SFOGdude25

Love Indy!! By far the best attraction at the whole resort. Truly an awesome experience. Here's to many more years!

Wow, it already looks pretty speedy! It's only gonna get faster as it breaks in!

This structure is by far the most quirky and "frankenstein"y I've ever seen. It just looks plain weird, but ride is looking amazing!

Wow! So many good changes!! I never had a problem with Maverick's restraints. It was already my favorite coaster at Cedar Point, and this will just make it better! I LOVE the additions to Twister Midway. Even though Gatekeeper helped bring in more traffic to that area, it still felt a little empty. The relocation of Calypso and Dodgem will help liven up the area a ton. Rougarou's trains look great! I'm still super excited about the floorless conversion. I know it won't make it the best coaster in the park, but it will at least make it way more re-rideable and enjoyable. I'm planning a trip in mid May. I can't wait to check out the new improvements as well as the new construction!

I think the video showed it cycling empty cars actually. The way the seating was arranged, one kid could ride up front, and an adult (or larger/older kid) could ride in the back.

^They sure did! I rode it a bunch when I was a kid! You rode in what was basically a twin bicycle seat with handles and a floor. It was a little on the rough side. The car would rock side to side going through the turns. Not very comfortable for the crotch! I'm guessing the park took it out because of its awful capacity and quirky ride system. The line moved painfully slow. The Surf Dog ride now sits in its place. After a quick research trip on Youtube, I found this clip. Skip to 25 seconds in, and you'll see the coaster.

Sweet! Hopefully we'll see some reports!

Anybody going to Winter Chill Out this weekend?

Not gonna lie. I laughed a lot when I when I saw that train design. It looks a little outlandish, but still pretty awesome haha.

Robb's POV of The Beast looks to be an early morning test run with the train empty. Less weight means less momentum. Less momentum means a slower ride. I can attest that The Beast runs MUCH faster than that on an average summer day with a fully loaded train. Love it or not, it's a very special ride for Kings Island and a milestone in coaster history. I've always loved it. It was one of my first big coasters, and I've probably clocked more rides on it than any other wood coaster in my count.

A million times this. I loved Gatekeeper. It's beautiful to look at and provides a very graceful ride experience. A coaster doesn't have to be intense or chock-full of airtime to be good. Gatekeeper is a great example of this.

GASM is one of the most beautiful roller coasters to come out of the renaissance era. It's not the smoothest woodie in the world by any means (far from it in fact), but I still really enjoy it in the right seats (middle row of any car). SFOG seems to make it a point to keep it looking great. It's red white and blue paint job hasn't gone bad in the past 10 or so years. SFOG really needs to preserve it the way it is! I'm really biased though, because I have a huge soft spot for GASM. It was one of my first big roller coasters I rode as a kid. Just look at it. It's gorgeous!

Home stretch...

I probably won't try it. I don't handle riding backwards very well. Every time I ride Invertigo at Kings Island for example, I get super dizzy and pretty nauseous, never to the point of puking, but still feeling pretty bad. You can catch me marathoning Mind Bender like always.

I really loved SheiKra at Busch Gardens. It was deceivingly intense and great fun. I would be very pleased if Cedar Point built a dive machine. They are really unique coasters.

Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom. It may be incredibly inferior to its California cousin Indy (best dark ride in the world in my opinion), but Dinosaur is so addicting to me. The plot is super cheesy and outlandish that it's hilarious, but the ride itself is still pretty thrilling with all the gigantic dinosaurs roaring in your face. I also find the ride system itself to be crazy fun. I can't really explain it. There's just something about being thrown all around in that time rover that makes me giggle like a little girl. It's definitely the most underrated ride at the entire resort.

That helix should make for some nice head chopper moments.

It looked to me that the car detached from the train about 1/3 of the way up the loop almost upside down. This accident is freaky. It's a miracle no one was seriously hurt.

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Dang it, Greg! You just had to throw that out there! Looks like it's speculation time once again! Kings Island's coaster line up has gone from mediocre to decent with Diamondback and Banshee. Besides the obvious enthusiast pipe dream (Intamin or RMC terrain coaster etc...), the park could use a solid, modern woodie from GCI or Gravity Group. All of their woodies are older and don't offer a lot in terms of thrills. They could either do a complete refurb of the Racer (new paint, trains, rebuilt structure, re make hills to include good airtime etc...) or make a new coaster from scratch. But anything and everything is up in the air this early in the plan.

While we're on the topic of Magnum, here's a media day news package I just stumbled across. Note the LACK of any padding on the seat backs when it first opened. Ouch!!

Magnum is a strange ride. To me it feels more like an oversized mine train than a hyper coaster. For having a top speed of 72 mph, it doesn't really feel that fast overall. My favorite part of the ride is the second drop into the first tunnel and the camelback hill that follows it. That's the part of the ride where you get a true sense of power and speed. While the airtime hills are fun, the pacing is so awkward with the triangle shaping that it kinda takes me out of the experience a bit. That being said, one of my favorite coaster memories was late night ERT at CoasterMania 2008. I must have rode Magnum around 6 or 7 times in the pitch black night without getting out of my seat. I just threw away all my complaints about the ride and let it do its thing. It was really awesome. It's a quirky and clunky ride, but there's something about that which makes it fun.

^Yes, it will happen, but probably not anytime soon. Once Voyage is done (and it's VERY close), I'll go ahead and post the park file in the exchange since it was my original goal to have the 3 completed woodies.

Slingshots are great fun! But I would never pay more than $10 for one. Here's a tip. If you want to do the Slingshot, do it first thing in the morning. I know at Kings Island, prices for the first 30 minutes or hour of operation is $5. Fury325 is looking great! I have a Platinum Pass for this year, and I will try to make it over to Carowinds probably sometime around September. Can't wait to check it out!

Not including relocated coasters: Deja Vu (SFOG) Viper/Greezed Lightning (SFOG/SFKK) Disaster Transport (Cedar Point) Wildcat (Cedar Point) Scooby's Ghoster Coaster (Kings Island) Son of Beast (Kings Island) Mini Rock'n'Roller Coaster (Opryland) Old Texas Giant (SFOT) Gwazi-both tracks (BGT)