MoreyMan

This. Everyone complaining online has gotten really old. I get it. People are upset. And I’ll be the first to admit that the water is beautiful and so is the atmosphere around the river (especially the way Haunted Mansion sits). But let’s be realistic here - it’s so much dead space. I’ve been on Tom Sawyer’s Island once and the Liberty Belle probably less than 5 times over 20 years. I bet you the majority is in the same boat. If both were ultra popular and profitable, they’d be staying (emphasis on the profitable part). Change is good. The first rendering was meh but this looks much better. Time for everyone to give it a rest and give the new area a chance.

Here's the new Flashback train confirmation from their Facebook! Also interesting that Canyon Blaster's blue train which last ran in what, 2003? is sitting in the background of this picture.

Bobcat soft opened last night - they were letting people on later in the day and sounds like that will continue for the rest of the weekend. Sheesh, that was a quick test period. The cats have also been mounted to the trains. I’ll be interested to hear what people think of the ride.

Yeah, I was just going to say there’s way too many contributing factors for me to try and guess on what parks will close. I saw a tweet this morning that essentially said “rank them by attendance and close the ones with the lowest” but it doesn’t really work like that. The smaller, say 800,000 guest/year park could very well be making them more money than a larger park that does 2 million guests/year. They’re going to keep parks that make them money, and dump the ones that don’t or are cannabalizing each other. (but as long as they put La Ronde out of its misery, I’m fine with whatever)

Great Escape has their planning board meeting for Bobcat on 10/17. Here's a rendering they submitted. They'll be reusing the Bobsled station, but demolishing the current entrance and queue and relocating them. The queue will now run underneath the Bobcat lift into a new switchback. Reconfigured ramps for the entrance/exit as well. Here's one of the site plans as well. Their submitted documents say there will be lights on the handrails on the lift and drop as well so that will be a nice addition. Increased landscaping too. Hopefully the entrance actually comes close to the rendering - if so, this should look really nice. Seems like it will be a nice addition to the park. One that's long overdue. If anyone wants to peel through all the documents, here's the link: https://laserfiche.queensbury.net/WebLink/browse.aspx?id=785660&dbid=0&repo=TownOfQueensbury

I did notice Musik Express and went straight to google to figure out if I was going crazy. The mostly white color scheme is….something. I guess I didn’t realize you could carry over the ticket cards to new seasons - maybe that’s the move moving forward. I’m only there once a season so that’s good to know. Yeah, that’s just it. I bought the tickets after the 7pm cutoff, I’m sure the thousands of others did too. Ticket booths were consistently busy. Great White and Great Nor’Easter didn’t really have lines when I was riding, but they were both running 2 trains and both trains on both coasters were going out full pretty consistency so I guess they’re making their money lol

Got on Great Nor’Easter this past weekend and the Great White for the first time since I think pre-covid? Gotta say even +/- 6 years after the re-track, Great Nor’Easter ran great. I get it, the SLC’s generally suck, but man I could have done a couple more laps on it. Aside from the one jolt after the in-line twists, still really smooth and fun. Great White really wasn’t bad either. A couple rough patches here and there, but was pretty enjoyable. Sucks they got rid of the evening ride-only wristbands though, because at $16/ride for Great Nor’Easter/Great White, if you’re buying individual tickets, it’s a little crazy. And I have no use for the combo ride/water park package, nor the early bird wristband only valid until 7pm.

I mean, yes it had a 6pm curfew, but the vast majority of its non-operating issues stemmed from maintenance issues and the fact the ride could only run when the the trough was bone dry.

So what’s our money on - the ride sits and rusts (further), or they tear it down and it turns into a fenced off lawn for the next decade? Kidding aside, it was a fun ride when it was open. The braking was painful at times but it was unique. The number of retired, unfilled ride plots continues to grow…. Bobsled, Giant Wheel, Flying Trapeze…

I asked the same exact question to a friend who's an engineer and got this response: "You have three different reactions going on. Compression from the cars coming towards the support, tension from the cars going away, and rotation because the support is so high off the ground. So you add all of them together and you can figure out the resulting force and the direction it's going in, and the support goes opposite of that." He went on to say "The load isn't being transferred to the support. That could be because the support is too stiff or the material isn't strong enough, or they miscalculated the resultant force...if they pick steel with too little carbon in it it becomes brittle and can break like that. Or sometimes the manufacturer adds too much carbon"..."That's something that happens from the compression/decompression of the cars coming across, and the crack comes downward in the direction of the force so that would indicate the load isn't properly transferring." This one's out of my ball park - I know nothing about engineering - hopefully they'll figure it out.

You do realize Great Escape does a full length Fright Fest every year, right? Every weekend in October, along with Oktoberfest starting in September.

If you read archived planning board documents on the Queensbury Town Board website, they go pretty in-depth into what the different traffic level thresholds are, and what the "consequences" are for hitting them. In addition to what you mentioned above, another "consequence" that was mentioned in those documents is that Exit 20 of the Northway would potentially need to be extended/expanded to handle an increased car count. I don't remember if GE would have to contribute to that cost, but it's still an undertaking (and, well, this is the US where we only touch roads when they're literally causing harm to vehicles/people). If I'm ever bored enough to search through the documents again, I'll link them (not that anyone actually cares). But lets be real, if the park can get away with charging $20+ to park, $15 for chicken tenders & fries, etc. and still maintain a decent attendance level with inexpensive additions, then more power to them.

We stopped riding it because it always seemed to be inundated with bees. Can’t tell you how many times we were stopped at the top as they loaded guests at the bottom and got swarmed by bees. On the spokes, in the car, etc. Agreed about not batting an eye. But the Pirate Ship removal? That was a shame.

It appears the Giant Wheel might be one of the 15 rides Six Flags planned to remove chain-wide. Any and all mention of it has been removed from the website, and it’s no longer in the accessibility guide. It was listed as “Temporarily Closed” the whole year before being removed all together. I’ll have to take a ride past the park and see if it’s gone as you can see it’s plot from outside the gates. Oh well, if true, it had great views of the park and mountain landscape but it was a rust bucket and seemed like it was closed often.

Holy crap, $125 is crazy, but that price increase is crazier. Especially taking into account that the 3-pier unlimited rides wristband during a normal summer is just over $60, and you get the Screamin' Swing included. Definitely a tough year for Morey's. Unfortunately not going down to the piers this year but can't wait to get back next year.