topthrillmaverick

The mazes were decently staffed, the scarezones just were not. Like I said, one had no one it in, another had literally one woman all night. A few had a scattering of 4-6 but that's sadly it. It was! The Emergency Exit map on the outside of the building still said Dracula on it lol I don't have any basis for what it used to be but for me it definitely wasn't "cheesy kids" to me. It's 3D so there are a lot of blacklights and colors and stuff, but it is sufficiently creepy and seems pretty dark in tone. There are a few parts that may be "funhouse-y" to people (moving floor tiles, distorted and colorful hallways), but overall it seemed pretty mature. As for the wristband, I'd honestly pay the extra $10 and get a VIP wristband. The line management was so bad you might actually have a hard time getting all the premium attractions done in a night depending on when you go.

Time to get a down and dirty trip report/update out of the way! For a first visit, I quite liked SFOG. I wasn't blown away by the park, but it had a very nice charm to it that is very hard to find at other Six Flags parks. I have Mindbender and Goliath tied for my favorite ride of the day. Monster Mansion was delightfully campy and confusing, and Blue Hawk was surprisingly not as bad as expected. Operations were pretty awful all day, though, which was disappointing. Scorcher was letting trains go once every 5-7 minutes so, despite two train operations, the standby wait was well over an hour most of the day. Superman's operations were about the same with two trains being stacked for 4-5 minutes at a time, artificially inflating the wait to obnoxious proportions. As far as Fright Fest goes, I was both disappointed and surprisingly happy. The scarezones were, collectively, awful. Big Top Terror was the only one with more than three or four scareactors roaming around; the one between Cyclone and Acrophobia had one poor woman all night, while the random Biker themed one by Snakewater Falls had exactly 0 scaractors the two times we ventured through. Subterrestrial had a great location but lacked the amount of fog needed to make it 'spooky', and the Cemetery by Dahlonega Mine Train themed well, had a decent amount of characters, but was too short to actually provide any scares. The "premium" attractions, on the other hand, were mostly good. Mummy's Tomb was awful. It took our group all of 25 seconds to walk at a normal pace from entrance to exit, and it was not at all "pitch black" like they advertise. Definitely skip this if you need to. Likewise, Last Ride seemed completely awful. I say seemed because we didn't actually do it. From what we could see, you just lay in a coffin, they close the lid, and it shakes around for a minute or two. We walked by 8 or so times throughout the day and no one was ever even near this "attraction". Definitely seems like a missed opportunity, Six Flags. Terror Train was campy, fun, and surprisingly well done. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a bit low on the scare meter, but our guides on the train were very funny and there were some fun, and campy, b-movie vibes throughout the whole thing. Dr. Frights Frightorium 3D was...fine. The 3D was obviously an afterthought and, for the most part, was not used to any great effect. The whole house was pretty long but very haphazard, randomly jumping between thematically disconnected rooms without any through-line for the story. Overall fun, but forgettable. Do try to be near the front of the group, though, because there is a fantastic scene with some twins that is a must see, but is easily missed if you aren't at the head of the line. Bayou Bloodlust was pretty great. There were two preshow scenes with two incredibly talented and dedicated actresses that gave us a surprising amount of backstory and context for the whole maze. The setting in the woods around the river rapids was used to great effect and there are some fantastic animatronics throughout (just...not the werewolves). ZX-1 was by far the standout of the night for me. They made sure to keep groups completely separate (resulting in long waits, boo) which added to the experience. Set in the old theater in Gotham, this whole maze was cut off from the rest of the park in such a way as to lend an air of authenticity to the whole "post-infection refuge/medical station" theme. A theatrical scene at the beginning gets the adrenaline pumping and the multiple misdirections, dead ends, and route changes during this scene were surprising and fun. A strong maze from beginning to end, this one is crawling with "infected" around every corner. Indeed, there were so many in the final scene that they managed to completely separate our group from each other and chase us all to the exit in different ways. Overall, Fright Fest was fun. Definitely not the best or most polished Halloween attraction I've been to, but worthwhile for the most part. They *really* need to work on line control, though. The Frightorium employees didn't even know where the VIP line was supposed to be, and there was no one policing the merge point between standby and VIP lines resulting in a bottleneck and a bit of squabbling between guests. Other attractions just flat out ignored the standby line in favor of VIP, and most queues were incredibly haphazard and erratic. I enjoyed my whole day at SFOG and, despite a few complaints about park operations, I think it's a great park. I'm glad I got to drop by and will certainly head back if I'm ever in the area again.

You will probably need a flash pass. Even if the lines aren't that bad, if this is your one visit in the foreseeable future, it is worth it. Especially considering how bad ops have been at SFOG this season. I've outlined the perfect way to get through the park without Flash Pass in this thread before a few times. If you want to search for it, it will help. I will tell you normally the gates open 30 minutes early and usually both Cyclone and Scorcher are open at that time. Once the rope drops by Scorcher at opening, go straight to Dare Devil Dive if it is running. If you don't do this the line will be at least two hours but likely more. I've seen it go over 5 hours at which point they ditched the VR. Apparently the ops have improved but it is still a painfully slow line that will eat away at your day. If Superman is one train you want to hit that early too. Don't miss out on Acrophobia or Monster Mansion. Both very unique. There are 3 Coke Freestyle locations for easy drink filling if you have/get the souvenir cup. Thunder River is great but closed since they use it for a haunt. Sit in the first or second row of any of the cars on Great American Scream Machine. Cyclone is awesome in the front of the last car if you can handle a bit of a rough ride. The ejector airtime back there is insane. Goliath doesn't usually have too bad of a line but still hit it early and again later. You will probably want to ride more than once. Back row is my fave but trying front and back is what I would suggest. It's my favorite B&M hyper and I've been on all of them in the U.S. so hopefully you like it too! Solid airtime. Mind Bender is also one to try both front and back. Great coaster!!! Oh thanks for the tips! I'll definitely go back through the thread to see more of what you wrote. I'm determined to do DDD once for the VR but probably not again because I've been on nearly identical coasters at other parks already so I'll probably bang that out and move on. Same for Superman and Batman, I've been on their twins at other Six Flags parks so I'm not nearly as worried about hopping on them first; but I do quite like your plan of action that you outlined. I think you sold me on getting a Flash Pass so that'll make the trip easier. Now to just choose regular or gold... And I'll definitely let you know what I think of both Goliath and the park!

This Saturday I'm visiting for the first time and trying to get as many (hopefully all) the credits I can. Any recommendations for how to plan my day? I know DDD and Goliath will probably have the longest lines (especially with VR for DDD) but beyond that, any recommendations? Also, since it's the second weekend of Fright Fest, are crowds usually higher than usual? I'm on the fence about getting a Flash Pass since I'm not sure when I'll realistically be able to get back to SFOG but if crowds are going to be light or average, I might not waste my money if one isn't needed.

That makes sense, do you have to continuously get out and re-enter the lazy river like at other places? And any recommendations on slides to skip or check out?

After much hemming and hawing, I think I'm finally going to make another trip out to (what's left of) Geauga Lake this week, primarily for Wildwater Kingdom. Since I can find almost no information regarding it online and no one has posted this summer, how manageable are crowds on summer weekends? It seems most people just ignore this place in lieu of Cedar Point/Kings Island/Columbus Zoo but I really wanted to check it out since he last time I was there was when it was still Sea World.

Managed to get a quick, and surprise video of Impulse testing over the weekend. Sorry for the strange focusing and slight shake, it was spur of the moment and I had no better camera equipment with me than my cell phone. The ride is almost eerily quiet as it goes through the course. I know it has no riders but even empty it has almost no roar to it. Still looks impressive though.

As someone who's home park is Knoebels, my money is on Ringracer

Can't decide which name to use. Neither one has really caught on with me yet

Sorry but am I the only one who isn't fully sold on Full Throttle/YOLOcoaster yet? I've kept up with all the updates and, so far, the layout just seems* to be lacking any real excitement other than the launch. Also, it seems incredibly short especially since the top hat dives right into the break run. *I say seems because I know it still hasn't opened yet and looks can be deceiving until you finally ride something.

Still loving you're pictures man! Some of those shots you had were just phenomenal.

Wow, once again even more beautiful pictures. I loved the shot of the log flume and of the 69 car. This report is making me want to grab a new camera so much

Wow great pictures! I've always thought that Asian cities are extremely photogenic and I hope to one day be able to go and shoot some pictures of my own. Cant wait for more pictures!

Amazing. That's all I can say about what this year is shaping up to be. I really hope I can make it down there to check it out. I really want to know what happened to Boris though. They kind of left that hanging and it is bothering me. But, has anyone called 407-224-9132 yet? The number was put up on Screamscape and when called Bloody Mary gives you a message. The interesting thing is that in the beginning it sounds like she says something along the lines of "I know why you are calling...but he's not with us...anymore!" I'm thinking that the 'he' she talks about is Boris, but what happened?

Wow, this place is just absolutely amazing! I would love to visit some day because the theming here is top notch and everything blends so well together. By the way, what was the name of that song in the video? I keep hearing it but I don't know what it's called.