TombRaiderFTW

This back and forth between you two is making me self-conscious about my username. I gotta say that I was expecting it to be jam-packed, too. Glad that wasn't totally the case, BB1.

This is exactly what I was thinking of when I meant wild mouse. It seems like fun! I've been on Exterminator at Kennywood, and it's really good. I wasn't that wowed by the other spinning wild mouse I've been on (Fairly Odd Coaster at Nickelodeon Universe), but I really enjoyed that one. I don't know if there's enough room in the building for a wild mouse, but if it's possible, that would be an excellent use for that space, in my opinion (even if it's only dark and theme-less in there!)

I don't know about you, but I like it when you're not Selective about your posts. Also, to contribute to the thread at hand: as I discovered at Holiday World on last Thursday, the second-to-last turn on The Legend (meaning the one you pass just as you enter the station) will soon fall over as the train passes and kill the people waiting in line. The number of people ranting in line about how unsafe it looks was surprisingly high. I'll be the first to admit that the structure unnervingly flexes quite a bit at that point, but I've never heard that many people go on about how it was "about to break." (Fortunately for us, it didn't.) An aside: it then proceeded to deliver some of the best Legend rides I've ever had. Easily the most intense coaster in the park that day, and the first time I've ever genuinely appreciated a PTC seatbelt. The ejector airtime in the last row coming down the large hill just before the underground tunnel was absolutely ridiculous, and it hurt more than the Magnum lapbar. Honest! Whatever they did to the Splashin' Safari turnaround (I suspect jetpacks) has that ride absolutely flying, a la The Beast track work this year. But I'll stop fanboying now.

Couldn't you argue that Tomb Raider: The Ride was video game-themed, too?

A zero-G roll would be incredible, but that's not something I'm expecting out of RMC, for some reason. There's really no basis for that at all, except that it just seems... odd. I'm more expecting that to be a ridiculously fast transition into a heavily banked overbank turn, but it would be awesome to be proven wrong.

Oh, I don't doubt that one bit. You only have to take a stroll through the oldest topics on these forums to see that KI used to be more involved here. I was moreso talking about before the latest SoB incident--I can't remember when every topic didn't somehow end up involving Son of Beast in some way, shape, or form.

Is it sad that I've actually forgotten what these forums were like prior to June 2009?

Ding ding ding, we have a winner*. Bryan Edwards (a marketing manager from Cedar Point) said just this at the ACE Northern Ohio Holiday Party back in December. He also added on that we'd likely see a competition of sorts between the brands to get a contract renewal for 2013 and onward. Guess that's where the Freestyle machines and Luminosity sponsorships are coming from. *Well, mostly. You're pretty much wrong about Pepsi being better.

More or less. The few times this year I've gotten my hand stamped, it's been reasonably resilient. (I think it was an opaque blue? I don't quite remember.)

I kind of agree. Where WindSeeker is is nice, but I think I would have preferred it be in the grassy area between BLSC and the picnic area adjacent to Scrambler. That probably would have required more landscaping, but I think it would have still drawn attention to Coney Mall and made it usable for Vortex/WindSeeker ERT. (That, and I liked the old Action Theater entrance. But I'm sure I'm probably close to alone on that one.) That being said, I do still appreciate WindSeeker. I recently rode Sparkler at Holiday World, and I preferred WindSeeker to that. Sparkler's good, but, for me, it rotates almost too quickly. (Could be due to its much smaller size, but still. Anyone been on the taller Six Flags SkyScreamers?) Still a great addition for HW, though, as it's much tamer and adult-friendly than HalloSwings and has caused the Star-Spangled Carousel to move to a central position in the Fourth of July that will earn it many more riders once it opens. (It's now the centerpiece of the area, which is a title that didn't quite fit Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, in my opinion.) EDIT: From personal experience, I know it's free for the movie this year and $5 for the walk-through for Dinosaurs Alive. The 3D is much better than Spongebob!

If CCI had built Son of Beast, I'd wager it would have started with Gerstlauer trains, much like most (or all?) of the CCI creations from 2000. (I don't know why this was, and I'm very curious to know why. 2000 saw CCI almost strictly using Gerstlauer trains and much longer track transitions.) I'd say it would have much more resembled rides like Geauga Lake's Villain and Wild Adventures' Cheetah and would probably have become just as notorious for its roughness, as I've never heard anyone ever accuse those rides of tracking well. The only ride that comes to mind from this time that doesn't seem to fit this niche is The Legend at Holiday World, and I'm willing to chalk that up to the fact that it's at Holiday World and isn't running G-trains anymore. The only rides I've ridden from CCI's late era are Cornball Express and Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain. I wasn't wowed by CE and LoCoSuMo isn't exactly a standard example of a CCI ride, but I'm willing to bet I'd still probably have liked a CCI SoB more than the current ride. I've thought most of the other CCIs were at least decent (or, at the very least, they all had at least one endearing quirk--I'm looking at you, Shivering Timbers), so I might have liked some aspect of CCI's version a little more. I wonder if they ever drew up a sample layout.

Either Holiday World, Kennywood, or Kings Dominion.

You know, each time these sorts of topics come around, I'm never quite sure how to answer. There's never been one coaster model that I'd absolutely kill to see appear at KI, though there have been times where certain types seem more beneficial to the park than others. I've had ideas for other parks--I'd like to see a GCI at Cedar Point or a Vekoma Swinging Suspended model at Holiday World, for instance--but nothing's ever really hit me for KI. I haven't really read an idea from anyone else that really resonated with me, either, though you guys do have good suggestions. I think it's because I don't really see KI as a "big coasters, big thrills"-sort of park, which is why a lot of coaster models seem out-of-place to me, but I can't really explain it. I love the Intamin gigacoasters, but anywhere they might place one, in my mind, just seems awkward. I do think I'd like it if they expanded the flat ride collection, though, which is why sounds great to me.

Great photos, IndyGuy! It was cool getting to meet you.

I'm kind of impressed with myself. I've seen everyone's pictures, and with the exception of Don's official group photo taken right at the beginning, I avoided getting my face in any of them. I wasn't even trying! Like, your shot of the KIC group? Yeah, apparently I managed to stand right behind Fire-Beast-OF-FEAR so all you can see is my right ear in your picture. That's more or less all you can see of me in everyone else's versions, too. Apparently I was wrong when I thought I was visible enough standing there, haha! Ninjaness aside, you took some pretty cool pictures, standbyme. It was great getting to meet you!

^ I love me some Racer, but any third row was jackhammering the bejeezus out of me today, particularly on the first drop. Towards the middle of the afternoon, I learned how to lean forward to negate a lot of it, but it was pretty nasty in the third rows. Any other row was great, as usual! Which, of course, brings me to say my bit about the event, though I don't have enough to write a trip report: it was awesome. I got to meet standbyme, XGatorHead, Avatar, jlopez, jcgoble3, and Fire-Beast-OF FEAR, all of whom were incredibly nice! (I feel like I'm forgetting someone... If I met you today and didn't mention you just now, do know I was glad to meet you, too. Unlike certain Gators who were nice enough to remind me that they didn't have to be up at 5:30 to attend, I didn't run on a lot of sleep today, so my memory's exceptionally bad. ) I got about 62 rides in. When you read about Coasting for Kids events, you hear several people saying they got close to 100 rides, so anything not close to that can sound underwhelming, but... holy cow. There's apparently a technique for pacing yourself so you can hit big numbers, and it definitely doesn't involve riding in the first or last cars like I did for a lot of the event, haha. I didn't know The Racer could take it out of you, but I'm pooped. (I ended up leaving about an hour and a half earlier than I'd intended--I didn't make use enough of the water KI nicely provided, so I was feeling pretty yucky as the afternoon went on.) The Racer crew was pretty cool and energetic, too, and the GKTW lunch presentation was very nice. There were two families that had participated and volunteered, respectively, at the Give Kids the World Village in Orlando, and both had interesting and heartfelt testimonies. It was very nicely done. Thanks to GKTW and KI for putting this together! If you're considering attending CfK next year, stop considering and do it! I hesitated for 2011 and let it pass by, but I wish I'd done it now. It's for a fantastic cause, and it's really entertaining to marathon Racer with a train full of people doing the Hokey Pokey or Chicken Dance, pretending to be asleep*, or singing "We Are The Champions" by Queen as the train pulls into the station. I highly recommend it. I know I'll be back next year if I'm able! *Can I just say that this was hilarious? Seriously, the entire train was "asleep." That couldn't have been better if we'd rehearsed!

Okay, I think I've got a better idea of where this is. Thanks!

Okay, I don't know Mason as well as I thought I did. Can someone explain to me how to "enter the park from 1 Team Way located off Western Row"? I know how to get to Western Row Rd., but Google says 1 Team Way is in front of Mason High School. I figure it won't be too hard to figure out where to park once I get there, but it's getting there that confuses me. (I want to assume Columbia Road is the same thing as 1 Team Way, but I'm afraid I'll get lost if I do so.)

^ jcgoble3's got it. I'm not saying that SoB doesn't have a boatload of unique problems; I'm just saying that movement in the brake run isn't necessarily one of them, which felt like the direction this thread was taking.

^ You are a cruel, cruel Gator, you know that? I'll have to be well-caffeinated beforehand, unless zombies are accepted at the event.

^ Just by nature, all brake runs deform elastically (i.e., they move but regain their original shape afterwards) when a train is slowing or stopping on them. Just because it's visible does not necessarily indicate that it's a poor design. It's Newton's third law. In that sense, Flight Deck IS comparable to Son of Beast.

^ Awesome! Thanks, standbyme. I'm incredibly excited for Sunday... though not as much for the 5:30 wake-up time involved, haha.

I'll be there! As of today, I've got the minimum raised. It's my first year doing this, so I'm a little lost--do we just show up at the park between 7 and 8 am next Sunday, or is there something we have to do beforehand to indicate that we've got the minimum raised?

I've only made it to the park once this year, on opening day. I just checked my Fun Perks account, and it has (very recently) changed to show that I've been there on opening day. So apparently the visits from before Fun Perks' implementation count.

Thanks for sharing. I'd heard that the retracking did the ride good, but I haven't made it to Holiday World yet this year to find that out myself. I'm very excited to make it down there... We'll have to see how things are looking after finals. (Has it really been just over a year since I was there last? That's insane.) How about Raven and Legend? When I was there last (opening day 2011), Legend was running well, and they'd done a great job with the stretch from the lake turn to the fifth drop on Raven, which were a bit rough in 2010. (I use the word "rough" loosely... I consider my best Beast rides to be rougher than my worst Raven rides, and my best Beast rides were this year. Beast is great in 2012!)