Aceattack52

Those pedal-powered monorails look like a ton of fun. I haven't had the chance to ride the new zip line at Camelback (http://www.cbkmountainadventures.com/), which looks like a lot of fun too. I put the Camelback video below too, if you're interested. They call it the "Zip Flyer"

Ah ha-ha hahahahahaha. I didn't know they told us on the tour, I just assumed considering it's shape and position. It's pretty cool that they left it, though. That would make sense, but why would a flat ride require something like that?

Spring break week can be pretty good if you're panning a trip out to a park. I went to Carowinds the Monday and Tuesday of that Spring Break week and it was pretty nice-there was a reasonably thin number of people who came out those two days. But I guess they expected that because they only ran 2 trains on Intimidator on both days.

You know, I don't see too many characters walking around SFOG these days. I do see Bugs Bunny and a few of those guys, but they are few and far between. From the park's prospective, it is kind of expensive to have one of those guys standing out there. There has to be the person in the costume, the person who stands there and makes sure no hooligans try to harass the person in the costume (I refer to them as the "keeper"), and then the costume probably has to be maintained from some wear and tear. The other thing is, is that someone who visits the park is not going to remember their visit with Superman, they're going to remember their first harrowing experience-a roller coaster (well, at least for the little kids).

She's been there since pretty much opening day, 1967. It's a shame.

Either Intimidator or Nighthawk at Carowinds. Nighthawk isn't the best ride in the park, but the only time you can get on it is if you're one of the first few people in the park. It usually has a 1 hour wait-even on the slower days.

Why does everyone like all the ones that are 7 miles tall and go 5,000 miles per hour? Here is my favorite, Mindbender at Six Flags Over Georgia. How about another one? Sure, why not?

I never got a chance to ride it, but Psyclone was probably the roughest around at the time. Hurler at Carowinds is SUPER rough, especially on those high-speed helixes that go around the station after the first drop, and around the back before the 2nd airtime hill. It screws up my back every time.....guaranteed. This part hurts the most.

I agree with this, but if you have a REALLY bad ride to begin with, you won't end up with a world-class ride. The theming can only do so much.

Interesting. Is the manager of sfdk supposed to be a good president? Since this is my home park I hope the new president is a good one. NOOOOOO! are you kidding me? Brad moved to Ga Tech, now Melinda is gone? What the heck. Does anyone know which park Melinda is going to now?

I found some of the ones that I took over the past few years. Intimidator's hammer head looks pretty nice. This is just a nice picture. Oh, would you look at that. There's another nice one. This one is pretty interesting.

It looks pretty good-did you use Newton?

I believe this was where FreeFall was. It looks about the area and the dimensions of the footer just looks like it would support a wide track like FreeFall had. The picture below shows that FreeFall was behind the Chevy Show building (later changed to house Shake, Rattle, and Roll). They had to remove that building for DDD, so that would be about the right area for a left-over FreeFall footer. Cool.

My opinion isn't worth much, but, I would say they are going to go through with the construction of the park. Or at least dye trying. I am pulling this together on the basis that they seem to have a pretty good website already in place, and a pretty straight-forward plan, based on what is put up on the website. The other thing is that nothing has come up in the few years of down-time during the planning phase that seems to have made them want to abandon the project all together. That is promising. With that being said, I also wanted to say that a feasibility study means not too much. (In my opinion, of course there are other views that I should also be considering) A feasibility study can be done by anyone wanting to build a park, with the money, of course. A feasibility study just seems like they could be anywhere in the design process. In fact, if I were to build a park, I would perform the study before even planning and wasting time, money, and resources to do that if it isn't a good area to set up a park. why plan it for that specific area of you find in the feasibility study that it won't work out? I see from the photos on the site, they want to build it by a lake, so finding another similar, property wouldn't be as easy as building on a small, plain stretch of land.

Yeah-it doesn't seem like the park is making a very big deal out of it. They made a huge deal out of Dare Devil Dive and now this breaks a height record for the park, an we hardly hear anything about it, if that. What's going on?

Ah hoooooo! It's a he!

Don't forget about Mindbender at SFOG-that is some great stuff and it has been for quite some time. That's why I vote Schwazkopf 10/10 times.

Originally written by drikcoil: I have to disagree wit you on your placement of the Scream Machine on the "dislike" list. I think that although it is rough and crazy in that sense, they shouldn't do anything to it. People complain all the time that Six Flags parks have lost their heritage and things like that. The Scream Machine is the second oldest coaster in the park, just after the Dahlonega Mine Train. It was built right around that revival time when the public was really getting into bigger and better coasters. I feel like the Rocky Mountain treatment makes it into almost a different ride. Doing all new track might be good because I think it will still maintain the older feel while giving a smoother ride, but that would have to be done right to meet both criteria. The Scream Machine is less of a ride for me than it is a large piece of park history. That's why I feel pretty strongly about it. I don't care what they do to the Cyclone, that thing is junk in its current condition, they should finish with the new track. Does anyone know if that is going on? I thought they said they would continue that work during this off season. For superman; I couldn't agree more. The pretzel loop and barrel roll are really the best and only good parts. The rest of the ride is turns and helixes and things like that. What would something like a corkscrew be like on a flying coaster?

I can definitely say I'm going to Carowinds and Six Flags Over Georgia, but I would like to get out to Great Adveture or Dorney or Hershey Park at some point during the summer. Lastly, I would like to add that I really want to go to Magic Mountain, but I don't think the opertunity will arise at any point in this year.

I think it's just a matter of park policy. Common sense should be exercised as well (because web shouldn't it be) when you want to cross. I would say just cross when the train gets back and empties out. Most of you guys probably what happened l that ride op at SFMM when she tried to cross the track in the station.

I agree with azza29-they are not going I take any of them down-that is put of the question. I would say its like most other rides-get it fixed any way they can so they can start getting people back into the work to get on these things. Weather it be a simple replacement of parts or some kind of miseducation, you an pretty mčg count on them at least trying everything they can to get these things working perfectly again.

It's $15 per photo at SFOG-How do you guys pay that?

Things like this happen all the time. I'm waiting in line for Inimidator and these red necks behind me (there were like 5 of them) are waiting in line. One of them yells out "hey look this line is completely open!" This person was talking about the flash pass line. So all five of them cross under the railing and start running toward the station. That's all I could see. Next, the whole bunch was walking back down and were told they would have to go to the back of the line. Nice. When I was at Six Flags Over Georgia a few years ago, this rather large black woman standing in front of me takes out a park map and starts talking to her daughter (or someone). She points over to the Cyclone and says "OH, ok that's the Great American Screamer." WTF is that? Then she points to Goliath "That right there is the American Scorcher." Ahhhh, no it's not. She had a park map out in front of her, but I didn't want to say anything because this seemed like one of those people that would think they're right no matter what you told them.

I was going to put this one in, but they also have another pretty cool element a little bit later in the ride (right after you go through the building). I don't know what this thing is called, but I think they call it the Treble or Music Note or something like that. They did say there is nothing like it in the world, so there's that.

Let me answer you're last question first. Absolutely. I was reading an article the other day that Six Flags has been doing slightly better since the crash and burn that was the economy back in 2008. They attributed it to an abundance if people wanting to spend a couple hundred on a full day at Six Flags as apposed to a few thousand on a full weekend ski trip out west. Now, if you live at the top of a mountain in Colorado, then maybe a fun day on the slopes is better money-wise, but for those in a big city like NYC or LA, Six Flags is a good option for family entertainment as apposed to even a small to moderate size trip. This is a pretty bug question. I actually need to answer this in two parts. The first being location of your park. If a couple hundred thousand people pass your park on their way to work to in and out of the state, then you better believe they are going to notice it. In my opinion, Six Flags Over Texas is in one of the best places you could put a park. It's right in the middle of this conglomeration that is three cities. Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth. There is a lot of people living in this area and even more people passing the park on the highway. The two loops of Shockwave adds to the effect. In contrast, if you have a park built in rural Georgia, you better believe there isn't going to be very high attendance numbers. The other part about getting your park noticed is to get some good attractions in there, which I will get to in the next paragraph, and to completely advertise the hell out of it. Why is Coke so successful? In the early 1900's, when they realized they had a dynamite product, they launched an insanely aggressive marketing campaign. It worked, because the money earned due to marketing is a direct function of the amount of money put into the marketing. Still today, Coke has a lot of advertising going, even though they may not really need it because they have such a good product and they don't necessarily need to remind people that it's there. The same can be seen for Six Flags, they have an aggressive marketing campaign during the summer, when they are operational. There is a key component to the marketing strategy, however. You have to have a good product, a product people really want, or a product that promises something that you can't get anywhere else. What other drink, of any kind, is as good as a Coke? Where else can you get exciting thrills, of any kind, really, other than Six Flags. I'm not even talking coasters. This is why the attractions you have at the park is also very important. I'll get to that now, since really that's the last thing I was looking to cover. First of all, having a $20 million, nice, B&M hyper coaster, would be ideal. Or maybe even like a Leviathan or Kingda Ka type deal would be great. But you want to stay small, which is great because investing that much money, although it would be a pretty safe investment, you probably don't have liquid funds quite like that. Investing in a monster like that is probably pretty safe because how much value does a steel structure lose over time? It's not like a car where 30% of the parts on it will eventually wear out over time, it's just steel. Plus, a park may actually pay slightly more than what you paid the manufacturer because the coaster is already made and they don't have to have a large amount of money tied up while the ride is being made. Although there is the issue of transportation, and taking the ride down, and the fact that there may be compatibility issues with the new site. ANYWAYS, you need good rides. This will definitely require research of current trends in theme park rides, ect. When Six Flags Over Georgia opened, the first ever log flume was at Six Flags Over Texas and it was a huge success, so what do you think appeared at Six Flags Over Georgia? Another thing that was popular were these flat rides such as go karts, things like that, so those also went in. I would say, you need a pretty good array of flat rides. Don't worry so much about coasters. You need to appeal to every person that would even consider your park. A coaster is a pretty important aspect for getting people in the door, so I would say a little mine train type thing or a wild mouse or something like that would be excellent, don't go too big in the beginning. Keep in mind, to do anything, you have to have quite a but in liquid cash. To build Six Flags Over Georgia all-in-all, I think it was somewhere in the $15 million range, which was probably a lot more more back in 1966, but still a lot by today's standards. I read somewhere that six flags gets out a good $1.2-$1.5 billion to start up a new park from scratch. But keep in mind, they want a $16 million B&M, and some other big expensive coasters to be there on opening day to get people in right a way. They are a corporation, so they can do that with relative ease. The only reason they don't open up new parks left and right, is because if there were a few parks per state, there wouldn't be enough people to fill those parks. Plus there is a degree of risk in any investment, and a multi-billion or million dollar theme park is certainly no exception.