"For they hated her, because she spoke the truth"
It's just a glorified drop tower. Still thrilling for what it is.
Attraction Top Thrill 2
- Thread starter YachtyLogs
- Start date
It's just a glorified drop tower. Still thrilling for what it is.
Air launch would be the same force, if not more forceful than the current launch.
So, millions to replace with a near identical launch experience? "Yeah, I know that Chevy engine in your Vette works great, but we could replace it with this Dodge engine that would perform just as well for a buttload of money, and nobody would know the difference!"
I never got to ride this, but I do really enjoy Kingda Ka. No it isn't the best coaster in that park, but it's always worth riding. The launch is unmatched. And now actually it probably is the best ride in the park given that El Toro is down for the count again.
At this point it's probably best if everyone just assumes dragster is gone and expect a new ride in 2024. With what I'm familiar with, it isn't an understatement to say the ride has been retired. The most I can say now, it won't have a hydraulic launch and it isn't just an lsm retrofit.
In my head, TTD falls into the same category as drop towers. An extremely short but exhilarating blast of intensity. For me, it was all about that launch; accelerating that quickly and taking off like a fighter jet was, figuratively and literally, breathtaking.
TTD was absolutely a one-trick pony. But what a one-trick pony it was.
TTD was absolutely a one-trick pony. But what a one-trick pony it was.
I get off Ka front row feeling like "why ride anything else?" That could be a reason not to ride it, being so disruptive to your coaster worldview... with each ride, I lose more fear and it becomes more pure pleasure.
Did only ride TTD once because it was too much the same except twice as far away and a wait even with FL+, but should have found a little more energy in my body and circled back to it later.
What I can't see is tacking on some sort of normal size coaster addition to it. Anything added would need to sustain the incredible speed and therefore huge scale of the rest of the coaster.
When repairs become high enough, it can cause a complete evaluation. For example, if your car's engine dies, how's the rest of it? In the case of Volcano, I think they found more problems with the coaster itself, plus the crumbling mountain. And as popular as it was, it never was everything the original concept envisioned -- yeah that wasn't Cedar Fair back then but they're not blind. In the case of TTD, I think on a good day it was everything they asked for, even huge capacity. So, the question is are they just trying to get something back or set it up to be good for another 20 years, or even better for their purposes. And how does that relate to changing its identity and public perception, perhaps the most important of all? There are very good reasons to change it enough that fans of the ride won't hardly recognize it.
Did only ride TTD once because it was too much the same except twice as far away and a wait even with FL+, but should have found a little more energy in my body and circled back to it later.
What I can't see is tacking on some sort of normal size coaster addition to it. Anything added would need to sustain the incredible speed and therefore huge scale of the rest of the coaster.
When repairs become high enough, it can cause a complete evaluation. For example, if your car's engine dies, how's the rest of it? In the case of Volcano, I think they found more problems with the coaster itself, plus the crumbling mountain. And as popular as it was, it never was everything the original concept envisioned -- yeah that wasn't Cedar Fair back then but they're not blind. In the case of TTD, I think on a good day it was everything they asked for, even huge capacity. So, the question is are they just trying to get something back or set it up to be good for another 20 years, or even better for their purposes. And how does that relate to changing its identity and public perception, perhaps the most important of all? There are very good reasons to change it enough that fans of the ride won't hardly recognize it.
This is where I'm coming from as well.... that launch was better than the entire circuits of other coasters. If you take that launch away then it's absolutely worthless. A big part of me is now thinking that CP is making a dumb move on top of a dumb move because, even if you can get some people excited that "part of the ride is staying" that's going to quickly wear off when they ride whatever it is. They are also killing the nostalgia factor years in the future because, like many other coasters, it'll be remembered for what it was in the end rather than what it was in the beginning.
If they are killing TTD, they should kill it..... don't prop up it's dead corpse and call it a modified attraction hoping to cash in on immediate nostalgia.
I think it would be absolutely a lot more force but it wouldn't be sustained and that's what made TTD's launch unlike anything else. I've not been on a pneumatic launch but I've been on more powerful launches that are incredible awesome but they just don't have anywhere near the same excitement as TTD/KK. I've also seen many people say how great Max Force's launch is and how it's comparable to TTD but can't beat TTD.
This. And this is why there are so many people that can't understand why there are people that are so upset about the removal of TTD -- simply other people don't appreciate the launch it's self in ways that others do. As a full circuit coaster, yea, it sucks.... there is absolutely no aspect of being 400ft in the air -- it's all about the launch and that launch is an entire ride in it's self.
It would just be pointless to add anything. The ride is 420ft tall but no one riding it even notices it.... after that launch nothing else really matters.
I wish the people that I've talked to regarding to Volcano would/could publicly share their information. The situation with Volcano was not anywhere near as dire as what the majority of the community embraces. The mountain it's self wasn't an issue and the coaster it's self was already under contract for a controls and launch upgrade that was due to take place in 2019 (while I can't confirm this I did also hear that the mountain was in the process of being renovated to ensure it would last for decades). What killed Volcano was KD/CF making unauthorized repairs that did cause repairable damage but it boiled down to the Intamin/CF animosity that killed it because CF expected Intamin to basically fix the damage that resulted as a result of KD/CF's own negligence as part of the contract of the controls upgrade and refused to pay anything addiitonal. Intamin (rightfully so) wanted to charge extra because the damage that KD/CF caused was not part of the contract/pricing. I don't think TTD is very different than Volcano. In both cases unapproved hardware used by Cedar Fair caused damage. TTD did become a bigger issue due to it causing a life changing injury but the root is the same. I also believe that in both cases the respective parks had the majority of the major kinks worked out and the rides were more reliable than people realized. In Volcano's case the major issue was that during a roll back the coaster was unable to perform a relaunch scenario and this, as well as other minor issues, were likely being addressed in the controls/launch upgrade. In TTD's case the issue was magnified because of CP's horribly long lines for attractions which made minor "sensor trip" issues seem like a bigger deal because few people were willing to wait it out in line -- and additionally it had the wind issue 400 ft in the air that caused downtime.
We have no way to absolutely know the reasons nor what Cedar Point is anticipating but I will say that after Volcano I, as well as others, felt that TTD was in serious danger while most of the community argued that there was no chance in hell that CP would ever get rid of TTD (ironically an argument that was being made for Volcano during it's SBNO period). Even after the TTD accident people were standing by the fact that it was just too important of a coaster........ and now all of a sudden people are changing their tune. I don't think the accident had any effect on this decision outside of the fact that CP could now disguise it as something they "had to do".
This is the problem with winning the coaster wars. You’re basically stuck with what you built for better or worse. CP could easily tear down Rougaru, Raptor, or even Magnum without much backlash with customers knowing a good replacement would be in the pipeline.
Dragster is a real problem as putting up another iconic ride like that just isn’t realistically in the cards, but maintaining a working version is very expensive and redirects resources from other projects. Honestly there aren’t good options here - maybe use the tower for a drop tower and put some other launch coaster in the area, but even that’s not going to go over too well.
Humm, I enjoy coming down the spike almost as much as the launch. And the main thing I remember about my TTD ride is grabbing on due to the twist being a lot different with only a lap bar. Anyway all I care about is if I ever go back there it will be good and the speed threatens to rip off my eyelids.
Sounds like you're saying they're really just going to remove it. They could have had something else brewing but more likely that came later, if this is more than stalling for time.
I don't want to say that there isn't value in those elements but, for me, I don't think I came close to appreciating those until I had ridden it many times. My point was that it's the perfect amount of "doing something" without feeling like filler -- I think similar to what you were suggesting earlier. You just can't have that launch and then have a ton of elements afterwards because the remainder of the ride can't compete with it's own launch.
I think TTD is done..... I think the wording that CP is using is more of an attempt at a "staged" public backlash where they get people used to the idea that something is going to change and then later break it to them that whatever is coming in it's place is really a total death of TTD. With what has been said right now I think the majority of the general public has not come to terms with what is really happening but they are getting used to the fact that something is changing.
I do think that something will be in it's place and it will likely use something from TTD but I think the reason something results from this is purely so they can actually substantiate their "18th coaster" claim for the Wild Mouse. My guess is that marketing materials were already prepared before the final call to kill TTD was made so they are trying to shoehorn that marketing claim into truth. Had the accident not happened I really feel like 2023 would have been TTD's last year and it would have just gone away completely.
Cable lift to top hat, drop, brakes. Top Hill Dragster.
Demon Drop 2.0
Joking aside, a 400’ vertical cable is going to be an engineering challenge and expense for a full length train.