Hilltopper39

Wow, even if the ride does suck it will at least look really really good while doing it, kinda like Katy Perry. But seriously this is one of the best looking coasters I have ever seen.

^And TPC Sawgrass (if your a golfer) and a lot of other great courses, World Golf Village and Golf Hall of Fame, Florida/Georgia game is worth a weekend, EverBank field is a great place to watch your favorite teams in the NFL get a road win, Jax Port is a great place to catch a cheap cruise, and St Augustine is kinda near Jacksonville and St. Augustine is is old, and old=cool. Other than that yeah not much to else to see here. trying to find some positives in my new hometown :-/

I'm curious to see if Mondial has anything on the new Windseeker rides that they sold to all of the Cedar Fair parks at the show. Also do they still have a 'magical midway' of rides set up outside the convention center with working attractions? What about SCAD Towers? after the accident are those things still being produced? operated? any plans for future installations? Any new companies that are doing anything with mobile technology (iphone,ipad,droid) for in park usage? I know there are some apps for Disnye currently but a and more apps for other parks like park maps, wait times, interactive in park games etc. Cant wait for the updates! I love IAAPA and really want to attend some day.

I'm glad to see B&M finally getting creative with their flyer layouts, I was getting a little sick of turn drop pretzel loop, turn, turn, heart line, turn, brake which was what every other flyer so far seems to do (although Tatsu was a little unique). Looks intersting though.

Again I really really really hope this thing is a HUGE success so that other ageing giant wooden coasters out there have the opportunity to get re-designed and re born. I mean the besides the fact that the drop is taller and steeper and the ride will hopefully be smoothed out the new layout/design looks incredible. It looks like whoever designed it has actually ridden a lot of coasters and designed in some great elements like the double up and the airtime hill and the low to the ground tight steep turns. I think the new layout looks as unique and aggressive as any coaster layout in the world. I don't know what I more excited about the new Texas Giant or the possibility of a new Mean Streak/Son of Beast/Rattler etc etc. If Son of Beast gets rebuilt with this kind of drop and unique layout it could easily be the top 10 coaster that it never was.

The pictures of that park look great. How is it that every other park in the world has incredible theming and parks in America have awful theming?

^Yeah I understand that but when I see brochures of a park and official websites with pictures of rides that are located at a different property even after the rides are a few years old it is kind of annoying. I understand that a chain like six flags probably makes a single commercial for the entire chain because it is cheaper and easier to do so but surely you could individualize the printed material and the online stuff. Its not that big of a deal and something that only a nerd would recognize but it is still kind of annoying.

This is one thing that has always bothered me about parks and their publications. Even though everyone does it except maybe Cedar Point and Disney, you would think for the PR and marketing departments it wouldn't be that hard to have stock video and photos of the attractions at your park.

I love Aquatica's entrance. I think its one of the best park entrances anywhere, theres just so much going on above and below and around to see with the slides, dolphins, lazy river and bridges , very very cool. Great trip report, Aquatica is a great water park, although when I last visited it felt like it was still missing something attractions wise. I mean we rode every slide multiple times and were pretty much bored with the place within about 3 hours. Omaka Rocka might have helped with this a bit but I wish they had a few more re-ridable slides like a water coaster or a signature body slide. But still one of the best water parks I've been to.

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The Fioraono GT Challenge coaster is funky looking ride with all the unbanked turns and the height of the track that never goes over what looks like 30 feet or so. I hope its a fun coaster, it looks like or could be really fun or really lame. This really is a cool project, the whole concept of the park. It's like an amusement park that isnt really an amusement park. I mean even though it has coasters and a log flume and a drop tower the place looks more like a mall or a cool museum than a traditional theme park. Even the traditional attractions are a bit quirky, a log flume through an engine block, a flat un-banked dueling racing coaster, a super fast coaster with a relatively uninteresting layout, and a tower ride through the roof. A very unique project at least and I cant wait to see more about the place.

Please Please Please let there be a 2010 display of Illumagaytions: Reflections of Piers reflecting on cheese. And enjoy Bucky Badgers Very Scary Halloween party at the University of Wisconsin's Madison Kingdom

Thanks for the advice Tyler, we attended this past Sunday with the add-on ticket that allows you to enter the studios park at 2 then stay in the courtyard by Finnegans while they change over the park for the event. We were able to get through Legendary Truth and Hades before 6:00, then had the 20th anniversary house, Catacombs, Orphanage, and Zombiegeddon done before 7:15 without express passes. We had a good time even though the event felt very average this year to me. A few good houses and a lot of average houses, and the Bill and Ted Show was awful. It seems like every year this event gets very mixed reviews the opinions of the enthusiasts community to the general public. Everything I've read on TPR and other review sites about HHNXX was that it is a little down this year, but all the reviews from non enthusiasts friends I have and other "non enthusiasts media" says that this year is one of the best reviewed, scariests, and best years ever. It's funny because every year the houses that I like and the houses that are a consensus TPR favorite aren't necessarily a public favorite. And also every year for me there is a house that I really like that the public and TPR will find not as good. I understand everyone has their opinion and thats fine but I also find it interesting that there is never a consensus overall #1 BCS champion kinda favorite house from the opinions of coaster enthusiasts, HHN enthusiasts, and general public alike. Just an observation, but I guess its a god thing that everyone can find something from the event every year that they like.

I went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando Sunday night. Overall though the event this year was very average. The Bill and Ted Show was terrible. Legendary truth, Hades, and Hallowed Past were all pretty good and everything else was just okay. The scare zones all felt very bare this with not as many actors roaming as usual. We still had a good time and its still a great event just wasn't as good this year as it has been in years past.

It's already been stated but Id like state it again that I LOVE tunnels on wooden coasters. Pre-first drop tunnels (like Big Dipper, Phoenix, Great White, even Psychlone at SFMM) and tunnels during the ride (like the Beast, Raven, Hades). Another thing Ive always loved on some wooden coasters is Layouts that allow the ride to run through the trees if the natural terrain of the area allows it. Then air time, a great drop, speed change of direction all the regular things that made woodies so much fun. A always thought the beast at Kings Island was a a great ride because of its length, layout amongst the trees and also the 2 lift hills is really unique. I've always wanted to see another wooden coaster with 2 lift hill, and subsequently 2 drop,s but don't know if anyone has ever done that since then.

Anyone who has been this year have any advise on what haunts are best to hit before the sun goes down while it is still fairly light outside?

The layout reminds me an awful lot of Xcellerator at Knotts. But definately looks like a crazy ride.

I konw the Cypress gardens lineup was very mediocre but its not like the other Legoland's of the world have El Toro's and Maverick's either. I thought that the Roller Skater and the suspended family coaster (maybe the mouse) if themed well could really have fit into the overall Legoland concept. After reading that article it sounds like the Lego City Section will have a "Flight School – An inverted steel coaster that lets kids feel the thrill of flight " so maybe they are saving the Junior inverted coaster after all. If not does anyone want to start a "Save the Swamp Thing" web site with me?

I'm a bit surprised they didn't try to keep more of the coasters and re-theme them to fit their Lego concept. I mean everything that was there with the exception of Starliner was allready a family or kid sized coaster. Thos pictures look like the roller skater and the inverted roller skater have both been dismantled. I'm pretty excited for this place to open but having never been to a Legoland before I really don't know what to expect from it.

Ill go ahead and get this contest going again this morning. This one might be to much, but oh well. Save me, or else!

I hope ths Zac SPin is as good as Insane looks and these things really take off in America. They look like such a cool ride on a small footprint that a lot of parks could really make work. Id love to eventually see an indoor themed Zacspin. Now if we could only get a Gerstlauer Bobsled in America....

Yeah thats it Frequent Faller, that did look like a cool concept this project is probably not that but it did look cool.

Whatever happened to that sidewyas S shaped zig zaggy free fall coaster concept that Hershey was gonna build at one point but cancelled for some reason?

Tear the damn thing down, save the trains, pay GCI to build something new, game over. I mean seriously, Ive been following this thread and it is just ridiculous the idea of the whole project. Sure I would love to see the ride saved and moved and operated again somewhere, everyone would love to see it saved, I never got to ride it and did hear great things about it. But come on some things you jest need to let go. It would be different if there was a park that was willing to foot the bill for the relocation and refurbishment and rebuilding or even just a rich nut job to foot the bill to relocate to his private field or backyard. But with no money and no where to move the damn thing to why bother? Its like you find a really old cool classic car rotting in a ditch that has been abandoned for 4 years and think hey I never got a chance to drive that so lets save that car! okay, do you have any money to tow it out of that ditch? no. Do you have any money to buy new parts that don't exist anymore? no. Do you know anything about rebuilding or refurbishing a classic car? no. Do you have someone to sell the cal to after we fix it up? no. Well then maybe we should just let it sit there and rot, okay? good idea. The whole sell it to an engineering school thing sounds like a good idea, but have you ever actually been to engineering school? I have, and I cant imagine how a wooden coaster would have benefited my engineering school experience that much. yeah it would have been a lot of fun, but way more expensive that its worth, and really not that useful in teaching engineering concepts. Yeah you can illustrate some physics and structures and some other stuff with it, but so can a 50 dollar text book and a field trip which after i do the math is a lot less that the hundreds of thousands of dollars to operate and maintain a working wooden coaster. Just because you learn about the mechanics of jet engines and propulsion and lift and drag doesn't mean your school needs to buy an F-15 to teach lab class in.

Saw Alive seems like a great concept and Ive been saying for years I wish a park would have a year round haunt open for regular operation hours. I mean a place like Universal that has tons of props and set pieces laying around could reinvent the house every year and have a brand new attraction with the new house. If done right a haunt only needs a handful of actors to really pull off, the scariest house I ever went through only had 2 actors in it working together to time out the scares perfectly. Minimal staffing, almost no operating costs, high capacity, and a new attraction every year.