thrillseeker4552

I visited on Monday and had a similar experience. I was very disappointed to find the Flash closed all day (and, of course, it reopened the day after I left! ugh). But aside from that and Joker having frequent breakdowns throughout the day, I had a nice time. Superman, Medusa, and Batman are the "powerhouse" coasters in the park. All three of them seem extremely reliable, and I didn't see any of them go down the entire day. Those three coasters had the fastest operations in the park and ran at max capacity. Superman dispatched every minute, often times less. Joker was on two trains, but like I said it had frequent breakdowns. It seemed like they sent more empty trains that day than full ones. When it was running, the operations were solid. It's a nice ride but still ranks at the bottom of the RMCs I've ridden. But even a "bad" RMC is a GREAT coaster. It's also incredibly popular and held a solid line. Batman surprised me. I've ridden Joker at SFGAdv, and while this one felt mostly the same, I did flip much more on Batman. One of my rides I flipped a good 6 or 7 times. It was totally awesome. If it flipped that much on every ride, I would rank this as one of the best rides in the parks. And while I still think it is, the experience can be very hit or miss. Some rides are insane, some are very mild, and everything in between. Overall an excellent addition to the park! I really do like the park and think people give it way more crap than it deserves, however there are a few drawbacks. I was watching queue times for the weeks and days leading up to my visit and the Flash was operating on almost every single day. Considering that the ride just got out of an extensive refurbishment, I figured the odds of it being open during my visit were pretty good, but it just goes to show that you can never really make assumptions with Six Flags, particularly their unreliable Intamin rides. It was also frustrating that it reopened the day after I left. Oh well, that's life. One day I will ride that thing. It looks totally weird in the best way possible. I'm interested to see the future of this park. Their ride side of the park is quite stacked. I'd like to see a drop tower at some point. Even with their 150-foot height limit, they could spring for a Larson tower, S&S shot tower, or even an Intamin one. A family coaster with no inversions would also be nice. I wonder what their future moves will be with CGA expected to greatly expand in the next 10 years.

I love how this park just announced an awesome-looking B&M Hyper that could easily rival Mako or any other top-tier B&M and we're talking about how bad Twizzlers are! lol I am also 100% down for a Twizzler-themed RMC Wildcat, but dang, one coaster at a time!

I think our best hope of a B&M Hyper coming to California is at CGA. A small-ish hyper at Knott's is also *possible* years down the road, but I think the chance of SFMM adding a massive B&M coaster, hyper or giga, is just about zero. I visited the park yesterday for the first time in a couple months and had a nice time. I only stopped for a few hours, but lines were very short and I rode 6 coasters. West Coast Racers is also looking great. I think they're finally picking up with trackwork again. I won't be back until November or December, so it's nice to have a new coaster to look forward to in the winter.

Looks awesome. I am a little surprised by the 6-car trains, but I think B&M Hypers benefit with shorter trains. I remember when Mako was announced, they mentioned the 7-car trains make the airtime more consistent and strong. I imagine the 6-car trains will help even more. Kinda like how Thunderbird has the smallest Wing Coaster trains and is often considered the best and more forceful. Can’t wait!

Interesting to hear that you found a "rattle" on Copperhead Strike, especially one prominent enough to make you sick. I thought the ride was smooth as butter (not just that, but one of the smoothest roller coasters I've ridden) and I rode it 10 times over the course of two days, all over the train. Maybe out of all of those 10 rides, I managed to avoid a single rough train? The odds seem unlikely, but who knows. I also agree about Nighthawk. The ride experience is overall pretty similar to Firehawk and Batwing, but those ending corkscrews are just so awkward and uncomfortable.

^Considering Kentucky Flyer was built very close by, I think a Gravity Group family woodie is unlikely. Holiday World, Kentucky Kingdom, and Kings Island are all quite aware of each other and their respective lineups don't have too much overlap among the three parks. I am still thinking this is a water park addition that involves some speed record, but nonetheless it's nice to see something new coming next year. 2020 is shaping up to be excellent!

Lightning Racer at Hersheypark.

Holiday World stated on their Podcast a couple years back that they do not like body slides because the experience is “lonely” and they prefer family-oriented slides where multiple people can ride together. I would be very surprised if they ever added body slides. They are definitely teasing something speed-related. Possible the world’s fastest water coaster? It has been several years since they added their last record-breaking water coaster. A new coaster in the dry park would be great as well, but Thunderbird was a massive investment for them and by then it has still only been 5 years. We’ll see!

A Mack Power Splash will be an awesome addition to the park. I bet it will be extremely popular on those ridiculously hot 100+ degree days in Texas.

^I can get on board with that idea. Kind of like the first year of construction of Steel Vengeance! For what it's worth, I love when parks start constructing coasters without announcing them. Not knowing the layout and watching it unfold element-by-element is way more exciting. If you have some super detailed, high-quality animation of the entire coaster (like Cedar Fair usually does), it does make the construction progress a little less interesting since you already know exactly what's coming.

HangTime at Knott's!

You didn't find the back of Joker to have the strongest airtime? I found that row significantly better than the front when I visited the park last year. Glad they got 2 trains running for you. I believe he meant to say "any seat [is good], but the back will get you the most ejector....." Oh, the importance of a comma! Also, for the locals, has the Flash been running fairly consistently? I'm heading to the park on Monday and given that it was closed when I went last summer, I'm really hoping it's running that day. I know there's no way to tell now, but if it's been running fairly consistently since the retheme, I will *slightly* raise my expectations!

There ares several counterweight models all over the US. Spin Cycle at Silverwood comes to mind. Obviously that one is a very different make, model, and size. Honestly, just looking at that ride visually, it makes complete sense how it snapped. That arm is way too long and thin to support the shear stress of a rider gondola that size. You don't even have to have an understanding of statics or dynamics to recognize that. Some engineers didn't do their homework... It's unfortunate when this stuff happens, where it is completely out of the riders' control. It was completely preventable had the ride been properly designed. I don't even think this is a result of poor maintenance/inspection, it's just a terrible design that is in the hands of the engineers who designed it. They could drop this exact ride at any park here in the US and I don't even think I would've ridden it simply because of how it looks!

There are currently 6 operating, according to RCDB. Four flywheel versions and two weight drop versions. Flywheel: Montezooma's Revenge Shuttle Loop (Nagashima Spa Land) Cascabel 2.0 (La Feria, Mexico) Psyche Underground (Walibi Belgium), which has since been refurbished with an LSM system from Gerstlauer Weight Drop: Golden Loop (Gold Reef City, South Africa) Katapul (Hopi Hari, Brazil) - but isn't Hopi Hari struggling a ton? Anyone know if this one is *really* operating? I do love these rides. Granted, I've only done Monte, but given the POVs from the others, Monte appears to travel the farthest up the rear spike, which is my favorite part of the ride. I hope Knott's keeps this coaster for many more years. It's the last one in the US, very iconic, and barely takes up space.

^Well said. Most animations for B&M coasters are extremely accurate as well. The only ones that seem to change are RMCs. There are always small nuances in the ride layout that are altered between the animation release and the final version. (This happened on Twisted Colossus, Wicked Cyclone, Joker, and Twisted Cyclone to name a few). However the Cedar Fair RMCs had spot-on animations, so it doesn’t apply to all of them.

And honestly, the restraints aren’t really a problem on Kingda Ka (at least for me). It’s not like there is headbanging or anything. The train just jackhammers and shakes like crazy. Soft strap restraints may help a little for certain people, but I feel like the ride will never be as smooth as Dragster no matter how soft and comfortable the restraints are. It’s just a result of a higher center of gravity than Dragster’s cars and poorer maintenance and upkeep.

I couldn't agree more with Robb. Just last week when those two earthquakes hit (I was at work during the 7.1 quake), my coworkers wouldn't shut up about it for literally hours after it happened. HOURS. I just wanted to move on and continue my job like normal! There's some shaking, it stops, you realize you're okay and nothing really happened, and you move on. Given my interest in structures and my pursuit for a structural engineering degree, I find earthquakes very interesting and love learning about techniques engineers use to resist seismic movement, and given I want to design roller coasters one day, I have a lot of interest in this stuff. I've already learned about it in several of my courses so far. I will do my own nerdy research about earthquakes personally, but the people who literally talk about it for days upon days after it happened and act like a natural disaster just hit them drive me nuts. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that...

I've been to 23, missing 27. Roughly half. And I'm still young!

Interesting to see Silver Bullet listed as closed on the website (and confirmed above) with no reopening date set. For a B&M mid-summer, that’s odd. I wonder what’s going on.

Nice report. Maxx Force looks like an awesome addition to the park, and I could name several other parks in the chain that could use an intense launched coaster like this. It's also nice to see a big win at the hands of S&S.

A back row ride on Silver Bullet at Knott's yesterday.

Nice start! I'm excited to see where you go with this. I had a few RCT3 parks several years ago. I got a nice computer about a year ago and quit playing RCT3 since I now use Planet Coaster. One of these days I will start a new story park with PC. It was lots of fun and I learned a lot from my older parks, as I'm sure you did as well.

Another update. A - Afterburn B - Banshee C - Copperhead Strike D - Diamondback E - El Toro F - Fury 325 G - GhostRider H - HangTime I - Intimidator 305 J - Joker (SFDK) K - Kingda Ka L - Lightning Racer M - Maverick N - Nitro O - P - Possessed Q - R - Railblazer S - Skyrush T - Twisted Timbers U - Undertow (by default) V - Volcano, the Blast Coaster (RIP) W - Wicked Cyclone X - X2 Y - Z -

Never Really Over - Katy Perry

I honestly thought IT was a terrible movie. Didn't walk out on it though, I watched it at home. What is the worst B&M?