RollerManic

I too am a stickler for history, but the double corkscrew over the midway is really the only thing about Corkscrew that stands out to me. I agree that it's great when parks preserve historic rides, but it shouldn't be determined just upon the age of a ride. Rides like Whizzer, Schwarzkopf loopers/shuttles, log flumes, classic flats, old woodies, GOOD Arrow coasters, etc. that still provide thrills or a unique experience that not really like what modern incarnations try to imitate, but Corkscrew doesn't really fall into this category. It become sub-par years ago with its uneventful and rough layout and is overshadowed in a park like Cedar Point. its a much more comfortable ride now, to the point where it's almost fun. But one way or another, its still a piece of turd, because you can't fix or paint a piece of turd. It's just not a thrilling coaster - that's what I'm implying.

Yeah, the old Kraken entrance was one of my favorites ever.

I'm definitely willing to participate. Ill be checking in to see when you will come out with a working model we can use. I definitely agree with Coasterbill that dueling rides with two different layouts are two completely different rides.

I understand that. I made the dialogue over-simplistic and made the assumption that they were making serious inquiries into installing a rapids rides for the sake of arguement, i.e. that they had a preferred mindset or inclination to a particular ride type already. Obviously the decision process doesn't happen that way, but that wasn't the point of the post. So let's say they generically sent out RFOs for any and all water rides. I wonder how many other manufacturers besides Intamin and Hafema tried to sell them a rapids rides. To my knowledge, if any other company did sell one to Seaworld, it would be their first (ignoring knockoff clones here because a reputable park like Seaworld probably wouldn't send a knockout company any RFP's, right?).

Considering several posts above mine are debating other possibilities, I would say that not everyone is convinced yet.

Awwww! That's so cute the way things work in your world. In the real world RFPs are sent to the manufacturers with the proposals evaluated before making a decision. The main point of that is that only two manufacturers currently make rapids rides, but are you suggesting the uncommon possibility that any manufacturer would take on a proposal? I understand any company that doesn't currently make rapids rides could come out at anytime with one, but are you suggesting that Seaworld still sent proposals into say Mack or somewhere, even knowing they currently don't provide them?

I would have liked to see them enclose the volcano and make it into a indoor water park if sorts. Imagine entering the volcano from the bottom and looking up to see thar mess of slides! I think that would have been the best of both worlds; keep the guts hidden but still be able to show off the cool mess of tubes inside.

Its very likely this will be a Mack based on the footers. It will not be a B&M with pretty good certainty if we avoid hypotheticals (i.e. B&M changes their footer design, use several different designs per ride, etc.). I'm not going to try to rule out any other manufactuer because to use footers as a basis for elimination for dozens of manufactures really pushes the limit of reasonable speculation. I'm just trying to prove it wont be a B&M based upon what footer designs they use, and that the footers match Mack's current design. Mack uses the same 4-hole design were seeing show up here (which, for the record, they used it on Cobra's Curse), while B&M has been using an almond-shaped, 6-hole design for decades that seemed to first appear (but used sparingly) on the Batman clones. All of their support columns since Iron Wolf have sat flush to the footer, while Mack always leaves a space between the footer and the support column.

This. Over and over.

It will be open. Personally, I like it like this. The mess of slides in there is seriously impressive (and under construction, it looks really rustic and bada$$ with the tarps over the slide pieces, but those won't last )

^Its the same experience, so no. And this is coming from someone who counts the floorless conversions as new credits.

I don't even know where to begin with this. Intamin sprays three coats of SPF 50 clear coat on their coasters, which not only preserves the colors, but it also makes it so the sun doesn't burn the steel. However, this paint is less reliable than B&M paint, despite its ability to withstand higher G forces. If only Arrow had thought of doing this back in the day. The reason their coasters are so rough is because the steel heats up and melts in the hot sun, creating ruts and bumps along the track. When they built Tennessee Tornado, they contracted Banana Boat to apply a thick layer of sunscreen to the track, thus eliminating the problem and making it the smoothest Arrow around. I heard they also apply a coast of Vaseline to the track once every three weeks.

^ Technically, Wave Breaker was the last Intamin SeaWorld purchased, so if this made any sense at all to begin, then wouldn't they have gotten a half-off deal with Wave Breaker and not Falcon's Fury lol? I'm pretty sure the decision making process went something like this: Guy 1: "Hey. Let's install a rapids ride at Orlando!" Other dude: "Yeah, great idea! What manufacturer should we purchase it from?" Guy 1: "Well... only essentially two manufacturers make them, and every other rapids ride we own across the company is an Intamin one, so... uh, Intamin". Other dude: "Oh, ok." It's not rocket science lol.

IIRC these kind of opening day lines aren't anything new to KI. Dback's stretched all the way around the circle (with the line moving counter clockwise around the circle). This was the best picture I was able to dig up, but somewhere a long time ago I had seen one that clearly showed the entirety of the line. It wasn't zoomed in as far as this one is.

I don't even see JJ going anywhere. Everyone who thinks this evacuation is evidence that JJ will get removed is crazy.

Sure, its no where near the best... in order to be the best, I would have to appeal to everyone. The one thing that it does better than the others - being bigger, faster, and meaner than the other inverts by a large margin - is also what makes it so "rough" in some people's eyes. Only Banshee has such comparable stats, but I haven't ridden it yet so I'm going to make no comment on it. Alpengiest is far from perfect, but it's my favorite invert. Its little imperfections, like the jarring snappiness in the cobra roll and into the MCBR that makes the whole train feel like it needs its bolts checked and the super intense vibrations (ie what most people equate as "roughness") are what I love about it, all combined with the height, the speed, the placement, and the theming are what I lose so much about the ride. As for coasters that really deserve more discussion than they get here, my votes go to Storm Runner, and the wooden trio at SFSTL Storm Runner is not necessarily underrated, but doesn't get much talk here. The Boss kicks ass from the start, with an awesome double down first drop through a long tunnel of structure, into another great drop off the MCBR, and a final dive into the structure at the beginning of the return leg. The whole return leg is pretty good, with a series of airtime hills leading to the 570 helix, and the double up out of the helix is awesome as well. Eagle is a ton of fun and I love how secluded it is in the woods and how it follows the terrain so well. The second, not first hill, is the tallest on the ride, so you get pretty good airtime going over the first hill and the second provides a great drop into the wooded section. American Thunder is my favorite GCI because I think it has the best pacing out of the ones i've been on, a ton of fast and low airtime hills, and a lot of good crossovers (with the one under the transfer track being the best). Overall, the more I think about it, the less I think SFStL lacks something. It doesn't have a signature steel coaster, but Batman, Mr Freeze, and the woodie trio make up for absence of something like a hyper. Its a more-well rounded park than some parks with a hyper coaster to say the least.

Anything beats "Construction 2018", which they had actually fooled me into believing would be the name.

Not like many of you care, except for those like myself, but Cedar Point posted a new water park update on their FB.

No, they actually did plant a couple of new trees. Look back at Chuck's last update before media day and you can see several photos where small have been planted. I see deciduous trees getting relocated all the time here in TN. In fact, there is a nursery and several of those tree-transplanting trucks stationed about two miles from my house. I never knew that the palm trees have such blocky soil bases when they get relocated, though. It looks so weird all perfectly geometric like that! The million dollar question to me is how tall/mature of a tree can you possibly relocate? I guess an answer to that would also partly answer your question depending on what you meant by "fully grown trees", i.e. how big of a tree species are we talking about? EDIT: Guinness World records list the largest tree ever transplanted, but I would think this was a kind of one-off project. It doesn't look like it was a cheap service lol.

Don't waste your money going this year if you can only go one of the two years. I am in the same boat and have chosen to go back to SFGADv this year and wait out till 2018 to go back to Cedar Point. I really don't see how this is that hard of a decision. The water park and second breakers (?) expansion will be done this year and New Mean Streak more likely to be open in 2018. Go then and enjoy both, or atleast one (the one that appeals to pretty much all us coaster enthusiasts). Those are just my 2 cents. Sure, go this year if you wosh, but I HIGHLY recommend against going this year if you can't go again in 2018.

I'm going to hold my overall judgement until this ride has been operating long enough that its popularity settles out, considering it just opened. However, echoing what A.J. said, I do speculate they can't allow over x number of guests into the lounges due to fire codes. Wether that'll always persist as problem or not we don't know yet. I wish Universal would have somehow incorporated a standby line into this attraction, but I fear they would have made the lounge queueing experience up-charge if so.

Calling a dive machine not worth visiting for is entirely subjective.

LNM is absolutely beautiful, was totally surprised how awesome it was. He means this: Although, I agree with you in that LNM is the best Arrow coaster that I've ridden. LNM is one of my favorite rides, ever. Just within Virginia, I prefer it to Dominator and most of the rides at KD. Similarly, Anaconda is one of the better Arrows. You have to get out and ride more if you think Anaconda is rough. There are a lot more crappy Arrows than Anaconda.

^The St. Louis Zoo also has one. There's is even partially outdoors. The Memphis Zoo's is completely outdoors, etc. There are plenty of open air pengium exhibits. Where did you hear that Antarctica was the only one?

What infuriates me is not at all that they have metal detectors, but that they don't deul the ride anymore even though THEY HAVE METAL DETECTORS. I bet it's still for insurance. I'm sure they would still charge them extra whether they dueled with or without metal detectors. EDIT: sorry I am so late to this discussion.