gad198

SteelHawk? Wow, I would have loved to have been in that meeting when potential names were thrown out there! Maybe the Golden Tickets will create a new category for "Most Generic Ride Name - New Ride Division". To Cedar Fair's credit their newest additions have been given solid names, but wow, this one instantly made me LOL. Good times!

The quarter pitch game at KI in the mid-90s was one of the best games I've ever played from a cost to play vs. prize won value standpoint. The appliances they had as prizes there were NICE. Coffee makers, toaster ovens, blenders - all the good stuff. My dad still has and uses the Black and Decker toaster I won for him nearly 20 years ago, and I still have a blanket that I won there and regularly use when I'm outside. I remember the first time I saw someone win quarter pitch. It was around 9 PM on a July Saturday in 1995. The player was a gentleman in his late 20s with a very thick Southern accent. He bounced his first quarter off one of the long, thin plastic lights fixed to the ceiling and just missed the plate. He then tossed his second quarter up against the ceiling - just missing the light - and it bounced on the plate several times and stayed on. I was truly amazed. What a genius move! I came back to KI the following Monday and decided to use the same technique. The first few attempts were close. The eighth attempt was absolutely perfect - quarter hitting the ceiling just before the light, three bounces straight up in the air and on the plate. Simply magical. It was the first time I ever won that game, and the aforementioned toaster was the prize I selected. Man, those were the days!

Nice report thus far! I agree that operations at Wonderland are better than those at most every park in the states. I remember being in line for Behemoth a couple of weeks after it opened and that very daunting looking line when I first entered never stopped moving. The Leviathan line was much the same this year, even with the Fast Lane involved. Very impressive stuff. Did you get a chance to try the poutine while you were there?

I have the utmost respect for that company and their work. They always complete jobs very quickly despite very trying circumstances. The winters when Diamondback and Gatekeeper were constructed were less than ideal and yet they still finished those jobs at an amazing pace. It's also nice that most of the coasters footprint is outside of areas the park guests are utilizing so construction should be unimpeded for the most part.

Is Adena Corp. working on this project?

Completely disagree. Based on what we've seen so far the new coaster looks like Montu 2.0. Montu is definitely the best invert in the US IMO, so the fact that this will give us more track time is fantastic!

^ Loved that spot. Bring back the old school Reds Race (with the baseballs only) while we're at it :-)

B&M is likely to win this poll because this is a KI fan site and there's only one coaster at the park made by the companies in question (Diamondback). Diamondback happens to be world-class coaster which will further skew the vote. Most of the Intamin vote will be because those folks have been to both KI and Cedar Point where I would argue that Intamin is the better choice. Millennium Force, Top Thrill and Maverick are all lots of fun. For me it really comes down to three questions: (1) Which company makes more thrilling rides? Intamin. (2) If I'm traveling to a park, which company makes rides more likely to be operational? B&M. (3) Which company makes the most enjoyable rides (including ride experience, restraints, train comfort, how the coaster tracks)? In my opinion, B&M. I only need to look at B&M hyper trains to see the difference in the two companies. Intamin trains are MUCH more difficult to get in and out of and haven't had a comfortable restraint put on any of their coasters since TTD in 2003. The fact that Intamin hasn't come up with a good restraint in years says that they don't have a good handle on some of their designs. About Intamin's safety record...many of the incidents on Intamin rides have been blamed on operational (park or ride op) error as opposed to manufacturing defects. Even though Intamin wasn't directly at fault in many circumstances it still happened on their watch. My question is this though - why is it you simply don't hear about incidents on B&M rides? Do you hear about people slipping out of B&M restraints? Coasters going down for a month - or worse - two or three months before the season ends? There have been only 2 new Intamin hypers built in the US/Canada in the last 12 years (I305 and Skyrush) and 7 B&M hypers. The biggest issues on the B&M coasters (chain lift breaks, concrete issues on Diamondback) all took a week or less to fix. Parks take notice of that kind of stuff, and that's why you're seeing more (big) B&M coasters now than Intamin.

Fixed for you :-) All kidding aside, a wise man once told me that me that you're on the road to wisdom when you realize that your opinion is just that, another opinion. It's a lot like music - everyone has specific tastes and not one size fits all. If I'm at a park riding something I'm not going to take a look at a poll to see if and how much I should like it. If I think a ride is good that's really all that matters. Ultimately the only opinion that counts is my own since I'm the only one benefitting from the experience. Case in point - I was out at Knotts early in 2011 and got a chance to ride Silver Bullet. I was expecting a "forceless" invert like some enthusiasts were claiming but the reality I found was quite the opposite. I enjoyed the ride immensely and have it ranked in the top half of my invert list (I've ridden all the custom B&M inverts in the country (except Flight Deck in CA) and 5 Batman clones). Sometimes you just have to form opinions for yourself.

One of the most interesting things I've done at a park was to take the Montu insider tour at Busch Gardens Tampa. We went inside the maintenance area and had a chance to see how B&M restraints worked out in full view. I'll spare the technical details, but suffice it to say that the odds of a B&M restraint failing, including the clamshell restraints, are extremely close to zero. They're close enough to zero that I truly believe you'd win the lottery multiple times before a B&M restraint fails. Add in the reclined seats as the Interpreter mentioned and the odds of an incident go further still. B&M really thinks about a lot of the little stuff. Their perfect safety record speaks for itself.

Notice too that three of the Intamin coasters at the Point have some type of launch mechanism, something that most coaster manufacturers weren't doing at the time the coasters were installed. If Cedar Fair wanted a coaster that launched up until a few years ago there were only a few options - Intamin and Premier being the two big players. I'd also argue that the reason Cedar Fair went with Intamin for those over Premier is because the Premier launchers weren't exactly the most comfortable machines as far as guest comfort went, particularly before they were retrofitted with lap bars. Come to think of it... Cedar Fair went on an Intamin kick from 2000 - 2007. They installed Millennium Force, two impulses (Wicked Twister & Steel Venom at VF), two rockets (Xcelerator & TTD), and a blitz (Maverick) - seven coasters in total. On the B&M side they only installed four during that same timeframe (Talon, Silver Bullet, Hydra & Patriot). Look at what's happened since 2008. Intamin has installed one coaster at a Cedar Fair park (Intimidator 305) and five coasters total in the entire US. B&M has installed five in Cedar Fair parks alone (Behemoth, Diamondback, Intimidator at Carowinds, Leviathan, Gatekeeper) and looks like there's another coming to KI. Have you heard of any of the above B&Ms having any major issues with uptime? Structural issues? Design flaws that required elements to be changed or reprofiled after the coaster opened? Intamin's coaster history in the US is riddled with those kinds of issues: Maverick heartline roll removed before the coaster opened I305 turn after the first hill reprofiled; trim brake sections moved and adjusted twice in opening year Cable issues. I believe that every Intamin coaster involving a cable in the US (except Skyrush and El Toro) has had a cable snap while operating Wicked Twister back spike reinforcements and need for continual rewelding Those are just the Cedar Fair Intamin installs! It doesn't even address the issues with the water rides (Perilous Plunge anyone?) or other parks installs (Skyrush closing early last season, Kingda Ka being down for the last two months of the 2011 season). One can argue that B&M rides aren't as thrilling relatively speaking, but one cannot deny that B&M installations don't cause the kind of problems inherit in many Intamins. I believe that B&M still has a perfect safety record. Intamin makes some great coasters, but I truly believe that most US parks now are starting to see what comes with Intamin products and are choosing to stay away by and large. You're seeing that with Cedar Fair right now. Cedar Fair seems to be employing a philosophy of waiting a little longer between big attractions but spending good money when they do. The last thing that Cedar Fair wants is to open up high dollar attractions with high degrees of uncertainty which is why GCI and B&M are on speed dial for them right now. As a park visitor I couldn't be more pleased about that since I know that when I go to a park I know those attractions will be open and operational.

The reason that rides are placed on to Fast Lane-type systems is primarily due to one thing and one thing only - the popularity of the attractions in question. The popularity of a ride is ALWAYS the primary determining factor for why parks put certain attractions on to their quick queueing options. How many people would buy Fast Lane at Kings Island if Diamondback and Flight of Fear weren't included? How many people would buy Fast Lane if Millennium Force, Maverick, TTD & Gatekeeper (on the Plus versions only) weren't included? Being able to get on Millennium Force in 15 minutes when the regular line is an hour is a nice selling point. Being able to get on Corkscrew in five minutes when the regular line is 10 minutes isn't as big a deal to most Fast Lane purchasers because MF is much more popular than Corkscrew with most guests. Most Fast Lane guests are going to utilize the pass on the most popular stuff, which is the primary reason that Fast Lane Plus was instituted. The Fast Lane line for Millennium Force was moved away from the back of the station to much further back in the line. Gatekeeper's Fast Lane line is at the bottom of the stairs instead of leading you directly to the station. They had to tweak the Volcano Fast Lane line at Kings Dominion to make it more equitable. I'd also argue that the satisfaction that Fast Lane users receive is in many ways tied in with how much "value" they got out of the pass. Cutting an hour long regular line while waiting five minutes in the Fast Lane line is a better perceived value than days when you can walk on to everything and Fast Lane is pointless. The other less-popular attractions are put on because of marketing spin, perceived value, and trying to space Fast Lane users over a wider variety of rides to lessen the impact of the Fast Lane users on line times. Being able to say you can skip the lines on 20 attractions is better for advertising than saying you can only skip on 10 attractions. The reality is that at most parks there are typically only 2-4 attractions that will get heavy action and those are the attractions they typically feature on the skip the line brochures. Putting the other rides on the plan creates a better perceived value, but I'd be quite certain the numbers would bear out that 80% of Fast Lane rides are taken on 25% of the rides that are on the system.

Nice report! Just wanted to address one side note here: The park may have originally thought that families were going to be the primary purchasers of Fast Lane, but from what I've seen at just about every park I've been to that offers it that it's usually quite the opposite. It's usually the under 35 crowd that's purchasing these kind of passes. I've seen more kids (for the sake of this conversation, under the age of 18) using these passes than any other group. From a business standpoint it's a pretty genius setup because many of the people purchasing Fast Lane weren't spending much money in the park otherwise. Parks have found a revenue stream from a source that really hadn't been tapped into in the past.

Manta is a much better ride than Superman IMO, but if you get a chance to ride Superman go ahead and do it. As previously mentioned the line for that ride moves really slow, so if you're going to ride please make sure you do it at the rope drop. Six Flags America isn't as bad a park as some reviews would have you believe. The issue is that there are so many good parks in that part of the country that most people are comparing it to Busch, Hersheypark & Great Adventure and it's definitely not in that same class. There are several good rides there and the lines there are almost always very manageable (even with one train operation which is pretty common there). Superman, Jokers Jinx and Wild One are the best 3 rides there IMO and if you have a chance to step in the park and get some credits I'd definitely recommend it. On most days you could probably get all of the credits (plus some rerides) in a couple of hours. If you do happen to venture in to Six Flags America, on your way to Superman and Jokers Jinx you'll see a 3 Point Challenge there. If you could ask the attendants working that game what their 15 point prize and let me know what it is I'd appreciate it. I might make a trip out to that park in a few weeks if the prize is big enough but I don't want to do it without knowing for sure. Thanks!

The Gold Pass price is the same online as in the park, but you have to pay a $5 transaction fee if you buy online. I can't envision a scenario where it would be worth it to pay the $5 in advance unless you're purchasing with a Discover card. If you use a Discover card to purchase your pass you can get up to 10% off (5% in rewards and 5% in immediate Discover card savings for a total of $9.00) to offset the $5 online convenience fee. **EDIT** Just wanted to comment on the truck stops. There is a Love's gas station just off the NJ Turnpike (exit 7 I believe, which is either US Route 130 or 206) which is one exit south of the I-195 exit (exit 7A, which ultimately will lead you to Great Adventure). It's about 20 minutes away from Great Adventure. They have showers there so that would cover that base. Having said that... I would strongly recommend that you stay at a hotel. There's an Econo Lodge hotel just up the road from the Love's I just mentioned that would run you about $60 with tax (and even less if you have AAA). I've stayed there probably 10 times. The beds are always clean and it's one of the closest hotels to Great Adventure. I believe that the cost savings of staying in your car vs. a hotel are not worth the potential risks of doing so. If the funds are an issue for you shoot me a PM and I'll use some of the Choice Privileges points I have to reserve a room at that Econo Lodge for you. I'd rather you not end up on the news.

** only applicable if the Interpreter's idea doesn't apply ** Do you plan on visiting any other Six Flags parks this year? If so, you may want to make a quick pit stop over to Six Flags America and pick up a Gold Season Pass. A Gold Season pass is only $89.99 there, and that would get you free admission and also get you free parking both days you'll be at the park. The Gold Pass would also get you early entry into Great Adventure on Monday (10 minutes early), so you'd get a bit of a head start on the crowds. As far as a plan of attack it really depends on if you go one day or both days of your trip. At park opening, everyone runs to either Superman, Green Lantern or Kingda Ka first, so you should be able to get multiple rides on El Toro if you choose to do that first after the park opens. If only get one day and your goal is simply to get credits then I'd go to Superman first, followed by Green Lantern and Kingda Ka (make sure it's running while you're in line for Green Lantern and Superman). Most of the other coasters have high enough capacity to where you can hit those as you go.

I mentioned this before in another topic but I'll reiterate here: The park doesn't have any incentive to rig any (non-machine) game. The park knows within a reasonable degree of certainty how much each game is expected to take in profit long-term, and the park knows they're going to come out ahead at the end of each year. There's simply no way that the park would risk their license just to squeeze out a few more dollars when they know that they have the advantage. They don't rig the games because they don't have to. I've played the 3 Point Challenge at nearly 25 different parks around the country and have yet to find one that was even close to being rigged. It's true that there are some places that make it really difficult (no grip on the balls, overinflated balls, double rims, having squirrels fired at you from rocket launchers, etc.), but the games are still beatable by the right people. I'm firmly of the belief that most everyone can get good at a game if they put in the time and understand the technique. Prize limits exist for a reason! The machine games are a different story. The claw games, Stacker, etc. are generally set with some kind of win percentage. The larger the prize being offered the worse the win percentage is going to be all things being equal. At a $1 Stacker game with a $200 prize being offered (think iPod touch or Kindle Fire) the win percentage might be set anywhere from 1 win in 250 plays up to 1 win in 500 plays (or more, depending on the operator). There is some "skill" involved in the game - you still need to set the claw properly or hit the button on Stacker at the appropriate time - but whether you win or not is entirely dependent on if the machine has hit its targeted win percentage. I'm guessing that the mini iPad crane games in the Coney Mall arcades have a win percentage around 1 in 500. Here are the games that I believe can be beaten at most amusement parks by those willing to learn the how-to and then practice: Bowler Roller Ring Toss Bank-a-Ball (the video posted earlier in this thread is a nice insight on the how-to behind this game) Milk Can Any game involving a throwing a bean bag Any basketball game (including 3 Point Challenge, free throws, and the short range) Football Toss Ladder Climb Quarter Pitch (where you can still find them AND where they'll allow you to throw a super high shot) Skeeball I'd be apt to put an Interpreter-type disclaimer here, but suffice it to say that this post is for amusement purposes only. Have fun kids!

They finally have the Diamondback cam to where it should be IMO - showing enough of the queue so that you can gauge how long the wait time is. The move to that location is greatly appreciated!

If you have any interest in riding Exterminator I would do that as either the first or second ride of the day. It's a slower moving line and gets long really fast so you'll want to get it out of the way quickly. I personally would do Sky Rocket first, check with the attendant at Phantom's to see how long the line is (if it's over 20 minutes I'd probably skip it and come back later) and go to Exterminator next. The Potato Patch does have good fries and is worth a stop. I would strongly suggest that you hit that stand as early as possible to avoid the lines. If you have any interest in breakfast outside the park there's a place called Jean-Marc Chatellier's French Bakery. It's a little north and east of the city of Pittsburgh. It does look like they're closed every Monday and every day from August 13 - Labor Day but if they're open I'd highly recommend it. http://jeanmarcchatellier.com/

Couldn't this be simply to state that this project is the most expensive project ever taken on at either KI or Cedar Fair?

Got a chance to see this on Saturday. The effects are really well-done and the integration of the fountains with the show made for quite the interesting visual experience. A great way to end an evening at the park.

I'm not sure this means much of anything or if I'm entirely off base but I thought I'd throw this out there... upstop posted some pictures of the construction site a few pages back. I was thumbing through the photos and looked at the tenth photo posted which shows a marker with some letters and numbers on it. I recall that many B&M coasters use a coding system for their footings and supports which uses a combination of letters and numbers (usually some combination of the letters "R", "C", and "L" describing where the supports are to be placed). The coding is usually written near the area where the support will eventually be placed. I believe that the coding on the photo upstop posted reads "C17L". I was thumbing through old pictures of the Leviathan construction site and noticed that there was a similar marker photo. It's the 15th picture down on the page I've linked to and has "C113L" written on it: http://www.cwmania.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=242&page=29 To me this strongly suggests that this will be a B&M coaster. What type remains to be seen, but I think this is a pretty clear giveaway.

I believe the reason we haven't seen more gigacoasters is twofold. First, most of the bigger parks already have at least one hyper in their lineup. Second, they're very expensive, and that takes all but the largest parks out of consideration for building one because of return on investment considerations. I would argue that Cedar Fair going with B&M for Leviathan (as opposed to Intamin who had already produced two for the chain) speaks volumes. It tells me that Cedar Fair isn't afraid to spend good money on projects if they think they'll be good investments. It also tells me that they believe the economy has improved. A lot of other parks must feel the same way because even Six Flags is starting to spend money in bigger projects now (the two Rocky Mountain makeovers and X-Flight) when they hadn't spend considerable money on a project between 2006 and the Texas Giant makeover in 2011. Perhaps I'm reading a little too much between the lines here, but look at the coaster installations Intamin has created for Cedar Fair since 2002: Xcelerator, Wicked Twister, Steel Venom, Top Thrill Dragster, Maverick, I305 (six total) Every installation on that list has had noteworthy issues of some kind stemming from the initial engineering or ongoing reliability. Of those coasters only two have been built within the last nine years. Also of interest is that all but one of those coasters involves a launch. On the B&M side we have the following since 2002: Silver Bullet, Hydra, Patriot, Behemoth, Diamondback, Intimidator @ CW, Leviathan, Gatekeeper (eight total) To put that in perspective, there have been only nine full-circuilt Intamin coasters total built in the entire US during that time. IF this construction is for a coaster and IF this is for a big (i.e., expensive) ride I would be positively shocked if it was anything other than B&M. Kings Island needs a reliable, super high-capacity machine and a three-train operation B&M coaster fits the bill on all counts.

The other question is, how do we know that the track in question wasn't Mack, Zierer or even Gerstlauer? All three of those companies use track that is very similar to Intamin box-style track. I would say that it would be especially difficult to discern the exact company if it was only seen via a quick glance from across the freeway. Interesting development though.

The world of amusement park games is really interesting. One of my hobbies is to travel around to different amusement parks to play games. I've never seen park employees or managers stop a patron from playing a game because the patron was losing too much at a particular game. Not once. I've seen people drop more than $400 at a game at any one time without much to show for it. The gentleman in the story took the spending to new levels, and the story does bring out that the losing was accentuated by playing "double or nothing." Still, no one really thinks that the operator did anything wrong assuming the game conditions were fair (which is another story altogether). On the flip side, I've personally seen all kinds of antics from amusement park games personnel when an expert player is playing. A short list: Instituting "on the spot", random prize limits where no limits previously existed or were posted because the player is winning too much for the operators liking Immediate changes to prize limits after an expert rolls through Constant reminders by games managers to employees to enforce prize limits (only) because an expert player is on the premises Park personnel "backing off" an experts play (i.e., telling the player to stop playing for the day), even if the expert hasn't reached stated (or unstated) prize limits Banning an expert from playing a particular game because they're too skilled Amusement parks and the larger carnival game operators don't have any incentive to rig the games. They're not going to risk their licenses just to squeeze out a few bucks when they know they're going to win in the long-run. I have never felt like any of the games that I've played at well-established places are rigged. They don't have to be, because most people can't beat the games. On the other hand, the relationship between the parks and the expert players is often very uneasy. Some games are beatable over the long-run by an expert player, and the parks seek to limit exposure to those players through the use of prize limits. What most parks don't understand, however, is that the expert games player (unlike an expert who goes to the casino and seeks to stay as low profile as possible) is actually good for business. Why? The experts are walking advertisements for the games! When you see someone walking around with a lot of prizes it lets others know that the games aren't all impossible and that they can win too. It's a very odd coexistence at times.