Dive Coaster coming to Cedar Point?

Jeff said:

Good representation according to whom?

Me duh, come on Jeff that should be pretty obvious. Like you I believe that my opinion trumps the opinions of whomever dares to demean my sense of entitlement.

Now now, let's get along kiddies. :D

There is a picture on CP Rundown, not sure if I am allowed to attached another sites photo, but it is a recent view of GTT. I believe the entire Dodgem structure is gone.

Check out our live blog for photos, including the demolition in that area.

http://live.pointbuzz.com

Great photo-tour of your tour, Walt. :) Thanks for updating the live blog with these again this year. My girls are amazed by what all the rides look like (especially the dismantled ones) this time of year.

Yes your photos are great. Looks like I posted one of yours LOL! So what is going in the WT midway? I would either guess Dodgem or Calypso, or possible both. Never noticed how much space was there.

Toddchris13 said:

Yes your photos are great. Looks like I posted one of yours LOL! So what is going in the WT midway? I would either guess Dodgem or Calypso, or possible both. Never noticed how much space was there.

The rumors I'm seeing (with pictures) on Twitter are that both are headed there.

Read http://live.pointbuzz.com/ and rumor no more.

That will be a nice chunk of land for future development. Fingers crossed it's not a coaster.

Just another look at the area where all of the demolitions/relocations are (red). Definitely a sizeable area and extremely interested to see what CP does with this space. Also, if you consider the possibility of using the Cedars space (green) and moving Perimeter Road, the possibilities for this area are endless.

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Cedars dorms aren't going to be removed soon. I believe that the room the park has made available right now will be used for 2016, then they can expand into the land occupied by the Cedars dorms a little farther down the road. They probably don't want to build upon that entire area in just a couple years.

With all the space being opened up, I can see multiple things going in there over the course of a few years. I can see a coaster, midway extension, family ride and improvements to the Luminosity area all going in there. I don't think it will just be 1 big thing. Demolition of Cedars is inevitable. Probably for 2016 or 2017.

Jeff said:

DA20Pilot said:

At CP, when it comes to thrill rides, I expect cutting edge. I expect something above and beyond the scope of what you can experience somewhere else.

I've never understood this expectation. After you've been on anything a few times, the novelty wears off and you're left with a great ride or not. The dive coasters (at least the one I've been on) are great rides. There was nothing cutting edge about Maverick, and it continues to be one of my favorites.

Dragster was cutting edge when it opened... and I find it not even remotely worth the wait. I was over it in the first year.

Let me see if I can help you understand.

I'll use a professional sports analogy. In the NBA, for example, there are some franchise owners whose goal is to win a championship. They strive to put the best product on the floor and they pay for the best players.

Other owners don't care about that so much. They know that if they put an average product on the floor (i.e a .500 team; mediocrity) that they will still turn a good profit. People will still come to the games and fill up the seats because it is good family entertainment and fun to watch, whether or not the team is contending for a title. Donald Sterling was famous for years as one of these types of owners.

As a fan, I want "my" team - the team who I go to see because they are in or near my city, to be the best. For all you Ohio folks, did you prefer the Cavs without LeBron, or this season's Cavs?

For me, the same principle applies to my local or favorite theme park. I want it to have the latest and greatest world-class thrills. I don't want it to be an average, middle-of-the-road collection of rides like most any other major park. Would I still enjoy CP if they had never built MF, Magnum, and Dragster for example? Sure. But it wouldn't be the same.

In the 80's before Magnum, CP was an also-ran as far as thrill rides. The general consensus of the general public and enthusiasts alike was that Kings Island had much better coasters. I still enjoyed CP because of the history, lake, and the nice attractions it offered. But it became MUCH better when they had all of this PLUS coaster thrills on a scale that didn't exist elsewhere.

I want my favorite team to be elite, not average, with the best possible players at each position, and I want my favorite park to have the best possible attractions of each type/category.

But it's not a game, it's a business.

Yes, amusement parks are a business. So is professional basketball. If I possessed Jeff's irascibility I'd give you grief over that comment lol.

Dismissing a multimillion dollar enterprise that is an NBA franchise as "a game" is the equivalent of dismissing the multimillion dollar enterprise that is Cedar Point as "just a collection of rides and kid stuff."

The point is the same. You can run a business where you are nothing but a commodity and still turn a nice profit, and you can also run a business where you are the leader in your category and reap the benefits of that as well. Either philosophy has its merits.

But not understanding why a fan of amusement parks might be disappointed when their favorite park ceases to embrace the philosophy of adding the world's most elite attractions is the same as not understanding why a sports team's fans would be disappointed that their team's new ownership no longer cared to put the best product on the floor and compete for titles and instead fielded a .500 team with average players at each position on the grounds that the average team still sells tickets by virtue of being good family entertainment.

Irascibility? Seriously?

The idea that any amusement park is a commodity is a pretty weird idea to me. I didn't read your sports analogy, because it's not relevant to my opinion. My experience, as I described it, is that "cutting edge" doesn't make a ride a slam dunk. I live next door to countless rides that are not even remotely cutting edge, and they attract more people than anywhere else in the world. To me, that math implies that "cutting edge" does not equate "awesome rides."

And here I thought you were the Advocate of Great, Great Tunnels...
:-)

I think we need to separate cutting edge technology and entertainment value. Technology in itself does not equal great entertainment value. The value of cutting edge technology is in creating something that has great entertainment value which would not be possible with lesser technology. It is not the technology that is the star, it is the entertainment that comes from the ride. The technology is just a means to an end. With roller coasters for example, the technology behind the mechanical pieces of the ride are not nearly as important as the track layout and motion of the ride. Maverick would be just as fun of a ride if it had a chain lift, an old fashioned flywheel launch for the second half and friction brakes. You don't need cutting edge technology to make a good ride.

I stand corrected re: irascibility.
I googled it, and indeed, my sense of what the word meant was incongruent with the actual definition.
The characteristic I meant to reference is your (Jeff's) replies to certain comments. The best analogy I can think of is, your commentary on some posts you find ridiculous reminds me of Simon Cowell's critiques of bad singers in terms of tone. I'm not complaining, it can be entertaining and it's your site. My intent with my comment was to gently ridicule the "but it's a business, not a game" post I was replying to, while simultaneously injecting a good natured dig about how you sometimes respond to people's posts.

Re: commodity, a characteristic of a commodity is that there isn't too much that differentiates one company's product from another company's product. The differences are minimal, despite what the marketing folks might try to convince you to believe.

Here's what I meant by that:
By the late 80's, arrow loopers were widespread. You could find one at most any major park. Same thing with intamin rapids, out and back woodies in the 100-foot-ish range, log flumes, etc.
Having those rides when they were brand new differentiated a park from others. But by the late 80's, you could find rides like that anywhere. So in a sense, that park became commoditized if what they offered was not substantially different from what you could get at any other major park.
But when CP built Magnum and MF, for example, they built a ride that offered an experience unlike anything elsewhere that was exponentially more fun and thrilling.

When I said "cutting edge" this is conceptually what I meant. I don't want to see CP just putting in rides that are run of the mill in that you can experience a rough equivalent at any major park. I'd like to see them continue to install rides that raise the bar and whose experience is substantially better than anything else, as in Magnum and MF.
I'm my opinion, gatekeeper does not do that. The ride experience is ho hum to me, and the wing gimmick aside, I think there are a lot of other B&M coasters that are much more thrilling. And, as far as Dive coasters go, I think Magnum and MF are both much more fun and more thrilling (not to mention a lot longer) than Sheikra.
So if they put a run of the mill dive coaster in, It's not going to excite me one bit, and it's not going to drive my attendance at all the way other new attractions have. Now if they built a 400' dive coaster and make it 6500'
long, then you'll have my attention.

A bigger dive coaster would be great but I am perfectly fine with one that is a little taller than Griffon or Sheikra and it really wouldn't matter to me if it was smaller. I'm sure this is not the common opinion, but I feel that a dive coaster is what would draw me into the park more than any other type.

Gatekeeper is the 4th or 5th best coaster in the park in my opinion. It is hard for me to see why people hate on it. Many think that X-Flight is the best wing coaster out there but I completely fail to see this. I can't speak for the others but after having been on both of these in 2013, I don't think X-Flight even holds a candle to Gatekeeper.

It's hard to go wrong with a B&M IMO, besides flyers.