coasterbill

We'll absolutely make a trip out to Carowinds next year to ride this. It looks like a great addition.

Are we really going to do this all the way up to the announcement? lol

Go Big! Go Higher with a Record Breaking 10 wax folds of heroin!

Spectacular photos. I love that last one of the mill and the photos of the wheel. It's nice to see Mystery Mine get some love too. After riding it last year I put it on my top 10 list and was surprised to see all of the complaints about roughness. I don't find the ride rough at all and the theming is outstanding for a non Disney / Universal park. I think it also has the best finale of any coaster not named El Toro.

Great report! By the way, this is a random note but if you ever get the chance to ride Flight of Fear at Kings Dominion you absolutely should. It's like night and day with the Kings Island version... it's a much smoother and more enjoyable ride.

You should absolutely show this at New Element also. You may be able to get yourself an accolade with this one if you finish it. I'm a big fan of that flume and it's interaction with the train. There's some great park planning here... seriously, please finish this. It's a very unique style of NCSO and even though there are a ton of random pieces in your architecture it seems very cohesive and is very pleasing to the eye. I'll say this, it's very obvious that you improved greatly from the time you built the entrance to the time you worked your way back a little further. Because of this I'd suggest maybe cleaning that area up a little to bring it up to the quality of the rest of the park. It really only needs a few updates though.

What morning ERT do they have on Saturday (or do you just mean the Millennium walkback and early entry)? I know they have Passholder ERT Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. As far as crowds they'll probably be very large but not totally unmanageable. We'll be there that weekend also.

Great pictures. I'd love to know why Six Flags never built more Superman clones. They always have huge lines and get very positive reviews even though they're about ten years old now.

^^ Sorry you had to deal with that. I hate to sound like a broken record here but I really want to stress that this park is awful. It's really one of the worst run parks I've ever been to. It has the worst, rudest employees of any corporate park I've been to. Ride operations are terrible, they remove every ride that gives the park any charm or that appeals to kids who are too old for kiddie rides but not tall enough for coasters. Now they close rides 30 minutes early to save money (according to markysharky17). They had the best coaster in the world and lost the title because they put horrendous restraints on it, then they got another coaster that was better than that coaster in it's current state and put a crappy new train on it that punishes riders in most seats (the front is okay but you can't choose your seat). Most importantly though the employees are pretty much all teenagers and college kids who seem to take pleasure in making people miserable. It's probably the first ounce of "power" they've ever had so they when they can tell a guest they can't do something it just makes their day. It's gotten to the point where the park can make rules but employees just ignore them and make their own rules even when they're standing next to the sign that says the opposite of what they just told you. We used to go to this park 5-6 times a season and now we never go more than 1-2 even though it's less than 2 hours from the house. It's terrible. My posts are usually not negative but when it comes to this park (and a few other Six Flags parks) it's just exhausting. I pick on Great Adventure but that park is a million times better than this one. They have better rides, better policies, better operations and better staff. This crappy park doesn't even belong in the same conversation as Canobie Lake, let alone Great Adventure. Your experience is a little extreme but not surprising at all as everyone at this park is on a constant power trip. We never go to parks and argue with staff or act like entitled enthusiasts as I can't stand people like that, but we see people who don't do anything wrong getting yelled at by or arguing with staff multiple times on almost every visit to the park. This park is a hell hole, and unless you need credits don't waste your time there.

This must be a new policy but since it's Six Flags New England this surprises me in no way. Nope. Even though the old train provided a smooth and enjoyable ride experience and these are extremely painful they are planning to keep these. They spent money on a new train that resulted in the ride being closed for half a season, didn't increase capacity and made the best ride in the park one of the worst rides in the park. This new train has no visible upside. If they would have left the ride alone it would be much better, wouldn't have been closed for half of last year and it would have saved them money on a new train. It's mind boggling really, but most decisions this park makes are. I'll never understand why some people think this ride is rough. It's one of the smoothest wood coasters I've ever ridden and always has been. Oh well, one less person in line I guess Let me get this straight though... you actually think Thunderbolt is the worst coaster in the park? Worse than Flashback, Mind Eraser, Goliath and the family coaster? Everyone's entitled to their opinion but this is a good opportunity to remind everyone that drugs are bad... mkay.

I think one of the best Kings Island tips is how cheap the upcharge rides are in the morning. Slingshot and the Sky Coaster are both $5 first thing in the morning. Earlier this year we did the early entry into Action Zone and after getting off Banshee we saw the $5 sign for the sky coaster and couldn't pass it up. I'd never seen one that cheap before.

Of course it was. It's not like it was a Friday in the middle of the summer or anything like that.

Lol, hey now. I don't pick on them when the ride's closed, just when they're being amazingly lazy and slow.

Where did this ridiculous idea come from? Isn't Furious Baco known for being rough? Why would anyone want to take trains that are already rough and put them on a much faster coaster? I know increased speed doesn't equal increased roughness but I would imagine this would create an awful experience. Also, the ride already has lines spilling out of the queue all the time (thanks to Zumanjaro but even before that the line was usually around 60 minutes)... just because a few enthusiasts are whining about the ride being rough doesn't mean they should change the ride when nobody else cares (especially when the front seat is butter smooth and that's the seat you should be riding in anyway). Also... it's an unreliable piece of crap that they finally got running a little more reliably after almost a decade. If it's finally running properly, why do something like add new trains which would require you to totally re-profile the station due to their width and probably change around some blocks / sensors since you'll be reconfiguring the track. The train weight will also change so the technology that launches the trains based on the previous launches will probably need to be changed too as well as the actual launch mechanism... If it FINALLY aint broke then don't fix it.

Reese's Xtreme Cup Challenge I didn't really find it all that half assed. Is is it Disney or Universal quality? No, but for a park outside of those two it is a decent dark ride. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this but despite the idiotic storyline I really like Reeses Extreme Cup Challenge and ride it at least once every time I go to the park. I think it's a fun little ride.

More great updates. Keep them coming!

Great report so far!

Great read. I don't think I could have come close to 36 hours on that thing. Congrats!

What a great addition. I was very impressed with both Fun Spot parks on our trip to Orlando earlier this year and will make it a point to visit whenever we're in Orlando. It's a nice break from the major theme parks and they always run the best programs possible on their rides. Kudos to them!

Gatekeeper is closed again. No word from the park on if it may open later (I know yesterday they were very up-front about the fact that it wouldn't be opening so maybe that's a good sign). Screamscape says they have insider sources that the issue is a broken chain which seems logical given the crane and where it was placed.

Agreed 100%

That sentence pretty much eating itself at this point. I don't even know what you're trying to say.

Honestly none of the breakdowns going on right now are major except maybe Gatekeeper. Looking at the live cams, Mantis and Millennium Force are both operating again, Skyhawk has been open, Raptor has been open all day... Gatekeeper is the only coaster that's suffering a prolonged breakdown and even that has only been 2 days.