knaiwear

A smoke effect 15 feet directly above the employee entrance road?!

because neither train has been repaired on LR or WF.

After all of that drama, it looks like the only two RMCs affected are Lightning Rod and Wildfire. Not sure how that equals "ordered all of its roller coasters closed" but whatever, it's not like DW has done a top-notch job with PR over the last three months...

^agreed, just looking to confirm that since Dollywoods post said it was all RMCs.

Someone posted from Wicked Cyclone's queue this afternoon...

Didn't they change the restraint cylinder design this year? It could be a problem with the new ones, so only this year's crop would be affected. Guess we need to hear about Storm Chaser to confirm.

I'm still skeptical of that orientation. If they still have to remove the log flume, why would they have gone through the trouble of demolishing the funnel cake building? Why wouldn't they just wait and do it all at once?

This doesn't even make sense. In this case, it's pretty clear people are "but hurt" because they want to ride one of the world's greatest rides, not because of getting a credit.

I was at BGW very often back in the day and I don't recall daily shutdowns, especially not stops on the mid course. But maybe it's a dive machine thing, or a trend with more recent B&Ms. (Fury always getting stopped on the lift, etc.) The other B&Ms at BGW certainly didn't have daily problems over a month after opening. Weekly, sure, but not anything out of the ordinary. There could also just be a hypersensitivity of CP folks reporting downtime...

It's really not normal for a new B&M to have a significant amount of downtime.

There appears to be a building around the transfer track; as far as I am aware, GCI is the only coaster company that constructs a building for the transfer and storage area. The same clue was apparent in BGW's plans. Not to mention the fact that this footprint is extremely similar to Prowler, including an identical-looking first drop and second hill. Based on those things it's pretty clearly a GCI.

Neither of these overlays address the fact that they removed the octagonal funnel cake building earlier this year...

Has there ever been this much marketing and suspense over a coaster POV before?

There is no on-board audio.

Isn't Volcano faster (70mph)? Earlier marketing said that they were billing Taron as "Europe's fastest multi launch coaster" which makes more sense.

Considering they can't get one train to launch reliably, I would say it's more likely that they just don't want to bother putting both trains on at once until they get it sorted.

The ride was originally advertised as "peeling out March 2016".

Sure, having a different opinion is no big deal. Just don't go ride other RMCs expecting more intensity cause I don't think you'll find it.

This is actually a good point. On other RMCs, the zero g rolls or stalls are fun elements that provide a nice breather from the more intense hills. The rolls themselves are NOT "intense" force wise - by design. They're just fun and floaty. Lightning Rod is actually MORE intense because it lacks these elements. There is absolutely no chance to catch your breath. There's no moment of "zero G" because it's all negative G - up to -1.0 according to the safety spiel and I believe it. Perhaps DefeatestNation had unrealistic expectations for his or her first RMC. But I can honestly say that it's the most intense RMC in the country (except for the other two 2016 ones, which I have not yet ridden), and part of that is because it lacks inversions. While fun, they are typically one of the least intense parts of their rides.

Yes, it's pretty, and I can understand why people love it. But for me, SDC is far prettier and I like the atmosphere there better. I guess I was responding more to the comments over the past weeks of "even if LR isn't open you'll have an amazing time." I had no interest in going back to DW except to ride LR. Fortunately it worked out this week, but nothing else in the park draws me back. Just personal preference though. As for Thunderhead, I really don't get the praise for that either. It was really rough this week (like almost Apocalypse rough!) and there's not even that much airtime in the back. A fast and powerful ride for sure but it wasn't comfortable at all. I prefer later GCIs (Prowler is my favorite, and even American Knievel is great though less intense). But man, LR is something else. Really shocking that something of that intensity and stature was built at DW. I wonder how the guests will handle it over the long term. When I rode the train they did a straw poll of who had ridden Wild Eagle versus who was too scared to ride it, and the scared people won by a landslide. The announcer even commented "they always win!"

You can count me squarely in the "Dollywood is meh" camp - but I absolutely love SDC, so maybe I'm just weird. None of the rides besides Lightning Rod really do it for me and I certainly am not interested in the content of the shows. Food is pretty good but I don't go to parks for food, I go for rides. I had the chance to ride Lightning Rod earlier this week and it is absolutely nuts. I've ridden most of the other RMCs and none of them come close to the intensity of LR. Especially since it keeps building and building as the ride goes. The bottom two hills of the quad down are pure insanity, I can't understand why anyone would be underwhelmed by them. I thought the launch was kinda ghetto. It feels like it goes in several phases and it bounced around a lot. But once you're at the top you forget about all that. Definitely one of the best coasters I've ever ridden, though it wouldn't likely be one I wanted to marathon on. There were some rough spots that I felt in the wheel seat (especially going up to the top of the quad down) so hopefully those don't get worse over time. But minor quibbles. Go ride this thing. It's crazy.

Touché - I wasn't paying attention this time! But .mov is just a container so depending on the codec it could still be an open standard - and if it was filmed on an iPhone it was almost certainly in H.264 which is open.

Any decent video player should be able to play it, as .mp4 is an open standard.

Public test riding today. https://instagram.com/p/BFt5FLtGZKq/

You don't go LITERALLY 0-45 on the launch. You're already moving when the launch starts. And from the looks of it, you launch a little, turn upwards while slowing, and then launch some more.