coasterbill

To be fair, I've actually never had an issue with the clientele or the staff at this park and I always thought they had some of the friendlier staff in the chain. My biggest gripe with the park is how unbelievably ugly it is, how poor the operations are and how mediocre the rides are. I think their strategy of focusing on the water park and continuing to provide mediocre additions is probably the right move because there are really too many problems to fix without blowing a ton of money on things that will never get you a return on an investment anyway (like putting a bathroom somewhere in the back half of that god foresaken Gotham City area, planting a ridiculous amount of trees and painting pretty much everything). These things would provide a much nicer experience but they wouldn't draw any gate.

I agree with this. Temperature makes a big difference with Millennium Force and it delivers some nice airtime especially on hot days but it's never anything I'd consider "ejector".

Does Darien Lake have a wait time app or any way to know what rides are operating before heading into the park? In a few weeks we're going to Cedar Point and on the way home we were thinking of going to Seabreeze so we could easily hit Darien Lake for the Motocoaster and another ride on Ride of Steel because it's awesome (so much better than the SFA one, like holy hell). We don't have passes but they have a good BOGO going on so we don't mind too much but want to ensure the ride is open beforehand. Lol Brit really wants to ride it because she has this weird thing for Pony Express.

This park is actually pretty nice. I'd say it's exceeding expectations. Moto coaster is closed with no sign of staff anywhere near it though. That's a shame. We're starting to lose faith in that ever opening. PS: It's happening...

Just got here. Haven't ridden anything yet but 10/10 greatest theme park ever would recommend.

Great report! Love the captions Dorney is usually my go-to in October when every other park is ridiculously busy. It's lack of lines, solid flume and Demon Drop are really it's only selling points for me. I agree with your assessment of Talon. It's a really good ride (as all inverts are) but it gets overrated because of the complete mediocrity it's surrounded by. Dorney is the kind of park that sort of has to grow on you but it can only really grow so much.

Why do you people do this to yourselves? At this point if you're riding Mean Streak in any row but row one leaning forward you deserve all of the pain and suffering the ride can deliver. And I know you guys never specified where you sat but I already know you weren't in row 1.

That is awesome news. Thank you! I can't wait. I didn't think I would make it to the park this year but just decided to take a quick trip out there for a couple days. I'll be going during that time, on September 1st. It's a Thursday, so it should be really nice! It's a little close to the extended Labor Day weekend, but I think that day shouldn't be too bad due to that. Seriously, it's a great time to go, so you should have a great day! Friday picks up a bit but Thursday is slow. We'll be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday this year and may or may not pop in for Early Entry on Monday.

I really never ride Bumper Cars unless I'm at Knoebels. They've spoiled me.

(shhhhhhh! This thread is doing wonders for our post count this month!)

Looks like SFOT is getting bumper cars. Most likely used ones from Georgia if I had to guess.

Holy sh*t we don't even know if the accident had anything to do with the buckles. We're spending way too much time discussing something that (aside from one or two first hand reports from previous rides that are almost never reliable) you guys just entirely made up. Can we please wait for the investigation? Please. Lol

OMG OMG OMG That's an amazing tip, both about the beer and Tim's. So excited for some damn Tim's lol

Sold on Haymaker, thanks for the tip. And yeah Moose is happening for sure. No way in hell would I miss that. On a related note, do they sell beer? And if so can you walk around with it or do you need to stay in "beer jail"? Lol glad you like the trip reports.

No. The dry side does not get busy. Even when all lots are full and the grass overflow is full everyone is usually in the waterpark and the coasters are usually between 0 and 10 minute waits. Usually closer to 0.

Thanks for the tip. I'm sort of expecting the Flume to be the 2nd or 3rd best ride in the park so we'll be hitting it frequently. Honestly it'll be 5 hours each way and a day trip so we'll probably be out of there by then anyway. Besides the coasters, the flume and moose on the loose (lol that is so happening) are there any must-rides?

Halloweekends Fridays are dead. There might be like eleven people there, lol. Note that there is limited ride availability.

How many thunderstorms do you know that last all day? It means there will be scattered storms which may or may not be there at any given time. Overall it'll probably be nice. That being said don't look at a forecast on Lake Erie more than 2 or 3 days out. It's probably wrong, it'll shift a million times and it'll successfully stress you out.

Crowds are actually pretty manageable. I'd still suggest a Fastlane since you just have one day though.

Considering making our first trip up there Sunday. Are there any notable rides down?

Every coaster except for Dark Knight, Skull Mountain (just because it's so damn easy to check those restraints anyway) and Kingda Ka (which can't dispatch trains quickly anyway because of Zumanjaro so someone please explain that one to me) is understaffed at Great Adventure. I'm being kind with Kingda Ka because it really kind of is understaffed since they only ever use 1 out of 4 stations but that one station is properly staffed. Most parks staff at least 2 seat checkers per side on a coaster, so one takes the back half of the train on their ride, one takes the front half on their side and the other 2 do the same thing on the opposite side. At Great Adventure they have one person per side responsible for checking their half of the entire train, and in the case of Toro they then go back and re-check whichever cars don't verify which is usually at least 2 of them. The Toro crew is doubly amazing because they're being efficient despite the Six Flags budget cutting which isn't an easy thing to pull off. That being said, what I just pointed out isn't entirely the cause of Bizarro's problems. The ride is understaffed, but that crew sucks. With 1 seat checker per side they'd never be able to roll trains like (for example) Rougarou can, but they could be a little better than they are now if they would do things like start checking seats before they're already triple stacked.

The 10-8 closings are insanely slow. They're usually a "Michigan Days" promotion because Michigan residents are still out of school, so the only reason they stay open is to appeal to those people and target them with deep discounts for Michigan residents and targeted ads in eastern Michigan. I haven't seen anything about that yet this year but that's been the promotion in years past. The park is very slow. You're in for a treat.

We sat front row and I leaned forward, but even that didn't save me from a spinal adjustment. Good god, that thing must have gotten really terrible then. We rode it 2 years ago and I think it was re-tracked in the previous offseason.

Yea, no one noticed the 168 foot water slide that was advertised all over the news.