rcdude

That seems awfully optimistic, no? I would be slightly surprised if Knott's is able to open the ride by spring break. However, it's difficult to tell how much construction has actually occurred as it is a dark ride inside an already existing building, so it's possible most of the hardware is already present and/or installed. Although I'm not all that excited for the ride, if it opens earlier I'll be able to try it out before the summer crowds arrive. Who knows, the ride could be better than I expect it to be.

I'd probably go Monday, but it's somewhat of a toss-up as SFMM can be randomly busy or randomly quiet. I've found off-season holidays at the park typically range from moderate to busy, and the number of trains in operation on coasters can have a big impact on wait times. A busy day with two trains on everything would be a better choice than a moderately crowded day with lots of one-train operations, for example. Unfortunately, operations are not something you can predict very easily. Exception to the above: If you are buying a Flash Pass, definitely go on Sunday to take advantage of longer hours.

Full Throttle has one of the worst loose item configurations I've seen anywhere. Each of the two bins should have two compartments: one for each train. Just the delay from people fighting traffic in the station to deposit and collect loose articles probably adds a good 20 seconds or so to loading times. I've seen several Cedar Fair parks use split bins and it's probably the most effective loose article system, so it's a shame SFMM didn't go for something similar. Full Throttle has a theoretical capacity of 800 riders per hour, which is okay but still a bit low for a major park, but I don't believe it has ever gotten close to that number (I'm guessing at best the ride got close to 600 per hour). From what I've heard, ever since the seatbelts were added the ride's only been doing 300-400 riders per hour, which is far too low for a major park like SFMM.

^Mack uses the same exact braking system on their most recent Wild Mouse coasters (or at least on Coast Rider), only mounted vertically. When the train hits them, you definitely feel a force while they are engaged, but once the brakes disengage it feels like the braking force is zero (or negligibly small). I'm thinking that sliding the two magnets apart disrupts the magnetic field and significantly reduces its strength.

How stupid do you have to be to think bringing a selfie stick on a high speed thrill ride is a good idea? In the video description the guy even admits he didn't screw it on properly and almost lost it. Anyone who does something like this should return to the station to find security waiting to escort them out of the park. I really hope this problem is addressed immediately as it is only a matter of time before a major incident occurs. When used properly, there is nothing wrong with selfie sticks. The problem is that too many people don't use them properly.

Great video! Of the three alpine coasters I've been on, this one is my favorite. It's unfortunate that the ride is so expensive ($20), but I guess that's to be expected at Park City.

I don't really have specific rides, but rather general types of rides I'd consider guilty pleasures. Roller Coasters: -CCI Woodies (even the rough ones) -Mack Wild Mouse Coasters -Vekoma Boomerangs (except the roughest installations) -Any Schwarzkopf -Most Arrows (especially loopers, suspended coasters, and mine trains) Non-Coasters: -Railroads -Frisbees -River Rapids -Bumper Cars -Pirate Ships -Swing Rides -Log Flumes -Observation Towers -Scramblers

Just when I thought I knew what this was going to be, Lagoon pulls another surprise out. LSMs on a curved piece of track? Given what's left to go up, it almost seems like the ride might boost you into the helix for extra g-force or over a hill for extra airtime.

This looks like a good concept, but I'm not sure how practical it is. The capacity is probably about 200 riders per hour, which would only be suitable for a small park. However, I'm not sure how many small parks would be able to spend $5-6 million on a new coaster (I'm guessing this would probably be about that, or maybe slightly less). It will be interesting to see if one of these ends up getting built somewhere.

I'm guessing the track will be done in late March or early April. Assuming the park wants the ride done for Memorial Day weekend and that testing will take about a month, if the track isn't done by mid-April it probably wouldn't open on time. If the targeted opening isn't until June, however, it could be a bit longer. The B&M coasters, especially Batman and Riddler, will probably give you quite a bit of trouble. Gold Rusher may also be difficult due to the single position lap bars, and Full Throttle is a bit tight due to lots of padding (though you may still fit). You'll probably be able to fit all the other major coasters. If you're not sure and the line isn't too bad, I'd recommend waiting in line with your friend and trying it. If you go on a non-holiday Sunday before spring break or a weekday after the spring break period, you'll probably find most waits are only a few trains.

Survey complete. Personally I think the type of belt used should be dependent on whether the seatbelt is a primary or secondary restraint. If it's a primary restraint, Disney's system of a locking belt is definitely the way to go, as it's the only system that guests can't undo mid-ride. For a secondary seatbelt, I often feel they are unnecessary, but if they have to be there the thin buckles used on Intamin coasters and a few other rides are my favorite design as they're low profile and not likely to accidentally come undone. I'm always surprised how many people have difficulty with the latch belts since they're so common, but I don't think push buttons are the answer as I could see a lot of people removing them mid-ride.

Wow, this is definitely one of the most bizarre incidents in recent memory. I'm very, very curious about how this happened. Obviously there was some type of failure (most likely a fatigue failure, though a missing component in the connection is also a possibility) that caused the last car to separate, but why did it do so at that point? I'm not convinced an E-stop occurred as the car rolled through the station and up the spike before stopping on the return trip, plus the rest of the train would probably have been on the loop instead of on the spike. I somewhat wonder if the ride was operating normally and the operator didn't hit E-stop until they realized only one car came back (or didn't press it at all and sensors were responsible for the stop). Hopefully more information will be revealed about this during the investigation. On another note, it's very fortunate that nobody was injured too seriously from this incident. Had the train failed at a different point, the incident could have been much worse and could have possibly resulted in fatalities.

I've been to most of these parks before and have planned some road trips of my own, so here's a few things to add on to what others are saying. Your itinerary looks ambitions but good. Here are a few notes on things to consider: -If you find a cheaper flight and/or rental car at another airport and it works with your schedule, you may want to consider a different start/end point. However, you'll definitely want to do a loop, as rental car fees are much higher for a one way trip. -Allow two days for Cedar Point. Hersheypark allows you to enter the evening before your visit, so if you can you should take advantage of that (perhaps leave Knoebels late afternoon and head to Hersheypark). Six Flags Great Adventure is a one day park unless you're visiting on a weekend and aren't purchasing Flash Pass. Dorney Park and Six Flags America are partial day parks, so you'll probably want to do something else on those days as well. -You may want to consider swapping Dollywood and Six Flags Over Georgia. This would give you a rest day as you make the drive from Holiday World to Six Flags Over Georgia and shorten your total driving time slightly (although that one drive will be a little longer). -If you need to cut parks from your trip, I would cut them in the following order: 1. Dorney Park: There are better B&Ms at the other parks on the trip and nothing else at Dorney is that notable. 2. Six Flags America: Generally considered one of the worst Six Flags parks and doesn't have anything noteworthy compared to other parks on the trip. 3. Six Flags Over Georgia: I haven't been to this park personally, but I have heard it's one of the best Six Flags parks. That said, it's probably the most out of the way relative to other parks on the itinerary. 4. Holiday World: This is probably one of the best parks you have listed, but unfortunately it's also a bit out of the way and adds more expense than others due to being an independent park. 5. Carowinds: Weakest of the remaining Cedar Fair parks after Dorney is removed, but they are adding Fury 325. Hopefully you won't need to cut this many parks. 6. Dollywood: Once Carowinds goes, Dollywood becomes a bit of a detour. It is a great park, but like Holiday World it adds more expense to the trip than a lot of others. 7. Six Flags New England: Bizarro is one of the best coasters ever built and Wicked Cyclone is likely going to be a great ride, but the rest of the park is fairly average by Six Flags standards. Honestly, if you get to the point that you need to cut this many parks you may want to rethink the entire trip to focus on a smaller region. I'm not from Europe so I can't give you that perspective, but in general the smaller rentals are usually cheaper and get better fuel economy. It depends whether you're a morning or night person. For me, if a drive is 3-4 hours or less, I'd just do it after the park and stay within 30 minutes of the next park. If it was longer, I'd drive part of it at night and the rest the next morning. If you are a morning person, you may be the opposite. If you'll be arriving at a hotel really late (like after midnight), you might want to call the hotel and let them know you'll be checking in late. There probably won't be an issue as many hotels staff the reception desk 24/7, but better safe than sorry. For the eastern Pennsylvania parks (Dorney Park, Knoebels, Hersheypark) it's easiest to base camp (on last summer's TPR trip we stayed in Jonestown). If you stay in the Richmond area you can use one hotel for Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Kings Dominion. Kennywood is near Pittsburgh, so you can just stay at the same hotel you'll be using for the Pinball Competition (same with Six Flags America and Washington DC). For the other parks, you'll need a different hotel for each park. If you're okay with basic hotels (2-star, like Motel 6 or Best Western) you can probably find places for $75 per night (or possibly a little less). If you want good hotels (3-star, like Holiday Inn) you're probably looking at $100-150 depending on the area. If you can, try to stay at hotels that include breakfast. If you plan to eat two meals in the parks each day, $40. If you plan to eat at only fast food restaurants outside parks, $15-20 ($5-10 if you do one meal only). Most likely you'll wind up somewhere in the middle of this range. These prices assume your hotel includes breakfast. If you decide to go to a sit-down restaurant outside of a park, plan on it costing $20-30. Alternatively, you can go to a grocery store and buy food to take with you during the trip, which would probably be a little cheaper than the fast food option. Yes, you'll definitely want some form of Six Flags Pass and a Cedar Fair Platinum Pass for this trip. Not 100% sure on whether international purchases can be done online, but either way you'll need to process them at the first park you visit. Make sure you buy the pass from the park you'll be visiting first or you may run into difficulty with processing. Other than Holiday World's waterpark, Six Flags New England's is the only other one that I would definitely try to visit. Dorney Park, Kings Island, and Kings Dominion all have large waterparks with fun attractions but nothing particularly unique, so those could go under the time permitting category. All Six Flags parks offer Flash Pass in three levels: Regular (you wait the same amount as the regular line), Gold (you wait 25-50% of the regular line), and Platinum (you wait about 10% of the regular line and get to ride twice). Regular is usually around $50, Gold around $75, and Platinum around $100. I recommend getting Gold, as Platinum doesn't offer much additional benefit for the added price and you will annoy everyone in line by taking their seat for a second ride. You probably won't need a Flash Pass at Six Flags America, but definitely budget for it at the other parks (you'll most likely need it for at least Six Flags Great Adventure). There is also a separate waterpark Flash Pass at Six Flags New England (and probably others as well) that costs about $25 regular/$50 gold and works on waterpark attractions (operation is the same as regular Flash Pass). All Cedar Fair parks offer Fast Lane, which allows use of a priority queue for attractions. There are no reservation times, just go to any ride whenever you want and join the Fast Lane queue. Prices vary by day and park, but are usually in the $50-75 range. There is also Fast Lane Plus, which allows access to more attractions for $20 more (worth it if you plan to ride the extra rides several times). You will definitely not need Fast Lane at Dorney Park and will definitely want it for at least one day at Cedar Point. At the other parks, wait until you arrive and decide whether to purchase or not based on crowds. Hersheypark offers Fast Track, which allows immediate boarding one time each on 9 of their coasters. You must board during a designated window and must sit in specific seats. This pass is about $50, and isn't worth purchasing unless the park is extremely busy. Dollywood offers Q2Q, which operates the same way as Flash Pass but is way cheaper (I believe it's $25 or less). I do not remember if they have multiple levels but when I used it the wait times seemed comparable to Gold Flash Pass. In addition, you can reserve seating at shows with this pass. I recommend purchasing this one simply because it is so cheap. Busch Gardens Williamsburg offers Quick Queue. Regular Quick Queue is about $20 and gets you immediate access to each attraction once, while Unlimited Quick Queue gets you unlimited access for twice the price. If you do the coaster tour (recommended) you probably don't need a Quick Queue, but otherwise it would be worth buying if the park is busy. Holiday World does not offer any type of skip the line system, but lines longer than 30 minutes are rare here (with the exception of a few waterslides). Knoebels also doesn't offer anything as it is a smaller park. I'm not sure about Kennywood as I've never been. Hope that helps, and hopefully you'll have an enjoyable trip. Remember, if nothing else just have fun!

^I would hardly call any of Cedar Point's Intamin coasters people eaters, especially compared to B&M and Arrow rides. Their capacity is in the 1,000-1,300 range while Cedar Point's B&Ms are 1,600-1,800 riders per hour. That said, Dive Coasters are generally lower capacity than other big B&M coasters (Griffon is the lowest capacity of BGW's B&Ms by a significant margin, and I believe the same is true of SheiKra), and at a park like Cedar Point it could have long lines even on moderately busy days. It's an odd choice, yet you just listed 3 reasons why it's a good choice? It's an odd choice because Cedar Fair hasn't built any yet even though they tend to go with B&M for major coasters and the design has been around for over a decade. However, just because the ride is not something expected definitely doesn't make it bad by default.

While a Dive Coaster would be an odd choice for Cedar Point, it would probably be quite popular with the general public. It's different from any other coaster at the park and there isn't anything like it in the Midwest. My only experience with one was Griffon, but I thought that ride was excellent (it's in my top 25 steel). If the car rides were removed as well, you could probably fit a Sheikra clone in that space, which would be a good size for the coaster, but given the stated price I'm guessing it would need to be a bit smaller than that (though probably not as small as Krake). I'm now curious as to which Cedar Fair parks will get the coasters next year. I've been thinking that Canada's Wonderland would get the big coaster and one of the second tier Cedar Fair parks would get a smaller coaster, but if Cedar Point gets a Dive Coaster it seems unlikely Canada's Wonderland would get a big coaster as well (although it has happened before). In any case, neither of those parks really seem like they need a new coaster at this time (Kings Dominion, Worlds of Fun, and to a lesser extent Dorney Park seem like they could benefit most from one).

THIS! Replacing a good coaster with a terrible coaster that was often closed was not a smart decision. Fortunately, Xcelerator replacing Windjammer would belong in the best ride replacements thread. For me, another one was Simpsons Ride replacing Back to the Future at USH, as I'm not a huge fan of the Simpsons and Back to the Future was my favorite simulator attraction other than Soarin' Over California. As for downgrades, I nominate the new trains on Matterhorn Bobsleds. In my opinion, they dropped the ride from really good to slightly above average due to increased discomfort.

It varies, but usually it's whatever the next new major coaster I'll be riding is. At the moment, that happens to be Twisted Colossus, so I've found myself watching the animated promo and POV repeatedly, particularly when I see a new construction update. I find most POV videos get boring after a few views unless it's a ride I'll actually be riding in the near future.

^While smaller models have been around since the 90s, Elitch Gardens got this size last year (I'm not sure if any other parks have the 22M model). Given that Darien Lake and Elitch Gardens are now both operated by Premier Parks, the addition isn't all that surprising. For a park like Darien Lake, a super loop is an excellent fit. Hopefully it's the first step to a recovery for the park, as from what I've read on here it seems to have gone downhill over the past couple of years.

Selfie sticks are a great idea when used properly. If you're using it to take a group picture where you're not disturbing anybody and it's easier than having someone else take the shot, that's a perfectly good use for it. If you're using it to stabilize your camera by resting it on the ground or an object like a traditional monopod, that's an acceptable use as well. Using the stick to raise your camera above the crowd, however, is rude and inconsiderate to those around you. I wouldn't mind this if people who did it stood off to the side or at the back of the crowd, but when you're front and center you need to keep as low of profile as can reasonably be expected. As far as using them on rides, that is just outright dangerous as it could cause damage to the attraction and/or injury to other riders. In my opinion, anyone caught with one of these on a ride should be immediately ejected from the park. A lot of parks ban tripods, so for those parks selfie sticks should definitely be banned as well. At parks like Disney, however, where small tripods and monopods are permitted, it seems like it would be very difficult to prohibit these without also prohibiting tripods and monopods as they're basically a handheld monopod. I would be okay with the parks enforcing the same rules for these as they do for tripods (they can be used provided their use does not impact other visitors). However, if people can't be responsible with them then they should be banned before something serious happens.

Okay, maybe that wasn't as hard as I thought. Your turn again.

^Just happened to be something I recognized and saw 5 minutes after it was posted. It was a pretty easy one. I'm going to say this one is moderately difficult. If nobody manages to get it in 24 hours I'll post a hint. The box represents the station, the rest is up to you to determine.

I just watched the woodie disk from RAW 9 this weekend so this one's obvious: Shivering Timbers at Michigan's Adventure.

I won't have a final list for a couple months, but I can trim down the one I posted in the fall to this... Definite: -Knott's Berry Farm (pass) -Six Flags Magic Mountain (pass) -Universal Studios Hollywood (2 days left on a 3 day pass) Likely: -Adventure City (just to get Rewind Racers credit) -Disneyland Resort (or possibly just Disneyland) -SeaWorld San Diego Maybe: -California's Great America -Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk -Six Flags Discovery Kingdom -Dollywood -Lagoon Long Shot: -Carowinds -SeaWorld San Antonio -Six Flags Fiesta Texas -Six Flags Over Georgia -Six Flags Over Texas The Texas parks and Six Flags Over Georgia would be the only new parks for me.

In addition to rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy at home (still outstanding...probably the best trilogy ever created), I saw a couple more current movies over the past week and a half: Into the Woods: I wasn't planning to go see this as I'm not a huge fan of movie musicals, but the rest of my family was going and the concept sounded interesting. The first two-thirds of the movie were great, but the last third killed it for me. It wasn't simply the darker tone, but rather a lot of things didn't make sense and it felt like pieces were missing. I'm not familiar with the original play, but from what I've read a couple significant portions of the stage show were cut, so that's probably why I got that feeling. Overall it was an okay film that should have been better, and would probably be enjoyed more by fans of the original musical than by general audiences. 6.5/10 The Imitation Game: This was excellent. Although it wasn't quite true to the real-life events, it was still a great movie. Benedict Cumberbatch did a great job here, and the rest of the cast was quite good as well. I'm guessing this is going to be one of the best picture nominees at this year's Academy Awards. 9/10 Now that 2014 is over, here's my top ten list for 2014 movies (I saw a total of 20). 1. The Imitation Game 2. Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Nebraska (technically a 2013 movie, but it wasn't released near me until 2014) 4. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1 5. X-Men: Days of Future Past 6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier 7. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 8. Kill the Messenger 9. The Lego Movie 10. Maleficent Worst Movie of 2014 (that I saw): Non-Stop Biggest Disappointment of 2014: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I definitely agree with this. While I like Scream, it has never really fit at SFMM, and if the park wasn't so concerned about their coaster count I wouldn't be surprised to see it shipped off to another park where it would fit better (Great America, Over Georgia, Over Texas, and St. Louis would be good places for it). SFMM did have Freefall until the mid-2000s, but once that ride left I kept hoping they would be getting a drop ride each year until they finally added Lex Luthor. I'm not sure if Disney's Space Shot exclusivity had anything to do with the switch or not, but that could have been an additional factor. It's nice that the park went fairly light on inversions for Twisted Colossus. I was a bit worried the ride would go for the hybrid inversion record with 4-5, but it's only got two and they will enhance the experience more than a couple extra airtime hills would have (the ride will have plenty of airtime anyway). As much as I would love to see a giga coaster at SFMM, I would be very surprised if it happened at any point in the near future. Six Flags as a company has stated that $20+ million investments are a thing of the past and since corporate pretty much decides on all the additions we'll probably see something along the lines of a Gerstlauer Eurofighter or B&M Wing Coaster as SFMM's 20th coaster. I'd love to be surprised by something else, but given what Full Throttle is vs. what it could have been, I'm doubting I will.