CoasterLover

Expect VERY light crowds for opening day... most everything will be a walk on or a one or two train wait at the most. Of caution, if the day starts off cooler, Superman might not open right away. Early in the year, when we're still getting temps down in the 30s and 40s overnight, it takes Superman a bit longer to warm up.

Technically, EVERY steel coaster currently at Six Flags America was repainted within the last 10 years (most within the past five years). Mind Eraser lead the way with a completely new color scheme in 2005 and that paint job seems to be holding up pretty well. Joker's Jinx is also receiving some new paint this year, but it seems like this is more of a touch-up (the whole ride was primed and re-painted completely about four or five years ago). Most of the flat rides and many of the buildings around the park have also seen fresh paint.

Looks like they are repainting the Ragin' Cajun cars right down to the fine details! Looks pretty good! (More images of the painting process at the link http://baynumpainting.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/painting-the-ride-cars-for-ragin-cajun-at-six-flags-america/)

Looks like the freshening up of the "Action Zone" continues as Xtreme Skyflyer also seems to be getting some fresh paint... More pics here: http://baynumpainting.wordpress.com/ (they are also doing the paint for The Bat, so there are also some new(er) Bat photos there as well).

There's an ACE off-season event at SFA today so I'm sure we'll see some new construction pics throughout the day. I do know that they are now saying that Ragin' Cajun should open on May 24th (12 weeks from today).

It sure will be interesting flying out of Regan at night and seeing that. Also wonder if you'll be able to see it from the top of Superman at Six Flags America. If you go to there website, almost all of the comments are about how high the price is. Hopefully that's just the price per adult or price per gondola or something and not the price per (every) person.

From what I've heard, there's not much to see. Site clearing had started before the end of the 2013 season. The coaster is on-site, it's sitting just on the opposite side of the fence of where it will go. It's a portable model, so it will go up pretty fast. The bulk of the construction time will be before vertical construction even starts. The park does have a YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter page and they have been trying to get more people to like/favorite each of those by posting some content on just one or two of those sites at a time (SFNE has been posting ton of photos of their construction on Twitter that they aren't posting on FaceBook).

The whole "next generation" part of the tease I think is the biggest clue. They keep referencing next generation of the Knoebel's family, but I have to wonder if the whole next generation could also refer to the type of ride they are building. The most obvious choice then would be a RMC wooden coaster to bring the park the next generation of wooden coasters. They're hyping the ride VERY early (which makes you think that construction could start soon) and said construction would be done early next year. Outlaw Run construction was also started quite early and the ride was completed quite early the following year. Outlaw Run only cost $10 million (relatively inexpensive) so that would seem to be right up the park's alley. Phoenix opened in 1985, Twister opened about 15 years later (1999), so it would only make sense that their next big coaster project would come ~15 years later (2015). 2015 is also the 30th anniversary of Phoenix opening at Knoebels, so a big new next generation wooden coaster to mark that anniversary would seem to make sense. Granted, this all could be wishful thinking, but it would be really nice to get a RMC so close!

Well, the webcast did confirm that the Diagon Alley addition will include a Knockturn Alley, the dark, shady, back street where all the evil wizards get their evil goods. Knockturn Alley is also the location of Borgin & Burkes (also confirmed to be in the addition by the webcast) which, famously from the book, housed one of the two Vanishing Cabinets (according to Potter-lore, for those unfamiliar, you have two Vanishing Cabinets, one where you are and one where you want to go and when you go into one, you basically teleport into the other). To satisfy Rowling's demands and prevent a HHN themed Potter maze from needing to take place in Diagon Alley/Knockturn Alley, you just make the entrance to the maze be through a Vanishing Cabinet in some back corner of Knockturn Alley, then the maze itself could end up being themed to anything/anywhere in the Potter Universe (Dungeons of Hogwarts, Chamber of Secrets, Forbidden Forest, the hedge maze from Goblet of Fire, etc). Could be really cool if they got the green light from Rowling.

^I believe you are correct. When Volcano first opened, they actually had every other row of seats removed leading to only eight riders per train (if I remember correctly) to ensure the ride would make it over the top of the highest inversion (the ride hadn't yet had much time to be "broken in").

Sounds like they are working with MagiQuest again. MagiQuest already has a set-up at the Great Wolf Lodges, so doing something at Great Escape will probably be an easy spin-off. Hopefully, this collaboration with MagiQuest will last longer than the collaboration with SFGAm.

From what I have heard, Six Flags America took a lot of flack for opening Bonzai Pipelines so late. The word I'm hearing is that all of Mardis Gras except Ragin Cajun should open with the park in March. They would like to open Ragun Cajun as early as possible, but feel that opening day is unrealistic. The tentative grand opening would be Memorial Day weekend with (potentially) a week or more of "previews" beforehand. They had already started site prep last fall, so as long as the pad and electrical are ready, the ride should go up pretty quick.

Just recently started collecting theme park related ones, but have a few cool movie/theater type ornaments... Busch Gardens Williamsburg (Christmas Town) Hershey Knoebels Some of our movie related ornaments (Hunger Games) Harry Potter Some fun musical/light up theater related ornaments (Phantom of the Opera) Wish they would have continued this series... the ornaments are quite heavy, but play a pretty long clip of decent quality music from the show's soundtrack... would love to have similar looking ones for some newer shows (Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, Wicked, etc)...

For flat out scares, there are certainly some better options, but this region is jam packed with some of the best haunted attractions in the nation. Unfortunately, being a theme park, SFA can't/doesn't go as hard core as some of these stand alone attractions, but they are leaps and bounds better than they were a few years ago. This year, they'll have two indoor mazes, an outdoor maze, an outdoor/through the woods path type attraction, and multiple "scare zones" along with several shows (including a fantastic magician). The big plus for SFA (in comparison to the stand alone haunted attractions) is that you get the rides in addition to the scares and that you can get all of the additional scares at SFA for just $10 (if you have a season pass).

^Only Ragin Cajun is leaving SFGAm. I believe that section of the SFGAm will still have three Mardi Gras themed rides.

^Good thing they are planning to re-route the perimeter road to make the old golf course adjoin with the rest of the park effectively giving them quite a few new acres!

It should be noted that the signs are on the back of a building near the Capital Railways (train) station... a LONG way away from Southwest Territory but adjacent to an area of the park that used to be home to Iron Eagle (Zamperla Rotoshake) and Sky Escaper (Huss Enterprise). Those attractions have been gone for ages and nothing has really every taken their place. The area is prime land right in the dead center of the park. Not saying it will go here, but it's certainly a possibility...

^Great Escape opened one as well in 2013.

Grand Parents Day is Sept 8th... maybe they're building a themed section to that holiday with the main attraction being a Country Kitchen Buffet that serves a dinner special from 2 pm to 4 pm daily. Next to it will be a duck pond and a bingo hall. Unfortunately, it will close at 6 pm each day, but it will open at 5 am...

Should go to a planning meeting for Six Flags America... they need to get approval for almost ANYTHING they do and there is ALWAYS a few complainers.

I'm predicting the re-use of the "Goliath" name for this one...

I'm saying it will be a Premier Rides launched coaster with a 165' tall inversion and not much else. Could be more like YOLOcoaster, or possibly more like SFDK's Superman... with the size or Iron Wolf's area, I'm guessing more on the style of Superman. The broken record would be the world's tallest inversion (which I believe was previously held by YOLOcoaster).

Not sure how much of the land the park owns to the south-west of the arena, but just looking at the land immediately surrounding the arena, it looks like the arena's removal will open up a pretty large area for expansion.

I'm seeing 167' tall, 150' drop from Wiki... not sure where they got that info though...

Here's a terrible overlay, but it's to scale. For reference purposes, all the little dots on the blueprints are SOB's old footers. The helix towards the end of this new ride will sit right inside where the second helix on SOB was. According to this, the lift hill of the new ride will be ~250 feet in length. If the lift hill was at a 45 degree angle, that would equal a lift height of ~250 feet, but I don;t think lifts on inverted coasters are typically that steep. If it was at a 35 degree angle, it would put the lift height at ~180 feet. I'd say a record height for an inverted is possible, but it's only going to be slightly taller than Alpeingeist if it is...