Canobie Coaster

Rides can have downtime during the day or an occasional major issue can occur (ex. cable snap), but what makes Lightning Rod so frustrating is that it seems like it has had a major issue that has kept it closed for weeks/months at a time each year. I think 2019 was the only year Lightning Rod didn't have a major spell of downtime. The only time I recall the ride closing for multiple days last year was after a snowstorm when the tracks iced up (Tennessee Tornado was also closed those days). Imagine if Lightning Rod were at a Parques Reunidos park. For as much downtime as Lightning Rod has had, I trust Dollywood would never try to transfer a train onto a track while another one is on the course leading to a collision.

I'm thankful I got a few rides in the very back since you couldn't wait for a specific row this year. Thankfully those bunny hills in the first half deliver in any row.

Waldameer Waldameer is one of my favorite small parks. I fell in love with the park after they opened in a massive downpour a few years ago when every other park in the region closed and stayed open most of the day even though I was one of 10 guests in the park. While my subsequent visits have been busier, crowds have never been oppressive here. That gives me the chance to get a ton of rerides and appreicate the relaxed atmosphere of the park. It also helps Waldameer's staff is super friendly and the park is gorgeous. Waldameer's main entrance isn't anything special, so I prefer to think this hand-carved wood sign is the main entrance. Or the creepy clown! The park is filled with gardens, fountains, and statues. It's really beautiful! Assume the position! The star attraction is Ravine Flyer II. The ride took years to get approved, but the ride's unique setting really pays dividends. The ride has one of the best first drops of any coaster. In fact, I think it's my favorite first drop on any traditional wood coaster. The views of Lake Erie are stunning and it offers some sustained ejector airtime the whole way down. The rest of the first half is one of the best first halves of any coaster. The four small bunny hills give some major sustained floater airtime and the ride feels very fast. The one dead spot in the first half is when the train slowly crawls over the top of the turnaround, but it does offer another chance to take in Lake Erie and when the ride is warmed up, the drop gives some decent floater in the back. The second half isn't quite as good. You lose a ton of speed climbing up the ravine. And I realize Gravity Group had no choice to do this or end the ride prematurely. While the second half isn't fast, it's smooth and does offer some pops of airtime up front. Towards the back, the ride needs to be warmed up to get airtime in the second half. That first half carries the ride though. The airtime combined with the unique setting makes the ride. Plus, Waldameer does an incredible job caring for this coaster. With such an aggressive layout, this ride would definitely be rough without all the TLC it receives. 9 out of 10 Best billboard ever! Did I mention this ride has a bridge that crosses over a 4 lane road? The best shots of Ravine Flyer II are actually from outside the park. While Ravine Flyer II loses a ton of speed atop the turnaround, it essentially functions as a second "first" drop. Waldameer is also one of the rare parks to now be home to two spinning coasters. You have Steel Dragon, which was spinning quite a bit since the park was only loading one party per row. I still prefer the Gerstlauer spinners over the standard Maurer spinner layout, but Steel Dragon is a fairly smooth ride...unless you enter the brake run sideways. 5 out of 10 Steel Dragon (not 2000) I prefer the outward facing seats of the Maurer spinners since it's a lot more disorienting. The one party per car rule led to some great spinning. And you also have the brand new SBF Visa spinner in Whirlwind. While it seemed to be a big hit among kids and it's impressive the park squeezed it in, I'm not a fan of its appearance. It looks very temporary. I'm hoping the park can beautify it in the off-season since many of Waldameer's off-the-shelf rides are surrounded by fountains or gardens. Whirlwind sticks out like a sore thumb compared to how beautiful the rest of Waldameer is. The last coaster I rode (on this visit) was Comet, the park's junior wood coaster. It's basically a clone of the Woodstock Express coasters at the Cedar Fair parks, but Comet has a much better setting with all the trees around it. 5 out of 10 I wish I had a junior wood coaster near me growing up. Even the non-coasters at Waldameer are notable. Many of the flats run super long programs. One of the best examples of this is Chaos, the inverting frisbee. While this one wasn't quite as good as the one at the American Dream Mall, the ride had plenty of hangtime and some forceful downswings. 7 out of 10 It's rare I get to ride a flat ride named Chaos. My favorite flat at the park is X-Scream, the park's ARM drop tower. These drop towers are the most intense models out there. The drop packs a mighty punch. No other drop tower causes me to lose my stomach like this one and the airtime is terrifying the whole way down. Plus, this one gives an amazing view of Lake Erie. 10 out of 10 This may be my favorite drop tower outside of the Tower of Terrors and stand-up, floorless Intamin ones. The park also has a great log flume in Thunder River. I was skeptical the ride would open when it was closed for the first 6.5 hours of the day, but much to my amazement, Waldameer got it running for the last 1.5 hours. And I was very much appreciative since this one has two solid drops and a long tunnel. I also love how the park times it such that logs are going down both the big and small drops at the same time. 9 out of 10 What's in the shed? Last but not least, I love Whacky Shack, the classic dark ride. It's a mix of simple visual gags and corny statues, but the whole package just works. Especially since the end has a bit of speed and laterals as you careen around those hairpin turns. 9 out of 10 I never realized until this visit that the house had eyes. I really wish Waldameer was one of my home parks since it is such a pleasant park to be in and the park has a top notch coaster plus some great non-coasters.

No, they only harassed me on the midway.

^ Nickelodeon Universe actually has bathrooms. That I can confirm from my one visit last year.

Were the photos on Reddit and Facebook photoshops then?

Where did you see that one?

For anyone who hasn't read the fineprint, the American Dream attractions aren't allowing re-entry, they are not selling food, and food cannot be brought inside.

I'm seeing some pictures circulating online that El Toro now has metal detectors. If the park is going to have the no loose article rule, I'm in favor of this as opposed to being interogated by an employee at the entrance. The past few times I've had to turn a few cargo pockets inside out so this may accelerate things.

New England's rides also tend to shut down earlier in the cold than Great Adventure. Except the SLC. That ride is a tank and I have never seen it go down for any reason in any season. It ran with temperatures in single digits a few years ago and outlasted the infrastructure of the park.

Canobie was hitting capacity on weekdays this year so I'm not surprised it was busy on a weekend as well. Canobie's coaster lineup is just ok. The atmosphere, friendly staff, and non-coasters are where the park shines.

The back row on the original Raptors is already insane, so if this actually has 10 row trains, the airtime will be unreal back there.

I only rode it once with Flash Pass. I think they were only running two trains the day I visited but they weren't stacking them. They were also only loading every other row when I was there, but I believe they're loading every row now.

Ah, that makes sense. I kind of forgot about Red Force. Wonder if the reliability of the LSMs on that have been better than the launch system on Dragster/Ka. Thanks for the insights. I was at PortAventura for two days and not once did Red Force go down. I don't think I've ever had a day at Six Flags Great Adventure or Cedar Point where Kingda Ka or Top Thrill Dragster didn't breakdown at least once. Those new Intamin lap bars are just as good as the T-bars in my opinion. The only issue with the ones on Red Force is when they violently release in the station.

The park website now has a banner saying "NEW Roller Coaster in 2021" when promoting their season pass sales. I can't wait to see what they announce later.

^ I strongly recommend booking FL+ in advance since it has been selling out on Saturdays.

I prefer Top Thrill Dragster by a slim margin. Launch- I think Kingda Ka's launch is technically stronger, but Top Thrill Dragster's launch feels identical to me. The one pro Kingda Ka has is that there isn't a countdown. Top Hat- The airtime over the top is comparable on both. I prefer the top hat on Dragster for the view of Cedar Point/Lake Erie. It's quite a bit better than the New Jersey woods. Comfort- This is where Top Thrill Dragster has the major edge. If you ride up front, both rides are equally as smooth. But Kingda Ka gets rough if you ride towards the back. I almost always ride up front, so this doesn't really impact me. Top Thrill Dragster also has the lap bars so it feels way more free. However, I prefer Red Force to both. The launch doesn't have the same initial kick, but it feels just as crazy by the end of the launch. The view is similar to Dragster, but I prefer the straight drop since the airtime is far more pronounced. Plus Red Force has a surprising pop of airtime going into the brake run that Dragster or Ka don't have.

https://www.phantasialand.de/de/rookburgh/ Per Phantasialand's website, FLY and the new area have been soft opened.

Thanks! Jersey Devil should be a compelling reason combined with their already loaded lineup.

Six Flags Great Adventure My visits to Six Flags Great Adventure typically fall into two categories. 1) I visit when it isn't Holiday in the Park for a few hours. I'll ride Kingda Ka, Nitro, and Zumajaro once. And then I'll marathon El Toro. 2) I visit when it's Holiday in the Park and marathon the B&Ms. This visit was textbook category 1. One of the most famous amusement park skylines. The day started with an El Toro marathon. The ride opened a few minutes late, but I rode it nonstop for the first hour in the back car. Several times I was able to stay onboard without getting out of my seat. El Toro is an uneven coaster in my opinion. The ride's four best moments are as good as any coaster. The sustained ejector airtime on the first drop, two camelbacks, and Rolling Thunder Hill are matched by very few coasters. But I don't love the middle section of the ride. El Toro has a lot of speed, but the turnaround and speed hill don't do much for me. And then the twister section at the end is decent, but it just can't rival the insanity that precedes it. In terms of smoothness, El Toro was still running quite smoothly. There was one bad jolt at the bottom of the turnaround, but Six Flags has done a good job addressing these so I expect this bit to be retracked this offseason. 9 out of 10 I can feel the airtime just looking at this photo. El Toro is a really interesting looking ride with the slender first half and spread out finale. Getting on Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro were ordeals. The rides kept opening and closing throughout the day. It seemed like every time I'd make the hike over to Golden Kingdom, one or both rides were closed. When Kingda Ka opened, I used my skip-the-line pass. It may have been a walk-on, but I didn't care. Even if I skipped 2 people, that very well could have been the difference between avoiding a breakdown. The park was allowing you to wait for the front, so I took the gamble Kingda Ka wouldn't go down and was rewarded with one of the best adrenaline rushes of any coaster. The force of that launch is incredible, the sense of speed is unreal, and the top hat is fantastic for the view and pop of airtime. 8.5 out of 10 I can't believe this area used to be a parking lot. Six Flags actually made the area look really nice! As fast as this cheetah runs, I had a date with a coaster 2X faster. No I did not take my phone with me. I went up the exit ramp afterwards to get this photo. Zumanjaro kept getting stuck halfway up the tower, but I was able to catch it when it reopened. And I was rewarded with a walk-on. Granted, I've never seen this drop tower have a line because of how obnoxiously long the queue is. The walk to Zumanjaro is good training for a 5K. The height and view on Zumanjaro is as good as any drop tower, but the drop felt a bit weaker than past years. It was ridiculously long, but it lacked the stomach dropping sensation the other Intamin drop towers typically provide. 8 out of 10 I don't have any photos of Zumanjaro since it kept breaking down, so here's another picture of Kingda Ka. In my non-Holiday in the Park visits, I typically avoid the B&Ms anyway. But the crowds made the decision easy for me. When I visited, Six Flags was skipping every other row and loading one party per row. This transformed the 4 across B&Ms into the least efficient coasters in the park. This was the one B&M looper I wanted to ride since it's not open for HITP, but it had a 90 minute wait. No thanks! I wasn't going to stand for a 2 hour line. Get it? Superman was also posting a 2 hour wait. And this was on a weekday. I used my second skip-the-line pass on Nitro. That was the one B&M I was not willing to skip. I was able to request the back row, which is my favorite seat and I can't always get that at HITP when they need to front load the train (understandably). And Nitro was running far faster than I remember. I think I'm just used to this thing crawling along in sub-freezing temperatures. The airtime was stronger than I remember. However, the ride was rattling badly in the valleys in the first half. Maybe it was a bad train, but I'm hoping it runs smoother for HITP. 8 out of 10 Six Flags's most explosive coaster. When I returned to El Toro in the early afternoon, the entire queue was filled and it had a posted 90 minute wait. Thankfully, I had one last skip-the-line pass that allowed me to bypass that wait. This made me extremely glad I marathoned the ride early in the day. That was especially true when I discovered the park was now assigning seats on El Toro and you couldn't request a specific row, even if it was free. That was a bit disappointing, but I realize El Toro's station is so narrow it's near impossible to social distance and it's not something the park does in normal years. But even in the middle row, the ride's signature four elements still delivered boatloads of airtime. One of the best drops in the world. So much sustained ejector airtime. But the middle section is a bit dull. Thankfully, El Toro has one last hurrah with the Rolling Thunder hill. The only other ride I rode was Runaway Mine Train. I caught it after a breakdown, so it was a walk-on. The ride was as janky as you'd expect an old Arrow mine train to be, but the final bunny hill delivers a powerful pop of airtime. That moment is why I rode the coaster and it did not disappoint. 5.5 out of 10 Six Flags doesn't put out "No Swimming" signs. They just have the water look like this and it's a natural deterrent. When I visited, construction had ceased on Jersey Devil, but I could see it popping above the kids area. I can't wait for this coaster to open next year and if it rides anything like the other Raptors, I think it will become the new best ride in the park (for me at least). I'm hoping to make it back to Great Adventure before HITP for some more El Toro rides, but I'll definitely be back for Holiday in the Park as long as the park remains open. Raptors always look super cool in person with that narrow track gauge.

I really hope this is a new roller coaster of some sort, but I have a feeling it may be one of those Gerstlauer Sky Flys based on the plane and loop on the park's tweet.

Thanks! Hersheypark has found the perfect balance between thrill rides and appearance.

Hersheypark is definitely up there for me as well. It's a beautiful park with some great coasters.

I definitely wasn't expecting this announcement. I agree with everyone else that the best way to integrate this into the resort would be to add it as an area of Ferrari Land. That may actually make that park worthy of a full day. If this opens as a standalone park, I fear it may not have enough rides for a full day and be a repeat of Ferrari Land.

Orion. I drove past Kings Island on my way home and was able to get an extra ride in. I like this coaster more with each ride.