aCoasterStory

What about building a coaster along the quarry wall at SFFT? The wall only buys you an extra 100 feet or so, but you could go 400 feet up above the quarry wall, plus the 100 feet or so down to the ground at the bottom of the quarry, or if they really wanted to get interesting, maybe they only go 350-ft up top and then dig a 50-foot deep hole at the bottom of the quarry? Heck, if they could dig a 90-foot hole for Oblivion, I think it could be doable. This certainly wouldn't be the cheapest coaster in existence, but I think it'd be about one of the only halfway reasonable ways to have a legitimate 500-foot drop on a full-circuit, non-accelerator coaster. The challenge would be talking the park into spending the money to actually do a full layout and not just be a one-trick pony. But if you designed the layout right, you could save on 100-ft of support steel on several big hills.

I imagine the reclined nature of the seats is what is going to allow the ride envelope to be small enough that they don't need to dig trenches at the bottom of those drops where the track looks really close to the ground.

Are there any parks out there located on the side of a mountain that could use the terrain for the bulk of the drop to save on support steel costs?

The Looping Starship we used to have at SFoG only had lapbars & went upside-down. Appropriately enough, it was removed to make way for our Goliath.

This. I also don't like the long straight sections. They could have totally fit a couple more hills in the ride layout. Or taken the hills in the middle of the straight sections & made them double-up, double-down hills. That would have been sweet.

Cool! First, go after May 24 so you can ride Goliath Second, if you want to go on V2, go on it early because the line gets long. Superman, V2, and Raging Bull's lines are also extremely long. American Eagle will have a long line if and only if one side is running with one train, which they do sometimes. So maybe ride American Eagle Early. Also check out Whizzer! It's an ACE Historic landmark and only one of two of its kind left in the world. Also, SFGAm is expensive (no duh, but just throwing it out there) but it's an amazing park! That's all I can come up with but I'm sure other people have more! Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I was wondering when Goliath was opening, so that was helpful. Is your avatar a bunch of Klansmen??? Not cool.

Same here. That's a little disappointing.

Again, I'm not saying it's bad...just uninspired.

I think the Great American Scream Machine at SFoG would be a nearly perfect candidate for such a makeover. The only place where clearance would get tight is at the corner of the L (but imagine if they just banked the track 90deg for the turn on the return trip). They could do the Iron Horse treatment to the track, and then re-do the station to accommodate the 4D trains. I think it could be epic. That seems kind of unusual to overhaul a perfectly good, old woodie. GASM is a 4/10 at best. It's not that it's painfully rough (though it does rattle you around a bit), but it just doesn't do anything really spectacular. It doesn't have great airtime, and that's really what you expect out of an out-and-back woodie.

Pleasant: -Tennessee Tornado: wasn't expecting an Arrow to be so good. -Phoenix: don't know what I was really expecting from it, but I know it wasn't that it would be my favorite wooden coaster ever (which it now is). -Expedition Everest: rode this in Feb of 2006 (they were doing a soft open prior to its official grand opening in April)--had zero expectations coming in as it wasn't even "officially" opened yet, but we got to ride it 7 or 8 times in a row right before closing, and it was a great ride. I still say it is the best combination of theming and ride experience anywhere at a theme park. Went back last year & I'm pretty sure I got somewhere between 25 and 30 rides in on it the day I was at AK. Great experience. NTAG: I had no real expectations going in, but it immediately skyrocketed to my top 5 of all time. GREAT ride. I really need to ride the other RMC creations. Unpleasant: -Skyrush: the restraints about killed my legs...and it stole my phone right out of my pocket -The Voyage: was expecting the #1 wooden coaster to actually be fun. It was so rough & painful. And I *hate* massive laterals during airtime moments. -Alpengeist: I guess for a coaster as massive as it is, I was expecting more forces. I grew up riding my local Batman clone, so I expect inverts to be a lot more on the intense side. Comparatively, Alpengeist was a snooze. -El Toro: only ride I've ever ridden where ride ops had to force the restraints down to clear me to ride. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't stapled into the seat so uncomfortably. -Kingda Ka: I was expecting it to be a taller, faster, at least as good if not a little better version of TTD. I don't know what it is, but the only good seat on Kingda Ka is in the front; the rest all shake too horribly. And the restraints are sucky. Transformers: Rode this during its soft open at USF this past year. Was terribly disappointed. The pre-ride story shown on the video monitors in the queue was horribly written and wasn't at all coherent; it made absolutely no sense if you watched it and tried to figure out what the storyline was supposed to be. The ride wasn't much better. I thought it was at best a retread of Spider-Man (which I think is the superior ride experience, btw). I just don't get how they couldn't make it any more engaging, or at least a noticeable upgrade on a ride that's 15 years old. -Intimidator: I would have hoped a Dale Earnhardt-themed ride would have been at least a bit intense. I mean, he was the Intimidator after all! It's not a bad ride by any stretch, but I don't think it lives up to its namesake. I305, on the other hand, is exactly what a Dale Earnhardt-themed ride should be. -X-Flight/Gatekeeper: I really enjoyed Wild Eagle, but I was let down by both of it's bigger brothers. I think a lot of the difference in enjoyment comes from a different in expectations. You don't expect a super-intense ride at Dollywood; Wild Eagle is smooth, fun, and you do kind of feel like you're soaring like an eagle through the forest. From a theming & marketing standpoint, you would expect X-Flight & GK to be much more intense, but they aren't. The wingover drops are cool, don't get me wrong, but I was just expecting *more* from these rides. A big area where I think they could have improved would have been to have more 'snap' when going through the keyhole elements. Those transitions are just too fluid. And GK was oddly bouncy for a brand-new B&M (not to mention the unpleasantness of the tightening vests, which I didn't notice on the other two.

I think the Great American Scream Machine at SFoG would be a nearly perfect candidate for such a makeover. The only place where clearance would get tight is at the corner of the L (but imagine if they just banked the track 90deg for the turn on the return trip). They could do the Iron Horse treatment to the track, and then re-do the station to accommodate the 4D trains. I think it could be epic.

KI tweeted about a half hour ago that the last piece of track was ready to be hoisted into place.

What's a Media Day like? Do they just let you ride the new ride a bunch for a few hours? Do they have anything else open, or is it just the one ride?

I just wish they would invest more in White Water. A lot of their slides and things are in need of some TLC. And they haven't added much lately in the way of new attractions. I think they're overdue for a water coaster.

THIS. But then again, I think the ride could use a bit more intensity. It'd be a great 'first coaster with inversions', but for me, I wish they'd built the lift 50' taller.

Having ridden all three types within a fairly short timeframe, I must say my favorite was Black Anaconda (conveyor belt). I though Wildebeest and Mammoth were very good (magnetic), but I was a bit disappointed by the Master Blaster types (Master Blaster, Dragon's Revenge, and whatever the one is at Schlitterbahn Kansas City). While the Master Blaster rides definitely get you wettest, the uphill acceleration is really slow. It's like you stall out & then wait for the water to build up enough pressure to push you over the top, and then when it does, you get this huge wave of water that just crashes over your shoulders. Of the 3 Master-Blaster-type rides I've ridden, I preferred Dragon's Revenge because it had a more complex layout didn't feel like it was over in 5 seconds. The magnetic types delivered a better ride experience than the Master Blasters, but the biggest problem with them was that I felt like I never really got all that wet. I would have preferred some more water or splashing or whatnot given that they are water rides. I still felt like it took a second for you to start accelerating up the hills, but the acceleration was much better than the Master Blasters. The layouts were much more engaging as well. My favorite, though was Black Anaconda. I loved the zip that the conveyor belts gave. I felt that there was no delay with the uphill acceleration--as soon as you hit the conveyor belt, you were going at full speed. It was an engaging slide with a great layout and a ton of speed. And you actually got wet. (That being said, I rode another conveyor-belt style water coaster at a small indoor resort that I could have ridden in street clothes because I never go so much as splashed.)

Ghost of Son of Beast?

Cedar Fair, hands down. While I have really enjoyed my time at some of the Six Flags parks, I have just generally found that Cedar Fair does most things better. The parks are cleaner, the staffs are friendlier, the rides are better maintained, and the ride selection tends to be a little more unique to each park. I've had some miserable experiences at Six Flags parks, but I've been trying to think and I don't think I've experienced a truly awful day at a Cedar Fair park--usually it's been the exact opposite. (This is from having been to all of the parks from both companies at some point in the last two seasons except CGA, SFDK, and SFM.)

Having ridden both, my vote overwhelmingly goes to Full Throttle. One of the best ways to judge a roller coaster IMHO is whether it makes you want to get right back on it after you ride. Full Throttle is a coaster I could ride over and over again--the hangtime in the loop is sweet. But I was very underwhelmed by Gatekeeper. I didn't enjoy the clamping vests (which have apparently been fixed), but I also found it to be much bouncier than a good new coaster should be. And the layout just didn't do enough for me. (I thought Wild Eagle was a better wing coaster because it wasn't trying to be extreme--it was just a really good & smooth ride.)

My big impression from Leviathan was that it didn't offer me anything substantially different from the B&M hypers. MF and I305 are more of what I expect a giga to be: tall, fast, and intense. That being said, I totally get that CF and Intamin aren't exactly the best of pals these days. My only hope is that if it is a B&M that they change up their formula a bit. I don't think Carowinds needs a 50% taller version of Intimidator.

Georgia Scorcher at SFOG.

25. First coaster was some little thing at American Adventures with a buffalo head on the front of the thing...I was terrified of it as a young child. First real coaster was the Georgia Cyclone at SFOG, followed immediately by the Georgia Scorcher on a band trip in middle school. Been hooked ever since (though riding Apollo's Chariot when I was in the 8th grade was what really blew my mind).

Local: Six Flags over Georgia Six Flags White Water June Florida Trip: Universal Studios Islands of Adventure Wet'n'Wild Sea World Orlando Aquatica Magic Kingdom Epcot Hollywood Studios Animal Kingdom Fun Spot Orlando Busch Gardens Tampa July Trip: Carowinds Cedar Point King's Island August Cali Trip: Knott's Berry Farm Six Flags Magic Mountain Parks skipped due to weather: Wild Adventures Dollywood

As someone who very much did not enjoy the restraints on either, I think the major difference is while Gatekeeper's vests were uncomfortably tight, Skyrush's lapbars felt like they were going to snap my legs off. On GK, you could hold the vest away from you and somewhat mitigate the issue, but there wasn't a whole lot that you could do as a rider on Skyrush to make it less painful. That being said, I haven't ridden Skyrush since last year, so I don't know how big of a difference the modifications made. I'm fairly confident that unlocking the vests on GK fixed the issue there altogether; I don't have as much confidence with Skyrush. I've also ridden enough B&Ms and Intamins that I trust B&M's restraint designs to be comfortable a whole heckuva lot more than Intamin's.

I think for me it would have to be Skyrush last summer. I've ridden a number of woodies that made me absolutely miserable and left me with no desire to ever ride them again, but it's not unexpected for that to happen with woodies. Same with Arrows/Vekomas. But I did not expect that from a brand-new Intamin. The restraints were resting on my legs just above the knee, and whenever the ride hit the massive negative G's, the lapbar felt like it was trying to snap my leg bone in half. I spent basically the whole ride wishing it would end. To add insult to injury, the forces were so extreme (combined with the location of the restraints) that my phone decided to un-secure itself and fall out. (I've never before nor since had an issue with anything coming out of my pockets on a coaster.) When I told the ride op, he offered to let me ride again without waiting (I want to say the line was over an hour at the time), but I disliked it so much that I declined and made no attempt to re-ride it later that night or the next day. Fortunately, my phone fell out on one of the only two patches of dirt underneath the entire ride (instead of lake, concrete, or fenced-off wooded area), and not only survived but made it to lost & found before I did (and with only a small scuff on the corner to show for it).