Skycoastin Steve

All of the Paramount Parks were stagnating before Cedar Fair bought them. Now only CGA is.

^Yes, I would say the track is wider because of the trains.

Now it's time for the Un-Un-Official Day of the TPR Northeast Trip! As has already been seen in other trip reports, the un-un-official day was spent at Bowcraft Amusement Park and then in NYC with Scott's Pizza Tour. Jen and I skipped the kiddie coaster in Central Park in lieu of spending some time walking around and enjoying the sites of the park, since I had never been there. I do have to say that Central Park is an absolutely gorgeous part of the city that everyone should experience at some point. There were so many times I looked around and literally couldn't tell that I was in the middle of a city as big as New York. It was quite a relaxing part of the day (a theme that really didn't last). Scott's Pizza Tour was also pretty awesome, that guy is effing crazy about pizza! That's also something I would highly recommend for anyone who enjoys pizza. It was very informative, and you could tell the guy has the same passion about pizza that all of us have about theme parks and roller coasters. Not to mention the pizza was delicious! After the tour was over, we broke away from the TPR pack to go check out construction on Freedom Tower (the new World Trade Center building) and then to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center for a great night view of the city. All I have to say about Freedom Tower is that it's going to be spectacular when it's finished. I think they've finished about half (or less) of the building so far, and it's already towering over everything else in lower Manhattan. The top of the Rockefeller Center was both good and bad. Good in that it provided some truly amazing night views of the city, bad in that it was PACKED with annoying and rude tourists. I guess it just comes with the territory of being in New York City, but I had the urge to hurl a few people off the roof more than once in the 15 minutes we were up there. Either way, the un-un-official day was a great way to kick off the TPR portion of our trip, and a great way to sort of "wade" into all the people we would be meeting over the next week. Here are the pics! If you so wish to see all of the spectacular photos I took on this day, please feel free to check out my facebook album that contains the rest of them. The album is public so you shouldn't have any issues viewing it. First stop of TPR's week in the Northeast, Bowcraft! This was definitely a whore-ish stop, but that's how we roll. This Dragon looks ferocious. Gary and Neil have no shame, and chose the hands up approach. However, I chose to ride with my hands down. Giants like me can't do hands up on kiddie coasters, not if we want to keep our hands attached to our bodies. That plus the ride was scary. Bowcraft also had what I would consider to be a "real" roller coaster. And it had a few helices with actual "real" forces. And it farted coming back into the station. Robb filming this epic beast of a coaster. I'm thinking we should "fix" the Mitch Hawker poll next year so Crossbow comes out at #1. Who's with me? Upon seeing the skyline, I couldn't help but think of Pace Picante sauce commercials. Says here this stuff is made in.....New York City. ........NEW YORK CITY?!?! NO SOUP FOR YOU! We also checked out the giant toy store from the movie Big. Which has a place you can build your own Muppets. I didn't build one for myself, but if I had, it would have been a male stripper with a leopard thong and keys to a tour bus. True story. The giant toy store from the movie Big is also home to the giant piano from the movie Big. Let's see Stevie Wonder play this. Upon Robb's recommendation, we stopped by this waffle stand in Central Park. What I received was the most diabetic coma inducing treat I've ever eaten, but it was worth every life-shortening bite! Now that my stomach is struggling to digest 2 pounds of sugar, let's take a walk! This was a neat fountain. These were pretty lily pads in the water around the fountain. What it doesn't show are the cigarette butts and trash that were also in the water. Beautiful pond on the edge of the park. Calm down all you Harry Potter dorks, this isn't IOA. It's the Belvedere Castle. Hibiscuses are pretty. This is the entrance to John Lennon's old apartment building. And this is where John Lennon was shot and killed. I've now been to the spots where Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and John Lennon were assassinated. Is that a disturbing pattern? Now that we're done with the park, it's time for Little Italy! And Scott's Pizza Tour! Happy dance! The first stop was Lombardi's. This is a look inside the kitchen. If you have difficulty reading (but are somehow following along to this report), the plaque says that Lombardi's was the first pizzeria in this wonderful country we call home. Scott said that the internal temperature in the oven was something like 830 degrees, or hot enough to bake a pizza in 3 minutes. And I thought microwaves were efficient. Our next stop was Arturo's. While this pizza was completely nom-licious, it wasn't as good as Lombardi's. Although I seemed to be in the minority on that one Our final stop was Ben's Pizza, which provided us with these ridiculous slices of Sicilian pizza. It was most definitely my favorite pizza of the day, but I failed to take any pictures of it because I was drowning in deliciousness! While our TPR comrades went for canolies, we took the subway to lower Manhattan to check out Freedom Tower. I can't wait to see the finished product whenever they get it done. Hopefully it resembles a giant middle finger to assholes everywhere who like to blow themselves up "in the name of Allah." Some random cherry fountain. It was pretty. Radio City Music Hall! Two tickets to the observation deck, please. As you can see, you get a wonderful, unobstructed view of the Empire State Building. As you can also see, you get a fairly obstructed view of the Chrysler Building. Times Square is glowing bright tonight. I'm glad to see the Empire State Building survived King Kong. They really made a disaster out of it in that movie. Almost as big as the disaster that was Jack Black's acting. I also did a few panoramas during the day, this was a lake in Central Park where you can row boats around. I don't remember what it was called. For the sake of this trip report, we can call it Row Boat Lake, not to be confused with Motorboat Lake, which is somewhere between two mountains (or hills, depending on the "landscape"). This was a big grass field where people did things like throw frisbee, tan, and read books. I took a picture of it. I do like this one. I'll bet you can't guess what it is. The end!

^I would have thought so too, but a line of storms is moving through the area right now. I was at the park till about noon today and the weather was gorgeous. Seems to have taken a turn for the worse though.

Apollo's Chariot did have the record for most airtime on a steel coaster when it opened.

Not to double post or anything, but this warrants its own post. Back in July, after I found out about Dinosaurs Alive going to CP, I posted that I had also caught wind of a giant project named "Leviathan" being rumored for Carowinds. Here's the post: While I didn't specifically state this at the time, the giant project that I had learned about was a "300+ foot B&M." I honestly didn't put too much into it (I still can't believe that they would build something that large, but there's a first time for everything), but it's quite possible that it was meant for Canada's Wonderland and not Carowinds. A Leviathan is a large sea monster, which would make sense with the color scheme. So we'll see if Leviathan turns out to be the name.

If the giga rumor does in fact hold water, I would pretty much have to assume that the ride experience will be different than Behemoth in more ways than one. Come on people, put on your common sense caps.

^Go to the KD page in the Park Index and look up the Park Guide. That should tell you everything you need to know.

^I actually get a kick out of it when people question me.

Glad to see you enjoyed Kings Dominion! I think you got here right at the end of the brutal heat wave that hit most of the east coast right before the NE Trip began. KD is not a good park to visit during a heat wave!

They should just build this GCI in a building and call it a day.

Dinosaurs Alive will be at KD next year. As far as rides go, I have no idea. I think the only people speculating Windseeker are the KD fan people. It's not based off of anything but what they want for the park. But I'll say it again, KD is getting Dinosaurs Alive.

This is the trip report that keeps on giving.

It looks like these are track pieces either for the turn out of the station or going back into the station.

^He has no professional training.

I can speak from experience and say that at Carowinds, it's definitely a nightmare for the maintenance department. It's just about the moodiest piece of crap I've ever encountered in my time. Not sure about when it was at Great America. The maintenance guys at Carowinds have a pretty undying hatred for that ride, as does operations management.

A couple reasons: 1. Dragster takes a pretty long time to get warmed up in the morning, and it wouldn't be worth it to have it open early since they would basically be loading maybe 4 or 5 rows of every train. 2. Iron Dragon is a family ride, and not all early entry people want to get on the big coasters.

With the flyer in China, the invert in France, and the supposed mega wing rider going to Dollywood, B&M really seems to be pushing the envelope again after so many years of basically mailing in every design. More than anything, I'm excited to see if this will signal a new direction for B&M moving forward. I'm also going to go ahead and say this is a wing rider, as well. My reasoning remains rooted in the fact that the "floorless craze" is over in the U.S. (well, North America), and this track looks very similar to the track that's showing up at Dollywood.

Soooooo is this the Intamin chain's fault?

Stop going on Saturdays.

It's a very subtle difference, but the colors are different.

^The longest I've waited for FOF this year is about 15 minutes, and I've been there a LOT.

I hope you aren't holding your breath.

I guess we can just rejoice that it's a new coaster at a Cedar Fair park that isn't red! On a side note, I'm now about 99% sure my first visit to this park will be next year.