texcoaster

All of the fanboys of a certain coaster in Texas just died a little inside. You have much to learn. I seriously doubt that any of the "Texas Fanboys" care which of TGG's coasters Robb prefers. They only get upset when some idiot attempts to tell them that THEY didn't really like it that much, either, and are over-hyping it due to local bias. You know, local bias, like a multi-page thread about them turning on some waterfall at SFMM, or whining to the management about the removal of a tilt-a-whirl over and over in a TPR video.... See?

The media day was a blast, even though it was TAKS Appreciation Day (the Texas standardized school test) and there were literally 10,000 students in the park. After riding THBS multiple times, Guru and I headed to Freeze (looooooong line) and decided against it. Went to Batman, saw the line, and said "nah." Wanted to try out the new trackwork on Judge, but that whole section of the park was super-crowded, so we headed for Giant. An hour and 20 minutes later, we were in the front seat. We could see that the train is jackhammering pretty badly from the queue line, so we made sure to ride the front. Best ride I've had on Giant in YEARS. It was flying through the course and the front was fairly smooth. The finale rocked like the old days. After that, we waited 1:15 for Titan, which was also rocking pretty hard. Gone was that stop-n-go business on the midcourse, just a bit of a slowdown and off we went. Made a big difference in the centrifuge, and the G's were insane. Luckily, my boyfriend was a fighter pilot and had taught us the secret to handling sustained G-forces like that. It was a good day.

Talking with the Gravity Group guys (well, two of them, anyway), it was mentioned that the original design sat on a larger piece of land. The city and their build-line restrictions caused that original design to be modified, and most of what changed was the bottom of the first drop, the ground-level turn, and the zig-zag. I must admit that when I saw the construction going up and I saw that section of track, my first thought was "that doesn't look like the drawings I've seen" and my second thought was "holy shizz, that's INSANE!" It turns out that I was pretty much right on both counts. It was different than the original drawings showed, and it was insane. In fact, I've often referred to the drop, turn, zig-zag, and the next two big turns as "the most intense 15 seconds of any wooden coaster running today." After the first major reprofiling, that statement probably wasn't true, as the Bullet lost a lot of its "teeth". I remember riding with Almightyfire on her first post-work ride and she kept saying "oh, NOOOO, NOOO" in remorse of the loss of the once-insane trackage. In fact, she was pretty pissed. Now, with even more reprofiling, it may be that the section will be even tamer than before. It sounds like it will HAVE to be, if they want it to run reliably for more than a few months. But you know what? If (and this is a big IF) it causes the ride that comes after that section to run like it was designed to run, then I'll just deal with it. Unless you were on one of the infamous "rain rides" at the very end of opening night, you probably have never experienced the back two-thirds of the ride being run at its intended speed. It has run that fast a time or two since (almost always right after a rain), but it's rare. Case in point: when rain clouds come, employees of the boardwalk start planning their breaks. If rain falls, they go on break and head right for the Bullet... and so does the management. They all want to get in a rain ride, even if it's not quite as wild as those on opening night, it's still a zillion times better than a regular ride. Folks, the back side of that ride, at designed speeds, is WICKED. It's actually as good as the old pre-mod zig-zag in terms of intensity and mayhem. There is airtime, there are laterals, there are sick directional changes, and it hits the brake run with a pop of ejector air... not with the "I think I can, I think I can" crawl that barely gets the back car into the brakes when it's running dry. This is a Jeckyll and Hyde coaster if there ever was one. So if they finally ever get that first bit fixed, whatever they might have to change to do it, and it makes the last 2/3 of the ride the bomb, then I'm good with that. I still have my memories of when it had the most intense 15 seconds of any wood coaster on earth.

So the cars.... are they supposed to be MINI Clubmans or what?

Already on the third page of comments and nobody has yet pointed out that the story of the guy who plunged from the 14th floor window was posted by someone named DROP-OUT.

Is this the new politically-correct way of saying "gay"?

I feel that way about the Surfenburg section (which I call the chlorine area). The rides in that part are more standard, waterpark-like rides with recycled chlorinated water, and not much charm. Hi-tech rides, yeah, but so what? I much prefer the older section with the river water in the chutes, the insanely-long tube flumes (do they still have that one that takes about half an hour to get to the end?), and the million-gallon hot tub with the swim-up bar.

Heh... I plan to go to over 30 countries for that reason. But of course, there will be SOME (not a lot, but some) normal stuff in those trips. ... you think that someone who has been on over 70 roller coasters is a good "start" for them. (True story regarding myself, an ACEr said that to me at the 2007 Lake Compounce event - although I'm now at 84, and I should get my #100 at the TPR Canada's Wonderland event.) ... you remember every single roller coaster that you have been on since you were four years old. (True story regarding myself.) Yep. What's even worse is when you go BACK to a country just to RE-ride the coasters.

When you can pick Ron Toomer out of a crowd of people, even though it had been more than 10 years since you watched that video of him bending coat hangers, and you act like a groupie who just met a rock star. When you skip several exhibits at IAAPA (hell, if you even WENT to IAAPA) in favor of getting to have a short conversation and picture with Walter Bolliger. You take off work to attend media day for Sea World's "Great White" so you can ride it with Claude Mabillard. (That dude is a party in a suit and tie. Loads of fun on a ride!) You have dinner with two of the guys from Gravity Group and spend the entire meal comparing favorite coasters and coaster elements. You carry a counter on your favorite coaster so you won't lose track of how many times you've ridden it. (sad, but true: up to 561 on Boardwalk Bullet now) You have pieces of a defunct coaster next to a framed homage of photos of it.

ROFLMAO! I remember seeing this video (waaaaaaaay before the internet, by the way) and thinking OMG! A stand-up coaster! It was the off-season and Astroworld was closed, so I scraped up some money and a credit card that still had some room left on it and flew out to LA for the weekend. I got to Magic Mountain and had a good time until I asked an employee, "How do I get to ShockWave? I can't find it." The employee said "oh, it's gone. They're moving it to Houston." D'oh!

By following the instructions (crossing legs tightly) you will not allow a channel of water to go between your legs, and thus minimize the chance of a painful wedgie. For sure, you get a wedgie, but its not that bad when compared to someone not following the instructions which, from what I have seen, is extremely painful Matty It's not the wedge factor that kills me on these slides, it's the battering I get from the high-speed water on my back. If I'm the least bit sunburned, I avoid these things like the plague... after getting up at the bottom, my back looks like I just got flogged or something.

Rattler, opening day. They used the freaking opening day of operation as their media day. The train would come in, they would spend five minutes taking the camera mount off the front car, then the next crew would spend ten minutes putting THEIR camera mount on the front car, then the talking-head would have to sit down, adjust her hair, do a take or two of "Here I am on the tallest wooden coaster in the world", then the ride would go. Even though I was right there when the park opened and went right to the Rattler, it took well over three hours to get on it. I heard the line was more than six hours long later that day. Luckily, it was a REALLY good coaster back then! The worst one, though, was when a friend from out of state wanted to ride Ultra Twister at Astroworld. He had been on the other stuff there before, and the primary reason for his trip to the park was UTwist. We got in line, which was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of the queue house (it was new that year). An hour into it, the ride broke down for 30 minutes. Once fixed, it ran for about 30 minutes, then broke again, this time for over an hour. I tried to tell my friend that the ride was OK, but not worth the wait we had already endured, and we were only halfway through the queue. He insisted. They finally got it running again. We got within three cars of getting on it, and it broke again. It was down for another hour, then they ran test cars for nearly 20 minutes. Finally, it opened and we were seated. Locked and loaded, we moved backward about three feet and it broke down again. The mechanics came and got us out of the car and announced that it would close for the rest of the day. I think it was like 5 hours or something that we waited, and never got to finish the ride.

I think you're mistaking "inspection" by the park with "official inspection" by some authority not related to the park. The way I read it, there was some sort of an official inspection 7 days before, but I'm sure the park inspects it each day.

The ride was almost certainly a traveling carnival ride. Neither of the theme parks in S.Africa have one of those, and the background noise almost sounds like the ride is indoors. There is a "Jeepers" type of indoor kiddie park in Johannesburg, but I haven't been there. [edited to add] According to rideaccidents.com, the ride was at the indoor park called Emperor's Palace. Seven people were on the ride, none seriously injured. Interesting to note, looking through the reports on that site... The words that appear in almost all of the reports are : fair, carnival, or [insert non-western country here]. The reports that involve major US, Canadian, or European theme parks are usually very minor (i.e. no deaths, no serious injury) and involve people being stranded when the safety systems kick in during the ride and stop it, or complaints of "ow my neck" when the brakes stop the car too fast. I think there is a lesson to be learned here!

Looking at the rendering of the cars... is anyone else thinking "X-coaster"? I wonder if all this new, never-before-seen technology will create a lot of downtime? It might be a good idea to hold off until it's been open a few months, which would also give you a chance to wait until the Harry Potter section opens at IOA next door.

That's my picture. The ride ran with lapbars, but there were shoulder belts (like auto seatbelts). A better pic showing them is here: http://rcdb.com/ig1481.htm?picture=19 I remember only a few things about the ride: [1] I think there was only one car. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing another car on a transfer track somewhere, though. [2] It took FOREVER to creep over the edge of the drop and finally get released. Very different that Oblivion, where it rolls over, stops, then drops. ToT doesn't stop, it just takes almost a full minute to slowly creep over the edge. You're facing straight down for a long time before you finally drop. [3] Loading/unloading was ungodly slow due to those shoulder belts, which had to be adjusted for each person. I'd say that five min per dispatch was about right (load/ride/unload)

It's not the maturity level so much as the fact that sometimes adults like to do things with ADULTS. They need some time away from kids, in exactly the same way that kids sometimes want time away from the adults and be around folks their own age. I'm just saying that it would be cool if one of the places that adults could go for some "grown-up time" would be the local theme park. It would save money, too! You wouldn't have to schedule the person at each ride who does the height check.

Golden Tix vs Mitch's Poll Mitch's poll is sent out to enthusiasts. These include seasoned travelers who have been on hundreds of coasters, average joes who occasionally get out to places other than their home park, and newbies who don't have enough credits to have a top ten list, but who love their coasters just as much as anyone else. This makes for a nice cross-section of folks who (mostly) vote for the rides that they like to ride. Mitch's tabulation system doesn't favor those rides who get more votes than other rides (hence Eagle's Fortress at #3). Golden Tix ballots are sent mainly to subscribers and former subscribers of Amusement Today. Who subscribes to this? Die-hard coaster buffs and people who are in the industry. Industry folks are probably going to take more than just "how much fun is it" when they rank a ride. Take Magnum, for instance. Yes, it's fun, but is it REALLY still a top 10 ride? In the industry, absolutely. That coaster broke the 200ft barrier, something that was something of a pipe dream in the business. It was a huge, tubular rail steelie WITHOUT loops... another shocker for the time. Shoulder bars? Hell no, it was designed specifically to create woodie-style airtime. Another ground-breaking idea for the time. It put Cedar Point on the map for the WORLD, not just the midwest. It was almost totally responsible for the industry pushing the envelope on coasters in the years that followed. Everyone wanted something to top Magnum. So... ask someone in the industry and they will say YEAH, Magnum is a top 10 coaster, and it always will be... that coaster changed the rules.

Not surprised at all that Paris BTMRR is the highest-rated Vekoma. I am a bit surprised that it ranked as low as it did. I loved that ride! Easily the best ride in the park, IMHO.

Dude, seriously. Did it ever ONCE occur to you that perhaps the two tracks were the cause of the roughness and not the direction the train faced? Yes, the frontward side was rougher than the backward side last year, but it had very little to do with the train direction and everything to do with the condition of the track itself. A couple years after they turned one side around backward, it was exactly the opposite of last year. The front side was smooth and the backward side beat you to a pulp.

It is a little disappointing that there are so many people with so much coaster experience who feel that it would be too difficult to vote and share their experience. I used the "helper" system for the steelie list this year and found it to be even more time consuming than the old-fashioned method. The hardest part for me is remembering what particular model some of the small coasters are and ranking them accordingly. I really don't like grouping the "clones" into one ranking. There are numerous coasters where I like one particular version of a clone quite a bit more than ALL the other versions... and I either have to knock my favorite one down several notches, or I have to rank it where it would go and have everyone look at my list and think "boy, he really likes that type of coaster!" when the truth is that I really don't... Having said that, I COMPLETELY understand why they are grouped, and it's probably better that way... but I don't have to like it!

Got in about 20 rides today. The front half of the ride (with the infamous zig-zag) was hella fun and fast, with a fresh coat of grease on the upper bay turn. After the second big drop, though, it just died. The final turn is heavily banked, and you had to brace yourself to keep from falling over sideways as the train crawled around the turn. There was a time or two when I thought the train would stall out completely on the last hill over the brake run. Still fun, though, and GREAT weather for riding. Here are a couple of pics: Park your car right next to the coaster so it can watch you ride. A cool effect when you point an iPhone cam right at the sun A beautiful day for riding alone!

Well, both ferris wheels would be open. Also, the Bullet. As long as the Bullet is open, I really don't care what else is closed.

What's interesting is that when given the opportunity to RUN the company, lots of you went straight for the financial: what to charge, etc. This is the part that most of us as park enthusiasts know the LEAST about. We can speculate all day long on what would make SF more financially secure, but face it, there are a LOT of things involved in the financial stuff that we all have no clue about. What we DO know more about, however, is what it would take to make the customers happier, since we are currently the customers. Sure, the pricing structure of tickets and food and such are part of that experience, but when I started this thread I was hoping to see more ideas on the OPERATIONAL stuff. Several interesting ideas have surfaced, such as adults-only days, holding won prizes at the gate for pickup, a few variations on fastpass, etc.... Someone mentioned having TVs in the queue. I *HATED* those damn TVs. They often didn't work, and when they did, you couldn't hear them. When they were turned up, everyone in the queue just screamed at each other so they could talk to their friends over the noise of the TV. It was a complete waste of money, it made the queue line experience annoying, and nobody paid attention to them anyway. I'd much rather see them put in some A/C into the queues instead.

Someone's "curfew" idea led me to remember this idea I had awhile back: Have one day per month be "adults only" day, where you had to be at least 21 years old to get in. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that they avoid the parks because they hate being around throngs of teenagers. The crowds are rowdy and obnoxious and the lines are too long. Putting up with the teen crowds is bad enough, but standing in line for two hours in close quarters with them is unbearable. While I personally don't really get bothered by the teen crowd at parks, I could also tell you that I'd pay a little extra to go to a park if I knew that it would be all adults, a smaller crowd, and shorter lines that day.