Ed Farmer

Having not been to this park before, do those coasters draw well enough to begin with? Also a guess- might the purpose of including those flats into their program be to to sway families with kids who aren't quite ready to ride coasters yet (and otherwise may not have thrown money at the passes)?

Agreed. Also, B:TRs are clones and they are 2nd in my top 3 B&Ms with #1 going to S:KC @ SFFT. True but those wouldn't make sense for BGW because of Alpengeist. Batman The Ride is flawless to the point that I wouldn't mind it if my home park (SFGAm) decided to drop another one right across the midway from the original. Or if they burninated Superman Ultimate Fluff and planted one in it's place.

A Premier Launcher can never be a bad thing. That said- This addition does kind of give that vibe off. There is no park I'd rather be at than one of either Busch Tampa or Williamsburg. I hope this ends up working well for BGW.

Absolutely! I mean... an impulse coaster right on the beach with not one but (wait for it) (wait for it)... TWO twists! Now that's creativity The straightaway section coming out of the station is just brilliant. I bet it was intentionally designed like this to really accentuate the sensation of speed for riders.

Is that an electrical extension cord just kinda chilling in the pool?

I know, my post was poking fun at the fact. I also think an Invertigo would round out SFNE's lineup quite nicely.

I think a clone of Tornado at Särkänniemi would fit wonderfully at La Ronde.

I would be more excited if they made things right with Freeze again than for the dark ride. Does anyone know why this is taking so long?

Rather than start a new thread, I figured I'd just quote my own post from last time around. Had the radio on as background noise when this story broke. I thought I was hearing things, even after it was repeated for the third time. Can't imagine what must be going through Rose' mind right now. My initial reaction was that I wish there would be a merciful end to this, and both sides could just move on- but there are 2 more seasons at $20M per after this one. This more than likely cements the end of Thibodeau's time in Chicago.

Station house reminds me of Millennium Force at a glance. The layout itself also strikes me as what Millennium Force would be like if B&M had designed it.

Apollo feels a bit different- I think the long post-dip straightaway is what takes some of that kick away.

It might look a bit awkward, but it's also the reason that Raging Bull's 65°(208') drop is one of the best on a steel coaster anywhere despite the increasingly taller and steeper drops that have been built since. The world would be a better place if they hadn't engineered it out of their designs.

Anyone still looking for their Iron Dragon credit should probably hurry up before it gets it's RMC makeover.

Looks nice. I'd love to see how some of these drops would ride sans-trims along the apex and without these mini-trains. Hopefully this is the one that will be as great as it looks.

Blue Track/Supports making more sense.

Assuming the bolded portion of your comment is agreeing that TC (the coaster itself) is a solid addition, and then listing others that aren't... I'll agree with Green Lantern and SFGAdv's Ring of Fire, but FT is a Premier Launch Coaster that I would consider in the vein of Freeze and those similar to it (launch, a few elements, big drop). It's far from throwing a crappy cookie cutter down and calling it a day, regardless of what some may think could have been built in it's place. I will agree that it resides in Scream's realm when it comes to underwhelming names for full-sized coasters.

Rocky Mountain It.

Wow, that video is incredibly painful to watch. The part where they say you can drink of the vine sounds promising.

While I'm in agreement with this, especially similarities to GateKeeper, my guess is that the marketing angle would be a 200+ ft. drop at 90*. (I'm not forgetting about the 420' McD's, just assuming that they're different enough to work around). Once you have the variety and coaster count that Cedar Point has, I guess eventually it's not as important as building reliable people eaters is. At least two other parks in the chain just dropped two B&M Speed/Mega Coasters in a row.

My one 2014 visit was during Halloweekends, so I can't judge it's popularity by wait times, but my own opinion of the ride was that it's surprisingly punch-less; and having already sampled the other 2 US Wing Coaster offerings prior to GateKeeper, I wasn't expecting it to be Winged-Kumba on Lake Erie to begin with... I mention this because I think B&M Winged Coasters offer a very similar ride experience to their Dive Coasters, the only difference being a rollover drop instead of a vertical drop once you get to the top of the lift- both of which are then followed by a few giant, drawn out elements that are admittedly impressive looking if you're watching it from the ground. On the plus side, both are monsters in terms of capacity- very important at a place like Cedar Point.

Yes. Bonus points to SFStL for this. Any word on whether or not Freeze gets it's trains flipped back? I'm beginning to think that it won't.

Does Billboard have a category for Lullaby songs? *ducks* Kidding, but it is a bit of a bummer to compare many post-2000 designs to most of what they've done in the '90s. There have been a few promising signs of life- Banshee, and IMO their Speed/Mega/Hypercoasters among others, so there is that.

I've wondered about this myself.

The naming tendencies of Six Flags are useful if only for the purpose of being seen by marketing departments of other park/chains, and serving as a guideline of what not to name their new rides.

Damn. This doesn't come as a surprise; there have been murmurs about this happening since before the Millennium Flyers replacement, but it's too bad. I'm not sure that I'll be back down there in time to catch it, which sucks because it was closed when I visited earlier this year. I've had many great rides on Gwazi- all of them while it ran the PTCs. The only thing I won't miss is the incredible ability of the staff to turn what should be a near walk-on into a 30 minute wait; it takes dedication and a laughably bad loading procedure. I'm not as bothered as some when a crew isn't running a 40 yard dash to dispatch trains, I don't even care if crew members appear to be wandering around aimlessly, but this was something entirely different and special.