DirkFunk

OK, then I'll take the time to say that DirkFunk (YAH THIRD PERSON, COME GET IT) will totally hang out with the crew of people close to his peer group that have tattoos and listen to a lot of the same stuff he does. ACE had two regional reps get busted for sex crimes (both with minors IIRC); that's who I'm worried about being associated with.

In "my opinion" soak city is not the best investment for CP. I have never spent any time in Sc and never plan to. It's Ohio, so if you want to go on a water slide, there are other places. I think Kings Island benefits far more than CP with their water park and if there were no water park, I don't think anyone would care. After all, they do have plenty of indoor water parks in the area. It's about competing with those indoor water parks for dollars and getting people to stay longer. A water park that isn't trapped in the late 1990s would only help in that regards.

From my prior reply: Ultimately only *you* know how much money you have for this. I don't do trips where if I go over budget, I starve for a week afterwards, and neither do most people on the forum. Keep that in mind when you're told "just get them, you never regret it!" (The only slight deviation I'd have from the prior advice is that Saturdays with exceptionally nice weather might also be targets for such passes. Again, you won't know that but 24-48 hours in advance and if you arrive at opening, you'll probably still be able to get them.)

I was thinking more that it was left over from Castaway Bay, which undoubtedly has Christmas stuff in it during December and probably a mall Santa sorta thing.

They usually do better than parks built in the middle of nowhere. They probably want neither and the property just torn down and turned into (nontheme) park space or something. I'm fine with that. It isn't like they bought homes next to an amusement park that's been there for 120 years and are complaining now.

There's the super special one that is something like 3 hours long - I've never gone on it, but probably should one day - but even without that what exists as the studio tour now is kinda monumental in scope. It's basically got three components that were or will be essentially their own standalone attractions at USO (Jaws, Kong, and F&F) PLUS all the rest.

Someone else brought up the Studio Tour, and no joke, it is at minimum one of the 3-5 best attractions at any theme park in the world IMO. The SoCal locals have seen it a billion times and to them it isn't nearly as special, but if you've never done it before, it is mindblowing in length, scope, etc. You don't even have to like everything that happens, because there's almost assuredly going to be something else impressive/incredible just a short distance away followed by something else and something else and something else. If you went on a quiet day a couple years ago though, you could be in, ride everything, do the Studio Tour, and be out in roughly 2 hours. No matter how you slice it, it is a small place and it doesn't have many rides.

Good points. I can't think of any; someone else may be able to besides the Topple Towers. I've never seen a ride going from being a staple in every single park to completely gone from everywhere like the Chance Chaos. As far as I know there are only two still operating in America. That's the one that immediately comes to mind. Most, like the Chaos, last a little while first before being removed. But it usually takes some sort of dramatic issue. The Chaos fell of the hub at Michigan's Adventure: That's a big oops. The Huss Rainbows pretty much all disappeared after they were developing structural steel cracks, IIRC. Setpoint's small suspended coasters were all awful w/capacity and ended up getting replaced, as previously suggested. Spellbreaker at Legoland California lasted, what, two years?

Orlando is already awash in cheap labor, so...uh...backpage?

May 5th is media day and I see no reason why you should expect that they'd miss that.

Have you been using the aforementioned Black Forest? Yo brony dude, pass that ish over. It's Friday, homie.

Bro: Cedar Point could have nipped this in the bud already. It's done. Over. Finished. There's gonna be a whole ton of photos a week from tomorrow detailing it, probably.

If you feel the need to write something like that to explain why it is you deviated from industry SOP and are now returning to industry SOP, chances are the deviation probably didn't do you any good. The best they can argue is a half hearted "Our market research said..." Thank god someone with a clue is in charge now of the company.

This to me is a bummer for a couple reasons - it is prime (PRIME!) space along the Frontier Trail, which, uhhh, how does a huge metal arch fit into that theme at all? I hope that's just a temporary stopgap solution while they look to do some other work first (waterpark expansion, dark ride, 1000 ft tall supersonic aquatrax in a vacuum tube).

Glad to hear that. People will tell you otherwise and that it was great to get in school kids. They are lying to themselves. They know it is crap. Horrible useless awful crap.

I think most people, deep in their hearts, know that Dinosaurs Alive was a horrible idea from the get go.

I like the Intamin coasters in the park plenty. STR though? Awful. How do you build a log flume that can't float in the 21st century when randoms were able to figure it out in the 1920s? "Randoms" You know its true. Lake Winnie's log flume predates penicillin. It ain't rocket science.

I like the Intamin coasters in the park plenty. STR though? Awful. How do you build a log flume that can't float in the 21st century when randoms were able to figure it out in the 1920s?

Shoot the Rapids is dunzo. Couldn't be happier. http://www.sanduskyregister.com/Business/2016/02/11/Shoot-The-Rapids-coming-down.html?ci=stream&lp=2&p=1 Cedar Point’s Shoot the Rapids is coming down. Sources have told the Register the amusement park operator started to tear down the water ride Tuesday. Cedar Point is not confirming the removal or what will come next. “Our focus is on the construction of Valravn, our record-breaking dive coaster. We have not announced any changes regarding our current ride lineup,” wrote Tony Clark, director of communications, in a statement. The ride was designed by Intamin, which also designed Top Thrill Dragster and Millennium Force. The ride, which debuted in June 2010 on Frontier Trail, suffered its share of problems. On July 19, 2013, seven guests were on a Shoot the Rapids boat that malfunctioned while ascending a lift hill. Inspectors determined the boat went down the hill backward about 187 feet, then traveled another 41 feet until it struck the edge of a concrete flume. The force of the collision damaged about 7 feet of concrete. The boat then continued in the flume an additional 58 feet, striking the flume wall several more times and hitting another boat before overturning, the guests still inside. The inspection revealed two safety features never engaged: one designed to prevent boats from coming off the track, the other to prevent boats from rolling backward.

TL;DR - Country club style business model for locals. Back in the 80s and 90s, before there was a second gate, the urban expanse of LA and Orange County had fully enveloped the area surrounding Disney, but company was, frankly, a much more amateurish looking organization. The gulf of offerings between Disney and the other regional theme parks just wasn't as great as it is now; you still had a big surface parking lot with cheap looking trams, there was still a campground, there was no Downtown Disney, and the surrounding area on Katella and Harbor looked, well, like what the surroundings of Knott's resemble today. A ton of money was invested by the city, Disney, and the surrounding properties to change that, and one of the reasons for doing so was to justify the kind of price increases you see today to the more affluent sectors the company wanted to target. Simply increasing the price without those offerings would have gone over like a wet fart. The people complaining only now about the price increases? They were fine with pricing out the "riff raff" until they became the "riff raff" themselves.

Dave Althoff has a whole long thing about coaster trains on his site - some of the info is antiquated, but is a pretty good starting point as to why PTC's trailered design was a flop. http://www.davealthoff.com/tech/coastercar.html

Kennywood, Conneaut Lake, Seabreeze, Morey's, Jolly Roger in Ocean City, they all fit. Coney Island Cincinnati is the champ at this: 1 operating coaster out of 13 ever standing on the site. Though Southport Pleasureland would probably be in the running too if RCDB tracked the coasters there.

That's sorta the thing with Knotts - what makes it interesting IMO are those other things: the dark rides, the log flume (which is top notch), the train, the stagecoach, observation tower, Mystery Lodge, the chicken, the pie, etc. If you go and ride the coasters and leave, you can do that, but it won't take 8 hours. Nothing there is that good. Castle is an adorable park (hate to use that term but there it is anyhow) built by Bud Hurlbut, the guy that basically designed most of the great old attractions at Knotts and was the concessionaire running their rides for eons. Scandia is a one hit wonder, but the one hit (Scandia Screamer) is one of the most extreme steel coasters out there. Think of it as the proto-hyperlite. A lot less driving would be involved and you'd be going away from some of the major snarls rather than into it. As for the last leg....I'd probably just spend my time at Santa Cruz that day rather than head north and try to pile in Six Flags. It's a lot of production model coasters, a RMC coaster about 3 months out from opening, and a B&M floorless with an inversion that is kinda different. Santa Cruz, meanwhile, is one of the country's top amusement parks. That and eat. Eat a lot. Thanks again for the suggestions and I will do some more research into these to see how feasible it will be for me! It's really appreciated.

Yeah, that is definitely a concern -- prior to putting this together I wasn't really thinking that the distance between LA and SD was that great. I don't particularly mind driving that much, I'm used to doing road trips over here on the East Coast due to my location, but it would suck to get down there just in time for it to be closed. Do you think it'd be a better idea to possibly start the day down there, then work my way north? This is a difficult thing for me to answer. I don't know you, so it is tough for me to guess as to what and how your habits are at parks. If you are strictly interested in the coasters at Knotts, you'll be in and out and 2 hours. The only coaster presently open there that demands repeat ridership (IMO) is Silver Bullet. Maybe Xcelerator. That's it. And on a Friday, you might not have any significant queue lines to deal with early on. What matter here is the *everything else*. If you don't care about the dark rides, the log flume, the shows, or the food, then you can blitz it and move onto the next thing and probably do this (albeit with a lot of time in the car). In the always popular, "If I were you, I'd do this totally differently" thing people generally don't like to hear, yeah, I'd probably do it very differently and look at Castle and Scandia as the replacements to Belmont, and sub out SFMW with CGA to save myself an hour of driving, plus look at the schedules for Butler and Ray Cammack Shows to see if they have anything in the areas I'm going. But that's me, and not you.

In the best conditions possible, you're looking at a roughly two hour drive. Could you drive to Belmont, ride the Dipper, leave, and make it to Pacific Park in time to get a ride on the coaster there? I mean, I guess you could. You'll probably spend close to 6 hours in your car with traffic and be left with a matter of a few minutes at each and not much more than that. You might also not find that you need as much time at Knotts, Belmont, or Pacific as you imagine (and also have the benefit of Adventure City being nearby too if you need "credits"). SFMM with a QBot is doable in a single day. The rest I guess is dependent on your own personal endurance. Adventure City has the new Gerstlauer family coaster and is right down the street from Knotts. I don't know what else you could realistically expect to fit in this trip without beginning to trim down other aspects.