Too Fast For Comfort

Yeah, I know May or June is a better time to go as far as ride lines go, but I enjoy going in the fall for a number of reasons. I like the cooler weather. I'm not particularly interested in doing the actual haunts, but I like the Halloween decorations and atmosphere. I like the late hours with lots of night riding. There aren't swarms of bugs around the coasters. Heck, last year I ate all different kinds of delicious food from the food trucks at the park, which aren't always options other times of year. Maybe I'll try earlier in the season next year...but this year I'm going this weekend. And that's fine, just know that you're going to going to get on many rides. If you go, just go for the atmosphere and Halloween stuff and don't get your hopes up for getting on many actual rides.

Uhh... Have you been to Cedar Point and been there during night time?... Point of order: you kind of screwed up with the coding on that post, for the record, I don't say that, the guy who quoted me did.

Once its gone, its gone. They've also been known to increase the prices as it gets closer to the date too. It sounds like you just need to bite the bullet and pay extra to get them now if its that important to you. Honestly unless the Halloween stuff is that important to you, you're probably just better off waiting to go in May or June when it won't be crowded at all and you won't need a Fast Lane.

So its Baby Baby Maverick then.

I don't know, there are still tons and tons of adults without kids in line for Hagrid's. Sure, there are kids, but there are noticeably more people in line over the age of 18 than under the age of 18. And there's nothing stopping kids from riding big roller coasters, I see it happen all the time. You could even argue at this point that HP has been around for long enough, that the kids who grew up reading the books when they were new and are full-on addicts would be over the age of 18 at this point. And a "family friendly approach" doesn't explain how Universal continues to double down on HHN, which is actually a much bigger money maker for them than Harry Potter, and is pretty much R rated. I mean, it wasn't an accident that they got rid of Dueling Dragons. I think its like people are saying, they wanted Harry Potter World to fit the theme. Having two random B&M inverts in a Medieval castle with name only Harry Potter theming is like when Six Flags slaps "Wonder Women" on the name of a random ride, gives it a color scheme, does nothing else and calls that "theming." It sucks that DD got caught in the crosshairs of Harry Potter mania, but it is what it is. At least we have the credits for DD.

Yes, I agree that the tracking is horrible. But that's more of a secondary issue. Personally for me I just can't enjoy the ride due to the stapling thigh crushing. Its an issue on Sky Rush too, so it might have something to do floorless lapbar coasters that get some G-force. I make sure to leave plenty of slack, but the G force just pushes the restraint hard into my thighs. And then, on top of that, the roughness exacerbates the issue. I feel like with both of these rides, it might be nice to have a lock that locks the restraint in place, kind of like what Top Spins do.

as I noted, I'm absolutely willing to give it a chance once it goes live and we see how they plan it to actually work, so open minded about it now. but I'd think if you pay when you order? then your food would be ready when you walk in. (one of the questions on the survey I took was basically, "when would you be willing to pay for the food" -- and the options were like: when you order, before you arrive. when you arrive at the restaurant. when you get your food). so they might be considering the options. but again, open minded and willing to give it a chance I get that. I just don't expect them to innovate at all. Right now all the fast food apps have you prepay then check in when you arrive, and Disney has followed suit. It's a model that works, and it's a relatively small percentage of customers. Six Flags will want to tap into this but not rock the boat. It's their MO. Yeah, its annoying to have to check in, but to me, a big appeal to the online ordering is knowing that my order is being communicated as clearly and efficiently as possible. It makes zero sense to verbally tell somebody what it is, only for them to punch in the order when I could have just punched it in the way I wanted it. And I can also check-in while approaching so that saves some time. There are still some kinks to work out. I've seen some fast foods where they haven't exactly gotten the priority level right, and I've seen at a Chipotle where I walked in with my order submitted past the come-by time, and somebody who got in the stand-by line after me got his burrito before me. They need to do what they can to give food past the comeback time absolute priority over the stand-by line. I don't think check-ins are necessary at all really. Just give people comeback times based on how many orders are submitted and how long you expect the stand-by line to be and add a bit of a buffer too. Ideally, newly designed stores should have space for the assembly row where the stand-by line people ask for their orders in person, and a station in the back where employees are dedicated to making call in and catering orders. I absolutely think that online ordering should overtake stand-by lines for theme parks, movie theaters, sports stadiums etc. If not through a phone, then through touch screens.

I'm surprised I haven't seen more love for Maverick and Steel Vengeance. Maybe a bunch of the posters here are Europe oriented and can't get out there? Not only are they in the same park, but they're right next to each other as well. Just a match made in heaven.

I recently visited both parks literally back to back. Went to Carowinds on Friday and Saturday, then SFOG on Sunday and Monday. You said you wanted honest thoughts... SFOG is nice and definitely better than other SF parks, but I still think Carowinds is a vastly better park. It's more than just rides: Cedar Fair parks are just more well-run. The food lines are actually manageable, food service is always good and efficient, the food itself is better (ya'll have Harmony Hall!). Operations are better at Carowinds. You can pretty much expect all coasters to be running at Carowinds any day throughout the summer. I greatly prefer Carowinds and honestly almost every other Cedar Fair park to SFOG, expect maybe Dorney or CGA. However, I do think SFOG's ride line-up is more well-rounded. At Carowinds, there is a pretty large drop off after the "big 4." There are several bad coasters at Carowinds: Hurler, Vortex, Nighthawk, Cyclone... they're all mediocre-to-bad coasters. At SFOG, I don't think there is a bad coaster in the park. I enjoyed all of them and they have some excellent "underdogs" like Mind Bender, DDD, and Blue Hawk (I'm sure you read my post above). There are some slight advantages to SFOG, but overall I would much rather visit Carowinds again. It's just a less frustrating experience. Six Flags does some things well, but a lot of their operations and services just make you roll your eyes and say "I wish I were at Carowinds" lol. Sorry if that seemed negative. You asked for honest. I really do like both parks, but Carowinds is just so much less stressful to visit. And, well, Fury. Yeah. Fury... Luckily the parks aren't *that* far from each other! (at least from the perspective of us west-coast people) No i appreciate it, It does help And you could also argue that as coaster enthusiasts, all that really matters is the top 3-4 anyway. It would be awesome if there were parks out there that had 8-9 top tier coasters outside of CP and SFMM, but for the most part, if you're lucky, its a few awesome coasters, with a bunch of kiddie coasters, aging older generation coasters, and coasters that missed the mark. And as an enthusiast, you can still make a great day out of it by collecting all the credits, and focusing on getting re-rides on the top tier coasters (and checking out the quality flats, flume, drop towers, shows, and other stuff if you wish). If you do all that, you probably don't have a lot o f time to get re-rides in on a park full top tier coasters. And once you go back to parks, at least I usually focus on the top 3-4, and maybe occasionally ride the lower tier stuff again. So its fair to give Carowinds the edge if its top 4 stacks up with SFOG and the experience is obviously superior. Its been years since I've been to Carowinds, but I just finished up with a trip to SFOG this weekend. The ride list itself is actually pretty good and under the radar. Pretty well balanced and tons to do. But it does have that Six Flags ickiness feel to it. If you don't buy the Flash and you go on a Saturday or otherwise crowded day, you're looking at some pretty long lines to get on anything as the Flash takes up a lot of the capacity. But if you do buy the Flash and nobody goes, its worthless, as it only gets you up to the station, and the row lines get out of control. The employees just lack urgency and professionalism overall. The rides were constantly breaking down (one day I think every ride broke down at least once) and many of the issues were probably due to the employees not knowing how to operate the control panel. The food lines were out of control, and the one employee who would dish out food would just disappear unexpectedly. And they have that absurd bottle policy, where to get the free soda that you paid for with your pass, you need to lug around that comically oversized bottle the whole day, and climb over people to put it to the side every ride. I gave up and preferred being able to hawk empty seats to the soda. So to get ice water, you have to wait in line for a tiny cup. All in all, I do enjoy the coasters there a lot. I just feel like when you go you're putting up with a cheap, Spirit Airlines type of experience for it. I completely agree that while CF doesn't necessarily have better rides than SF, it just feels more luxurious and you get a Delta or Jet Blue experience.

I disagree. I see it the same as I would see a 70 year old person, even though they don't retain much from when they were younger I still respect the age. If they completely took a wooden coaster and rebuilt it it would be different, but since the wood is replaced organically over time the age is notable. Yeah, I think that the scarcity is what gives it its value. There's nothing inherently better or more fun about it, but when almost every coaster is 30 years or younger, if somehow what if the few coasters from that era beat the odds and made it this long, that's something special and interesting. Its why people like collecting toys, coins, and memorabilia with defects or quirks -- they're just different, interesting, and rare.

All of that plus the faucets don't come out far enough so you have to like touch the sink to even get the water on your hands. Definitely weird. With all of the enthusiasm over new bathrooms, the Golden Tickets definitely need to add abundance and quality of bathrooms as a new annual award.

Hahaha. Imagine the horror of the other guests when you brought a camera into the bathroom stall and started filming.

Maybe I'm just used to Asian parks but I've been to so many parks where you don't get a choice of row and the fact people react like this in a hobby that's for fun is just weird to me. Yes, some seats are better but it's not enough for me to fly off the handle and let it wind me up this much. I've done trips where I might not go to those parks again or for a long while waited for almost an hour for Hair Raiser at Ocean Park (single rider line was closed) and probably the same for Draken at Gyeongju World and both times the staff would assign every-one to keep the line moving. Sure I had a place I wanted to sit but at the end of the day that's the person (probably with orders from higher-ups) to keep the line moving and get as many people through as possible. It’s not enough to ruin my ride or day at the park to still be upset by the time I get home and am writing on TPR And people forget that its all a zero sum game when you pick seats. If you wait longer for the front or back, it means another person won't get that seat, or will have to wait an insane time just to get a crack at it. Assigning seats leaves it up to chance and fate. Everyone gets an equal crack at the preferred seats, but nobody has to wait an insane time just for it. It pisses me off when I see a coaster that's a walk-on running empty seats, but the front row as a 5 train line. The policy should at minimum be that all seats get filled up before front row requests are taken. Ultimately, its actually not hard to just take requests for the front. Most rides that use grouper and keep their row lines clean will keep extra queuing space for the front, and take front requests. Usually its only the front or back people care about. They don't care about row 3 vs. row 4.

One thing that hasn't been discussed is the new ride as a marketing technique and a chance to make your park fun, interesting, and relevant. If you're putting as much or nearly as much into maintaining older rides as you would be by constructing completely new rides, isn't it better to put the money into rides that you can market as new? And I think that not only do you get the attendance bump and sparked interest from a new ride, but you get people who want to get on the old rides before they're scrap metal if you announce them in time. I think in general, you need to create a sense of urgency with people. If you keep the same rides around forever, and never build new sense, you give the ambivalent GP in your home market absolutely no reason to go more than once every five years. The rides they love will always be there when they want them, and there's nothing new that they haven't ridden 100 times already. But people will always line up first thing for a newer ride that they haven't been on, and if they know that rides have real expiration dates they'll make sure to get on them when they can, as they might not be around again. Its funny that the only time I've been to Kennywood is the last year of Steel Phantom, and the first year of Phantom's Revenge. That's a quirky example, and its not exactly a home park, but it does illustrate how changes and urgency can be good for attendance.

Interesting. I wonder if this means that they'll start having early ERT everyday for high level passholders and hotel guests then. I know that they do Early Entry at some parks for members, but they don't really get on the rides earlier.

I don't know, I think that Volcano was a smashing success for KD. It was the most popular coaster at KD for about 17 out of its 20 year existence (maybe taking a backseat to Hypersonic for three of those years). It was always in more demand than i305, and no ride could ever steal its thunder. So I'd say that it got a proper return on investment and then some.

I was there when King's Island was running three trains on everything with three trains, but they were double stacking on all of those coasters too. In my mind, if you're going to double stack (or even heavily single stacking) just do two trains. When you double stack, you don't increase your throughput with the extra train, and you just sit there watching two dispatches in front of you unable to move. I'd rather KI run two trains unless they can figure out how to hit interval regularly.

That's what I was looking for, thank you very much! Be mindful that you'll need to get the 4-park option (after selecting a pass level) as they no longer sell the SWO/BGT only combo any longer. The only way you could keep that combo is if you have had it on EZpay before Oct 2018 and keep it as is (passes paid using EZPay don't expire unless you cancel or upgrade). The cost is about the same (at least right now) for the four-park Silver pass as it was for the previous setup's two-park pass, or about $240-ish. Being a local and not caring about preferred parking, the Silver pass is the one I'll be getting when I renew here in a few months. But the best perk that they offer out of any pass is the Platinum re-rides. This is good for the entire length of the pass and they can't deny you. They apply to almost all of the major coasters. You wait your turn in line. And you get two free laps for the price of one. The best part is the confused and angry GP when you refuse to get up and the ride ops have to enforce your re-ride.

I would not be OK with riding that. I've ridden it too many times to count when its a walk-on. I would not be OK with waiting a long time to ride Mean Streak unless I needed the credit. At Cedar Point, I try to buy to the FL+ to get my production on Steel Vengeance. Any more negativity or trying to poke holes in my logic guys? I guess I'm just a little surprised at how people don't try to factor in ratio of wait time to ride length.

In what world is "generally not longer than 45 minutes" a good thing? 45 minutes is a very, very long line IMO. I gameplan to avoid those types of waits LOL. Put this in perspective. We throw around 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, etc. from the safety of our computers without thinking about them. I like to think of length of wait compared to the length of ride. I generally am not thrilled about waiting for longer than the length of the ride itself if it can be avoided. That's I think what parks should be shooting for. When its a two minute ride, and you're waiting 45 minutes, you're talking about waiting 22.5x the ride itself. By that point, my mind has been turned into jelly, and its hard for me to actually enjoy the ride that is over in a blink of an eye. If I'm paying to go to a park, I kind of like to ride rides again and again, and not wait in line personally.

Wooden wild mouses are either extinct, or endangered. And I think that they used to be commonplace across the country. It was funny too how they were a staple of RCT but nobody could ever find one! Virginia Reels and side friction coasters are examples of other coasters that used to be the gold standard that are either endangered or extinct. And, big staples of RCT as well.

Any thoughts on the Flash Pass for this park? What are the crowd levels like for Tuesdays in June? What do the merge points look like? Do you just go through the exit, or do you have to wait for row lines with the stand-by people? Thanks for the help.

OK, thanks for the advice. If they don't keep their station waits clean, then the priority passes get pretty worthless unless the park is very, very crowded.

I completely misread the post. I must have missed my morning coffee that morning. My bad.That's on me.

Anybody who thinks that a family who lives in Kentucky is basing their trip to Kentucky Kingdom on what is going on up in Canada just doesn't understand how our amusement park industry works. Disney and Universal can affect families decisions across the country potentially, but typically, for the other parks -- unless you're an enthusiast -- you tend to stick to the parks in a 100 mile radius or less. You won't necessarily get in a plane to go to a park because it has a coaster better than the one at your home park.