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Looks good, can't wait to ride it when it finally opens in 2027.

The fact that the payment plan options are overly highlighted instead of the flat rate purchase is disturbing. Tiktok brain might influence people to skim over it quickly enough to miss the flat fee all together. There's a much greater cost in the short term and long term by eating that much park food. Or any...

Well in that case, I'm sure there will be many others who aren't paying enough attention (like me apparently) that will be in for quite the surprise if they show up with a day ticket during fright fest. Anyway, I did stop by for a few hours yesterday. Just from the parking lot I observed KK sending test runs and Superman completely deserted. Went to El Toro first where...you guessed it...cycling empty trains. Thankfully it opened up pretty quick although what the app reported as a 5 minute line was really 20 (2nd half of switchbacks totally full). Nice ride in the magic seat although based on the reactions of the people in front of and behind me, the wheel seats are getting pretty brutal. Even got to meet eltororyan heading over to ride his pride and joy. Foreshadowing? Headed over to Medusa where there was more app f*ckery going on. 5 mins was the reported line, but the queue was half full AND only 1 train ops meant an easy 30-45 minute line so I skipped it. I've seen the reports of a lot of 1 train ops this year and I don't get it. Great Adventure has never been a park to run 1 train during peak season. I've always bitched that Medusa usually runs 3 trains which is unnecessary and results in getting baked on the brake run for 5 minutes. Now we're down to one. Is it a requirement to run an odd number of trains here or something? Hit up Mine Train next which was also running one train, though with a much shorter line just on the stairs. In 30 years I don't think I've ever seen 1 train ops on this. I know I'm not a local and not there every day, but something about this just feels off to me. Anyway, got the magic seat (back row of the front car) and was treated to the typical fare of being thrown all around on the ridiculous transitions and then being launched to the moon on the best airtime hill at Great Adventure. This thing is way more insane than it has any right to be. Made our way across the park, stopping at the saloon in Golden Kingdom for a drink (and enjoying those nice rocking chairs for way longer than I needed to) and checking out Dream Street which really looked fantastic. I have to give the park credit that it looks better than it has in years. I just don't understand why ops are suddenly falling off when that's been their one strong point all these years. Checked out Rave Mountain for the first time (since they decided they didn't feel like doing it last year) which was interesting I guess. A quick 2-3 train wait anyway. This won't get fixed in our lifetimes lol. Nitro was about a 25 minute wait including a quick breakdown and a couple test runs. Always weird riding it in the summer when it absolutely hails through the course. But it's weird not flying over a frozen tundra instead. Soon. Two trains ops here and typical lightning fast Nitro dispatches. Finished up with Batman which was a walk on with two trains (so again, wtf is up with Medusa) and was batshit crazy as usual. On the way out we tried doing some shopping for some 50th anniversary merchandise and we were quite disappointed at the lack of said merchandise. There were a few shirts left in the tent on Dream Street but almost all small/medium and a few XXL. I was really looking forward to picking up a couple shirts, hopefully they'll restock later this year. The stores up front had absolutely nothing. Oh boy I bet that new 50th anniversary coaster is going to be amazing! Oh. We'll just pretend you're not there for now. Hopefully be back in November for the true start of Great Adventure season!

“So how many inversions do you want”- Premier Rides “Yes” - Canada’s Wonderland. Looks wonderful. I just kept waiting for the inversions to end and it felt like they never did!

Canada's Wonderland has announced AlpenFury, a new Canadian record-breaking Premier launched coaster for 2025! https://www.canadaswonderland.com/blog/media-center/2024/canadas-wonderland-announces-alpenfury-canadas-longest-tallest-and-fastest-launch-coaster Canada’s Wonderland is inviting guests to face nature’s wrath next year on AlpenFury, the longest, tallest and fastest launch coaster in the country. When fire and ice come together inside the mysterious Wonder Mountain, the force will propel riders into a thrilling journey beginning with a launch that blasts the train out the summit, 50 metres into the sky. The coaster will span 1,000 metres across the park, reaching speeds of 115 km/h, flipping and twisting through nine breathtaking inversions – the most of any launch coaster in North America. “AlpenFury is a world-class attraction, and we’re excited for the unique thrills it will offer our guests,” said Phil Liggett, general manager at Canada’s Wonderland. “The combination of being blasted out of Wonder Mountain, and then racing through nine inversions one right after the other, is going to be an experience guests won’t soon forget.” Designed by Premier Rides, AlpenFury will be the park’s 19th roller coaster, the fourth to interact with Wonder Mountain and the signature attraction in Alpenfest, which will be officially designated a themed area of the park next year. It is in this village that guests will find themselves at a festival celebrating the mystical union of fire and ice. A sled haus offers a journey aboard a sleek, modern sled into the heart of Wonder Mountain where this powerful, natural force awaits.

American Dad review: Went to the park last weekend. Bummer. The objective was to get our 37.5" (not that I'm keeping track...) three-year-old daughter on Wizzer and Little Dipper. Huge fail. I think I pushed her a little too hard prior to this. Log Flume at Holiday World. Howler (Roller Skater), which fucking sucked. Pilgrim's Plunge and Grand Exposition Coaster (Roller Skater). The Roller Skaters were terrible introductions. She hated Howler, because it thrashed her around. She wanted off after the first lap. She said it was too bumpy. I really hoped Grand Exposition Coaster would be different, which was really stupid on my part. Same result, only three laps. After that, she was afraid every ride would be bumpy. But, I showed her videos of Whizzer and Little Dipper well before the trip. She couldn't get enough of them, but too bad since we limit her TV/Screen time... She said she would go on them, but asked if they were bumpy. I told them they may be a little bumpy, but not like the other roller coasters, which we had previously dubbed, "trash." She talked about roller coasters so much leading up to the trip, Saturday. (She still does...) As soon as we got to the park at opening, we went straight to Whizzer. She threw a freaking fit and refused to go near the queue. Started screaming, crying, and ran away. She cried and said it was too bumpy. I was disappointed, but I didn't force her to go. I grabbed my only two coaster rides of the day on Raging Bull, in the back row. I made sure to sit on the outside to wave to my daughter and my wife as I went up the lift. Both rides were one train waits. Both of them were worth the trip itself. Not riding many coasters at this point in my life really makes me appreciate the rides I do get so much more. Raging Bull was no exception. I still hold that the first drop is one of the best in the industry, while screaming into the deafening tunnel. My wife and daughter rode Chubasco next to Raging Bull during my second ride. Then, they went to the carousel for two laps before I got there. My daughter wanted a third, so she and I hopped on the upper deck. She graduated to wanting to ride the horse herself, and wanting me to ride next to her. That's an achievement in the books, and was much more fun than standing alongside her. When we went by Little Dipper, she wanted to watch it, but she also got really scared and said it was too bumpy. Later, when I told her we were going on it, she tried to jump out of her stroller. (Probably the last year with that bulky thing, thankfully.) I blame her fear of big rides two things. First, myself. I pushed her too hard, too soon. Second, the Roller Skaters. I firmly believe these are a terrible introduction to roller coasters. At the very least, I can attest to them being unsuitable for princess'ish type little girls. Bravery isn't her strong suit, but neither was mine at that age. Just as our second day of Silver Dollar City in July, I absolutely did not make her ride or do anything she didn't want to. I'm following her own comfortability path. Sure, I'll nudge her toward rides and slightly try to convince her, but forcing it with her personality will not work. Self parenting reflection aside, we did a lot of the kids shit. I had a massive headache I couldn't kick for most of the day, so I really didn't ride anything else. Mediocre chicken strips and fries helped out later in the day. I guess I didn't realize how hungry I was. My wife and daughter did everything in the old Wiggles Land, except for the pirate ship play structure, which was closed. And by everything, I mean she even ate shit on the splash pad in an area which was slimy and needed power washed badly. I watched three other kids do the same, while sitting on the bench nursing my headache. They were tougher than our princess, so I laughed on the inside. Eventually, they put up slippery when wet signs in that spot... Classy. I had a lot of time to observe the area. Everything looked terribly run down. The tarps didn't exist anymore, but the rusty wires remained. Paint was peeling and chipping off of everything else. It was no match for our earlier trips to Holiday World and Silver Dollar City. In fact, visually, nothing was. I saw a ton of overgrown weeds. The "all new area" just looked awkward and half baked. Paint on rides was faded. Several of the airplanes on Red Baron wouldn't fly. SBNO Condor and Demon looked terrible. Other rides were closed. The Chevrolet display was over the top and blocked an entire pathway. The quick money grab went a little too far and it looked like shit among the southwest themeing. The arcade games shoved in the abandoned game booths looked like total trash. They need to trim back some of the trees/weeds/bushes around the train. You can't see shit. On top of that, some of the clientele were terrible. I usually have no issued with people, but the frequent smell of weed and fruity vape juice was ridiculous. We kept smelling weed in the kids area near the SBNO splash battle. We figured out where it was coming from when we saw some women sitting on the ground using our fucking stroller to block the view of them. I went and got the stroller. I stood over them for several seconds just looking at them, making it as awkward as I possibly could. What can you say? Part of the frustration came from something awesome that happened earlier in the day. When I walked from Raging Bull to meet up with my family, some kids were walking toward me in the opposite direction. Some chubby short teenage fuck put his hand an inch away from my face, said some slang shit I couldn't understand, and kept walking all in one motion. I stopped, turned around, said some things I shouldn't have. Neither him, nor his friend ever even looked back. Probably a good thing. WTF though. To be an invincible teen these days... Must be nice. The end result of any confrontation would just end up with me being banned from every Six Flags park, regardless of the situation. (Is that such a bad thing?) If it turned physical, even if I wasn't the aggressor, I'd probably lose my job and end up in jail. Totally messed up world. Adults are totally helpless in those situations. We also had to deal with constant swearing in front of our kid. We experienced more than usual people not moving out of the way in groups 10 wide. Again with the vaping and weed. (On a side not to that, as someone who has never smoked or vaped anything, I actually think it's fair that the park has a couple designated smoking areas. Parks and chains not making this small accommodation is ridiculous.) Six Flags employees were being Six Flags employees. The service was a far cry from Holiday World and Silver Dollar City. As one example, some dude's card wasn't working in front of me when I went to buy some water. He left for quite a while after yelling at the female he was with to "get the other card." Meanwhile, the kid at the register just waited and didn't say a word to me. Instead, he was gossiping with a manager about personal/work crap. Finally, after seeing what was probably my unconscious defeated unintentional completely blank look on my face, he addressed me and explained he'd be with me in a minute. That's all the common courtesy I wanted, bro. Seriously. Of course the dude with the maxed out card didn't apologize, like I would have done in his spot. He actually picked up a couple more items from the shop while I waited. I hadn't been to this park in years and I was looking forward to it. Unlike other parks I visit, I almost always have at least one WTF experience with service or a client. The weed thing and the hand in my face were the two most fucked up things I've experienced at a park since an employee refused to serve me a beer after insisting my Driver's License wasn't mine. Later, she shut me down after two beers over a few hours. (That story is buried in this thread somewhere.) I feel uncomfortable at this park. I avoid drama at all costs and at this park it's almost always unavoidable for me. Why should I even bother since I have SDC, KI, WoF, IB (yet to go), KK, and other parks within hours of me? (SFSTL is my home park, but it's... SFSTL) I won't be back for a while. I still haven't ridden Maxx Force, but even with a couple of my favorites like Raging Bull and Goliath, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Anyway, I want to end this with some positives about our short Friday evening - Sunday morning Chicagoland trip. The Raging Bull crew was top notch killing it. Operators with that kind of energy at opening is rare. They dispatched before the countdown timer, for the four trains I saw. A-team for sure. Great job. Despite no big rides, the girl was great and further graduated to riding a lot of the kids rides by herself. My knees were thankful. I was bummed she didn't raise her count to five coasters, but having four parks under her belt at three-years-old is pretty good. She had a lot of fun. Malnati's didn't disappoint. The beer was cold, the pizza was delicious, and the waitress was top notch. She made sure our daughter's food came out ASAP, which parents will understand. Hyatt in Deerfield continued to be great. We've stayed there a few times. We got upgraded to a suite due to our kickass "globalist" card status. Badaya Sushi in Deerfield was excellent. The servers were the best with our daughter we've ever experienced. They interacted with her stuffed animals, talked to her a lot, and constantly entertained us. It was almost the point of awkwardness, but our daughter was very entertained, which is what counts. Apparently I'm a "Yelp Elite" member, so I left five star reviews and large tips for both places. Outside of the park, everyone was really pleasant. I know a lot of trash talk is thrown around about Chicagoland rudeness, but honestly every time we go up there we usually have great interactions with non-park people. So basically... aside from Six Flags, everything was great...