Jackdude101

Correct, but I was thinking about those that live within driving distance of Orlando.

I visited that park for the first time back in June after the new expansion opened. It's an acceptable little park and it's actually pretty unusual to have a conventional, mid-sized amusement park here in Florida. Of course, Freedom Flyer was good and White Lightning was breathe-taking. Unfortunately, I foresee Fun Spot America becoming the go-to park for the lowest-common-denominator people visiting Orlando just because of its low-price tickets and free parking. I hope that doesn't happen, but the deck is stacked against the park.

I've only been to Dollywood, so...Dollywood wins by default. Also, I found it interesting that several people think that the two parks tie because my little spreadsheet says similar things about their roller coaster line-ups. I thought that was pretty neat.

I noticed a small boo-boo on this ride's rcdb.com page here: http://rcdb.com/11537.htm. It is marked as operating, but the opening date is 11/14/2013. The only logical explanation for this error is that the ride goes so fast that it traveled back in time.

Here is all of the data in the spreadsheet in two tables ranking the roller coasters by the country in which they are presently located and the country in which the headquarters of their respective manufacturers and/or designers are presently located.

I've been to Cedar Point and Walt Disney World (all four land parks) several times each and comparing the two is like comparing the current Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift: one's super wild and crazy (sometimes too crazy) while the other one is wholesome and charming (as long as you don't get on her bad side). In a nutshell, these two park properties are very different from each other in almost every way imaginable. Despite this, which one's better, you ask? WALT DISNEY WORLD, I CHOOSE YOU! Although I love big roller coasters, The big D has a stronger place in my heart due to the cornucopia of childhood memories it has created for me and also because of its strong emphasis on cleanliness, staff friendliness, and top-notch presentation of the entire facility as a whole. The fact that it is only 90 minutes away from where I currently live doesn't hurt either.

^^^So...in summary, Cedar Fair really, really, really, REALLY, wants Matt Ouimet to stay CEO as long as possible and are paying him truckloads of cash to sweeten the deal. It's probably a good idea.

Does anyone know the exact date when JINGLE Cruise opens (No, that is not a typo I just made). It's supposed to be in early November.

They should merge and form the ultimate super special mega happy conventional amusement park empire and call it "Cedar Flags."

Air was the first flying coaster made by B&M. It's a prototype just like Oblivion at Alton Towers was the prototype for the Diving Machine models. Also, fun facts: Air is the shortest B&M roller coaster (65.62 feet) and the second-slowest (46.60 mph).

This. I'm still waiting for a successful design of a roller coaster train that jumps the tracks Evel Knievel-style and reconnects with the track at the end of the jump. There are records of people attempting and testing these types of rides during the Coney Island glory days circa 100 years ago, but they never got them to work right.

Yes, since 2009 if I recall correctly. I was only thinking of ones that are still open now. Though, I have heard rumors (from Screamscape) that the owners of the rides at Freestyle Music Park are preping the rides to have them sold to other parks. So, we will definitely be seeing Time Machine in action again soon (hopefully with the original Led Zeppelin theme).

^^^Thank you for the constructive criticism. I suppose a more accurate piece of criteria would be to increase or decrease the roughness score based on the manufacturer, but even then the roughness for the rides of a specific manufacturer are not the same. OH HOW I WISH RCDB.COM HAD MORE DATA ON G-FORCE LEVELS (only a very small number of roller coasters have this type of data available there)!

Here are some articles about the intellectual property theft by Chinese amusement companies mentioned in my previous reply: http://www.parkworld-online.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/2399/Intellectual_property__96_IAAPA_gets_tough.html http://www.amusementtoday.com/zamperla-awarded-judgement-for-trademark-infringement/

Any company based in China. They shamelessly steal and copy other company's designs from other countries and even from fellow Chinese companies. In particularly heinous instances they have even attached the company's logo of the ride design they have stolen and put it on their own knock-off versions, so potential customers don't know it's a knock-off. They did a bust once at a recent amusement industry convention in the US where several of these Chinese companies were confronted and slapped with huge fines for doing these things, but it won't stop them from continuing to have unethical business practices in their home country.

^^^I am assuming you mean best looping sitting coaster? If so, there are only four of these that B&M has made: Dragon Khan (PortAventura), Kumba (BGT), Incredible Hulk (IOA), and WildFire (SDC). Of those, I have only ridden Kumba and it is still awesome except for the moment it leaves the last corkscrew loop when your head gets jarred to the side against the restraints. Special note on WildFire: it is actually a B&M floorless model with the seats raised above the train, but have onboard platforms below each seat and because of that it is technically not "floorless," per se.

New roller coasters and new amusement parks will continue to be sought after as long as the world population grows. There has been a huge park boom in China over the past few decades and now that Russia has joined the WTO and opened the floodgates for foreign investment, it is set to see a park boom, also (though most will be indoor facilities). India may also experience a park boom as well if newer world class parks like Adlabs Imagica become popular with the general population. That, of course, will depend on how well their economy progresses and how strong their middle class becomes, which at present is minimal.

Yeah, this sounds like a "sequel" of sorts to the SeaWorld Parks IPO earlier this year. BTW, Blackstone Group owns Merlin Entertainments and SeaWorld Parks, so this is not surprising. What I would like to see is a merger between Merlin and SeaWorld, which would consolidate Blackstone's amusement companies into one. It would be a good marriage, as they both operate sets of parks and attractions that have a high emphasis on quality. They could name the newly-merged company "Merlin Entertainments" and have the world headquarters in Orlando, Florida (where SeaWorld Parks' headquarters is already located). Then, divide their global amusement empire into three divisions: North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

I just got back from my trip last weekend when I visited Cedar Point. The meatball sub at the Joe Cool Cafe was better than I expected and I highly recommend it. Also, despite the 40-degree whether and cold drizzle, I got my GateKeeper credit. Yay! Oh, I almost forgot something I experienced that you might find interesting: GATEKEEPER CAN RUN EVEN WHEN IT'S RAINING. Either there is some sort of new tech B&M created that allows this, or Cedar Point felt that the guests would become an angry mob and burn the whole park down if their newest roller coaster was not running (Raptor and Blue Streak nearby were not running, but Wicked Twister was running).

The question is whether it will be a true theme park or just another heavily-expanded FEC like Waterville USA down the road in Alabama.

The roughness score on my little top 10 ten is based on stats of the rides. One half is based on the age of the roller coaster based on its original opening date (score decreases the older it gets) and the other half is based on its max speed (score decreases the faster it gets). I have only applied the second half to wood coasters with traditional tech while all new tech wood coasters and all steel coasters get the max score for that half. It's not perfect, but I am posting this stuff here for you guys to see so I can get your input and improve it.

I don't know if this changes anything, but to clarify what I am thinking of in terms of "roughness" is consistent high shaking over the entire course of the ride and not having rough spots only at specific points of the ride.

I guess the point of the poll is to find the most popular hypercoaster-style ride below 200 feet BESIDES the Intamin Mega-Lites.

Tell me about the food at Cedar Point inside the park gates. I've been there many times, but I'm asking in case there are good places there that I have not tried yet. This weekend my wife, my one-year-old son, and I will be visiting family in Southeast Michigan and we will be going to the park during that time. It will be my son's first visit, so it will be interesting having the new "Cedar Point as a parent" experience.

While gathering data for my little spreadsheet, I ended up looking at every operating park with an entry on rcdb.com, and I remmeber this one. This is the one where the park made its own roller coaster with supports that look like used wood telephone poles with a metal track. It's officially a rare, one-of-a-kind credit.