TurnOfTheCentury

Interesting about Chance. Obviously, they priced the market just wrong. I figured they might be significantly cheaper than RMC and Gerst or other "cheaper" competitors, but obviously not enough. Shame. I don't entirely buy the staffing shortage idea, only because Holiday World somehow manages it, and has a much smaller labor pool than downtown Louisville. It has something to do with pay and atmosphere. I know KK can only pay so much, but surely they can find a grand total of 4 more employees (2 more for Lightning Run and 2 more for Wind Chaser (as needed)).

Went for my first time today. What a pleasant surprise in many ways. First, it's bigger than I thought (despite a funky layout, with the cross over the road). Second, the cleanliness and theme/ upkeep efforts were notable. It's a nice looking park, for being regional and small (and formerly bankrupt!). Cool rides, and especially doing a good job for the young ones. Their coasters are very solid: Lightning Run. I will join the chorus of people wondering why no other smaller (or even larger) park has purchased a coaster like this, or others, from Chance. This ride is fantastic. It rides just like an RMC: great pops of air, snappy transitions, reasonably comfortable trains. I found it very re-rideable. Everyone seems to love it? Why aren't other parks snapping these up? Wind Chaser. LOVED it. That first drop is fantastic, and gives you some of the most bizarre airtime coming out of the spiral I have ever experienced. I honestly think it's one of RMC's most "fun" rides - very re-rideable. I feel this one is underrated? My RMC count is: Joker (SFDK), Twisted Colossus, Steel Vengeance, Iron Gwazi, Wicked Cyclone, Iron Rattler, New Texas Giant, Lightning Rod and Goliath. The only thing that I didn't love is RMC's patented bucking bronco finale: I just find those uncomfortable. But everything else was just fantastic. Woodland Run. Was running mostly good (a few potholes, but nothing horrible). I enjoyed it, had some good pops of air, but an odd design ( a fair amount of speed doing nothing, but I enjoyed it). There is promise to this park -- but they really need to clean up their operations. One train ops on everything (which was ok except for lightning run, which had 30 minute wait). But the real issue is PAINFULLY slow and understaffed ride ops. I really remain permanently perplexed why a park like this does not spend the extra $30-$40/hour to have 2 more people checking restrains (they would make it up by spitting people out of line toward concession purchases) and/or have a manager ensuring the staff are actually being efficient with ride ops.

Hit Dollywood yesterday. I had been there once before in summer 2020 (Covid time). I forget how pretty the park is: they have done a great job preserving so many trees and greenery (except for by Big Bear Mountain - see below!). It's just lovely to walk through those hills and among those trees and not really be able to see what's around the bend. Super friendly customer service, but slow ops, especially on Mystery Mine (the one ride that could use quick ops!). They could take a lesson or two from Holiday World. Very solid, diverse coaster line-up. Couple observations: Thunderhead. Wow! I don't remember being as impressed by first trip, but I friggin' LOVED this ride. It was mostly a walk-on and so I got about 7-8 rides on it. Not a bad seat to be found, although I preferred the front end (and I am normally a back of the train rider.). Fantastic layout. It sustains speed the whole time, with great curves and transition. Tons of air, including a glorious sustained floater moment on a low profile speed bump near the end (after the station fly-by and left turn). And it was running GREAT. Super smooth, but still forceable. Don't know what Dollywood or the designer has done, but this thing runs gloriously. My favorite ride at the park. Mystery Mine. Horrific operations. 3 people to check 8 shoulder harnesses and they still stacked 5 trains repeatedly -- because they were having conversations, not running the ride. Love the theme. Love the song. Really enjoyed the ride, even though Gerst stuff feels "junky" to me -- I can't believe they spent $17.5M on it in 2006(?), even if the theming? But very effective drop and ending. Fun. Keep your head back. Lightning Rod. Had it's unusual downtime, but got about 6 rides in when it opened. It's a great ride, and I can't remember the changes in the track - felt the same to me. It's a great layout, I always love dropping into that valley and seeing the track in there, and the quad down and ending is just epic, out of control greatness. There IS a big of kink after the second drop, but not terrible. But, as good and relentless as it is, I found myself enjoying Thunderhead more. That surprises me. The Arrow Looper whose name I forget. Oh wait, Ten. Tornado! I thought it was excellent. Love the drop into the tunnel and that MASSIVE loop. A bit short, but very smooth, and had that Arrow charm from my youth. Big smiles for that one. Big Bear Mountain. Really fun, but I think my expectations were too high. Fun, great addition to make the line-up diverse, but didn't blow me away, although the second half was especially fun. Although the interior is well themed, I am really surprised that a park with such great beauty around everything, let this entire coaster sit on an open plot of grass and dirt -- it just looked open and barren. The ride would look amazing if they surrounded it with trees, which would really increase the sense of speed and surprise. Puzzling. BTW, the building for next year's attraction looks HUGE.

Well, I FINALLY made my first visit to Holiday World. WOW. I will join the chorus of people singing its praises. What a charming, well-kept, well-run park. As I entered the park, I was greeted by all the team members in a super friendly way. And as I made my around the park, its cleanliness, fun themes, and overall operations were stunning for a such a small, family-run park. I was stunned they were running 2 trains on Voyage and Legend, despite minimal lines. AND the Voyage had like 6 team members checking the train -- although they still somehow managed to stack trains frequently, the operations were mostly smooth. I focused on the coasters. Sure wish I could have done night rides! The Voyage. I actually wasn't terribly impressed on my first ride. I was in the very front of the very first train and although I was impressed by relatively smooth it was, I just wasn't blown away: not a lot of air. Definitely partly the product of sky-high expectations. AND THEN I rode the back and THEN the coaster warmed up. Holy crap! To me, this is more a backseat ride (although there is no "bad" seat that I can find in 8 rides.). The spaghetti bowl turnaround at the back is one of the most out-of-control feelings I have ever experienced in a coaster. It's up there with the quadruple down on Lightning run and the end turns on El Toro, as great mayhem. Each ride I appreciated The Voyage more, focusing more on its unrelenting speed, floater (and pops) of air, and its incredible length and design. It's a top 5 for me now. And kudos for the loving care Holiday World shows this ride -- they spend a ton of time taking care of it, and it shows. Legend. As a sign of my old age, the back seat was just a little too uncomfortable for me, but I loved how raw and rough this coaster is (in the good way, as designed vs. rough b/c of crappy maintenance.). Enjoyed it much more in the front seat, especially the second half. But I didn't love it. My bias is more towards airtime machines than laterals and I still found myself having to ride a little more defensively than I'd like. Still, a very good ride. Love the backstory and the bell ringing. Raven. Man, I had waited for this coaster for a while, given its legendary status. Again, my expectations sorta messed with me, and having ridden it third, it was a hard comparison to the mighty Voyage. I imagine it is stunning at night. I loved the layout, especially the third drop into the woods (massive air in the back, but sadly I kept thinking about the enthusiast who fell). I see they have retracked big sections, but they didn't quite yet reach that final right hand turn before the final turn -- that thing is BRUTAL: literally flying into and out of a pothole. I only did 2 rides on Raven because the pothole was nearly a chiropractic spinal cracking everytime. Loved the station and it's a fun, excellent ride. Thunderbird. This was the surprise hit! Yes, the value of low expectations-- AND it's a great design! yes, I was one of the idiots on here complaining when this ride was announced 10 years ago, saying it was not a great fit for the park: too much money for a gimmicky ride. Happily I was wrong: the theming is great, the launch packs a bunch, and the layout is superb. Probably the best wing coaster I have been on, possibly except for Gatekeeper ( I have also done Wild Eagle and X Flight). Love the use of the valley and the woods. Really super fun and re-rideable. Overall, just loved the park and how it's run. I know Paula is long-gone and they went through some family drama, but I still found everything excellent

there was a pretty-credible looking post on reddit late last summer from someone who claimed to know the issues and they essentially boiled down to issues with the structural supports/ excessive stress on certain segments of the ride. Essentially the ride was engineered very close to the margins for cost savings (not unsafe), but that resulted in tons of maintenance and ongoing structural strain, especially since it's possible the forces on the serpent roll (for example) were slightly higher than anticipated. Apparently one "temporary" fix was S&S recommending only one train operation. the current plan is to extensively replace and shore up certain supports of the ride. Looking at the structure and the $9M price tag for a coaster that size, it doesn't surprise me, if true. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for.

I am definitely intrigued by the TTD mystery. Based on what we know now, it's looking like a conversion to LSM launch? My guess is that they will be keeping the launch track and tower track (otherwise why go through the effort of first removing the brake fins and hardware, but leaving the launch track in place -- wouldn't you just take off the track as a whole and remove the hardware on the ground?). I'm not entirely sure why they are moving the station unless the train dimensions are changing significantly or the launch needs to be lengthened (but I thought I read convincing math on TTD having plenty of launch length). I am secretly hoping that they will do a dual track loading station to TRY to get a train in place to hit the launch window on time -- given the likely small trains, hitting a 45 second or so launch cycle is key for capacity. Anyway, eager to see what they come up with.....

Yeah, I agree. I don't doubt they can find the length. Just not sure the technology can get it up to 120mph or whatever (I bet it can - I just don't know of any ride that uses LSMs to achieve that speed - doesn't mean they couldn't. It's only about 10 mph more than the Ferrari LSM coaster in Spain). What I do have some doubts about is whether CF is willing to go right out to the cutting edge AGAIN with Intamin on LSM technology, on the SAME Ride when they went cutting edge and paid a steep price..... But, given speculation is fun, I think they will simply keep the same ride profile, maybe change trains (lighter trains?), and essentially just replace the launch system and move the line . . .. (Maybe fancy enclosed light show like Montezooma?)

Well, I initially thought they would re-evaluate the ride and make serious changes to the launch.... knowing full-well that had nothing to do with the accident, but when I re-viewed the capacity and maintenance logs disclosed in the state investigation you could tell this ride was a maintenance HEADACHE with very, very low capacity. So, it makes complete sense to consider what to do with it. But then lots of people made valid comments about the expense of all that... and would it pay off? Then I saw what they are doing to Montezoomas revenge, and that, on the surface, seemed to have as little economic sense as TTD re-do. .... Now I'm just confused. but it's cools that CF leadership is interested in not just abandoning historic rides. The obvious thing is to (somehow) convert it to LSM launch -- I just forget the math on whether they can reliably get it up to speed with a Ferrari World-type launch on the TTD launch length (is length the sole limiting factor or does the technology somehow tap out at a given speed?)- there is a substantial amount of post-launch straight track at the end of the launch and one could put LSM partially up the hill. That seems to be quickest way to resolve the issue. The reverse spike/launch idea seems way to complicated - not only are you building the spike, installing the LSM system, but you also now need to slide the station over or otherwise reconfigure the connection from the reverse spike to the launch because of capacity problems - I don't think they could launch 24-person (or bigger capacity) trains and the tophat wasn't configured for a long train? For me, the true dream is that they will repurpose the enormous top hat for a full circuit conventional coaster - somehow get a near-vertical lift up there and then build off the break run out toward the lagoons or something (I know, will NOT happen....)

I think it's pretty clever and cool idea to pay tribute to the ride, but also do something totally unique. So many people complain about cookie cutter Six Flags coasters: and here we have something original AND it looks like fun, with airtime

hmmmm..... those markings at TTD..... the safest guess is that they are simply re-configuring the line area (not sure why that necessitated an entire down season, but maybe they needed the findings to come out, consider a variety of options, and finally execute on a plan....) I do suspect that they must have considered scrapping the ride because of the enormous costs and downtime on it. But as much as a LSM or multiple launch like Pantheon would make sense if built TODAY, from a return of investment standpoint, it makes very little sense to invest in an entirely new launch system on this ride because of all the reasons others have mentioned (new trains, LSM system, control system, etc.... -- that's a many, many millions investment for a change that the general public wouldn't even notice and so how do you market that investment? ) Now, I have to confess that the irrational fanboy part of me was hoping they would simply repurpose the tophat to create a 400 foot-full circuit ride (somehow)

yeah, I just rode Jetline at Grona Lund, and it was pretty stinking smooth and great. Whizzer at SFGAm remains excellent. Revolution at SFMM remains great (setting all of the awful train mods)

yes, one of my bigger regrets was not venturing to Die Efteling when I was in Amsterdam in 2017-ish? It looks amazing.

fun report. Wodan is way up there on my list! As is Europa park in general. I think Wodan, Silver Star and Blue Fire are all three quality coasters, and several others are fun. Not to mention all the other fun dark rides, and the overall quality and vibe of the park.

Went to Tivoli for first time in my family's scandinavian trip. Both Grona Lund and Tivoli showed me what you can do with limited space, and still create great atmospheric, themed parks. I thought Tivoli was just gorgeous: lush landscaping, well-themed, well-maintained, and just exuded old school charm. If the story is true, I can see how Walt Disney got inspiration from this park. The park is much more than the rides, but we have a blast on the rides, especially Alpengast(?) coaster (and it's history) and the also really enjoyed Demon (I can't remember any of the names). Completely charming.

Visited Grona for first time last Friday. Holy cow, what a fun, surprisingly well-themed little park, with really fun coasters! I loved it! Monster had a great themed line, efficient two-train operations, and the ride packed a punch! Loved it's pacing, the foot choppers, and the final little airtime moment (which I never experienced on an inverted before). The great gray color and cool supports only added to it. The sleeper hit for me was Jet Liner. Wow: super fun Schwarzkopft, with great pacing, smooth as can be, and easy old -school lap bar train. Extremely re-rideable. Twister was reallly fun in the back and well-placed. oVerall, extremely well done, fun, and far exceeded expectations (because I entered into it with virtually none!)