AmyUD06

On Tuesday the 22nd, I decided to make a drive up to SF Great Adventure to get some more use out of my $60 season pass and check out the holiday lights. Hadn't planned on any rides (truth be told I didn't realize how cold it was and didn't dress adequately, but I got on a few). Pulling into the park around 4:30 (3:00 opening), the park was dead. Figured I wouldn't need Flash Pass but since I have the all-season option I figured I'd grab it. Much to my surprise, it was just a wristband, not the electronic watch system. With my home park Kings Dominion getting one of these next year, I decided to actually give Joker, my first S&S FreeSpin, a try. It was a two-train wait (including one cleaning cycle). I got 3 flips. Never again. Maybe I'm too old for it, but yeah, these are not for me, just as I had suspected. Next up was Harley Blackbeard's Quinn's Lost Crazy Treasure Train, another ride I've skipped on all of my prior visits due to it having any sort of a wait. This time, the park's deadness helped me out, and I had a one-cycle wait. Sat all the way in the back of the stupidly-long train, and the first drop is a doozy and feels like it's going to throw you out of the car. All other cycles were getting 2 laps, but mine got 3 for some reason. Amusingly enough, someone pulled out their phone on the lift and they stopped the train until they put it away. Upon restart, the train slipped backwards maybe 6 feet, which was entertaining. These two raised my count to 155. Made my way back towards the "east" end of the park* to check out decorations, and surprise surprise Cyborg was actually running. Only one person on it LOL. I passed, of course...if the flipping of Joker messed me up I'd hate to think what that would do. I did, however, walk on to Justice League for my first time ever, and was pleasantly surprised. Was not expecting the motion of the cars...definitely a much more entertaining experience than Boo Blasters at a Cedar Fair park. I scored around 140,000, which didn't seem high, but the ride told me at the end that it was in the top 4% of scores all time. After snapping some more pictures, I hopped on the Sky Ride to get some aerial photos, then walked back up towards the Superman area, and then back to the exit to head out. Not so amusingly enough, at the exit there was a portable sign instructing people to return Flash Passes, so I asked the lady sitting at the exit gate if I still had to return a paper wristband. She said yes, "or I'd be charged $100" (this would be a total Six Flags thing to do), so I made my way back to the Flash Pass building and waited 20 minutes for a "typical SFGA guest" to bitch to the poor girl behind the counter about "not being able to use his Flash Pass due to the pandemic." He eventually gave up, and I asked the girl if I needed to return the wristband, and she said no, as I had thought. Made my way out of the park around 6:30 and called it a night on my last amusement park trip of 2020. *Fun Fact many may not know: That side of the park is referred to as the "east" side because of the western theming on the other side, no other reason. It's actually geographically west. And now, enjoy some photos and a video proving Cyborg was running. MOV_0229.mp4

Judging from the last picture, the front bogey of the second car looks decidedly not attached where it should be. Not sure if I'd call it a "derailment," but yeah, epic failure.

Man if that slide goes all the way to the bottom, you'll pick up some crazy speed on that thing.

For me, everything depends on what's open due to COVID restrictions, which I'm sure will still be in place next summer due to <political commentary redacted>. But as it stands, my plans are right now (new parks indicated by asterisks): -A July Roadtrip, encompassing: Adventure Park USA* Lakemont park* Idlewild* Kennywood Indiana Beach* Arnold's Park* Valleyfair* Bay Beach Amusement Park* Mt. Olympus* Little Amerricka* SF Great America Michigan's Adventure Cedar Point Waldameer* Conneaut Lake* -An August Roadtrip, encompassing: SF America Family Kingdom* SF over Georgia* Lake Winnie* Beech Bend* Kentucky Kingdom* SF St. Louis* Kings Island Camden Park* Dollywood* Carowinds -A trip to Orlando for BGT, Sea World, and the Fun Spots at some point in the year. -Weekend or Day-Trips to: Kings Dominion Cedar Point Kings Island SF Great Adventure Morey's Busch Gardens Williamsburg Knoebel's Hersheypark For me, the "ideal" and "realistic" lists are the same...it all depends on what's open and what my financial situation looks like at the time.

Wow this brings me back. Maybe over-sharing, but here are some fun facts about Keansburg Amusement Park (and the town) and how it has affected my life: -My father lived in that town from birth to age 35. He worked on that very "boardwalk," staffing games of chance, throughout his entire high school career. -My mother lived in nearby Sayreville growing up, and her and her 6 siblings would frequently visit that "boardwalk" since it was the closest and cheapest amusement center to their home. -My father met my mother while working those stupid games and married her right out of high school. Because of this, I swore I would never do that for work...until I did, running the same stupid games in Seaside Heights, for the summers before and after my last year of college. It was the greatest job I've ever had. -I lived in that town from birth to age 5. My old house was within 10 minutes bicycling distance of the amusement park, but my parents wouldn't let me go without them. Here is a streetview of that house in 2018. It didn't have the second story or even that part that juts out to the right back in 1989 when we left, but we did have a pretty sweet in-ground pool, which it appears to still have. My parents moved me out after kindergarten because the public schools were, and still are, absolutely terrible. My kindergarten was in a trailer in the high school's parking lot. -That said, I have a ton of great childhood memories of that amusement park, particularly the miniature train ride, the boats-go-round, the motocycles-go-round, and the firetrucks-go-round, and countless similar X-go-round rides they they had, and still have. My father would tell me that they were all there during his youth as well, meaning they're now 70+ years old. There's something to be said for that. -My first coaster that I can ever remember riding was their Schwarzkopf Wildcat that they had from the late '70s to the early 2010s. Not sure what the height requirement was back then, but I'm pretty sure I didn't meet it and the teenage ride ops didn't care. From my understanding, It was damaged beyond repair during Hurricane Sandy, thus the Pinfari looper that now occupies its spot. -I was always too scared to go through the Spook House, their dark ride, (I was 5, after all), but now really regret never getting on it. Though if I had to bet, it probably hasn't changed much in the past 32 years, but the website does say that it's "undergoing renovation." Bonus Fun Fact: That dark ride has existed since 1931. -I've been back a total of once during my adult years, when I was going through one of my sentimental phases in my late-20s. Spook House was sadly closed. -There used to be a full-nude strip club called "Chaser's" not half a mile from the amusement park, right near the corner where Main Street turns into Beachway Avenue. As hinted at by the name, the dancers tended to be on the larger side. Back in the early 2000s, I had a "friends-with-benefits" thing going with a girl who danced there (no, I didn't meet her that way LOL). Streetview shows it boarded up, but still has the same sign on the roof. -The water park was in fact a shit-hole back in the day, and has been where they've been dumping the most money over the past 25 years. Bonus Fun Maybe-Fact: I believe they leveled the entire previous waterpark to construct the current one. One of these days I really should go back. If the place ever folds completely, I really hope Knoebel's buys up all of their historic kiddie rides and the dark ride.

It does not...like I said, if it did, I think it'd be in my top 10 woodies.

Yesterday, after my brief stop at SFA, I fought through the perpetual Northern Virginia I-95 traffic to check out Kings Dominion's Taste of the Season event - a COVID-blamed Winterfest-lite. And believe me, it was "light" indeed in every way, from rides, to food stands, even holiday decorations. The only thing not light about the day was the crowd; I blame going on the best weather day the region has seen in months: High 60s when I arrived at around 4:30, high 50s when I left around 7:00. The place seemed more packed than when I went for Winterfest-regular last year. Anyway, on with the TR. After arrival, I kinda just did a lap to confirm what was open and how things were laid out. In the area that used to be a smoking zone (KD, like all other CF parks, has removed all smoking zones from inside the park and replaced it with one just outside the main gate), they had some local craft booths set up: And around the Eiffel tower, were some makeshift games booths: As for the Tower itself, it was unfortunately closed, despite appearing on the app as being operational. I continued my trek towards the back of the park, and thought I might grab a tasty adult beverage, but here was the line: So yeah, that didn't happen. Glanced over to Twisted Timbers, and lamented what could have been. This was actually open for last year's Winterfest and was awesome in the brisk December air. Continuing my lap around the park, and saw that they had just parked a food truck in front of the entrance to Safari Village. Sorry, no shots of the Tiki Twirl construction site (no, they haven't announced the name of the 4D but that's what I'm sticking with!). A note about the holiday decorations: They were severely cut back from what they had last year during Winterfest. For example, last year they had thousands of jumbo-style lights hanging from all of the trees in Planet Snoopy, covering over walkways, and making it it an awesome experience. This year? Just some regular lights strung up in the ground-level bushes. At least they lit up Snoopy. And the stage was active with a variety of music-and-dancing shows, running basically continually throughout the night. There was also another small stage with singing acts, again seemingly continual, near Racer's entrance. Speaking of which, this was the queue at 5:20. Yes, that is backed all the way out onto the midway. Why was this? Much like Dorney Park, the park's COVID-protocols were to blame - only seating every 3rd row, which results in a maximum of 10 riders per train. At least they were running both. A nearby employee estimated the wait at an hour and a half. Wave Swinger was also similarly capacity-limited. Maybe hard to see in the photo, but that is about 25% of the seats actually installed. A note about food service: Most stands had been converted into Tasting Stations for the main theme of the event, food tasting. As I have the food preferences of a 5 year old, I passed on all of these (the only one I wanted to try was the minty ice cream sandwich, but the line was 15 people deep when passed by). I was slightly disappointed to not be able to get any MacBowl glory, as it was serving only the holiday menu. I did like how they lined the Candy Apple Grove midway with the decorations from the "12 Days of Christmas" that was done last year on Blue Ridge Tollway (it was closed this year, along with the rest of Old Virginia), complete with synchronized lighting to the lyrics of the song, which would play about every 3 songs in the area. You can also see in this picture that none of the trees were lit up; last year they were all extremely well lit with pixel-mapped mutli-colored lights that were synchronized to the ambient music. Outside Buccaneer, there was a cool "mystery jelly bean" tasting game that reminded me of the "guess what's in it" shot game from Haunt a few years back when they did the Skeleton Key rooms. Right before snapping this picture, I took my only ride of the night on Dominator (36 minutes on-and-off). They were skipping every other row, one group per row but allowing a full row of 4 if your group had it, and were loading the station from the back of the train first. I managed to luck out with my line positioning and got the front row. It was good to ride perhaps the best floorless after riding what is easily the worst at SFA early in the day. They were also doing a kid-friendly scavenger hunt cell phone game based around finding a Santa's stolen sleigh. All in all, it wasn't a terrible event. I'm glad they were able to open at all this year, and being included in my Platinum Pass, it was a good time and definitely worth the three hour drive from Delaware. Yeah, I wish more rides were running, but its better than nothing for locals who had no other amusement park options without wanting to take a four-hours-or-longer drive to a park that had been operating fully over the summer. I may make another trip back later in the month, hopefully for some lower crowds. I leave you with plenty of photos of the decorations. No singing mushrooms, sorry. They didn't need these fire pits tonight, but it was nice that they were lit anyway. And to close things out, a video of the pixel-mapped "tree" that they make of the Eiffel Tower. No matter how may times I see this I think it's awesome. MOV_0364.mp4 I hope you all enjoy my report. Sorry for the blurriness on some of the photos, my phone is nearly 5 years old and doesn't work as well as it once did.

No one can predict what Newsome will do.

On Saturday the 12th of December, I had a plan to travel down to Kings Dominion to check out their Winterfest-lite event caused by COVID. Normally, I'd skip right past Six Flags America (I hadn't been here since 2008, and that was only at the insistence of some friends), but figured this year I might as well stop in and make some use of my $60 SF Season Pass and also grab the Firebird credit and some rides on the as-I-remember-them-not-terrible woodies. In retrospect that may have been a mistake. I arrived right at park opening (2:00) to maybe a dozen other cars in the lot. This place was dead, despite the beautiful weather (mid-60s and sunny). The park was decorated for Holiday in the Park, but as it was daytime it lost something. I had intended to make my way to Firebird first to get that out of the way, but due to the park's confusion layout, wound up in the Mardi Gras section and jumped on Wild One. Walked on to a solo-ride front row ride on the only train in site (none on the parking track). Listen, I get it. This coaster is a classic and should be preserved forever (though it is a little weird that they left the Skull Mountain standing). Most of the ride was smooth enough. But that helix...yes, strong laterals, but too much vibration for my almost-29-for-the-10th-time year old body. One thumb down. At least it's photogenic. Make the trek back across the park for a one-train wait for Roar, also on the only train in service - again no 2nd train seen anywhere. This ride had two other people, in the row directly behind me...no COVID-prevention measures at this park, which honestly doesn't surprise me. I actually think this coaster would be spectacular with some Millennium Flyers; like top-10-woodie good. It has lots of good direction changes and airtime moments, but with the PTC invididual-lapbar trains, not so great. One thumb sideways. This is also quite photogenic. Okay, now it was time for my main reason for the trip here, to get my credit on Firebird, which coincidentally enough was my 100th steel coaster. One-and-a-half-train wait for the front row, this ride also taken solo, with no 2nd train in sight. There are no words for how horrible this ride is. Continual head-boxing in the restraints - trying to keep it forward didn't work, trying to keep it pressed firmly against the headrest didn't work. It honestly felt like the guide wheels had 2 inches of space between them and the track, the car was shuffling around so much. I had never ridden this as a stand-up, but couldn't even imagine how bad that would have been with your head that much further off-axis from the track. Go die in a fire. Two thumbs way down. That said, this ride is also quite photogenic, and the paint looks great. I ended my trip here. I think the SLC might have been running but didn't want to waste any more time and it's horrible anyway. Also skipped was Ragin' Cagun, because I don't do spinning coasters, and that exhausts the coaster list here during Holiday in the Park. Made my way out 36 minutes after entry, and on the way to Kings Dominion I was. Maybe I'll make another trip here next summer for Joker's Jinx or Superman, but probably not.

So, I am currently at KD for the Winterfest-lite event, and boy let me tell you that it is "lite" indeed. We all knew how few of the rides were going to operate, but wow did they reduce the amount of Christmas lights. Photos and a full review coming later. I will say that I probably picked the best worst day to come: Temps in the mid 60s during the day, now high 50s at night. The place is comparatively packed; I have no doubt that they are full to whatever reduced capacity limit is set. Racer's queue was spilling onto the midway.

Yes, yes they do. Nope, it's four-hour blocks any day of the week. But don't worry, if you're on a budget, weekday 11 AM - 3PM slots are only $69. This place never ceases to amaze me. Perfectly fitting sad, tragic joke for Northeastern NJ, though.

(Double Post)

Not even funny, man, not even funny.

I don't know the answer to your question (I don't think it will), but had to call out the "new standard" comment. It's kinda hard to have a "new standard" when only two of a particular thing exist, and the one with the moving loading platform was actually the first one to open (by about a month). Just sayin'.

Looking at news reports that come up from Google searches of "Six Flags Over Georgia Opening Day" and 2019 and 2018, it seems like they typically open in March. Next year is anyone's guess with COVID nonsense.

Okay, maybe I'm dumb and just somehow missing it, but I cannot find BGT's ride maintenance schedule for 2021 anywhere on their website. Am I missing something or is it truly not posted? Reason for asking, is I was trying to decide between the first week of January or the third week of February for a trip down there, and Kumba is on my must-ride list. I found the 2019 schedule, and that year it was closed from 2/4 - 3/1, and in 2020 it was closed from 2/24 - 3/6. Going in February would be better for me for a variety of reasons, but if Kumba will be closed I feel I will be disappointed, as I don't have any plans of making another trip down there until 2022 at the earliest. Maybe it might be better just to delay the trip until later in 2021. Is there anyone on here with some inside knowledge that can perhaps shed some light? Thanks.

Kings Dominion has a KOA nearby, but the nearest extant campground to KI is a KOA in Lebanon, 8 miles away. Apparently KI had a campground closer in the distant past (like the 1970's).

On the plus side, I believe the MCBR allows the Flight of Fears to operate 3 trains. I'm not sure if KI's still does but I believe that KD's still operates that way. That said, I didn't notice the MCBR slow the train all that much on Kings Island's Flight of Fear during my rides this summer.

I'll be going next Saturday. I'll let you know then.

The point was that if KIEnthuiast is so desperate for Winterfest-lite events, options exist. Whereas his park had 4 months of a near-100% operational season while KD/CW/Carowinds got zero months of any kind of operation, which kinda removes his right to complain that KI isn't doing a Winterfest-lite like those parks.

I second the notion; I've been on both and miss them. That "horizontal loop" pulled some serious Gs. At KD, it was replaced by Delirium, a type of ride I don't ride, so that's a net loss to me. Stand-ups aren't the best but they are a unique ride type that I'll be sad if they every all completely disappear. I also never experienced any of the "male-derived pain" from these but I guess I just figured out early how to properly adjust the harness to prevent that.

Guess you guys all missed the fact that these ride removals are to save money. Installing a new ride in its place in the immediate future counteracts that goal.

Get over it man. You've made your point and we get it; it's silly that this park did not do a Winterfest-lite. Make the 8 hour drive to KD if you want to experience that, just like all of us with KD as our home park had to drive out to KI or CP this summer to get some use of our Platinum Passes. Be happy KI had most of a mostly-normal season this year. Or go bitch on the park's FB page; you'll find more like-minded individuals there.

LOL...just LOL.

Thanks for the input everyone, especially Elissa. As for rides, yeah I mostly go to parks for coasters, but I also enjoy a lot of flats (that aren't spin-n-pukes) if there's down-time. I'm kinda here nor there on food (I eat like a 5 year old), and yeah the butterbeer intrigues me, but not at that entry price honestly. Animal stuff is cool if I can take it at my own pace (like a walk-through zoo); not a fan of sit-down animal shows but I do enjoy comedy/theatrical/musical-review type live shows. I'll be sure to keep an eye on SWO's budget saving page LOL. Thanks again!