Richard

Cool - good to see things coming together at Dreamworld. It's nice that the cow is making cameo appearences around the park. Speaking of which, we're about two years overdue for giving her a name. Suggestions anyone? I'm going to have to make some serious attempts to get to some theme parks soon. I'm liking the looks of Tomb Raider. It looks similar to Universal Studios Hollywood's Mummy walkthrough, which I thought would be pretty bad but was actually one of my favourite things there. Sounds like they're really making their usual efforts to get Cyclone going well. As someone who's now conditioned to two-train minimum, I think I'll wait a few weeks until school is back before I embark on a nice reality check.

Coasters use a clothoid shape for loops these days. It's normally described as an inverted teardrop. To draw the shape, start by drawing a quarter of a circle, then draw half a circle of about half the radius, then draw another quarter like the original. Of course when they're designed, they use parabolic curves and whatnot rather than ciruclar to make it a little smoother. Now, the reason circular loops are iffy is because they don't adjust for the speed of the train. If you designed it big enough to have nice G-forces in the entrance, it won't clear the top because it's too high. If you design it to complete the loop, you can imagine it'll be much smaller and hence significantly higher G-forces. Maybe not break necks, but you are talking probably 7 or 8 G's at least. You'll have more than a few people blacking out.

You're talking about Dodonpa I'm guessing. It's at Fujikyu Highlands in Japan. It was the fastest in the world from 2001 until Top Thrill Dragster opened last year. 0-107mph (170km/hr) in 1.8s. Now, as for my dislike for S&S, it's more regarding the company than the rides they build. I've ridden most of their different varieties of rides, and they're pretty good, but the company and their dodgy ways of doing things is like a ticking time bomb for the company. Considering the smoothest coaster I've ever ridden (that's including about a dozen Intamins and B&Ms) is a Vekoma (Disney-MGM's Rockin' Rollercoaster), it just goes to show that you can't really judge anything that you haven't been on. That doesn't mean to say you can't make reasonable assumptions, based on reviews, photos, videos, Discovery documentaries and whatnot, as I often do.

Disneyland has no water park. You're presumably refering to one of Walt Disney World's two water parks. I've been to one (the other is closed right now), and it was the sweetest water park ever. I put up a really quick trip report in my Orlando thread. Gazza, I like it. It's a very small and tight design which makes great use of the land it's on.

Next on the agenda it to come home. We're leaving in four days for Brisbane via Sydney via Auckland via Los Angeles via Chicago (all in the name of cheaper tickets ). We've still got a few days to spend at parks. We've got two more days at Disney and another day at SeaWorld/IOA. Blizzard Beach, one of Disney's two water parks. Typhoon Lagoon happens to be shut for maintenance, but Blizzard Beach is considered the better of the two. They're home to Summit Plummit, the world's tallest, fastest and most painful body slide. It rocks, but you'd never do it more than once in a visit. They also have just about every other slide you could want, including a lazy river that circumnavigates the entire park, whcih has tubes with a bottom, so you never have to get wet. 8)

I'm not a member, and I probably never will be because of the way the organisation is structured, but that's another matter. I get my information from my head, which I've aquired from a few years of browsing coaster sites, posting and reading forums. If I don't no something, or need to verify something, I'll usually use RCDB. I haven't done that since I left Australia though, because it's too difficult using AOL dialup and a laptop that was bought (second hand) for size and cost.

No, it's not rougher than most wooden coasters, but it is more painful. The thing with Thunderbolt vs. Lethal Weapon is, there were techniques one could use on Thunderbolt to make the ride completely painless. On Lethal Weapon, you're strapped down and locked in. If that thing's going to strike you, then you're not getting out of it. You can put your head forward, hold it to one side, leave your restraint out a click and whatnot, but you're pretty well screwed whichever way you go. It tends to be different parts of the ride that get different riding positions too (for instance if you leave your head forward, you'll be find up until the sidewinder, and fine after that, but you're going to do some damage in that sidewinder). Post something interesting, using the English language and you might get more activity in the Luna Parks forum.

A few things. As Daniel said, it doesn't need to be done every year. The rides that do have it done yearly tend to be those that tear themselves to shreds, like Cedar Point's Mean Streak (which employs its own dedicated team of carpenters full time). Even just one proper job would be good enough for five or six years. Secondly, the ride tends to be closed for at least a month each year for maintenance. If that's not enough time to get a complete retracking done, then it sounds like you're hiring the wrong tradesmen. Now onto Son of Beast. It's considered quite rough. From what I know, it's not an "enthusiass" thing, but the trains were designed seriously too small. Anyone over like 5'10" gets their legs beaten to death by the slightest bump in the track. They also say that the loop, which is supported by a steel substructure, is the smoothest part of the ride. A normal PTC train for instance gives room for harmless and padded bounce. If you're locked down tight you're just gonna start thumping things hard, that's a fact. To be fair, just about every coaster which has had complaints of being rough over here I've considered smooth. The ride wasn't built by PKI. I don't know why the hell they're crediting themselves. It was a Werner Stengel design, built by RCCA and the trains were custom designed for the ride by Premier Rides.

Interesting thought. I like the looks of the ride - and I have a pretty big hate for S&S. One thing though, and this is just me the realist as usual speaking. Why install two new attractions in a single year? The attendance increases brought about by a second new ride wouldn't justify the additional investment made. You'll almost never see two new rides added in a single year for this reason. Also by stretching it out over a few years, you'll have increased the attendance for a longer period of time. This year's interesting new ride should keep them covered for a few years. Maybe remain hopeful about an S&S Sky Swatter in a few more years, though a coaster would be much much better of course.

Let's try not to turn every topic into one about the Huss Rainbow if possible.

Interstate is nil-to-none. Wherever they advertise, it must be good to win the award. It's not a bad effort. They're the only major park in Australia to win, and that's not bad, especially considering Dreamworld's former General Manager (he's now a creative consultant for the park) is on the IAAPA board and whatnot, which would in theory at least point more in favour of the Gold Coast parks.

That's pretty cool mate. I'm impressed! Add me to the list of those eager to see the water park.

It doesn't do the full 360º, but Delirium does swing high enough for the outside edge to be essentially inverted at the maximum height.

Actually, by saying Bush Beast doesn't need any major work itself shows that Australian wooden coasters are needlessly rough and painful. Yes, a wooden coaster is supposed to have a bit of character, but seriously, Bush Beast crosses that line and then some. You mightn't think it's really that bad, but trust me, it is. Just because it's not 75 years old doesn't mean it doesn't need serious work done. It's painfully rough, so it's time. Some wooden coasters get a complete retracking every season. That's not just replacing a piece of wood here and there - that's replacing 4-8 layers of two inch thick wood from station to brake run.

Actually, it really is that bad. If 75+ year old Giant Dipper at Belmont Park can be smooth, then there's no excuse for a 20 year old coaster. It can't be too far from 90km/hr. How do you propose it completes the course if it's lost any significant speed over the years? There's an incredibly fine line between making it and valleying. If I were at home I'd pull out some of my friend Newton's formulae and go about proving it, but the bottom line is you're not going to loose more than a few km/hr off the designed speed before it valleys.

I figured we needed a new thread for my trip. It's been big enough in the other one, and this is a long long review. Busch Gardens, Walt Disney World, SeaWorld Orlando, Islands of Adventure. It's been a few days since my last update, and in those few days I've ridden all of the remaining coasters of the trip and been to every park in Orlando. We went to Busch Gardens on Sunday. They have the single most stupid shuttle system from Orlando (Tampa Bay is an hour+ away) - I'd hire a car if doing it again. We went for Rhino Rally, given its reputation for being a big queue ride. It's essentially a safari ride for the majority, which would be a lot better if the driver took the ride seriously. As great as the whole "give animals and landmarks stupid names" thing goes, I'd really prefer a more realic experience. The rapids section is overhyped and boring, which made me really disappointed that the driver took it as such a joke. Kumba was next. It's truly an amazing ride, but superb up the front. Its first drop is great, but nothing different from just about every B&M sitdown/standup/floorless. I couldn't care less about every inversion but the zero-g-roll, which is truly the best inversion ever created. Thanks to Busch's renowned high-capacity and low (relative to Orlando) attendance, the ride is a walkon for any seat but the front pretty much all day. We next went around and did the river rapids ride. They're all very different over here. They make it no surprise to get soaked, unlike at home. You will come off this thing dripping wet. We did a bunch of other things, including R.L. Stine's Haunted Lighthouse, which stars whoever the guy who played Doc Brown in the Back to the Futures, with a cool Weird Al cameo at the end, which was all I really wanted to see. I thought it was as good as Pirates, which it replaced at the Anheuser-Busch parks here (perhaps our Sea World didn't think it was worth the asking price?). Montu is a great ride. Better than Batman, and too different to compare to Dueling Dragons, which is all I can say. All the diving underground is cool, and again I simply love the zero-g-rolls. Gwazi is nothing special. This is the first wooden coaster that is on par with most opinions of it. It's fairly boring, and about equivalent in roughness to Psyclone, which ain't good. At least it has the nice PTC trains that I love (NOTHING like those PTCs that Bush Beast runs, by the way). The two sides a fairly comparable, and they made no effort whatsoever to actually duel the trains. They were so bloody slow at load/unload, that probably 75% of the ride time was spent stacked in the brake run waiting. Python proves that our Corkscrew is a rarity among old Arrows. It's rough and pretty painful, even with the softer OTSR (between Corkscrew's hard ones at Cyclone's super-soft ones). Scorpion is just an old Schwarzkopf, which would be rough if it had OTSR, but isn't bad with just the lapbars. The helices are Goliath-like in force, which I like. We didn't ride the log flume, which was about as ugly as those at SFMM. Their shoot the chutes, named Tidal Wave really lives up to its name. It soaks those on the rode, and absolutely drenches everyone on the bridge. They have a glass pane at the end for those that want to see it but not experience it, which is hit by a wall of water that is strong enough to actually move the glass, which was thick enough to not budge at all when I threw my weight into it to test its strength. We managed to do Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Epcot in one day, and Disney-MGM in a much slower-paced second day. We've still got three days plus up to four days at the non-theme parks at Walt Disney World, so we take take time and redo what we want, and see everything we missed. Magic Kingdom is like Disneyland with double the capacity. Space Mountain was first, and it was truly above and beyond all my expectations. It's hard to imagine if you haven't ridden either the Disneyland or MK versions, but for such a relatively simple (yet quite intense) coaster, it really did freak me out (and I don't just mean the "Cool! Airtime!" sort of freaked out). We then went over to Frontierland and did BTM with Splash Mountain FastPass tickets in hand, plus I figured out how to scam the system (I won't be revealing in a hurry), so as to get more FastPass tickets. Big Thunder Mountain is gentle yet great fun, and goes all-out in the lift hill department. Splash Mountain makes the story so much less ambiguous, but on the same note, it also makes figuring out the story no longer half the fun. I didn't think it was quite as good as Disneyland's - they are both very different, not just in the size of the logs. Animal Kingdom is a boring park if you're after your regular theme park. It has Primeval Whirl, which is certainly below Disney standards, and Kali River Rapids, which you can really see is what Grizzly at DCA was based and expanded upon. It's got fantastic theming, and some cool elements. The real masterpiece here is definitely the safari. It's as authentic as the real thing (I'd imagine ), and compared to Busch and San Diego Zoo, the animals are a lot nicer looking - it's as if they paint them, or reject the less-than-perfect ones or something, because they're all so textbook perfect. We got approached by some giraffe, which was quite a magical experience. I finally did "It's Tough to Be a Bug" at this park, which I don't think was nearly as good as Shrek 4D or the best of them all, Muppetvision 3D, but it was fun. Epcot is the true gem of WDW. We got into the 35 minute single-riders queue for Test Track, which was quite a great feature, and very efficient. This ride is just so amazing that it's almost hard to describe. It's basically what the name suggests - a testing track for cars. It takes you through a range of tests, including braking, rough surfaces, extreme temperatures and high-speed plus a whole bunch more. It was truly the best ride I've ever ever been on - no joke. That was until we did Mission Space next. Mission Space is best described as a simulator, built onto arms of a centrifuge, similar to La Revolucion at Knotts. Unlike most simulators, where you are given the visual illusion of various feelings, this, you actually feel the high G-forces of the launch, the weightlessness of space, and all the rest. Combine this with the fact that you're pressing buttons to control parts of the journey, and "steering" the ship with a force-feedback joystick, this is truly the best ride I've ever ridden. It's so great, and you just know that nobody other than Disney will ever pull off this sort of ride. The next day we went to Disney-MGM Studios. It's like Movie World, only bigger and with some decent non-ride attractions, which Movie World loves to remove. We did Tower of Terror first, second and third, because Rock n' Roller Coaster was down for most of the day. Because they're now randomly running four different programs, you really don't know what to expect. If you like the "initial drop" feeling, you'll love this thanks to the repeated drops and even S&S style upward launch and drop. We did many of the great non-ride attractions. Millionaire-Play It! is great, equal to DCA's of course. I couldn't beat my record of number eight in the audience (out of 500, it's really not that bad), but Simon got to number one for a bit before getting the remaining few questions wrong. A kid got on, which means he was the fastest and most-correct in the audience, who used two lifelines on the first two questions, and got wrong with "What does Harry Potter ride", with a 50/50 between mop and broom, which got some good chuckles. There's a great museum dedicated to Walt Disney, which I personally loved. When Rock n' Roller Coaster opened, we waited about 30 minutes for this, but it's worth it. The launch is great, and amazingly it's a smooth coaster - probably the smoothest I've ever experienced, which proves that the Vekoma badge isn't the problem - it's the parks who don't maintain them. Kind of silly though - it's just a few inversions and whatnot in the dark, to a seemingly random Aerosmith soundtrack. To get to Walt Disney World from International Drive (the touristy hotel area of Orlando), you have to catch two buses, with a transfer at SeaWorld. We figured it was too cold (it's turned freezing over the past few days) for WDW, so we just wandered over to SeaWorld and spent half a day there. We wandered around for a while, but eventually ended up at Kraken, which truly is the best floorless coaster in the world. The zero-g-roll is the most perfect one ever, and you know how much I love them! It's actually noticeable smoother than most other B&Ms, which makes this thing silky. Combined with the silence of the ride (it uses sand and dampeners and whatnot to make it quiet for the nearby animals), so it's quite a different ride. We watched Journey to Atlantis for a few minutes, seeing as we weren't decked out for a wet ride in this weather. We're saving it for another, better day. There's a pretty awful simulator there called Wild Arctic. You basically board, go for a terribly synchronised helicopter ride, before getting off in the Arctic to see some actual animals. There's some beluga whales, seals and polar bears (which aren't as cool as those at our Sea World). We decided to get out of there after lunch, and ended up at IOA for the afternoon. It's amazing to see how empty this place was after some seriously packed days. Hulk was a 5 minute wait according to the sign, which always translates to walkon. This ride is sweet, but to me, the element that makes this ride wouldn't even be considered an element by most. After the second loop, there's a downward s-bend. It's all of about two seconds, but to me, it's just the coolest thing ever. We then got over to Spider-Man again, because it was only a 20 minute wait, which was also pretty close to a walkon. This is the coolest ride Universal have in their arsenal, and it's just so cleverly done that it's worth riding just to figure out how different effects work. Dueling Dragons was calling us. Absolutely horrible one-train operation meant it was a 30+ minute wait. We rode Ice first, and decided to wait an extra 30 minutes for the front. There is no other seat but the front on this inverted - more so than normal ones. We then rode Fire, just going for a middle seat. I can't really compare the two until I ride them both in the front, which I'll do when we go back and crowds die down some more. We dared to ride Jurassic Park, which amazingly isn't nearly as good as Universal Studios Hollywood's version. About all I preferred was the fact that it had better looking surrounding rainforests. We're just going to go back to parks and ride what we've missed at all the parks, and get some video and photo footage.

I don't see why you'd want to get used to it. As great as it is riding a 90+ year-old ride for the whole "Wow, look at me, I'm riding a 90+ year-old coaster!" factor, but as far as coasters go, it's forceless, slow and well, boring.

Better late than never, right? I'm pretty busy, yada yada yada. Hope everyone had a great 2003, and that 2004 will be an equally great year full of all sorts of fun and fulfilled dreams. Anyone have cool travel plans, be it just up to the Gold Coast, or over to America or somewhere cooler, do share in any of the appropriate forums. There are many people here who can really help you with tips, advice or jealousy. As you all know, the plans are big for Total Thrills as it moves into the future. Stay tuned in particular in coming weeks for some big announcements and whatnot in terms of progress! Happy 2004! -Richard

No they're not. I've not experienced a ride that's anywhere in the league those two are. Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa is the roughest I've ridden, and it's bumpy - not at all causing pain like our two do. Wonderland haven't spent nearly enough on maintenance, nor do they realise how much good full retrackings and whatnot do, and Luna Park's Scenic Railway looks to still have much of the original wood, which says a lot. Considering its tallest drop is all of about eight metres and so gently taken, it's amazing that it could be so painful.

We haven't done Disney yet - that's starting tomorrow morning. It's freakin' hot over here, and those two water parks look seriously cool from all the Disney ads we've seen (actually, there's a dedicated Walt Disney World advertising channel which Simon's taken a liking to, or rather Krissa, the host 8)), and from reports I've heard over the years from relatives and friends. The five day passes come with an extra two tickets for some of the non-theme park things, and we're using them on the water parks, so that'll be cool.

Well, not the real Jack, his head is much much bigger and whiter. But he was just a really nice guy who was joking around and was glad tohave a conversation with us (he's one of the very few who have traveled, let alone seen Australia), and even the bums that seem to loiter around outside the place, who aren't the nicest looking people. Yesterday we did Universal Studios Orlando. It's a much much prettier park, that's tried to be more than the Hollywood equivalent, but still lacks quite a lot. At least unlike Hollywood, it's not built on the side of a mountain, so you don't need to take 400m long escellators that go down the side of a mountain just to get to different rides, which is slow and pretty unintersting the after the first time. We just did things in the order that they appeared, starting with Twister. Compared to the USH equivalent, Backdraft, it's not nearly as good, and often just silly. You'll see photos soon, so I won't go into detail, but this is basically where all the theming ideas from Cyclone were "borrowed" from, right down to the ride shop name. Next was Earthquake, which starts of silly, becomes annoyingly silly, but ends with the subway ride that you've all seen. The cool thing about this part of the park , was it's San Francisco theme. As someone who's both been there, and absolutely loves the city, it's great to see something as Authentic feeling as this. You could be walking along and swear you're in Fisherman's Wharf, aside from the heat (it's Aussie-summer hot down here!!). We went to Men in Black next, the dark ride shoot-em-up thingy. The queue outside wasn't too bad, so we went in, but the majority of the queue was inside. At least it gave a great opportunity to soak in the theming, and it's great to watch it go from what are the best animatronics I've ever seen to some of the worst from one room to another. The actual ride is pretty cool once you're on. The idea is to shoot as many aliens as you can along the ride, getting bonus points for shooting another car and whatnot. Some would say the highlight is Will Smith's appearance at the very end, which seems to be for no other reason than to say "Look, we got Will Smith in our ride!". We had to compare Back to the Future to that back west, so on we went. It's absolutely identical, but the movements are way too rough and sudden. I prefer the other one much much better. E.T. was cool. It's basically a suspended dark ride, which starts off cool and by the end it's just It's a Small World with singing and bright colours and all that (not that it's not cool ). Woody Woodpecker was another Vekoma roller skater - it's the short model, the same as Disneyland's. One train makes it a pain for capacity, so we ended up waiting about 20 minutes for this thing. And that's Universal Studios Orlando. We had lunch over in San Francisco before heading to IOA to walk around frustrated by the disgusting crowds and incredibly plain stupid and ignorant people that that place had. Note to parents: a stroller is NOT something that gives you right of way and allows you to cut through and in front of anyone. Thankfully a foot in front of the wheel quickly stops them. We didn't actually ride anything in our five hours or so there, but got some photos and video. Today we went to Wet 'n' Wild Orlando. For a water park in the theme park capital of the world, it's hard to think you could find something so crap right in the middle of the tourist area. They have seven slides (I don't count a structure of three or four of the same basic thing, just with a slightly different order of turns, different) and a wave pool. It took some convincing to get Simon out of the place, even though he didn't like it either. We went back to IOA after lunch, as Universal's only a fairly quick walk away. Today as we entered a guy who was leaving had some nearly-expired Express Lane (that's the Universal's upcharge Fastpass equivalent) tickets for Spider-Man, so we took these and walked past the 75 minute queue into the 10 minute EL queue. You've all heard about this ride, a moving dark ride that combines just about everything into one. It's basically Disney's Indiana Jones, with the added element of 3D, and a slightly longer and more meaningful ride. It's damn hot, so we trusted the sign which said Ripsaw Falls had only a 45 minute queue. It ended up being an hour, and they seriously need to work out a way to make the EL system integrate better, because as it is it just punishes the non-EL people, unlike Fastpass. The ride's pretty good, but not worth the queue. It really soaks you, right down to some guards on the side which actually direct the splash right back into the boat, soaking you, which is cruel. The drop isn't that bad, but they've got these money making water cannons (a quarter a squirt), which are aimed straight at riders, are are really powerful. I came of head-to-toe wet, which was pretty nice in the weather. The sign out the front of Ripsaw said only a 10 minute wait for Dueling Dragons, which is on the other side of the park, around the lake. By the time we got there, it was up to 25 minutes, which we were willing to do, but their no-items policy insists you leave items with friends or get a free locker. All fair, but the queues for lockers alone were about 15 minutes thanks to a hopeless design on IOA's behalf and stupid people, so we called it quits and headed out of the park (we're coming back to really do the park once the vacationers head home). In Universal's CityWalk (that's Downtown Disney, only nicer), we decided to see a movie and had dinner at Hard Rock. Tomorrow's Busch, and I'm in the process of getting all the photos up until now online, which should be done tomorrow.

More correctly, there's something in the chlorine over here. Nah, it wasn't Jack in the Box. I had that in San Diego, and I think you just had a bad go. It's just nothing different from all the smaller (meaning there's only hundreds of locations around the place) franchises here. In fact, the manager at this place would have to be one of the nicest guys we've met overhere. I'm reporting from International Dr, Orlando Florida. We've got twelve days and ten parks before coming home. It's nice and warm, so it won't be quite as stupid as it has been to go on some of the mega-soaking rides.

That's a real shame, though I hope at the end of the day the cubs are alright, and it's for reasons other than health or anything.

Report on Six Flags Over Texas, live from Florida: The park opens from November 28 - January 4 for "Holiday in the Park". It's an excuse to open the park in freezing weather, get enormously huge crowds, and open enough rides to count on one hand. We flew in from Vegas December 27 via Denver, Colorado. After changing hotels once, we ended up at a place that was just across the road from the park, meaning a nice quick walk over to the park. As luck has it, I got some sort of food poisoning (it figures, I live off crap for three weeks no worries and then decide to go for nice clean Subways for a change, and get violently ill from it), so I missed Monday at the park. I went the night before for about half an hour, and checked out Titan. Titan is a pretty nice ride. It's similar, but definitely not identical to Goliath at SFMM. The first drop is pretty nice, but prepare yourself for the tunnel, expecially if your arms are up - 140km/hr into a tiny hole makes it feel like you're hitting a solid wall of air. It's hard to imagine it, but it's enough to throw your back off. After a day in bed, I finally headed back out. It was time to do the rest of the open rides. We started the day easy, doing Mini Mine Train, an early Arrow kiddies coaster, which is all that needs to be said about it. Right next door was Mine Train - the first "runaway train" coaster, which has an amazing three lift hills and a cool dive under a muddy pond, presumably called a lake. We then went onto Shockwave, an Schwarzkopf looper. Revolution at SFMM wasn't at all bad with the OTSR, but with lapbars, I can definitely see how much better they are. There's some awesome pops of airtime on this thing, and some cool banked turns. Next was La Vibora, an Intamin bobsled. This thing was pretty cool, a really fun ride. We did Titan again. The queue was significantly smaller than my ride two days before. Compared to Goliath with one-train operation, this thing's two trains make the queue bearable - I'd love to see it (or any ride for that matter... which I hopefully will down here in Florida) with three trains happening. It's the same as Goliath for the first drop and turnaround, but has a pretty different second half, but keeping the same infamous helix. Superman: Tower of Power was the last real ride open that we had to do. Simon's not a fan of any tower rides at all, but I love them. It's the best I've ever ridden. Maliboomer at DCA just shoots you up and down and Supreme Scream just shoots you down, but this thing does both in succession, which is by far the best way to do things. The queue was bearable, but in hindsight, the single-riders queue is a great idea. Because it's four sides of three seats, there's a lot of spares going straight to these people. It's pretty bad that they didn't open Batman or Mr Freeze or even the Boomerang. The park was absolutely packed, and I understand the wooden coasters being down for offseason maintenance and whatnot (and they actually were working on them), but these three rides would have been great for overall capacity (particularly Batman). I suppose it is Six Flags after all, as much as I hate to say it, but two out of two SF parks I've been to are run like this. I'm pretty disappointed that we've had to skip Wild Adventures up in Valdosta Georgia, but it was a bit much, and we weren't sure how quickly I was going to get better again. Boomers! down here in Ft. Lauderdale is also off the list, which is a shame, but once we hit Orlando tomorrow, it gets fun. If you haven't seen, Knott's pictures are up, and SFMM, Vegas and SFOT will come eventually!

rewindniwer, You're going to have to typing using whole words, punctuating and other basics of the English language. Type however you want in your chat rooms or Avril Lavigne fan sites, but here at Total Thrills you're going to use conventional English. "It's easier" is not good enough. Take the time to type correctly, or don't obther at all. I'm not going to waste my time reading unstructured dribble, and neither will many other people. If you're not writing stuff people can read, then you're not meaningfully contributing to this site, and are wasting my money and time. You've improved already, and let's keep going in that direction. By all means post here, but take the time to post so that people will actually read what you say.