chauncey

that looks great. what a mystery. is it just me, or does this look kind of like expedition everest without the fake mountain around it? It sort of is. It used to be in a park in Japan, and had a mountain around it. Most of the support structure is redundant without it! One of his "Bavarian Mountain Railroad" coasters (like, for instance, Lisebergbahn), and pretty standard (unlike, for instance, Lisebergbahn). The most unique thing about it is the track system, which none of the other BMR rides have. ... Anyways, what about Magnum? For a while you couldn't talk about coasters without including Magnum, and then Millenium Force came along, and you never hear about it anymore.

The appeal is simple: wooden rollercoaster companies are building better rides. Why? I don't know. I do know that if The Voyage, for instance, was made out of steel (it practically is, anyways), I'd be just as excited! It doesn't matter. Maybe it's an issue of economics. A major wooden rollercoaster costs about 5 - 10 million dollars, while a major steel rollercoaster can cost over 40 million dollars! So, a park can get more out of a wooden rollercoaster than a steel, especially smaller parks.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Thanks. Well, I probably won't be going to parks in Florida, as they're so close to me. I'm not sure about the Six Flags parks. None of them have anything that I would travel for. Maybe if the SFGADV wooden turns out to be good, I'll get a season pass, and do them all. I don't even want to think about that... stupid greedy oil companies! I could post a 5,000 page rant on that... but I won't.

The only rides I'm really following closely are The Voyage at Holiday World, and Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom. The Superman rocket coaster at Movie World also looks really great, although, I think, technically, is for 2005. I'm also interested in seeing what the Great Adventure wooden coaster, and Magic Mountain flying coaster will end up like, although I don't know enough to be very excited, yet. I'm looking forward to The Voyage because it looks to have a fun, intense, and unusual, layout, and Holiday World seems like a great park. I'm looking forward to Expedition Everest because it's Disney, basically, and because Yetis are probably the greatest "mythological" creatures ever. It also seems like it will have a few fun moments, and the theming looks wonderful.

Hi, I'm new here, but I'd like to meet up with you guys. I'm about 98% certain that I can make BGT, considering I have a season pass, and live right down the road. The other parks I'm not so sure about, but I can probably manage to go to at least one, for at least the day. I'll have to check though...

I'm planning 2 trips, and I'd like some advice. While I love amuesment parks, I love a lot of other things too, and would be just as happy at a great park as I would be at a great museum, or concert, or just sitting in my room watching a favorite movie. So, to get to the point, and hopefully not sounding like a snob, if a park doesn't have great rides, good food, beautiful scenery, and nice staff, there are probably other things I'd rather be doing. ... The first trip will be to the San Francisco area, in Spring 2006, for about a week. My mother has to go for business, and I'd rather be in San Francisco than Florida, so, I'm going to tag along. There's a lot of stuff to do around there that I'll love, but I'd like to do some amuesment parks, too. My questions are: 1. What parks are there in the region? What do you think of them? 2. Is it worth the travel to go to parks in other areas of California, or near by states? Which ones? ... My other trip is one being planned for sometime in either 2006, or 2007. It will be my first big "coaster trip". I'm going to stick to the east, and eastern middle America. The route is to take us out of Florida, up the east-coast, through the north-east, into the great-lakes, down middle-america, into the south-east, and back to Florida. The following parks are more or less decided on: Busch Gardens Williamsburg Dollywood Hersheypark Kennywood Knoebel's Silver Dollar City My questions are: 1. What do you think of these parks? 2. What other parks are must-visits along the route? 3. How much do you think a trip like this, by car, might cost?