awclark

This thread is hilarious to me now… I've never seen so much saltiness over a delayed attraction before and I'm LIVING for all this sarcastic banter I mean I understand it's 1 of the hottest new attractions to be built this year, but I remember when Maverick's opening at CP was delayed a few weeks to replace the heart-line roll and when Kingda Ka basically blew its entire first season because of the infamous "breakdown", both of which I'm 100% sure faced similar situations in which guests had booked vacations or bought passes and showed up expecting it to be open and were left to be disappointed, but I don't remember coming across nearly as much enthusiast turmoil over those situations.

Ninja is looking fantastic with the new paint! Excited to hear how these enhancements improve the ride. I'm probably 1 of the few who actually didn't think the ride was all that bad, but then again the last time I rode it was 12 years ago lol This investment isn't terribly surprising to me though. Making a few track tweaks, new trains, and a fresh coat of paint is for sure cheaper than bulldozing the entire thing and installing a new attraction in it's place. The trains needed to be replaced anyways IMO because from my understanding, the park scrapped the original black & red Vekoma trains a few years back and replaced them with the old blue & red Arrow trains that came from Shockwave at SFGA, which as a matter of fact are even older than the original Vekoma ones.

JEEZUS Wait times like that remind of opening day for Kingda Ka. I remember reading reports from a few people that braved the crowds that day and said between the constant breakdowns and a thunderstorm that blew through, people were waiting 10-11 hours for it. This is absolutely the longest wait time I've seen since then.

That's rough. I'd straight skip it or go buy a flash pass if I ever saw the line like that now. In the last couple years, the longest I waited for X2 was maybe like an hour tops and that would be when the line is starting in those first sets of switchbacks. Back when it first opened as X2, I think I waited 2 hours max and that was when the line was about halfway across the bridge. When it was the original X though... What a hot mess. When I rode it in 2002 and 2004, both times the line was 4.5 hours with 2 train op and the line would be starting right outside the main entrance. When I rode in 2007 tho, the ops were on point and the line was only 30-45 mins from where you pass by the soda machines under Viper's boomerang.

It was from my memory of it. It was summer 1997 and I was on a family vaca and we happened to make a pit stop at Busch Gardens. I was only 8 years old at the time, but I remember riding it after my sister and dad had ridden Alpengeist. I just remember as soon as we hit the Wraparound corkscrew it was headbanger city. Being so young I didn't know how to ride rough coasters and I was just the perfect height for my head to slam around the restraint. We all hated it, but later on in the day my dad and I decided to ride it again to see if we could have a better ride and all I remember was getting off the ride for that second time, walking down the exit ramp and bursting into tears LOL. I'm sure if I was older, taller, and more knowledgable of how to ride a rough coaster, I could've enjoyed it. It's weird though, I actually find it pretty cool that I had a chance to ride such an "infamous" ride despite it sucking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's not technically a concert, but I attended the Burning Man festival out in Black Rock City, NV this year. It was my first burn and it was by FAR the most spiritually moving, enlightening, extreme, and profound experience I've ever had. It gave me an entirely new outlook and perspective on life in the most positive way. Left me utterly speechless. Would LOVE to know if anyone on here has been before or who goes every year. Regardless, here are some photos from this years event. Sorry if it's a lot, but I hope you enjoy! … And then after the man exploded in a gigantic spectacle of fireworks, explosions, and flames Me sitting in the illuminated letter 'A' Spreading my wings on the playa … But shortly after spreading my wings I found myself caught in a complete white out sandstorm Photo of me taken by a photographer that happened to be a member in our camp Photo of me taken by a photographer that happened to be a member in our camp The "Dream" installation. Photo Credit: Scott London the Pirate ship art car at sunset. Photo Credit: Scott London 1 of the most trippy and amazing art installations I've ever encountered. The LED lights shifted and changed patterns and colors all while synchronized to the music that was playing around us. Photo Credit: Scott London The Man. Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson The Temple of Promise. The spiritual and emotional center of the city. It would not be uncommon to walk through here and see other people crying or find yourself in tears reading all the messages inscribed into the walls and seeing all the shrines of lost loved ones people had set up. Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson An aerial view of Black Rock City during this years Burn. Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson A very thought provoking art piece I encountered out on the playa. The night of the Burn when all 70,000 of us gathered around the man in a spectacle that gives the event its very name.

YASSSSSS!!! This will be a STUNNING addition to the park and become their crown jewel attraction for sure!

Decided to request today off work for some 26th birthday coaster fun! Single rider line at Twisted Colossus is the BEST!!! Was able to get 8 rides in a row within a short span of time and about to head back over there for some more runs The only downside was that it didn't race once. In fact, even on the times I was close to racing, we'd be heading up the green lift, yet our train wouldn't slow its climb so the other train on the blue lift could catch up. When I rode opening weekend, I was able to race each time cause he green lift would slow whenever a train dispatched the station. Kinda disappointing, but it's still a kick-a$$ ride.

^ Yea I was there Sunday evening and TC went down for 2 hours. I had nothing to do so I didn't mind waiting around and chatting with the other peeps in line around me. Same problem you're describing though. Trains stuck out on the lifts, lots of tinkering at the rear of the station behind the back car and stuff too. They finally just removed the 3rd train and we were able to get on literally as the park closed at 9pm so yay! It didn't really bother me that much at all cause I expect new rides to be a bit temperamental as park staff/maintenance/engineers figure it all out.

Rode it yesterday and it blew me away on all counts! Showed up to the park at opening and as I kinda expected, the line for TC was already backed up to the Lex Luther entrance. Sign said 3 hour wait, but ended up being 2.5. There was a brief delay as they added the 3rd train sometime around 11:30/12pm. Line moved pretty quickly after that. Noticed trains weren't dueling/racing on a bunch of runs, but once I reached the entrance sign and started snaking through the small queue in the station building the racing/dueling was consistent. They were assigning rows with no questions, exceptions, or requests being taken which was fine for opening weekend I guess. The ride itself was absolutely nuts and the racing/dueling added SO much to the excitement/thrill factor! Mondo airtime everywhere, butter smooth, and amazing pacing. Being my first RMC coaster, their reputation lived up to the hype and then some. So beyond worth the lengthy wait especially because of the extended ride time of 4 mins. For me personally, it's easily the best ride in the park and easily gets thrown into my all time top 5 list. They really did such a stellar job with this makeover!

Did a quickie search of this topic and didn't find anything, but this story/video was posted to Screamscape today; however, the official BGW Youtube channel uploaded this video a few days ago… Looks like a documentary is being released this month on the history of the park over the past 40 years through the experiences of park execs as well as die hard fans. Looks to be very promising and quite interesting

^ Well if you look at mounted POV videos of Goudurix, you can tell just how poorly the track is designed. Full of pumps and jerks. I forget where, but a french fan website followed the re-tracking process pretty closely with tons of pics and such. From what I recall seeing in those pics, they actually didn't remove any sections of track at all. Instead they set up all sorts of scaffolding and simply "readjusted" the track in attempt to remove the awful jerks and pumps. I think I remember seeing pics of them cutting through the vertical sections of the U shaped cross-ties and either add or reduce the length of said vertical sections of cross-ties… thus in theory it would be a feeble attempt to smooth out the jerky transitions in the quirky butterfly loop. As someone mentioned above, they only re-did the butterfly loop.

Zero-g-Rolls found on the older B&M's. So the ones on Kumba, Hulk, Bizarro, Scream!, Dragon Kahn, Medusa etc. Those ones just had more of a thrilling spiraling whip to them whereas the zero-g's found on the newer B&M's simply lack that thrill.

Here are the pics of the blueprints I've got for those interested! I actually obtained them from a forum member here on TPR who was opting to sell them way back in 2007 so I've had them in my possession for about 7 or so years now. Enjoy! Hulk Coaster Blueprints Hulk Coaster Information Block in the bottom corner of the blueprint. Dueling Dragons Blueprint Dueling Dragons info block in the bottom corner of the sheet Full color blueprints of IOA in its entirety Full color blueprints depicting Port of Entry, Marvel Island, and Seuss Landing Full color blueprints depicting Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park Full Color Blueprint depicting The Lost Continent. Note Dueling Dragons massive outdoor queue section before Flying Unicorn was installed.

I have a collection of 3 blueprints from IOA. 1 is original blueprints of the entire park, and the other 2 are of specifically Dueling Dragons and Hulk. Both Dragons and Hulk blueprints are stamped and dated. Dragons reads 'June 30th, 1997' (30/6/97) and Hulk reads 'August 30th, 1996' (30/8/96). I'd be happy to post pictures as visual reference for anybody interested But since we're on the topic of Hulk, this means that the blueprint I have in possession was created/printed in the late summer of 1996, nearly 3 years before the park opened its gates. When you think back to the coaster companies in the mid 90's it's pretty easy to point out that B&M was on an exponential rise to the top. In the mid-90's, Intamin had yet to start producing its collection of mind-blowing coasters we all know and love today, Arrow's popularity was fizzling out and their technology simply wasn't advanced enough to produce the attraction Universal was looking for, and Premier was only JUST coming onto the horizon. B&M on the other hand was rocking the industry year after year in the early 90's with their unique and advanced coasters that pushed the boundaries for what coasters can do all while producing something that was highly reliable. As such, it seemed like an obvious choice for Universal to select B&M as their client given their stellar struck record in such a short period of time. And from what I recall seeing in an article, interview, or video on Hulk, B&M didn't choose the tire launch, it was the Universal engineers who devised what type of launch to choose after going through a number of tests. I'm sure the business relationship between B&M and Universal during the process was very close to make sure that a reliable and safe product was produced in the end.

If something is allegedly happening to Kingda Ka during the off season, my guess would be the possibility of finally installing that final row of seats to the back car for increased capacity? They did it to TTD when the pseudo drag racing tires were removed from the back car. KK already had a diminished capacity because it stopped running both sides of the station which only allows for 2, maybe 3 trains to be running at once. Now with Zumanjaro lowering capacity even more, adding those last 2 seats to each train could provide at least some sort of improvement to ride throughput.

Yea here in the states the only models they offer in Diesel is the 328 Sedan and Wagon, the 535, and the 740. Other than that, the rest of the gargantuan lineup of models are all gasoline. They do have the hybrids in the 3, 5, and 7, but they aren't that common from what I've seen. Since I live in the perpetually traffic clogged area of Los Angeles, I just throw it into Eco-Pro mode if I'm looking to save a bit on gas. Although, I couldn't resist throwing it into Sport+ mode and taking it out for a late night joy ride on some winding canyon roads out near Malibu What a blast that was! haha

Just bought my new car a couple days ago! A 2015 BMW 428i Gran Coupe in Mineral White with the 'Sport' line package Absolutely loving it so far! Perfect combination of sportiness and elegance. I chose the 428i GC over the 328i because even though there's no real difference under the hood between the 2, I find the 428i GC way more aesthetically pleasing and sleek than the 328i IMO. Had to get a new car though because my previous one I've owned for 8 years got totaled. Was at a stoplight and got rear ended at 45mph causing my car to be sandwiched between the car in front of me and the guy who hit me. Most importantly I am 'a ok', but I was still sad to see my old car go. However, I couldn't be happier with my new car though! Went through this entire buying process alone and it was quite a stressful yet exciting learning experience! 2015 428i Gran Coupe

Millenium Force - it was one of those situations where reading reviews beforehand totally overhyped the experience. Wind in my face was fun, but minor floater air and a bunch of over banked curves just didn't do it for me. The Beast - My 1st ride I made the mistake of getting a wheel seat. Got off saying "wtf was that crap?!" Was then told to sit in a non-wheel seat and thought it was an overtrimmed snooze fest full of meandering curves and straightaways. The Voyage - .... to the nearest pharmacy for a bottle of advil. Ouch. Drachen Fire - At the time when I rode it at the tiny ago of 7 years old, I only knew the coaster from some old VHS tape on roller coasters that I watched to death and thought it was the coolest coaster EVER.... Until I rode it and remember getting my head whopped around so much and so hard that I came off crying to my parents about how the VHS tape lied LOL

I'm really not surprised by this news at all. I understand each park in the chain varies, but overall as a whole, I feel as though there's been a steady decline in quality across the board for the company and its parks and/or operations over the past few years. It's almost as if they've completely lost their direction in terms of marketing and advertising. They have a slogan sure, but so does McDonalds. It's just become so apparent over the last few years as to how much they penny pinch on certain aspects yet expect to charge a lot in return. Yea certain prices for parking and food may be "industry standard" but when some Six Flags parks look so visibly rundown and poorly operated, it leaves you scratching your head as to why they charge just as much for a product that is noticeably worse. I had a pleasant experience at SFDK a few weeks ago, don't get me wrong. It being my first time there, I enjoyed the atmosphere and found that even despite having short wait times on rides, loved that there was enough activities and attractions in the park to keep me there the whole day. However going to my more local park of SFMM, I'm left visiting a park that sure, has some picturesque lush scenery because of the land the park sits on, but is completely overshadowed by the negatives of everything else. Food is notably worse despite being the same price as other parks, I'm bombarded with visually ugly and frustrating advertisements at every lamp post, wall, surface, and coaster train, the ride operations are bad, the rides look run down, and in fact everything looks run down. Even looking at some PTR's in the forums here lately, I'm noticing certain things in the pictures that just show the upkeep of some of the parks just isn't there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the price doesn't match the quality of the product and guests have begun to catch on. Sure, SF has some of the cheapest ticket and season pass prices around, but even then it still sometimes feels like a rip when you compare it to say Cedar Fair parks. In the end, I feel as though Six Flags has resorted back to its old methods of operation; that being adding new attractions to boost attendance instead of focusing on the upkeep and service of the parks to give the guests a reason to come back because aesthetics and service really do effect the guest experience IMO. Sure, all these RMC overhauls and unique coasters getting installed is exciting, but from a business standpoint continuing to install all these new rides when the aesthetics and service of a specific park is kinda "broken" isn't going to fix the problem at hand. Just my 2 cents… or 10 cause it was long

- Before Flying Unicorn/Flight of the Hippogriff was installed at IOA, Dueling Dragons used to have an INSANELY long queue. It was a massive maze of overflow zones leading up to the castle along with the labyrinth inside the castle. It was a doozy. I think I even heard a rumor (or maybe it was fact) many years ago that if you walked the entire thing through every overflow and every switchback it was 2 miles long or something absurd like that. - The Bat and White Water Canyon at KI are both quite the hikes - Kingda Ka's old queue before the "breakdown" a few weeks after it opened was MONDO as well. It was the switchback behind the lockers, then a long winding path under the launch track where there were 3 more massive switchback zones, and then a long straight path leading to the station. As far as I know tho, the park has since ripped out all of the handrails of the switchbacks back there and kind of converted the covered switchback building into a mini maintenance building. - Boss and Batman at SFSL are yes… just notorious for their unnecessarily long queues. That Batman one though… oof! There are some other really long ones that come to mind, but thats only if you walked through their giant mazes of switchbacks. Of those giant cattle pen queues or ones with various sections of overflow areas usually have some way to bypass them all though. Like some of the Cedar Point coasters or attractions at IOA that have mondo overflow zones.

Was up in the bay area this past week and decided to stop by SFDK for the 1st time on Tuesday! Being as I had never been to this park nor had I heard of how this park typically operates, I left feeling impressed for the most part! Just a couple notes… Park itself looked great in terms of landscaping and cleanliness. Operations on rides were good for the most part. Didn't see any blatant laziness. 2 trains running on Roar, Kong, and Medusa. Park was minimally to semi crowded, but the lines for rides were all pretty short. Longest I waited was about 10 minutes for Superman and about 10-15 minutes for the front row on Medusa. Thought Superman was simply just a fun unique compact coaster. Roar was better than I expected considering the age as 1 of the earlier GCI models. I noticed places where it had been retracked and noticed a LOT of wood stacks laying around the infield of the coaster so some maintenance seems to be in order on the ride. Overall I thought it was very fun. The bottom of some of the valleys between hills were a bit on the rough side, but I can always enjoy a wood coaster that's like that. Kong was… well Kong. Ridden enough SLC's to know how to ride them with no banging around so I had fun, but definitely felt the jerks. Not a bad thing to say about Medusa. It was nice to ride an "old school B&M" design before things started going 'forceless'. Boomerang was Boomerang. And V2 was certainly unique riding in the front seat. Overall it was a fun day. Will be interesting to see what the park happens to install in the future considering the height ordinance. If there's 1 thing I think the park is lacking in its coaster lineup, it's airtime.

Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas this past weekend. 3 days from dusk till dawn of incredible music, rides, and art with a whopping sold out crowd of 400,000 people that passed through the gates over the course of the weekend this year. This marks my 5th time attending EDC and it just keeps getting better!

1, First step is to buy and download the game from GOG.com. It cost $9.99. (http://www.gog.com/game/rollercoaster_tycoon_2) 2, Then you have to download a wrapper for free here: (http://paulthetall.com/rollercoaster-tycoon-2-mac/) 3, Next thing is to make sure that you have the "setup_rollercoaster_tycoon2_2.0.0.6.exe" (from step 1) file and the "Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.dmg" (from step 2) file on your desktop. 4, Open "Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.dmg" and follow the instructions in this video. It begins at 3:03. Don't worry about the small game window in this video. They say it's only a bug while recording. I play fullscreen without any problems. If you or anyone else have any problems. Feel free to ask and i'll try to help the best i can. OMG! That was so easy! Thank you!!! YAY!

Went to Coachella Music and Arts festival this past weekend! My 3rd year going and it was as always and absolute BLAST! Out of the many acts on the lineup, I saw MS MR, Duke Dumont, Bonobo, Chromeo, Martin Garrix, Outkast, Dillon Francis, Fatboy Slim, Empire of the Sun, Banks, Chvrches, Lorde, Pharrell Williams, Nas, Muse, The 1975, Alesso, Adventure Club, Little Dragon, Lana Del Rey, Disclosure, Beck, and Arcade Fire. Quite a busy fun-filled weekend. Until next time