Re: Bye-Bye Giraffica aka Pilgrims Plunge
I'm starting to think this could potentially be a Mack LSM. I know I said Gerstlauer Infinity a while ago, but upon dissecting the "beakhead and chains" clue, I think that was a dead giveaway that the chain lift hinted in that clue was a lie, given how it's talking about a liar. Anyway, I'm guessing a small pre-launch portion like Helix's out of Giraffica's station through the old trench surrounded by water that goes into a mild launch and a Manta/Alpina Blitz-esque segment before hitting another launch (represented in the clues by the storm) that goes into something more along the lines of Helix/Blue Fire with inversions ("times we can no longer stay upright") and a few dives into underground tunnels surrounded by fake rockwork looking like sharp ocean atolls (represented by "the clouds block out the sun" comments in the journal). There are a few reasons I think this is a Mack, but I think the biggest is the clue from Day 21,
We tell the children the bow of our ship resembles a plow, cutting through the ocean waves. The spray on deck feels colder now than at the start of our journey.
which I think is hinting at the train shape. The general consensus from various sites that are also following this is that the speculators are the children in the entries, so from that perspective, they are telling the people who would be speculating this. And this:
totally looks like this:
(Okay, not TOTALLY, but you can draw some resemblence. )
I feel like Holiday World might not have the intent to theme the train (The Voyage was supposed to represent a ship and it didn't have themed trains) and would just go with the lightning print on Storm and Alpina's trains as it would fit the squall theme, but this could hint at the zero car. The second Mack supporting clue is from Day 6's infamous "empty barrel" comment. Perhaps this references Mack's trademark barrel rolls into brake runs found on what I believe to be all of the Mack Megacoasters bar Manta at this point. Maybe this is saying that the barrel roll goes over the pre-launch?
It seems in today's update that things have calmed down a bit in the story, though, so I'm thinking that we're getting into the main storm in the story, as in the climax. Maybe the first and second ones represent the stage between launches 2 and 3, the small break there representing an MCBR? And with it calming down, maybe this represents a slow coast to a near stop (like Manta and Helix have) and maybe even some darkriding (I think there was a large pit behind the old Giraffica site that could be a small building for this, and Gobbler Getaway's "cardboard" style could easily be nicely repurposed to make a cool cartoony marine disaster scene, oscillating blue panels cut to look like water rippling, ship cutout sinking, clouds oscillating, the like) before getting into the ride's final launch and craziest bit yet? The layout of this seems to be cut to go from Giraffica to the area between The Voyage and Splashin' Safari so maybe we're looking at a Cheetah Hunt-esque out and back layout that detours into a dark ride?
Just a few honorable mention theories I had:
*Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster- Pretty much the same theory I mentioned above but with a lift portion instead of a tame launch portion
*Smiler Clone- The Smiler is listed on Gerstlauer's website, there seems to be enough room for one, there was a mysterious "13" on one of the recent clues and the "empty barrel" comment could represent the removal of the first barrel roll (making 13 the number of inversions). The only thing not supporting this is the footer layout, which kind of sinks this ship (no pun intended.
)
*Zierer Vertical Drop Coaster- The "13" in the woodwork mentioned above could have been hinting at a freefall drop. We've seen these from Intamin (they'll probably never work with them again after Giraffica), Cedar Fair in-house, and Zierer, leaving Zierer as the only real candidate to produce something like this. This would be a Verbolten-esque ride but with multiple times in the event building, launches, and inversions. With Verbolten's whopping $54,000,000 price tag, a big brother to it for a park the size of Holiday World sounds pretty farfetched. Helix was $36,000,000, though, so my suggested ride about Helix's size might be a bit out of price range too.
*Premier LSM- Pretty much the same concept I suggested with the Mack but with Premier. It seems more like something Mack would do, though.
*Mack Water Coaster- As fitting as a water coaster could be for this, it seems to be a tad low profile for marketing like this.
*Zombie Togo
All this is really making me want to get out to Holiday World to ride this next season, and I'm going to try to go this season. Can't wait to see more!