Jackdude101

When I first heard that they were removing Shoot the Rapids at Cedar Point, I thought I was going to flip!

[citation needed] All unreferenced material will be deleted. I make edits on Wikipedia articles all the time. I've noticed that ever since I finally got around to creating a user page for my username (which makes your username appear blue instead of red), the number of edit reverts I used to get from people decreased dramatically. So, pro tip: if you are editing a Wikipedia article, create a username and user page for that username first (it doesn't have to be elaborate, and you can just go the bare minimum route like I did and just include one little quote in it). Otherwise, your edits will be considered "2nd-class" and will be more subject to reverts.

Someone on a different website mentioned to me recently that they thought Maverick was better than MF, too. All I could think is, "What planet are you from?!" lol I've ridden both and I love MF way more. Maverick is fine, but I don't like the hard jolts it gives you when it goes through its tight turns (the way the restraints are positioned, it makes you feel like you're getting karate-chopped in the side of the neck). I'm one of those weird people that consider a painful ride to be an irritation and not something that should be celebrated.

I haven't ridden a roller coaster since October 2014, and that was just a lame Wisdom Rides oval at a local carnival. Having little kids of your own who aren't tall enough yet to ride will do that. It does make you appreciate a lot of the non-thrill attractions at a park, though. Steam trains, carousels, etc.

I personally don't bother with rating systems that park chains provide and just use my own. Here is an example of the one I use for roller coasters with only Cedar Point shown. I talk about this concept I developed more in depth on a topic in the Roller Coaster Games, Models, and Other Randomness forum here: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=66318&start=30 I have a similar rating system for steam railroads and classic carousels, and I have recently developed a way to combine all three (along with some data for weather) to get a sort of overall park score.

2,000 votes reached this weekend. Only 8,000 to go!

I was able to find a semi-legit online resource for British carousels (http://www.fun-fairs.co.uk/forum/69-gallopers/) and one for Australian carousels (http://carousels.org/australian.html). That was the one piece missing from my data that was preventing the non-North American English-speaking countries from getting on my master Attraction Rankings spreadsheet. They are included now in the new Top 50 below. I learned a few things while compiling their weather data. British weather is actually about average compared to other places (though parts of Scotland can be pretty bad) and Australian weather is basically close to perfect in all of its inhabited areas, except for the northern parts of Queensland in the very rainy tropical climate zone.

When rides for a park suddenly appear on an online auction, that's bad, right? Well, it looks like ALL of the rides for Miracle Strip are up for auction here: http://www.rides4u.com/rides/used/packages/15. The highlight of the auction will most definitely be the Starliner PTC woodie, which has been stuck in storage for years now. Maybe TPR can pool some money together and enter the auction to buy it, then set up our own enthusiast-run amusement park where guests get discounts depending on how much amusement knowledge they have. Here's its separate link: http://www.rides4u.com/view/3084 Also, Miracle Strip's website is still up, so if you want to check it out, this is your last chance: http://www.ms-pp.com/

Colorado Adventure: the Michael Jackson Thrill Ride at Phantasialand in Germany. Mainly because it's a standard mine train coaster with no connection to Michael Jackson at all, plus it implies that there may be unsettling surprises during it. Hee hee! HOO! Also, any of the rides in Asia with English names that have embarassingly-obvious spelling or grammar errors.

It's clear the guys who wrote this article were primarily interested in showcasing a variety of different types of rides to be the winners so they wouldn't all be roller coasters (even though over half the picks are total bullcrap). It is obvious that they were catering to the GP, as well, so that should explain everything.

Sudden Impact (Dirty Harry 4) and the final showdown at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Clint Eastwood shoots the bad guy standing on top of the Big Dipper roller coaster, he falls off, crashes through the glass dome of the carousel, and gets impaled by the horn of one of the unicorn carousel figures (I'm pretty sure the guy was dead by that point). Watch clip from 4:35 to 5:30.

For roller coasters, the park with the most big ones not just in the US, but in the world is Six Flags Magic Mountain (Cedar Point is #2). Keep in mind that Six Flags parks tend to be priced less than their competitors, so there will be more roaming bands of unsupervised teenagers than in other big parks. Plus, despite being in Southern California, which has warm and dry weather all year, SFMM is only open on weekends during the Winter months. There are many other parks here with big roller coaster collections, such as Kings Island (Cincinnati), Six Flags Great America (Chicago), and Hersheypark (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). Personally, if I had to pick one Six Flags park to go to, I'd want to go to Six Flags Over Texas near Dallas, as that is the original one. I should also note that there are plenty of other great parks here that may not have quite as many big roller coasters as those above, but still deliver an overall great experience. Anything run by SeaWorld (SeaWorld parks and Busch Gardens parks) or Herschend (Silver Dollar City and Dollywood) are great options and are a sort of "compromise" between the parks that only care about big thrills (Six Flags) and those that only care about theming/ambiance (Disney and Universal). In terms of lesser-known (outside TPR) parks, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in central California on the Pacific coast is great and so is Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania (east central part of the state). On a semi-related note, for a change of pace, if you wanted to go to a neat place that doesn't have roller coasters, but still has a lot of elements that a theme park would have, the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan is a great option. It's supposedly the single biggest museum complex in the country and is the best place to have fun in the USA that has no roller coasters (besides Epcot, of course). Although it's officially an indoor/outdoor history museum, it does have a steam train, Model T Ford rides, and a legit carousel. They also can take you by bus down the road a short ways to an active Ford plant where you can see new cars being built on an assembly line. If you go there, make sure to take a glance at the wall of sample photos in the old-fashioned picture-taking building. Two of them are pictures of Walt Disney when he visited the place in the 1940s. The museum more-or-less became the inspiration for the Main Street, USA sections in Disney Parks, only tweaked slightly to resemble the hometowns of Disney and one of the designers on the project. Also, the museum is only about two hours away from Cedar Point.

It's been over a year since I posted here, and I have added some key updates to the Attraction Rankings spreadsheet since then. A score for weather is now incorporated, which is made up of annual average temperature and annual total rainfall. The weather score grows higher the closer the temperature gets to 72 degrees F (22.2 degrees C) (room temperature) and the closer the rainfall gets to 31.5 inches (800 mm) (not too wet and not too dry). Attached is the new Top 50 with those that are in multi-park resorts grouped together.

I wonder if this new coaster is made by Gerstlauer, since they made the coasters for the other two currently-operating Sega arcade parks.

There have been a couple of groups that have posted my Lego Golden Spike Ceremony idea on their Facebook pages, but this one is the most relatable to TPR: Chance Rides! https://www.facebook.com/ChanceRides?fref=ts (see March 30th) They manufacture one of the most popular miniature park train series in the world: the C.P. Huntington.

Article #3: http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/florida-man-hopes-to-immortalize-historical-golden-spike-event-with/article_77c9aa3a-c538-11e4-9206-8bbddd40a0b6.html#.VP23b4b7BDA.twitter

Here's another article posted today! http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=33710625&nid=148&title=utahrsquos-golden-spike-ceremony-could-become-new-lego-model&s_cid=queue-1 I don't want to go out on a limb and say that it's happening...but it's happening.

The Lego Golden Spike Ceremony set is now in the news! Check it out: http://www.sltrib.com/news/2244936-155/how-this-utah-monument-could-become?fullpage=1

...and one of the Walt Disney World Railroad Main Street, USA train station: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/24780

Here is another project on Lego Ideas that someone else made based on the Walt Disney World Railroad: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/24011

The way it works is you need 10,000 supporters in 365 days for Lego to consider making and selling it. If it does end up being made by them, the original designer (you) gets 1% of that model's sales and five free copies of that model for yourself. Some have gone all the way, such as a Ghostbusters car model and a DeLorean Time Machine model. Here is one I made: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/95531 I would actually like to get your honest opinions overall about it and if you have any Lego models on this site, link them here and we can critique those, too. Also, you don't need a bucket of Legos to make your model. You can design them on your computer using Lego Digital Designer for free here: http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/download

Okay, so I was at Magic Kingdom again today and went to the Sleepy Hollow Inn again. It was in the morning, and they were serving this special omelette waffle sandwich. It was okay (I think I should have put some salsa on it or something), and no where near as a amazing as the spicy chicken waffle sandwich.

...and here's the latest Top 50 on the Attraction Rankings spreadsheet, now with an improved ranking system that matches the systems on the individual spreadsheets. Also, what you are seeing is the Top 50 with more than one type of the three attractions ranked.

I made another major update to the roller coaster spreadsheet. Now, every single location with more than one operational roller coaster is included, as well as every location run by an operator which runs more than one roller coaster across multiple locations. This did not significantly change the Top 50 much, so no need to re-post that. There is now a total of over 2,500 roller coasters on it in over 900 different locations worldwide. Also, here are some interesting findings: This is the average height, length, and speed for all of the roller coasters on the spreadsheet: 55.06 ft., 1,374.67 ft., 31.67 mph. This combination of stats is extremely close to Pandemonium at SFFT and its copies in SFSL, SFOT, and SFM. Here is its POV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txTQfDjy8jc.

^^^You would probably love the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. They have like more railroad rolling stock than any other museum in the country and between two and three dozen of their diesel locos are working. They have a huge array of classic electric streetcars, as well as a modest steam program. It's not a big place of interest for me, since I am a steam buff, but for a classic diesel fan, that's the place to be.