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Comet at The Great Escape is the oldest I've been on. Dates back to 1948 (1927 if you count the infamous Crystal Beach Cyclone)

That's a pretty interessing thread ! I have to say that SteveSTL's idea sounds like a very good one to me, because focusing on a little number of parks would greatly improve the park's quality in general (in my opinion). Of course I'm extremely biased because those are the two parks closest to me, but La Ronde and the Great Escape are not really treated equally in comparison to, let's say, Great America or Magic Mountain... Of course those parks don't have the same needs at all, so dividing the chain into regions would help to solve that problem, because less parks to focus on must bring better, reflected decisions. Also, I agree that customer service could really be better. Ironically, I used to think La Ronde had one of the worst in the chain, but I saw a slight improvement this year. I don't know if it's a new person in the park's administration or something else, but the employees seems less depressed about their jobs then they did on previous years. Seeing stories like Robb's and Kristen's is sad, and I think that, for example, if they have to deny someone from a ride they could do it in a diplomatic way instead of laughing at the kids. The ride opps could also use a bit more of their judgement; if a kid has been on 2-3 rides with the same height restriction and was allowed to ride, than I guess that kid is fine for riding any ride with that "X" height restriction, am I right ?

Gatekeeper and X-Flight, aka the only two Wingriders I've been on. I didn't expect top 5 coasters, but man, those were boring ! I even actually found Gatekeeper to vibrate so much that I had a headache after two rides. By far the worst B&M I've been on.

All the woodies at Canada's Wonderland are terrible and very rough Wild Beast is the worst, closely followed by the Minebuster.

For the ones I've ridden, the SLC's are the worst and Expedition Everest was a ton of fun, by far the best! EE was in fact my favorite coaster for quite a bit of time after I rode it

Now that I think of it, the restraints on TOGO stand-ups are very awkward and uncomfortable. They are also terrible for small peoples (like me back in the time I rode Skyrider @ CW for the first time) because then your hears are right at the good height to be smashed back-and-forth on the barely padded restraint. Photo by Steve Lizauckas from RCDB

I'm pretty thin, so I've never had an issue with a restraint, but I have to say that Le Démon's restraint at La Ronde (Mondial Roll-over) are probably very unaccomodating for some bigger body sizes, because there's usually one or even two, sometimes, walk of shame on almost every ride.

Most Wild Mouses are terribly hard when it's braking time. Hold on !

Vol Ultime (skyscreamer) backward at La Ronde was quite nauseating even if it was spinning at 1/3rd of its normal speed

I pretty much had the same reaction as everyone else, 4 billion for a theme park is freaking huge and the whole project seems rather ambitious. Hopes that it will work !

I'm visiting Darien Lake in August, so that's my next new park. I might also visit Martin's Fantasy Island since it's in the area. Even though I don't have a huge interest in checking it out, I think I might visit Hoffman's Playland during my next visit to Lake George, because it's pretty close and I'd be curious to see it before it closes forever.

I have not ridden any GCI, but the worst B&M I've been on is Mantis and the worst Intamin is Cobra @ La Ronde (if it counts, it was made back in the time they worked with Giovanola). I guess I hate stand-ups.

That's looking like a nice little park ! Thanks for the pics! BTW, what did you think of the indoor woodie ? I've always been curious to hear about that ride (pretty much all I knew about the park until reading your TR )

American Eagle's line is terribly long and pointless.

I wasn't there but at La Ronde (yesterday I think), a guy reported four line jumpers and they all had their season pass "chipped" at the corner to mark that they got a warning from security, plus a ton of peoples laughed at them on a La Ronde spotted page. Take that line skippers ! I totally agree that Line jumpers should get more warnings, but yeah it's kind of difficult to get rid of them as no one reports them. Sometimes I block peoples who try to pass the line, but not always. If we could post pictures and laugh of them, I would love to, but with all privacy laws I don't think we can. They would definitely deserve it for beeing annoying, though.

Never rode it but I think that Goliath @ SFGAm is a good contestant for the 45 secs war. However out of the ones I've been on, I'd say any B&M Batman the ride is amazing. I find the one at La Ronde (Le Vampire) to be more agressive than the others I've ridden (in a good way), so it's my favorite.

I really wish american parks saw us the same way you do... Sadly they see the 2 or 3 careless peoples and the rest pay for their stupidity. How sad is our continent ?

Exactly. By the way, it's strictly forbidden to put you hands up on any coasters (I once sent an idea to Mack Rides and their engineers actually had a chat about it, but it was impossible because of that rule... Booh.). Yet SFGA made a post on Facebook saying: "Do you dare to put your hands in the air?" (June 4th). But when I noticed them it was actually against their rules and thus a little bit clumsy to promote that, my comment was deleted. Hopefully no park will enforce this rule, because let's say you ride an epic Intamin airtime coaster without hands up, it tames the experience a lot, so you could instead stay seated in your couch at home or ride a B&M to have the same experience.

I have to join the next Scandi tours, even though I'm nowhere near going in Europe soon Djurs Sommerland is one of the park in my bucket list ! It looks better than most american parks !

I didn't found it to be 100% awful when I rode it last summer, I'd say the first half was good and it became awful right after the MCBR. After seeing what RMC did for NTAG and knowing that Mean Streak has a similar layout and it has, in my opinion, a lot of potential, I think RMC is the way to go.

Yes please, if you find them please post them here ! I'd love to see some ride blueprints !

Six Flags New England in about 2 weeks ! Bizarro FTW !

Yes I agree, was the Go Pro out of battery ?

I so wish there was self-operated rides in America, I always dreamed of beeing a ride op!