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^It also sounds a lot like, well, any coaster's construction timeline

Wow I can't believe I missed this the first time around. You should do this kinda thing more often, loving the captions (especially from BGT)! Fantastic work, Bill. Looking forward to seeing more.

I imagine the trains are shorter because of some of the tighter turns (not snappier, but tighter) towards the end, but I have to wonder if the back has slightly weaker airtime compared to other B&M hypers because of this. I've always found the back of Nitro (which has two more rows than Mako) to be a little better than the front. Thanks for the review/update!

I was queueing for the front row of Kingda Ka a couple years ago in a group of three. We timed getting two adjacent rows to ride on the same train but a 30-something lady by herself completely refused to ride with my buddy, so we had to wait another train (with Zumnajaro is 4 minutes) and waste three sports on the train. Pretty ridiculous and frustrating as it happened but it's important not to let those kinds of things get to you.

+1 on this. Raptor for me has always had that 90's industrial vibe, and that goes for the engineering behind the ride too. Not everything has to be all graceful and completely balanced in terms of forces/jerk. And that's what makes Raptor great, it epitomizes classic B&M.

I thought the renderings of the outward banked turn in the third picture seemed super unrealistic and impossible but this looks exactly the same. Holy crap.

For some reason I doubt it... I'm with you on disliking obnoxious or entitled people but try not to be too judgmental and make assumptions when you didn't actually see anything happen.

lol what? Nobody knows exactly what Knotts is going to do, how can you be so specific eight years out?

My rule of thumb--never look more than three days out. Meteorologists suck. Oh also... I don't see two major investments in rides in the same year. It's just not the most efficient way to spread capital. And I honestly don't see a Ghost Rider type refurb, simply because there is no emotional attachment to Mean Streak (sorry Mean Streak Henry), like Ghost Rider, and it was never an excellent ride, like Ghost Rider. The best they'll get from a massive refurb is 1991 Mean Streak which is nowhere near 1998 Ghost Rider.

My rule of thumb--never look more than three days out. Meteorologists suck.

My buddy and I were paired with a nice Amish family of either three or four last year. It was quite a scene and he gave me this hilarious "wtf..." look, but it was pretty uncomfortable just trying to hold your legs and body uprig and compact the entire time to avoid running against a group of strangers. Nothing wrong with improving capacity in a Six Flags park, but come on... three adults and 2 or 3 kids?

Only a few years and the ride already sucks. Wow I hope that issue is addressed by B&M. I'm going to wait until I ride it myself to say the ride "already sucks." With such stark conflicting opinions it could very well be a day-to-day, weather or specific train related issue. People also experience and describe pain (in this case rattle) differently. I'm personally still very excited to ride Banshee this July. It and The Beast at night are the two things I'm most anticipating about Kings Island.

Just get there at 10 for Dominator early entry then ride Volcano at rope drop. After that you should be fine cruising around the park in whatever order you like, it's not hard to ride everything in a day even on a Saturday. If Intimidator is running two trains (which it should be on a Saturday) you could get multiple re-rides and I'd recommend the last row.

It's interesting to see Kings Island with a stronger attendance jump in 2015 compared to when Banshee debuted. Goes to show those major investments really are long term, and perhaps it wasn't a "poor turnout" after all.

^Its like saying Top Thrill Dragster is a different type of roller coaster than a B&M. Because it is.

Would Sunday or Monday be a better day to visit? I understand neither are ideal but I don't have any other options.

^Ive never been to Worlds of Fun, but it looks like a pretty nice park to walk around. Thanks for the photos, nice job!

My advice? If you have 16 credits and one hour left in the day, get in line for Millennium Force again for a night ride instead of squeezing your way into a kiddie coaster. It's great that you want that 100th credit, but an amusement park should be fun, and you might only get that experience once.

I don't think you really know how blocking works... And Twisted Colossus has four trains but can only run three. The number of trains a coaster runs has little to do with capacity if they're all sitting in storage or constantly stacked.

I really want to know the answer to this as well. I don't know all the mechanics behind it, but the "natural" position of the brake fins is up. It requires power to retract them and hold them, and the message to send power to retract them is only fired during the launch. So even if the entire system went haywire (for lack of a better term), the brakes are up. Failsafe. Correct me if that wasn't the best explanation/I missed something, but that's my general understanding.

^I agree with every bring except the last sentence. Cedar Fair absolutely knows what they're doing with their parks, and they're not over-investing in their large parks (namely Cedar Point) too heavily at all. Actually, they've been spending less on coasters and more on infrastructure at that park now than the past 20-30 years. After that, they have a solid group of mid/large size parks that actually do have quite a bit of room for growth in size and attendance (Kings Island, Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, even Knotts as we've seen). The smaller parks haven't really taken a hit that we've seen and they're starting to make some movement with CGA and eventually Valleyfair. I see your username so maybe that belief has to do with that? Either way trust a company that's been on the up & up. Seriously.

It's just free general parking for however many days you stay at the hotel.

Almost every time I've gone to a park for the first time with a non-enthusiast they always point out how much they love "the old rickety wooden coasters," and then after riding whatever particular ride best fits that description they're like "never mind that's a piece of sh*t." It's interesting, nonetheless.

Thanks for that?

I wonder how long it took them to get that shot with Diamondback not double stacked