BigBad

I'd imagine that it's intentional. Mack's website remarks that they can vary the splash size for their Super Splash. Intamin's people have probably had the same idea that most people would like to stay somewhat dry when it's cold out.

I'm not convinced of that. Staying right at the park could have some perks. Dollywood has some good deals.

Overseas is a stretch, but bringing in Americans from a few hours away isn't so crazy. New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philly are all long but reasonable drives, but certainly not close enough that many people are going to leave home, hit the park, and return home in one day. The rides are all about 8 hours. Even in Canada, Montreal and Quebec City are 5 and 8 hours away, respectively. That's a bit much for most people to do in one day, but to drive in and stay on site and then leave the next day would be nice.

I'd like to see it done like an I-box conversion, but with topper track so that the world's premier coaster park doesn't have Blue Streak as its premier wood coaster.

I wouldn't worry about the seat belts ruining the Diamondback ride experience. There are seat belts on Fury 325. Despite my belt, I slouched back in the seat until we were out of the station, and that drop hand me standing up. Fury has good capacity with seat belts, too. I'd expect Diamondback to be able to do the same.

I can see some brilliance to letting little kids in for free. All these families from the area take their kids to KD when they're really young and too short to ride much, but the kids see Volcano and I305 from the Eiffel Tower and beg their parents to take them back when they're tall enough to ride. Then everyone pays full price. Meanwhile, kids play games and eat candy and spend money that way. The parents also have to pay for their own admission tickets, even if the kids enter for free. So you entice more families to come by not charging for their two kids, but you don't lose everything through that because the kids will buy candy at the park, and then you get everyone back a few years later at full price.

I thought El Toro had gotten fairly rough when I rode last year, but I wouldn't want to see RMC make modifications to the layout. Maybe they can retrack it with topper track.

This is what I really hope happens to Mean Streak: a wood coaster in its place so perhaps the world's premier coaster park has a more impressive wood coaster than Blue Streak. I'd like to see an I-box-style conversion but with topper track, but any big wood coaster in its place would be great. It has to be smooth, though. They can't tear down Mean Streak and replace it with something that also will be rough. I'd also be upset if the replacement is a modest wood coaster. Mystic Timbers looks like fun, but a small GCI like that shouldn't be the replacement for Mean Streak. If, on the other hand, Intamin comes in a takes the El Toro layout to the hyper scale... (Or I guess what I mean is that I want RMC Mean Streak and Intamin prefab hyper for the 150th anniversary.)

It's obviously wrong, but knowing about "giga" and "wing" coasters doesn't strike me as very "GP".

The SFNO Batman is painted in the Saints' colors! I think that's terrific. Parks should embrace their towns. B&M does good work with blue. Mako is the obvious choice. Fury 325 Gatekeeper I've never seen this in person, but I've seen the red track in person and much prefer the purple. I like the idea of the RMC I-box rails being different colors (though i'm not convinced that I like these particular colors). New Texas Giant is my favorite-looking of the RMCs, though I have yet to ride. Part of the appeal is that the red looks nice against the wooden catwalks that are along more of the track on this coaster than other RMCs.

Ride it a bunch of times and POLITELY ask. If you're going solo then it shouldn't be all that hard. I've ridden Fury nine times and two were in the front, though I did get FLP.

I rode it when I was a little kid and borderline enjoyed the roughness, but it's the Steel Phantom.

I see no reason why a spatial disorientation simulator couldn't be put on either side of a wing track. Well maybe one reason is the inevitable uber-extreme nausea nating of RCT3 fame. More interesting to me is the idea of using that three-ring setup but controlling the yaw, pitch, and roll the way that X2 controls pitch. Ignoring the potential problems of having a 4G force in the lateral direction, if the individual cars roll instead of the whole track, the track wouldn't ever have to bank, and then a 1- or 2-person car on either side of the track could rotate about the heartline.

I like the idea of feet dangling, but with some of the quick turns that are fun on swinging suspended coasters, I could see that being quite painful if your feet aren't against anything to keep your legs from snapping out.

It would be more difficult to advertise than if it included a "world's first" or any kind of record, but the first modern suspended coaster with cars gracefully yet forcefully swinging from side to side would give some good footage. I don't see this as any harder than advertising other mid-sized coasters. Someone suggested B&M as a manufacturer. I don't see it, at least not until someone else does it, as great as their design would be. I could see Mack or especially Intamin doing it. A dark horse candidate is RMC since Schilke worked for Arrow and might have some insight into the finer details of the physics. Anyway, I vote YES! A swinging suspended coaster could be a good family ride, but a company like Intamin could make one that's very intense.

This isn't so surprising. The height could be influenced by topography without the layout changing one bit. This one has always struck me as bizarre. I have trouble calling it a clone if the layout is different (with the exception of a mirror image). There would be a bunch of engineering considerations for the layout rather than just putting it down somewhere and figuring out the supports.

An out-and-back hyper strikes me as one of the least likely options for the park. That's kind of the same idea as the Voyage. There are parks that do it (Canada's Wonderland, Great Adventure, Carowinds), but those are huge parks with tons of coasters. I really like the suggestion of a MegaLite, particularly if they were to do one like Alpina Blitz to get out of having to deal with Intamin. This is probably more within the budget than dropping $20-25 million on a B&M or Intamin hyper. But if they went that route, something twisty could be fun. I'm thinking of something like Skyrush.

I tend to do only the coasters, but the two that immediately come to mind are Ripsaw Falls and Popeye at Islands of Adventure.

Could anyone see a topper track conversion rather than I-box? The coaster community has disagreements about whether RMC wood coasters are indeed wood coasters, but it's pretty clear that a hybrid is not, so an Iron Horse conversion would leave Blue Streak as the premier wood coaster at the park. That's the case right now, sure, but I think I'd rather have a big wood coaster if I could.

There was a woman telling her young son and his friend that they could go on Skyrush, but the crazy looping, corkscrewing ride nearby (Great Bear) was definitely not for them. They go over to the complimentary lockers near the entrance. "Ma'am, this yellow ride is probably the most intense in the world." I think they rode it but probably weren't allowed on Great Bear. My "GP comment" comes from grandma: "Oh, they can be made from steel?"

Fury 325 was 4th on the Golden Ticket list in its debut year, when to-be-top-ranked coasters tend to be ranked lowest (Magnum outranked MF in 2000, for instance). I wouldn't be surprised if it gets the top spot this year, except that MF has the edge of mystique.

My take on Mystic Timbers. 1. It has a fun layout that is comparable to other GCIs that are considered very good. The obvious comparison is Prowler, which beat Diamondback for best new ride of 2009 in the Amusement Today poll (for what it's worth...let's not forget that Wild Eagle beat Skyrush and Leviathan, and that Harry Potter ride beat Intimidator 305). 2. It's a nice addition to KI. They don't yet have a modern wood coaster. 3. Even though we get why this makes sense, the differences from the other coasters are more subtle than the differences between Diamondback and Son of Beast and Banshee. This will make advertising a bit more challenging, I assume, than it would be for a giga. At the same time, it can't be that to advertise a roller coaster that's over 100 feet tall. 4. Awful name. "Shivering Timbers" is a brilliant name because of the pun. There is no such brilliance here. It will take a giga or an original RMC or RMCed Beast (or something similarly impressive) to get me to drive the ten hours back to KI, but whenever I go, I expect to ride MT several times and enjoy it.

My read of the Ultra Tower is that it combines some drop tower elements with a simulator, like of like how IOA's Spiderman ride combines a simulator with real motion by a car on a track. This seems to have more potential for thrilling physical elements than Spiderman does, though.

It wouldn't set any records unless it had a launch that got the top speed faster than Lightning Rod. I mostly doubt that this would happen, but Cedar Point's MO is to break records, so I guess I wouldn't be surprised if Iron Streak had LSMs. I don't think the conversion would be with topper track, though. RMC hasn't done that for any of their projects where the layout has been altered, and there's more wrong with Mean Streak than just roughness. The layout is boring, something that retracking wouldn't solve. I'd expect a standard Iron Horse conversion.

I find it hilarious that Green Lantern was the replacement for the "rough" Scream Machine. There's nothing wrong with its layout or the fact that you're standing, but the rattle is way more than I'm willing to tolerate. I will not be riding it again; that's time I could be spending on El Toro!