ZeroGravity55

OK full mini report. I didn't get any pictures because I don't like to carry anything with me while I'm in the park. The Voyage was down all day, which was a bummer, but that seemed like the beginning of their woes for the day. The Legend was running one train and the second train was not even on the transfer track. While I was riding The Raven somebody accidentally backed into the e-stop button and caused a 20 min wait until a coaster cat could come reset the computer. As far as construction there were footers poured behind Hyena Falls and a ton of rebar on site. They've also dug a huge tunnel like pit next to Hyena Falls. Last but not least, the markers in the ground come all the way up to the sidewalk in front of PP. Overall it was a good day minus the coaster issues. Had a lot of fun!

Quick update on my trip to the park so far. Legend's second train is no where to be found and The Voyage has been down all day. It appears they're replacing some of the top running board going into the break run. Haven't really got to look at much construction so far. I'll have an update on that later.

I love the fact that the park decided to fill PP's old splashdown area up. This way, it doesn't totally look like a bunch of wasted concrete, which in essence, it really is, but hopefully to be replaced with something much better. It looks like the coaster is coming down that far by Hyena Falls and PP. No way they would start pathway work this early in the process. That's usually the last thing that is done. If this is the case, it looks like one long ride, with what's already been cleared.

Well, considering that Batman is just to the right of the entrance and American Thunder just to the left, there's not a whole lot of room there for a coaster--and they are absolutely not removing either of those any time soon. Now your arch idea I like a lot. I know SFStL is interested in redoing the entrance and is in the process of removing ticket booths. Having an arch over the whole area would be really cool indeed, and pretty tall as well. Arches are always equal in height to the distance between the two bases. I'd guess the entrance plaza is at least 150 feet across, maybe more than that, so the arch would be pretty tall. Actually, why not make it a ride? The real arch has a gondola inside--this could be a miniature version of that. Capacity might be an issue, but it'd be the coolest observation tower. I don't know how feasible this sounds, but I had the idea of removing the picnic groves and putting the coaster there. It would have to be the size of Goliath, obviously. After it goes through zero-G there seems like there is enough room to put an overbank in between Batman, the entrance, and the water park. I would then have it come back with a tunnel right under neath entrance then the coaster would do crazy RMC like stuff after that. I started working on what I think this might look like in No Limits. Also, I would remove Ninja and move the picnic groves over there. That's just me if I was in charge. This all is obviously not going to happen, but the park could really use a new entrance. I never really thought of using the my arch idea as an observation deck, but that would also be very neat.

I honestly don't think the GP cares how many wooden roller coasters the park has and nor do I. Most of them would take a steel coaster over a woodie. Even if they do put the I-Box on it, the GP will still view it has a wooden coaster, because they see wooden supports. It shouldn't even matter if it's I-Box or topper track. They can both do the same things! As long as RMC gets hold of it and does crazy things with the track, I could care less if it uses topper track or I-box track.

This is a total pipe dream, but I was thinking about how SFStL could use a revitalized entrance, and I keep picturing something similar to Cedar Points new entrance with Gatekeeper. Well I was thinking why couldn't you do the same thing with an element like the zero-G stall on Goliath and have that as an entrance to a park. Then my next thought was well since this is Six Flags "St. Louis" why not build a replica of the arch at the entrance and attach the zero-G stall to the side of that. I have no idea if that could be done from an engineering standpoint, but I think it would be one of the best looking entrances to a theme park in the world. I've had this idea in my head for the last two days and felt the need to share it.

I'll be there on Wednesday, so I'll try and see how many footers are visible at this point. With footers already being poured, I'm gonna go ahead an assume that the first supports will be put in place on the July 24th announcement or the day after. They said at that point in construction, it would be very obvious what they're building.

^ I've read a couple of things on the Holiwood Nights FB page where someone said that they brought up Intamin to Dan Koch when he was Park President and he acted like he wasn't too high on them or something like that. There probably really isn't any truth to that, more so now that Dan isn't running the park anymore. Honestly, in this industry, it seems tough to really gauge who has a good relationship with who. I mean we all thought that the Gravity Group had a great relationship with HW until the whole Timberliner thing last year, then we all assumed that they have a horrible relationship. Do we really even know? Of course not, because nobody is going to come out and say it. It's the same thing with Intamin. We think we know, but do we really know?

^ Going to a park that has one of the biggest maintenance nightmares in The Voyage in terms of re-tracking the ride every single year, I don't think a steel launched coaster will phase them one bit. If the coaster uses LIMS then the park already has plenty of experience with them in Wildebeest and Mammoth.

If RMC does get their hands on Mean Streak, I suspect it to look like New Texas Giant went it is finished. Same designers and similar layouts for the most part. The layout of this ride is crap, and absolutely boring to boot. Good news is RMC can save any layout by adding airtime and a couple of inversions. Next thing you know, you have a top 10 steel coaster!

^ I believe they already have a tunnel under a state highway already. Idk how difficult it would be to do it again, but it appears it has been done before.

^ I would also imagine that they're going to be expanding the parking lot again. You would have to figure with this being the biggest expansion by far in park history, they're expecting this to jump park attendance. HW as been at over a million guest per season since 2006 when the Thanksgiving section was added. Idk anything about their numbers other than what I just mentioned, but logic tells me that sustained growth and success will only continue as long as attendance figures rise. With that in mind, that time seems right for them to shoot for the 1.5 million mark and try and sustain that for a number years before their next big expansion, which might probably be intended to push them over 2 million in attendance. HW has been smart in slowly expanding the park and waiting for the right time for major projects. If you have too many big projects at once, you're setting yourself up for failure.

I have some photos hidden on my phone somewhere from the opening weekend of Hades 360. Timberliner trains have a similar suspension system as well. Actually those are two completely different train suspensions and designs. The Timberliners were designed with a seat suspension only utilizing a bogey system that is tied together and turns with the curve of the track. RMC's trains uses a suspension system all around the wheels that keeps them in contact with the track at all times.

^ Interesting you say that. Look what the park tweeted out today! From the way this is worded, it seems we've been taking what the journal has said up to this point a little too seriously. Edit: Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if the clue was revealed today or in the previous entries over the past 21 days. Who Knows? That's the beauty of this whole thing!

Fire aside, I can't get over how great this ride looks!

You know Raven Maven said the The Mayflower was the fastest ride naming meeting they've ever had. I'm willing to bet the meeting to name this ride took a bit longer!

^^^ Honestly, I forgot about Formula Rossa when thinking of that record. I do still think there will be something special about this ride that will break some sort of record. I've been hearing about this 36 million dollar tag on Helix also. No one knows what type of money HW is capable of spending. We know what they've spent in the past, but is that really indicative of how much they're capable of spending?

^^ Well to be fair, it's kinda of hard to document the trip of the pilgrims in a journal over 66 days without mentioning water a whole lot. From what I've learned about the their voyage, there wasn't a whole lot to do on the trip. In fact, it was a rather harsh trip. The pilgrims staring at the sky and water is probably historically accurate to some point. I can imagine some type of splashdown effect, or the effects that Mack has put on their coasters at Sea World. I can't imagine it being another water coaster, like the ones they already have, especially with it being put in the Thanksgiving section of the dry park. I've seen mention to several smaller types of roller coasters being built in on here. While those would probably fit what HW needs, part of me wants to believe that HW isn't just going build some typical steel coaster with an inversion or two. They have a history of going over the top on big projects, and building stuff that brings them great publicity to the park. I think I've said this before, but I'm going to go ahead and say it again. I think this might be the worlds longest launched roller coaster. Every big project since The Voyage has broken some type of world record. The Voyage has the "most seconds of airtime on any wooden coaster." Pilgrims Plunge was the "worlds tallest water ride." Mammoth and Wildebeest are 1st and 2nd as the "worlds longest water coasters." All of these rides minus PP have garnered their fair share of awards too.

It appears that their might be a pop of airtime going into the huge overbank kinda like you see on GCI coasters when they go into their high-banking curves.

^ It also spreads out the waterpark, which can become very crammed during the summer. I do believe they're going to have put another big waterpark attraction by Hyena Falls soon though. It's really not the type of attraction that people are going to want to walk all the way out there for. With it not being new this year, I suspect that it might not be as popular just for that reason. Who wants to burn their feet on the hot concrete just to walk all the way over there for three slides?

I fall into the category of those who prefer airtime over inversions as well. While I would have preferred another airtime hill, I think the hang time on that zero-G stall will make up for any lack of airtime this coaster might have. Judging the response to Outlaw Run, I suspect that that there will be some airtime in some weird spots where you will least suspect it.

Ouch.. Sometimes the truth hurts! I would be willing to bet that management at SFStl would love to answer with a big project of their own. Convincing corporate on other hand is a completely different story, considering it seems like they never taken anything the surrounding parks around SFStl do very seriously. I find it funny that they know what type of game changers RMC is capable of building first hand and watched Silver Dollar City build a brand new RMC. SF corporate responds by giving SFStl a 24 year old Boomerang.

Perhaps the track needs to be greased to fix the squeaking noise problem? Most parks do this on traditional tracked wooden coasters to fix the squeaking problems. But obviously, this isn't your normal wooden coaster.

^ That is almost exactly what I was thinking.

I'm going to guess that those two clearings by the Voyage might come back around and be connected to one another somehow.