Kenban

The deal with conversations with park staff is that you are supposed to give your source. If you say you were told something is going to happen and it is not public knowledge you have to say who told you it would occur. Otherwise you have to state that it is a rumor even if you know it is occurring. This site has a long history of discussing photos which violate the terms of service. Traditionally we would say where you located the photo, for instance on another forum, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Then just discuss the contents of said photo. I have even seen seen links to the photos as long as the photo was not on this site it was fine. At this point in time I have no idea if this has changed, it feels like it has but it would be nice seeing clarification.

Supposedly there is a park being built in Houston, called Grand Texas. I say supposedly because they have announced work on the theme park will start after the water park is open and operating and at this point they are something like a year behind schedule on the water park. Originally the water park should have opened in spring 2018, then summer, and now it is spring 2019, and as far as I know no opening date is set. But the water park looks like it just needs landscaping to open.

This summer it will have been 10 years since the ride last operated. It sat SBNO for 3 years before it was removed. The decision to remove the ride was made with the best information available at the time. Tearing it down instead of letting it sit SBNO for who knows how long was the right choice at the time. It's easy to sit here and second guess the choices using information that did not exist at the time, but frankly even with the knowledge that we have today if you had told the executives at that point in time what would be possible in 5 to 10 years, I am not certain they would have done anything differently. I am comfortable saying that today the ride would be fixable, but I cannot tell you if it would be worth fixing. I have no idea just how much it would cost and if those costs could be justified. It does feel like it is beyond time to move on though, stop worrying if it was fixable. Because I am positive that there are enthusiasts who have spent more time discussing and second guessing the decision then the people who actually made it.

There are some toxic elements in the enthusiast community but I think that is true of every enthusiast group not just fans of amusement parks. I am also a travel enthusiast, in that community we have an issue with people who somehow think they are better than others for one reason or another, frequently because they have some level of status with the organization and we refer to them using DYKWIA. It stands for Do You Know Who I Am, mostly because when they are arguing with an employee of a hotel or airline they tend to use that phrase. Some coaster enthusiasts have a similar issue, some are just obsessed with a single manufacturer, others just want the biggest, tallest, fastest rides, etc. The amusement industry is massive and has spawned numerous fan sites, discussion forums, organizations, and many other ways to communicate with others. Plus it features almost every age group, from children, to teenagers, adults, and even seniors. This leads to massive differences in preferences and ability to communicate. I think that even the articles author has missed that amusement parks are frequently built for the whole family. We are just the obsessed fraction of the people who are willing to ride the coasters. Jason McClure stated at Winter Chill Out that only 40% of the people who visit Cedar Point ride Millenium Force, we as a community need to remember the park and it’s additions are for 100% of the people who walk through the gate and not the tiny fraction of the guests who are enthusiasts. Our collective obsession with coasters is what binds the majority of park fan sites together, which is why most of our conversations center around coasters.

@Shaggy I was wondering if you could shed some light on something I have been wondering. I have heard two competing stories about how The Beast trains were shortened from 4 bench to the current 3 bench. I have heard the park just ordered new rails from PTC and they were able to basiclly just transfer all the hardware over and it all just bolted together. In essence no cutting or welding needed. I have also heard that it was done by cutting the existing rails. I have never heard of any need to weld anything but I was courious if you know. Either way I know the park did the work themselves, and I know most of the components were reused. Although I wonder how many of the pieces of the trains today are actually still original.

Plenty of wood coaster trains have had headlights, guests are not going to be any worse on this light then any other decoration, and any aerodynamic losses due to the light would be so minimal they could be ignored. My personal opinion is the light was dropped because it no longer fit the aesthetic that the park was trying for. The car that you see in this picture was before the ride had been named, my understanding is that the pinstriping was dropped so that it would fit with the look and feel they were going for after it had been decided to call it The Beast. But according to a blog entry on the Kings Island website the light was dropped for marketing reasons. I believe that post was written by a member of the forums so they might be able to share more information.

Rougarou, purely due to head banging. I have likely ridden worse, Hair Raiser for instance stands out as being terrible. I cannot really claim I have good memories of either Son of Beast or Mean Streak, but I never felt like I might get brain damage on either ride. Rougarou is the only B&M I have vowed to never ride again.

I cannot say I am surprised, the ride has had significant downtime and been a maintenance nightmare. Whatever failed last year is obviously significant enough that it’s not worth fixing. This is one of the highest profile rides at the park and makes me wonder what other rides are no longer safe. Cedar Fair still has several other very expensive to operate coasters, how many other coasters are a significant failure away from being removed? How many other rides are being examined for removal due to maintenance costs?

This ticket makes sense for the target audience. Guests staying at the park owned hotels. Instead of thinking about it as a shorter annual pass think of it as a length of stay ticket. The guests have no need to return to save money, they just have to spend more than one day at the park. As far as I can tell this is cheaper than any multi day ticket and cheaper than two single day tickets.

The more I think about this the less likely I find the company in question being a ride manufacturer, I suspect it is a company which makes components. It also would not surprise me if most of us have never heard of the company. Maybe someone who makes replacement parts for rides which are no longer being manufactured, or just a component supplier whose parts go into several companies rides. The article and the quote never said the company manufactured 160 attractions, it just says the chain has 160 attractions consisting of parts from the company.

It’s complicated because both companies are owned by Sansei Technologies based in Japan. But realistically it’s S&S which I would call the headquarters in Utah domestic.

Across the entire chain there are less than 160 roller coasters, RCDB puts it at 125 but I did not look into the number much. So it has to be a company which makes flat rides and has a large variety of rides in general because there are only 11 parks in the chain that means an average of more than 14 rides per a park. Two other options I think which should be considered, that it is not a single ride manufacturer and instead is a component supplier, or they included attractions from other companies for instance older flat rides from companies which are out of business. But this seems to scream Intamin. They are well known for having very long lead times on replacement components. The 8 month time frame sounds like the length of time that Xcelerator was down. Even still 160 feels high for even Intamin.

Personally I do not see legal aerial photography any differently than when members of this site go and drive past Clermont Steel to take photos, or when permits and other government documents are posted. I have no idea how people can justify one and then complain about another. I see zero difference standing on the side of a road takings pictures of track, or sitting in a plane taking pictures of the park. The poster who took the pictures from the plane has stated they never flew over the park, and I would like to think something similar can be said for the individuals taking pictures at Clermont Steel. I am curious if the posters asking to respect the park and wait will have the same standards when the next coaster is built at the park.

If the park wants privacy I am totally fine with giving them it, my question was more along the line that it feels like people are making up a bunch of rules that the park never asked for. People who are claiming the park was going to ban people or that it park made it clear they do not want any of these kinds of photos being taken. Heres the problem, I can go and look at posts by the park, and can see the requests they have made and every single one I have seen specifically is talking about photos taken by people doing illegal actions. I have a very hard time comparing someone breaking into a park, or finding an open door and exploring in areas which are off limits to a few photos taken in perfectly legal method. Maybe this is because I typcally mostly see arial video and photos for the LA and Orlando parks where the local TV stations get in on it and show video from helicopters frequently. But every time I have ever spoken with a park executive about the cat and mouse games some parks play with new attractions and enthusiasts most do not seem to really mind the coverage, they view it as free advertising. But they have serious problems with people taking actions that are illegal or a danger to themselves or others. This is where my understanding that the drone rules are coming from, they are a possible danger to people at the park so the park has banned them. On the topic of Cedar Fair, the reason I talked about the photos of Steel Vengance that the park had a problem with, some enthusiasts took photos from a boat during construction. From what I heard the park was fine with those because they were taken off-site.

The long and Lat for the tower in that FAA request are actually for a tower just south of the park. It is located between the water park and Western Row rd. The frequencies look like they are for cell phones, but nothing specific enough to guess carriers. I am courious where and when has the park ever complained about photos taken from planes? They have complained and made it very clear that drones are not acceptable and are dangerous and I agree with this but I cannot remember any statements or requests that were made public which include planes. During the work on Steel Vengence, Cedar Point asked fan sites to remove photos which were taken on-site without permission but those were taken by people trespassing or construction workers who did not have permission to take the photos.

My money is on a new fireworks show, during the day and at night the fountains will likely dance to classical music. Could also be station music for a new ride.

Look at the type of coasters which are most often cloned. They are almost always smaller, more compact rides. The savings on a cloned attraction come from not having to pay a design fee, while the track, trains, construction, etc are going to be same if the specs are basically the same. Also clones work best on flat ground because cloning a ride includes the supports. Cedar Fair is just not building the types of attractions which lend themselves to cloning. They did build a Raptor from RMC which is a stock design and a mirror image of the ride built by Six Flags. Cedar Fair has publicly stated if they are going to build a $20+ million dollar coaster they are going to want as many records as possible to help market the ride. Basically why save $3 million on design fees to instead spend more money moving dirt around, and losing any chance of marketing your ride as the tallest, fastest, longest, etc. If anyone is wondering the $3 million is what I have heard is the standard design fee for B&M on a custom layout. Six Flags has committed to building an attraction in every park annually, so they are building a lot of smaller rides. When they build a larger coaster they are building unique rides, but the smaller coasters like the 4D coasters are clones. Which makes sense, your saving more than 10-15% per a ride. If Cedar Fair changes directions and starts installing smaller attractions you will likely see more clones, but as long as it sticks to the larger more expense rides they will likely remain custom.

Six Flags before the bankruptcy and SeaWorld today are in very different financial positions. I wish I had the 4th quarter results from SEAS, but I do not expect to see them until February. But looking at what data has been released, SeaWorld is profitable again. For the last 4 quarters over which data is available so October 2017 to September 2018, they made $35.41 million dollars total. Last year they announced a pivot away from animal shows to more rides and these announcements and all of the 2020 plans in general are a huge piece of those plans. The chain needs these kinds of additions to be able to get itself back into a healthier position. When Six Flags declared bankruptcy they were losing more than a hundred million dollars a year. If interest rates rise it is possible SEAS will get into trouble but at least right now they are stable and so far the additions they have already made they have been able to afford out of their earnings and are not being financed by debt.

The rumor that I have heard is that the plan is a park with a small number of highly themed worlds. It sounds to me like an Islands of Adventure 2.0, except only 4 or 5 total worlds, the big difference from IoA is I have heard the worlds are separate and will require that you enter into that world somehow and the sections will mostly not be visible from each other. Think about how Diagon Alley was done in Universal Orlando, except on even larger scales. For instance to get into the Mario section you will need to walk through a giant green pipe. The most obvious world is Mario, and it is featured heavily in the leaked concept art. We will likely see another expansion of the Wizarding World and it will likely be based on the Fantastic Beasts movies. Other rumors have included Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Kung Fu Panda, Universal Monsters, Jurassic World, Shrek, and How to train your Dragon. My guess is the monsters is likely, but I doubt Lord of the Rings or Star Trek will appear. Jurassic World is also pretty likely because they are already building attractions based on the property at other parks and I think that Universal will just leave the original in IoA alone and not convert it, although I do believe the coaster is coming soon.

The last on point dorm already closed at the end of the 2018 season. Two new dorms are being constructed off the peninsula next to the existing dorms and will be open by the start of the 2019 season.

Season pass holders can use any of the lanes at the tollbooths. All of the lanes have the self scan kiosks and even when a lane has an attendant the kiosk still works. The electric signs are primarily there to direct guests who need an attendant to the correct lanes. If you have a pass just hop in any short line and scan your pass. Although I do head to the left side every time.

A little note on how the metal detectors work, the magnetic field used to detect objects is horizontal. So you want metal you are wearing to be away from each other vertically. I wear a belt and an Apple watch, if I leave my arm at my side as I walk through the detectors I set it off everytime. But if I hold my wrist up so that my watch is around shoulder level, I rarely set the detector off.

Wear and tear on the train, the catches on the bottom of the train will take a lot of abuse if they were left on all year. Plus it is actually pretty easy to install and remove. Its just a big piece of steel with teeth which is held by about a dozen bolts. The hardest part is likely moving it around due to the weight. Maintenance is out working on the coasters all year long as the temperatures fluctuate. For instance if you pay attention to the color of the wheels on Diamondback, you will notice there are different wheels based on the season. During the summer it runs softer wheels which give a smoother ride, in colder months it has harder wheels which provide less friction so it can keep its speed better. This kind of work is just part of the job.

I only rode Flight of Fear once tonight, but the train launched faster then I ever remember it from this summer. We still had a ton of speed when it reached the MCBR. Even better while the brakes activated we left the MCBR with some actual speed, I was so used to the train basiclly stopping I was extremely surprised. It was the fastest and frankly best ride I remember ever having on FoF. I had the buffet in RHoFG on Saturday. It was around 7 PM so it was pretty slow. There was plenty of food and nothing was out while I was there. The food was very good, except the turkey is just a little plain, I would stick to the ham instead. I thought it was worth the extra $5 and am likely to eat there again.

This all depends on if you want to trust the rumors. Last year Merlin supposedly tried to purchase just the Busch parks because they did not want anything to do with Seaworld. At the time the rumors were that SEAS made it very clear it was all or nothing and they were unwilling to split off just the Busch parks. The samething is likely true now, a deal is all or nothing. SEAS is stable and does not need to be purchased or to sell any parks. But they are open to being acquired. Can Six Flags pull off a purchase of SEAS? I doubt it, financing a deal like that just seems unlikely.