TombRaiderFTW

I know I tend to be anti-Cedar Fair, but I really like what they're doing for 2011. Beast rode this year like it was in need of some retracking, and we all know about Flight Deck's paint. Beast is being retracked, and FD's getting a long-overdue repaint. Coney Mall's asphalt got pretty nastily hot during the summer, and now it's being paved with bricks. And, while I confess that I'm not overly excited for WindSeeker, that end of Coney Mall needed an addition badly. Way to go, CF! ...Yeah, can't believe I just said that.

Another thing that might be kinda cool: have a Foursquare sort of thing where forum members can check in at rides and shows. Granted, any iPod users using the Starbucks wifi might be excluded, but it would be a pretty cool thing to have regardless, in my opinion.

Aaaah! So many that I want to choose... Can we have, like, all of them? (In the end, I voted for restoring TR:TR. Try not to act too surprised, everyone.)

"Come on, little guy! Fulfill your destiny..." Man, we seriously need a new movie...

Viking Fury doesn't (and neither does Berzerker: The Asthmatic Experience at Kings Dominion), but River Runner at Coney does. I know this because you suddenly stop feeling the jerk of the tire beneath the ship (not to mention because my stomach suddenly decided motion sickness was a good replacement for butterflies that day). (I didn't ride it, but the kids' swinging ship at Indiana Beach appeared to as well.)

And when you hit the MCBR (which will bring the train to its obligatory momentary pause), they'll try to pay you far too little to let someone else in the control box.

^ Wait... What does it mean when the fun factor's in the negatives? Instead of you having fun on Mean Streak, Mean Streak is having fun hurting you? (I kid.) Of the Summers coasters, I've been on Mean Streak and Wolverine Wildcat. Mean Streak is... well, Mean Streak, so the nod goes to WW. Besides winning by default, Wildcat also has that really awesome double-down. I've been on Tornado at Stricker's Grove (albeit only in the front car), and it's my personal opinion that Tornado doesn't even know the meaning of "cliff" compared to WW's double-down in the last row. The upstops smacking the track made my ears ring... Happy sigh.

^ Go for it, Terp! You really oughta go for a spin on I305 and Volcano (and The Crypt, of course) for me, especially since homework has pretty much squished any chance of me riding a coaster tomorrow.

I'm with giga on this... I can't just declare one park that was hands-down the worst. Every park I've been to so far has had its own redeeming qualities, so I'm going to divide it up like she did. I've been to Kings Island, Cedar Point, Stricker's Grove, Coney Island Cincy, Michigan's Adventure, Indiana Beach, Kings Dominion, Holiday World, and Nick Universe at the Mall of America. Dirtiest park: Indiana Beach. I don't think I ever saw a not-full trashcan there. Rudest employees: Michigan's Adventure and Indiana Beach. Both had a couple people who really liked their jobs (I'm looking at you, Wolverine Wildcat and Steel Hawg), but most just had an attitude of, "Oh, crap... More people want to ride. Wouldn't you rather just, like, go eat a taco or get a snow cone or do anything else ever besides ride this ride?!" Worst food: Michigan's Adventure. Wasn't really thinking Cedar Fair heat lamps could be turned down, but then I got a $9 basket of greasy chicken and fries so cold they were shivering in their wax paper at their Coasters diner. Eww. Worst layout: Either Indiana Beach or Holiday World. The bridge end of IB was pretty good, but the opposite end, namely surrounding Steel Hawg, was sort of confusing in the sense that you're not sure where the park ends and the housing begins. I honestly have to wonder if security ever finds confused guests late at night wandering around those buildings. Holiday World, on the other hand... I love HW dearly, but there is no straight line to anything, save for (maybe) the Thanksgiving section. It's all walking left and right and left and right down and up hills if you want to go anywhere besides Christmas, making it a little frustrating on my first couple visits to try to get from point A to point B just about anywhere in the park. I've basically got it down-pat 5 visits later, but still. Worst capacity: Either Indiana Beach (who's getting razzed a lot in this post despite actually being a pretty decent park) or Nick Universe. Like I said before, IB's employees really weren't excited about life when I visited this summer. This included their energy in checking and sending trains. The park was positively empty the day I was there (walked on Steel Hawg 4 or 5 times), but when you take literally 4 or 5 minutes to check restraints on Cornball Express, there will be lines. Not to mention that the most communication the staff ever had with anyone was an angry glare. I honestly found myself wondering at times if the ride was down, only to unexpectedly- and wordlessly- be sent out of the station. It almost felt more appropriate to tell them, "I'm sorry. I really am. I just wanted to try this coaster because people said it's good and stuff..." On the other end of the spectrum, Nick U's staff wasn't too bad- it was the rides. They were fun, but nothing in that building, by my uneducated guesstimate, got more than ~600 pph. It was tempting to exclaim when the lines would actually move. Seems like, being located in a travel destination, you'd want something that can push people through. Maybe that's just me.

Gonna be honest here... That probably would sit really well with me, minus the "remove the Antique Cars" bit. I'm just saying. FTW, who reserves the dot-dot-dot treatment for... Vekoma Inverts. Or at least the ones he's been on.

On that note, I want to be at CP's closing day SO BAD. But with homework and lack of money working against me, I'll honestly probably be lucky to make it to KI's closing day. Nothing's out of the question, though, so if you see a guy in a red Intimidator 305 t-shirt, say hi!

In the meantime between now and this weekend, how about a Cedar Point-themed jack-o-lantern? CP released these jack-o-lantern stencils via Twitter this afternoon. Pretty cool idea if you're asking me. I might have to get myself a pumpkin this year... That Millennium Force one looks pretty cool.

^ Especially after a good, drenching rain. It was a post-thunderstorm ride in 1-3 that really sold me on Blue Streak. <3 The ride LAUNCHES over every last one of its hills.

Want to see it so bad, but we don't have National Geographic. As far as I'm concerned, feel free to go on and on about any cool moments so I and anyone else in this boat can get super excited for when it lands on Hulu.

Clothing colors that will show stains, at Haunt? Big no-no. Rest in peace, my formerly nice-looking pullover that had a bad run-in at Urgent Scare '09... Apparently, fake blood shows on a navy blue fabric. :\

The video really makes the point, but I'll back it up with speculation. These Intamin "coasters" don't really launch you in the "traditional" sense*. Every movement of the car on the track is controlled by the LSMs (and the computers thereof). I absolutely know no facts, but it seems to me that the cars' accelerations are much less intense than we're expecting* because the LSMs can lessen the acceleration and spread it out over more of the course, even theoretically while the car is vertical. Watch a decent POV, even- I think the reason there's so much floater airtime at the top is because the LSMs (visibly) extends the amount of time the car spends slowing and then re-accelerating at the peak. *By a "traditional" or "expected" launch, I mean to point out that we're used to forceful launches that only comprise a portion of the ride, such as Top Thrill Dragster or Flight of Fear. Based off of the video, this is clearly not the same sort of launch.

+1. This thing's been loaded with explosives since the original post, and I seriously fail to see the value in this thread except to stir up religious debates.

Must have been a busy night all around for parks. Busch Gardens Williamsburg tweeted earlier this afternoon that the park was closed due to capacity.

Null vote. I can't even choose. Holiday World maintains three trimless, thrilling, amazing coasters.

^ It was there for me on Friday...

"Hello, everyone. I am here to be scared, so JUST TRY TO SCARE ME, DAG NABBIT! I DARE YOU!"

From favorite to least favorite, as of this year: 1. Slaughterhouse So intense! The scareactors make frighteningly skillful use of their environments and their co-actors to deliver scares literally around every corner, not to mention that the decorations are plentiful and very realistic. The designers of and actors in this thing really know what they're doing. Super gory- as to be expected from something themed to a cannibal's meat shop- but personally distractingly scary enough to keep it from being overly morbid. I have a tendency to look everywhere at all times to avoid getting unexpectedly scared, and that did not help me in Slaughterhouse. The scares are good, and the scareactors even better. The ending's a real blast, too. 2. Massacre Manor, Trail of Terror Both equally intense in their own rights. Neither are Slaughterhouse, but they'll have you freaking out if you slack on your guard. Not a whole lot of interaction with the environments, but there was quite a bit of double-teaming the scares, with great results. They give you some room to cautiously breathe at points, where Slaughterhouse is just scare after scare after scare after scare. These two were also the haunts last night where the actors... well... get to know you personally. Quoth "Momma": "Mmm, Alex! You gon' be first in mah stew!" Be jealous, because that's going to be one darn tasty stew. 4. Club Blood I'm always iffy on this one. The scares are always top-notch, but the actors' behaviors for the second half usually are borderline offensive. All the scares from the start to leaving the "club" scene were expertly done- I even saw one guy wearing these really cool white contacts that glowed in the blacklights. TOO COOL! The second half, though... I don't want to give anything away, as per the OP, but it never fails to be a little too sexual for my tastes year after year. 5. Cemetary Drive Surprisingly good! I can't really describe this one since its thrill lies in its actors, but this is a really, really good haunt this year. If you want to dip a friend's or your toe into a good taste of the Haunt experience, this is where I would start. Intense and suspenseful, but not too overwhelmingly so. 6. Corn Stalkers Gah, Cornstalkers. Hands-down either my top or second-favorite haunt in '08 and '09; hands-down uninspired this year. I don't like to tear down Haunts without some constructive criticism added in, but I really don't know what would have helped this one. You knew what was real and what wasn't, even though the actors really were doing their jobs well. My biggest joy with Cornstalkers this year was just watching the group of 12 year-old girls in front of us obliviously wander through, getting scared out of their wits. Maybe I'm just growing up and getting used to scares, but something just wasn't the same this time. 7. Cutthroat Cove On one hand, Cutthroat Cove was a lot better than it was last year. On the other hand, Cutthroat Cove is still... Cutthroat Cove. You can see the actors, most of which just scream shrilly at you and then meander back to where they came from. Ho hum. Awkward "booty" jokes, ahoy! 8. Wolf Pack I don't really deserve to give this one a fair review since I can't, but you can read my feelings on it here. WARNING: There will be spoilers! 9. Tombstone Terror-tory I was sorely let down by TTt, frankly. What was one of my favorite haunts last year was nothing more than a cool set-up to a bunch of below-average scares. You could see the actors coming a mile away, and they would only either shriek or growl mildly. What a bummer. Haven't gotten to Urgent Scare or Carnevil yet, and with any luck, I won't have to go through Death Row ever again.

See, I kind of see your point... except, aren't other various mystical creatures and cannibals going "rawr" basically all that's in the other haunts? There aren't that many chainsaws, Trail of Terror aside, now that The Worksite is gone... Sniff.

I honestly wasn't wowed by Wolf Pack. Maybe I was spoiled by how ridiculously scary Slaughterhouse's first impression was last year, but Wolf Pack just kind of seemed like a stroll through fingerpainted sets with boy scouts and various guys with taped-on chest hair and sideburns jumping out and roaring at me from obvious hiding spots. The actual physical props and decorations, sans the walls, were very nice and gave the whole thing a very nice forest-y feeling, but in the end it felt a lot like a toned-down Club Blood with boy scouts and body hair instead of fangs. That being said, I do have some disclaimers. First off and most importantly, mine was one of the first groups of the night. Because of that, it was still relatively bright outside, so a lot of potentially good hiding spots were really obvious. Second, on top of that, I don't think many of the scareactors had much hands-on (or maybe hands-off, since KI's a Cedar Fair park) experience in scaring. Finally, Wolf Pack's doing a 2009 Urgent Scare by trying to sell you your own picture... except without the cool effect (which I won't divulge lest they're doing it this year- are they?). You get your picture taken in front of a cutesy fall setting with absolutely no purpose whatsoever than to get a spontaneous picture. That was kind of a turn-off for me, because I'm there to get scared. If you're going to take my picture, make it something memorable for a scare-filled event in October. Not a "oh, here's what you looked like in line" sort of thing. I want (and will) give this Haunt a second try, as I feel it's got a lot of really cool potential going for it. The whole thing's a progression of the werewolf transformation from initial nibble on a boy scout to full transformation (culminating in that giant werewolf statue at the end.) Sounds awesome, right? (I wanted to give it a second try last night, in fact, but we just didn't get around to doing it. The coolest part was that it actually was something awfully close to a full moon, which the actors DID use to their benefit. ("WATCH OUT! IT'S A FULL MOON! RUN!") In the pitch-black night with actors who know their stuff, this Haunt could potentially rank up there with what I consider to be the best Haunts: Slaughterhouse, Club Blood, Massacre Manor, and Trail of Terror. I'll be keeping my hopes afloat for this one... I didn't think Slaughterhouse could get scarier, but boy, was I wrong last night. EDIT: On a side note, did anyone notice how epically pretty the moon was last night over Haunt? It was very much something out of a good horror movie.

My personal favorite part, paraphrased: "you guys are interpreting this wrong". Not at all an obvious calling out of a certain member...