aCoasterStory
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Posts posted by aCoasterStory
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I have 4 "rules of coastering". #2 is no spinning rides.
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I feel like I would be so terribly disappointed if I waited more than 20-30min for that...
I'm willing to bet that a lot of people would have been more than satisfied with just a good coaster without all the other stuff, so long as it was relatively true to the source material (and given all the extensive theming in Diagon Alley & the rest of the bank, etc.).
Or they could have even gone halfway but still given us a roller coaster. Imagine if you will, a coaster that takes you on a harrowing ride down into the vault (picturing something that reminds me vaguely of Donkey Kong, with random bits of track all over the place, and you're never really sure which piece of track is one you'll be on vs. what's just decoration hanging there); maybe it's a little 'wild-mouse'-esque, with sharp turns & such, but not anywhere near so predictable. Anyways, when you get to the bottom, you get caught in the middle of the theft/escape (stopped/very slow for a 3/4D scene) and then get launched back up out of the vault (via a spell, I'm sure), where you go through a bunch of much crazier elements. Maybe even an inversion or two as you dodge debris or attacks or something? I just have to think that they could have done something truly epic without having to invent ridiculously complicated ride technologies, and still kept closer to the original source material.
I'm all for immersive experiences, but to me Gringott's should have been so much more than just another Spider-Man/Transformers/Forbidden Journey ride, particularly since the source material practically screams 'coaster'. I'd still keep the rest of the bank theming, though. From what I've seen/heard, all that is fantastic.
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It might be cheaper and better for the budget of the park if they just tore down Gwazi and went the route of building a RMC ibox original. "Iron Lion" would fit just fine since this is after all an African themed park. The Tiger theme always seemed a bit out of place.
As much as BGT is an "Africa"-themed park, it has a bunch of stuff that isn't African. I'm sure there are more, but the whole Jungala section isn't African (orangutans & tigers), plus you have the kangaroos & alligators, and then the elephants they have are Asian elephants--not African.
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I have a feeling that Busch Gardens doesn't want to deal with wooden coasters anymore. They let Gwazi go in horrible condition when they could've retracked.
I'm willing to bet that the park had no idea quite how expensive it would be to properly maintain 2 wooden coasters that operate year-round. From what I can remember from my coaster experience tour last year, they really aren't sufficiently staffed to handle the one side of Gwazi that's still operating, much less both. And then you have to factor in the extensive damage that the PTC trains did that really isn't going to be fixed without essentially a complete retracking.
What sucks is that a large wooden coaster (or pair of them) is actually a perfect fit for the park's coaster lineup. Even as bad as it is, I still see the lines for Gwazi hit 60min quite a bit (though a lot of that has to do with slow dispatches and the 25% of capacity reserved for Quick Queue).
And as much as I'd love to see Iron Gwazi, I think a complete retrack with Topper Track would be the better solution for the ride lineup.
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I'm pretty sure Skyrush is an Intamin Mega-Lite, not a wing rider.
Per Wikipedia, "Skyrush is an Intamin prototype Wing Coaster with winged seating", whereas Furius Baco is listed as an "Accelerator Coaster" but its seating "arrangement has now been commonly dubbed as 'wing rider' trains."
Per the Intamin website, however, Furius Baco is shown as a "Wing Rider Coaster"; Skyrush is shown as a "Wing Coaster".
For what it's worth, though, I highly doubt Busch Gardens would get either.
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The other reality is this - How many people does Walt Disney World employ at any one given time? 10,000? Maybe more?
So the fact that there has been only 35 issues in the last 8 years is pretty damn good going if you ask me!!!
Disney said in the article that this represented a mere 1/100 of a percent of the ~300,000 employees they've had over that timespan.
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I hated Skyrush the first time I went on it. One of the only rides I've ridden where I was waiting for it to end.
QFT
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Kinda wish they would remove the plastic side moldings from the harnesses!!!!!
I wish they would too, but they are there for a reason.
Here is the question. Tower of terror 2 is not using them on their new car???
[attachment=0]ImageUploadedByTapatalk1405350004.853857.jpg[/attachment]
I wonder if it has something to do with clearances as the cars exit the launch building/station. Maybe ToT2 has better clearances?
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*cough* Kumba *cough*
[waits to be excommunicated]
(also the Voyage & Skyrush)
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Also, I hope Lightning Racer never goes anywhere...That coaster is just too good to let go.
QFT
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So here is a scoop for you.
1. 2 to 3 riders per raft
2. No single rider can weigh more than 300#
3. There must be at least 400# and nor more than 550# per raft.
4. Your group will be weighed at the bottom and top of The stairs
Media day was today. The ride is pretty awesome.
Do you think they'll group people to help hit those weight marks (like with single riders or something)? 400-550lbs isn't going to be the easiest thing in the world to hit. I know for me, if I wasn't at the park by myself I'd be with one other person, and our combined weight wouldn't hit 400lbs (depending on the person I had with me, we'd likely be looking at 340-390). In order to ride, we'd need to add some random third person.
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That's terrible but really what is the park supposed to do... stop a ride every time somebody complains like this? Sure in this case it may have prevented this but if they stopped a ride every time a guest complained about something, made up or not, rides would never run. As far as the rest of her complaint I don't know.
Yes. If a guest comes back from a ride injured (beyond things like head banging) you should (IMO) stop operation to find out why.
I completely agree as well. As the saying goes, safety first. And I'm not quite sure, Tmcdllr, what you mean by "every time somebody complains 'like this' because I don't know of any other complaints like this. In my opinion (and I don't see why this is even a debatable issue), someone getting hurt on a ride (as Comeagain stated, outside of something like headbanging) is serious and should be taken seriously by the park. If Disney, Universal, or Knott's received a complaint that someone was hurt from an obstruction on a ride, you bet they're going to shut down the ride immediately.
And to the argument that rides would never run if they addressed complaints whether they were made up or not, well look, Ninja can't run AT ALL right now because they didn't look into something they should have.
I was in line for Cheetah Hunt at BGT a couple of nights ago; it was nearing closing time, had been storming for a couple hours, and the park was just coming out of code purple/red/orange and back to yellow. People in line were anxious for them to run through their testing and re-open the ride. Sometime before I got there, they did a test run with an op on it, and he came back saying he was brushed by a tree. Maintenance came & rode and confirmed that the tree was inside the ride envelope and the ride wasn't safe to reopen to guests. It was dark and they didn't have time to go do anything about it before closing (this was like right at 9), so they gave 2 single-use quick queue tickets to each guest in line for the next time they visited the park.
Props to them for 1) doing proper safety checking before re-opening after a big storm, 2) not ignoring when something was outside the safe operational parameters to just get the ride back open, and 3) making it right by their guests afterwards.
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One number I've heard thrown around is that you have a 1 in 750 million chance of being killed on an amusement park ride (including everything from carosuels to coasters). So presumably most people should be fine.
I've spent some time reading through http://www.rideaccidents.com/ and it looks like most coaster deaths are due to one of the following:
1) Pre-existing condition/medical episode on the ride (heart attack, stroke, aneurism, asthma attack, etc.)
2) People being in restricted areas and being struck/crushed/decapitated by the ride
3) People intentionally defeating the restraint systems on the ride and falling out (or hitting an object nearby while traveling at speed)
4) People who had no business being on the ride in the first place because they could not meet the minimum safety requirements but were allowed to ride anyways (such as having no legs w/ only a lapbar restraint)
5) People who appeared to be properly secured into the ride but were not because of their weight distribution and the restraint not being properly positioned (such as the S:ROS and NTaG incidents)
6) Mechanical failure due to poor maintenance or undetected wear & tear (such as with OPA!, though not a death)
7) Complete and utter freak accidents (such as a tree falling on the ride and causing a derailment; very fortunate everyone survived with minimal injuries)
Some of these you can mitigate your risk for by just not being stupid & following the rules, though occasionally following the rules isn't enough. Some of them you have no direct control over.
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More than likely, it's just a case of 'If a tree falls in the woods can a Ninja avoid it?' heyoo....
If a tree falls in the forest
And there's a coaster nearby,
It might cause a derailment
Good thing no one died.
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^But on the news video it still looks like its there, and I assume that is more recent? I have no idea really.
There's definitely something there squeezing the raft about 1/4-1/3 of the way down.
When did they change to 3-person rafts? For some reason I had it in my head they were planning on 4-person rafts. Also, it's hilarious to me to that it has 3-point seatbelts.
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They're *just now* fitting this chick with a neck brace??
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Is it just me or did it just get really dark really quick?
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Thanks. Wasn't sure how far back it may have been.
Today really isn't a good day for the coastering world.
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The NBC stream with the moron on the mic is live again.
link?
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Don't know what stream y'all have been watching, but I'm watching http://ktla.com/2014/07/07/4-injured-on-ninja-roller-coaster-at-magic-mountain-fire-department/ and it looks like it's still going.
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^I don't know about 100. But a 325 foot drop could theoretically achieve 98.6 mph.
Maybe they could use a fast lift hill so it has some speed when it starts the drop?
Or they could do a downhill magnetic launch...
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just rode one at Dorney a few weeks ago.
LOVED it, and I even remembered to brace myself for the Ker-CHUNK! when it goes back underneath!
Is the one at Dorney the last one left in the US?
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^Tee Hee Hee! Be careful what you wish for!
What do you think they're going to rename Led Zeppelin/Time Machine to?
Is that coming to Alabama Adventure?
It would make a lot of sense. And if I've read between the lines correctly, Guy thinks so as well.
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Really the best way to get rid of huge line jumping (in my opinion) is to get rid of switchbacks. If you have one pathway that only appears to go forward and does not appear to interact with itself in any other way, people won't think, "there's a faster way to get there" because there's only one way to go.
This may be the best thought yet, particularly if the pathway isn't terribly wide where people might think they could try to squeeze by.
Holiday World (HW) Discussion Thread
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
Anybody else notice that we're rapidly approaching 150 pages of speculation in this thread??