Canobie Coaster

I have the same thing! One thing that has changed is the gift shop by Excalibur. It no longer sells real swords (I can understand that one) or coaster memorabilia. Now it just sells candy and random glow items.

Funtown U.S.A. Funtown is a park that I almost bought a season pass for the past two years. They have a good wooden roller coaster, some nice flats, a fun log flume, and a great water park. They are also only an 1-1.5 hours from me. So what's stopping me? The value. While a season pass costs over $100, Funtown offers one of the best deals on twilight tickets in the industry at $10-$13. That's an amazing deal! Since I definitely wouldn't make it to the park over 10 times per year, the twilight ticket is the way to go. For a 10 pm closing, the super discounted twilight ticket begins at 6 pm. With the low crowds Funtown gets, 4 hours is more than enough to hit the major attractions and get several rerides on Excalibur. They also have another twilight ticket starting at 3 pm that's $20. For that reason, I don't feel the need to get there at opening and pay almost $40. I made sure to visit on a Saturday when the park was open until 10 to get some night rides on Excalibur. I'll pay for four hours at an amusement park any day of the week. We started off with the Grand Prix Racers go karts. Unlike most parks that have go karts as an upcharge attraction, Funtown includes them with park admission, no strings attached. Well actually there are strings attached; you only get two rides, but honestly one is sufficient. In a world when FECs charge ~$6 for go karts, I'll happily pay double that to also get rides on everything else at Funtown. As far as go karts go, these ones are just average, but they are just gravy on top of everything else the park has to offer. 6 out of 10 After some disappointing S&S towers down in Texas, I was afraid I had built up an immunity to turbo drops. Dragon's Descent quelled those fears. While not an Intamin or ARM/Larson tower, this is the strongest drop on any of the S&S towers I've been on. That's combined with the breathtaking views at the top (make sure you face the entrance so you can see the Atlantic Ocean) and how awesome the theming is around the ride. The dragon at the main entrance looks like something worthy of a Disney parade and the control tower/compressor building look fantastic. 8 out of 10 Dragon's Descent rides as well as it looks. If I'm at Funtown USA, why is one of the park's largest areas themed to China? It really towers over everything else in the park. It was at this point I had a realization about the park's "theme". Why does a park called Funtown U.S.A. have sections themed to China (Dragon's Descent), Europe (Excalibur's area), and Mexico (the big restaurant across from the Antique Cars) yet nothing themed to the US? The park looks great, but it was just a weird observation I made during my most recent visit. I guess the park wanted to represent the diversity of the US with the theme? Up next was the park's flume. One of the better ones out there, Thunder Falls has a pretty long layout and occupies a large chunk of the park's used land. The ride only features one drop, but it's a very good one. It's quite tall and you are pretty much guaranteed to get soaked. Not from the splashdown, but from water cannons. The park has 6 of them and you are pretty much guaranteed to see a line of rapid New Englanders with quarters in-hand and the focus only a Dunkin Donuts coffee can give them. 9 out of 10 It looks dry now, but it's anything but that when you give a New Englander a quarter. Enough foreplay, it was time for Excalibur. This CCI creation is the coaster that really put Funtown on the map. At one point, Excalibur was my favorite coaster. The ride hasn't gotten any worse, I have just been on over 400 other coasters since I first rode Excalibur. It's still a good coaster and in the top third of the woodies I've been on since the park has maintained it well. Like Dragon's Descent, the park did a great job theming Excalibur. The Camelot theming is a very nice touch, but the best part about Excalibur is its setting. It is located entirely in the woods, which conceals the layout for first time riders and creates one heck of a memorable night ride when the sun sets. For that reason, I strongly recommend visiting Funtown on a day when it is open until 10 so you can maximize night rides on Excalibur. Despite only running one train, crowds weren't an issue as it was only a 2-3 train wait for the front or back seats. It's a toss up which seat I prefer, so I distributed my rides equally. RMC and Intamin have since surpassed Excalibur in this area, but at one point Excalibur had one of the steepest drops on any wooden coaster. The first drop still packs a mighty punch in the back seat. The first half of the ride has some amazing speed and air. The first turnaround gives a major pop of ejector air combined with some laterals. The next turn is probably the roughest point on the ride, but it's still completely tolerable. It's a lightly banked turn with some great laterals. The next bunny hill is puny which gives airtime that is anything but puny. The subsequent turnaround is much like the first one with some fantastic air and laterals. Unfortunately Excalibur does peter out in the second half. There is another pop of air and some decent laterals, but the speed and breakneck pacing of the first half disappeared like the sun did on Monday. If Excalibur had a better second half, I honestly think this ride could have been as good as Holiday World's Raven with the setting and pacing of the first half. 8 out of 10 Still one of my favorite coasters to ride at night. The setting in the woods is perfect. I had every intention of returning to Excalibur at the end of the night, but first we had to hit some other rides towards the front of the park. Up next was the park's smaller coaster, the Wild Mouse. A Mauer Sohne version, this one is barely braked and is up there with Hershey's for my favorite standard mouse coaster. 6.5 out of 10 Definitely one of the wilder wild mice. Along with Dragon's Descent, Funtown has two other great flats in Atsrosphere and their Bumper Cars. Astrosphere is an amazing indoor scrambler that's more like a rave than a spinning ride. The park employees pride themselves in putting on crazy shows with lasers, fog, and projections all while ELO's Fire on High (an amazing song for a ride) is blasted. 10 out of 10 Funtown also has a very underrated set of bumper cars. With old classic cars, no divider, and a very long ride time, Funtown's Bumper Cars are among the best I've been on. While most parks are openly against head-on collisions (even without the divider), Funtown couldn't care less which gives you the perfect opportunity to ram full speed into your friends and absolutely launch them. 9 out of 10 No divider and a blind eye to head on collisions, yes please. With a half hour left, we returned back to Excalibur to finish the night. We got a ride in the back and it was even better at night. The entire layout was pitch black outside of the lift hill and the ride felt so much faster. Since it was a complete walk-on at this point, the park was more than willing to save you a trip down the long exit ramp. They had you exit the train and herded everyone just beyond the exit gate. After they opened and closed the air gates, it was the running of the bulls for any open seat. Since we didn't want to elbow anyone for the best seats, we instead chose to walk around to get one last ride in the front row. We re-entered the queue around 9:55 and were next in line for the front. Two 20-something year olds entered the queue line behind us. The ride ops came over and said the next ride would be the last of the night. Sweet! We got in line just in time. The ops asked the two behind us to switch to another row. 95 times out of 100, people may be disappointed but they will move. These two dug their feet in the sand. "We had our hearts set on the front seat. We didn't drive 50 minutes to be denied the front. This will run our whole visit." Eventually the employee said they could run another train. On one hand, that was great since we would get one extra ride on Excalibur (albeit probably in the middle with the stampede for the seats). On the other hand, I wish the employees hadn't caved into them. As we boarded our train, we heard the two behind us saying, "Those people [us] look like they have their hearts set on the front seat too. If they weren't selfish and moved back a row, the employees could have made this the last train of the night." I had to try so hard not to make a scene, but I'm sorry that we're being selfish for not giving up our spot in line for two people who didn't want to wait an extra 5-10 minutes earlier in the day to ride in the front row. We got back and those two sat down in the front row. We let the masses choose their seats and then ended up in the 3rd to back, which was a great choice all things considered. It was another great ride. As we returned to the station, the two in front started a "One more time" chant. Again, we were being the selfish ones. Funtown may not be as good as Canobie or Lake Compounce, but it's another smaller park that serves as an alternate to Six Flags New England. I can safely say that I'll be making at least 1-2 visits up to the park per year for the foreseeable future as long as they keep that great twilight ticket going. Afterwards, we stopped at Old Orchard Beach to get some greasy goodness at Pier French Fries. A staple of OOB, the pier fries are crispy crinkle fries that will certainly clog your arteries. But they are so good we quite frankly don't care. The place is directly across from Palace Playland, OOB's beachfront amusement park. Think of Nathan's fries. Except imagine them good. That's Pier French Fries. It really has the feel of a permanent carnival rather than a theme park so we didn't stop in, especially since it has been quite some time since they added anything new. I'm hoping they replace the Galaxi with a new coaster in the near future, but honestly I wonder if the park will be sticking around after so many other New England beach parks closed. I mean this is the one that lasted? The weird thing I observed about the park's closing is that it occurred in phases. The back half of the park closed at 11. The front left closed at 11:15. And the final quadrant closed close to midnight. It was pretty weird seeing them keep a Yo-Yo, 40 ft tall drop tower, and Troika open over everything else, but they still had riders so I don't blame them. That clown is pretty creepy.

It never had any airtime before so it already sounds like an improvement there. The final few hills were so slow with the PTCs as well.

York's Wild Kingdom On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we decided to make a quick trip up to Funtown to take advantage of their crazy cheap twilight ticket where you can get in for $13. I'd pay that alone for a few rides on Excalibur let alone the other rides in the park. We had a few hours to kill before that deal kicked in. Traffic on I-95 burned one of those tickets thanks to all the Massachusetts idiots going to Hampton Beach (there are seriously much nicer beaches in Mass- Nantasket, Cape Cod, Rockport, etc). After crawling across the Maine line, we decided to make a pit stop in York. For most people, that's to visit the big lighthouse and the beach. Privy enthusiasts know that there's a little zoo with an even smaller credit known as York's Wild Kingdom. You'd think it was only a zoo based on this sign. But not based off of this entrance. The Ferris Wheel is run very fast and gives some great views of York. They used to have a respectable credit with a Flitzer until the late 1990s, but they decided to remove it for batting cages the same year that Funtown opened Excalibur. A few years back they re-entered into the coaster scene with the Wacky Mouse. You may think this would be a wild mouse style coaster, but instead it's an ever popular wacky worm. I didn't ride it. Not because I'm above credit whoring, but because I already had the credit from my trip last year. Credit whores take note. The park's main draw is the zoo. I probably haven't been to the zoo side in 10 years at this point, but remember it being solid. The ride side has 2 good fun houses, a scrambler, a round-up, go karts, and kiddie rides. They used to have a great set of bumper cars, but the old pavilion was torn down and they got a set of modern cars that move so painstakingly slow that it's simply not a fun ride. The park also has a great Ferris Wheel that is run much faster than most parks. We actually passed right through the park (that says a lot about the park) to tour downtown York. The water was frigid so we didn't really go on the beach, but we walked through downtown York for a bit passing the homemade candy shop and eventually popping in the old arcade, Fun-o-Rama. They had an excellent section of older games, highlighted by 2 rows of pinball machines. Pinball is still the best arcade game. Like most New England beaches, the water was frigid. I could watch this machine all day. It's refreshing seeing an arcade without the initials D&B. Fun o Rama had a great selection of pinball machines. They got more money from me than York's Wild Kingdom.

Any reason it isn't opening until 1? Glad to hear the first half is quite good now. Is it giving any airtime?

Did Golden Horse enter the water slide industry? If I wasn't worried about the manufacturer, the ride looks really cool.

Cool report of a rarely traveled park. Big Dipper sounds like a solid wooden coaster. Does it run mostly smooth? I only hear about that pop of air in the few accounts I read. Everything about this park sounds retro.

I'm not sad to see River Battle go, but I actually thought the ride looked pretty good contrary to most other opinions. I think the employees who had to hear that song all day will be most excited to see it go though.

Yikes that's quite the pile up. Most water slides don't dispatch the next raft until it splashes down so I'm interested to know how this many rafts were sent down.

Great! It took a while but at least it was faster than Castaway Cove's Miler. Really interested to hear reviews now.

Is Wildcat open now? The banner on the website that previously listed the ride down for ride commissioning is gone. I'm really interested in hearing if it's finally a good ride since it was one of the worst woodies I have ever been on last time I rode it.

Wow wasn't expecting River Battle to be removed but then again it was the least busy of their water rides. It wouldn't be a flashy addition, but I would love to see some flats added in that space to add more things on the loop around the park.

Even with Xcelerator open last year, GhostRider was a 90 minute wait. Xcelerator was a 30 minute wait. The other coasters were 10-15 minutes tops. HangTime will definitely help distribute crowds a bit better, especially once Xcelerator and Monty both reopen. The new coaster should also help alleviate GhostRider's line as well. I wonder if Xcelerator is getting a third train, or maybe new trains in general? For the coaster to be closed this long with "TBD" means it is quite serious, whatever it is. I can't see them getting a 3rd train. If they really did want to improve Xcelerator's capacity, they need to move that launch out from the station which would be a major project. Moving the launch forwards would require more power, but the only other option would be to actually move the station. I can't see that happening.

Canobie Lake Park, Visit 2 I had plans fall through on a Friday afternoon. Since it was a gorgeous 80 degree day, I decided to go 5 miles north on the highway to Canobie for my second visit of the year. I fully expected the park to be more crowded than my first visit this year on a dreary day, and I was right about that, but that only resulted in a max wait of 30 minutes for the Yankee Cannonball. Canobie, the happiest place in New Hampshire. This visit would also let me test out my new phone's camera. This is something that has been a year in the making. Last year, Storm Chaser annihilated my phone case. In the time I had my phone out of the case, my frame bent so I knew I'd have to replace it someday. My phone lasted a year, but it was dealt a near fatal blow by another RMC down in Texas. My phone was still functional, but the frame bend became more pronounced and it started to overheat pretty quickly. The employee parking lot runs next to the Yankee Cannonball, so I began my visit standing at the edge of this parking lot testing out my phone's camera. I had an employee watching me confused as I did it, but he didn't say anything since I stayed in the public lot. I guess if you spend 40 hours working at the park, the Yankee Cannonball doesn't look quite as fun. Overall I think the camera did pretty well. The max zoom wasn't as good as my digital camera, but it's at least passable and the standard photos may be better. For a camera phone, the zoom is pretty good. This camera will do nicely. This hill probably has the best air on the ride. GCI ruined the air off this turn, but the ride is still glass smooth at least. Since it was a relatively warm day, I decided to start off with the Boston Tea Party. I hadn't ridden this in years since a majority of my visits have been in the evening, but I was in the mood to get soaked from head to toe on this day. It's still one of the best themed shoot the chute rides out there. While it seems a lot of parks are removing their versions, I see Canobie keeping this one around for a very long time. It's still one of the park's marquee rides and has an entire area themed to it. The ride itself gives a great view of Canobie Lake (the lake, not the park) and I definitely prefer the Hopkins versions over the Intamin ones. The Hopkins ones have better drops and far larger splashes. If I'm going on a shoot the chutes ride, I am expecting to get soaked so the massive wave is part of the experience. I rode it twice since it was a walk-on. How many parks theme an entire area for a shoot the chutes ride? They're still dry...for now. And there it goes. I spent the first 2 hours riding a lot of flats. I rode the Turkish Twist twice. After the first run, I was still damp from the Boston Tea Party so I needed to go back in the dryer. I also rode Star Blaster and the queue moved much more slowly than I anticipated due to only one worker checking the restraints (usually they have 2). I ended up waiting a half hour, which is double what I usually wait, but the airtime at the top of the tower made up for it. After the Boston Tea Party, I felt like a piece of wet laundry. Blasting towards the stars (and not the eclipse). The flying cocks. Two flats I did not get on were the Matterhorn and Xtreme Frisbee. The former has been gone for over 10 years at this point. In that time it has been replaced with a hot dog stand, the amazing Equinox, and then the hot dog stand again. That pad really needs a ride there and there may be movement on that front. I made sure to take a peek during the day after not seeing much at night in my last visit. It's hard to say what's coming, but I'm optimistic after years of not receiving a new ride. Then the Xtreme Frisbee has been down for a year at this point and it's not even on the park's website anymore. Please be for a new ride. I'm sick of that hot dog stand being here. I am seriously wondering if the Frisbee will ever run again at this point. I had planned to ride the Corkscrew once. As I walked up, I saw a group of people waiting behind the railroad tracks. I didn't see a train coming so I was wondering why the land of jaywalking had a group of people sitting there like a herd of sheep. Much to my amazement, the line extended beyond the tracks. I had never seen the queue that long before so Corkscrew was dropped from my plans. The kiddie coaster didn't have a wait on the way by, but I decided to move onto bigger and better things. When the kiddie coaster is pulling a line, you know it's a busier day at the park. And the better things were the park's two major coasters, Untamed and Yankee Cannonball. I started with Untamed since I wanted to save the latter for night. Untamed appeared to have a 15-20 minute wait, but I was able to skip that using the ride's somewhat hidden single rider line. I got two rides in a 10 minute stretch. I really wish this thing had lap bars like Hydrus, but it's still a very enjoyable coaster as long as you brace yourself for the changes of direction. I don't know what area looks better, Boston or Big Bear Plaza. It was about 8:30 so I decided to head over to the Yankee Cannonball. It had a full queue, which equates to just over a half hour wait. I knew I'd be able to get at least 2 rides in, but I was hoping to get 3. The park routinely closes the Yankee Cannonball's line down around 9:30 (something that has burned me many times in the past), so I was hoping I'd get off my second ride before the cutoff. I only got two rides as the wait was closer to 35 minutes that 30 minutes (in this case, every minute counted), but on the bright side I got the very back for my last ride. As I said in my last Canobie report, the back is by far the best seat on the Yankee Cannonball. There's a major difference between that seat and even the second to back. My last ride in the darkness was fantastic. Plenty of great air on the larger drops and even some surprise pops on the return leg which is usually air free. With the queue line for the Yankee Cannonball closed, I decided to finish up with the Log Flume. I was able to get 3 rides in. After the Yankee Cannonball, this is definitely my favorite ride in the park. I rarely ever ride this during the daytime since I know I can get on with no line at the end of the day and there's something peaceful riding through the woods in the evening. When the Yankee Cannonball's queue line closes, this is the best backup plan. Overall it was a quick impromptu visit, but I had a great day as usual at Canobie. It was the perfect excuse to test out my new phone's camera and ride a few of my favorites at the park. I really do hope they have a new ride coming next year since it has been several years, but regardless I will definitely be sneaking up there at least once or twice after a day of work. My phone handled the light package of the Ferris Wheel pretty well outside of the double effect.

^ I noticed the same things about the bathrooms at Funtown. I can't believe they don't have one back by Excalibur. That coaster is still running really well which is a testament to how well the park maintains it. If you had made it to Canobie, you'd be able to see how well they maintain an 85 year old coaster. The Yankee Cannonball runs glass smooth.

I've never noticed those two particular spots being bad, but yeah it's a very aggressive ride and that's why I love it. You are fortunate enough to have missed out on the disaster that the triple up became last year.

Excalibur

^ Most parks removed their Chance Chaos rides not because of ridership, but because of issues with the ride.

^^ It's also hard to forecast when the random CD day is going to be. Twice this year I saw it run consistently for a month, book a trip, and then have it go down before I arrive.

Canobie is the best park of those 3, but both Roar-o-saurus and Excalibur are better than any individual ride at Canobie.

Mystery Mine randomly went down one of the days I was there in June. That ride seemed to have the most downtime after Lightning Rod.

Even a Motel 6 will print tickets for you if you ask. If they can do it, anyone can do it.

I was terrified it was going to be removed so I was ecstatic to hear it during my visit last week. Unfortunately the park closed at 5 today. Did you end up going in the morning?

Yet the gimped ones are better because they have lap bars. The tiny hill onto the brake run in lieu of the helix also gave a surprising pop of air on Hydrus. So in some ways it's not even a loss.

If staffing is an issue, you think they'd want to have staff at Ride of Steel since it's their marquee ride yet Sk610 saw it closed and only make 2 test runs.