bjcolglazier

LOL. Well, that's one perspective on the whole auction idea I suppose. To each his own. :-)

It's almost like organ donation...lol. Nice to see some of it live on. I wonder if they've ever thought about auctioning off pieces of the ride. Is that a thing? It'd be cool to have a 2-3' section of Vortex down in the basement for memory's sake. I think I could out-bid scrap prices to make it worth their time. Anyone else?

Go on...

It's apparently far, far less expensive to pay the engineers tens of millions to build huge rides than to use your imagination to theme rides. I've never understood this completely, but it's a thing. Which is why Disney has exactly zero competition to this day when it comes to rides with a theme. It boggles my mind, but there it is.

Watch it be like 68 degrees that day...lol.

You are almost certainly 100% wrong on this...sorry. The webcams are most likely just fed to the Internet straight-up, more or less. The security camera system is much more involved with VLAN's and such...plus more. It's completely possible the same switches that power the webcams power some of the security cams...and if the switches are down both COULD theoretically be down. But I can promise you they are not all a part of the same software setup. Honestly with the park closed I'd believe just about anything. Many switches might be down. Security camera's might be down, so what---the park is closed, and they still have other security measures in place. I would also believe it if you told me they upgraded their network, and just haven't gotten around to setting up the webcams yet. I more or less know what has to be done, but I don't work there, don't know how beefy their IT staff is, and don't know where they are on their priority list. But I'm guessing the webcams are bottom-of-the-barrel as concerns day-to-day operations.

I forgive all those who say Winterfest is not about rides, but I think the park has no incentive to keep many rides open in the unpredictable "winter" months. The money is just not there, otherwise they would do it. It's not unheard of to have 50-degree-plus days in December, but if it happens on Mondays and Tuesdays who cares? There's no way they could pay all the human hours to keep many of the rides open without getting burned when a robust cold front blows through several weekends in a row.

There's not many, but there are people who make a living filing lawsuits. Win a few, lose a few, and hope to "settle" as many as possible. Looks to me that's exactly what's going on here. "Pay me, and my case against your big company goes away."

Great pic! Clearly Diamondback is taller...lol...just kidding. Unless it's an optical illusion this gives a great look at how much steeper the drop for Orion is though. Straight to the back-row for me, thanks!

First things first...The Keel Boat Canal ride sucked. I have no idea why people liked it. It had a decent drop, but you never got wet on it, which made it a horrible "water-ride". I've just never understood the affection for it... Okay, that said... Backwards Racer > YES---Why not?? Skyride > Transportation and ride in one---take me from Mystic Timbers/Diamondback straight over to Banshee, please. King Cobra > Everyone should ride a stand-up coaster at least once in their life Vortex > We just need an updated version, no gimmicks

It's amazing! And if you ever manage to get on it when 1/2 the train or more is empty it launches faster than when the train is full. Completely more intense ride as a result!

If you've got the cahoneys to go up there and tighten all those bolts down putting this thing together I'm guessing you could probably take an afternoon nap actually sitting down and riding it. Glad there are folks who don't mind doing such things---not for me.

I can quite literally remember standing in front of The Vortex future site staring into the abyss of trees and weeds where they'd placed a plaque announcing Vortex. Huge drop "at the time" and six inversions. 1986...I was 11. Makes me wonder what kids are looking up at Orion being built right now in awe...and who might also see it pass after riding it with their children 30+ years from now. I don't know what kind of ride 2052 will bring, but I bet it'll be crazy!

It WAS open this last Sunday, so maybe you're on to something...

I work in IT. And I don't believe there is some secret agenda to the webcams being down. But I find it odd they are all down. Is their entire network blown to bits? I could see both tower cams down at once---makes perfect sense, but AND the random camera atop the big box is down, too? Could happen. Is happening. Bad timing for the park is all I can say. And I've been there, done that...

I'm admittedly nit-picking here, so don't attack me, but the young adults with the job of filling the queues were uh...inexperienced(?) today. Even for Vortex early-afternoon which really surprised me given the expected lines. Banshee and FoF were great---full train after full train---but Vortex, Beast, Adventure Express...way too many empty rows! Fill those queues---and do it in a hurry! Overall, a beautiful late-October day with the crowds to prove it!

Technically speaking I think you are potentially bogged down with legal expenditures off the charts regardless. Currently---for right or wrong---drones trump your privacy/trespassing rights. I could see that changing, but might want to a have a big GoFundMe ready to go if you are planning to starting bringing drones down in your neighborhood. I'm not even against you here, but I hear a lot of folks give the ole, "I'd just shoot it down" argument. Sounds legit. Don't blame them. But the legality of that is very/overly problematic right now.

"Shooting down a drone"...aka with a firearm...is a federal offense. Good luck with that!

Tomorrow is almost certainly going to be a soaker of a day. If it's raining hard tomorrow night---which it might---I doubt lines get too crazy but who knows? If it's dry Sunday like they are saying it will be I think it starts slow, but fills up with locals over time.

Seems pretty clear to me that CF strategy is to bring a big new ride every 2-4 years so long as the economy is good. I don't care how much of a people-eater Vortex is, there's typically a short line if one at all...until the announcement they were closing it down. Giga going in for 2020 to bring folks into the park; might as well save on Vortex maintenance costs for a couple years then build the next big hyped thing in its place---whatever it will be.

We'll be there next Saturday and then Sunday too cashing in our Sunday Fast Lane for renewing our Gold Passes. Hoping the weather is crap, and nobody else shows up...lol. I'm sure Saturday night will be busy regardless, but Sunday highly weather-dependent I'm thinking. Zero chance I'll be there Sunday at closing, but hope to make Vortex my last ride(s) of the regular-season at least.

Makes sense they would be sprucing up the area with the new ride coming. I'm just so glad Flight of Fear is still around---amazing ride to this day.

Oh, they are sooo gonna put a coaster there! A big, photogenic one, too! I don't even know, but I hope they surprise us. There's so many ways they could go with that space.

Rode Vortex this morning, and noticed there is quite a bit of woods to the southeast they could expand upon without encroaching on Beast or Racer. Not that I am suggesting they needlessly do so, but they could if they want for whatever comes next.