Samuel

It's difficult to be so into roller coasters and somehow not know exactly what a coaster is going to do before you strap in. I have to admit, it's extra thrilling to ride something and not know exactly where the ride will go and/or what it's going to do; for that reason, dark rides that don't POV well are one of the few ride types that offer everybody the unknown. What coasters have you ridden blind or had moments that you totally didn't expect? For me, I never really looked into DL's Space Mountain's layout before riding, and I still have absolutely no clue what little hops and dips are inside the tunnel on the Backlot Stunt Coasters/Italian Jobs. More than having the lights off, my genuinely not knowing where these coasters were going made my first rides a lot more memorable.

This is one Brazilian park that is neither in the index or mentioned in the forums, and it has a good number of unconventional, in-house made attractions. The wooden coaster and woodie/flume are "All built in reforestation wood and made in the park" according to the park's website. The supports on these are seriously funky. There's also Inversa, which looks like a cross between utility scaffolding and something you'd see in Japan that's been closed since 1981. There are a few more videos online showing people having a good time, but I'm wondering if anybody's visited the park or has any first-hand takes. The park is about 200 miles away from Beto Carrero World, which has an SLC, first and second generation Intamin drop rides, and the pieces of Great Adventure's B&R Chiller. We often find quirky attractions in Asian parks, but it looks like Brazil has a few, as well. RCDB Link

Check it out:

It even managed to land its own topic a few years ago: themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=66294&p=1440611&hilit=twist+coaster+robin#p1440611 Here's another video, this one showing a pitiable news anchorwoman who has to ride:

#SurveyWatch is on for the moderate B&M floorless that could be replacing LR as early as next year. Back-to-back Jo-Jos; a world's first. Expect footers by August.

Sure, you can do it. It might be somewhat busy on a Saturday, but there aren't too many "must avoid!" days at Waldameer. If two trains are running on RFII, I haven't waited much more than 15 min. If it's just one train, there have been times when it's been 30-40 minutes, but the park is small enough that you should still be able to comfortably squeeze everything in that you want to do. In addition to the coasters, the flume, drop tower, and two zany haunts are all great fun. I'd consider them all must-do when you visit.

Hurler made pretty good sense back in the '90s if you got all of the references. When the ride opened, the SNL skits and movies weren't obscure; they were wildly popular & made sense as the movies were from Paramount Pictures. I've been on Hurler at Carowinds, besides the Stan Mikitas (sp) restaraunts out front, was there a lot of theming to waynes world in the paramount days?? There used to be a special recording of Wayne's World that Myers & Carvey did for the coaster that would play in the queue's many TVs, the station was themed to the old doll factory that the duo moved into after Wayne left his parents' basement in the movies, there was the big "No Way" (one of their catchphrases) giant road sign symbol on the pavement in front of the entrance, Wayne & Garth frequently used euphemisms for vomiting, the nearby rock shop had a ton of Aerosmith merch (one of their favorite bands), there was Stan Mikita's as you mentioned, and perhaps even more. It was a dedicated theme that just started to get phased out as the years went by, the parks expanded further, the characters fell out of the spotlight, and eventually the Cedar Fair acquisition of KI & KD pulled the plug on the direct tie-ins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwcxVlkYMpw

For the locals, how is Big One regarded these days? Is it still viewed as an intimidating star attraction w/ good ridership, or has its reputation waned over the years?

Hurler made pretty good sense back in the '90s if you got all of the references. When the ride opened, the SNL skits and movies weren't obscure; they were wildly popular & made sense as the movies were from Paramount Pictures.

Zaturn and Venus have been listed for sale, *as noted first by Garet : www.interlink-lg.com/occasion.htm

and why were going into space to go to alaska (so random)? it made no sense. i mean, if we were going to the moon, or mars, or something, ok, i'm on board, but DT's story always seemed very odd to me. Lol, exactly. If your cargo has to go to outer space to get to Alaska, that's the first flag that you've gone with the wrong shipping company.

Decades ago, it seemed like space needles and observation towers were standard set pieces for any large amusement park. By the late '90s and 2000s, I remember a lot of them started to seem dated and unpopular. When Cedar Point's came down to make room for GateKeeper, few people whimpered. Thrill rides were beginning to eclipse the previously unsurpassed heights of observation towers, and the standard rule seemed to be that if it was tall, it should also be thrilling. Before RMC conversions were a thing, I also remember reading lots of enthusiast speculation that many observation towers would be getting converted into drop rides. Those rumors never came to widespread fruition. I visited lots of parks in the 2000s, and it would not be uncommon for observation rides to be closed, slow-loading, unpopular, or have dirty/opaque cabin windows, and it seemed like you could never get your disposable camera or early camera phone to cooperate to take a decent picture. But now, with quality photography being so accessible, and with selfies, social sharing, and unique photo ops being so popular, it seems like a big "Duh!" for parks to have a modern observation tower; think the Eiffel Tower rides, but with a current design and clear viewing glass instead of a bird cage enclosure at the top. A gondola refresh on current towers could work, as well. It seems like tons of new observation attractions are going in throughout China and other places in Asia, but I can't recall the last American or European park that announced a major observation tower. It seems like one attraction type that could use an update and find a second wind in our picture-taking culture. Any thoughts?

I miss the Pitt Fall at Kennywood; a no-frills, 251' Intamin 2nd generation. I know it had maintenance issues and low ridership, but it was a blast. I recall enjoying it more than some of the larger S&S towers, as well as the bigger Drop Zone towers at KI & KD. As a big Intamin drop tower fan, Blue Fall is certainly on my bucket list!

Coast Rider seems too benign to rustle up such negative sentiment. There's already GhostRider in the park, so it's a slight play on another coaster name, and it's also a pretty harmless motif for a standard mouse. Cheesy theme aside, Disaster Transport was just an odd head-scratcher. Conveying a mission to Alaska to transport some kind of cargo was convoluted at best. On the other hand, the air conditioning was fantastic on a hot day. I'll also put in for Hundeprutterutchebane, the "dog fart" coaster at BonBon-Land, although it's pretty hilarious and I wouldn't want it to change. It's a classic case of bad = good.

They have. We bitched and moaned about how awful Mean Streak was, and look at the thing. LOL, so now that we can cross that one off the list, I'd just like to casually throw out there to the world how nice it is to have urinal dividers throughout an entire amusement park. #2019

The park just has to show that it sincerely cares. Really, that's it. It's not about retribution toward the guy with the remarks, but just about the park showing compassionate & authentic responsiveness.

I just imagine some poor kid who was put into a situation for the first time and had no idea what to do. I always try to extend the benefit of the doubt before shaming them. It sucks to be blindsided by a situation like this, have to make a quick response, and then be judged by people who will be able to take time and analyze what you did right or wrong. Anyways, can we move on to rollercoasters before this devolves? The bartender might have been put in an unanticipated awkward position early in the season, but this was about people skills, and not about not knowing where the rocks glasses are kept or him being imagined as a pitiable poor kid. He wasn't the victim or the culprit, but he should be better educated on what to do. There were alternative reactions the bartender could have had, which includes at least apologizing privately to the offended guests. This could signal a responsibility gap in training that might be remedied by the park more thoroughly considering these kinds of uncomfortable scenarios & teaching employees on how to better handle them. It might also entail a need for the park to be more transparent in spelling out some basic social values for employees to uphold and guests to exhibit. I love seeing the RMC updates, but this is actually a pretty darn valuable discussion.

The bartender could have apologized and passed along the guests' info to the office so that management could also apologize for the bad experience, all without confrontation. There's also no confrontation or hysterics in having a bad experience and letting the park know. It's a responsible thing to do; much better than both picking a fight or endorsing mistreatment by way of passive acceptance.

Something as simple as "sorry, but we welcome everybody here" could have gone a long way to help, but even if the bartender wanted to avoid confrontation for himself at all costs, it doesn't sound like he did anything to stick up for equally-valued guests. He also blew a chance to apologize personally, which could have been done quietly and included a promise to notify the office about what happened so that management could help make it right. Instead, two guests ended up leaving the park early & uncomfortable, and now we know what happened on a popular park forum. This might not make the news, but it's surely not what Cedar Point wants. If a park statement were to read, "We don't think being mad at our bartender is entirely fair," we'd all be mad. Situations like this may also call into question what protocol and/or ethical responsibilities employees have if they notice discrimination or bullying. It seems like that should be an important element of employee training for sustaining a quality standard of in-park culture.

Looks good! Very fluid and original, and that drop should be nuts in the back row. Although the first video was shot vertically, I like that it catches the raw sounds of the ride. A lot of the European parks seem to favor cinematic soundtracks and/or glossy production values in their footage; understandable, but I prefer the "coasters in the raw" approach, which I think gives a better feel for the personality of a ride. Lord, the previous sentence was nerdy.

2017 Height Restrictions More rules have been imposed for infants going on rides. It might lead to a few spats in Kiddieland by frustrated parents over a couple of small rides, but I don't think any of this is a huge deal breaker. 48" for Phantom, 46" for Racer & Exterminator, and just 42" for Jack Rabbit and Skycoaster is still generous and family-friendly. I wonder if seat belts dampen the laterals on T-Bolt, which would be a little bit of a bummer, but Racer & Jack Rabbit have had seat belts for years & are fine. If this covers the park's bases from a PR standpoint, I say OK. There's no devastating Mean Streak trim or horse collar restraint on Schwarzkopfs going on here.

That's actually exactly what I'd hope for in a new flume (more like Arrow classics).

Now that an Intamin flume is on wishlists here, it seems like an odd case of Shoot the Rapids amnesia: it was an odd, recent, lazy-river-coaster-hybrid with a bad reputation, from Intamin, and torn down just last year. It scrapped a lot of the fun flume tropes and felt like the anti-flume of flumes. Why book a reservation with the same restaurant to order the same dish that recently gave you food poisoning? If it does turn out to be an Intamin flume, I pray that its with broad changes in its approach. I'd like to see it toss the 2 mph, in-ground lazy river experience for an elevated, briskly-paced ride, have several drops, be only moderately wet, and if it wants to feel modern, maybe toss in a funky whirlpool helix or something. It can have as much of a theme as it wants, but it better take many cues from Arrow flumes, and very few from Shoot the Rapids.

I enjoyed the report, Inlina! Loved your description on the Ferris Wheel. I chuckled at your noticing teens shouting "penis!", only because that's a developmental phase in groups of teens that won't go away any time soon, and I know exactly what you're talking about. I'll always love parks nevertheless, but I've spent a few days at a couple of different ones where swarms of those overconfident teens have swamped the culture and suffocated the fun right out of a queue, midway, or even the whole day. Hormones, ahoy! There's a teen-geared mall not far from my house that I simply pretend doesn't exist in order to keep my sanity intact. Otherwise, I'm glad you had a pretty good time!

Is part of the Magnum disappointment due to it being near the coincidentally closed Gemini, which isn't far from the closed RMC Streak, which makes for a pretty barren chunk of the park? If it were instead, say, Wicked Twister and Gemini that were down, would the issue be as noticeable? Still, that's two coasters down and one under glorious construction...for some perspective, in my visits to lots of major parks it's not uncommon to have two coasters down for misc reasons and some major coasters running just one train during the peak of the summer. This is the same park that runs three trains on Corkscrew. I'm going to give Cedar Point the benefit of the doubt when a few rides are down.