aCoasterStory

Historically, I've found that the seatbelts vary in length from seat to seat. You may find better success in different seats.

I thought the same thing. Are other RMC seats like that?

Kentucky Kingdom just spent all that money re-tracking Thunder Run and you're expecting them to call in Rocky Mountain Construction to redo the coaster again? I think he was just saying they'd paint the rails a bright orange, but I may be wrong...

It is a good, intense ride (I liken it to the BTR of sit-down coasters in its intensity), but since I tend to be a bit more sensitive to head rattling that wouldn't bother other people, I'm usually a one-and-done on it. If my head weren't so close to the OTSR's where it bounced around between them through basically the whole ride, I think I'd enjoy it a good bit more. And yes, I know it's not like an Arrow where it feels like the OTSR's are trying to punch you in the head because the transitions are so poorly designed, but the rattling still bothers me (and gives me a headache), and at the end of the day I'd rather ride SheiKra or Cheetah Hunt or Montu because I don't have that same problem on those other coasters.

My longest trip was 3.5 weeks, and if there's any lesson I learned that I can pass along, it's to make sure to plan time for rest. You can go-go-go your way through a 5-day trip, but much beyond that and it gets really easy to get exhausted and not have time to rest, especially when hitting a park (or more) and driving a good bit in a single day. I also don't know what you plan to do for hotels, but I would strongly recommend joining a hotel rewards program & staying with that brand. Personally, I like the Choice Hotels (Comfort Inn/Suites primarily, but also the occasional Quality or Sleep Inn) because of their amazing rewards program. They often run promotions where if you have 2 stays (has to be different hotels or non-consecutive nights), you get 8000 rewards points, which is enough to cash in for a free night at many hotels (though some are 10000/12000/16000/20000, depending on season & how big of a tourist draw the area is). And the great thing about this promotion is that you can keep cashing in. On my 3.5 week trip, I earned another 8000 points every 2 days, which ended up coming in handy near the end of the trip. They also have a deal where if you sign up for a Choice Hotels Visa, you can get 32,000 points with a purchase & your first stay.

The better thing would be to make the two sides completely different coasters, then they would have no problem counting them as separate coasters for their count.

I would love to see a new flagship attraction at SFOG. I believe there's a height limitation that would keep them from building a giga, but something along the lines of Maverick would be fine by me. Of the fully-branded Six Flags parks in the US, only SFOG and SFNE lack a launched coaster.

Expedition Everest @DAK Apocalypse @ SFA Goliath @ SFNE Leviathan @ CW Skyrush @ HP Verbolten @ BGW Wild Eagle @ Dollywood X-Flight @ SFGAm Full Throttle @ SFMM Freedom Flyer & White Lightning @ FSAPO Gatekeeper @ CP

Well, you can get a parking pass, but I think they charge about $100 for them at this point. What you really need to do is take advantage of the early season pass offer they usually have in August or September, if you can get four people together to buy passes everybody gets free gold upgrades and free parking passes, It's really a very good deal. I don't know about SFGAm, but at SFOG the difference between the regular & gold season passes is only $25. Parking is $20 here, but I still don't know why you wouldn't shell out that extra $5 to save on all the rest of your trips for the rest of the year. What's even more fun is that they sell a season parking pass for $60. I really don't understand the Six Flags pricing model.

Verbolten. Front row. Lightning.

For me, I think the theming on Verbolten is nice, but once you know the gimmick, the ride doesn't really do all that much for me anymore. Don't get me wrong--it's still fun--but there's no airtime to speak of, it doesn't pull that many G's, and other than the drop down over the water (that I can't help but imagine must have been better on BBW), it just doesn't do anything for me. Cheetah Hunt for me is the better coaster. It's still well-themed, but the ride to me is actually fun, AND it has airtime, positive G's, great views, etc. I just enjoy it a lot more. (plus CH doesn't have an obnoxious recording that they play for each of the two loading stations a half second apart but loud enough for everyone in the queue to hear!) Operations-wise, BGW was fine. Griffon only has a single-loading station to SheiKra's dual, and I noticed the difference; they've also killed off its single-rider line due to abuse by groups (a real shame if you ask me). Verbolten's ops were fine. Apollo's Chariot was only running 2 trains, but you could tell it was meant for 3. I didn't notice any issues at Alpengeist. The only rides at BGT where I've encountered really slow ops are Scorpion (only 1 train) and Gwazi (1 train on 1 side and 25% of that train pre-reserved for Quick Queue people).

As someone who spent the day today at BGW and was just at BGT a few weeks ago, here are my opinions: Cheetah Hunt > Verbolten (close & may come down to personal preference) Montu Alpengeist (I think Montu has the better layout & pacing) SheiKra Griffon (SheiKra has better floaty airtime, a tunnel after the 2nd drop, and a dual-loading station to increase capacity/throughput) For Kumba vs. Apollo's Chariot, it all comes down to what kind of ride you prefer. A number of enthusiasts have Kumba right at the top of their lists, but I will prefer a B&M hyper to a B&M sit-down or floorless any day of the week, just because of the type of ride I prefer. I think Loch Ness Monster vs. Gwazi/Scorpion/Sand Serpent has to go to BGT, simply because of quantity. As to ride experience, LNM & Scorpion are similar in my book; Gwazi is miserable; & Sand Serpent is completely forgettable. I also have a feeling Falcon's Fury is going to be better than Mach Tower. So I would give 'rides' to BGT, hands down. As for landscaping, BGW is gorgeous. It's very well done, and there's a reason it has consistently won 'best landscaping' for years & years. Ride theming is a wash between parks. i may give the edge to BGW for the other non-ride themed elements (shops/restaurants/etc) BUT, I think one of the biggest differentiating factors is in the animal exhibits. BGT is basically a full zoo combined with a theme park; it has a lot of great animals & a ton of opportunities to see and learn about them. The animal exhibits are really well-integrated into the various areas of the park. BGW has Clydesdales, a couple of wolves, a few birds, and the More Pets Shenanigans show. The parks aren't even in the same universe as far as the animal exhibts go. Unless all that you're looking for is pretty forestland with rides nestled within, go to BGT. You'll be glad you did.

I'll be at the park tomorrow (Sunday). What's good to eat in the park?

Just got back from the park. We did other things today (including SFA and some time in DC), but we managed to come back to the park for a little over an hour before close. Volcano had a pretty substantial line, so I decided to try my hand at the $3 Plinko game for the line skip passes & won, so we were able to do that. We also hit Rebel Yell and got 3 rides in on i305. We somehow managed to be the last 2 people in the station, so we got to ride the last train by ourselves in the front row. It was most epic indeed. Great way to end the night for sure.

I think both have merit: The front is awesome because of the view & the wind in your face & the fact that you still get airtime on the trimmed hill. The back is awesome because of the massive airtime you get on the first drop.

yep, only one train operation on i305, but i only had to wait two cycles to ride, so no complaints here. if they'd been running two trains, there would have been a lot of empty seats throughout the day. Yeah. I was fine with just one train, but when there are 0-4 people in line for most rows and 16 in line for the front on a day w/ 1 train, I'd rather not wait for the front row. We ended up coming back later in the day and only having to wait 2 cycles for the front. (Immediately after us, though, a ton of people got in line for the front, so our timing was quite fortunate)

I was also at the park today. We got there early & bought our passes. Apparently, if you buy your pass beforehand, you don't have to pay the $15 for parking, but if you buy it at the park, you have to pay the $15 to get in and they won't refund it, even with same-day receipts. I was quite surprised at this and figured it would be a reasonable request. Apparently not. They also didn't start letting people into the park at 9:00 (even though that's when passholder ERT was supposed to begin for Volcano & i305). It ended up being 9:10 before they started the national anthem. By the time we made it back to Volcano, it was nearly 9:20. Fortunately, it wasn't a busy day at all, but I could see how this could really throw people off on a crowded weekend. Anywho, on to the rides: We hit Volcano first (once in the front; once in the back). The launches & vertical section are great. But the rest of the ride up above the mountain leaves a lot to be desired. Why doesn't it do anything else besides just meander slowly above the mountain & go through 3 slow inversions?? We didn't go back after those two rides because my buddy didn't really enjoy the slow rolls & I didn't really care enough to ride it by myself. I just feel like this coaster could have been so much more. Next was i305. We hit it first in the front row. My buddy is scared of heights, but I somehow convinced him to try it. He loved it, and it's now his #1 coaster ever. The big thing that helped him was how fast the lift hill gets to the top. It's a crazy good coaster, and the best description I ever heard is that it's the love child of Maverick and Millennium Force. The positive G's are crazy intense (I got tunnel vision almost every time we rode on the first turn), and the airtime is pretty great too. I was surprised that it had a trim break on one of the hills. It seemed like it could have gone through the last chunk of the ride without that speed getting bled off. It didn't kill the airtime on that hill for the front of the train, but it definitely did in the back. All-in-all, though, i305 is a top-5 coaster for me. I always really enjoy it, and I think it does the Dale Earnhardt theming justice (unlike i232 down the road). We rode i305 2 more times in rapid succession, but then when we were trying to get off after our third ride, my buddy couldn't manage to get his buckle unbuckled. By the time I realized what was happening and went back to help, the restraints had already been relocked, so I just said screw it and jumped back in (as did the two people in the row behind us). (the four of us were the only guests in the station besides the two people in the front row). That was our accidental free ride. And it was awesome. After i305, we both had to go pee, but shockingly, there is only one bathroom in the entire Safari Village area of the park, and it's over past Backlot Stunt Coaster. How is there only one bathroom??? Seriously???? (There's also no bathroom anywhere near Dominator.) BSC was down, so we went and rode Anaconda. I was expecting it to super suck, but we rode in the magic seat and had no problems. The 2nd half of the ride crawled, and I have no idea what Arrow was smoking when they designed the layout, but we avoided getting punched in the head, so all was good. We tried to ride Flight of Fear, but right as we were about to get on, they told us they were going to be down for a while. Immediately after that, they announced over the loudspeaker something to the effect of "we know you're there; we're working on it", which I took to mean that the previous train got stuck somewhere on the ride. I never was able to get a straight answer as to whether it just stopped at the MCBR or stalled out somewhere after that, but they were down for several hours. We went back and rode i305 a 5th time. We wanted to do the front row again, but they were only running one train and there were quite a few people waiting for the front row, so we sat elsewhere. They were only running one train on many of the coasters, but based on the crowd levels, that was actually quite reasonable. We hit Avalanche next. It was more fun than I remembered. Then we rode BSC. They had all the effects running, but it's not exactly the most thrilling coaster ever built. Shockwave sucked. I challenge anyone who thinks B&M stand-ups are rough to take a lap or two on a TOGO. Rebel Yell was fun. They were only running one train on the red side. I thought it was better on our rides later in the day. After that, we hit Ricochet. My buddy was not happy with that one. Hurler was still closed for retracking, and you could see stacks of old track from Grizzly's lift hill. Grizzly was the opposite of Rebel Yell. We enjoyed it more on our first lap than the subsequent ones. It seemed to get rougher as the day went on. After that, we headed back over to see if FoF was up (it wasn't); so we started heading back towards the front of the park. We crammed ourselves into Woodstock Express and then hit up Boo Blasters on Boo Hill before riding Dominator. Earlier in the day, I had seen someone wearing a t-shirt from my old middle school in GA. Turns out they were there as the last day of the annual 8th grade DC trip, and I was able to catch up with several of my old teachers that were there. Small world, right? We left the park to get lunch, and when we got back we hit Dominator again. I enjoyed it better the 2nd time than I did before lunch. FoF was back up, but it had a 30-45 min line, so we decided to do other things and hope it would drop down later (it did). We re-rode Rebel Yell twice and Grizzly once. RY seemed to ride better than it had in the morning, but Grizzly was worse. Next we crossed back over to i305 to get one last epic ride in the front row. It was really flippin' awesome. FoF was next, and it was a walk-on. We rode it twice, and it was pretty fun. I think the back might be a bit better than the front. Finally, we ended the day with another lap on Woodstock Express to bring our coaster count up to 25 for the day (and that was even with taking a couple hours off in the afternoon). I will say, though, that it does feel like this park is still lacking something ride-wise. It needs a fun, re-rideable people-eater that is thrilling but maybe not quite as intense as i305 (like Diamondback, perhaps?). I also don't understand why they need 3 woodies right next to each other. All-in-all, it was a really good day. There were a bunch of school groups there, but it was still fairly dead all day. I don't think we waited more than 15 min for anything, and that was for the front row on a couple of rides.

I do this. If you look at random non-coaster objects and they remind you of a lift hill and first drop, and then you start wishing there was a coaster there so you could ride it

The word airtime is a lot like the word roughness. They both mean different things to different people.

No airtime is when your butt actually leaves the seat. Being forced into a restraint without your butt leaving the seat is not airtime. Airtime = time in the air. If you don't leave the seat there is not airtime. This.

This coming Wed-Sun: Dollywood Kings Dominion Six Flags America Kings Dominion Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Wouldn't surprise me if this played into their decision to wait until after Banshee Media Day/Opening Weekend...

^ & ^^, thanks! I've been to the park twice before (and ridden the clones of SROS, JJ, ME, Batwing elsewhere), but my buddy hasn't. Personally, I'd be fine hitting SROS, Wild One, and JJ as many times as possible, and then maybe getting one lap in on everything else. I figure if we beeline for SROS, we'd be able to get a number of rides in on it before the crowds show up, but then we'd probably be screwed for anything else. I would not be bothered in the least if we didn't get to Mind Eraser (or Batwing, for that matter) as I'm not a huge fan of those. What's the best touring plan given all of the above? I may be leaning towards hitting Wild One first (quite possibly with a re-ride), then RC, Apocalypse, and Roar before heading towards the back of the park. I would expect to be able to hit all four of these within the first 30-45 min or so with normal ride operations. Then a lap on JJ before heading to SROS and re-riding as many times as possible before the wait gets too long. If the line isn't obnoxious and we're feeling up to it, maybe a lap on Batwing before heading back towards the front of the park, hitting JJ and then Wild One another time or two each, crowd permitting. Thoughts? Also, how is Roar running these days? Last time I was at the park it felt like the track was just torn to shreds. Also,

$17.28 for Subway at Cedar Point last summer. I got a 6" sub, chips, and a drink. And I paid it because my stomach wasn't doing so hot and I didn't think I could stomach any of the standard heavy theme park food that was nearby.

I would be shocked if you ever needed to buy a Flash Pass to accomplish everything at SFA in a single trip, and that goes for any day of the year. True, but we may still do it to get through everything a few times by 2PM or so and then go do some touristy things in the city.