TombRaiderFTW

^^^ Actually, funny story about that... I used to passionately hate Mean Streak's overbanks, but they've done some recent work on them or something. When I was at CP a few weeks ago, I actually enjoyed my ride on MS, even though it was heavily trimmed. Instead of smacking between the two rails, there were actually laterals, particularly on the second overbank. There was even some light airtime in the second half of the course! The bottoms of the hills still jackhammer pretty bad, but now I can say that I actually like more than one of CP's woodies. It was a very refreshing change.

^ I agree totally about the classification bit. I wonder, though, how people will/do classify wooden coasters that get Rocky Mountain Construction's topper track. After all, the track is then made of both steel and wood... (If you're not familiar: Wooden coaster track is usually made of seven or eight layers of wood stacked on top of each other, the top two or three of which are wider and are what the train actually travels on. Topper track is prefabricated steel that takes the places of those two or three top layers. It's different from the Iron Horse track used on The New Texas Giant and has been installed on at least SFFT's Rattler and SFNE's Cyclone, with positive results. I've heard rumors that Holiday World will be installing some on Voyage next year to accompany the new Timberliners.) One other thing... The perfectionist engineer in me has to point out that there's zero guarantee that Son of Beast, had it been designed with steel supports, would have been safer. If you read the accident report from 2006, the problem was not with the ride's wood. The problem was in the design, which did not account for certain loads. I don't know why the problem didn't present itself sooner, but something about the way the trains shuffled that day caused extra lateral loading to the outside of the helix. The loading was transferred to the bent, which was unprepared for that amount of stress and therefore sheared itself essentially in half vertically along some of the outside beams. Even more, a lot of the wood in that bent was new; the design was just flawed. I'm willing to bet that RCCA could have just as easily made a mistake with steel... You simply have to account for all forces under any circumstance in which the ride (or any machine, for that matter) will operate. It's a bit short-sighted to just say that steel would solve the problem.

^ I second this... I've never known Tombstone Terror-tory to have a short line. Ever. It's always one of the longest lines of the Haunts, but it's usually worth it, in my opinion. (Just make sure you try it at the beginning of the season, because it always seems to suffer a lack of scareactors [or a lack of trying scareactors] the soonest.) On a side note, it just hit me that Haunt will be here next week. I am officially so pumped.

jcgoble3, I'm notorious for being the jumpiest person alive at Haunt amongst my friends. This is probably because, prior to the Haunt 2008 season, the scariest thing I'd done was watching the movie Premonition with Sandra Bullock. Before that? Phantom Theater. The idea of being intentionally frightened did not interest me in the least. Then a friend dragged me along with her to that Haunt... and I was pleasantly surprised to find I had a blast. Will you get scared? Sure. But the entertainment factor for me is when I go with someone who can laugh off the scares with me. If you're like me, you'll find yourself (nervously) laughing along when a scareactor gets creative with how they scare you. If the person you go with is in front, you might enjoy it if you notice the scareactor before they do--the anticipation for the person you're with becomes entertainment when the actor goes in for the scare. The actors will add their own personal touches that make Haunt fun; once, the rule spieler at Cornstalkers noticed my friend looked nervous. He walked up and politely asked, "Aw, are you scared? It'll okay. What's your name?" (We'll call her Anna.) When she told him, he turned to the trail and proceeded to bellow, "HEYYY! EVERYBODY! ANNAAAA'S COMIIIIN'!" We laughed, but when we went through the course, the actors scared her by name. We got to the other side, and she was like, "Holy crap. I am NEVER talking to strangers EVER. AGAIN." You've just got to find your own entertainment value, and once you do, you'll have a blast. Oh, and one other thing to note: contrary to what it may seem, the roamers at Haunt that have no assigned trail or house are not as common as the internet would make them seem. That's not a criticism of the Haunt; it's just fact. The only times a roamer has scared me in three seasons of Haunting has been while was entering the park at the beginning of the first night (after the monsters rush the crowd) in 2009 and when a slider snuck up on me on IS in 2008. I don't know how the whole roamer thing will work this year with the addition of fear zones, but it's just what I've noticed in the past. Should you occasionally check over your shoulder if you don't want to be caught off guard? I would (and do), but it's not something you have to do all the time. EDIT: One other thing... Since going to the '08 Haunt, I've done a legitimate 45-minute trail (as opposed to the 5-minute ones at KI). I did not enjoy it the same way I enjoy Halloween Haunt. (Actually... I didn't enjoy it at all. Too much emphasis on the scares and not as much on the having fun for me.) Just thought that says something for Haunt.

Truthfully, I don't entirely get the love for IB. Until this summer, I could kinda see the "classic" view of the place. Then I went to Kennywood, who manages to be clearly "classic" without being a bit dumpy. Not to mention Kennywood's employees were able to send more than one train per year on their wooden coasters, which is more than IB could say when I visited last summer. And from what I collect from other people, I'm not the only person who experienced that. So really, when I hear "Indiana Beach closed early this year," I think, "Big surprise." Still, if the place were to close down, I gotta admit that I'd miss LoCoSuMo and Steel Hawg pretty badly.

^^ Not to speak for Terp, but Bats aren't rodents...

^^^Touche, except I don't think CS is the only Intamin with the capability of a train running every 30 or so seconds. And surely, if there is one, wouldn't we have heard of track replacements on it if it were absolutely necessary? And even if there isn't, wouldn't older loopers show similar wear? They may not have the frequency, but they've been doing it longer, which counts just as much.

I also wonder why they feel the need to replace the loop so often. I might suspect fatigue, but I'd imagine it's not going to set in as quickly as it would have to on CS for that to be true, unless either the loop is made of exceptionally weak steel or if the forces are exceptionally strong... And given my experiences on Intamin loopers (read: Maverick, Fahrenheit, and Storm Runner), the forces aren't exceptionally strong. Especially when compared to Sooperdooperlooper, and that's allegedly one of the weaker Schwarzkopfs! Then again, according to Westcoaster, Disney does their darndest to keep California Screamin' running quietly (including having special supports on the loop), so maybe it's related to that.

What nerve! Would she prefer her dog have died in the car?! They didn't break in there for giggles! Until they find the dog, I'm going to imagine it's living a happier life with someone who's got more sense than to leave the dog in a hot car...

At least one poster here knows that guy and would like to apologize in his stead...

^ Yup, Urgent Scare was new for 2008. EDIT: On a side note, KIC's 2008 promo still creeps me out a bit. US was just so stinking good, and the video really captured it, in my opinion. <iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qZ8R6R2HNPE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Curious... Very curious. I'm willing to bet that, if there's any "research" being done, it's across a couple different manufacturers. I've gotten the impression Holiday World's been a little put out with Intamin since Pilgrim's Plunge was built. Then again, the choice of ride is almost certainly coincidental... Still, I'd be more than willing to help with that research.

^ Perfect! Thanks, jcgoble3.

Okay, I've got another question about this forum update... Is there some way to create a personal list of your posts that have been liked? My number on my profile keeps growing, but I have no idea what post people keep liking. It would be cool to be able to see who's liking what.

$75 that doesn't include admission? Ouch! I understand the incentive to keep the price high so not everyone is using it, but that's a bit much...

I still like Eliza Thornberry the best, to be honest.

I might be the only person in the world who isn't enamored with Angry Birds. I don't get the draw... There have been multitudes of similar-style games online for several years now.

I could have sworn it was 7PM last year... Not that I'm complaining about having more time for haunts!

It's a little more complicated than that... If 60mph is the average speed of the ride, then convert 3100 feet to miles (0.587 miles, for the record) and divide 0.587mi by 60mph. Under these circumstances, the ride will last approximately 0.009783 hours, or about half a minute. Obviously, that's unrealistic. Therefore, 60mph is likely the ride's max speed. If you wanted to get anywhere precise, you'd need to know (or at least be able to guesstimate) the height of each element and then break out the calculus. That still wouldn't be perfect (since you'd still need to account for friction and the momentum of a multi-car train), but it'd be a lot more accurate.

How cool! I love hearing about ideas that never came to be. I'm quite glad they ended up building KD, but it's fun to imagine what might have been.

Can I get an amen?! Actually, based off a few recent park visits, it looks like it might be in Tower Gardens. Aw, darn it. Guess this means we've had our last walks through The Cemetery/Cemetery Drive. What a shame... My last walk through it was one of the best experiences I've had in a KI Haunt. Still, I'm holding out hope that Cornstalkers will finally get the love it's needed for a long time. CS and Cut-Throat Cove always seem to lose scareactors the fastest, which is always disappointing. Cornstalkers has the best camouflage for the actors in any of the haunts, in my opinion. You never really know what's a prop and what's a person till it's scared you! (Too bad Drop Tower and, later, Invertigo were always there to ruin the atmosphere... which is why I'm really excited about its potential new location!)

^ The link doesn't seem to work for me, Interp. Still, given the amount of personality the op on my last (and probably last ever) Paddlewheel ride had, I'm a little vexed... I just don't see Kinzel cracking jokes with everything they pass by, which is the majority of why Paddlewheel is as cool as it is. Unless, of course, he actually went for the "and here we have downtown Sandusky" joke while passing the hillbilly shootout scene like the op did this year. In that case, he can pilot whatever boat he wants. I was laughing for the rest of the ride. EDIT: Nevermind! Link seems to work now.

I'm extremely mixed. I'm so glad to see the waterpark finally get some love, but it's a mix of bittersweet and super irritating that Kings Island's individuality is being removed by the switch to the generic "Soak City". I guess I don't see why the Boomerang Bay theme is being nixed, other than "because they can"...

^ Actually, CP doesn't have a gold pass. It's either the standard CP pass (which I don't think has parking) or the platinum pass, which has all that and a bag of chips, like ours.

...They're holding an announcement in the Room of Requirement?