DrachenfireOP

Ok, now THIS is going to be awesome! It's really stacked Festa as the best parts of the park now too! Plus, having AC, Tempesto, and Pantheon so close should help diffuse the crowds and make wait times all around slightly shorter! I also LOVE that it goes down to the Rhine River, adding to the collection of coasters that do so! I well timed train ride could potentially give you FIVE coaster trains syncing up at once!!! That's nuts!!! I will be interested to see how the entry pavilion interacts with the service road. The leaked plans made that area a little dubious, but I'm positive Busch will have something great up their sleeves in that regards. They always do! The only potentially negative question I have (which I'm certain was addressed and being accommodated for) is the grazing pastures for the Clydesdale in that area. It was nice having a quiet, non-lit area for them to enjoy some R&R where the guests could still see, but also they weren't disturbed. Anyone know if they're marking out a new grazing area for them elsewhere in the park?

As someone who considers airtime the most important part of a coaster, and who loves cutback/overbank turns, I've been excited to ride this one for a while. This endorsement is making me excited for my fall trip to KD even more!!!

Lol oh my! I waited 2 days before posting and clearly now that I'm not in VA Im even more behind the times >< I'll leave my old post as is because you should never deny others a laugh even if it's at your expense

Just a quick "unoffical" update on Pompeii from a friend who works in the park now that the dust has settled so to speak. It sounds like as of now the word is that the special effects system had nothing to do with the fire. Apparently JCC fire was able to get six trucks in very quickly and, as others have already pointed out, it was extinguished quickly and minor damage was the whole result. It's very likely the ride will reopen this season, but it's going to be slow going because they will need JCC to inspect both the building and the ride, before and after repairs are done. For this reason a time estimate is not being given. You can't miss a deadline you don't set! The ride will likely need to be re-certified after all is said and done, although it doesn't sound like the ride itself was affected at all. As an aside from when I used to work there way back when, the paths are wide enough for firetrucks as a rule, and all the bridges in the park are designed to support one. I saw them training in the park during the off season twice, and every ride/building in the park has it's own street address just like anywhere else. The response time, therefor, was very fast for a fire that was very small. Still scary, and still a fire, but I would be shocked not to see the ride re-open this season. If nothing else, I'd be shocked if they don't use it for hallow-scream and Christmas town even if they are delayed getting the ride re-certified.

This is by far the stupidest thing I've seen a park do. I only ever road it when it was Dueling Dragons, and was lucky to get many rides in on both trains (2003). I consistently put both sides in my favorites list. The theming was amazing (I know it's gone now, that was also a dumb move), and it was a rare ride that was just as fun to watch all day as it was to ride. What a dumb fucking move closing this down is. They took out the queue (dumb), they stopped the duel (dumb), and now they're closing it. I've been mad at coaster closing before, but this is bogus. Also, am I wrong, or is this the first ever B&M to close permanently? I know a few have migrated, but this is the first one to up and get the ax, right? NEVER thought a world class AAA coaster like Dragons would be the first to go. Is someone way smarter than Universal buying these coasters and making them duel again? I haven't really heard anything to that extent...

^ That's actually pretty common. I remember seeing "air time" advertised for both Apollo's Chariot and Nitro when they were new. Marketing people love looking for any angle at all to make the newest ride even more special.

I miss these days! Back when the PLC was basically non-existent, the loading gates WERE non existent, and you used a hand crank to let the train in and out of the station! I remember I used to get so excited on LNM at BGW when they'd over-shoot the station and the whole train got to go for a second ride! Hell, even up through the 90s you could crank arrows out with a train leaving the station the moment the first one left the lift. I have some old footage of even Alpengeist somewhere with a train leaving the station the moment the first one is off the lift from 1997. I think early 2000s were when parks started going crazy with the anti-idiot policies, fear of lawsuits that never actually happened, and the like. This was also the time when cellphones became more mainstream, camcorders became more affordable, and bags started coming into parks with greater frequency. The uptick in personal belongs at the same time as the uptick in safety "features" caused dispatch times to go WAY down. Here's some good ol' Psyclone Steve footage of Vortex in 93 with the "ASAP dispatch!" I love seeing the coaster going through the block brakes with the one behind almost at the lift crown, and seeing the loading station dispatch with guests still walking out the exit. Different times. I miss them too!

Clearly must only be decorative, because not only are there aircraft hazard lights on BGW attractions (for obvious reasons), but a coaster without lift lights would be super unsafe during a night evac!

Before the all-but-official RMC conversion of GC, I was thinking 2018 could have been repainting GS and a floorless conversion, a la Mantis/Rougarou at Cedar Point... an opportunity for marketing a "new" ride, and high exposure up front, too. Granted, I'd guess it's not a cheap conversion, but surely they are aware load/unload on our GS is the worst one of all the stand ups. (That's for real.) The ride is so good! It just needs some attention, just like Ninja/Blue Hawk did. Under-rated, IMO. Fresh paint, two floorless trains, loading station re-do... boom I don't want them to convert it, the ride is probably the best Stand Up coaster out their. All it needs is a reapint, as for dispatchs, we were their on Wednsedsy and they dispatched our train in under two minutes, next train took like 5, it's more of the GP holding the dispatches up than it is anything else, how people don't understand that you have to STAND on a STAND UP coaster is rather perplexing. I'm very lucky to have finally gotten to SFoG last year and gotten rides in on GS and GP before they go away. With that said, GP is one where the conversion is fine with me, though I'd willingly re-ride it. However I agree with you about GS. I LOVED that ride! I'm a pretty big fan of Stanups to begin with, which I know is unpopular, but I was BLOWN AWAY with that one! It was so intense and such a blast, and you just won't get the same thrill on a floorless. Rougarou was a great conversion from Mantis because of how interesting it was, but GS really benefits from being a standup IMO. Also, I had no problem with the load time. Maybe it was just the day I went, but they were being very efficient and the line moved fast. Blue Hawk was the only long line since they were single training it.

Holy shit that looks amazing. Some very interesting and intense looking elements on that, which is par for the course for RMC, but with the added height, MCBR, and twisted insanity, there's no way this won't be the best RMC to date, and probably the new best coaster in the park! I bet the line will only be 4-6 hours opening year too!

Been well over a decade since I stopped working there, but even back then Apollo needed 2 clicks and a clearly visible red line to go. It was possible to see the red line a bit and have it locked but the computer would say it wasn't locked. There's also that awkward spot where the pressure against the lock from a larger guest gets the restraint "stuck" where it lacks that wiggle room to unlock, and you hear a huge "thunk" when the air finally manages to pop the harness open, which makes an awkward situation worse since if everyone wasn't looking at that part of the station before, they are now. Apollo was one of the early B&M coasters (if not the first) to have a computer "go no/go" system on restraints. Older B&Ms used to be able to leave the station with harnesses 100% up. Maybe some still can but I've noticed older B&Ms with new PLCs installed in recent years (I noticed Alpengeist got an upgrade sometime in the last few years for example). As an interesting side note, load-testers for B&M coasters are actually too large for the "guest size" go/no go belts, so they can't be buckled when load testers are in. Just an extra layer of safety testing, sorta like how elevators are tested at something like twice their max capacity weight for safety.

It's always possible, but that plot actually isn't as big as you might think riding by on the train. It's something like 5 1/2 acres total, and some of that site got eaten up by verbolten and the black forest. When you look at the plot on google maps and compare it to even "small" countries like Ireland, you get perspective on just how tiny that old plot really is compared to the park at large. With that said, NO ONE has managed to impress me more with putting things "where they shouldn't fit" than BGW. IF they decided to build a new country without revamping an old one (the way Hastings became Ireland), the most logical spot would be in the pasture are between Italy and Festa Italia. However, unless they're planning to do away with the clydesdales (unlikely), or downgrade them to a smaller grazing pasture (again unlikely), I guess that isn't going to happen. The DF site was a grazing pasture before DF was built, but that was mostly to show off cows and other such animals. But big horses need big grazing and exercise areas, and I know they like to keep them tucked out of the way of guests for much of the day to keep the animals safe and happy. It's most likely a red herring. Something tells me if they were planning a new country, they wouldn't give away the actual branding until they absolutely had to. You don't need to give the real name for zoning permits.

If more than one day is an option, I recommend it. The park is easily doable in one day, but there's other cool stuff to do in the area too. If history is at all interesting to you, the historic triangle has a lot to offer, and it's all confined enough to go into BGW for a few hours on more than one day, while also seeing some other things in the area.

^ Could go either way. Mon/Tues are typically "low" attendance days, but august is august. Those are certainly the best days of the week to assume lower attendance. BGW is weird though. Sometimes you go on a weekend and can walk right onto coasters. Sometimes you go on a weekday and are waiting an hour. With that said, outside of Hallowscream and major holidays, wait times are rarely more than an hour for any ride, and you're far more likely than not to see wait times of 5-15 on most coasters, with Tempesto being the only one to have a somewhat longer line (though still usually short). On a hot day, the water rides are the longest lines in the park by a longshot, and the skyride can also have pretty long lines, especially towards the end of the night when people don't want to walk anymore. I'd recommend you go hit up Tempesto first thing when you arrive. Loch Ness tends to have it's longest line at the start of the day and taper out to near nothing later on, save the busiest days. Verbolten often has the longest looking line, but moves very quick due to duel loading. If you start at Tempesto, you're also primed for Apollo right there, you can hit up the festa/Italy flat rides, then follow the circle hitting Verbolten, DarKastle, more flat rides, then through to Alpengeist, Invadr, Griffon, then back to the park enterance for LNM. Make sure to ride LNM and Griffon in the back if nowhere else, the airtime is insane. Apollo is also spectacular in the back. If you have time for both a front and back ride on Tempesto, they offer different experiences. Alpengeist is good in every seat, still one of my top 10 roller coasters of all time, and my personal favorite in the park. Make sure to brace yourself before going through the cobra roll and MCBR on Alpengeist, it's from the era when B&Ms still had balls and throws you around a bit. Rest of the ride is super smooth. LNM is a very non-arrow Arrow, so it's a very smooth ride by Arrow standards. DarKastle is really fun for what it is, so don't miss out unless simulators make you sick. They have a lot of oldschool carnival flats that are really worth a spin as well. Mach Tower is the worst drop tower I've ever been on, when it's even open, so if the line is too long don't bother (though the view is really cool). Also, the show in Ireland is really cool if you're even remotely into step dancing. Trappers smokehouse is awesome to eat, but the quality tends to differ throughout the day. At major meal times when there's a line, it's the best food in the park. At shoulder times, it can be lackluster. The food at Das Festhaus is really freaking good too though, especially if you like German food. Italy has a newish marketplace with a lot of variety. I haven't had a bad thing from them yet, though I haven't lived in VA for years now.

^ Lol yeah. I actually "found" it the first time in my garage in the 90s, and since it was expired at the time but cool I thought I should keep it. I've had it in storage with a variety of other cool park swag. I've been meaning to put up a little display in my home at some point and just never got around to it. I have a 20th anniversary park mug, Stein with the Burgermeister on it, some LNM/BBW stuff from when it was still "The Old Country," a bunch of Drachenfire stuff (mugs, shirts, a hat), an Alpengeist shirt from 1997 that has all the world record stats on it, a bunch of pins (including Questor!) and so on and so forth all the way up to my Tempesto mug from when it came out. Looking forward to adding an InvadR item to the collection!

The Seaworld/Busch parks really know how to crank out some amazing looking food for these festivals/events. I really like Kraken, and I don't mind the current Kraken entrance. I'm really not a fan of VR so I'm glad these parks are making it optional. The VR always looks pretty cheesy, though I admit it's cool what they can do with technology. That, and I'm not fond of putting anything on my face that was just on someone else's face in the hot/humid weather of the southern US...

Cyclone is one of the few rides I've ever been on where I thought "is this thing going to hold together?" It's one thing to have a rough ride, but it's very disconcerting feeling the seats shift laterally away from your feed as you're vibrating along like you're riding a 70s era washing machine with a cinder block in it.

This is the damn truth right here. If you try to get lunch, you'll actually get your food around dinner time.

Anyone need a one day ticket coupon? I found this during spring cleaning

Where did you sit on LNM that it didn't wow you? Because if you rode in the back car and weren't wow'd by the air time (especially on the first drop), I don't know what to say to you. Yeah, there's a lot of really amazing things that have come along in recent years, but sometimes knowing where to sit makes a HUGE difference in the quality of those older coasters. With that said, I also don't think we should forget the "levels" of coasters, and that it's a big deal to some guests. Lets talk about looping coasters at CP: Corkscrew: 3 inversions, 85 foot drop, 48mph Gatekeeper: 6 inversions, 170ft drop, 67mph Maverick: 2 inversions, launch coaster, beyond-vertical drop, 70mph Raptor: 6 inversions, 137ft, 57mph Rougarou: 4 inversions, 145ft, 60mph Valrvn: 3 inversions, 214ft vertical drop, 75mph. Not everyone wants to ride those "huge" coasters. If you're graduating from Iron Dragon/Gemini to the next big thrill, and want to try going upside down, you either get on corkscrew, or your next "logical" options are Maverick (which many consider the most intense ride in the park), Rougarou (very intimidating to coaster newbies), or Valrvn (extremely intimidating to newbies). Corkscrew fills a role, so if it ever goes, it really needs to be replaced with something else that fills that exact role. That's not even getting into the height discussion, because a lot of adults find themselves in "new coaster" territory too. However yes, the B&Ms and the like do have very tall height requirements. I once had to turn a legal adult away from Alpengeist because they weren't tall enough :/

I'm definitely interested to see how the RMC comes along over the course of this season. Hurler wasn't a "big" coaster as far as they go, but after seeing what was done with Storm Chaser, RMC proved that they can pack a hell of a punch even in a small, "short" layout. Plus, we can't rule out them adding to the height of the lift like they're clearly doing with Mean Streak.

I'm also a big softie for the old Arrows, but I never had a problem with Corkscrew at CP the way I did with some of the other corkscrew model coasters (looking at you Python). Then again, the only Arrows I ever thought were justifiably called rough were Shockwave, Drachen Fire, and Great American Scream Machine. Smoothest Arrow looper to me is Loch Ness Monster, but Corkscrew at CP isn't that far behind in my opinion. With that said, I rode Blue Hawk last year and would greatly prefer seeing more Arrows get those trains over getting torn down. I bet those "rough three" I said before might still be standing if they had redesigned trains. I know Ninja was Vekoma, but Vekoma was just a spin-off of Arrow anyhow, on Arrow's own track.

Forgot about sound as a possibility, that's a good point! Drachen Fire actually had the standard loud "Arrow" rollbacks opening year, but all the kingsmill people complained about how loud it was during morning testing/green tagging, and a silent rollback was invented. It was actually pretty nifty. There was a catch bar mechanism that slid down if the trains started to roll backwards, but didn't actually engage the ratchet bar otherwise, so there was actually no contact until a rollback started to happen. It was sorta eerie hearing the trains go up the lift completely silently. The device itself was pretty nifty, and IIRC, partially home grown. Actually there were a lot of cool things about those trains. There were red trim lights on the trains that were powered by an old MoPed battery hah. Actually, one of the requests the park had for Alpengeist when it was built was a silent rollback system, so B&M put a special polyethelene/polyurothane hybrid on the rollbacks and chain dogs to make it silent too. Apparently that stopped being an issue or the park stopped bowing to the Kingsmill people, because those Alpengeist rollbacks are louder than hell in recent years. Speaking of Alpengeist, That's news to me! When did Alpengeist get magnetic brakes added? Glad to hear my favorite coaster in the park is getting some love!

^ The "thrilling" guess of mine is to add to the excitement and anticipation. My actual guess would be to allow better cycling time between the blocks. I know back when I worked on BBW, we actually had to be careful not to send the train out too early, because the computer would let us dispatch as soon as the train cleared lift 1, but if we sent another out right away, when the next train behind came along it wouldn't be timed right and we'd get a setup to stop a block intrusion. Computer technology has come a long way since 1984 and it's been many years since I worked a coaster, but I'd be willing to be they want the lift going slow enough so that if they send out another train as soon as the block is clear, the one in front has enough time to complete the course without the new train getting stopped. Just a guess!