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Life Hack: Streamline your experience and avoid all of these trips to guest relations at Palace Entertainment parks by not going.

Holy shit Velocicoaster is AMAZING!!! I love these new Intamin trains!

2021 is the first year that Palace Entertainment started offering a Platinum Pass good at all their American parks. It is supposed to offer free admission and free parking at all their US properties. Since I live so close to several of them and not too much more expensive than my Lake Compounce season pass, it made a lot of sense for me to purchase one. While the entry process with season passes for other chains like SeaWorld, Cedar Fair, and Six Flags is straightforward, there has been zero consistency with how you enter a Palace Park. I wanted to make this forum to figure out how Platinum Pass holders go about entering their non-home Palace Park. Thus far, I have seen how Lake Compounce, Kennywood, Dutch Wonderland, and Idlewild handle it, but I would love to hear how the other parks are handling it. Dutch Wonderland- Parking is not included. Passholders can proceed directly to the turnstiles. Idlewild- Now you can go straight to the parking booth. Your home park used to have to call Idlewild to be added to a guest list. Lake Compounce was surprised Idlewild had this policy and is investigating how it can be streamlined in the future. If you're unfamiliar with Idlewild, the park is set up that you must purchase admission at the parking booth, which is why you can't just go to guest relations like the other parks. Kennywood- Go to guest relations. Passholders will receive a paper ticket that can be used to enter the park at the turnstiles. Lake Compounce- Proceed directly to the turnstiles. Noah's Ark- Go to guest relations. The pass does not scan at the standard turnstiles. The pass got me preferred parking for free.

Crazy storms cleared out the park about 6pm and rained on and off the rest of the night which gave us flashbacks to our Hakugei rain ride haha. Mako is legit! What great B&M hyper and imo America's best, but complete with the trim and mcbr that takes the edge off right when you're like 'holy crap are they gonna let this fly'. Kraken was a disappointment for me, wow is that thing hideous! Infinity Falls was down and we never revisited the Ice Breaker/Falls are again since it's dead. Manta was fun by why do I have such better memories of Acrobat at Nagashima?!

^Are you kidding this is hot breaking Six Flags America action! https://patch.com/maryland/bowie/six-flags-ride-shuts-down-video-shows-structure-shaking-report Park PR confirmed the ride is closed for inspection. I am an engineer myself, and I can’t tell you how close this was to reaching a critical stress point because I don’t have any specific information about the ride. I don’t work for Zamperla! I can tell you that is not a normal amount of deflection expected in a typical ride cycle though, and if it were this ride wouldn’t last very long. Within a factor of safety? Sure. Comparing it to regular operating track sway on Xcelerator?.... No.

Sorry for the delay, it has been a crazy busy month Anyway. The next Trip i joined was the Europe trip in 2008. Lots of new parks (and some familiar ones) with a fun group of people Fun times. First stop on arrival day was at Le Jardin d'Acclimation this was a very nice coaster with a fun "tunnel" feature fun for all ages and yes, there was a powered coaster and the spinner. There also was a zoo area and other fun things to look at (or play with) i'll try to update this 3 times a week, fingers crossed

Years later, rides became actually good.

Stopped in for my first visit of the season today and had a great time as usual. Park wasn’t as crowded as I expected but the gold FP helped us get more done than we would’ve in 6 hours. Also, idk If it was a Saturday and they were expecting it to be super busy, but when we pulled into the lot at 9:15 they let us straight in and thru security and then thru the front gate right away. We got the flash passes squared away by 9:45 and when we got to Devil at 9:50 they let us right on and seemed to have already been cycling trains for a bit. Love to see that from Six Flags. Operations were pretty solid across the park, Bizarro sucked as usual but everywhere else seemed really solid, walk of shames were really slowing Toro down tho. Rides: Jersey Devil (x1)- Not going to get too in depth since everyone in this thread already seems to have this covered and I only managed to get one ride in the front seat. It’s a great ride, it has some fun moments of airtime (especially the first camelback), cool inversions, and the turn around caught me by surprised with how forceful it was. And as Bill said in his review, the return run of airtime hills is a lot like Nitro’s just on a smaller scale. It’s probably my 3rd favorite ride in the park, behind Toro and Nitro, but hopefully at some point this year I can snag a backseat ride as the ride looks absolutely wicked in the back. El Toro (x5)- the greatest coaster on the planet was in top form today. What can I say that hasn’t been said? The ride is absolutely spectacular and my rides in 6-2 were as smooth as I’ve ever experienced. Much better than my rides last year on my one trip when they were filling only like 8 seats and it was bouncy as hell and slow. Nitro (x3)- Nothing much to say here, the ride is absolutely spectacular and is one of the most underrated coasters I’ve ever ridden. Still my favorite B&M Hyper. Batman (x1)- How a 28 year old B&M that is this snappy and thus forceful is still glass smooth is mind blowing to me. Such a terrific ride. Skull Mountain (x1)- The drop in the back is still nuts but there’s a lot of gaps in the building now letting sunlight in hopefully that gets fixed. Kingda Ka (x1)- I’m in the minority but from the front seat I prefer this over Dragster (albeit slightly). I’ve just always felt the launch on this hits much harder than Dragster and I’m not big enough that the OTSRs bug me and obviously it’s glass smooth in the front. Also, it’s so nice not needing to wait forever for it now that Zumie can run with it. Zumajaro (x1)- We had a Ka train launch when we were about 3/4ths of the way up and the tower started shaking like crazy! Absolutely my craziest ride on Zumie since it opened. It honestly adds so much to the experience. Superman (x1)- I used to really like this ride but over the last few years I’ve kinda soured on it. I’m just not a big fan of the way you lay on flyers and this one is so boring outside of the pretzel roll Bizarro (x1)- As always a fun relaxing floorless with some nice forces for a B&M. Not much to say here expect for it somehow still has the worst crew in the park for like the 10th year in a row. Another fantastic day at the park. If I could just drop Superman from SFNE (my home park) into Great Adventure I would literally never leave. Can’t wait to return and hopefully grab some back seat rides on JD. Pics:

They'll probably institute something like SV's new locker system, after the FP merge point, but in typical SF fashion, dedicate zero employees to it so it turns into a massive shitshow.

I actually applied for and have been accepted to go work for Dollywood guys. Wish me luck!

The theatrical atmosphere in the station when the train dispatches is just magical - gave me goosebumps. Nice to hear the dispatch music subtly in the video. Classy indeed - wouldn't expect anything less from Phantasialand.

You'd be able to see every tourist trap for miles!

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.

Few more points from the rest of today, where I got to experience the best and worst of the CP 2021 experience. After lunch I hit Raptor while I was there, grabbed front row after a quick FP line (regular line looked pretty short anyway). Skyride was closed today so walked up and randomly walked into Matterhorn as it was loading while I walked by. Definitely not a ride I expected to hit today, but what the hell! Waited about 15 minutes to do some Iron Draggin'. Always gotta hit it once even if it's kind of a lousy ride. Followed that up with another MF front row ride as there were only 2 groups lined up for it. Headed back to Frontier Town for a walk on ride on the excellent Skyhawk followed by a not so excellent walk on of the Mine Train. Those restraints are brutal and the ride isn't anything to write home about. Might add it to the list with Rougarou and Corkscrew of coasters that I wouldn't be sad if I missed each trip. Here comes the "worst of CP" I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Got to Steel Vengeance at around 6:45. Wife didn't want to ride so she sat outside and waited. I went into the FP line to find that the standby line was also empty. Put my stuff in the lockers, then was directed to the line on the right. They were doing such an awful job at pulsing the line that two guys that were in front of me in the tunnel got sent to the left side and got on the ride FIVE trains before I did. I had to bite my tongue to not ask the girl working the top of the stairs if she knows how to count. But, I did ask her if I could get in line for the back (since, you know, that and the front have dedicated lines built for that reason) and she coldly said "actually, you can go to row 3". While I was waiting for row 3, she let the people behind me line up for the front. I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the ride, but good god lady. Finally got off at 7:40 (yes, it took 45 f*cking minutes to get on the ride from the lockers because someone can't count) and saw the line was already closed and some guy with a pony tail and tye dye Kings Island shirt was SCREAMING at the guy working the entrance. My wife said they closed the line at 7:20 and had turned away a few hundred people. She also noted people who got in the regular line 20 minutes after I got in the FP line got off before me, and I was like yup. While most of the rest of the park seems to be back in typical CP shape (which is generally good), Steel Vengeance is still a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. Got on the train to head through Boneville to the front of the park (unfortunately with the tye dye douchebag right behind us) and saw the MF line was still open as we pulled up. I made it in at 7:57 and they kept it open till 8:05. Against all odds, the grouper let me get in line for the back, and then upon return they popped open the magic gate and told everyone to go ride again so they could let the front row line finish up without moving them to other parts of the train. I can't believe I was still in the same park as I was at Steel Vengeance. Total ineptitude at one end, and thankfully ending on a great note at the other. Simply put, that left side line at Steel Vengeance after the lockers needs to be FP only. And if you're going to use both sides as the regular line, for the love of god put someone up there that can count to f*cking twelve. And let people line up for the front and back like every other coaster in the park. Maybe just move Millennium's crew over there for a day and show them how it's done. Other than Steel Vengeance it was a great day. Rode everything I wanted to, multiple times for most. Still a bit of stacking going on but things seem to be smoothing out. Hell, I think TTD ran nonstop in the combined 14 hours I spent in the park. After a rocky start, I'd say CP is finally getting it together. Now just need to get those old hours back. Heading down to KI tomorrow and Wednesday. Wed looks like a washout, but maybe it'll stay light and I can have the place to myself. Will take what comes with the weather, but will be sure to ride what I can tomorrow in case I'm shut out Wednesday.

We cannot.