azza29

^It's the Australian alphabet, we do things a little differently here. Either that or I didn't see the last few posts... Flight of Fear - Kings Island

Xcelerator - Knotts

It's a toss-up between Wooden Warrior and Ravine Flyer II for me, both are great but I'd probably have to pick Ravine Flyer II.

^I have to assume we were lucky enough to get the only good ride Mean Streak has ever delivered.

Gift acquired. Just need to grab a few little extras (hope my giftee isn't diabetic!) and it'll be good to go!

Morons who've seen Blackfish, can't differentiate between Orlando and the Gold Coast, and proceed to post nasty comments on Sea World's Facebook page about how they abuse their killer whales (of which the park has exactly zero!).

^Firehawk at KI has a dual station, can't think of any others off the top of my head.

Looking forward to checking out Movie World's White Christmas for the first time in a couple of weeks.

This strikes me as odd too - there's an accident on an RMC ride using Gerstlauer trains, so Six Flags are now putting seatbelts on Premier coasters?! I assume it comes down to enforcing a certain maximum stomach/waist size - belts generally being more restrictive than the restraints. Given that the New Texas Giant accident seems to have been the result of a restraint not locking properly due to a rider's size I can *kind* of see how they've come to that decision, but it's definitely weird.

Looney Tunes River Run at Movie World. Back in the '90s it was one of the best dark rides anywhere outside of a Disney park.

Part Ten: Kennywood In the interest of actually finishing this report at some point, it's probably time for another installment! After the wonders of Kings Island we headed east to a little town called Pittsburgh, as made famous by the film Flashdance. This hilly metropolis is home to Kennywood, an interesting park that has a very diverse set of rides. The park's coaster collection has an excellent strike rate - Thunderbolt and Steel Phantom are both superb, and the others aren't bad either. Ghostwood Estate was pretty good, and the park had some great landscaping. At the other end of the scale, Garfield's Nightmare is easily the worst dark ride I've ever been on, and the show we saw (something about an evil scientist) was truly awful. We tried the park's front-of-line system, $15 for one fast pass to a given coaster each hour, starting at 2pm. We found this was only really worth it on two of the rides, and on a couple of them we just ended up waiting in the standard queue because we weren't planning to stick around that late. On the whole I liked Kennywood. It definitely felt more like a locals park than Kings Island or Cedar Point, and with some operational improvements and a little TLC on some of the older rides (especially Noah's Ark) I'd certainly visit again. Quick stats: at this point we'd visited 12 parks, clocking up 75 coasters (57 steel, 18 wood)! The daily parade was underwhelming. Kennywood has a serious fountain fetish. They are everywhere. Racer has that real 'classic woodie' feel to it. I love how the track goes across the ride facade. Thunderbolt is another great wooden coaster. It was running fantastically during our visit. 45 years old and it'd still make my top five woodies. Garfield's nightmare must have been that a theme park would make an absolutely terrible ride about him. Seriously, what were they thinking? More fountain madness. Phantom's Revenge is all kinds of awesome. Best first drop? Maybe. No OTSRs! The second drop is even bigger than the first one. Is this a "terrain hyper"? You have to basically climb into the bushes to get this shot. You're welcome. Noah's Ark was interesting. It's clearly falling apart but still charming nonetheless. Fountain: The Ride. Skloosh! Kennywood has the most eclectic thememing of any park I've seen. A short stroll will take you past pirates... tikis... and lunching aliens. Awesome. Sky Rocket is yet more evidence that Premier absolutely know what they're doing. The first hill delivers some surprising airtime for such a small coaster, especially in the back row. They've squeezed a lot into a small space. Not sure about the zig-zag track at the end but the rest of the ride totally makes up for it! That's all from Kennywood, next up we visit Knoebels and Dorney Park!

This is what happens when you build a coaster using designs generated in RCT3. I've never smorked, at least not in public...

^So if they'd built the same structure without the shopping/observation complex at the top it would be a "true" rollercoaster? Not sure about the logic here.

Log Flume. Especially the old-school ones that use the terrain as part of their course (like Knoebels and Lake Compounce).

As little as possible. iPhone, car key, wallet (or even just take cash sometimes). The less gear I'm lugging through the park, the better! If I'm planning to take photos I'll put my DSLR in a locker while I go on the rides, love it when parks have the $1 short-term lockers out the front. If I have the camera bag with me there will usually be a few other bits and pieces stored in there, sometimes a spare pair of socks can be handy after the water rides. I have never taken my GoPro since most parks don't allow them on rides, although if I was on a TPR tour I would probably pack it.

Wooden Warrior for me, too. Honorable mention to Comet at Waldameer.

Number one for me is definitely Indy, not only is it a great ride but it achieves almost everything through practical effects rather than projections - an impressive achievement. After that I'd pick Pirates, Transformers and Haunted Mansion Holiday. I also have good memories of the now departed Looney Tunes River Ride at Movie World - absolutely blew my mind when I was a kid, especially the surprise drop at the end! Those who love Toy Story Midway Mania, care to elaborate? To me it's mostly a bunch of Wii-style minigames on big screens. Not a bad ride but not something I'd be willing to wait the usual 45+ minutes for.

It seems like the show has been edited to give a much stronger focus on the social game this season, with the new family element adding some complexity to this. I suspect they might also be giving viewers a rest from that part of the game, so the show doesn't seem too repetitive from season to season. The contestants definitely went to town on the food reward last week!

I really dislike enclosed "dark" slides where there is no light whatsoever, just freaks me out for some reason. Most intense... just get a raft full of fat people on a family slide and you can get some VERY high banking happening on the bends!

Riddler's Revenge - SFMM

^I found them more "open" and comfortable compared to, for example, the standard B&M invert restraint. New trains aren't going to turn a Vekoma SLC into Raptor, but the overall ride was greatly improved. I've heard reports that the onboard audio can be hit-and-miss but it's worked for me every time.

Really? All of my experiences with Kumbak trains have been awful. Their wooden trains at Port Adventura and the Python trains at Efteling were extremely uncomfortable. The trains Kumbak built for Sea Viper aren't anything special, just as much headbanging as normal Arrow trains (although lower-profile, so the forces are more intense). But they've done a great job with the ones on Lethal Weapon/Arkham Asylum, so I'm not surprised that they are trying to sell that design to other parks with SLCs.

Updated iOS to 7.0.4 and now the game is crashing on launch - anyone else getting this problem?

It's a good concept, especially for parks which want something less expensive than a big B&M that isn't a Boomerang or SLC. Hopefully more of the El Locos will be built with the four-across cars (like Movie World's Green Lantern), as those outside seats are insane!

It would be great to see those Kumbak trains makes some more appearances, they have been a major improvement to Arkham Asylum and would be a relatively inexpensive way to breathe new life into an old ride. Without earbashing the SLCs are actually pretty decent coasters!