Six Flags Magic Mountain announces Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom

while this is a great addition to the park, I think I'll have to PASS on this one.

400' is just a bit much for a drop tower, call me a wuss.

I like drop towers. Only complaint I have with the existing ones I have ridden is they are not tall enough. This one should help with that issue. Just need to make it out to SFMM.

So if there are 8 seats per gondola, plus there are 2 gondolas, and if they can manage to get 30 drops an hour in that puts capacity at about 480-500'ish riders on hour (if they are REALLY lucky.)

Looks like park guests will be paying for Qbots if they want to ride in a reasonable amount of time.

Every single topic I see your name in, I already know you're bitching about capacity and Q-Bots. If it's not that is about Kinzel eating babies and Cedar Fair whipping immigrants with leftover lift cables.

Give it a rest, negative Nancy.

I'm not negative (most of the time), and as with most rides at a busy theme park, capacity is an issue that I have with this ride.

I already expected this would be what they were going to announce. Who didn't? All the clues were there.

And while it will be an amazing ride, and I'd love to teleport to the other side of the country to ride it, a park as crowded as SFMM needs high capacity rides, and not this.

Just think, the ride will be brand new, and it will be the tallest drop ride in the world at one of the most busiest theme parks in the world, but it will only be able to accompany 8 riders at a time. That's ridiculous. I mean, what are they thinking?

Edited to add... Umm I meant 16. Ooops. :)

16 at a time. But still...

Capacity seems to be the new "the sky is falling" mantra of enthusiasts. Green Lantern hasn't been nearly the nightmare that people predicted, and neither will this. A large portion of park guests will go nowhere near this ride (drop towers in general don't pack the lines like most earthbound rides). This is a serious thrill-seeker, white knuckle ride.

Also, SFMM is a regional theme park, not a destination like Busch, Disney or even Cedar Point. The level of "crowds" at this park varies wildly.

John Knotts said:
Capacity seems to be the new "the sky is falling" mantra of enthusiasts.

:)

Yep.

It does drive me nuts, though, that there seems to be an increasing trend of falling capacity and efficiency along with the rise of FOL and VQ systems. Just saying...

Seriously, though. There does really seem to be (from trip reports and personal experience) a regular decrease in efficiency of operations at parks that were known for their outstanding operations and efficiency over the last few years. That's not to mention some low capacity attractions that have been added to major parks, which don't help when you have falling efficiency (or never had good efficiency to start with). Maybe its just because the operational side of things has been my job at parks that I'm so sensitive to the changes, but it drives me nuts.

John Knotts said:
Capacity seems to be the new "the sky is falling" mantra of enthusiasts.

It's been my mantra for possibly about three decades now. I remember as a little boy, noticing things like how many seats a coaster train had or how much time it sat in the station long before I knew that the parks paid attention to these things as well. I wanted to ride it, darnit. I wanted to know how much longer I had. I'd count trains, how many people were in front of me, and time how long the trains went out, so I could gauge how long I would have to wait.

I also totally understood that a flat ride with 30 or so seats would have a faster-moving line than a ride with 15ish, for the most part (also depending on how long the ride lasted).

Maybe I am the one who started this new mantra of enthusiasts? I don't know.

Could be fun to hear ole Superman roaring past you as you're climbing the tower. I just hope they add the laugh like they have in the video.

It''s about time we got us a good drop ride.

Intamin drop tower + 400+ foot = want to ride!

"Capacity seems to be the new "the sky is falling" mantra of enthusiasts."

Maybe because some of us who post on the forums actually know what we are talking about having had careers in the industry....food for thought.

Operating a ride, shoveling trash or serving food != a "career in the industry" and doesn't grant you the right to bitch about everything. Seriously, the Debbie Downer act gets really old in a very short time.

As an average patron/consumer, I think I know what makes me happy when I go to an amusement park, and it's usually entirely the polar opposite of the crap you're spewing.

Why is it so impossible for some people to just enjoy entertainment? Thats all it is, and if it's so bad, find something else that might suit your tastes a bit better.

^+2.

(For that one, *and* the negative nancy post.)

LostKause said:

John Knotts said:
Capacity seems to be the new "the sky is falling" mantra of enthusiasts.

It's been my mantra for possibly about three decades now. I remember as a little boy, noticing things like how many seats a coaster train had or how much time it sat in the station long before I knew that the parks paid attention to these things as well.

...

Maybe I am the one who started this new mantra of enthusiasts? I don't know.

I have always suspected that Krause is ahead of his time.

No, Carrie. I will admit that I am most likely behind the times. The new "thing" is to make everyone wait in extremely long lines, or charge them extra to cut. I have accepted that. When I finally get out to CA to ride this thing (someday), I am not going to spend the entire day standing in line to ride it one time.

Raven-Phile said:

...Why is it so impossible for some people to just enjoy entertainment?...

Josh, standing in line for hours and hours is not entertainment. Just saying.

Come on. Building this on the existing tower (that may have been designed for the duel-use in the first place) will save the park a lot of money, but it is apparent that they are sacrificing cost for capacity. It still looks like the best drop ride ever created.

Disney, with a few exceptions, gets the capacity thing right. They even built two mouse coasters instead of one to help with capacity.

LostKause said:
Josh, standing in line for hours and hours is not entertainment. Just saying.

No one is making you stand in that line.

Different rides and different experiences will have different capacities. There's nothing you can do about that. If every ride had to push 1500pph, we'd be dealing with a very limited selection.

Any new ride adds to the park's overall capacity.

If a given ride has a line that's longer than you're willing to wait for the ride, then you move on. That's a truth that applies to any ride regardless of capacity.

Oh hell yeah!!!
Looks sweet! I suggest the park hand out Depends to riders, so as to protect those of us below. :)

LostKause said:
Disney, with a few exceptions, gets the capacity thing right. They even built two mouse coasters instead of one to help with capacity.

I'll try and remember that the next time I see Toy Story with its *standard* 120-minute line. :)

Agree with Gonch that "all rides increase the parks TOTAL capacity" - to a point. When the big new ride that's all over the news has poor capacity, it does tend to make for very long lines (thinking of X as it originally opened, since it's in THIS particular park). But yeah, people do move along when the lines are TOO excessive...