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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread

P. 2037: Siren’s Curse tilt coaster announced for 2025!

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^That's not entirely true. They weren't as long but they were in all the same spots they are today except down the hill to the helix.

 

 

As you can see from this video which was shot before the ride ever opened there is a small set of trims on the drop. I have no idea when they were extended to the length they were before being modified to be magnetic, but the ride was definitely riddled with trims from the beginning.

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^And I'm also fairly positive that Beast had the magnetic brakes prior to 2007 (the first year that CF could have possibly installed them after the purchase).

 

It's not like Monty Jasper flies from park to park saying TRIM IT UP, BABY! A lot of financial decision making goes into trimming a wooden coaster. And it's not like Monty and Dick sit up in their offices in Sandusky and snicker as they decide which woodie to trim next. If the cost of installing and maintaining a trim brake is less than the cost to keep making repairs to the track because it was a poorly designed ride (pretty much every Dinn coaster), then the trims are going to be installed.

 

A little information never hurt, and a lot of ignorance just makes you look, well, ignorant.

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TRIM IT UP, BABY!

 

Anyway, Kings Islands Windseeker does not do all that crazy swinging and goes down for high wind! The reason I prolly won't ride it is cause i don't do good with the circular motion! I mite ride it once for the exp! I also hear alot of GP thats been on it saying it sucks!

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As you can see from this video which was shot before the ride ever opened there is a small set of trims on the drop. I have no idea when they were extended to the length they were before being modified to be magnetic, but the ride was definitely riddled with trims from the beginning.

 

The Beast had a few modifications made after the first season including reprofiling a few turns including the one right after the first tunnel and the helix. This may have been when the skid brakes were lengthened.

 

The magnetic brakes didn't appear until after two trains collided in the station. They wouldn't be so bad if they didn't grab so hard at times. It feels like the trains want to fight it when they hit them, especially on the long 141-foot drop into the helix.

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In all seriousness, Windseekers aren't the only ones that are getting a bad rap. I've heard that Sky Screamer at SFDK is just " boring and pointless" too. I think most people are over-estimating these rides to be "insane and crazy" and then come off the ride disappointed. Since Windseekers are noticeably taller than the Star Flyers (even in the eyes of a GP) I think they'd get a slightly better reputation on average. Just my two cents. If the GP are just going to bitch about it being too "relaxing", then let them do it. I wouldn't have a problem with the Windseekers being a relaxing ride. In fact, I'd prefer it.

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If they, GP, would have just looked at the animations when the rides were first announced they should have been able to tell that they just go around in circles. But is CF incorrectly advertising these rides as "thrill rides" when in fact they aren't? I'm sure being up that high is a "thrill" but the ride experience doesn't come close.

 

I hope to be at Kings Island tomorrow so I'll make up my mind on them after I ride theirs.

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Its still a thrill ride...300ft up going round at like 20mph or so? Yea, a lot of us are callused to this sort of thing but I enjoyed it for what it was. I didnt expect much and was actually surprised and enjoyed it. Has good ridership so far.

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Then youll enjoy it for what it is. Its quite a bit different than a wave swinger. Those have the added bonus of additional movement on another axis where this is static.

 

However, just the climb to the top is rather cool. Also, do yourself a favor, if it feels like youre rotating "slow" look across the tower to the seats across from you, then youll see the world flying by as you focus on an object moving at your speed. Its disorienting and impressive. The sheer scale of the ride takes away from how fast its actually going.

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^Yeah? Well who cares about stupid markings in the parking lot and future develoment? It's all about Windseeker!

 

Kidding...

 

Honestly, I've never heard of these markings in the parking lot. I've heard about some in Frontierland. This is interesting... Mind telling us more?

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(6/27/11) I have a quick update regarding that iffy looking Windseeker video we’ve all been watching for the last week (see below). According to eye witnesses who were at the park on the night it opened, the video clip in question was the first ride cycle with riders just before the ride was opened to the public. As you can see in the clip, there were very few riders on that actual run, and those who did ride were all employees (ride ops, engineers, and members of management). I’ve also heard from several sources that it was quite windy on that day as well, so the excessive wind did play a factor in the excess movement of the pods.

The basic explanation is that when you have a mixture of loaded and empty pods, mixed with high winds, you’ll start to get some excessive extra sway movements on the pods as the ride begins it’s decent and starts to slow down. I believe the raw physics of it is that the cars with the extra mass in them will not slow down as fast as the empty cars, so you get that extra sway. The ride ops do have a goal to try and fill every pod in each ride cycle to try and prevent this from happening.

As for those who have doubted just how close the pods actually are getting, or who have been thinking that the video is some kind of optical illusion, I have a rider report from that very same night from a reader who watched the first ride go up in the video, and rode it themselves about 25 minutes later. Here is the complete report that I was sent.

“I watched the embedded video of Windseeker that was posted on your blog today and as a first hand witness you have every right to be a little worried about the operation of Windseeker. I just happened to be in that area of the park on Tues night when it opened. The first cabin went up at 8:11 and I was on the cabin that went up at 8:38, so maybe the 5th one up all night. My mother and I were riding in car #32 and there was a single rider in car #31. Everything on the way up was fine as well as during the rotations at the top but on the way down the tower while the cars were still rotating, I noticed car #31 swaying dangerously close to our car. Well, I'm not much on heights so I closed my eyes for the rest of the descent when no more that 10 seconds later car #31 crashed into my left kneecap. If I had my eyes open I could have stuck my foot out and prevented the collision, but I didn't see it coming and it slammed right into my knee. It is still badly bruised and swollen 6 days later and painful to touch. I don't think it was fractured or anything and certainly not broken, but it was definantly an experience that I could have lived without.”

 

Here's the original post:

(6/20/11) Remember all those stories about delays, modifications and unexpected difficulties with the Windseeker rides? Well a reader came across this great video of new Cedar Point ride in action shot from the ground, looking fairly straight up at it. All seems well for the first 60 seconds, but if you look closely at the whirling cars going around, you’ll notice a few very odd things start to take place.

Some of the pods begin to sway forwards and backwards as they spin, getting closer and closer to coming into contact with another pod. Keep watching… by about the 80-90 second mark, you’ll see several different pods start to sway like this, out of sync with the rest of the ride. In fact at the 1:41 mark, in the upper right corner, you can see a rider stick out his foot and appear to make contact with the pod in front of them, and again in the same section of the screen at 1:47. In fact, by this point if you pause the video at just about any point, you’ll see some almost frightening spacing issues with the pods as the ride lowers itself back towards the ground and begins to slow down. You can even hear voices in the crowd below commenting that, “They’re bumping!”

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this video worries me a bit. Of course, I’ve also seen several videos of the ride at Canada’s Wonderland in action and I haven’t noticed this bad of a swaying problem there, but this seems to be one of the major issues that had delayed the opening of the ride in the first place. Of course you can also hear the wind howling, so perhaps they were ready to shut down for high winds just after this video was shot. It’s hard to say taken out of context without having been there.

 

Discuss.

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Oh my. This could be trouble. Imagine if someone looking for a lawsuit went on this ride and got a bruised knee like that person, gonna happen sooner or later unless something can be done about it.

 

Since it seems this happens when the rotation is slowed with the pods still up in the windy area, a simple program change to make it not slow the rotation until it is lower to the ground, say 20-40 feet or so, and out of the wind "area" could solve that problem. Then once it got to this height the ride would "wait" until the rotation is slow enough that the pods could be safely lowered the rest of the way.

 

There...done...fixed.

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This is what happens when you get greedy. Mondial designed the Windseeker to use 25 swings, but CF insisted on adding another 7 to boost capacity, and this is what they get for it. There is a reason the original Star Flyers only comes with 12 swings!

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