Busch Gardens Williamsburg Project 2023: DarKoaster (Multi-Lap Intamin Straddle Coaster)

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rollercoastercoaster said:
Off topic to darkoaster, but I've noticed a ton of false rumors get spread in the BGW uncensored Facebook page, some started by their admin team and some their members. That's where I was seeing most of these person fell off rumors today too.
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Zachary said:
More screenshots are always appreciated.

Is anyone claiming to actually KNOW anything first-hand or is it just second-hand rumors from Danny Biggerstaff spreading further?
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I know the guy that started the group personally. His general philosophy for the group is post anything that he hears because people have a right to know what is being said. He does make some effort to follow up later after looking into things but often it's hard to find the retraction in the comments for the crazy off the wall things that were posted there. I would take everything posted there with a grain of salt.
 
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horsesboy said:
I know the guy that started the group personally. His general philosophy for the group is post anything that he hears because people have a right to know what is being said. He does make some effort to follow up later after looking into things but often it's hard to find the retraction in the comments for the crazy off the wall things that were posted there. I would take everything posted there with a grain of salt.
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I’m a member of a few other similar park pages and they are all the same.
 
Extremely late to the party here but there's a combination of things that go on with ride capacity because of all the different factors with seating arrangements, station layouts, block layouts, cycle time, the color of the sky, yadda yadda, etc. etc.

Darkoaster is an "efficient" ride in so far as it is capable of easily hitting its maximum theoretical capacity even though it's so low. A lot of rides like Apollo's Chariot, Griffon, Alpengeist, for examples have higher capacity but are less efficient because they leave more of their theoretical throughput on the table.

A big thing with parks lately with building new rides is this being more efficient instead of having a sky high capacity but never really hitting it, even if the efficiency means the lines are longer.
 
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cschnizer said:
Do Darkoaster and the other Intamin straddle and multidimension coasters have friction brakes?
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Not sure exactly what the break system is but I know it's new and that they had issues fine tuning it that caused it to be further delayed then they anticipated.
 
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horsesboy said:
Not sure exactly what the break system is but I know it's new and that they had issues fine tuning it that caused it to be further delayed then they anticipated.
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I would think that the short nature of the brake run, and the fact that it’s slipped all the way past the switch track, that it may have caused a couple of issues.
 
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Has anyone on the larger side noticed any adjustments to DarKoaster's restraints? Someone on Twitter pointed out that the test seat indicator seems to have been crudely modified with paint.

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I'm hoping this was just a change to more accurately align the restrictiveness of the test seat with the restrictiveness of the coaster's trains, not an alteration to the clearance point of the coaster's actual trains.
 
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I just so happen to have taken a picture of the test seat on Thursday evening, and it appears this modification was in place at that time
( I paid no attention to it, as this was the first time I had been since the ride opened) PXL_20230601_233532992.jpg
Though I am nowhere near as heavy as I used to be, I am tall. With that in mind, I had no issues getting on the ride on Thursday. I will add that, at the time I was surprised how close I was to being in the red.
 
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As much as I really want to like this ride, the whole HOURS wait thing each time takes a lot of the interest and luster out of it for me. I've ridden it twice and waited a combined five hours for it and both times it cost me rides on other stuff in the park. Can definitely see it becoming "rope drop or bust" or "last ride of the night if there's not a line" or "oh........you haven't ridden DarKoaster yet? um....well let's go see what the wait time is...... *feels rides on 2-3 of the Top 5 leaving their body for the day*"

I mean we knew capacity was going to be a nightmare. I also noticed yesterday, the operator at the Quick Queue merge point was HEAVILY favoring letting QQ through versus the normal stand-by line. There didn't appear to be much method to it other than "let as many QQ people in as possible then maybe like 2-3 of the standby line before quickly pivoting back to QQ" and if that continues, yeah I won't be visiting Ludwigs castle much on just an average visit. Which is a bummer, I like the attraction itself fine, it's far from my favorite in the park, you have a hard time selling me on waiting for the best rides in Virginia for a few hours, and I doubt that changes much for DarKoaster and I'm not willing to sacrifice rides on the 3 B&Ms, Pantheon, or Verbolten or more for that long slow line. I'm not quite sure even after 2023 if that line will be reasonable very often. Potentially on slower days but still, I mean it exploded to a 2+ hour wait within 30-45 minutes yesterday of opening. I typically try to take what I can get with new attractions at the home parks and if they are an improvement to my day I'm usually satisified with the addition. Not sure if DarKoaster is an improvement to my day at BGW if it takes away rides on the highlight coasters with its abysmal capacity. It doesn't help after waiting all that time, there doesn't seem to feel like there is a "payoff." I mean it's fun and twisty in the dark on the straddle trains but usually I'm just happy as hell to be out of the line.
 
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boston191 said:
how have the wait lines been during the day this week?
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Was there yesterday. First time was no more than 20 minutes. Second time I wasn’t tracking but I texted my girlfriend when we got in line and when we got off and apparently we were in line for almost two hours. Would have been shorter but right when we were about to get on one of the aforementioned QQ families just strolled on.

Also, my thoughts on the ride:

First ride was like a jump scare heavy horror movie, didn’t really enjoy it because I was kind of jumping at every little thing. Second ride was fantastic because I was having stomach issues with half of the rides and it was along with Apollo and Le Scoot the only thing that didn’t make my stomach want to ride the wings of Apollo’s Chariot.

I liked the little touches in the queue like the broken doors and the skis and whatnot. Interested to see how the effects are this time next year. I was also a huge fan of the storm window effects, wondering if they used the same tech they used for that underwater cave thing in Leviathan. Such a little thing but it really added to it for me.

Things that could be improved upon:

- I don’t think a full out retheme of Oktoberfest to a Black Forest/Bavaria themed area is necessary, but I think it would be a great idea to tie in DK with Verbolten. Replace the thunderstorm storyline with a blizzard storm (just add snow effects and maybe some of that purple ghost hazy stuff), have the car seemingly just shut off right before the drop, and maybe throw in some sort of screen or small castle facade to make it look like you’re seeing Luddy’s fortress in the distance.

- while we’re at it, chance the ambiance around the castle. Add in fog machines and some creepy noises or something. I get a creepier, desolate vibe from Boo Blasters than I do from a cursed haunted castle where the ghost king guy is actively trying to kill you.

- do something about the wall of the show building. Paint it go away green or bring back the backdrop with the creepy eyes.
 
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Has anyone looked up the other intamin straddle coasters out there? I mean like Juvelen at Djurs Sommerland. One would think you could easily make that look more like a snowmobile than the jet ski design? I really don’t want to assume it’s only “it was slightly more expensive” but my hunch is……….it’s because it was slightly more expensive.
 
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Peter R. said:
I just so happen to have taken a picture of the test seat on Thursday evening, and it appears this modification was in place at that time
( I paid no attention to it, as this was the first time I had been since the ride opened)View attachment 29070
Though I am nowhere near as heavy as I used to be, I am tall. With that in mind, I had no issues getting on the ride on Thursday. I will add that, at the time I was surprised how close I was to being in the red.
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This is definitely weird. I was comfortably in green, and although I'm not small, I'm also not absolutely huge. Now I sit and I am in the modified red section, a bit further red than this picture. I almost don't want to wait through the line to find out the hard way if I don't pass anymore.
 
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