Midgetman82

If at least once in your lifetime, someone who traveled with you to a park somewhere had to ask "how do you find these places?!" True story, happened when I traveled from Miami to visit Rapids Water Park.

Surprisingly Pleasant: After hearing about how rough X2 could get, I was pretty apprehensive about getting on it back in 2010. Low and behold, the front row ride I did not only blew my mind, but made it to my top favorite coaster for a few years (until Montu claimed that spot). Before going to Kings Dominion in 2012, I had not heard a single positive review of Hurler. in fact, most are completely negative, stemming mainly from roughness. I'm not sure if it was having a good year or if I had a good seat, but the ride ran surprisingly fantastic when I got on it. Not an exciting layout (less fun than Thunder Run at KK), but was a very easy never-have-to-brace-myself ride. Surprisingly Unpleasant: I'm certain by now that I just got a bad seat (or rode it on a bad year), as this often celebrated ride jackhammered itself into the lowest spot on my list of favorites when I last rode it in 2010. Next time I'm at the park, I'll be willing to give it another chance in a seat other than the first car, third row... Don't get me wrong, Maverick is a wildly awesome roller coaster and deserves its place among some of the best roller coasters in existence. My thing with this, though, is that the transitions into bankings are pretty sharp and requires a bit of bracing for those not familiar with it to avoid bashing heads/necks with the OTSR's. Again, that doesn't make this coaster overall bad to ride, because it is the only major gripe I have with Maverick.

I was ironically in Orlando from the 14th to the 16th last year, and got to spend the 16th at SeaWorld before catching a flight out that afternoon heading home. Best unplanned solo park trip ever! Might as well continue the tradition. I totally second this. The KY State Fair started, so prices have slightly changed here as well. Normal park day tickets would be $44.95 at gate ($52.95 w/ parking), but it's $19.95 during the fair. Then you include required fair admission, required parking fee, and optional weekend midway unlimited wristband and it ramps up to $62.95 ($53 through Kroger). Unlike yours, my season pass is valid at KK... Your situation seems quite unfair.

^I'd sure hope so, but I sure wouldn't expect so. Reading through these got me to watching lots of off-ride footage of the premier bowls, including the Flight of Fear ones as well (there's only off-ride footage of the one at Kings Island which does seem to launch at full speed as everyone says so). I love these coasters so much, but it's a shame when any of the parks neuter them in any way... I guess Poltergeist rules them all. Also, i'm very certain the area where the train got stuck on joker's Jinx is where a catwalk is located on the Flight of Fears.

I'm a tad concerned about the lack of bankings on the two steel coasters... Then again, that's just me being spoiled by other coaster games and sims. I do like how it's off a fixed grid, like someone mentioned earlier. This has my interest for now. I hope a lot of the little new features pulls off well. To Pipework's slight defense, Rampage: Total Destruction was one of my favorite games to play on the Wii, but I'm not sure how they'll do for this type of gaming. I just hope they allow plenty of sandbox-mode freedom like all of the previous games.

^You should've seen where the State Fair board asked KY Kingdom visitors to park a few weeks back... Lot H, though... This isn't Disney World. (Lot-L is where the State Fair midway is going to be.)

The 16th is national roller coaster day, and I had planned to be at a park that day which was most likely to be KK, even with the higher priced unlimited ride wristbands at the fair ($25 weekends, $20 weekdays) and higher crowds all over. If you go, like the others have said, go early. Gates open 7am, but the park opens at 1pm on weekends (4pm weekdays). Park closes 9pm and the midway closes around midnight. Be weary of high schoolers hanging out around the front of the midway near late hours.

There's also SBF Visa Group from Italy who have been quietly installing quite a few flats in the US, including a few spin and swing type rides but theirs goes completely upside down. The one I've been hearing about lately was from Quassy who recently announced that they would soon be installing a super-tiny version of the ride (and linked this video on their Facebook page). This 104 foot model, SpinCycle, was apparently installed at Silverwood last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ_M6dapgfQ (I may have already said this before) I think there are plenty of interesting flat rides that are still being installed here and there every year but just not enough "recognition" of them, or that we're not paying as much attention to them.

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You look at open plots of land or big parking lots, and think what type of amusement park/large funfair could go there.

I'd also like to add that it's really refreshing to see HUSS still in the game. The Frisbee looks sweet, and the Top Spin is sure to thrill! Hope maintenance for each flat holds up well for this park.

Possibly Hersheypark for the first time this month. If not, then a short trip to KI, HW, or first-time visit to Beech Bend will do.

[My assumption:] It actually looks like a nice addition to the park's ropes course, especially considering the indoor environment. Not thrilling or fast, but unique being able to fly so close and parallel to Rock Bottom Plunge and over the sidewalk. [/assumption]

How about Kentucky Kingdom? Jk, They said a major park. I also see it coming to somewhere like Fiesta Texas with all of the hints they've dropped.

I assume attempting to monopolize from every other park around the world had an addictive feeling to Premier when they decided to focus less on improving the parks they already had, and acquire as many as possible. Must've been pretty bad for Shaprio when he was left with the burden of selling off the parks they couldn't handle.

No, Americans are made of guts and PopTarts, but when it comes to Zac Spins and other intense thrill rides, we neuter the Heck out of them to make it look more safe and save money with less maintenance needed! Fixed, or at least what I'm perceiving the case to be. This is why trimless rides like Voyage get such high ratings. Sure it tears into itself now and then, but the park's CoasterCats team do an excellent job keeping the ride from tearing into you.

Lightning Run's lap bars are very unforgiving, but not so much to overweight people but to people who just can't "fit" properly under the restraints. Most of the time, those who can't get the restraint under their belly down towards their waist can't ride. I've never really had any problems with fitting into a ride, but I see people take walks of shame on Lightning Run all the time. I've yet to do an RMC coaster, but the restraint system looks very, very similar to each other.

A sexy looking coaster! Love the layout, and can only imagine what it would be like indoors!

Well, that was fast! Congrats to S&S! Now to see what they come up with it, and more importantly, where it's gonna go!

Rock Bottom Plunge comes all the way up to the roof from ground level and is 67 feet tall (according to RCDB), and Avatar Airbender also comes up pretty close to the roof at 70 feet tall but required digging into the ground a little. The smallest ZacSpin model Intamin has seems to be Kirnu at 83 feet tall, so I'd assume lots of floor lowering would be necessary, unless they make a custom model. They look pretty neat and would probably somehow fit the theme within the park, but the reviews I've been hearing of the one at Magic Mountain haven't been so positive...

If there's any thunderstorms, they'll most likely halt all operations until it begins clearing. I was next in line for LR once when it happened, and when the rain got light enough, they started it back up (best ride on it, by far!). If it's on and off light rain then I assume they'll keep running them, plus you might get lighter crowds that day.

I used to own a Tamron zoom lens that went from 17 to 200+mm, but eventually traded it in because my biggest peeve with it was that it didn't have any stabilization built into it, so a lot of my zoomed-in photos were sometimes blurry. I'd prefer any zoom lens with a stabilizer built in to reduce shakiness. I still have and use my kit and 55-250mm lens and they still shoot great photos, but if the Tamron lens you listed has any sort of vibration reduction or image stabilization in it, I'd think it's a good buy... just my two cents though.

^^Very pretty! I had totally forgotten about the Concordia ship, and was surprised to see that they're still dealing with it to this day! It'd totally make a good location for a SyFy haunt show!

JCPS is the big public school district, as far as I know, and they don't go back until the 13th unfortunately. Some schools will have already started back up, so all hope isn't lost, I'm sure.

It was definitely there for this year's Holiwood Nights. Sucks to hear it stalled, the ride did feel like it was tad slower by the time it reached past the helix, though barely noticeable.