Detailed photos of Golden Kingdom posted at GAdv.com

looks like the brakes on the far side of the camelback actually start well down the incline, we may be seeing some serious air on that baby after all!

Won't be long now :)

SAM

Another parking lot coaster, brought to you by Six Flags, half-assing the job since 2000!

Looks to me like it's just construction dust. The lines around the footers on the final turn after the brake run seem too sharp to not be jackhammered concrete. Hey, at least there's no parking lines like Medusa West ...

For Medusa West they should have extended the supports about 15 feet and let people actually park under it. ;)

Ha! That'd be great. That I could almost respect, double use of the land, good business practice and all ... could even charge enthusiasts extra money to park there for "prime photo ops" ;)

They should advertise that they placed a holding brake at the top for riders can find their car before getting off and leaving. The ride looks great, but the placement is not the best. A ride of this size deserves to be noticed, not put in the corner of a park.

TTD is the center of attention and is right in the middle of the park. It's easy to find and get to that location. I find that many parks place their rides poorly. CP has its share of rides that are similar as well like: Mean Streak, Wicked Twister, Mantis, and Blue Streak. The other coasters are placed right on the midways. If there is a little tiny path going towards a ride many times people won't find it or the traffic in that area will create a hassle for guest to walk through. I've heard stories about X being a very hard coaster to get to.*** This post was edited by gomez 2/21/2005 3:25:59 PM ***

I think the entrance to every ride should only be ten paces from the entrance to any park! That way I will be able to find it!

Try using a map.

For some odd reason, KK's brake run doesn't look to be long enough! I don't know if it's just me, or what.... Maybe they are stronger brakes? The train is gonna be screaming over that bunny hill into those brakes, way too fast...and after the bunny hill, the track basically right turns into the station Anyone else have the same strange feeling?

I don't know, if you've got a 400 foot coaster that can be seen from anywhere in the park then you can probably put it just about anywhere and people will flock to it.

X is a 200' tall monster of twisted steel that's bright yellow and purple to boot and even with a map it took me the better part of 6 hours and 5 or 6 tries to find how to get to it, and that was only because I finally broke down and asked the ops on Viper how to get there. But hey, I kept getting re-rides on Viper, so that's a good thing ;)

It's hard to cram a ride into the middle of existing facilities. Much easier to just demo some concrete and throw it on the perimeter of the park. But, I'm of the mindset that if you're spending multi-millions on a ride, do it right, theme it, put it in the middle of the park if at all possible, blah blah blah. But, that was IoA's strategy and they just now started turning profits according to a recent thread, so maybe it's not the best business strategy ;)

X was hard to find? Sure, you have to do a bit of a "tricky" 270-degree turn, but getting to that is no biggie, at least I thought. Few parks are really simple to navigate, epsecially th large ones like Great Adventure.

Oh yea, I just think its a next-to-parking-lot coaster ;)

Is it me or does the launch straightaway seem longer then TTD's not by a little, but by a good margin.

I dunno about you, but even though the entrance to the former Bugs Bunny Land was a little tricky, I think if you head towards the gigantic 456 foot green thing that you drove RIGHT PAST on the way through the parking gates, you'll be able to find it pretty easily...

I never said you won't be able to find it. It's better to build coasters on the midway. Rides get more attention that way. By the end of the day at CP I don't ever feel like walking to WT because it is such a far walk. People won't walk a far distance to get their final ride of the day in. They'll pick the ride that doesn't take long to get to. People will find it, but it gets annoying after walking what seems to be a mile and finding a 3+ hour wait.

Far walk? Wicked Twister is all of a 2 minute walk away from the main midway, if you're walking at a snail's pace! How lazy can you be? It's an amusement park, walking is part of the deal ...

Kyle, I agree with you. Maybe it's that the station's on a much smaller scale, but the entire ride looks massive in comparison to TTD. That bunny hill looks like the first hill of Magnum practically in some of those pictures!

Wicked Twister was kinda tucked away, but not that hard. It did take me a while to find Mean Streak, but now, I kinda wish that I hadn't been able to find it.

I think the location is still nice, much along the lines of driving up to MM and seing X there, just taunting you.

I too think drop towers (or even the Parachute towers) are nice focal point icons for the skyline.
*** This post was edited by RamblinWreck 2/22/2005 11:01:23 AM ***

What good is a 400ft coaster when you cant maintain the rest of your coasters. Nitro is only a few years old and it needs paint. Plus CedarPoint has one of the best maintence staff's around and they cant get TTD to operate regularly. SSGA thinks they can. And how long before the golden kingdom will start to loose all its new attractions like alll the flat rides they put in 1999.

X is a 200' tall monster of twisted steel that's bright yellow and purple to boot and even with a map it took me the better part of 6 hours and 5 or 6 tries to find how to get to it.

We had the same problem finding it even with the map, I think we walked in the area for 20 minutes until we found it.

Maybe it's a tourist thing, but the "access" area for the X bridge just looks like a food patio, doesn't have any markings that even point that X is that direction. The map doesn't really indicate that you have to cross a bridge to get to the ride, and I figured that being the new star attraction, it would have it's own dedicated pathway off the "main drag" over on that side of the park. But, not to be - have to walk to Viper, walk up the steps, go through the food court, make a left at the bridge, and then make sure you stay to the right ... all without signage ;)

Then again, being from Pittsburgh, I should understand the "if you were familiar with the area you wouldn't need signs" mentality, but that's for roads, not amusement parks ;)