Physical

What is that? I'm inclined to say lift motor for Talon, but there's wheel assemblies on it. Not when I was operating it!

The food at Phoenix Junction is pretty good, but it's nothing special. It's just really good park food. If you're looking for something unique, as others have said, international food court is the place to be. I don't remember the name of the place but it's by the river, near the amphitheater. There's a place there that sells /fantastic/ potato pancakes, and right next door is an ice cream place that has some crazy sundaes.

You -might- have some trouble early in the day, but once they start running double trains on the wooden coasters things should move smoothly, even if the queues appear to spill out of the station areas. Opening weekend is always pretty heavy but they manage it well. If you're concerned about "doing" everything, you should have little trouble if you stay for the entire day (which you should). So figure it'll be about the same as PPP Queue was spilling out about 50 feet into the midway on Phoenix, wait was still less than 15 minutes.

Family owned parks don't have to do all the IROC BS. No visual scans, no 'all clear dispatch.' just a thumbs up, and go! The way parks /should/ be ran!

Anybody have any idea what crowds will be like opening day? I went last year for PPP and the crowds were heavy for Knoebels, but I still never waited more than 30 minutes. Would opening day be similar to that, or should I expect worse?

I'm not really a fan of the extensively themed flume rides. I'm more a fan of flume rides that are fun, and get you wet. I'm going to have to go with Thunder Creek Mountain at Dorney. I love how it's built to fit the terrain, and it gets you pretty wet in certain circumstances (Standing wave under the waterfall is one of them, but that's only there occasionally) I haven't ridden the flume at Knoebels, but I imagine it's pretty good. The one at Kings Dominion wasn't anything special for me. The only thing I really remember from that ride is the rather jarring conveyor engaging just before the final drop. Runner up is gonna have to be Hershey's flume, strictly for the "Surprise airtime" moment.

Dorney Park struggle. This is why we'll never see a GCI where Dino's Alive is. The people in the apartments that are about 50 feet away from the parks border (Where the Zephyr goes) complain if you use the horn on the Zephyr. Can't imagine they'd be happy with a wooden coaster roaring away.

Was at the park today from about 11:30 to 6, it wasn't dead but it was far from busy. About 20 minute waits for most things, sometimes less. Toro's operations are simply staggering. Massive props to ElToroRyan for running a tight ship. They managed to hit more dispatch intervals today than they did every time I went last year, combined. The Bull was running very sluggish today though, and my last ride on it ruined my back in the first turnaround. Not rough, just very bumpy and lots of lateral movement. Kingda Ka was running mostly on a 1 to 1 with Zumanjaro. Sometimes they would get two launches in before Zumanjaro went though. Yellow train on Ka was having some difficulty making it over the top, and I was two trains away from a rollback. We were walking out of the Golden Kingdom, watching Ka launch, and we saw the yellow train roll back. Better luck next time I suppose! Superman's operations were slower than usual today, it had about a 30-45 minute wait most of the day. Runaway Mine Train was running 1 train all day, with a decent wait. We chose to skip out on it because of the wait. Overall it was a pretty great day. The food lines were by far the longest, and the midways were pretty jammed, but it was mostly families, lines for the good coasters were mostly minimal. Ka had about a 30-45 minute wait only because they were running 1 to 1 dispatches with Zumanjaro. Honestly if Zumi would have gone down for about 10 minutes, Ka would have emptied out it's entire queue line no problem. I have next to no interest in riding Zumanjaro, so to me that was a much bigger issue than anything else I ran in to today.

I'm probably just going to run laps on Ka, Bizzarro, Nitro, and Toro anyway.

Fair enough. As long as it's like a 5 minute wait/walk on for everything I won't mind. I hate standing in standby when I'm solo though. It's so boring, either stare at your phone or try to strike up a convo with random people.

So it's looking more and more like I'll be headed out to the park alone on Tuesday. Is it at all possible to let height check or fastlane know I'm a single rider, with the intention of skipping standby? I know GL and Zumanjaro are the only rides with a dedicated single riders line, but you still have to wait in standby on GL until the fork.

Drove past the park today and Thunderhawk caught my eye. The paintwork is coming along nicely, it looks like the supports for the lift and drop are completely done, and the first turnaround is starting to come along. The color looks very good, especially when the sun catches it, gives the coaster a nice "shine" Link to image (It was rotated 90 degrees on upload and I can't be arsed to rotate it and upload again)

Flight of Fear at KD. I love the sci-fi feel, I especially like how there's a separate unloading station. Gave me a chill the first time I saw an empty train roll into the station. Before I realized it was a separate platform I was just like "What... What happened to everybody" The whole queue/building is themed very well IMO, even if the theming is on the cheap side. Gotta love that central operations panel as well.

I gotta say I'm very impressed with the direction SF has gone in the last year. I went in the first half of the 2015 season and was disgusted with the state of the park, operations were downright god awful. I ran into 2 separate ride ops (On Superman and Kingda Ka) that were exceedingly rude for no apparent reason. Not to mention the park itself was very, very dirty (There was actually a puddle of vomit right inside the gate, park services were sweeping all around it, but not bothering with the puke itself. No petro or anything on it) However, I went again in the second half of the season, then again for HiTP, and I had zero issues. I'm happy to hear they've painted some rides, Nitro looked like complete shit, and has for years now. Really gave me the impression that SF doesn't take care of their rides, runs them until they're unsafe to run, then just tears them out. Can't wait to see how the park looks on Monday!

Can't make it out until Monday. But that means less lines, which means more time on Toro! Unless it's down again

I understand ride op struggles. Non Disclosure Agreements make me sad.

Anybody know if it was loaded? Wonder what the procedure would be for an evac from that spot. Probably just walk up to the brake run then down to the station.

Based on the fact that it valleyed, I figure the drive tire isn't at the top of that hill right now.

I misunderstood the question. Fury 325, Carowinds.

It's my understanding that El Toro's prefabbed track is built to the same measurements as RMC's I-Beam track. Correct me if I'm wrong but I recall reading somewhere that Intamin worked with RMC To develop the prefab track. So I would assume retracking it with I-beam or topper tech wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Carowinds Dorney Park Hershey Kings Dominion Knoebels Six Flags Great Adventure Probably adding Six Flags New England, Cedar Point, and Kings Island this season.

Anybody know what kind of crowds to expect on the 29th? I know Freehold Township school district is on spring break that day, but I figure because it's a week after opening day, everybody that wanted to go will have gone already.

I've heard similar rumors. I have a feeling there's a chance the long-rumored moving of the entrance + a new gate coaster could happen. RMC at Dorney in 2017, calling it. I'd adore to see an RMC go in, but I think everybody knows it's not going to happen.

Anybody hear anything about this rumored gate coaster for 2017? It would make sense, considering they're moving the pavilions around... Seems like they're setting up for something big.

Is that a ferris wheel with 4 carriages?