BigBad

I feel like they could do a much better system, though. If they want to cap the number of rides, give everyone something like a credit card that employees swipe at the ride gates. Or just do it with a fast lane wristband with no cap on total number of uses.

I think the complaints are legitimate and have three sources. One is that the tabs could fall off quite easily. The second is that the band could be uncomfortable. The third is that it's only ten rides. Compare that to my Fast Lane at Carowinds last year, which got me close to ten night rides on Fury alone. I'd like to see them use a Fast Lane system like Cedar Fair does.

Cedar Fair, the owner of Knott's, has worked extensively with B&M in the past few years: Diamondback, Intimidator, Leviathan, etc. It's even rumored that the companies have an agreement to build so many coasters for so many years (though this is just a rumor). Cedar Fair also hasn't worked with Intanin in ten years, leading people to suspect that the unreliability of coasters like Maverick and Top Thrill Dragster is a deal-breaker. B&M is the much safer bet than Intamin for the new Knott's project.

I feel the same, though maybe not as strongly about Intimidator. I think it comes down to how the trim brakes are used, because the layouts aren't all that different, and what I've gathered is that Intimidator usually trims a lot while Diamondback doesn't. My vote is for Boulder Dash. The air just wasn't there like the best wooden coaster on Earth should have. I wasn't expecting ejector quite like El Toro has, but I barely got pops of floater air over most of the hills. Very disappointing...I drove four hours to Lake Compounce because I expected El Toro to get a legitimate competitor that day.

It makes more sense to me to change the link under the thread title: "NO MEAN STREAK PHOTOS" instead of "Season details announced!"

The 75ft restriction certainly is to exclude Phoenix from this list. Phoenix isn't just a great coaster for its size. It's arguably the best coaster in a state that has three hypers. My vote is for Kennywood's Jack Rabbit. Thunderbolt is fun, too, but that final drop is close to 100 feet, excluding it from contention.

Aren't you locked in by when your KD fast pass is? Anyway, I'd hit the non-fast pass park on the lighter day, which likely is Sunday.

I see five possibilities. 1. Schilke was an engineer at Arrow. If anyone is qualified to deal with an Arrow ride, it's him. RMC rebuilds the coaster, maybe making a few tweaks, but mostly not changing the ride. This would be like what B&M did to the Hulk. 2. S&S is, in some sense, the successor to Arrow. They could rebuild the coaster or at least retrack it like GCI has done for wooden coasters. 3. Chance owns Morgan, which redid the Steel Phantom. They do a retracking like GCI has done for wood coasters. 4. Another RMC idea uses the fact that the support structure is a lot more like a wood coaster than B&M and Intamin hypers. There's not just a pole every 50 feet or so. RMC could RMC the coaster the way they've RMCed wood coasters. 5. They tear it down and build a B&M (or the hot manufacturer when it happens) in its place. I think Magnum is likely to be left alone for a while. Once it's been around about 40 years, Cedar Point will have to address some issues with roughness. This wouldn't be a full retracking of a mile-long layout, but there are some places that could be tweaked. It's hard to say what roller coasters will be like when Magnum finally has to come down towards the end of this century, but that spot is likely to be reserved for a 200-foot out-and-back airtime machine unless there is a compelling reason to build something different, and whoever has taken the role of B&M probably would get to mimic the Magnum layout while adding some new tricks. (Or so I think.)

While it is not my preference, I get why someone could prefer an atmosphere like Disney or at the non-corporate parks like HW or SDC (never been to either, though). But if a park had Fury 325, Skyrush, El Toro, Shambhala, Maverick, Helix, Lightning Rod, Boulder Dash, and Top Thrill Dragster, I have my doubts that any of us would hate it. (And if I've left out your favorite coaster, stick it the park! And if you find a NoLimits video of something you like and wish existed, put it in here, too. Remember, we've got trillions of dollars to spend on this project.)

Certainly, but I have no doubt that we'd have a lot of fun while it lasted!

I made a big spider pit in RCT3 once. There was a cool coaster going through it that dove under one for the main drop and then between two as it exited a top hat. I made my sister watch the POV. She left the room after the first one. So many people hate spiders. I think this particular VR will flop hard.

Certainly the enthusiast community would be able to put together a park that would be fun to visit. Regardless of your stance on Mystic Timbers vs Giga as a decision made by the park, would you rather KI add Mystic Timbers or Diamondback 325? But we're coaster enthusiasts. We better be able to think of good coaster ideas! The people who run the park companies certainly do make mistakes, but I can't go so far as to say that they'd be better off with us making their financial decisions.

Overbanked curves are hardly a gimmick at this point, but I would not expect them to be the focus of the new coaster. Across the park, Millennium Force has a couple of them. RMC does like overbanked curves, though, so I have to think there will be one or two. But hopefully the focus will be airtime, airtime, AIRTIME! Cedar Point doesn't have a modern airtime machine the way that other big Cedar Fair parks do with coasters like Diamondback and Fury 325. I'd like to have some zero-G inversions on New Mean Streak. They were my favorite part of Wicked Cyclone, my lone RMC (so far). I've been upside down plenty of times, but the combination of the inverted view plus perfect floater air was a lot of fun.

Was there some kind of motion detector across the line path where the division happened?

I got 29/100. I do feel like I have good quality, though. I've ridden all of the top 6 and 7 of the top 10. Did they not put Skyrush on there? I went through the list twice and didn't see it. That would be highly scandalous. Skyrush is the third-best hyper in the state of Pennsylvania? I think not. (Wow, Pennsylvania has three hypercoasters! Only Ohio has more, and I think we have the most parks with hypers!)

Well my home park is a Six Flags, so it's more like, "Sure, I guess I'll have some grub while I'm here," than it is, "OMG CINNAMON BREAD!"

There's a Christian element at Dollywood. There have a Christian church. The winter festival is, explicitly, about Christmas. Certainly having alcohol at a hotel restaurant or in a private room would be very reasonable, but I don't think we can be surprised that they wouldn't sell alcohol within the park, nor do I think we should expect them to deviate from the policy. There's food, sure, but it's not a restaurant or a bar. You're not going to a theme park to eat and drink. (I mean, a Six Flags is my home park and I go there all the time.) I have no stake in the debate, and if I do, it's that drink sales could bring in more money and result in something like a giga being built there, but as long as there is a traditional-values, religious Southern vibe, I can't imagine them selling alcohol.

@DoinItForTheFame That GateKeeper photo is awesome!

Can they please call it Freebird?

In the past, we've not had the same level of evidence about what will be done with the layout. Sure, RMC has surprised us with their unique elements, but we haven't had the benefit of seeing this much construction without having had the layout revealed. Or maybe we have. Has this happened with an RMC (besides Texas Giant, when we had no idea what RMC was up to)? That was a real question.

We're speculating about the layout.

I meant with an RMC.

When, though, have we seen this much construction without having had an announcement and description of the layout?

I hope, though, that the layout is still recognizable as Mean Streak, kind of like how New Texas Giant kind of follows the old layout and isn't just built on the original wood structure.

1. Phoenix's ending hops (seems like one element) 2. El Toro's jump over Rolling Thunder 3. Jack Rabbit's double dip 4. Thunderbolt's final drop I haven't ridden Lightning Rod yet, but I'd imagine that the quad-down would be pretty terrific.