violakat03

You realize every seat on Voyage is a "wheel seat" right? The back of cars tend to be a little more violent than the fronts, though. My favorite seat is the second to last row, right side. I also consider Voyage to be wood coaster perfection. I have always told people that, with the except of the 2011 season, Voyage is not rough. It is turbulent and forceful in a way most wooden coasters are not because most wooden coasters have been tamed (be it by trim brakes, reprofiling, etc) or just weren't built that insane to begin with. It does not ride like a smooth wooden coaster would. It throws you around, it beats you up, it flings you up down and sideways. It is not going to ride like most wooden coasters out there, but it also is not, generally, rough. Roughness is a result of poor maintenance - track work not being completed, structure sagging ("pot holes") not being corrected, trains not running at their maximum potential due to poor upkeep. Holiday World keeps Voyage in fantastic shape, even for as much attention as it needs. Some times major repairs have to wait until the offseason (such as the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 major offseason work) but they do everything they can to keep it in great shape during the season. I've seen them retracking the morning of closing day before.

I read both books in middle school, I believe. Might have been late elementary. I remember enjoying the first much more than the second. I also remember seeing them for sale in the park. They were in Beast's drive box for a very long time. I know they were there still in 2009.

This video was shot on July 3, 2012. Wooden coasters usually run at their worst on hot, sunny days. It also had massive track and structure work done in the off season between 2012 & 2013. Now, by far, it's worst season was 2011. The bottom of the main drops would rattle you so hard you thought your teeth were about to vibrate out. It had some pretty major work done at the bottom of drops 1-3 in order to correct how terrible it was riding in 2011. However, the 2013 track work made some of the other trouble areas in the spaghetti bowl ride very smoothly. I found it to be as enjoyable in 2013 as in 2009, the first time I rode it. In fact, the reprofiling of the "wrong way banked" turn added a pop of airtime in addition to correcting a painful sideways slam.

People are dumb enough at just pulling down restraints. I've never seen so many people completely dumbfounded by restraints as they are by B&M flyer restraints. They just can't figure out all they have to do is pull it down.

Banshee's horn actually sounds more like a car alarm. When we heard it in line for Media Day, a person nearby yelled "someone's stealing Banshee! Stop them!" The scream may not make a good car horn, but it certainly makes a fantastic text alert noise. I love watching people jump when I get a text.

I'm really sad to hear that it's leaving, but at the same time, it's nice that it's sort of staying. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is very popular among kids right now, so it really does make sense to retheme it.

I'm really happy to see Dan back in the industry because he clearly has a passion for it. I didn't necessarily like what was happening to Holiday World under him (you could see a change in employee morale if you were a regular visitor, as well as prices jumping by leaps and bounds, especially on food) but I think in his own park he'd do great. My dislike of the Holiday World situation I think was just because he was taking something that ran a certain way and changing it to his way. With a clean slate and a blank drawing board, I think Alabama Adventure will end up doing very well. I doubt it will be the "Holiday World of the South" as a lot of people seem to be expecting, because Dan isn't Will and didn't run things the same way Will did. That being said, I think Dan does appreciate a good wooden coaster (especially a CCI) and I can't wait to see Rampage up and running again. I'll be very happy to finally get that credit, and I know a Koch will make sure it's well cared for and will run beautifully. I also think he's going the right direction in focusing on making it a family-friendly park, because that's where the crowds come from for smaller parks like that. Overall, I'm just really excited for this news and I think that this park will be a much better fit for Dan than Holiday World.

Loving the photos from the Titanic exhibit. I remember being a Titanic-crazed middle schooler and going to that exhibit!! I also remember when they had a Star Trek exhibit (my mom is a huge Trekkie) and they had Klingons walking around I-street. Somewhere, I should have a photo of me with one!

Back to the actual topic, my statics/dynamics book had Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain on the cover. I remember one of my textbooks had a picture of Deno's Wonder Wheel in one of the chapters. I think it was college algebra. And for some reason, my calc 1 professor was always comparing derivatives to The Beast.

Diamondback construction, October 2008. Kind of crazy to think I took this 5 1/2 years ago.

Another old slide from my mom.

From friends of mine that frequent the park, you will definitely want to know at least the essentials in French as there is certainly a chance you will come across park employees (or employees of businesses you will visit outside the park, such as restaurants and hotels) that speak no English. Working in a park with a huge percentage of Spanish-speaking guests, I can tell you the most important things to learn will be: directions (left/right/by/across, etc), numbers (heights, wait times), the words for bathroom, entrance and exit. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school but have forgotten essentially all of it. But I can tell you where the nearest bathroom is, how tall a child has to be (or that they have to sit with an adult) and how to get to the exit of my ride in Spanish just from how often I use those phrases! Now, as for my suggestion on how to learn: Duolingo. It's a free website (and app). I have a coworker that is using it to learn Portuguese and he's definitely learned enough to communicate the essentials to Brazilian guests. I'm using it to re-learn my German.

I've never been evacuated from a ride except on purpose for training. (For the record, being evacuated from the lift on Mystery Mine is pretty intense.) However, I have a couple friends that seem to break everything they go on. My friend Dainan is notorious for getting evacuated ... he had an evac from Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom earlier today.

Another rare Face/Off on ride photo. I believe this was 1999, maybe 2000. I look so young, lol. Somewhere, I have an Adventure Express ORP. I'm hoping to find it and my FOF ORP from 1996.

I remember getting a free shower from the person in front of us on Phoenix at Knoebels. Luckily he only had water in his cup. It was actually rather entertaining watching it shoot out of the straw on each of the hills.

Back before we had official t-shirts! I made some unofficial shirts & hoodies for members in early 09. He just celebrated that someone remembers his hatred of trims.

It's more of a story because it's balanced at an odd location. This isn't like when some fool called 911 because Beast was stopped on the lift. It actually is a really unusual place for it to stop - just like Dragster balancing at the top. That being said, the location it stopped in doesn't overly surprise me. The last time I rode it, it was a cold rainy day, and it creeped over that hill. I actually wondered if it was going to make it or if we were going to valley. It seems just a combination of the perfect factors that made it stall there rather than rolling back.

Make it to the park at least twice this season. It's a lot harder now that we live 15 hours away.

My very first roller coaster, Beastie. 1995. I'm in the front right in the Pepsi shirt.

I met my husband through this forum, technically (his username is dare-to-fly). We'd spoken on the forums but I remember we met in person for the first time in Racer's queue on opening day 2009. We both ended up working for the park that season, and started dating in September. We got married last October and went on an epic coaster honeymoon in southern California. Right after we started dating in 2009, on Stricker's train. Yes, he's wearing his KI uniform. At our wedding, October 7 2012

That's me with my hands up. This was either summer of 1999 or 2000, I can't remember for certain. I do remember that it was Cindy's (the girl next to me) first roller coaster! I really wish I could find my ORP from my first ride on The Beast in 1996. I looked like Cindy does in the picture above! An hour later, the ORP on Flight of Fear showed a very different story. My hands weren't up, but I was definitely smiling!

Superman? Really? (Sorry folks, inside joke. Carry on!) Flight of Fear? Really?

Another from the slide collection. That's my mom in the center of the photo, on the ride with sunglasses. This was the same trip as my KI&MVRR photo from earlier, unknown year, late 70s or early 80s.

I've ridden all the B&M flyers and Vekoma flyers in the US. I find B&Ms to be leaps and bounds above the Vekomas, but even within the B&Ms there are certain standouts. I find Vekoma Flying Dutchmen to be boring and often times painful. The restraints don't get along with well-endowed females. Of the three, Nighthawk has been consistently the worst. It seems to have been very poorly maintained, and it sounds (and feels!) like a rattling deathtrap. I rode it once for the credit, then again during Con 2012 for some reason. Last trip to Carowinds, I happily skipped it. As for B&M flyers, I was really, really looking forward to Tatsu last October because I adore B&M flyers and it had been really hyped up by everyone I'd heard talk about it. As a result, I ended up anticipointed (anyone remember our "KI Terms" thread years ago? Yeah, I definitely still use that one) because it wasn't leaps and bounds better than Superman. Sure, it was fun, but it just wasn't as amazing as I expected it to be. Among the 3 Supermans, I find SFOG's to be the best because the layout fits the terrain the best, so you end up with these awesome hand-chopper moments on some of the turns. And then ... there's Manta. I adore everything about Manta. The theming, the experience, the park it's in.... and no, I'm not biased because I just got hired to work on the crew, I have loved Manta since the first time I rode it last January. I was afraid of being anticipointed like Tatsu, but I definitely was not. I love it when rides interact with their surroundings, and Manta does a fantastic job of it. As for my overall opinion on flyers - I feel like the entire purpose is to feel like you're flying. The wide sweeping turns and in-line twists are what I feel like the coaster should be doing. I strongly dislike pretzel loops (I don't like intense positive Gs to start with) as it feels wrong for the type of coaster. I also do not like the loop and helix on the Vekomas. Overall, I'd say of the non-standard steel coaster types (flying, wing, inverted, stand-up, floorless, etc), flyers are definitely my favorite. Manta is my #3 steel coaster. Superman at SFOG was pretty high in my ranks for a long time as well. I haven't ridden a Zamperla ... but I doubt I will enjoy it. They look like they should be called "Pain: The Ride." And egads, those transitions. Did Arrow make a come back just for those?

Thank you for the amazing walk back through time! I was excited to catch a glimpse of Skylab in one of the photos. I have very clear memories of riding it in 1995, with two of my best friends. I sat in my friend Stacey's lap, and our friend Lyndsay sat in the front half of the gondola. It was the first ride I ever rode that went upside down and sort of got me over my fear of "big" rides. I rode Racer, my first adult roller coaster, later that day. I've never been able to clearly remember where it was in the park, other than somewhere on the north half. This places exactly where it is and fills in that hole for me! Because of the very fond memories I have of Skylab, Enterprise rides remain one of my favorite flat rides to this day.