sirloindude

I don't think that stand-up coasters were a failed concept. I'd argue that they were rather successful in their day. However, they just lacked the staying power of other concepts. As new styles of coasters have come out, the stand-up coaster concept basically rode off into the sunset. I'd say that in the days before inverted and floorless coasters, among so many others, they were a radical and exciting alternative to your average looping coaster. Their time in the sun just drew to a close when newer concepts that combined innovative riding positions or train designs with comfort hit the market. Where we all got lucky was with the ability of B&M to convert them to floorlesses, even if only two have received that treatment so far.

That's probably because Viper is amazing.

I'm interested to experience these conversions, having only experienced both this and Mantis in stand-up form. I never much minded the stand-ups, although the Vortex duo never did much for me one way or the other (Mantis, on the other hand, was my favorite B&M at the park). I do wish they had kept the old colors, though. I liked that it was different and I thought that the colors were awesome.

Agreed on Leviathan having a terrible ending. They cut that ride off way too early. It's still very good, but it was another couple of airtime hills or other creative maneuvers short of being everything it should have been, and I had that criticism of it the first time I rode it. I think that gives Fury 325 a boost in my eyes. Fury 325 is the best ride in existence in my opinion, and I consider it that based on its own merits, but I do feel like it gets a bit of a bonus for not ending until it's truly out of gas.

Boldikus, if your experience on it is anything like mine, Maverick will probably not be unseated by Phoenix. I like Phoenix, and while it's very good, it's hardly perfect.

Agreed on Diamondback. I was not at all impressed with it, and of that Cedar Fair trifecta (Behemoth and Intimidator being the other two), I found Diamondback to be the weakest of the bunch. Oddly enough, Intimidator is one of my favorite B&M hypers.

Your storytelling skills are simply incredible. I laughed so hard reading this. Please keep the tales coming.

I actually like I305 for some of the reasons you don't, but I get that the ride isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea. However, I dare say that what I quoted from you is nothing short of blasphemy. I like Mako, but I'm pretty sure that even in Bizarro world, Mako's first drop would not be considered wild in comparison to I305's. It's good, but I305's is probably the best first drop in all of coasterdom.

Even with Fury, it's so easy to find days when the park isn't that crowded. I've only been once since it opened, but I waited maybe 10 minutes on my first lap and got the front row. The rest were walk-ons. What is it with people in the mid-Atlantic area and their gigacoasters? I wish I could walk on to Millennium Force and Leviathan the way I can Intimidator 305 and Fury 325.

Huh. I stand corrected. Thanks for the info!

Agreed. Who would've thought, back in the late 90s/early 2000s, that we'd be saying that? They've really come into their own.

As I understand it, Magnum wasn't chosen because of the TV show, but rather because of the power of the namesake handgun and the relevant power of the ride.

Hey, coasterkid124, you know the park better than I do. I'll say this for Darien Lake: your coaster collection basically consists of Ride of Steel and everything else, and in that sense, I can understand the desire for something new from guests of the park. It's a vastly superior coaster to anything else in the collection and probably every ride there, and I would contend that it would be of benefit to the park to have at least one other stellar coaster there to balance things out. I wouldn't be of the same mindset for every park that has one vastly superior coaster to any other one at the park, but it's one thing when a park is small and has maybe only one other coaster vs. a park that has seven or eight. Once a park gets big enough, I'd contend it needs more than one major coaster to at least balance things out a little bit. While SLCs generally fill the role of a B&M invert for parks that can't afford the latter (or who were just given SLCs to boost coaster counts, like pretty much every park in the old Premier chain), it isn't going to be good enough to serve as a "peer," if you will, to an Intamin megacoaster. Simply put, a really great ride carries a great reputation in its own right, but it can just as easily be to the detriment of other rides at the park. Remember what I said about looking at a park in a vacuum (it might have been in the SFStL thread)? This is along that train of thought, although what I'm saying is that even the guest who is completely unfamiliar with the industry at large is likely going to form an opinion of a ride in the context of other rides at the park, at least to a point. I think you touched on a bigger problem, though, when you mentioned Twister not being functional. As I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but not only does Darien Lake have pretty terrible ride operations with literally only one train even on the track for most of its major coasters (let alone only running one train), the park doesn't even operate all of its rides. More than a lack of new attractions, I think that makes for really poor presentation to the point where it makes problems stand out more than they already do. I still stand by my opinions in this thread, but hopefully you find the thoughts in this post to be my way of at least sort of finding a middle ground with you. Lastly, ride of steel, that's great that you find that funny, but seriously, that's like a Trekkie laughing at someone who doesn't understand the difference between Klingons and Romulans. What that girl said doesn't make her stupid. It just proves that we're nerds.

LOL at the last part, although I found Great Adventure to be a little less Six Flags-ish than some of its counterparts in the chain. And you're right about the launch feeling like multiple separate tugs. I'd completely forgotten about that, but I remember noting that from the very first lap I took on the thing. I still enjoyed it, but in my laps on it, it has just never felt "right" the way TTD does.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on what it is that makes Kingda Ka such a rattly mess whereas Top Thrill Dragster is butter-smooth? I could never understand how one rides so nicely everywhere and the other feels like launching off an aircraft carrier with potholes in the deck in every car but the front.

Maybe it's just me, but I've never been under the impression that people, or at least enthusiasts, hate Grizzly. I always thought it was a classic fan favorite.

But why do you need something new every year? I'd say the more-than-every-other-year streak of getting new attractions is actually pretty impressive. A lot of parks throughout the country go very long stretches of time without getting anything new or noteworthy. Let me ask you this, though: let's say in place of Mind Eraser you had a B&M invert, Predator had received a RMC conversion, and instead of Moto Coaster, you had a Mack launcher a la blue fire or Helix. Would you still be wishing for something new every year? If so, I would be extremely disappointed that between those and Ride of Steel, you still wouldn't be satisfied and it would make me wonder how you would be able to enjoy anything in life long-term. If not, it shows that the reason you suffer from the same thing that plagues a lot of enthusiasts: the ability to view a park in a vacuum. In this industry, we see parks the world over getting new and amazing rides, and we instinctively want them for our own home parks. There's not anything wrong with that, per se, but there is when it suddenly leads us to criticize our local parks for not having them. I said this before, but the only people who consistently notice such things are us, and we do not make up a significant portion of the park-going population. To use Darien Lake specifically, how many people that visit that park have even ridden a B&M invert when the nearest one is hours and hours away? How many have ridden a ride that has received the RMC treatment when the closest is in Massachusetts, beyond the opposite end of the state? How many have heard of Mack launchers like the ones I mentioned when they're all the way across the ocean? I'm not saying those would be the rides you want, but I'd bet good money that if they were at Darien Lake, you'd be less disappointed. All I'm saying is to keep things in perspective. Look at what your park does have and enjoy it for what it is. I've been to almost every park in the US with a massive coaster collection (I think the park in the US that would boost my coaster count most is Lagoon with seven or eight that I'd ride, and everything else has only six or less), and Darien Lake was actually above average as far as niceness (my only complaint was with the ride operations), with a beautiful, scenic setting to boot. Again, it's fine to want things, but any great ride you have is just a bonus for what is already a pretty great park, at least in my opinion.

There's nothing wrong with wishing your park had a ride it doesn't. It's the belief that the park is somehow getting shafted that leaves people scratching their heads.

Part of me wants to copy and paste my post from the Darien Lake thread, but as this is an actual Six Flags park, I feel like it calls for a slightly different explanation. TrippinBillie, you're exactly right: you haven't gotten the steel monstrosities that other Six Flags parks have received. To start, you also aren't in a market comparable to those in which some of those other parks reside. St. Louis is not Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, or Dallas, to pick just a few markets where parks with more impressive coaster collections reside. It's highly probable that St. Louis simply doesn't need some steel monstrosity the way other parks in the chain might need them. If the park is pulling in guests and generating plenty of revenue and can continue to do so without spending excess cash on some ride that is overkill for the needs of the park, good for them! If flat rides and relocated Boomerangs get the job done, that's a win for the finance department. Quite honestly, I'd say that Six Flags St. Louis is probably a contender for the best-managed Six Flags park when it comes to coaster installations as it doesn't suffer from the overbuilding that plagues many of the other parks, a chunk of which aren't getting anything noteworthy these days either (I'd hardly consider the free spins noteworthy, considering the first ride of that general nature, X2, is basically 10x the ride any of those little things will ever be). Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Six Flags St. Louis actually has an above-average coaster collection. You have a Batman - The Ride, something that really only the flagship parks ever got. You have a Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast, something only SFOT got as well. You have what is probably the best overall wooden coaster collection of any Six Flags park with three rides that range from good to great. All of these are absolutely, in every sense of the term, "real" roller coasters. Don't look at the collection of coasters you have, compare them only to the small handful of parks in the US that pack in massive coaster collections (which are really only a small handful of CF and SF parks as well as Hersheypark), and complain that St. Louis is lacking. If you're going to compare it to other parks (which a majority of its guests will never do themselves, and why should they?), look at it in the proper context and realize that you're tied for the 14th largest coaster collection in the country. If that means Six Flags St. Louis is somehow getting the shaft, you and I have a very different definition of the term "shaft."

It is the riders, but up to a point. I don't think that guests in some markets are markedly slower than their counterparts in others, nor do I think that guests on some rides move slower than others. I think that crews who move quickly establish a sense of urgency that inspires guests to get in and out of the trains quickly as well. I worked Batwing in the fall of 2005 and on one evening, station A had four ride ops and station B had two, which were myself (having just moved back to MD after a summer working X-Flight at Geauga Lake) and one other ride op who liked moving quickly. There were four instances during the evening where we dispatched two trains (including having to override the normal alternating sequence for the rotating switch-track just outside of the station) before the other side got one, and it wasn't because we just magically had faster guests. My coworker and I just really cared about dispatching trains on a low-capacity ride as quickly as we could. My experiences with SFA both as a guest and employee over the years have shown that that park is not overly concerned with efficient operations.

I think a lot of people overlook how overbuilt these parks are already. Darien Lake, viewed from a broader perspective than the one shared by those who wish every park had a dozen five-star rides, still has a way above-average coaster collection. They aren't going to have the budget to build massive rides with regularity. It's generally only the chains (exceptions being places like Hersheypark) that are able to add massive coasters year after year, and even then only the heaviest hitters get massive coaster installations on a regular basis (look at places like Worlds of Fun, Dorney, and the rather modest coaster counts of even the Busch Gardens parks). Even the Six Flags parks are relegated to tiny little free spins and Larson Loops these days just to keep getting additions. For those parks that have small collections but impressive overally quality, well, that's why you don't go with the Six Flags mentality of throwing stuff everywhere every year, resulting in a lot of low-budget attractions just to increase quantity. Darien Lake, being a former Six Flags park (and even worse, Premier before that), got way too much way too quickly, and now you're stuck with a Boomerang and SLC as far as your "modern" looping coaster installations. To that point, that's really something that only sticks out in the minds of enthusiasts anyway. Ultimately, Darien Lake's management isn't out of touch with its guests when it comes to ride installations (ride operations, on the other hand...). It's people who expect massive coaster after massive coaster that are out of touch with how the industry operates. I get that Mind Eraser is no B&M invert and Predator is no GCII masterpiece, but Darien Lake isn't exactly hurting for rides in the grand scheme of things.

I would actually be quite surprised if parks got to pick their new rides. I feel like as small as these chains are, the decisions for new rides would be made at a corporate level. I remember Dick Kinzel saying once that Patriot was sort of above and beyond what they'd have normally spent for a new attraction for Worlds of Fun back when it got added, which led me to believe that the decision to add it came from a higher level than the park. I'm sure GMs have input, and please correct me if I'm actually wrong on this, but I don't think that the decisions to build rides like Mystic Timbers, Banshee, or what have you, were made solely by KI people. I'm sure they do have some sort of discretionary budget for certain things, but I would expect that budget to be for little more than general upkeep.

I felt that Mantis was the park's best B&M, so I can only imagine how much I'll enjoy the ride in its more comfortable configuration. I really liked Viper at SFMM, and add me to the list of Anaconda fans. Vortex at KI is a bit more brutal than those two, at least in my eyes, but having also enjoyed GASM at SFGAdv, I guess you can add me to the list of Arrow megalooper fans. I suppose some of these are more underrated than hated in my eyes, but I'd add the SUFs (not the SFDK version, but the flyers), the Boss, Batman - The Ride, smooth SLCs, and Goliath and Titan to my list of rides that I enjoy more than most others.

Of course Prowler gives a better night ride than the Beast. It's a substantially better coaster. *ducks*

At the end of the day, it's of course a preference thing, but let's be fair: say you live close to Cedar Point and you absolutely, without question, love the place and don't have a burning desire to spend your money anywhere else. On economics alone, that's a great decision, even if I find it a bit limiting, but really, what's the point in shelling out extra money to go somewhere far away when you're satisfied with what you already know you love? I will say that I maintain my support of the notion of getting out there and seeing what exists outside of your immediate vicinity, but I apply that to travel in general and not just parks and coasters. However, I think a point of diminishing returns is reached once your track record starts climbing into the hundreds. I have less than ten parks to go in the US that can add five or more coasters to my track record, and many of them aren't easily reached. For example, I've never been to Silverwood. I live in central Florida and to get there, I'd have to fly all the way out to Spokane, Washington, and then drive an hour and a half east. Even with the travel benefits my employer provides, that's an awful long way to go for a small amusement park. My wife and I want to visit all fifty states and that would be a nice way to check off Idaho (sorry to any Idahoans out there, but that place doesn't really scream my name), but despite the good reviews I've read of the park's wooden coasters, it would really have to be the right opportunity for me to make my way out there as opposed to spending my money on a quick trip up to Carowinds (to pick another park to which I'd have to travel by air) where I've had nothing but amazing experiences and where 3 of the best coasters B&M has ever built exist. I hate to say it, but again, unless some great opportunity came out to head to the Pacific Northwest, I'm going to way of economics and preference and giving the Carolina paradise my cash. On top of that, even though I've never been to Silverwood, I've ridden a giant inverted boomerang and the two wooden coasters, while apparently very good, are not likely to blow me away as much as Fury 325, Batman - The Ride, Boulder Dash, etc., that I've already experienced. One must consider if the new park or coaster are really that amazing to warrant the expense of planning a trip expressly for it or waiting for an opportunity to experience all an area has to offer and throwing the park in on the side. Even during the height of my track record boosting, my yearly plan was generally a mix of new parks with places I already knew and loved. I'm sure for a lot of people here that sit on my side of the fence and say that experiencing the new is the way to go, we strike a balance, but based on my previous paragraph, I can totally respect enjoying what's already familiar and holds so many special memories.