VegasBaby

Valencia is supposed to get heavy rainfall today and tomorrow, so I don't fault the park at all for closing down. If anything, they should be commended for getting the notification out so early.

Agreed. Agree with the above posts, GhostRider is an absolute must. Just make sure you are there at opening and make it your first ride of the day because it will get to be a 90-120 min wait in no time. I usually hit it up first thing and then get in line again about 15-20 minutes before park closing. The re-tracking was a huge success and it absolutely flies through the course now.

If you get the MaxPass with a park hopper ticket, can you book a fast pass reservation in each park at the same time? Or does it only let you reserve one fast pass at a time, regardless of which park? I haven't been to the parks since they implemented MaxPass system, but it seems like a great value since it also includes the photo pass.

It seems like SFStl would be a prime candidate for an S&S 4D or a RMC Raptor for their next coaster. These models have been the standard coaster additions for the smaller parks in the SF chain, and the 4Ds have even gone to some of their bigger parks. I would expect SFStl to get one of these coasters in the next few years. I can't see one of the park's 3 woodies getting an RMC makeover due to the reasons Chris mentioned above.

I would still hit up Ghostrider at opening and then head to the back of the park. If you wait to ride GR until later, you are proabably looking at a 60-90 min wait or more. It takes awhile for people to make it to the back of the park, so I would attack your day like this: GR/Xcelerator/Coast Rider/Hangtime/Pony/TMLR/Mine ride. The TMLR and Mine rides are pretty high capacity, so your waits shouldn't be bad if you save them until the afternoon.

Apocalypse was actually running really well after the retrack and it never had much of line since it's in the back corner of the park. Hopefully Crazanity is open when you go because that thing is insane. It's definitely the best giant frisbee ride I've been on and I'm glad to see that SF is putting them in more parks. There's some good airtime at the apex of the swing and a cool freefall sensation on the downswing. It has a pretty good line even on slow days, so you might want to hit it up earlier in the day. Since schools will be in session on Thursday, I really doubt you will need a Flash Pass.

Since BGT is a year round park, they usually always have their maintenance schedule posted on their website. It’s always worth a look before planning a trip there, especially in the off-season.

Knott's is closed today too, so it's not just SFMM. There's a pretty big storm in SoCal and it may last a few days, so I wouldn't recommend anyone planning on going to the park until Friday.

Totally agree, dive coasters are just plain fun and the GP absolutely loves them. This a a great addition to SWSD and I really like the direction the park is going. And a B&M dive is different enough from Hangtime that it will be a completely new experience for most people.

According to the crowd calendar at Is It Packed, SFMM should be really busy Dec 26-30, ok on the 31st, packed on Jan 1st, and then ok again from the 2nd to the 5th. So yes, it will probably be crazy busy tomorrow, so you may want to invest in a Flash Pass if you go.

Is there anything noticeably different about Viper? Seemed to down a long time for just standard maintenance. But then again, it took them six months to replace Goliath’s lift chain!

I was at the park last Friday and saw about a dozen Knotts people walking through Bigfoot rapids. A few of them had clipboards and seemed to be taking notes, while others were taking pictures. I think it's pretty safe to say that a Bigfoot Rapids refurb is what those posters are teasing for 2019. It was a great day to be at the park, the weather was perfect and there were hardly any lines. Finally got to ride Hangtime and our whole family loved it. It's now my 9 yr old's favorite coaster, but my other two kids have it 3rd behind Xcelerator and Ghostrider (as do I). The drop is a lot of fun and I popped out of my seat every time (got 6 rides on it). There's good hangtime in the stall loop (not quite Fu11 Throttle though) and some nice pops of airtime. The seats were very comfortable and so were the B&M-like clamshell restraints. Overall, I think Hangtime is a great addition to the park and a huge upgrade from Boomerang.

Wow, they're really working with a skeleton crew!

When I was there a few weeks ago, WW was single use on all levels of flash pass. I was going to get a FP that day, but with IRat down and WW only being single use, I decided to skip the FP. But if you head straight back to WW at rope drop, you should be able to get at least 2-3 rides in before it gets much of a line.

I really hope there will be two trains on it because the capacity would be pretty terrible otherwise.

You can actually see a little bit of Silver Bullet as well. I love this new camera view and it looks like they've fixed the glitchiness of the video too!

As someone who loves Cheetah Hunt, I would really like for this to happen. However, I hope that they keep the height requirement at 48 inches. We loved our visit to SWO last summer, but my youngest felt a little left out because she couldn't ride Kraken, Manta, or Mako, which all have 54 inch height requirements. SWO really needs a thrilling coaster that younger guests can ride. Cheetah was her favorite ride at BGT, so it makes a lot of sense for SWO to build something similar that fits that demographic.

I was in Austin for a conference and finally got to visit Fiesta Texas for the first time last Saturday. I really enjoyed the park and the lines were pretty short for the most part. It was overcast and cloudy most of the day, so that may have kept people away. I was primarily interested in riding Wonder Woman and IRat but I came away very disappointed that IRat was closed all day. I didn't see anything on their website about it being down and none of the employees I spoke to knew why it was closed. Just seems strange to me to have your marquee ride closed during Fright Fest. On a brighter note, Wonder Woman was absolutely fantastic and I was able to get 8 rides on it. Since I was a single rider, I was usually able to move up a few trains and jump into the back seat. The airtime is crazy intense (almost Skyrush level) and I loved the single file seating arrangement. The shoulder straps dug into me a bit, but it felt like I would be flung out of the train without them. The ride is a little short, but it's just non-stop airtime and craziness. The only downer with WW was the reliability. The damn thing couldn't run for more than 20-30 minutes without breaking down. Maintenance was usually able to get it back up after a small delay, but it was pretty frustrating to have it constantly break down all day. I don't know if it's been like this all season or if I just caught it on a bad day. It finally went down for good around 8pm and didn't open back up. I really hope they can get the reliability issues fixed as it's a killer little coaster that I would love to see cloned to the rest of the smaller parks like SFStl and SFDK. I managed to hit up all of the other coasters during my breaks from WW except for Pandemonium, which was down all day as well. Nothing else really stood out to me except for Superman, which has become my favorite floorless coaster. It's so cool how they used the quarry wall and how the ride interacts with it. It was super smooth and had a great combination of elements. I rode it twice during the day and then went back for a couple of night rides when WW shut down, and the night rides were fantastic. I also really liked the drop tower, which was running a combo program--which I don't see in a lot of drop towers anymore. Overall it was a great visit despite IRat being down, so I will just have to plan a trip back to the park sometime in the future. My final ride tally for the day: WW x8 Superman x4 Scream x2 Goliath Batman x2 Poltergeist x2 Road Runner Boomerang

That is correct, BGT has free shuttles from Orlando if you have a BGT ticket. On our Orlando trip last summer, the shuttle picked us up at the Universal transportation hub (we stayed at Cabana Bay) and got us to BGT right at the 10am opening. The only downside is that the return shuttle leaves BGT at 7pm and I think the park was open to 10pm that night. But luckily it wasn't a very busy day at BGT (mid-week in August), so we were able to ride everything with several re-rides and still make the 7pm return shuttle. The only rides that had any kind of line were Cheetah Hunt, Cobra's Curse, and Falcon's Fury. It blew my mind that we could just walk on Montu, Kumba, and Sheikra, three of the best B&M's ever built. I love these announcements for BGT, it was already one of my favorite parks and these additions will only make it that much better. Time to plan another trip to Florida!

Wow, I didn't realize that the Mall of America drew that kind of attendance. However, it has been around for over 25 years and pretty much everyone has heard of it. I guess that makes the 40 million number for American Dream sound a little more realistic. But I still think it's going to be years before they pull in those kind of numbers. I do hope it's a success though and I plan on visiting it on my next trip out East.

Both of these rides are going to be great additions to the park. Screaming Swings are tons of fun and I really hope they start popping up more. Every time I read this thread, it just reminds me how much I love this park. I really need to make another trip out there because it's been about 5 years since my last visit. I may hold off until 2020 in case the rumored Giga comes to fruition.

It is going to be very interesting to see how this mall does. I do think their projections are a little unrealistic though. From the article: "Palsgrove says they expect to draw 40 million people every year." The most visited theme park in the world is the Magic Kingdom at Disneyworld and it had attendance of just over 20 million in 2017. So this guy expects his mall to get twice as many visitors as the most visited theme park in the world? I hope he's not counting on that number in year one, or even year two or three. The transportation issue is another big factor. If there's no convenient/direct way to get there from NYC, then people aren't going to visit it. I know there is an Express Bus from NYC to the Meadowlands on game days that is very convenient and it's only $7 each way. A similar express bus to the mall would make a lot of sense and really help get NYC visitors to the mall.

Agreed, all 3 look like great coasters and I hope to be able to check them all out next year. I also like seeing new coasters from different companies as well. It seems like everything lately has been from B&M, RMC, or GCI (who all make good coasters), but it's nice to see Mack, Premier, and S&S expand their portfolio. Plus, none of these coasters are clones (not yet as least), so we are getting 3 wholly original coaster experiences. Along with the new Harry Potter coaster (rumored to be Intamin), the S&S at Kennywood and the two Gerstlauers in NJ, 2019 is shaping up to be a great year for new coasters.

I've been considering picking up a membership myself, I guess the functional difference between the Gold Season Pass and the Gold Plus membership is that the benefits of the membership extend to all of the parks in the chain. The Gold Season Pass is just for the park you bought it from. Hoping this means the Platinum "unlimited soft drinks" is chain-wide and not just home park only. Looking forward to using it at GAm and OG next year as well as SFA. Yes, the Platinum free soft drinks perk is good chain-wide. You get a special membership sports bottle each year and they are good for free refills at all Six Flags parks.

Wow, SFDK getting a Free Spin was completely unexpected and a great surprise this morning (to everyone except SFStl fans ). I rode one of these for the first time last month at SFGAdv and they are tons of fun. I actually ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would. The restraints are pretty comfortable for all the flipping that you do and I didn't find them painful at all. It's better ride in every way possible than that POS Green Lantern at SFMM. I really like all of the investments that this park has been receiving lately. With CGA getting a Raptor and their rumored hyper, it's great to see SFDK continue to make big additions and not let CGA pass them by.