Capitalize

Carowinds has had 40,000+ in park before as well but that was years ago and 35,000 for magic kingdom must be on a slow day durring the dead season. MK bring in about 50-60,000 on busy days or even more. Thats great news for KD but you can thank BofA for that otherwise it would have been a very dead day at the park. Not necessarily if they were turning people away. It probably would have been an average summer day at KD, not insanely busy, but far from dead.

I haven't bought a book about coasters or parks in quite some time, I just may have to check that one out... Sounds very informative...

lmao... Astroworld... I also like that Carowinds used the stock photograph of TG from GA there like always...

Although the new rides haven't been pouring in like before, the parks has been making smaller improvements and has continued to do so over the past few seasons. They aren't as noticable as a new coaster or flat, but they do improve the park at least slightly. I do really hope that SFInc will wake the hell up next season and actually get SFA a new thrill ride of some form, however. SFA has the possibility to be a huge destination in the DC area, but they are completely squandering the opportunity year after year. With the new bridge helping get traffic into MD from VA, Metro access, and the increasing traffic going down south to Kings Dominion making less and less people want to make that drive you would think they would say "hmm, we could actually have lots of people in this park...."

My only advice is to try and relax and enjoy your day. In all honesty with the way SFA operates you can get lots of rides on all the coasters without even trying since the crowds are normally very light. And the ops may be slow, but I don't stress too much about it anymore, because it may add a tiny bit to my wait of 10 or so minutes... Either way, I'll be getting on every ride as much as I really care to by the end of the day. And don't be surprised if rides go down with simple mechanical problems... Especially Superman or Batwing. But don't worry and don't get too stressed because they just need to get reset and then their good to go which shouldn't take more then 20-30 minutes depending how long the mechanics take to get there. I would just wonder around the park one coaster to the next, I normally start off in SW Territory with a ride or two on Wild One. O yeah, don't bring a back pack unless you want to deal with locker nazi's at a couple of the coasters...

Well when Roar debutted ten years ago it was a great ride with no roughness at all considering the trains it runs but since then SFI has steadily been cutting back on the maintenance budget for the park & as a result the ride has turned to utter crap.This also is why there's such frequent downtime on rides that were once highly reliable such as TOD,two face & Superman. Exactly, to keep TOD operating at all most seasons they have only run 2 sides and use the other side for spare parts for the other 2; for the brake fins and other parts.

One would really think so, but the use of drive tires for much of the newer rides transportation around the ride really is a big problem in the rain. When I worked at Dragster and it rained we would cycle the ride and the drive tires couldn't always make the first train head all the way into launch position causing an e-stop. I also know mantis had the same problem with the drive tires, in that the trains would slip a lot while entering the station. Once again, there were a lot of things that went into the Magnum accident leading the park's head honchos, the park's lawyers, AND the park's insurance company to prompt a lot of these changes in policy. Please don't assume you know all of the details. Also, even though you ddin't geet a response back, they definitely are helping get things changed. I'm not pretending to understand the inner-workings of an amusement park in the way of lawyers and insurance matters. I'm simply saying that the majority of coasters can operate in wet weather conditions with more then one train. Thats all I can really comment on, because thats the only thing I have experience in. I just dislike the attitude some people have on this topic where they essentially say "buck up and live with it, better safe then sorry." or things of that nature, because safety in general is not effected for the most part...

Understood. What I mean is it doesn't make SFOG look good when their safety systems are *only* what's minimally required. If the park would have took it upon themselves to simply add another fence around the low zones in case something went wrong with the perimeter fence, I think it would be more of a cut and dry case. It would have shown that they went above and beyond to protect the guests safety. I'm not standing up for the kid at all, I'm just trying to understand why the plaintiff even thinks they have a case. I'm totally siding on the park on this issue. I can definitely see the argument. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lawyer made that case, either. Thankfully it seems easy enough to say "look at all the parks around the country with the same/similar fences in place, and this has never happened at any of these locations." Clearly this kid wasn't the brightest out there, hopefully a jury would be able to understand that...

So you aren't safe while riding coasters at nearly all other parks around the world who run more then 1 train when its possible that precipitation may or may not come? The majority of coasters are capable of operating in the rain, Magnum's brake run was the source of the problem, not moisture...

After my visit last summer I sent a bunch of e-mails to a lot of different CF contacts at CP and other parks to tell them why their policy didn't make any sense. Of course they never got back to me.

Oh jeez, why the heck are they dragging Kings Dominion into their crummy policy... KD's coasters have all been running fine with two trains in downpours as long as I've been visiting the park.

Cedar Fair fails at life. Their policy is an absolute joke. What a ridiculous policy, totally screwed one of my days (of a 1.5 day trip) at CP last summer.

I already explained this once earlier on. The state a park resides in determines what is the proper way to "fence in" a ride. Parks do not decide what height the fences are or how many there are, its a matter of state law. At least I know thats how it works in MD where SFA resides.

I'm sorry, but I just find the survey asking "have you fallen down in public?" and the "hell no" response to be ironic in a kind of sick way..

^ Wow, power was down? So was this after a storm? Either way that is a pretty wild sounding trip. Hopefully you could remember the employees exact names in your comments so you could get them fired, all it takes is a couple lousy employees to ruin a guest's entire day at a park, and that continues to be a problem with SFA on some occasions. According to Screamscape Two Face has in fact been down all year, and may not reopen at all and may be removed after this season. So does that mean SFA will have THREE coasters in their boneyard area next year?

I'm not holding my breath on Two Face opening any time soon... I hope I'm wrong, but man that thing has been down all season pretty much now. So far on my visits the lines have always been bearable. Of course I've only bothered riding Batwing once this season because every-time I have gone its been doing one train operation and I hate waiting for that ride during the summer when its running one train, way too hot and slow moving... Other then Batwing; Superman and JJ's line hasn't been too horrible, rarely more then 15 or so minutes. Everything else is always a walk-on for me.

I'd rather not die then save 20 minutes while reentering the park personally... Hear, hear. Maybe he was supposed to meet some hot girl in 10 minutes, though. The brain tends to lose those battles.. I can definitely see that happening

I already know I'm totally heading to the park for the Flo Rida concert in August. I'll probably check out that other one, if its free with admission... SFA has been looking pretty good this season, definitely slowly making more steps in the right directio. SROS is running freaking awesome... I've only been on Blue Train so far in my 3 visits, but its pretty much running like new, not like the past couple seasons were the vibrations were horrible... In general, the park is still slowly getting better every season. The park is INFINITELY better then it was back in the early days of SF, imo. The operations are better, the park is cleaner, and its in general a lot less "ghetto" then it was. At this point in some ways I think KD is more ghetto then SFA now. I haven't had to flip out on someone for cutting in line at SFA for 2 seasons now, but just this past Saturday I got in a yelling match with an entire family for cutting in line at FOF. My only gripe right now is with Coyote Creek, still. I have always hated that part of the park. Even when I worked there I hated that section of the park... Its hidden all the way in the corner and no managers ever seem to go back there, so the employees can feel free to be as slow and lame as they want to be. We couldn't get away with that in South West Territory... Someone would freak out if we acted up like they do at Mind Eraser...

Totally agree on Wild One. I absolutely love Wild One, the airtime is great, the laterals are great, there is never a line, and its got the perfect amount of smoothness. To me its pretty much the perfect wooden coaster, and its one of the oldest in operation. Although I still love SFA so I can't really agree with the 2nd part there. I also say Big Dipper @ GL and Boss. Big Dipper was easily the biggest surprise of my Ohio/Michigan trip last summer, I loved the floater air in the front seat. I haven't been on Boss in a few years now, but I was pleasantly surprised by it and thought it was a good woodie when I visited SFStl.

I can definitely see your point, but if someone from this site or a coaster enthusiast in general did something like this I would probably be even more confused as to how they could be so dense as to willingly put themselves in the path of a roller coaster train traveling at those speeds...

I actually really enjoyed my 3 rides on GC (1 front row, 2 back row). I thought it was worth riding just for the insane air time on the drop off the 2nd turnaround. A bit rough, but nothing I couldn't live with.

I'd rather not die then save 20 minutes while reentering the park personally...

Very sad, I'm really glad I made a trip to the park last summer, though. Big Dipper was one of the most surprising coasters I've ever been on. I absolutely loved it. Its really a shame it won't be operating.

I have to disagree quite a bit. I would say placing yourself in the path of a multi ton roller coaster train traveling at speeds in excess of 50 MPH is far more idiotic then all those things you said and is far more dangerous. There really isn't any competition when you get down to it.