neil009

How bad is it on your back? I tore a disc last year but I've done extensive PT and core building exercises so have pretty dang strong back muscles. I'm now able to ride most roller coasters without a problem. As long as it's just banging around a bit with no excessive twisting or sudden bending I'm ok. Even the excessive tossing on X2 didn't give me any problems. Your thoughts? And as far as that goes... I've never really ridden water slides at all. I would imagine you can twist your back up pretty good on the landings? Any advice from avid water slide riders? No sudden twisting or bending, as long as you follow their instructions and ride properly. So you may be fine. That being said, personally it's not the kind of thing I'd want to chance if I had back problems of any kind, just because you're more exposed than you are on a coaster because there's no seat supporting you, and your back does get banged up quite a bit. I'd at least try a smaller slide first.

I don't know, I still think they might be adding multiple rides.

^I can pretty much describe the whole experience as sitting at the edge of a cliff in a pool of freezing water, pushing yourself off, suddenly it's pitch black, your eyes are plastered shut from the water spraying hard in your face as you freefall, finally the pullout happens and you feel your back bouncing against the bottom and sides of the not-so-soft-slide (and if you're a bony guy like me this means your spine, hips, elbows, etc, nothing is safe), more water shoots over your face and up your nose, you slow to a stop, and then quickly stagger out of the exit pool trying not to look too stupid as you rub the water out of your eyes and pick the world's biggest wedgie out of your ass. Definitely a must-ride.

^Yes it was also one of the most painful.

^Most parks don't have a running list of abandoned buildings and areas that need to be filled/fixed. Maybe one or two, but nothing like SFGAdv is facing. And what worries me is they seem more interested in creating new holes than fixing the ones they have. Who's to say we won't see Skull Mountain torn out for their next major addition? It would fit their current modus operandi, the ride is unpopular and an eye sore. Sure would be cheaper than reopening the area around Chiller. (I like Skull Mountain mind you, but you see my point.) I wish I could say I felt good about the overall direction the park is headed in, and they have made improvements in some areas, but it just seems like some of the most basic stuff they aren't interested in getting right. They couldn't even be bothered to fix the Golden Kingdom bottleneck this year, even with a new major ride being added. And El Toro Ryan, I appreciate the fact that you don't want to get fired. Feel free to be as positive as you want, you can leave the complaining to us.

How the heck are they going to enforce this? I know 14 year olds who look nine. BTW Summit Plummet was mentioned, I can vouch for that being the #1 most terrifying amusement park experience I've ever had. Everything in your body tells you you're pushing yourself off a cliff. A very, very tall cliff.

Aw man so excited! Hey I have a question, the barrel roll on this reminds me of the barrel roll that got removed from Maverick in the way that you enter it directly from a left turn/bank, then you flip around going immediately into a right turn/bank, almost like you just changed direction like normal but going underneath the track instead of over it. I love the way that flows. I don't know if I'm explaining this very well but is this more common than I realize? I can't think of any other ride that does it.

^Your username is adorable.

Perhaps. It's a lot easier seeing the problem in something than coming up with a workaround for it, and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm a skeptic by nature, and when you've got a coaster where you take away the lift hill and the footprint looks like this: There's room to be skeptical. I don't think Schilke's involvement has been officially confirmed, unless there was a link I missed. As for the layout KingRCT3 mentioned, despite the fact that it's obviously just a very crude rendering of the same stretch of track copy/pasted four times in a row, even if that were the final layout I wouldn't be particularly impressed, especially given that after every single one of those drops there'd be a huge trim brake.

El Toro Ryan, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, so I wanted to try and make amends by saying I think this is a very fair and balanced post. Those who are frustrated with the way the park looks now may tend to overstate their case, causing those who want to defend the park to overstate THEIR case, and you end up with a lot of people putting things more strongly than they mean. Of course the park has its good points and bad points, and I don't think anyone would argue that it hasn't made improvements over the years. But as for general upkeep, yeah, they often let stuff go longer than they should. That's just a fact, it's pretty much always been that way. The amount of decrepitude varies every year. And I think some people walk around the park noticing everything and it bothers them, and others just ride El Toro and forget about it. Either way, not that big a deal. The movie town thing is a much bigger deal though, and what's frustrating is that it's been that way for so long at this point. There isn't really any excuse for it. If this were a more typically run park, I bet they would've hung on to GASM a little longer and put the new coaster there instead, along with the sky screamer and possibly a couple other flats. Until that half of the park is fixed no one should be surprised to hear people complain about it occasionally, I mean it wouldn't really be Theme Park REVIEW if we never ever said anything negative about theme parks, right?

I really wish they'd leave the running lights off every night, maybe for the last half hour of the night. Those pitch-black night rides on Phoenix and Twister are some of the best coaster experiences to be had anywhere.

How many other directional changes are there apart from clockwise and counterclockwise....? As to your point about trim brakes... youre using examples that dont apply. A wild mouse features trims throughout its course but because of its stature maintains the quickness of its elements. Look at a roller coaster like Space Mountain...maintains a slow speed, features a trim brake/block section every few hundred feet of track, yet because of the tightness of its elements keeps up its pace relatively well. I could say you're also using examples that don't apply. Wild mice, Space Mountain, they all keep up their pace by having layouts that go left, then right, then left, etc, in rapid succession. This ride won't be able to do that. All it can do is make one long never-ending turn in a single direction with a consistent radius, until you get an inversion that gets it going in the other direction, another long never-ending turn in a single etc etc etc. The bag of tricks is limited because they're basically trying to design a two-dimensional coaster, almost like a zacspin except going in a circle. Most of what traditional coasters can do, this one won't. If the layout's going to be fabulous, then why haven't they released it yet? That's my question. A virtual POV would go a long way towards building hype and excitement, including among the GP. It's been mentioned that it'll reach a top speed of 65 MPH.

^The most you can hope for is an inversion that gets you turning around and around in circles the other way. Wild Mice and Maverick both maintain excitement through quick, unexpected directional changes. You won't get that here because there's only two directions the coaster can go, clockwise and counterclockwise. I'm imagining that the only way you could get "tightness" of elements is in rotational change (snappy barrel rolls and banking changes) and elevation change (sharp slopes downwards or upwards). A very limited bag of tricks to work from. Also, both of those examples you mentioned demonstrate how trims disrupt the flow and pacing of a ride no matter what speed you're going (Maverick during the hill after the second launch, wild mice throughout the course), and this will be that x10.

I have a feeling people are going to be pleasantly surprised when the actual layout is announced! I agree. I don't see how people can judge a ride when they haven't even seen what the layout will be I and others are skeptical because the very concept of the ride is extremely limiting. There's a reason the world's best coasters aren't built in the shape of a perfect circle. Most of the time "turning" is considered an element onto itself, whether it's a low high-speed turn, overbanked turn, etc. Everything this ride does must be done while also turning. Turning around and around and around in circles, for 500 feet. The faster you go, the faster you're turning, meaning higher banking and more positive Gs. See the problem? You can't go very fast for very long, since the whole time you're going fast you'll be plastered into your seat getting sick. Trims everywhere. Somebody chime in if I'm wrong about any of this. Now I'm no engineer so maybe they'll find some way of making it a good ride despite all that. But I do think the skepticism is warranted. It will be very interesting to see the final layout.

^^Personally I don't think a coaster needs to be intense to be GOOD, but does need a bare minimum of intensity to be GREAT. I'm not saying I'm expecting a ride with Voyage-level intensity but I do think HW is interested in building great coasters, and that means airtime hills that actually deliver and inversions you don't float through like a hot air balloon (things modern B&M has been hit-or-miss with, but like others have said they will build to their client's specifications). You don't invest this much in a ride and not shoot for the very best, there's no reason not to hope for a top-tier ride out of this.

^Opening weekend (warm, dry weather) it was running as slow and boring as always. There was also a giant pothole immediately after the first drop, it seriously felt like the train fell onto a pile of bricks.

^Lol!

This. That is exactly what I was trying to say earlier. Just trying to look at who the park's audience is, thinking of what would be best received by the ones who go to this park, at the competition (KK), and what would be most popular at the park is a no brainer... a steel roller coaster the whole family can enjoy. What makes you think Holiday World would shy away from building an intense, exciting steel coaster when they didn't do that with any of their wooden coasters?

I'm not sure why HW's budgetary limitations are such a pressing concern. It's clear they're building a rather large coaster, and it seems likely it'll be a B&M, so clearly they had the funds for it. What more is there to say? If they didn't think it was a smart investment they wouldn't make it. Really?

I don't think there'd be anything easy about moving a wave pool and a lazy river, both large concrete structures built into the ground. Plus the water slides, plus the huge children's play area, plus all the accompanying buildings, etc. They have way too much money invested in it to knock it down and move it somewhere else. And I still don't see LR being relocated either. My prediction was they'd keep that section of the park dry, with the Whip/Musical Express, LR, and a new coaster in Wildcat's spot to anchor it. But if the rumors are true and those flat rides are being removed, and if I'm right and it's to make way for a Boardwalk expansion, then I wouldn't count on either Wildcat or LR being there in ten years, maybe less. Of course, if that's all true, then it doesn't even make sense in the short term for LR to still be there, because it will literally be sitting in the middle of a water park. Everybody in the area would be wearing a swimsuit, and no one will want to change just to ride it, it would be as good as SBNO. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens. (This is all IF that rumor is true and IF I'm right, a lot of if's.)

It's important to remember that this is most likely going to be threaded through the woods, and since this isn't Cedar Fair or Six Flags, it'll probably cut a pretty narrow path just like Voyage does. To me that excludes their next-gen invert, wing coasters, and dive coaster (dive coasters are too short anyway).

Reliability is an issue but I think the bigger issue is rider comfort. I've never been on a 4-d coaster but whether it's Insane or X2 the story seems to be the same, very intense, not particularly comfortable. Does that sound like B&M to you? I can believe that maybe (maybe) they're moving towards more forceful designs again, but anyone hoping for that radical a departure from them is setting themselves up for disappointment. I have absolutely no idea what in B&M's catalogue could've piqued HW's interest, that's why I'm not bothering to hazard a guess myself. I still doubt it will be a prototype. Floorless coaster sounds so blah but honestly I'm thinking that's the most likely thing at this point. Hey, a terrain floorless threaded through the woods with some snappy inversions could be good, though. As long as HW approached this project the same way they did their other coasters we shouldn't be worried.

Trolling requires prior knowledge that whatever you're about to say will provoke a large negative reaction. The minor flurry I created just by suggesting that maybe the bumper cars at Knoebels aren't that different from bumper cars anywhere else is so mind boggling to me, I'm starting to wonder if I'M the one being trolled. In fact, I was thinking about this, I'm pretty sure I actually PREFER cars with rubber bumpers on them because the cars bounce off each other more, meaning you can feel it more when someone bumps you, as opposed to the dull "thud" of the Knoebels version. The fact that enthusiasts are so freaking nuts over this ride I have to attribute to A) rarity and historical value of the cars themselves, B) fond memories of coaster club trips where everyone riding is there for the same reason, and the feeling of community and camaraderie that comes from a good bumper cars session with people you know and like, and C) Knoebels overhyping syndrome. Because again, I live near the park, I've been on them many times, and I can't even say they're my favorite bumper cars. I've also never heard the enthusiastic reactions from either the people I'm riding with or random passersby when I'm coming off the ride that I always, always hear when exiting Phoenix and the Haunted Mansion. Take that for what you will. The Flyers I'll leave alone for now because at least that can be attributed to "operator error".

Boardwalk expansion. If this is true I'm 99.9% certain it will be a giant water slide/coaster of some variety. I was thinking some more about the card with a fortune teller on it. The automated fortune teller booths are a typical boardwalk attraction. I'm guessing every week will be another image of something boardwalk-related. Also, if that's true, wow removing two classic family flats for a single thrill ride... that really, really, really sucks. Also, even fewer people would ride Lightning Racer. This is all inevitable really but wow.

Oh no, the 12' margin of cleared land all around Nitro is being increased to 15'!! It's time to PANIC!!!!!