DoubleDown

While the Vekoma trains may not be a solution due to their bad design, I do think an improved inverted style swinging car where your legs dangle would definitely push Ninja up a notch in terms of thrills. Not that it needs them. Ninja in any seat is a quickie, but a goodie. One of the first big rides I ever went on. I love it!

Dude that is awesome! I think we all learned something new today I never knew about that on Google maps but thanks so much for sharing! A kind of cool idea, but I dunno, I miss Beary Tales, but I have to admit, I'm an adult now...and me going through something like that...well, at this point....I've let it go lol. I'd rather they do a Soap Box remake.

What I am most interested in is how you figured out the square footage of the coasters. Is this from a source you got somewhere on the internet, or is this something you've been able to figure out on your own? As for the Top Thrill opening so soon, I am impressed. And hopefully that will bring Xcelerator up to date as well and opened sooner rather than later. It makes sense that Intamin would improve their hydraulic launch designs 10+ years after being installed, there's a lot more to know now than there was back then, and I don't know why Cedar Fair would have an issue implementing those improvements to keep their highly invested attractions open. How much could it actually cost? 100K, maybe 250K? There's a lot surrounding the 2 hydraulic launched Intamins at Knott's and Cedar Point with not that much "reliable" information concerning the recent improvements that I've come upon.

I feel we should have a general information disclaimer or a link stickied at the top of this and the more popular threads like Cedar Point, laying out a plan of action for folks visiting who have never been to the park before, or just things that are known enthusiast knowledge, because it seems like we repeat the same crap to the same questions on almost every page? I don't think ANYONE on this site has EVER suggested buying a Flash Pass BEFORE YOU GO TO THE PARK. It doesn't save you time, it doesn't save you money, it's just the parks way of getting people to spend money on upcharges they don't need but think they do before they even walk in the gate. It's like buying a parking pass before you get to the park...you don't get to skip the line or anything, and it's not any cheaper, so what's the point? Everyone's plan of action is always go to the park, scope out the crowd, and decide from there. Very rarely will they go "unavailable" on a typical day, hell have they EVER gone unavailable? Maybe on the busiest 3 or 4 days of the year (bring a friend for free day)...so there's NO REASON to buy them before you get to the park.

Well I wouldn't know about every park I've been to, but certainly at Magic Mountain, Knott's, Cedar Point, and Disneyland, I have on *multiple* visits done the "hustle to that one last ride 5 minutes before the park closes" and never been turned away unless the ride was closed already due to technical issues. I'm talking X2, Ghostrider, Valravn, and Space Mountain. I went on X in 2001 (or was it 2002) a week after it delay-opened (think it was like a January or February trip) and can't remember that far back specifically, but lines back then were like 4+, 5+ hours long, so it would make sense that maybe they closed the line early if it got that absurd. But I just know there have been *plenty* of times where we got in line for X2 or other major rides in the park just minutes before the park closed, and feel like I would remember if I got turned away. Maybe I've just been lucky?

That is awesome to hear. I will forever love the Twilight edition of these types of rides, I just loved the storyline combined with the huge tower, but if they (as you said) ramped up the ride experiences for night time riders, and have now made 2 different ride experiences in 1 day, that is an awesome plus as far as I'm concerned, and I can forgive them for giving up the Twilight theme. I'll never forget having to BEG my ex to get on ToT because she absolutely HATED the airtime parts, but to me, it was one of the best rides in California because there was nothing else like it that deliberately tossed you up from your seat, relentlessly, multiple times. With only a seatbelt!! To hear it may even be more extreme at night makes me really want to check out the Guardians overlay, I would probably visit the park just for that ride experience alone.

As long as you are in the line before the park closes, they will let you wait to ride. We used to do this with whatever line was the longest during the day and leave it for the last ride, usually X2. Sometimes cutting it close and getting there less than 5 minutes before the park closes. I've been there before where the park closed at 10 and we didn't walk off the ride until 11:30 almost 12am. What's funny is during the day the line can drag along and seem like it takes forever. Once the park is closed and the employees want to go home, it's amazing how their efficiency increases and how they start hustling to get those trains through as fast as possible. You'll never see them hustle between trains, or to the dispatch positions in the middle of the day, but man oh man once the park is closed they start hopping around from car to car checking restraints, then fast jogging over the the dispatch positions.

I have loved HHN at Universal for the past decade now. The mazes were remarkable, the amount of monsters in the streets were insane, I always have had a couple instances where I actually got "scared" or caught off guard. Not too many years ago, the crowds were bearable, the lines for the mazes weren't usually more than an hour, and you could get on a few big attractions as well (Mummy, Jurassic Park, The SImpsons). There are very few people on here who will agree with me, but I found it remarkably better than Knott's Scary Farm which I had attended YEARS before going to Universal, which I always kind of walked away disappointed. The way the crowds have been the past couple years has just thrown me off, especially if you're just going for general admission, the lines and amount of people are insane. It almost got to a point the last time I went that the amount of people and the lines kind of ruined the experience. The only way I'd go back is getting a VIP pass (which I think they are now calling the RIP Pass), but it looks like they've changed it a bit, and I probably won't get to this year, but I am already looking to get it done in 2018. I might even treat my friends with a surprise and foot the whole bill so they don't have to worry about the cost and we can just GO.

My feeling is that Apocolypse is super high maintenance and I blame the super heavy trains and GCI. I just always felt like the trains tore the ride apart on every cycle, and I know the park tried to help with the retracking, but something smells fishy. That corner of the park is just cursed with problematic coasters. I blame the earthquake .

I'm a bit confused by the $10 upcharge for the backward facing seats. Do they literally take payment at the gate of the ride? Or do you pay for it at the admission gate? Is it "per ride" or do you get a pass for the day? That being said, the ride itself looks phenomenal. The theming of the queue is meh for me, looks a little too Six Flagsish. But hey, for me, if the ride itself kicks ass, I always look past it. Minimal shade too. WOULD IT KILL THEM TO PUT UP SOME SHADE!???!

Is it just me or are the Toy Story life size characters that walk around some of the more creepy ones you've seen at theme parks? Don't get me wrong, I love Toy Story, but something about their unchangeable facial expressions is just off putting to me in a clown/Chuckie kind of way... That being said, I am actually super stoked to see how this Slinky Dog coaster finishes up. Nice job on the trains!

Is there a reason this park can't put a coaster or new attraction anywhere but in the 2 dead end corners of the park where there is already a surplus of rides almost literally right on top of one another? There is SO MUCH room throughout this park that goes unused, but for some reason the areas of the park that have the most concrete and the least amount of shade keep getting installations! Went to SFDK back in July, the dumb larson looper wasn't even operating, not that I would have ridden it, but I don't know why they even have one of those in the park, it's the exact same carnival trailer ride I went on 20 years ago and it really looked super tacky at a park (even with all the cheap attempts Six Flags did with trying to disguise it as a permanent attraction). This ride is almost identical with a couple different elements but it's definitely an improvement over the larson looper, I would actually give this ride a go around. SFDK was really one of the most awkward designed, head scratching parks I've been to in a while where there seems to be a ton of potential, but the forethought of Six Flags really seems to be lacking. Even with that said I enjoyed a lot of the attractions there and left wanting to come back again some day. Not to mention I LOVED V2, that horizontal spike was a LOT of fun, and I thought Joker was up there with Twisted Colossus as far as a fun, re-rideable coaster that no doubt replaced a woodie that was past its prime.

My issue with them is that I rode this exact same attraction at a cheap ass traveling weekend carnival 15+ years ago, and they were fine for a carnival attraction just like a fun house or zipper, but they are a tacky addition to parks that have invested millions into long lasting permanent attractions. These are abysmal additions devaluing the park by thinking "anything" is better than nothing. Nobody wants to ride these things. On my last trip to SFDK they had a Larson Looper, and surprise surprise, it was CLOSED. And NOBODY fretted over it. Nobody cared. Because everyone just looks at it and goes...that's it? Loops may have been cool 15 years ago, but they're a yawner now. And the installations LOOK like a carnival attraction. Who wants to pay admission to ride something that rides and looks like crap? I would rather they skip on the lame attraction and put that money toward the park in other ways.

Okay so before I saw that video on Facebook by Warner Bros Movie World posted on here, I saw a video of the rides cycle on YouTube by someone outside the park, off-ride, and while Warner Bros Movie World had cuts to make the train *appear* to fly through the track, the video I saw showed the train going slightly slower. So I'm not sure if it's the angles or some kind of editing on the Facebook video by WBMW, but comparing the two cycles, they look *significantly* different. I'm not sure the train goes through the track as fast as the park made it look. I may be wrong, just mentioning that to ya'll. Your response is correct, but how it's written is a bit confusing, so I'd like to contribute to your post to maybe make it easier to understand what you're saying. That car in the very back is most certainly long enough for 2 rows, as it's the exact same dimensions of every car before it which holds 2 rows. I think the issue is (1) the space between the front facing seats in row 10 and the backwards facing seats in row 11, as you can see, are *angled* towards each other, so they wanted to make sure there was clearance between the seats and (2) if they had 2 rows of cars in that backseat, there would be nothing in front of that very last row. So it would be extremely dangerous for guests getting in and out of that back row as that rear "nose" would not be there. However, an additional "zero" car added with a nose like the front to make sure guests didn't risk falling forward onto the track would not have been that much of a discrepancy in the rides performance IMHO. However, barring that clearance issue I stated in (1) (which may not even be an issue) as I see that back seat being the most desired seat on the train for an insane experience, it might have behooved them to have 4 seats facing backwards at the end of the train, and adding an additional "zero" train to the back could have worked. Most the time putting those 2 seats in the back row wouldn't be an issue, because of the direction they're facing. But in this case, with those rear facing seats it is. I will say, however, those very back seats in the back row are going to be an EXTREME experience for the folks that ride this. I'm almost pretty sure by just looking at the ride, it would probably make me nauseous. Either way this is looking to be a fantastic roller coaster.

^I would be thrilled with the smaller version single rail RMC is installing at Fiesta Texas. I think it's capacity could be on par with Xcelerator. I may be mistaken, but isn't there an elevator on the queue side of Ghostrider, to allow those with disabilities access to the ride platform? And doesn't the Ghostrider exit have a HUGE tall series of stairs on the exit side? So the queue side of the line is disability accessible, but it's just not being used? And people voluntarily hustle up that huge flight of stairs, but can't wait in line? Kinda unorthodox if you ask me. I've never understood the immediately accommodating "go through the exit" mentality of these passes. If people are able to ride, and are provided a wheelchair, with accessibility for said wheelchair in the queue...why can't they wait in line? Or like Jew said there needs to be a time allotment based on the length of the line. They can go run up the exit stairs with a pass, but you're gonna have to wait an hour and a half until you can get on the ride.

Dude, what if they literally *stop* the ride at the MCBR. Then launch it so it can duel? Will never happen. Just wanted to post on page 4,000. lol

This is a GREAT comparative to Viper that I've never even thought of. Probably because they're on opposite sides of the park, it kinda fogs the perspective on the park as a whole. Great point! Thank you for saying this. Scream, for me on any day of of any visit, unless it is just walk on, even if it is walk on, I will skip. It's probably because it's just another B&M which being in a park with Tatsu, Batman, & Riddlers, really doesn't procure me to take a ride. I won't even think twice, it's a "whatever" ride, and as I've even heard GP saying when seeing it, "It's just like Riddlers!" And Riddlers is a better coaster. After riding TC, there's really nothing notable about Scream that I find to be "gotta get on it!" If I have friends who've never ridden it fine, let's go...but the queue for Scream is consistently about as empty as for Viper. Now Viper, is a whole 'nother monster. It's not like any of the other coasters in the park. I actually dig Viper and want to get on it when I walk by it. It's first half before the brake run is super intense, and the ride as a whole has some redeeming, old school coaster, qualities. Compared to other BIG Arrows that people mention worldwide, with modifications made throughout it's life (unbeknownst to me, and many thanks to Jew here on TPR bringing them up at one point in this thread) it's gotta be one of the best designed 7 loopers ever made. I've said it before, but it's iconic. It's underrated until people ride it. I think a *BETTER* move for Magic Mountain is to get rid of Scream and put something in it's place that would actually be something I'd have an urge to get on after going on TC. And think about it...the palette of Scream is flat... the park could put ANYTHING in it's place. And while it's not in view of visiting guests driving up Magic Mountain Parkway as is X2 or Viper, you'd see it from the parking lot, and think..."We GOTTA go on that!" Before Magic Mountain ever rids of Viper, I would vote for Scream to be replaced with a bigger, better coaster. Even if it *has* to be another, UGH!, B&M. And also as far as I can remember, Viper is not very "problematic" at all. It's always open, it has very few mechanical issues, it's still a very solid coaster in the line up at Magic Mountain. I'm kind of interested if people would rather have Viper or Scream removed.

I would guess the park is closing early for some late night private event going on in the park that night. Or it has to do with being on the tail end of summer and during those Friday school days the park is probably going to be relatively dead. I agree that is strange though, I like getting some night rides and having to leave at 6pm is pretty lame!

I'm sorry and I'm most probably definitely in the minority here but I think while the Tron attraction is visually phenomenal, the coaster portion is remarkably lame for how much money they put into the attraction, and with a couple small changes they could make the ride as thrilling as say Space Mountain or Expedition Everest. The way the train crawls and meanders through the course, with the absurd amount of brake runs and the length of the trains, it seriously comes off as mediocre paced Rocket Rods. There's absolutely nothing redeeming about it. I watch that POV and have no increase in desire to visit the parks. I love Disney as much as the next person, but that Tron attraction could be SO much better with a little more of a thrilling ride experience. It just feels like all hype and build up, then the actual attraction falls flat on it's face. There's no "Wow!" factor. In fact, I would argue 20 year old Indiana Jones at Disneyland is probably something I would pick to ride over Tron, if it was my last ride of the day.

The same reason anyone is sad to see a nostalgic ride leave, one that is almost 30 years old and was the face of the park for a decade. I actually dig Viper a lot. That first drop in the back seat is phenomenal, and it is one freaking intense ride, and a pretty good one at that. I would pick it over a dumb lame B&M dive any day. It doesn't do a whole lot more than give you pretty absurd speed for the first half, then flip you upside down 7 times with the last 4 inversions being pretty awkward, but I'm fine with that. It can be a little rough, but it's old. Viper is iconic. Also I think it's structure is one of the sexiest pieces of roller coaster art in the history of most steel coasters.

Awesome update! Thanks for the photos and video. Already planning on CP 2018 for Meaner Streak! I may be wrong but I think what most people mean when they say the launch is problematic is not just the launch itself but how the launch and RMC trains interact with eachother, which has been causing problems since day 1. I may be alone on this, but I am utterly confused on the parks insistence on keeping that launch as I'm sure it's awesome, but with the issues and frustration it has caused I don't see why Dollywood & RMC don't ditch the launch, put a chain lift, reprofile the top of the hill (maybe get rid of the double drop at the top) so it can make it through the course, and call it a freakin' day. I swear with how RMC works after they design the track and plan out the bents, they could have it replaced in a month's time and *boom* the headache is gone. I don't think a launched lift with all the issues it's been having, is a make or break for anyone visiting the park for the ride. Dude who are you people and why do you exist and what exactly is the point of your post. It was pretty obvious to anyone not under a rock that the ride wasn't going to open in 2017 due to it not being hyped or announced by the park. Some people screw around just to razz people exactly like you, hell I even joked about 2017 because it was funny. How many more months of "where are all the people that blah blah blah" are we going to have to endure? Move on already. Sheesh. Just out of curiosity what makes you say that? Just because the ride is at Cedar Point? I'm not sure where you're getting this idea. I get it there are CP fanboys and this is great that it's being done, but just randomly "claiming" this is their most important project is a bit absurd. I'd say their most important project was the first ride they ever did, because if that fell flat or had issues who knows if RMC would have blown up like it did.

AWESOME photo! And it's gonna have to exceed the old structure height considering it's pretty obvious the ride is going to have a vertical drop. If you can kind of imagine the height this ride is going to achieve, it is going to be FLYING through the circuit. I think this will be the TALLEST wooden structure coaster, with the FIRST vertical drop ever. I'm sure CP will throw a bunch of other records in there, but this is going to be the reason I'm visiting Cedar Point next season.

This is literally the default position taken when talking about Six Flags installations like this. Except, no family with kids who "can't ride the big rides" goes to Magic Mountain. Also, I don't buy the "teenagers don't spend money" at the park anymore. Go to any park and you will see teen after teen spending money on food, games, and anything that the park has to offer that appeals to them because the teen demographic has changed. They have their own credit cards, they get money from their parents and get dropped off, they go out to have fun with the 3,4+ other friends they bring with them. This ride is not going to attract any family that wouldn't be at the park in the first place. Teens spend money without their "family" there with them. If anything the park should be making installations that APPEALS to teens/young 20 year olds! I can vouch for this, as I recently just visited SFDK last weekend, and besides some of the different ride offerings, many of the names or themings of the park felt quite identical to what's offered at other SF parks I've been at. Not to mention if you're counting on local visitors to continue to come to the park, they should IMPROVE things that the guests are going to see on their multiple visits to the park, which brings me to my last point. I guess what I mean is instead of dumping money into a ride like this, I would rather they spend it on operations, upkeep, and refurbishing areas of the park that have been neglected over the years. And by refurbishing I actually mean finding someone in the industry who is good at it and has experience at it, instead of turning everything into a concrete wasteland.

I'm just dumb guessing, but that definitely without a doubt looks like a vertical drop. With IMHO a possibility for a *BEYOND* vertical drop if you look at the ledger second from the top. It looks to protrude out further than the ledger above and below it. One thing about RMC coasters, at least as far as the ones I have been on...if you sit in the back seat, that first drop is always going to force you into the restraints and get your ass off the seat. Now me personally, I prefer the ones that have a little twist to them (TwistColl, Joker @ SFDK). It kinda catches you off-guard and I like that. It doesn't look like this will be the case with Meaner Streak. What would have been awesome is if they did the first drop as a combo slight twist left, then a slight twist right to straighten out right before the bottom, but at this point I'm just dreaming and who knows if that would actually work. Oh and one last note...if at that height the coaster is VERTICAL, I'm kinda baffled at how much structure they're going to have to add to curvature that to match the angle of the lift hill. I think the top of Meaner Streaks lift hill is going to look quite dramatic! 215 feet is my guess.

Oh jesus effing christ can all these parks just stop with these Mondial experiments? This is such garbage that the park has to put up with this crap. It's a mediocre, semi simple flat ride, and Mondial screws that up to? When you see some of the flats at carnivals and how intricate they are, and how they're stored, shipped, and up and running weekly, then see 2 back to back permanent installations which can't make the cut, I think that's pretty absurd. lol Halloween Horror Nights USH would like a word with you...