ajfelice

#shouldhaveboughtanaquatrax Nah, just kidding. What a fun classic woodie that appears from the video to have some surprising pops of airtime!

IAAPA has zero tolerance for trademark, copyright, patent, or any other kind of infringement or "theft" in any of their events or organizations. It would be insulting to any other company there to have to look at Golden Horse flagrantly stealing their concepts. On that note, I vote Golden Horse. I have never ridden a single ride from them, but I don't play their kind of game in business or in life in general.

If he is renting a wheelchair because he physically needs it, I'm pretty sure you can get an Alternate Access booklet from Guest Services. Using Alternate Access means you are given the estimated wait time by the Host at the ride entrance, and when your time comes you can use the elevators or wheelchair accessible ramps to board the ride. As an FYI I can guarantee you that all B&Ms (Raptor, Gatekeeper, and Mantis) do not permit casts or walking boots by manufacturer restriction. As for the other rides, I'm sure you can find that information on their website before paying admission.

Knoebels and Holiday World. I would never travel to another park again after stepping foot in this utopia.

Ravine Flyer II Sorry about the lack of quality. I'll give you a crash course of how to operate it. Your main switches and buttons are found on the bottom towards the middle. Third green switch in from the left is the gates. You first open the gates by twisting that switch to "open" and letting go right away. The switches are spring loaded so they only stay on open or close if you hold them there, as the switch automatically goes back to the center once you let go. If you lay on the switches or buttons too long the ride faults. Once everyone is mostly seated or the lapbars are all up so none of them have to be manually opened, you twist the lap bar switch found next to the gates switch on the right to "close" and let go just like the gates. Usually you can close the gates at the same time as the lap bars by twisting the same gate switch to "close." Once you get two thumbs up, you press and hold the yellow "dispatch" button until the last car of the train clears the end of the station. When the next train arrives back into the station and parks, you can unlock the lap bars and open the gates at the same time. Along the top you have Ride Stop on the top left, and Emergency Stop on the top right. Below the E-stop is the reset button for faults and the red fault indicator light. Below that is the maintenance mode enable key switch, and further down is the single or double dispatch mode enable key switch (double requires the operator in the back of the station to hold a button just like the dispatch on controls). In the bottom right corner is the main power key switch. On the left below Ride Stop is the buttons used by maintenance for brakes, air compressors, transfer track, and the lift power switch is to the left of the gates switch. Of course, the screen is a touch screen with oodles of functions.

Hard for me to "hate" very many coasters at all, but Nitro was a flop for me. There is nothing wrong with it in terms of roughness, excessive trims, or boredom. However, Nitro just failed to do anything to separate it from the rest of the hypers I have ridden. I liked it, but Nitro lacks the intensity or insanely fun factor that can make a coaster elite. Nitro is enjoyable, but nothing impressive at all in my opinion. Can't win them all I guess.

I'm sure there is a lot of interest in the B&M, the two Vekomas, and the flats. Any of those three coasters would be a welcome addition to a park looking to step into the world of "mega-loopers" or needing to diversify their family coaster selections. The other two coasters seem like they would be more trouble than they are worth having, and they really weren't that great for their intended purposes. If it's not just parks interested in the rides, used ride dealers are probably foaming at the mouth as well. Of course time is an issue, and these rides are losing value each day they sit idle. It's true that any machinery should be operated regularly in addition to general upkeep maintenance, but it seems like whoever is in charge of them is at least keeping them from rotting away completely. Good thing Myrtle Beach is spared from the harsh winters which also helps curb the effects of weathering. Personally, I don't see this place ever operating as a park, amusement or theme, ever again. Sell off the assets, and chalk it up as a learning experience.

Height requirements are very rarely the sole choice of the park. I love this addition for Holiday World. An extremely popular family ride with an amazing location and theme. Even better, it's a Chance! I wouldn't worry about capacity, because the Sea Dragon I have operated on several occasions is the same model (a bit older though) and it's a very quick load and unload.

As I was loading our junior coaster, Comet, this past labor day weekend, some lady asked me, "Is this the Crystal Beach Comet?" Kindly, I replied, "no, our Comet coaster has only operated here at Waldameer." For some reason this wasn't enough of an answer for her, and she insisted that our Comet was once the Crystal Beach Comet. She didn't even like it when I said the Crystal Beach Comet which is much larger than our Comet is in a park in the Eastern part of New York. I really think she thought roller coasters were almost all as small as today's "junior" coasters. Geez lady, wooden coasters weren't all that small back in the day.

I'd say it was a productive season considering my schedule: Waldameer Holiday World Cedar Point Kennywood Conneaut Lake Park Martin's Fantasy Island Seabreeze

Sorry, I may have jumped the gun on this one. Darien Lake is much larger and contains more complex attractions, so training is likely much more extensive and complex. Perhaps my context was off when evaluating the situation. To give a couple examples of positions at Waldameer you can train someone on quickly is exit on Thunder River and exit on Steel Dragon. For Thunder River, all you have to do is sit there and inform guests when it is safe to exit, and the only button you press is "station stop" if someone were to fall onto the station conveyer. It requires about 30min of training, at most. If you are a non-rides person, you get this spot for the entire day as lame and boring as it sounds. Another example is exit on Steel Dragon. All you do is instruct riders which direction to exit, pull up any lap bars on an unoccupied seat, and hold the "move to load button" until the car moves to the next spot. I could go on with extremely simple positions on other rides such as Comet, Music Express, Pirate's Cove, Ravine Flyer II, and Sky Ride. None of these positions involve main controls or complex decision making. Yes the guest ride attendant does exactly one simple, boring position on one ride for, in most cases, 9 hours, but it keeps staffing to an acceptable level. Of course, only highly responsible park employees are chosen as guest attendants, and we always give them ample notice of what they are doing so that they can complete preliminary training of reading and signing manuals a day or so ahead of time. That's where I was coming from on that portion of my post.

Fortunately, none of my absolute favorite coasters have been demolished. However, if I had to choose my favorite defunct coaster, it would be Geauga Lake's The Villain. It wasn't running very well at the end of Geauga Lake's existence, but the layout was very interesting in which it combined the traditional out and back wood coaster experience with a modern wooden coaster experience of speed and intensity.

Not trying to justify their staffing issue, but perhaps I can offer some insight. Darien Lake finds itself in a peculiar location this time of year. They might be "Buffalo's Park," but they are really secluded pretty deep into suburbs. When they don't offer housing, it's tough to find some help from local college students who usually wouldn't prefer driving that far to work everyday (students make up the vast majority of ride operators). The major colleges and universities are not very conveniently located near Darien Lake at all. Where am I getting this theory? Well I have experience in the world of short staffing at amusement parks. We are lucky in Erie to have three sizable universities within 20 minutes of the park, and a fourth within 30 minutes. We heavily incentivized our ride operators to have their friends moving into college come and work the last couple weekends. Of course we had a few days where certain rides opened late and a couple not at all, but we managed to keep the damages controlled. Never was a major attraction closed, only the least ridden children's ride, Mini Enterprise, and the least ridden flat, Paratrooper, experienced a closure due to understaffing. About non-ride operators and full-time staff operating rides. This is not a Darien Lake thing, but a common thing across the industry. Twice this season I have given up my managerial duties for the day to operate rides in order to keep all of our rides open. Also, certain positions on rides do not require as extensive of training as other ride operator positions. Training lap bar checkers (on some rides), exit attendants, and teaching some children's attractions do not require an exhaustive amount of time by any means. Simple planning ahead can make a non-rides person a safe, functional, and efficient ride attendant. Therefore, I wouldn't fear a typically non-rides employee working some positions on rides like a couple guest comments suggested. Hopefully, Darien Lake can find some solutions and continue growing.

For sh*ts and giggles I decided to take a heavy rain ride on Ravine Flyer II during a dead, rainy June weekday after being coerced by my operators. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't my A-Team working the ride that day. All I remember is holding on for dear life with my eyes shut while being pierced with needles all over my face. The rest of me came off pretty dry due to my sexy poncho. Maybe if I was still a young teen and more stupid would I ever want to do that again.

^I read that on Facebook as well. Is it just me, or did they just open Pandora's Box? It's an amazing thank you to their guests in theory, but once the park is overrun beyond what it's staffing and resources can handle they are probably going to irritate more people than they reward. I'm keeping my eyes peeled on this one.

Back with some updates and an interesting history find. For 2014, Waldameer is looking at its infrastructure which needs to rapidly catch up to our increasingly larger crowds. On the amusement park side, a new restroom facility is planned to be constructed by Steel Dragon and Thunder River which will eliminate the need for the outdated restrooms in Rainbow Gardens which were not consistently open. Also, some of our ride lighting packages are planned to be converted to LED. XScream, Tilt-A-Whirl, and Spider (Yes, we are keeping it around) are all proposed for conversion this coming offseason (can't guarantee all three for sure, but they are all on the list). The Giant Ferris Wheel is still on the wish list for new lighting, but unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees yet. As we approach the Water World expansion/overhaul starting with the Wave Pool in 2015, several of the existing waterslides will receive some much needed TLC for 2014. The original Giant Body Slides, Presque Isle Plunge and Lake Erie Dip, are both being resurfaced and repainted lime green and yellow. The 3-slide complex of Bermuda Triangle and the 2-slide complex of Midnight Plunge and Awesome Twosome will also sport some flashy new colors. In order to keep Ravine Flyer II from falling into the current stereotype for coasters from Gravity Group becoming rough, another 1/3 of the track will receive some retracking. I'm not sure which sections exactly, but I know that the majority of work will be on sections that weren't covered by the retracking project before 2013. Also, when flipping through my copy of Jim Futrell's Images of America: Waldameer Park, I found a picture of one of the original layout proposals of Ravine Flyer II. This one is different from the previous CCI layout from the late 1990s and the current Gravity Group layout that was constructed. Sorry about the quality, but I was not about to flatten my new book to scan it, so I did the best I could with a mediocre camera.

Looking back on some previous posts, there was nothing about Son of Beast or Pitfall to suggest anything "shocking" or surprising in my opinion. Considering the last few seasons for both rides, there should be no surprise a park decided to be done with them. I will agree with Big Bad Wolf and Steel Phantom as being shocking. Not that their replacements are bad rides, but the initial feeling when those were announced to be "leaving" (quotes for Steel Phantom) was somewhat uneasy. A park insider, considering they would have the direct insight on the maintenance toll of a ride like Big Bad Wolf, might not be shocked at all, but the GP and enthusiasts were not ready to hear that at all. Steel Phantom had more than enough love, from the GP especially, that it wasn't highly speculated that Kennywood was already ready to remove or heavily modify it. Another somewhat surprising removal for me was Wildcat at Cedar Point due to its timing. Of course it was aging, likely hard to maintain, and had low capacity, but an early May announcement of a removal was pretty unusual.

Harsh. I think you are getting a little personal on that one. Maintenance is as good as their resources, so think about that before calling them out like that. Do you think Darien Lake is content with having one train for all of their coasters? Furthermore, have any of us worked on one of their coaster trains before Herschend took over to see what kind of condition they really are in? It would be absurd to think Darien Lake wants to operate like this. Chances are they are rehabbing these trains extensively in order to bring them up to standards. Herschend seems to know how to operate parks given their successes with Dollywood and Silver Dollar City, so give them a little bit of time to clean house. Darien Lake has a lot of work to be done which will take some time, but I would take it in its current state any day over the end of the Six Flags era and the entire PARC era. Almost forgot, if you really dislike it, don't spend your time and money supporting it.

I like this addition a lot actually. Flyers are seeing a resurgence across the industry for a very good reason; they are family-friendly and thrilling at the same time. The Disk'o coaster seems very nice hoping it will have a similar height requirement to its clones in other Cedar Fair parks. We can only hope that Cedar Point sticks to the manufacturer requirements and doesn't raise the height requirements higher than they really need to be. Most importantly, a "tired" section of the park is getting new life. Referring back to some earlier posts about how high the height restrictions are for "family" rides such as Blue Streak, Mine Ride, Iron Dragon, etc., I would love to see the records on what the manufacturer set or if even the manufacturer set a height requirement for some of the oldest ones like Blue Streak and Mine Ride. I know that rides dating back to the late 1970s at the park I work at were constructed with no manufacturer-set height requirements. Basically, the park had to set them based on their own testing as well as approval by the state and the insurance company.

Agree wholeheartedly. Building beyond just the safety point, I have my two cents of insight. There was a time where I thought leaving gaps was a fun idea to get more airtime and comfort. However, in my opinion the contrary is quite true. Leaving a gap that doesn't get sealed off by operators usually results in a nasty first drop experience when the restraint really has momentum to slam down the extra couple notches resulting in more pain than pleasure. In regards to airtime, I have been crunched down into countless coaster seats from several manufacturers thinking there is no likelihood of airtime, but more often than not I have been pleasantly surprised. Even on a thigh crusher like Skyrush, I'd rather start tight than have the experience of a lap bar with little resistance slam down on me as the rest of my body is being raised up with amazing airtime.

I happened to catch this on Chance Rides' Facebook page. It appears that the recently purchased C.P. Huntington train for the Holidog Express is up for sale already? I know they aren't just using a stock image, as Waldameer's former C.P. Huntington engine was also pictured last year when it was put up for sale after Waldameer turned it in for a new engine. http://chancerides.com/instock/instock1.html

The Voyage was absolutely spectacular during my visit this season! It currently stands as the greatest coaster I have ever ridden, even slightly better than El Toro. I couldn't find a "bad" seat as much as I tried. Rough is not a word I would use to describe The Voyage. Instead, I would definitely say it was forceful in which many transitions really threw you from side to side. However, by no means was The Voyage rough, jarring, shuffling, painful, etc. Comparing it to another amazing woodie, El Toro to me is just as aggressive in which it throws you from side to side in the second half of the ride similar to what Voyage does in the twisted section. The difference is that Voyage has that slight vibration all wooden coasters have compared to the steel coaster feeling El Toro has. Yes, PTCs are not as innovative anymore, and they don't track like some of the modern trains such as Millennium Flyers, but they aren't that bad. Considering the durability PTCs are known to have, I'm maintaining hope that they can someday truly develop something that is durable, innovative, and less stressful on track. I know they have tried to develop a single bench design, and I wish they could go further or have someone at least test out the current single bench design. As of right now, Holiday World or any park with a wooden coaster is limited with options considering that Timberliners still need perfecting on the large scale, Millennium Flyers are only allowed to be used on GCI coasters, Gerstlauer hasn't had a new set of their trains installed on a major woodie in the USA in years, and RMC has yet to use one of their trains on a traditional wood track.

When someone asks me what I think of Kennywood, my response is usually somewhere along the lines of "Kennywood has some amazing rides, but they way they run them makes you want to pull your hair out." It's not so much the coaster operations that annoy me, but the flat rides are atrocious. Swingshot, Black Widow, and Aero 360 are the absolute worst probably because their popularity draws more people causing longer waits. The slow walk on these rides has been mastered to the highest degree. The smaller flats are nothing to be impressed with in terms of operations, but waiting only a cycle or two isn't the most painful. As a person who is well rehearsed in operating rides with minimal staffing (in many cases only one operator), I understand it is hard to keep speedy all day long. However, when almost every non-kiddie ride at Kennywood has at least two operators to help the loading and unloading process, the slowness seems very unjustified. Another thing that I notice about Kennywood is that rarely anything seems new or different in terms of general updates to existing attractions or infrastructure. Things like warped queue line fencing on many of their rides give the park a increasing feeling of "rough around the edges." For example, you would never guess Sky Rocket was only constructed in 2010 based on the crooked railings and cracked cement patchwork on asphalt installation of the queue area.

That diagram is comical and puzzling at the same time. More importantly, it's puzzling. Is that diagram suggesting that the operators are going to instruct the rider to adjust their stomach so that the restraint lowers to where the seatbelt extends across the waist? Does the seatbelt have to go under the stomach? I don't want to be an operator on IRAT if I have to adjust a rider's stomach position to fit the restraints. Talk about an embarrassing situation; even if it's for safety. Also, it would be interesting know if the requirement for the "green light" to come on has been made stricter.