EricGarbo

Hmm... It's hard to say, but it looks like concrete, a truck, some trees, and a roller coaster. I can't be 100% positive, though.

I just witnessed one of thr dumbest things I've ever seen. I just experienced a Fuji-Q dispatch time on Shivering Timbers because a woman tried bringing her bag on ride with her. Here's what happened: the ride op checking restraints told her she couldn't bring her bag with her. She tried handing it to the attendant: "No, I can't put it in there for you." We proceed to watch the ride attendant search for a T bar to release the restraints, then several more minutes while she fiddles with opening it. Finally she gets it and everyone goes on their way. The whole ordeal took an additional 5 minutes, simply to move a purse 4 feet to the left.

Yes, this is one of the most exciting build ups we've had to a ride announcement ever! I think what makes it better is that deep down we know that the actual ride is going to live up to just about every expectation, which makes it even more exciting since we have no clue.

You've just addressed with investments like this are so incredibly important to do right. Parks cannot have things like this fail on them. If you watch the Coaster Net documentary on Outlaw Run you see the CEO of Herschend talk about how it was one of the biggest risks he's taken at any of his properties (which they have over 20 of) and how it took years to decide and implement on. The massive PR campaign that Paula has began and will continue to expand on once the ride is announced isn't just for fun, it's necessary: They need a ROI. Talking about Herschend again there's a reason that they sued Huss for the failed Timber Tower: Even something as simple as a flat ride can cause serious financial implications and needs to be addressed. This brings us back to the discussion about B&M's: They appear to be one of the safest bets in the coaster industry and have been since the early '90's. Building one basically guarantee's you increased success, even if the theme park fan community grumbles about it. Holiday World has purchased three wooden roller coasters from the same design group (basically) and knows very well about making safe yet bold and effective bets in their expansions. I don't see this expansion as being any different.

It is. I feel that what once started as an insane ride with all the freedom of a slide and the drop of a coaster (sort of) is now kind of losing it due to the trims (or whatever they are), nettings, seatbelts,... I almost feel like it is now closer to a coaster than to a water slide, which I suppose wasn't the idea. You heard it first here, folks: Verruckt is officially a credit!

They let you into the park a half hour early and you wait right near the entrance to it. Unless you run when they drop the rope at opening you're in a 30+ minute wait right away. Based on my experience, however, your real fight isn't against the queue, it's against the breakdowns. Get on it ASAP if you see it running because you may not have another chance.

I think that would be most appropriate on Apollo's Chariot.

I think that's one of the word filters on this site. For some reason (And I have no idea why) the word |ockers is changed.

It was the same way on Leviathan last weekend. They had four people on restraints, one in the dispatch booth, and two floaters grabbing bags form riders and putting them in bins. It was the best ops I have ever seen. They were sending B&M 4x8 trains full with slow people who all had backpacks with consistent 45 second dispatches. They also had two people at the entrance filling up rows, down to the single rider. They left as few seats empty as possible. It was 10 minute waits in the queue and I don't think I stopped walking once. It was just a steady stream through the station. Cedar Fair done got their stuff together on their star attractions.

Honestly, I don't know. I can understand when park personnel/engineers/designers ride it but I don't understand the commercial shoot business. Regardless, it is in their best interest to open the ride to the public ASAP so I can't imagine them putting up mysterious barriers to spite the community who wants to ride it. I think that's the elephant in the room here, we all think they have some nefarious reason to not open the ride but I don't believe that's true.

^ I pick both, but Goliath edges out.

The reason why is because it wasn't designed by engineers, it was designed by two guys with no real knowledge of physics. If you watch the show that is linked above, you can totally see they were just using their best guesses. Then blamed it all on engineers that they didn't fire in the beginning. Its totally retarded. I mean, when they send the first raft, down the 80ft scale model, they should have already known there was a problem. But instead, they just played with the weight in the boat to make the ride work. Which is the reason the full scale failed: you can't control the weight accurately because everyone weighs different amounts! As engineers you will in your career have impossible situations come up. I stand behind the first possible solution being the one that costs the least and takes the least amount of time. Unless we can look at the actual budgetary issues and project timetable we can't know why they made the decisions they did, but a full redesign of the second hill seems like it was at first an unfeasible solution. In the end though, every project should wrap up with a 'lessons learned' and you should aim to never repeat your same mistakes. A lot of times in engineering you are just guessing. No project is 100%. There's a reason Intamin redesigned Maverick and I305 after they were built. I305 was already open when it was redesigned! This is coming from what is considered one of the most cutting edge manufacturers of rides. If the software did everything for you and intuition and experience weren't required and everything was done correctly from the beginning computers would design rides, but that's not the case.

There's lots of good and bad in following the theme park scene. Unfortunately this is one of the bad things. The Dragster experienced a lot of downtime in the early years and Holiday World is just wiping their hands clean of G/PP. On Goliath Media Day we went down due to technical issues and Verruckt is currently sending rafts flying off of the second hill Roller Coaster Tycoon style. Honestly this just adds to the drama. It is always unfortunate when the one day a year you can make it to a particular park the ride is down but that's just how it goes. A word of advice I always go by is to fill my yearly riding calender with enough ride experiences to offset the ones that I will inevitably be unable to experience due to weather, breakdowns, etc, despite my best planning.

It's actually difficult to pick one; I think they are both awesome. I lean towards amusement parks because I enjoy roller coasters so much and think they have a high re-rideability factor. For me theme parks lose their luster and begin to show diminished returns as I experience them several times. My obsession with rollers coasters stems from the fact that they basically have no diminished returns for me. I would say that a proper mix, somewhere around 85% amusement park to 15% theme park is a proper mix for me, mostly because of the prevalence of amusement parks to theme parks. If the roles were reversed and Six Flags + Cedar Fair operated a chain of theme parks and Disney + Universal operated a chain of amusement parks the votes would definitely swing the other way a bit, but that is only because the variety of theme parks would increase and allow my to not experience the same diminished returns. I tend to count Holiday World as an amusement park because the ride experiences that I go there for are generally independent of theming. For the most part the park experience there for me is 'a slice of well maintained Americana' which is exactly what I expect to see in a well maintained amusement park. In this way Holiday World is the best amusement park I've ever been to. It definitely is a theme park, though, but there's lots of discussion to be had about it. When you look at Universal IOA the launch section of Hulk is most definitely themed, so the ride itself is actually part dark ride/part roller coaster. Dragon Challenge is most definitely an amusement ride with theming surrounding it. The park itself, like Holiday World, is a theme park. Ehh, I go back and forth with these thoughts a lot. Lots of time spent thinking in queue lines.

The storms in Lake County were insane last night. There was a river flowing down my sidewalk and tons if lightning.

Well I'm excited at the prospect of some fresh idea for parks besides roller coasters and aging flat ride styles. One of the most exciting rides I've ridden in the last couple years has been Mammoth at Holiday World; I loved the idea of a ride that wasn't a roller coaster that I wanted to ride so much more than most of them. If these guys can create attractions at that caliber taking the industry in entirely new directions I'm all for it. I can't wait to see what the first design they begin trying to sell it. They could go in any direction!

Rule #1: No sitting on the silver handrails!

Second: Incredible Hulk definitely counts.

Interesting. It was closed last Thursday, too. Having just ridden Behemoth the first time this weekend I was extremely surprised at how rough (Much smoother than most others still) it rode for a B&M because of that train style when it picked up speed. Leviathan's traditional 4x8 was a dream compared to it.

Exactly. I wish that they would use one year's budget for a new attraction and buy something really cheap or run a ride backwards (so they can market that as a new attraction) and then use the left over money to fix up the park. I'm talking fixing all of the special effects, painting some of their coasters (Eagle comes to mind). Also, running all rides at full capacity would be great as well. They could really make the park look nice, and get everything in running order. What scares me the most is the rusting I saw on Batman last year that has only gotten worse in the off season. Whizzer is starting to get pretty bad, too. They both need a sandblasting/priming/painting to make it more then a couple years past this point.

From what I've heard, The retracked barrel roll and turnaround are smooth. Everything else Mt. O Rough. You're confusing Hades with Hellcat. Hellcat is down the street at Timber Falls.

Thanks for your ever so helpful response, but we're obviously talking about a special event being held at the park and not a typical weekend. I was trying to find out if the park is going to be packed to the point on Thursday to where it won't be worth it, even with a fast lane. Because of the time of year the Banshee Bash is going to be held this is going to be one of the busiest Thursdays of the calender year. Mid-late July is a very busy time for parks, even on a Thursday. There are a couple questions that need to be answered: Is there a special event being held at the park that day/week and is the weather going to be good? Because the park a special event planned for that day (Like how my home park gets brutalized during Physics Day) but I don't believe this event is a cause for a massive influx of people we can expect it to be okay, but with good weather it could get unusually busy. Personally I'm getting the Fast Lane for it because I'm not messing around. I think we can expect medium to long lines and a Fast Lane will be worth it.

Did she ride well? I have to take a work trip to Muskegon next week and I'll be going to the to ride M-Th. I've ridden it every time I went there, and it does ride pretty well, except watch out for this one part where you go through a trick-track element because it can either be very smooth or very rough (it mainly depends on conditions for that day) I remember the pot hole after the trick track last year was really bad. I was hoping that element would've been retracked in the offseason.

Did she ride well? I have to take a work trip to Muskegon next week and I'll be going to the to ride M-Th.

Goliath is all about hang time. The overbanked turn, the dive loop, the zero-g stall, and the overbanked twist and shout. Goliath is the worlds best hangtime coaster and will fight that position.