Canobie Coaster

^ They're completely different rides. The Huss ones focus on spinning while these ones are all about the swinging and airtime. The ride's name is perfect considering the ride's location next to Joker. The ride's placement is amazing and the ride is going to look absolutely massive walking towards the South End. Kennywood's version was down for all my visit this year and the one in Texas went down before I boarded, so I hope I just got extremely unlucky there and that this will have good uptime because Riddler Revenge was one of the best of the genre when I finally was able to get on it (I still prefer MaXair but this is very close).

Definitely sounds like a cool ride. Hopefully it's open by the Haunted Graveyard at Lake Compounce so I can drop in. I'm interested to know how many days a year this will operate since it only says 7 days a week.

Georgia Cyclone was still a fun coaster when I rode it last year and had amazing airtime in the back, but this definitely looks like a major upgrade. It's like when Six Flags Discovery Kingdom closed Roar. Yes Roar was still a pretty good ride, but by all accounts Joker is a significantly better coaster. I absolutely love that first turnaround. I saw a similar element in Planet Coaster when I got the game and was hoping to see it in real life someday. I love how they were able to use that turnaround to add the barrel roll drop since it allowed the ride to have a standard first drop, which is the best part of an RMC in my opinion. The ride does seem short on track length, but it certainly packs a lot into that time frame.

^ I was about to ask if they still had their Trabant. Quassy added a version by SBF last year with the same seating arrangement so it's cool to see another one of these pop up. No new coaster again, but the park adds another solid flat ride to their lineup.

Berkshire Mountain Coaster & Lake George Last weekend, we made a quick day trip up to Lake George. My girlfriend had never been and it had been a few years since I visited what I consider the mini golf capital of the world. I made a pit stop at the Great Escape on the way home from Pennsylvania earlier this year to ride the Comet, but skipped it on this trip since she didn't have a season pass and I couldn't justify spending a majority of our day there with everything else available in the area. It felt like a foreign concept driving by a Six Flags park like that, but this one is also among the chain's weakest. We did however get our roller coaster fix in at the Berkshire Mountain Resort. Instead of forking over cash to Massachusetts to take the Pike (they already get enough of my taxes), we took the scenic route. This allowed us to pass the most depressing fair ever (they only had a VHS sale, kiddie pool, and some paintings), an awesome looking fair that wasn't open yet by Reithoffer Shows, and most importantly the Berkshire Mountain Resort, which is home to one of the best mountain coasters out there. The resort also has mountain biking if you are coordinated enough to not kill yourself and a great looking ropes course. But I wasted no time signing my life away to board the Thunderbolt Mountain Coaster. Unfortunately, it did have a bit of a wait (20 minutes), but the staff was doing a great job spacing everyone out so there was no one close to you. I'll happily wait 20 minutes to make sure I can get a ride at full tilt than to have a mother and daughter riding like it's a school zone down the mountain. This mountain coaster is the longest I've been on and it's currently the longest in North America until the new one at Copper Mountain opens. Along with being a crazy long ride, this one is more intense. There are 5-6 little dips that give pops of air on the way down and the first few turns in particular are taken very fast and produce some amazing laterals. I'm a major fan of mountain coasters and this one along with the one at Attitash are in a class of their own. 9 out of 10 5 minutes later you will reach the top. You get actual airtime on this one! Two hours later, we reached Lake George and Route 9 which is one of those strips in a tourist trap town with all sorts of food, motels, and mini golf courses. Lake George is also a town proud of its history, so if you are a history buff you will also find all sorts of forts and historical reenactment areas. I'm not kidding about the latter, every tenth person I saw walking down the street was dressed like George Washington or Abigail Adams. No thank you; I'll stick with my $4 Lake George T-Shirts. "An" historical impact... Whoever printed this is clearly from the south. And of course there is a huge lake. We considered hiking but didn't realize just how large Lake George was since most of the good hiking trails were 35-45 minute trips from the town of Lake George. We decided to see the lake the American way and just drive up to the lake. Since it was a beautiful 70-75 degree day, we saw tons of people out on boats or parasailing. After dipping my toes into the frigid water, I was strongly against it. Lake George is really beautiful. Note the lack of people in the lake. That dog was the only brave soul in the water. The first mini golf course we stopped at was Goony Golf. I am a sucker for mini golf courses with obstacles, so this course was wacky enough for me. Every hole had some type of obstacle to go through and some of them were truly crazy with my favorite being the dinosaur with a caveman on a yo-yo (yes you read that right). They also had a little arcade with some older games I hadn't seen in a while such as the skeeball variant with the basketball hoops. Goony Golf is a very apt name. The caveman is literally on the dinosaur's yo-yo. That's amazing. The ghost on the left pretty much looks like a scrotum. That's a menacing looking bird. As amazing as Goony Golf is (it's probably in the top 5 of courses I have played), the two courses down the road are significantly better. That's not a knock on Goony Golf at all. Rather it's just how amazing the Around the US and Around the World mini golf courses are. Situated right next to the lake, there are two very well themed 18 hole courses with some of the best obstacles anywhere. This is hands down the best mini golf course I've been to. Around the US could only represent 18 of the states with holes (though they creatively made a Golden Gate bridge walkway), but they did a good job mixing in states from all regions of the country. Some of the highlights include the Texas hole that combines an oil refinery and football, the Las Vegas roulette hole (you launch the ball into a roulette and have a 1/4 chance of getting a 1, 2, 3, or 4, or if you're me you have a 100% chance of getting the 4), and the New York hole. The latter is a very well themed subway station (right down to the graffiti) that gives you a chance to win a free game. Oil refinery? Check. Dallas Cowboys? Check. State Pride? Check. This hole sums up Texas perfectly. I swear I always get the 4 on this hole. This is why I will never gamble in Vegas. New Jersey had a cool hole too where you had to go through this carousel. The subway is the highlight though. The attention to detail is amazing. You can try to win a free game, lost some strokes on your score, or fail spectacularly like me. Of the two, I prefer Around the World and I think that's a consensus judging by the crowds at this course compared to the stateside one. In an hour I was able to avoid being raped by Paul Bunyan in Canada, have Napoleon go all Captain Morgan on my golf ball, and smash a kangaroo in the face. The latter is involved with the best and most dangerous mini golf hole I have ever seen. For Australia, there is a kangaroo. If you hit the ball off a ski jump and into the pouch, you get -2 of your score. You can either take this challenge or be boring and safely putt around the kangaroo. Thankfully no one intentionally does the latter since the results are hysterical. 5 out of 10 people miss the kangaroo entirely, 4 out of 10 drill the kangaroo somewhere other than the pouch, and 1 out of 10 will launch the ball into the parking lot or onto another hole. You may think I accidentally missed hitting the ball in the pouch, but I didn't. It's really dang hard to do so. My sister did it a long time ago, but that's the only successful shot I've witnessed. You still have to go for it though. Beer for Germany. How fitting with Oktoberfest coming up. Paul Bunyan looks like he is going to rape you. Napoleon decided to Captain Morgan my ball and I somehow got my ball stuck under that yellow plate. The infamous kangaroo hole. You are going to fail hitting it in that pouch, but you have to try. We also explored the village for a bit. The place was buzzing at 9-11 at night. I'm not sure if this is the usual crowds or if it was larger because of the big Mayweather-McGregor fight that was happening that night. We got some great pizza at a place called Pizza Jerks, found a book store going out of business and almost bought the Great Big Book of Sex and a Children's Bible for $5 total (we really wanted to see the clerk's reaction), and stopped in a few arcades. The arcades ranged from older style games to the phone app/Dave and Buster style games. So many tourist trap activities. This was a hybrid kiddie park/arcade. We saw a drunk girl come out screaming and then run across the street yelling her name. That seems like a smart decision. Big Bertha finally escaped after all these years. The closest we got to the Great Escape was when we stopped for ice cream at Martha's across the street. After losing 2/3 rounds of mini golf, I owed her an ice cream. This place has the largest soft serve cones you will ever see as the large is 2 feet tall! Seriously Yelp this place if you want to see the largest ice cream cone you will ever see. And it was only $4 to boot. This is the closest we got to the Great Escape. You can see Sasquatch towering in the background.

Is there any other way to flavor that?

Those trains look fantastic!

I was expecting the worst on that Vekoma corkscrew, but Super Manege was actually a lot of fun. The drops had good air and the corkscrews weren't rough at all for me. As for Le Monster, I remember one side being decent when I rode in the front, but my ride in the back row on the other side was pretty bad. That ride is just screaming for a RMC makeover despite how it won the chain's Tournament of Thrills a few years back.

That's the way to teacup. It's a guilty pleasure of mine to ride some of the ones meant for kids since those cups spin so much easier like the ones at Dollywood or even the Zamperla Samba Balloons. Though it is possible to tea cup too hard.

At Canobie, I won't ride the Pirate Ship since those rides are guaranteed to make me sick. The Xtreme Frisbee and Wipeout can also make me queasy but the former is usually closed and the latter is the best of its type so I try and suck it up towards the end of the day.

That's funny they put VR on a Wacky Worm but it definitely would make the standard kiddie ride more thrilling for adults.

It is a long weekend and the weather looks beautiful, so I'd expect larger than usual crowds on a Friday. Also, the high is only 70 degrees on Friday so I think a lot of people that usually go to the water park may stay on the ride side.

I really hope Colossos can retain the same layout since the ride when maintained sounds amazing. It would just be wrong to me to RMC a freaking Intamin plug and play.

I think the worst part is that the Sky Ride is gone, but the towers and 2 stations remain as memories.

Glad you had a great time at Canobie! Going 2 for 2 on the back row of the Cannonball? You're lucky! The ride used to have more air but the recent retracking by GCI took some away. However the ride still runs incredibly smooth as you saw. Untamed can be quite brutal on that cutback and the transition into the helix. I have to lean forward to avoid any pain. I just wish it had the lap bars like Hydrus.

Interesting. It has been 3 years since I have been on Superman and when I first rode it, I had been on less coasters than I have now so I didn't notice the acceleration being different.

Great report! I'm on the boat that Fury is an amazing ride, but it seems that you feel the same on Intimidator considering you passed on it. Intimidator is at the bottom of my B&M hyper list with Diamondback. Way too many trims. I enjoyed the Plants vs. Zombies ride too. On a lot of those 3D shooters, I have had a tough time telling which gun is mine but I didn't have a problem with the one at Carowinds.

The little one at Canobie gives a solid amount of air too. It still doesn't compare to Kennywood's crazy version, but still fun.

I thought it was that bad sections of track could be removed and then replaced more easily. But if they never replaced any track sections and had to do it all at once, that could be very costly. It's a shame that Colossos reached this state considering how well the other pre-fabs are running. I really hope they save the ride, but I have a bad feeling a new ride is more marketable than pumping $10+ million (if it is in fact double digit millions to correct the ride) into saving their previous star attraction.

Just a random thought, but do you think the park would look to get the same style PTCs for 2018 or a different style train? If the reason the park only runs one train on Boulder Dash is related to stress on the structure, could they possibly try looking at a lighter train?

I got a season pass for this year since they were so cheap and I figured it would be perfect to rack up rides on Boulder Dash, but I have only been once. I was planning my second visit after Wildcat opened, which originally was supposed to be late May. The opening didn't happen until 3 months later. I was finally planning on going next week and then Boulder Dash crashed. Since I have both a SFNE and Lake Compounce pass, I cannot justify going to the latter without Boulder Dash. I thought the offseason work to attractions paid off. While Wildcat isn't as smooth as you'd think, it at least sounds like it's faster now with the new trains by the accounts I have heard. The new guns on Ghost Hunt were a massive upgrade (they work and are easy to aim). Lastly I thought Boulder Dash was running well. The replacement for the triple up is significantly smoother. It's still an aggressive ride but I have never found it too rough. My gripes are on the operations? I can only go on a weekend with my work schedule and I didn't want to be queuing in an hour wait with 1 train ops when they had a perfectly good train sitting on the transfer track. The flume and Ghost Hunt also run a third of the number of cars they probably should as well. The ops send out the cars/trains quickly when they come in, but there's just too much waiting going on.

Phobia runs as well as SFDK's Superman so I was pumped when Lake Compounce added it. I really don't mind if this coaster gets cloned a bunch like the free flies.

What is it with these transfer track collisions lately? It seems weird they'd run a train during the transfer. Hopefully they can get Boulder Dash up and running again this year. I was planning to check out Wildcat next weekend but will hold off if Boulder Dash is down.

Thanks! I haven't really explored other children's museums but that'll be something after I have kids. Though the City Museum is something that is going to happen much sooner.

That'd be awesome news! I had a feeling their replacement coaster would have been something like a wild mouse but that has me excited. I would love to finally see a wooden coaster by the Atlantic again.