Solipsisto

How many rides would you need a park to have to justify buying a season pass? I am going to Disneyland in a few weeks as part of a family reunion (blah!) and thought about how my local park has tons of carny rides but no good dark rides. I would be OK with a park that had two family coasters and four Disney level dark rides (ala Pirates of the Caribbean). I can ride a good ride multiple times. But a friend said he would need a lot more than that, and pointed out that with only half a dozen rides you aren't going to be able to have a mix of thrilling and kiddie rides. He thinks you need a minimum of about 12 rides. He says Disneyland opened with 13 rides, and that seems like the minimum number. I need to know in case I discover cold fusion and decide to use the money to build my own amusement park.

Which types of rides are the easiest and which are the hardest to maintain? I don't think I've ever ridden Indiana Jones when everything was working properly. I've also heard it costs as much to operate Kingda Ka as every other ride in Six Flags new Jersey combined. Log flumes, on the other hand, seem to have both great ride capacity and relatively easy maintenance.

Obviously, a lot of it depends on the ride operators, trains/cars and station(s). But, in general, which varieties of coaster have good or bad capacities?

I know this is a bizarre question, but . . . are there are coasters in the world that use switch tracking (railroad switch) to provide a randomized ride? I was thinking about this the other day while talking to someone about how much I hate wild mice coasters and what could be done to improve them. If you built a wild mouse that made surprising 45 degree turns instead of painful 180 degree turns it would be a lot more fun.

I grew up in Los Angeles and went on tons of coasters as a kid, but moved to rural Washington State a decade ago. Since then my only coaster rides have been every couple of years when I go back to LA to visit relatives. Are any of the parks in the Northwest really worth the trip? I've been to Wild Waves/Enchanted Village near Seattle before they added Timberhawk and was pretty underwhelmed. (I'd probably been spoiled by season passes at Disneyland and frequent visits to Knott's and Magic Mountain.) Is Timberhawk worth a visit? Silverwood seems pretty good. Is it worth going to Idaho on a 3 day weekend as opposed to SoCal?