Skycoastin Steve

That makes two Batmans getting a paint overhaul. Could this be a chain-wide thing? The blue on the one at SFoG wasn't very dark, it was almost a royal color. I wonder if MM's is the same color blue.

I've waited a max of 90 minutes at the start of the queue with all sections open; when it's not raining, I've found the Maverick crew to haul some serious A$$ to pump riders through. Yeah the longest wait I ever had for Maverick (not including wait times when the ride went down) was probably no longer than 90 minutes. I waited 2 1/2 hours on its opening day, but that was because of several breakdowns and such. Maverick has had one of the best crews in the park every year since it opened.

Cedar Point weather is just about as bizarre as it gets because of Lake Erie. It'll be sunny and nice out and in a matter of half an hour a hellacious storm will roll in with lighting and thunder and cats and dogs raining down. Then it'll go back to normal. Then one day it'll be 75 out, the next day it'll be 50, then the next day it'll be 80. The two years I spent working there I can't even count how many colds I had because of how often the weather changed. And the fanatical rain policy they have now is due to the Magnum incident that happened on Maverick's opening day (which was in pouring rain). They only used to shut down MF and TTD in the rain (rain at those speeds is insanely painful), but since Magnum slipped through its brakes and bumped trains, CP has shut all the coasters down in the rain. I know people that rode Maverick in the pouring rain on opening day, and they're some of the very few that ever have.

I usually laugh if it's good. I'll whoop and holler if it's REALLY good. And I like doing the trademark "weeee!!!" during airtime. And during a ride like El Toro (when my first ride was in the back row, I honestly had no idea what was about to happen to me), I'll throw out long series of expletives because I can't think of anything else to say.

America is lame. Someone donate a few thousand bucks to me so I can go on a TPR trip to Europe!

^This is true. I305 is without a doubt the most anticipated ride for me for next year, and I'll be going hitting over 100 new coasters. Some of these American park executives need to take a trip overseas and try out a Mega-Lite to see that what they lack in size they (seemingly) make up for in quality. PnP's also seem perfect for the bigger parks. While they are a bit pricey, we've seen parks spend a ton of money on rides much, much, much lower quality than PnP's (coughcoughDarkKnightcoughcough). They're typically big rides, and offer a HUGE thrill. I keep getting a sneaking suspicion that we'll see one at CP in the next few years, but that's just wishful thinking. -Steve "size doesn't ALWAYS matter" Burant

^So Intamin is going all B&M on us. Great! Intamin really needs to get their USA mojo going. Only one PnP in the states, no Mega-Lites in the states, and no ZacSpins in the states. We Americans demand more Intamin!

^Beast in the daytime and Beast at night are two COMPLETELY different ride experiences. Beast in the daytime is barely in my top 15 woodies, Beast at night is in the top 2 or 3.

^Are there any Mega-Lites that have a unique layout, or are they all the same?

Robb, if you would like to use this picture to illustrate your point about El Toro's wooden track, feel free. I took it back in September while I was there. Never knew it would come in handy in an online coaster pissing match!

^Robb, I absolutely couldn't resist.

^I have a stance on dive coasters. They're pretty awesome, and I rank them fairly high, but I could easily see how people don't like them, considering how short and simple they are.

I'm glad the support structure isn't the basis for classification. Then Gemini would be a wooden coaster and Voyage, Cyclone, Ravine Flyer II, and so many others would be steel! What a crazy world that would be! And so that was YOUR ballot that had all the "n's" and was embarrassingly labeled by Hawker. Shame on you! :gradmawithrulerslappingwristemote:

People just need that security blanket that their favorite coaster is everyone else's favorite coaster. The approval of everyone else validates their feelings. I feel sorry for them as people if they're THAT insecure about what they enjoy. I'd love to see Voyage at #1, it's my favorite wooden coaster, but I still voted El Toro #2 because, well, it's my 2nd favorite wooden coaster. What a concept! --Steve "Intamins are still wooden tracked so what else would you call them?" Burant

^Yeah you and I held it down gray shirt style. Nobody could touch us!

HAHA! Thanks for the title!

^Amen. There are definitely coasters in both the wood and steel poll that I think are either ranked too high or too low, but democracy rules.

^Don't they try to weed out the "suspicious" polls like that and not count them? I mean I've never ridden T-Express (and probably never will), but from the looks of the POV and the reviews I've heard, there's no way in hell anyone would rank it that low. It just murders the integrity of the poll, and I would think if these people wanted it to be accurate they wouldn't purposely sabotage it like that.

^High five! That's awesome you ranked it that high with so many woodies ridden. Much appreciated! Rampage grew on me, too. I always liked it, but somehow or another I liked it more and more every ride, and I had somewhere around 125+ rides this year.

^^Better to have tons of trash cans full of trash than tons of midway full of trash!

Yeesh. I would have an aneurysm if I was a supervisor or manager there.

^Interesting. Sadly enough, I haven't been to KD or Carowinds since the takeover (worked at Carowinds in 2006 while they were in the process of buying it, but no full-fledged change happened till 2007). KD is also my home park, making it even more tragic that I haven't been in over 3 years. I'll obviously be heading to both parks next year for the Intimidators, so maybe I'll see what you're talking about. **I do think that losing Nickelodeon will hurt the Paramount Parks because Nick is a lot more pertinent these days than Snoopy, but what can ya do?

I'm not entirely sure what some of the fans of the former Paramount Parks are complaining about with CF. In 3 years, CF has completely rejuvenated those parks. Three got B&M hypers, and another got one of the best floorless coasters in the world and an Intamin giga. So what's the beef? Before CF, KD, KI, and CW had ZERO B&M's and ONE Intamin. Those were Paramount's three flagship parks and they had one combined coaster from the two premier coaster designers of the last 15 years.

Dear Title Fairy, You are most wise and beautiful. I have worked hard to get to the 150 post minimum in order to earn my custom title. I will continue to post often and show my custom title off proudly. If you could please, oh wonderful Title Fairy, make my custom title "Official Rampage-aholic" I would be eternally grateful and in debt to you! Thank you! -Steve "Under-banked curves, potholes, and airtime are the way to go on a CCI!" Burant

^If I ever got hired by Busch Gardens, my first order of business would be to change how Gwazi operates. I timed them when I went there back in June, they averaged about 3 1/2 minutes (and at times went well over 4 minutes) per cycle from when the train stopped in the station to when the train left the station. That's ludicrously, insanely, perpetually, horribly, unbelievably absurdly slow. Rampage could cycle in less than half that time with exactly two operators for an entire day.