Lareson

I think a majority of them are the same size, as Vortex's 2 loops are almost the same, just the 2nd one is moved down lower to have similar momentum going through it. Vortex's 2 loops I figured when Toomer was designing their coasters, he just took the calculations he did for the loop and kind of did a RTC-style insert in the course of the track, so he didn't have to recalculate the loop diameter. Easy way out I guess. The only one that I know of that Arrow actually did completely different was their last looping roller coaster, Tennessee Tornado. That shows the direction Arrow was going before they sadly became bankrupt. We could of possibly had a successor to Drachen Fire too.

My pleasant surprise was riding Mean Streak for the first time this year, in the back car. I thought it was going to be a heck of a lot more shudder in it, but it wasn't that bad, hardly any at all. They did a really great job with the retracking on it the past couple years. Unpleasant surprise was riding red Racer this year. Rode blue last year and that wasn't so bad and was expecting a similar ride. But riding red this year, I don't think I ever had a coaster ever give me a bruise like that one did and it being very rough. My left arm was hurting the rest of the day and sometime after. Maybe next year will have new surprises in store with trips I'm planning on going on.

Yeah, with the size of the park and with only a few new ride additions over the past 5 years, I can see it being hard to do a small park like this every year, especially if you're from far away. With me living about a 1/2 an hour away from it, I think of it more as a convenience than anything. Next closest park to me is Indiana Beach, with Cedar Point and Great America about the same distance away, so whatever additions are coming this way, I'm always glad to see. Hopefully there will be more info about it release over the next couple months, like the name, location, and what it's going to be themed as. Hasn't even been added to the website yet besides the press release, which that is buried in their Media Center down at the bottom. Also is it just me, or is FastLane missing on a few park websites? I noticed CA's Great America and Carowinds no longer list them on the site.

Here's the press release for it: Wonder what they have planned for Wolverine Wildcat's 25th anniversary? Makes it sound like they're going to be doing some promotional stuff for the 2 coasters. Man, 15 years since Shivering Timbers opened, weird with it being that long ago now!

The only issue with it being named Flying Scooters is the fact that there's also a Flying Trapeze, more than likely right next to it. I wouldn't mind if they brought over the Surfside Gliders name from Knott's for here as well. Added a satellite view picture of where Falling Star used to be. Should be plenty of room for it there. Flying Trapeze only requires 65ft diameter for the fencing around that so adding another 15ft for the scooters shouldn't be an issue. Former Falling Star location in red box Hopefully the park will release some more information about it, possibly with some concept art. It'll at least give people an idea on what it's going to look like vs the old Woodstock Gliders pic the park put on their Facebook. Makes it look like a short kiddie ride.

Looks like it's going to be another Larson International flying scooter! Here's the info from the manufacturer: http://www.larsonintl.com/pages/flying-scooters/flying-scooters.html Sweet! The park hasn't announced a name or what it's going to look like, but it is indeed going to be one of these. Always wanted to try one of these and now I can! Great to see this classic attraction coming here!

Nope! This one has me stumped, mainly because it's been way too silent at the park about future attractions. Guess for being such a small park, they certainly know how to keep secrets well sealed. So list of possibilities: Windseeker - shorter 213ft, 36 capacity model - more than likely Surfside Glider - both "water" and "air" in that and could fit in Falling Star's old spot A water slide complex, although don't know what it could be due to space w/o removing something Some sort of ride named Firefall A live entertainment addition Doubtful: Any type of coaster at this point - too late and no room in this years budget Any drop tower - due to maintenance, too high of an upkeep for this size of a park Planet Snoopy - would have been announced already, but could happen in the near future Dinosaurs Alive - there's just nowhere suitable to put the dinos cause it's pretty much a giant field with only a few short trees That's my summary of the guesses and random rumors. EDIT: Oh dear, the comments being made on the park's Facebook page, make me laugh. Someone mentioned giving Wolverine Wildcat the Iron Horse treatment, and lots of people complaining in general. Lots of complaints about the new attraction not being a "Millennium" or "I305" coaster tomorrow.

My only thing about getting one of those is where would it go? The waterpark is pretty much stuck in a corner of the property with nowhere to expand. They'd have to move the catering area, but don't see that happening as it's was recently expanded and is in a pretty good location inside of the park. I'm sticking with Windseeker. Choices are limited as obviously a coaster is out of the question and really the park needs a decent flat ride, but I guess at this point, anything is a welcome addition.

I'm seriously hoping it's "Wind." This poor park doesn't need anymore water... I guess that rules out a Planet Snoopy then. Last time I checked, space wasn't an element. Even though 4 of the 5 Windseekers have had issues, they're either being solved right now, or already have. This announcement is rather late in the works, when they usually announce their addition in November. I thought there was plans to add more Windseekers to parks this year, with Dorney being one of them (no announcement has been made for them yet either.) Winter I don't think will be an issue, considering it's been hovering in the 40's and expected to be quite mild up here. Mind you, this would have to be a completely different model than what Cedar Fair currently has due to the height limit and certainly the issue that the current ones have would have been fixed before they could even raise the first tower piece. Knott's model would more than likely be the test model with the park saying it's suppose to open by February 1st.

Looks like they're announcing a new attraction for this year on Monday. This is about as vague as you could get. What they call attractions is pretty much anything, as they said Beach Party was an attraction when it was being announced. But all I can say is, I'm glad to hear that something is being announced. Doubt it's a coaster or anything to do with the water park, cause another coaster isn't in the Cedar Fair 2013 budget and the water park just had Beach Party installed. So the options are: a shorter 200ft tall Windseeker, Planet Snoopy, or something entirely different. Reason for a shorter Windseeker is because there is actually a 215ft tall height restriction in place by the 2 townships its in. Mondial offers a 24, 36, 50, or 64 capacities and 65m (213ft) or 100m (328ft) tower heights. Could see a 36 person, 213ft tall model installed here. Would work perfectly here!

Well, my original plans were to do my Europe trip next fall, but due to a new schooling situation, that's pushed off until 2014. Kind of doing a 3-tiered plan, with each level depending on the probability of going to said park. For sure would like to go to: Cedar Point Michigan's Adventure Indiana Beach (new) Kings Island Could possibly go to, but depends on people: Kings Dominion (new) Carowinds (new) Mt. Olympus (new) Canada's Wonderland (new) Would like to go, but probably not going to be able to: Silver Dollar City (new) I'd have to wait and see what happens in the next couple months, ask a few people what their plans are and see if I could possibly come along. I usually wait until sometime around April to see if anyone is planning anything.

I guess I'm used to wooden coasters or some older steel coasters where the only options on a control panel are either the whole train is locked or unlocked, or a seat had to be manually unlocked, either by a pedal or pull-up device. Never saw a B&M panel close-up but I guess now that I think about it, I've always heard them unlocking one car instead of the whole train. Cell phones and other small articles are probably the most common lost article on a coaster. Ever seen Diamonback's cell phone casket? I think they stopped putting devices in there in 2010 cause it filled up pretty quick. The only issue I see this kind of system having is Flash Pass. Having them go in single-file onto the train means that they're literally cutting in front of people, which could cause issues. At least with allowing a couple trains of people stand in the station, that at least isn't as bad. I guess having experience working on a coaster, this kind of things run around in my head. Doing this on a coaster that has a 24 person capacity train, vs 12 people per train on Rip, Ride, Rockit just seems weird to me. I know this kind of system works well for small capacity coasters like many mouse coasters and such, but never on this large of scale.

That would explain why the control panel had individual buttons for each car to unlock the lap bars. Must of been planning on it from the beginning but couldn't decide when to start implementing it yet. This to me just sounds like an ops nightmare. Sure it may seem slightly more efficient, but the part that's going to be the issue is the assigning of seats. Personally not a fan of that on large capacity coasters, of course there are those exceptions like Maverick that should do it to help move things along on that ride. Mainly is going to be those stubborn people that are going to purposely hold up the line so they can get the seat they want. The train is basically crawling as it comes into the station, believe it's less than 1 MPH, so it's not like it's flying through it. I'd have to see how it's done to get a more thorough explanation on what they're doing. I guess it does make the line seem like it's moving faster as it's moving at a steady pace vs stopping and moving by 24 people each train dispatch.

Those trains look a heck of a lot more comfortable that the Vekoma Motorbike restraints, but there's really no upper back support. Toverland is suppose to be part of my 2014 Europe trip so we'll see if I like those Vekoma ones, but doubt I'll be able to head here to test those new Intamin ones.

I could understand if you rode SOB pre-2007, those old Premiere trains were fairly heavy and well, as it ended up being, Paramount didn't keep a very good upkeep on the whole thing. Bringing in those Gerstlauer trains I'd imagine would of helped somewhat, but the damaged was already done on it from the moment the first board was installed. I never did get a chance to ride it myself, so I really don't have any idea how it was.

Nope, you're right about that. The first row of the PTC trains, in the 2-bench cars and the 1st 2 rows in the 3-bench cars have one thing missing from the back row of the trains: an axel. The back row of those cars have an axel right below the seat, whereas if you're in the front row, the axel is at your feet. Since those PTC trains don't really have any suspension, every bump transfers from the axel to your seat, causing a much rougher ride. Tested it out on Mean Streak and every ride that was in the 1st row of every car was pretty smooth. I actually want a park to either retrofit or build a new coaster with the new PTC 1-bench cars. They look like they can offer a completely different ride than their other trains, as the 4-wheel design is very interesting. Also see if they can offer similar smoothness to a Millennium Flyer.

Skycoasters vary by park, for sure. I rode one of the shorter ones down in Florida and though that it was alright probably wouldn't do it again, then I rode the one up at Michigan's Adventure which is 186ft tall, and I thought it was worth every penny, and have done it several times since. The 100-140ft ones just seem like a giant swing, not very thrilling, while the ones that are over 150ft tall, you actually have a freefall before the cables catch you. I've heard things about the 300ft tall Skycoaster that make it sound not so pleasant. Bruises on your shoulders from the flight suits and it being not so much of a freefall because of how heavy the cables are. I guess I'd have to experience it myself to see how it is, but I'm in no hurry to go down to Florida right now.

Holy crap! I'd think I'd be a bit claustrophobic in those old Magic Mountain GIB restraints! Those modifications seem very overkill. I'm at least glad to see that Vekoma modified the original design to make it like it was before with only minor changes. The old Deja Vu trains that they used this year on Goliath at least have less padding than before, but still have that weird chin pad on it. Really can't wait to see what the new Premiere trains on it look like. They're still planning on installing them for 2013 right? Flying Dutchman restraints are a bit complicated for me as I can never get a comfortable ride no matter what I try to do, always too loose. The B&M Flyer trains, I never understood why B&M designed it to use inverted track in the station, then move up to the locked position. It's slightly uncomfortable going up the lift at least for me laying like that, but for the Flying Dutchman, at least that's a better laying down/sitting position. The Premiere seat belts, if you want to even call them that, on their launched coasters are weird. I mean, I understand that it's there as a failsafe, but it's kind of at an awkward position that a majority of people don't even notice them.

You're right. It's so it can run a 3rd train without doing a station situation like Millennium Force. Cedar Point learned from that, doing separate load/unload stations and no mid-course brake run is highly inefficient. Look at a majority of coasters with 3 trains, all of them have a MCBR. Having it adds another block to the track, making it possible to dispatch trains more quickly and efficiently, thus making the line move faster. If Millennium had a MCBR, the wait for that ride would be much shorter as it could have more than 1 train on the track at once. I guess I can do a more thorough explanation if needed.

I think the weirdest I can think of is evacuating an Arrow log flume. I've seen it done at Michigan's Adventures and kind of felt sorry for those that had to walk all the way from the chute, all around next to the trough, then down the lift. At least they drain all of the water out to make it easy to get out of the log. I think the only time I've been on a breakdown was Iron Dragon where it stopped 1/2 way up the 2nd lift. We were sitting there for about 10 minutes, no one came over the loud speaker or anything. Eventually it just started back up, but no one ever said anything when we got back to the station. I think it was way back in 2006 when that happened. I thought that was pretty weird.

They're bringing back Rock the Coast this year, like I previously stated in the Cedar Fair development thread. They officially announced it last week. Here's the short excerpt from the website: http://www.miadventure.com/events/things-to-do/special-events/Rock-the-Coast Bands haven't been decided yet, but tickets are sitting at $44.99 for both days and both nights of the concerts, price does go up by $10 once those early bird ticket sell out. This is actually a pretty good deal, for 2 days in the park and 2 concert nights, but they are Christian rock bands, so guess you'd have to like that kind of music to enjoy the concerts. Now my question is, by this weekend, the waterpark is already opened and they have since the beginning of Rock the Coast put the stage inside of the larger wave pool in the waterpark. So either they're building a permanent live entertainment stage somewhere in the park, or setting up a temporary stage somewhere on the property where there's enough room, or just not using that wave pool until the weekend is done, which I think that's a bad idea since it's going to be one of the first busiest weekends the park is going to have. EDIT: I'd also like to answer the OP question about Shivering Timbers: as of 2012, the coaster was running pretty well. The 1st drop was just re-tracked last off season and actually had stairs installed going down it. The past couple seasons, various sections of it was re-tracked and sections were also reinforced to prevent too much shifting in the track. This off season, I'm expecting more of it to be torn up and redone, mainly the double up coming into the turn around. Also in 2010, a trim brake was added just before the helix so it wouldn't be so rough and make it slightly more enjoyable going into that. Wolverine Wildcat also had a trim brake installed in 2010 to help slow the train down in the final turn into the brake run since it's still manual brakes, which I have a feeling it'll be like that for a few more years until Cedar Fair decides that it's time to up the capacity on it and give it a 2nd train, transfer track, and an automated control system.

Ha, yeah, I've been on my fair share of rough wooden coasters, and I was expecting it to be a lot worse, as I knew people on these tend to over exaggerate, but going down the first drop in the back car as my first ride on it actually was not bad, expected more of the PTC shake, but not bad. I still think red Racer this year tops it for most painful as I had a visible bruise on my arm from riding it this year. I don't know what was up with that this year as when I rode the blue side last year, wasn't that painful, nor did any of my friends who were in the red car last year said anything. But yes, I do have to agree with you that the layout is weak on this one. I just think Summers ran out of ideas there towards the end when he designed it, but then again, he didn't have computer models and such to show what forces were going to be applied during operation, was all done by paper and pencil and his math formulas. I think if he was still alive today, he'd be shocked to see what wooden coasters are doing now, and what happened to his Texas Giant.

Having first rode Mean Streak this year (gasp! I know and I've been going to CP since 2005) I actually kind of liked the ride. Way smoother than I thought it was going to be, rode it multiple times, in all sorts of conditions, in different seats. If they were to do anything to it, I'd say reconfigure the last 1/2 of the layout after the MCBR. Kind of boring and not too many laterals. The PTCs on it though need some more TLC as in replace the headrests with a softer material and get rid of that rigid foam that they use for cushions. Much prefer what they used on Shivering Timbers PTCs, feels like I'm sitting on a comfy couch with those cushions. I know a lot of retracking and adding supports to certain areas on Mean Streak, having being closed the past 2 years during Halloweekends to do so and it finally staying open for the whole year with all 3 trains. And with Cedar Fair putting a ton of money into it, I don't see a complete overhaul of anything happening to that anytime soon besides the general track replacement.

Still nothing about Michigan's Adventure again this year, but on their Facebook, they did say that they were going to announce an event that's happening Memorial weekend. My guess is that they're bringing back Rock the Coast, since it went on hiatus this year. Probably because of the way the hours for the park were set up around that previously. Never did like the whole "open on Physics day, 2 days closed, open for Rock the Coast Saturday and Sunday, then closed another few days, then reopen up on that Friday" schedule. Having it Memorial weekend is going to make the park very, very busy then. Maybe they're finally getting a live entertainment division, which is really the only Cedar Fair park that doesn't have one. A new entertainment venue would be a nice little addition.

I knew the day would come when the Arrow Custom Loopers would be on their last legs, but didn't think it'd be this early. I thought Vortex was a pretty great Arrow when I rode it this summer for the first time. (Would of rode it last year, but was during the time the chain broke and was waiting on a replacement.) Didn't think it was too rough, but the main part I was worried about was the dirty water sitting in the bottom of the train getting all of me. With the rumor that the Cedar Fair Corkscrews also might be on the chopping block, is kind of confusing for me, but I can understand those as they were built in the late 70's. Parts shouldn't be too much of an issue as Cedar Fair has a few of those Arrow trains laying around still. Even though the layout for those are pretty much a "RCT-style" element construction, they show the technology used in those days and sadly some of them I know aren't holding up very well. The track construction is probably what's going to do these Arrows in, having the tubing all bent on site, instead of being pre-built inside a factory with exact measurements. I really wish that there would be a possibility that a company would come forward and do a complete track replacement and/or re-profiling for the Arrow coasters. Chance has the highest probability with them being the ones that finished Phantom's Revenge track replacement in 2009 after they bought Morgan. At least with wooden coasters, their track can be replaced as needed, no matter if the original company comes out and does it or not, but seems like with steel, once the track is in place, it's stays there until it's removed. The day that I walk into a park that has an Arrow coaster and I don't hear that distinct anti-rollback clank going up the lift, will pretty much end an era of roller coasters in my book.