MrSum1_55

^On the Westcoaster photo TR, I do agree with you. Yes, the park did go a little light on the event this year. But, he was complaining about Superman being closed, while also complaining that LLDOD construction had been delayed too much. You can't keep a ride open when there are going to be cranes 400 feet in the air a mere feet away from it. Also, even on this site, there were a few complaints about what the park didn't do. However, that is the first complaint I have ever seen about what the park did do. He seemed to think they were doing everything wrong. I do, however, see his point in how the park itself is falling into disrepair. Although he did fail to mention how dispatch times are much faster than before. (Used to take 5 minutes for an X2 train, now it rarely takes more than 2 minutes) I am probably in the minority here, but I would rather have a somewhat run down park with excellent operations on rides than an awesome-looking park with poor operations.

Good things the park has done recently: -Faster dispatch times -Roadrunner Express -DC Universe Bad things the park has done recently: -Everything else that can possibly go wrong. You would think someone whose last name is 'Carpenter' would do more to fix up the park. The last thing we need is another Del Holland. I hope the next Jay Thomas is hired soon!

^^Green Lantern has been prone to dissapointing rides, and almost everyone would agree with that. However, most of the GP who I have ridden it with pretty much believe it is the most insane thing they have ever ridden. On my most recent ride, the person next to me was screaming throughout the whole ride, and at the end talking about how insane it was. We did not flip. At all. Another time, I was riding with these guys who were probably in their early 20's, who were doing the same thing, talking about how insane the ride was. At the end, they could not stop talking and laughing about the one flip we did. I even consider myself lucky I have had two rides with two flips in them. Also, these were my first two rides, so, until my third ride, I really thought it was a solid ride. I just want to ride Insane now. However, the park will not be removing the trims anytime soon, as the GP seem to think it is insane enough how it is.

As much as I hate to say it, it does feel like SFMM went a little light on the event this year. In past years, they have put on some much better events, and I was a little surprised there wasn't much planned for this year. They had only one backstage tour, and even with that tour, only a few people got to go on it. (I was one of them). I really hope this doesn't start a trend of a downward spiral. However, I almost feel bad posting this, because SFMM's weakest WCB is still better than 99.99% of days of your life. (The other .01% is Knott's WCB) At SFMM, I found that I was still in the park trying to get at least one lap on all the coasters well into night ERT. By comparison, at Knott's I had literally ridden everything worth riding by lunchtime. I know it is a smaller park, but Knott's offered more in the morning, making covering the park a lot easier. In fact, I spent a good portion of my afternoon at Knott's simply enjoying the ghost town. When I felt like riding something, I did. But, most of the time, I just looked in some shops, did some people watching, etc. This is strange for me since I am not usually the type of person who likes to ride rides open to close. Instead, I found myself just enjoying parks the way they were meant to be enjoyed. In fact, Knott's seemed to have the opposite problem of SFMM's event. There was almost too much to do, especially in the morning. Substituting ERT for front-of-the-line passes was a really nice twist, but I think I would have preferred normal ERT. However, this did give us an extra 30 minutes, and the GP got to stay later. The biggest dissapointment with Knotts' day was something that really wasn't the park's fault: Xcelerator broke down during the entire last 20 minutes of operating. Yeah, that's the worst thing I can say about the day.

^^Maybe they will use the tunnel, and finally remoe laughing dragon? When was the last time that place was open?

^^^Well, entire companies rely on people being wimps. **coughb&mcough** I believe the reason why people think GL is painful is not the forces of the ride, but the tendency for the restraints to be forced down midway through the ride. On all my rides where this did not happen, I had no pain. However, on those of which it did, those rides were pretty painful. My guess is the strategy is to keep your body forward against the restraint to avoid being squashed. I have figured out the best defensive position for almost all rides at SFMM. GL is the only large coaster I have ridden less than four times. Hopefully I can figure it out at WCB! Or do I just need to actually hold on? I have never gotten a painful ride on which I actually held on. Even in the arm guard, it is still possible to get your arm in the air, if you stick it up when the restraint comes down. Actually, this almost makes the ride better, since it pins one of your arms in the air, and you know that you would take a few seconds to grab on again. This results in a feeling of vulnerability, since your reaction will be to hold on, but you can't. It makes the ride more awesome. ^Brave people fight for America. While back at home, Americans are a bunch of fat, sue-happy, high school dropout coutch potatoes. We Americans should all be ashamed for the image we create, while we send good people off to fight for it!

^The reason why I believe an Intamin is possible now is the fact Intamin woodies are so insanely quiet, it is rediculious. El Toro makes so little noise, you can be standing right next to the track, and barely notice the train going by. Rally, the loudest noise you can hear is the Intamin Fart.

X2 isn't bad at all if you ride defensively. (Head against headrest at all times) Scream is usually hit or miss, depending on which train you ride in. Does anyone really think Revolution is comfortable anymore? Viper, as with pretty much all Arrow mega loopers, is a ride where it is best to keep your head forward. Actually, I would consider Viper to be the least painful of the 3 American Arrow mega loopers, with the honor for the worst going to KD's Anaconda. They all have about the same amount of roughness, but Viper gets the edge over Vortex and Anaconda since the last two have more jarring transitions. On Vorex, the coat hanger onto the turn before the brakes hurts like hell, and Anaconda's helices are simply coat hanger express. Even Corkscrew at CP has a pretty brutal transition into the corkscrews. Viper still holds up as one of the better Arrow loopers. However, I wouldn't be too surprised if it were removed in the next five years. It takes up a ton of space, and lines are usually about 1/4 the length of X2. Once, X2 had an hour wait, while Viper was cycling with half its seats empty on every cycle; literally a walk-on.

^^You forgot Scream. They spent millions on the parking lot theming.

^Keep in mind, DK's are family coasters. Extremely thrilling coasters generally come without as much theming. Realistically speaking, I believe an aquatrax is unlikely, as they want something thrilling. I guess it is possible for a halfway-descently themed ride, but heave theming is unlikely to happen. If it is a giga, SFMM may not be the first park with both a hyper and a giga, but they would be the first park to have a hyper and a giga in close proximity to each other.

^^They are going with two lanes, though. That would improve capacity over a normal halfpipe. However, I do agree Whitewater's Boomerang is a far superior design to the traditional halfpipe, since it more than triples the capacity. (100 per hour for a half pipe, 350 per hour for a boomerang) Put two boomerangs together, and you can get a capacity of about 700 riders per hour. With two family boomerangs, up to 1400 riders per hour is possible. This thing will probably get about 200 per hour, even less than a single boomerang. Besides, the only fun parts of halfpipes are the first drop and the backwards fall, and white water probably came up with the boomerang keeping this factor in mind. First, one of the largest parks gets a zac spin, now another park gets a ride with a third the capacity it could have!?

A Mega-Lite in my backyard that doesn't require any further matinence investment. That way, I could open it to the public and give the money I make to foreign aid! Everybody wins! Actually, I wouldn't do that. What I would do is wish to end all political corruption around the world. At least 90% of all problems in the world today are the result of it.

If a park wants to build a zero-gravity machine, whty have two options: Option A: A build this $50 million attraction that will give riders 8 seconds of weightlessness, probably be a matinence nightmare, and cost a fortune to keep running. Option B: A Mega Lite. I know which one I would go with.

^yes, keeping a milti-million dollar ride open for less than a few years before shipping it off to another park makes no sense at all, unless you replace it with a small water slide complex.

I'm still going to go with Taiwan. Like most East Asian countires, some parts look nice, others like crap. There does seem to be plenty of vegetation.

^^^I think Knott's deserves the reward for "worst rehab pocedures", even edging out SFMM and SFDK. Remember Apoc's six month rehab? SFMM was able to completely rip out the audio box and redesign the two trains to Apocalypse in six months. Then, why does it take 7-9 months to rehab two trains on Xcelerator and Perilous Plunge? Also, Sidewinder was in 1 train mode starting close to Winter Break week, one of the most crowded weeks of the year. Then again, I have never seen Silver Bullet run one train in recent years. That is a bit strange; I thought the park only had two trains. ^I wish some Buena Park residents would move to Santa Clara.

I really hope it's not a strata. Kingda Ka is my least favorite of all the American accelerators. Whereas the other three are glass-smooth (except Stromrunner's finale), Kingda Ka manages to shuffle, even during the launch. Also, it has the least amount of airtime of the three. I would rather have a new-age B&M than Kingda Ka. Personally, my favorite thing about the ride is that it helps keep the GP away from El Toro. I can see why some SFMM locals would like to see a strata, just to experience what it is like. Although TTD is a lot of fun, I rank Xcelerator slightly above TTD, and that is the better of the two stratas. Also, they are insanely unreliable, almost as bad as a GIB. I would much prefer a blitz, a giga, or possibly even a new B&M. ^^^^It seems that some of the GP have the inablitiy to feel airtime. Generally, the GP are more concerned about the drop that follows the other side of the hill than the airtime at the top. This is why B&M hypers are very popular to them, since they have very large hills, with large drops following them. Nevermind that that little hill on that Intamin hyper produces airtime four times stronger than that big hill, I want big drops! OMG!

Alright, so you are probably in Asia. The place looks somewhat high tech, but also seems to have a little bit of that 3rd world feel...' Is it Taiwan?

^Wait times at SFDK usually depend on how the crew is doing that day. Once, Boomerang had a three train wait that that took 20 min. Another time I went, the queuing area was full, with a 90 min posted wait, but it took only 30 min. This is the difference between a horrible crew and an awesome crew. I have also been on Medusa when the downstairs area was full, and it took 1 hour (poor crew, 3 trains but double stacking). Another time, that same wait took 40 minutes (3 trains, awesome crew). Generally, I have found that crews usually work in accordance. If one ride has a bad crew, usually they all do. If one good crew, then they are usually all good, although certain rides can stand out above the others.

Actually, this post has THREE elements of stupidity (well, four, if you count grammar mistakes) 1. To make $6,000 on an $80 admission requires only 75 visitors a day. That is literally less than three trainloads on most rides. I doubt if large parks ever have attendance that low. 2. A park cannot survive on $6,000 a day. With maintainance and staff wages, this is impossible for a large park. 3. (Obviously) a cheap coaster costs $6,000,000. To build a ride over everything is talking upwards of $30,000,000. How can $6,000 pay for that? Heck, building a good coaster in RECT is difficult to do with less than $6,000. Somebody has been relating RECT to real life a bit too much. Actually, RECT might be a bit of an overstatement. Maybe he was just playing Thrillville.

Fora new coaster, why not Eurostar from Gorky? That might fit in the Invertigarden. If the ride was closed do to unreliablity, B&M's could replace some of the equipment, considering it uses Giovanola track, like early B&M's. It could be branded as Invertigo II. Although, that is assuming the park wants another 4-across invert, and the ride wasn't sold to the Russian mines for equipment, or a fair. (it is listed as defunct on RCDB.) CGA is so coaster starved, even another B&M-looking invert (even though it is an Intamin) would be a welcome addition.

^What!? They actually cloned Grizzly has a clone!? The conversation with Summers probably went like this: KECO: We want a new wood coaster. I want it to be as disappointing as possible. Make it good looking, and build hills that look like they were meant for airtime, but aren't. Summers: Awesome! I am pretty good at that, once you start adding trims to the drops of all my rides. KECO: No, you don't understand. We want BORING. No fun at all. We want the ride to be completely free of forces. Do not design it to be exciting. Make it so boring, it doesn't need any trims to rank as one of the worst coasters in the world. (Bush Beast opens) KECO: Success! We built the crappiest coaster possible, and made money off it! I knew investing in boring parks was a good idea! Summers, can you build another one for another one of our boring parks. Summers: what park? KECO: CGA

^Sometimes, in one of the wheel seats toward the back of the train, you can get a microscopic pop of airtime on the last hill. That's it. That's the only difference. There is no airtime anywhere else. I get that they were trying to make this Grizzly more family friendly, so it couldn't do EVERYTHING the KD version does. However that doesn't mean that it should do NOTHING the other Grizzly does. Most Summers/Dinn woodies woodies started out great and got worse later on. Not this one. It was dissapointing from day 1. This Grizzly resembles the original in the way a road-killed cow resembles prime rib. Although, I do have to give GCA gredit for maintaining it well. The real Grizzly is very rough, possibly worse than Hurler. This one, though, is really one of the smoothest wood coasters I have ever been on. Cedar Fair has a huge collection of wood coasters that need massive repairs, but the only one that actually gets them is the most boring one. Funny the way the world works. (Yes, Mean Streak did get retracked. But, that should have happened a long time ago)

^So that's why Premier could not just add lap bars to Manhattan Express. They Had no choice but to go with the original otsr's. You can file this law under "things that sound like they make a difference but do not really help". It is like texting while driving laws, three strikes laws, zero tolerance school policies, sex offender records, etc. They have not help make the country any safer. Screw politicians.

^How about poker on El Toro? Or, on Medusa, when California legalizes gambling (which is unlikely to happen anytime soon)