ThrillNetwork Boards

Photo TR: Hard Rock Park 5/6

Wes — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:34:11 GMT

Tuesday I headed down to the new Hard Rock Park with a friend to do a report for the lovely readers of TN (forthcoming, possibly I'll get it done this weekend). But in the meantime...

Here's a report from my first visit to the park and just some general feelings/observations. I will do indepth commentary and such in my report to be posted later. But this will give you a good general overview.

All of these pics link to my online album where you can download high res versions if you like.

What is that I see in the distance?

Wow. Hard Rock Park is even smaller than I thought! It appears to be only one strip mall building!

Oh wait. Nevermind. Led Zep sits to the left of the main entrance and it dominates the skyline as you walk in from the parking lot.

My new car. (That's Mitch, not me)

The entrance is nice.

See last quote.

I'm sure you've seen this before.

And this too.

Coaster Nerd has arrived (me).

Baby's First Coaster!

Carowinds 73-03 — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:31:40 GMT

Just read this article over on Screamscape.

Alton Towers is building a coaster for babies that will go 2 mph and it's supposed to mimic being pushed in a stroller.

This has got the be the greatest coaster invented. Why not start the kids out at an early age. The design of the coaster looks cute as well.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle1140717.ece

Classic Aeroplane coaster footage

LuvChyld79 — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:40:30 GMT

Kind of stumbled across this. Would LOVE to see this ride recreated.

User gallery rows...

James — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:04:42 GMT

I dont know if the admins know this or not... But the new user gallery thing in members profiles holds 25 images a page but holds 4 images an row. Is there a way you could make it 24 or 28 photos a page so the last row isn't just 1 photo before it goes to page 2?

http://www.thrillnetwork.com/boards/album.php?albumid=7
Note how the last row is just 1 photo.

I dont really care, but I think it'd look better if all the rows were even.

Indoor Coaster filming help.

coastergeek25 — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:46:19 GMT

Hey there. I'm curious about something. For rides that are inside and really dark, can you turn on the "nightshot" light on your camera and see a lot more than with out the "nightshot" light? The reason why I brought this up is because my camera uses an infrared light for the "nightshot" light. I figured that the only way for the coaster security guy can see whats happening is to use infrared lights. I was wondering if my camera can see those infrared lights.

-CG25

Virtual Tour: Worlds of Fun

steel — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:22:39 GMT

A while back, a few TN members shared their home parks with the virtual world. I thought this was a great concept and did a tour of my home park, Adventureland. Recently, I remembered this idea and decided to document my "other" home park, Worlds of Fun. So here goes.

Welcome to Worlds of Fun in beautiful Kansas City, Missouri. Home to six roller coasters and many more enjoyable attractions, Worlds of Fun is a perfect way to waste time in the heart of America.

As we near Kansas City, a landmark appears. We may not be able to see the park yet, but this tells us we're getting close.

Way off in the distance there is the Worlds of Fun water tower, decorated like the famous Worlds of Fun balloon.
Seconds later, the park itself bursts out from behind the foliage

Alright, so "burst" may be a bit strong a word. It's still several miles out, but it's there.

We get nearer and nearer to the park until...

WHAM! Out of nowhere, all the main rides are completely visible. Just like that.

One week to go!

Sandy W — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:22:08 GMT

I thought I'd pop in. I hope all at TN are fine. I was going to pull up my old post but since it says Happy New Year I thought na. I have just a little over a week and I'm getting hitched on May 17th. His old home park was Kennywood. Of course he has lived in DC for many years. I guess I will be getting to know the great VA parks. I plan on visiting some New England parks in September. As you know I hail from CT orginally. Just thought I'd chat at ya all a little have a nice day.

Hershey Park Opening Weekend

BRTeller — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:19:18 GMT

I decided to go up with my mom and try out my new camera for Hershey's Opening weekend. I went on Saturday and for a hour on Sunday. Had an ok time and rode all the major coasters. Pretty much just hanged around and took pictures, as that was the reason I really was there. Don't get me wrong, I love coasters, and Hershey. But I also like to relax at Hershey, since I live close and go very, very often. Fahrenheit though, I will be there opening day to ride that a few times.

If you would like to see all of the Fahrenheit Pictures, click here.

Photo TR:

Fahrenheit wasn't open, but this was.

Splish Splash, notice all the new boards on the lift.

Wildcat, one of the best woodies ever.

More Wildcat.

Wild Mouse, through the trees.

Again Wild Mouse.

Lightning Racer, pretty cool, but Wildcat is the beast!

Look at that butt!

Yes Fuhfenheit was there to....yes I know I spelled it like that.

One Day in Western NY

CHILLERLC1 — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:51:07 GMT

Hi gang. In late June a friend of mine is getting married near Scranton. It'll be south of Binghamton, NY. Another friend called me, asked if I was going, and since we live about 3 hours south in the Philly area mentioned staying the night up there. I think I might and it would give me the chance to at least be halfway to Seabreeze on a Sunday morning. Should I just stick with that or should I go to another park as well? I'm leaning that there's too many parks in that area. I might just do Seabreeze and Darien Lake. I can get discount tickets from my uncle. I still have to make the trip back to Jersey so I realize the day to do things is not too long. Advice about NY amusements would be appreciated.

Comcast?

coasterlove — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:38:05 GMT

In the near future, I'm likely to get comcast for our cable, internet and phone service. It's our only option for cable in the building we're in so we couldn't go with any dish service which is what I'd prefer. So I'm just curious to hear some opinions on Comcast's service for the three services (cable, net, phone).

Post count stays the same

Racer — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:52:21 GMT

My post count only counts about every two or three posts. It thinks that I am at 307 or so, when it should really be somewhere around 315-316.

Hersheypark 5/3/08

SFGAFan4 — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:22:54 GMT

This was my first time going to Hershey since the summer of 2006.. and it showed. I had trouble finding nearly everything, as most ride entrances seemed to be tucked away in random places. Anyway, after a long, endless drive through the fields of Pennsylvania, we finally got to the park and entered at 1:30.

We walked to the back of the park, and much to our dismay, Fahrenheit would be opening in 3 weeks. Oh well, I'll be back in August. We decided to head to Lightning Racer and this is where the 'trouble finding nearly everything' comes into place. We walked towards the ride and ended up in front of a gated up water park. So we headed all the way back around the water park and to the ride entrance of Lightning Racer.

We arrived at Lightning Racer and headed right into the station, with little wait. We headed over to the Lightning side and waited about five minutes for the back row. As the train ascended up the lift, I realized how small the ride actually was. I started preparing for a disappointing ride when we got to the top and bam, huge airtime on the first drop. The train ascended up to then next hill and packed some more airtime. The twists were fun and we ended up winning the race. Much better ride than I anticipated, it probably cracks my top five wooden coasters.

Then, we went all the back around the water park and went to Wildcat. It was approximately a thirty minute wait and we got the back row for this ride as well. I anticipated a really rough coaster, from what I heard, but it didn't turn out like that at all. The ride was lightning fast through every turn but still managed to be smooth. Not Lightning Racer smooth, but still bearable. This one definitely cracked my top five wooden coasters as well, great ride.

By the time we got off, it was a little after 2:30 and we headed to get some lunch. On the way, we saw Fahrenheit testing with water dummies. We went to Decade's and I ordered chicken fingers. Decent meal.. We began heading to the other side of the park and saw Fahrenheit stuck 90� vertical on the lift. I don't know if they were testing it like that, but wow.

So, we continued to the opposite side of the park and headed directly to Storm Runner. The line was all the way backed up to the entrance sign, but they were not using all the switchbacks. It ended up taking 40 minutes to get into the station. Every row on both sides seemed to have a 3+ train wait, so we just settled for what looked to be the shortest wait towards the back of one train.

Last time I went on, I didn't anticipate when the launch was coming and was given a rude awakening. This time, it didn't come as a surprise at all. We launched up the tower for loads of airtime and headed back down at blazing speeds. It's a short ride, but gotta love the double barrel roll towards the end.

The problem finding entrances for rides continued as we searched for Sooperdooperlooper. It ended up being all the way up the hill, disguised between several different rides and stores. We walked right up into the station and onto the ride. This ride was the same from what I remembered as well, being a snoozer throughout and then ending with a jolt to the stomach as you hit the brakes.

We continued over to Comet and found it to be a ten minute wait. We ended up getting a seat somewhere towards the middle. This ride really reminded me of Jack Rabbit at Kennywood. Small ride, packed with loads of airtime. I enjoyed it, but unfortunately, it would be my first and last ride of it on the day.

Once again, we had a hard time finding another ride. The entrance for Great Bear was all the way down a few hills and hidden. We waited thirty minutes for a back seat ride. Great Bear is a good inverted coaster, and turned out to be my second favorite of it's kind, behind Raptor. It had a thrilling drop and maintained a high amount of intensity throughout the entire ride. Then, it was off to the boomerang, otherwise known as Sidewinder.

We headed right into the station of Sidewinder and walked right on.. not a good sign. Through the first part of the ride, going forwards, the ride was fairly decent. But going backwards, it screamed out the pain machine that a Vekoma boomerang is known for. My ears were given a good beating and we quickly put it behind us and headed over to Wild Mouse.

Wild Mouse looked like one of the betters of it kind and it turned out like that indeed. After a 10-15 minute wait, we headed onto a cart and were off. The transitions that a wild mouse is known for were fun here and this turned out to be one of my favorite wild mouses.

After going through every major coaster in the park, we headed back to Lightning Racer. First, we took a ride on the Thunder side (for the credit :p) and ended up taking two additional rides, one on Lightning and one on Thunder, as there was barely anyone to speak of in the station.

This trend continued on Wildcat. Previously being a thirty minute wait, we walked right onto the ride and into the back row. An even better ride this time, great ride. We continued back to the other side of the park when we met up with some people. We ended up going back on Wildcat.

Another fun ride on this was overshadowed by the way it ended. At the end, the ride just haulted as it appeared the other train got stuck on the lift. We ended up waiting there for a good 20-25 minutes until they finally pulled us forward into the station. But, they could not get the lap bars to open and they had to come around and pull the lap bar open from the bottom of the train (using a tool).

So after that interesting incident, we headed back over to Lightning Racer. Another no wait for our fifth ride on it. It was getting late, so we headed over to the flat we were highly anticipating, The Claw. It ended up being an intense ride, swinging up to no limits. It has to be one of my favorite flats.

It was around 8:30, so we headed back to Storm Runner for one last ride. Much to our surprise, we walked right into the station. Every row was a 2 train wait or longer, but we saw the second row of one train had no wait whatsoever. We immediately scurried over to the line for that. Wow, a night ride on this was insane. Much better than the earlier ride and the launch seemed much faster towards the front.

After that, we decided to head out and go to Chocolate World. How could you not go to Hershey without getting chocolate? :p After buying various candy bars, we paid, and headed out after a long day. Then, we were off to a long two and a half hour ride home. Thanks for reading. :cool:

Ride Count:

Storm Runner 2x
Comet 1x
Great Bear 1x
Lighting Racer (Lightning) 3x
Lightning Racer (Thunder) 2x
Sidewinder 1x
Sooperdooperlooper 1x
Wild Mouse 1x
Wildcat 3x

Rate User's profile

coastergeek25 — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:25:28 GMT

Hey there TN! If you visit your profile often, you would have noticed the admin.s have changed the layout. For those who haven't noticed, you can have a picture in the background, all the tabs, words, boxes can have their own colors, and you can have photo albums.

The game is like the "Rate the user's title" or "rate the user's avatar" games. Just click on the person's avatar that you are going to be under (for example: the next person to post after me will have to go to my public profile and rate it out of 10).

LET THE GAME BEGIN!!!

Hollywood Studios Toy Story Mania

LuvChyld79 — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:45:02 GMT

Does anyone have any good info as to when this is gonna open to the public? I have a friend heading down there Memorial Day weekend, and early reports said they were gonna try to have it open by then. Just curious if someone knew something else.

Top Five Lists

SheikraTTD — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:01:54 GMT

This is for any type of ranking that you've been on or to. Like for example:

Top Five Coaster Drops
1.MF
2.Voyage
3. Sheikra
4. Maverick
5.Thunderhead

Top Five Parks for theming
1.IOA
2.Animal Kingdom
3.BGA
4.BGE
5 Disney-Hollywood Studios