KevRus

Which is such a shame, because I thought LuminAria was actually kind of beautiful. But I think I'm in a very small/nonexistent minority having that opinion...

And regardless of the roughness, the ride has awful pacing. The ride is basically over once you hit the MCBR. That's the main reason I avoid Manhattan Express: it's so clunky and the second half is so stupidly slow!

Sorry, I don't mean to keep being a Debbie Downer with this coaster. But since two people have mentioned this, I just need to say... I obviously know that brakes are necessary to safely slow trains down and prevent collisions! We're of course not in magical RCT land! I just find brakes placed for a significant portion of important drops on coasters to be uncomfortable and "cheap" (i.e. they could have somehow found a way to build the coaster to allow for a proper brake run). Of course finances were a problem, but that's exactly what I don't like about this coaster. It seems cheap. I can't be alone in my dislike for brakes on large drops! Or maybe I can.

I guess the ride just feels incomplete to me. It looks boring and "industrial." Obviously the landscaping IS incomplete (which is so tacky!), but the coaster "feels" that way to me, too. When I first saw the test videos, I didn't think "oh wow look at all that hang time!" I thought "that's how fast it goes?" I'm not usually a fan of hang time on coasters, but maybe this one will change my mind. Also, brakes on drops irk me. I disliked that about Kingda Ka when it opened. "It's TTD with an extra bunny hop!...but we brake the train for most of the actual drop." Meh.

I'll try to refrain from judging too much (granted, I am definitely judging in this post hah) until I ride it, but...I still think this looks like a cheap "plop it in the park ala RCT" coaster. All the dirt and the gross, uncovered station are just strange (it's supposedly all temporary, right?)...and the whole ride experience seems just that: strange. I'm not too excited about a ride whose "ejector brakes" are one of its selling points? Based on the POV, I miss Log Jammer. Wish SFMM could've gotten something like S:UF at SFDK.

Nowhere did I say Smiler is over-hyped (misreading posts seems to be a recurring theme in this thread!) - just that I'm not a fan of Alton Towers' recent *need* to promote their additions in a strangely viral, mysterious, and gimmicky way, nor am I a fan of the recent string of psychological-horror themed coasters in the UK.

Other than its seemingly awful pacing (man does that second lift takes ages!), my biggest problem with the coaster is its - in typical Alton Towers fashion - hyped-up marketing and presentation. I'm so tired of the UK's recent obsession with horror-psychological "themed" (I use the term loosely) coasters!

Visited the boardwalk for the first time in ages. I remember thinking the Giant Dipper was really fun when I was younger, but nothing spectacular. When I visited last Friday, it was running SO fast and SO great! So much airtime, strong laterals on the turnarounds (I had to grip the outside of the train!)...everyone was laughing and having a great time, kids and parents alike...what a wonderful gem of a coaster!

I haven't visited this park since 2001 (back when it had roller coasters), and I was planning on visiting to check out Gold Striker in early June...I'll be out of the country for the rest of the summer and fall, so it looks like I may have to wait until next year?

Is Ghostrider running any better since the refurb? A man can dream...

Maybe I was in this so-called new train on Viper. I didn't notice one train looking any newer than the other, but like I said, Viper was a LOT more fun and pleasant than I remember it! It was actually pretty great!

I hadn't visited SFMM in a long time, so I decided at the last minute to go today (Sunday) with my sister, expecting a busy but "typical-weekend-in-summer" kind of a day. Wow. It was insane. In. Sane. Hours were extended from the listed 10pm closing to an 11pm closing at around 5:30-ish. Luckily, my sister and I decided to shell out for a gold Flash Pass, which made things doable. But even with our Flash Pass, we were only able to get on all of the coasters once with the exception of Tatsu which we were able to reride as our last coaster for the night. The only non-coasters we were able to hit were JetStream and Sky Tower to beat the heat and kill some time before our Flash Pass return times. Oh, yeah, it was like 98 degrees and humid all day. I can't complain - I didn't really have to deal with any insane lines with the exception of Lex Luthor (about a 2 hour wait...granted, the ride stalled and had to be reset and tested at least twice while we waited...ugh) and Green Lantern (even with Flash Pass it took about 45 minutes-ish. I think the crew was having some trouble. Tell me something new, SFMM). One great moment was when the Flash Pass attendant at the merge point for Riddler was MIA. 20+ confused Flash Pass guests were clumsily trying to merge in line on their own while the guests already in the line started screaming at them all for cutting. Whee! Other than a lot of line cutting, a lot of groups of 10-year-olds-dressed-up-as-18-year-olds, and some other Flash Pass weirdness, I didn't come across any other horrible "Six Flags at its finest" operations ineptitude. Everything - even Colossus and Revolution - was running at least two trains and running fairly smoothly. The X2 crew was on a roll, managing not to stack very often. Goliath was running three trains (always nice to see). I wish Tatsu could - for once - not be ridiculously terrible operations-wise. Always stacking like crazy, never running more than two trains, never using both sides of the station... But again, I really can't complain too much. I'm sure the experience was miserable for everyone without Flash Passes. This was the first time I made use of it, and it really is worth it on days like today. I'm not sure how I feel about the reride perk of the Platinum Passes. I was told from a friend that despite the different descriptions from Six Flags, it really is identical to the Gold Passes in terms of wait time - it just adds the reride perk. Is that true? But anyways, it seems like it'd be a pain if you have a large group and those reriders keep messing up your counts in trying to get on the same train. For my sister and me, it was just annoying getting all stoked to ride, then having to wait for the next train. Which on Tatsu, means another 30 minutes. Everything was running nicely. Viper was much smoother and more enjoyable than I remember it. X2 was way bumpier than I remember it (ouch). Lex Luther was out-of-this-world terrifying - that drop goes on forever! This was also the first time I rode Green Lantern - packs quite the punch. Apocalypse is still a vastly underrated woodie. It's nice to visit a park that feels a lot like a best-of-B&M showcase (Riddler, Batman, and Tatsu...and...uhhh...Scream I guess...) - wish they could still build coasters as intense as those first three these days!

^Agreed. FlashPass needs to be somehow integrated into the queue, and FlashPass shouldn't include the option of picking a row. It's just really confusing for people waiting in line trying to get their groups aligned and on the same train.

I went on the Liquidator back when it was still open years ago...It really wasn't that exciting. A very basic slide. So no, it won't kill you. You didn't miss out on much.

^Really? I always found Xcelerator to be much more intense...maybe it's just my imagination, but the launch feels more forceful to me.

oh wow thanks for the replies guys. I definitely snorted a few times. Well, I will most definitely be linking my friend to this thread. I know I can choose whatever I want to wear, and I definitely won't let my friend decide my fashion sense for me. I just thought it was funny that he was so scared away by my t-shirt. Well, tomorrow I'm going to Cedar Point and I think I'll wear my Millennium Force t-shirt, although Robb's suggestion is tempting...

Okay, so recently, I was leaving my house for Knott's (against my will, I swear) and I was wearing an Xcelerator t-shirt. My friend IMMEDIATELY stopped what he was doing, ran to me, and not-so-politely informed me that wearing a coaster t-shirt to that coaster's park is absolutely frowned upon by coaster enthusiasts. Soooo, of course, here I am, asking TPR. I hope this isn't some unspoken rule I haven't heard of, like wearing a band t-shirt to that band's concert. This led me to think about 3 other questions. 1) What if you are wearing an often-cloned coaster t-shirt to a park that just happens to have one of the coasters. For example, would wearing a Batman: The Ride t-shirt that you bought at your home Six Flags still cause you to be beaten up at a different Six Flags? I mean, that would definitely prove that you know your stuff if you shouted "THIS IS FROM MAGIC MOUNTAIN, AND THEIR BATMAN PULLS .1 MORE G'S THAN YOURS" at a large group of people. 2) What if you're wearing the t-shirt of a now defunct roller coaster to its past home park? I think an exception to this rule would be wearing a Drachen Fire t-shirt to Busch Gardens, since people have mostly tried to forget about it, and won't know what your t-shirt is talking about anyways. 3) What if you buy a t-shirt AT the amusement park, and decide to put it on and wear it the rest of the day? Maybe TPR can enlighten me, maybe my friend is nuts. Thanks

Yeah, and Euro Mir has the gargantuous spiral lift of doom.