Dr. M

I'd read that, and my main question is why were their projections so stupidly high? Was that the only way they could interest the people who funded the park? Obviously it takes a while for a new park to build up the kind of attendance older, more well-known parks have.

I just enjoy being antagonistic, don't mind me. I'd certainly take a forceless invert over a forceless any other kind of coaster, or no coaster at all.

^Another barely themed coaster on a concrete slab would fit in great! Especially after it's there a couple years and what little theming there is disappears or falls into ruin.

Certain areas don't look as bad. I guess it's whatever side of the park leaves a bigger impression on you, the grungy empty shell side, or the greener friendlier side. I will say I've never walked through an amusement park and thought "Gee this corner of it sure is a wasteland, but that's alright, it must be a work in progress."

I totally agree with this. HRP's pricing was unbelievably stupid no matter how you slice it. $50 per ticket, ALL tickets, no child or senior citizen discounts. That rules out any family with kids too young or grandparents too old to ride anything. And no cheaper evening tickets. This rules out any family that might want to spend the day on the beach and then go to the park in the evening (perfectly viable considering the park wasn't even that big). Of all the things to screw up, ticket pricing is such a basic thing, I mean just look at ANY other amusement park in existence.

Raptor I'd for sure consider old school and intense. As with Talon. They also asked for I305, no? *sigh* Rapter and Talon ARE old-school B&M, they were both created over a decade ago. I305 is built by Intamin. B&M hasn't built an intense ride for CF or practically anyone else in a long time. They have a specific product they've developed, the floaty forceless rides everyone complains about (that are also comfortable, reliable, and have lots of mass-market appeal), and that's what parks go to them to build. If anyone can give me any reason to think that will not be the case this time around, I'm all ears.

^I agree they'd be capable of building such a ride, but consider who's asking them to build it. Do we have any reason to think CF would ask them to make it intense? As far as I can see all evidence points to the contrary.

I would gladly bet a large sum of money on this coaster being a slightly taller, just as forceless Alpengeist. If anybody would like to take me up on that.

Not an invert, or even a looping coaster. Can anyone name the last B&M large-scale looping coaster with Batman-like forces?

I don't understand why people keep saying "I sure hope this is nice and intense like the old-school B&M inverts!" I mean I get the point in hoping, you can hope for anything, but... it's not going to happen, right? I mean I hate to be a downer but why would that ever even be a possibility? Why would B&M suddenly revert back to a product they haven't delivered in years? I hope no one thinks they'd do it to please the enthusiast crowd. We might as well go back to hoping it's a racing giga.

When I went last year, I had to put my "blinders" on and ignore everything in the park as I walked straight from coaster to coaster (which is all I had time to do considering the lines). I had to do my best to ignore all the aggressive advertising and desolated theming areas just to have a good time. I'll be the first to admit their coaster selection is generally world-class, but that's not how I want to enjoy theme parks. I want to take in the atmosphere, enjoy the sights, not spend all day trying to ignore how the park feels even emptier and sadder than it did the year before. I'm planning on going in September, maybe I'll make my first trip report trying to document the very particular brand of... how should I put this... disillusionment this park gives me. It's all the good memories I have of the place that really amplifies it. It's where I first fell in love with roller coasters, and that was before I could even ride them. It's all the little things, you know? Like the crackling in the speakers the fake "drill sergeant" spiel plays through in the queue for the parachute drop. Probably just a bad wire somewhere. Just fix the d*mn thing! Give a crap!

Hey now, I remember liking it a lot when I was 9. It's important having "in between" coasters like that. Sure it gives off a depressing sense of neglect like most of the park, but other than that what about it is SO bad? I think with a little sprucing up it could be a fine family coaster.

It's pretty amazing, the atmosphere of 'could not give the slightest bit of crap" that pervades the entire place.

^Can also be experienced at other, better parks. That's my reason for not including it.

If only, if only, if only... except I'd say Bizarro can come too. I'm pretty resentful that those four rides keep dragging me back to that awful place.

^The lack of supports especially near the apex fools the eye, you have nothing to gauge the height but bare track and the clouds behind it. The steepness of the slope adds to that as well. It also has to do with placement in the park, when I picture Steel Force in my mind's eye it looks about twice as tall as Skyrush. I have a question for anybody. Is there another 200 ft coaster that takes up as small a foot print land-wise as Skyrush? Most of the ones I can think of have a more out-and-back style layout where the furthest point is much further away from the station than Skyrush.

Not sure if this has been linked to in this thread yet but it offers a lot of interesting information on FT, it's a photo journal from someone who got the opportunity to take a guided tour through the coaster with the main guy who's working on it: http://www.rollercoasterphilosophy.com/2012/fredx-photos/ Quote that directly relates to your question: It says elsewhere that modern safety standards require all four wheels to be on the track at all times, which almost certainly wasn't the case with the lighter weight trains (at times a wheel might lift off the track going around a turn).

I don't think anybody is over-exaggerating though, that's the thing. I don't think the restraints hurt everybody the same way, that much is apparent. But it would be really, really hard to exaggerate the pain I felt on those first couple rides last year. I mean, my thighs were still sore walking back to my house from my car, and I live an hour and a half away. The next time I went I was better prepared for it and there was more padding, so it wasn't as bad. But if you're not expecting it, it makes it worse. At the end of the day, you can't get inside someone's head and tell what they're experiencing, so it's irritating to hear people tell you you're over-exaggerating, it's basically like being called a liar. I've never ridden a Megalite so I can't compare them, but are the restraints the same? If not, if they're more like traditional lap bars, then your entire point is moot. The problem with Skyrush is NOT the forces, it's the restraints. The mentality seems to boil down to, "Oh great, they build an intense coaster in the US and everybody complains about the restraints. Now I'm afraid they'll never build an intense coaster like that here again." Which is ridiculous. If we're lucky, all it'll mean is Intamin will never build that kind of train again.

To me, there's no real reason to compare them. I don't give a lot of thought to which I like better since they're so different. Millenium Force is all about height, speed, and that feeling of moving through so much space in such a small amount of time. Skyrush is all about raw intensity and power. They're both trying to do different things, and they both succeed greatly. Some people dislike Millenium Force because they rate coasters based almost solely on how much force it exerts on the body. To me that's pretty arbitrary and nobody should feel bad if they don't rate them the same way. The enthusiast community feels it has to rank every coaster in existence against every other coaster on a linear, "this is better than that" list, the only differentiation being between wooden and steel, when in reality there's a much wider spectrum than that. It would be like comparing a luxury sedan to a sports car, which you think is better will depend entirely on whether you want a luxury sedan or a sports car, and some people will want both.

They really are not! Thats the thing, people just expect it to be a lazy boy chair. It is an airtime power house, sure there is sometimes a bit of pressure, but its not like some people act it to be I know nothing I say is going to keep you from saying this over and over and over again, but it's incredibly irritating how you need to keep defending those restraints. The fact is they DO hurt for a lot of people, they're some of the most painful restraints I've ever experienced (and I've been on SLCs, boomerangs, etc.). And it's not because of the extreme airtime, El Toro has comparable forces and it wasn't uncomfortable for me at all, because it secures you at your waist, like most restraints. There's a reason so many people were complaining, there's a reason the park responded to those complaints by adding padding and now releasing the restraints on the break run. It's because they're poorly designed and extremely uncomfortable for a lot of people. I understand you don't find them uncomfortable which is fine, and you can say that, but I just wish you (and others) would stop implying that the masses of people saying the restraints hurt are just whining or would find anything less than a B&M lap pillow painful, because it's not true. As an addendum to all this, Skyrush is still one of my favorite coasters of all time, so it's not like the pain automatically makes it a bad ride. In fact, for me it almost kind of adds to the ride, to that "fighting for your life" feeling that makes the ride so unique. But again, everyone's experience will be different.

I know this has probably been explained before, but I still don't understand how making the trough wooden instead of metal suddenly makes the ride so much harder to make safe.

Maybe the ride attendant assisting you is what made the difference?

Two things: 1. I rode Mean Streak in May and I can safely say every ride I've ever had on Wild Cat was about 200x rougher, they don't even begin to compare. Maybe work has been done on Mean Streak or I got lucky, but I don't know why people always talk about it like it's the pinnacle of roughness. Wild Cat has a couple moments near the end where the track actually feels broken. 2. Wild Cat is an awesome ride and deserves to stay right where it is. Not every coaster has to feel like a perfectly controlled experience.

This is easily the greatest bad coaster story I've ever read.

Well, I'm 47 seconds into it and they've already called NTAG "the world's steepest wooden roller coaster".