that is just a test screen...$5 per minute to lock up your things seems a bit extreme...but hey it is Cedar Fair...

I heard BGW employee preview has been postponed. Can you confirm or let us know what is happening with the ride? Since today in not an operating day, how does the staff preview work? Does BGW announce it to employees and anyone interested shows up on their day off to ride Verbolten? Regards, RIP... Just because the park is not open does not mean that it is everyone's day off. Since they are open Friday-Sunday presently, they probably do a lot of training and cleaning on Thursdays. I know from two different summers at CP you come in a week before the park opens and cycle your ride everyday to get you used to it and try out different positions and then go into a rotation wherein the ops from other rides come to ride yours and vice-versa; and then you also practice evacs.

^^The name already sounds so dated...I mean that is sooooo 1999!

It's looking more and more like the ride failed an inspection or something worse. Parks don't just up and decide to take a ride out this close to opening day because they suddenly decide they want to accelerate the removal. And like was said above, every indication was the ride would open with the park up to a few days ago. Strange indeed. That has to be it...with the park opening this weekend, that means that the ride ops began cycling their respective rides this past Monday unless they haven't cleared inspection at which point the ops would get jumbled around to other rides. So the question is whether Ride Ops touched the ride at all or if it never passed inspection in the first place.

^Scrap is VERY valuable right now which is one of the factors pushing the cost of used cars upwards.

I have a strong gut feeling that their denial of the coaster's existence will play into the theme of the ride. In a way this is also a great Marketing strategy because 'everyone' is talking about the coaster and making guesses - whereas if they announced exactly what they were doing, people would not talk about it as much. Remember Hershey Park's April Fools gag a few years back? SDC is 'playing' with us to an extent and we are falling for it and given them all sorts of interest and thought with no expense on their part (for Marketing I mean - I mean they have to pay for the Drive-In Movie/Tornado Shelter construction).

I liked your comment on the Ops practicing their 'Do not sit on the Q bars.' This does make me wonder though - with all of the advances in technology and theming, why do parks keep using 'Monkey Bars' for their Q? It seems that they could use a thinner metal 'fence' that could still be alterable to change the queue length or even those pull out 'cloth' ones like you see at the airport check-in. Its kind of funny to spend so much money to theme an area and then fill it with Monkey Bars...not that this is anything to get worked up about...I'm just wondering. I remember asking this same question when I was a Fantasyland East Ride Host back in 1994.

There is an Arby's not far from Seabreeze that has an old bumper car as a planter... Anyways, it was a great little coaster - a nice tummy tickler. I know when I last worked at the park in 2007 it had an accident and then a delayed opening following that (the same year that MaXair took awhile to finally open). I am definitely going to assume that it didn't pass inspection as the Ohio Inspectors (under the Dept of Agriculture if I remember correctly) can be brutal. My first time working in the park (1999) they wouldn't let Kid Arthur's Court (Play Fort, about where Troika is now) open because the outer netting around the ball pit had one or two 'inch long' ropes missing. I'll bet the improvements needed to get Wildcat to pass were to high for the park to justify - otherwise it would definitely be headed to Dorney or MI Adv. I used to work at the similar ride that used to be at Fantasy Island (although it was the summer the park was called Two Flags over Niagara) and for some reason I do not think that they were exact clones. I loved the 'assembly line' set-up of the rides' load and unload and enjoyed working it better than other coasters (Can't tell you how many times I bumped my head working Batman and Raptor). Backstage Trivia: Fantasy Island was called Two Flags for one season because it was purchased by the former owner of Great Escape. They essentially bought the park to get their hands on the Comet, which was in storage at (and owned by) Fantasy Island. Once it was removed, the park was sold and the name reverted back to Fantasy Island under Martin's ownership. Edit: It was 2008 when I last worked for the park and was the year with the Wildcat accident and MaXair's delayed opening, sorry about that!

Why would AJ Styles be hidden in TPR?

Get used to it, that's how life works. If they want spend their money those people sit in first class on planes, drive nicer cars, live in better homes, have better seats at concerts/sporting events, stay in better hotels, attend better schools and the list goes on and on. And many times they have a smug look on their face. Sorry that's life. The issue with your logic that I have is that a plane having 1st Class seats does not affect my flight time, people having more expensive cars does not make my commute longer, people who stay in more expensive hotels do not affect the occupancy rates at hotels I can afford (and I can say the few times I've had to stay in expensive hotels the service was rotten compared to my normal budget lodgings). The last time I went to SFGAm was in late Summer 2010...which was the LAST time I will go to SFGAm - despite the fact that I lived in the Chicago area most of last year. Despite the fact that we arrived near park opening and stayed until near closing we only got on 6 rides total. For the first half of the day the Q-Bots were not adjusting to the wait times 'live.' The 2nd half of the day there was an issue with the Q-Bot System and they began to let everyone with a Q-Bot board with no wait at all. We didn't buy one at the start of the day and figured we would see how things went. Of course when this issue occured they weren't selling them anymore. This should give you an idea of what can happen when there is 'no wait' and you can hit each ride with no wait as many times as you want - which seems as this is how FL will work: The wait time for Superman was posted at 90 minutes, but my friends had never been on it so we got in line. 4 1/2 hours later we got to ride. Those with the now unlimited Q-Bots were running from the exit back into the Q-Bot Express Line. One of my friends wasn't going to ride and she told us that she saw the same girl board Superman and Dark Knight three times each in the span of 20 minutes. The argument that 'those people would be in line anyways' is thrown out the window by the fact that people can get right back on again the way FL is set up. The fact that MF is set away from most other rides and is not nearby any other FL rides means that people will do just that and that does affect the wait time considerably. Upcharge Queue Cutting Passes are like the Stoplight Cameras of the Theme Park Business - they provide a great deal of revenue for minimal output, yet they do little to actually curb the problem that caused them to be implemented in the first place. Statistically Stoplight Cameras increase rear-end collisions more than they decrease the side impact collisions they are intended to decrease making the intersections more dangerous rather than safer - plus they generate revenue for the city. Handled improperly (as FL seems to be) Upcharge Queue Cutting Passes increase wait times yet generate revenue for the park.

Oaks Amusement Park in Portland, OR has a Rock-o-plane. The Eyerly Aircraft Company that built them was (is?) located in Salem, OR.

^But that was back in the day when 90% of the park guests weren't morbidly obese and actually fit into the trains' one-setting lap bars.

Heading back a few pages, notice the line for the Cedar Creek Mine Ride! Its past the entrance to the queue! When do you think the last time that happened was? When I worked on that ride for part of the 2007 Season I don't think we even filled the full queue once!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Carnival essentially the Wal-Mart of the Seas? It seems that they have the most problems and are always popping up on 60 Minutes' hidden camera episodes.

The CNL Trains (City Night Line) purposefully travel at slower speeds overnight so that they can be used for overnight sleeping. For example, the CNL from Hamburg to Offenburg takes 8 1/2 hours (around midnight until before 9am)...I'd then transfer to another train to get to Ringsheim (Europa). That would only cost me $20 on top of my Rail Pass...$20 for a night isn't bad for a hotel! The reason that I am crisscrossing so much is so that I can take advantage of the CNL Trains and therefore see more cities. I am also in Urban Planning and do want to see many cities as well. I have already pretty much written off Paris and Disneyland (too expensive...both of them!). Instead I am looking into Denmark and Sweden. For the Europeans on the boards, keep in mind - we have access to European Rail Passes here in the States that you can't use is you live in the EU. I will also be staying with people in a few of the cities. This trip is not 100% for Theme Parks...there are some other things I will be doing as well. My itineraries are set in a way so that I will be in major cities every weekend so I can check out the gay bar scenes as well. So far Air Berlin has the cheapest flights from the US ($300 cheaper than the US carriers) into and out of Berlin. I will re-publish my planned itinerary soon. My contract job is set for six months - as soon as I know my start date, I will know my end date as well and can better plan my trip. I should also mention, without being specific, but I am being reimbursed for a portion of this trip and will be doing some research for my Master's Thesis while I there as well.