The Coaster Critic's Blog

Now on Facebook | Become a Fan!
I now have a "Coaster Critic" Facebook page. I tried this well over a year ago, but I couldn't figure out how to make a page versus a profile. For some reason Facebook just didn't believe that "The Coaster Critic" was my real name. So finally, I took the time to figure it out and set up a page. It wasn't hard, just not very high on my priorities. I've got some of my favorite pictures from my 2008 Theme Park Trips, a short Led Zeppelin video I took, and slots for friends to share their pics and images. Visit The Coaster Critic on Facebook

On MySpace Roller Coasters Are People Too?
I also updated my MySpace page which I hadn't touched in many months. Those of you new to MySpace coaster geekdom might be surprised to find that many of my friends are inanimate objects, but its par for the course on MySpace. The site's littered with roller coasters that have their own profiles, like this Loch Ness Monster profile. Apparently, Loch Ness Monster is a straight married Aries that unfortunately doesn't want kids. It's a shame too, because a "Son of Loch Ness Monster" coaster would probably be pretty sick. Visit The Coaster Critic on MySpace

MySpace vs. Facebook - The Traffic
I'm a web analyst by day, so I couldn't help but share this Alexa chart showing the emergence of Facebook. As many of you may already know Facebook is taking over the social network scene from once king MySpace. This chart which shows the traffic of users with Alexa toolbars illustrates the point. Back in April of 2008, Facebook surpassed MySpace in terms of reach for these Alexa users.Do you frequent Facebook or MySpace? Which do you prefer and why? Leave a comment below.

Coasterdom's Podcast Returns & Brings the Funny
The Kevin & Nate Show is one of my favorite podcasts. Kevin Toth and Nate Nagele from the long-running theme park blog Coasterdom recap the biggest stories in the amusement industry. They hadn't had a show since May so it was great to hear the guys again. During the 58 minute show straight man Kevin and jokester Nate basically do a 2008 wrap up show along with a nod to next year's coming attractions.

News of Six Flags Magic Mountain's Terminator: The Coaster, brought out Nate's hilarious Schwarzenegger impression. The more the guys let their personalities, likes, and dislikes come through in the show, the better the show is. Take a listen through their podcast player here. You can also, download the show at their podcast page. Parents, this episode is PG.

Do you listen to any theme park podcasts? Leave a comment below.

Cheezonastick Supports Six Flags CEO Mark Shapiro for President?
The guys over at Cheezonastick are asking you to vote today, for Mark Shapiro. To be honest I'm not really sure if the guys are spoofing Mark Shapiro's reign as Six Flags CEO or are in support of it. Check out the Shapiro-Snyder '08 campaign site and decide for yourself.

Either way, the ballot is pretty funny. You can vote for Shapiro, Richard Kinzel, CEO of Cedar Fair, or the independent candidate, Will Koch of Holiday World. I won't give them away, but the three proposals on the ballot are funny too. So after you do your civic duty today and vote in the real election have some fun with Cheezonastick's 2008 Amusement Industry Ballot.

Would you vote for Mark Shapiro for President? How do you think Six Flags has been run in the last couple of years? Leave a comment below.

Coaster Portal - Your Guide to the Theme Park Webiverse
So my announcement was delayed about a week, but today I unveil Coaster Portal. It has been a long-standing side project I've had on the back burner for years. The blog had taken up the majority of my time, until finally, I pushed myself to complete the site. I wanted to create a different type of theme park web site. One that linked to all of the best sites on the web and not just the sites that were in a particular network or affiliate group. But I also wanted the site to be more than just a link directory. My goal is to offer visitors a truly unique resource. CP's web site profiles will allow visitors to learn about and get direct access to the features that a site offers. Visitors are invited to rate the sites, leave their own review, or give their own feedback.

Site Categories
Sites are listed in the following categories: theme parks (including links to park Wikipedia pages), roller coaster designers, unofficial theme park sites, communities & clubs, blogs!, theme park news sites (including some site profiles), images & videos, roller coaster games, tools & resources (ie. coaster counters), and podcasts.

Reviews & Ratings
Web sites with site profiles can be rated on a 1 to 5 scale. Feel free to leave your feedback or reviews on the site profiles in the comments section.

Submit a Link
Anyone can submit a link to a web site that's not already listed on the site. For now, all that I require that the site contains quality content and has been updated recently. I would appreciate a link in return.

Add a Short Description or Site Profile
If you own a web site and want to submit a short description or site profile.

Submit Web Site News & Updates
Site owners who have a site launch, major update, or site redesign can submit their news.

Snap Shot Previews
Snap Shots show a preview of links without having to visit the site. Just hover your mouse over the icons when they appear next to links. Snapshot settings can be changed for any user who wants to opt out of the functionality and turn the previews off.

Thanks to my family for their support on my side project and blog! Especially my wife for putting up with my hours on the laptop.

What do you think of CoasterPortal? Leave a comment below.

Milestone & A New Site Coming Real Soon
Two and a half years ago I began this blog as an outlet for my love of roller coasters and writing. This post is my 400th post and it's been a fun ride especially when my readers drop in and post comments. Some agree, some disagree, and others just share their experiences. Either way, The Coaster Critic's Blog is at its best when the community joins in on the discussion. One of my most commented posts was driven by the angry mobs that were dissapointed by the Dark Knight Coasters. So I encourage all you lurkers to give your two cents.

Big Announcement This Week!
If you're a long time reader you may have noticed that I have been posting less frequently the past month or so. I've been hard at work on a side project that I hope to launch this week. I had to take down my last project due to relentless spam attacks creating eronious users. The platform that the site was built on wasn't quite ready for primetime, but I hope to bring it back at some point in the future. This week's announcement involves a different web site that's almost two years in the making. Okay, so I haven't really been working on it for all that time, but it's been incubating since late 2006. The image to the right hints at the new site's theme.

SeaWorld Manta Photo Contest

Manta Watch is underway! SeaWorld is having a photo contest promoting their new Manta flying coaster. The first reader who's able to take a picture of Manta's track while it's being shipped from Ohio to Orlando will win two tickets to the park and front row seats on Manta. Read more about the contest including the route of the Manta track here. Send your photos to: joel [at] thecoastercritic.com

Thanks to all my dedicated readers subscribed via email and on the RSS feed. And thanks to those who just stop by every now and then. Stay tuned for the big announcement later this week. I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Biggest Loser for Coaster Enthusiasts, So They Can Ride Again
It goes without saying that safety's important when riding roller coasters. If restraints like lap bars and over the shoulder harnesses do not fit correctly, riders would be in danger. Add the U.S.'s growing obesity rate and you have more and more theme park guests getting turned away just as their about to enjoy a great coaster.

For example see Cedar Point's "Guests with Exceptional Size" section of their Rider Safety Guide:

"Due to rider restraint system requirements, guests of exceptional size may not be accommodated on some of our rides. This may apply, but not be limited to, guests who exceed 6'2" or those who exceed 225 pounds, have a 40" waistline or 52" chest or females who exceed 200 pounds or wear a size 18 or larger.

Our larger guests may experience difficulty on Blue Streak, Chaos, Corkscrew, Disaster Transport, Mantis, Maverick, maXair, Mean Streak, Millennium Force, Mine Ride, Power Tower, Raptor, Skyhawk, Top Thrill Dragster, Wave Swinger and Wicked Twister."

I've ridden with people who have had to take the 'walk of shame' and were asked to get off the train. Another positive for my beloved B&M coasters is that they typically have trains with a few larger seats for just this reason. I wonder if they have these special seats on their European and Asian coasters. Hmmm.... Having to get off the train and move to another seat must still be embarrassing.

One of the guys over at CoasterCrew was unable to ride Millennium Force and now he's decided to do something about it. They're working on starting a Biggest Loser-type competition to help the enthusiasts on the site get back into riding shape again. Good for them. Any excuse to get in shape and adopt a healthy lifestyle is great. Especially if it allows you to enjoy one of your passions.

What do you think about this issue? Have you ever been unable to ride a coaster? Leave a comment below.

Hard Rock Park Auctions First Ride on Led Zeppelin Coaster
Similar to Dollywood auctioning of Mystery Mine seats last year, Hard Rock Park is auctioning off seats on the first run of their new Led Zeppelin Coaster. Winners of the auction get a seat on the inaugural run of Led Zeppelin and a commemorative certificate. 100% of proceeds go to the Sara Goodwin Memorial Foundation. At this point, the auctions pretty much done. There are a few seats in the last row left. Right now they're going for $125 to $150.

You can bid on eBay here. More on Hard Rock Park and the Led Zeppelin Coaster.

Mitch Hawker's Coveted Internet Award Up for Grabs
Mitch Hawker has posted the ballot for his annual Steel Roller Coaster Poll for 2007. The Wooden Coaster Poll resulted in Holiday World's Voyage at the top for the second straight year. Click here to see the rest of the results from wooden poll. Mitch's coaster poll is lengthy and complicated enough that Robb Alvey from ThemeParkReview created an Idiot's Guide. Hopefully, the amount of time and effort it takes will weed out the blind homers and fan boys that just want to vote for their home park's coasters.

Last year, Six Flags New England's Superman Ride of Steel took the top spot. Click here to see the rest of the results from the 2006 poll. Will Superman Ride of Steel repeat? Ballots need to be in by February 20th. Get started now, because like I said, they are a bit time consuming.

Click here for the 2007 Steel Coaster Poll Ballot.

A Review of the Return of Coaster Radio
On February 1st, Coaster Radio re-launched. The site and podcast had gone dormant for well over a year. When I reviewed a few theme park podcasts last year I found the Coaster Radio podcast to be pretty entertaining. I was late to the party though as they had decided to stop making shows. Anyway, on the 1st the new site launched with a blog as the main page. All comments on the blog posts are directed to their forums. It's a neat concept, but requires an account to participate in the discussions.

The five members of the show have a lot of fun together. Although I can't tell all of them apart, the resulting chemistry is great. And if you're a long time listener, you probably enjoy the call-back jokes to earlier episodes. They spent a portion of the return show talking about the re-launch of the site where they fought the urge to call their site a blog. Get over it guys! Your main page is a blog, I'm not sure where the negative connotation comes from. Blogs can be pretty dynamic and a lot more than just diaries or journals. Not to mention the love search engines give blogs. Yet I digress.

Anyway, they recapped some of the major '08 roller coasters and a few news stories from 2007. Like I said, the banter is pretty amusing, albeit PG-13 at times. (Most real enthusiasts are much older than that, I just thought I'd mention it.) I'm looking forward to future shows although they mentioned that they'd only be producing three total.

Check out their complete archive of past shows here. To download the latest show click here. Ever listened to Coaster Radio? What did you think? Leave a comment below.

Most Popular Theme Park Web Sites

Announcing Theme Park Syndicate
As I mentioned last week, I'm unveiling 'Project X' to my readers today on New Year's Day. Theme Park Syndicate is a site where people can submit links to theme park news, videos, and more. Then they can vote on and discuss the news stories. Like Web 2.0, this site's all about you. So join and start adding links and voting today!
Happy New Years! Enjoy the new site and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. Thanks to everyone from the Pligg community who helped me to get this site up.

Holiday World Announces 2008 Plans on YouTube
Holiday World, located in Santa Claus, Indiana, is home to the critically acclaimed Voyage wooden coaster. It's a smaller park, but has made strides in the past decade to really make a mark on the industry. Earlier this week, the park made an announcement on YouTube.

The real story here is the medium and not so much the message. It's cool to see a park embracing technology. I've seen parks upload computer animated videos of their coming roller coasters on YouTube, but never a formal announcement. Also, Holiday World is thought of as an enthusiast-friendly park and even hosted Amusement Today's Golden Ticket Awards.

No new roller coasters for 2008, but the park will be adding a few rides. Also, Holiday World will be adding a lot to its infrastructure like clocks to remind people that their in the central time zone and a new tram to take guests from the parking lot to park.

Watch the video to learn about the additions and enhancements for Holiday World in 2008:


Anyone planning to visit Holiday World next year? What do you think of the park's additions? Leave a comment below.

Who Reads a Blog About Coasters?
Using Google's web analytics software Google Analytics, I've been able to track the usage of the The Coaster Critic's Blog. By the way, if you have a web site or blog, I highly recommend GA. It's easy to set up, has a ton of features, and it's FREE. If you have any questions about it, feel free to drop me a line.

A Little Name Dropping
Anyway, it's been interesting seeing where my visitors are located and it's been neat seeing what posts are the most popular. I've seen traffic from everything from government facilities, car dealerships, universities, banks, the CIA and NASA. Some of my most notable visitors have been from within the walls of companies like MicroSoft, Google, Dell, Amazon, and Apple. There are a lot of bored worker bees out there looking for coaster info. More important than the aforementioned technology giants are the companies in the theme park industry that have stopped by over the past year and a half. I found visits from Hershey, Herschend (Dollywood), Six Flags, Universal Studios, Disney, and Anheuser Busch.

A Little Geography
Visitors have come from literally all over the world from countries like France, Germany, Japan, China, Brazil, India, and even Iraq. So I thought I'd list my top five coaster reviews based on my traffic. Two of my top 5 are pictured to the right.

Top 5 Most Popular Roller Coaster Reviews:
5. El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure
4. The Voyage at Holiday World
3. Millennium Force at Cedar Point
2. Superman: Ride of Steel at Six Flags New England
1. Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure

As you plan your trips to parks around the country you may need to rent a car. There are a lot of car rental deals available, but go for that car rental that suits you. Of all the car rental companies so far, some of the best packages are from hertz car rental.

The Coaster Critic's Blog Voted Best Web Blog
Coasterdom has announced the results of their Coaster Web Awards. The Coaster Critic's Blog won the Best Blog award. Thanks to all of you who voted and visited the blog this past season. While it's largely based on my opinions and experiences it wouldn't be half as much fun without my readers and visitors who chime in with their comments and knowledge. See the rest of the results here.

A Non-biased Coaster Poll, Not for the Faint-Hearted Fan Boy
It's the time of the year again for Mitch Hawker's Roller Coaster Polls. The polls are lengthy and complicated enough that Robb Alvey from ThemeParkReview.com created an Idiot's Guide. Hopefully, the amount of time and effort it takes will weed out the blind homers and fan boys that just want to vote for their home park's coasters.

Like last year, I'll report on the results and compare to them to the Golden Ticket Awards. Mitch's Poll is generally regarded as a more fair poll than Amusement Today's Golden Ticket Awards largely because of the head-to-head, win-loss, nature of the poll. Explained here.

Check out the 2006's Top 10 for both Steel and Wooden Roller Coasters here.

Mitch's 2007 Wooden Coaster Poll

For a while now I've been in the lab working on a few new projects. In my surveying of the theme park web site landscape I found just a lot of the usual suspects. News sites, image sites, park fan sites, etc. My hope is that my new projects will help bring Web 2.0 to the online theme park community in a whole new way. Other than the message boards, I don't see a lot of interactivity out there.

Right now I'd say Project X is in alpha at best. It's got a heartbeat, but far from ready for prime time. Project Y has been alive and kicking for many months, I just need to finish building it out. Once they're up I shouldn't have to spend too much time on them, so I'll be able to stay focused on this blog. Both will launch this Winter. Stay tuned for updates...

Any guesses as to what either of the new sites will be like? Leave a comment below.

The Coaster Critic's Blog has been nominated for a Coaster Web Award in the Best Blog category over at Coasterdom. There are other theme park site categories like Best Forums, Top Photography, Most Interactive, Best Podcast, and Best Site for Knowledge Based Content.

Click here to vote!

Recently I was contacted by Schmap.com. They found one of my Flickr pictures and wanted to use it for their Buffalo Schmap Guide. I agreed and it's been posted to their mini-review of Darien Lake. Check out the review here.

I should probably let them know that Darien Lake is no longer a Six Flags park. Anyway, check out their site the next time you plan a vacation or trip to a new city.

Top 3 Theme Park News Sites
Theme park news sites offer the latest coaster-related news. On these sites you’ll find announcements and updates on new attractions, forums buzzing with rumor even video game downloads for theme park games like Roller Coaster Tycoon. Most of them aim to be a one-stop-shop for theme park information.

Below, you’ll find links to the best Theme Park News Sites on the Web.

ThrillNetwork
ThrillNetwork is often considered the premier theme park news site on the Web. It has a heavy focus on news, but boasts an active forum community and offers everything from game downloads to an extensive park and ride database. Subscribe to their RSS feed and stay on top of the latest news in the theme park industry. Also check out the In The Loop podcast.


Scream Scape
Scream Scape has a strictly news focus. It doesn’t have numerous features like image galleries and game downloads that many other sites have. On the other hand, Scream Scape is one of the most sited and trusted sources on the Web for theme park information. They must be doing something right. Plus, they have a blog!

RollerCoasterPro
RollerCoasterPro has one of the best designed and, in my opinion, best looking theme park sites on the Web. RCPro goes beyond the typical features boasting coaster videos for your iPod and interactive features like coaster drafts, Roller Coaster Tycoon contests and more.

What are your favorite theme park news sites? Leave a comment below.