DoubleDown

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I think any enthusiast would enjoy riding any coaster without the MCBR regardless if they've ridden that type of coaster before, or not. That being said THANK YOU to the fella that linked to that FB video of Valverononenomenonass testing. The ride looks VERY fun. I will be there the second week of May with my uncle and I can't wait!!

Unless you're going to visit more than 10 times a year, that pass is not worth it IMO. Especially because this is only for 1 person, but mostly because it's really a lot more enjoyable to go on "off" days where it's not nearly as crowded, and you don't even need a Flash pass. If you do decide to go on busy days, with the park even allowing you to cut in line, your day can still be a headache. Sure, you get to save 50% of the wait for rides, but what about dealing with parking lines? tram lines? metal detector lines? front gate lines? food lines? The list goes on and on. This is the park and the company, again, just trying to see what they can get away with as far as charging a ridiculous premium price, for something that essentially costs them nothing to implement. Which goes back full circle that if they kept up on maintenance and avoided 1 train operation during peak seasons on major attractions in the first place, if their operations were even half of what Disney provides, something like this wouldn't even be necessary. Instead they cut corners on attractions to save money, which increases wait times to ridiculously low capacities, to which their answer is "Instead of actually fixing the root of the problem, let's just charge them to cut in line instead!" So essentially, the public rewards them for providing crappy attraction operation capacity. In the end, the folks in the regular line end up waiting EVEN LONGER because there are people cutting in front of them, which avoids them time to be able to spend even more money on concessions and souvenirs, while also leaving a terrible impression of the park in their mind. Have a Six Flags day!

Well all Dollywood needs to do is get this ride open and all their problems will be solved! What an absolute nightmare it must be to work at Guest Relations right now...

Is this the only dual station flyer where the guests enter on the inside of the two tracks? I never thought of it before, but that sounds like a MUCH better solution to crowd control instead of having guests enter from the outside, and exiting on the inside. Also notice how the grouper was getting everyone's extra items off and ready to be stored in the bins on the other side? A very simple and practical solution to the loose articles problem we in America always seem to have. I really think a ride like Tatsu would benefit from this. Not only would a person be able to group better and fill in empty seats to increase capacity, but it would only take ONE employee to do it. That being said, pretty crazy how EVERYONE immediately goes to this ride. It looks like a great coaster, but there's no way I'd wait 12 hours. Another thing I noticed, is it looks like the trains NEVER stack! That's pretty impressive so my hat's off to Universal Studios Japan for atleast doing their best to get folks through the line. I'm not sure 4 trains would work on this ride, so I would guess they have 3 running.

I appreciate your comparison to Disneyland's resort. However, I think Cedar Point is one of the last parks I'd consider that is tight on space. IMO, they could easily do one and put the maintenance and storage facility in an isolated area that would never be considered for an attraction. To add to that, transportation in 2016 is not what it used to be. You don't need it to be entirely employee operated. Take for example, the public transportation rail at DTW. That thing is basically computer operated, and dispatches every 3 minutes. It's super quick and takes folks from a terminal 10-15 minutes away while walking, to another terminal in about 3 minutes while riding. The entire system would require very few employees, it could hit various locations around the park (hotels included), and might actually keep people in the park longer because they wouldn't get exhausted from walking everywhere.

Yeah sure, take one quote out of context and make it imply what you want it to imply. In the same post I also mention that I'm 5 minutes away. The statement I quoted claimed I was "concerned" about the trains not being on site, not that I was predicting the ride would be delayed. Why I would be "concerned" either way? I don't even know when the ride is supposed to open, nor do I care. I didn't even know it was delayed.

I absolutely LOVE the light up sign on the archway, they really went all out on it and it looks GREAT! Glad to hear the VR has been a hit with pretty much everyone who has worn it while riding! I'm looking forward to trying it out on Thursday!

How does me simply saying "no sight of the trains" immediately translate to you that I'm somehow "concerned?" Got some news for you, I'm probably the LAST PERSON that's concerned with when this thing is going to open or when the trains are going to arrive. I simply drove by to see how progress was going. The over-dramatics are childish and tiresome. You're 30, act like it.

Are you saying I'm the only one that does that? The Tatsu The Millenium Force The ride names sound way better that way.

It is really quite sad with the amount of crowd this park brings in, at $20 a car for parking, that they can't possibly afford to maintain efficient operations that provide 2 train operation on some of their marquee attractions throughout the year. Someone who's in charge of financial decisions at the park/company/SF is an idiot and just isn't doing their job right. Am I a fool to think: Less time in line=more time to spend money on upcharged food/beverage/souvenirs/miscellaneous products that really make this company money? You'd think their priority would be less time in line, more time walking through the park, results in more profit because they charge things like $4 for a soda that costs them 10cents. So weird to me.

Yah, some folks wanna bitch about Magic Mountain with no transportation ride, but Cedar Point is friggin huger. Even as a youngin', holy hell it seems like you can get from ride to ride with no problem looking at the map, but in fact it is a marathon to get around. It would not hurt to have an encircling transportation ride at this park. Especially if it was an enclosed air conditioned type of thing. Man that would be such a glorious addition to the park. So strange that back in the day transportation rides seemed to be a standard, almost the highlight attraction, and nowadays no park wants to pay for guest convenience because they can't run an ad that will make them any money. No way to advertise it as an attraction? Damn! Guess it's all a pipe dream...

Being the coaster nerd I am, with how close Knott's is to me (5 mins away), I drove down Grand Ave a couple days ago just to check out Ghostrider, and I was pleasantly surprised to see fresh new wood very apparent regarding the track of the ride. What surprised me was to see pretty much no steel placed on the new Ghostrider track. I found that kind of odd. It also looked like they have added new style wood railings around the course, but I thought it was strange that there was a bunch of steel plated track that still needed to be installed. With the work still needed to be done, and no sight of the new trains, I really wonder how long into the summer until the ride opens up again.

Holy crap! I was planning on going to the park today but it didn't work out. Fortunately. I don't think I have EVER seen the line that long. With 1 train operation, that has got to be atleast a 4-5 hour wait. I can't believe the park is opening up the Summer with 1 train on X2. Don't they have 3 trains available so when one goes out it could be replaced with the other one? I would never wait in that line. What a headache.

Oh boy! Talk about nostalgia! My friends and family would go to Wild Rivers atleast once a year for about a decade straight. They used to have this deal on Mondays if you came after 4pm, you could get an entire van of people into the park for like $45 or something absurdly low. The Edge and the Ledge were absolutely the monster slides of the park, and were very intimidating being up at the top of the hill, especially to younger me. The photo's really don't do these slides justice, as they looked high as hell perched up on the top of the mountain, and the final drops, when looking at them from the splashdown, pretty much looked like they were straight down, and looked at least 50 feet tall. And people would SHOOT out of the the enclosed tube right before they went down the drop! After I got a little older and manned up to ride this thing, my ass definitely came off the slide and it was like I was free falling, and the slide would catch you as the slide began to angle into the splash. The splash was pretty rough I remember, but its what came with the territory when riding the big boy slide. After a couple years, they changed the one on the right to be less of a steep angle for whatever reason, and they had it enclosed with clear tubing. So for a while they operated as one slide with the steep open drop, and one with a ramp type enclosed drop. Then Malcom in the Middle aired an episode at a water park of a different name, but it was actually Wild Rivers. And I believe for the episode, the show or the park added a huge sign at the top of the Edge/Ledge tower that said The Liquidator, which permanently stayed with the two slides until they closed down years later. In the episode Lois (the mom) gets a "tap" from one of her sons which pushes her down through the Liquidator. However, in fact, the slide they filmed the shot was on the Abyss. After the shot of her going into the darkness ends, they actually showed the Liquidator, as if she got pushed down this very intense slide instead. Years later they modified the left side to be a ramp type slide at the end as well, but the tubing was black instead of clear. I don't think I ever rode it this way, because not long after that, one season the ride was closed, and it never opened again. The exit was fenced off and they took it off the map. Probably the best water slide I have ever been on. It was something about going in the circle, not knowing when it was going to end, or when that drop was coming up that was the scariest. All of a sudden you'd straighten out, see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel then FLOOSH! You shot out with some crazy airtime, and were crashing into that splash down before you knew it. Wild Rivers was a lot of fun, another good one was the Bombay Blasters. It was a 5 second underground slide of pure speed that shot you into a pool instead of a splashdown, so it was pretty unique and a different type of experience. Great photos I have never seen before, so thanks for sharing!

I don't get the pin thing. Not hating at all, to each his own. But for less than a buck a piece, I do like the postcards! Less pins, more dueling Twisted Colossus!

In my humble opinion, ANY amusement park that has operated for over 50 years, and has charged exorbitant prices for concessions during that 50 years, should by this time, have been able to find ways to serve people food efficiently, no matter how crowded. It's 2016, and they're still using the same line system from 1970. It's absurd. Food/Beverages is a friggin cash cow. $4 for 10 cents worth of soda. But instead of getting that $3.90 of profit super quick, they instead have huge lines with hour lines where they're missing out on profits. You'd think they'd streamline the concessions as well as, if not better than the coasters. Think of In N Out. They've got it figured out, and it's really not all that complicated. Amusement parks have had a template, and an opportunity to provide that kind of service to guests for decades, but instead they've decided to go the cheap route, and people are waiting 3/4 of an hour for food. Oh, and about Lightning Rod. I would guess either the high speeds, or the lift launch, are what are most problematic right now. I mean in that circuit video provided by the park, that train is FLYING through the course. I totally would have been a dummy in the backseat to test that! There's a lot of new things RMC is doing with this ride, and based on everything they're doing, I don't doubt they can get it to run how it's supposed to, but it's just going to take some time to make sure it's perfect before they release it to the park. Honestly, I didn't really "get" the launch lift, and thought it would be problematic. I think as standard lift hill would have done this ride just fine, but waiting a couple weeks so that they can do it, is really amazing, and after all is said and done this is really going to be an amazing attraction. I'm pulling for Dollywood and RMC!

I want to go on something more thrilling than Dive Coaster 1.

That was an option, but it was decided by the park management that it would decrease the capacity too much. That extra 10-20 seconds doesn't seem like a lot in the course of one cycle, but over an entire operating day could decrease the ridership by close to 1000 guests. They knew it would be popular and the line would be crazy, so they did what they could do (cheaply) to mitigate it. More trains and a double station would have been the best idea for capacity, but it's a less practical option for the park as a business, so I can't really fault them for not going that route. Twisted Colossus is one of the best ride experiences in So-Cal when the trains are dueling -- period. When I rode it during the video shoots, it really was fantastic how the trains interacted, and made for one of the best rides I EVER had on a roller coaster. Complete strangers conglomerating and screaming together up the lift, reaching for eachothers hands during the high five and top gun elements, it was phenomenal. lol @ park managements decisions. lol @ "this park cares about capacity." Is that the same way they care about capacity while running 1 train on a major attraction during a Summer day when there's cars parked out to the dirt lots? The excuses this park comes up with why they're not performing in the form of "looking out for the guest and capacity" is an astounding illusion that people for some reason continue to buy into. Honestly, I would rather sit at the left side of TC lifthill at a standstill, waiting for the guests to enter the train, for the ride ops to dispatch the train, to alllow for a dueling experience to happen, than to let the trains go hog wild, then let a double stack happen on a 6 minute ride because the park doesn't know how to take charge of guests or deal with a 60 second dispatch. *GWARGH!* *reaches to the sky* I am so over the excuses this park comes up with in the name of their cheapskate tactics and terrible operations. Especially because they only have themselves to blame. They've been doing this for over 50 years, you'd thing they could figure it out by now. But no, they're fine with skating by with mediocrity for some reason, and with me, the excuses just don't work anymore. /rant

Man I hope they get that Superman issue fixed quickly. The ride is much much better when it gets in the red. That was probably my favorite thing about the refurb, the train was actually getting so high it'd clip the magnets at the top, which is the way it was originally designed to run.

I'm all for dark rides at parks like Universal and Disney, because they actually do them well. CF and SF however, have absolutely no business doing dark rides, because they're cheap, they don't maintain them, and they're not done well. Leave that kinda stuff to the pros, and concentrate on what you do best Six Flags -- COASTERS! Even though you don't always do those well either! A dark ride would be a complete waste of space, and as much as they'll swear it's going to be amazing, they're going to cut corners when the deadline nears, they're going to over promise and under-deliver, and in a couple years nothing is going to work the way it is supposed to.

Even if Cedar Point did get an aquatrax, they'd find some way to screw it up. Why does the dude in that last photo look so angry? lol, I'd be smiling from ear to ear if I had his job!

Exactly right. It's like folks who want to rant and rave and create laws against pollution in the US because of all the damage it's doing to the environment. But all you have to do is look across the ocean and see, it doesn't matter how much regulation or effort we put into fixing the pollution problems in America, if other countries around the globe are going to keep on doing what they're doing. These activists have a hard time looking at the big picture. And instead of looking at the big picture, like to think they're making a difference by hurting the people and companies who really are very humane compared to what is going on around the rest of the globe. Does shutting down Sea World stop the slaughter of Orcas, Dolphins, and marine environments around the world? NO. Does it prevent pollution and plastic from entering the oceans? NO. So why don't you focus on that, PETA, actually making a difference instead of constantly ripping farts and making everyone who's trying to do good smell them.

If there was no SeaWorld, would any of us have EVER seen an Orca in person? I know I wouldn't have. Sure, we could spend thousands of dollars to cruise Alaska to hopefully see one, but who can really afford to go out and do that? SeaWorld has provided a way for MILLIONS to see, and appreciate, amazing creatures that they would not have seen otherwise. How do you expect people to appreciate not only the ocean, but these animals, if you never get to see them up close and personal? Otherwise it's all videos, photos, images on the internet that will NEVER compare to seeing one in real life. SeaWorld provides that for the public! And they do their best to research and take care of these mammals the best they can. While I agree, these big fellas are not supposed to be in a tank, I feel having a couple of them in captivity to allow millions of people to see them in real life, and appreciate their majestic beauty, serves more good than bad. These dumbass activists against the park don't seem to realize that. When you take away peoples ability to see these orca's firsthand, and appreciate them, you're really not helping anything, in fact, you're taking away the possibility of appreciation that would protect the rest of them around the world.

I, personally, miss the boat. Valvereemonenomen will absolutely not be the same without it.

Yeah, they're called Bernie voters.