silver2005

Canada's Wonderland will be removing SkyRider after the end of this season. From their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/CanadasWonderland/posts/10152349914303924

1. Beast- This is pretty much my favorite ride of any park anywhere. A lot of it is nostalgia, a lot of it can be attributed to the legend status it has in the area. It just feels different than most other rides. It has the length to be sure, but on any given ride, it doesn't feel like you're at an amusement park, rather just a rambunctious ride through the Ohio woods. At night its just superb. Along with the helix, my favorite part of the ride is the set of drops upon exiting tunnel #2 in to that valley where it hits top speed. 2. Diamondback- I know a lot of people hark on Banshee being the best Kings Island has to offer, but I still prefer Diamondback. I'll take air time (no matter the type) over all those positive g's. I actually kind of prefer floater air as the weightlessness lasts longer than the suddenness of ejector air. The best floater air, in my opinion, can be found around the 5th and 6th cars on the train. 3. Banshee- I think I've said a lot on how much I like Banshee in it's thread. Great fast pacing, a nice dramatic first drop, and a great night ride. 4. Tomb Raider: The Ride- Original ride program- I have to be specific here as I only got to experience TRTR with the original program, and near the end of its life when it was basically an indoor Ferris wheel. Never rode it when they set it to ludicrous speed. Everything just worked out well, the way it held you above the water and up at the ceiling, the music certainly helped, and visuals that really showed off how big it was. It felt like a step up from what you'd see at a seasonal park. I wish it had been built and ran like it was originally intended so we'd still have it around. 5. Vortex- This can be a rougher ride, but I've ridden it enough to know how to brace and know where to ride (5th car or back depending if I want more air or a smoother ride). My only complaint about it now-a-days is that the mid course brakes and the first set of brakes at the end really have some bite to them. They're both rather hard when slowing or stopping. I always like to look to the side on the loops and the slow corkscrews really let you enjoy being upside down. 6. Phantom Theater- I liked how this ride proved you don't need mainstream characters or brand names to make a good dark ride. Everything felt so original, there was a nice storyline, and I simply loved the soundtrack. I was really, really torn when Scooby took its place. 7. Delirium- I actually find this relaxing if that seems possible. It does press you into your seat a bit when it bottoms out through the swings, but when it peaks, it feels really graceful to me. I like looking straight up the entire time and see the world spinning around, similar to Vortex, though on Delirium, it does it slower for more appreciation of the view. 8. Drop Tower- I admit, I used to never be a fan of freefall, but I learned to start to love it. Above anything else on the ride is the anticipation at the top. I know it holds for 7 seconds and I try to count it down, but fail miserably every time. Its also a nice panoramic view of the area before plummeting. One of the few rides at Kings Island along with Banshee and Invertigo that give me a true adrenalin rush. 9. Racer- One word- classic. A simple out and back design with another track to race with as the cherry on top. I love riding it when they're racing at night, especially when they had more of the chaser lights working. It feels so nostalgic racing by Coney Mall with everything lit up (I like Comet at Hersheypark for the same reason). 10. Flight of Fear- Being indoor certainly helps, especially in the front seat with a nice AC breeze. I don't like how it comes to a complete stop on the mid-course brakes, but it still holds up. Aside from the launch, my favorite bit is pretty much the entire second half; the way it curves back and forth, acceleration increasing, and the banking gets wild until you bank all the way around for the final corkscrew. I would love to ride one of the bigger outdoor versions like Poltergeist where there's no mid course brakes. Runner ups- Top Gun/Flight Deck/Bat for being the coaster that made me an enthusiast, any film except Spongebob and Hanna Barbera 3D in Action Theater, KI&MVRR, WWC, KCKC, any of the Coney Island classic flat, Grand Carousel (especially with closer friends, family), Antique Cars, and Adventure Express.

^Don't forget Cedar Point.

Watch "Furius Baco Roller Coaster Front Seat POV PortAve" on YouTube But they said first launched wing coaster in the nation (aka, the USA). Furius Baco is in Spain...

I guess the point I was trying to make was that both compete the same market and both have their fair share of thrilling rides, but whereas SFMM always adds thrill rides anymore, Knott's keeps a more rounded collection and blows SFMM out of the water in attendance. There are a lot of seasonal parks that pull more than SFMM. It sounded a lot smarter in my head than when I posted it.

I notice from time to time that some riders don't exactly sit up straight on roller coasters with lap bars. I could see a hit to the head possible if the rider were doing that.

If you want to see an example of a park that adds too many coasters time after time compared to a park that focuses on the little things every once in a while, I direct you to Six Flags Magic Mountain vs Knott's Berry Farm.

Is it bad that before I read the story, I knew it happened on Timberwolf?

For me, a good first drop has to be about more than airtime and forces. The visuals presented have to be something to marvel at as well. The view from the top, however short, helps immensely. As the late John Allen believed, psychology is a powerful element when designing a roller coaster. I'm mainly going by ones I've ridden and already experienced. The Beast's first drop has a load of suspense to it. The park has told you at that point the ride is one of the longest in the world, yet you can only see the crests of the 2 lifts, leaving much in mystery. The first drop peering off into the Ohio hills and woods into that dark hole in the ground sets up the ride perfectly. While I hated most of Son of Beast besides the loop, the first drop had to be the only other thing. Stengel did design it like a steel coaster, but the swooping drop before the main 214 ft drop worked from a rider standpoint at least (knowing what it did to the structure is something else entirely). I like Arrow drops that do this sort of thing as they have that pre-drop to get it through the turn, and by the time you get to the main drop, its sailing over the crest, and you're doing it up at 100 ft+. I'm not too fond of most of the ride, but I really liked Fahrenheit's first drop. I'm not the biggest fan of vertical lifts, but its a great view of the Midway America area and it just drops like a rock from there. The vertical lift kind of takes away your awareness of how high you actually are, so when you crest, its kind of a surprise and that 131 ft hill feels higher than it is. I really like the look of GCI drops. They're very angular with a nice combination of air time and lateral forces, plus they're likely dropping into a maw of twisted wooden track below. Lightning Racer's twin twisted drops are a beautiful thing to see with the synchronicity, both from the view of the ride and watching below. Banshee and Medusa (now Bizarro) have this quality as well, but with the inverted/floorless cars, the ground just looks like its rushing up at you while you're spinning towards it with that added weightlessness. GASM at NJFTP wasn't quite so quick in acceleration on the way down, but that made it kind of graceful IMO. Anaconda's drop doing this while dropping into an underwater tunnel is also quite awesome. I think Millennium Force and Magnum benefit from being next to the lake. Its another way a coaster feels taller than it is to me, by being around a body of water. Millennium Forces quicker lift is also kind of unnerving for those not used to it or don't ride it a lot (like myself). It's great seeing those 2 first drops unfold on Magnum and Millennium Force. Great Bear is another that sticks out. Its kind of got a weird partial figure-8 bit before its main drop, which really tilts you to the side before dropping. Hershey and B&M really did an amazing job shoehorning it in there the way they did. This may not quite be a first drop, but I have to mention Mystery Mine's 2nd chain lift and drop thereafter. This kind of goes along with Fahrenheit's lift, but the added enclosure kind of makes you unaware of how high you're going, plus it has the hold before the drop which is a nice touch before a very quick ending. I like Tennessee Tornado's drop because of that kind of thing as well. My first time on it I rode it in the back, didn't realize the first drop was a huge tunnel, and it totally took me by surprise.

Ok, yes, there are weird interpretations like that and the fact they label the RMC Topper coasters as wooden coasters, but other than that, I still make them my go-to for info.

I just realized something. I wonder if B&M is trying to snuff Intamin out of existence, especially because they now have 2 of Intamin's creations and, for all intents and purposes, perfected them (giga and now a launched wing coaster). Mack is taking the rest of what Intamin can do and doing them better as well. Intamin might be as screwed as is Kentucky Kingdom right now, at least in North America.

RCDB is semi-in touch with most parks (I've emailed them on something about getting pictures up and they mentioned that). I consider them pretty darn reputable. For example, they just don't go randomly adding rides to their list. They first have to have hard evidence, either an announcement or parts on site before they're allowed to put a ride up. Its not like Screamscape.

^^^That or the hardware on the trains. Dive machine trains by themselves are pretty expensive from what I read, and wing coaster trains are of similar size (sort of).

Upon a closer look, I fail to see how a Thunderbird goes along with a voyage across the sea...

A few observations- 1. LSM launch 2. Like the interaction it has with the launch and first inversion around the area and then has a part that finishes with a terrain section, nice. 3. I'm surprised B&M's first launcher is a newer model. I was guessing it would be a sit down (standard or floorless) or possibly an inverted coaster. 4. Kentucky Kingdom is SOL

Wow, HW is shelling $22 million for this? Consider me impressed.

^^I can see it now, a bunch of KIC members at one member's house huddled around someone with a Smartphone or a PC trying to get the stream to load.

I'm on several coaster sites furiously doing this at the moment as opposed to trying the Livestream.

Trip Report- 7/24 This was a shorter trip to Kings Island, mainly meant for some relaxation. Been putting up with a lot of stresses this summer, so any trip I take to our beloved park in Mason is worth it to me. I got in a lot of rides in the morning since most of the shows didn't start until after lunch. I went to 2 new shows. I wanted to do the Flashhback 80's show, but alas, they didn't do Thursdays. The first was Rock and Roll Never Forgets. To be honest, it felt a bit disjointed. A LOT of it is devoted to Elvis and Michael Jackson, but it feels off with the way the selections flow into one another. It starts out with Elvis and a little Chuck Barry, but then some 60's Woodstock music comes out of nowhere, and Whitney Houston's selections didn't fit at all. The cast rushed through almost every transition and didn't keep tone very well, it seemed like they were yelling into the mic rather than actual singing. I'd take The Boyz are Back over this any day. Then the true gem I found. This is now my favorite show at Kings Island and I really, really hope they keep it. If you know about the musician side of me, you know which one I'm about to say; Playlist Live! Any show with a live band instruments wins over anything in my book. I know we all talk up Cirque Imagine, but Playlist's music style along with the location felt more engaging to the audience than Cirque. The singers were amazing and ooooh, that horn and bass section! THAT is how you pull off a show. I also would like to tip my cap to the entire food department today. They had the park smelling so good today near almost every stall. Juke Box and the grill in Planet Snoopy really made the taste buds start to sizzle. Also, I had my first blue ice cream in a while today, and I always underestimate the feeling of nostalgia and pure joy walking up to purchase one. Kind of random, but WindSeeker was down until about 5 pm (shocker I know), but also, Congo Falls went down as well in the mid-afternoon. All in all, it was a great day including fantastic weather. I would have stayed longer, but a nasty migraine hit around 6:45 pm and I had to leave. I didn't get many good pictures as my battery died. Will be remedying that on the Fast Lane visit next weekend.

There will be more to come as I will be taking my camera tomorrow to Kings Island. I plan on this being a more relaxed trip. Might check out more of the shows besides Cirque. I'm hoping that Kings Island keeps the live band they have as I may try out for it next year.

I'm feeling a trip to Kings Island this week, maybe as early as tomorrow. EDIT-Thursday looks to be a more appealing day concerning weather, so that'll be the day I go.

Zoo photos. These are mostly the highlights, but I'll shoehorn in a few in the random photo thread as well. Accidentally used a flash on this. Whoops. Kind of impressed they'd leave a bird like this around without a cage (this was outside the Reptile House). I'm guessing it either can't fly or can't fly well. This guy was a pain to get a photo. This required a bit of elaborate camera handling as well. Of all the animals to be sleeping, I think Lucy deserves it with all the times she visits UC for football and basketball games (and a myriad of other things). From a bird show. This guy along with a few hawks and bigger birds were flown about, some rather close to the audience. The zoo train. My favorite picture. My 2nd favorite picture.

Cincinnati Zoo- 7/16/14 Today, the UC Community Band, which I play alto saxophone for, had a concert at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens today. One of our brass players (brass in general as he plays trumpet and baritone) works as an elephant handler a the zoo. As such, we got free admission, but it was also $1 day, which reared its ugly head; more on that later. In any case, it was a good situation for me to check out the zoo again. I haven't been there in nearly a decade, back when my family had a membership and we'd go all the time, and boy has it changed since. Getting there was a pain though. As I said, it was $1 day, and I could tell most of the demographic was from around Clifton/the immediate area around the zoo. On top of that, there were also a lot of camp groups, both ones run outside the zoo and ones run by the zoo itself (which I have to commend the zoo for in their conservation efforts, they do a stellar job). I arrived at around 10:30, but holy cow, traffic was bad. When I got to Clifton, the cars were lined up all the way down Vine from the zoo parking lots and all the way up MLK Jr Drive to Reading Road. No one saw it fit to go down Burnett to go in that way, which I did and got in probably around 1/8th the time the rest of those cars were waiting. It started to show in the zoo as well around noon when all those cars finally got in. I got through most of the zoo's exhibits within 2 1/2 hours before the crowds really set in and just took a leisurely stroll around afterwards up until the concert. I really liked the changes to the zoo since I last went. First off, there used to be their main parking lot off of Dury Ave. with their main entrance there. The 'main' entrance (in quotes as there are 3-4 entrances) has been moved to the corner of Vine and Erkenbecker while the old parking lot is now where they have all their big Africa exhibit (lions, giraffes, cheetahs, etc). The elephant exhibit changed quite a bit as well, with a more lushly covered trail than before with just the building. The entire zoo seemed more full of trees and foliage than I remember. I don't like what they did to Swan Lake though, with it merging with a crane exhibit and having a raised walkway. Its still one of my favorite areas in the zoo along side Jungle Trails and the area by the Reptile House. I also liked how they scheduled more shows and 'encounters' with zoo employees showing off animals, probably a way to let guests see certain animals active (I know we've all been to zoos and complained about the animals doing nothing, lying around). I also made sure to pay homage to one Lucy the Bearcat (yes, its a real animal). On top of the $1 day, they also had kind of a music festival going, probably why the band I'm in was invited to play. There was an African-esque drum group, a Dixieland band (also provided by the UC Band), and a guitarist. The only problem is they had those groups perform along the paths, which made for some wicked bottlenecks with the enlarged crowds. All in all, I had a great day re-discovering the zoo. I might go more often, but definitely on days not $1 days. I'd rather pay the extra amount and not have to deal with that kind of crowd, plus the money is for a good cause in the zoo's conservation missions and such, so I wouldn't mind. Pictures to come. EDIT: I also forgot to mention that the zoo is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the year the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died and the species went extinct.

I'm actually putting my money on a dive coaster here. Its something that would be entirely unique to the area and I think the simple layouts, thus slightly less costs than the other models (in theory), would be more akin to the kind of budget Holiday World has. If it is a dive coaster, I would suspect a layout similar to Krake at Heide Park.

I wonder if Kings Island ever considered something like this in regards to the Big Red Machine back in the 70's.