DirkFunk

That right there is Bobby Ologun; racially offensive Japanese TV personality who proves that minstrel acts never died, they just moved across the Pacific. His fame as a comedic actor led to him deciding that he'd become an actual athlete, and in turn, the world was gifted moments like this one from New Years Eve 2006 at the Osaka Dome: Hong Man Choi vs. Bobby Ologun

This is an awfully simplistic way to look at why Six Flags went into bankruptcy: it doesn't take into account what the capital expenditure was intended to accomplish and how or why it failed to accomplish those goals over the long term. Needless to say, guest satisfaction was a pretty huge component of that collapse and excessive pricing certainly played a role. I honestly don't think you're looking to have an honest debate about that and I suppose this isn't really the thread to do it, so I'm bowing out.

I think the problem here is that there are people defending this as a smart financial move on the part of Six Flags and then a whole lot of people who seem to remember that this is the modus operandi that led them to bankruptcy previously. It is as if nothing was learned.

When you take the tact of "People expect to get gouged and are OK with it and you're stupid not to think so" and you're talking about an amusement park chain that has, by pretty much every standard, been a commercial failure and gone bankrupt over the last 10 years, I think you're having a forest for the trees moment. As for discussions about SF season passes vs. CF season passes: each system encourages different things. Six Flags is all about trying to get per caps out of people while barely charging them to enter the parks, or, in other words, same as its always been since the Gary Story era. Cedar Fair is effectively charging you up front and offers you the very real option of not getting a Platinum pass should you so desire.

The coasters are fine. The fact that there was a death on the Hi-Miler this year doesn't mean much given that there have been people cut in half by Jeepers' coasters in the past (about the smallest thing there is) and that the ride was almost immediately cleared to continue operating (generally a sign that the ride isn't mechanically at fault). If there was a company I'd be worried about putting together their stuff, the last people in this country that it would be are RCS/Bishop or Vander Vorste.

We're going to have to agree to disagree then. I think its theming might be slightly better than, I dunno, the log flume at the Columbus Zoo (to use a comparison near to it), but not by any great margin. That's a markedly mediocre, unremarkable ride. When I then think about comparing it to Hersheypark's or Ontario Place's or Alton Towers' or Dorney Park's or the ones at Great Adventure and so on, I don't think its as good as any of those. It is a solidly midpack ride for what it is that also happens to want to sink itself and that opened half a season late.

The fact that Maverick is there and replaced a log flume that was removed a few years prior to STR's construction is irrelevant to Shoot The Rapids being a mediocre log ride and/or it not working as it should. Does it fill a need? I suppose it does, but that doesn't mean it is fantastic or runs like it should.

Shoot The Rapids is, at its heart, a log flume. A log flume in which the boats want to sink themselves and which opened months late and still has issues running consistently compared to other, older, less advanced rides in its class. I don't know if it is necessarily a "mechanical nightmare" in the same way that, I dunno, Spellbreaker or The Bat or something that failed and got removed very quickly was, but you certainly can't call it an unquestioned success or state that it was just Intamin pushing the limits with a wild prototype. I should note too that on top of having an embarassingly late opening and having the rather chronic "boats not emptying as fast as they should" issue that will probably plague it until it ends up replaced, Shoot The Rapids has another problem - it isn't even that good a ride within its class. There are multiple trailered log flumes travelling Europe that are better than it in every respect in spite of all the millions put into its development and construction. Bad is unforgivable.

I guess I echo a lot of people's sentiments when I say that if the massive variety of steel looping coasters, introduction of all new wood coaster train designs (and track designs too), crazy new dark ride concepts, magnetically launched water slides, multi axis flat rides, and all the like don't please your need for innovation that there is very little conceptually in the amusement world that ever would. Ultimately, I'd ask; What precisely are you looking for in an amusement attraction that would make it "innovative" to you?

Shoot 'em up dark rides remove some of the issues but add others - you don't worry about vandalism so much any more because people are busy shooting things. On the other hand, you now have to maintain the targets and guns, which get a work out. They're also still pricey. You spend $3 million on a dark ride and that might not seem like a lot, but it buys a lot of Dartron kiddie rides or water slide towers from ProSlide.

Again, its a cost thing with regional theme parks. For the price of a family friendly dark ride like what Monster Mansion would cost from scratch today, you can have a whole new kiddie land section like Dorney's redone Planet Snoopy. Or you can build a water park.

Disneyland has as many dark rides as some geographical regions. Its not an issue of "big parks don't want them" necessarily as much as there are liability and cost issues involved that make them unappealing. Stunts and animatronics have to be maintained constantly, the rides are subject to damaging vandalism at what is probably a greater rate than anything else that would be at a park, and any time you have people in a building, you have to worry about getting them out should the need arise (see also: Great Adventure's Haunted House going up in flames and taking 8 people with it).

Monte Makaya is for sale though it may have a bunch of structural issues since the park it was at sucked so bad.

There's nothing to stop anyone from removing a seatbelt. The thing is though, a functioning seatbelt requires the rider consciously remove it. If you're in the seatbelt, you can't accidentally cause yourself to fall out unless you remove it, which switches the onus of responsibility onto the person taking it off. The legal argument then would be that Morey's didn't do enough to prevent people from being able to accidentally fall out of the ferris wheel; I guarantee that's what they bring to the table.

There's another thread on the boards asking why there are lots of attendants at US amusement parks. Legal liability in this country is why. If the parents find out that other parks and amusement operators have seat belts on their ferris wheels (and some do) they'll put forth an argument that the park was negligent in its operation by not providing some semblance of a restraint system to prevent people from doing something enormously stupid. And they might win. When it comes to liability lawsuits in Europe, the need to prevent stupid people from doing stupid things generally does not work in the courts and instead gets thrown out quickly.

Did this really get this far and no one mentioned Tivoli Gardens? 'Cause, yeah. They're empircally on a different level than everyone else.

There's not a lot of enthusiasm from the ops over in Germany or much of Europe. They just don't check anything, expect you to do your restraint yourself, and press the button that makes the ride go. If you want enthusiasm, it comes from the guys on the fair circuit as they yell stuff before the mess with the manual controls and cause you to spin or flip at a high rate of speed for an exhaustively long period of time.

That's gotta be Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Man, I'd take the undeveloped pristine coastline over the condos any day, but that's just me.

As far as ride safety goes, the Europeans, Germans in particular, have way more stringent standards on their construction and standards of safety. Really. I remember hearing that Moser had never built a TUV compliant ride in their history several years back and I believe that's still the case. S&S's Thrust Air coaster is a good example of another TUV non-compliant ride that had to have a German work crew do work on. It definitely isn't that. What it is relevant is, as others have theorized, the litigious nature of US courts and the general belief being that companies should take maximum precaution to prevent injury or face litigation. While that's fine and dandy when discussing things like Tylenol manufacturing or the distribution of burger meat, that standard is also unfortunately applied to forcefully preventing, as best possible, the escape of a person's body from a amusement ride vehicle when they choose to try and escape it rather than merely attempt to prevent the expulsion of a incapacitated person. Above, in short: Lawyers and the system sucks, and for Europe being a supposedly more confining and socialistic place than the US, they allow a lot more personal freedom when it seems to count as a result of their law system sucking less.

This thread needs a lot more Myrtle Beach, Ocean City (MD), and Cape Cod. Those areas all have a disgusting amount of weird and wacky courses. Also worth mentioning are the old-old-old school Tom Thumb courses. I know one operates in Geneva On The Lake in OH and another operates in a state or country park in Indiana. The oldest mini golf in the country runs in Lake George and there's also a pretty wild course there called Around The World Golf that's pretty extravagant. Wherever you seem to find a resort town near water, lots of mini golf seems to follow.

My understanding has been that Boomers and the DBH are separate outside vendors operating on property someone else owns. If the outside vendor is throwing in his hat about the coaster, then the guy who owns the land may have a different plan for it - batting cages? Driving Range? Big ass flea market to be filled with Hatians selling bootleg porno and Heat jerseys? Who knows.

The area around the park looks like a scene out of a Rick Ross video. I can practically imagine the Carol Mart right next door to the place. If that land was worth something for development, the stuff around it would have been done up long before. If its going down, its because Boomers wants to get rid of it ASAP, probably to save on maintenance and because they've given up on the idea of anyone, including someone outside their business, run it.

It just depends on what you want, honestly. You can still try to get the same waiter and table each day with My Time dining should you like whoever you get first. If you don't, you can go have a different waiter the next day and so on. Plus you'll get your own table. Some people like traditional dining, being seated with new people, etc. The food is going to be the same no matter what. Like I said: Your call.

Yeah, August only shows the Paradise as others have said. If you're willing to fly to Seattle, Norwegian has a couple Alaska cruises that have not insane pricing for oceanviews (or insides if you're being really cheap). Celebrity also has a few reasonably priced ventures for that market. The only issue you might have is since Alaska is generally set up for fogies, they leave on more inconvenient days like Friday and Saturday. Not like 80 year olds need to get vacation time approved by their supervisor. That and, yes, its comparatively expensive to a 7 night to your general Cozumel/Grand Cayman port of call cruises in the Caribbean. But airfare should definitely be far cheaper from LA/Burbank/Santa Barbara wherever you choose to go from.

Look, when we talk about comparing, say, the Monarch and the Sensation, what are the major differences? -The decor -Who flagged the boat Here's what I'd ask you - is there enough of a difference in dinner service (which can greatly vary from server to server, as is beyond the realm of argument) to state that one should unequivocally put boat above itinerary in the Bahamas on a budget cruise geared to locals? Or the quality of the 9 hole golf course? The quality of shows? This isn't a question of whether or not someone should take a Freedom class vessel versus, I dunno, the MV Caribbean Princess. The products offered are far more alike than different and are priced accordingly. (On a personal level, I also think the argument that any particular line is comparable to Wal-Mart or a big box retailer compared to another is hilarious. Mass market lines are mass market lines and they seek to please entire families by the thousands. Its like getting into fist fights about whether Target sells better merchandise than Old Navy. Its all made by women making 70 cents an hour in Vietnam. You want a serious, massive difference? You'll pay for it.) For the person asking the question, I'd say this: look at each ship, compare decor, read Cruise Critic reviews, check the port schedules, and go from there. If you're a first timer going on a cruise, the RCCL, Norwegian, and Carnival offerings to the Bahamas are perfectly adequate and, realistically, are made for people like you.