bill_s

"poor replacement" is just such a weird way of looking at it. There's not a single park "on the map" that doesn't have something unique to offer.

If the TT policy bothers you, consider what day you're going. On the iffy weather Mondays I've been going and my strategy, there's been zero wait whatsoever.

The only wallet I've seen as heavy, and still not as dense, as a phone is my mom's, and it's inside a purse.

^^-- this. I don't actually carry my phone in most of the time but I can see it's an unusually significant and useful item in line. Also it's not just "idiots" I still nearly lost my phone once because although my normal items were safe, I thought the phone was in the car! One simple thing, I think the $2 for first hour is an irritating price structure. Changing it to the more common flat $1 would be a gesture of goodwill towards safety and compliance, but they really should have thought it out better in the first place. It should be obvious flying phones are a problem only on a few rides. I don't think it's odd to have different rules for them, what would be arbitrary and greedy is to apply the rules to rides that never have had a problem. It seems that's the case to me with removing bins at FoF and I305. I don't know about thievery etc. but applying the additional personnel to actually running the ride would increase throughput more. Looking at SV, seems the first drop is the only element particularly likely to result in riders being hit by phones at high speed (it might be possible to add some sort of catcher net or roof over the pull-out). Every other large hill or drop has a side curvature to it. There might be some risk to pedestrians. With software these days it should be possible to perform Ballistic Phone Analysis. Or they could have a person ride the ride while dropping old phones all the way haha.

^^--Looks like an awesome day to go to a park in midsummer, maybe even despite it being a Saturday.

I see 2 sure airtime hills in the layout, which is 2 more than most mega loopers. Plus maybe a pop entering the brake run, a stall, and a lot of hangtime potential. I really feel like we're in a period of insane innovation in terms of coaster design. It stands in stark contrast to that period from the early 2000's to about the time RMC showed up when parks opened tons of fun rides, but there wasn't much innovation. Everything followed a pretty standard pattern and started to blend together with the occasional exception of some ridiculous Intamin contraption like Dragster, Maverick or El Toro. Now it seems like everyone's gone crazy and we keep getting new, absolutely insane rides that look nothing like anything we've ever seen before. This is just the latest addition to that already impressive list. It's all really exciting.

I only rode once and call it water roulette. Somehow I stayed dry-ish but these 2 girls on the other side I pitied because it was kind of a cold day. Maybe the odds are worse than I thought. Still better than WWC.

My prediction: Mack, 220', 75 MPH, $24M, 3 inversions, 4000' DC Rivals was $22M US, 210', 73 MPH, 4400+' . That was a hyper but Mack has an interest in large inversions. It would be a chance to get right KW's previous attempt to make a large coaster with inversions. More guesses: Vekoma would seem a better fit for a budget. KW does already have a hyper, maybe the world's first and last 197' tall coaster duration 2:20?... If they weren't laying footers close together I might still have to trot out Raptor 220' with a barrel roll at 197' and 50 supports.

^^-- the forces on the first turn are definitely milder than the first spring with the flat turn and no trim brake. The physics of the change work -- if you start ascending an incline, the train will slow down. It also seems to have made the difference regarding the wheels holding up. If you wanted to make the ride even milder, you'd also have to change the curve before the 75 foot hill which is just as forceful though smaller. No, no and NO! TT's largest airtime hills are perfectly straight so ejected items tend to come back down on the riders. Same issue with El Toro.

^^--Batwing is not Mind Eraser. Batwing runs smooth and fine as far as hanging by your ankles riding a roller coaster goes. From the thread "The amazing (real time-ish) adventures of jarmor!" Fri Jul 08, 2016 12:18 am Caption from picture of Mind Eraser as SFNE with the old trains: So SFNE instead of SFA got new trains for their SLC because it needed them more. Of course both of the rides are old enough they've gotten their money's worth from them already.

Oh I get it. Double throughput, breaks down twice as fast.

^^-- Right, when they're using half the trains and a fourth of the load stations, Zum doesn't slow things down that much. The obvious question is: did they ever use all the stations and trains and did it help?

I find the coasters at KD more thrilling. Hershey I go for the whole 'experience'. I think the rides are a close contest. I like the park at Hershey more -- not flatland etc. However if you're going a random day in July, it also tends to be more crowded and the "experience" at KD could be much more enjoyable. I'd also say Skyrush is more a must-do than El Toro, Superman the Ride and probably even Phoenix put together.

I went around Sept. 20 -- the weekend KD is closed -- 2 years in a row and the difference was night and day. 2015 and 2016 I think. The first was good, the second was a unusually hot, clear day for the time of year and too crowded for me. Batwing was probably 45 minutes wait, etc. While SFA often has light crowds, they don't do big crowds well, and what with the other weaknesses of the park the crowd threshold of becoming not very much fun to me is rather low.

^^-- No. In fact you could have probably paid less for a pass if you knew you were picking it up at SFA instead of a bigger park, or at least that was the case when I started mine. As you might guess, if you're getting a better price at SFA you can't pick it up where the prices are higher.

It pulls -2 Gs, sometimes over. Much less and it valleys. If being pushed hard against the restraint and then even harder doesn't feel like airtime to you, that is your opinion, but still it is not technically the same as saying it has little air. Myself, it find it surprising how that doesn't always mean I love it (despite decades waiting for the industry to give it to me), but it is very powerful and bull riding like. Floater air is sometimes freakier and minimally restrained air also. It can also be more sustained because they're not burning potential energy as fast. Also if you didn't ride Toro (or Nitro) (or Batman)at night, suffice to say it makes a big difference. Other than that bit of head scratching, good report!

^^-- not physically possible.

Intimidator 305. Park's open until 10 every night and I got some great night rides. Pitch black and it seemed like every person on the coaster was screaming like idiots (not sure how I could really tell). Early season night rides were a bit slow but this was great. Last month: Twisted Timbers.

I have gone to Great Adv. 3 times since El Toro and every time my daytime rides I don't enjoy as much as I expect. But a little airtime and intensity? It has as strong of airtime as anything I'd want to ride without something good to hold on to (fortunately you can hold on to the bars on each side of you on Skyrush) and is very intense. And night time rides are incredible. I enjoy hypers and airtime machines so much more then. It seems that I like inversions and curves more during the day. Since El Toro is somewhat uncomfortable for me, the difference is even larger.

^^-- That's Kingsfest. But good Point anyway.

The main crowds season starts July 4th weekend so I would think Volcano will be up by then if they have any control over it at all. As to crowds Sat. Jun 23, shouldn't be near as bad as 2 or 3 weeks later, but still when you put Sunday and Saturday next to each other, Saturday sucks it. Both get better late in the day, so if you can be there at both open and close on Saturday (and maybe leave for a while during the hottest part of the day), but not on Sunday, that would offset the difference somewhat. Still, as well as wait times or the cost of fastpass, there's your tolerance for crowds to consider.

I saw Switchfoot. Of the 2 concerts my friend won tickets to, it was by far the better one, did kind of like them. Odd crowd, they definitely have a fan base that's really enthusiastic even though most of them don't drink or anything (I think; the club did serve drinks to those who wanted them). The guitarist was into a nasty fuzzy sound that seemed unusual for that genre.

I would usually ride Mind Eraser several times and Apocolypse usually once, when I can actually get there with 3 hours available. If you feel rushed or want to spend more time with the other coasters, sure skip them. 2/3rds of the time I'm there it's cold enough to wear a hat on Mind Eraser, which helps. Riding Apocolypse is mostly about missing Shockwave but it only makes me miss it more. Batwing is hilarious but after once there's no real reason to ever ride it again. And my trips there don't include a bunch of other parks.

I enjoyed Ka last year in row 3 but more as a just crazy thing, there are 2 moments you can't even see for the vibration. It's intense but 3 rides max. for me. I didn't wait for the front because it was 38 degrees at the time and I was already cold enough I had no need for 128 MPH in the front row, and it could have gone down for the night at any moment. Allegedly blowtorches were involved in getting it to open at 2 PM that day. The vibration seems just like I305 when a wheel starts going bad, but then they take it down to fix it.

^^-- P.S. Guess I ought to give credit for the name. If I rode it I bet I'd have a Mardi Gras Hangover indeed!