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Everything posted by ahecht
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Did TPR get hacked or something?
ahecht replied to Homer's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I didn't think it was anything done to our site. Just to clear things up here, Mozilla was not hacked, nor was Firefox. Drupal, the open source PHP forum package that spreadfirefox.com uses for its forums, was hacked. Anything wierd on this or any other site is completely unrelated. That said, I see nothing odd in any browser. -
Disneylands crazy plans for the 17th ...
ahecht replied to Sir Clinksalot's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Let me tell my story of the crowds. I showed up at 7:15, and the line started at the park side of the tram stop, went all the way down to the far end of the tram stop, doubled back, passed La Brea Bakery, went down Downtown Disney to the LEGO store, and finally headed back to the park. I got into the esplanade at 8:30, and the wait to get into the park was only 5 minutes or so. They stamped my hand as I walked in, and directed me to a table to get my my hat and map. They were giving hats to everyone who wasn't wearing one, and I heard several people boast that they had recieved 10 or so. The cupcakes were offered at all food service locations (no purchase necessary) and had their own lines, seperate from the regular ones. There was no wait at all, and they were being handed out all day. They apparently never hit capacity, and it never really felt terribly busy (Indy was only a 20 minute wait at noon). By 11:00, there were no lines to get in, and still plenty of free hats to go around (in fact, they were still handing them out when I left at 6). The real problem was not the numbers, but the fact that everyone showed up before the park opened. The crowds were probably helped by the fact that thousands of people were waiting for the merchandise. By noon, the line started in the fesival arena (where it was switchbacks), stretched out past Big Thunder, through New Orleans Square, and back to the Canoe dock. I'll post a Photo TR later tonight. Can anyone else who was there speak up? I'm pretty sure I saw Dan on TSI, and a couple of other people who looked familiar. -
Ever get into a fight at a theme park?
ahecht replied to freestylenut's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Well, not a fight, but I did once have a knife pulled on me at SFMM. I was waiting in line, and a group of three or four guys starts pushing past everyone to get up to the front. I shouted out "Hey" as the pushed past me, and one of the guys pulls out a 4" switchblade and says "wanna make something of it?" Needless to say, I didn't. -
Paramount Parks "Identity" survey
ahecht replied to Justin Adams's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Wow, this from the parks that are installing a multi-camera on-ride video DVD system on their little Miler kiddie coaster. -
Six Flags Magic Mountain Tatsu Flying Coaster
ahecht replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Is it just me, or is there actually Orange Spraypaint of Doom on the orient express track itself? Oh, and this thread had been Screamscaped. -
First, Superman does use completely different technology. While rocket cosaters use a hydraulic motor and a cable to pull the train, Superman's cars are propelled by a LSM, or Linear Synchronous Motor, which uses a series of electromagnets along the track to attract or repel large perminant magnets mounted on the underside of the cars. Second, Superman by no means is more reliable than TTD or KK. After the passholder preview in 1996, the ride closed for a whole year before opening to the public. Since then, it has had several extended downtimes, and wasn't open for much of last year. There would be far more downtimes, but they have the ability to close each side independantly. Plus, every launch is a rollback
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^I have no clue what you're talking about. However, back on topic, About.com has more info:
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So, has anyone ridden this and TTD? How do they compare? Oh, and to sidetrack a bit, if Cedar Fair was going to let Disney test their rafts, why would they have them do it in Ohio when they could've done it 10 minutes away at Knott's?
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Photo TR: Dorney opening weekend; with Hydra review
ahecht replied to DerekRx's topic in Photo Trip Report Archive
I too was at Dorney over the weekend and rode Hydra. The jojo roll at the beginning was fun, but seemed completely separate from the rest of the ride. However, experiencing that much hang time on a coaster was a new experience. The ride itself reminded me a lot of Riddler's Revenge, both in intensity and pacing (and inclined semi-inversions). There were some serious positive Gs at the bottoms of the first few hills, but not many negative Gs (the most were in the cobra rolls). The ride was running quite rough, with lots of rattling, but if its anything like most B&Ms it will settle down a bit as the wheels get worn in (all the wheels were still perfectly flat). As for the rest of the park, it seemed rather nice despite the fact that the employees were inept. There was no-one in the park because it was Mother's Day, and the only ride with more than a one train wait was the wild mouse (although the Season Pass processing line was over an hour long). The screamin swing was up and running, but they were often running just one side (can Knott's swing even do that?). jojo.zip Sorry for the lousy quality, but I won't have access to a computer with video software on it for a few days, so I had to use my camera's built-in compression. -
Kingda Ka Opening Day Set
ahecht replied to Token Yankee Guy's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
On the 7th, the people in the preview center said that they were shooting for mid May, but no date had been set. There wasn't any testing going on, but they were working on the track at the bottom of the top hat all day with angle grinders. -
Any trips planned this month?
ahecht replied to Sir Clinksalot's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
May 6th: Coney Island May 7th: SFGAdv May 8th: Dorney Park May 11th: DLR/DCA -
New Kingda Ka testing pics and videos!
ahecht replied to Jordan Shankman's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
So, is this thing ever going to open? -
SFMM Private Party
ahecht replied to socalMAN123's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
How did you scan it? It looks like a microsoft word document smushed with a jpg and some javascript, but nothing I have can open it. How about scanning it as a jpg? -
Woah, you must've been right behind me. Compare http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/Coasterbill/4408466-R1-E008.jpg with http://zansstuff.com/sfne41605pages/IMG_1335.html Those are the same people in front of the sign! The two women are sitting in both, but the black couple was still standing in mine.
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Most Anticipated Coaster - New for 2005
ahecht replied to Coasters 4 ever's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
1. SheiKra -- No plans to ride 2. Kanonen -- No plans to ride 3. Hydra -- Plan to ride in May 3. Kingda Ka -- Plan to ride in May (tied) 5. Powder Keg -- No plans to ride 6. Rita -- No plans to ride 7. Hades -- No plans to ride 8. Mr Six's Pandemonium -- Been there, done that. -
TR: Six Flags New England
ahecht replied to ahecht's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Hmm, that's certantly interesting, as we did see one person who wasn't particularly large get kicked off the ride, and he was sitting in the fron row of his car. As much as I hated the go/no-go belts, I'm starting to think that the new system is worse. -
TR: Six Flags New England
ahecht replied to ahecht's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
We were tempted to ride it again at the end of the day, but there was still a long line. The dispatches were really slow, and they were stacking with just 4 out of 6 cars on. Of course, their solution to this was to add a 5th car, to "shorten the line", although it only served to increase the waiting time on the brake run. It's a shame too, because it would be quite fun with a 10 minute wait. Also, I forgot to mention that Thunderbolt got a whole bunch of new wood and was running better than I've ever seen it. There was massive ejector air on every hill, and that thing was just flying. It was in some ways more intense than Cyclone, although it was a lot smoother. I was shocked at how much it's improved since last year. -
TR: Six Flags New England
ahecht replied to ahecht's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I was thinking either an access road or tube storage for the pole forest, but I'm not sure. The asphalt didn't go all the way to the fence. As for the cut-off girls, you can blame photomerge for that one. They moved in between the shots that made up the panorama. A group of four older people wearing red ACE windbreakers over blue ACE shirts with "Coaster Enthusiast" hats also got cut off, but there are still plenty of ACE shirts (plus the guy with the coaster patches on his vest) visible. -
TR: Six Flags New England
ahecht replied to ahecht's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Okay, captions are up. EDIT: Nevermind, looks like SpaceFreak already answered the questions. -
TR: Six Flags New England
ahecht replied to ahecht's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Here it is, in all it's uncaptioned goodness! http://zansstuff.com/sfne41605.html -
So, Mr. Six was pretty fun, although totally not worth the 1.5 hour wait that it had in the morning. The spinnig wasn't that big a deal, but the helix and bunny hill were both quite fun. I probably would've enjoyed it more if I had only waited 10-15 minutes, as it was way to short otherwise. It was also pretty obvious that the Mr. Six branding was easily removable. I'll have pics of Mr Six, the changes to Superman, and Typhoon construction up in a few.
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Google's Satellite Maps...
ahecht replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
If you click on the "link to this page link", the url will include the latetude and longitude. You can then take that latitude and longitude and plug it into http://www.terraserver-usa.com. If the "Urban Areas" images are available, click on it, and you can get approximately four times the resolution of Google Maps (although without the cool interface). -
Mr Six the ride at SFNE...
ahecht replied to Canobie Fan's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
SpaceFreak and I will be heading out SFNE tomorrow morning to check it out (and hopefully get a few rides in on Superman). We'll let you guys know how it is when we get back. I'm personally not too sure about this ride -- I got dizzy just watching the video. -
TR: Six Flags Astroworld 4/10/05
ahecht replied to Rastuso's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Hmm, sounds like the layout on the park maps. -
Powder Keg Test Run Photos! Check 'em out!
ahecht replied to robbalvey's topic in Photo Trip Report Archive
I wouldn't exactly call Wildfire new, it's been there for four years now.