SbSteveZ

I love the childish post they put up. in a good way of course, i just think of a little kid yelling DON'T SPOIL IT!!!! But I guess that means they know!

I went out to Darien Lake yesterday with a good friend and figured I'd post some criticisms and some praises about the park based on my experience yesterday alone. pros: It rained a few times yesterday, a little in the morning and a little more at night. But I did not see ANY rides close because of this at all! That was amazing to me considering at Cedar Point, when it starts to sprinkle Dragster IMMEDIATELY closes and when it came to millennium, "Big Scary Clouds" caused a 15 minute closure every time one rolled by. But when it rained at darien, every ride was open, and to top it off, they Still did Ignite the Night even though it was raining slightly. Also, even though each ride only had one train going, the lines were moving rather fast. With the exception of RoS in the morning. I had to wait at MOST about 25 minutes for front seat Mind Eraser. I loved how predator was practically Walk-On and RoS at night, the line took 5 minutes tops. Viper was a different story, probably a 30 - 45 minute wait, and because the ride isn't too spectacular (plus it closed for technical difficulties at around 830) we didn't ride it. The laser show as always was awesome, and what I thought was cool, is the rain hitting the lasers made them seem to sparkle in a really cool way. the AC/DC song was probably the best with all the Fire. Lastly, the fries at the Boardwalk are amazing and reasonably priced in my opinion $5 for a Large? It was great. anyways... Cons: Even though the rides were cycling fast, there was only ONE TRAIN!! there is NO reason for every single coaster to only run one train, I don't care what they're doing to the trains! they should have had 2 trains on each ride at ALL TIMES! Do your restoration in the WINTER not in the middle of the season! That really bothered me, and not to mention, the RoS got new ride decals right? Well if we stick to calling RoS what the Decals say, it would be the R- _ of Steel. Seriously, if this is why the Blue train is gone, bring it back and get a refund. There was no reason for brand new decals to fall off so soon. Predator was very shaky in the back seat, I got off and said "Goodbye and good riddance" after riding it for the first time this season, Im looking forward to it being taken down for a new ride (if it even happens). The Blast off was a dissapointment, The line was too long, the Persons Per Hour was very low, and compared to a Real drop tower such as Power Tower at the Point, the ride was slow, short and very boring. sure it looked cool but while stitting at the boardwalk and eating / conversing, I recall it launching about 3 or 4 times in a half hour. Very poor for the brand new ride. Well, thats all Ive got! If anything different happens on my next trip next Friday, I'll keep you Updated. Oh and has anyone ever seen this guy at the park? He refers to himself as the DL Chicken Man. I ran into him a few times and each time, i snapped a hot of him doing his chicken thing... Chicken Man at the Bumper Cars line Everyone on the Bumper Cars kept saying "I'm watching you, Chicken Man!" I personally T-Boned the chicken Man several TImes This was the creepy, yet cool thing he did, First he would stand on the Predator's exit ramp and stare at riders boarding the RoS... Then as the ride went through its circuit, he moved up to the fence to watch them get back off... And lastly, when he saw them all leaving the station, he would run to the exit of the gift shop and just stare at them form a distance. He finally caught me taking pictures in line for the MotoCoaster and ironically this was where he found 2 of his kind. After this Photo, The chicken man told me he had a facebook page, only 5 people liked it before me, but every ride operator and game operator knew about the chicken man. really made the day a lot more fun with all the chicken spottings! If you see him, he is always willing to take pictures for free, as you can tell by all the ones I got. Turned out I knew the guy who called himself Chicken Man so I can say proudly he will be back with me by his side next Friday! I hope you all liked the chicken spottings!

oh, oops forgot about the orange area. nothing to do with the coaster, But if I'm correct, that area is closed to the public, so that wouldnt be a great place for an entrance unless they opened it up alittle more. correct me if im wrong!

Now, even though the island Idea was good, aside from the fireworks thing, what would be so bad about placing the station here? i see there is a walk way (based on experience) and I'm pretty sure a queue could go on the opposite side and work its way towards predator, or if that's not an option, I'm sure they can have a partial queue under the station like the GateKeeper lines, I know thats a different reason, but if they're looking for line space and they're in a cramped area, its always an option... Thoughts? Just to clarify my thought here, The yellow line seems to be the shortest, though the red and indigo are the same once they get past the station, the red one has additional queueing under the station for if they project longer line lengths. the Gray is obviously not real, and is probably WAAAAY too long. but I put it there to show, they have the room on the lake to place the entire coaster, with that station as a possibility. Remember this is strictly opinion.

The RoS decal is just on the front of the lead car and just says 'Ride of Steel". Nothing spectacular. Thanks! I've been seeing a lot of people on this thread pessimistically (And in their defense seemingly realistically) pushing the ride towards 2015/16 which in all honesty would be too long for probably everybody on this thread. But for me, I would be just fine waiting as long as we would get TONS of information on it! Buuuut I'd rather see a 2014 coaster!

^^ Thats a good point. But as we all saw last year with Blast Off! the removal of Raging Seas was done quietly during the winter. Social Media for this park may not be the best but they have been working up on it in the past few months. Also, I saw earlier in this thread that someone said "Darien Lake doesn't even reply to emails anymore" and just today I found out that is not true. Sure it was a question about the laser show but they responded relatively quick compared to Cedar Point's email crew! (CP Took a Day, DL took an Hour) Back to Lake Monster, if they're going to deem it as a loch-ness themed creature, I'm hoping they do some EPIC theming on those trains, I'm talkin' Leviathan style, scales, big yellow eyes, maybe have some sort of tongue like GateKeeper has, you know, give it the Creature look. Maybe Viper was a preview of what could possibly come, sure it isn't "PHENOMENAL" when you look at it in the end, but it looks more like a snake than it ever did before... The biggest question I have now is when will it be revealed / what year will it open? Does anyone know when the Silver Dollar City survey of "the Bull" was given (or when the concept was released) and what the time difference was to Outlaw Run opening? Being that this is a sister park, I Don't see why they would treat these 2 situations differently. Lastly, Does anyone know more about said "Decals" on the ROS train? I haven't been to Darien Lake yet this season and as we all know, googling Ride Of Steel doesn't turn up with many pictures from recently. Thanks for the help in that guys!

My favorite thing about this park's social media, is not only did they leak a new ride before making any sort of teaser at all, but now that people are publicly confronting them on the topic (via Facebook) they have nothing to say! Now this makes me wonder if when the time comes to make the big reveal, will they still do the notorious Cedar Point themed reveal in which we hear about something coming for the next season and we're given small misleading clues until the reveal date, or since so many people have already seen this new concept... Are they going to come out with it right away? Any thoughts?

No Doubt that was for a B&M coaster, and not to mention, X-Works is the same name under "Customer" That was used for GateKeeper last year. Just saw the Kings Island (KI) Fansite video and they have some footers in already. not sure how or why a corn maze would need footers... anyways, check out the 3 B&M style Labels, the first being GateKeeper, than Kings Island and lastly a B&M wing rider label that was shipped out to China!

Hey Guys! I haven't been to Darien Lake yet this summer, but I was in the Walden Galleria (Depew, NY) and i saw an advertisement for Darien Lake with a picture of what seemed to be the Grand Wheel with some nice new Lights on it. Can anyone confirm that this is true/false? Thanks! (Sorry I had nothing to take a picture of it with...)

I find it funny that Mr. DarienLaker, knowing sooooo much about Darien Lake and all, has a Profile Picture of Busch Gardens. I mean c'mon man, Keep it Real!

In all honesty i'm not one for rumors, considering my home park, Darien Lake has waaaay to many of them floating around all the time and most of them are false anyways. Maybe the positioning of the new video cam and the logo tease go hand in hand? In other news, I went to Cedar Point for the 4th of July and there ended up being a few storms which led to some problems on the towering Millennium Force and Top Thrill Dragster. I waited an hour and a half to ride the Dragster and when i was 4 trains away from riding, an operator felt a single drip of rain and the ride shut down for what i believe was at least 3 hours. I can't say for sure being that I left immediately after, but also I saw multiple empty trains with ongoing rollbacks after it closed. Also the Millennium Force operators were very slow at points of operation. They were constantly closing the ride down to switch out trains and/or add/remove trains for well over an hour and due to some heavy looking clouds, they shut down the ride for about 10 minutes, twice. The closing down due to the clouds I didn't mind as much as how they were constantly wasting time to switch trains. the "Best Steel Roller Coaster in the World" should at least have a ride operators team that knows what they're doing. I went on Mantis and Raptor right before GateKeeper in chronological order via Circas of the rides, and it was really interesting to feel the differences from '94 to '96 and then '13 all from 3 different types of B&M coasters. I admit I didn't like the Mantis sending all my weight to my legs, it did hurt alot to the point where I lifted my legs up to avoid the situation, Raptor was phenomenal! Never have I been on an inverted coaster with such power! and gateKeeper was amazing because: 1) I went on during the 4th of July Fireworks 2) The line was literally 5 minutes long 3) the views of sandusky from the ride were spectacular 4) It was anticipated since last august The lighting problem with GateKeeper was disappointing though with the LEDs being some on, some off, and the Keyholes not living up to par with Power Tower, WIndSeeker, Giant Wheel and Millennium Force's Lighting packages. But overall it was a good ride. Maverick closed down for a while for a slight Down pour but as always it was worth the wait, Mean Streak was alot smoother than other Wooden Style rides I've been on with the exception of Blue Streak and Power Tower gave a good ride even though I have heard some negative critisism about the ride from other threads. Anyways, Thats all I have to blabber about Cedar Point. Still a Great park and it has Great memories. I look forward to my next visit.

Probably not my room to talk, but i found this cool looking Zamperla Air Race 6.4 ride that looks rather fitting as a thrilling flat ride for the park. I think it looks cool but you know, nothing too huge

OH MY GOD!!! VIPER LOOKED AMAZING!!! I have loved the viper ever since i first rode it back in 2008 and I loved seeing all the changes made to it such as the painting it all black to restore its 1980's beauty. Those trains... AMAZING! I remember wishing to see the Yellow train back on the track but those dreams are far away now thanks to that awesome decaling they did. and I also love how they renamed the SkyCoaster. That was rather misleading to some, not many, but some. Maybe its just me but the new logo reminds me of the Raptor at Cedar Point. but i digress. Those few touch ups have really boosted my attitude towards the "Simple" fix-ups they made these sound like. but its the little things that add to a parks stability and in the long run, the popularity. kudos to the management and all others who worked toward making these renovations possible. I am very pleased with my home park and am proud to be a Darien Lake fanatic!!! July, Here we come! (Oh and I cannot wait to see Ignite the Night, I love laserblast and i cant wait to see the new changes!) I hope this lightens up everyone's attitude towards this thread. Take a second to think about what Darien Lake has accomplished before you go and curse out a few of the people very into this park (DarienLaker...) they just really want to see their park improve and wants the public to know how they feel. Thank you DarienLaker for that! Bring on the bigger, better darien lake (OVER TIME!!!)

Over the winter Darien Lake has been horrible with posting pictures and keeping us up to date with ride construction. we get what? a picture a month? how can someone be excited to see the park change and hope for big surprises if nothing is really shown in the first place? i would love to see some shots of the new midway 50's theme, or hear about what Ignite the Night is going to be like/about more than just the paragraph on their website. all i envision is LaserBlast with a water screen and some fire with the way they have told us so little. In a time of such exponential technology and social media, you'd think they'd realize they need to keep us a little more updated... alright. done with my rant. Bring on the Blast Off!

I saw on the Facebook page just a little while ago that they're planning on adding something "rad" to the park in 2013, Along with that i saw people suggesting either a Coaster, a BMX show or a Re-Theming of Ride of Steel. Anyone have any ideas? They said they would announce it next week but I figures like Cedar Point's GateKeeper, someone has to know something...

Is everyone serious about this "Backwards" thing? It was a cheap edit in the video to show the entire track. NOT an actual part of the ride. Cedar Point stated it is a "Full-Circut Wing Rider" and I'm positive they arent going to have the ride go forwards, then backwards and forwards again. Theres no point in it the coaster wouldnt even make it up the keyholes twice backwards anyways. Its simply a full circut coaster. Forwards once. The 2:40 ride time probably counts the lift hill and break section... obviously common sense. and if it were to go backwards they wouldve said it. I cant help but say this is going to be a phenomial ride both for the riders and spectators, and knowing Cedar Point and their new "Ignite the Night" thing, this is probably going to have a cool light package like the Millennium Force. I'm excited to ride this next summer but many people will be depressed to ride if theyre expecing it to go backwards. Sorry everyone who thinks that, its not true.