rcdude

I made a couple of these last week but forget to post them.

I think the only place in the U.S. a Mega-Lite is ever likely to appear would be a park that is small enough that capacity won't be an issue but large enough to afford the investment, and that doesn't already have a large non-looping steel coaster. Off the top of my head, these are the parks that would fit the above criteria: California's Great America Great Escape Knoebel's Lake Compounce Michigan's Adventure Morey's Piers Mt. Olympus Wild Adventures I'm sure there are a few I missed, but there's really only about 10 parks in the U.S. that I'd even consider good candidates, and some in the above list may not even be a good candidate due to reasons I'm not aware of. As others have said, it mostly comes down to the mentality of thrill seekers in the U.S., where the bigger a coaster is the better and if it doesn't go upside down or have a 200 ft drop it's a family ride, along with the perception that airtime is caused by a design flaw and makes the ride unsafe. That being said, any park that installed one of these would immediately become a must visit destination for enthusiasts.

^^When I visited Cedar Point (2008), it was on a Tuesday in late August, which is typically considered one of the lowest crowd periods at the park. Despite this, we found waits of up to two hours for the big three at the park, and even with the advantage of early entry we barely managed to get all the coasters done in one day. We did not have time for any re-rides, and only were able to do a few non-coaster rides (all of which were walk-ons). Based on this, I would strongly advise purchasing at least the regular Fast Lane pass if you are spending less than two full days in the park, as it will almost certainly be busier during your visit than it was during mine. If you are doing one day plus a starlight, buy Fast Lane for the full day if it is important to do everything, as you may not be able to ride everything otherwise. If you do two days (or more), you can probably skip Fast Lane if you don't mind waiting in lines. If you are only visiting for one full day, you will not get everything done without Fast Lane. To the original poster, if you're buying Fast Lane at the parks it shouldn't be that hard to get on everything in a day. I visited Canada's Wonderland on a weekend last summer and while it was busy, thanks to Fast Lane I got on all the significant attractions plus a few re-rides before dinner and didn't have to run around the park like crazy to do it. Just make sure to get to the parks early (ideally 20-30 minutes before opening) and do the attractions that do not have Fast Lane access first.

^^^If you're travelling from out of state for the event, you really should attend both days. Each has its pros and cons. SFMM has a great coaster collection with lots of ERT and tends to offer more surprise activities, but their 2012 event was relatively lackluster compared to previous years. Knott's may not have as impressive of a lineup for ERT sessions, but they've offered some excellent backstage tours and usually have a much more interesting presentation than SFMM (plus the lunch at Knott's is typically better than the lunch at SFMM, although SFMM also provided breakfast). In my opinion, SFMM is the better day if you just want to ride coasters, but Knott's tends to beat it in every other area of the event. I had more fun at SFMM in 2010, in 2011 both days were about equal, but last year Knott's blew SFMM away.

Six Flags St. Louis has several long ones. While it does make some sense for Boss and Mr. Freeze since the lines pretty much go straight to the station, it is super annoying on Batman The Ride since you are forced to zigzag back and forth through a park, then take the longest possible route around to the station entrance. When I visited (a Sunday in July), the ride was only a station wait but it took at least five minutes just to get from the entrance to the station. I can't imagine the park ever gets busy enough to have more than a 45 minute wait for this coaster, but based on the queue length it seems like it was built for a 2+ hour wait.

Even though Time Machine looks very average by B&M standards, I'm sure it would be a signature ride at many parks. Hopefully the coaster is able to find new life somewhere in the near future, as I can think of a number of parks that could use it. Shame Hard Rock/Freestyle Music Park had to close. It looked like a good half-day park. If only it had been open one more year, then I could have visited.

Piraten looks like it's possibly the best coaster in Scandinavia and probably one of the top five coasters in Europe overall. The other Scandinavian coasters posted recently all look interesting as well in their own ways. Hopefully one day I'll get a chance to visit this part of the world, but I'm pretty sure it won't be in the near future.

I don't know if it's the same survey, but I got one a couple days ago asking about new kids rides. I'm guessing it was a generic Six Flags survey, as although it asked you to pick your home park half of the attractions shown as being "under consideration" already exist at SFMM (a couple were even stock photos from the park's website). I hope that none of the attractions are seriously under consideration for the park as they'd all be a wasted investment. The reality is that SFMM only has about three options for new attractions that won't be a total failure: 1. A thrill coaster 2. A non-coaster attraction that can be described using superlatives 3. A really cheap family/kids attraction that won't be a major loss when it gets minimal ridership The park just has a reputation for being an extreme thrill park and attracts guests that want roller coasters and thrill rides. Yes, they could change this image, but it would require tons of investment in family attractions, general upkeep, and marketing, which I don't think Six Flags is willing to pay for, and if they aren't fully committed it will fail. Unless the park decides to completely change direction, I'd rather they spend money on keeping the park in an acceptable condition and/or installing attractions they can actually do better than Knott's and Disneyland.

As of right now, as long as it is during the summer and not during the school year the day of week doesn't matter to me. After I graduate next June, that may change, but I've skipped class on occasion to spend a day at Disneyland and I'd have no problem taking a couple days off work for an event (especially if I wasn't already doing a trip that year) as long as it didn't cause complications.

I doubt Grizzly will go anywhere anytime soon, as it is somewhat of a family friendly alternative to Gold Striker and still seems relatively popular. The biggest issue with the attraction seems to be the trains, but if Cedar Fair ends up doing the rumored GhostRider refurbishment (or does a Rocky Mountain treatment on another woodie), they'll have a set of PTC trains to use on Grizzly. If CGA is to remove another coaster in the near future, I'm guessing it would be Demon due to age, but I doubt the park will lose another coaster in the near future. As for the next coaster, I don't really know what would be best for the park. I think pretty much anything that doesn't exist at SFDK or SCBB would be a good fit, and a first on the west coast an even better one, but I don't know how much Cedar Fair would be willing to invest into the park. I doubt the park would recieve a Blitz Coaster due to price (Maverick was $21 million). Perhaps a Euro-Fighter or Mega-Lite...those seem like good fits for a park like CGA. Either way, I'm guessing it will be a few years before the park gets another coaster.

Well, it's unfortunate that Voyage's new trains will be delayed another year, but I guess that is how it goes. If the trains aren't ready, I'd rather see the kinks worked out than see the trains rushed into service and result in frequent breakdowns during the season. I would be very surprised if they aren't ready for 2014, however, especially since Hades will be using a Timberliner train this year. I haven't been on Hades, but I've got a feeling if the trains run fine on that ride they won't have any problems on Voyage.

Knott's 2013 projects are looking excellent. Despite SFMM adding a record breaker with Full Throttle, I think the new boardwalk rides combined with the renovated Timber Mountain Log Ride is the best new So Cal addition for this year. With the attention being paid to the log ride, I can't wait to see what the park will do with the Calico Mine Ride refurbishment and a new dark ride (assuming both happen), and it will be interesting to see if Cedar Fair invests in dark rides for their other parks as well.

Matterhorn Bobsleds last week due to a last minute decision to spend a few hours at Disneyland after a day at Knott's. Otherwise, it would have been Montezooma's Revenge.

I think the reason for Intamin's sudden rise in prevalence in the late 90s/early 2000s probably has to do with their offerings at that time versus before. In the 70s and 80s, even into the 90s, Intamin built primarily smaller steel coasters, either rides for a family audience or smaller footprint thrill rides (such as their stand-up and space diver models). At this time, Arrow and Vekoma were the dominant coaster companies, and were pretty much the only ones who did large steel coasters. B&M joined into the coaster market in the early 90s and immediately came out with several innovative, large scale coasters. Since this was the height of the coaster wars, every major park was looking for bigger, longer, faster, or taller rides, in addition to one of a kind attractions. In order to stay competitive, Intamin developed larger coasters. Superman at SFMM was one of the first of Intamin's larger rides, and between 1998 and 2001 the company came out with an inverted launch coaster (something no other company had (or has yet) done), a megacoaster, a gigacoaster (the largest coaster in the world at the time of its construction), and a large scale looping coaster. Not only were these attractions offered by relatively few other companies, but Intamin was willing to push the envelope on their designs and deliver the record breaking attractions parks wanted. This, combined with the bankruptcy of Arrow, resulted in Intamin becaming one of the most popular coaster manufacturers. In a sense, Intamin somewhat took over Arrow's spot in the world of coasters, as they do today what Arrow did in the 70s and 80s. Today, Intamin and B&M are the world's primary manufacturers of large steel coasters. Now this is all based on looking at RCDB's installation data and browsing wikipedia articles, so it might not be quite correct. It also doesn't take into account Intamin's non-coaster work, which has always been important in the industry (they pioneered large ferris wheels, observation towers, drop rides, and motion simulators as well as inventing the river rapids ride). However, it does seem to make sense. Here are a few trivia facts that are also of interest: -Since 2001, Intamin has generally had 5-10 coaster installations per year. Before then, it was rare that they had 5 coasters in a year. -Over half of Intamin's coasters have been built in the past 15 years. -Excluding their wooden coasters, Intamin didn't build a large coaster until 1997. -Only two of Intamin's coasters built before 1997 are generally considered notable. However, since 1997 they have built at least one notable ride almost every year.

Two polar opposite videos. Wodan looks like one of the best wooden coasters in Europe (though not the best...that honor is reserved for the two Intamin woodies, or so I've heard) and Sequoia Adventure looks like one of the worst steel coasters in Europe (though not the worst...that dishonor is reserved for Goudurix, or so I've heard). I'd still like to get to both of these parks at some point, though if given the choice to visit only one I'd pick Europa Park. In either case, I think I need to get on a European TPR trip.

I can't tell if this is a joke or not. If it is, it's a terrible one, and if it isn't, it's something that Disney would never even consider. Space Mountain is a signature ride of Disneyland that has been one of the park's two or three most popular attractions since the original opened in 1977. Removing it would be like Cedar Point removing Millennium Force, Six Flags Magic Mountain removing X2, or Darien Lake removing Ride of Steel (although to be fair, it wouldn't be quite the same since Disneyland has more than one headliner). Anyway, it's unfortunate that the resort has to have several E tickets down at once, but I'm sure they'll do whatever they can to get them back up and running as soon as possible. If Disney has known about these issues for months and has done nothing, then I can't give them any sympathy (and won't give them any money until the rides return to operation), but I do feel sorry for any visitors who were really looking forward to these rides and now can't ride them.

I've said it before and it still stands, but I generally describe SFMM as this: If you are looking for an excellent collection of coasters and don't care about anything but coasters, you'll love the park. If you care about literally anything else, the park is terrible. Some places in the park are just depressing when you're walking through them because the park does have a ton of potential, but it doesn't utilize much of it. Honestly, if SFMM had been kept up well and offered a variety of rides instead of nothing but coasters, it would be my second favorite park in California, but in its current state the park is only worth visiting about twice a year even though I'm less than two hours away. I would say that I have more enjoyable visits to SFMM then unenjoyable visits, but I still have proportionately more unenjoyable visits to SFMM than I do to the Disneyland Resort and Knott's Berry Farm combined.

Considering these rides aren't listed as closed on the website, and Disney would never want five headliners down at once, I'm guessing they'll be reopened ASAP. At least I hope so...I was planning to visit Tuesday since I don't have class on Tuesdays, but if this many rides are down I might have to reconsider (or I could do just DCA, but that is really only a half-day park in my opinion). I wonder if Disney knew about this in advance or not. If they did and didn't do anything, that is worrying. I mean, I do think many of California's regulations are way overkill, but it would still be unacceptable for the park to do nothing and risk a mandatory shutdown if they were given reasonable time to make modifications.

In order from biggest impact (totally ruins the ride flow) to smallest impact (feels slightly out of place): -Stopping during the ride (unless a design feature) -Brakes that significantly decrease speed -Mid-course lift hills -Slow turns -Straight, flat track -Speed bleeding elements -Drawn out helixes -Identical consecutive elements (excluding airtime hills)

I don't know how much testing is required for a Premier LSM coaster, but I've heard elsewhere that magnetic launches are one of the most complex ride systems and require the most testing. I wouldn't rule out a Memorial Day weekend opening, as I believe the park is shooting for that, but if the ride doesn't open until early June that wouldn't surprise me either. Memorial Day is only six weeks away, and even though the track is complete it seems like there's still quite a bit to be done before Full Throttle is ready to open.

While Ride of Steel might not be a top ten coaster for the experienced enthusiast, it is still a really good ride. Every hill on the ride had strong airtime no matter where you were sitting, and the helixes delivered reasonably strong positive G's. The flat straight sections, especially the one after the first helix, were actually more fun than I expected as you'd be going along and just when it started to get dull you'd be ejected as the train went over the hill. Comet was a fun junior woodie, essentially a slightly downsized version of the Ghoster Coasters. I do think the Ghoster Coasters are better rides, but Comet definitely had a better setting and was a great takeover ride on the LeviaTHON trip.

I would say Time Machine is the only candidate B&M for becoming permantly defunct in the next five years. I don't know what shape it is in, but the park has been closed since 2009 and if the ride has just been sitting there I'd give it at most three more years before it is no longer worth salvaging. If we're talking about ten or more years down the road, then any of the old stand-ups (Apocalypse and the Vortex twins) could be potentially up for retirement. Although it's the newest, I would guess Carowind's stand-up would be the first to be retired just because that park has more coasters than California's Great America and Six Flags America, as well as having two other B&M rides. Either way, I'm guessing any B&M that is currently operating will still be operating in 2020, so I wouldn't expect any to disappear in the near future. Their coasters are very durable rides, and probably 50% of them still remain in the top tier of all roller coasters worldwide.

If El Toro is anything to go by, Colossos likely is the best wooden coaster in Europe. Its strongest competition is Balder, but personally I think Colossos looks like the better ride. Can't wait to see what's next. I know TPR did a ton of trips last year, so April could hold some very interesting coaster videos.

It seems like there are a lot more videos from the Mexico trip than there are from similar length trips elsewhere. Maybe that has to do with this being the first trip to the region? Not complaining at all, as I like watching these and seeing the variety of attractions that exist in Mexico, just making an interesting observation. Also, I loved the Vine video. I think that perfectly shows off the variety of things that goes on when you travel with TPR, from coasters to culture and a bit of randomness as well. I'll look forward to these from future trips if you decide to continue making them.

Wow, KidTums certainly has become extremely brave over the past couple of years. I remember seeing a picture of her on the Kennywood Jack Rabbit from the 2011 Cedar Point trip where she looked scared out of her mind, and now she's doing sky coasters with little fear at all. I'm an engineering student and know those are perfectly safe, and I won't even go near one. I never had much interest in the Mexico trip, but after seeing all the photos and videos I've become somewhat interested in it. Maybe in a few years when there's another one I'll think about going.