Rai Fox

Yes. Yes yes yes absolutely.

Knoebels then Dorney is definitely the wrong way around. Whenever I'm taking someone who's not as...devoted an enthusiast as some of us are...to Knoebels for the first time, I try to plan the trip to do a day at Dorney first, just for perspective. Here's a perfectly decent, average, "ordinary" park with some reasonably good rides. Okay, now you've got a basis to compare to other parks. Good. Now...here's Knoebels. Tends to make something of an impression that way. Need to make it almost another three months before I can get back to Knoebels myself...too long by far!

It's in poor condition now, with a lot of missing scenes and empty space, but I think it's definitely salvageable. If the new management wants to invest a little in a classic ride, it could be pretty good, especially with how rare that kind of ride is now. I'm getting quite anxious waiting to hear if Standard Amusements goes through with this. Playland's in terrible shape now, but there's something about the place that I still really like. Maybe it's just that the little seaside park reminds me of my childhood time at Rocky Point (RIP =<). With a little love it could be such a great, unique place. I wonder what they can do about the patrons, though. When I visited, it was definitely the people that were the biggest problems there. Line jumping, vandalism, just general rudeness...No amount of money can magically fix that.

I think this might be their plan. They get to keep their orcas, shut the protesters up, and be the "good guys". It could be a win-win situation for them.

It's right by the main entrance, actually. http://www.knoebels.com/map

It's horrific that this kind of thing can happen. There rides have so many redundant systems and failsafes...maintenance has to be nonexistent, and let so much go wrong, for something like this to happen. Either that or, as someone else mentioned, it was a rip-off without the safety measures the ride should have had. Either way, greed and laziness over any sort of care for human life. Terrible...

RCT 3 is ancient by modern standards, and will run maxed out on pretty much anything you can buy now. Planet Coaster's requirements are going to be much steeper; the graphics are a huge leap forward, and I can all but guarantee there's a lot more going on behind the scenes as far as AI, physics, etc. Because of the type of game it is, I'm sure they're hoping to appeal to casual gamers too, so it'd be a pretty poor move on the devs part if it required a completely crazy top of the line rig. Still, it's going to require quite a bit more than RCT, so that's not going to be a very safe way to judge. I've seen a few sites post system requirements for the game, but I don't think any are official yet. Still, might be able to help a bit. If you don't have any idea what kind of hardware is in your computer, you can start here. The site (it's safe and reputable) will run a small program and come up with all the information you need about the components in your system. Try that, post what you have at least for CPU, memory, and graphics card. Should at least be able to give you some idea of if it'll work well or at all for PC.

So they don't care about the quality of the assets, does this mean that they pretty much allow the parks to keep their independence, without any major interference from the firm, so long as they keep performing well? That's generally how these things work. The investors are putting money into a ton of different types of properties, companies, etc. They're, fortunately, generally smart enough to realize that they can't know how to actually run them all. They just want to see the money coming on from them. As long as that's happening, the Parques Reunidos management probably will barely even know the difference, besides a different name on the checks. If Parques Reunidos were selling the parks to a different management group, that'd be a different story and possibly mean bigger changes (or possibly not; there weren't many when PR bought the parks to start with), but as far as I know that's not the case.

Firehawk. Absolutely Firehawk. First time I rode it, earlier this year, I got off with tears running down my face from laughing so hard. Same several rides later, too... I don't think it will ever stop having that effect on me. Something about it just turns me into a giggling six year old. Never gonna get tired of it.

Call me cynical, but I'm kinda reading this as "crap, we STILL haven't been able to get the bathysphere working again...guess it's time to give up." I've heard tons of comments about wanting it fixed, never any about going back to the old version of the attraction. Still, better to have it all working.

The opponents to this are a joke. "What happens when someone sees the roller coasters and is so surprised (by the first roller coaster they've ever seen in Orlando!) that they get into a car accident?"

Thanks, I'll take a look at it!

9 days left for me... Anyone been through all the haunts there yet? Which are must dos and which are skippable? So far I've heard Madame Fatale's and Blackout are must-dos, Wolf Pack not so much. What about the others? Of course, if I have my way my group will just be getting the Fright Lane pass and doing them all, but we'll see about that...

Enterprise was the first US space shuttle. Endeavor was the last. Yeah, that's what they were going for.

Firehawk @ KI. Genuinely in my top few coasters. I can understand why it's not generally considered that amazing, but personally, I love it. One of the coasters I just can't get enough of.

Great pics, the Haunt looks amazing...so impatient to get there myself! Looks like it'll be worth the trip!

Looks amazing... Last year I just caught the last day of the festival; not nearly enough. No Disney this year, but next year, I'll be spending a full week there, staying at the Boardwalk, so I can just walk on over, and stumble back, every day. The pictures here are making that year wait really painful, though. Just hope they still have the Hawaiian pork sliders again next year; I absolutely agree that it was the best thing there...and that's saying a lot, with how amazing everything was.

I want to say Banshee, but I just can't find a good picture of it at night! The lighting adds so much to the ride though. Such amazing atmosphere around the station area.

Kennywood's a great park, but their operations have not been their strong point the last few years in my experience. Last time I rode Black Widow (multiple times in the day, and the same thing happening every time) they just could not handle counting out the correct number of people to let into the ride at once. Nearly every single cycle there were people circling the ride trying to find open seats when they were all taken. I realize it can be tough to count people all crowded together, rushing into a ride, but they did this again and again and again, and often several people over, not just one extra. Every time, the ride ops reacted with complete confusion. It's just not that difficult, is it?

According to the park's twitter account, after it's very extended downtime, 1001 Nachts is finally up and running again (and looking pretty good from the short video they posted!).

Most of them. Of course there's the one moron replying to everything complaining that the park really should have barbed wire fences around all the rides *sigh* but just like the moron who got himself killed...there's always one.

Just got back from the park yesterday. Power Surge still MIA (Disappointing, they'd said they hoped to have it back in July), but there are cranes and lifts around 1001 Nachts...maybe they finally got their Parts from Europe for it?

That Troika model looks gorgeous. I've gone from really excited about this game, to writing it off, to now more excited than ever!

Oh, wow. I can't say I expect the odds of that one to be very high, but that would be incredibly if they could. I'd book a trip to any CF park on the continent for that one. Apparently Playland in Vancouver is restoring one for 2016 now though! -edit- Or not, looks like they gave up on that project =/

Just found this article, though it was interesting, and potentially promising. http://www.latimes.com/travel/themeparks/la-trb-cedar-fair-flat-rides-20150806-story.html#page=1 With so many parks focusing on newer, bigger rides and coasters, I'd love to see some of my favorites following Knoebels' lead and re-installing some old classics. Anyone have any fun guesses at what they might bring back, and where they might go?