Cedar Point Announces New Water Ride for 2010 Season

I agree that the "boats" kinda look weird, but I really dont care. As long as its fun and they maintain the special effects I'll like it.

I was told that there will probaly be some kind of media event this friday. So I would assume it would open on friday sometime, or saturday morning.

If there is a Media Event on Friday, they will do the Auction Rides on Saturday just before the park opens with the ribbon cutting ceremony and the public opening after that.

So are they going to keep promise of a STR web cam?

Can anyone verify a web cam mounted on the ride photo building yet? ...or perhaps a different yet mentioned location?

I can't imagine why they wouldn't, seeing as how they've stated several times that it was coming, once testing was complete. If I had to guess, start looking for it later this week.

Saw Tony snapping some new pictures yesterday...looked like they were testing more boats and doing crew training pretty much the whole day.

The ride looks fantastic and fun...and there is certainly a buzz about it in the park from hearing other guests' conversations throughout the day yesterday.

I posted a few more pictures of shoot the rapids testing over at coasterbuzz....

http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/57420.aspx

Has anyone caught a glimpse of how the relocated hillbilly fighting and gun shots are incorporated into the STR..

I did see several huge water bombs happening in the island pool on one of the STR you tube videos.

Are there any "plastic people on the corner over by the dodge" I mean over by the still ...to quote Zappa

Holy cow!
They still are not ready to open....
What a huge screw up for the park planners...or someone.

Although , that being said the fans still come.

Lot seems plenty full.

I'm at the park tonight and STR is running with water dummies. It looks real nice. Though Frontier Trail is going to take a while to fill in again.

Wonder how the entrance of STR will effect the scream zone they have on the trail.

any chance of some pics or video of ride testing with water dummies? I am curious to compare how the boats hit the rapids with weight in them as apposed to the empty boat testing of opening day.

As I said in the previous now closed topic **if** it opens today ,,,, testing , tweeking continues , the cam is in place and very operational, why they dont just turn it on would solve some of the chatter on here ... But the PR Dept. must want to hang someone over this mess

I'll get some testing video if they're testing on Sunday when I go.

I did get some video. I will try to post it tonight.

*hearsay alert* (no i didn't talk to the lemon chill guy) :)

I was talking to a friend of mine at the park. He seemed to know what he was talking about. But, we all know how that goes. So, apparently there have been multiple issues with the boats. He said the first issue was that these were the same boats as what Holiday World had. So when they got to the park, they did not have any chain dog on them. The were going to try and modify them, but opted for new trains.

Secondly, apparently these boats, as well as Holiday World's boats have pumps in them to drain out the water after they pull back into the station. However, STR's boats are accumulating more water that Holiday Worlds due to all the extra effects throughout the ride. The 60 seconds that the boats were spending in the station was apparently not enough time to drain them completely. So, the longer they ran, the heavier they were getting. He hadn't heard anything about the boats being too long. He thinks it may have been a misquote or a misunderstanding. Based on what he said, as the boats were accumulating more and more water, they were getting heavier and they were running to far (long) down the trough and going into the turn to hard. They apparently solved this by amping up the power to the pumps to make them more efficient. In addition, it seems they are going to require heavier riders to sit in the front. That may help dig the boat into the water to slow it a bit more. You will see in my video and pictures later that the water dummies in the front seats are huge. I was told it takes 2 people to get them out.

Though the boats may not have been long enough, it sounds like they were to wide or had to much girth to navigate the channel properly. Which is probably why we saw all the work going on with the rails.

So with everything finally solved and testing completed or nearly completed the park now got the word from the state that because of the holiday weekend, the state wouldn't come out to inspect it. So, hopefully that will happen on Tuesday.

When I talked to the Red Cross this morning, they indicated that they were hoping to to the Auction rides next Saturday. I don't know if he really knew anything, so I didn't mention it earlier.

If the ride does happen next Saturday, I will likely have to choose between that and the Mini Golf Tournament. Either way, I will let my donation stand.

Ok,, so Problem solved now !,, The rather large folks (like me 200 lbs),, have been waiting waitng for this one,,,, we will all get the front seats ,, This is innovative !!!,, Famous !! ,,, I will even bring bus loads from my larger friends at Jenyy Craig , Weight Watchers, and Topps , ((make sure there are plenty of towels , and food vendors, and a beer at the exit)).....WE FINALLY GET FRONT SEATS !!! ,,,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe6xvHZsCrw

Jason, I can corroborate that this is also pretty much what I heard a couple of days ago as well. I didn't post it, because the employee I talked to is not in the position to be 'in' on much information. But in this case, it sounds like he might have been correct.

Edit: Oh, and nice video!

Sadly, that sounds about right Jason. When I was there a week and a half ago riding CCMR, I noticed a boat sitting (probably stuck) just before the turn after the first drop, where there looked to be about six workers trying to push the boat. While it doesn’t make sense for them to be pushing the boat, as the pool was filled, they were probably trying to empty water out of the boat – which would make more sense.

I also noticed just this past Thursday during the day that there were maintenance workers standing and watching all of the boats at the bottom of the drops closely. Maybe to make sure none of them were scraping the bottom of the pools? Interesting info you have shared none the less.

One other thing I noticed was the work being done to the queue line railroad crossing. It seemed like they were having problems with one of the four gates coming down when they tried closing the gates. Not sure if they got it fixed yet. All I know is the alarm that goes off at those gates is a little annoying. It doesn’t really sound like a railroad crossing.

Haha, it seems I too have had heard a thing or 2 similar to Jasons explanation. We got to stop talking to the same Lemon Chill guy Mike. ;)

In hind sight, that makes PERFECT sense (obviously). Crazy how a silly mishap like this can cause such a kerfuffle.:)