David H

I'm not sure PPP is really optimal for Phoenix -- Phoenix is noticeably more sluggish during the day at PPP than it is in the height of summer. In the case of Phoenix, it's more a matter of wanting to be at Knoebels as a whole during PPP than just wanting the best rides on Phoenix. Also, Phoenix isn't a top coaster for me (both Knoebels woodies, at their best, lie just outside my top 20.) So it's less of a concern for me to get the absolute best rides. Especially when I've been there enough times to get a good sense of what each coaster is capable of. And, again, I rarely ride woodies during the day, except if I need the credit. I'll usually grab a ride or so on each of them during the day, but that's about it, mainly because there's so much else to do there during the day. (And because I usually sleep late, too!) So it's less important to me to get decent day rides. But for Rampage and Tremors, which are both currently in my evolving top 5, nighttime ERT is a must! Well, with Legend, I actually really enjoyed what it was doing on my previous visit in 2007, even with Voyage at the other end of the park. In fact, I even took a bit more than an hour out of ERT on the first night to ride it a bunch of times (along with a quick couple of rides on Raven), knowing that I was taking time away from Voyage. I did the same in 2010 on the first night, but only took a few rides on each, since neither was running as well. As for Raven, I don't think it was just that I didn't enjoy it in comparison to Voyage. I'd argue that the airtime on Raven at its best on that fifth drop is more pronounced and stronger than at any moment on Voyage. And there were always several other moments of quite good airtime. But on both of my last visits, it just wasn't really there like it used to be. As to Magnum, I still prefer it to either of the later rides that are faster. Neither has airtime like Magnum does, especially in seat 3! I still think that Raptor and Magnum are the best rides in the park.

A bunch of random replies from throughout the thread: Am I the only one who thinks fire effects on a coaster with wooden supports is a bad idea? Good luck on that! Prices to Dallas have been extraordinarily high all year. At least, they have been from Boston, but I've looked at other cities, too. I've was trying to book my flights for the ACE Con for most of the year, and prices kept going up and up. The only way I got a decent price last week was because flights to Houston went down, and I was able to get a decently priced (but not cheap, by any means!) open jaw trip into Dallas and out of Houston. The prices went back up that night, then dropped the next day (just in time for me to change my flight!), then went back up and have stayed there. Right now, the cheapest RT flights from Boston to Dallas around the time I'm going in June are around $460! (Disclaimer: there's actually ONE trip I could take on Sun Country for $400, but that requires ridiculous layovers of 8 and 12 hours on Minneapolis! Maybe if I hadn't just been to Valleyfair last year....) Although it seems like flights just about everywhere are going through the roof, probably due to the instability in the Middle East and its effects on gas prices. Good luck to those of you who haven't booked your trips for this year! They actually completely changed the soundtrack from what it was during media day. There was an actual storyline that made sense, if you really paid attention. The problem is that you had to read the signs in the line that told the story of the Bizarro transformation to really understand what was going on. And you had to listen to the whole soundtrack to really understand it. And I doubt many people are paying attention to what some scientists, Lois Lane and Bizarro are saying when riding on one of the top coasters in the world! But I'll agree that the cardboard cutouts look really cheap and embarrassing! As for the changes, let's be honest, they only did it to try to get free publicity for what was going to be an expensive upgrade in the trains, due to extensive problems, especially with the braking. (It was down all the time!) If you're spending a million on new trains, and can add another 30-50 thousand on theming and try to pretend it's a new ride, at least you can partially justify the expense to the stockholders. You know, I think I'm the only one who actually liked and understood Six Flags' no loose articles in the station policy. For those who didn't know why it was done, Mark Shapiro gave us an explanation at the banquet at the ACE Convention in 2008 when he was directly asked about it. He seemed like he was being really frank with us about this and like he'd struggled with the issue. It didn't seem like he was giving corporate-speak excuses to try to cover for trying to get an extra buck out of everyone. He gave us three reasons for the change, all of which actually make sense to me: 1) Occasionally things get stolen, and then the victims are angry and blame Six Flags, even if it wasn't their fault. No amount of "leave at your own risk" signage is going to mollify a pissed guest who just lost their wallet or phone, or even their hat or glasses. 2) Having people getting in and out of the trains on both sides creates a confusing mess for both guest and ride operators and creates a possible safety situation. (Not to mention occasional fights in the station over seats!) People often trip over each other and over items left in the station. For those who don't know, the confusion in the station is one of the causes of the accident that ejected and killed a man on SFNE's Superman. In all of the confusion in the station and then trying to get a handicapped man into the seat when he was having trouble fitting, the ride ops mistakenly let him ride with the lapbar up too high due to his unusual build. That doesn't excuse anything, but the more confusing things are in the station, the more likely that things will go wrong. 3) It slows down dispatches and dramatically lowers throughput. Having people get into the train, then walk through it, then find a place for their objects, and sometimes then moving them elsewhere, and sometimes going through their things first, then getting back in, THEN finally restraining themselves -- all before the ride ops can even start checking restraints -- all dramatically slows down dispatches. And when they don't let people past the gates until the other side is clear, it slows the process even further, as people go fumbling for their stuff, rather than just getting out of the station. (And that doens't even count all the people who actually stop to text or check messages while a whole trainload of people are waiting!) I don't know about you, but I'd rather occasionally pay a dollar to check a camera or hat (or not bring it) and get on the ride 30-60 minutes earlier. Tell the truth. How many times have we all sat in the station waiting for people putting their items on the other side? I can't count the times. And it's needlessly wasted time. I definitely noticed the speedier dispatches after the policy was enacted. But Shapiro's gone now, and it looks like their going back to the old ways, unfortunately. Plus, you can sell more souvenir cups when you let people leave them in the station.

I honestly think that very few coasters actually need the Rocky Mountain treatment. What they need is regular maintenance. Unfortunately, that's expensive, and parks don't have a lot of money in this economy. Texas Giant was always a great coaster, when it actually got the maintenance it needed, which was just about never.

A quick note on the two virtual pass systems, and the benefits of each. For one thing, assuming that the prices stay the same (which they very well may not) Gardaland's is cheaper. Well, they're the same price per person, but you have to pay an extra 10 Euros for the Q-bot rental itself at Mirabilandia. So, if you're alone, it's twice as much, but if you're with 5 others, it's only a negligible 1.67 each extra. Gardaland's also gives you instant line cutting. Just walk up to the ride and get on the next train. And they let you in before the rest of the people waiting, so you'll get choice of seats. On the down side, you get a pre-selected slate of 10 rides total (sometimes, there's a second ride on several of them, but it's 10 total rides. If you want to get all of the coasters, you might have to do both of the tickets. And once you've gotten your ride, or rides, on your favorite coaster, you'd have to buy a whole new card to get more rides on it (even if you wanted to ride only that ONE ride again!) Mirabilandia's Q-Bot is a bit more expensive, but it offers as many rides as you can manage in one day, with as many rerides on each as you want. (And they're generally open until 11 PM in the Summer, although the trains don't run nearly as late.) You have to get in the virtual queue by reserving the time on the machine, but you can reserve any ride from anywhere in the park, and the machine will tell you how long the wait is for each ride. And the waits are generally quite a bit less than the regular wait times, especially on the non-signature rides with low throughput, like the haunted dark ride and the wild mouse coaster. You can get a TON of rides on Katun, and a bunch (but not as many, because the wait times are longer) on iSpeed. In short, if you just want to run through the park and ride everything major once, then leave, Gardaland's system is better for you. If you'd rather stay in the park for a while and get a bunch of rerides on some world class coasters, then Mirabilandia's system is better for you. Although I still prefer the systems at PortAventura and Parque Warner in Spain, where you get a wristband and can just walk up to any ride with no wait and get on the next train! And they're both fairly cheap, especially for all the rides you can get in. (Now, if only Parque Warner would add their signature ride, Superman, to their system!) And, Larry, were those prices from last year's trip? IF so, I think that it might have actually been cheaper than when we went the previous year. I don't remember exactly (a friend got ours for us while we waited for iSpeed), but I seem to recall it being a bit more than that.

I already did. Last night. Admitteldy, I was already planning on going for the ACE Con. But it just so happened that flight prices FINALLY dropped the night before last. I hooked it then, then changed my flights last night. All set for 3.5 hours of ERT on it! (Although I'll have to sneak out for a bit for the only ERT we're getting on Titan.) It's good to hear that it's open. I never count on new rides opening in their first year, but I always HOPE they will! After all of these years away from Texas, I guess I picked a good year to go back. And it's even better to hear that it's a great ride. And that you don't get stapled! It will be interesting to see how it ranks in this year's polls. (Assuming that Mitch's steel poll ever happens. It's already March and the steel poll hasn't started yet for last year!) I wonder if some people will deliberately vote it low to protest the changing of a wooden coaster. (No, I'm not talking about THIS crowd. But I could easily see some traditionalists or woodie-only fans doing do.)

First off, I think that this question will probably be better answered after Raptor opens at Gardaland. If top coasters are your priority, then Raptor will probably make a huge difference in your decision. Raptor is a first of its kind coaster for B&M. As such, it's hard to say whether it will be the best coaster on the planet, or just meh. My guess is that it will be somewhere in the middle, but that's completely a guess. Otherwise, like with most similar questions about park preferences, it will really depend on YOUR priorities. If you could give us a sense of what is most important to you at parks -- theming, extreme coasters, number of attractions, having an attached water park, etc -- it will help to give an answer that will be best for you. In general, I'd say that the answer really depends most on how important world class coasters are to you. If they're really important, then I'd go for Mirabilandia -- unless, of course, Raptor turns out to be a top tier coaster. In fact, in this category, the two parks aren't even close, since Gardaland has two world-class coasters, and Gardaland MAY have one, if Raptor qualifies. Mirabilandia has both Katun and iSpeed. Katun is an old-school B&M inverted, and by old-school, I mean POWERFUL, before they tamed the G's. Katun has ranked in the top 10 of Mitch's Steel poll for years now, ranking at #8 in 2009. If you're a fan of B&M inverteds, it usually fights with Nemesis for the top ranked one on Mitch's poll, although I'd put both Montu and Pyrenees higher. Mirabilandia also has the new for 2009 iSPeed Intamin launched coaster, which ranks at #36 on Mitch's poll. None of the other coasters there are particularly notable. Gardaland is opening Raptor, B&M's first foray sort of into the 4th Dimension, though not really because the seats don't flip. But it does have the same kind of seating on the sides (think Furius Baco.) It's any one's guess how good of a ride it will be. Other than that, they don't really have much of a signature coaster. Probably the biggest, most popular one they have is Blue Tornado, a standard Vekoma SLC, with an extended helix. Mammut, previously their newest coaster is an impressive mine train, but still just a mine train. Sequoia Adventure is one of the world's only S&S Screaming Squirrel. It's different, but enthusiast opinions on it very greatly. Magic MOuntain, their Vekoma double loop corkscrew coaster is notable mainly for its addition of new softer restraints that actually make it rideable. It's worth a few rides, but not worth traveling for. And Ortobruco Tour has got to be the world's longest wacky worm, which probably has more lift hills than any other coaster on the planet (something like 7!) Just imagine that Wacky Worms are made out of K'Nex, and someone thought it would be a good idea to put like 7 of them together. It's actually surprisingly fin and unique, but again, nothing to travel for. Also, Mirabilandia has an attached water park that's not much extra (something like 5 euros), if that's important to you. And Gardaland has an attached Aquarium also for a small upcharge, if that's important to you. I'd actually give a slight not to Gardaland if non-coaster rides and theming are what's important to you. Both parks have several good rides and some nice theming, but with only a few exceptions (like Milabilandia's nicely themed Reset shooting dark ride), I'd give Mirabilandia the definite edge in theming. There are also a lot more non-coaster attractions there. Whichever park you go to, I'd strongly suggest spending a little extra on their line jumper systems. Mirabilandia's version is the Q-Bot, an electronic pager that lets you join in any line in the park from anywhere. You can get a lot of rides in on Katun and get all of your credits in. Plus, you'll save a ton of time in the lines for the haunted dark ride, the mouse coaster and iSpeed. Their version is more expensive than Gardaland's. At Gardaland, you buy a ticket than includes line jumping at 10 rides for ten Euros (unless the price has gone up.) They have two versions of the ticket, one being more thrill rides and the other being more family and water rides. The great thing about this is you don't have to set up a time and do a fast tour of the park, just walking up to rides and getting on the next train. And you get to choose your seat before they let the other people in, so if you want the front or back row, this might be the only way to get it! (And at only one Euro per ride to save 30-60 minutes in line, it's a steal!) I hope this helps. Personally, I'd go to both parks! In fact, I did! I have a short stay in Milan on this year's trip, and I doubt I'll have time to go to Mirabilandia. Since Milan is much closer to Gardaland and since they're adding a new B&M, I'm definitely heading there. I wish I had another day to do both parks (and Venice!) though!

^ It's funny. We went the same years, and I didn't think it was running as well either year. And I went for the ACE Con and HWN. I seriously wasn't getting much airtime at all, even on the famous drop. And that was with only riding in the back seat. It was still a fun and great ride, but it definitely dropped on my list quite a bit over the two visits. It's still in my top 15, but from '99-'01 it was my #1, and it was in my top 4 until '07. I guess it just goes to show how much woodies vary, and that sometimes even late night ERT rides aren't enough! And you're definitely right about Legend. I'm still a big Legend fanboy (and was so glad at how well it was running in '07! I'd worried that it was ruined for good), but it wasn't a shade of its former self last year.

I used to be quite the Raven fanboy, though I admit to preferring Legend when it was running at its best. But I've been kind of disappointed in Raven on my last two visits. And I didn't get many rides on it on my previous visit to those, given the situation.... Has Raven been running slower since the incident, or have I just hit it when it hasn't been running well? All woodies have their up and down days. Legend seems to be see-sawing on my visits. This year it was ok; on my previous visit it was great! You know, I almost wish that the three woodies there were all at different parks. I'd be more than happy to ride any of them for hours on end during any coaster event. Having them all at one park means I have to choose, although I did take a few rides on each during the first night of ERT. But at least it spreads out the lines. And one of the nice things about HWN is that we get two nights and six hours of ERT, so we can still manage to ride all three during ERT. Even if I weren't a Voyage fanboy, it's a pretty amazing package they give us! (Oh, I'm just leaving myself open there, aren't I?)

Yeah, that's a credit you pay for! But you can't really blame them for it when the ride is called Roller SOAKER! Truth in advertising! Luckily, just before I got on it, I realized that you could take your shirt and shoes off. Which was very good, because almost immediately after riding (well, after one more ride on Storm Runner) I had a long drive to Kings Dominion. I wasn't even supposed to be at the park on that day. But the day before it was POURING all day. (Talk about getting SOEAKED on rides!) They managed to get most of the coasters back open eventually, but not Storm Runner, Roller Soaker or the Mouse. Since they let me come back the next day for free, and the hotel I was in let me stay another night at the same discounted price (which was a good move for them, since there were like three rooms being used that night!), I decided to change my plans and hit three rides in the morning, before heading to KD. I wouldn't have bothered for the mouse (which I'd already ridden in the past) or even Roller Soaker, but I really wanted to experience Storm Runner. And I'm probably not going back to Hershey for a few years at the least. Not only do you get SOAKED on the ride, but it broke down on me on the final brake run just before the station. And they wouldn't let me get off. So I was sitting there for like 15 minutes with water spraying on me! After 5 minutes, they offered to shut off the water. Gee, thanks, guys! Luckily, my shirt and shoes and socks were still in the station. I ended up changing my pants and underwear in the parking lot before the looong drive to KD! (And if you happened to be walking by and were shocked at the view, sorry!) On a funnier topic, has anyone CAUSED a not-so-accidental soaking, besides the water canons you can pay for? One time a friend and I were at Blizzard Beach on their lazy river. I'm a big fan of them as a nice break from the slides, but the best parts are when they have waterfalls and fountains and the like. But the one at BB really only has one big area where you get wet. It's a cave with a big split waterfall. Unless you go through right in the middle, you'll get pretty wet. So a lot of people, especially the moms and grannies, will desperately paddle to the middle. Since the river is long and uneventful, we decided to sit in the middle of the tube with our feet dangling and use our feet to hold us in that area under the waterfalls for a while. At first, we accidentally bumped a few people under the waterfalls. It only took a light bunp. Of course, some of them were mad. We decided to stay there and do it on purpose, but to make it look like it was an accident! So we ended up sitting there for easily over 20 minutes knocking dozens of people under the waterfalls, while trying our best to look really innocent and not to laugh until they'd passed. Some of them, especially the moms and grannies, got really pissed! I'd have felt bad if they hadn't been sitting IN A WATER RIDE! I'll probably go to hell for that.

To that end, I think it might have been Larry a few years ago who said, "Look, if you have to ride a coaster in a specific seat to NOT get your spine shattered, it's not a good coaster to begin with." How did we end up talking about Furius Baco? (Some day I'm gonna remember to hit the spell check button BEFORE posting!)

Like two minutes after I went into the chat a friend called from California who I haven't talked to in a week or so. So, we were talking through most of the chat. I came back just as Robb left, then the site went down. I didn't want people to think I was being rude!

That reminds me that I'll have to bring a newspaper to SFFT this year! On my last visit many years ago, many of us wished we'd have a newspaper to read during that long, boring helix! That would make for a funny picture, if you had a train full of people reading newspapers on a coaster! As to SFNE's Cyclone, the only thing it needs is constant maintenance -- and to take off the damn brakes that are now all over the ride! When they switched to heavier PTC trains from those awful Morgan monstrosities, the ride needed MUCH more trackwork. Instead, they just braked the whole thing to death! Another example of "be careful what you ask for!" It's a shame that the big park chains can't afford to maintain their woodies.

Just curious, since I don't think I've yet read any of those TR's and since I'm going there this year, is Insane really much better during ERT? Or was it just a matter of the fun of being with a bunch of friends on a crazy and new type of ride? I know that that was the case during ERT on Inferno at Terra Mitica during the ACE Spain trip. Everyone was having an absolute blast on it. I don't think I've heard so much laughing on any coaster before. But I think that was more of a factor of it being a totally new type of ride for most of us. When you've ridden so many coasters, it's really refreshing to try something so totally new! But we also only got morning ERT on it (as was the case for most of the Spain trip, which wasn't any big deal, since they don't have ANY stand-out woodies there, unless you count the stand-out PAIN you get from riding them!) Is Insane a ride I'll want to try to ride later in the day? I wouldn't have thought so, and probably wouldn't have even tried to, especially with the low capacity. But if people recommend it, of course I'll try to ride it later. I imagine we won't have late ERT on it, since if we do have late ERT it will most likely be on the new Gravity Group woodie. And even if it's included in the ERT, it might be hard to drag me away from a new GG woodie I'm not likely to be visiting again in the near future!

That's actually kind of the situation for most of the woodies on my trip, particularly those at Hersheypark and Kings Dominion. I planned the trip knowing that this would be the case. But I also knew this would be the case because it was early in the season when the parks would be dead. In fact, I wasn't even originally going to either park (or Busch Gardens WIlliamsburg) and added that leg to the trip afterwards. The main reasons for adding that leg were to get in the 2 new to me steelies at Hershey, get on Intimidator 305 and to enjoy all of the rides (and ribs!) at Busch. The trip was mean more as a sweep up of most of the newer coasters in the Midwest and East that I haven't ridden yet so that I could focus my next few years of trips on international travel. Since none of these woodies are even in my top 30 (although Grizzly and Wildcat used to be, years ago when I'd ridden fewer woodies), it wasn't too much of a sacrifice. I ended up dropping the woodies a bit to somewhat reflect my most recent rides on them, but not nearly as much as they would have deserved on the rides they were delivering with nearly empty trains. It seemed a fair compromise. And even if it isn't exactly fair, I don't really agonize too much about where to put the mid-range woodies on my list. I mean, does anyone actually care if a coaster jumps from #50 to number #43 this year?

Damn, I gotta admit that I'm really tempted to try to get down there for this. I'm going to be in Milan for almost two days on the way to Ibiza towards the end of my Europe trip that's centered around Scandinavia. I've been planning a side trip to Gardaland, and possibly Movieland and Aquastudios. I was planning on just heading back to Milan for the other day and doing some light sightseeing (and getting to see The Last Supper this time!). But I'm SOOO tempted to either fly down to Rome or try to squeeze in Mirabilandia or Venice again. (I rewatched a Doctor Who episode set in Venice the other night, which made we want to go back! And both iSpeed and Katun at Mirabilandia were GREAT!) I did all of these cities on my real Italy trip in 2009. This is just a quick stop on the way between Scandinavia and Ibiza. But I loved Italy so much and really want to do it all again! If I had another day in Italy, I'd probably squeeze in both Mirabilandia and Venice. But if I try to squeeze it in now, I'd end up spending more time on trains than enjoying either of them -- and at great cost, financially. And honestly, if I went back to Rome, I'd want to see a lot of the city again, not just an amusement park, no matter how amazingly well themed it looks. Ironically, I'll be going back to the city that impressed me the least in Italy, although it easily has the most impressive Duomo/cathedral. Ah, trip planning. It can get crazy, because you always want to add more and more and more. At some point, you have to be satisfied with what you've planned! I can't really complain. The trip's just over three weeks and includes eight countries!

What I'd honestly rather see is more coasters that aren't the very fastest or tallest, but try to be big, fast, LONG coasters that are actually forceful. Basically, more variations of Millennium Force and Intimidator 305. it's ironic that I say that, since I'm not really a big fan of either of them. But I like what they were trying to do with them, even if I don't think they quite succeeded, at least in terms of what I'm looking for in a steel coaster. Although I thin that if you took the best parts of both, you'd probably have a really great coaster. The thing that MF does right is the height and speed and most importantly a LONG ride that sustains that speed. Unfortunately, they were pretty tame in the forces. And perhaps Intimidator 305 shows why. After all, it's fair to say that it's a bit extreme for some people. But I think it's more of a design issue, with too fast and tight transitions between the elements. That and the horrible original restraints made them add brakes to the ride, which killed some of the good aspects of the ride for me. But I like where they were going with the ride, even if the execution wasn't all that if could be. But it would be nice to see Intamin try again with a bigger (in length, not height) project with more room to spread out the elements, while still keeping the forces intact. Something like a cross between MF and Voyage, but with smooth steel tracks. Unfortunately, it would cost more than most parks can afford right now.

Actually, if that's the only time I rode it, then that's how I'd have to rank it. I can't rank a coaster based on hypothetical rides I've never gotten. If I'd ridden it before, I'd try to take both situations into account, especially if nothing major has changed on the coaster. That's actually the situations for most of the woodies in the second half of my big US trip last year. The parks were dead, which was great, but it also meant that the woodies were very much under-performing, since most of them were quite empty. But the main goals of the trip were to get to HWN and to get in a bunch of the new coasters I hadn't been on. Getting some more rides on the woodies I had been on (like the ones at Kings Dominion, Hershey and others) were just a bonus. As to your last question of why I'd base my rankings on non-normal conditions, because that's the ONLY time I've ever been there? Which makes it normal enough for me! Seriously. Every time I've ever been to Holiday World, it's been for Stark Raven Mad, an ACE Convention or HoliWood Nights. Those were very deliberate choices. The same could be said of Alabama Adventure, Silverwood, Knoebels and a bunch of others. For most parks, it's not that big of a deal to get there for an event and/or to get nighttime ERT. But for some parks and woodies, I'd consider it a must. And because I would try to only plan trips to ride world-class woodies if I could get the most optimum riding conditions possible. I mean, if we're talking about a number 30 or lower coaster, then no, I'm not going to make my plans around it. but for the top rides and the top parks, I go out of my way to be sure to get there when there are events, or at least when the park is open as late as possible. After all, it doesn't matter to me in the slightest how it runs when I'm not riding it, right? I'd honestly rather have one night (or two nights in the case or HWN) every few years of legenrdary rides that were among the very best I've ever had on any coaster than get 3 or 4 days of very good, but not the best, rides on other trips. For all of the woodies in my top 13, I've been there either for ERT, or when the park was open quite late, or at least when it was open until 9 PM or later. The only exceptions are Aska, since I was on a group trip and didn't have any control over the schedule, and Ravine Flyer II, because it was part of a larger trip the revolved around HWN, so I sacrificed it for nighttime ERT on Voyage as well as much shorter lines at all of the other parks, including Cedar Point, Kings Island and more. And yes, that's probably why I rate Ravine Flyer lower than it probably deserves. But that's how it goes. For a few of the top woodies in Europe (mainly Tonnerre de Zeus and Megafobia), I got ERT after closing, but it was still pretty early. But that's because those parks are never open late, so there isn't much I can do about that, obviously! It's kind of like how some people will give a coaster more points if it runs better in the middle of the train, or take off points if it doesn't. I'd rather wait for at least the first or last car and get a few fewer rides, but know that I'm getting the best rides I can get. So if I'm not riding there, then why should I care what it's like there? Maybe that's a bit of a selfish point of view. But it's my list. And my favorite coaster rides are only going to be based on the rides that I actually get on them, not on hypothetical ones that I don't get on them. And I'm not trying to sound arrogant here. I just try to give each coaster its chance to show me what it can really do and to absolutely shine. If it does so, then I'll base my ranking -- and my memories of the coaster -- on those top rides. Of course, anyone can rank their coasters as they see fit. It's YOUR list, after all! But this is how I choose to rank mine. I'm just offering my personal reasonings.

Aren't the fat ACEr jokes old by now? I mean, I've only occasionally read this site over the years, so I've only caught a tiny percentage of the jokes, but there's such a thing as beating a dead horse. And a time for new jokes! As to your own opinion of Voyage not changing, well that should be obvious. But maybe it would get you to check it out during midnight ERT some time. Because until you do, you haven't really experienced what Voyage can really do. One thing I've noticed about this discussion both here and or RRC is that most of those who thought that it WAS running well this year were at HoliWood Nights. Most of those who thought that it was not running well this year were not. I don't think that's a coincidence. For some reason, the pre-fab Intamin woodies I've been on (only Colossos and El Toro so far) didn't seem to pick up as much speed as the day and night went on as Gravity Group, CCI and even GCI coasters seem to. Maybe I just didn't notice it as much, but that's how it seemed to me. Maybe with the pre-fab tracks, they just don't "break in" as much as the others do? Or maybe they're already more optimized for speed and performance at any time? But on some coasters, it's extremely noticeable. And Voyage is definitely one of them. And it's not just a phenomenon that coaster enthusiasts imagine, or an illusion of going through the woods in the dark. It's actually measurable by timing the coaster circuits. I know Holiday World maintenance used to time their coasters, though I'm not sure that they still do. I've always felt that the best thing about both of Mitch's polls is that they expose many of us to great coasters that we might otherwise not have known about. Or at least it highlights them and brings them more to the forefront in ways that other polls don't. To me, anything in the top 50 or so on either poll is actually worth travelling to.

For those who stopped voting, Wildebeest has fallen way behind Noah's Ark's Scorpion's Tail. It's now nearly 3000 votes (out of over 28000 votes cast) and 10% behind. Nothing else has garnered even one tenth of one percent of the vote. I voted for it, though I admit to being kind of torn. They're both great rides, though very different. If I were to go on sheer intensity, then Scorpion's Tail would definitely win. What's probably getting the masses to vote for Scorpion's Tail is the fact that they've incorrectly labelled it a "looping" water slide because of an overbanked turn. Yeah, technically it's a sideways loop. but by that argument most of the water slides in the world have at least one sideways loop (AKA a helix.) They've also labeled it as Amrerica's first (or was it the world's first?) looping waterslide. Even if it did have an actual inversion, that claim still wouldn't be true, since there was a water slide with an actual vertical loop that VERY briefly operated at Action Park in NJ. But Wildebeest is definitely a more overall FUN ride. And it's a MUCH longer ride, whcih is more rewarding after a long wait. Think Phoenix vs Coney Cyclone (but not painfully rough.) And for anyone planning to visit in the future, Wildebeest has a single rider line, which can save you a lot of time in the queue if you're not getting ERT!

As long as they keep Charley's Steak House on the proprerty, I'll be happy! It's my favorite restaurant in the world! Amazing high-end steak at reasonable prices (for a steak house, at least.) I think it's just about the only thing left at the Mercado that's still open. I've taken a few years off from Orlando, but I honestly miss Chaley's more than I miss just about anything at Disney, including the rides!

Looks like it's worth checking out. I'd previously heard some rumors about this on another site. I'll be in London in July before the ACE Scandinavia trip. I'd originally just scheduled a 2 day stopover, with only a quick side trip to Thorpe planned. But I've decided to extend it to a full 4 days, partially to take in Alton Towers again. (Luckily, you don't have to pay extra to switch flights on American Airlines when you're using miles for award travel.) And since I'm also interested in seeing the Windsor Castle on the day I'm at Thorpe, I'll probably hit up Legoland briefly as well. At that point, it makes sense to get the Merlin annual pass, which includes a bunch of attractions in London, including the London Dungeon, the London Eye, Madame Toussauds, Sea Life Aquarium, and more. I probably would have stopped in for a bit at the Dungeon mainly because it was included in the pass. But this might make it more worth the stop, especially if I don't have to pay extra for it. Let's hope the lines won't be too long! Luckily, the trip extension included an extra day for general sightseeing, since that day already seems booked up now! Now, if only the Doctor Who Experience were included, which is probably the most must-see attraction in the UK for me, at the moment.

A few random thoughts from the thread: Personally, I've never quite gotten the massive appeal of Phoenix. Sure, it's a great ride, and tons of fun, but it's not quite intense enough for me to make it a top tier ride, or even a second tier ride. But it's still my #21, out of 143 currently standing woodies, which is pretty damn good. Well, I guess I can intellectually understand it. It probably better than any other coaster hits that "sweet spot" between intense enough to keep someone like me happy and not too violent for people who don't like that sort of thing. And it's probably one of the most pure FUN coasters out there. Was Voyage really running that much rougher later in the season? I was there for HWN, and I actually thought it was quite a bit smoother than on my last visit back in 2007. Maybe it was just because they'd smoothed out that really rough series of potholes towards the end of the return run during the left swooping turn just before the station flyby? That part had been brutal in '09, so maybe having it so much smoother made the whole thing seem smoother to me? But I wasn't the only one who at HWN had thought that it was running more smoothly than in the past. Maybe it just got rougher as the season went on, by the time of the TPR midwest trip? Or maybe the Raven train beat it up a bit more than the original one did? Most of us did think that the original Voyage train was running slightly faster and slightly more smoothly than the "Ravage" train was. On another note, for those wondering why Aska ranks as highly as it does, I'll disagree with Elissa's assessment that it might be mostly nostalgia. It really WAS that good. In fact, it has been one of the most consistent performers on the chart since 2003, when it started getting enough votes to actually count, only dropping out of the top 10 once in 2007 to #11. Except for one year, when it came in at #6, it has come within 2 notches of its current rank of #9 every single year. And it's only been closed since 2006, so it's not just nostalgia driving its showing in the polls. Honestly, it probably should rank even higher than it does. The problem is that it was nearly impossible to get good rides on it, unless you were going with a coaster group -- for much the same reason it's tough to get good rides on Hellcat in the Wisconsin Dells these days: the park was always DEAD. Not dead, as in a few hundred people. Dead as in 10 or 20 people max in the whole park! And that means that you could never get anything resembling a full train full of people on it, unless you went with a group. And simple physics tells you that momentum equals mass times velocity (or something like that. I took physics 25 years ago!) So with a nearly empty train, you're not getting anything like the power that the ride can deliver. If I remember correctly, Nara Dreamland closed before any of the full TPR trips to Japan, right? I know that Robb and Elissa went with a few friends, but they never got more than nearly empty trains. Luckily, I went during the ECC/ACE trip. And it was INSANE. Especially in the magic row 2 with ejector lateral airtime at several spots on the ride! And we left the park before 2 PM, so it hadn't even fully warmed up yet! The only woodies I rank higher are Voyage and Tremors, both of which I've ridden around midnight during ERT sessions. Aska was almost as good at 2 in the afternoon! (Well, maybe not almost as good as Voyage at midnight!) And definitely better than any other coaster I've ridden much later in the day. It's a shame none of us will likely ever be able to find out what it would be like late at night after running with full trains all day! Note that the only people who seemed to love Hellcat this year went during either the TPR midwest trip or the ACE event in the Dells -- when there were full trains. When I went on Memorial Day night, the trains were empty, and the ride was nearly boring. (Luckily, I'd been there a few years back, so I know what it CAN do.) Look at how much it's dropped in the polls, as the park has become more dead and fewer people get great rides on it outside of coaster events or trips. Hopefully, Hellcat won't meet the same fate as Aska! But at least the park has the mini-golf to bring people in.

That is the essence of what he saying, he is just using Robb and Elissa as an example to prove a point. He is not pointing blame at them. Exactly. And even then, it's not even a matter of "blame". I mean there's nothing wrong with not loving (or loving) a coaster. It was just an interesting facet of how the poll is designed. Any one person and particularly two or three of them coudld change the results of even the top 10 coasters, if they happened to have voted for one of the coasters with fewer riders, or even if they voted for pairings that were very close. After all, any one of the people who voted El Toro or T Express #1 could claim to be the one person who made it tied for #1.

This post is more truthful than truthful Piers! But which ERT session would be longer....?

Be warned, this will probably be the longest post in TPR history without pictures! Are there several sites where these conspiracy theories are going around? Or is this whole discussion because of some comments I posted on rec-roller-coaster that were actually more about the poll and its methodology than about Voyage, Robb, TPR or anything else? I'm just curious if this whole part of the discussion is about a misunderstanding of what I was saying, or if there really are people ranting and raving about TPR out there. I am a bit of a math nerd, as well as a political junkie who pays a lot of attention to polls and how they're run. I've been posting in RRC for years about the methodology of Mitch's poll and its benefits and flaws. So this was definitely not some kind of "OMFG Voyage dropped! The whole poll sucks!!!" kind of discussion I was having! For those who don't know me, I'm David Hamburger. (Yes, that's my real name!) I've been friends with Robb and Elissa for well over a decade. And I've spent much of that time defending Robb on RRC from some of the people who seem obsessed with him and TPR. So, if anyone thinks I have any sort of anti-TPR agenda, I don't. The only reason I haven't really posted here (although I have read it off and on over the years) is because I took a step back from the hobby for a while when I was becoming more blase and jaded about it a few years back. It was good timing because it allowed me to get my life and my finances in order (Be warned people! This is an expensive hobby, which can drive you massively in debt!) But I've been stepping slowly back into the hobby, which is why I've been reading more here and was planning to post here more as well. Most of the rest of this post is gonna be a bunch of statistic and poll design stuff, so if that stuff bores you, you might want to skip it! Or at least skip to the funny one liners at the end. The main point I was making in my RRC posts was pretty much exactly what Wolf said a couple of pages back (although obviously much more briefly) where one of the biggest problems with Mutch's poll as it's run is that in order to try to give coasters that few people have ridden a chance to fairly compete, it actually overcompensates by allowing those who have ridden it to have a disproportionate effect on the results. The basic gist is that because so many of those faraway coasters have so few riders, a couple of votes, particularly those votes which are quite unrepresentative of the views of most of the others in the polls, can really sway the results. With three of the top 10 coasters (T Express, Aska and Fireball) having very few riders and several in the next 10 (the German El Toro, Thunderbird, Tremors and OzCat) having relatively few riders, this can really shake up the rankings. And just as importantly, the poll doesn't differentiate between a sweeping win of most of the people who voted in the pairing and a very close finish between the pairing. Should El Toro's 60-58 win over Boulder Dash be considered statistically equivalent to it's 103-39 win over Phoenix? I could pretty comfortably say that the majority of enthusiasts think that El Toro is better than Phoenix, but I wouldn't be so comfortable saying the same about El Toro over Boulder Dash, when 2-3 different voters would change the results. So, the combination of these two factors means that a handful of people can really change the rankings in a way that may not actually be a fair representation of what most enthusiasts may think, especially if they have vastly different opinions of a few coasters than others do. Particularly when it turns out that about 1/3 of all of the matchups among the top 12 coasters were decided by three votes or less. I specifically used the example of Robb and Elissa in the discussion because 1) They're just about the most well-travelled enthusiasts I know, and they're probably the most well-travelled enthusiasts who actually bothered to fill out the poll this year. 2) They actually rode all of the less-ridden coasters towards the top of the poll. 3) They ranked Voyage significantly lower than just about anyone else in the poll. (Only two of the 191 people who ranked Voyage ranked it lower.) To be very clear here, I have a pretty good idea of their tastes in coasters, and I DO believe that they genuinely rank Voyage and all the coasters in the poll where they believe they belong. But what's interesting is that because of the way the poll is designed, and because 3 of Voyage's 6 losses (to T Express, Aska and Thunderbird) and its only tie (to Colossus) were by one vote or less (for the tie) that their two ballots alone gave it 3 of its 6 losses and its only tie. Without their ballots, Voyage only has 3 losses, which moves it up to tied for third place overall. The main point I was making was about the volatility of the specific rankings of the poll itself. Because of the way it's designed, you can safely say that El Toro or T Express or Boulder Dash or even Voyage are absolutely top level coasters that are very well loved by almost everyone who's ridden them. But you can't really accurately say much more than that when only 18 out of almost 500 people ranked both of them, and they tied in their opinion 9 to 9. Or when 60 people preferred El Toro to Boulder Dash, but "only" 58 people thought otherwise. The poll is MUCH more accurate at getting approximate rankings of where coasters really stand (not just in their popularity, like with other polls -- look at the Beast for the best example of this!), but less accurate in getting specific rankings within a range. And I actually said exactly the same thing last year. And for those who might think I was somehow singling out or picking on Robb and Elissa, the example I actually used last year was my OWN steel poll ballot, where a typo on ONE LINE of the ballot disqualified my ranking for Pyrenees, which ended up knocking it out of the top 10 and allowed Millennium Force to stay in the top 10, when it otherwise would not have. And that was just ONE line on ONE ballot out of over 30,000 lines on over 600 ballots! Think about that. One line out of 60,000 changed the top 10. Now, does any of this matter? Not really. It's just a roller coaster poll. Heck, the parks don't even promote their wins in this poll anywhere, like they do with the Golden Ticket Awards, which most enthusiasts agree is more of a popularity poll, in which foreign coasters don't really have any real chance. And for those who think I'm some "Voyage Fanboy" with sour grapes about "my" coaster doing so badly, sorry. Yes, I'm a Voyage fanboy. And it's my number 1. But I don't really have any vested interest in it being the world's #1 coaster, as long as I get to ride it again! For point of reference my #1 steel coaster is Montu, which has barely stayed in the top 20 for years now. Again, I'm just more interested in the design of the poll and how that affects the results than anything else, at least with regards to this discussion. That's not to in any way say that Mitch's poll is bad or inaccurate. You can see my own quotes on his site when I say that it's definitely the most accurate poll out there. But that doesn't make it any less interesting to speculate on how it could be done better. And until this week, I honestly couldn't think of any way to do it better. Although this week I did come up with the interesting idea of running the poll the same way, but in only counting matchups that are won by less than say 3 votes or are voted on by less than say 20 votes as a half of a point for the win or the less. That way, coasters like Fireball could be fairly ranked without too heavily impacting on the rankings of the rest of the coasters in the top 10. It would be interesting to see how that would affect the results this year (and in future years) if the data were precessed with this method instead. In any case, in the interest of full disclosure, I did mention on RRC the fact that I do think that there are a small handful of people who deliberately did rank Voyage lower than they probably would have otherwise either to hurt Voyage or help other coasters or to anger the Voyage fanboys. Yes, I do think there are a few who may have done that. Is it any surprise that some people might think so when two of the very first replies to this very thread after the results were posted were basically "Ooh, those Voyage fanboys are gonna be so pissed! LOL!!!"? And let's be honest, are there really coaster enthusiasts who think that Voyage is one of the very worst coasters in the world or that it's a worse coaster than the Woodstock Express coasters? C'mon.... But it's also pretty obvious to me that there are a few people who did the same to El Toro, including at least two of them who also (interestingly) ranked it below the Woodstock Express coasters and one of whom ranked it in the bottom 5 of a pretty extensive list. To me, both sides are pretty equally childish. That's about the extent of my TPR conspiracy theory. And do I think that Robb and/or Elissa have some magical powers to make everyone in the world (or at least the hobby) bend to their wills? Obviously not. Well, maybe Elissa does.... Most guys tend to listen to hot, smart coaster chicks! But do I think that they can help to sway opinions in the hobby? Heck yes! Of course they do. They're two of the most knowledgable and well-travelled coaster enthusiasts in the world. And they're just about the only ones who will tell what they REALLY think of a park or a ride, even if they park doesn't want them to! I know that *I* look to their opinions before planning trips, and their opinions can help sway anything from what parks to visit to which non-coaster rides to check out. (I'm somewhat of a CreHo, so I'll at least ride all the coasters at least once!) I was one of those who convinced Justin of the ECC to add the Yokohama parks to the ECC/ACE Japan trip a few years back based solely on Robb and Elissa's TR's and videos of those parks. And although I'd gotten somewhat tired of coasters videos over the past decade, I just ordered a bunch from here to give me some ideas of what to look for on upcoming trips to places I haven't been. But I also know a bit about group psychology. And if I've read online that a coaster is gonna beat me up and be rough as hell, that's what I'm more likely to be noticing when I ride it. I'm not a zombie. But I am more likely to look for and notice the aspects that I've been forewarned about and the ones that others are discussing, especially when the opinions come from people I respect. And I'm less likely to notice other aspects of it. That's human nature. But if I read and hear that it's a wild and intense and crazy ride that's one of the best in the world, well those are the aspects that I'll be more likely to notice. Even if effectively both of those statements could be considered true for a particular ride. In fact, I honestly think that both are somewhat true for BOTH Voyage and El Toro -- and for just about any of the top tiered coasters, except maybe Phoenix. A great example of this is Shivering Timbers when it was new. Anyone who'd ridden it (and whole lot of people who hadn't!) would tell you that was the second coming of the coaster gods. It was the best coaster in decades, or so the story went. With insane airtime, more than any coaster freak could ever want! Was it kind of rough? Maybe, but we didn't care. Was it kind of repetitive in its design? Yeah, but damn, look at all that air! I almost flew out! The perfect example of group psychology. Now look where it ranks these days. It doesn't even make the top 10 in the Golden Ticket Awards, much less Mitch's poll, where it's dropped out of the top 20. Yeah, it's definitely gotten rougher and Cedar Fair has let it slip away. But. c'mon, it's not THAT different. So, how's that for a first post? I promise not to be THAT analytical in the future. Well, not TOO much, anyways. But if you cut through all the verbiage, you might find that I can be damn funny sometimes, too! For those who don't know, I was the funny gay guy who was first up in the credits of most of Robb's earliest videos. I was "fancy" long before anyone had ever even heard of Piers! Oh crap, now everyone's gonna expect some sort of "fancy showdown" on the China trip! With me playing some sort of Cher to Piers' Christina Aguilera to show him how it's really done! See, it was worth wading through all that analytical crap after all!