niiicolaaah

Probably about as painful as me doing a complete circle around Pittsburgh on my way back to your place from Idlewild. Knowing your navigational skills, we were very surprised you made it to Lakemont without any problems. Nice TR, Ted. Wish we could have spent more time with you guys! Hope to see you again soon!

Yup, that. 2nd to last row. Paul was in the back. Heh heh.

Last update! This was the first trip I had to the water park since before Cascade Canyon was torn down. It would be a great water park if they would just build a path connecting all the sections, and not pave them with blacktop. It really hurt our feet to walk around there, we were like dancing on our toes to keep them from burning. Tony took all these photos; he has a fancy waterproof camera! Last but not least, we made the trek over to Big Kahuna. It took us literally 10 minutes to find the entrance. I hate the layout of the water park! It was a long and fun slide though. So that's where all the park patrons have been hiding... So yeah, this is pretty much MY FAVORITE SLIDE EVER. It was awesome! We went really high up the sides too. If the line wasn't so bad we would have totally ridden again! OMG i couldn't believe how steep this was! It felt even steeper when we were on it! They have these really funky tubes... good thing they came with directions!! Now over to ride Tornado. I had never ridden this type of slide before. I like sitting in the shallow water. I LOVE wave pools! In the wave pool with Superman in the background! Does it get better than this?! I have no caption for this. I like playing in the kid's area, and going down the kiddy slide. I love getting dumped on by the bucket. It has a really cute play area Across the bridge of death to Hook's Lagoon Much to my surprise, we found that Floodgate Falls is still there! It's sort of a downhill lazy river. Cool, but you get stuck a lot. This slide structure is all that remains of the old Barracuda Bay. The dark slides are pretty fun.

More from the park We decided to ride the Haymaker, which is pretty much a paratrooper, before heading to the water park. This was not a good day to have a major water ride down! Time for some lunch... after paying $9 at SFNE for a slice of pizza and a drink, $6 seemed like a steal! Now this is the kind of line I like! Unfortunately, Mind Eraser was in standard SLC headbanging mode, so we only rode once. Next up: Mind Eraser. This ride was running pretty smooth earlier in the year, so I wasn't worried about riding Grizzly Run was the only ride with a significant line that day. I can understand why, as it was 90 degrees that day! Um... yeah. Unfortunately, it made both of us ready to vom! We decided to hit another old favorite, Ranger!

The last time I rode it, I only got 1 spin... so yeah, 4 spins IS awesome mode for that ride.

More Lift hill It takes longer to walk to the station than to ride the coaster! Dumbest queue ever! Yay corkscrews! Watch out for the tree! Um... hi Derek? Then over to Viper, which wasn't running very well Next we rode Twister, which was operating on 4-flip super awesome mode! Eww! The lake by Boomerang is disgusting!

Another vote for yellow here!

Well, before I left Buffalo I decided I needed to use my "bring a friend free" ticket to Darien Lake, so I brought my friend Tony who I hadn't seen in a while. It was a hot day, and therefore everybody was in the water park. Everything was running one train except Superman, and everything had a minimal wait. Superman was running a lot better than it had been in May, and we even got two rides on Predator. Yes, it was tolerable enough to ride TWICE (in a non-wheel seat!) My biggest complaint about the park is how stupidly the water park is set up. It's in three separate sections - the area around Big Kahuna, Hook's Lagoon, and Barracuda Bay - and to get between the sections you have to walk on asphalt or across a bridge. NEVER AGAIN will I visit that water park without flip flops; my feet were scorched. Huge mobs of people here too. Now here's a ride I haven't ridden since 2001: Boomerang! They're rehabbing the red train. Someone needs to tell them to just stop wasting time and money retracking the ride and "fixing" the trains, and just throw the trains in the dumpster and start over So pretty. This used to be a really good ride, about 15 years ago. The ops didn't staple, and the ride was tolerable. Not good, a bit bumpy at times, but tolerable. I recommend riding towards the front of the train, in a non-wheel seat. Wow, just look at the mass of people waiting to ride. As you can see, we were VERY excited to ride. Then... it was time. When we were pretty much next in line to ride, they put the blue train on! I was dorkily excited to see how the transfer track worked. But this mechanic guy was here to save the day! When we got in line, the red train was stuck on the brake run. Thar she blows! We decided to hit Ride of Steel first, and on the way we saw Predator (which Tony renamed Death Sentence) running! There's the evil bridge of doom that connects the two main halves of the water park. The new park logo is quite ugly, in my opinion. Pretty fountain outside the park. One last stop before we go into the park - Hi Batman! Tony is amused. We stopped at the bank and noticed... Um... there's something wrong with this sign.

^You must have been following us. We did 4 El Toro rides, 1 Nitro, 1 Batman, and Skull Mountain in the back row. As well as RT, and the 2 kiddy coasters (I needed the credits)! The only good thing about Kingda Ka is it sucks the lines away from the good rides.

Hmmm.... huge elements = forceless. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure yesterday... yay

Superman: Ride of Steel at Darien Lake, front row, about 2 hours ago.

^Actually, a big collection of mediocre coasters, much like Canada's Wonderland. However, unlike CW, it has two AWESOME B&Ms, Vampire and Goliath! Nice TR, I loved La Ronde even though it was mad hot and crowded when we were there. I do prefer Nitro over Goliath.

**PARK ON HIATUS** I'm going to have to take a break from this park, as I've got a lot of stuff to do in the upcoming weeks. I will have RCT3 soon though, so you can expect some smaller RCT3 projects from me soon. I'll try to get into the old computer soon and post some more screen shots and overviews.

When did Spookbaby become a robot? I'm confused. That was pretty good.

You don't like dark rides?! I'm heartbroken! I don't know why, but I love those Cliffhanger rides. Great pics, makes me even sadder I'm missing my county fair this year!

Great pictures. I can't wait to get back to Knoebel's, it's one of my favorite parks anywhere. Any time I see a picture of Conner I remember him with that book pointing at stuff... so cute!!

You just made me wet myself. I love you.

Darien Lake on thursday... woo...

Derek wears his coaster shirts to parks, and he is the stylingist dude ever. Follow his lead, and you too shall score a chick as hot, if not hotter, than me. ?????

UPDATED RIDE LIST As of today, the park is home to 42 rides, including 12 coasters. Midway 1. Chairlift 2. Blaster (shooting dark ride) 3. Dipper (wood coaster) 4. Grand Carousel 5. Front End Monorail (takes park patrons around the three front areas of the park: Midway, Splash Acres, and future expansion to the Kiddy Park) 6. Old Fashioned Cars 7. Observation Tower 8. Sky Diver (inverting Ferris wheel) 9. Super Spiral (Round-Up) 10. Tilt-a-Whirl 11. Flyer (steel wild mouse) 12. Midway Swings (chairswings) Kiddy Park 1. Frog Hopper (air thrust tower) 2. Lady Bug (ladybug coaster) 3. Soap Box Derby (soap box derby coaster) Ancient Greece 1. The Furies (Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone - dueling/racing B&M sitdown coasters) 2. The Minotaur's Maze 3. The River Styx (indoor water dark ride) 4. Ares (wood coaster) 5. Cyclops 6. The Fields of Asphodel (outdoor water "dark ride") 7. Erebus (dark ride) 8. Triton (Intamin mini-hyper) The Jungle 1. Jungle Golf 2. Tarantula (b-movie giant spider ride) 3. Prowler (steel mini coaster with lion cars) 4. Swamp Thing (double inverter) Splash Acres 1. Torpedo (slide) 2. Double Dip (slide) 3. Kiddy Slide 4. Splashdown (splash boats) 5. Double Drencher (dual tracked slide) 6. Shoot-the-Chutes (wood coaster) 7. Swan Ride 8. Swimming Pool 9. Twister (slide) 10. White Water Rampage (rapids ride) Western Town 1. Haunted Mine Shack (crooked house) 2. Frontier Flume 3. Lasso (frisbee) 4. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (circus) 5. Sidewinder (powered mine coaster) Hope you like it! If not, tell me what I can do to make it better!

UPDATE! Ancient Greece Ancient Greece is now home to a new woodie and a new outdoor "dark ride". The new woodie is called Ares. If you haven't been living under a rock for the past year, you should know where this first drop came from. Here's Ares' last half. It's sort of a double out-and-back twister, if that makes sense. The Fields of Asphodel is the other new ride. In Greek mythology, this is the dwelling place of most of the shades of Hades. Asphodel is an ugly weed with a pretty name, a grey and ghostly plant suited to the Underworld. Here is an overview of Ancient Greece thus far. It still needs a lot of work, but it is the closest to being done of all the themed areas. Western Town Work has begun on the park's newest section, Western Town. Here you can see part of the Frontier Flume, as well as the Haunted Mine Shack. Sidewinder, the park's new powered mine train coaster.

Good stuff, but I'm sorry, those zigzag lift hills just look ridiculous.

I really like the mine train. For the woodie, I agree, bank the turns. And also, you might want to make the turns tighter so the footprint isn't so wide.. might make it look a bit more realistic. Experiment with it a little. You're off to a good start!

The Comet shirt this year is really great, and was on sale for $9.99 when we were there. We both got one! It's my first coaster shirt ever! Stupid Canyon Blaster. My dad has that credit from Opryland. And the Comet when it was at Crystal Beach.