G$ Kurt

So a couple of really quick thoughts. I went on Saturday night and while I overall had a good time I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. There were some logistical issues like running out of souvenir hot chocolate cups. This is understandable and all but then to have only one stand offering paper cups (all the other stands were only offering refills for cups they had sold out of) didn’t make any sense. The light show is massively disappointing and beyond tacky. I expected to see the whole area have dancing lights to a festive theme, what I saw was a giant video wall of Santa doing “the nae nae”. And my last point, and this opinion I got from comparing the experience to the much smaller Six Flags St. Louis. But Great America is just a little too big for this event. It’s impossible to avoid the dead space and closed rides in between areas. This hopefully will get better as the event grows year to year. Again we had a good time, and top points to the Santa meet and greet on the train. That was really well done. Hopefully next year once Max Force is done they can have the train and the observation tower open for this event!

If you consider GateKeeper as a replacement for Disaster Transport, Valraven as a replacement of Wild Cat, and obviously Steel Vengeance as a replacement of Mean Streak (Do I really need to mention Mantis..) there has been a zero net gain of coasters at CP since Maverick in 2007. Dont get me wrong, there has been an improvement, a VAST improvement but a zero net gain of coasters. Not complaining I just think thats an interesting fact when adding up how many coasters CP has. Meanwhile, here is a pretty cool video showcasing Mean Streak's POV re-timed to Steel Vengeance pacing: [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

^^^ Interesting to see King Chaos is still on site.

I'm not going to lie, I kind of like this ^ idea. Except maybe not as a Dino replacement, maybe just have a Wakanda section next to Africa. I would be down with that.

I'm not going to lie, I kind of like this ^ idea. Except maybe not as a Dino replacement, maybe just have a Wakanda section next to Africa. I would be down with that.

I believe the name is intended to be storm themed (i.e. Hurricane Force Five) and they are waiting to release the name due to the current situation in Texas. Whats funny is that if you look at what ride King Chaos replaced (an Intamin looping starship) This is basically going back to that same ride, considering ride experience and ride motion.

Ugh, not that I am too sad about losing king chaos, I'm more upset with the idea that whatever they replace it with won't have a Mardi-gras theme. I know that SF isn't the best at theming lands to begin with but the Mardis-Gras area isn't even that old! Already it's lost the restaurant to Jonny Rockets, the rockin tug, Ragin Cajun (Though I'll give joker a pass here because the purple and green fits in rather well) and now king chaos! The area is officially dead. If it is a skywarp I will be excited but I was just hoping that it would have gone into southwest territory (finally filling the old wagon pad) and been themed to a lasso or something. Also I can almost guarantee you will not see an S&S Super L in any six flags park. Way to expensive. The ride system on that is essentially a coaster with magnetic launching. Super loops and Larson loops work the same way, where the train is just part of a continues set of wheels, which is much easier and cheaper to move around a loop than launching.

What happened to the artist rendering of a trash can???

Its largely queue line but also has a maintenance building (which used to have its own little bone-yard around it) and a newer building that was home to a haunt. Which by the way, they are not using that building during this years haunt, correct?

But miller lite....

I thought crowds were WAY higher than expected. Weather turned out perfect and nearly all the schools were off leading to a home run opening day for great America. One question though, do any of the other six flags parks have the stupid bottle flip game? And $12.99 for a beer? Are they crazy?? So stupid Criminal

^^ Like, while riding?? That's actually pretty dangerous. Given the old photo eye system that ride uses for blocks it does not take much to obstruct them and cause a setup. Your friend is an idiot and I'm glad they got caught.

Im all about this! Just don't let the Von Roll enthusiasts over in the CP thread get wind of this.

Yeah sorry, but no. They have already made some pretty drastic changes to the ride structure. I don't see the new layout being anything like the original. Which is a good thing.

June 2009 was my first trip ever to kings island. After putting it off long as long as possible we finally decided to give Son of Beast a go. Maybe five trains after ours they take the ride down. As we now know it never reopened. My first ride on SOB was one of its last.

It obviously is no falcons fury, and my favorite drop tower is actually kings islands drop zone. This one is great though for a couple of reasons, it's so unexpected given the thrill level of everything else at the park, and also because people (especially the GP) have become so familiar with the intamin pause that the lack of one on these ARM models really catches people by surprise. It is a very fun drop ride and while not the tallest It gives the perfect amount of true free fall action. Plus it's a gatunteed walk on.

I've always been sad at how Batman intruded upon Yankee Harbour. I always thought it would be easy to keep the Harbour theme but rename it Gotham Harbour. Whirligig, Yankee clipper and what's left of Mardi Gras could be rethemed into Batman related character rides. As for V2, I actually wouldn't give that one a batman/DC theme, I would repaint it, add the wave cut outs along the launch and give it a throwback theme to Tidal Wave. (Schwarzkopf shuttle replaced by batman for those who don't know) This is of course a pipe dream. Any chance of cohesive themed areas at SFGAm is long gone. End of daydreaming rant.

Mean Streaks first half when taken at its intended speed is pretty incredible. It's the entire second half after the trim that is a meandering snooze fest.

They should rename it West River Crawler

I'm very confused... 7 million dollars??!?!? That better include refurb, transportation and installation. Even then that seems excessive. Most of those rides arnt that rare... Some you can buy brand new! Troikas are rare in the US, but I know with personal experience it doesn't even cost close to half a million to buy, refurb, and install a troika. Just wondering where all the money went. Sounds like they went on one hell of a vacation.

I agree with youe comment. There are plenty of places they can install new things if they really wanted to add more rides. Moreover that park is infamous for moving their flat rides around the park. Cedar Point will always have space for new rides b/c some rides just get obsolete and old. The park has 72 rides. That means in theory they could swap out rides, retire roller coasters and upgrade things with ease. Just an example, not a prediction. If the park wanted to they could *Get ride of Gemini and add a Dueling eurofighters I know you said predictions, but I have to address the blatant disregard for efficiency here. With regards to removing and replacing capacity, removing a ride that has an insane pph (thousands) and replacing it with a ride or even rides that couldn't top 1000 pph combined... come on...

Maybe the bottom of the lift?

1989: 1. Magnum XL 200 2. Excalibur 3. Timberwolf Unintentionally all cedar fair rides

What baffles me the most is how anybody with a brain would think that Southwest Airlines, would sign a deal that directly competes with Love Field, THEIR HEADQUARTERS. It takes a two second internet search to figure that out. Then again I also wouldn't think there would be many people dumb enough to listen and believe the first 20 red flags in his story.

Relax everybody. They just use the dogem building as a temporary maintenance shed during the off season. They do this every year.