bill_s

KD and BGW are some of the most respected parks anywhere. If you get plenty of riding and are looking for the best, those would be the choices. However, if you rarely get to ride, or are near parks that tend to be crowded or you can only get to at crowded times, SFA could be just fine, or maybe even a breath of fresh air. On my latest visit, I was actually finding I'm starting to think SFA has more character and better theming than KD, but this may be a symptom I've ben going to KD too much! The previous visit turned out to be overcrowded (unusual, except Saturdays) and I can't find much about SFA that's worth going through that.

I shudder to think how much it will cost to ride these things. A very amazing, low capacity ride in a "park" with no other major rides, what could go wrong? Either worse than Hypersonic was in wait time, or Extreme Skycoaster priced at the least. But it's good to see it's still known that a major coaster is what puts you on the map, in the amusement world.

The turn was awesome!!!! I mean it. I was still scared for an instant barrelling towards it up through the very last ride, the turn was intense but considering how things looked 5 feet earlier almost a relief to find nothing broken. Coaster greatness.

If someone's only seen the regular boxy PTC trains it's impressive to see modern ones on a wood coaster, e.g. Millenium Flyers or Timberliners. I'm with the just a good solid layout advocates: Twister side of classic layouts or GCI with a little more emphasis on airtime. Don't worry about too smooth unless going with a RMC modern track structure, I'm sure you can tell El Toro is a woodie (if not, give it more time). To me, a small park getting a real coaster of any kind is moving into the bigger leagues. Be sure capacity is appropriate to the park.

The slowest I've ever seen a B&M run was Dominator on the same weekend that hurricane put a coaster in the ocean, I was wondering if it was going to make it. It was cold but mostly it was the wind. Wind forces vary at the square of the velocity, so if a coaster goes into the wind it slows it more than the wind at its back helps it. Sideways wind even increases drag. I went to Christmas Town the first few years. At first it was a kind of unorganized event which I kind of like. As it's gotten "better" it's only more clear it's not my thing. I'd ignore that for more coasters, but only one is a tease.

I think steep lifts are worse for my pockets. Also have issues with Intimidator 305 seats push stuff around in your pockets, wrapping around up the side often below your stuff. I once didn't realize I had my phone and heard something that sounded like a cell phone hitting the floor and managed to keep my foot on it. Also managed to lose something on Shockwave ... so my second answer is ejector turns

The pass prices are, or at least were, different depending on where you buy them. SFA may be the cheapest. Doesn't completely justify your issue but that's probably one reason the passes have a home park despite being good everywhere. Actually your home park probably gets more of it. As to replacement, look into if you can get into the park of your credentials without replacing it for now. I know someone who managed to do that at KD -- he didn't need a new one it was at home. I just realized I may have the same issue -- I have a new special deal pass set up and it's not done as a renewal.

That must be the Best. Themed. Ride. Ever.

My guesses on "why Shockwave now?": - They're trying to make the park look better to compete with their closest competitor and this works better. - Running out of parts for SWave. Maybe there was enough for a small park or someone willing to do more work to buy it. - Need to begin the coaster replacement project now one way or another, more to come. - Some possibility of rebuilding Hurler, not likely. - Apparently they're not ready to build another new coaster quite yet, and Hurler's spot is a big one. Vs. in Shockwave's spot they would prefer something that leaves room to make the park look better not something that uses up the last little bit of greenery. I did ride Hurler once this last year, you guys may have been overreacting before but you were right about this, now it's even worse! I wouldn't be surprised if Anaconda goes first though. Steel upkeep is less but they run out more suddenly.

I love how the TRex video is showing some of their wooden coaster elements and also a reversing corkscrew. Also Raptor is cool, big-coaster elements on a train that small would be an experience in itself.

The haters have definitely been the loudest, you'd have to really love it to have the strength of emotion of the haters, and most merely liked it. But reminding me of that final "turn of death", maybe I did love it or at least loved that, and I think it's representative of why I'll never see eye to eye with a lot of coaster enthusiasts. The sheer controlled violence of the ride was GLORIOUS and peaked at that point. It did have a potential to be slightly painful but nothing close to your momentary sense of impending doom.

^^--There's what I call "surface smoothness" and then there's design smoothness. Shockwave had very little vibration even after over 30 years of operation. The last ride was almost exactly the same as the first. It was just designed to throw you around a good bit, forwards and backwards mostly, as is fitting for a standup, not sideways like B&M standups. It rarely hurt me at all, but every time made me think it was, which is a good thing. Your fit and pain threshold may have been different. The chief negative was short ride, long loading and brake run wait. Once I went a rainy day and they were running only one train, that was a lot better. So it was sad seeing them bite it up, but I was wondering how they were going to get it apart if they sold it. Definitely missed it the last few months, it was a coaster I didn't ride every time, so it helped make every trip different. Delirium will be a better ride for the amount of space it uses, but it doesn't use all the space, so ??? ... It doesen't seem a good precedent they're willing to drop their coaster count, but as I've said they can make it up later, either by adding one elsewhere or a true upgrade replacement.

Ouchie.

^^-- It's been 4 years since I was at Hershey, but at the time Lightning Racer seemed still new, plus it has a totally inventive take on racing coasters. Any weakness at the end wasn't really significant compared to those superiorities. The layout is so complex I can't see a redesign, although some day Topper track may be almost a must to maintain that beast. RMC treatment? Anaconda .. wait yeah it's steel. But they apparently have some way of getting wood coasters into the computer and therefore could also do it with steel. Not really a real suggestion because this ride still can't be made to last that much longer etc. but if they did want to fix "the spot" that would be the first step. 2-4 new track sections would be a lot less than the reprofile of I305 for sure though.

One thing I noticed about Carowinds' Haunt is it's also open more days. I didn't look this year and it's not on the site anymore, but I remember seeing the park open Wednesday night of the last week before Halloween. Or at least Thursday. As to the previous post about when to go to the park, I agree except for Saturday, if you can only go then, find something else to do.

Dominator isn't very crowded part of the day either (relative to the park). And it isn't how many times people ride I305, it's how big a factor it is in coming to the park. It has considerable impact on the reputation, which affects even those who don't ride intense coasters themselves. PARK IS OPEN TODAY, NOV. 1, they added today to the schedule as a "bonus day" maybe due to the rainy weekend. No Haunt.

^^-- they certainly ought to; I think it could actually work at getting some interest in the park. I overheard some people joking about SFA and they said something like they'd changed the park name 10 times since they got any new rides . Roar is my favorite coaster in the park by a small margin. It's definitely the most unique ~rideable thing they have compared to anything at KD or BGW. It does have a few horribly rough spots near the beginning and otherwise could do with maybe 6 inches more height at the top of the lift hill all else equal, to push it a little more out of control and you out of your seat.

^^-- I saw a very close call of a squirrel on Dominator's track, but of course an inverted makes it worse. Turns out the little buildings scattered around the park are for the Skeleton Keys, rather than tacking something on to the existing maze. I can't afford it but went in the one next to Feary Tales during a moment of confusion or something. It was very cool, might even say Busch Gardens level of detail. Not sure if there's supposed to be some action -- I think I was startle-scared by a guest not an employee.

The stall is the first element after the drop! For once a corkscrew-ish element doesn't get stuck near the end with minimal momentum. Seemed long, but the clock says not. Just sooo many elements at such a pace.

KD has reduced Sunday haunts to 4 out of the 6 weekends because they are realizing it's less popular. They had originally tried cutting back Fridays but don't now. Still, people's responses to rain is unpredictable -- I wouldn't have even thought last Sat. would have been really dead. It's a day I avoid now so I don't know it well. With the current forecast I'd say Sat. night will still be crowded but that can change. This weekend also may be more crowded to make up for last, or lack momentum, that's unpredictable too.

Went Sunday evening, man was it empty. A few things closed (Cornstalkers) but otherwise park was putting out the effort. Thing was, it was correct for the park to be open because the weather was in no way bad enough to justify closing. In fact, it could easily end up being colder every remaining weekend of Haunt. I'm guessing it was a solid month of good weather followed by a full weekend of gray depressing that caused this result. They were doing a vote for best house on the way out. I should have actually voted Lockdown because the guards were funny and I noticed an area with 2-floor scenery, very cool.

It's a "T" shaped track to make big coasters out of. "Trex" is even sort of like "Track", just a cool name. I doubt they know what it's going to sound like yet, unless there's way more than that one piece of track somewhere. Edit: or maybe that's enough. Because it does have the potential to be loud. It may allow fewer supports, but only if it ends up relatively large. The main savings is being much simpler to make, at least in number of pieces. Also no bending tubing. RMC's patents also talk about how the materials are under less stress due to avoiding the need to bend metal in ways it doesn't want to, and this continues that trend.

I don't know if that sounds that thrilling or not. It would need to seem like the boat is really coming out of the water and everything. That's what was so cool about Hersheypark's Coal Cracker, the speed was good but that the boat was actually planing for a distance on inertia is just cool. The reasons for LSM with a coaster may not fully apply. Seems like a hydraulic launch system with cable would be more fitting. Stored power. Maybe not all that expensive. Making it a race runs up the price though, desirable but that's why it's as much as a coaster. "Interactivity" consisting of one button of control is obviously unimpressive. I laughed so hard!

^^-- they removed the TVs (didn't they just put them there?) and the trains so far. It seems like they could have waited to close it, although they start tapering things down by that part of the summer and saved a few bucks. That and the day they closed it was actually quite crowded and clearly an "event"! They also could have been looking at maintenance issues. One thing I've heard about is parks can use X-rays to look for weakening metal long before it would break. * * * Went twice this weekend. Friday, pretty large crowd considering rain forecast and happening, although it never got very heavy. They've tinkered with The Overlord show again, staging changed due to the bike event. The Overlord's voice now isn't even scary and the actor wears a mask, what??!? Of course, the important part of the show at the end is always good. The new maze, Lockdown, is OK, haven't decided how it compares with before. It adds sentry towers on the asphalt in front of the building. I noticed a lot of new shed-like large temporary structures scattered around the park, but other than creating choke-points in scarezones not much seems to happen in conjunction with them. Sunday, Fall Bonus Day, was insane for riding. There were probably more people crammed into SFA last Sunday than came to KD the last 2 open Sundays combined.

I overheard a surprising number of positive or probably positive comments on Shockwave this year, many of them before the announcement it was going to close. Of course, I've heard many things, including kids saying Anaconda is the best coaster in the park. I don't necessarily think Shockwave should be kept by the park, its time has come or at least was coming. I think it served the park very well during its time and was an excellent feat of engineering and construction when it was built. Those who say it sucked or was horrible surely fit in one of these categories: 1. not fitting the restraints 2. exaggerators 3. comparison to new rides + #2 4. expecting coasters to be smooth -- the current state of the art would have never happened without earlier steel coaster 5. trolls