neil009

At the park right now. You're all going to call me crazy but I actually kind of like the air gates. Adds to the anticipation of the ride. Doesn't seem to be affecting operations any, they're not waiting for the previous riders to completely clear the station before opening them. Also I will never understand why they let riders carry their purses and backpacks on the Phoenix. Like, I do not understand at all. Not complaining, just do not understand.

I guess everyone has different standards but for me, if I visit a small park (and Knoebels is a small park) and come away with rides on not one, but two fantastic wooden coasters, I'd call that a good day. Of course I drove an hour and a half out of my way just to visit Martin's Fantasy Island which has one average-to-decent woodie and came away in love with the place so...

This is one reason why it's the best to me. I don't even think of it as being in the same league as El Toro honestly, it's on a level all its own for me. It doesn't even feel like it's in an amusement park most of the time, it just feels like this crazy balls-to-the-wall race through the middle of the woods with both tons of airtime and laterals. El Toro is mostly just about extreme airtime.

Like everyone else said, yes, this coaster is really all the hype. Personally it's my all-time favorite coaster I've ridden. I just wanted to add, if you're expecting El Toro-style ejector airtime you'll be disappointed. It doesn't have perfectly-shaped parabolic hills that smoothly throw you into the restraint and keep you there. It does have airtime, but it's not what I would typically think of as "ejector", it feels more like the track is dropping out from under you for a second. It's a completely different kind of experience. Try to come to it with an open mind and you shouldn't be disappointed, and MAKE SURE to ride it after dark if you can.

^^Not new. Whipping the sails has always been against the rules. I don't think "snapping" (though I still have yet to see thia done in person) is possible without whipping the sails, I mean that's the entire point right? About the airgates. I don't know about the subways in other cities, but in Philly all the stations have no barrier to speak of between the hordes of people shoving into each other and the extremely heavy trains ripping by at highway speeds. That actually DOES feel unsafe to me. Funny thing, society. I'm wondering if the change has anything to do with their increasing attendance numbers. Attendance goes up, insurance costs go up, rides with x number of daily riders suddenly have to have airgates. I don't know if it actually works that way but it would make sense. Personally this doesn't really bother me too much.

^^ Yes to free parking.

That's how I feel when people complain about Thunderhawk. Thunderhawk runs fine for a woodie of its tenure. Hydra, for a B&M, is an embarrassment.

^^Row 4. Sit in the inner seats and you'll get less lateral force from the twisting track, then you'll really be able to tell. ^Floating on air is great! Hydra doesn't give you that. You stay firmly in your seat the entire time, basically no lift at all except the 1st drop and *slightly* on the zero G. When the ride opened it was actually quite smooth and relaxing, kind of a nice chill contrast to the craziness of Talon. Now it's not even that because it's too shaky and rough. Just not a good ride.

Question about the Legend: the one thing that keeps getting repeated is how smooth the ending is now. Well of course it's smooth, it's brand new. I'm wondering, what happens in a few years when the new sections get that normal worn-in roughness that all wooden coasters get and suddenly the ride has no finale, will everyone still agree that it's a net positive? Normally you want to save the strongest forces for the end if possible, and that doesn't seem to be the case any more with the Legend.

I tried an experiment with Hydra on my last visit. B&M is nothing if not frighteningly precise with their engineering, so i decided to try the dead center of the train to get exactly what the designers had in mind, with no distortions. And it clicked! Every inversion besides the jojo roll and the zero G is engineered so that you feel exactly 1 G through the entire maneuver. No hangtime, no positive Gs, just 1 normal G the whole time, as if you were never upside down. Try it, it's crazy! Especially when you think about how much math and expertise is involved in designing it that way, that all vertical forces are completely negated despite all the crazy directions you're moving in. The zero G lets you lift off your seat but just barely, and mostly all you feel is the force of the rotation. To me Hydra must be the absolute pinnacle of B&M designing all the forces out of their rides. Possibly it also explains the bizarre amoebic appearance of the inversions. There's really only two problems with this: 1. Hydra has a terrible rattle which means the magical engineering has to be admired through a distracting veil of shuttering and shaking. 2. Holy hell B&M what the f*ck were you thinking, this design philosophy makes for THE MOST BORING RIDES EVER. It's like they never stopped to consider if anybody would actually prefer to ride a ride like this where you close your eyes and it's like you're cruising down the highway with the windows rolled down. Let's just be thankful they seem to have gotten away from this kind of, um, shall we say, "purity of design".

I rode Jack Rabbit earlier in the day. I liked it a lot but it wasn't worth spending valuable night rides on. That line moves sloooooow (especially considering the restraint is just a seat belt). I'll tell you what, Kennywood gave me a fantastic time today. Perfect weather and Phantom was a walk-on early in the day. The lines filled out more after 5 but I got on everything I wanted and then some. I got on Phantom 7 times in total (including getting an extra lap on the last ride of the night) and Thunderbolt 4 times. I would've got on Thunderbolt more but the no single riders policy makes it very awkward (to say the least) if you're solo like I was today. I decided I was done squishing random strangers (or rather, having them squish me). 3 of them all apologized at the same spot, that one crazy tight descending turn as you're entering the second leg of the helix thingy. I kept shouting "It's ok!" but by the third time I just had to laugh. Both of these coasters felt faster later in the evening. Thunderbolt is way, way up there for me, particularly as a laterals fan, but I was also getting pops of air off almost every single drop, even from the slight change in steepness at the bottom of the chain lift. Phantom though... I'd ridden it once years ago, but tonight it was like a f*cking hurricane. I could not believe how fast it was. That first double down sent you FLYING. I think it's basically my favorite steelie as of right now, the only one that really comes close is Magnum XL. The first drop in the back row with the rotation puts every other curved first drop to shame. All the coasters at Kennywood are kick-ass, no losers here. Exterminator is far and away my favorite indoor coaster besides Space Mountain. Racer was surprisingly good. Ghostwood Estate was the best looking non-Disney dark ride I've ridden, unfortunately I got stuck by myself so I was trying to trigger as much as I could and failed pretty badly. I wish you could push a button and just have everything trigger automatically... you know... the way dark rides are supposed to be. Still, a great-looking ride. The only clunker for me (predictably) was Garfield's Nightmare. I love the history of the ride and those narrow tunnels you go through. But it's actually kind of hilarious just how terrible the current theme is. Garfield always sounds bored, so he makes for a very boring narrator, which makes for a very boring ride. A bad decision from the start I think, and I'm surprised it's lasted this long. I went past at least two of the giant comic strips before I realized the panels were supposed to be read from right to left... I kept reading them backwards and was very confused. Seriously good day overall. A few random pics: Lovely view from Phantom's station. Never too far from reality at Kennywood. Thunderbolt: making strangers feel awkward since 1924 (or whenever that policy was instated... why can't they just tell single riders to sit on the left??) I think it's time for ol' Phantom to get a new lift motor, it felt like we were just barely making it to the top

^Too late, I chose the front seat. =P I don't feel too bad, the front gets great airtime going over the (weirdly lopsided) top hat. I don't think it's worth another ride, I liked it but I mean it wasn't THAT good. The ending is inexplicably lame. Everything is amazing right up through the second vertical drop, then meh. Think I'm gonna spend the rest of my evening on Phantom and Thunderbolt.

Guys quick, Sky Rocket: front seat or back seat?

^Thanks for letting me know! That may change things a bit.

Let's say I'm not doing the water park at all, should I be able to do just about everything important in 5 hours Friday night? I was thinking of doing the evening pass. Preferably I'd like many rides on Ravine Flyer II. Is it typically about a half hour wait, more, less?

Nothing really compares to the LARGEST models like the one at Cedar Point, but it's a fantastic flat ride. Possibly my favorite one there, it's typically a must ride for me. Gives a great out-of-control feeling. It's also way way more fun than the inward-facing claw rides like at Dorney and Hershey.

There aren't any lights on the Voyage spaghetti bowl at all, and they even changed the camera light on the block brake to infared years ago. I did notice last year, however, that lights from Thuderbird's brake run were visible, and this is most likely what you saw. I can believe that. Regardless it was a lot more light than I was expecting, which was none at all. The new POV looks good. I'm still a little disappointed by the changes but I'm at least convinced that it'll still be a top 5 ride for me when I go back.

Ok, it was not the moon, it was a light. Pointed at the track. Either there's (at least sometimes) a floodlight lighting up the spaghetti bowl or aliens are implanting memories in my mind.

Holiwood Nights last year. Got in a bunch of night rides, it was all the same. I'll revise my previous statement to say that there may have only been one floodlight on the speghetti bowl but it was bright enough that I could always see the track in front of us.

This might be sacrilege but as much as I loved the Voyage, I didn't think it was all that at night. There were huge floodlights lighting up almost the entire spaghetti bowl, and the rest of the coaster runs close enough to the midway to keep it from ever getting truly pitch black. Maybe I was spoiled by Boulder Dash but Voyage really pales in comparison. In fact I thought Raven also gave better night rides.

Um... You do know no matter what direction it moves, it can only move in three dimensions, right? I mean I don't want to disappoint you but...

^I believe you missed the word "without" in my original post.

^^Man... I need to go back to Holiday World. Reading your trip report was like reliving my first trip last year. I wish it wasn't so far away!!

Thunderhawk says hi. You mean the other eastern PA classic woodie that's trimmed to death...??

In fact, this is completely hypothetical fantasy talk, but if getting rid of Wildcat would free up the space in their maintenance budget to run Comet the way it was designed, I would totally be in favor of sacrificing one to save the other. I know that's not how it works but it sure would be great if it was. I thought maybe it was just impossible for a big corporate park to run a classic woodie without trimming it to death... then I rode Thunderbolt at SFNE. Hershey seriously has no excuse. I'll never forget my one ride immediately after a thunderstorm when the trims were either off or not really working due to the wet track, if I closed my eyes I could have swore I was riding the Phoenix. Not exaggerating.