texcoaster

^^ the big monitor on top was so when they were doing in-station interviews, the people on cam had a monitor big enough to look at and ensure that they remained in frame. The object to the left of the cam in the other pic is an LED light. The first live shots were at 5am and it was still pitch black. The trains looked really cool zipping around in the dark with the lights on.

Be aware, folks.... when the GP is in the park, you will be stapled. There are signs everywhere that say the bar must touch your leg and if you attempt to create space between your leg and the bar, you will be ejected from the park. When the replacement crew came in with the onslaught of contest winners and other non-enthusiast riders, those bars were getting pushed down pretty hard. During ERT they were much more relaxed about it. Just one more reason to go to CoasterCon or sign up for Giant Bash so you get your tasty ERT airtime!

Full ride view from a wood coaster purist who had TxGiant as his #1 coaster for many years. Oh, and spoiler alerts abound. Honestly, the first ride was in row three and was rather sluggish. I thought "overhyped" would be the key word of the day... But no. The ride just got better and better as the day went on and once I rode in the back, I was hooked.. The station is very nice with lots of fun theming. Oddly, there is chevy theming everywhere even though the trains are Caddys. The trains are nice, comfy, suitable for larger riders, and the windows were not even noticed once the ride started. There is a car front sticking out of the wall that has headlights and honks it's horn when a train leaves the station. There is also a "chicken coop" for scared non-riders that makes a loud clucking noise when someone enters it. The train dispatches and rounds a flat turn to engage the lift chain. No lurching at all as it engages. The trip up is smooth and fast. At the top, the sign still says "wait, let's discuss this" but Wile E. Coyote is now a 3D figure clutching the rail, not just a painted image. A US and Texas flag fly on either side, plus a cow skull and another small sign that says "it's all downhill from here." The drop that follows might be my fave first drop, ever. Whatever conversation you were having on the lift will STOP and you'll need to gasp. If you're in the front of the train, you will be offered a bit of float and a track that never seems to quit curving inward. If you're in the back, you'll be catapulted out of your seat, then dragged to the depths of hell. I expected it to be good. I didn't expect it to be THIS good... The double-up is thigh-crushing ejector air followed by a rise into the first over bank. It glides through the turn effortlessly and quickly with very few forces, lateral or otherwise. A decent drop leads to the next over bank, as effortless as the first, but the pullout of this one is a riot of laterals and airtime. That drop is long and deep and leads to the third over bank. Again, fast, smooth, and effortless. Head choppers abound and if you look carefully at the last overhead steel beam, they had to chop out part of it to get enough clearance. Really. Those windows are on the trains for a reason, folks, and that's the first of many. Diving out of that, you can see the impossibly twisted entrance to the midcourse brake... And while you're staring at it, you begin the rise up and then the train gets pulled right out from under you. Violently. It's crazy good and after 30 rides, my thighs were beginning to stage a revolt against the thought of doing it again. The midcourse brake run was running full-out OPEN and I was told that's the plan for normal operation, too. Sweeeeet. The dive out of the midcourse is as good as it was on the old Giant in the good days. Maybe better. It's at this point that the propane cannon is supposed to go off, but it wasn't on today. The next hill is a brain trick... Not much action unless you are near the front of the train, and even then it's just a mild floater. Stop now and consider: when it is noteworthy to mention in a ride report that a particular hill does NOT offer extreme airtime, that should tell you something about the rest of the hills. After this little trick of fooling you into thinking the airtime show is over, the train dives through the lift structure and you will be too busy screaming about your bruised thighs to notice that everything in every one of your pockets is now airborne. The "no loose articles" policy is NEEDED. Just sayin'. Swoop turn, another airtime hill (this time with banking) and swoop under the lift. Fun, but nothing spectacular. The next hop and s-shaped bunny hop don't offer anything special, but those on the right side of the train are going to be VERY glad there are windows on the train. The train skims the track that suddenly appears on the right side of the train so closely, i'd bet that you could stick your head out (I said HEAD, not HAND) and hit it if not for those windows. Geezus. First tunnel coming up. This one is themed like a mine entrance and has a great head chopper with airtime before plunging into the dark. Some lights between the rails at the bottom of the drop add interest, then it's outside again and immediately into a second tunnel. This one says "honky tonk" and has colored rope lights on the ceiling, with bunny hops. Nice. The bit between tunnels 2&3 is the only dead spot on the ride, but that was also true of the original (sans tunnels). The final. Tunnel says "adios" and includes in-the-dark airtime. Two more ejector bunnies and you're on the final brake run. If you loved the old Giant, it will take a couple of rides before you warm up to this one. It is a TOTALLY new experience, similar to the previous one in name only. Love it for what it IS rather than what it WAS and you'll discover a totally unique, tons-o-fun airtime monster that can hold its own against anything else.

Sitting in the red train..... This ride seems longer. (kidding) A sensor malfunction has us stuck on the brake run. Glad for the covering over it, so we're staying dry! Twelve rides so far.

Five rides in so far. One in row 3, one middle, 3 in back. First impression (row 3)... Smoothest ride EVER, lots of air, very little intensity. Fun, but kinda meh. Middle was significantly better. Back seat: ZOMG. Full trip report later.

With such an early start time, there's a good chance that my first-ever ride on it will be in the dark. Wicked.

It must be in stages, then. My email said 4:15am. I get off work around 8:30pm and I'm 4.5 hours away. No sleep for me!

I still haven't found a link to the commercial, but this is the best-quality POV footage I've seen so far:

^There is a detailed ride review on page 244 of this thread

I am totally planning on including all the coasters I've ridden up until the time that I have filled at the ballot. I just simply cannot be bothered to remember which ones I rode prior to Dec 31st and which ones I rode after. I mean, for example, I may have very well ridden Tatsu in 2011, but didn't in 2010. F**k if I know! But I'm including it! I think that if the coaster is on the ballot, then it's fair game. You would still include it in your rankings, just not list that you rode it "this year" (2010).

Tix bought.

Texas rainbow... all the way...woooooaaaaahhhhh.... it's so bright, so intense.... what does it mean?

Loving how quiet the trains are until they get to a joint in the track: chumpchumpchumpchump! Must be hitting the bolts or somthing. It looks smoooooooooooooooooooooooth.

^I usually hang out by the Freeze Frame photo area for a couple minutes after I ride to look at the reactions of folks in the pics, especially if I've been chatting with folks in line.

^I have been on the ride many times. The restraints keep you well back in the seat and the sides of the car are HIGH. If something failed badly enough for the man to have fallen out without any sort of rider responsibility, then it would've been really major. Even if the lap restraint hadn't been put down at all, leaving the man completely free in his seat, he'd have still stayed in the car if he was in the proper riding position. From my understanding, he fell out on a turn, so that even rules out airtime as a cause. Dude had to be outside the restraint and standing up enough to raise his center of gravity higher than the side of the car. It's still speculation, but I'll go ahead and claim that there is no way he wasn't at least partly at fault here.

Let's see... rodeo time, guy in his 40's falls out of a coaster that gets inspected afterward and found to be in working order. Whatcha wanna bet alcohol was involved?

When I'm not riding coasters, I direct a handbell choir at my church. I also write the arrangements for a lot of the stuff we play. We decided to have some fun and work up "Bohemian Rhapsody" for a solo we played at a festival recently. After all the work it took to be able to play it, we didn't want the effort to be wasted... so we made a video. Enjoy.

Back up a bit... the ORIGINAL version was freaking AWESOME. The later version, after the addition of trims, the removal of the double-up, and many years of wear and tear, was nearly unridable.

Jake... how does the flying carpet compare to the original version? I'm guessing that it's not quite as wild as before, since you didn't specifically mention it in your detailed ride report. Does it at least finish things up with a bang, even if maybe not being the best part of the ride anymore?

There are good points and bad points to Flash Pass, but one of the reasons that I hate them is that I can't tell how long the line will be (if I don't have a Flash Pass). If there's no FP on a ride, I can look at the length of the queue and think, "OK, that's about a half hour, I'll ride it," or "that's over an hour, I'll do it another time." If FP is available for that ride, I may think that the queue will be a half hour, but by the time all the FP folks filter in at the front of the line, the wait has doubled (or worse, depending on the park's handling of FP).

There are two other factors at work here: [1] Shockwave is at the end of a LONG dead-end walk, so it's not "on the way" to any other major rides. Most of the folks have ridden it lots of times since it's one of the oldest coasters. [2] Runaway Mountain is air-conditioned. This puts it in the same category with water rides that aren't that great but that have 2 hr lines in the heat of summer.

The map confirms that there is no Flash Pass available for NTG... but then, it also shows a second helix on the layout.

maybe the lock boxes are only mandatory for republicans.

^ I don't think anyone said there was a change in the loose article policy, only that they could now be left in the station instead of mandatory lockers. I'm guessing the insurance companies dictate the "loose articles on ride" policies, anyway.

Not EVERY coaster's theming is a waste of money, but I think most are. The theming really works when [1] it is an immersive experience that is key to the ride and [2] when the ride is designed around utilizing the theming for best effect. Rock N Roller Coaster is a good example, as is Chaos/ Revolution (well, the FIRST version of Chaos, anyway). The main thing about theming is that if the rider doesn't "get it" then it's wasted. Everyone can understand the story behind Rock N Roller and the "high speed ride through Hollywood to get to the theater" is well done. I seriously doubt that anyone gets (or cares about) the cutouts or flame cannons on Bizarro. Likewise X2. (I'll give props for the audio on X2 going up the lift, but the rest of it is pointless) Bad theming can actually detract from a good ride experience. I hate to keep going back to Bizarro, but... you get my drift. Same with Terminator Salvation: I didn't see the movie, I couldn't care less about the movie, and I don't want to be forced to watch the preshow movie every time I ride. A couple of rides went all out with queue line theming but then the ride itself fails to keep the theme going. Mr Freeze is this way, with an elaborate station, music, etc... then you're blasted out into the sunlight and there's the freeway and the Mine Train and Batman and a bunch of midway games (SFOT version). WTF? So yeah, if theming is done right and incorporated into the ride, it can be effective. But everything I've seen about NTG so far leads me to believe that it's a good enough ride that most folks aren't going to notice the flame cannons, let alone figure out why they're there.