Shavethewhales

^Very possible, it was indeed mentioned but I agree on the capacity issue. There are some new construction photos posted by a member over on SDCFans: http://sdcfans.com/forums/index.php?topic=2476.msg57184#msg57184 Tons of stuff going on. This is indeed a younger-family oriented expansion, but the S&S shot tower will still be fun at least. It's been rumored pretty heavily that the balloons and kiddie swing ride will make a re-appearance as well, but I'm still iffy on that. It's also known that HFEC has a few used rides sitting in storage right now... not sure how much of this development will be brand new rides. I'm very excited to see how the old Geyser Gulch play area is re-engineered. I love the idea of imaginative play structures in parks. My nephews absolutely love them, and I had a blast at Geyser Gulch when it was brand new. I really think this development has the potential to be one of the quintessential Herschend all-around amazing and unique experiences, just so long as corporate doesn't cheap out on it. The Grand Expo fell fall short of what I know they are capable of, but they did a pretty good job with the Huck Finn themed splash battle a while back, and the Half Dollar Holler development was decent, albeit very small. This is a good chance to see if they still have the magic.

Not even close. There are so many open markets for amusement development right now, but not for these stupid pie-in-the-sky concepts. Grand Texas, Fun Spot Orlando, and Miracle Strip @ Pier Park are great examples of well executed amusement development. I'm just plain tired off all the "I wanna build disneyworld x2 pls give me lots of money" pitches that are thrown around every year. They give off a bad image for the industry and could hinder good developments. At least the Oz and EarthQuest pitches were unique, this one just came off as unimaginative to me. Whatever, this will be the first and last we hear of this I'm sure. Oh yeah, Fun Spot and Miracle Strip are very similar to a 4 billion destination theme park resort my bad. You know what I meant. Little places geared toward local audiences with different models have lots of room to develop, sure. But those aren't major parks, and thats what I was talking about. I would love to be proven wrong though. No, I didn't quite get what you meant. I was trying to make a distinction between reasonable development and ridiculous concepts that will never get off the drawing board. I see what you were getting at now though, but I still think there's room in the U.S. for even a few more major parks - maybe not of the $4 billion variety though. $4 billion just isn't going to happen. It's a stupid number to throw out there. I wanted to give them a little credit at first, but their numbers are a big red flag.

Not even close. There are so many open markets for amusement development right now, but not for these stupid pie-in-the-sky concepts. Grand Texas, Fun Spot Orlando, and Miracle Strip @ Pier Park are great examples of well executed amusement development. I'm just plain tired off all the "I wanna build disneyworld x2 pls give me lots of money" pitches that are thrown around every year. They give off a bad image for the industry and could hinder good developments. At least the Oz and EarthQuest pitches were unique, this one just came off as unimaginative to me. Whatever, this will be the first and last we hear of this I'm sure.

Silver Dollar City's 2015 announcement will be on August 13. You can sign up at the following link to not only get the announcement emailed to you, but also be entered to win 4 2015 season passes. http://www.silverdollarcity.com/five-alarm-announcement.aspx?icid=5alarm-hp-hero-5

One week countdown! I'm so glad this hasn't been spoiled - there's nothing like the excitement of a well planned announcement day. I hope we're all really surprised next week. I'm about to tune out of the speculation at this point though, it's getting a little repetitive now. Somehow I think some are taking the track thing too far. There's no telling if the track for this ride has already been made, is yet to be made, or what. I'd focus more on what you think HW would look for in a coaster. Personally I'm thinking tallness, giant inversions, and maybe, maybe a launch.

They got a nice disk-o a year or two ago didn't they? That's not a bad addition. I'm surprised to hear they are getting 1.5 million visitors out the apparent middle of no-where. That's not bad really. I think they could stand to pare down some of their lesser rides for some more spectacular attractions though. I know the previous owner liked to buy cheap and in large quantities.

^Fair enough. I haven't been watching the waterpark industry closely lately, but dang that's a lot of convergence really quick. It would be so frustrating for me to work in this industry since any great idea I came up with would instantly be replicated by every competitor. I guess slide technology just isn't advanced enough for there to be much proprietary knowledge inolved - it looks like just a bunch of fiberglass molds. Getting back to the original topic at hand though, I like seeing a nicely themed water park. I haven't figured out yet why so many foreign parks seem to focus on theming and atmosphere so much more than american parks. I also like how so much of the park's area is water vs. a bunch of singular attractions that are broken up by long spans of concrete walkways. The "empty" areas employ a lot of foliage. Good all around design here.

This is the cringiest thread I've ever read on TPR, and that's saying something. I feel like we need to wrap this thread up and stick it in a museum or something.

I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere already, but is Polin yet another rip-off manufacturer? I'm seeing just about every major product from western waterpark companies represented here... all made by Polin. An entire sub-industry ripped off in one swoop. This issue has been worrying me more and and more lately.

I'm sure it really is difficult, actually. Roller coaster design is easily imitated, and rarely perfected. It's relatively easy with the right set of programs to draft up a layout and do various code checks, but when you get down to actually designing how to handle vibrations and deflections so that they have minimal impacts on riders, that gets expensive quick. It takes either a lot of engineering hours, or more materials, or both. I have a suspicion Zamperla did a lot more imitating than start-from-scratch designing on this system. It seems like there's been a lot of sudden convergence in coaster design lately...

We already knew it was an in-house job. Unless I'm missing something, they really aren't doing much extensive work on this coaster, just replacing the top running boards and cutting back the vegetation. I'll be interested to hear what the first rides are like. Someday I hope Ozark Wildcat can come back to life with a similar refurbishment.

Yes. Again, let's not worry about the cost anymore. Personally, I really love Wildfire at SDC, and if this coaster is anything like that it will be a hit. Huge airtime filled drop, giant smooth inversions, and strong laterals? Easy home run and crowd favorite. I think we sometimes get too caught up in looking for the next big new thing with steel coasters, when there's a renaissance just waiting to happen where good, thoughtful overall design will trump gimmicks - just like what has more-or-less happened with wood coasters.

I hope there's some type of legal action that the industry or individual parks named can take against CNN for this crap. It doesn't seem like there's a strong association body to stand up for the industry against stuff like this, but IAAPA does at least a little work to advocate the industry's stance on issues such as accessibility and safety. I wonder how many freaks have worked for CNN?

Those who are so insistent on underestimating this park will be blown away in ten days. This is a park that knows enthusiasts, and has told us that this is going to be a huge, exciting ride. It reminds me of Silver Dollar City in 2000. No one expected this random little park in Missouri with only a handful of rides to smack down a massive B&M looper, but they did - and it kick started everything that HFEC has done since.

I think they've been pretty clear that this will be one (single) big ride. Given the recent statements on it's scale, I'm thinking now more than ever that this is going to be a huge looper - something comparable to Banshee and Gatekeeper in scale. There's definitely something else they're getting at other than shear size though, but I'm no closer to putting a finger on it than anyone else's attempts so far. Somehow though, I think we can start expecting to see B&M try something new here (for the company at least, not necessarily the industry).

Perhaps this ride will utilize steel supports that are made to look like timbers. Too many wood references at this point to ignore, unless they are purely a distraction and misdirection.

This park looks awesome. Another small independent park that's slowly growing to be pretty large. I never realize the extent of their Disney "influence". I always new they had a similar entrance, but I'm surprised they have the stage that pops out of the ground as well. It's unfortunate that they chose to get a Mondial Windseeker instead of the Funtime counterpart. I hope they don't have as many problems as the rest of the mondial rides. I'm really thinking I'll have to try to hit this park up next year. It's just far enough that I'd have to make a fairly major trip out to see it and probably combine some other parks with it as well.

I'm so frustrated for the park. It wasn't a huge issue, only took 24 mins to fix and was just a safety sensor malfunctioning, but the bad publicity is just going to hound this ride and the park for as long as they keep it around. I feel like they got stuck with this thing and now it's a weight around their necks. Hope they can prevent it from doing this again, but knowing Mondial rides that probably is out of the question.

While I agree that HW could make good use out of a family-oriented coaster, there's no indication that simply because HW is a "family" park this ride will be oriented towards families. Major thrill rides are often used to break open a smaller park's marketing appeal. The bigger and more intense-looking the better. Somehow it has an effect of making the rest of the park look bigger and more official. Or at least that has always been the indication I've gotten. We've seen it a few times now where a smaller park on the edge of really becoming a destination will go all out on a fairly large thrill ride. You could argue that HW already did this with the Voyage, but its hard to say. I just have a feeling at this point that it's going to be a larger and bigger deal than what some here seem to be expecting.

Lots of ASSumptions going on in here lately. Lord knows I like to make them myself from time to time, but when you start second guessing the park's financial security I think it's gone a bit too far. They've got enough money to pay for whatever they've bought, obviously. And again with the ASSumptions that if its a B&M, it will be lackluster. Of all the customers to assume this on, HW is last. The 24th can't come soon enough. Anyone planning on getting more construction pics soon? Clearly we need something else to distract us.

One of the things I always suggest is that at some point in the day you check out the south side of the main square where all the preserved old buildings are. There's an authentic school house, church, and a couple of log cabins that have been saved by the park and are kept up as little living history exhibits. Also check out Grandfather's mansion, one of the last of the old style park funhouses left on earth.

Yes, why in the world would anyone hope for a massive, expertly designed, ultra-reliable, high-capacity, twisted behemoth chocked full of huge inversions? I hope to be so spoiled in coaster riding someday that the idea of getting a brand new custom B&M could irk me. I realize there are a few somewhat more intriguing designers out there right now, but come on. When I was getting into this following, we used to dream of our local park getting a B&M. That wasn't all that long ago... well, crap that was 10 years ago - but my point remains, lol.

Thanks for this tip! I'm planning a trip out there for next summer and hadn't even thought about looking for a place to camp near the park. Do they have any decent shower facilities?

This is the type of layout that will look a lot better in reality than on paper. It looks low and spread out, which emphasizes speed and laterals. It reminds me of Kentucky Rumbler. I kind of miss the iconic parabolic hills that used to be the cornerstone of classic coaster design. Technically they make for bad pacing, but I enjoy a few nice drops here and there even if it does break the rhythm. This ride kind of exemplifies modern coaster design in that there's a lot of effort put into the flow of elements rather that singular hills and drops. I'm kind of wondering how it will compare to White Lightning, which is similar in size but a different take on the classic/modern wooden coaster design.

I'm hoping for some creative implementation of 1880's firefighting technology and theming in this new area. There's a terrific 1880's fire wagon and fire house on the park's main square that is always really cool to check out. I think this also indicates that the water cannons will probably remain in the area - they have been a hit with kids for almost two decades now.