ImmelMatt

Valleyfair 1. Renegade 2. Wild Thing 3. Steel Venom 4. Corkscrew 5. High Roller 6. Excalibur 7. Mad Mouse

I'm putting a bet on Harley Quinn's Spinsanity I can't see them putting the DC label on a fourth part of the park, especially not for just a flat ride. Spinsanity, though, is a solid guess. I especially wonder if ERC will get a paint job to go with it's new digs.

Hardly a surprise, especially if whatever it is is going right next to Batman.

Asked the Enterprise crew today. Last day is August 24th. Get your last rides in.

It's sad if Orbit really is gone for good. That was one of the original 1976 attractions. To take it down without any publicly-released notice (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) feels wrong

Some "red-headed stepchild" parks don't even get capital investments year after year. The fact that we're getting anything is good news, and a Star Flyer will add something new to the skyline. You're right, it's not a roller coaster, but it is going to give Valleyfair an update on it's curb appeal from the highway.

All the RMCs, originals and Iron Horse conversions All the Intamin MegaLites El Toro Nemesis Ultra Twister (Rusutsu Resort) Dodonpa X2 Boulder Dash Balder Blue Fire Maverick Cheetah Hunt Phoenix Flying Turns Bizarro (SFNE) Jack Rabbit (Kennywood) Phantom's Revenge The Beast Also, everything at Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, and Phantasialand.

I've been enjoying this game fully for the past week. My strongest Pokemon so far is a Hypno with CP912 and I just need two more Eevees to have enough candy to evolve my strongest one. I'm going to try to use the naming hack to get a Flareon. What's really amazed me about this game isn't how many people got on board (it was always expected this would be huge since it was announced), but how many complete strangers are socializing with one another over this game. I went to Valleyfair and MOA this weekend for Pokemon Go, and usually when I go to places like this, nobody says "boo" to me. I was approached by many people who could see I was playing the game asking about my Pokemon or if I've seen a Jynx nearby or anything like that. Even struck up some good conversations. It was a completely different experience than my normal solitary weekend outings. It's funny some parks have good Pokemon and others don't, but I wonder if that's just the territory built into the game. Valleyfair had a plethora of Pokestops (Dinosaurs Alive by itself had about 10!), but nothing but Rattatas and Pidgeys to catch. MOA had less Pokestops but far more of a Pokemon variety (I caught my first Magnemites, Voltorbs, Koffings, Abras, and even a KABUTO there!), and kudos to MOA for being great hosts to the Pokemon Go players. They had phone charge stations in the rotunda and were really accommodating to all the people who came to the mall to play the game. But that's the whole point of the game. You have to go out to find which places are the best

No matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, I must ride this before I die

EDIT: Ignore this... I can't figure out how to delete this double post...

Yeah, the big indoor ride you're seeing is The Underground. Don't get your hopes too high. It is an indoor wooden roller coaster but it rides more like a dark ride than a coaster. That said, Adventureland does have quite the eclectic coaster lineup. Besides Underground, the park has one of the very few Hopkins coasters (Dragon), an early-age CCI (Outlaw), and their oldest coaster Tornado. It's part of the charm though. You get the feeling it's a park that has no interest in following trends or chasing records and is perfectly content to be the nice little park it is.

If you're staying in Des Moines, then at some point you should definitely go to Zombie Burger for lunch or dinner. It's about 10-15 min from the park. Well worth it as the food options are pretty blah once you're inside the park. As for the park itself, Storm Chaser is like nothing in Minnesota, so if you've never been on a Windseeker or a Starflyer, that would be a must. G-Force is a great spinning ride inside an arcade. Great to ride if you need to get out of the sun for a bit. Sidewinder is an outside-facing Frisbee, unlike Mutant Masher at NU@MoA, and the outside ones are more fun in my opinion. Ride it if you've never ridden one before.

This was Alpengeist for me. It's gorgeous and massive but it rode rather "meh" for me. The flow of elements didn't feel natural like it did on other inverts I'd ridden. Still a great coaster, but not one of the best inverts ever like I had been led to believe.

I love Wild Thing's crew, but I have to give props to Excalibur's crew as well. They have a lot of energy and hustle for a one-train operation at a dead-end of the park. Their operations are what make it so I end up riding it more than once.

The overall ride experience is the biggest sell for me. Airtime, elements, intensity, the whole shebang, and followed by that is re-rideability. Setting though will often get a few brownie points. I might consider a coaster that is merely a good experience on its own to be a great experience if it uses terrain or goes through the woods or over a lake, etc.

I went to Valleyfair by myself over the weekend and rode Mad Mouse since the line was not too long. I was next in line, and as I was by myself, I sat down by myself in the front, thinking two people would be put in the back, and then was promptly joined by three little children that I had no relation to, one of whom was sat next to me. I could see the looks of shame from the people in line as the car sat on the brake run and I silently cursed the ride ops for putting me in that position.

This just makes me so happy to see. I went to Adventureland every summer I was living in Iowa for the last few years, and despite the lack of real massive thrill rides, I always loved it. It's a wonderful little park. To see them get such a huge capital investment like this is incredibly deserving.

^ Except they were running two-train operations. In the queue, the trains were moving out so slowly, I thought it was one-train operation until I got up to the station level and could see they were just that slow. The trains would sit on the brake run for over a minute every time before they would dispatch the one loading in the station.

I just got back from my first visit of the season. It's so nice having a home park again. Just to be able to walk around the park and take my time getting on rides instead of racing from one coaster to the next because there's only so much time in the day. I really liked having that ability again, knowing that with my new Gold Pass, it will be the first of many visits this season. It's been about five years since I've been so I did Flying Eagles and Northern Lights first, and they are definitely my new favorite flats at the park. Northern Lights especially, as I've never been on one of Zamperla's "coaster" models, really wowed me. There's something about the way it moves that I just really enjoy it. I think it's a much better use of the land as that area was mini golf last time I was there. I also did Dinosaurs Alive! since I have the Gold Pass and it's free with admission of it. I thought it was cute, but I would not pay extra for it. Since it's an upcharge, I doubt they will get rid of it anytime soon, but the whole area feels like it could be better used for a new coaster or something to have right up at the front of the park, and same with that still-empty patch of land around Wild Thing's turnaround next to the parking lot. Operations were decent, with the exception of Renegade. I only wish their crew could move as fast as they could talk. They were racing through spiels and ambling up and down the trains as if there wasn't a 30 minute wait when everything else was like 10 minutes tops. Trains were stacking for a minute or longer every time I went up there and the line was all the way back to the second tunnel consistently throughout the day, until the ride was delayed and re-opened, and even then, the line still started at the entrance to the third tunnel. While I was walking around, I couldn't help but picture what might be taken out and replaced. I agree with everyone that Looping Starship's removal would open up prime real estate for a mat-racer for Soak City. I can't see that NOT happening, with Looping Starship probably moving to Riptide's space, and Riptide gone. If both were to be removed though, a Larson Giant Loop would make an excellent replacement to Riptide. Seriously, if both go, the replacement NEEDS to be something that goes upside down. While there is plenty of room for a Giant Frisbee on that end, I just don't feel it would serve Valleyfair's needs all that well.

If CF is being reactionary with their lower-tier parks (no surprise WOF gets their first new coaster in 10 years after Adventureland makes a landmark addition two hours away), is the same true for Valleyfair? Is NU@MOA going to need to get a coaster before Valleyfair gets another one? We could be waiting many years for that to happen...

The only park where you'll see a Star Wars attraction for many, many years is a Disney park.

It always bothered me that they didn't make the "Up and At'em" chair from the 1995 Casper movie into an attraction. Universal could have done some awesome stuff with a ride based off that movie.

223 feet. One of five roller coasters at the park to break 200 feet. Carowinds has 2. SFGAdv has 2. SFMM has 3. Top Thrill Dragster doesn't hold you over the drop at all. It's just up and over. Trains to not define the layout. Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster both have you sit down above the track. Wicked Twister and Raptor both have you seated below the track with no floor. But that's just the thing. There's not very much about it that stands out other than it's presence on the skyline and the holding brake at the top. It doesn't bring much new to the park's lineup like an Iron Horse conversion or a B&M Flyer would. There's nothing wrong with Valravn and it looks like it's going to be a great experience, but it doesn't feel like it brings all that much new to the table. Won't stop me from wanting to ride it though.

I know this is going to be an excellent coaster, I know at most any other park this would be considered the crown jewel of their collection, but in a collection as stacked as Cedar Point's... well, let's look at it this way. Is this the tallest coaster in the park? No, it's the third tallest. Is this the first coaster of theirs with a straight down drop? No, it's their second (third if you count beyond-90 degree drops) Is this their first floorless train coaster or coaster where the seats hang outside the track? No, thanks to the Rougarou conversion last year and Gatekeeper the year before. What I'm getting at is that this does not answer any need of the park. It's impressive, very impressive. The GP will eat it up and I'm sure it will ride incredible with slim to none maintenance issues thanks to B&M's stellar engineering... but it doesn't really stand out from the rest of their collection.

#103: Screamin' Eagle (Six Flags St. Louis)