rcdude
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Posts posted by rcdude
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Twisted Colossus looks great, and the rest of Screampunk District appears to be turning out good as well. More than anything, I think this shows that SFMM does care about their park and is doing what they feel is best for their target audience. I can't wait to ride Twisted Colossus and will be there opening day if possible (yes, I think this will be worth a 3-4 hour wait...once).
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Do you agree with all, most, or some of the list, or just think I spend too much time obsessing over KD and CF in general as a Platinum passholder? Let me know by quoting and replying below.
Nope, this is a pretty poor indicator of when a park may receive a new coaster and is seems like something done quickly by an obsessed fan. If you had factored in all of a park's coasters (both current and defunct) and rounded correctly, it might be a little more legitimate, but assuming parks are "due" for new coasters based on the time since the previous installation is a bad assumption. Many factors determine what is added to a park at any given time, as putting in a great attraction at the wrong time can be just as bad as not adding anything.
Having been to most of the Cedar Fair parks, I honestly think Kings Dominion has one of the best coaster collections in the chain. In fact, if a couple of the woodies received some significant trackwork and Shockwave was replaced, I'd say it would be second only to Cedar Point. Compare the park to it's competitors...other than perhaps Hersheypark, it's got them all beat. Now, I'm not saying the park wouldn't benefit from a new coaster, but I just don't see why it is in more need of one then somewhere like Worlds of Fun or Knott's Berry Farm (or any of Cedar Fair's other smaller properties, for that matter).
A good park is not just about the roller coasters. Cedar Fair knows this and they are doing what they feel is right for their parks. I'm sure Kings Dominion will get a big new thrill ride in the next few years, but until then just enjoy the park you've got. I'd trade my local Cedar Fair park (Knott's Berry Farm) for it.
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Yeah, Twisted Colossus looks outstanding. This is probably the first coaster SFMM has installed since Tatsu that I just can't wait to ride. Unless something comes up, I'll be there braving the crowds on May 23rd. Anyone want to bet on how long the line will be (I'm guessing 3.5 hours)?
No testing at the tour. They're only doing evening testing for the next few days after park hours.Slightly disappointing, but not really a big deal. After thinking about it, the decision to only test outside of park hours makes sense. I'm sure we'll be able to see this ride in action when SFMM is ready to let us see it, and now that we know it's testing I think it will be much more interesting to wait until they're doing two train testing before seeing it.
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Nice to see Twisted Colossus testing. I imagine they just ran it today to make sure that it can run for the media tomorrow and we'll probably see more then. At this point, provided that there aren't any major issues during testing I'd be surprised if we aren't riding Memorial Day weekend.
For anyone debating the existence of a fourth train, just don't. The park would not have constructed storage space for four trains if they only purchased three. The green train will likely show up at some point in the next couple weeks and they should have plenty of time to get the necessary test time with all four trains.
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Interesting. I've been expecting Kings Dominion to receive a B&M as their next coaster, though a wing coaster seems like a better fit for the park given it's proximity to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I think it's too early to read too much into this, but given that each park has a unique image and the others with new mystery coasters have been rumored to be getting major new coasters in the next few years (though not necessarily 2016), it may end up being a hint. Will Kings Dominion get a new B&M next year? I honestly doubt it, simply because there are a couple other Cedar Fair parks with more significant evidence of a big 2016 project and Cedar Fair isn't known to buy a lot of major coasters in one year. Will Kings Dominion get a big new B&M coaster in 2017/2018? I'd take that bet.
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A few questions for you:
1. Will you have any traveling companions to share driving duty?
2. Will you be credit running at most of these parks?
3. Have you done trips before that involve several consecutive days of 5+ hour drives?
If you answered no to any of these questions, you probably should reconsider the scale of this trip. This region of the United States is full of a whole lot of nothing and you'll have long drives between destinations. While the general route you have planned out is pretty good, you've got some days with too much in them and a couple parts of the route that don't make a whole lot of sense. I'd suggest making the following changes to your current plan (changes are in bold, notes indicated by asterisks):
Fri May 22: Arrive Chicago ORD in the morning, Six Flags Great America.
Sat May 23: Skip Little Amerricka, Santa's Village. Drive to Indianapolis, stop by Indiana Beach en route.
*Little Amerricka adds three hours of driving time for what appears to be a 2 hour park. Indiana Beach is absolutely worth a visit and you probably wouldn't be able to do all three in one day.
Sun May 24: Watch the Indy 500, Skip Indiana Beach (visited on Saturday). Drive to Des Moines.
*If you want to see the Indy 500 and drive to Des Moines, there is absolutely no way you'll be able to fit Indiana Beach in as well.
Mon May 25: Adventureland, Skip Arnolds Park, Drive to Kansas City, Worlds of Fun.
*Arnolds Park is at least a five hour detour, and while I haven't visited I highly doubt it would be worth the time.
Tue May 26: Schlitterbahn, Worlds of Fun (only if additional time is desired)
Wed May 27: Drive to Denver.
Thu May 28: Elitch Gardens.
*This will be a good rest day as Elitch Gardens is a 5-6 hour park at best.
Fri May 29: Drive to Salt Lake City via Glenwood Caverns.
Sat May 30: Lagoon.
Sun May 31: Drive back to Denver, Lakeside Park.
Mon Jun 1: Drive to Albuquerque.
Tue Jun 2: Cliff's, Drive to Amarillo, Wonderland Amarillo, Stay in Amarillo area.
*Two parks and 8+ hours of driving in one day is probably a bit too much.
Wed Jun 3: Drive to Oklahoma City, Frontier City, Skip Joyland Amusement Park, Possibly drive to Joplin or Springfield, MO.
*Joyland is over five hours from Frontier City in the opposite direction of Chicago. It is probably not worth the time investment to visit.
Thu Jun 4: Drive back to Chicago.
*Since the drive from Oklahoma City to Chicago is over twelve hours, I'd advise splitting it up. You can either drive for a few hours after Frontier City and stay in Joplin or Springfield, MO, or wait until Jun 4th to begin the drive and stop in the Springfield, IL area, then continue to Chicago the next day (would require an afternoon flight).
Fri Jun 5: Fly back to Newark. Find somewhere to do my dirty laundry.
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Alan was indeed at Twisted Colossus today and the orange train was at the bottom of the lift hill last I saw. I'm really excited to see this thing run!
Was the entire train there or just the first couple cars? When I visited last week the first two cars were at the base of the blue lift and the rest of the orange train (along with the blue and purple trains) was on the transfer. If it's just the first couple cars, they are likely doing a pull through (or something similar) so we're probably still several days (or more) from testing. If the entire train is indeed down there, then testing is likely to begin very soon (possibly even tomorrow).
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Since I have several home parks...
Disneyland: Space Mountain
Disney California Adventure Park: California Screamin' (this is also my favorite resort-wide)
Knott's Berry Farm: Xcelerator
Six Flags Magic Mountain: At the moment, I go back and forth between Full Throttle and Tatsu...Apocalypse would be a contender too if it still ran like it did opening year. After it opens, however, I'm pretty confident Twisted Colossus will become my favorite.
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Full Throttle at Six Flags Magic Mountain last week.
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Assuming that Voyage to the Iron Reef opens on time (or close to it), then it will be Knott's Berry Farm. If not, it will likely be Six Flags Magic Mountain for Twisted Colossus's opening day (or the first day I'm available following that).
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^^If that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised for the park to do the first test run at the event (or possibly the night before just to make sure it will work). I also wouldn't be surprised if they announce the official opening day at that event. In any case, I'm actually more excited for the first racing test run, but I have a feeling they'll do 1-2 weeks of single train testing before that point.
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Has there been a reliable source that stated Twisted Colossus testing was supposed to begin today, or does everyone just expect it because Wicked Cyclone did? Honestly, when I was there last week the coaster looked about a week and a half from testing, so I'm thinking it will probably be toward the end of this week when they start, not necessarily today.
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In general, I find the Chance Pirate Ships to be superior to other versions of the attraction. In fact, I'd say a well run Chance Pirate Ship is probably my favorite pendulum flat ride (except possibly an S&S Screamin' Swing). I can't think of any particular installations that stand out, though I did enjoy Mayflower at Holiday World last year (probably my favorite flat at the park) and although weaker than most, Dragon Swing at Knott's is the installation I ride most frequently (I love how that ride free swings...not many seem to do that).
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I would think that by definition, if your legs can come and over the divider, that's unsafe. Your friend probably wouldn't have fallen out, but I would be uncomfortable with a small child riding it with that much wiggle room.
It's actually not all that uncommon to wind up with a leg over the divider on X2. I'd say it happens to me on about a third of my rides. The last section of the ride is just so jerky that you have to work to keep your legs from flailing around. That said, having the harness as high as it was in the picture is probably not a good idea. You won't fly off, but you will have a very uncomfortable ride. On most rides, I usually prefer it if the restraint is slightly loose, but X2 is one ride where I find having the harness as tight as possible increases enjoyment of the ride.
OT: does X2 ever run 3 trains? I thought it was theoretically possible, but I NEVER see them do that.It did the year it reopened, but I do not believe it has since then. Due to the loading time, three trains mostly results in double stacking on X2. In addition, I've heard that the park has a blanket two train policy as the capacity benefit from using all three trains on most of the coasters is not enough to justify the added maintenance cost. Of course, Twisted Colossus will be an exception to this rule due to the nature of the ride.
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Wow! Sounds like SeaWorld is about to become the coaster capital of Orlando (if it wasn't already). While nobody knows for sure what this coaster is, I'm going to agree with the majority that it is probably a B&M Hyper. While Florida has a good number of B&M creations, they do not have a hyper and the information released so far really sounds like a hyper of some sort to me. If not a B&M hyper, I'd probably guess a launched coaster of some sort (most likely Mack or Intamin) since SeaWorld has done quite a few of those recently.
Whatever the coaster is, it's making me much less disappointed that I won't be able to visit Florida with the rest of my family this year.
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I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more about Thunderbird, but given that the park isn't even open yet and the general dislike of Indiana at the moment I'm not worried. We'll probably get more reviews during opening weekend and especially around Holiwood Nights. That said, what I have heard about the ride so far (both here and elsewhere) has been extremely promising. It sounds like Thunderbird is the best wing coaster so far, the best coaster at Holiday World, and better than almost anyone expected. After my experiences on GateKeeper and X-Flight last year, I figured this would be a decent ride but I never expected it to be the better B&M of 2015 or anything worth traveling to the park for. Now I want to go back to Holiday World and ride it...hopefully I'll be able to make it in 2016.
As for the Voyage brakes, it's unfortunate but not really that big of deal. The ride is still going to be a top tier coaster with or without a near stop. Honestly, that it the one wooden coaster I've been on that I would almost consider too aggressive, so if the ride experience is improved with the brake I've got no complaints. You'll still get plenty of air time, and based on walking back there last summer the brake is probably as far above the station as Raven's lift hill is tall (aka 80 ft. or so).
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Yeah, this is one of the worst lists I've ever read on the topic. Some of the selections are fair and there are a few questionable ones that you could make a valid case for, but for the most part they just went with "it's new, so it must be the best." Just another reason I don't use Weather Channel for anything other than the weather.
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This is definitely a doable trip and would get you to a nice mix of quality parks. Given your starting/ending location I'd probably do something like the following...
Day One: Drive to Cedar Point
Day Two: Cedar Point
Day Three: Cedar Point until about 5 P.M., drive to Cincinnati (about three and a half hours)
Day Four: Kings Island
Day Five: Drive to Louisville (about two hours), Kentucky Kingdom, drive to Santa Claus (about an hour)
Day Six: Holiday World
Day Seven: Drive Home
Alternatively, you could stay in Louisville and day trip Holiday World from there. If you want more time at Cedar Point, you could potentially visit the day you arrive and/or add a drive day between there and Cincinnati to give you a full second day. You could also swap Holiday World and Kentucky Kingdom if it worked out better for driving home and/or reverse this route if it worked out better (avoid the Cedar Fair parks on weekends unless you're purchasing Fast Lane).
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Have they been putting the connecting plates on the track pieces as they put them up, or are they putting them on now?
Edit: looks like they're not on yet, from the pictures.
They are all on with the exception of the zero g and the double up, since those were both just placed last week.
I was just there today and workers were on the double up section. I'm guessing that's what they were doing (either that or painting).
As of today, the blue and purple trains are fully assembled on the storage tracks. The orange train is present, but it appears the first couple cars will be used for pull-through testing (they were on the track near the base of the lift). I did not see the green train, but as testing will probably start with one train and work up from there it probably doesn't make too much difference if it's not there yet. Based on what I could see, I would expect testing to start either next week or the week after, and provided there are no unexpected issues a Memorial Day opening seems likely at this point. Screampunk District looks like it's coming along well and should be done in a month. I wouldn't be surprised if the area is on par with DC Universe.
In other news, today was a pretty good day at the park. Other than X2 (one train operation) and Superman (one track operation as always), nothing was more than a 10 minute wait. Managed to ride all the coasters, re-ride most of the major ones, and do a few non-coasters as well. No news on Goliath...it was closed with an employee out front and no visible work going on. For anyone going soon, X2, Revolution, Ninja, Apocalypse, and Riddler's all were running one train today and Green Lantern only had three cars (strangely, the line seemed like it may have moved faster with three instead of four). Also saw an idiot GP get ejected after he lost control of his basketball and jumped a fence to retrieve it .
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If Green Lantern was operated properly, it would be a really good ride. Unfortunately, SFMM has made the decision to minimize rotation, and that has resulted in a ride that is very uncomfortable. In addition, I don't think they ever found a good loading procedure, which makes the line crawl (seriously, I doubt the ride does much more than 300 riders per hour). While not the worst ride out there, it's definitely something I don't bother with if the line is more than 10-15 minutes and I wouldn't mind if it were removed and sent off to a Six Flags park that will operate the coaster properly.
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Supreme Scream: I didn't ride this, but I want to talk about it. My two local parks have triple tower S&S rides. But this seems to be the other kind, with the different numbers of seats on different sides, but more importantly, the different operating mode. For this, it looked like one tower will launch riders up, then proceed to bounced up and down until it ends. The other tower goes all the way to the top, then drop, then bounce, then it would be over. However, the ones I live close to, seem to do what is like the two combined, on all the towers. Why is it like this? Why don't all the towers do the same thing? I would like it a lot more if all the towers did the launch AND the drop. I don't get it. Does anyone know why it is like this?
S&S makes four types of tower rides: Space Shots (launch from ground level), Turbo Drops (drop from the top of the tower), Double Shots (a Space Shot cycle with two launches...these are typically short towers) and Combo Towers (an abridged Space Shot cycle followed by a full Turbo Drop cycle). Supreme Scream is a collection of three Turbo Drop towers. No matter which tower you ride, the experience is identical: a slow climb to the top, a brief hold, a drop, and then bounces until the ride returns to ground level. There is no alternate operation mode on the ride, and due to Disney having Southern California exclusivity to the Space Shot attraction (despite Maliboomer having been gone for five years now) it is unlikely Supreme Scream will ever be modified. The towers you are thinking of are Combo Towers, which provide an overall better experience but weren't available in 1998 when Supreme Scream was installed.
As for the seats, S&S offers two options for a 12 seat carriage: 3 seats per side or 4 seats on 2 sides and 2 seats on the other 2 sides. I don't think the seating configuration is dependent on the ride model, but it does seem that the newer towers often have the same number of seats on each side.
Edit: Forgot about this question...
Why are so many coasters at Knott's short?Despite being a major park, Knott's isn't all that big. While the often quoted figure is 160 acres, that is actually the size of the entire property. The theme park itself is about 60 acres, including all the backstage area. Putting ten coasters into that space limits the amount that can be used for each coaster, and while not the highest in the world Knott's probably has the highest coaster density of any major North American park. Fortunately, not everything at the park is short...GhostRider is a pretty long ride, Jaguar is long for a family coaster, and Silver Bullet is about average length for an invert. Plus, even though they're short, Xcelerator and Montezooma's Revenge are great rides. Sure, Sierra Sidewinder and especially Pony Express could use a bit more length, but nobody goes just to ride those two rides and they're actually among the more popular coasters at the park.
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I'm hoping that TC isn't the last time SFMM works with RMC.
I hope Alan and Co. get their hands on Apocalypse at some point in the future
I'm guessing if SFMM got another RMC coaster it would be a new coaster rather than a conversion of Apocalypse. I'm also guessing that we'll see an RMC at most of the Six Flags parks before any park gets a second one. It would not surprise me at all if SFMM got the world's tallest and fastest wooden coaster for their 50th anniversary in 2021, but I think we're more likely to see California's next RMC open at SFDK or possibly Knott's.
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I was a little concerned about Star Wars after the first teaser came out, but with the second one I'm convinced that it's going to be a quality film. While it may not be the best Star Wars movie (let's face it, Empire Strikes Back would be difficult to top), it should put the fears of a second Prequel Trilogy to rest. It's definitely my most anticipated movie of 2015.
Batman vs. Superman, on the other hand...well, I was disappointed by Man of Steel and this trailer hasn't increased my interest in the DC Cinematic Universe. I hope I'm wrong, but I could see the DC Cinematic Universe end up being a failure if the quality doesn't improve.
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Sorry for the probably dumb question, sooo please no rage storm or OTT reaction, if this is indeed stupid just a simple question:
Is SFMM not on the WCB this year? I only see Knotts, and I know info is still coming soon but just was wondering if anyone had any idea, since Im figuring if I can/how much time to take off.
The twisted pics looks amazing!
With Twisted Colossus opening this year, I would be very surprised if the event didn't include SFMM. I'm guessing the details just haven't been worked out (Six Flags is supposedly harder to work with than Cedar Fair) and Robb didn't want to announce anything that isn't confirmed. I'm assuming SFMM will be Saturday, September 12th as it has been in past years, but we should hopefully know for sure soon. That said, I have heard there has been discussion in the past to shift the second day to either SeaWorld San Diego or Universal Studios Hollywood, but I wouldn't expect that to happen this year. I also doubt the event would return to only one day, especially since Robb and Elissa are flying across the country to host it.
As for Twisted Colossus, it's great to hear that the track is in place. They're actually done about a week ahead of what I was expecting, so at this point I would be a little surprised if it's not ready by Memorial Day. If the ride opens earlier, great, but I'm not getting my hopes up. At the moment, I just can't wait to see the coaster testing, which hopefully should begin in a couple weeks.
The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
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After seeing the various testing videos that have surfaced today, I can say with confidence that those who were initially disappointed by the design should not be disappointed by the ride. Once it opens, Twisted Colossus is likely to become the best coaster in California, and although my experience with RMC is limited, I can't see anyone considering this the company's worst coaster.