Double0Kevin

Yeah, I doubt there will be a dark ride section. The themeing will likely just be in the queue. GCI loves their tunnels though, especially in California. Yeah, after I thought that might be the case but wasn't sure. I'm not complaining though, a new coaster is a new coaster.

I feel the Prudential Turn should have a big sign of a middle finger and right underneath should say something along the lines of "What? I can't hear you over our new wooden coaster." As far as the records, I'm guessing they are going for the regional records of Tallest, Fastest and Longest(is it longer than Roar?) woodie in NorCal.

The park is making every effort to group single riders so there is never an empty seat. They also have had the crews do away with the high fives and other guest service initiatives in favor of quick cycles, and to this I applaud them. I'm a much happier guest if my wait is shorter than if I get a high five. From what I hear, they are doing 40+ cycles an hour. So with full trains every cycle, they get 480+ riders per hour. To put that in perspective, the best we ever did at V2 in my years operating it was 21 cycles in an hour(usually it was between 16 to 19 though), so at best that's 588 riders if the train was completely full each cycle (which it never was), so Superman is right up there with V2. Anyone who's ever operated rides before knows that we have all been permanently programed to nit pick every ride operation we see. That said, I have to admit it's quite impressive to watch how they run Superman! The ride parks itself, so if the operator holds down the buttons from hear till eternity, the ride still parks all the same. In fact on Medusa the operator holds down the buttons until the combs (the floors) come up. I have seen Medusa overshoot many times though, sometimes it can happen if the tires are wet when it rains or if it's hot outside, etc. The cool thing is that B&M designed it (and i'm sure all their other rides) to be easily backed up by the operator and continue operation no problem.

Well, Invertigo was a legitimate mechanical failure; Superman was just a freak incident that was 1 in a million. If the media can, they will blow it up. It's just a fact of life in the times we live in. As for the GP, I think the largest downfall of Facebook is that it exposes the ignorance and stupidity of people, which is especially highlighted by them being so confident they are right. I think if we need any proof of the failure of our countries school system, you need only read comments left on FB fan pages. I'm not hating on the US, we've churned out some of the greatest thinkers of all time, but unfortunately we've also churned out the polar opposite at a much higher volume.

Failure to follow a theme in the past doesn't mean they should just always ignore it. Just saying. I'm not going to cry if they don't match a theme, but I think it's pretty cool when they do.

Gold Striker is surprisingly original for Cedar Fair. I wonder if they will create a mining/gold rush theme to the ride. It won't really fit in with the theme of the park (especially in that immediate area), but still has the potential to be awesome. This all assumes that they intend to use that name for this ride. It could be the name for a kiddie drop ride at another park for all we know.

I seriously doubt the LSM had an issue. It sounds like conditions were perfect and the ride balanced itself at the top. When I worked at the park some co-workers and I referred to the idea of something like this happening as the ride "peaking" which is kinda the opposite of the ride valleying. I'm sure the park will work out a solution to this and have a quick response should it happen again.

I know you weren't singling out anyone, but in defense of my comments, I was more imagining the ridiculous response the state may have. California is known to require some unnecessary changes to rides (like the handrails on Alice in Wonderland at DL) so I'm curious if they will try to impose some new change. The Northern California office is usually a little less crazy though. Glad everything ended up working out and hopefully the ride will be back up and running ASAP.

^^^Kicker wheel or LSM seems like a much more expensive fix since it requires wiring and computer software patches. A stare case and catwalk would just require some welding. Hopefully no one overreacts and we just leave the ride as is. ^^ I was wondering about SFDK's FB. I couldn't see any option to view what people posted on it. ^ AMEN!

I wonder how the state will react to this. Sometimes they are cool and just make sure the parks fix what went wrong, sometimes they require the park to install some crazy solution like a staircase or something. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

It sounds like this was legitimately stuck, not just balanced. TTD only requires a maintenance guy to go up and push, or the riders rock it off. I read that some one asked the riders to rock and it didn't go anywhere. Plans are generally designed and practiced for areas of a ride that you would expect for a ride to get stuck. Parks don't practice on areas that no one anticipates a ride to stop like upside down in a loop. I think for once, the news probably got something right with that statement.

Well that certainly wasn't where we all expected it to get stuck. I wonder how long this will keep it down.

Yeah, I guess the height thing would definitely come into play. I don't think about it as I'm kinda average in height at 5'11". As for Hammerhead, those restraints suck for everyone with those weird bumps that jut out into your collar bone.

Seriously? Boomerang is actually a pretty solid ride. It's easily one of the best Boomerangs I've been on. Kong is a giant piece of crap, which sadly is also the best SLC I've experienced; but that's only because the others were so terrible. I would say Kong is easily the worst coaster in NorCal, maybe even in all of California. SLCs are just badly designed rides, there is just no getting around it.

Great TR! I'm a sucker for these types of events. Whether it be DCA's Glow Fest/ElecTRONica/Mad T Party or CP's Luminosity. I feel like it makes the parks much more energetic and ends the days with a punch rather than it winding down slowly as the sun sets. I hope that CF expands this idea to more parks. I know it would be good for parks that already have crowds that stay later like Knott's, but it could really help parks like CGA that just die after 6 because all the shows and activities are done and everyone has been on the rides they wanted to ride.

Blowing it out of proportion much? You sound like you should write for Fox News, or Yahoo. Wasn't it St. Louis' SkyScreamer that had the counterweight drop and launch the gondola tot he top of the tower during and inspection, or the other way around (gondola dropped and counterweight shot up)... I dunno. Point is, stuff happens sometimes. These rides are created to be safe even if something wrong does happen. And downtime rarely directly translates to lack of safety.

It's cool to see all of this and think that all those people were probably visiting for their first time since the park was still relatively new... I mean Walt was still alive during this time. Really, really cool!

Ride Wild One... and then keep riding it.

Regarding a renewal of the park... What would you call a 16million dollar re-brand of the park in 2007 where they change the name and updates a ton of stuff around the park. Most Six Flags never see a renewal like that, and you want another only 5 years later? I think the park looks fine and they should focus on what has worked for them. When they added Roar, Medusa, and V2 from '99 to '01 the parks had it's highest yearly attendances ever peaking in 2001. But as soon as the park stopped added major attractions those numbers plummeted. Animals are great and create a well rounded day, but the rides are the easiest to sell to most people. As far as the fairground go, this has been brought up off and on since the park started building rides. I seriously doubt it will happen. Plus that land is owned by the county, which is less inclined to give it up, and not by Vallejo who would directly benefit from the tourism the park brings in.

^ I seriously doubt it. That rumor seems like it came of out nowhere. Although, the park has pursued a drop rides in the past but they never panned out. But hey, I've been wrong many times before, so we'll see.

It's completely unsafe, they're just building it to see how long it'll take for it to topple over. It's a game that engineers like to play in their spare time. That sounds like an absolutely awesome game. It's like dropping babies on their heads and seeing if it cause brain damage, ya know... just cause. I think it's funny, of all the parks to go with one that big it's SFNE? I would expect this at SFGAdv or SFMM before they go for a smaller park with height constraints. Good for SFNE though. I would be totally down to ride this.

This is the best picture I can find that shows the mod. If you look at the supports in front of the train, you can see where the track dropped lower to the ground and attached to the track. I've never heard anything about the hill being raised, and I think that fact that the track still has the connections for trims proves it's the original set up. Also the supports don't indicate any modification. I'm no expert on Magnum though and could easily be wrong. On a side note, I had a few trim-less rides when I worked at the park back in 2005. Those rides easily made that thing one of the best coasters I've been on. The airtime was insane.

Anyone else see this? Pretty hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnCyxYfNCnU Coaster boys do approve.

I'm a wimp I guess. I did 15 on Media day and was DONE for the rest of the day. Had to lay down at home and think happy thoughts. That ride is awesome, but it messed me up. My body isn't used to intense rides on the west coast.

My past experience is that weekdays are pretty manageable. Not sure what it will be like for Superman, but most rides hover around 30-45 min waits at the worst. I would guess Superman sticks close to an hour, maybe less since that crew knows how to hustle.