Double0Kevin

You should read the last 10 pages or so where we've discussed at length the awesomeness of the ride and the surprisingly decent (not great) capacity.

Pretty amazing that, regardless of the fact you have no background on what my knowledge is, you can without a doubt tell me I'm wrong. I wouldn't say the views were drastically enhanced. I personally think it makes the train look incomplete without the front.

Went to the park today, they were pretty busy. Superman's line was about 1.5 hours but I was incredibly impressed with the operation. The crew on average has the train in the station for approx 45 seconds before dispatch. The crew was hustling and encouraging people to move out the exit quickly. Speaking to some sources at the park, they are getting almost double what was expected. The original expectation was about 250pph, they are currently averaging over 450pph. Still not a people eater, but much better than expected and great to see the park operating it to it's full potential, I was VERY impressed. On a side note, the park removed the from of the first car. There is no longer the Superman shield or anything. It looks pretty odd but when you ride in the front it gives a great view seeing how there is absolutely nothing in front of you. Not sure it's a permanent thing or what.

^ Thanks for your thought, that great to hear about capacity. I keep waiting for that first bad review and they just don't seem to come. I think everyone got so bogged down with complaining about capacity that we overlooked the fact that this thing had the potential to be a great ride!

When I read your post, all that I could see was this. It's something I thought I would never see.

GCI won't allow the Millennium Flyers on rides outside of the ones they built, and Grizzly is far from a new twisty fast coaster. The PTCs work great on KD's Grizzly and that thing is much faster and more thrilling than CGA's.

Don't feel bad, she never acknowledges me either. It's always a case by case situation, but I saw some pretty big riders on media day, including the guy who lost his phone in the POV of Bob and me.

Except the last year of Op when they spent money make a new entrance and sign by the 50's diner where Firefall is now, only to shit the ride down and pull it out the following year. I don't Like where X2 is in the sense of getting to it. It's a great visual for people arriving to the park, but I hate having to go across that bridge to a dead end. Just my own personal laziness I suppose. Also, since KD is a hot topic in the thread. I personally liked Grizzly's placement and had no problem finding it, I however don't care for Ricochet and Hurler's spots with them oddly tucked away in the back corner.

Not gonna lie, that photo is pretty humorous. But I agree with Andrewoplis, Grizzly isn't really painful at all, just boring. But the GP loves that thing, which means it makes complete sense to keep the Grizzly. My big wish for the ride is new trains, maybe some PTCs or something. I'm not a fan of the Morgans at all.

^ It's pretty amazing in all rows. I personally found the front having more airtime because of the crazy pop you get going over the top into the barrel roll. The back gets more of a pop than the front on the cliffhanger drop but all seats are pretty good there.

^ It still comes off as negative. Who cares what the train looks like? It was engineered to function, not look pretty for you. It's a fantastic ride and that's all that really matters. Sounds like the park was holding steady at 2 hour lines all day. Granted that is a long wait, it's fairly reasonable based on what everyone was expecting. It's no 5 hour wait!

It causes an error and has to be reset. Park management told me that was the first one they had since initially dialing it in. I don't think a rollback is something that is expected to be common like Intamin Accelerators. I know you didn't intend to restart all the complaining again, but we need to let the capacity thing go! The ride is what it is, and what it is is excellent! The load/unload time is really quick. We'll see how it fairs this season. Wednesday will be a big test.

You beat me, I got to 15 before my body said NO MORE! What a great ride. One of the most intense in California, easily the most airtime out west. And since Rick posted the picture of Bob and me on the ride, here is that POV. The first is from the SFDK B-Roll and the other 2 are our actual ride. If you look close you can see the guy in front of us lose his cell phone as we go up the vertical tower at full speed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEKYJm8l-A0

If the time limit expires, it does't just open and let anyone into it. They are supposed to come around every 2 hours and empty expired lockers and take it to lost and found. But if the ride is extremely busy, they aren't going to enforce that too strictly side they know what's going on.

I'll be at media day on Friday. Hoping everything goes well.

Honestly, they should have read these forums. Everyone here seemed to know it was going to be delayed. But sarcasm aside, it's a definite bummer for us but worse 10 fold for the park who has to deal with the headache of people coming wanting to ride and not hearing about the delay as well as loss of media coverage who can't make the new date (me) and so on.

^ That was discussed a few pages back, for whatever reason the rendering and the actual ride didn't line up with that. No brake prior to the barrel roll and if you look at the design, you can see it's not intended to have one. I'm guessing the video was made off early designs.

They do look a little out of place, but since they are painted to match the ride it seems like they are there to stay. Probably used for maintenance like hoisting the sheave wheels and other hardware when needed?

If a ride can't function properly, then safety does becomes a factor. maybe they figured all the weight of Lex at the very top + Superman riding up at the same time would create more sway/stress then the tower can comfortably handle over and over: thus becoming a safety issue. it's anybody's guess. Or maybe putting the track any higher wouldn't allow the other hardware for cables and other needs to fit correctly and work. Safety is an obvious concern in all ride design but I don't see how making it 15 feet higher suddenly causes it to be unsafe. If there is no room for the equipment, it doesn't cause it to function unsafely, it causes it to not function at all. But you're probably an engineer with years of experience designing one of a kind drop towers attached to existing ride structures, so I defer to you.

Looks like it will be a lot of fun. I'm excited to check out the lighting in the tunnel, but I'm sure everyone else will hate it because there is only one train.

I doubt safety factored into this, more just ability to engineer. They took it as high as they could and still have it function as designed. Agreed! Not many in the US have had a chance to experience something like this.

I also think the idea about limiting capacity to increase FP sales is ridiculous, that's why I ignored it entirely. And having worked at SFDK for many years I know riders per hour is a huge consideration, but I know operating and maintenance costs are an even bigger concern. Unfortunately for us and guests, the park saves a lot on S:UF by having it be one train and they still get to advertise it all the same. The hype will be big the first year or 2, but eventually it will level out and the lines will be manageable. P.S. I never said skipping dual loading was to save money for future attractions. Money for capital investments doesn't roll over. As said before, You have to spend it the year it's set aside for. Agreed, an extra 12 people probably didn't up the capacity enough to make it worth the added costs.

I'm still leaning toward Zero-G. If it was a Stengel in would be veering off to the left of the picture, but the footers indicate it will go to the right. Obviously I'm not 100% and it's very likely they are just going to do some crazy twist, but man a zero-g would be awesome.

The thought of a transfer track costing as little as $100,000 amuses me. You're talking cost for more track, an additional train, added hardware to move the tracks, larger station to accommodate plus queues to get to both sides, and computer hardware and software to control it all. Not to mention a higher operating cost for more ops to run both sides and higher maintenance cost to take care of an additional train and moving components. Overall you're looking at extra hundreds of thousands a year in operating/maintenance costs and would probably cost $500,000 to a million at initial installation.

Hahahaha... Ohhhhh Snap! Great TR as per usual.