Ed Farmer

Not so sure I'd want to stay in a hotel in that area. I took an Uber from the park to the Hard Rock Casino...it didn't exactly look like an appealing area with lots to do besides BGT. Nonsense. All the liquor stores and check cashing places one could ever wish for!

I'd put money on this being the extent of those "upgrades and enhancements".

Oh, I wasn't suggesting Lightning Racer as a candidate for Rocky Mountaining- just that Wildcat was the better of the two (three?) when I visited. I think the wooden coaster situation at Hershey is just fine as it is. Maybe they can put Intamin to work on a follow-up to El Toro, if anything.

Myself and the group I was with this past July actually thought Wildcat was better than Lightning Racer(s). It felt like Wildcat just had better pacing and delivered until it hit the brakes, while Lightning Racer(s) dragged on and lost a lot of steam in the back end of the layout. Of course, these are wooden coasters we're talking about- we may well have caught Wildcat on a good day and Lightning Racer on a bad day.

Summer Shandy is what rivers and lakes in heaven consist of. It's a beautiful feeling to run into the occasional case still in stock at a random store somewhere out of season (as late as winter at times).

After a visit to Elitch Gardens this past season, Twister II gets my vote. Halfway down the first drop, my thoughts went from How do I defend myself from this? to Rmcrmcrmc. The layout actually seems like it would lend itself nicely to a Rocky Mountaining. I could see a Mexican Medusa/Storm Chaser-esque first drop. They might even use the opportunity to do something about that unintentional Batman The Ride theming that the coaster is situated amongst.

This would be the first Batman The Ride clone in a Cedar Fair park, if I'm not mistaken.

They're repainting and polishing Maverick too?

I hope that this isn't what IOA has in store for Hulk.

One of the most outrageous posts I've seen in a while. I think it was satire Indeed.

This. If it turns out better and isn't Thunder Dolphin, that means what? The bulk of the good work Mako needs to do is in year one drawing people, and the best way it can draw people is by reliably working and providing a quality ride. It'll probably be the best coaster in Florida: that's OK with me. No dude, I talked to so many people that totally said "to hell with SWO" the second they found out Mako was a B&M. My next door neighbor got tickets for the whole family in anticipation of Mako being a Not B&M (Not B&M is his favorite manufacturer by far), so when he found out that this wasn't the case, he walked around looking for homeless people to give the tickets to but they wouldn't take them; not even as fuel for their garbage fires when it gets cold. One of them even chased him off with a shopping cart. My other neighbor is a PETA member and her favorite movies are Free Willy, Free Willy 3, and Blackfish (she tried to run me over once after she found out that I had a pet goldfish when I was like 8). She still loved Seaworld and went there once a month. Until Mako was a B&M. So really, the only thing SWO is marketing by Mako being a B&M is a 10+ hour road trip to the nearest Intamin Hyper 750 miles away, something that every reasonable tourist in Orlando will do the moment they walk up to SWO's gates and see that Mako is a B&M.

Makes sense. We stayed on-property and had early admission, but passed on Raptor figuring it would be a walk-on towards the end of the day. Whoops, notsomuch. As we were walking away I remember seeing a train crawl into the MCBR. Didn't see it running after that. I'd imagine Gatesleeper would be more sensitive to winds since the trains have the aerodynamics of a deployed parachute. Hopefully this won't be an issue with Valravn; those aren't exactly the world's sleekest trains, either. .

This has to be a concern... "ride the movies" not "watch the movies whilst being shaken". Maybe Hulk 2.0 also ends up incorporating those VR Headsets that were brought up in another thread not long ago. Seems like it would be a Universal kind of thing.

Hurricane Category 5 at Myrtle Beach Pavilion. Still probably ended up grabbing 10 or so laps on it. It's gone now, probably for the better.

A random question (just out of curiosity)- did Raptor/Gatekeeper/Dragster eventually end up opening on the Saturday prior to this one (10/24 is the date I'm looking for)?

Who said the new trains had to have OTSR? No one- just saying that the First-Gen trains that Hulk ran are preferable to the Second-Gen trains found on Wildfire, and if it's between the two, I'd rather they stick with what worked well all this time.

Sucks, because they were the First-Gen awesome sitdown trains. I hope they're not swapping them for the Second-Gen (Wildfire/Rolling La-Z-Boy with OTSR)- trains.

I think it's more along the lines of the park being a steady, solid performer for CF as it stands, and if it ain't broke... But I agree, they would appear due.

Not a fan of go-karts, but Mt. Olympus has 6 or 7.

So, Ellen's Energy Adventure, then? It would only work in Halloween Horror Nights.

Only because KD stole it from MIA.

Valleyfair and Michigan's Adventure could probably use something soon. I spent a few hours at Elitch Gardens this year; it's a miserable pit. Twister II seemed like it would be a great candidate for some Rocky Mountaining. The B&M Gigacoaster that Wonderland has is 3 years old, and a quick check of rcdb shows that there are 15 other roller coasters in the park.

Especially true, considering the attention span of a typical member of the franchise' target audience is like 7 seconds. At best, I could see a themed area in an existing park that may be able to stick around for 10 or so years. Realistically, the one place that might take a shot at building a park like this from the ground up is China (based on the Star Craft park they built from scratch), and that's partly because those pesky licensing issues a stateside operation would have to contend with aren't much of an obstacle over there. I think that one will be staying put for a good long time.

Coaster-wise, Gerstlauer Eurofighters (and similar examples from other manufacturers). They look great but deliver such mediocrity. Wild Mouse coasters and Spinners also come to mind. S&S Towers and HUSS Top Spins are my flat ride representatives, the vast majority of all Dark Rides as well. Lastly, while not rides, they are attractions; I have no idea what compels people to go watch musicals/plays/shows at parks.

Ahahaa! No Cubs, No.