coasterbill

Great Adventure is my home park (well, technically SFNE is but I don't like to talk about that. lol) and I really don't think this park needs any major new attractions in the next few years. I'd love some, don't get me wrong but we already have an awesome coaster lineup and in the last 3 years we've received huge additions. In the last 3 years we've recieved... 1) The world's tallest drop tower 2) The best family attraction in the history of Great Adventure which is amazingly popular with everyone (Safari Off Road Adventure) 3) An awesome 242 foot Sky Screamer 4) A new Scrambler 5) New Bumper Cars 6) A Kid's ride (though the ride was in storage and had previously operated at the park). The park has issues but an awesome collection of rides isn't one of them, and those 6 rides are a very diverse group of rides designed to appeal to absolutely everyone. People have been complaining about flats and we got 4 of them, plus one on the way next year... we also got a huge drop tower and Safari which has been a massive success and really is a great attraction. I'd rathe the park work on making what they already have better (fixing the other side of Skyway, new lighting and paint, theming and aesthetic improvements and getting rid of this terrible policy of closing rides early all the time) than get new attractions. Would I love a new coaster? Sure... but do we need one? No.

Fixed that for you.

Offended? If anyone is offended by anything on a theme park forum they need thicker skin. I think it's an interesting discussion. I'm normally pretty positive on this site but Six Flags New England brings out the pessimist in me because this is truly one of the worst run parks in the country. lol

I was most surprised by the fact that ANYONE mentioned Griffon or Batman the Ride. I don't think there's a smoother coaster in existence than either of these rides... Griffon is so smooth it's almost boring after the first drop. I've wondered for awhile if there's a coaster anywhere that all enthusiasts agree is perfectly smooth and rattle free. Judging by this poll it looks like Oblivion and Sheikra might fall into that category, the others that weren't reported as having a rattle are rides that are brand new or probably had very few riders (right?).

I want to get excited about this project but until it opens I'll just assume it's going to be an endless debacle.

Cedar Point had the first giga period and in my opinion it still hasn't been topped.

Favorite Intamin: Millennium Force (El Toro, I305 and Maverick get an honorable mention) Favorite B&M: Kumba

First of all, no... that wasn't announced. We're just speculating. Nothing concrete was announced. I do believe that they'll eventually paint it red, remove the speakers and re-name it because it's marketable and they can sell more merchandise that way. Just painting the ride isn't marketable and it costs the park money so this is a clever way to make a profit but I doubt the ride experience will change much. I won't fault them for that but I'm not all that interested. I'm not reading too far into the line about "new technology" because that could mean anything. Maybe it will be cool but until something is announced I'm not getting excited about it. And second of all... Yes. I am hung up on the "measly" sky ride. I'm hung up on the sky ride because it's just another ride in the endless list of rides that this park has removed and not replaced with anything because this park has no concept of the fact that a park needs more than just roller coasters to be enjoyable. This park was better 10 years ago in 2005 than it was in 2014 and for that to ever be the case at any park is truly amazing. I can't think of any other park anywhere where you could honestly say that but in this case it's the truth. Here's a list of non coaster rides closed since 2005... Log Flume (good ride replaced by an ugly, awful piece of crap) Colossus (iconic ride that was not replaced at all, a ride was relocated here that already existed in the park and an up-charge carnival ride was added) Chaos (not replaced) Spider (not replaced) Rodeo (not replaced, highly visible eyesore pad and queue is still there 8 years later) Bumper Buggies (not replaced) Double Trouble (not replaced) Time Warp (not replaced, pad is still there 6 years later) Nightwing (replaced with a ride that we already had only now it's outside so it's far less interesting) Shipwreck Falls (actually replaced but with the current State of Goliath and it's new train I'd almost rather have Shipwreck Falls back) Catapult (not replaced) Taz's Daredevil Dive (actually replaced) Twister (not replaced, and despite the rumors I'll believe it when I see it) New England Skyway (we all know this will never be replaced) In that time the following adult non coaster rides have been added Splashwater Falls (replaced the log flume... the log flume was a much better ride) Slingshot (an up-charge Carnival ride) New England Skyscreamer Yup... that's it. So yes, I'm annoyed about the Sky Ride. I'm really annoyed, because this park just continues to do this stuff year after year.

If El Toro had a 2 hour wait then you were just there on an insane day. Normally that line is between 30 and 60 minutes on a Saturday in the summer. Hopefully your next experience will be better. As far as Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro I think we're all going to have to wait and see on that one. The park wants to fix the problem but I don't know what they're doing to get them to run together or if the state will approve of it. I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll be able to run together though. Or as some would put it... a typical experience at Six Flags New England.

Power Surge is back. From the park's Facebook page.

This ride seems very similar to Leviathan... which is awesome but rarely referred to as being better than MF, and while I hate to judge a ride before riding it and while I think this ride is going to be amazing, I have a hard time believing any modern B&M coaster will be anywhere near as good as Millennium Force. That's just my opinion and I've been wrong before so I'll wait to ride it before making the call, but the important thing isn't the ranking... it's that this coaster will be awesome and I can't wait to ride it.

In honor of reaching year 500... here's an update. Again, you may have seen some of these images at New Element but I don't like to post here until I have 3 images to share per the forum rules. I haven't posted much about it lately but I've actually made a ton of progress on Sunset Vista and am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Gunslinger Gulch (and the Gunslinger coaster) have been totally re-designed and brought up to the standard of the rest of the park. Gunslinger's new inverting drop offers guests a brand new thrill experience. The layout has been totally re-done and improved and this element (based off of similar elements on X Flight and Gatekeeper) is the centerpiece of the new layout. I'm just about finished with this new area now and am moving on to improving the Mountain Pass area and filling in some of the land surrounding the park. The area near Blackhawk (which is still it's name despite the new color scheme) has been totally re-vamped. This includes new foliage, a new S&S tower ride and a new Arrow coaster to replace the old Zacspin. Blackhawk's layout has also been changed to make it flow better. I've also gone through and updated almost all of the foliage in the park. I still have another hundred or so game years to go but this park is finally starting to move along again. So in honor of year 500... here's my latest screen. I look forward to hearing your feedback.

I'm a sucker for nostalgia and if they ever removed the over the shoulder restraints on Revolution we would probably get plane tickets to Los Angeles and ride it (I mean... it wouldn't be the only thing we did out there but it would be a great excuse to go back... along with that Garlic restaurant in Hollywood that we didn't have time to eat at last time). I'm sure it wouldn't crack my top 20, maybe not even my top 50 but it would be a great experience on a piece of coaster history.

I agree with you, that's an awesome image... thanks for sharing it.

I have an idea for a futuristic transportation ride that would be awesome... a Sky Ride. Unfortunately Von Roll isn't around anymore so it would be tough to get a quality Sky Ride with detachable gondola's. Where, oh where could we find one? I guess if you wanted to make it futuristic though you could always make the cars look like spaceship capsules with flashing lights on the roof and floor and "bubble glass" enclosing guests inside. But then again I'm just wildly speculating here and naming an ultra-specific ride that would be exactly what they want but having a ride like that at Six Flags New England would be really unrealistic, plus I doubt anything like that even exists. Oh wait... EDIT: You know what else would be a futuristic transportation ride? A Monorail with a futuristic looking train! Oh wait, Six Flags removed that when they bought the park...

... and Skyway's south end station will have 2 garbage cans placed at the base of the stairs and the station will be left abandoned forever since it's raised off the ground and nobody will care. Sounds great Just please get rid of the towers... I'm begging you.

I had the same experience, and while I still enjoyed it it made me wonder why they would ever change the inverted coaster trains since they almost always provide some of the smoothest rides of any coaster-type out there. If it aint broke... why fix it? Banshee is still great though.

I'm a little surprised by some of these results. I still think B&M rattle is a non issue but this is still pretty interesting.

Thanks for the great report. Despite the fact that it's a major corporate park you rarely hear much about this place.

Twister is an amazing ride... it's out of control without being rough which is a really fine line to walk for a wood coaster. Luckily because the ride is at Knoebels the park maintains this ride perfectly which guarantees it will always be awesome. I feel like the ride is criminally underrated just because Phoenix is in the same park and out of about 200 coasters this ride easily falls within my top 20. Unfortunately as great as Twister is the answer here is clearly Phoenix. Phoenix is perfect... it's not that tall, it's not that fast, it doesn't have any gimmicks but it's still one of the best coasters in the world because of it's perfect design and Knoebel's great maintenance team. The airtime on this ride is insane and that return run of airtime hills is one of the most fun moments on any coaster ever.

Great video. Thanks for sharing!

This ride hasn't really been on my radar (well... except for the fact that I can't get over how ugly it is) but that drop looks amazing. This one picture makes me want to buy plane tickets to Utah.

^ Cedar Point has been doing an excellent job lately with their website and social media marketing. They're going out of their way to let the fans know that they're reading and considering all of the online feedback they get either on their social media pages or on coaster fan sites like this one and whenever it's reasonable to do so they usually give the fans what the want. Fans wanted better webcams, they got them. Then fans complained about the fact that they wanted still webcams back and they put them back. Fans started asking stupid questions about Rougarou including the whining about the heartline and Cedar Point brought this up in a blog post and promised to address it. Fans want more behind the scenes content and they're getting a ton of it. The park also gives you great incentives to interact with them online like the "tweet ups" and special offers. They also poke fun at fan feedback all the time like when Tony asked everyone to make terrible drawings of the new coaster's layout so he could share them. Cedar Point deserves a lot of credit for the great job they do interacting with people online and providing interesting content that they know the fans want to see. Many small parks do a great job with this (like Holiday World) but larger parks rarely provide any interesting content online.

The park has posted a new Pointcast on winterizing the park. It's nothing we didn't already know but it's still an interesting, behind-the-scenes perspective.

It's for structural support and it's probably what allows the ride to be so light on supports compared to older B&M rides. Here's what I mean... this is the bottom of Leviathan's lift. The ground bears the weight of the ride... not the supports which is way more efficient. And the drop is the same way... Now compare that to Nitro which needs a lot more support because the supports bear the direct weight of the ride a lot more than the ground does since the supports are the only thing contacting the ground, never the "spine" of the ride. I would imagine having less supports saves money and time on construction, so I would expect B&M to continue building rides like this in the future as it's a lot more efficient.