austinlee

I have been to SFMM on a few school holidays, on Columbus Day, the day before Thanksgiving and Winter break, in the last three years in which most of Orange County was off and most of LA County was in school. Each time I have found crowds to be almost as light as a normal school day. Early June is much more crowded largely due to college students being off and school trips. In my last two visits in March and April I have sat in various rows all over both trains and found Revolution smooth each time. Before those two visits I have found it to be rough and have headbanging for quite a while. I have never had trouble with Viper. Although not perfectly smooth, I have always found it smooth enough to not have any issues. I have wondered the same thing. I am about the same height as you, 5'9", and when Revolution it as it's worst my temples hit the OTSR. Have any of you had a particularly bad ride on Revolution in let's say March or April?

According to KBF's calendar Pony Express is scheduled to reopen on Saturday. I really hope Xcelerator does reopen by this weekend since I am planning to go next week, before Montezooma's and Sierra Sidewinder close for rehab in May. For what it's worth Screamscape says that the park is hopeful that Xcelerator could reopen this weekend.

^^^^^ Glad you had a good visit. I haven't seen them run three trains on Colossus since the early 90's, but I haven't seen the line be long enough for three trains to be needed either. When I have used Flash Pass on Batman the way it worked was that you went through that door on the opposite side of the station, next to row 8, then chose your row after you got in. The ride ops didn't assign rows to Flash Pass users. ^^^^ I enjoyed Revolution too and I'm 5'9". It sounds like you're much taller than me. Maybe it's improving.

^ I had pain free rides on Revolution on Friday and also in March. Those were my first two visits in a long time in which I rode it with no headbanging. I hope that continues. Ninja was testing on Friday too. Your description of the crowd sounds about right for an April weekday after Spring Break. I am going to try not to sit on the outside on X2 anymore. I sat on the inside twice last time and had no problems. I like the new acronym too.

Thanks. Either way that is far enough from when I plan to go. That would also explain why the park extends their weekday hours starting on June 14th. I think most SoCal schools get out right around that time.

^ I agree with YoshiFan too.. My personal preference would be for a B&M Invert with the intensity of Batman: TR, but in this case I'd go with the GCI.

^ Thanks for the useful info. I am planning to go around that time. Could you please tell me what date your last day of school is. Right now my plan is to possibly go on June 9th, with one more visit between now and then, in mid-May.

^^^^ They must have just removed Thrill Shot from the website. It was still on the list when I checked it yesterday, although I have not seen it operate in a very long time, at least a year and a half if I recall correctly. ^^ The park will be somewhat crowded on both days. Many colleges are off by then. I have found that the day after Memorial Day is when weekdays crowds start to pick up. I went to the park the week of Memorial Day and the following week on weekdays each of the last two years and crowds were almost exactly the same on both weeks. In your case I would pick June 1st since June 11th is Junior Nites in which Junior High Grads are allowed to get tickets for the normal operating day then also stay from 6pm-midnight after everybody else leaves.

^^^^ Thanks for the great pictures of a coaster I never got to ride or see in person. I wish I could have tried it.

^^^ I get your point but I didn't mean to sound like I was saying things are improving or that operations used to be bad but now they are good. I have actually been very happy with park operations for a very long time. In my experience they run two trains when needed and one on some of the coasters when the park is deserted and all the rides are walk ons, which I agree with. I was very impressed last year during summer break when they had three trains on Tatsu and had the line moving virtually nonstop. I have had very good luck visiting the park when crowds haven't been too bad, even at potentially crowded times of year, and have not seen the lines reach the point that three trains could be needed, except for Tatsu and X2 a few times, but on X2 I'm pretty sure they would stack and the third train wouldn't really help anyway so I am perfectly fine with them running two trains on X2. When I was there last July X2 (2 hrs), Tatsu (1 hr), Deja Vu (90 mins) and Terminator (1 hr) were the only coasters that had long waits. Everything else was a 20 min wait or less with Scream, Revolution and Gold Rusher (walk ons) and Goliath (10 mins) being the shortest all with two trains.

^^^ I have noticed the same things you mentioned many times on all four of those coasters. I have actually thought for quite a while now that Viper and Goliath have the best crews in the park. The ride ops on Goliath seem to race each other just about every time I go to the park. Almost every time I ride Viper one train is going up the lift hill while the other one is on the final turn before the brake run and on Goliath one train is going up the lift hill while the other is entering the brake run. If I ever ride either coaster and the train comes to a stop before pulling into the station it is a surprise to me because it happens so rarely.

^ I wear cargo shorts or cargo pants on all of my park visits. In fact it's almost the only time I ever wear them.

Sorry it was that crowded but the park had two special events today. I hope you're right about having sound on Terminator. That would be very welcome news.

^^^^ I agree with your idea for Terminator. ^^^ This is why I'm pretty happy with having two trains on everything when the park is busy. In my experience the lines move very well when there are two trains running. A third would just stack most of the time which wouldn't make the lines move faster. When they had three trains on Tatsu and both stations open the line was almost constantly moving. When I first started going to the park (first visit was in 1983) I remember them running three trains on each track on Colossus and the line still went up that hill passed what is now Ben & Jerry's.

It's nice to know they are still running three trains when necessary on some of the other coasters. I didn't know if they still did this or not. The only coaster I have seen them run three trains on recently was Tatsu, using both stations, during Summer Break last year and also New Years Eve, 2006. When I was there last July and August all coasters which are able to were running two trains, except for Tatsu which was running three.

^^ Ok. I usually visit the park on low crowd days. I have actually never seen them run more than two trains on any coaster on any visit, except when I rode Viper on its opening weekend. In my opinion two trains are great on a day when lines are very short and they don't really need more than that. They probably only needed one train on many coasters on Friday. Numerous trains were going out with less than 10 people on them. ^ I love the A/C in Supermans queue on those sauna like days in July and August too.

Anything to ensure that full trains go out on Terminator when it has a line would be a big improvement. I also wish they would start letting people skip the pre-show when the ride is a walk on again, like they used to. I would love to see the single rider lines brought back to some of the coasters when used to have them (Viper, Riddler, Deja Vu), and hopefully some which never did too. I was disappointed when the single rider lines were removed since I used to use them all the time. Especially on Deja Vu. I skipped many lines which were an hour or more that way. I agree with Eric that it is interesting that they are considering bringing the single rider lines back now that they have Flash Pass, but I would be very happy to see them return. ^^ The park was essentially at full capacity when I was there on Friday, except for Ninja being closed. They had two trains on every other coaster, even Gold Rusher. They were only running one side of Superman but if I recall correctly, they are unable to run both sides at the same time? The A/C's in Supermans queue have been on every time I've been there in the last 3 years too, except for some visits when it was cold and the A/C was not needed.

Yay, the Angels swept the Blue Jays and got great starting pitching three days in a row.

^^ I think that statement is unfair too. ^^^ I prefer the back on many coasters too, including Terminator, for the same reasons you mentioned, although I have found that on Terminator, other than row 11, I get the most airtime in row 8. In theory I agree with your idea to put seats in row 12, but realistically it seems like a lot of effort just to have a negligible effect on capacity.

It seems to me that it may be gone for good too. I am kind of surprised to know that the audio is having this many problems. It was working on every visit I have made from the time Terminator opened until Feb 28th. I assume that if it was a sensor or speaker problem, or something relatively minor, they would have had it repaired by now. If the audio is gone I will miss it to some extent since it does add to the experience, but it doesn't make or break a very high quality coaster in my opinion. I agree. If it's broken already they sure didn't get much use out of it. I'm sure they expected the audio to last a little more than 10 months.

I should have said this in my previous post but I forgot. I was the guy wearing the black X2 t-shirt who got stuck when the OTSR didn't release. Did you see anybody wearing that shirt and/or were you the one who had to manually release the OTSR so I could get out?

How did anybody even feel a 3.8? I've slept through bigger quakes than that.

^^^^ Thanks for the info, that explains it. ^^^ Terminator didn't have audio when I was there on 3/23 either. ^ Yes, I had an awesome day yesterday. I probably did see you.

Not that I know of. I didn't hear any of the ride ops do that. I've heard ride ops ask trivia questions on Goliath too, but not today.

Deja Vu at 7pm tonight, just as the park was closing.