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Six Flags Magic Mountain May 2021 TPR is fortunate to have a handful members who provide regular updates and photos from their respective home parks around the world. Until now, however, I’ve never written a trip report from mine. If we’re defining home park as “the park literally located closest to me,” then mine is Adventure City ten miles north from Huntington Beach in what I guess is technically still considered part of Anaheim. But no one actually cares about that place and I’ve never even bothered to go. The next closest is Knott’s Berry Farm all of twelve miles away in Buena Park, exactly one mile closer to me than Disneyland Resort. Then about sixty miles farther away than any of those is Six Flags Magic Mountain. Throughout my various moves around Southern California, SFMM has never been the park closest to me, but it is the park that made me a coaster enthusiast, so in a way, it always feels like coming home. And what I mean by that is it feels a lot like coming back to your parents’ house after spending your first semester or two away at college. You feel all warm, fuzzy, and nostalgic on the drive up, but once you’ve been there a few hours, you don’t see it the same way anymore and you’re kind of ready to leave. You’ve grown, you’ve changed, you’ve experienced what else is out there, and now you just want to go drink with your friends to Europa Park instead. Six Flags Magic Mountain has its fans for sure, but in our circles it has spent the last two decades as more of a perpetual whipping boy. Even when they do something right, enthusiast praise is almost always accompanied by a hefty dose of well-deserved criticism. I think you still have to call it the chain’s flagship (I tried to avoid that pun, but it’s the right word), but how many of us can honestly call it our favorite Six Flags? I personally put Great Adventure, Over Georgia, Over Texas, and Fiesta Texas above it, and Six Flags Mexico and New England make me less frustrated. Like many things that underwhelm, I think SFMM disappoints because for all its advantages, it could and should be much better. How does a park in this market, in this climate, and with this kind of consistent capital investment, acquire this kind of reputation? There are reasons for all of these, though I’m probably not the guy on here best equipped to explain them. A wealth of information can be gleaned from the main SFMM topic. The feeling I get these days is that twenty-odd years of poor management and narrowly targeting a clientele that isn’t especially lucrative has left the park in limbo where the only way forward is doing more of the same. I think Six Flags knows this now. After a couple of branding experiments, first as “the xtreme park,” and then as a more family focused destination didn’t work out, they’ve settled into the idea that the best plan is no plan at all. It might be the only option left. When I go, I find a park mostly devoid of atmosphere that is solely reliant on a quantity-over-quality coaster collection to draw people and placate them once they’re in. That said, it’s actually a little better now than it used to be in both regards. While I don’t care for it, Justice League: Battle For Metropolis is a sorely needed dark ride and Crazanity filled the gaping “OMG WTF is that???” giant flat ride hole SFMM had to fill. And Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom is probably my favorite non-coaster ride in the park. But two big flats, a dark shooter, and a bunch of redundant kids rides all jammed into one corner do not make for a well-rounded park. I contrast this with the last Six Flags parks I visited, the two in Texas, where neither park has the same quantity of large coasters, but blends those they do have with a greater variety of minor attractions, subtle theming, and regional flair to create a cohesive atmosphere. I don’t think anything can be done to create that at SFMM. If my nostalgia serves me correctly, it actually was a bit more like that at the end of the Time Warner era in the late nineties. For better or worse, the time since has simply taken a toll. It also isn’t like there are no standout coasters which make the trip worthwhile due to their presence alone. Twisted Colossus and Tatsu are world-class rides, if not the best of their type, and X2 certainly has its good days. SFMM simply lags behind other parks with similarly large coaster collections like Cedar Point or Hersheypark. This is true in terms of the consistent quality of its coasters as well as atmosphere and two other key metrics—operations and service. No Six Flags park in my experience has been an exemplar of efficiency and guest service basics. What stands out to me about the general demeanor of SFMM’s employees is not just that they seem unmotivated or lazy (because this is true of most parks in general), but how so many of the staff exude this attitude of thinking they’re just too damn cool for their jobs. As if showing they cared was an admission they don’t have better things to do. Maybe you disagree. I chalk it up to being an L.A. thing. May 2021 was my first visit to the park in almost a year-and-a-half. Since February 2020 when a conversation I overheard at the bar at the Knott’s Berry Farm TGI Fridays (I did both parks the same day) began with, “Have you guys sold fewer Coronas since this virus thing got started?” How times have changed. Did my lengthy absence from Magic Mountain make me any fonder? We’ll see. I still get amped seeing Goliath and Twisted Colossus running when I pull into the parking lot. I’m pretty sure the original Colossus was the first coaster I rode at this park sometime in 1996 or 97. I also remember what the Colossus ride-op told my dad after he asked what they were building when the first couple of Goliath supports went up a few years later: “Oh, just a roller coaster.” Twisted Colossus doesn’t have the same parking lot coaster reputation that Scream does. I assume this is because it’s been there so long, people have ceased to remember that it is one. Hurricane Harbor… As a kid I once said, “One day I shall go.” I have yet to fulfill that promise. Despite everything I’ve said about the lack of atmosphere, SFMM’s entrance plaza is absolutely one of the best and most iconic out there. Revolution and Tatsu function as the “weenie” (as Walt Disney coined it) once you’re through the gates the same way the Disney castles do. It really is the perfect weenie for a park built so heavily around coasters. Tatsu juxtaposed over Revolution illustrates how coaster technology and scale have progressed over the decades and how Magic Mountain has literally and figuratively come full circle. It would be less visually appealing, but my one critique of Tatsu is how the final turn doesn’t dive down the side of the mountain in a climactic swoop toward the midway before climbing back up to the brakes. I’ve always felt that would make for a more exciting finale. I had a 11:30 reservation but entered around 10:45 without issue. I don’t usually buy Flashpass when I come here, but I thought the gold version would be a good idea this time since I knew staffing and on-ride capacity were somewhat limited. This was the first time I used the new app-based version of Flaspass rather than the watch or Qbot and it worked flawlessly. I hope this is what all the parks do going forward. FP definitely helped as I would not have been down with some of the moderate-length, but slow as shit queues I saw. It does a few things pretty well, but overall I’m not a Full Throttle fan. A less gimmicky version not focused solely on stats could have been a much more fulfilling coaster. I am also not a fan of the current gen Premier trains. I cannot understand how a modern coaster car can be so open, yet so restrictive and uncomfortable. Full Throttle I’m beating a dead horse here, but another thousand feet of track at the end of the layout would have changed everything about how we look at this coaster. Anything to allow a proper, full-speed descent down the outside of the vertical loop that doesn’t abruptly cut off the airtime just when it should be getting good. Maybe a low-rise speed-hill over the station and a wave turn up the hillside followed by a ground-hugging turnaround threading the loop and an airtime climb into a decline brake run. Simple but makes a world of difference. That would still keep the length at just a little over 3,000 feet too. Alas, as fun as it is to dream, such a ride was not meant to be. With the version we have, I really enjoy the launch, loop, and reverse launch from the tunnel. 6.5/10 It looks tame now, but that drop seemed like a monumental undertaking to me back in 2000 in a way the inversions on Viper, Batman, and Riddler just didn’t. It’s funny to think of how now it is generally considered to be one of the cruder and least thrilling hyper coasters. My enthusiasm for Titan does not extend to its older cousin. It would not be all that hard to photograph SFMM in a way that makes it look bad. I thought it would be more interesting to make it look as nice as possible. I didn’t ride Superman: Escape from Krypton today. I usually don’t even think about it until I hear it running. It’s fun, but a ride on it doesn’t necessarily make my day. I didn’t get to Lex either. I planned to, but even with the gold Flash Pass it became a struggle to get a lot done. Ah, the Screampunk district. I long to return to Phantasialand one day to finally see who did the steampunk theme better. You know. That old rivalry. Magic Mountain vs. Phantasialand…. If nothing else, the old regime did a fantastic job with Goliath’s queue line and station building. It’s the micro-budget Indiana Jones queue we never knew we needed. There are few coasters that waste as much speed as Goliath. Goliath I’m happy it exists, even if only for its off-brand uniqueness. I love the fact that SFMM has a plus-sized hyper coaster with three-bench trains, a straight ramp first drop, almost no airtime, a MCBR that hits harder than an eighties Arrow, a grayout helix, and one of the great all time coaster entrances. It's at once hopelessly primitive yet smoother than almost any modern equivalent. A “Giovanola rattle” just isn’t something you hear about. It is remarkably consistent in its sheer averageness. There is little logic to why I think Titan is so much better, but I just do. 6/10 The best part about a good steampunk theme is how it is steamy, yet also punk. Oooohh… steampunk. What if steampunk actually was the future? Like it turns out the solution to eliminating fossil fuels was steam power all along and all the old sci-fi authors were actually right? Just a century or two later than expected??? Oooohhhh steampunk… Twisted Colossus For me, it’s a tossup between this and Ghostrider for the title of best coaster in California, with Railblazer in a tight third. TC fills the niche of elite destination coaster I realized was lacking at SFMM once I started to travel more widely. It’s fun (more so when it races), long, intense, and has more airtime than anyone needs, but it still falls a little short of what I consider the top-tier RMCs. There are a couple of elements that don’t work well for me. One is the double-down on the green side. It doesn’t level-off enough at the midpoint to deliver a true 1-2 airtime punch like it’s intended to. Second are the twin double-ups both sides share before the second pair of turnarounds. These level off properly and work better than the green double-down, but I think they’re still taken it a bit too quickly. Not like I want it slowed down or anything, but the air comes and goes a little too suddenly to enjoy it. With TC though, the good more than outweighs the slightly less-good. I love the pair of first drops, the dueling inversions, and my favorite part is actually the climb up to the first pair of turnarounds—the two strongest and most prolonged airtime moments on the ride. This is a very solid mid-tier RMC, which means it’s still better than a top-tier almost anything else. 9/10 RMC first drops do not need size to be great. TC’s pair of them are honestly no worse than Steel Vengeance’s for me, though neither can quite match the one on Iron Rattler. Twisted Colossus doesn’t race a lot these days, which is a shame, but predictable. The green stall over the blue camelback is probably the ride’s best part when it does. My favorite element when not racing—the apex of the climb into the first turnaround. I’d rather RMC had done a single drop with a right-left shimmy instead of an abbreviated double-down here. Scream (or SCREAM!) So… most of us seem to regard this (if not Hydra) as the worst B&M floorless, but on this visit it was running GREAT! And I mean that. Usually Scream is a rattle trap, has a big jolt at the bottom of the first drop, and lightly fries you like you’re riding over a skillet due to the hot asphalt it was built on. None of that happened this time. It was fast, smooth, and dare I say approached the quality of the rides I had on Superman Krypton Coaster last October. Problem is, I haven’t been able to say that about a single lap taken on Scream since its opening season. Maybe it was freshly refurbed, I have no idea. The vast majority of rides I’ve had on this over the past eighteen years have varied from mediocre to awful and that is where I expect it to return. Hope I’m wrong, but we’ll just have to see. Based on my cumulative experience with the ride, Scream gets a 5/10. Scream was built in 2003, when the “Xtreme Park” brand had fizzled and the attempted revitalization as a family destination had not fully begun. So the ride’s presentation makes it look like nobody quite knew what to do with it (or cared) so they just did a bare bones job as cheaply as possible. When is the last time you heard someone say, “My favorite elements are cobra rolls”? None come to mind. Imagine if they had just laid some sand down and planted like nine palm trees. Would have looked so much better. I even felt some airtime going over the s-hill today. Sometimes Scream’s corkscrews are barely more comfortable than Viper’s. Not on this day. They were great! From this angle you almost think Goliath’s whole run is through a grove of palm trees. But it’s only the queue. So this one time a few years ago I was at the park by myself and ran into a couple of other enthusiasts. We started talking and hung out for a few hours. One of these dudes was wearing this floppy looking clown hat that looked like something you’d find at a Disney gift shop, but minus the character touches. When I asked him about it, he said he always loses a hat on Goliath. Me: “You mean you intentionally wear a hat just so you can lose it on Goliath?” Him: “No! It just happens!” Me: “….” So we get on the coaster and he puts the hat behind his back until we go through the tunnel. Then he puts on the hat, holds onto it through the big turnaround, and lets go as we enter the camelback. Predictably, the hat flies off his head as the train goes over the crest, and he turns around and looks back at me while holding his cheeks like the most mind-blowing thing ever just happened. Don’t be that guy, folks. Ahhh the Golden Bear Theater… Home to decades and decades of… quality entertainment…. I’ve actually never gone inside. Like many of you, I was ecstatic when it was announced SFMM would refurbish Revolution with lapbars to become the New Revolution. It’s a drastically better coaster now. In the bad old days, the best part and only redeeming quality of shoulder restraint Revolution was how it wound through a forest of trees along the hillside. But then when it came time for the refurb, some clueless exec decided they needed to cut a bunch of trees down to improve the coaster’s sightlines from the pathways. I distinctly remember a promo video with this guy saying, “We wanted to open it up a lot so people could see it.” You know. So people would know a coaster that had been there for forty years was, in fact, there. Fortunately there are still enough trees that Revolution’s (and Tatsu’s) experience hasn’t been irrevocably harmed. Revolution It broke down before I got to it and I ran out of time later, so I didn’t ride it on this visit. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed it since the refurb. It’s smooth, comfortable, and scenic. The loop delivers and is probably still the second best vertical loop in the park after Full Throttle’s. My issue, and the one thing keeping it from making a perfect Six Flags Schwarzkopf trifecta with Mind Bender and Shockwave, is how the block brakes are still applied as trims. Unless there are structural concerns I don’t know about, Revolution doesn’t need them. Nothing you can do to it will ever make it as intense than the other two and the brakes make it feel almost Goldrusher-esque at points. Regardless, we should all be thankful anyone cared enough to modernize and preserve it at all. 7/10 Rounding the path up through the Baja Ridge section. Viper’s placement still lends it a larger-than-life presence. I thought the “greatest coasters” wall was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. And I believed it. Not that I condone actually doing this, but I think it would be low-key hilarious if someone snuck in after closing and put up murals of Expedition GeForce, El Toro, Helix, and others in their place. Ha. SFMM might not even care. It’d be cheaper to just leave it up. Looking up at Viper from here in the 90s felt like staring up at nothing short of Mount Olympus. The mythical one, not Big Chiefs. It was so intimidating I wouldn’t ride it the first time I visited. But the second time around, I was ready. Viper more than any other is the coaster that made me an enthusiast. Just look at that entrance sign. It’s perfection and typifies everything a roller coaster is supposed to represent. SFMM doesn’t make the same effort with its entrance and station structures these days. Everything about the experience of Viper was meant to be daunting. You go underneath a sign with a demonic looking snake, then you climb up the path to the main queue, where you then have to walk up two flights of stairs to the station proper, from which you proceed upward again to the peak of the nearly hyper coaster-sized lift hill. Then after the drop and the first loop, you take a victory lap high above the queue and station in celebration of what you have conquered. Viper isn’t a great or even good coaster anymore, but the psychological aspect of it works as good as ever. The bridge spanning Baja Ride from Viper to X2 is one of the most scenic spots in the park. Viper was my favorite coaster for several years from 1997 to 2001 when I made my first trips to Cedar Point, Busch Gardens Tampa, and Islands of Adventure. I knew nothing of its already by then old-fashioned technology or how to evaluate its myriad of faults. I just knew it was scary as shit and pulled the strongest g-forces I had experienced up to then. In hindsight I truly admire how my dad, who was pushing 50 around then, marathoned it with me on such a regular basis. I made him ride it over and over… Now at 33 I don’t even want to marathon it. Viper’s first loop is still a good one. Snappy and pulls hard. The second and third can be good depending on the row and the day, but they tend towards whiplash more. Viper’s second half is often determined by the MCBR. Sometimes it damn near stops you, others it slows you down a lot but still lets you carry some speed. When the former happens, you kind of fall into the harness during the slow corkscrews. If it’s the latter, you can still make a comfortable enough ride out of it if you brace correctly. Viper There’s no way around it. Like almost all Arrow coasters of its vintage, Viper has aged poorly. It was outdated only a year or two after it was built and it survives now on nostalgia and the cost-benefit analysis of dismantling it. But I will always love it and it has a firm claim in my sentimental top 5. It’s a coaster that delivers a good ride maybe two or three times in ten, but I’d be devastated if SFMM decided to get rid of it. It’s the last mega-looper standing after Shockwave, GASM, and Vortex all bit the dust and it looks primed to remain so for the foreseeable future. A fantasy of mine is for Viper to receive the Phantom’s Revenge treatment, getting new trains with lapbars and replacing all the track after the first loop. It could instantly rival Twisted Colossus for best coaster in the park. Too bad it will never happen. As it stands, 5.5/10 X2 is a coaster with a pretty cool setting and presence of its own. Now 20 years old, it still carries a mystique. A perfect pair: the last coaster of Arrow’s golden age and the one that proved so costly, it put them out of business for good. Weirdly, I didn’t like X when it first opened. I thought it was an overblown gimmick lacking in substance. I’ve grown to appreciate it over the years. Now I think it’s the second or third best coaster in the park depending on how it runs on a given day. X2 just isn’t the same for me after I fell in lust with Eejanaika a couple of years ago. Now with that coaster entrenched in my top 10, X2’s faults are a lot harder to ignore. It’s still good, but at least for me, that mystique I mentioned has diminished. X2 Somehow, with chronic one-train ops and perpetually slow loading, I still find X2 worth the wait. Hold on, that’s not true, that’s my FlashPass talking. That and I tend to visit on days I can be certain are slow. I don’t think I could ever ride this coaster and wait through the full switchbacks again. If it reliably ran two trains and cycled as quickly as any other coaster in the park (which still isn’t fast) it would be a different story, but X2 has become a novelty experience for me when the day’s conditions allow. Its reliability has improved a lot since then early years when you never had the faintest clue if would be running. That’s a great thing, because as cynical as I may sound, X2 can be a very good coaster. The first drop is absurdly spectacular as is the first raven turn and whatever they call the inversion following them. It’s after that where X2 starts to fall apart a bit. As the seat rotations get more complex and the track profiling tighter, roughness sets in. The second raven turn in an outside seat near the back of the train can be pure brutality. Riding in an inside seat mitigates it, though not completely. This is a very tough coaster to grade for me because the experience varies so much from one ride to the next. I will split the difference and say 8/10, though there are times I could have given it a 9. X opened up some great views of Viper that were not possible before. Viper-watching is an X2 queue line guest’s favorite pastime. I had something to say here, but I think I’ve now written enough about Viper to last the whole forum at least a year. If you take the winding route up from Baja Ridge past Revolution, you arrive at the… camp area. Which may or may not also be part of Samurai Summit given how it’s the location of Tatsu’s entrance and queue. This is actually one of my favorite areas of the park due to the ample tree cover and space to relax. Tatsu’s placement atop the magic mountain is so perfect I almost can’t believe the park did it. The elevation made what would have otherwise been a ho-hum first drop into a real highlight. The Orient Helpful Honda Express. It provides about the same rate of acceleration I imagine that new swing-launch version of Blue Fire going to Dreamworld Australia will deliver. An excellent terrain coaster is one that uses said terrain to do things no other coaster could. Tatsu is a perfect example. No other flyer could copy and paste Tatsu’s pretzel loop. Flying Dinosaur gives it a try by placing its midcourse pretzel loop in a tunnel, but without the elevation change the effect isn’t the same. That said, Flying Dinosaur is in totality the superior coaster. If you’re planning a trip to Japan, don’t bother going to Kyoto. If you’ve been to Samurai Summit at Six Flags Magic Mountain, then you’ve basically already seen it. The pagoda-style architecture of this oft-closed gift shop is a textbook example of the early Edo Period style ushered in when Tokugawa Ieyasu completed the unification of Japan’s once waring provinces. At the garden-like peak of Samurai Summit, Tatsu’s colors serve an aesthetic purpose analogous to the gold-plated walls of Kyoto’s Kinkaku-Ji temple. Ninja’s red station building is modeled on Senso-Ji temple in the Asakusa ward of central Tokyo. Oh my god, I really hope no one is taking these last few captions seriously. Tatsu My second favorite coaster in the park after Twisted Colossus. Tatsu is not an especially intense coaster outside of the famous pretzel loop. It’s a graceful coaster that successfully creates a flying sensation better than any other flying coaster has been able to thus far. It will probably never be equaled in this regard unless F.L.Y. rides even better than it looks, and even then it still doesn’t have Tatsu’s terrain and elevation. Tatsu is still a very smooth ride fifteen years on, displaying almost none of the rattle that has come to define Scream and Riddler’s Revenge. The train shudders quite a bit at the pullout of the pretzel loop, but that’s understandable given the speed and forces it endures in that element. Only the crazy intensity and originality of Flying Dinosaur top it among flyers. 9/10 I didn’t ride Ninja today. The 6pm operating day was already waning by the time I got up here and I had other priorities. Overall, I think Ninja is fun and the second best suspended coaster I’ve ridden after The Bat at Kings Island. I never got to experience Big Bad Wolf, though I hope to ride Vortex at Canada’s Wonderland sometime soon. West Coast Racers and Apocalypse make for a pretty nice view down the backside of Samurai Summit. It’s too bad the park couldn’t have built the beer garden (and I use that term very loosely) up here instead of the space between Riddler and West Coast Racers. Having a drink in the shade while watching the coasters from above would have been great. And somewhere around here is where I would have put it. Would have gotten less foot traffic, but that’s not my problem. Is it safe to say the whole “YoloCoaster” meme has been retired now? The Underground, home to what I think is… wait for it… the best themed coaster at SFMM. Bear with me on this. The area still looks a little sparse, but it’s a huge improvement over the desolate stretch of nothing that was here before. The dueling/racing moments look great from the midway, but I think the effect is felt better on-ride on Twisted Colossus. It doesn’t seem like the West Coast Racers trains come together as closely as they do on TC. At the very least, the midway has some great kinetic energy now. The upper story loading floor of the WCR station building. And now here we are down on the ground level of the WCR station, which is of course a complete lie. That’s just my Mustang on the dyno. I should have taken more photos from the actual ride station to help make my point, but this is why I call WCR the best themed coaster in the park. If accuracy is your metric, they captured the look they were going for perfectly. It ain’t fancy, but it’s accurate. There’s some alright airtime here, especially on the white side. If you drive the I5 and I405 enough around LA, chances are you’ll see a Maserati or two doing exactly this along the median some day. West Coast Racers I feel like saying the exact same thing in every review here, but WCR does a couple of things well while the bulk of it is somewhere between disappointing and average. Granted it’s a slightly different case here since this one is supposed to be a deluxe family coaster to some extent, but so is Cheetah Hunt and I can’t criticize that one at all. The dueling aspect syncs up well and adds to the fun. The white side has a couple decent airtime moments. The yellow side helix pulls some nice g’s. Those are fine and good. However the trains are clunky and uncomfortable, the inversions do nothing, and there’s something about Premier’s track profiling on this and other recent coasters that feels awkward to me—like they did a first draft of the heartlining and called it a day whereas Intamin or Mack would have dialed it in further. Its not for me, but I’m glad people seem to like it. 6/10 You know what, everything I said was wrong. This is the most well-themed ride in the park. Actually, I’m not sure. Maybe when it still had the Terminator IP. And the queue still has a lot of theming. But then the station is all bare wood, so…? Apocalypse I was pretty excited when Apocalypse first opened as Terminator Salvation. After years of Colossus and Psyclone stinking up the place, a fast, fun, smooth GCI sounded like just the thing. Because, I mean, GCI’s are all of those right? Well, yes, just not this one. It was smooth and fast when it opened. And it still carries that fast pace today. But it stopped being smooth real quick, though it is again now, but probably just temporarily. And was it ever all that fun? Ehh, not really. The first drop has some good air in the back when it does its mini-Wodan impression. There’s some floater on the low-rise camelback and a good airtime pop in the hitch of the elevated turn that follows. But after that it’s just… meh. Once Apocalypse enters the tunnel it commits the remainder of the layout to doing absolutely nothing. There’s no more airtime, laterals, or any of the complex transitions GCI layers into their other coasters. It just hurdles along through some flat turns and ineffectual directional changes. This isn’t a first-gen GCI like Wildcat or Roar either, when GCI had yet to adopt their current style. Apocalypse is a contemporary of rides like Prowler, Renegade, and Thunderbird/American Thunder, each of which offers a lot more. 6/10 The preshow video was pretty cool in the Terminator days. You got see real, honest to god, legit movie stars like Moon Bloodgood in a Six Flags park! I guess Common was in it too and he’s pretty famous. But I think most of us can probably act better than him. Apocalypse is running quite smooth at the moment. But the majority of wooden retracks seem to be going the way of ipe wood or GCI titan track/RMC RetraK lately to improve longevity and Apocalypse didn’t get any of that. So it may be only a matter of time until it deteriorates again. I seem to remember people referring to this as a dead man’s turn when the ride was built, but I don’t think I’ve seen the term used in a while. The last coaster I made it to this day was Riddler’s Revenge. It still dominates the skyline around the back of the park. Its position in front of the hillside has always made the world’s largest standup coaster look even larger than it is. Riddler’s Revenge was the other coaster that, along with Viper, made me an enthusiast. It was still under construction the first time I visited. The supports for the lift and first drop were up and I remember staring up at them and thinking about how they absolutely dwarfed Batman, which I had just come off. I was both terrified of and drawn to it. Once it opened in 1998, I couldn’t get enough. Everything about it was just so big. I had never seen or heard of a hyper coaster then and Riddler had this immense, twisting drop and these huge diameter loops that looked totally different and much cooler than the tighter, elevated ones on Viper. The back-to-back dive loops were my idea of coaster nirvana at the time. A typical day at SFMM for me back then was one ride each on Colossus, Batman, Ninja, Psyclone, and Revolution, and then as many as I could possibly manage on Riddler and Viper. As the penultimate standup, Riddler benefited from experience learned on Mantis and Chang. Its elements are less snappy and a little more drawn out. Probably why it stayed smooth well into its second decade of operation when its predecessors had long since gotten rough. Georgia Scorcher is my favorite standup now. And like Viper, Riddler’s Revenge has fallen deep into my rankings to the point where I rarely think about it unless I’m at the park. It’s much more re-ridable than the old Arrow, but time finally caught up with the big B&M standup too. You aren’t guaranteed a smooth ride on it anymore. Riddler’s Revenge This had always been a backseat ride for me. You got a little more torque on the twist down the first drop and a combination of hangtime plus a final, little yank in the four big loops. Nowadays it’s front or second row only for me. It took about twenty years, but Riddler finally began to get a little rough. The back is still tolerable, but if I want to ride it more than once, I have to ride farther forward. One thing I love about this coaster is how it adds plenty of non-inverting elements to the mix of inversions. The layout feels grander this way and gives the ride a more unique personality even if it can be kind of dull. On a hot day with a full train, Riddler can still deliver the thrills. 7/10 The worst-kept secret in town is the RMC single rail raptor for 2022 taking the place of Tidal Wave and spanning the distance from Batman: The Ride to Justice League. The Riddler’s Revenge Plaza is about to look pretty different in a year’s time. Assuming they name it Joker or another DC character, the new coaster could be a great opportunity to fill in the space between the current DC Universe and the Justice League/Riddler area. Combining the two into a single, larger DC Universe might greatly improve the atmosphere in the back of the park. Back in the parking lot as the day ran out and I ceased to be able to reserve anything with the Flash Pass. I may give SFMM a hard time, but I’ll always be back.

Frustrating is the word that comes to mind when thinking of SFMM. My first trip was in 1980. I loved the place. I was obsessed after seeing it in the movie Rollercoaster. The sky tower was not open. My next trip was in 2000. It was a slow weekday in September. I got to ride everything. Sky tower was again NOT open. Next trip was April 2013. Weekday and totally dead park. Yet most of the major rides were not running due to "high winds." When they did finally open up, the lines averaged an hour each due to lack of staffing and slow ops. Never did get on Tatsu or X2. On my way out, I tweeted to the park about the horrible day I had. They IMMEDIATELY blocked me. And of course, Sky Tower was never open. My last trip was September 2015 during West Coast Bash. Got a few rides on Twisted Colossus, one ride on X2, and NO rides on Sky Tower. Why? Closed. Don't know if I will attempt this park again. It just manages to piss me off every time.

Drive back was a success! Left home at about 9:30, couple rest stops and surprisingly light traffic later I pulled in at 1:15. Already 3 rides in on Jersey Devil! First couple were in the middle of the train, which wasn't all that powerful but definitely super fun. 3rd ride was the magical back seat, and wow! Insane ejector air on the first drop and a couple other spots, and it takes some of the twists faster back there also. I definitely think it's a step above a lower tier RMC like Wicked Cyclone. Makes me more interested in trying Wonder Woman or Railblazer, can't imagine how intense those are! Definitely a home run for the park. Very efficient with loading, line never stops moving. Only a 10 minute wait today, definitely going back for more laps later! Park isn't too crowded so hitting stuff on this side of the park for a bit. Line for Nitro wasn't even long enough to write this post. Excellent ride in back as usual! Edit to include thoughts from the rest of the day: Hit Batman which would've been a quick line but broke down for 15 minutes. Great ride as always. While I still contend that Banshee is the B&M invert masterpiece, I love the Batmans for sheer intensity reasons. Really need to try Montu! Had a couple beers at the Skybar, which was a bit of an ordeal as there were probably 20 people there trying to get free water or drink bottle refills. Nice spot once you get your drinks. Hit the other side of the park real quick. Mine Train was a walk on and was quirky as always. That last hill is the best airtime on a steel coaster in the park. Hit Bizarro after a 10 minute wait. Not sure if it's the age, but this ride gets more meh to me the more I ride it. I think I have a vendetta against floorless coasters that aren't or haven't once been themed to Batman. Caught El Toro reopening from a breakdown so hit that in the magic seat. Actually got a bit of a battle wound...my stomach (ok...my gut) got pinched between the seatbelt and lapbar and really got squeezed on the first hill and looks like it got pierced now. Was bleeding at the end of the ride. Worth it though! Superman was posting a ridiculous queue time of 70 mins, I don't usually bother with Green Lantern, and I got a few rides on TTD 2 weeks ago which is far superior to Kingda Ka, so I was good with that side of the park and headed back to the other side. Jumped on Skull Mountain in back, fun as always. Wrapped up the day with 2 more back row rides on Devil. Was by myself today, so they called out for a single to fill the back row. Then when I got back they once again needed a single for the back row, but no one stepped up so they told me I could hop back on lol. If Jersey Devil is on the HITP list, it will be an unbelievable lineup. Honestly would have no reason to go to the other side of the fountain (except to go get Pork Kabobs). Fun day, worth the 8 hour round trip for the 2nd time in 3 days.

point to be made: ABSOLUTELY worth the upcharge (~$3 for Haunted Mansion). It's *not* a "scary, Haunted House attraction" - it's an old skool dark ride attraction where you slowly move by sets - cheesy, WONDERFUL sets, mostly in neon colors. we love it, and it's for the throwback cheese factor, not the scary. . because really, it's less scary than the Disney Haunted Mansion. here's a TPR ride thru. . . don't miss it, if going to Knoebels (also don't miss the chair lift, I'd do that over Impulse ANY day).

For those wondering about Flying Turns being ready to open. Coastercon is going to Knoebels Fri 6/25 & Sat 6/26. I am pretty sure they will do everything in their power to have it open for that. It is still listed on ert and as a bts tour, although they could change that last minute. They are actually offering a limited number of "walk the trough" spots on Flying Turns. We will be at con and really looking forward to the two days here since we have never been.

Since I had to postpone my NYC trip, I ended up at Knoebels last Thursday for 3 hours. Wait times were mostly minimal. Rode the following: - Impulse (walk on but had about a 20-30 minute wait when I left) - Twister (walk on most of the time I was there) - Phoenix (walk on to 10 minutes) - Carousel (one cycle for outside horse) - Cosmotron (one cycle wait) - AtmosFear (walk on) - Whipper (walk on) - Roto Jet (one cycle wait) - Haunted Mansion (seemed to be a walk on entire time I was there) - Pioneer Train (one train wait, two trains were being used so the line moved fast) Flyers, Flying Turns, Looper, Satellite, Round Up, Power Surge, Sklooosh, Giant Wheel, Scenic SkyRide, Fandango, Tumbling Timbers and the new Tornado were all down along with several kids rides (all were listed as such on the website). The line for the POP Wristband at one point stretched past the Carousel to the Birthday Cake pavilion, which is crazy. Thankfully, I just used tickets and avoided that lineup. Rides with surprisingly long lines were the Paratroper (full queue to overflowing), Antique Cars (full queue), and the Bumper Cars (queue spilled out Enjoy your visit. Knoebels is one of the best amusement parks out there. I just wish it wasn't a 5+ hour drive one way. Not to mention traffic on I-80 West on the way home was a complete nightmare due to construction. Waze said there was a 26 minute backup. Got re-routed thankfully and didn't have to deal with it, but man, that was brutal!

A few years ago I thought Six Flags parks were shitholes, and Cedar Fair was a much better company. Now, I think Six Flags parks are shitholes, and Cedar Fair needs to get their shit together.

Indiana Beach's park map was released for the first time under new ownership sometime this past week. The updated map now includes the new coaster as "Triple Loop". Looks about as massive as it will be in person, re-confirming the color scheme as well. Can't wait! https://indianabeach.com/park-maps/

I went from 10 to noon today. Got 16 rides in on JDC. Park was dead while i was there

Had a great visit to the park on Friday June 11. It was my first time back since 2016 and my kids' first ever visit to the park. Got to the park at about 8:20am and the parking lot opened at 8:30am, so we got a nice up front spot. They started letting people into the park around 8:50am, so we grabbed our FL+ wristbands and headed to MF, where we got on the 2nd train of the day. My kids absolutely loved the ride and said it was their favorite coaster ever, but that comment would be short lived. We hustled back to Maverick and got two rides in during the early entry. My plan was to hit SV next, but a train was parked on the lift hill and the app said it was down. So we started hitting the other coasters (Corkscrew, Gemini, Magnum, Rougarou), which were all complete walk-ons with FL+. We were getting a little hungry, so we headed to Frontier Village for the food festival. The booths weren't quite open yet, so we did Skyhawk twice (my favorite giant swing) and the CCMR (15 min wait since no FL). By that time is was noon and the food festival booths were open (the hours said 2-8pm, but the booths all opened at noon). We absolutely loved the Frontier Festival and it's a shame they aren't doing it all summer. We had bought two tasting cards ahead of time ($50 with season pass discount) and it fed all five of us, with tickets left over for desserts. There were no lines at any of the booths and all of the food we got was very tasty. I especially liked the brisket and sausage sliders, which were only 1 ticket each and pretty filling. After lunch, we headed to the front of the park to knock out Windseeker, Wicked Twister, Gatekeeper, Raptor, and Valravn. The kids loved Gatekeeper, so we ended up riding that twice. My two daughters wouldn't do TTD despite riding Xcelerator many times before, so my son and I did it twice and it was only about a 15 min wait with FL+. They were running 6 trains on it and the ops were hauling, as they were all day long. It seems like CP has their operations running smoothly now, at least as far as the rides are concerned. By this time it was about 4pm and the kids were hungry again, so we split some strombolis from Hugo's Kitchen and headed to the back of the park for Steel Vengeance. The app said it was a 60 min wait and we waited about 15-20 minutes per ride with FL+. We ended up riding it four times because it was just that good. I had very high expectations going into the ride but it managed to exceed them all! The airtime is just crazy, there's a ton of sideways airtime (who knew that was a thing), the pacing was incredible (no dull moments), and it was butter smooth. I was worried that my kids might find it too intense (they were done with Maverick after two rides) but they all declared it as their new #1 coaster and demanded we ride it over and over. We finished the day off with 2 great rides on MF and some souvenir shopping. My son has decided to start collecting Nanocoasters from the parks we visit, so he got a MF nanocoaster for his first one. Overall it was just a perfect visit and my kids are now fully converted to CP, so we will probably be making annual trips going forward.

^Wow! That looks yummy! We'll definitely make sure to swing by there as well! Thanks!

the famous "Cheese on a Stick" is also not to be missed. that's sold only at Totem Treats, which is over by the Rocket Slide & Kiddie Carousel area.

Thanks to everybody who replied with advice! So much good advice! It also sounds like, unless things pick up, a Wednesday evening in July for the Sundown hours may not be too bad for lines. I'll definitely try to get the kids on the Haunted Mansion! I'm sure my 14 year old daughter will do it. I enjoy those old school ride through dark rides! I also definitely want to try the legendary pierogies, if they're open! And yes, the image of power surge in the background is burned into my mind, so I should be able to find them, thanks to Bill! Lol

It seems like summer is the only time of year SFMM has their fire effects working. Personally, I'd rather get blasted in the face with heat during Holiday In the Park than on a 108-degree summer day.

One last obligatory note is that if it is open, which it may not be because of staffing, the 5 for $5.75 (assuming the price is the same) Pierogi's at the roast beef stand are some of the best food in the park, according to many people (myself included). They're great pierogi's bathed in a pool of butter and onions. I'll post a link to coasterbill's famous map to the pierogi place: https://themeparkreview.com/forum/topic/6203-knoebels-discussion-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1860075

Nighthawk will be your longest line. The rest are to the station. If you can do Nighthawk early, you'll help yourself. Even thought FL line goes to the station, it's so slow loading that both lines will get backed up and you'll waste way more time than the POS deserves.

Disney has announced that fireworks will be returning to Disneyland and Walt Disney World! For Walt Disney World, Happily Ever After will be resuming performances at Magic Kingdom, and EPCOT Forever will be resuming performances at EPCOT, starting on July 1. https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/06/fireworks-spectaculars-are-back-at-disney-parks-this-summer/?fbclid=IwAR2VEVo7zVrcqRU3vjQdeP4QRaeWdlI3DGzOM288ta_ZklhflnRZsk6t3ks What could be more perfect this year than a summertime visit to a Disney theme park? As we continue to see more communities adjust and ease COVID-19 guidelines, there’s a new sense of optimism with many positive signs moving forward. We’re encouraged by it too, seeing more families making travel plans, friends dining out together more often and more Americans returning to work. And at Disney theme parks, we’re gradually bringing back more of our beloved park experiences. A Disney tradition since 1957, fireworks shows are what Walt Disney called the perfect “kiss goodnight” at the close of a magical day, and this summer the skies above Disney theme parks will sparkle with color once more. Beginning in July, just in time for the nation’s Independence Day celebrations, our incredibly popular nighttime fireworks spectaculars are returning to Disney parks! -- At Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, July 1 marks the start of nightly fireworks performances at Magic Kingdom Park and EPCOT. “Happily Ever After” will transform Cinderella Castle with lights, projections and pyrotechnics, as moments from favorite Disney stories encourage you to grab hold of your dreams and make them come true. And as part of the ongoing transformation of EPCOT, “EPCOT Forever” will produce a spectacle of fireworks, music and lighting effects over World Showcase Lagoon, highlighting the themes of innovation, exploration, imagination and celebration at the core of the park’s past, present and future.

FUry, copperhead and I think afterburn there is no merge, it has it's own dedicated line. I think nighthawk is right at the bottom of the stairs leading to the queue.

It's been two years since I've been down there, but for all the rides you mention, I seem to remember the Fast Lane dropping you directly in the station and never with more than a 2-3 minute wait at most. Out of the park's coasters, the only major one that wasn't on the Fast Lane was Ricochet, their Wild Mouse, and that line was a pain to wait in so if you can get to that before the line builds up you'll be in a good spot.

In regards to waits on a Wednesday, for most attractions you shouldn't have to wait more than 5-10 minutes at most. Phoenix may see longer lines if there's a crowd but the ops always keep it moving considering it has one of the easiest and quickest restraint checks on any coaster, I've never waited more than 20 minutes on a weekday. Twister being on its own island practically means it'll usually be a walk-on. Impulse also is minimal waits even with the low-capacity trains because it scares the GP. The one big exception to all of this is course is Flying Turns (if it's open), that you can expect 30 minutes minimum to get on unless the park is dead, and that's an optimistic wait time for that ride. Do keep in mind that Knoebel's also does the Sundown Special during the middle of summer weeks and that often does attract a crowd of locals because of how ridiculously affordable it is. So Phoenix in particular may actually see a longer wait later in the evening. But again, Knoebel's is so efficient with ops that a "long wait" there is comparable to average wait at a big park (except for Flying Turns).

Unless they changed the locations since 2019, both of these merge points were right before the stairs, as well. If the steps are full, that could be about a 15-20 minute wait at SDL, and up to 40 minutes at Storm Runner.

Fair enough regarding Haunted Mansion and scaring the kids, but be advised the "upcharge" is only $3 a person, so don't let that dissuade you. I too noticed a lot of the rides I listed as being "closed" on the website right now....I have to assume they're either temporary or staffing related, because everything I mentioned in my list (except Flying Turns and the Flyers), were running during my visit on May 1st. Power Surge I think was running, but rides with that kinda rotation mess me up so I skipped it and can't be sure. A month from now who knows what might be up and running. Good luck. It truly is a magical place.

Sorry, my only trip there was on a Saturday (the second one they were open for the year, in fact), so I can't comment on crowds. Things to not miss at Knoebels, roughly in order of importance: -Phoenix -Twister -Haunted Mansion (why don't you plan on doing this?) -Looper -Black Diamond -Stratosphere -Cosmotron -Scooters (bumper cars) -Motor Boats -Flyers (if they're running) -Whip -Paratrooper -Grand Carousel (outer, ring-grabbing seats only) -Skyride -Flying turns (if it's open) -Satellite (if your stomach can take that kinda rotation) I'd say you can safely skip Impulse; it's smooth but nothing really special and it tends to have the third-slowest-moving line in the park (only ahead of Flying Turns and the boats). If you're there on a weekday, and crowds are anything like they were in 2017, pre-COVID, (which they probably won't be), you should be able to hit everything I listed in four hours. If you have any time left, check out the museums, particularly the park history museum in the back of the mining museum (it's kinda hidden). Many people also rant and rave about the food here, which is decently cheap, but I'm not a foodie by any stretch of the imagination so I'll just say it's generally better quality than most park food. Many people also rant and rave about Fascination (kinda a combination of bingo and skee-ball), but I don't particularly see the draw, particularly if you never come to the park and can't save up a massive amount of tickets.

I don't mind it. It spent most of its life being called "Dreier Looping," which literally translates to "Triple Loop." Then again, I also see nothing wrong with CF naming their drop towers "Drop Tower."

Concluding (and having high hopes that I use enough detail so as not to incur the biting wit of prozac... but knowing I'll fail and he'll pounce... enjoy!): Sunday 13th vs Monday 14th was a tale of wildly different experiences. Sunday was very solid. Wish other family was comfortable doing FL+... but wasn't... and we didn't want to separate (daughter prefers riding with kids to old geezer parents... and I don't blame her). Managed just fine, but holy crap, yeah... just buy the dang FL+. Ops seemed off at first, but yeah, they're training a boatload of newbies, so patience was key. Without massive details (boring and unnecessary as we aren't experts and made plenty of self inflicted wounds) the day was fine. Today, Monday, was a feces fest. No sour grapes or ill will towards cedar point, but yikes it was rough. First and foremost, the crowd was MUCH heavier than Sunday. My best guess is that Saturday and Sunday features a bunch of travelers (such as...us), which leave on Monday (cedar point express hotel really seemed to be emptying out Sunday to Monday), but Monday (and formerly Tuesday, Wednesday, etc) is when anyone within the three hour drive descend on the park with their season passes. Gold passes. Early entry was chill, but once the park opened the masses descended. Then, bad luck hit. Milli, SV, GK (broken chain... and it's looking grim over there), TTD didn't open for the first three plus hours. Maverick, which we hopped in line for after a second train valravn run, went down almost exactly at ten am. With us boarding next. Since nothing else was running that we felt was worthy of pulling the plug, we waited. And after an hour of that... we finally pulled the plug. At this point, five of their biggest rides were down... and things got interesting. We waited fifty minutes for Rougarou. Had you told me that on Sunday I would have believed you less than if you told me maple trees have birth to octopi. Corkscrew had a 105 minute wait posted at one point. Blue Streak was 90 minutes. It was hilarious. The poor maintenence staff must feel like the game of whack-a-mole they were playing was some kind of cruel joke. Winds were decently high in the morning, so that likely played a role too. Yesterday I complained that if never ride Gemini as a racer anymore. Today... it was racing. However, I got vetoed and wasn't able to ride (we were hoping to leave by four and begin our travel to kings island... and the wait was posted at 45). Just ran out of time. Goals for the trip were: 1) Ride SV. Checked that box twice. Second time in last row. Holy Frijoles the forces back there are intense. I loved every second, but I seriously wonder how many laps someone could do before Crying uncle. 2) get daughter to ride all the coasters. Missed GK, CCMR, and blue streak... so a return visit is inevitable. 3) find some good beer (Hello CLAG beer in Sandusky). Now, tomorrow morning, KINGS ISLAND.

As @A.J. said, if you've already been to Kennywood, your full day would be better spent at Knoebels. If you haven't been to Kennywood, but have been to Knoebels before, then the trip as you've planned it makes a little more sense to me. If you've never been to either park, definitely choose Knoebels. No idea on Flying Turns. My guess is that they're in no hurry. It'll open when it opens.

Skip Kennywood.

What are lines like on a weekday in the summer? I might be driving through PA and am trying to be greedy by stopping at Knoebels on the way to Kennywood from the Boston area since I don't have time to do both. Might be there at 5 or so and have 2, maybe 3 hours there. Also, anyone have insider info on when Flying Turns might open? Not trying to get my hopes up, but sounded like there was a chance it was nearing the end of its downtime.

So I'm off from work tomorrow and decided I'm driving back down. Hopefully don't get shut out this time!

So Opening Weekend has come and gone. Friday evening was wet for awhile (I was told); Saturday was sunny with a few clouds here and there; and Sunday... Sunday was wet, then stayed overcast for the rest of the day. I stayed less time on Sunday, than I did on Saturday. Between the two days, seven rides were down, including Coaster. It could be getting enough staff for everything. Or breakdowns need servicing, parts are needed, etc. etc. etc. What ever the case it was sad to see so many rides closed. Hopefully everything will improve as the summer moves along. On Saturday, I was planning to eat something at the White Spot "Triple O's" place on Saturday. But decided not to "spend that much" at this time, even though there was only a few people ahead of me, if I joined the queue.. On Sunday? There was over 20 people in line for only one ordering window. I skipped that day, too. Gladiator was still OMG-ing me, with so much force, height, intensity. So different a cycle for a few years ago. I love it! Because of it raining so much on Sunday, most of the gentler rides, with covers (like the Carousel, West Coast Wheel) had really long lines. So I skipped them, even though I rode them on Saturday. On Sunday, I did get something to eat: Mini Donuts! But no pink or blue icing ones, as advertised. Only "maple glazed w/sprinkles". Fair enough. I took a six pack home with me. Future visit plans are for this Friday, which they are running as evenings at the park. So, I hope to get some good night shots with all the lights on! The flag at half-mast is for the 215 indigenous children's bodies found in a grave in Kamloops, BC. The PNE reported it will keep the flag that way for 215 hours - one for each child lost. Sorry to start out with a downer, but hey - life sadly happens, some times. A sign of many more closed down, to come. <sighs> Looks like they changed all the banners there. No people shots on Coaster, as before. I miss the photos of the Buddhist Monks on Coaster; and the Vancouver Scottish Bagpipe Band on it, too. And I did, eventually. What's this? What's this? This was opposite the Haunted Mansion, which is closed for obvious reasons. A wall of wood. The other end of it. I guess we'll find out, eventually. Bug Whirled was running great on Saturday. Then it wasn't, on Sunday. Time to ride The Wheel. Meanwhile .... I keep wondering if Covid-19 has killed the plans for a new coaster. I hope I'm wrong. The Twins are "under cover." Obligatory Beast shot. AtmosFEAR's running fine. Gladiator never went this high a few years ago. I love the new cycle on it! This are the "New Enhancements" they advertised for Enterprise. Plants and a sign. Awesome. Still runs good. Where The Scrambler usually sits. Not this weekend. But my B-Day is in March! Now, is this a boy's or a girl's name? I have no idea. On Sunday, this was The Only Coaster running. Kettle Mine Coaster. At least adults can ride this, too. How White Spot advertises all of it's food. The prices have gone up, but not a lot to complain about. The former Adventure Golf is now Sweet Escape Mini Golf! Here and there, candy representation. And just before leaving on Saturday, I ran into Roxann (Director Playland Operations) ..... and Christina (right). Christina could be Roxann's Assistant,. but I don't really know. We talked about Coaster re-opening ("couple of weeks") and general park stuff. And then my day was done! Coming back the next day for a much MUCH shorter visit.

My husband is in this industry. He told me it depends on the chain. If it is a specialized OEM, it could take months (something specifically made for them). However, he said that it would surprise him if they did not have more than one just in case....as lucrative as that business is and relies on running. Mostly, it all depends upon the chain, what happened to it, etc. Although I am sure there are safety measures in place to prevent a train from flailing from it's track, that is still kind of scary to think about!! LOL

And then there's the bakery in Texas, who lost a big cookie order due to their posting Rainbow Heart cookies on their Facebook page. But, everybody else came to the rescue and sold them out ... twice in two days ... of everything they had ..... great story. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/06/texas-bakery-lost-big-order-photo-pride-cookies-internet-stepped/?utm_source=LGBTQ+Nation+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ff8c1f01c0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_06_13_03_59&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4eab596bd-ff8c1f01c0-430877701

Could this possibly be the aforementioned "new record-breaking" 2022 Gerstlauer coaster in a "challenging location"? I was looking at the park map and where the doors with the teaser are, and maybe the ride entrance/station/possibly launch area or lift (if it's a coaster) could start there and head towards the quarry wall off to the left side of Iron Rattler? Rattlesnakes and a quarry wall could certainly be considered a "challenging location".

It would be a fun to see Worlds of Fun become a six flags park for 10 years and SFSTL become a cedar fair park for 10 years and see which ones benefits more

I'm surprised they still had it listed as 9pm closings for this long. Cedar Fair is really something else this year. Can they sell all the parks to Six Flags?

I know that the world isn’t exactly clamoring for another Jersey Devil coaster review but I figured I’d do a brief post with my thoughts. We went yesterday and got tons and tons of rides all over the train in the morning and at night (the park stayed open an extra hour since they were so busy). Let’s set some expectations: If you’re expecting Wonder Woman, you’re not going to get it here. I actually feel like the best way to look at this ride is that it’s more similar to the pacing of a regular RMC than one of those old batshit single rails but people positively lose their shit over regular RMCs so that’s not a bad thing. First off: The ride area and queue are very nice. My expectations for this park in that department are always low and none of it will change your life but it’s better than I expected so kudos on that front. As for the ride, it was running all four trains and when it got in a groove it’s capacity was better than you would expect. I’m sure it’s capacity is realistically higher than rides with higher theoretical capacities like El Toro and Bizarro on a lot of cycles since the restraints are very forgiving and the boarding never stops. It’s not like El Toro where the train is loaded and then it’s that “recheck 3,5,6... we got 6, lost 6, now just 3 and 5... we lost 2... now just 6... verified” bullshit. As for the ride itself, I guess let’s just go element by element. - The view from the lift is great. It’s a really nice view of the lakes and of Nitro. At Sunset, it was crazy. This is where Six Flags should take all of it’s Nitro social media / website / marketing photos from. - The first drop delivers insane ejector in the back and even solid ejector in the middle. - The first inversion is nuts everywhere and just an awesome element overall. - The next hill is an ejector hill with insane ejector airtime everywhere in the train. This will probably be a lot of people’s favorite part of the ride. - The stall following it is a blast. If the ride is running fast it’s wild, if it’s running slow then it might even enhance this element. - I thought that the turnaround would be a throwaway element but it’s absolutely not. In the back maybe it is, in the front it made me yell out an involuntary expletive. That’s RMC single rail pacing at it’s finest. - The next inversion is the most underrated thing on the ride. Throw your hands up and just enjoy it. It’s a really cool element where it feels like the world is in slow motion. I guess it’s not that forceful compared to everything that came before it but it’s just as much fun. I’ll admit that from this point forward, the ride definitely chills out a bit. The pop into the midcourse is nice but nothing crazy. The best way thing about the second half is the visuals. The headchoppers are great. My favorite element of the second half is the left turn after the midcourse because it just feels like there’s no clearance there and the turn is very tight. Every airtime hill on the second half provides mild floater air. Think “Nitro’s final camelbacks in December” airtime... maybe. The people complaining about this ride are probably judging the entire ride on this 10 second stretch, which is dumb. I firmly believe that the designers expected this part of the ride to run faster and it’s possible that they can tweak it to get it that way, maybe even just by dialing down the timing and having it sail through the midcourse. Even as-is though, it’s still fun. Despite ending the review on a low note with those last few hills, the ride is insane. The pacing on the first half is awesome and if the midcourse would have been the final brake run everyone would be blowing this ride. It has ejector air, it has “oh shit” moments, it has a forgiving restraint and a low height requirement and it looks great. It fills a nice niche for Great Adventure. Everyone is going to love this ride from the regular day-guests to the extreme thrill seekers (unless they’re just jaded as hell). At most parks in the northeast, this would be the best ride in the park. It would probably be my favorite ride at Lake Compounce, Dorney, Six Flags America, maybe Hershey (or at least top 2), Nick U, La Ronde (except it would run one train), possibly Busch Williamsburg... you get the point. I think most complaints about this ride are due to people being spoiled as hell by the fact that it’s not the most intense ride in the park with the strongest ejector airtime in the park but it’s still super intense and has crazy airtime. The problem is that across the park you have the tallest coaster in the entire world that goes 128 mph and one of the best, if not the best Intamin airtime machines ever built. We walked in with lowered expectations after reading the reviews but after riding it I realize that every enthusiast in New Jersey is just comparing everything to El Toro which means they’ll just end up hating everything forever. Go in expecting regular RMC Ibox pacing but with the unique ride experience of a single rail and you will love it. Ranking isn’t my thing, but I’d say that El Toro is clearly the best ride in the park but after that depending on my mood this might be my second favorite. It could also be Kingda Ka or Nitro at any given time. God, we’re spoiled. Ignore the haters, come out and ride this. It’s wonderful. We love Jersey Devil! A few general park updates: - Great job by the park staying open an extra hour because of crowds. They filled the parking lot which I’ve never seen outside of Fright Fest. How busy were they? Well... (we walked by, it was not a typo). - Now that Kingda Ka can run independently of Zumanjaro, the gloves are off. The crew yesterday was the best I’ve ever seen on that ride. They were practically running. Also: There is no longer a station grouper and you are free to wait for row one no matter what. We did, as we always do. Amazing ride... - I’m so used to riding Nitro in the winter that I forget what this thing can do when it warms up. That hill before the swoopy hill into the helix (I named that element just now) was providing borderline ejector air all day long. - We rode the Flume. We asked if we could not be grouped, we were denied. I should have just jumped in the lake to get less wet. Please stop doing this, nobody likes it. - The new temporary dinosaur thing was cool. After 6:00 you can pay 5 bucks and do it as a walkthrough rather than a drive through. It’s better than Dinosaurs alive was. The animatronics are pretty solid. Overall we had an awesome day (thanks to Flash Pass). Come out and ride this thing, you won’t regret it. Just don’t do it on a Saturday unless you’re getting there at opening, but if you do you should rope drop the Flash Pass building, not Jersey Devil. Flash Pass lines stretched back to the Joker entrance yesterday. They really need to improve that system.

I had the Fast Track Unlimited for my trip in 2020. It is indeed a wristband (with a RFID chip in it) that you need to touch to a panel in each FTU queue; that got kinda annoying since it didn't really work that well, but on the positive side most employees didn't care. As for how it actually works, yes, each coaster has a separate queue with a merge point where you join the regular line; none have designated seating. Where this merge point is varies by ride. From what I remember, Fahrenheit and Great Bear are the only ones where the FTU line goes all the way to the station. On SkyRush, Comet, Lightning Racer, Candymonium, and Wildcat, the merge is DEFINITELY right before the stairs/ramp to go up to the station. Storm Runner and SuperDooperLooper were closed last year, so I'm not sure where the merge is for those....and any of the other rides I don't remember. As for if it's worth it? If it's busy, which it will be, I'd say yes. Fahrenheit and Great Bear especially, but even on Skyrush you skip a large portion of the queue, and if you're not waiting for the front, it's definitely reasonable.

The park quietly updated their summer hours a few days ago. They've extended them! 9:00 closes most nights and 10:00 closes on Saturdays. Awesome to see!

Holiday World's woodies are definitely from another time. This weekend all 3 were TEARING UP THE TRACKS in the best way possible and absolutely hauling. Aggressive, forceful, possible bruising... only Holiday World could maintain those 3 as well as they do. Newer woodies are still fun but they might as well be steel coasters. HW's trio are classics that really show what you can do if you push the limits with old wood design.

No, they make them good now. /ducks

I think this entire coaster was built from the ground up in the time that Iron Gwazi has been SBNO LOL.

Jersey Devil Coaster is officially permitted to operate by NJ (page 65), so hopefully that means news on an opening day pretty soon.

We went to the park yesterday and had an awesome time. We met up with JRice, El Toro_Ryan and some of their friends and for the first time in years got Platinum Flash Passes and got to act like ballers in our home park. I won't make a habit of that but it was a blast, and we did have some free one-time upgrades with our passes that we got to use. Just a few cliff notes: - We got to watch a few Jersey Devil Test runs. The ride hauls ass. It hauls so much ass that we watched it throw a test dummy into the woods. They clearly weren't concerned as they kept cycling it with one empty seat... I guess as a sign of respect for their fallen comrade. - Wonder Woman's loading process is no longer atrocious! They're loading all seats, which means that the only ride not back to it's normal loading procedure is Log Flume which hopefully stays that way forever. - On that note, I rode the flume for the first time in years since we normally only go to this park very early or very late in the season and because we hate it's grouping process of cramming as many strangers as possible together in a log. It's awkward and nobody likes it. Yesterday I got my own log (Brit bailed as this one tends to be on the wetter side and the rest of the group was suffering through a ride on Green Lantern so that a few members of the groups could get their first-and-last-ever rides on it. F*ck that). It was awesome! Please load one group per log forever like every other park. Anyway, I forgot how good this flume was. Also, it's really cool riding what's basically a brand-new Arrow log flume since they've replaced every section of the ride at this point over the last 5 years or so. - Has it been mentioned that the kiddy coaster is currently being painted right near Nitro's first drop in clear-view of everyone? I'd absolutely put my money on our 2022 addition being a combination of new and re-branded kids rides in a new kids area. I know that this will probably draw some complaints, but it will fill a very clear need and would be a really smart addition after a giant new coaster that forced the closure of so many kids rides. - We tried and failed twice to ride Zumanjaro while Kingda Ka was running but we saw it happen tons of times throughout the day. - We heard a few ops mention that the park was crazy-understaffed but you wouldn't know it. Basically every food stand was open, every ride was open, Skyway was running both sides and the Parachutes were running every single chute which never happens. Flume and Rapids were both open. All upcharge rides were even open. Great job, Six Flags! - I forgot how great Nitro runs in the summer. We're not used to riding it when it's above 35 degrees but that airtime hill after the hammerhead brings it. - I'm not an anti-masker. I appreciate that masks have allowed us to do go to parks, travel and live our lives throughout a global pandemic BUT I'm glad they're gone outdoors now. Walking around a theme park without a mask on felt incredible. Yesterday was the first time in a long time that the world felt totally normal. (Photo stolen from Josh) PS: nobody cares about this but I'm still mad about it and this is my soapbox so whoever thought of closing the car lanes northbound the entire length of the Jersey Turnpike on a Sunday night the weekend before Memorial Day when it was 90 degrees all weekend for scheduled construction is a total jackass. Big-brain moves right there. If you're visiting the park in the next few weeks check the traffic app before you leave if heading northbound. You might have to do something dumb like take 295 or 1 north from Trenton. Don't do what we did and just assume that the Turnpike will be fine.

It has not. Still a shithole that happens to have a good hyper, a great woodie, and a mixed bag strata. You'll particularly appreciate the "marijuana is prohibited at the park" and "please don't fight" signs every 50 feet.

Jersey Devil testing has begun.

It's exactly what it says. 'Recommended' and 'Required' are very different. Six Flags used specific words for specific parks with specific rules.

Exactly. No masks required on anyone.

Not true. SFoG and TX (and others) do not require any guests or employees wear masks at any point.

Many other SF parks have updated as well. Many of them are back to normal and don't require masks at all.