ZeroGravity55

I'm kinda in the middle on this one. HW isn't really advertising their coaster collection (Exception Thunderbird). They're really pushing the "freebies", hospitality and cleanliness. They're kinda billing it as a vacation destination as opposed to a regional attraction. Now I get the notion that families won't want to drive that far with kids, but they will if the experience is good enough. Really all HW has to accomplish is getting several families to visit and assuming most of these families get the full on HW experience most of us rave about, word to mouth advertising becomes the most powerful form of advertising HW can have in the STL market. HW isn't going to waltz into the market this year and drain SFTL attendance, it's going to take several years for them to fully introduce themselves to the market. What'll really be interesting is if HW builds a hyper coaster in the next 5 years and all SFStL gets is the 4D Free Fly. I don't know if I could handle this thread if that happens lol

^ Channel 5 KDSK in St Louis is doing like a three part series on HW right now and they're making them look like a million bucks.

Pretty much. You do have the option of having food delivered to the cabana.

RMC posted some photos on their FB page as well. Most of them are ones we've already seen but here are the two unique ones they posted: The way RMC supports their coasters never ceases to amaze me. Look at how they supported entrance of the hill off the middle beam that connects to both base towers of the lift hill structure.

^ Screamscape posted something about that. Some of the markings blatantly say RMC on them... CP has never been the type to mess with enthusiasts

Here's a reverse POV of The Legend Reborn. The backseat is the best seat on this ride, IMO. [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew]

^ I CANNOT stress this enough.....Do the waterpark for at least Mammoth and Wildebeest. You would missing out what could be argued as the two best rides in either park. New POV of The Legend! [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew]

I think last year was a full moon or pretty close to one if I remember correctly from some of the pictures from the event. We just had a full moon so there shouldn't be any light coming from the moon for this years event. It is interesting to hear about the flood light though.

A very good idea, except for this little tidbit....... Buffets never go over well unless the food is fresh.

^ Don't get me wrong, its still an insanely great ride, especially when you're riding with friends. I just feel there isn't as much of an "oh sh**" factor as there was before. I think part of it is the way you sit, but I also think part of it is how the boats bend easier now. I don't think the old boats were as flexible, so when you went over the hills, the back end of the boats would sort of get flung in the air. Now that they bend more, that doesn't happen as violently as it did.

^ It's all good. It took me by surprise as well. I literally looked at my friend as we entered the MCBR and said "no brakes this year" and then it grabbed us lol

I visited the park today. It was kinda of a weird day. A lot of school kids were there, which I expected. Voyage was down until about two. That caused all the lines for Thunderbird, Legend and Raven to be sort of longer than they should have been. They were running two trains on everything, but were really late in opening up the extended queues, which was causing Raven and Legends lines to spill way out past the entrance. We were in line at Thunderbird around 11:30 and the person who was sorting people to ride right or left wing in the bottom of the station left and nobody replaced her. They had almost the whole bottom queue open except for part of it around the wagon and it was completely full. For some reason this caused mass confusion as no one could make up their mind to which side they wanted to ride and they were holding up the line in trying to make a decision. If you didn't understand why they assign which sides you ride on and which row you sit in, that's why. I also was in line when Wildebeest had two of it's boats get too close to one another (which I'm pretty sure was cause by someone taking their sweet time getting out the raft) and caused the whole ride to shut down. I gotta give props to the crew on Wildebeest. Those girls were sprinting up the hill to get the riders out of the ride where the boats stalled and then walking them down and running back up to manually re-start the boats so they could re-set the ride. The lines for the food were also very long, at least in the waterpark. They only had Zoombabwe Grill and Jungle Jakes open and it took us about 30 mins standing in line to get our food. They were really getting killed with big orders. Everyone else who had one or two items was getting their food in about 1-2 mins. Just my perspective as someone who is a manager in a restaurant, but I honestly might try implementing an "express checkout" for anyone with less than 4 items and then have two or three seperate line for those people with big orders. I know it would be difficult to get people to follow rules and HW would try to accommodate them if they broke the rules anyway because HW is known for being "friendly". From my perspective though, if people can't read the sign, send them to the back of the other line. I also noticed that Scarecrow Scrambler was completely dismantled. ZOOMbabwe also didn't have any water filled up in it's splash pool and there were no boats for it anywhere. As for ride reviews The Legend: Here's my play-by-play. The first drop has to be the smoothest drop I've ever experienced on a wooden coaster. Everything after that to helix is the same as before, if not even a bit more intense. The ride feels so much faster now. As said before, the first part of the double-down has no airtime whatsoever. The second part has decent airtime in the back. The turn after going under the lift has what I would call a "jolt" of laterals and then you get airtime coming out of it as you dive under the tunnel. The next turn has been engineered into a GCI "bam-bam" airtime turn where you get airtime going into and coming out, but there are no laterals at all. The final turn starts out with "bam-bam" airtime and then you get a nice jolt of laterals as the turn flattens out. I think it's an improvement as I'm more of a airtime person myself. Those who loved the laterals,you still have the helix and spiral drop by Zinga, but you probably won't like the finale at all. One other thing, they're starting to complete the tunnel at the bottom of the drop and add netting to the track by the station. Also, what's with the howl on the lift? It wasn't on all day and the randomly around 4ish, it was on for one cycle. The Voyage: As I said, it opened up around 2. It looks like they were replacing top steel/running boards on the first camelback. It was running great! However, whoever said that the ride is no longer braked at the MCBR must have been on a very light train. A full train is getting braked, but it's not bringing it to a complete stop. The brake is grabbing hold as the first car starts to enter the triple down. It's enough the kill the momentum on the first two hills of the triple down. The Raven: I thought it was running great as usual. Thunderbird: I fall in love with this ride more and more every time I ride it. It's such a great ride and I know this has been said many times already, but HW absolutely nailed it with this addition. Mammoth: Yes, I'm reviewing Mammoth because it has new boats! If you listened to the podcast, you would know that these new boats are supposed to be lighter and give guests more support along with more leg room. I feel like since you're sitting lower and have more support, the ride doesn't feel as out of control as it did with the older boats. In the older boasts you were more exposed and it felt like you were riding on the edge if that makes any sense? You do get more leg room, although when the boats go through the turns and bend, you kinda awkwardly touch legs with the people next to you. I really wish I could have ridden an old boat and tried the new boat right after so I could have a better comparison. Overall it was good trip. It got better after 5 when all the school groups left. Everything was either a walk-on or had a short wait after that. Also, I'm thinking we're gonna be getting some video of The Legend soon. They had a sign in front of the ride saying that by riding, you were giving them your consent for them to use your likeness in videography or something like that.

Here ya go! All credit goes to WildEagle2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Nvn2X8K-g

Was checking out the beer selection at the local liquor store and I saw this and remembered someone put it on here so I decided to give it a go. It was very good!

Have the school groups been running straight to Thunderbird when the ropes are dropped or are they hitting up The Raven and The Legend first? I know a typical day with normal crowds would see the lines be longer for The Raven and Legend starting out. I didn't get a really good judgement on this last year when I went earlier in the season, as Thunderbird didn't open until around 1 p.m. I'm going on Monday and the park is open until 7 p.m. I'm hoping the the school groups clearout around 5 and the park is pretty dead the last two hours.

^ Based on what you've just posted, I put some numbers next to the graph to give a little bit more prospective. Of course, this is just a guess, but I think it's pretty accurate.

^ You know he works for the people who ran HW in 2012?

^^As far as shopping goes, Evansville is your best bet. I wouldn't sell short the surrounding area though. Jasper has plenty of decent hotels and good restaurants. The main one would be Schnitzelbank Restaurant, located in Jasper. It was highlighted in the Thunderbird Media Day report here on TPR. I've also never had an issue at the Days Inn Hotel in Jasper. I would also recommend visiting the Lincoln Boyhood Home right down the road from Holiday World, and the Santa Claus Museum, also right down the road from HW. Since you're going three days, take your time. It won't be busy, except for maybe Saturday. I wouldn't try and rush everything.

^ Judging by some of the posts on HW's social pages, it hasn't been crowded at all. It might be different this weekend with it being the first weekend the water park is open. I say it will probably depend on the weather, which looks to be in the 60's, so probably not.

^ Rows 2 & 3.

The crazy thing is that there was still at least 20 guys on the drop at 4:00 today working on the track. You can tell by how it was braked that it's going to be a much smoother stop, unlike before when it just slammed into the brakes. Anybody going to be at the park this weekend? I'll be going on the 23rd and have a full review then.

It's the nylon wheels. No other steel coaster manufacturer uses nylon wheels, so that's why you never see that problem. Schilke wants these I-Box conversions to ride like woodies. The nylon wheels give the closest feel to that. The problem with nylon wheels is that they do a number on the track, which includes ripping the paint off the track. Until all the paint is ripped off where the wheels run, it causes a lot of friction, which slows the ride down considerably. As others have noted, Wicked Cyclone had this problem all of last year. It's not a coincidence that the I-Box track that showed up for this years projects had the paint stripped off where the wheels run.

Yeah this is my new computer background now. From Cedar Point's Facebook:

^ It isn't necessarily completely flat. It's banked a bit. It's actually lower than is used to be at the start of the turn. The break-run is the same height it's always been. It's basically an upward spiral into the break-run now. I think this a case of perception vs. reality. With all the flat turns and the short break-run, The Legend always seemed to being going a lot faster than it actually was at the end of the ride. At this point, all I can say is just trust the engineers. GCI doesn't screw this stuff up. Remember, their the B&M of wooden coaster designers.

They didn't put a break run before the last turn. This is the final turn now. Notice how it starts out lower and gradually flattens out. The old turn started out high, had a dip and then raised back up with a decent bank which made it have a fairly short break-run. Now that it flattens out, they're going to be able to have a longer break-run which will allow the train to come to a much easier stop than did before.