Blue Fire Guy

Ride Zeus at Mt. Olympus back car and you will know bone shatteringly painful. Yes, but I'm told one moment of terror inducing ejector airtime makes all the pain go away! What you are being told is about Cyclops, a woodie high on my bucket list for that very reason. I always keep hearing that in the "you must be 18 or older" back car, the last drop (and keep in mind the train has buzz bars) tries to violently eject you! How's it holding up this year?

^^Thanks! It seems my past off-season visits were on days when Hurricane either was closed down for rehab or just not selected for the day. For now, I'm just glad the ride is testing and on it's way to finally opening.

Should Undertow open by or at the end of the month, it will operate for the rest of the month and weekends only in September and October. That probably won't be enough to close it down for a rehab, but I am still wondering if SCBB will run it come time for limited op. I've visited the park for over a decade and both during limited op and full op. In my experience, Hurricane never operated during limited op. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that SCBB finds Undertow "new hotness-ey" enough to keep running it into limited op at least for this year.

I've found some video footage of what could possibly be the preliminary phase of the freezing over of hell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6QuTF9UqWU Notice that the trains have logos painted on them. They have a "final" look to them, but I'm still going to take what I see here with a grain of salt, that's Flying Turns for you!

This fair looks like it focused much more on the animals than on the rides. Still, I'm jealous that they had a Zipper running there. San Mateo County Fair (Butler was also in charge of the rides there) both this year and last year didn't get it up and running 'till a few days after my visits (both times I went on opening day, Saturday). One of these days... For now, I'm looking forward to my first outing at SFDK since July 2012. Thanks for sharing the pics!

^ This article is excellent! It's very good to finally see a new mounted (and legally taken) POV of Giant Dipper, as the last one I know of is this one, which was filmed a long time ago (this was when the trains were yellow and black, you can see the black one in the offride shot):

^ Yeah, the lines at BB can get really insane. A new slide (and I dream for a ProSlide BehemothBowl, Tornado, Tantrum, Topsy-Turvy or a White Water West MegaTube slide, maybe perhaps a Polin slide, anything that uses bizarre geometry) would definitely be a most welcome addition. As others have said before, a new slide tower with drop capsule slides would also be a welcome addition, those things legitimately scare the crap out of me!

^Vortex is unpleasant regardless of where you are in the train. For the least amount of pain, sit in one of the middle seats (not middle cars, but next to the train's line of bilateral symmetry), which will still give headbanging, just not really bad headbanging. The worst beating you can get would be the edge seats of the back row. Those are rough as hell, and you might want to take some ibuprofen afterwards. If you can manage to focus on all the rows in front of you and try to ignore the headbanging, you can see all of the cars rattling about like crazy! I have yet to encounter a B&M with worse rattle than this one. Evil, EVIL Giovanola trains! And lastly... Thanks for mentioning this. I have seen too many people at the park that are worthy of being ejected. There's the usual lovely line jumpers and Gold Striker vandals, but then there are those that really infuriate me, such as "tub jackers" over at the flyers (two incidents, one was a kid who wasn't watched by his parent(s), and the other was a kid where I was walking toward the tub and he ran and snatched it from me). I will also never forget those pre-teen imbeciles who built up a large quantity of spit in their mouths and released it onto Angry_Gumball and I during a back row ride on Flight Deck. We went to the ride ops to inform them of what happened but the kids got away...oh well, they'll get it someday.

I've just discovered why waiting in line for Eejanaika is so unbearable, especially considering the terrible operations and 4 hour lines Fuji-Q is infamous for.

^ Going into the corkscrews is definitely worse than coming out of them, the track work leading into the first one is just plain bizarre (the Chinese knockoffs look even worse though). What's weird about the transition out of the second corkscrew is that it looks ok, but gives you one last donkey punch there.

I find Demon to be just very temperamental. Sometimes it's smooth, sometimes it's rough as hell and will beat you up. I've ridden this grouchy old Arrow in many different rows, including the "magic seat", and it's just really random and I cannot guess what mood it'll be in. I find that it doesn't matter where one sits, it's always a game of Russian roulette. As for the demonic voice in the pre-lift tunnel, it was working every single time I rode it in 2012, but hasn't worked during any of my rides this season.

I'm hoping that if this coaster is a B&M invert, I hope it will actually be intense and forceful and not floaty and boring. B&M seems to have misplaced their "make forceful/intense" button shortly after the turn of the millenium. My home B&M invert, CGA's Flight Deck (1993), is a very intense "old-school" B&M, whereas Medusa (2000) a little farther away at SFDK is fun and has some decent forces, but not truly heavy and powerful like Flight Deck. The TPR 2012 Europe trip participants found Oz'Iris to be a complete bore, and actually rough enough to provide a little headbanging! This makes me wonder if B&M is simply over-engineering their rides nowadays, or perhaps Werner Stengel's influence on their designs has diminished since he retired. The question of B&M's transition from forcefulness to floatyness after the turn of the millenium still hovers over me as it does over many enthusiasts. This coaster will most definitely be thousands of miles better than SOB (and I haven't even ridden that or even been to KI, I know the ride's terrible reputation), but will it deliver a powerful "old-school B&M" style ride? In the end, I'm just hoping that if this ride is in fact a B&M invert that it'll be a harkening back to the days of old-school B&M.

Today I got my 50th credit, and tomorrow I have 2 hours of night ERT (passholders only) on Gold Striker!

I'm definitely going, there's no way I can resist nighttime Goldy ERT. I'm going to be marathoning the ride the entire 2 hours.

^ Knock on wood (preferably southern yellow pine)!

Gold Striker's queue is definitely bad in terms of graffiti, but nothing compared to T-Express's (bucket list coaster for many, including me) queue. The following two photos are from the TPR Korea Tour Mini-Update, you can check it out in the park index:

I was eating an apple from the apple tree in my backyard earlier today and found what could've my 50th coaster credit chewing away inside. Sadly, I got denied because the train was way too tiny for me to ride in.

I love this filter! Your pics of DDLM turned out very nice, it's the middle of July and I'm already excited for Haunt! And yes, I am more than ready for those two hours of night ERT for passholders, haven't had a single night ride on GS since the one I had on June 1st. EDIT: Forgot to mention that Vortex now has new plastic storage bins replacing the cubbies on the other side of the station, one for each train. Nothing really major, but it's new.

^ That makes me curious. How could Maurer Soehne be having trouble with these parts when they have had over a decade of experience manufacturing spinning coasters? They've already built multiple Xtended SC2000's, so I am really curious as to what caused this delay. I'm assuming it's either a problem with making the parts or (to me more likely) the delay originates from the delivery of the parts. The journey from Munich all the way to SCBB is a long one.

^^^ Easily one of my favorite games of all time. Like you said, it's a fun and very quirky game, and there are some really hilarious moments to be had playing it. Words can't describe how awesome EarthBound's humor is. Definitely a reason for me to get a Wii U soon, at least before the next Smash Bros. game is released.

Robb is right on the money here, CGA has made a very noticeable comeback with GS and all the park improvements and is now my preferred bay area park to SFDK (SCBB isn't really bay area, but is a really awesome park). Roar, the bay area's other GCI is now running like Ship High In Transit, probably due to poor maintenance. Last year it was just ok, but now it's extremely rough and will re-adjust your spine. Medusa has god-awful operations for a B&M, and the rest of the park is just really Six Flags-ey now. I've heard GCIs have gotten a lot better since Roar and considering CGA is maintaining Grizzly really well right now, I'm confident they will do the same with GS and not let it deteriorate into a death machine.

Excellent footage Robb! This ride definitely hauls A$$ from start to finish, and lots of pops of airtime. I feel the tunnels, in addition to resolving the noise issue, really add to the experience and make it feel just so, so FAST. Again, great job on the footage!

Had a great day at the 'walk today! So far, nothing seems to have changed with Undertow since the most recent photos of it, and I too am mind-blown as to how long SCBB is taking to get an off-the-shelf Maurer spinner up and running. I've got a few photos to share from my visit today: Here's the station...nothing different here... Hmmm...wonder what this shed's for. "Coming later this century." All the cars are still under tarps. NERD SHOT! Another NERD SHOT. Another NERD SHOT!!! Here's the new Beach Swing, made by Zamperla. Sign of quality. I decided to hit up Double Shot first... ...then go on a bunch of other flats while Giant Dipper warmed up. Fireball has the best program of any frisbee-type ride I've been on, my butt is definitely out of the seat on this one! Giant Dipper was running very well as usual! The crew was really awesome even with single train op as I clocked a 47-second dispatch with my stopwatch. Overall I had a pretty awesome day, and you really couldn't ask for better weather than this. Not too hot, temps in the 70s and a cool ocean breeze.

Chinese knockoff coasters replacing them all. What's worse than Europa Park, Tokyo Disneyland/DisneySea, and Knoebels all getting nuked?