Jaykethekid

Don't get me wrong, Colossus is fantastic. My only issue with it is that after the first turn out of the loop until the flat turn before the brakes, the intensity and pacing kinda dies down. You spend a lot of time waiting for the next element in that section of the ride. If it was taken a little bit faster or the elements were a little tighter together, i would've likely placed it higher than cannibal. Would like to mention that my Holiday World trip report should be out by the end of the year

Okay, yeah It's taking those elements a lot faster than i expected. That drop is going to be insane in the back and look at that airtime twist into the turn. Definitely looks like its not going to be as forceless as people often are making it out to be.

Yeah the employees at Bigfoot are extremely nice. Every time I have gone, I’ve bought a single ride ticket for the Gravity Bomb drop tower (slingshot was closed every time we went due to wind). Even though it was a single ride ticket, they let me go as many times as a I wish. The last time I was there I got 7 rides on it without getting off. I could’ve got more but my neck was hurting because of the strong deceleration on the drop tower. The employee said it was like a 6g deceleration. I’d take that with a grain of salt, but it’s certainly very forceful.

That too. The least they could do is add some themed audio during the stop and launch. Just stopping, sitting, and doing nothing is kinda a buzzkill.

Im with you on that. If you look at SDC's social media pages, all the comments about the ride are for the majority constant complaining that the ride will spin wayyy too much. Everyone in the comment section, besides the few and far between coaster enthusiasts that claim this will be the best thing since sliced bread, says this ride will be too much for them. But many also say that the ride would be great if it didn't spin. I feel that it may take a bit of time for the GP to warm up to the ride, but once they do, it may become the next Wildfire for the GP. I also agree with what you said about the drop. It does seem like the front and the back will offer drastically different experiences due to the trim. Though, im sure thats the consequence of having such a long train and a smaller, but steep drop. The front definitely will get a weaker experience on the drop, but the hang could be interesting. Imagine sitting backwards in the first car and the spinning around to face straight down the drop. That could be quite fun. The back seat is definitely going to be the place to be as it looks like it gets whipped like mad down that drop. This ride definitely isnt about intensity, but the section after the loop with the twisting airtime hill, zero g, and another ejector hill looks quite strong. Who knows how it will ride though.

It's the only theme park I've visited, so I'm quite biased when it comes to SDC. I just didn't know if they were going to change the theming with the time traveling aspect. Those planks over the windows are actually part of the giant steel structure that the station was built on. It’s a very interesting design really as every level of the queue and station has many part of the structure still visible. Guess that they’re using it to add more steampunk/industrial themes to the station.

Wow those vehicles look a whole lot bigger than I expected! I wonder when it will start testing? Surely soon. I hope they do what they did with Outlaw Run and have a lot of local media document the first test.

Yeah, I do think Elitch Gardens is an embarrassment to Denver. I do agree with you though, Lakeside is worse, but Lakeside is not adjacent to Denver's downtown. Unlike Lakeside, Elitch Gardens is there for all who visit Denver to see (or not to see). Just because Elitch Gardens has a crowd does not make it a good theme park. It is an asphalt nightmare where the best ride for negative G-forces is the Sidewinder. In my opinion Elitch Gardens needs serious work before I would consider going there again. I have been to carnivals with better value. Most of things it seems you don’t like about that park are only things Coaster enthusiasts would really view or have issues with. The 99% if other patrons to the park aren’t going to hate the park because it doesn’t have a world class coaster. The General public will say “ooh, rides and coasters yay”. The park is making a good deal of money it seems and a lot of the locals I talked to or over heard really love the park. Look at their social media pages, most of the comments are extremely positive.

I wonder if there is any possibility of seeing new trains for Timberwolf in the near future? All the current PTC trains do is destroy the track and the riders legs It does seem that they are always fighting the trains as at least 2 or 3 cars don’t lock or unlock the restraints when they’re supposed to. It’s almost pointless to do this rehab if the track is going to go back to being rough in just a few seasons. You could already feel some jolts and deformations on the first drop just this season.

EDIT: Thanks to me finally starting to be able to travel this year and a perfectly timed bump post (from a bot account?) in this thread to remind me I even made it, I'll be posting more TRs in here. Some will be of some visits to parks last year, but most will be from my recent and future trips this year 2016 - Lagoon - Pg. 1 2021 - Frontier City - Pg. 1 A Memorial Day Saturday at Lagoon My family decided to take a family vacation out to Utah to start out summer break. Our trip was mainly sight seeing the natural wonders of Utah, but we decided we would take a day or two to check out the Salt Lake City area. The first day was mainly touristy stuff, but the second day, we hit up one of the best classic amusement parks in North America. Let's just say... memories were made. Simply put, we had an amazing time at Lagoon despite the insane crowds. I must say this park does not get talked about as much as it should be. Just this one day spent at lagoon was enough to seed it as my #2 favorite park, just behind Silver Dollar City and above Carowinds. I don't know how to describe Lagoon as its just so incredibly unique. Ill give you my thoughts about the park, then i will get into the pictures. Appearance - Lagoon is a surprisingly beautiful park. It has an amazing setting between the mountain range and the Salt Lake. The park has a great appearance from the architecture, landscaping, freshly painted rides, and surprisingly theming. I love the classic appearance of parts of the park. It's like stepping back in time! The park is has very colorful landscaping and is very wooded, which really surprised me (Something that would be happening a lot that day). A lot of the rides also had some quality theming. Some of thier flat rides had simplistic themes, while cannibal and rattlesnake rapids were nicely themed. Also the entrance area had some very cool water sculptures! Operations - Going in, i was expecting average to slower operations as this tends to be the trend with most american style parks. But this was not the case with Lagoon. They had insanely fast dispatches, ran all trains or vehicles on the rides, and made sure every seat was filled. This helped with the crowds that day. At most we waited 30 or so minutes for Wicked. Wicked was the only ride that had poorer operations. The loading process was very complicated as they for some reason decided there needed to be 3 different queues for wicked, the main queue, single rider, and preferred seating. Single rider and preferred seem to be higher loading priority than the main queue which made it move slow. But thankfully i got many rides on it in the morning before the crowds piled in. Cleanliness Lagoon has to be one of the cleanest parks ive visited. And yet again, no one talks about it (Its a shame, i know). All the bathrooms, queues, paths, and restaurants were all spotless! Now, lets get into the rides. I'm not going to review every ride at Lagoon as that's 1 - a lot of rides to talk about and 2 - I didn't ride every flat or coaster. Ill just talk about the notable rides starting with the flats. Cliffhanger I have seen videos of this ride for years. I have always wanted to ride this even if it has a boring cycle. Let's just say, i've never got more soaked on a ride in my entire life, water rides included. It seemed that they tried to bombard riders with water jets every which way humanly possible. It made for a fun ride even though all it did was lock the seats upside down or did loops. The Skyride I do not know if thats the actual name of it or not This one offered great views of the midway. Though it took ages to get from one end of the ride to the other as it seemed it had to come to a complete stop every 20 feet. Spider This was my first Mauerer Spinning coaster and first Maurer in general. The queue line had some very nice theming, but it dumped you into a typical fairground station which was odd. Also i must say the entrance to this ride is awesome! I love the giant spider! The ride itself was very fun! It was very smooth, had some nice forces, and spun at the perfect rate. 7/10 Bombora A very nice family coaster! The trains looked cool but the onboard audio was not working. The ride had some nice forces and fun twists. Not much else to say about it. 5/10 Roller Coaster Wow, what a great name! Jokes aside, this ride really surprised me! I had no idea such a small coaster could pack in so much airtime. Its a shame that it has the individual PTC lap bars. But hey, at least it doesn't have seatbelts. Its a great ride the way it as, but it would be legendary with buzz bars. Still, its my 3rd favorite in the park! 8/10 Colossus: The Fire Dragon I was very excited for this as i am a HUUUGE Schwarzkopf geek. The only traveling schwarzkopf i had ridden was Silver Bullet at Frontier City so i was excited to see how this compares. Well... I absolutely loved it! It was butter smooth, didn't have the little kinks in the track like Silver Bullet does, it had relentless forces in the loops and turns, and it looked great! I was surprised to see how a lot of the original fairground decorations were still there and working! I also love how they still use the external operator booth! Something you don't see everyday! I only got to ride it once in the middle, but that was enough to make it my 2nd favorite in the park! 9/10 Wicked Going into this, i honestly had no clue what to expect. Well, simply put this first half of the ride was outstanding, lots of airtime and forces. Then the slow zero g roll hit and the ride became an absolute dud. If the entire ride was as good as the first 1/3 of the ride, then they'd have a world class ride on their hands. But the rest of the ride felt like an after thought, something just to fill in empty space so it wasn't crazy short. It became my 4th favorite in the park. 6.5/10 Rattlesnake Rapids A great intamin rapids ride! It had some nice theming and rockwork and got me soaked. It also had a lightning fast turntable and no seatbelts, which is a polar opposite to what i'm used to at Worlds of Fun. 8/10 Log Flume Nice flume through some trees. Had some nice theming. Though it flowed unbelievable slow through the flume. The log also want firmly secured in the station which wasn't a problem for me, but it was hard for my grandpa to get in and out of the log as it would tip and move while boarding and exiting. 6/10 Jet Star 2 How is this legal? I've never experienced such a wild ride. It was very intense. That's all i have to say about it. 7/10 Cannibal The real star of the show. I expected an okay ride with a great first drop. Boy was i wrong. I absolutely loved Cannibal! I was also surprised how well themed it was! There was very high quality theming in the center of the ride. I loved the waterfall feature under the Lagoon Roll and the helixes. Going through the lagoon roll, it felt as if you could reach up while you were hanging by the lap bar and just run your hands through the water. It was also really fun getting splashed by the waterfall as you end the ride. Everything about this ride is great. Its criminally underrated. The trains were very interesting. The seats and lap bar look like torture devices, but they were actually very comfortable. The lap bars were similar to B&M Clamshells but they actually rest on a comfortable part of you lap. The seats were comfy too. As you depart from the station, you take a right turn under a very nice bit of theming and into the elevator. Inside the elevator, there is nothing but darkness and loud orchestral music. Once you reach the top, normally a door opens and reveals the first drop. But that was open the whole time. You slowly crawl forward, stop, then plunge down the infinity drop. This has to be the very best first drop i have ever experienced. Ive never ridden a ride that made me put my hands down and grab onto the lap bar in fear, but this drop was enough to do that. Once you crest the drop, you are met with a 200 ft beyond vertical, ejector airtime filled drop into a nicely themed tunnel. You pull out into a huge but forceful immelman. You twist out of it giving a nice pop of air quickly followed by a twist into the dive loop. Both inversions offer nice airtime as you twist in or out of them! You follow the dive loop with an airtime pop and an odd brake-launch segment into an overbank. Once you pass the mid course, you are offered with an abundance of hangtime over waterfalls and helixes through intricate rockwork. Its not as quick paced as the first half of the ride but its far from a bad ending to the ride. My grandpa was with me that day and he told me even before we got to the park, he wanted to ride cannibal so he could brag to his friends at church. He rode it with me and absolutely loved it! Ive never seen an 80 year old man so happy after riding a coaster. He said it was the smoothest coaster hes ridden.Cannibal can be enjoyed by all ages. Lagoon has a winner on their hands. Favorite ride in the park. 10/10 Alright, finally, lets get to the photos! (The photos are out of order and dont match the captions, I apologize, i am new to this trip report thing. Ill remove the captions now and will improve on the next report ) Well this will end the first trip report. Sorry if it isnt perfect as i havent really done one of these before. Next up, Holiday World!

You think Elitch is an embarrassment to Denver? Have you seen Lakeside? Sure, Elitch Gardens may not be the best park in the world, get stellar new additions, or have the most insane lineup of rides, but it sure beats the giant pile of rubble that is Lakeside. It seems the only thing they maintain at Lakeside is Cyclone. Everything else is crumbling, falling apart or rotting away in the piles of trashed ride parts all around the park. Anyways, Elitch is doing well it seems. They always have a decent crowd when i go. It could use some work, but its far from a bad park.

I still feel RMC Timberwolf is highly unlikely. I would bet a lot of money that this is just the continuation of the GCI refurbishment of Timberwolf. The real question is what they're going to do with that part of the ride. I know the helix has been a very high maintenance part of the ride and honestly it was kinda boring. I've heard talk of it just getting turned into a flat turnaround which i would not complain about. My question is how they will manage the extra speed if the eliminate the helix. Could we see yet another trim brake, or would they adjust the rest of the ride for the extra speed?

Very nice trip report! Glad to hear you had a good time! You know, I always read posts trashing this place. But after reading some recent trip reports and watching some vlogs from here, it doesn’t look like a bad park at all. Matter of fact, it looks really good. I’ve even seen some videos of ride operations where most coasters were dispatching under 1 minute. Yes, it’s a still a Six Flags, but it looks like one of the better parks in the chain.

I would totally go with the suspended. I don't ever see arrow loopers being brought back. In this day and age of smooth, sleek, modern coasters, bringing back rough, janky, coat hanger designed coasters would likely never be a success. The only way they could bring back the arrow looper is with something like Tennessee Tornado and that still has many flaws compared to B&M loopers. Plain and simple, it would take a lot of work to bring back arrow loopers. So much work, in fact, that S&S could just build their own style of looping coaster and likely have more success with it. The only group that they could market "the revival of arrow loopers" to would be nostalgic coaster enthusiasts. The GP couldn't care less who or what the coaster is, they just want a good, comfortable ride.

It’s being sold back to Chance to put in their museum. Chance has a museum? I live in the same city as them and there is no mention of any museum. All they have is a small office building and the manufacturing building. Did you mean that one museum in Texas, I’m drawing a blank on the name, but it’s located on or near Larson’s facilities?

Sad to see a rare classic leave, especially for such a minor ride as Nordic Chaser. Though, it wasn’t my cup of tea, not a lot of people enjoy that mad amount of spinning and I assume maintenance costs for it were higher than they would’ve liked for a low popularity ride. I do like how they have special merchandise for it though!

That’s kinda my thoughts as well. It just looks to be very plain and simple on the outside. It doesn’t really look like a typical SDC station with all the wood siding and paneling perfectly aligned and painted. Just compare it to thunderations station which has a smorgasbord of detail, while this is very plain and simple. Though that’s kinda the style that they’ve started go anyways, it’s evident in Fireman’s Landing, but that had some very good architectural details. Regardless of the outside appearance of the building, It seems like there will be some great theming inside the actual station and queue.

Looks like a big cleanup job is on WOFs hands now. Few haunt decorations were destroyed and lots of tree limbs down. Quite a mess. Hopefully they can get things cleaned up soon! Here are some photos that were posted in the comment section of WOFs most recent Facebook post.

They do allow single riders, but they will likely pair you up with someone to fill all seats. Even though their dispatches are still somewhat slow, it’s one of the only rides where the attendants actually care about capacity. Mambas crew have seemed to got slower and slower as the year has gone on. I get that safety is the biggest concern, but they were taking their sweet time checking restraints and seatbelts. Stacking should never happen on Mamba considering how long of a ride time it has. If they were at least somewhat motivated, they could easily be ready to dispatch by the time the other train was in the helix or the MCBR. One of the biggest time wasters is not the actual checking if restraints, it’s opening and closing the gates. They would often wait till every single person was off the station before opening the gates and then they’d leave the gates open for 2-3 minutes before even checking restraints. I just wish supervisors and their superiors in upper management around the park would put in the effort to show and encourage the operators to be more efficient. Though, it’s a lot of work because many rides would have to have their entire procedure revised.

From what I’ve heard, the third train is being refurbished at Chance Rides here in Wichita and could be back this season, but may not. The only time I’ve seen the third train used was at Haunt like five years ago and that’s when wof wasnt so conservative when it came to running multiple trains like they are now.

Good to hear that at least prowler operations have improved. They used to be awful. Even though prowler is almost always a walk on, standing and waiting for two or so trains when they were running only one got quite annoying since it took 5-10 minutes to dispatch trains. Mix that with the heat and absolutely no air movement in the station, it made for an unpleasant experience. Many people also have mentioned how well it's running which has me quite happy. My last rides on it were very sluggish and rattly. Just a question, how long were ride lines when you went?

Totally the pinnacle moment for themepark theming It's creative, I like it. Very quirky, just like the rest of the park.

Why is it such a sin to be excited for Time Traveler? It's right up my alley. I was just expressing my thoughts on the ride. I think it will be a good ride for the park. That's true. I didn't think of it like that. I was a great student, but lord, if I ever took time off I'd be the end of the world. my mom would have killed me!! Yes I plan ahead for these kind of things. I hope to have a future in the amusement industry, and taking part in things that relate to my interest does me more good than doing differential equations and staring at a history book for an hour. On another, different note, I had a friend who went to the park recently and said that Flooded mine has appeared to have some decent work done to it lately. He said it was in the best condition he's seen it in a very long time. Has anyone noticed anything?

This ride is simply stunning. Even though it doesn't look like one of the omfg blow your face off insane coasters, it looks like one of the most fun, well rounded coasters built in a while. If you look at it, it has literally everything a steel coaster can possibly have. Vertical drop, inversions, airtime, launches, over banks, swooping turns, spinning vehicles, a great storyline and more than likely some awesome theming in the queue line. It's going to be a purely fun ride that leaves a smile on your face after every ride. That's the kind of experience SDC is all about! It's exciting to hear trackwork is complete and I can't wait to see testing and the interior of the building come to fruition! This ride has me very excited and I already know I'm taking a day or two off of school to come to opening. That's how excited I am!

I'm really loving how the ride will interact with Thunderation. I love the contrast of old and new. I'm quite interested to see how this addition will liven up that part of the park too. Hopefully it will bring some more riders to the surrounding rides like TNT and Flooded Mine. It will also be interesting to see what they do for this ride's plaza. Has anything been mentioned? Also, its possibly too outlandish. But i was thinking, since LSM launches can count as a block section, could that mean two trains could be out on the circuit at once leaving the possibility for dueling? I know that word has caused a firestorm in other threads. I don't think its likely unless dispatches are crazy fast. I just think it would be cool to see two trains going through the circuit at once.