josephcissell

This is beautiful.

To second this point, I’ve seen them use the other side of the station to unload when the main side was having issues at least twice in the last year or two. The other side definitely works, but it doesn’t operate due to their maintenance decision to only run two trains. Using the other side of the station for any length of time requires probably at least three extra personnel, and I doubt it would make any business sense to add those personnel for the minimal throughput gains you would get when only running two trains.

Not sure how I missed this post but hi Rob. Welcome to TPR Woah, thanks for bringing this post back up because I didn't see it either. That's my kind of Facebook group, because Sky Rides are fascinating. I joined today, such a cool group! Kind of impressed that it has over 1,000 members.

Definitely my fave invert, though I havent ridden Montu yet... Montu edges out Afterburn for me because of the terrain interaction and length advantage, but they’re both absolutely fantastic rides!

It was either last year or the year before, but yea, you're right. Wasn't down for very long either. I'm willing to bet it'll be functional by HITP. Seeems like it was even sooner than that, because I was at the park yesterday and it was open! I saw them working on the motor while we were entering the park and then a few hours later it opened to the public. It broke down for an hour or so at one point but at the end of the night it was still running. *edit* Forgot to mention how amazing the nitro team was yesterday. They were dispatching trains when the one before hit the MCBR. (Or even sooner sometimes). They would rush you saying "45 seconds to dispatch, please sit down immediately" and it worked great. It turned what wouldve been an hour wait if it was a slow crew into a 15 minute wait. Even funnier that the wait times app said it was a 90 minute wait when we got in line. Just today I’ve read both here and in the SFNE thread that ride ops were counting down to encourage people to move quickly into their seats. I just visited my home park (SFOG) Friday night and ride ops on several of the larger coasters were consistently doing the same thing there as well. It’s probably just coincidental, but I suppose I can dream that there’s been some new corporate push for better ops...

It's funny that several of you are here tonight. I'm here too! Pretty decent night as far as ops go. I've seen some hustle on multiple rides, and that's saying something. Loving how dead the park is tonight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I noticed on the park website today that the park appears to be operating on weekends only continuously between now and the end of the year. As I recall, last year they shut down for a couple of weeks in November after FF and before HITP started. Interesting to see them make that change and selfishly I like that they’re moving toward a more consistent, nearly year-round schedule. Hopefully I can visit on one of those November weekends for, what I presume will be, very light crowds.

Man, reading through this thread was so entertaining. Thanks for all the laughs crazy shirt-burning dude on the internet!

As usual, I totally agree with what Coasterbill said. I have no special information other than a background in finance and economics, but it’s my personal opinion that it’s really only a matter of time before some larger $15+ million additions are put into SF parks again. As I see it, what they’ve done over the last several years post-bankrupty is run things lean and try to grow as much as possible on that lean spending. That has meant adding a bunch of smaller investments in an effort to round out many parks that are/were really lacking in flats and kiddie rides/areas. That has also meant cloning a bunch of things like Sky Screamers and Super Loops, probably to get bulk discounts. From our perspective, that’s often not what we want. But at some point, there’s likely a declining marginal attendance/income bump from numerous successive smaller additions. If the strategy is successful, hopefully those smaller capital additions round out parks so that when larger investments do come, the park can fully capitalize on the investment. The question for me is simply when the next large capital addition will occur and which park will get it. I’d guess it will be a flagship park, like SFMM, SFGAdv, or SFGAm because those parks would be considered the safer place to invest, but who knows. The unpublished minimum capital investment standards for SFOG and SFOT could come into play also.

Just to echo what has already been said, early April is spring break typically for the couple of counties nearest Six Flags. Stay away! I too made the mistake of going once and it was pretty awful.

F***ing wife got a hold of my account again!!!! Damnit, Emily!!!

This is quite true. Thanks for making this thread readable again Robb!

^Couldn’t agree more. While I don't know him personally or anything, everything I’ve heard about Mr. Siebert indicates that he’s a class act and passionate about the industry. I think this is a good move for SFFT.

^According to this Theme Park Insider article here, Six Flags pays an annual blanket fee to Warner Bros, which owns all the DC properties. WB retains the right to deny any specific usage of the intellectual property however. The article also notes that it cost SF $3.3 million in 2011 for the annual rights.

Gwazi. The only ride I’ve ever been on where I just wanted to get off from the moment it began. Painful and not fun, from start to finish. I see how it could have been a decent ride in its heyday when the wood was fresh and the PTC trains hadn’t beaten the track to hell yet, but by the time I got to it in 2014 it was a complete mess.

Technically I wasn’t alone, but it was just me and the girlfriend. We were able to catch the very last train of the day on I305 last year. After having a nice conversation with the grouper earlier in the day about when the line would actually close, we were able to show up right at closing and happened to be the last people he allowed into the line. We chose the front row and everyone had cleared out by the time our train was ready. It’s probably one of my all time favorite rides. At night, nearly silent save for our laughter and enjoyment, and on one of the best rides out there. Pretty awesome way to end my first trip to KD. Edit: After thinking some more, I did get a truly alone ride on Kumba two years ago in the late afternoon on a random off-season week day. That was pretty fun because the ops were cracking jokes and chatting with me about some of their favorite rides. Man, now that I think about it, I need to get back down there. That Kumba, Montu combination is truly something else.

I'm totally with you on the lap bar only experience. In my opinion it is vastly superior to the OTSR experience. One note on the loading and unloading of cars. They have actually kind of implemented what you're talking about this year. Prior to this season, only one car could be loaded and unloaded at a time. When VR was added this year, they added an additional operator control stand as well as the necessary electrical components to load/unload two cars simultaneously. I've only been on DDD one time this year because the VR is *such* a capacity nightmare, but when I did ride that's what they were doing. I'm not sure that it would be more efficient to have separate load and unload stations due to size of the cars, but hopefully they will continue unloading and loading two cars at time whenever VR leaves. Really the ride should have been capable of this from day one, but at least it's installed now.

Took me forever to realize this was posted in its own thread because I've been a little busy lately. Thanks for the great report though! I loved reading a fresh perspective on my home park. I would definitely agree with just about everything you said.

I won't go into a full trip report because Coasterbill and Prozach have already voiced most of what I would have said very nicely in the last few pages. I did have the pleasure of visiting Carowinds for the second time last Tuesday (6/14) however and had a fantastic day at the park. The Fury crew was absolutely killing it the day that I visited. They were consistently getting out trains by about the time the train in front was cresting the hill. They were some of the best ops I've ever seen in my life. In addition to that, the park was pretty dead so I got to ride Fury 7 times in the span of an hour or so without even trying to push it. Though I got to ride Fury for the first time last May, what really struck me about these more recents ride is just how easy it is to marathon this thing. I had to move on for various reasons after my hour, but I could have easily gone back for more. As much as I love I305, for me personally, Fury strikes the perfect balance between being intense and being reridable. B&M really has created something special here and I do hope they continue on this path. Just wanted to share my Fury love.

#ItllNeverOpen wait wrong angry thread, sorry as you were.

I just took this exact same survey for SFOG, just FYI.

Also, if you have a smartphone you can download the Six Flags app. From there you can take a photo of your pass, which will put your info into the app, and the app can show you when the BAF days are.

Why's that? Sorry, it may sound stupid, but I don't get the joke (If it is one) A thing you can do in a fast car, I guess. Seems appropriate to me. Excellent choice of gif there. That happens to be what I drive actually, and I can confirm that fun things can be done in said car... Nice. I had an 08 350z Touring with the 6 speed. They are great cars, but for some reason I just never really fell in love with mine. The VQ motor was a really strong motor, though. I didn't keep mine long. I think I really missed practicality and a car that I could drive every day. Within a year I sold my 350z to buy my 13 WRX. After another year I upgraded to my 15 STI. I am now content. Sorry... couldn't resist the car conversation. Back on topic... Nice! Mine is an 06, also Touring and 6 speed. Yeah, they’re a lot of fun. She can be a bit difficult to daily, but I don’t have a family yet so I can get away with it. I can imagine it would be hard not to be content with the STI. Awesome cars from what I hear! Anyway, yeah, back to the endless chatter about Lightning Rod. Hopefully not too long now...

Why's that? Sorry, it may sound stupid, but I don't get the joke (If it is one) A thing you can do in a fast car, I guess. Seems appropriate to me. Excellent choice of gif there. That happens to be what I drive actually, and I can confirm that fun things can be done in said car...

I am too Prozach! They’re just plain fun to me. We seriously need more photos in this thread though... This ride is too gorgeous!