n1ch0las

I'll agree with that. Unless we see a bunch of other Cedar Fair teasers popping up all over in the next month (aka whole chain teasing early in the season) I'd say there is a decent chance of a good sized investment.

I hadn't realized how many of these I've actually been on before reading this thread. It was close between Storm Runner and Superman: The Escape for myself. Superman had a great pre-show and theming attached to it, but overall Storm Runner had a far superior layout and is just crazy re-ridable. I think I rode it at least 10 times in 1 1/2 days at Hershey last year. Xcelerator is solid as well, but would rank #3 layout wise. Dragster gets an honorable mention because the first time we hit it in a year or so it still blows me away with its launch, but then that eventually wears off.

Okay, thanks for the info. I guess I should aim to hit Goliath, Superman and Raging Bull as early as possible. Anyone know which coasters are likely to have one-train ops? Someone posted the one train ops a few pages back, but the park will have a solid month before your visit, so hopefully they will get the second train on most coasters by then. X-Flight always seems to be late along with Eagle Red. Your plan of Goliath, Superman and V2 are all solid as they are capacity nightmares typically.

I've recently moved to Kansas City and am itching to take my first trip to Silver Dollar City. I'm thinking about doing a day trip this weekend (either Sat or Sun) and noticed that its World Fest is on. Will crowds be insane for this event? How about ride lines? Is there a flash pass option that they sell that's worth the money? Finally - would you think there'd be a major difference in crowds on Sunday compared with Saturday? Thanks in advance, can't wait for Outlaw Run.

With this in mind I figured I might have to splash out on a Flash Pass on my visit in a few weeks' time. Except...I'm going on Thursday 19th May and the online store doesn't offer Flash Pass for that date, or indeed any other date in May when the park closes at 1700. What gives? Do they really not sell Flash Passes on a day when the park is only open for 6.5 hours? Good news and Bad news. Bad news is that they likely don't have enough staff on a weekday in May to actually make the Flash Pass work. Good news is that other than school groups the park will be relatively quiet. After 3PM the place should really start to empty out. Those are the best afternoons for rerides during the entire season. Just so you stay ahead of the groups (ride all the coaster with one train op/goliath first you should be fine.

Man, you're living the dream. Congrats on an awesome trip.

For anyone who is actually interested, here's the national numbers. Local results will vary.

To everyone saying that Dollywood couldn't possibly predict crowds because of walk up sales and people staying at offsite hotels, you're way off the mark. The park has been open for decades, with that much volume data the park should be able to line up holidays accordingly and have a very good idea of when crowds will be there - being off by 10K visitors was just someone's mistake.

As someone who works in the industry and deals with complaints like these from time to time, well done.

Yes. Yes you are. They did literally burn down Colossus that one time...

^That could take awhile. Ride is still gonna be great when it opens though.

That's it, threads done. Close it down.

Assuming GCI engineered the physics of the ride correctly, it should be pretty easy to attach a few new sensors and flip the power switch back on. Hopefully it won't run into any problems but testing shouldn't take that long compared to a new coaster.

^Not as packed as they once were if one has a look at the annual earnings report the company has put out the past two years. They had little choice at this point to either change their product or continue moving backwards each year at their parks. The part that concerns me is that Orcas will likely just be the beginning - I still don't understand how the public can call Orca shows an outrage but have no real issues with Dolphin captivity, despite their obvious similarities in cognitive ability. Sea World (especially San Diego) has long been one of the best run conservation programs in the country, and I hope they are able to turn their image around before more damage is done.

Trains look good! Still think this is going to end up being a sleeper-hit in terms of new rides this year. Two really quality installations between this and LR at KK now shows some solid decision making by park management.

It's sad to hear that High Roller is losing the old trains. While they were cramped, buzzbars and big cushions really gave it the old school woodie feel that the individual lapbar PTCs will take away somewhat. That being said, it's probably a hell of a lot easier to maintain a 3 bench modern PTC where parts are plentiful and there is a full time assembly shop awaiting orders to do your offseason maintenance for you. Maybe this will give High Roller a chance at more two train ops?

Just running the numbers - if you budget 5 minutes per cycle, which is generous, you can do 12 cycles per hour. In an 8 hour day that's 96 cycles. This is do-able people! It's a *bit* more complicated than that, unfortunately. The PLC that runs the ride has likely been in the stages of programming for a couple of weeks now, along with the installation of all the sensors, motors and electrics that ultimately push the train through the course. Each of the first few tests will likely have long periods between them as everything is analyzed. After that, they will need to test everything in every situation you can think of. E-stop half way up the lift? Train needs to stop in the middle of being transferred? Plus getting everything reset once those tests are successful! Honestly I still wouldn't worry though, if there aren't many major problems the PLC guys will likely pull a few all nighters and get most of these things sorted out before handing over to the park for their required testing, which is likely a bit more like you described above. Get all the operators trained on their 100 cycles or whatever, and then ready to go!

Well this is a pleasant surprise! I think the biggest shock for me are the coasters that the parks chose to add this tech to, a floorless and a couple of hypers! I wonder if each coaster will get its own sim or if it will be mainly the same for each park..

Been on it! Can confirm...awful ride. I guess if there is one positive about the occasional trip to Mt Olympus it's that you'll always be surprised by something new each time!

^I've ridden coasters there as early as the first week of April. It really depends on the crowds they are predicting, whether the rides are ready and if they have the staff to operate them. There is no rhyme, reason or schedule for what and when they open attractions, so typically I call a couple of days ahead and tell them to give me their best guess.

Since this is a separate gate attraction in a park that only features one coaster, I think I'm safe to mention - Coney Island at Luna Park in Sydney! It's an indoor facility that features a funhouse, old school wooden slides, an awesome rotor ride and more. Most everything in there would never be built today with H&S rules being what they are, but a couple of bumps and bruises are totally worth an afternoon in there.

I hadn't realized how many CF parks I've been to until I thought about this list: 1. Cedar Point (easily #1) 2. Kings Island 3. Kings Dominion 4. Carowinds (pre Intimidator and Fury) 5. Valleyfair 6. Knotts Berry Farm 7. Dorney Park 8. Worlds of Fun

Wow. For anyone who didn't watch the whole video, let me go ahead and share this screen cap: I give you exhibit A: A ride op literally pushing the train out of the station. Hope he doesn't trip and fall. And exhibit B: This woman likely broke her jaw.

I've seen many types of these boxes from various parks, so if you value your valuables, either have coat pockets that has zippers or invest some money into renting a "Lock Her" so you can have piece of mind whenever you ride ( Trust me, losing cell phones is bad, losing money is bad, but if you lost your keys, then that's your worst nightmare!) Man I can't even emphasize this enough. I always have my keys on a carabineer around a belt loop, but even that has failed me before (it was a cheap one that didn't lock) on Magnum. I cannot describe the pure joy I experienced at 2AM when the CP Police car cruised by with my keys as we were about to walk back to our hotel.

^Are you trying to be qualitative entirely? I think for our purposes he's trying to ask the following hypothetical question: Say you're planning a big coaster trip this summer. You've been to Dollywood, but it was about 10 years ago right after they opened Mystery Mine. There are 9 parks you haven't been to in the past, and Dollywood is right in the middle of all of them. You'd have to sacrifice a park you've not been to before to go to Dollywood due to time constraints. Do you forego a park you've been to already to check out the new rides like Lightning Rod and Wild Eagle? Are those a good enough reason, or is it also because the food and shows in Dollywood are awesome? Or do you say "I've already been to Dollywood, so I'm going to check out Alabama Adventures instead" I think he's looking for a very subjective answer.