VegasBaby

Great addition for SFFT, I like that SF is going all in on these Giant Discoveries. I just rode Crazanity at SFMM and it really lived up to the hype. I've been on similar swinging pendulum rides before, but nothing that has come close to the size and speed of these 170ft models. There is some great airtime at the apex of the swing and then you get a freefall sensation on the downswing--and the downswing is crazy fast! Seriously, you guys will love this ride.

WCR looks like a lot of fun, I would love if it rides anything like Maverick. I didn’t see a ton of airtime in the animation, but you can’t always tell from these type of videos. I am curious about how many trains they can run on it. I see three trains in the video, but I wonder if the ride can handle more than that?

Agreed, Speed was such a fun little coaster. And if I remember correctly, they ran two cycles for each ride purchased. It's a shame that another casino or park didn't buy it from the Sahara. I would've loved to see it wedged into the Adventuredome somehow.

I think that the development of the Premium Outlets South and the Charleston Premium Outlets really hurt the Primm area as well. The Primm Outlets used to be the best outlet mall in the Vegas area and tons of people were bused out there from Vegas every day. Now that Vegas has two great outlet malls in town, there's really no reason for people to go to the Primm Outlets. I also think that the Silverton and the South Point hurt the Primm hotels as they gave travelers lower-priced hotel options that are nicer and closer to the Strip. I haven't ridden Desperado in years and I've been meaning to stop by and ride it again. My issue is that the operating scheduled isn't very consistent, so I don't want to drive an hour for it to be closed.

It's an easy statement to say when no other news has been announced this year, unless I missed something. You have missed a few things like the world’s tallest dive coaster (Yukon Striker) at Canada’s Wonderland and the world’s tallest inversion/North America inversion record (Steel Curtain) at Kennywood. I doubt the Six Flags announcement will have anything close to topping those two coasters. Plus there’s the $20 million Mack at Carowinds that will be announced on Aug 30th as well.

This same language was used for all of the SF park teasers, so I wouldn't put too much stock into it. I just have to laugh at SF when they say that their teaser isn't an exaggeration when that's exactly what it is. Unless SF is announcing something bigger than the world's tallest dive coaster or the world's tallest inversion, then their announcement most certainly won't be bigger than any other news we've heard this year. I know SF is just trying to hype their ride annoucements, but the amount of hyperbole is that quote is beyond ridiculous.

Entertaining as always Zach, sorry you had such a crappy day at Kennywood. It's on my list of parks to check out, especially with the arrival of Steel Curtain next year. Looking forward to the next installments!

Having just ridden Crazanity at SFMM, you guys will love getting one of these Giant Discoveries. I've been similar rides before like MaxAir at CP, but they just don't compare to the sheer size of Crazanity--and it looks like yours will be even bigger! There is great airtime at the apex of the swing and a definite free-falling sensation on the downswing. It's probably the best flat ride I've ever been on.

I think if that turns out to be true, people will be very happy with the announcement. I just can’t see SFMM getting the Vekoma race car coaster as the 4 person cars will be terrible with capacity. Maybe if each side is a dual loading station (thus loading 16 people at a time) and they ran at least 4 cars on each side, then the capacity wouldn’t be too bad. But the whole family racing coaster just doesn’t fit in with SFMM’s “Thrill Capital of the World” slogan. On the other hand, the world’s fastest accelerating coaster fits in perfectly.

So now that most schools are back in session, I decided to hit up the park again on Wednesday. I hadn't been on Crazanity yet and I was dying to give it a try. It was a pretty slow day at the park with most rides being walk-ons or station waits. I was also able to get multiple re-rides on certain rides when there was nobody waiting to get on. I really appreciate how SFMM has allowed re-rides this season on slow days like this. Some parks make you get back in line even if nobody is waiting to get on and that drives me nuts. Everything was running two trains, except for X2 (single train) and TC (3 trains). The TC crew was great as always and I got several double duels, which hasn't happened to me in a while. I was able to get 3 rides on Crazanity and it's my new favorite flat ride! The airtime at the apex of the swing is crazy and you get a total freefall sensation on the downswing. You really have to ride it to get a sense of just how high up you get at the top of the swing. I've been on similar rides like MaxAir at Cedar Point, but they just don't compare to Crazanity. The spinning is very mild (more of a slow rotation), so people that don't like spining rides should be fine on it. I would've ridden it a few more times, but the line got up to about 30 minutes in the afternoon and it was a pretty hot day (even in the covered station). Props to SFMM for adding such a great ride, it will definitely be a part of my rotation evey time I visit. Overall, it was a great day to hit the park and I got a ton of rides in before leaving at 5 pm: FT 4x Goliath 6x Lex 4x TC 6x Batman 1x Riddler 1x Crazanity 3x JL:BFM 1x Gold Rusher 1x Superman 1x Tatsu 1x X2 1x Revolution 1x

My son and I went to the Broncos game last weekend and decided to hit up Elitch Gardens before the game. We had never been to the park before and I found $20 tickets online. Of the 5 coasters, the two we were most looking forward to riding were down (Twister and Sidewinder), so that was a bummer. There's a crappy SLC which they actually ran two trains on. We found the blue train to be slight less painful than the red train. There's also a standard boomerang and an Intamin half-pipe coaster, which was surprisingly fun. There's also an Intamin drop tower but it only has 2 of the 3 cars, so the capacity was pretty bad. The park does have some fun old school flats (Tilt-A-Whirl, Huss Troika, Himalaya), so those are worth checking out. The river raft ride was also a highlight as it tossed us around the boat pretty good. The best rides at the park were the two upcharge attractions, a Skycoaster and a Sling Shot (also known as an Ejector Seat). You can do both for $40, or for $60 you get both plus their skip the line pass. We ended up doing the $60 pass as the ride ops were painfully slow and it was a very hot day. The Skycoaster was awesome, but the Sling Shot was on another level--probably one of the most insane things I've ever ridden. Overall, I wouldn't recommend the park to anyone as it doesn't really offer anything special (other than the upcharge attractions). I feel bad for the people of Denver because such a major city deserves a far better park than this place. I do want to check out Waterworld though because I've heard nothing but good things about it.

If anyone is at the park today, can you let us know if Crazanity is back open. I am planning on hitting the park up on Wednesday and I'd hate for it to be closed.

Xcelerator is back open today, so whatever the problem was, it was only a minor issue. Other than the two periods of extended downtime already mentioned (cable snap and whatever part that took 7 months to fix), Xcelerator has been very reliable. It's still one of the most popular rides in the park, so I don't see it going anywhere. Knott's has managed to keep Montezooma running for over 40 years, so I don't see any reason that Xcelerator wouldn't be around for at least that long.

A giant frisbee would be a great addition to the park and SF has been buying them lately, so I would think it's definitely a possibility. DL already has a superloop, so SF can't stick them with another one of those!

I think that last statement is the key point here. It's not whether Disney needs or deserves the tax break, the city already voted to give it to them and they made construction plans accordingly. The city looks bad here canceling the deal on a technicality and it will make companies in the future hesitant to deal with them.

I agree with this take 100%. Pretty much every park as a drop tower of some sort, so why shouldn't they all get Giant Discoveries? They are great rides, have good capacity, and the GP (and most enthusiasts) love them. Having recently visited SFGAdv for the first time, I felt that it was an all around great park and had pretty much every kind of ride and coaster you could ask for except for a giant frisbee. Crazanity has been a huge hit at SFMM and revitalized a dead area of the park. I think something similar would be a huge hit at SFGAdv as well.

Haha, after getting Hangtime this year, new bathrooms are probably all we can hope for in 2019. I'm trying to think what other rides the park needs and I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Of course, I'd love to see an airtime-filled hyper or mini-hyper, but it will probably be a long time before Knott's gets another major coaster as it was 14 years between Silver Bullet and Hangtime.

And before anyone gets too excited about the wording "planning something really big for SFMM", all of the other SF ride announcement promos say exactly the same thing. I really hope SFMM blows us away with the new ride, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

Plus it sounds like SF is upping their CapEx spending this year with the rumored new coasters at SFMM and SFGAm. It will be nice to get some new coasters that aren't RMC conversions (not complaining about those at all as they are all awesome) or S&S 4Ds. I just want to see the SF parks add different rides again so it gives me a reason to visit the various parks. However, I do hope they keep putting the Raptors in smaller parks. A park like SFStl would benefit greatly from getting a Raptor.

Aventura looks like another great hotel for Universal. I really like how they are balancing out their portfolio between the different properties. We stayed at Cabana Bay for a week last summer and absolutely loved it. I think we payed about $180 a night for the family suite which had two queen beds, a sleeper sofa, and a small kitchen area. It slept the five of us (two adults and kids 14, 10, 8) very comfortably. Plus the amenities at the resort were so amazing (two pool areas, water slides, lazy river, bowling alley, etc) that we took a day off from the parks and just hung out at the resort. The cafeteria-style restaurant was also great as everyone could grab what they wanted to eat with so many choices available. I could see us possibly staying at one of the more upscale resorts if we go back in a few years, but I thought Cabana Bay was the perfect family resort.

http://943thepoint.com/six-flags-events-august-2018/ This site is saying that SFGAdv's announcement is going to be on 8/30, so I would assume that will be the announcement date for the entire chain.

http://943thepoint.com/six-flags-events-august-2018/ According to the the link above, SFGAdv is going to announce their new ride on August 30th, so I would expect the other SF announcements that day as well.

I'm pretty sure that I read an article that said SF was doing their ride announcement on 8/30/18 at 5am EST, which is in line with how they've done it in prior years. SFA may have their own announcement regarding Apocalypse on 8/16/18, but I wouldn't expect to hear anything about SFMM until 8/30/18. Update: Here's a link to the announcement date of 8/30 for SFGAdv, so it's pretty safe to assume that will be the date for all the parks. http://943thepoint.com/six-flags-events-august-2018/

Because Six Flags are cheap asses and they don't want to have to pay for two shifts.

This has got to be some kind of launched racing coaster right? I can't imagine what else it would be based on those teasers. Maybe the two is taking about two separate rides, which would point to a launched coaster and maybe some kind of flat? Either way, we'll know what it is in 20 days!