coasterbill

7/20 is totally do-able with Dorney. It's not at all do-able with Hershey. You can get Dorney done in like 3 hours. Your route takes you right by Quassy too, stop by and ride Wooden Warrior. It will cost you an hour tops and honestly you'll have plenty of time. Even if you got to Dorney at like 6PM you'll still have time to ride all the coasters, Demon Drop and Thunder Creek Mountain (like my not so subtle hint?).

what a piece of crap.

There was nothing wrong with it. It's one of the best parts of the ride. Great airtime there. Yeah I'm sorry to report that they haven't "fixed it" so for the time being we'll all just have to tolerate how awesome it is (I agree, it's the best part of the ride).

Oh my god please make it stop... I didn't mean to start any of this, I swear.

Oh no... much like "ImNotOneOfYou"'s "link" the park probably panicked and took the pages down when I found out about their secret plans. Trust me though guys, it was there. Edit: And in other news... Cam 1 is alive.

I'm a big Wild One fan but it's significantly better in a non-wheel seat so I'd suggest sitting in the middle row of the back car for the best ride. Apocalypse, Roar and Mind Eraser are horrific.

I'm at a weird height I guess where Anaconda doesn't bang my head around at all and I get off thinking we just had a great ride and everyone else on the train looks like they just went 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. I kind of like Anaconda, lol.

You guys, you guys, you guys... check it out https://www.cedarpoint.com/rides/New-In-2016/Polercoasterhawk605 https://www.cedarpoint.com/rides/New-In-2016/GatekeepersKeeperHawk325 https://www.cedarpoint.com/rides/New-In-2016/MayfliesAlive https://www.cedarpoint.com/rides/New-In-2016/MayfliesAliveAfterDark

I know I've said this before but my life will be complete when they put up Gatekeeper and when one week later enthusiasts are salivating and freaking out over the impending announcement they slap Pipe Scream on the wall and make them wait another week. This only works if they put Rougarou up for 1996 though which they probably won't.

^Wicked Cyclone really fizzles out near the end. It's still fun and I love the hang time on that last barrel roll but then it slows down significantly. I feel like a stronger finish would make me rank it a little higher but it's still a minor nit pick on an amazing coaster. It's not that the finish is bad, it just doesn't live up to the rest of the ride.

I finally had some time to kill and it ended up at #10 for me out of 250 or so, behind only Millennium Force, El Toro, Phoenix, Maverick, Fury 325, Kumba, Raptor, Tatsu and I305. It's in pretty good company and a world class ride for sure. Assuming if you're traveling 3000 miles and visiting some other places while you're here (Lake Compounce / Boston / Coastal New England), I'd say it's absolutely worth the trip.

Doesn't Shockwave still open late every day? That's probably not because of it's overwhelming popularity.

Holiday World was doing just fine when Six Flags owned Kentucky Kingdom, I'm sure they'll continue to do just fine now.

I don't think Rye Playland uses fun cards any more, I think now it's pay one price and they charge more for Non Westchester residents. It's not a bad idea to go there since that park threatens to close or go through an extensive change every single year. If you do, the Old Mill and Derby Racer shouldn't be missed. The Derby Racer is a million times better than the only other operating "Derby Racer style" carousel, Cedar Downs at Cedar Point as they run it a lot faster. But don't add anything to the trip until you figure out how to spend a day at Knoebels.

Looks like my list needs some updating... Here's the new list California - Tatsu Connecticut - Boulder Dash Delaware - Blue Diamond Streak (Now Relocated) Florida - Kumba Maryland - Superman Ride of Steel Massachusetts - Bizarro / Wicked Cyclone (I really can't decide, I had previously said Goliath but it's awful now and Bizarro seems to be running much better) New Hampshire - Untamed New Jersey - El Toro New York - Comet North Carolina - Fury 325 Ohio - Millennium Force Pennsylavnia - Phoenix South Carolina - Afterburn Tennessee - Mystery Mine (I love Thunderhead and Tennessee Tornado too but for some reason I love this ride) Virginia - Intimidator 305

Calling for clear skies all day now.

Probably... it was probably human error, but if the block wasn't manually cleared then it's an unsafe ride. And nobody really knows what happened yet. We really need to wait for the investigation to run it's course on this one I think.

Do you guys really think Cedar Fair is in a big hurry to buy another large Screaming Swing? Just this year the ride was closed for a week with a crane working on it (the general assumption is that it was something structural), last year it was closed for a long time after injuring riders and to be honest they're lucky it didn't kill or seriously injure someone standing on the midway as the cable crashed through a fence that people frequently lean against, the year before it was closed basically all year... the ride is great but it's a nightmare.

Speculating as to what happened without letting the investigation run it's course isn't going to get us anywhere.

First of all congrats on your weight loss and all of the hard work and dedication that goes into it. Second of all, great report. It sounds like we both have a similar opinion of Fury, it's an absolutely incredible coaster.

Amazing, thanks for sharing.

In all honesty despite the park's windy location, it's generally only Windseeker and the Sky Ride that go down for wind all that often. If any other rides go down it's usually Gatekeeper, Raptor and Dragster for a portion of the day but to see them down for a full day due to wind is very rare. If it's windy enough they close basically ever coaster with a few exceptions (I don't know if they ever close Rougarou, Maverick, Corkscrew or Iron Dragon for wind) but those days are few and far between.

We actually rode Houdini and while I like it a lot (even though I've read about how the illusion works it's still amazingly convincing) it was disappointing to see how few effects it had compared to the Great Adventure version both in the pre-show and on the ride. Also, ridership was quite low but there's basically no signage letting anyone know that it's a ride. I'm sure 9 out of 10 people just walk by the building without realizing it's an attraction. They really need to do something about that.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Hey guys! We made our first visit of the year to the park yesterday and had a great time. I'll try to keep my mini trip report brief but I really would say this was the best visit we've had to this place in a long time. Rather than a traditional trip report I'll just focus on a few pros and cons. There were more pros than there were cons so I'll get the cons out of the way first (so for the SFNE fanboys who expect this to be a bash-session, please read the entire thing before freaking out because like I said, we had a very good day ). Cons 1) The Skyway towers are embarrassing and look ridiculous. They're rusty and crappy looking without having any visible reason for being there and they bring down the entire midway. They painted Pandemonium but as we walked up to it we kept seeing a useless blue, rusty tower blocking out view of it and kept laughing at how they painted the coaster to make the area look nice when they could have just spent that money on removing the towers (or you know... a new cable for the ride) and that would have done much more for the atmosphere of the area. Seriously... this is an embarrassment. 2) I almost don't even see this place as a park any more, I just see it as a field with a bunch of coasters in it (kind of like Magic Mountain only a field and not a desert). They desperately need flats, and while this has been a problem for awhile the Skyway being removed really just set this over the edge. 3) Operations were amazingly slow. During the day the Bizarro ops were on such a power trip that they would routinely cause 5 minute dispatch times by freaking out about loose articles. We knew better so we didn't have them, but either the person at the front of the line needs to do a better job catching these things (At Cedar Point a few weeks ago we never saw anyone walk onto Dragster or Millennium Force with a loose article, those people are (pardon the pun) on Point). There's no reason SFNE can't be just as good at catching these things. If something does slip through the cracks though, just hold it or let them put it on the side. This may be more of a management thing than a ride op thing as I'm sure they're just doing their jobs but the no loose article policy is supposed to speed up dispatches, not bring them to a screeching halt. Okay, and now for the pros which greatly outweigh the cons. 1) The staff was generally nice to the guests today. Generally we see tons of employees talking about how they hate their jobs, or want to go home or arguing with guests but yesterday while they still made up their own rules (no waiting for the front on Batman while leaning against a pole that says there's a front row line on the right side of the stairs), no holding an adjustable hat with your hand through the back of it on Bizarro but it's totally fine on everything else... stuff like that), they were generally relatively nice. It's not like we confused it for Dollywood, Cedar Point or Knoebels but the staff wasn't a detriment to our day for the first time in awhile. I would say they were average, and that's a huge improvement. And again, we know what we're getting into with this park and we always go along with what the ride ops say but we always see them arguing with other people multiple times throughout the day but that didn't happen yesterday. 2) Wicked Cyclone is great. I may have hyped this up too much and while I loved it I initially wasn't blown away. All the reviews had my hyped up for this to be my new #1 coaster and I found it to be fun but an obvious step below top tier rides like Millennium Force, El Toro, Phoenix, Maverick and Fury325. I still find those rides to be better, but for our 2nd and 3rd rides (one of which was in the front seat) I just forgot about the hype and enjoyed it for what it is, which is an amazing, very smooth and very innovative ride that easily falls within the best 15-20 coasters I've ever ridden and delivers a ton of airtime in very unique ways. Walking in I think I expected something like Maverick with insane, unpredictable transitions with incredible ferocity but it's actually very smooth and fluid with everything it does and not snappy like I305 or Maverick (2 rides that I absolutely love, but this isn't really better or worse... it's just different). The hang time in the barrel rolls (especially that first stall) is wonderful, the airtime is relentless (more of a Thunderhead style of rapid fire airtime than an El Toro style of prolonged ejector airtime) and even after a few rides I still had no idea where the train was going because this layout is just so incredibly twisted. The ride is great, it's incredibly unique and it's worth traveling to ride it. It gives the park an excellent 1-2 punch with Bizarro as the 2 rides are both excellent but have very unique styles. Bizarro was predictable but great elements and prolonged ejector airtime and Wicked Cyclone has unpredictable, insane elements and brief pops of ejector airtime. Wicked Cyclone is an excellent addition to the park and once we started to appreciate it for what it was we absolutely fell in love with it. 3) Thunderbolt and Batman were both running as great as ever. Sorry Wicked Cyclone, Batman still has the best zero g roll in the park. As for Thunderbolt I just can't get enough of this ride. It's smooth, it's fun and I'm glad Six Flags takes such great care of this ride. 4) I know this park seems to love removing flat rides but Tomohawk and Buzzsaw are both great rides. Everyone seems to love Buzzsaw (I know we do), and even though Tomahawk is basically by itself with Rodeo long gone and the path to the main midway long gone also people still walk up the hill just to ride it in droves which is pretty impressive for an older flat ride (I know Houdini is up there too but it doesn't seem to be much of a draw). 5) With the park closing at 9 we expected to get home at a reasonable time but on the way in we were greeted with signs about passholder ERT and we both decided that whatever rides it was on it was probably best to just leave at 9 anyway since we had a 2 hour ride home. That plan didn't last long though when we figured out that the ERT was on Bizarro. We must have ridden it at least 10 times, all in the front seat and sometimes without getting up. Even with half full trains the ride was hauling. All of the effects were working and we had the best rides we've had on that ride in years. If it could run like that all the time it would be a top 10 ride for sure. Last night it almost seemed like Bizarro was out to prove that it was still the best ride in the park, and I have to say that as much as we loved Wicked Cyclone, Bizarro stole the show yesterday. It started to rain a little for the last 30 or 40 minutes of ERT which only made it more awesome and we didn't leave until ERT ended at 11 because when we kept pulling into the station with nobody waiting for the front we had no intention of getting up just so we could be wide awake for work in the morning. Bizarro takes priority over real life responsibilities. So overall we had a great day. The park has it's fair share of problems but Bizarro and Wicked Cyclone made up for them yesterday and we had an absolute blast. They have a great 1-2 punch now... and we had so much fun that I'm going to try to bite my tongue and not mention that it could be a great 1,2,3 punch if they would just put the old train back on Goliath. ... oh crap, I just did it again, didn't I?