King of Ka

SFNE and Compounce in one day is a lot, but if you're able to arrive at SFNE at opening I think it actually makes a ton of sense. You probably wouldn't need a full day at SFNE anyway, and if you left there by 5 you could be at Compounce by 6:00 and pay the after 5 price ($23). I'm a hardcore "Boulder Dash at night" advocate (if you go through my posts probably 1/3 of them are on this topic haha), so for me going to LC on a Sunday night when you should have at least 45 minutes of darkness is much preferable to paying more to go the next morning, even if it means only having two or three hours in the park. In terms of Knoebels or Hershey, I'd probably recommend Knoebels because I think it would work a lot better with your schedule to "break up" the other two days of big chain-style parks, and because it's just a really really awesome park. And given that it's a nearly a five hour drive from New England to either one I think Knoebels is a much easier park to arrive at in the middle of the day and not have to scramble to get everything in. With that said, Hershey does have a really really good coaster lineup and if you're looking to get the most coasters out of the trip it definitely beats Knoebels in that category. You can't really go wrong either way, both are great parks. Two other pieces of advice: 1. I wouldn't plan around it or anything but if it works out that you'll be driving past Quassy at a time when they're open, I would recommend you stop and ride Wooden Warrior. It's a really fun little ride and the entire stop will cost you like $10 and less than an hour. 2. When you're in the Philly/Jersey area, if you need food or anything look out for a Wawa! If you haven't been, imagine a 7/11 with fantastic food and coffee. In my experience grabbing a hoagie from a Wawa and then eating it at mealtime is pretty much the best way to eat when doing amusement parks.

^ & ^^^ The pass after 5pm is $23.09 after tax. I had the same question and that was the answer the park sent when I got in touch with them through their website.

^ I'm with Larry, Quassy followed by Lake Compounce after five is a really good day at a reasonable price, and will fit well with traveling between Great Adventure and SFNE. Night rides on Boulder Dash could very well end up being the highlight of the trip. Knoebels is a really amazing place as well and if you don't think you'll have a chance to get there for a while besides this trip I would recommend you try to do that as well. Most people seem to feel that you need a full day for the real Knoebels "experience," but in terms of rides if you have like 3 hours it's a good stop. Definitely don't miss Quassy and LC if you have a chance, and have fun! EDIT: Just so you know, after 5 entry to Lake Compounce is $23. I couldn't find it on their websit when I looked the other day.

Since you have a SF season pass, I think doing SFNE Saturday and for some of Sunday morning is a fine plan. Honestly if you're going to be getting to the park that early Saturday you might not even feel the need to go back Sunday. As far as Lake Compounce, I've always done the after 5 discount on a Saturday in the summer (when the park was open until 9pm), and while it's not enough time to really do EVERYTHING in the park I felt it was plenty of time for the secondary coasters, some interesting flats, and a bunch of Boulder Dash night rides. Unfortunately, you'll be going when the park is only open until 8, and with sunset at 8:30 after 5 might not be enough time for you, and might not provide the best chance for Boulder Dash night rides (BD is my #1 but in my experience it isn't nearly as impressive during the day). I would definitely recommend you stop by the park, but it's your decision whether you would rather try to get the park done in 3 hours or spend the extra $20 for a day ticket. While we're on the subject of stops though I would also totally recommend you swing by Quassy at some point on this trip if you've never been. It's about 15 minutes off 84, it's pay-per-ride, and Wooden Warrior is great fun. If you don't mind being a little inefficient you could do it between SFNE and LC on Sunday, or you could sleep in a little bit on Saturday and hit it on the way to SFNE. Lots of options haha, have fun no matter what you end up doing!

While I'm still bothered by what seems to be a common view that people who die in accidents they help cause are idiots who deserved to die, I will say that I think we actually all agree on the importance of engineering economy. It's absolutely true: we can't, and shouldn't, design for every conceivable failure or freak accident. But to me, this doesn't look like a bizarre freak accident; this looks like a totally predictable human error which the ride could not safely handle, and one which a small change would have likely neutralized. One death in 50,000 riders is just not an acceptable safety record for an amusement park ride (to put it in perspective, at that rate if every guest to Six Flags parks rode it, roughly one and a half people would die per day on average). To me, the reactions to this accident are like a skyscraper in Florida getting knocked down by a category 2 hurricane, and everybody shrugging and saying "Oh well, can't design for everything!"

I have to say I am astounded and disappointed by many of the responses I've read here. ejot, your post was thoughtful and well-put, and gets to the heart of the matter. Yes, it seems very likely that the woman made mistakes which lead to her death. But the idea that her culpability overrides the designer's responsibility to create a safe ride is misguided and goes against the most basic tenets of engineering. A car which kills people in 25 mph crashes is a badly designed car, regardless of whether the person behind the wheel was at fault. Blaming the woman for a bad decision in a moment of fear misses the point: this was a predictable user error with multiple viable solutions, and it was the designer's job to foresee this issue and implement those solutions. Failing to install netting or extend the platform, two low-cost measures which likely would have saved this woman's life, was poor engineering. Dismissing these solutions without reason and suggesting that they would only lead to "bigger idiots" is even more disturbing. Beyond being incredibly disrespectful to the woman killed (and showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the theory of natural selection), this statement endorses a standard which would abdicate every engineer and corporation of their responsibility to practice ethical engineering. Seat belts in cars, after all, only serve to "idiot proof" them from people who are stupid enough to get in car crashes. I'm all for personal responsibility and understanding ones limits. But the standards being demanded by many of the posts here are harsh and unforgiving, and none of us are so infallible that we should hold others to them.

Area folks: as a Boston transplant, I'm wondering when most public schools in MA and the areas near the park get out. More specifically, I'm wondering if the week of June 15th (somewhere between that Monday and Thursday) would be a good time to visit the park or whether it's likely to be slammed by school groups nearing the end of the school year. Thanks!

Damn, I had done a pretty good job of walking back my expectations for this ride, but Robb just shattered that. That level of excitement from somebody so experienced is high praise, I really can't wait to get on this thing. Hopefully should get over there in a month or so!

Hersheypark is the only place you can ride two different GCIs (three if you want to count dueling sides separately).

The second to the back row on Toro also has the advantage of consistently being one of the shortest waits on the train. Because of the way the station is set up, most people don't seem to make it to the back half of the train before picking a row, and those that do tend to go for the very back row. Which is great for people like us! The only other thing I'll throw out there when you're planning your trip is that while the safari is awesome and a good break during the day, it does take roughly two hours. I made the mistake of jumping on it during my last visit not realizing how big a time commitment it was, and probably missed out on another few rides because of it!

^ I can't say for sure but I think the apparent rattle on the video had to do with the mount they used for the camera, or at least that's how it looked and sounded to me. I think we'll be hearing plenty of ride reports in the next few days so hopefully we'll find out soon!

I agree that it's part fact and part opinion, but I would say that really anything that's part opinion is better described as an opinion than a fact. And beyond that, I don't think I agree that "most airtime" is totally qualitive. Going back a bit to my above example, would you say a hill with 2 seconds of -0.5G air where you're stapled into the train has more air than a ride with 2 seconds of -0.4G and buzz bars? Qualititatively it would, but I think almost any rider would argue that the latter ride had both better and more airtime.

^ Airtime is totally an opinion. For some people a ride like El Toro, with essentially four moments of very strong ejector, has the best airtime possible. For others, a ride like Phoenix which has many moments of floater (bordering on ejector) but less limiting restraints is better. There are a bunch of factors to consider when talking about airtime, like the intensity, duration, and restraint type. How you weight the three is 100% opinion. Personally, I would say that Bizarro has more airtime than Boulder Dash, but I prefer the Boulder Dash airtime due to the type of restraint. But that's just my opinion.

^ Totally understandable, I think years of seeing "PA" listed next to RFII and knowing that it would still be an 8 hour drive has made me assume that everybody else is as intent on riding it as I am, haha. I've lived in the Philly suburbs (Abington) all my life, but I'm going to school in Boston at the moment. It's not easy being surrounded by Bruins fans but hey at least people like hockey here.

I've only been in once but I thought Pittsburgh's roads were terrible. The highway sections have so many on- and off-ramps, some immediately after others, that my GPS unit was regularly a few steps ahead or behind. The city sections aren't much better, with a lot of poorly made five-way intersections and aging equipment. I'm sure that once you spend a little time you can work through it all but I thought the roads in Pittsburgh were worse than any other city I've driven in, by a wide margin. But anyway that's totally beside the point. More on topic, I'd been looking at doing a trip similar to the one you're planning and just wanted to throw out the idea of stopping at Waldameer on your drive home. It adds around 1.5-2 hours to the drive, but Ravine Flyer II has gotten some really good reviews in the past (#6 on Mitch Hawker in 2013), it's pay-per-ride so you can hit RFII and go, and frankly when else are you going to be anywhere near Erie? You've probably considered it already, but just in case you hadn't wanted to bring it up! Good luck with the trip!

SFA is a passable half-day park IMO. My first visit there we left after five hours or so because we felt like we'd done everything we wanted to. I'm slightly higher on some of their rides than most people seem to be, but I really enjoyed SROS and Batwing, and thought that Wild One (which a lot of people love), Joker's Jinx, and Roar were all at least decent. If nothing else splitting a day between it and DC is a possibility, though you wouldn't have much time in DC. And with all that said, the fact that you'll be visiting King's Dominion and Carowinds on this trip makes me think that you'd probably be better off either trying to swing Dollywood (never been but heard awesome things), taking more time at the other parks, or just doing non-park stuff. There's really no reason to go to SFA for more than anything than a quick coaster run-through, and you'll be riding virtual clones of two of their rides at the other parks, so I don't think you'll miss it if you don't go. Enjoy the trip!

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned restraints up to this point in the conversation. I'm not sure if it's just public perceptions, rider comfort beliefs, genuine safety concerns, or just old habits dying hard, but it's still the case that in general inverting rides get OSTRs, and others don't (there are a million exceptions here but I think this is still a relevant rule of thumb). It makes sense then that the things manufacturers and parks think gigas uniquely offer, the feeling of flying and sense of speed, are hindered by the more restrictive restraints they'd want to put on an inverting ride. Granted, this doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense. Plenty of rides with very extreme transitions or airtime do just fine with lap bars, and manufacturers are more than capable of making inversions that don't exert large forces on the riders. Still, I think parks want to avoid taking on additional risk of the ride not being popular, especially on as costly a project as a giga coaster. Restraints might not be the main motivation here but I think it at least factors in.

I don't have answers to all your questions, so I'll just give responses where applicable: 2. My only advice here is for your Quassy / Compounce day, and that's to try and do this on a day when Compounce is open late (probably a Saturday). Boulder Dash is a great coaster during the day, but at night becomes an absolutely world-class one, so anything you can do to maximize your dark time at LC is probably worth the effort. 4. I personally think so, for S:ROS, Batwing, and Wild One, and assuming you'll be buying a SF season pass. I think S:ROS and Batwing and both solid and underrated rides, but if you've already been on these types of rides it might not be worth the time. Maybe give it a day and then depending on how you feel during the trip you can go/no go it. Or depending on how/what you want to do in DC, swinging over to SFA in the evening would probably give you enough time to hit up the important things. 6. This is a sort of drastic change so it might not work with what you want to do, but if you're willing to add days and driving you could drive from Dollywood to Chicago and hit up Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World, and/or Indiana Beach on the way. I hope this trip works out for you, have fun!

El Toro's station is about four feet too narrow, there's always a blockage near the front of the train which means that you can never see what kind of lines are at the back of the train, and inevitably leads to people accidentally line jumping. On the bright side the lines for the back are almost always short, but you have to push through a nice little crowd to get to them. Boulder Dash's front half / back half split is a good idea in theory, but because the front line always reaches the split and the back line doesn't, impatient people waiting for the back assume that everybody in front of them is waiting for the front, and push their way past people even two or three groups away from the split. I'm more interested in the flip side of the coin though: what makes a GOOD station? Is there a design that eliminates the need for a grouper but still reduces overcrowding in the station?

This is less of a "bad ride which could be good" and more of a "good ride which could be great," but I think if they'd reprofile some of the hills on SFA's S:ROS they could have a top 15 steel coaster easily. As it is, the ride's first drop and turn are awesome, but then it spends a lot of time doing nothing with the slow-crested hills, huge helices, and (although part of me loves them) bizarre straight sections. Lower the first airtime hill, cut a level out of the first helix, and replace the straight section with a bunny hop and you'd have a really really fun ride on your hands.

I remember on my first ride on Phoenix (I was probably 15-16 at the time) I was in the very back row, and on the second half of the double down I lifted out of my seat as usual, but also sort of fell backwards. The way I remember it I ended up basically sitting on the back of the seat with my legs locked against the top of the bar until I was able to slide back down into my seat. I have no idea how close I actually was to falling out, and it really didn't faze me too much considering, but it sure felt like I might slide out the back that train.

As somebody who has typically preferred smoother coasters (although that seems to be less of a factor for me than it once was), Boulder Dash is my #1 coaster and it's not even really close. The ride is definitely rough and at times even borders on uncomfortable, but it's just so wild and keeps up its pace so obscenely well that the roughness just sort of feels "natural" to me. For medoman, my only two tips are to definitely try and get as many night rides in on BD as you can (personally all my visits to LC have been Saturdays so that I get the most night time possible), and if you have the choice to ride on the right side of the train, which is just a slightly more comfortable ride, especially on the turnaround.

It might just be that they're smaller parks but I've always found that Knoebels and Lake Compounce seem to have a good combination of lighter crowds and good operations which makes their lines pretty reasonable almost every time (granted I've only been to LC with 2 train ops on Boulder Dash).

The top 4 wooden coasters are my top 4, in the same order. Which in one sense makes me feel better about the winners, but not as much as I feel like the GTA probably shouldn't have the same rankings as somebody with a sub-100 coaster count... And I don't even know what's going on with the steel results, it's like they're stuck in 2005.

I'd be down to do this for sure.