coasterferg

Maybe the first RMC single rail coaster???

Cool report! I always liked, or wanted to like Indiana Beach. A cool park with a cool setting but operationally wise has been a let down. I've been to the park twice and both time Lost Coaster wasn't operating, along with a slew of other flat rides. I think they've been having some troubles. Also, I think Cornball Express got neutered. I went to Indiana Beach in 2006 and loved Cornball, the back seat had awesome ejector airtime. Then I went again this past summer and was quite disappointed, it was nothing like it was. I think maybe they got rid of the last car of the train(?) but I can't remember. You described its current state well as a coaster that wasn't bad, wasn't great, just sort of "meh". I used to be a lot better.

My cousin and I have made a couple large roller coaster road trips over the past few years and this year is no different. In June we are planning to hit many of the same parks you are by traveling from the central plains to South Carolina and back. A lot of people have already posted some good tips, here are a few more I would like to emphasize: 1. Once you have calculated your final cost, add 10-15%. There will always be some things comes up or some things that you decide to splurge on. 2. Don't book your hotel until the day of. Many times, especially if you buy line-skippers, you may find you are ready to leave a park sooner than you planned. This has happened to me several times, where we were planning on staying at a park until the evening or closing, only to find we had done everything we wanted and then some by the end of the afternoon. If this happens, you may be willing to drive further and closer to the next park for the following day. 3. Related to above, use hotels.com. As others have mentioned you get the 11th night free or reduced and they have an easy to use app. HOWEVER, if you do this, especially if it is the weekend, don't wait until too late in the evening to book your rooms, as they will fill up. 4. If you are able, try to find out where NOT to stay in the big cities. A couple of times we booked a hotel that ended up being in REALLY shady areas. If you stay near interstates though you should be fine. 5. Even if you can't bring in outside food and beverages, parks will let you bring in a empty plastic bottle that you can then fill up at the drinking fountains. This has become a staple of our trips. 6. Always have cash on you for tolls as they often don't take credit cards. We once got hit a toll in Pennsylvania that was something like $10.50, and all we had on us was $9.75, seriously. Here are the maps of the my two big road trips, one we took 2 years ago and the one we are planning for this June: This was our "Lake Eirie Trip". We hit up Kennywood, Conneaut Lake, Waldameer, Martin's Fantasy Island, Darien Lake, Marineland, Canada's Wonderland and finally Cedar Point. This is our "Southest Trip" we are planning for this June. It include Adventureland, Indiana Beach, King's Island, Coney Island, Kentucky Kingdom, Dollywood, Carowinds, Beech Bend, Holidayworld and SF St. Louis

Why do all these new amusement park building games keep wanting to force silly themes on us for everything? When they do this, that is when the games start to look cartoony and unrealistic. Everyone loved the original RCT1 and RCT2, because the rides looked like things you see in real life. The shops were a little iffy but even then you could hide them in custom buildings if needed. It started to go downhill on the add-ons for RCT2. I don't want coaster trains shaped like seals or bullet trains, a giant spider on the side of a ferris wheel, or a scrambler shaped like dinasour eggs. Just make the rides look NORMAL, please! I'm still holding out hope but if they are going to insist on themes they better add a "2014 real life" theme or something...

I know this is really nerdy and I do it probably 90% of the time I am driving... When I am driving and I push on the brakes I make old fiction break "ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk" sounds while slow down to a stop. And then right when I let off the break to idle forward I make the "PSHSSSHHHHHHHHH" hiss of the brakes releasing... It annoys the crap out of my friends...

Anybody planning on doing the Worlds of Fun event? I haven't joined yet, but I think I probably will. Just need to adjust some plans I had already made for that weekend and I will be good to go.

"Patricio Mekis was a mayor of Santiago who championed large public infrastructure projects, including Fantasilandia. He died at 50 in 1979 when the balcony collapsed at his summer home." A little ironic, dontcha think?

Cool, I appreciate all the responses and help. I don't think I'll make it for any holiday events, it's just too busy at that time back here at home. I kinda think the best time I'll be able to go is in early to mid-November when it should still be fairly warm, so hopefully I'll still get my Outlaw Run credit in this year!

Question for you SDC experts... I'm trying to get to SDC yet this year but it's not looking like September or October will work for me. I see the park is open every weekend all the way through the holidays, my question is, does SDC continue to operate the coasters and rides that late in the year as well? Or is more of a holiday-in-the-park, look at the lights type of thing only? Any input is appreciated! THANKS!

Reading this was very disturbing because just got back from almost the exact same trip. I too did Kennywood, Conneaut and Waldameer last weekend. In fact, I know I saw you guys at Waldameer because I remember the guy in the grey Goliath shirt and I also saw Waldo! My cousin and I got 5 rides on Ravine Flyer II before we headed to Martin's Fantasy Island, Darien Lake, Marineland, Canada's Wonderland and back to Cedar Point. It was my first time to all these parks and I had a blast, I'm glad you did too. In particular the last car of Blue Streak and Ravine Flyer II were freakin' awesome.

I went to Worlds of Fun this last Saturday and the nice weather and Halloween season made the park INSANELY BUSY. WOF actually ran out of parking, all the lots as well as the Ocean's of fun lots filled up. For those of you that know WOF's layout, you know there is a big field between the Patriot and the access road to enter the park. The KC police brought in temporary lights and were parking people out in that field! It was NUTZ! Obviously with the huge crowds there were huge lines. We didn't even attempt a haunted house as we heard the lines were upwards of 3 hours. Sadly, we only did the 3 majors, Prowler, Patriot and Mamba once and that was enough for us, there were just to many people. The lines for all the coasters except the Mamba extended well beyond the queues. On that note, however, I have to give major kudos to the Mamba ride crew. Even though the line was 100% full, they were running 3 trains and dispatching them at a very quick rate. The line only took 30 minutes, so that was awesome. Congrats to Worlds of Fun, though. They had to have made some serious bank that night. Next year I will have to hope for crappy weather to keep the crowds at bay since the Halloween Haunt seems to have grown exponentially over the last couple of years.

Steel: New Texas Giant. Call me a blasphemer, but I really think it had better airtime (an more comfortable) than Skyrush, but it was close. New Texas Giant was like a religious experience for me. Wood: Front seat of Pheonix. When me and my buddy agreed to hold our hands up the entire ride while in the front seat it was the only time I was actually a little afraid I would to fly out of the car! AWESOME! And we got to ride it in the rain, so it was probably even a little faster than normal!

Now some better photos (I think) from Hersheypark... ewwww... You can get some great shots of the Hollow from Skyrush's station... Let's give Trailblazer some love... Ok that's enough Hersheypark. Sorry if I got a little picture posty...

I just got back from a 3-day coaster adventure to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was my first trip to this part of the country and over those 3 days we hit up Great Adventure, Hersheypark, Dorney Park and Knoebels. Since this is a well traveled and often photographed part of the coaster world, I'm not going to post a report, but I thought I'd share some photos. I'm by no means a great photographer, but I'm definitely getting better as I get older. The Great Adventure pictures are pretty generic, but I think I got some good ones at Hersheypark. Let's start with Great Adventure. Enjoy

^^ I was also at HP on Monday, June 11 and immediately went back and did Fahrenheit, Storm Runner and others in that area right after the gates opened. I bet we probably even saw each other! I also got walk-on front and back seat rides of Fahrenheit and two quick rides on Storm Runner. Another agreement on the Skyrush restraints. My friend and I both got 3 rides in the last row, in a middle and both wing seats, and one ride toward the front and this coaster was crazy/awesome! HP very much knows about the restraint "problem". When we were loading, the station attendant even told us "don't push your lapbar down too tight or else it will hurt". Problem is, Skyrush pulls enough forces at the bottom of the first hill that the lapbars tighten up, so there is nothing you can do about the noodles being too tight for most of the ride. Unlike conventional ratchet restraints, Skyrush's hydraulic restraint can still get tighter as the ride goes, much like a car seatbelt. Perhaps they could find a way to "lock" the noodles once every one is loaded and set in their positions to keep the lapbar from pushing further down due to the G-forces, it wouldn't be so bad?. Also, after reading the trip reports in this thread from the past few weeks, I was all prepared for a disappointing experience as a whole at the park. Maybe HP managers read this thread and put a fire under the workers' asses, because I didn't think at all that the ride attendants were slow, lazy, or uninterested. Very often the attendants were hurrying to check restraints and I thought were getting the trains out as fast as they possibly could. They were also letting people on the trains before everyone had exited the loading platform. Obviously they cant do this on Skyrush due the same side loading, which is a real capacity killer for it. Hopefully HP corrects this. I stayed at the park from opening to close and all-in-all I got 30 total coaster rides at HP last Monday, including on 5 rides on Storm Runner, 4 rides each on Skyrush and Great Bear and 3 on Fahrenheit, all without the Fast Lane. It was a great first visit to Hersheypark! I just got home from a 3 day Great Adventure - HersheyPark - Dorney Park/Knoebels vacation and I'd say I had the best time at Hershey!

I'm going to Hersheypark for the first time on Tuesday, June 12. Do you guys think I will need to buy a Fast Track ticket on a Tuesday? It's been FOREVER since I've been to any park on a weekday... Just looking for your thoughts, THANKS!

Screamscape is rumoring Dinosaurs Alive... BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It would probably take something majorly controversial for me to boycott a park. I think It's OK to disagree to parent company values to a certain extent, just as it's perfectly OK to disagree with a friend or other people. It's only when someone takes a hardline stance and tries to be argumentative or confrontational that I would avoid them. As an quick and dirty example, there are some parks that obviously have a somewhat Christian background (Silver Dollar City, Dollywood), but as long as those parks don't plaster billboards throughout the park condemning athiests, muslims or whomever or try to convert people in the loading stations, I don't think there's any reason why non-Christians should boycott. Obviously this is a rather tame example, so take it for what it's worth. For the most part I try to follow the philosophy of live and let live, but it would depend on the severity of the controversy.

Hey everybody! Someone on Fark.com posted this link to an awesome roller coaster show made in 1981. It features some bad-ass POV footage of the original Mr. Twister at Elitch Gardens as well as showcasing some other coasters that still exist and some that have moved on since the early 80's. And a bonus, it's narrated by none other than the king of classic horror, Vincent Price! I apologize if this is a repost, I did a quick search for this video on these forums and didn't see anything. Enjoy!

What does everybody think of the Fast Track punch card thingy? I can't say I'm too impressed. You only get to jump to the front of the line ONCE for the rides on the card. From a picture cited on Screamscape the cards have Stormrunner, Sidewinder, Wildcat, Wild Mouse, Lightning Racer, Comet, Great Bear, and TrailBlazer. I'll probably buy when I go in June just becuause it will be a rare trip for me, but for something that costs about the same as a Six Flags Q-bot yet you can only ride each ride once, the punch card seems pretty crappy...

Oh poot...I was totally excited to do this at Worlds of Fun until I realized this is the one weekend of the year I already booked a vacation for . Oh well, I'll just donate and hope we do it again next year!

Quick question: Does Hersheypark have a Lo-Q or flashpass thingamajiggger?

I just booked my first ever trip to Pennsylvania in early June! I'll be hitting up Knoebels, Dorney Park and Hersheypark, can't wait! Otherwise I'll probably go to Worlds of Fun, Six Flags over Texas and hopefully Magic Springs.

I thought Legend at Arnold's Park, but after checking RCDB it's Giant Dipper at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.