Arthur_Seaton

Ah, I see what you mean! Yes, there are a lot of laterals on it — mainly in that second half. Legend was quite a bit more brutal when I rode it, but Ghost Rider is at its smoothest right now. They both share extended lateral helixes (Helixi?)

Bummer that Montezooma is down! Still, Silver Bullet is great — my favorite inverted (a type I don't usually like that much), and agree that Ghost Rider is legendary. It really is one of the best wooden coasters around. Hope the rest of the day goes well! Don't forget to ride La Revolucion — one of the best rides in the park!

Yeah, there was some reprofiling done on it early in its life and part of the first drop was changed. I swear that awkward bit right before the corkscrews was changed as well, but I have no evidence to back that up. Viper's from the pre-CGI era of Arrow when their engineering department used old coat hangers and bits of string.

Viper is like floating in the clouds compared to GL; they're not even in the same category. Viper has a bit of uncomfortable headbanging and jerky transitions whereas GL has the capacity to cause serious physical pain. For me, taking some of GL's turns face-down felt very similar to being punched directly in the head. I'd estimate that GL is at least 10-15 times worse than your worst ride on Viper.

I'd be surprised if Skyrush won out here. I tend not to rank coasters, but Diamondback is way up there toward the top for me — maybe even my favorite coaster period. That's because all its airtime is drawn-out and very smooth, and the whole ride is just enjoyable and fun from start to finish. I found Skyrush to be the exact opposite, even though I still rode it a whole bunch of times.

Sounds like a fantastic day, and I fully agree with many of your observations as to how strong the park is these days (a heretical claim in this thread!) Many areas of the park do indeed look great, the staff is consistently friendly, the place is clean and well-maintained etc. There's certainly work to be done, but it's very obvious that they're making strides in a number of areas. Hopefully, they'll keep that awful smartphone gimmick off of Revolution from this point on so that people can actually enjoy the ride again. Ultimately it comes down to personal taste and preference, but this is one ride that seems to be widely unpopular — even beyond the halls of coaster fandom. The concept is intriguing and definitely unique, but the execution is beyond flawed. For me, it's not just the worst ride in the park; it's the worst ride I've ever been on anywhere. Still, it has its fans.

I only peeked at the line, to be honest. I'm guessing it was two trains as that's kind of the norm these days for that ride. It's the one ride in the park where you're guaranteed to have a hefty wait, even when the place seems quiet. It's worth it, though!

Since I was in the area, I dropped by Knott’s tonight to finally take a couple of rides on Sol Spin. Good thing that I arrived when I did (about 5:30 pm) as it broke down again soon after. It was my first time on one of these models, and I’m generally not a fan of rides that spin in disorienting ways. While I’m glad I got to try this one, it’s not a ride I’d return to in a hurry. I actually found it fairly tame and more weird than intense. It’s a very short ride with a sluggish loading sequence, but I think its brevity is merciful as too much of that kind of motion would make anyone barf. There really aren’t any forces on it to speak of, and I think that rolling around on the floor with a flashlight would produce a similar effect. Having said that, it’s a very cool-looking ride that fits the space well. The park was relatively quiet, but Ghost Rider’s line was still over 90 mins. So I jumped on Supreme Scream, Montezooma, Silver Bullet, and La Revolution — some of my favorite rides inside and outside of Knott’s. I saw the Sky Cabin running, but I didn’t see if anyone was in it. Hang Time looks great, but I still suspect it’ll be a ride I enjoy watching more than riding. The inversion over the station is especially bizarre looking. Working? Not working?

Total bummer. Makes absolute sense why they'd need to take the mouse out, but that really was a personal favorite and a ride that really summed up what the Pleasure Beach was all about for me. For anyone who didn't get to experience it, it was totally unique and hilariously aggressive. RIP mouse!

I agree. When it first re-opened, it was almost too smooth and even a tad sluggish. It seems to have broken in quite a bit now, running fast and aggressive but without any of the backbreaking ridiculousness of the original track. The additional banking really does help.

Yeah, I agree, it's disorienting — especially the second half. I prefer my ride intensity to be matched by fun, and SB is perhaps a little unbalanced in this regard but I can usually go a good three or four laps before really starting to feel it. To me, SB was the logical progression of the Batman clones — not quite as intense, but in a similar vein.

I'm genuinely intrigued. What makes Silver Bullet your favorite? I grew up near Buena Park so Silver Bullet and Batman were my only inverts until I recently rode Raptor, Great Bear, Banshee, Alpengeist, and Afterburn. Silver Bullet is now one of my least favorites. I don't think it's bad at all and it has nostalgia value but it's just not quiet with the others, imo. B&M inverts are one of my least favorite styles of coaster in general, and I generally want more from a coaster than a catalog of elements (Banshee was an example of this). For me, SB has the right mix of intensity, fun, and visual interaction with the environment. It's often condemned for its drop, but I don't find drops on inverts to be that thrilling anyway. This one switches from mild to intense as soon as it hits the loop. The overbank offers a weird airtime moment that's unique to the ride. The boomerang looks fantastic off-ride. The corkscrew finale lets the ride go out with a bang — very snappy corkscrews followed immediately by an extreme, blackout-inducing helix. Combine all that with no brakes and solid ops. It's been my favorite for a long time, and it's a must-ride when visiting Knotts.

Took a trip to the park today to take advantage of the one-free-entry deal that comes with a 2018 pass. I’d been delaying to try and maybe catch Sol Spin open — a ride I’ve yet to try at Knotts or in general. No luck today, though, as the ride was still out of operation all day. Despite that, Xcelerator and Sky Cabin were the only things not working, but that’s not news. The place was pretty quiet aside from the Ghost Town holiday market stuff, with most rides maxing out at three-train waits / cycles in the time I was there (2pm to 5pm-ish). Ghost Rider had a constant 30-45 min line, but I caught it right after a breakdown and basically got two back-to-back walk-on rides. To respond to a recent post, yes, the brakes kick in a long way from the station still, and you crawl through multiple hissing blocks as the next train dispatches. It still seems odd, but I’m sure the engineers have their reasons. The crew seemed on the ball, but I wasn’t around there for very long. Ghosr Rider ERT. The holiday market area was pretty busy. I got to ride Coast Rider and try out the new shin restraints — which were surprisingly bad. I expected something more like the RMC shin restraints and was surprised to find these bizarre things instead. I know the ride is mainly for children, but those new shin things don’t accommodate adult frames well at all — your legs actually prevent the lap restraint from closing all the way. Hangtime looks fun. It’s smaller in person than I thought it would be, fitting into a fairly compact footprint. Also, the way the first inversion sits kind of echoes Boomerang’s inversions. The ride’s position in the park, and the fact that there’s going to be ample opportunities to watch people “hang” over the drop, will make this one a hit I think. I don’t think there’s been any major work that people here haven’t seen yet, but I’d say that more than half of the track is installed now. This part will be fun to watch. If the holding brakes are set that far back, it seems like the train will roll into the drop pretty fast. The "beyond vertical" bit. Over the course of a few hours, I rode all the good stuff a bunch of times. I still think Silver Bullet is my favorite B&M invert (and I’ve been on some of the popular ones around the country), and La Revolución is still one of my favorite rides in the park. I overlooked it for years, but I think it’s fantastic now. Good old Silver Bullet. The new skyline is looking good!

i didn't walk up to it yesterday, but from walking by near the arcade, i didn't see any action at all over there. I just called to double check and they said "they thought it was working," but the front desk person hadn't been notified. It is indeed down again, and Montezooma is down too. Maybe I'll try again next week.

Was planning on heading to the park today to finally catch a ride on Sol Spin but it looks like it's closed again already? At least according to the website. Bummer.

Wrong thread! Sorry! (Please delete, mods)

Yeah, I have to say that I've never found Manhattan Express to be that bad. It's definitely not a noteworthy coaster by any means, but I've been on plenty of stuff that's just as rough / headbangy. It's a weird design more than anything — like a wannabe hyper that dumps you into compact traveling-style coaster 1/3 of the way through. Speed: The Ride was always my favorite on the strip, and I think it's sitting in pieces in some parking lot now.

You could replace it with an open sewer and a hornet infestation and it'd be a step up.

I visited SFOT last year on an incredibly busy day and I was able to ride everything multiple times over (more than 10 rides on Giant). A couple of points, though: The line to buy the flash pass itself was insane. I recommend not only getting there early, but getting straight to the flash pass site and getting in line ASAP (if you think you'll need it). It's to the left of the park entrance and, on the day that I was there, the line to get in the park and the line to get a pass were extreme. It's worth checking to see what's not included with the pass and knocking them out before the crowds hit. When I was there, Runaway Mountain and Judge Roy Scream weren't included, and the line for both was well over 90 minutes for much of the day. Runaway Mountain is really good considering it's just a Windstorm model, and Judge Roy Scream was one of my favorites in the park (I think helps to appreciate and enjoy classic designs though). If riding either one is important to you, I'd try to knock them out relatively early. Keep an eye on opening times. I'd planned to get there an hour early to make sure that I was first in line to enter and get passes (I knew it would be a busy day). It turns out that the park opened earlier than advertised and the parking lot was already getting packed. Last: The park layout is pretty maze-like. Even though it's not that big, the walkways are small and it's easy to get disoriented — especially over on the west side of the park by rides like La Vibora.

TC is a strange beast and, although I'm no engineer, I can't help but think that there'd be better ways to design the ride to ensure racing. For example, using a short holding section at the bottom of the lift that releases two trains onto the same (accelerated) chain link motor. While the poor station design doesn't exactly help matters, the main culprit is a GP that lacks full cognitive function. The ride ops on TC are consistently excellent, but they have a Sisyphean struggle on their hands given the ride's design and the difficulty guests have in performing simple tasks. Although I seem to luck out with races (I'd say 75% of my rides have raced), I wouldn't blame SFMM at all for giving up on the racing and considering a slight redesign in the future.

Maybe it's the angle, but it looks like the structure of Hang Time is going to loom over the mine train ride in a big way. You also get a sense of how steep that initial brake section really is. Also, what's going on with Sol Spin? I haven't ridden it yet but just bought a 2018 pass and wouldn't mind dropping by to check it out in the next few weeks.

The wings don't have a central axle running through them, do they? They're just sort of slapped onto the side of the train (well, bolted and whatnot). I wonder if a continual axle might have lessened the jerky rotations? Or if the jerkiness is the fault of a guide rail system in need of reprofiling?

I can only imagine it working in two ways: either the seats are so weighted down and so off-axis that they no longer flip at all, and the feature of the ride then becomes the drops. Or, the seats flip so much that there's no chance of it staying in the upside down position for more than a split second (magnetic spinny fins might help there). The problem with the ride, as I see it, is that because of the way it's designed there's a very good chance you're going to experience extreme g-forces face-first or upside down. The last time I rode it (basically when it first opened), that was my experience, and it felt like being punched in the head over and over. It doesn't bother me that the ride's still there — I mean, it's not like it takes up much space — but it is, by far, the worst coaster I've ever ridden. And this is coming from someone who actually loved Flashback and Psyclone, even at their crunchiest.

To be honest, I'll be surprised if I find this ride to my taste as back-to-back inversions don't do much for me, and I find beyond-vertical drops a bit underwhelming. With that said, I think the ride looks fantastic — the perfect fit for the space, and it's bound to be a crowd pleaser. With the lighting package installed, it's really going to transform the area.

A gesture of mercy perhaps? Whenever SFMM runs Revolution without the awful Pink-Eye Delivery System or closes Green Lantern for any reason whatsoever, I consider it an act of goodwill. They should even consider promoting it on their website and social media platforms: "New for Fall 2018! Green Lantern Closed! Revolution Cell-Phone Experience — Out Of Service!"