MrSum1_55

Or, even worse, I once had someone confuse SFDK and CGA, to get SFGAm. So, they bought tickets to that, and showed up at SFDK with tickets to the wrong park! However, jeeps will confuse anything that possibly can be confused. I once knew someone who actually booked a hotel room near CGA, and planned to spend a full day there. However, there was one small problem. She thought CGA was SFDK, and bought SFDK tickets. She ended up actually using her tickets on the drive back. Great America is meant to be a park themed to the best of America. I guess the jeeps that go there are part of the American theming!

It looks like the following years will be awesome ones for SFMM expansion. With Deja Vu and Log Jammer gone, that leaves room for more rides. Also, let's not forget they are already adding a new ride, that takes up almost no space. A large ride removal like Log Jammer could make room for a very large coaster!

Honestly, I don't really care about theming, landscaping, or any of that stuff. For me, it is good operations that outline a good park. Since the Post-Tatsu era, operations have been passable, but never great (excluding the openings of X2 and Tatsu). Back when Tatsu was installing its new fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo, X2 had the only "great" operations (3 trains running, no stacking), while the only "good" operations were on Goliath (no stacking). Tatsu had 5 minute dispatches with an hour wait. Later on, dispatches on X2 became closer to 2 minutes with 2 trains running, Goliath being the only ride that doesn't stack its trains. However, operations have gradually gotten better as time goes on. Tatsu is now down to 3-4 minute dispatches (that is not exactly great, but it is much better than 4-5 minutes), while X2 is back to no stacking (on most days). Goliath still, as always, has quick dispatches. I ope this pace of gradual improvement continues, and SFMM can one day be a park of which rides are run at full capacity, at least with two trains. Although, the moral of the story is that all SF parks still have quite a bit of recovering to do from Premier Parks, SFMM was just hit the worst.

I think chainwide problems for all SF parks come from the Premier parks administration. For example, in the early 90's, Marine World was among the most beautiful parks anyone could imagine. Then, Premier Parks took over. They added a Boomerang and an SLC in 1995. Boomerang was still in the nice part of the park, but the SLC felt a bit out of place, in what I believe used to be the parking lot. Then came a wood coaster, in a newly paved and treeless area by the front gate. A couple years followed, resulting in a B&M floorless and an Intamin impulse. By this point, SFMW was nothing more than another SF park with some animal shows. When SFMM left the Premier Parks administration, operations improved. However, at SFDK, operations took quite a while to recover. Up until the 2011 season, operations were just about the same as they were during the Premier Parks days. Although, SFMM has their own problems. under PP, the park fell into such a state of disrepair, that work still needs to be done to fix it. Jay Thomas tried to address most of these problems, but some went unnoticed. Although, nearly everyone I know agrees that SFMM is far nicer than SFGAdv, which is generally not criticised as much. And, about the abandonment of Metro, at least SFMM is the only Southern California park with an abondoned ride residing in the skyline, right? RIGHT?

Is it based on an old design?

Is it at a park with a TPR rating of 3 stars or higher?

Is it currently operating?

Is it a design from before the 1970's?

Phoenix at Knoebels? Not west of the Mississippi Not 100ft Not at a chain park

One dollar! And to think I thought Knobels had cheap prices! I feel ripped off for having spent $2.25 to ride Phoenix! Actually, Phoenix is worth $20 a ride, but Dick Knoebel would be proud of these prices!

Although coasters do not make use of the terrain, you do have to appreciate SFMM's abundance of trees. Personally, I think SFMM may be the nicest-landscaped park in the chain; not too bad for a park in the middle of the desert. SFGADV, on the other hand, is a landscape lover's nightmare. That place has little trees, shade, or landscaping. That is especailly odd, considering the whole park is surrounded by forest. SFGAdv should look a lot more like Hersheypark or Knoebels, but I guess SF doesn't believe in nice parks. MrSum1"Would it kill SFGAdv to replant some more trees? Trees grow like weeds in New Jersey!"_55

^^Of all 18 coasters, only four make use of the terrain. Of those four, only one (Tatsu) was built after the 1980's. Six Flags just ruined SFMM's potential. One thing that just baffles me was the placement of Goliath. A hyper coaster would work awesome on the mountain, and could make prefect use of the terrain. Instead, they built it over a parking lot in the front of the park! At least we got Tatsu. Apoc was built to fill Psyclone's old spot, and Green Lantern is not exactly a terrain ride. What SFMM should have done was build a terrain CGI, and add a drop tower in Apoc's spot. Currently, only one terrain GCI exists, and that one Chinese ride looks pretty awesome to me; much better than Apoc! (Not that Apoc is a bad little ride, although it is no terrain coaster)

Does if have a vertical lift?

This is easily one of the biggest dissapointments in all of coaster history. If Batman hadn't been cloned a million times over, the design would probably be on par with Non-Dueling Dragons. Now that dueling is gone, I believe Universal should paint both of them the same colors, to create a disorienting sense of having track all around you and not knowing where you are going. Or, even better, they should merge both tracks into one mobious track, creating one, long, superinvert. Meh, both of these, especially the latter, are highly unlikely to happen. Either of these would be sure to dissapoint Hairy Potter fans, considering there must be a way to distinguish between dragons, and the dragons must duel. Not to mention that the second option would be expensive, and reduce capacity. It will probably remain how it is. MrSum1"Would almost rather have the old theming back than have the coaster duel"_55

Remember people: this is what happens when you don't follow loose article policies.

I've ridden Dominator, Bizarro, Medusa West, and Scream. Dominator would be the best, if it weren't for its rattle. The rattle puts it about on par with Medusa West (Strangely, Medusa is the only one of these four that is still just as smooth as it was opening day)

Stealth, CGA. It was built at probably the most difficult park to get a building permit at; many proposed rides came before and after it. Paramount was lucky they even got the permits to allow it to be built, not to mention that they spent $17 million on it. It was open for THREE YEARS before they trashed it, and replaced what may have been the only ideal plot of land the park had for a coaster, with a water park that is open 3 months out of the year. The reason they did this was to enter the family market. Yet, SFDK started doing the same thing in 2003! The replacement of this fairly compact coaster for a water park almost sabotaged any future chance for future coaster expansion. Now thae ride is at Carowinds. CGA really needed a new coaster A LOT more than Carowinds did. That statement is really even more true now, considering nothing new was added since. MrSum1"Vekoma Flyer Fanboy"_55

Not a credit, but I really wish I had ridden the flyers at Knoebels. For two reasons: 1. Almost everyone else in the group (around 30 people) thought they looked boring 2. We only had an hour to cover the whole park, so we never really had too much of a chance anyway. In fact, I could say the same thing for nearly everything at Knoebels! We literally arrived, got in the 3 credits, rode Phoenix twice, and left. I really wish I had more time to really feel the charm of this park!

^At least you can say they are knocking off a good company! We have seen terrible knockoff Arrows and Vekomas. If I had to pick one company for them to knock off, I'd pick Intamin! Still, the Chinese will probably find a way to screw this up. Hopefully, they also rip off Intamin's smooth car and wheel-bearing designs, but, if they can make a knockoff SLC that is worse than the original, I can only imagine an 11 inversion coaster!

Now that I think about it, I will kind of miss old Vu. The capacity was usually around 300-400 per hour, but that hanging sensation was just awesome. Its too bad SF never really bothered to motivate their staff more. It's hard to believe the theoretical capacity of that thing is higher than most wild mice rides. I might actually have a reason now to somehow make it out to SFNE (besides Bizarro). Would love to try out new trains. I was lucky enough to be able to make it out to KI shortly after Invertigarden came in. Maybe somehow I will ride the new premier train Deja Vu as well? One can only hope. MrSum1_"Hopes that Vu's new life will not be downtime filled and no longer have the capacity of a Fuji-Q ride"55 R.I.P. Deja Vu. (August 2001-October 2011) I honestly never thought you were that rough.

SFDK is seriously "gum land". On that same day, Roar had a "gum tree" while the station wall for V2 was a gum wall as well. My friend even contributed to Roar's "gum tree!" Knott's, despite being a trashcan CF park, also has some pretty serious gum problems. When waiting on the block for their log ride, there is always abundant gum up above, where the queue passes over. Medusa's gum wall is mere child's play compared to Silver Bullet's gum roof. Gotta love those California operations! I'm surprised they are actually taking out trash cans! Hopefully, GCA will remain a trash can park.

^^That's pretty bad, but that is NOT the worst I have ever seen the gum wall This is.

^At SFDK, stuck in Medusa's 2 hour line (3.5 minute dispatches), I was beginning to play "count the trash". However, I gave up, because I lost count! The areas with by far the most trash was the areas right underneath the trash cans! Also, some idiot stuck a giant band-aid looking thing with a wet towel over it! I had never seen any park or line in a more digusting state! And to think people wonder why I hate this park. People are lazy. Sometimes you just have to deal with it. Cedar Fair tries to cater to the lazy crowd, but really the only way is to have people picking up trash. This is diffucult to handle in lines, though. This is why, yes, even at Disney parks, the lines are the worst parts. There, you need a trash can every 2 feet!

Fright Fest looks really awesome compared to last year! A huge step up! Last year, since Fright Fest was so ininspiring (mazes were medocire, scare zones overcrowded), and operations were so awful at the time, I decided to leave just a half-hour into Fright Fest. I have pretty much been very pleased with everything SFDK has done in the past few years; it has gone from being among the most terrible parks I have ever visited (even though it is my home park) to actually being a decent place to visit! However, the only bad thing that has happened to the park is Roar, and how brutal its gotten. It was once one of my favorite wood coasters; even as late as last June, I was perfectly willing to wait 90 minutes for it. Now, its not even worth a walk-on. Oh, and one more question: Are the Medusa and V2 crews still doing fine? On both rides, dispatches have been horrendously slow, up until last August. I was shocked to see Medusa the crew NOT stacking trains! Are the crews still this good now?

^Actually, it was worse than that. When Tatsu ran one train (like at WCB) dispatches were about five minutes to a train, with one running, totaling out at seven-minute dispatches. Thank god someone had the good idea to impose a return-ticket system, as it could easily get 2 hour waits. I remember the backlot tour of Tatsu, when the it felt like the wait for each train took forever. For Batman to have two minute dispatches on a 1 minute ride doesn't sound too bad; usually the Medusa crew at SFDK can't even send out a train in less than 3 minutes.