Canobie Coaster

Back in 2014, I had an internship in California. Like any good coaster enthusiast, I used the internship as an opportunity to visit all the major parks in California (2014 Photo TR). My favorites were down in Southern California with Disneyland being one of my favorite parks ever. In 2015, I was able to make a return trip to Disneyland since I had a work trip nearby, but had to miss Knott's and Magic Mountain. In 2016, I planned a return trip spurred by free Disneyland tickets. Back in 2015, I booked bus tickets on the Disneyland Express bus to take me from LAX to Disneyland. At the time my bus was supposed to pick me up, a short white bus came saying they were the Disneyland Express. Turns out they were a counterfeit service but thankfully they brought me to the park (just charged a tip). I found out when I got to Disneyland the real bus was full-sized and covered in Disney characters. I let Disneyland know (primarily to save tourists like me who didn't look at the bus beforehand) and they were appreciate and provided free park tickets to return. Disneyland Flash forward to 2016 and I was back at Disneyland with my sister. It was her first time there (she had been to Walt Disney World 3 times) and she loved it as well. We went at the end of June during the 100 degree heat wave, but the boon of indoor attractions made the heat less of a concern. After experiencing the Magic Bands at Walt Disney World in 2015, I have to say that having the paper fastpasses was a nice change. Since Disneyland has more rides per park, it was nice being able to stockpile fastpasses faster. I was able to use my favorite strategy where I got a Fastpass at Disneyland, grab one at California Adventure, use the Disneyland Fastpass, use the California Adventure Fastpass, and repeat. I like both systems, but think the paper ones are better for Disneyland since my visits are shorter (2 days versus a week at Disney World). For Disney World, the bands work well since the rides are scattered across 4 parks instead of 2. What was new for my visit? The two biggest things were the 60th anniversary theming and Hyperspace Mountain. I thought the castle looked great with the banner. But the bigger addition was Hyperspace Mountain. I enjoyed the experience since it was definitely different than the normal Space Mountain with the well-timed video screens, Star Wars music, and an actual story line. Would I take it over the regular Space Mountain. Personally, no. I really like Michael Giacchino's score (one of my most played songs on my iPod) and the added darkness of the standard ride, but both versions are highly enjoyable. I spent the rest of the day hitting my favorites: - Indiana Jones (amazing theming, wild ride, kills Dinosaur) - Splash Mountain (prefer WDW for the theming, but the steeper drop is better in California) - Big Thunder Mountain (love the finale and glass smooth) - Matterhorn (historical and still a lot of fun) - Buzz Lightyear (thank you for having free-guns instead of mounted ones like WDW) - All the Dark Rides (Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Mr. Toad, love them all except it's a small world) Unfortunately Fantasmic wasn't open for the 2nd time in my three visits, but there was more than enough to do during my visit. Onto the photos! Continuing the tour de mountain, here's Big Thunder. I love the finale on this one. The castle looks big from this angle! Despite it's small size, the castle does look quite nice. Oooh pretty lights. Hyperspace Mountain was a cool overlay to experience, but I personally like the standard version better. Both are great though. Ok this shirt is pretty awesome! I love nothing on this one. Hi Captain Jack. I still can't believe how long this ride is. This may be the best parade float ever. There's something special walking through Tomorrowland at night. Splash Mountain is great as always. I like the drop on this one better than WDW's.

Nemesis Grona Land

The place was pretty crowded the week after Christmas so maybe they feel they have the younger audience locked down and there's no risk to completely 180 their marketing? That picture for the laser maze is great. She looks like she's making a model pose instead of doing the maze.

This is a really cool addition and I'm interested to see how the ride turns out. If Stan Checketts is involved and the ride uses air in some capacity, the roar from the underground tunnel could be absolutely terrifying.

I actually enjoy GateKeeper a lot but that may be because I don't get to ride wing coasters too often. It's not forceful, but I find helixes on wing coasters fun. I know I'm in the minority though. I don't knock Great Bear for the ending for the reasons you said. It's deliberate and better than adding an extra element that is a total bust.

A few years ago, everything at Kennywood was less than 15 minutes except Exterminator and Sky Rocket (first season). Exterminator had a 60 minute wait and Sky Rocket was about 30 minutes. I'd say to grab a quick ride on Sky Rocket (if no line) before running to Exterminator unless lines for Sky Rocket have dropped down.

It's so easy to complain though. But in all honesty, Great Adventure has one of the strongest coaster lineups which is why I try to make it down there at least once per year. I'd rank the coasters as follows: El Toro Nitro Kingda Ka Batman Superman Bizarro Green Lantern (on a good day) Dark Knight Skull Mountain Runaway Mine Train Harley Quinn's Crazy Train Road Runner Railway Still need to try Joker when it's open during a visit.

In this case the difference between S&S and Intamin isn't within 1% like it is with Verizon. Wow that double shot tower looks puny next to the larger ones. Not that double shots ever looked that large to begin with anyway.

The neighbors already complain about noise from the Alpine Bobsled which has led to completely asinine opening and closing times. Impulse coasters are some of the loudest coasters in existence so I don't really see that being a fit. Right I forgot about how it closes at 6. Well guess I'll still have to wait for another hand me down to become available.

I wish it was closer to me since the complex really had a little bit of everything. It was like Dave & Busters crossed with a go kart place/FEC. Most of the crowd there consisted of families with kids under 11 or 12, so not sure if adding larger rides is something they plan to do. Even if they wanted to they're also constrained by the roof. There's always next year to ride that Joker at least. It's an absolutely amazing place with a beautiful setting, endless amounts of tourist trap things, and a great amusement park that's about an 1-1.5 hour drive away. I assume you always went to the Canada side? I don't think I ever responded to this. When we went when I was a teen we stayed on the Canadian side, I have no idea the other time I was so young. But we did visit the American side to do some of the touristy stuff there as well. I just loved the whole experience. I imagine the Grand Canyon is the same way - you just don't understand how massive and majestic the falls are until you are standing in front of (or under) them. At the time I had no idea Marineland was there, and didn't know CW even existed. Now that I am trying to get my other half up there maybe we'll make it a multi stop visit. Still very much enjoying this report, glad you had a nice time @ HITP! I've still yet to visit the Grand Canyon but I have been able to see it when my plane flew by it on the way to LA. It's certainly massive. You missed out on Canada's Wonderland but it's better that you didn't know about Marineland.

SFNE doesn't really have a "Gotham City section", we just have a "Put Batman sh*t everywhere" policy. Poison Ivy and Gotham City Gauntlet are hanging out by Superman and Batman, Joker and Crime Wave are off doing their own thing near Mind Eraser and the Teacups and nowhere near the other Batman rides. Well, they were planning on making a Gotham City section in 2008, when they moved Crime Wave. You can see they started with the design of Works and the restrooms there. With the Jokers Entrance being located near Batman, I could see that being a new Gotham Section. But yeah, they just throw Gotham stuff everywhere. I also loved until the Superman conversion that every ride in DC Superhero Land was themed to a supervillain instead of a hero.

Hey Great Escape is due for another used coaster... The impulse coasters are a lot of fun and take up a small footprint so they'd work at most parks.

Honestly much like Goliath, I actually like the Joker's location at Great Adventure since it's straight ahead after you enter the park. However, it would be nice to see a car running on it sometime...

Six Flags Great Adventure Six Flags is usually my last park of the year. Except that final park visit is usually at SFNE at the end of October. This year, I took the opportunity to visit Six Flags Great Adventure for their Holiday in the Park event. The skies were clear for my visit and the temperature was 30-40 degrees, so perfect for coasters (granted I'd say that about any weather). Crowds were must lower than any of the summer visits I've had and I took full advantage of it. My first stop was going to be the Joker since it was closed during my two visits earlier in the summer. The day before I visited, I read on the SFGAdv thread that the ride went down. I was hopeful they'd have it back up and running, but it was listed as closed outside the park. When I walked up to the ride, I didn't see any cars on the track so I knew it'd be down for the night. At least SFNE is getting one of these next year since the ride looks pretty cool. I just pray it has better reliability than this one. With Joker down, I decided to start hitting the B&Ms. I started with Batman. I don't care that it's a clone; Batman is one of the best inverts out there and better than several of the bigger ones like Alpengeist and Raptor. The ride was butter-smooth as always and really piles on the Gs. I probably rode it 4-5 times. I then hit Nitro for the first of 10 or so rides. With El Toro down, Nitro took the place as the most ridden attraction. Despite the cold, Nitro was running really well and gave just as much airtime as it did on my summer visit. As far as B&M hypers go, it's in the lower half for me (only ahead of Intimidator and Diamondback) but that's still a solid 9/10 ride in my books. I couldn't decide if the front or back was better, so I split my rides evenly. I got 1 ride on Superman and Green Lantern each. Superman was the only ride with any wait (~30 minutes) and was fun as usual. The pretzel loop is insane and my favorite inversion anywhere. As for Green Lantern, the ride kept breaking down for 10-15 minutes but eventually I got one ride and that was enough. While not a headbanger, I find the ride painful on my legs. Even though they already have Bizarro, I wouldn't mind seeing another floorless up front. I also got 1 ride each on Skull Mountain, Dark Knight, and Road Runner Railway (I had never been on this since El Toro always distracted me, today was my prime opportunity). I took advantage of the $10 special to ride the Sky Coaster. This was my first time doing one alone and it was incredibly terrifying (in a good way) and exhilarating. As for the decorations, Six Flags did a great job. At night, the park really came alive with all of the lights. I was particularly impressed with the area near the Joker. I also enjoyed having the opportunity to walk down the abandoned Old Country path since I never got to see that area of the park in my previous visits (all of my visits came after the Chiller's removal). That area of the park felt spooky and prime for a Fright Fest attraction. Great Adventure was a great way to end the 2016 season which added 100 new coasters to my count, a few of which made my top 10 lists. Holiday in the Park is a great event and a perfect excuse to ride coasters in December. I'd love to see something like this at SFNE in the future since the weather isn't that much colder than New Jersey. Onto the photos! With Holiday in the Park, I can now ride some of my favorite B&Ms in 30 degree weather! It's December. If you told me a few years ago I could ride coasters in the Northeast this time of year, I'd ask which indoor kiddie coaster you were talking about. Batman is still one of the best inverts anywhere. I don't care that it's a clone. Kick the sky. Was this ride new? I noticed a Barnstormer missing from Bowcraft a few months back and Great Adventure is nearby. Candy Cane Lane. Even the ride's had elaborate light packages. A nice tree. I also enjoyed a sky coaster ride for just $10. Stand ups are my least favorite coaster type. And this concludes the 2016 season. Nope... I can buy a Flash Pass to skip Joker's line. Maybe it's open! Nitro has one of the best settings of any hyper. I really liked walking through the Old Country area, even if it did feel like something from a horror movie. A hyper coaster in December is something from my dreams. Even though it was cold, Nitro took me above the clouds and out of my seat. I finally got the kiddie credit. I didn't feel THAT bad doing it. By day you get to see the backside of a snowman. Superman was the only ride with any wait (30 min). Best type of inversion anywhere. Flyers are one of my favorite coaster types. At night, the park really came alive with all of the lights.

iPlay America On the way to Six Flags Great Adventure, I decided to make a pit stop at another indoor FEC in iPlay America. I was only there for about a half hour, but I was really impressed with the place. iPlay was very clean, had a lot more rides than I was expecting, and they appeared to have a pretty solid arcade. The real reason I was there was to ride their roller coaster, Freedom Rider. Another SBF spinning coaster, Freedom Rider gave the longest cycle of the ones I had been on (at least 7 or 8 laps if I remember correctly). I was also able to get a very unbalanced ride as I was the only person in the car. These coasters are much better than your average kiddie coaster and can be enjoyed by all despite their small footprint. I didn't try any of their other rides, but I made sure to grab some photos. They had a Kite Flyer, which looked massive indoors, and a small flying carpet ride called the Skyscraper that looked interesting. Skyscraper appeared to be a SBF creation, and it had a pretty high RPM so I bet it could have given some solid airtime like those Wisdom Rides Moby Dicks/Avalanche models. They also had an indoor ropes course, go karts, and a 4D theater along with some kiddie rides. I'd recommend stopping there if you visit Great Adventure since they have the credit and it's only 20 minutes away. iPlay America looked really nice on the inside! Each area had a nicely done entryway. A small little carousel. It's that time of year. More spinning. The real reason for my visit. I'll take these any day over your average kiddie coaster. These can give some solid rides. I didn't dare try these. People say Massholes are bad, but I saw worse drivers down in New Jersey. Indoors, the Kite Flyer looked massive. They even had a compact little ropes course. Skyscraper was small but appeared to be rotating quite fast. It may give more airtime than most rides in SoCal. How New Jersey drivers earn their licenses. Ah the fresh smell of New Jersey. iPlay America, not affiliated with Apple in any way.

1) Jack Rabbit- Double Dip 2) El Toro- Rolling Thunder hill (one of the most intense airtime moments anywhere) 3) Cyclone (SFNE)- 4th hill (insane ejector air as this partially hidden & steep drop plunged into the structure) 4) GhostRider- The Drop (experienced it only as the GCI, reminded me a lot of the Cyclone's drop) 5) Thunderbolt (Kennywood)- This ride kind of cheats but that final hill is a great drop. The Coney Island Cyclone, Georgia Cyclone, and Santa Cruz's Giant Dipper all have awesome hills throughout the ride, but none in particular stand out like the rides above.

A lot of people I went to the park with missed Shipwreck Falls because of how well shaded the ride was and how the entrance was semi-hidden. I agree the ride looked great in its spot, but Goliath is definitely a more popular ride. While not aesthetically pleasing, I do have to give the ride credit that it looks imposing. I remember that kids area being awesome when I was younger. It's a shame they replaced it with Asphalt Land.

The coaster I most regret skipping is Hypersonic XLC in 2006. I had two days at Kings Dominion. The first day was a Sunday and the park was absolutely packed since they had a special entry day. After waiting almost 2 hours for Volcano, I went over to Hypersonic and saw it's queue was almost full. Since I had all day Monday, I figured I'd hit all of the other coasters and come back to it. Unfortunately Hypersonic was down all day on Monday and it was removed before my next visit to the park. I'm really mad I missed out on what was considered one of the best launches around, but on the bright side the park now has Intimidator 305. The only other credits I've missed at parks I've gone to were smaller (kiddie coasters and a 1-2 wild mice). In my journeys, I probably could have gotten a few kiddie coasters at parks I didn't stop at like Go Karts Plus but decided to have more time at the big parks. Probably the most notable park I skipped was Fun Spot Orlando when I literally passed it after leaving Universal Orlando. I regret that one, but everyone in my group was hungry after a day at Universal.

I never got to ride the Riverside Cyclone back when it was considered a top tier coaster since I was too small. The version Six Flags ran in the 2000s wasn't terrible to be honest; it was inconsistent. Parts of the ride were still very intense. The first four drops (particularly 1 and 4) had two of the most violent moments of ejector air on any coaster. The finale and high turns were slow and uneventful due to the ride's braking/neutering. At no point did I ever get a rough ride on it.

Leviathan California's Great America?

Santa's Village (in Winter) Earlier in the summer, I made my first visit to Santa's Village in almost 10 years. Despite primarily being a kids/family park, I had a really nice time because of the park's excellent theming and solid collection of rides. Once winter hit, I knew I had to come back to see the park during the Christmas season. In late November I made my way back up to Jefferson, NH and convinced my girlfriend to join me. We had a blast again. With snow in the forecast and the cold weather, the park wasn't particularly crowded and everything was a walk-on. Even in the summer, the park never got that crowded. All the other visitors were families with kids, which is a stark contrast from Six Flags, and then there was my girlfriend and I. At one point while I was riding the swings, a family asked my girlfriend (who was sitting out) how old her kids were. She kind of dodged the question and then I ran over after getting off the ride. Guess it looked weird being there without kids. But really we're just two big kids. The park always has a great atmosphere with all of the Christmas theming (buildings, music, rides, etc), friendly employees, and the elves. I would like to apologize how my previous TR was missing the elves so I made sure to include some of my favorites below. Once night hit, the park really came alive and was a sight to behold. They say at Disney that you are never more than 30 feet from a trash can. Well at Santa's Village, you are never more than 30 feet from a Christmas tree. They had countless trees scattered about and all were adorned with bright Christmas lights. The park usually closes at 6 in the summer, so I've never been at the park after dark before. I really wish they stayed open late all the time since the light display was really that good. My ride on the monorail was especially beautiful at night with all of the lights and because it started snowing. Santa's Village was the first time I ever got to be at a park in the snow. This allowed me to cross one item off my bucket list- riding a coaster in the snow. Rudy's Rapid Transit fit the bill and it was cool riding in the snow. The temperature itself didn't bother me, but my mittens weren't exactly waterproof so my hands got quite cold. It was worth it for the experience though and it taught me to bring heavy waterproof gloves the next time I go to a winter park event. The other highlight of the day was YouTubing (yes that is actually the name of a ride). I rode it once in the summer and it was a pretty fun attraction where you grab an inner tube and go down a dry slide to simulate sledding. Well once the snow started, I figured it would speed YouTubing up so I headed over. I didn't see anyone on the ride, so I was worried it was down. I saw an employee and asked if it was open. They said it was, but they warned me it was running fast. The last riders were 4 or 5 year old kids and with the slippery conditions, their tubes went all the way to the end of the stopping area. That was music to my ears. The employees laid 3 tubes at the end to stop two crazy adults in my girlfriend and I. Once they sent us down, I could tell the ride was running faster. In the summer, the tube went fast down the drop and crawled over the flat sections. This time, the tube didn't slow down. When I reached the bottom, I shot down the stopping area, barreled through the inner tubes, and didn't stop until I hit the fence surrounding the attraction. That's a big thumbs up from me, especially seeing the shocked faces of the employees. Guess adults don't usually ride it haha. Perfect weather for a car ride together. And Icy who looks kind of high. My summer TR was missing elves. This time will have the best of the bunch like Quantum! Even the drop tower has some nice theming to a chimney. I really wish Santa's Village was open late during the summer. The lighting around the park is astounding. ABC, it's easy as 1-2-3. It's funner to play without the clues. Hi Emo! I have an interesting taste in elves. The park has really nice theming on all of their rides. Ho Ho H2O was closed, but again it was well themed. It was pretty cold so we were rewarded with no lines. I could even get that slide credit without creeping parents out! Other than the water rides, everything was open! Here's the new hotness, Poogie Penguin's Spin Out. There's Rudolph. And you can play all the reindeer games (for free!). There's a ball toss. And ring toss. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. Even when it started snowing, Rudy's Rapid Transit stayed open. First time riding a coaster in the snow! It was pretty frigid but worth it. It's November in New England, but Santa's Village is still open! The Skyway Sleigh was one of the highlights. The monorail gave a great tour of the park. And the park absolutely came alive at night! So many lights everywhere. The highlight was YouTubing (yes that's really the name). After it snowed, the track got extremely slick and I absolutely flew down the slide. Yuleo was a sly little devil and not located near the closed flume. For reference, I totally would have ridden this in the cold if it were open.

Great photos of the park! I hadn't really ever seen much of it outside of Montana Rusa before. That's a really great setting for a park. ^ I agree it looks like a Roller Coaster Tycoon park. I finally know where that Chinese swinging inverter ship came from in the Wacky Worlds expansion. I love drop towers and while that one looks interesting, it's a shame it wasn't all that forceful. But at least the views were probably pretty good. Also this park may have beaten Six Flags for corporate advertising. Power Tower is a work of art.

Anyone who has an obsession is pretty much considered weird since they like that item more than the average person and with that likely comes more knowledge on that item. I admit I'm weird, but the key is to remain nice. The second you become mean or creepy, weird takes a turn for the worse.

^ Fury was terrible too with seating, but that crew moves ridiculously fast so I can look past it. If they took time to take seating requests, they may not be able to pump trains out as quickly as they did. Meanwhile SFNE still stacks even with the assigned seating. Except non-VR Superman was extremely fast at the end of the year since the crew was probably used to VR and non-VR is a cakewalk by comparison.

Looks like I'll rely on my good friend Yelp when I visit Morey's for the first time this summer. Your TR is getting me excited for the trip. I can't believe how packed their piers are, especially with the shops around the boomerang.