Gazza
-
Posts
11,029 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
239
Posts posted by Gazza
-
-
^Not quite, that was just a trial from memory, So far only the Great Nor'Easter at Moreys Piers has a confirmed order for the new seat design. I think Kumali at Flamingoland is the only SLC with the new chassis design. Both improvements have reportedly improved comfort on their respective rides.
-
Well, I rode this yesterday (red train) and it confirmed my thoughts on the ride. I tried a few of the methods people have suggested, sticking your head out to the front, wedging into a corner etc and I found it simply impossible to avoid ear bashing. I mean, I don't really mind my whole body being shaken..it happens on woodies and its all part of the fun, but the issue is that every time you hit the side of your head all of the force is directed through a vulnerable part of your body, the ears, and it is only concerntrated on that point. Your body shaking doesn't hurt, but hitting your ears does, and that is where I draw the line. I dont really buy the whole "man it up" thing..rides are meant to be fun, and hitting your head isn't fun. There is no doubt I would enjoy it more if it were smooth, Vekoma SLCs do have a good layout that is well paced but the discomfort of riding spoils that, so for that reason I believe the B&M product is far superior (And the majority who have experienced both would agree with me on that) Thing is, for some people, yes, the roughness does provide a thrill, but if you take that away there are other aspects of the experience that 'step up' for you to notice, so the overall experience would not be detracted, quite the opposite.Take Superman, its smooth and people rave about it for its airtime, if it didn't have this smoothness you wouldn't be able to appreciate the forces that had been engineered into it as well.
-
^Ummm, I went to guest services in the morning to get my pass, and then I got my locker from the person on the right hand till (So I guess your left) and I got lunch at Bombora, and got served at the very far right till (closest to the wave pool) so I guess you could work out from that.... I did notice it was a bit busy, not unbearable but I made no special effort to get anything in paticular done (Plus I was solo and I couldn't be stuffed with any of the raft slides, bring on one person rings I say)...I left at 2 to go next door and ride Superman and try the new dodgems.
-
I went down and checked this out today, and was fairly impressed, quite a solid attraction that is a lot of fun (I'd rate it equally as good as the Claw at DW), there is good air at the top of each spike (don't hold on, and put your legs out) and the water jets leave you mildly damp, and thankfully, don't hurt. The spinning really is random throughout the cycle...sometimes it might spin a small amount at the beginning of the cycle, but would then suddenly whip around a few of times in a fast spin, only to settle down again. Lines seemed to be about 20 minutes (roughly 2 switchbacks full) which was bearable. My only gripe would be its short cycle time, but I recognise that it is a balance between providing a satisfying ride, whilst working with the capacity constraints.
-
^But in that case the last few turns wouldn't count at all given they don't reach 90 degrees, stuffing things up even more. I looked up some images of motor racing circuits to see if i could get an insight into the conventions used (they might be applying this to the coaster), and it tends to be that they count turns greater than 90 degrees as one turn, not two, see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Circuit...BCrburgring.png From what i can gather they only count defined changes of directions as a turn, so a 'straight' that curves gradually (eg between turns 7 and 8 in the above example) doesnt actually get counted as a turn At the same time though, sometimes what appears as a 'single' turn does get counted as two if the radius changes significantly, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Circuit_Fuji.png, 6&7 and 14&15 are essentially u turns that are irregular, and hence two turns. But even then this isn't applicable to motocoaster because the turns on a coaster are engineered to not have irregularities. So to sum up, I still have no idea.
-
Only thing I noticed being a rip off is the little speedometers they use to denote intensity, they are off the Six Flags site: http://www.sixflags.com/magicMountain/rides/ThrillRides.aspx Still cannot stand how they say MDMC has 18 turns, it has 8 turns at full speed plus one between the brakes and the station, if someone can explain how they count turns I would greatly appreciate it.
-
I managed to dig up a couple of the pics of the launch stage that were posted here a little while back if that is what you were after.
I'm sort of wondering why WVTP wouldn't be happy about it though, these sort of pictures are freely available of 'behind the scenes' areas of comparable rides overseas (And of course on this very site when MDMC was being built) -
^Good effort, very nice shots there that show off everything well, It was lucky the weather was so nice, makes everything more vibrant. The only suggestion I have though is make sure you watch your tags, this photo http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coas...-Wave_Pool.html for example should have had a mammoth falls tag and this one http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coas...r_Mountian.html could have had a speedcoaster tag.
-
Just wondering, is there bias coded into randomiser to show only the Aussie parks?
-
Bahaha, it debuted second last out of all the coasters in the world! Out of the 10 people that rode it, it lost 50 mutual comparisons, and only won one. Superman Escape has slipped down to 35, but you know, that is a pretty realistic reflection IMO actually, last year people did bump it up a bit. For those who are interested, here are how the Australian coasters that were included on the ballot fared against each other: Superman Escape Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Tower of Terror Crazy Coaster (Travelling)*1 Turbo Mountain*2 Lethal Weapon*3 Corkscrew*4 Cyclone Metropolis*5 Rugrats Runaway Reptar*6 Mick Doohans Motocoaster *1 Ranked as "Favourite spinning mouse" *2 Ranked as "Favourite Jet Star" *3 Ranked as "Favourite Vekoma SLC" *4 Ranked as "Favourite Loopscrew" *5 Ranked as "Favourite Galaxi" *6 Ranked as "Favourite Vekoma suspended family coaster" Going by the rankings of similar rides, Surfrider would rate roughly equal to SDSC.
-
Might as well put this in here since it was mentioned earlier in the thread, and accounts for part of the $20,000,000 being spent on additions at WVTP this year, but SWs pool upgrade is done and they have put in a small, $1 Mil water playground with some cute little fibreglass animals that relate to SW, see http://www.seaworldresort.myfun.com.au/Res...W-WaterPlay.htm
-
Well, as far as I'm concerned, anything with monetary value is worth winning. I think a good starting point would be to look through the parks you have been to, and look out for the rides that don't have the little red camera icon....there is one major Australian park (have a look) with little coverage that I'm sure could be rectified by the end of the month. I think though one thing that I'd like to see implemented in the future is a one step system for uploading photos of unlisted rides and parks, if a ride is not in the database you could at the least type in a park name and ride name for a placeholder entry, and this would have the effect of quickly building up the database. While I personally don't really mind gathering all the stats i can find before submitting the DB entry, and then putting up the photos separately, it seems so far that other people have just submitted basic database info anyway...might as well combine it into one step if people are going to do that. Also, I have one little gripe...take it more of a suggestion, but people when taking photos, if they can, should switch off the date watermark function of their camera...you know where it puts the date in the bottom corner in yellow text, IMO it is wrecking a nice photo and big ugly yellow pixelated text is not really necessary, especially when the date the photo was taken can be viewed in the metadata of the photo anyway.
-
Haha, I have inadvertently covered a theme park that is somewhat relevant to this site. Booya for me. I think though both parks seemed to have quite a similar feel in some ways, both with nice tropical gardens and mostly standard issue slides rather than some of the newer types out there.....you could almost imagine WVTP just replicating their approach with WnW.
-
Bigger from memory.
-
Yeah, it uses the cable lift system as seen on Millennium Force, Goliath at Wallibi World etc.
-
Well, I just wanted to give my review of it, and until now I hadn't had an opportunity to ride it, people write trip reports and reviews about rides all the time....I guess It wouldn't be acceptable for people to give their thoughts on Corkscrew at SW if they had recently visited, after all, they would be over 20 years too late.The ride has been open for months and months and months, park attendance has increased. it's done it's job. I think it's time to let this post go... enough bitching -
Yeah, I did all the LA parks. Universal is great, only 2 rides (Revenge of the Mummy and Jurassic Park...Im not sure if the Simpsons Ride will be open when you visit) so the park is more about shows, they are good but it depends if you would rather watch good shows than do rides. Knotts was fairly good, horribly busy when I visited which is odd for knotts, but I got the worthwhile stuff done, if its the coasters you are after then SFMM does give more choice in that respect. I mean, if you had to narrow it down to two parks, I would do Disneyland/DCA and SFMM as you will get the broadest experiences this way. Of course, try and talk your mates into going to the other parks too since they are all worth it, if you are in LA i struggle to think of much else to do...visiting Hollywood is a half day job...what else is there to do
As for Disneyland/ Disneys California adventure, here is a strategy we employed on my first visit....Disneyland opens an hour earlier than DCA, so go to Disneyland for 50 minutes or so and go on Indiana Jones, and if you have time, another ride with a short line . Head across to DCA (50m walk from gate to gate) a few minutes before the place opens, when the park opens make a beeline for Tower of Terror, and then Soarin over California, Do Grizzly River Run and California Screamin next, and if you dont mind being split up in exchange for a very short queue, use the single rider entrance on each of these rides (ask the cast member out front for the pass)
After this, check out the other rides you want to get done...you can probably get the whole park done by early in the afternoon, from there head across to Disneyland, do space mountain and then do the rest of the rides in Disneyland...and don't forget to pick up fast passes when you can, so you can be riding one ride whilst waiting for your timeslot to roll around for the fastpass you are holding.
A member here named Joz did a fair bite of both parks in one day so maybe he could give pointers, personally I would recommend two days as it is a great pair of parks that are worth that amount of time at least.
Id go as far as to say that out of Superman and Xcelerator, that Superman is the better of the two, thats just me though. Silver bullet is cool, but i mean there is a comparable ride at SFMM in Batman.Knotts is cool as well, but there's nothing special there... Silver Bullet isn't fantastic, Accelerator is good but not hugely more impressive than Superman, and Perilous Plunge has a cool splash but that's about it. -
Yeah, I'd do Disney and SFMM, you can get a one day park hopper for Disney so you could do all the big rides at both parks in a day if you were smart about it, and then purchase a second day to do the stuff you had missed, Disney isn't kiddy, and it is not something to be missed.
-
Ok, so I headed down to DW to finally get a ride on this (#61) Now I didn't have particularly high hopes for this given what has been flying around about it, but this somehow managed to exceed my crapness expectations.... it really was just a poor coaster and mediocre in every respect. I went on first thing in the morning so I would have some hope of getting pole position. It broke down when I was about 4 trains from the front of the line....the motor system must have gone down....you could tell because all of a sudden the station became nice and quiet. Another point worth mentioning is how it makes all the handrails, floor etc in the station just vibrate constantly, which must be very irritating for the ride ops who have to put up with it all day. It seemed disorganized in the station, seats were going out empty and they weren't sending people to the gates early enough, often people were still finding their row after the train had pulled up, I would have expected the next batch of guests would be sent behind the gates as soon as the gates closed behind the batch of guests who were newly boarding. I used the single rider line on my other two rides which kept my waiting to a minimum. As for the ride...the launch felt weaker than TOT even, the one thing the ride did have going for it was that it was smooth, but other than that it just felt utterly forceless and plain bland, with all the elements being too gradual or wide, I mean where are the 'highlights' a good coaster should have? You know, moments where you see whats coming up ahead and think "here we go!", no its just turns and turns with no climax and a moderate feeling of speed (thats the other thing, while it doesn't slow down as much as I thought it would, it just seems to run steadily with no interesting changes in velocity. As for the trains, my advice is to get into a comfortable spot and don't fidget from it, on one of my rides my foot became badly placed so i got to experience my shins and thighs being drilled. IMO the sidecars actually deliver a better ride. Haha it is true.. Roadrunner/Flying Unicorn is better than this.
-
Yeah, that was brought up on the last page: http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=46068
-
^Wait, so do you like them, or are you being sarcastic? Re the original post, each 'lif't vehicle (eg the thing you ride around in) has its own wheels and can trundle along independently, it works just like the Big Red Car ride at DW, with a wire in the floor it can track to guide it into place (Eg when it is reversing out of the loading area, when it is driving through the 5th dimension room on the orlando version to get to the main freefall shafts, and when it is parking at the unload at the end). On the vertical freefall parts the vehicle just drives into a bigger lift cabin (I guess it doesn't have a roof), then the cabin is pulled up and down by cables at both the top and the bottom of the cabin (2 motors) so in a sense it is a bit like a spaceshot in that it can be hauled upwards and pulled downwards faster than gravity. When it has done its thing in the freefall shaft, it reverses out of the cabin and parks at the unload.
-
An Aquatrax isn't really a water coaster (A bit of a common misconception, Intamin don't actually make a proper equivatlent to the Mack and Premier rides offerings) An Aquatrax is just a launched coaster with 8 person jet ski style cars, and can do a trick where it skims close to the water surface, throwing up spray a bit like a B&M dive machine: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/US/Tampa/Bus...82-SheiKra.html And even then riders don't get wet because it doesn't enter the water properly. To me it seems like a wierd concept with its only point of difference being the saddle style seating (I guess you could say it's second point of difference is that it is the only water coaster that doesn't go in the water
), which might explain why they have only sold one.
Still, if SW are after a milder alternative to corkscrew, it seems like a fairly good option. -
^Well, as said it could be an Aquatrax since that has jet ski trains, and the sole Aquatrax in existence looks far better than Motocoaster.
-
On the top hat its only a small pop for me, but on the two hills it seems to last 2 or 3 seconds.
As for Disneyland/ Disneys California adventure, here is a strategy we employed on my first visit....Disneyland opens an hour earlier than DCA, so go to Disneyland for 50 minutes or so and go on Indiana Jones, and if you have time, another ride with a short line . Head across to DCA (50m walk from gate to gate) a few minutes before the place opens, when the park opens make a beeline for Tower of Terror, and then Soarin over California, Do Grizzly River Run and California Screamin next, and if you dont mind being split up in exchange for a very short queue, use the single rider entrance on each of these rides (ask the cast member out front for the pass)
After this, check out the other rides you want to get done...you can probably get the whole park done by early in the afternoon, from there head across to Disneyland, do space mountain and then do the rest of the rides in Disneyland...and don't forget to pick up fast passes when you can, so you can be riding one ride whilst waiting for your timeslot to roll around for the fastpass you are holding.
A member here named Joz did a fair bite of both parks in one day so maybe he could give pointers, personally I would recommend two days as it is a great pair of parks that are worth that amount of time at least.
), which might explain why they have only sold one.
Still, if SW are after a milder alternative to corkscrew, it seems like a fairly good option.
Lethal Weapon truely LETHAL!
in Theme Park Discussion
Posted · Edited by Gazza