DirkFunk

I was entirely serious, FWIW.

What if Homer Simpson smoked weed? It's not that crazy to imagine.

The discussion about "who's better?" and basing it solely around the coasters there is lame anyways. That's not to say that one park is clearly better than the other in terms of that contest (OK, OK, I'd probably vouch for CP here over Magic Mountain almost any day) but there's so much more to Cedar Point as a destination in comparison to Magic Mountain. So much more.

I had seen those videos *years* ago and went looking a few months back to no avail. My recollection is they got them up to ludicrious speed (like Dragster launch speed) at times during testing.

If I had to eat breakfast on the Peninsula, I'm eating at Perkins. Don't even entertain the notion of going to Breakwater Cafe. Starbucks is a clear second place. I would probably do neither ideally and go to something along 250 instead (Dianna's, the time machine to 1965 hidden inside Jolly Donut, hell even Sonic).

Minebuster hasn't been a quality ride since it was re-profiled about 15 years ago. I don't think that park knows or cares about how to properly maintain a wood coaster, and that's too bad. Time Warp and Flight Deck are both total garbage IMO and I'd be more than enthusiastic to see them gone. As far as Marineland goes, the owner is a packrat and has a bunch of totally random garbage sitting in fields (train from Yugoslavia, boat ride, other nonsense) around there that will never be put up. He's also cheap as hell and the kind of individual one might suggest is a scumbag. I wouldn't expect anything to change there until he's in the ground.

Yeah, Tony (who manages it) always checks photo IDs to match coaster enthusiast cards.

They've seemed pretty clear in their intentions to be looking at a Mean Streak revision and an interactive dark ride attraction. That would leave the park with, what, the worst "adult" coaster being Mine Train or Draggin' Iron? That's pretty ridiculous.

How am I going to have sex with the ride if there are no dick holes CEDAR FAIL AMIRITE

A) If you pay money to get into theme parks and that is your relationship to them, YOU ARE THE GENERAL PUBLIC. You just happen to fall on the autism spectrum in such a manner that you care emotionally about amusement rides for kids. Don't ever forget this. B) Some people aren't going to be happy with a B&M install. If they spend $20 million to construct a fake mountain around this, do you think the complaints about the layout would go away? No. This ride doesn't do some of the cool stuff the Gerstlauer rides do with inversions and beyond vertical drops. I won't argue that. I would argue that I'll probably be able to enjoy Valravn unlike almost every Eurofighter install with OTSRs. I'll probably enjoy it more 15 years from now than I would an off the shelf Intamin 8/10 looper too, since those things apparently age as gracefully as David Lee Roth. I'm getting a fun, high capacity, high up-time, unique to any park in a 700 mile radius of my house addition to my home park. I'm stoked. Must suck to not be in that position.

Given the space they're working with, I'd rather have more midway and paths than a splashdown that creates dead ends and throws a wall of water up in the middle of the park. I guess some tunnels would be nice, but that's something they can add on after construction using less than 50K in supplies from Menards if so desired. Not like that industrial looking one on Leviathan makes the ride.

Of course. Who was going to call them out that had any pull? ACE could have but then they'd risk losing the ability to get people into ride openings or book events below cost. So they let them repeat that. California had two roller coasters with inversions and the same restraint system. I could be wrong, but I think the OTSRs on Schwarzkopf were brought to the table as a response to the the Edmonton Mindbender killing a bunch of people when the train derailed and threw the lapbars open. The reason why you don't see this at Texas and Georgia on their looping Schwarzkopf rides may very seriously have to do with the ownership situation of those two parks within the chain vs. that of Magic Mountain. Actually, that's true for a lot of why those parks have historically been far superior to the rest of the chain, but that's a long discussion and entirely speculative.

"Magic Mountain was forced by law" is a statement that was backed up for years and told not to be questioned in spite of the fact that literally no one has ever been able to produce the law in question preventing them from making an alteration to the ride like removing OTSRs. Going back to the date of the announcement... Assuming that's true and maybe the shin guard is the reason it's okay now (and I don't know enough about local laws or the legal end of the industry to even begin to speculate on it), how is it okay on Montezooma's Revenge to just have a lap bar? I have no idea how this stuff works but I'm curious so if anyone has any insight that would be great. It's almost certainly BS that they used to justify why they put on the OTSRs. The real reason was likely to reduce insurance costs as new, more restrictive restraints would probably justify lower premiums due to "reduced risk" and over a period of a few years, it would save enough to have paid for the "improvement" and then some. The changeover also probably reduced overall operating costs as people stopped riding the stupid thing and overall capacity and operations costs for the attraction could be reduced in kind, which since attendance was generally stable or occasionally still increasing for most of the last 20 years, was totally OK to management. Now to repaint the ride, put some lights on it, and buy new trains means they can market it as a "new attraction" for not much capital expenditure and justify reverting the ride to, you know, ride-able condition.

Neither park is conveniently located near the train and require use of a shuttle to arrive there. I think that's a big part of it. Also, realistically, I was in Rome for 3 solid days and never once thought, "This isn't strange or different enough. I need to go to an immersive theme park experience." There's enough ruins and crazy stuff/sidestreets/whatever to entertain the tourists coming for eons before they feel the need to take a 45 minute bus ride out to the suburbs. Oh, and the Italian economy is going down the crapper. There's that too.

It's probably another ride in what is now a long list of coasters at Cedar Point easily capable of pushing through over 1000 people an hour. The park already has nine really worthwhile steel coasters and this is number 10. Not only that, Valravn can be consistently expected to open and run every single day of the year (weather permitting). And it'll be fun. And it'll help the flow of the park. Did I mention it'll be fun, work consistently, and put through lots of people? Yes. It will do all those things.

This. A lot of this stuff is generally aimed at a British/European audience, like the migrants on boats who are perpetually floating and chased by police.

It's art. It is supposed to generate thought and create feelings. A lot of what's in there is fairly obvious in its meaning. Other stuff is more subversive. That's how museums and exhibitions work. If you're looking for one unifying statement, I think you're missing the point.

In all seriousness, do you work for the park? And if so, is it in a position of management? Because emotional ownership isn't real ownership. I've been there and done that and realized my error later. If "your park" has suffered tremendously, in what ways? I don't think Robb made it so that it always takes an hour to get there coming from the freeway. I don't think Robb is why their flat rides run at 1/3 speed to save money. You probably caught my drift here. If people can't make up their own minds and form an intelligent opinion about something, that's their problem. You don't need to care about what they have to say. edit: Also, honestly, I *am* the GP. The only relationship I have to these things is that I exchange money with the expectation of entertainment just like everyone else walking through the gate. Me knowing this or that or the other thing doesn't get me in for free or qualify me for super secret handjob rides on the coasters.

New waterpark additions and a skycoaster results in stagnation? I think you're very confused on the subject. I'm no expert on Magic Springs because I've never been but it seems like it's the kind of park that doesn't really pull in a whole lot of excess money. Call me crazy. They're doing the best they can with the money they've got. Small regional parks don't have nearly the bankroll that large chains have. A) I'm not a believer in Dan Koch: General Manager and probably won't be until I see actual results. B) Looking at the history of Magic Springs, the place has barely ever made money and is currently owned by CNL, for whom the title "shitshow" could be a conservative description of their present state. I don't know what specifically they need to do to make big money, or even if there is that kind of demand for a major park there. My sense is that no such demand exists and they should be concentrating on being a really solid mid size park operating really solid rides, of which, I don't know if they have any outside the Skyloop. They seem like competitors/complementary at best to SDC, which leads me to think that festivals and live performing acts would probably be wiser investments than a hyper coaster or another 10 million sunk into the water park.

Almost nothing happens in a vacuum. If I'm pissed about the last two hours of my life being wasted in lines, that attitude will carry onto the ride. I'm not going to try to separate that sort of thing out from my experience on a ride because, honestly, why should I? That's like telling someone who sees the cook spit in their food that they should just eat it and judge it on its merits.

Dan Snyder wasn't perfect; Shapiro's strategy of cutting maintenance budgets was cited as a factor in why that girl's feet got ripped off in Kentucky. But don't blame him for Six Flags America being unable to compete. Story and Burke built a ton of rides and no infrastructure to support them adequately. Blame them.

If your reaction is "This doesn't make me want to go to Six Flags," that's OK! But there's no reason to be really angry about them eliminating derelict theaters they weren't using or had any plans to use any time soon or building a new coaster. Sorry, but I lack the ability to feel really bad about people who are within day trip distance of Hershey, Knoebels, Dorney, the Jersey Shore, Coney, Rye, SFA, Dutch Wonderland, Clementon, and even more than that acting like this is a hardship. Hell, you can still go and not ride it too!

Assuming that's true and maybe the shin guard is the reason it's okay now (and I don't know enough about local laws or the legal end of the industry to even begin to speculate on it), how is it okay on Montezooma's Revenge to just have a lap bar? I have no idea how this stuff works but I'm curious so if anyone has any insight that would be great. It's almost certainly BS that they used to justify why they put on the OTSRs. The real reason was likely to reduce insurance costs as new, more restrictive restraints would probably justify lower premiums due to "reduced risk" and over a period of a few years, it would save enough to have paid for the "improvement" and then some. The changeover also probably reduced overall operating costs as people stopped riding the stupid thing and overall capacity and operations costs for the attraction could be reduced in kind, which since attendance was generally stable or occasionally still increasing for most of the last 20 years, was totally OK to management. Now to repaint the ride, put some lights on it, and buy new trains means they can market it as a "new attraction" for not much capital expenditure and justify reverting the ride to, you know, ride-able condition.

Harsh truth: if you guys are all expecting Six Flags to build you a 3 train giga coaster, they're being run by the wrong people to deliver that to you. If it bothers you that much and you're a local, well, you live in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. You have countless amusement parks to go to instead.

Strangely, Revolution has been so bad for so long for no good reason that now I'm like, "Oh. Well, that's nice." to this news of its refurbishment. I'm happy, you know? Just not excited.