Physical

I haven't been to the park in June, so I can't say anything about that. However, if you're going to do QuickQueue, do the QuickQueue Unlimited. The regular QuickQueue only lets you skip to the front of the line once for each ride that has QuickQueue. We were only planning on getting it if the park is slammed. Sounds like quickqueue unlimited is the better deal if you're planning on hitting anything more than once.

I'm making my first trip down to BGW on the 16th of June. We're figuring it's early season so the crowds won't be too bad. Can anybody comment on average queue length? We're planning on driving down early morning, spending the whole day there open to close, then driving back the same day (10 hours(!!!) of driving total) so if lines are bad we'll probably spring for quick queue.

I don't know about other states but in PA there's a rider safety act that makes it against the law to ignore the instructions of a ride op. So if the grouper says "You two need to ride together." guess what's going to happen. It's rare that Dorney would enforce such things though, considering there's 1 day a year where the crowds are heavy enough to warrant a "no empty seats" policy.

Could weight distribution be a factor as well? Or do the fins induce the same flipping no matter what? I wish I knew man. I'm not very well read up on exactly how these S&S FreeSpiners actually work. Edit: Read up a bit, based on what I read it seems the magnets dictate how much (or how little) spinning the car does. Apparently it doesn't freewheel, so weight shouldn't play too big of a role, though I'd imagine it effects the ride to some extent.

If S&S designed them to allow adjustment (I'm not sure if they did or not, just speculating) then I would assume it'd be modular. Just pop the fins out and swap them with higher intensity ones or something.

How dare you bad mouth Stingers autospiel! That was the greatest ride speech in history. Shame it's gone now.

Could be a few reasons. Most likely they were expecting crowds later in the day, so they transferred on the second train early, then ghosted it and didn't load it until the line was long enough to warrant 2 train ops. Or maintenance did something to the train and needed to cycle it X amount of times before they could load it or said "Don't load this train at all today" for whatever reason

- even HH looked dead today when I pulled in.....as judged by empty stair cases! Looked like walk-on city there too! Glad to hear you had a good time! We got our walk on day for the season (Seems like dead days are extremely rare at Great Adventure. Most consider a "dead day" to be 20 minute waits for Toro) a few weeks ago so I'm not too upset about it.

Kinda bummed we decided to go to Dorney instead of Great Adventure. Seems like it's a pretty good day to be there. We figured Great Adventure would be slammed, but it seems like Dorney is busier somehow.

Just make sure to ride in car 4.

It's fun as a ride op to say "Please hold on to your balls in the station." or "Please don't play with your balls in the station" over the mic though

Only been to parks in PA, NJ, VA, and NC, but I'll comment for those states. PA) Tie between Skyrush and Phoenix. Skyrush for the pure insanity of it, Phoenix for how insanely fun it is. NJ) El Toro, hands down, no doubt about it VA) Intimidator 305 NC) Fury 325

1) Afterburn 2) Talon 3) Great Bear 4) Batman: The Ride

Space Shot for fun, Turbo Drop for thrills. Never ridden combo or double shot so I can't comment.

The HersheyPark ops are great, especially on Skyrush. Last season I made a trip out with 4 other operators from Dorney, we had a few awesome experiences on Skyrush. We told one of the ops we were from Dorney, so she put on this seductive look on her face and asked my buddy if he wanted the "HersheyPark Welcome" while leaning on his restraint. He said yeah and she proceeded to *jump* in the air and put all her weight on his restraint. Towards close we also got the Skyrush crew to do a visual scan (The old Dorney one, where you chase your thumb around with your head)

Nah, he said "late June". It'll pull a Stinger and be closed for the season by then. Only if the train punches a hole into the main spine, puncturing a hydraulic hose and spraying hot oil on people.

Time to update the Pierogie Map, because Power Surge is back up and is /awesome/ You'll never ride Flyers like the ones at Knoebels, they're so much faster and the cycle is so much longer than the flyers at any other park. Including other parks that have Bisch-Rocco flyers. Be prepared to scare the crap out of yourself with the violentness of the snaps.

Fastlane is probably going to be determined at the park once we see how lines are. I /really/ don't like lines, I usually don't wait more than 20 minutes for things unless I won't be going back any time soon. If we end up sitting in 40+ minute queues the whole time we're there we're going to be miserable.

I'm planning my first trip out to CP June 19th and the 20th. I have a few questions, primarily, what kind of crowds should we expect? I get the impression lines are usually pretty long at CP, so we'll probably spring for fastlane, but I'd prefer not to on money saving basis. Is two days without fastlane enough to get on everything? How about hotels? Which is cheapest in the area?

Pretty glad we decided to make our way out to K today. Had a fantastic day, only waits we had were like 10 minutes for Phoenix... Because it broke down while we were in line, and 15 minutes for Impulse.... Because it broke down while we were in line. We had a very complete day, managing to get on all the flats we wanted to (which is a first for me at Knoebels, we usually run out of time) including, but not limited to: Power Surge, Flyers, Satellite, Cosmotron, and the Skooters. We even had time to work in a few games of Fascination. We also were able to get some of the best flyers rides I've ever had on those flyers. The operators weren't cutting cycles for people snapping, so we went a bit nuts. One operator did tell us to calm down, but after a few cycles of us just kinda casually bouncing them instead of violently snapping it, he gave us a full cycle where all three of us were just going at it. It was incredible! After I thanked him for an amazing ride, he told me "Yeah, I'm known to give out good ones if everybody seems like they know what they're doing." As we were the only three people on the cycle (It was about 10 minutes to close) he gave us a good one All in all, a very complete day, and I'm going to say it again (as if it needs to be said) If you have the opportunity to go to Knoebels, take it. Regardless if you've been zero times or 200 times. Knoebels never fails to deliver (Except opening day 2016 )

Demon Drop, Wild Mouse, and Ferris Wheel shut down immediately when it starts drizzling. Heavy rain will shut all of the coasters down, and certain flat rides. The Whip and Musik Express are the only 2 rides I can think of that almost never close. 20 minutes of no rain = testing and re-opening of rides. Don't forget Tilt-a-whirl and Thunder Creek Mountain. Those only close if there's literally a hurricane over the park with lightning striking inside the park. I was in the park for about an hour with SkyToro yesterday, we managed to get on Steel Force right when it came back up. I think we had a two or three train wait for the 2nd row. By the time we got off, the queue was already at an unreasonable point.

Yeah I gotta just get over that whole "Don't know when it's gonna drop" thing. With other towers there's some warning sign, and if you ride them enough you pick up on it. Larson towers have a barely audible clank when the clasp on the catch car bumps into the release. You got about .2 seconds from the time you hear the clank to when you drop. Dominator (Might be the same for all S&S towers but I'm not sure) is 5 seconds from the time you hit the top of the tower. Demon Drop is between 3 and 10 seconds depending where the car ahead of you is. There's a slight hiss of compressed air and you drop about .2 seconds after that.

Well Intamin isn't exactly synonymous with reliability. Hopefully it gets sorted out before my next trip. I still haven't gotten myself on it. I might be comfortable riding drop towers I've ridden before, but I still don't enjoy heights.

Kinda off topic but has anybody else noticed (it seems like) every single park has at least one rumor of a coaster "sinking?"

I'm pretty sure each manufacturer determines clearance envelopes based on rider position. If I remember correctly B&M uses average height plus an extra foot on all sides. That being said I've managed to touch supports on a few coasters. Mostly older ones (Runaway Mine Train at Gradv, Thunderhawk at Dorney)