Alpenguy

Wow, that looks like an awesome park. IB looks pretty similar to Santa Cruz, only with more coasters, and closer to less smelly water. So... did you get her myspace or anything?

Now you can go up the tower to enjoy real life RCT fantasies and look at a huge collection of unique park history? Awesome. I mean, I've never sat up there for hourse pretending to pick mechanics up and drop them... never!

Thanks for the great TR so far, you tell the stories really well and the honesty on stuff broke down some of the hype surrounding stuff like HW.

Ah ok, I get the triple-mode thing. Seems pretty strange unless you can dispatch Load 1 on its own a little faster to catch up to an interval after. I'm mostly amazed how HUGE that station seems compared to the tiny, cramped Anaheim one with high overhanging walls and barely enough space for two logs. Does the PHRED computer there talk to you? I just learned our 3 talking towers at DL are actually all named that too, and it sounds incredibly creepy. It also sounds a bit better than Matterhorn where there's one beep sound for anything from a blocked station gate to an E-stop to a cascade, but still, creepy...

^ The conspiracy theorists have some pretty good proof of it being capable as far as hardware goes, for some reason Nintendo apparently didn't want to go through the licensing and hoops for it software-wise. Apparently a modchip and boot disk make it work perfectly.

^ Bad show to be seen pushing guests? Wow, there goes every single Matterhorn cascade reset. What's the WDW Splash station setup for loading? The consoles make it look like tandem [Load/Unload] [Load/Unload] but your one station picture seems to have an unload only before at one or more load/unload spots with gates. Did you unload in Hold 1 sometimes or something? Also I really like the gate button setup where there's a simple close-only button, I hate having to push down and pull up the mushroom one every time at my gated rides and it wears out those buttons really fast. Space out here has that but nothing else in our eastside does, pretty sure nothing on westside does either. Finally, Drop 4 = the big drop in Florida? Out here drop 1 is from outside into the show area, drop 2 is a tiny little incline for spacing drop 3 (the big coaster one), drop 4 is another tiny incline in the mushroom room before the lift, and drop 5 is the big one. Cool info contributions to this topic!

Tangling with Disney lawyers in a frivilous manner never, ever results with an idiot walking away with cash. It's like walking into a court with Talespin Sher Khan.

^ Interesting about the snake lights at Indy, I figured those were your station stop recover sequence lights like all the FL dark rides have their hidden lights for. Small World is pretty similar except you can actually send boats insanely fast and there's no sequence- as long as both buttons are down at the same time it'll dispatch, so the lights are pointless. Even with the conveyor belts right before the station sides join you can't send two boats without a ~6 second stagger just for general safety.

I love Ghost Squad every once in a while. It was definitely worth the $20, just don't expect to feel like playing 4 hours straight or anything like that.

No close photo love for the Matterhorn? Nice pictures though.

In CA, the ride monitoring computer is named FRED.

I know I wouldn't want to go to Disneyland at noon the next day after something like that. Especially including a flight and who knows what other media stuff. In fact, I don't think I'd want to get up before late afternoon the next day. Actually now that I think about it, my head would explode from stress before getting on the field.

Come on BLUE!

As a former Top Gun operator, I'd like to say... This is absolutely the lamest change yet. Everyone will still call it Top Gun though because it's a badass name and has been there for 15 years.

You should transfer to FL Classics and stay at Snow White console. You'd rack up apples on your nametag in no time. Worst part is 2 of the 3 I've caught out of vehicles there had small kids with them.

I've had very few problems with it. As far as games go, there's been some trouble with dos-box sorts of stuff and various Win95 games, but hey, they're 10 years old I don't really expect them to work. What matters is that Crysis is awesome in DX10 and the only modern thing I haven't had work flawlessly is GTA: San Andreas only because of a stupid DVD copy protection scheme that makes it unreadable in the drive. The only non-recoverable game crashes I've had involved a bit too much overclocking on the GPU. It loads super fast too, ~35 seconds from the time I push the power button to opening a program.

I really don't think that article was very well-researched or remotely devoid of sensationalism. Kinda like most of them... I'm also pretty sure the operating guide for the ride actually uses the common spiel, and there are a ton of other attractions that would require acting training long before HM if such a thing ever happened.

It probably instantly e-stopped long before that idiot got within 20 feet of the track. The Hollywood version has obvious intrusion beams all over the place right next to the other parts of the boat path. Sadly that kind of stuff is legitimately required nowadays. I wouldn't be surprised or sad to hear the same fool got flattened by a truck crossing a street shortly after. I remember some person claiming they lost critical perscription glasses into a crack inside a ride vehicle. We pull vehicle, disassemble it immediately and hey, look at those $4 Target sunglasses.

Considering they are exposed to Intamin rattle and outdoor weather all the time, it can't be easy to keep everything working. Pretty sure it's contracted out by Disney though, and has nothing to do with Intamin. I'm also pretty sure that Vekoma had nothing to do with the sound systems on RnR, considering the trains (at least in Florida) arrived as standard Vekoma looper trains, or so pictures lead me to believe. Coasters don't have parts from just the coaster manufacturer, especially in the case of Disney rides. The PLC's, air supplies, and a ton of other things can be completely different between two seemingly identical coaster models. (Insert Intamin reliability joke involving speakers as metaphor for rocket coaster here)

This came as a complete surprise to me, there are other pictures on the Disney team site as well and some more info. I can't wait to see the blue one in a few months.

Considering WDW has around 35 million individual guest-days each year, not having a few random deaths from regular natural (though sudden and possibly unusual) causes would be something to be shocked by. If the same person went on a trampoline they would probably die too. It really doesn't say anything other than media frenzy. That said, I really hope the odds never make me have to personally deal with such an event, since it really is tragic and disturbing and an awful way to totally turn around what is supposed to be a fun day.

At least it has outboard guide wheels, and hopefully constant contact assemblies. The short layout looks pretty cool too I guess, if space is a huge issue. Buying a Vekoma prototype is quite possibly insane though.

A south blowing wind seems to have the smallest tolerances IMO. I've seen some pretty wild shows blowing north with Ball Rd. only like 400ft from the launchers, and cancellations with mild drift to the south, where it's ~900 feet to the nearest people. Despite often being the one to call a large area clear, I don't know anything about specific numbers or the balloon methods or whatnot. There are probably exact numbers from the fire marshal, and then a smaller envelope determined by gut experience and watching balloons and the show itself. I was on Main Street that night too and was surprised it went off at all, that was very, very strong wind.

I've passed your KA, I'm down. Seems like fun except for the constant rumbly spaceship noise. Just don't let anyone within earshot claim SM only has 2 hold zones when unload is never used. Come over to mine and experience the overwhelming joy and happiness of riding your tables. So much fun.

Shoulda visited me at the Matterhorn, it wouldn't have cascaded right before boarding.