coasterbill

This tiny thing is hilarious. Kudos to Six Flags.

Since this is your first post I'll assume you're probably trolling but I guess I'll humor you a little bit. When you're judging a coaster, you should judge it based on the ride experience. Saying that we need to factor in anything other than the ride experience itself is ludicrous. When you say that we need to look into additional factors, is one of those factors that the ride needs to be at Cedar Point? It must be because Magnum is not a top ten coaster otherwise and Mean Streak would never be within the top 50. PS: Since we're talking about excessive restraints and bad operations hurting certain ride's rankings... explain Bizarro at SFNE being #2. Go ahead, I'll wait. They stack that thing constantly... not as bad as NJ Bizarro but still pretty bad. PSS: The #7 ranked Intimidator at Carowinds says hi.

Okay... that was awesome!

TL;DR version: Six Flags is going to terrify you with a terrifyingly terrifying gauntlet of terror with new terrifying terror trails with terror lurking around every terrifying corner. PS: WE HAVE ADORABLE BABY OTTERS!!!!!!

I have no problem with Nitro being near the top of the list. I wouldn't say it's my #3 steel coaster but I do think it's the exception to the rule when it comes to overrated B&M hypercoasters. I find it to be a ton of fun with great pops of air and a very intense helix. Apollo's Chariot, Intimidator (Carowinds) and Magnum (the most overrated coaster of all time) really should not be on this list. They're all good coasters but give me a break. I haven't ridden Diamondback or Goliath so I can't comment but from what I've heard they don't belong in the top ten either. PS: No I305 on the top ten? But Magnum is... Magnum... how can anyone think Magnum is better than I305? PSS: The Beast?? Are we really going to do this? ugh

Great pictures. Thanks for the new wallpaper!

Thanks for the comments, they're much appreciated! I never say never, but that should be the last "big" coaster added to the park (and it is replacing a 300+ foot, 100+ mph coaster). I'm going for a realistic look with this park, but it is designed to have the greatest coaster collection on earth (kind of as a Cedar Point / Magic Mountain / Great Adventure beater) so I am taking a bit of creative license. That being said, this park does have an extensive flat ride collection which will be growing in the next update. Many of those are not featured in these updates since people are generally uninterested. Regarding Shangaan and Cheetah Run, while they are in the same area of the park it's a huge area and that's quite a hefty walk. Cheetah Run's tower is very far away from the loading station. Thanks again for commenting!

Hello again! The park is currently undergoing a major transformation. This offseason, the park is spending almost 100 million dollars in new rides, shops, attractions and aesthetic improvements. While I still can't hold a candle to many RCT designers, I feel like I've improved a lot since I started working on this park and some areas of the park just don't stack up. I've decided to slowly go through the park and improve these areas. That being said, the only ride that has been removed is Kilimanjaro's Fury. Most of the changes will include new buildings and path layouts. The most exciting bit of news is that the park will be getting a new coaster to replace Kilimanjaro's Fury, and it's going to shatter almost every record in the book... The parks skyline has changed dramatically. Cheetah Run is the parks newest coaster, replacing Kilimanjaro's Fury and reinforcing Sunset Valley's title as the thrill capital of the world. The ride pays tribute to Kilimanjaro's Fury with a launch through the same tunnel, only now the coaster will be launching at 146 MPH, making it the second fastest coaster in the world. Following the launch, the ride will head up a 534 foot top hat before plummeting back to earth and into another tunnel. This cheetah has one more trick up it's sleeve as it emerges into a huge airtime hill before finally hitting the brakes. This area looks a lot different now. Most of the shops and restaurants have been replaced or renamed to fit the new ride. You may also notice that the Claw has been removed. The area in front of Shangaan and Python has changed dramatically. I was never a fan of this area as the path was blocky and confusing as the huge restroom blocked the view of the Shangaan entrance. This area has been cleaned up a lot. The train station has moved a little closer to Pirates Cove (it's the building with the red roof), a few of the game booths have been removed and The Claw has found a new home! These are just two of the areas that will be getting a major overhaul this offseason. While Cheetah Run is expected to be a major draw for thrill-seekers, the park has also pledged a commitment to families and flat rides.

That looks outstanding.

I wouldn't say that since the entire turnpike between Six Flags and the Phillie exit is a work zone right now. I think they're extending the truck lanes until that exit and prolonging the merge which is going to be awesome... but for not just makes everything more of a clusterfu**k.

I'm not sure I would do something that crazy to go to a park but if I did it sure as hell wouldn't be Six Flags America.

I'd allow 2 - 2.5 hours just in-case. Even though it's only 10 miles from 7a (The Six Flags exit) to the split... it can be 10 miles of pure hell since it's a Sunday. By the way when you're driving south on the turnpike (towards the park) make sure you get in the cars-trucks and buses lanes and not the car lane. The car lane sucks hard.

Rot standup coaster, rot!

We went to the park yesterday and had an amazing time. I went with my girlfriend and my mom which was kind of a nice change. When I was little she always brought me to parks and no doubt is the reason why I love theme parks so much. Even though I've moved out of the house and my girlfriend and I usually go to parks together as a date we try to go with my mom a few times a year and I think everyone had a great time. I'll save everyone the tl;dr trip report and just mention a few positives and negatives. Negatives Bizarro operations: Does anyone remember that show on MTV called Boiling Point where people were given $100.00 for putting up with awful service or obnoxious people for 15 minutes without saying anything? I think the show is coming back next year and all of it will be filmed in the Bizarro queue. I'm a coaster nerd... there's no denying that fact. But when I go to parks with non-coaster nerds I usually keep the nerdiness to a minimum so I didn't say anything about the bad operations. I didn't even have to. As has been the case every time I went to the park this year, everyone in the station was pissed off and complaining. Once they dispatched a train, everyone would walk over to the operator booth and talk until that train was in the brake run. After the train was back, the person at the control booth would pick up the phone and talk to someone in the photo booth. The two girls responsible for checking restraints would then walk over to the railing that swings open if and when a train is ever dispatched and yells down to the girl in the photo booth about something that has nothing to do with the ride or the park. After all of this they would finally start checking restraints. Once they were finished the girls would ask the person at the panel if it was break time yet and he would tell them how many more minutes they had until break. Then they would finally send the train. This happened with every single train. Just for fun my girlfriend started timing them using her watch and dispatch times were usually between 4 and 6 minutes. For some idiotic reason they were running three trains. Bizarro is a great ride and it deserves much better. We waited 35 minutes and the line was only to the bottom of the stairs (probably because people know better than to try to re-ride it because of how slow the line moves). Golden Kingdom: I like Golden Kingdom a lot (even though now it's two separate areas that are only connected if Safari Discoveries is open)and the theming is great but has anyone ever been there at night? There are almost no lights anywhere, not on the stairs exiting Kingda Ka, not on the paths leading to Kingda Ka (there are a few but it's really dark) and I almost feel like the Kingda Ka queue line should be an insurance liability. The huge holding area which takes at least 45 minutes to get through when it's full doesn't have a single light. Unless there's a full moon you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Would it kill them to put a few lights in the queue area before someone gets hurt? Positives Operations: I said my piece about Bizarro but every other ride seemed to be dispatching trains really quickly and was actively trying to fill every seat despite relatively light crowds. Rolling Thunder was racing all day and the El Toro and Nitro crews should be recognized for doing such a great job. They're awesome (and fun). Maintenance and up-time: Every single ride was open yesterday and this is the case almost every time we go to the park. If anyone remembers this park in the late 90's / early 2000's it was notorious for closed rides but this isn't the case anymore. Any time we notice something that's broken there's always a swarm of maintenance people trying to fix it. Friendly Employees: Every single employee we ran into (besides the Bizarro operators) were having fun, interacting with guests and pumping up the crowd. They have quality employees this year (except Bizarro... I feel like I really need to drive this point home). Nitro: At the end of the night everyone went to see the fireworks so Nitro had almost no line. We got off and got back in line three times and only had to wait one or two trains for the back... then after the 3rd and 4th rides they let us switch to an empty row and stay on the train. We had five amazing rides in a row to end the night. Everyone on the trains and in the station was clapping to the Nitro station and music and having a great time, the ops were pumping up the crowd but still dispatching trains at an amazing rate. Thank you Nitro crew for being awesome. Maybe those losers from Bizarro can go on a field trip to Nitro (or El Toro) and learn how to run a ride. As I said at the start of this post, we had a great day. We're really lucky to have a coaster collection like this so close to home (2 1/2 hours with no traffic... 4 hours yesterday). I think El Toro, Nitro, Kingda Ka (if you ride it in the front), Batman (I don't care of it's a clone... clone it 500 more times if you want) and Bizarro are world class coasters and they have a solid collection of flats, water rides and other coasters to compliment them. My mom upgraded her ticket to a season pass and we'll be renewing ours next year for sure. Keep up the great work Six Flags (except the Bizarro crew... you suck).

This is nit picky, but how is that transfer track supposed to work? Take a look at this Google Street View image of the amazing Nitro at Great Adventure (which we got to ride 5 times in a row last night, woohoo!). The back half (upper part of the screen) of the regular brake run needs to have supports like the transfer area so it will look like the track could slide over if it needed to be put on the maintenance track. Other than that, great job! I love it.

Not every coaster... Thunderbolt should be left exactly as is. It's perfect. Cyclone sucks though.

Poor Snoopy... that looks painful.

I'm absolutely thrilled. I've always wanted to drive through the Safari but I didn't want to risk damaging the car. The fact that it's becoming a free add-on is outstanding! Great job Six Flags (did I just say that?), this attraction is going to have mass appeal. Six Flags took something that used to be an upcharge and made it free, and they're keeping Bizarro! I can't possibly see how anyone can complain about this. So let the complaining begin

would be interesting to hear from someone who has visited recently if this is still the case, seems like the long hours with the summer crowds and heat often leave the staff knackered at this point in the season as everything is winding down. This report is from this Saturday (though I brought up the one Bizarro incident from June) so I'm happy to say that yes... this crew still rocks.

I enjoyed this coaster at Geauga Lake too. I always found it smoother than other SLCs.

The Bizarro crew is horrible. We went to the park in late June and they had a woman on the microphone trying to get people to sing songs and talking about how excited she was that the park was closing soon and she could go home. Everyone in the station was annoyed, the people behind us in line kept yelling "Send the Train" (and they weren't whiny enthusiasts either, just regular people) and most people left the line so they could go ride something else before the park closed. This past Saturday, they were running three trains for some reason but they really only needed two. You were lucky if they had even started checking restraints before every train was in the brakes. I never saw two trains anywhere on the circuit at the same time. This happened early in the day when there was a station wait but later in the day the entire first set of switchbacks was full and this was still going on. This crew sucks!!! Another complaint I have about the ride ops is their blatant disregard for line jumping. Almost every time someone wanted to cut the line because "there friends were up there", they were allowed to. The Sky Screamer crew went way out of their way to let two people cut the entire line to ride with their friends and an employee in the El Toro line asked me (right in front of a group of teenagers that wanted to cut the line) if I should let them do it because "she wasn't allowed to make those decisions". I said yes so I wouldn't have to be uncomfortable standing next to them for the duration of the queue line so I guess part of the blame is on me, but it's not my job to enforce your rules. I never complain about line jumping because it's usually not the parks fault, but it annoyed me that they were not only allowing it right under their noses but going way out of their way to accommodate it. Despite this we did have a good day. Since I'm being negative about the employees I should point out that the Nitro crew was cranking out trains like crazy and the Kingda Ka crew was doing a great job pumping up the crowd and having fun without delaying operations which I thought was pretty cool. We also had one of the best rides I've ever had on Batman. This ride is flying this season, especially late in the day. Luckily the park has awesome coasters which really makes you forget about the bad operations.

I wonder what's wrong with it. We went yesterday and in the morning they had a few cars on the cable but they were going painfully slow (almost like they were using the backup motor). Once they got all the cars off it was down for the rest of the day and we saw people grinding away at something in the drive station (dream street station) and sending sparks everywhere. I think whatever happened may take awhile to fix (just based off of the fact that they were climbing all over the drive shaft). Maybe they can run the side closest to the front gate but it's been down every time we went this year so maybe there's something wrong with that side also.

Well most parks are like that, 2 or 3 world class coasters. 2 or great coasters, and the rest are average. i.e. SF:Great Adventure World Class: El Toro, Nitro Good: Bizarro, Superman Average: Batman, Green Lantern etc. LOL! In what crazy world is one of the more intense B&M invert layouts considered "average???" Have you ever been to Six Flags Great Adventure??? Seriously, were you dropped on your head as a child or something? --Robb "That should go in the dumbest things said on TPR thread." Alvey Agreed 100%. We were at Great Adventure yesterday and had one of the best rides we've ever had on Batman. The ride was flying through the course last night. I guess some people have a problem with this ride because it's a clone but the Batman inverted coasters are great rides.

I have a minor update for everyone. Construction fences have been put up around the entrance to Rattler. It's hard to see exactly what's going on here but I do know that some new concrete has been poured and the chain lift has been removed. The top section of track has been removed and large portions of the pretzel have been taken out. That looks like brand new track lying on the ground and I would guess that the park is going to do a major rehab on the ride rather than remove it. Kilimanjaro's Fury is not so lucky. When it opened it was the tallest coaster in the park, but with additions like Shangaan and Colossus it's lost most of it's appeal. Because of this, high operating costs and capacity issues, the park has decided to close the ride forever. "Final Fury" a charity event will take place on the rides last day after park closing. The event will feature a 2 hour ERT session and seats will be auctioned off for the last train. Since the announcement, lines are the longest they've been in years.

Normally Screamscape is pretty accurate but it sounds like that "breaking news story" was pulled out of thin air just as much as the story about it being removed in the first place. If I'm reading that correctly, he searched high and low for details and didn't find any... which doesn't mean it's not happening. It doesn't mean it is, but it doesn't mean it's not either. Personally I don't believe the ride is going anywhere, but I don't think the lack of details confirms or denies anything.