silver2005

For someone who should be more focused on park operations, Ed Hart sure does a lot of writing of sloppy articles for the interwebs. I think he's written what is essentially the same article in different words a dozen times by now. He may become king of paraphrasing.

I'll be including defunct rides on my list, marked with asterisks (and I dislike ranking wood with steel coasters). Beast Diamondback Banshee Vortex Racer Bat Flight of Fear Adventure Express Firehawk Son of Beast w/loop* Invertigo King Cobra* Backlot Stunt Coaster Woodstock Express Flying Aces Son of Beast w/o loop* I don't consider Surf Dog a coaster.

^^I honestly wouldn't put it past RMC at this point, especially so Dollywood can gloat about the records. To me, neither their Iron Horse track or the Topper Track are wood coasters. They're steel. This does look freaking awesome though. .

^Serious question- Is this type of article typical of what IndyStar comes out with or is Kentucky Kingdom just giving them a whole lot of incentive just to put that article up? What news publication would green light that garbage to publish?

^If CP was really doing a RMC conversion of Mean Streak, it'd be closed already, especially given its size.

^So is Kentucky Kingdom advertising against themselves?

Past Diamondback crews (like between 2009 and 2012-ish) were able to hit intervals even with the bins. They load the trains pretty quickly, but for whatever reason, they wait (even with a loaded train sitting for 10's of seconds) until the train is at or past the splash before dispatching. It has 0 to do with the seatbelts or bins, at least from my observations. It makes me wonder if its an operations thing they're doing purposefully, whether its to sell more Fast Lane tickets or something mechanically with the ride (maybe a block issue with the MCBR?).

Most here including myself would also recommend a viewing of Cirque Imagine. A little above and beyond your average amusement park show. I'd also recommend Off the Charts myself.

My guesses would be either Gerstlauer, Mauer, or Zierer, though as we saw with Cannibal, it could be in house (with help with other companies). It does look like whoever is building it is taking a page from Premier and going with the forward and backwards launches and some layout similarities to the likes of Tempesto.

^That's just used to show the proper clearances around the coaster, not a permanent part of the ride. Most coasters go through that when they're built.

I don't care for Skyline in the park. Sans the chili, everything else is radically different. I'd rather leave the park for Skyline or Blue Ash Chili than stay in the park. Higher quality and cheaper, plus Skyline in the park doesn't have that wonderful finely shredded cheese that the Skyline restaurants have.

I remember back in the 90's they'd open up International Street about an hour before the rides and I-Street had several bakeries that sold breakfast-y items. It was heavenly at park close after a Beast night ride and just smell all the bakery smells along I-Street.

^True, but they also waited pretty long to start pouring them for Gatekeeper as well. CP's off season is one of the longer off seasons for parks as well, so they can probably get by waiting a little bit.

I can at least rule out a flying coaster due to the catwalk support studs that are on the lift hill pieces. B&M looks like they're making slight adjustments to the track compared to previous dive coasters (dive coasters usually have straight cross ties, this has them bent in a little bit), but the label still has me at dive machine. CP has most of the other B&M types covered as well, whether they're B&Ms or not.

Invertigo is like the coaster version of Jekyll and Hyde for me. I've had glass smooth rides on it, but I've also had agonizingly bad rides on it, and about everything in between as well.

I wish I would have ridden The Beast last night when that awesome full moon was out. It brings a solid white aura over the track.

^You mentioned before how the lift track is going to be steep. Unless CP is getting a 2nd giga (a la Fury 325), B&M only builds super steep lifts on dive coasters as well.

I've been following how B&M labels their track at the plant for a while and I'm certain that the DM is for dive machine. They use letters for other combinations to verify type as well- LC- Laying/Flying coaster, IC- Inverted coaster, FC- Floorless, MC- Mega/hyper/giga. Here's the label for Baron at Efteling (picture courtesy of Screamscape). Labeled D6- D for dive machine and it is one of the 6 across models. Also, I can tell the brown track is dive machine track without the labels. They're very wide and thick. No other B&M type has track with that big of dimensions. I'm 99.99% certain its a dive coaster track unless B&M has cooked up another type under everyone's noses. EDIT: There is another way to tell with the way the cross ties look, but unfortunately, the brown track is upside down so I can't show that.

I'm kind of hoping those blue supports don't go with that brown track because that is one ugly color combination if that's the case.

^^Last I checked, Vortex still has a lot of people who like the ride as well. I've had quite a few rather smooth rides on it myself, including this season. Also, who said that it was hard to maintain and there were parts missing? S&S still puts out parts for Arrow coasters. There are also plenty of Arrow loopers older than Vortex still running including the original Arrow looper- Knott's Corkscrew now at Silverwood.

I will definitely start being more forward about wanting to sit solo after being paired with a few bigger people with no regard for my personal space on my last visit (exceptions- Firehawk, Banshee, Diamondback on the outer seats, maybe Backlot).

Just whatever one does, avoid cars 2 through 4 on Vortex. That way pain and madness lies.

I'd probably say either Bat or Adventure Express. One thing Bat has going for it is that its not a loud ride plus its not as jerky as Backlot or AE. I think that helped me get accustomed back in the day. Woodstock Express and Flying Aces would be fine starters as well.

I think instead of staying angry at it all the time, I might as well come to expect it and plan my days at KI accordingly. Its becoming a cycle of sorts. I had a blast today despite that though.

This is the one bad thing from my trip at KI on 7/25 (expect a rather unique TR on the good stuff), and its a doozy. At Diamondback today, the Fast Lane line ran down the stairs up to the station and started going up the stairs that got you to below the track. And what was their solution? Alternating FL and the regular line. That's right, they filled an entire train sans the front seat with Fast Laners, then filled the next with regular guests. Sort of defeats the purpose of having Fast Lane. Why is Diamondback the only ride with such atrocious line management issues? I know I come back to this, but its never fixed. I'm angry enough to the point I may stop using Fast Lane until the Diamondback crew gets their act together. I know it can be run with better efficiency than this. I remember 2009 through 2011 (2012-ish, that's when it started going down hill) well.