Superman Ultimate Flight opening soon at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

^ These types of debates never lead to anyone budging. Still, it's great to get different points of view out there.

BTW, Dreamworld has the same set up as SFMM on their TOT tower, and I haven't heard anyone complaining. And as I stated earlier, Green Lantern isn't nearly the nightmare that you and other predicted last year. So.. I just feel like your whole argument is a bit over-stated.

Didn't people also complain when CW got another B&M hyper (/giga) this year? Other end of capacity/complaint spectrum...

LostKause said:
I'm not budging...isn't going to change my mind.

I think you're missing the point. Nobody is trying to change your opinion. The bigger issue is that, like Gonch pointed out, it's the same story over and over. And trying to argue personal beliefs as the beliefs of the general public, or personal beliefs as fact gets old.

People were being positive about an interesting new ride, then, there it is! Complaining about capacity 4 replies in. It's. Really. Old.

But just remember that I had the same complaint about SFoG's Daredevil Dive coaster. It was famous last year for it's low capacity.

Funny, I heard some early issues with waits for a brand new coaster, but neither the GP nor Entusiasts seem to be talking about it towards the midpoint or end of the season. And again my point, every year its the same complaints. Too little capacity. Not forceful enough. OTSRs. At least that spawned a Coasterbuzz Meme.

I shouldn't contribute to the arguement because it just furthers the problem, and perhaps I'll stop responding, as that's worked wonders in other areas of Buzz. It's just annoying that it's so prevelant.

Okay, can we move beyond the conspiracy theories and bitching about random stuff and bitching about bitching and get back onto the actual topic? (I feel like I'm on the same side as Travis but still having a completely different conversation).

Honestly curious: Why didn't Fahrenheit get the double station treatment like Cheetah Hunt? Four years later with a gigantic new mini-hyper across the park (granted, with decent capacity and painful lapbars) it was still by far the longest line in the park after noon (1 hour vs. 20 minutes for Skyrush or Storm Runner). Or maybe to reverse the question, why did BGT feel the need to use a double station for Cheetah Hunt if Fahrenheit's capacity was already "good enough." Are the attendance numbers that different for those two parks?

Yeah, I think you and Travis have the same opinion, which is cool. It's all about presentation. That's my point ;).

kpjb said:
Holiday World has only three adult coasters, and has an attendance of around 1.2 million. Magic Mountain has 15 adult coasters for an annual attendance of 2.7 million.

Don't forget that Holiday World isn't open 7ish months each year.

ApolloAndy said:

Honestly curious: Why didn't Fahrenheit get the double station treatment...

Is it reasonable to assume that space constraints played a role? Fahrenheit is squeezed onto a rather small plot of land.

I went back in time to check out Sky Rocket discussion and I found these. :)

LostKause:
This coaster still doesn't do anything for me. It looks like a capacity nightmare too, and given the location, near the entrance of the park, it will probably have an incredibly long line.

What were they thinking?

LostKause:
664 PPH, Rideman? That sucks. Looks like Kennywood will be selling a lot of line cut passes next year. Lower capacity equals more line cut sales. Cha-ching!

This has proven mostly untrue as far as I am concerned. Wait times the first year were around 50 minutes to an hour, now they seem to be way under that.

kpjb said:

Holiday World has only three adult coasters, and has an attendance of around 1.2 million. Magic Mountain has 15 adult coasters for an annual attendance of 2.7 million.

Srsly? That says something about Six Flags.

I guess if you look at it from different viewpoints, it says a few things. An investigation into how much time an average person waits in lines at different parks would be interesting.

Holiday World is one of only a few parks that has been nice enough to add trains to their coasters.

Absolutely! They value their customers more and give them more variety and capacity!

I did not read all 6 pages so far of this discussion, but my take is that in my 20 year park career, I know of 2 coasters that have lived up to their capacity from opening day, from estimates, and from the efficiency they promote. Both are at Cedar Point, Magnum XL-200, and Gemini. Loch Ness Monster is a close third.

ApolloAndy said:

Honestly curious: Why didn't Fahrenheit get the double station treatment like Cheetah Hunt?

I wondered the same thing during my visit last May. Could it be something to do with safety or maintenance? Beyond the dual chains I don't believe the ride has any anti-roll back devices - you wouldn't want a train waiting at the bottom of the lift hill if both chains were to break. And adding an extra train may increase capactiy but it also increases the cost to run the ride - more wheels , bearings, etc. to repair or replace.

Amnesiac said:

ApolloAndy said:

Honestly curious: Why didn't Fahrenheit get the double station treatment like Cheetah Hunt?

I wondered the same thing during my visit last May. Could it be something to do with safety or maintenance? Beyond the dual chains I don't believe the ride has any anti-roll back devices - you wouldn't want a train waiting at the bottom of the lift hill if both chains were to break...

That is comforting. Lol

I can see where cost could be an issue. Plus, I think SPACE would be an issue. Hershey doesn't really have much real estate left. The parking lot is actually needed, and everywhere else in the park is jammed, so where else could they have put the second loading station...

Of course, there is a craptacular wooden coaster named Wildcat that could have been demolished to make Fahrenheit a double station coaster in a prettier spot. Oh well...

I'm not sure I buy the space argument. I mean, if the park said, "We really need it to be X capacity" Intamin could have made a different layout to make way for the station. They probably couldn't just tack it on now, but if it had been a priority at design time (like on SR), I can't imagine Intamin would have said, "It can't be done." And especially if they went with a parallel station like Storm Runner where the queue currently is, I'm sure they could find space for the giant cattle pen of a queue somewhere around the ride.

I also don't buy the rollback safety. I agree it's an issue, but assuming serial stations like Cheetah Hunt, you could easily work it with the current setup of trains and blocks. Assuming the transfer was actually a station block (and they shoehorned the transfer in somewhere else) the first train leaves station block 1 and goes up the lift, the second train leaves station block 2 and goes into station block 1 and waits. The train in the final safety brake goes into station block 2 and waits. As soon as train 1 goes over the top, advance the remaining two trains and wait for train 1 to slide into station 2. Unload and load. (They're basically doing this anyway because they stack all the time, but you could actually load two trains at a time and only have to load 50% of the times you advance). I'm sure you could set up the block to load more efficiently (4 trains, two advance completely out of the station, the other two unload and load - just like Cheetah Hunt) if you added a little bit of room to the initial turnaround between the station and lift hill and/or a little bit of room to the final brake run.

Tekwardo said:

It gets old... It's all about presentation.

Sorry that my presentation is annoying to you. I will review the way I offer my opinions and try to not annoy you. Seriously, I thought my annoying presentations of unpopular opinions is what made me so darned lovable around here. :)

eightdotthree said:

I went back in time to check out Sky Rocket discussion and I found these. :)

LostKause:
capacity nightmare... incredibly long line.

664 PPH... sucks....line cut passes... Cha-ching!

This has proven mostly untrue as far as I am concerned. Wait times the first year were around 50 minutes to an hour, now they seem to be way under that.

I haven't been back to Kennywood to ride it yet, but maybe (perhaps, it is possible, I don't know) the wait time is lower now because the ride sucks? From what I have read online over and over, Exterminator is still known to have one of the longest waits in the park. I wonder if capacity is similar those two rides, and why the newer Sky Rocket is known for a short line while the older Exterminator is known for a long line?

Just wondering out loud. Not implying anything beyond the possibility of Sky Rocket not being a well-liked ride.

Maybe 664 people per hour doesn't suck for a high-profile roller coaster at a smaller park like Kennywood. I don't know. I'm not a social engineer. :)

ApolloAndy said:

...Intamin could have made a different layout to make way for the station.

And instead there'd be complaints that the ride sucks, and could be made better by a different layout. ;)

And especially if they went with a parallel station like Storm Runner where the queue currently is, I'm sure they could find space for the giant cattle pen of a queue somewhere around the ride.

I really don't know. In both looking at it from above and walking around the area, there's just not much extra room there.

I'm not necessarily saying increasing capacity is impossible. I just think the trade-offs are being ignored, or at least minimized. Even if the trade-off was affordability, it's hard to blame the choice, in my opinion. It's much easier to say "just make it happen" when it's not your money. :)

So "The CoasterBuzz Collective" believes that paying to be allowed to cut in front of everyone else is fair to everyone, $25 for parking is reasonable, and parks should build low-capacity rides over high-capacity rides, and those who believe otherwise are annoying? lol

...And Maverick.

Entertainment is expensive.

And complainers suck.

I dunno if I lost my post or not but here it goes again:

I never said your belief was annoying. The constant complaining about capacity, and pay to cut "conspiricies" is what's annoying. Its really starting to sound like Aamilj to me, actually.