Astat

Fastest-neutered coaster ever? Looks like CP might be able to claim a new world record with Maverick after all. By removing one of the biggest elements of the ride AND raising the height requirement, Cedar Point has more or less ruined their advertising campaign for the ride. It was supposed to be a "family ride," or at least something that isn't quite as intense as MF or Dragster, but now they've had to remove a major element of the ride because it was TOO INTENSE, and now you have to be just as tall to ride Maverick as you have to be to ride Dragster, and taller than you have to be to ride MF. What does that say to the average joe? Pretty much that this ride is anything BUT a family ride. I'm a credit whore, I'll ride this once for the credit. But I won't ride it again unless it's a walk-on. 8 months worth of false advertising isn't something I'll wait in line for. And before anybody tries to tear me a new one, I LIKE Cedar Point, and I love to see them succeed and put in great new attractions. I can't place all the blame on them, I know Intamin/Intaride are the ones that goofed with the design, but regardless of whose fault it is, Cedar Point has been advertising this ride as having a heartline roll and a 48" height requirement since September of last year. I've seen people sue over things that were MUCH more frivolous than this, and win. *Edit* And to inject a little humor into this post, I guess I'll be the first one to say...TAER IT DOWN!!!!

The LSMs on the lift only propel the train in one direction, they actually act as brakes if the train were to roll backwards, and since they're magnetic they'll work in the event of a power failure.

Japanese culture takes ride accidents very seriously. Steel Dragon 2000 was closed for 3 years because of a non-fatal accident, that one Arrow suspended coaster was closed permanently (I dunno if it's still standing) because of a non-fatal accident...you get the idea. Trust me, this coaster will never operate again.

I'm not calling conspiracy at all, I'm just saying if it's something that's going to require entire sections of track to be redesigned, it's something that could have and SHOULD have been caught a lot earlier than 4 days before the park opened. They're making it sound like a major design flaw, and with all the technology there is these days, I think it's pretty sad that a major design flaw went undetected for this long.

They've been testing this thing for what, 2 weeks now? And they JUST decided to tell people "Oh yeah by the way, someone at Intamin pulled a NASA Mars Climate Orbiter on the calculations for the heartline roll, so the ride won't open on time and when it does it might not have an element we've been advertising it as having for the past 7 months. LOLZ SORRY GUYZ." it comes off as very unprofessional for Cedar Point to wait until 4 freaking days before the park opens to let us in on the SLIGHT problem that their big new attraction is going to be at LEAST a month late.

People like this are the reason why when I rule the world, the first law I'm making is simple: "If it's not on your property, tough sh*t."

Wowza, I never noticed before (probably because she had her little hat on in all the photos until now), but Kristen has a LOT of hair for a newborn! I dunno if maybe it's just something that runs in the family, but I know my brother and sister were almost bald at first, and I'm pretty sure I was too. And I couldn't help but go "awwwwwwww" at the picture of Yeti Ball and KidTums. I think Lou might have some competition!

CONGRATS! Now the real fun starts. I may not be a parent but I've more or less raised 2 kids so I've got plenty of stories, haha. Glad to hear everything's fine, hopefully the arguments about what KidTums' first credit will be don't get too heated!

Honestly, I'd like to see Flashback run again. I know everyone's gonna call me crazy, but I always thought it was a really cool coaster design, just one that probably wasn't built the best and has poor trains (SOB and Villain also come to mind in that regard). So I'd like to see it run again or be rebuilt, but either way it would at least need some new trains. Williams Grove Cyclone (is it still standing?) I'd like to see reopen just because of it's overall F'd upness...ejector airtime on a flat piece of track? Zippin' Pippin is an obvious one, it's a historically significant coaster and there aren't too many John Miller woodies left in the world...I'd love to see it saved. Uhhh...that Half Pipe on top of that building in Japan that never opened and they can't get permits to remove, I'd like to see it open somewhere just because a brand spankin' new coaster that never even opens is a real shame. Delphis at Festivalgate in Japan looks like an interesting coaster, I'd like to at least see a POV of it if it doesn't reopen. Mega Zeph at SFNO also looked like a nice coaster, shame that it's most likely never going to open again.

CP has changed loads since my first visit in 1993. There actually used to be TREES! Before TTD was built, that little area where Chaos and Troika used to sit was a nice shady spot with lots of trees. Draggin' Iron used to blend in a lot better...both because of its lack of obnoxiously bright orange paint, and the fact that there were trees on the back side of the ride where TTD is. Most people don't realize it, but CP lost not one, but TWO log rides in a 12-year period! I actually liked Mill Race better than WWL, it was only there the first time I visited the park, but you got a lot wetter on it than WWL. I was kinda disappointed to come back the next year and see Raptor in its place...I didn't get into coasters at ALL until about 2000. They used to have remote-controlled boats that you could race around in the lagoon by Iron Dragon's last turnaround, I had a blast screwing around with those as a kid. The whole Frontier area also looked a lot different before MF was built, the train tracks on that side used to be completely shaded and surrounded by trees, it was pretty cool. You'd leave the station, go into the woods, and come out back by Thunder Canyon and WWL. The Frontier Trail itself also used to be shaped differently before MF came along...the petting zoo was a lot quieter too before there was an Intamin giga right above it. Jungle Larry! That guy was awesome, before Mantis was there he had a whole animal exhibit right in the center of the park. The exit was right by where Power Tower is now, and that little gift shop (It's TTD-themed now, used to be Power Station) was originally part of the exhibit. Other random stuff...the Giant Wheel was cooler in its former location, Kid Arthur's Court had the COOLEST obstacle course ever and a kickass giant ball pit, I really miss the dolphin show and the aquarium, the kid's playground was cooler when it was Bearnstein Bear Country (they cut the top off the Spooky Old Tree! ), I have fond memories of pedaling my Swan Boat a little too close to the fountain and getting my mom soaked, the old set of bumper cars where TTD's tophat is now, IMAX > ice skating show, the Schwabinchen was one of my favorite flats, people actually used to wait in line for Mean Streak...I'm sure there's more.

As an Ohioan, Cornhole is like...REQUIRED at any party or else the party sucks. Every grad party I went to over the summer (ok...all 3 of them...) had the game.

Awwww boy, where do I start...well, I'll start with one that hasn't even opened yet! Maverick...seriously, who planned the 2nd half of this ride? 70 MPH launch...IMMEDIATELY into a trim brake! I think that one's pretty obvious. Others... CP: -Put the original buzz bars back on CP's Blue Streak -Replant all the trees around the 2nd half of Draggin' Iron that TTD took out -Take the trim off the first drop on Mantis -...Can I say tear down Mean Streak and rebuild it as an Intamin? Nah, retrack it I guess. -Take off the trim before the helix on Gemini -Modify the last turn on Raptor to be a 270-degree helix to the right instead of that abrupt left into the brakes...painful transition right there. -Redo the supports on Wicked Twister so they can actually run the damn thing at full speed GL: -Get those blasted G-trains off of Villain! KI: -As everybody's said...make The Beast good again, whatever that entails -Change the ride programming for Tomb Raider a bit so you don't hang upside-down for so long at one point...it's just painful. -Put some good trains (PTCs perhaps?) on SOB, but hopefully that's already being done.

Swings N Things! It's actually a pretty cool little place, they have a HUGE 2-story arcade, an indoor laser tag-ish game called Ground Zero (you don't shoot your opponents, you have to shoot targets on the other team's wall). The indoor part also has a children's play area and an ice cream parlor/small restaurant. Outside, they have 2 go kart tracks, one is a small "Rookie Track" and the other one is full-size karts. There's a batting cage with 9 stalls (40 to 80 MPH), and they recently installed "Paintball Village" because kids around here LOVE paintball. There's 2 18-hole mini golf courses, and I think they still have the bumper boats...not totally sure. They also had a small rollercoaster a few years back (similar to a Dragon Wagon but a little bigger), it's not on RCDB and I'd email Duane about it but I have no clue what its name was, what company built it, or what year it opened/closed. *Edit* They have a website actually: http://www.swings-n-things.com/

Well, there goes Griffon's biggest selling point. I haven't understood this ever since the rumor came up, why would Busch announce the "world's only floorless dive machine" and then put the same kind of trains on their other dive machine the same year? I mean, I'd understand this perfectly if they put floorless trains on Sheikra a year or two after Griffon opened if the new train style got rave reviews, but this? This is just an uncharacteristically dumb move by a company that normally doesn't make dumb moves.

Dominator was great the first time I rode it in 2002, but when I went back in '05, it had developed a pretty noticeable rattle, I dunno if it might've just been a bad wheel on the train I was on or what, but after we hit the final brakes and rolled back to the station, I could tell something was like..."thumping" as the front car went over each tie in the track. I've never been on Scream but from what I hear it has a similar problem.

You'd think after 4+ years of the damn thing sitting there rusting, they'd have come up with a better excuse by now. Or they could just be honest and admit that it's as big of a lemon as that '98 Saturn I tried out at the dealership yesterday.

There are a lot of creeps out there, but this is also America, home of the frivilous lawsuit. There are probably just as many people out there that will flat out make stuff up in an attempt to get money out of it. Basically what I'm saying is, it's pretty much just as likely that the girls made the whole thing up as it is that he actually did what he said they did.

It's really more like half of the zero-g being gone, the last part of the twist is still there. They might be slightly modifying it or retracking that section, but unless they remove more track, they aren't going to remove the zero-g.

^ Yes, but a very early, prototype version of it. Remember, S:TE opened a full YEAR late because of all the problems they had with the launch system. This was a couple years before Intamin really got their act together to become the big coaster powerhouse they are today, and they hadn't done anything like that before. Took 'em a few tries to get it right.

So is this basically going to be the same design as last year? Not that I'm complaining, I love the design of it and I just watched the video from last year yesterday actually. I'm just a tad confused if it's gonna be the same thing or not.

A loopless SOB? OMG!!! *Plans PKI trip for '07* Seriously...the wood structure breaks in one part of a really rough ride, solution? Take out the smoothest part of the f***ing thing! It all makes sense to me now. But wait, "lighter trains?" Hopefully that means no more Premier trains. Throw some PTCs on that sucker and maybe it'll be decent! Especially with no loop anymore, there's no reason they can't use traditional wood coaster trains now.

HAHA Chalk Zone! I thought I was the only person that knew about that show.

Why does Elissa randomly replace Spookbaby between comics 18 and 19? Even if that wasn't intentional, leave it the way it is, it just makes it even funnier.

NOOOO! Not the Psycho house... give me the house, I'll renovate it and live in it!

Hmm, to me it sounds more like Hard Rock is just changing ownership. There was nothing in that article that really indicated that the Seminoles are going to change the name/change much of anything about the franchise. And I think with a purchase of this magnitude, any licensing contracts would also be turned over to the Seminoles, so the park might not even be affected. On a personal note, they should've just given me Jimi's Flying V.