Disaster Transport and Space Spiral at Cedar Point have both been confirmed for removal (on July 13th) with DT closing by July 29th, and Space Spiral possibly closing around Labor Day:
Disaster Transport Final Dispatch: A Mission for the Kidshttps://www.firstgiving.com/gktw/finaldispatch
Sunday, July 29, 2012 at 9:00 PM
Cedar Point
Sandusky, Ohio
Disaster Transport Final Dispatch: A Mission for the Kids
Cedar Point and Give Kids The World are
partnering for another exciting event!
At Disaster Transport Final Dispatch: A Mission for the Kids, guests can become a part of history while helping children with life-threatening illnesses and their families make memories that last a lifetime.
Participation includes complimentary all-day park admission for non-season passholders, an hour of exclusive ride time on Disaster Transport, VIP access to a private reception, a commemorative event t-shirt, a special souvenir and eligibility for the the last ride with the lights on. The top three fundraisers will also receive prizes!
Here's what we have planned for Sunday, July 29:
9 p.m. Welcome Reception-- Enjoy light refreshments, music and a special presentation at the patio outside Disaster Transport.
10:30 - 11:30 p.m. Exclusive Ride Time-- Disaster Transport is officially closed to the public and open to all participants for ERT.
11:40 p.m. Final Lap-- Last ride with the lights on! The 50 participants who have raised the most money are guaranteed a spot. The first place fundraiser will have the privilege of choosing their seat first, followed by the second place fundraiser and so on until all seats are taken.
In addition to the $20 registration fee, a minimum of $50 must be raised in order to participate. Top fundraisers will be determined Friday, July 27 at Noon EST.
Online registration will close Friday, July 27 at Noon EST. Onsite. day-of registration will be available for $75 and includes all-day park admission for non-season passholders, an hour of exclusive ride time on Disaster Transport, VIP access to a private reception, a commemorative event t-shirt and a special souvenir. Onsite registrants are not eligible for the Final Lap.
Thank you for your support!
From the park's Facebook page:
Something big is happening. Disaster Transport & Space Spiral will be dismantled this season to make space for @!!$!(*%%. We're sad to see them go, but are excited as we fly into the future. Stay tuned for more!
"Watch out for inversions and (!%!@@!#%(!@!!^ You didn't think we would give away 2013 THAT easy did you?"Already teasing? Lemme guess, @!!$!(*%% = 2-1-14-19-8-5-5 = B-A-N-S-H-E-E. IDK, it just looks like that. I have no idea about the other one, but some say that means FALSE CLUES in inverted text.
Originally Mantis (B&M Stand-Up) was going to be called "Banshee," but apparently the word "banshee" had some negative connotations. So they changed the ride's name to "Mantis" (as it is today), and most of the original "Banshee" souvenirs were recalled, and burned (though there are still some around). I can't really imagine them naming this coaster "Banshee" after that scenario.
If what I heard last summer is true, Disaster Transport and Space Spiral's replacement WILL be a new B&M coaster. Funny, just a couple of weeks ago I was at Cedar Point, and imagined them imploding Space Spiral (almost like Freefall at SFOT back in 2008) and the tower falling on Disaster Transport's structure, destroying both attractions. I also saw quite a bit of markings around the Space Spiral/Disaster Transport area (especially in the dead end by DT's exit).
Just recently (May 30), the news leaked out about DT/SS getting removed for a new coaster that will stretch to the front of the park:
http://www.sanduskyregister.com/sandusky/news/cedar-fair/memo-cedar-point-build-coaster-2013Cedar Fair stands ready to spend big money on a new roller coaster for 2013 at Cedar Point that will change the park landscape.Code-named “CP Alt.Winged,” the coaster will have the “longest drop, run the fastest and be the longest ride” of its kind, Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet wrote in Feb. 15 memo to Cedar Fair’s board of directors.The total projected cost of the project is $25 million, a price that includes removing the park’s Space Spiral and Disaster Transport rides and restructuring the park entrance.Ouimet was unavailable for comment Tuesday.To see photos of the Space Spiral and Disaster Transport, click HERE.Lee Alexakos, corporate vice president of marketing, declined to confirm the information in the memo.“We have not announced any plans for 2013 but we did announce a $25 million investment,” Alexakos said. “This will be one of the largest capital expenditures ever.”Alexakos said that with any ride or attraction Cedar Point undertakes, the company is always looking to set records.The Swiss-based Bolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers is set to design the new ride, which was described in the memo as having a “Front Gate Statement— a roller coaster that flies overhead, rolls and flies back— highly visible above guests entering the park.”The firm designed Cedar Point’s Raptor.A winged coaster is designed to suspend riders on wings to the sides of the rails so there is no track above or below the guest.Engineering schematics show a proposed coaster with gravity defying twists, curves and rolls.“Rob Decker (Cedar Fair VP of planning and design) and others have done a great job of creating a compelling, economically attractive new coaster for Cedar Point,” Ouimet wrote. “We believe this particular ride design with this particular manufacturer balances the desire for marketable innovation and risk associated with early adaptations of prototypes.”Bolliger & Mabillard designed the first winged coaster for installation in Italy at a park known as Gardaland. The Six Flags Great American park outside of Chicago also has one of the company’s winged coasters, called X-Flight.The new ride at Cedar Point could promise to be a work horse available to guests at almost any time they are in the park.“Rob talked to operators of the first one in Italy and found no unanticipated negatives and very high ride reliability (less than 1 percent operational downtime).Design plans show the new ride with a 170-foot tall lift that will fly overhead of park guests entering the park. It will have the longest track and longest ride time of any coaster of its style as it flies overhead, rolls and then fly back.The huge roller coaster will dominate the front gate and the track will travel over a large parking area at the park.“We have several coasters that cover parking lots,” Ouimet wrote. “Not necessarily ideal, but certainly acceptable given tight site constraints and the amount of land such attractions require.”Disaster Transport and the Space Spiral both would have to come down if the site plan currently under consideration is chosen.Part of the $25 million investment will also include renovations and upgrades at the park entrance from the parking lot.Cedar Point general manger John Hildebrandt was not available for comment on Tuesday.
The rumor mill is throwing roller coaster enthusiasts for a loop today.http://www.sanduskyregister.com/sandusky/belaboring-point/cedar-point/blog-cedar-points-wing-coaster-answers-enthusiasts-prayer
And this particular loop is a doozy: Cedar Point is planning to remove Disaster Transport and Space Spiral to make room for a wing coaster that extends to the front of the park and above the main entrance, according to a Feb. 15 memo from new Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet to the board of directors.
A wing coaster, as shown in the artist rendering above, is one on which pairs of riders sit on either side of the track, with nothing above or below them except air.
The only coasters at Cedar Point that I haven’t ridden this year are Mean Streak, because it’s kind of hard on my aging back, and Disaster Transport, because, well, it kind of sucks.
Someone at Cedar Point with much more influence than I have might think the same thing.
At the Erie County Chamber of Commerce Breakfast of Champions on April 24, Ouimet mentioned publicly that the company wasn’t thrilled with Disaster Transport, which gives more credence to this development.
“We believe strongly in the future of Cedar Point,” Ouimet said at the breakfast. “Our board of directors, at John’s (Hildebrandt) encouragement, have committed more than $25 million to Cedar Point for next season. I will leave it at that, for all to speculate what that is.”
And speculate the enthusiasts have done.
I've suspected for a while that Cedar Point's 2013 attraction would be a coaster. The loss of one roller coaster, WildCat, and Ouimet divulging the $25 million investment number all but clinched it. It was just a matter of waiting to see what type of coaster it would be.
Obviously, it would be something relatively different than what the park already has, and a flying coaster, Firehawk, being only 200 miles away at Cedar Fair-owned Kings Island seemed to preclude Cedar Point from doing a flyer, with other options available. So I assumed it would be a dive coaster.
I've never ridden a true wing coaster, but I have been on Griffon, a dive coaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Riding on the outside of its 10-seat-wide train gives an experience somewhat similar to a wing coaster, because you hang over air, not the track. Needless to say, it's an interesting experience.
Also fueling the speculation is a development at another Cedar Fair property, Canada’s Wonderland. That park’s new coaster for 2012, Leviathan, features elements that are located in and above the guest parking lot and around the main entrance of the park, just like Cedar Point’s new coaster is expected to do.
In addition, you know Cedar Point wants to be able to at least argue its case as being the “Roller Coaster Capital of the World."
The first-ever entry to this blog was about the park’s last-minute removal of WildCat and the fact I thought it was a good long-term move. At the same time, losing one coaster also lost the park the claim of having the most roller coasters in the world, a title held by Six Flags Magic Mountain.
If this new development comes to fruition, Cedar Point still won’t be able to lay claim to the title of most coasters. (Gain one, lose one, leaving 16.) Six Flags Magic Mountain also has announced it will open an 18th coaster in 2013.
But I, for one, will take quality over quantity, substance over marketing, any day.
If Cedar Point adds a coaster type it doesn’t already have, I’ll still easily consider the park the “Roller Coaster Capital of the World." And with its high-quality and versatile lineup, it would be difficult to argue against it.
There are only four wing coasters in operation in the world: Raptor at Gardaland in Italy, The Swarm at Thorpe Park in the United Kingdom, Wild Eagle at Dollywood in Tennessee and X-Flight at Six Flags Great America in Illinois. The first in the world, Raptor, opened only a year ago.
Incidentally, the cost of the two wing coasters at U.S. parks are reported to be $20 million for Wild Eagle and $15 million for X-Flight, which seems to be in line with the $25 million Ouimet mentioned. (Assuming, as usual, Cedar Point wants the tallest, fastest and longest coaster of its type in the world, which would increase the ride's cost, in addition to the cost of removing the two rides.)
All four wing coasters in existence are manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard, which designed and built Cedar Point’s Raptor and Mantis, as well as Diamondback at Kings Island. While I know a lot of people bemoan Mantis, I’m glad to see another B&M coaster coming, especially considering what seems to be excessive downtime on the Intamin coasters. (Millennium Force is still my favorite.)
And now would be a good time to mention the buzz that started a while ago when a photo surfaced of green wing-coaster track at a B&M fabricating plant in southwestern Ohio. (It could be for any number of other parks.) It's also a good time to mention it's been five long years and one major recession since a new coaster rolled its way to Cedar Point.
Some people wanted to see a 500-foot coaster, but I just don't see the point with Top Thrill Dragster already standing at 420 feet. Go skydiving if you want a towering drop from the sky, because that'd basically be all you'd get from such a coaster.
A new type of coaster will be good for the park in terms of its ability to draw guests, and sacrificing a couple of aging and underperforming rides for something fresh while adding some impact to that area of the park will be a good thing. (I spend a huge percentage of time in the back half of the park, roaming toward the front usually only when I want to ride Raptor or Wicked Twister or when I'm heading to my car.)
The elimination of Disaster Transport’s building also will allow for more and better views of the lake, which is an asset most parks simply don’t have.
Whatever the coaster ends up being and wherever it ends up going, it’s going to leave bigger footprints than the T. rex or Ruyangosaurus giganteus from Dinosaurs Alive! ever could.
There even seems to be a planned layout in the last link:
This looks like a combination of Swarm (dive possibly) and Wild Eagle (out-and-back layout). However one thing comes to question... it looks like after exiting the Disaster Transport area, there is a unique-looking element. Some say it could be the "Norwegian Lift" (well, what I would call it, LOL). Essentially, the train crests the lift, and goes through a twist n' dive, followed by an immelmann. This should be very interesting... I wonder what's for dinner at Cedar Point (LOL, I had to throw that in!)... and it also should be cool to see the dive loop... er immelmann... er whatever that is at the end (between the main entrance and Blue Streak) by Blue Streak's turnaround.
As for DT packing it's bags, goodbye, good riddance, so long, and farewell! Never been a fan of it... Space Spiral, however, IDK. It doesn't look to be part of the layout... =/
It should be exciting to see how all this folds out...
EDIT:
Just saying (this is from MudchopX at YouTube)...
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