VegasBaby

Wow, that thing is going up fast! I've ridden this model before at SFDK but I'm still excited to check it out at Sea World. Does anyone know if they are getting the two-car or the three-car trains?

The Knott's Hotel is super convenient (literally next door to the park) and you can get a package that includes parking and the breakfast buffet (which is actually pretty good). Since you are a season pass holder, you can get a discount on the room. Just use the code SEASONPASS when you book your room online. There are some lesser priced motels in the area close to the park, but I haven't stayed at any of them. I would highly recommend getting to the park 15-20 minutes before opening and then heading straight for GhostRider at rope drop. It has been extremely popular since the re-tracking and lines can get over an hour even on slower days. I would get a few rides in early and then head back there about 15-20 minutes before closing for a sweet night ride.

Plus it's just a flat-out terrible ride. I know the intended audience is younger children, but my kids thought it was incredibly lame.

Zach, we went to Hershey two years ago in mid-June and didn't find the crowds to be bad at all. However, it was after school was out and before the summer vacation rush. Here are a few things I would suggest: --For your culture day, I would recommend visiting Amish country around Landcaster, PA. We did a buggy tour (http://amishbuggyrides.com) and visited some other historical sites in the Landcaster area (Wilbur Chocolate Factory, Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, etc). --Hershey is actually open to 10pm on 6/4 & 6/5, and I would highly recommend doing the preview night on 6/3. You can get into the park the last 2.5 hours with the next day's ticket and I found it to be completely dead from 8-10pm. I got mutliple rides on the Intamin Trio during the preview time and they were pretty much walkons. --Stay at the Hershey Lodge for early entry at 9am. The Hershey Hotel is nice too, but it's more expensive than the Lodge. The 1 hour early entry is bascially like ERT on Skyrush, SDL, and Comet. Those are the only coasters open during early entry, but you can get multple rides on each during that first hour. --Head to Laff Track or Fahreneit at the 10am rope drop. Laff Track was brand new when we visited, so it maintained about an hour wait all day. We were able to ride it 2-3 times each morning and didn't wait more than 20-25 minutes each time. It's in the back corner of the park and it takes a while for the crowds to get over there. --The waterpark is integrated into the dry park, so there's no separate gate for it. We only did the waterpark one day and just wore our suits under our clothes. (Rode coasters in the morning and evening, did the waterpark in the afternoon.) The slide lines got pretty long though, so the 2018 waterpark additions are sorely needed. You can ride the Tidal Force splashdown ride in your swimsuits, which i would recommend since it completely soaks you. --Don't miss out on the log flume, Coal Cracker. It has a weird bump at the bottom of the drop, so you get some great unexpected airtime. --Also make sure to visit Chocolate World just outside the front gate. The tour is free and it has been remodeled since our visit. There is also a nice food court (we ate dinner there each night) and a variety of paid activities like designing your own chocolate bar. --There are tons of food options and even more dessert options. One place to definitely hit up is the BBQ joint by Trailblazer. The custom Whoopie Pies, Smores, and Kettle Korn are great too. Hersheypark is one of my favorite parks in the country and my kids have been begging to go back since our trip. You will definitley have a great time!

I couldn't agree more, they already ruined Kraken with the VR, so I'd hate to see the same thing happen with Kumba. When we visited in August, Kumba/Sheikra/Montu were walk-ons all day and it was glorious!

Agreed, a Eurofighter doesn't make much sense for the park, especially since Wicked is basically a launched Eurofighter. As much as I'd love to see a B&M hyper or invert at Lagoon, it's probably not in the budget. But something like a Chance Hyper GT-X would be perfect for Lagoon as the park really doesn't have any airtime coasters.

I couldn't agree more. People have been riding TMLR longer than I've been alive with no issues whatsoever. It's a shame that people don't take more personal responsibility and just end up making things worse for everyone else (see the new shin guards on Coast Rider).

I got that offer last year for SFMM and I though it was a good deal. If you visit the park twice, then it pays for itself. There was a pretty big selection of lunch and snack items at SFMM, so it was worth it to me.

Don't forget about Montezooma, it also has a 48" inch height requirement and only lap bars!

Yes, from the promo video it appears that the trains are connected, so there's no threat of them running into each other during a rollback. I've never seen those Katapult coasters before but their design is similar to the Skywarp. I think that we are going to see a lot more of these Skywarps and the other models shown by Skyline at IAAPA. They are low cost coasters that can fit into small areas, so I think there will be a big market for them.

I don't see any reason for this to happen. The ride doesn't really need it, it's insanely smooth. Agreed, just visited BGT in August and Kumba was running great. Plus, it was a walk-on all day (as were Montu and Sheikra), which blew my mind. Gotta love being able to ride three of the best B&Ms ever built with no wait!

Knott's Network just posted this construction photo of Hangtime, looks like the lift motors are partly in place and the lift track is going up. Makes me wonder which ride is going to open first, Hangtime or Xcelerator? I just hope both of them are open in time for the Boysenberry Festival in April.

Agreed, Knott's really values their history and their roller coaster firsts. With Xcelerator being the first Intamin accelerator and Monte being one of the first Schwarzkopf shuttle loops, I can't imagine the park replacing them unless they had no other choice. That said, the Xcelerator downtime has been extremely frustrating and is going on 4 months now. I can't imagine that it would take Intamin this long to fabricate whatever replacement parts are needed. I really thought they would have it back open for Haunt, but that sure didn't happen.

This has been my experience as well. As long as you're in line before park close, you get to ride.

... he was clearly sh*tfaced right?. While I DO expect a new fatality every time this thread is bumped, this one is clearly not the park's fault. Agreed, and the previous death wasn't their fault either. Some dumb kids broke into the park and were sledding down the snow covered slides when one of them fell off and died. I don't know what it is about this park, but it seems to attract people that make really bad choices.

I don't think getting a new train would cause months of unplanned downtime. It has been running two trains pretty consistently this year, so I really doubt that the trains are the issue. It's got to be some kind of problem with the launch because nothing else makes sense for the length of the downtime.

Seriously! I was really hoping parks would stop doing this once they saw what a disaster it turned out to be capacity wise. Plus, I don't think the VR adds anything of value to the ride experience. If anything, it makes the ride experience worse due to the headsets being uncomfortable and not being able to see the ride elements.

It's a great little park. Walking around, it feels pretty "crowded" (not from people, but just the size and layout of the walkways), but Canyon Blaster and El Loco are both solid rides. I visited for the first time last November and I'd love to go back. I'm very curious as to how this new coaster is going to turn out next year. Yea, it's definitely worth checking out if you find yourself in Vegas. The two coasters are a lot of fun and it has some good flats as well (Disk'O, Inverter, Chaos, Sling Shot). If you go mid-week during the school year, you pretty much have the place to yourself. The last time I went, I got about 15 rides each on Loco and CB, as well as one round on all the flats in about 3 hours. I'm glad they are getting a family coaster as the two big coasters have a 48" height requirement and the only other one is a kiddie coaster. The park really needed something more thrilling than the kiddie coaster for kids that aren't ready for Loco and CB.

I would rate the coasters as follows: 1) X2 2) Twisted Colossus 3) Tatsu 4) Fu11 Throttle 5) Goliath 6) Superman 7) Riddlers Revenge 8) Scream 9) Batman 10) Apocalypse 11) Ninja 12) Revolution (don't do the VR, it sucks) 13) Viper 14) Gold Rusher And whatever you do, don't ride Green Lantern. It's painful and not any fun, so don't waste your time on it.

I voted for Twitter and Facebook, but I definitely use Twitter more. I watch a ton of your YouTube videos, but it's mostly through you posting them on Twitter and Facebook.

There is never a scenario where putting VR Goggles on a coaster makes it "cool." I couldn't agree more, VR on coasters is a terrible trend and I really hope it dies out soon. Having ridden both VR New Revolution and VR Kraken, I can honestly say that the VR experience is vastly inferior to riding these coasters normally. I thought Kraken was better than TNR, but the headsets were heavy, uncomfortable, and made loading the trains a nightmare.

Does anyone know what exactly the problem with Xcelerator is? It went down almost two months ago (which was not planned maintenance) and it still says TBD on the Knott's website. If the cable broke, you'd think that they would've had the ride back up by now. The last time I rode it was back in April and it was running great with two train ops. It's just really strange that it has been down so long and there's no news about when it will open back up.

I will join in and lament the closing of these great rides. I first rode them in 2000 when they dueled and it was an incredible experience. The flybys were so cool and there were times when you felt like you would collide with the other train. We were there on Christmas Day and the park was pretty empty, so we got tons of rides on both sides. I'll agree that the ride experience suffered a bit when they stopped dueling, but they are still in my Top 5 for B&M inverts (especially Fire). When I think of IOA, I think of Hulk and the Dragons--they are the iconic rides of the park. We did an Orlando trip last month and my two oldest kids got to ride them, so I'm grateful that they got to experience them before they closed. I'm sure that the new ride will be amazing (I love both of the HP rides), it's just a shame that they couldn't keep the Dragons and put the new ride in place of Sinbad or Poseidon's Fury. Those are both subpar attractions IMO and I'm certain they don't get the ridership that the Dragons do. RIP DD.

As part of the Flash Sale going on right now, you can get the All Season Flash Pass for $299. It's a gold level flash pass and it's good for the rest of 2017 and all of 2018. I'm very tempted to get this as I could use it several times this year and a ton next year due to the 365 day operating schedule.

The pass sale going on right now includes a free upgrade to Gold, which means free parking and free admission to the water parks that are separate gates. I think you also get a free bring a friend ticket and a one ride skip the line pass too. In order to get these free upgrades, you have to go to the park in person before 10/31/17 and pick up your pass. If you don't, it sounds like you will just have a regular season pass without the added benefits.