LiftThrill

^ ouch. Was it because there were a lot of people or was it just because of slow dispatches?

I might be heading to the park next week if all goes to plan. Can't wait to get some much needed rides on NTaG and ShockWave. How has the VR affected the line for ShockWave? Is it one of busiest rides in the park now or still somewhere in the middle? I'll be there on a weekday so it shouldn't be that bad but still, I'd rather get more rides in than less. Can't wait to try Riddler Revenge, it'll be my first larger sized Frisbee. My pipe dream for SFOT that's never going to happen is a B&M reprofile of... well, that hyper coaster they have at the front. Reprofile the first drop to give airtime, replace the helices with less boring and less painful elements like overbanks and airtime hills, and replace the trains with B&M hyper trains. It would easily take it from being a mediocre (at best) ride to an awesome fun coaster and the tallest B&M hyper. It could also use a new paint job.

If we're talking about that type of neuter now, can I just say Disk'O? As for rides that get the neutering as opposed to inflicting it, how about The Voyage's MCBR? The second half would be amazing if that didn't take the train to a complete stop.

It's definitely possible if you want to do it and can afford it. We opted for a full day at HW instead to get on Wildebeest and Mammoth as well as get some rerides (which ended up costing a ton of time because Voyage broke down), but the hour drive between the two is nothing. We stayed near Louisville at a family friend's house and definitely could have done an hour at KK had we been inclined to do so and had the money.

Fury 100

Mean Streak having a weak layout doesn't make it a bad ride, but it's definitely overshadowed by the amazingness that is Blue Streak's ejector airtime. If MS were at my homepark I'd be on it all the time.

One that randomly gets on my nerves for no reason is the lift hill coming to a complete stop at the top of Iron Rattler. It sort of takes away the power of the airtime sitting in the back. It's still there but really weak compared to when the lift runs full speed. Another one is The Beast. There was one trim brake on that ride that took away what felt like half the speed of the ride. Luckily the sensation of speed is still ridiculous and one of the best, but without the trims it could easily jump up to the upper half of my top ten. It was definitely smooth enough that removing the trims wouldn't make it too rough imo

^ Every park of any significance should have a custom invert, but a Batman clone is pretty good too. ^^ I actually do like Batmans, in fact before I went on my recent road trip Batman clones were my #10 roller coaster. However since it's cloned so much it makes it a little harder to appreciate since it's not unique. Then again, I have 3 Batman clones within a 4 hour radius of me so maybe that's why I do think some rides are better clones than others (I'd take a Batman over a stock Boomerang any day). One example of really good cloned rides would have to be the MegaLites. I think pretty much everyone who's been on one can agree that we need one in the US. That's a ride I don't mind being cloned at all

Pleasant surprises: -Mr Freeze Reverse Blast - way more fun and intense than it looks -Switchback - was not expecting a top ten coaster from such a tiny little woodie -Raptor - expected a super intense headache machine, got an amazing, forceful invert that's tons of fun -Mean Streak - not nearly as rough as people say, plus it's a ton of fun Unpleasant surprises: -The Legend - thought I'd like it way more than I did -The Raven - incredibly rough -Firehawk - how on earth does anyone like this? awkward, clunky, and painful -Banshee - industrialized headache machine. still fun but one of my least favorite B&Ms -Tennessee Tornado - why do people say this is the best arrow looper? ouch

I can sort of understand it. If you see a ride everywhere you probably will get sick of it at some point, sort of how some people get sick of rides at their home park from riding them too much. That being said if Cedar Point made RMC turn Mean Streak into an NTaG clone you wouldn't see me complaining at all

^^ pretty much. I think a Premier launch coaster or an RMC would be next but the Premier seems more likely considering the park already has a top tier woodie and no bad wooden coasters to give the I-box treatment to. Maybe they'll get a T-Rex or Raptor track from RMC However I don't see a new SFGAdv coaster for 2017 at all. They just got one and every other year seems like the industry standard.

I like Batmans a lot but they're my least favorite B&M. They're intense but a little on the short side and not very rerideable. I'd rank the inverts I've been on like this: 1. Raptor -massive gap- 2. Banshee 3. Batmans Raptor ended up exceeding any expectation I had. I was very apprehensive about riding it because I had a headache and when I have a headache I tend to avoid any coaster with any kind of constant applied g-forces and I'd heard that Raptor was incredibly intense. I had no clue it would be intense in the way it was. Very forceful but not in the positive g department. Very quick paced but with a large variety of elements. To me, Talon looks like what Banshee should be but isn't. A less insanely paced invert with a unique layout. Sadly, Banshee ended up feeling like a very high g-force dosage with B&M vest restraints, which really sucked because the layout was cool and it really did have the potential to be awesome, but it felt very industrial to me.

I think B&M and Six Flags don't mix at the moment. SF seems to be trying to go with more economical investments and a new B&M is like $20mil. Plus, SFGAdv already has pretty much every common type of B&M. However, I'm sure the chain will eventually add B&Ms again. As for SFGAdv, I could see a major flat package like SFOT in 2017 followed by a coaster of some sort in 2018.

Now that plans are set, probably a 2-day SFOT trip after some lazy days at SFFT.

But will it have T-Rex track?

It really is interesting. I'm sort of in an island that includes all the Texas parks and everything else is a distant fantasy. Luckily I was able to do a big trip and snag a ton of awesome midwestish parks, but nothing on the east coast. One day...

I love the dominance of RMC in your lists (especially the steel one). Just wondering because I like to make discussion rather than just list top tens, so are NTaG and IRat interchangeable or do you definitively prefer IRat? At one point I had the two incredibly close in my rankings but after some really strong rides on NTaG and a pretty "meh" season for IRat I ended up putting NTaG a few spots higher, interchangeable with Maverick and Outlaw Run.

Overall (Total Ranking Count 64) 1. Millennium Force 2. New Texas Giant 3. Outlaw Run 4. Maverick 5. Iron Rattler 6. The Voyage 7. Diamondback 8. ShockWave 9. Raptor 10. Switchback Steel (Total Ranking Count 49) 1. Millennium Force 2. New Texas Giant 3. Maverick 4. Iron Rattler 5. Diamondback 6. ShockWave 7. Raptor 8. Top Thrill Dragster 9. Powder Keg 10. Mr Freeze Reverse Blast Wood (Total Ranking Count 15) 1. Outlaw Run 2. The Voyage 3. Switchback 4. The Beast 5. Thunderhead 6. Blue Streak 7. American Thunder 8. Screamin' Eagle 9. The Boss 10. The Raven

I was there the first day of SSS, and it was pretty awesome. Surprisingly it wasn't busy at all despite being a Saturday, so I bet it was the Globetrotters show that drew all the crowds away from everything else. Man, I already want to go back lol

Sheep

and put them at Six Flags Dubai, but then Cedar Fair

The place rocks. Definitely my favorite park overall. It might have been the 5th car 1st row trick for Vortex or the fact that my restraint locked in a comfortable position. All the other Arrow loopers I've been on have ridiculously tight restraints (Corkscrew and Tennessee Tornado) but Vortex's locked in a position with some more room to move my neck around. Voyage wasn't exactly smooth but compared to Raven it's like Valravn smooth, and the layout really is awesome. Legend wasn't that rough but I really wasn't a fan of the layout. Raven needs retracking badly.

Blazing Fury, aka the super weird not-powered kiddy coaster that feels like a dark ride but has ejector airtime.

I saw it and laughed.

After two awesome days at CP, we spent a few hours in Cleveland and then drove to Pigeon Forge. Note that the entire week I had been keeping track of Lightning Rod updates and it seemed like it would be open at least once every day at this point. I have almost no pictures at all from the rest of the trip, sadly, but I can still tell about some of the stuff we did. We checked out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which was interesting but not really my thing. In Pigeon Forge, our hotel gave us free Goats on the Roof coupons which was awesome. The alpine coaster there was being retracked that night so we waited for the next morning to check it out. While staying at the hotel that night I checked up and RMC had issued the part recall. The chances of getting to ride Lightning Rod had just gone from 50% to 0%. We considered other options for the next day but decided since we were booked for two nights in Pigeon Forge that the extra driving to get to Carowinds or SFOG wasn't worth it. I don't remember much about the next day. We went to Goats on the Roof and the alpine coaster idea is fun but not my favorite thing. Dollywood could almost be my favorite park if Lightning Rod was open, but the whole place (including the staff) had a sort of depressed mood because of LR being closed which made it less enjoyable. Luckily it was still a ton of fun but definitely lacking the star attraction that LR provides. The food was good, setting was great, etc, but I think SDC set my expectations too high for this park. I can't remember what order we did stuff in so I'll just throw out my reviews and scorecard with a few non-Dollywood pictures because I accidentally left my phone at the hotel and wasn't able to take any Dollywood pictures. Coaster Reviews: Tennessee Tornado - Incredibly overrated. I've seen this called the best Arrow looper and I don't see it at all. Incredibly painful, seats are super cramped, and the transitions are taken way too fast. It hurt my neck, shoulders, and the sides of my head more than any other coaster, even though its track interaction is smooth. It is my 3rd least favorite coaster after Firehawk and the big orange headache machine at SFOT. No idea why people like this ride. Wild Eagle - Love the first drop and setting but I prefer Thunderbird ever so slightly. Very forceful for a wing coaster, greyed out a little every time I rode. Firechaser Express - Great little family ride, but as a standalone coaster it would be incredibly boring. The ride has an amazing setting on the side of the mountain but it's very forceless, even for a family ride. Favorite steel non-mine train family coaster still goes to Runaway Mountain. Mystery Mine - This was my first Eurofighter and I'd heard that it was one of the worse ones. It just felt super random. The layout was meh during the first half and really fun during the second half. My next Eurofighter is probably Iron Shark at the Galveston Pier so maybe then I'll have something to compare this to. It was very fun, just really weird and random. Thunderhead - Another really overrated coaster brought to you by Dollywood. I liked Thunderhead, but like Tennessee Tornado I don't see how this makes top ten lists at all. The layout is really good but this is one of the roughest woodies I've been on and the layout really isn't designed to be rough. That being said, this is actually a top 5 woodie when I look back at things (out of 15 woodies), but the only reason I rode it so many times was because it was a walk-on to station wait all day. I did come off with a headache every time but it was a minor headache and didn't get worse with rerides. Blazing Fury - What the hell even is this thing lmao. Super weird theming everywhere and then some super random drops near the end of the ride. The lap bar didn't come down all the way on me so the airtime I got was really strong. This is definitely more of a dark ride but if coastercount says it's a credit then it's a credit. Plus it was fun, just super random and weird. Scorecard: Tennessee Tornado x1 Wild Eagle x2 Firechaser Express x1 Mystery Mine x1 Thunderhead x5 Blazing Fury x1 No changes to my top ten were made during this stop. Conclusion coming eventually. Random non-Dollywood pictures: dogs Not sure why I took this pic Goats on the Roof coaster