Skycoastin Steve

What a sad, sad, sad piece of attempted journalism.

^Like announcing the addition of a coaster, clearing land for it, saying it will open Memorial Day Weekend, then not building it and saying, "oh, just kidding, next year!"

If it was me I would actually prefer that she cut in line. Would you really want to wait in the vicinity of her entourage and screaming fans for an hour or so? Sometimes getting the circus through the line faster is plus for everyone. What this guy said. A celebrity being in line would be a disaster, it's for everyone's benefit.

^ Hey Guy, I don't think I commented on your trip to Alabama Adventure, but I'm glad to hear you had a great time there! Mike is one of those rare managers who TRULY cares about every single guest that walks through the gate (from knowing him for a few years and working with him, I can stand by that statement firmly). Let me know if you get a chance to make it up to Carowinds before the year is over!

I guess we'll revisit this in a year when they announce it, since it seems to be for 2012.

I don't know if I would have been scared, terrified, weirded out, or all three at the same time, but regardless, it would have been awesome! But then again, isn't that what TPR is all about?

^Ohhhhh I remember now. We didn't ride it. They were too busy trying to figure out which coaster the "blue one" was. Turns out it was the Wild Mouse, which is right next to Wildcat, so when I said we were going to ride Wildcat, they said, "oh, is that the Wild Mouse?" All they heard was "wild" and thought I was talking about the Wild Mouse. When we walked up to Wildcat, they were like, "what's this wooden thing?" Yeah, it was that kinda day. Here's the singing cows video.

^Are you referring to the factory "tour"? If so, it's pretty fun and semi-educational. Plus they give you a free piece of chocolate after you exit. And it has singing cows, which makes it even better. I took a brief video of the singing cows, once I get it uploaded to youtube I'll post it here.

^That's a bummer! I went on the 20th, and it was running periodically throughout the day when it wasn't raining. It's big problem was having "missed" launches. It would roll up to the launch track, the brakes would drop, you would hear the auto spiel play, and then.......nothing. Luckily I sneaked in two rides while it was up and had a short wait.

^I wouldn't care if a B&M invert was 10 feet tall, had one turn out of the station, then hit the brake run and returned to the station. I would still rather ride that than the best SLC in the universe. And anyone that prefers an SLC over a B&M invert should probably be kicked in the shins by an army of leprechauns wearing steel toed boots.

Don't quote me on any of that, my memory is a little fuzzy from that day. But I'm almost positive they said the glasses policy at least for Pony Express is due to the owner's manual, and California makes them follow it to the "T." As for Xcelerator, I have no idea.

^I'm pretty sure it's because California is stricter when it comes to making parks follow things verbatim from the owner's manual. New York might not be that way.

I'll just list the 6 I've ridden. 1. Kraken 2. Hydra 3. Dominator 4. Krypton Coaster 5. Bizarro 6. Scream

Ridden all the ones in the states except Flight Deck and SFGAm's Batman. 1. Montu 2. Alpengeist 3. Afterburn 4. Silver Bullet 5. Talon

^From the Q&A at West Coast Bash, they said the glasses policy on Pony Express comes from the manufacturer. And with Xcelerator, I'm sure it's just due to California's stricter amusement park laws.

Pictures! You can find the whole compliment of pictures in this album. Welcome to Hershey! First stop, Chocolate World! :drool: Time for the "factory tour." SINGING COWS!!!! Time to actually go in the park. Despite how boring Great Bear is, it still takes a good loop picture! At least it has a pretty unique element. Although to me, that sounds like when you're trying to compliment an ugly person and you're complimenting them on everything BUT their looks. Well.....it has a great.....personality! Always love me some flyers! Fahrenheit, despite its lackluster ride experience, is very photogenic. And it's blue and orange. Eh. Weeee!!! Vertical lifts are always cool. Lift hill porn! ABOVE THE TREES!!! *severe geek out moment* OH faces! Through the trees! Quite a sexy ride. I had no trains to photograph though, the ride was down. > Airtime hill into a barrel roll = win. Really like this shot. Pretty impressive construction if you ask me. This thing towers over that whole section of the park. And it looks cool, too. Purty. One of the most creative headchoppers I've ever seen. There is absolutely no clearance here. Flying snake dive. I want to be the guy that thinks up names for cool inversions. 97 degrees and falling! This loop picture is being brought to you courtesy of our friends in Norway. Very cool. Monstrous splash. Thankfully the queue was not full. GCI's first go round, and still a good one! I always love the look of a GCI coaster. Ill-tempered Feline! Ferris wheel! I really like the logo. More GCI! Looking all pretty and stuff. Who will win? Spaghetti bowl of wood. Lightning wins! Which should always be the case, because for all you science majors out there, lightning comes before thunder. More Fahrenheit goodness. I like the sky in this one. Corkscrewing along. Fun old woodie! Most fun coaster name ever! If B&M had put a little more creativity into the layout, much like they did with these supports, maybe the ride would have been better. Footchopper? Always gotta get my sunset pictures in. Background worthy. Fun trip!

Alright, finally time to add in my Hershey trip report to round off my wonderful PA trip. I already knew my day at Hershey wasn't going to be quite as good as the previous two days because I had to escort around 10 members of my family (who are all about as GP as it gets). Regardless, I still had a pretty good day and was able to ride everything I wanted to ride at least once. When we got there, they were all clamoring to take the "factory tour" (even though I told them it wasn't a real factory tour), so we did Chocolate World and the singing cows tour before heading into the park. We were expecting nice weather since the forecast said 10% chance of rain in the morning, but alas, we were poured on for a good hour right after entering the park. However, it didn't stop us from getting on their flyers, which weren't as good as Knoebels' flyers, but were still fun in the pouring rain! After that, we basically just waited it out until the rain stopped, after which I rode Fahrenheit (not much to write here, just a "meh" ride). The family wanted to get food after that, and I wanted to ride Storm Runner, so I ran for Storm Runner. Storm Runner is really hard to describe in words. It's such an incredible ride, and it's almost one of those "did that just happen?" rides. My only (very minor) complaint is that they could have made that ride a lot longer, but even if it's a short ride, it's got everything you need! After I got off Storm Runner, I grabbed a gyro (delicious) and then convinced a few of my group to get back in line for Storm Runner with me. The wait was only about 20 minutes, but the ride went down as we were about 3 trains from boarding. If you've ever had a miserable experience, try sitting through Intamin accelerator coaster downtime with 3 members of the GP asking you every question in the book. After about 15 minutes, the ride was up, we rode, they loved it, and the VERY next train after us got stuck on the launch track for 30 minutes. Whew! After Storm Runner, we took the kids to ride Trailblazer, which is a pretty tame Arrow mine train, but still not a bad starter coaster for young ones. I don't exactly remember the sequence of events much after this (I was incredibly annoyed by this point), but we ended up riding Wildcat a couple times. I'm not sure why everyone complains about how "rough" it is. Sure, the PTC trains did some pretty irreversible damage to the track, but even my GP family that's allergic to any coaster not butter smooth said it wasn't that rough. We then VERY slowly meandered over to Lightning Racer, but got a ride on the ferris wheel first. Lightning Racer wasn't quite as good as I remembered it, but it was still a very, very good ride. I think the first time I rode it, I wasn't as experienced with GCI and was blown away, but now that I've ridden more GCIs, it's not quite as good. We then worked our way back to the front of the park to ride Comet and Sooperdooperlooper, both still fun rides despite their age. We didn't get Great Bear in there, but I really didn't care, as I didn't feel like falling asleep on a coaster. Right as we were leaving the sky opened up again and dumped on us, but we were able to take shelter in a chocolate store. I did have one MAJOR complaint, as the ride operator who was driving the Mini-Train in the kiddie area was texting the entire time he was driving the ride. This was three consecutive cycles, with CHILDREN on the train. The third cycle, a child started to stand up mid-ride and the operator in the station had to get the driver's attention so he would stop the train and avoid the child falling out. All because he was texting. I was sure to stop by GR on the way out and tell them about this, hopefully he no longer has a job. Despite everything working against me that day, I still had a fun time and think that Hershey is a terrific park. I just hope next time I go back the weather cooperates and I'm not with a GP group! Pictures are in the next post.

^It's really good, but not anywhere near Maverick's first airtime hill. There aren't many hills that I've experienced that are.

Yes. Storm Runner...........hoo boy.

Fahrenheit is just one of those coasters that could have been AWESOME, but is just missing any kind of "wow" factor after the first drop/Norwegian loop. I mean, it's a cobra roll followed by a double corkscrew, turn, airtime hill (very good one), turn, brakes. Yawn. Not to mention it loses a TON of speed after the Norwegian loop and there's no real intensity after that point. I hate being overly negative about coasters, and I still like Fahrenheit, but it could have been so much better had it not had a generic 2nd half. Almost feels like B&M had a hand in the designing of that portion of the ride.

Take it back! I used to ride Starliner as a kid growing up visiting my dad in PCB, but I never really saw it as a "thrilling" coaster. But we rode that thing to death regardless! It's more of a sentimental favorite for me than anything. I'm personally sad to see it go.

^^My visits to CP would cease forever if they took out Magnum for a B&M hyper. Maybe down the road when the ride has sunk completely into the soft beach sand, I'll understand if they remove it. But I would tie myself to the first drop if they ever tried to tear it out for any other reason.

I wasn't exactly trying to start an argument worthy of PointBuzz, but my original point stands, and that's that B&M has nothing that CP is going to be interested in at this point. The only thing I could see CP getting of theirs in the foreseeable future is maybe the "4th dimension" style they're building with X-Raptor. Even then, that would be a long shot. Ground-breaking or not, most of CP's coasters since Magnum have introduced something (an element, record, lift style, etc.) that had never been seen or done before. And that was my other point. You can argue semantics and split hairs all you want, but that one point remains fact.

^But Raptor and Mantis both introduced completely new elements to their type of ride. Not only were they both the tallest, fastest, and longest of their kind, Raptor introduced the cobra roll to inverts, and Mantis introduced the inclined loop and dive loop to the stand up, as well as became the first stand up to have more than 2 inversions. They were still breaking down barriers and giving you something unique with those. What could they do with a dive machine? Make it taller? What could they do with a floorless that hasn't already been done?

I've said this before, I'll say it again. B&M is not going to be seen at CP until they can produce something that you can't ride anywhere else in the country. Look at CP's track record, always breaking down barriers and giving you unique coaster experiences. B&M doesn't exactly do that. CP never wants to have a coaster that when it's built, people say, "Oh, this is like Ride X at Park Y." That's all they could get right now with B&M.