gad198

I think that sums it up pretty well, actually. Intimidator (CW) seems to be a tale of two coasters. My only rides were opening weekend when the trims were just as you described, first one not on and the second one barely touching. Outstanding airtime! I've also read other reviews where the first and second trims were both on, and those reviews have been less than complimentary. I guess it varies, but our rides were great and it's firmly in my top 10. I do wonder about the Diamondback rattle. What I find interesting is that, of the B&M hypers I've ridden only Diamondback and the backseat on Nitro have had this issue. It's clearly something in the trains themselves, and you can see it pretty clearly if you're riding in an odd-numbered row on DB as you're moving down the track. It's like something needs to be tightened up, and I'd love to see that fixed sooner rather than later. I find it amazing how polarizing I305 is. I've seen a lot of people list it as their #1 and others really, really dislike it. I'll have the chance to ride the post-trim version here in less than two weeks and I'll report back with comparisons to my pre-trim rides then. My initial impression was that it was way too intense for the GP and those who didn't know how to ride defensively, so I'm hoping that's changed with the trims added. All I know is that I continue to see reports of short lines for the ride, which can't be good on your brand new multi-million dollar attraction.

This round of the ticket offer has now sold out. As always I'll keep this space for future offers!

The Holiday World ticket offer is back! Buy 2 for the price of 1. One catch though...there are only 6 deals left, so get them fast! See link for details. http://lex.ccrideals.com/index.php?index_type=promo-detail&pid=110168

I'm admittedly pretty cheap, so I like to scour the internet for all kinds of good deals. I came across this one for Indiana Beach, which I believe is for a four-pack of combination tickets. The offer is a little vague, but here's the link: http://hplou.halfoff...tail&pid=110274 It looks like there are only 7 left, however, so act quickly!

Thanks for posting this report. I was really thinking hard about heading down for that event and decided against it at the last second because of the heat. I read on another site that the second trim was turned off on Intimidator...any truth to that?

Nice TR! If you just looked at Dorney's lineup of stuff you'd probably be less than impressed (especially if you have KI or another bigger park as your home park) but the park is very nice, it's well-kept and it has a lot more to do than I thought. I really should try Talon again, because my initial ride was anything but impressive (as a matter of fact it's probably my least favorite B&M inverted I've been on so far).

I think Maverick offers the best coaster ride at CP, but in the front seat only. Hum, where have I heard that before? Having said that I still think MF offers a superior ride, albeit by a narrow margin. If Maverick had lap bars (i.e., just have the over the shoulder portion removed. I never did believe that portion of the restraint does anything except offer a chance to bang your neck) then it would absolutely be NO CONTEST in favor of Maverick. As is, however, I'll take MF.

My friend and I were getting ready to board DB one day last week. We heard the ride op handling station microphone duties ("station clear!") using some very fun spiels after the station was clear and the train was heading toward the lift. Usually it's something like this: Ride Op: "When I say Diamond you say Back. Diamond!" Guests: "Back!" This particular day they used the following: Ride Op: "Red Robin!" Guests: "Yum!" and this: Ride Op: "Subway!" Guests: "Eat Fresh!"

The concept art certainly looks good. I know that B&M will engineer this type of coaster better than either S&S or Intamin, so reliability shouldn't be too big of a concern unlike the other 4Ds out there. The first thing that really caught my eye was the 2,625' (800m) track. I'm very curious as to how they are going to fit all of those elements into that length of track! Of the rumored projects going in next year this one has my piqued my interest more than everything thus far, including the new BGT coaster.

The Mexican restaurant is still there. It was called Pedro's IIRC and it was definintely open during our visit a few weeks ago.

We wanted to make a quick couple hour visit to KI this past Saturday. We drove by the park around 10 and immediately turned around after we saw an almost full parking lot. It was certainly the fullest I've seen the parking lot in a long time. I haven't seen any trip reports from Saturday so I was curious to see if anyone braved the crowds and what ride times were like.

I'd rank them as follows: Diamondback Intimidator Goliath (SFOG) Behemoth Nitro Raging Bull Apollo's Chariot The one thing B&M figured out after they built Nitro is how to shape the curvature of the hills for maximum airtime. Nitro, Apollo's Chariot and Raging Bull all feature hills that slope much more gradually up the crest, break much closer to the top and then curve very gently back down. Goliath (both versions), Behemoth, DB and Intimidator all feature hills that climb much more steeply towards the crest, level off much sooner as it climbs to the top and then run more steeply back down. That quicker change of direction towards to and from the top of each hill is the reason why the airtime on the those newer B&M hypers is much more forceful and plentiful than those on the older models and therefore, at least IMO, provide much better rides.

I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in this sentiment! Both sides of The Racer have provided some seriously good, airtime-filled rides. We had a ride on the Red Racer a few weeks ago that provided us five outstanding pops of air on the outbound leg. It was the best ride I've had on Racer ever. It seems to be a little sporadic as to when it provides great rides vs. good ones but we've really enjoyed all of our laps there this year.

I agree with your reasoning about why they would announce the ride slightly sooner than usual CP protocol would dictate. I'm curious, though, as to why Mr. Kinzel made the announcement "about the announcement" less than two weeks after Shoot the Rapids opened. It just seems a little odd that you would want to deflect any attention away from the new ride that soon. I'm happy that Cedar Point is looking to that side of the park for their new attraction. That part of the park could really use an additional space to thin out some of the crowds. The thought of rolling up a lift hill on a GCI wooden coaster overlooking Lake Erie and the beach is just awesome. It would be nice to potentially have a legitimate discussion about "what is the best wooden coaster in Ohio?"!

This won't be a full-fledged trip report due to the quick hitting nature of our trip, but I'd just like to throw in a few highlights about each park: Valleyfair: Valleyfair was much smaller than I thought it would be. We arrived in the parking lot and I was shocked when I saw that the lot was probably contained within an area about the size of three Gold Pass lots at KI. You can definitely tell you're at a Cedar Fair park when you come to the park entrance. The park felt like a miniature Cedar Point. Unfortunately we got there just before a nasty line of thunderstorms came through so we had to wait until Sunday to ride. None of the rides really stood out that much, but there was one that is worth mentioning: Renegade is really good. It's not quite as good as Prowler or Thunderhead but it packs a nice punch. It has lots of nice direction changes, good speed througout and good (but not great) airtime. The newer GCIs (after Thunderhead) have all been very good, and this one is no exception. Back seat is the way to go here. The bigger Cedar Fair parks (KI, CP, KD, Canada's Wonderland) could all use something like this. Wisconsin Dells: Mount Olympus now has a "Night at the Park" promotion where if you buy a ticket to the park you can add the Night at the Park for $5. We were staying at a hotel where they gave you a wristband good for the day of your stay and the day after, so you essentially got two days for the price of one. Very nice! Even though we had the wristbands we still had to ante up the additional $5 per person. They advertised this as "a way to experience Mount Olympus with shorter lines", and they gave you from 10 pm - 1 am to enjoy the park; 3 coasters (Hades, Zeus, and Cyclops) and most of the go-kart tracks included. Sounds good so far. Unfortunately, our visit was nowhere near as good. Perhaps it was a case of being on the road for a while but it felt like: (1) the people there were much more inconsiderate. Line jumping was a huge problem, and in our three coaster rides we got jumped on three separate occasions. (2) the ride operators didn't care. Operations here were the worst we've encountered at ANY park. We actually had two ride ops attempt to jump into our seat on Hades after we had waited for an hour (with maybe 300 people in front of us). Um, hello! Don't worry about us, I mean, we're only customers after all right! Unbelievable. (3) whoever thought it was a good idea to only have one train on each of the coasters? Sure, it doesn't look like any of the coasters were designed for two trains, but that's really at the heart of my argument. You had coaster lines that were all longer than half an hour at one point on a Sunday night. I'm sure that the park probably gets much busier than this during the summer. This was a HUGE oversight on their part. It speaks volumes about your park when you're only maxing out at 500 people per hour on your best coaster, and that's when operations are good. Simply unacceptable. On the brighter side, I absolutely loved Hades at night. It felt like a slightly smaller version of the Voyage and they rode remarkably similar. I didn't think I'd like this ride as much as I did, but it's absolutely a top 10 coaster. Good stuff. Avalanche (also known as Hellcat) at Timber Falls was nothing but fun. Great first half of the ride, and even though it loses a little steam in the second half it was still a great ride. I liked the front slightly more than the back due to the smoother ride up there. Probably just outside of my top 10. I won't be returning to Mount Olympus anytime soon. I loved Hades but it's not worth the aggravation. If I hear that things are changing there for the better I'll consider it, but I'm not holding my breath. I actually liked Timber Falls way better, which I never would have thought after doing my trip homework. The Dells feel like Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg but without the charm. Ugh. Six Flags Great America: We hit this on our way up and on our way back. We only managed to hit Raging Bull and Viper because of the lines both times. Raging Bull is really starting to grow on me. That trim brake going up the first airtime hill is still absolutely egregious, but the ride has moved up probably 10 places on my top steel list. I never thought I would say this, but it's a very solid ride now. Viper on the other hand felt really slow. It was still better than average but not anywhere near the rides we've had in the past. I have to give Six Flags kudos for their operations, however. Lines were moving and you could tell that they made getting people through lines quickly was one of their main focal points. Very, very pleasant and attentive staff was the norm there this time around, and that was even more impressive because the park was VERY busy. I will definitely make it a point to not visit this park again between mid-June and Labor Day again, but we did enjoy our stay here. -------------------------------------------------------------- One quick sidenote. DO NOT SPEED THROUGH WISCONSIN. I got a speeding ticket here, which wasn't a big deal until I got the ticket and saw the fine: $200.50. I actually asked the sheriff to come back and explain why the ticket was so high. He mentioned that the MINIMUM ticket that you can get in a 65 mph zone is $200.50, and can actually go up to well over $500. Double these figures in a construction zone. Somebody's gotta pay for the state's expenses and it looks like they're targeting out-of-state folks. Thanks for reading!

I'm not sure if you've ridden Prowler yet, but the ride is excellent IMO. Prowler filled a huge hole in their coaster lineup and is an absolute joy to ride to boot. It's also much more tolerable for the GP than Voyage and is thus much more re-rideable. Worlds of Fun hit a home run with that coaster and I'd say they got their money's worth. On a quick tangent, I'm hoping that the success that Renegade and Prowler have enjoyed leads Cedar Fair to really take a hard look at adding GCIs through more of their parks. I realize that Valleyfair and Worlds of Fun don't get the traffic that bigger parks in the chain like Cedar Point or KI get, but the GP would eat up a good GCI coaster.

It has its advantages. This past Saturday, about an hour after the park opened, the line was 45 minutes, yet the SRL was near the top of the stairs. I went through the SRL twice and got two rides in less than 20 minutes. There are definitely times when it is advantageous to use. So many times this year, however, we've seen the SRL line all the way down to the bottom of the stairs even when the main line is 15, 10, or only 5 minutes long. It just goes back to the fact that you simply need to be aware of both how long both the SRL and main queues are, because we've found that in our visits this year (about 25 this year) that the SRL is usually the least desirable option on days when the main queue is less than 20 minutes. YMMV. On a topic related note I'd like to give kudos to the DB crew working late yesterday. They were moving trains through as consistently fast as I've ever seen without it being chaotic. During one of our rides we were on a train just coming through the last helix with the train behind us already at the very top of the lift hill. It's always fun to see the line move that quickly! Thank you for continuing to work exceptionally well, especially at the end of a long day!

I'm sure that one of the ride ops can probably answer what specific numbers are posted there, but while we're here... Diamondback power hours are the bomb! If I recall correctly KI Man said that Diamondback put through just shy of 1600 riders in one of those power hours last season, which is simply amazing. In a good power hour the ride ops are actually bottlenecked by how fast (or in this case, slow) the trains come back into the station, and the line never stops moving. It'd be nice to be able to figure out when exactly they'll be running the power hours so I can simply camp out! Behemoth has the same sign in their ride op booth. Behemoth maxes out at just over 1500 pph. I spoke with a ride op there about it who chuckled after I told him where my home park was saying "Diamondback had a built-in advantage by being shorter in length." They're just sore losers! Interestingly enough though, I'd much rather wait in the Behemoth line over the DB line almost all of the time. One, their queue is almost completely covered except for the last straight shot into the station, and two, their line almost always moves faster. Then again, at least the DB queue has a good single riders line. The merits of the SRL, at least this year, can be highly debated however!

If you don't get any other advice make sure you heed this piece. Volcano absolutely needs to be hit first and probably Flight of Fear right after. The lines for I305 probably won't be as bad as you think. Quick edit: I agree with the posters about Avalanche. That ride was a lot of fun and much better than I anticipated. As an aside, you get 10% off of the in-park dollars sold at Guest Relations. If you plan on spending any money in the park make sure you utilize that.

Trust me, this ride is WAY more fun to look at than it is to ride. The drops don't feel anywhere near as sudden as they look. It's also been down or just outright closed on two of three of my visits to Canada's Wonderland, FWIW. I still think that the best flat to get would be a good Huss breakdance. I LOVED the one at Kentucky Kingdom when I rode last year and was the best flat ride experience I've had yet. It also spun in both directions (clockwise and counterclockwise) during the same ride cycle so that added to the thrill. Add in a nice long ride cycle and there's really nothing better IMO.

One of the perks of the Gold Pass is a discount on any game where the Gold Pass logo is displayed. Interestingly enough I've only seen it on one game this year, the long range basketball game at the entrance to Coney Mall. Are there any other locations where the Gold Pass discount applies?

Nice TR! It was really nice meeting you on Friday. The night rides at this event were oh so nice and it was cool to be able to meet you and a bunch of other KICers. We couldn't stop talking about how great the park is on the way home and it seems as though many others feel the same. Thanks for posting!

Agreed wholeheartedly. Most guests are good about staying in the row that they're assigned, but there are still a number of folks who don't follow directions well and can't stay where they were initally assigned. I'm sure that even the groupers wouldn't mind if they moved as long as they knew about them switching rows. Gotta love the GP. The nice thing about the SRL is that it's market-driven, meaning that the line usually self corrects itself if it's too long or too short. The prudent individual can capitalize on this. Say for instance that, like it was at one point Sunday, that the SRL is to the bottom of the steps when the main line is 10 minutes. People in the SRL quickly realize that they've probably waited much longer than the people in the main line. Therefore, usually within a very short timeframe you'll see the SRL dwindle down to a handful of people. Likewise, if you only see a couple of people in the SRL you realize that it's going to be down to the bottom of the steps in very short order. It's ebb and flow and the people who know this grab maximum rides with minimum wait.

Interesting that you should mention this, because I hopped on seat 1-2 on Blue Racer for the first time in two years yesterday and had the best ride I've ever had on it. We practically stood up from the airtime in two spots on the out run and had really good pops on three other hills. We went back for a re-ride and the first ride wasn't a fluke! I've been waiting for the Red side to open all year but after those rides yesterday, I'm not so sure I won't be riding the Blue side more often anyway.

Nice report. I'm guessing the weather was pretty nice up there so, like KI, I'm sure that contributed to the crowds. It's pretty amazing to me that opening day brought hour and a half lines for the big rides. Very interesting. You mentioned that DB and MF are your 2 and 3 coasters. What your #1?