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25-06-2008, 01:11 PM
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#1
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Comments on Southern trip
I don't really have time to do a full report but I wanted to write up a
few comments about the various pieces of a great trip.
RRR: I came to this event with a lot of trepidation about the condition
Rampage would be in. It did have a few potholes, but after my first
ride I knew when to brace for them and had no trouble from that point
on. It remains a great ride and I'm glad I got to ride again. The ops
were very enthusiastic and kept running it with two trains though by the
time we left there were at most half a dozen people still riding.
As for the park, I really didn't get a chance to see it, as it was dark
by the time we arrived. I wish we'd been there just a bit earlier to
see what it was like. It is still a pretty dinky park, but it did look
like the trees have grown in pretty well. I'd have liked to see it in
daytime to see if that made it look any less like a bunch of rides on a
big concrete pad.
SFoG: They were great hosts for the first half of the Con. Mindbender
was a blast, probably the best coaster of the trip. Goliath was a very
nice B&M hyper. The last three hills feel more like Intamin than
anything I've previously rode from B&M.
The wood coasters need a bit of work. Cyclone has clearly lost
something, with no big thrills after the fourth drop and a lot of
shuffling. Sad to say, I was expecting even worse. Scream Machine was
OK, but not really delivering much and also a bit rough. It wasn't
obnoxious, but could have been much more enjoyable with better padded
trains.
Otherwise SFoG has a nice set of coasters and attractions. We rode
Monster Plantation several times, just because. The one meal we
attended was catered and very good. I was just a bit sad to leave, even
after four days.
During our stay in Atlanta we visited the popular Varsity for their
tasty chili dogs. On the recommendation of a friend we also went to the
Busy Bee Cafe where we could have gotten true soul food. We kept it
conservative and stuck to the fried chicken, which was excellent.
We skipped the Wild Adventures part of the Con. Just too far away and
too little to draw us there, though I do have a strange fondness for the
park. Instead we visited a few other parks. First was Dixieland Fun
Park, which we got a discount to with our Con badges. This park seems
to be a work in progress. The parking lot kind of runs up the middle of
it, and there are bare areas they seem to still be building on. It does
seem clean and everything looks new, but it will probably always be a
carnival park. The zip line is not a very thrilling attraction, but it
is interesting and worth a ride. The Miler coaster really doesn't seem
like it'll make it around the turns.
Dollywood: Mystery Mine was well themed, but just not really that fun a
ride. It's kind of like a steel LoCoSuMo. Two rides early on while the
line was light were enough. Thunderhead was running fast enough, but
had an unexpected and annoying chatter. Tennessee Tornado is quite a
good Arrow...a pity they couldn't have started building rides like it
some years earlier than they did. They might still be around. The rest
of the park was very nice, but I was pretty tired that day.
Ghost Town in the Sky: Cliffhanger was not running. But worse yet,
they were not taking riders on the chair lift. People were being sent
to the top by bus...not interesting at all. We skipped it.
Family Kingdom: Swamp Fox was running with quite an attitude, quite
possibly the best wood coaster of the trip. Unfortunately they added
new hard seat backs, which detracted from the experience. Otherwise I'm
sure we would have ridden a lot more. The rest of the park is a bit
light on attractions, a few hours was enough. On the other hand, they
really seem to be profiting from the demise of Pavilion, as they were
pretty crowded.
Hard Rock Park: This park really warrants its own trip report, and
perhaps I'll do one. In any case, in short it really exceeded my
expectations. I fully thought we'd take a few hours to get all the
credits, run out for the afternoon, and return for the fireworks in the
evening. But we spent fourteen hours straight in the park and had fun
the whole time (except for when we were waiting for Maximum RPM in the
sun). If it weren't the end of a week long trip with an early flight
the next morning I might have wanted to stay until close.
There is a lot of attention to detail here, and they're doing a lot of
things well. I got the sense they weren't trying to cut any corners.
This was evident in things like the huge number of employees, a great
variety of food selections, down to the large number of bathrooms
scattered through the park. These are things that so many parks don't
do well in favor of just getting some high profile attraction installed;
it was refreshing to see.
We loved the Moody Blues dark ride. We rode it three times and I could
easily have been talked into another. It's probably my second favorite
dark ride to Droomvlucht now. The Punk Pit, a simple enough adult
bouncy castle, was tremendous fun too. Too tiring to repeat, though.
Led Zeppelin was pretty cool. The soundtrack takes an otherwise middle
of the road B&M up a notch. I would have liked a song like Rock and
Roll, but I understand their choice of Whole Lotta Love, which must have
been far easier to sync with the ride. It works well if the dispatches
are prompt, which keeps the song continuity, but often the dispatches
are late, leading to a pause. It was also annoying to have to go
through the multimedia pre-show each time.
There are some puzzling decisions they've made, such as the low capacity
Maximum RPM and Slippery When Wet. They're a bit light on the
attractions overall, and really shouldn't be pricing their admission so
high. Their location is pretty odd too, sandwiched between two
churches, next to the Medieval Tims, and behind the closed outlet mall.
No doubt, attendance is light. I overheard that they haven't ramped up
their national ad campaign yet, but they sure have bought up lots of
billboards for miles around. It did seem like there were a lot of
people there sporting season passes on lanyards, so maybe this is
working with the locals, but they have to reach out to more people to
really succeed. It remains to be seen if they can do that. If they
can't get many more people into the park, they're certainly going to
have to do something, cutting back on either the hours or the staff or
both.
The employees are clearly proud of their park. They almost obsessively
asked us how we liked things throughout the day. I certainly think they
have the right to be proud; it's a very good park, or at least has the
potential to be. The feeling I got while there was what I thought
people who went to IOA in its first year must have felt. I hope they
can expand somewhat, bring in more patrons, and really succeed.
--
Dave Sandborg
Remove Spam-away to respond via e-mail.
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26-06-2008, 01:41 AM
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#2
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Re: Comments on Southern trip
David Sandborg <sanddave@Spam-away.ix.netcom.com> writes:
> Family Kingdom: Swamp Fox was running with quite an attitude, quite
> possibly the best wood coaster of the trip.
This was great to read! I haven't been on Swamp Fox in a bunch of years
but it remains both a technical and sentimental favorite. So nice
to hear of an old-skool, seaside wood that continues to run well.
Eric
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27-06-2008, 09:00 AM
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#3
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Re: Comments on Southern trip
"David Sandborg" <sanddave@Spam-away.ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:sanddave-0EAB1D.23115524062008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
> RRR: I came to this event with a lot of trepidation about the condition
> Rampage would be in. It did have a few potholes, but after my first
> ride I knew when to brace for them and had no trouble from that point
> on. It remains a great ride and I'm glad I got to ride again. The ops
> were very enthusiastic and kept running it with two trains though by the
> time we left there were at most half a dozen people still riding.
It almost sounds backwards to say but I didn't mind the potholes on Rampage
nearly as bad as the constant chattering vibrations on Thunderhead later in
the week. Potholes can be very nasty but on Rampage I guess they were mostly
in good spots if that makes sense. But with very comfortable trains Rampage
was quite rideable for a ride with some potholes and quite a bit of
intensity.
> SFoG: They were great hosts for the first half of the Con. Mindbender
> was a blast, probably the best coaster of the trip. Goliath was a very
> nice B&M hyper. The last three hills feel more like Intamin than
> anything I've previously rode from B&M.
Mindbender was amazing. I used to like Shockwave in Texas more but now
Mindbender has become the best Schwarzkopf looper in the US in my opinion.
Goliath is a great ride. The newer B&M hypers feel more like Intamins than
the older installations.
> The wood coasters need a bit of work. Cyclone has clearly lost
> something, with no big thrills after the fourth drop and a lot of
> shuffling. Sad to say, I was expecting even worse. Scream Machine was
> OK, but not really delivering much and also a bit rough. It wasn't
> obnoxious, but could have been much more enjoyable with better padded
> trains.
Scream Machine was a fair session coaster. It didn't attract much of a crowd
so I enjoyed sitting on it for a while one morning during ERT. Cyclone was
in terrible shape but I was able to ride it more than I expected. I think it
may have been more of a headache inducer with all the chatter a few years
back where now it exhausts you as you try to brace to physically endure the
ride. The airtime is still fairly potent but it's nothing like it used to
be.
> Otherwise SFoG has a nice set of coasters and attractions. We rode
> Monster Plantation several times, just because.
While some traditional parks have classic dark rides, this rare ride is a
great example of an early theme park dark ride. After a few rides I started
noticing just how much detail there is in the ride. I'm happy that SFOG has
kept this ride in tact.
> During our stay in Atlanta we visited the popular Varsity for their
> tasty chili dogs. On the recommendation of a friend we also went to the
> Busy Bee Cafe where we could have gotten true soul food. We kept it
> conservative and stuck to the fried chicken, which was excellent.
Great food!
> We skipped the Wild Adventures part of the Con. Just too far away and
> too little to draw us there, though I do have a strange fondness for the
> park. Instead we visited a few other parks. First was Dixieland Fun
> Park, which we got a discount to with our Con badges. This park seems
> to be a work in progress. The parking lot kind of runs up the middle of
> it, and there are bare areas they seem to still be building on. It does
> seem clean and everything looks new, but it will probably always be a
> carnival park. The zip line is not a very thrilling attraction, but it
> is interesting and worth a ride. The Miler coaster really doesn't seem
> like it'll make it around the turns.
Dixieland was an interesting and worthwhile side trip. There were some other
kiddie or powered coasters in the area but I wasn't very interested in
checking them out. But the Miler coaster was worth it.
> Dollywood: Mystery Mine was well themed, but just not really that fun a
> ride. It's kind of like a steel LoCoSuMo. Two rides early on while the
> line was light were enough. Thunderhead was running fast enough, but
> had an unexpected and annoying chatter. Tennessee Tornado is quite a
> good Arrow...a pity they couldn't have started building rides like it
> some years earlier than they did. They might still be around. The rest
> of the park was very nice, but I was pretty tired that day.
Tennessee Tornado gets better each visit. I recall that is used to have some
minor headbanging in a few spots but now it's totally smooth. Amazing. Love
the first drop and the big loop.
> Ghost Town in the Sky: Cliffhanger was not running. But worse yet,
> they were not taking riders on the chair lift. People were being sent
> to the top by bus...not interesting at all. We skipped it.
I was willing to put down some money for a skyride up to the park but
without a skyride or incline I wasn't interested in paying $25 with a $5
discount for what probably was a $10 park. I would guess that Lakemont
probably offers a lot more at less than $10.
> Family Kingdom: Swamp Fox was running with quite an attitude, quite
> possibly the best wood coaster of the trip. Unfortunately they added
> new hard seat backs, which detracted from the experience. Otherwise I'm
> sure we would have ridden a lot more. The rest of the park is a bit
> light on attractions, a few hours was enough. On the other hand, they
> really seem to be profiting from the demise of Pavilion, as they were
> pretty crowded.
They were running a train with backrests. I don't remember it but the other
train I did remember, without the headrests, was still there on the transfer
track. I believe that train came from Lakeside Park Shooting Star. Any idea
where the headrest train came from? I would have enjoyed the other train
much more but the Swamp Fox is still a great ride that doesn't get much
publicity.
> Hard Rock Park: This park really warrants its own trip report, and
> perhaps I'll do one. In any case, in short it really exceeded my
> expectations. I fully thought we'd take a few hours to get all the
> credits, run out for the afternoon, and return for the fireworks in the
> evening. But we spent fourteen hours straight in the park and had fun
> the whole time (except for when we were waiting for Maximum RPM in the
> sun). If it weren't the end of a week long trip with an early flight
> the next morning I might have wanted to stay until close.
Initially this park seemed like it was going to be a quick visit. We were
doing the credit run thing early on and then we had lunch (very good park
food BTW). But after lunch, we started looking at things a bit more closely
and the details were impressive and fun. There's so much to do outside of
the major rides. Even a trip into a bathroom will turn up some interesting
details. We lucked out with some cloudy weather so the park wasn't too hot.
But the major ride queues are mostly covered and air conditioned. You can
always just take a break for a show or a beer at the pub.
This park almost felt like a European park to me because it had a lot of
quality and it felt different than other American Parks. Even Europa Park is
not a over the top thrill park, but it's the details that make it amazing
and the same goes for Hard Rock Park (but a Europa comparison is not even
fair - maybe Hard Rock would at least be on the radar with Phantasialand
though). Still, Hard Rock Park is far from being perfect or a complete park.
That can't be expected in year one. But I think they're off to a great
start.
> There is a lot of attention to detail here, and they're doing a lot of
> things well. I got the sense they weren't trying to cut any corners.
> This was evident in things like the huge number of employees, a great
> variety of food selections, down to the large number of bathrooms
> scattered through the park. These are things that so many parks don't
> do well in favor of just getting some high profile attraction installed;
> it was refreshing to see.
The place seems ready to handle a big crowd now or in the future. There are
plenty of restaurants and bathrooms. The only concern is the speed in the
restaurants but I think that's why they're still not advertising too heavily
as they're still working out the details.
> We loved the Moody Blues dark ride. We rode it three times and I could
> easily have been talked into another. It's probably my second favorite
> dark ride to Droomvlucht now. The Punk Pit, a simple enough adult
> bouncy castle, was tremendous fun too. Too tiring to repeat, though.
> Led Zeppelin was pretty cool. The soundtrack takes an otherwise middle
> of the road B&M up a notch. I would have liked a song like Rock and
> Roll, but I understand their choice of Whole Lotta Love, which must have
> been far easier to sync with the ride. It works well if the dispatches
> are prompt, which keeps the song continuity, but often the dispatches
> are late, leading to a pause. It was also annoying to have to go
> through the multimedia pre-show each time.
Nights In White Satin is up there as one of the best dark rides going. Like
many great dark rides, it's fairly simple rather than a ride full of
extensive theming. Good use of darkness and several cool tricks here and
there.
Led Zeppelin is a nice ride but it's very much a theme park B&M. It lacks
the thrill factor that the Incredbile Hulk offers but still, it's a B&M with
six inversions. The first drop is decent and the opening sequence is solid
but the ride fades badly at the end. The difference is in the overall
experience. The music is great and the preshow sets things up nicely. But
it's the preshow that makes getting rides a pain. Even without a line, it
will take you 15 minutes or so to finish your ride experience because you
have to watch the preshow every time. I was hoping to get some rides during
ERT without the preshow but mother nature interfered. I think this will
change over time.
I liked the Eagles coaster. Again, great sound on board. It's a very smooth
mine train that suffers from it's very open location. Some tunnels or some
fake rocks would make it more interesting than being able to see everything
in an open plot of land surrounded by a fence. But the ending pyro display
is quite impressive.
> There are some puzzling decisions they've made, such as the low capacity
> Maximum RPM and Slippery When Wet. They're a bit light on the
> attractions overall, and really shouldn't be pricing their admission so
> high. Their location is pretty odd too, sandwiched between two
> churches, next to the Medieval Tims, and behind the closed outlet mall.
I don't know why parks keep putting in low capacity "Super Saturators".
Slippery When Wet seemed like it had some maintenance issues in the morning
and it had a nasty stop at the end. Maybe a water attraction is nice for
kids but a flume would have been better. Maximum RPM is also a strange
choice. The Ferris Wheel loading is cool but the ride is so short and not
very thrilling. It also has capacity issues. It makes the Stunt Coasters
seem so much better as far as capacity and also ride experience (and that's
not saying a whole lot).
> No doubt, attendance is light. I overheard that they haven't ramped up
> their national ad campaign yet, but they sure have bought up lots of
> billboards for miles around. It did seem like there were a lot of
> people there sporting season passes on lanyards, so maybe this is
> working with the locals, but they have to reach out to more people to
> really succeed. It remains to be seen if they can do that. If they
> can't get many more people into the park, they're certainly going to
> have to do something, cutting back on either the hours or the staff or
> both.
Should this be a $50 park with $10 parking? It's a tough question to answer
and I think the market will ultimately determine that. Even Disney has
trouble adding a brand new gate that's worth $50. With the current economic
situation that has some bigger theme parks dropping prices down towards $30,
who knows. It's a tough time to make a debut. But as Robert mentioned in his
post, Myrtle Beach is expensive to begin with. The best hotel option I could
find was a $125 subpar Sleep Inn six miles from the ocean. Still I think
you'll see a lower price or some better discounts offers next year.
> The employees are clearly proud of their park. They almost obsessively
> asked us how we liked things throughout the day. I certainly think they
> have the right to be proud; it's a very good park, or at least has the
> potential to be. The feeling I got while there was what I thought
> people who went to IOA in its first year must have felt. I hope they
> can expand somewhat, bring in more patrons, and really succeed.
The employees were great. Honestly, there were probably too many of them.
But they were very friendly and helpful. I can only help a park to have nice
employees (and I'm not just talking about the British guards - see link
below). Following the links below to some pictures I found on Flickr, you'll
also notice that the park really enjoys word play.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27669792@N06/2585734178/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7797883@N08/2606534826/
--Tim Melago
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27-06-2008, 01:19 PM
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#4
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Re: Comments on Southern trip
Just a few follow-up comments.
In article <4uqdnQxG8Y71gvnVnZ2dnUVZ_uadnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Tim Melago" <rollocst_at_comcast_dot_net> wrote:
> "David Sandborg" <sanddave@Spam-away.ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:sanddave-0EAB1D.23115524062008@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
>
> > We skipped the Wild Adventures part of the Con. Just too far away and
> > too little to draw us there, though I do have a strange fondness for the
> > park. Instead we visited a few other parks. First was Dixieland Fun
> > Park, which we got a discount to with our Con badges. This park seems
> > to be a work in progress. The parking lot kind of runs up the middle of
> > it, and there are bare areas they seem to still be building on. It does
> > seem clean and everything looks new, but it will probably always be a
> > carnival park. The zip line is not a very thrilling attraction, but it
> > is interesting and worth a ride. The Miler coaster really doesn't seem
> > like it'll make it around the turns.
>
> Dixieland was an interesting and worthwhile side trip. There were some other
> kiddie or powered coasters in the area but I wasn't very interested in
> checking them out. But the Miler coaster was worth it.
Somehow I forgot to mention our trip to Lake Winnie. I finally got to
ride the Boat Chute. Also the Fly-o-Plane, which I had no luck at all
with. Cannonball was OK, but not spectacular by any means.
> > Family Kingdom: Swamp Fox was running with quite an attitude, quite
> > possibly the best wood coaster of the trip. Unfortunately they added
> > new hard seat backs, which detracted from the experience. Otherwise I'm
> > sure we would have ridden a lot more. The rest of the park is a bit
> > light on attractions, a few hours was enough. On the other hand, they
> > really seem to be profiting from the demise of Pavilion, as they were
> > pretty crowded.
>
> They were running a train with backrests. I don't remember it but the other
> train I did remember, without the headrests, was still there on the transfer
> track.
Right, I forgot to mention that the unused train was in the original
configuration.
> I believe that train came from Lakeside Park Shooting Star. Any idea
> where the headrest train came from? I would have enjoyed the other train
> much more but the Swamp Fox is still a great ride that doesn't get much
> publicity.
Indeed, a ride that seems to get better every time I visit.
> > Hard Rock Park:
>
> This park almost felt like a European park to me because it had a lot of
> quality and it felt different than other American Parks.
Yes, I got that kind of feeling too.
> Even Europa Park is
> not a over the top thrill park, but it's the details that make it amazing
> and the same goes for Hard Rock Park (but a Europa comparison is not even
> fair - maybe Hard Rock would at least be on the radar with Phantasialand
> though).
I wouldn't put it quite at even that level just yet, but there's a lot
of potential.
> Still, Hard Rock Park is far from being perfect or a complete park.
> That can't be expected in year one. But I think they're off to a great
> start.
I agree, it's an impressive debut. The big question is whether they'll
continue to build on the park's potential, or if it'll start to decline.
> I liked the Eagles coaster. Again, great sound on board. It's a very smooth
> mine train that suffers from it's very open location. Some tunnels or some
> fake rocks would make it more interesting than being able to see everything
> in an open plot of land surrounded by a fence. But the ending pyro display
> is quite impressive.
I didn't really get the theming elements, but the soundtrack and the
pyro effects were cool.
> > There are some puzzling decisions they've made, such as the low capacity
> > Maximum RPM and Slippery When Wet. They're a bit light on the
> > attractions overall, and really shouldn't be pricing their admission so
> > high. Their location is pretty odd too, sandwiched between two
> > churches, next to the Medieval Tims, and behind the closed outlet mall.
>
> I don't know why parks keep putting in low capacity "Super Saturators".
> Slippery When Wet seemed like it had some maintenance issues in the morning
> and it had a nasty stop at the end.
I got some bad braking from the start, when we stopped before the
elevator lift.
> Maybe a water attraction is nice for
> kids but a flume would have been better.
Yeah.
> Maximum RPM is also a strange
> choice. The Ferris Wheel loading is cool but the ride is so short and not
> very thrilling. It also has capacity issues. It makes the Stunt Coasters
> seem so much better as far as capacity and also ride experience (and that's
> not saying a whole lot).
Yeah, about the poorest choice they seem to have made. The Ferris wheel
lift is a creative idea, but what a long wait for such a short coaster!
Only one drop of any real consequence and really short ride time.
--
Dave Sandborg
Remove Spam-away to respond via e-mail.
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28-06-2008, 02:26 PM
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#5
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Re: Comments on Southern trip
We (fellow southeners) love living in the south, BUT, we love riding
yall's coasters in the north! (In the summer) You got us there! They
rock!
But, keep your ice and snow and floods up north...don't bring that
shit down here. Visit, enjoy, then leave. Go back to where you once
came. Have a nice winter. Buh Bye!
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