CoasterRadio.com: The Original Theme Park Podcast

Welcome to the premiere show of CoasterRadio.com!

We'll kick off the 2005 Summer season by reviewing many of the new rides and attractions that will be headed to theme parks this year. Will they live up to the hype? Or, will we all end up suffering from "antici-pointment?" (A combination of too much anticipation that eventually leads to disappointment.)

We'll talk about the newest attraction to hit the Las Vegas Strip, "Insanity: The Ride." We'll also talk about the major attractions coming to Busch Gardens (in both Williamsburg and Tampa).

We'll break down the new roller coasters coming to parks like Paramount's Kings Island, Dorney Park, Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park and Silver Dollar City. We'll also talk about Six Flags Great Adventure's new expansion. We'll find out what parks guests can expect from the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster - Kingda Ka.

We'll also start our series on Park Pet Peeves. This week - what should parks and guests do about line jumpers? Some parks do nothing, while others have firm policies in place. But what should the average park guest do when they are confronted by someone trying to cut in front of them? We've got some ideas that just might work.

Plus, we'll unveil our first contest, "Soundwave." If you consider yourself a "theme park expert," this is the contest for you!

It's all coming up on this week's broadcast of "CoasterRadio.com."

Anytime you visit a theme park message board on the internet, you're bound to run into "Conspiracy Theories" about your favorite park or ride.

People post the most outrageous claims and it's difficult to figure out what's true and what's not.

For instance, is your favorite roller coaster going to be torn down because it's sinking into the ground?

Busch Gardens Williamsburg has just unveiled their newest dark ride and it looks like it is going to be one of the top new attractions in 2005.

"Curse of DarKastle: The Ride" is a dynamic, motion-based, 3D attraction that sends guests on a terrifying, gravity-defying ride through the mysterious corridors of a Bavarian Castle.

Across the country, teams of animators, engineers and designers worked for 13 months to bring this ride from concept to completion. The result is an amazing attraction that one would only expect to find in Orlando theme parks.

Mike Collins and Flava were on hand at the media preview of"DarKastle." Instead of using their press credentials to ride the attraction with the rest of the media, they waited to ride with the general public to see what the reaction was like. In this week's show, they'll tell you all about the attraction (without giving too much away) and let you know how average park guests were reacting.

They'll also talk with Brent Young of Hollywood-based Super 78. Brent's company created all of the animations for this new attraction. They'll ask him about some of the technical advances that were made in the design of this ride. One of the biggest is that DarKastle's animated scenes are digitally projected and stored on massive servers located in Williamsburg. Brent and his team can update the scenes in Hollywood and upload them to the servers at any time. This allows scenes to be tweaked constantly and possibly even updated or replaced in the future.

The guys also will talk to Dave Mauck of Orlando-based Oceaneering.Dave and his team designed the motion-based ride system for DarKastle.Dave will explain how in 13 months, his team had to create intelligent ride vehicles that used "linear, circular and vertical motion" and allowed for "varying rates of acceleration."

In English, that means the vehicles have to give perfect rides to 1,450 people per hour all season long.

Not an easy job.

There was no winner in last week's "Soundwave" contest. We received a lot of guesses that were very close, but no one has sent in the correct answer. So, the guys will give a clue this week to help you figure it out. To hear the Soundwave, listen to our first show found in the Show Archive section.

Speaking of the Show Archive, this week's show is a special episode of CoasterRadio.com. Because of intense media demand, the entire crew was not able to attend the media event at Busch Gardens. So, if you are a new visitor and want to hear the show with all five hosts, head to our Show Archive section to listen to last week's show.

Podcasting each week from our studios in Washington, DC and from theme parks around the country, the CoasterRadio.com crew gets you ready for your day at the park!

This week, CoasterRadio.com returns to our Washington, DC studios. We start off the show by answering listener e-mails about Italian Job Stunt Track and our Park Pet Peeves segment about line cutting.

We'll also wrap up last week's trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg and give our final reviews of their new attraction "Curse of DarKastle."

Then, we'll talk with Kristin Siebeneicher, the Public Relations Manager from Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. She'll let us know what's going on with their record-breaking roller coaster "Kingda Ka." She'll also tell us what we can expect from the new "Golden Kingdom" area of the park.

Mike will re-cap his trip to Las Vegas. In-between sessions at the blackjack tables, Mike rode the two newest attractions on top of the Stratosphere Tower: X-Scream and Insanity: The Ride.

What would possess someone to strap themselves into an "invented centrifuge" that is positioned 1,000 feet above the world-famous Las Vegas strip?

Well, Mike will attempt to answer that question as well as review X-Scream, Manhattan Express and Speed: The Ride.

Plus, we'll update you on our Soundwave contest. For two weeks, we have been inviting our listeners to guess a certain roller coaster solely by the sound it makes.

We've had a lot of guesses, but no correct answer so far. This week, we'll give away another clue and add another prize to the Soundwave Prize Pack.