Zand

Not sure if you stayed till closing, but I guess the day ended in the most unsurprising way possible. I was watching someone's live stream and they showed the last rides on Roar, the SLC, Ragin Cajun, and Joker. They walked up to Wild One and it still had a sizeable line so they filmed themselves walking out. Was sad to watch. Then not too long after, reports started hitting Twitter about Superman getting stuck on the lift and evac'd, and they just dumped the entire 2 hour line and that would be the final curtain call for SFA. No surprises here. I would've easily gone to Wild One for last ride if I were there tonight.

Queue Times was showing some pretty insane lines tonight. Superman upwards of 2 hours. Wild One well over an hour. Doesn't help that everything is on one train. Glad I went last weekend when it was still manageable crowd wise. Guessing tomorrow will be even more busy.

Tough to say with Superman considering its size and it's only 1 year younger than Jokers Jinx. Agreed that it would be a great add for Michigan's Adventure if that were to happen. Not sure if that land behind the lake is buildable but if it is then they have more than enough room. If they don't move it, the question becomes where do the new trains go? SFDL also just got new trains. If the state would pull it's head out of its ass with the T-Bar situation, I would like to see them addressed to 1623 Main St, Agawam MA 01001. I know LIM launchers are kind of being phased out slowly but I would love to see Jokers Jinx live on somewhere. My home park of SFNE could use it as we've always needed a launcher (and when Quantum Accelerator finally opens technically we'll have one but just a family coaster). It still runs great, but with LIMs becoming less common they may just use it for parts for the FOFs and Mr Freezes. The track on the SLC is beat to shit. The new trains will end up somewhere I'm sure, there must be an SLC somewhere in the chain that needs them. But I don't see them relocating the ride itself. Sadly I agree the woodies are done. Roar is whatever, but very sad about Wild One. Batwing is another sad one to lose with the Flying Dutchmans officially becoming extinct, but that death has already happened. Also while it has some historical significance, good riddance to Firebird. Ragin Cajun may move (again). Someone may be able to use a spinning mouse. Didn't seem to have anything particularly wrong with it so I'm sure it would be no issue moving if needed. Same with the kiddie coaster. The Intamin 2nd Gen drop tower will be gone I'm sure, maybe some parts will get sent to Gurnee. Starflyer and Endeavor may find a new home, they're pretty new. Otherwise not sure what else would be relocated for flats. The NebulaZ is new, I'm sure someone will see that pop up in April. Everything else is pretty generic and also rather aged flat-wise.

3 more operating days left, has anyone made their way down for their last trips? I stopped in this evening for a few hours. I was surprised to see that other than Batwing (which we knew about), all major rides were operating. A few smaller flats closed, and I'd say food was operating somewhere around 30-50%. Decent crowd but the lines weren't bad and I had season Flashpass to get by some of the slower lines. Every coaster was running 1 train except Skywinder which was running 2 for some reason. Merch stores were mobbed as all items are now 85% off (we contributed quite a bit ourselves). I actually started the afternoon with Rajin Cajun which has always been an elusive credit for me. In my 3 previous visits, Two Face was closed the first time and this was closed the two most recent trips. I wish I sat on the right instead of the left as it felt that I was actually counter acting the spinning and got a mundane ride, but I saw some other folks spin like crazy. The coaster I'm most torn up about with this closure is Wild One. It first opened in MA 108 years ago and while I know almost none of the original coaster survived the relocation, it's still a really cool piece of history and it's also just a really fun coaster. Good airtime, fast turns, and reasonably smooth. Rode once in front and once in back, both were very fun. Big crowd at this ride all afternoon. Voodoo Drop was fun. But I rode Demon Drop yesterday so also kind of overshadowed in the past 24 hours for me. Jokers Jinx running great as always. The 2nd half of this kicks so much ass without having a midcourse. Intense whippy turns and good positives. Wish I got a second ride on it but when I only had time for one more I decided on Wild One instead. Superman was a bit of a painful wait, with 1 train ops and rather slow dispatches a 4 train wait (thanks to Flashpass) was 30 minutes and I'm guessing the regular line had to be an hour. I felt bad for the folks in the front row like, almost every other train got filled with exit pass people. Anyway, I rode in row 2 and it was my first ride with the new trains. They shuffled quite a bit and seemed to run noticably slower in the 2nd half, but still a fun ride. I never noticed how well you can see DC from the top. Wonder Woman ran a very long, almost dizzying cycle. It spins very fast during the second half of the ride. Rode Firebird for my second time ever. My first ride in 2020 was awful in the front row, I think I had my worst coaster headache ever after that ride. I rode in back this time. The shuffling is still noticable and definitely a couple jarring transitions but not nearly as bad as last time I route. But this thing is definitely a turd. Sorry B&M I know it's your first but it's time for this thing to be put out of its misery. Rode Roar in back, it's definitely borderline violent but I think the layout is actually pretty fun with a few air pops and some intense laterals. It's an overhated ride IMO. Lastly, Skywinder in back with the new trains still shuffled a lot but I actually enjoyed my ride on it. Amazing how different an SLC is when you're not getting your head pounded in. Definitely a sad vibe in the park. It's certainly a neglected park and has always been a dump, but it has always had this weird gritty charm to it for me and I always enjoyed half the coaster lineup. It's too bad it never got properly taken care of. Glad to have gotten there once more before it closes forever next weekend.

Great evening at Dorney's haunt tonight. Only had about 3 hours in the park but got a lot done. Hit 6 out of 7 mazes plus plenty of must rides. I've always heard great things about Dorney's haunt and I have to say they do a very impressive job for a small regional park. Favorite haunts were Ghost in the Machine, Stop & Chop, and Blood on the Bayou. Tourist Trap is the only one I missed. The haunts were very well staffed and most of them sent folks through in very small groups since the lines weren't all that long. I actually preferred a night like tonight to the night I spent at HHN last year. The sets that Universal does are crazy good, but the conga lines in all the houses completely ruins the "scare factor" in any of them. Outside of the haunts, the coaster lines were a bit long around 8:30 (and by long I mean ~30 minutes, which is an eternity at Dorney lol) so I didn't hit everything, but hit the essentials. Row 3 ride on Steel Force was excellent. After my shit-tastic rides on Wild Thing this summer this thing felt even better. Demon Drop is the star of the park and fun as always. Hydra in front and Talon in back their usual fun selves. Iron Menace line was too long for me tonight, decided to hop out due to time constraints. I will absolutely return for Haunt here next year and hopefully arrive early enough to ride more rides. We had a great time tonight, I know everyone loves to shit on this park but I don't think it deserves to be shit on at all. Decent coaster lineup, terrific flat package, never crowded, and an awesome Haunt experience. It's a much better park than people give it credit for.

The latest demise at Great Adventure: Jersey Devil's dispatch times! Anyone who's been to the park this year knows they never run more than two trains on it anymore, which really wasn't going too badly with how dead the park was. But according to Eltororyan's new video, just in time for Frightfest the 2nd train now has to park outside the station until the first train is all the way out onto the lift! Due to the ride time, that means every train sent out now has to sit on the brakes for a good 30 seconds. The minimum dispatch time is 2 mins 15 seconds, rendering a throughout of just over 300 people per hour. The ops on this thing used to be a work of art when it opened and it ran 4 trains. Most days 2 trains were fine and 3 was good enough on busy days. But with this change, forget it. I really have never seen a park doing more bad for itself than this place has since Cedar Fair's management took charge 14 months ago. Not sure if it's an IROC thing, a New Jersey regulation thing, or just an excuse to make the lines longer and sell more Flashpass. Also if you're going to Frightfest, keep in mind Nitro has been down for almost a month and is potentially down for the rest of the season due to a lift motor issue. Wonder Woman has been down for almost two months. And Flash has been up and down a lot also.

I was there on a Saturday night during a concert many years ago and they actually ended up keeping the stuff close to the center of the park open at least an extra hour. Fahrenheit, Storm Runner, Skyrush, etc were all walk ons because they didn't really tell anyone they were staying open late. Most of the lot had cleared out by the time they finally closed. Last year I went on a concert day to use my preview night and it took almost 2 hours to get to Troegs from the highway. That was miserable.

I'm telling you guys. Dueling Superman.

Not sure if it has been officially confirmed by the park yet but RIP Stanley Falls. Next weekend is the final weekend.

I was originally going to stop on my way down Sunday, but when I saw they run specials on Tuesday and Thursday it was an easy choice to stop on the way back instead. They wouldn't let me ride solo (and there was no one else around at the time I was trying to ride it) so my wife reluctantly came with me so luckily for her it was a very benign ride lol. The op said 2 people minimum, and like I said he forced us to sit in the middle and balanced the car out. My ride was lame speed wise, and then I was taking a video of a car that had 2 small kids in it...once it got to the lower hairpins the first brakes engaged so I thought there's no way the 2nd set was gonna engage, but sure enough they did and I literally thought the thing was gonna valley before the end lol.

I figured I'd use this thread to recap my annual Jersey Jaunt last week. I almost didn't go after my car troubles on my way home from the Midwest and my bank account hates me for actually going, but it was a great time with excellent weather. Sunday 8/10: Six Flags Great Adventure and Gale Force On the way down I couldn't resist the magnetic pull of a quick ride on Toro and a few other things on my way to the shore. Started with Superman on the way in to check out the new footers being dug up and the absolute shithole that is the current Great Adventure boardwalk. I never ride this thing. Other than the pretzel loop it's a waste of time. Even with Flashpass it was a 20 minute process. It's making a weird metal on metal sound in the barrel roll, not sure why but I've never heard it before. After getting off Superman I made my way down the Boardwalk, past Green Lantern and the Parachutes before turning left towards the world's tallest coa....oh wait nevermind. I actually headed back to the other total disaster in the park which is Frontier Adventures. Log Flume closed, Mine Train closed, wanted to eat at Best of the West but closed. Absolutely nothing going on back there other than Medusa. And I really don't understand the rumors around it that have been coming up occasionally. Even with nothing else open within 1000 feet of this thing it had a big line. Glad I had Flashpass for this one. Back seat ride was excellent as always. I've ridden every Floorless east of the Mississippi and this is my favorite one, it just runs flawlessly with pretty good forces and is always a good time. Tackled the Bull next which was a walk on so no Flashpass needed here. Rode in the very back and it was running much better than when I rode in March. The track work in the turns has helped tremendously. I didn't even get a headache. The pacing feels better like the old days also. Rode this twice, why not when it's running so well. Had dinner at Yum Yum. Chicken was good, but if I didn't have my dining pass and bottle it would've been over $60 for two small plates of chicken fingers, a side, and a drink. Insane. Had to hit the road but a quick check of the Flash Flashpass line looked good so I hopped on real quick. Rode in back, it's good fun but after riding Sirens Curse it definitely feels a bit lackluster. Headed out for Ocean City and walked around on the boardwalk for a bit and also stopped into Castaway Cove for my annual Gale Force ride. The queue house was full and it was a good 30 minute line but this ride is so kick ass. I had just ridden El Toro 3 or 4 hours prior and you know...I think Gale Force is a better coaster. The ejector over every hill is insane, then there's bone crushing positives, and meanwhile it is glass smooth. I know it was a shitshow when it opened but it's really too bad that more of these were never built. Even though they removed the unique Squadron 33, I liked how they moved things around inside the park and it feels less crowded in now. The Bumper Cars are right next to the Gale Force queue which adds some entertainment. Monday 8/11: Watch the Tramcar Please After a day of bar hopping (Stubborn Bros might be my new favorite place in Wildwood), swimming, and indulging in lots of pizza, I ended up getting a wristband for $34 that was valid from 9:30-11:30. While it was a bit of a rush for those two hours, I rode most of what I wanted to. I started on Surfside which unfortunately had a closed Noreaster and a broken down Atmosfear. Rode Zoom Phloom which was excellent as always. Also rode It which is kind of overrated IMO but still a lot of fun with the lapbars. While I was waiting for Atmosfear to open I rode Doo Wopper to kill time. This thing sucks. It's slow and it has no airtime hills that its cousins have. I sat on a bench by the exit of the flume and watched Atmosfear test over and over. It's my favorite drop tower and if it was gonna open then I wanted to wait for it. Apparently I was within view of the guest service window and a guy, totally unsolicited, walked out and was like "I saw your Velocicoaster shirt...I'm sorry about the maintenance issues we're having tonight!" and handed me a coupon for a free wristband. I didn't have to sit around waiting for one ride, there was plenty else to do, but it was really awesome of the guest service guy to just come out and do that. Definitely will use it next summer! Anyway, after probably 15-20 tests the tower finally opened and I got my excellent ride! Unfortunately by then the clock was working against me as it was almost 11:00. Had to walk by Mariner's Pier and the world's best boomerang and went to ride my favorite Screaming Swing. Got a zen ride on it, excellent ride as always. It's not that big compared to some parks, but it's location flying out over the pier and the beach is really awesome. Finished up with 4 Great White rides which they kept running 15 minutes past closing, sweet! The millennium flyers feel like they don't pace quite as well as the old PTCs but it's still a really good ride and always fun to get night rides on this thing. Tuesday 8/12: Steel Pier and a mall Ferris Wheel on the ride home. After poking around Wildwood a little more in the AM, we started our way back up the Parkway, stopping into Atlantic City as I became aware that Steel Pier has a new credit and one of those insane Tropical Storm rides. First off, this city feels absolutely f*cking depressing after being in the much more lively shore towns to its south. Anyway, it was $4 ride day at Steel Pier (as opposed to the usual $16 per ride). Rode the new spinning mouse which is very similar to the old one except it absolutely sucks. It's trimmed to death and they also insist that you sit in the middle to balance the cars, so it doesn't really spin. What a shitty coaster. Tropical Storm though...insane. It spins almost uncomfortably fast, though thankfully it does it in spurts. I'm glad I got to ride one, I don't think there has been another one in America since Castaway Cove got rid of theirs 6 or 7 years ago. Not as insane as Scat at Bay Beach, but still a good time. On the way home, after driving past Palisades Park Mall hundreds of times in my life, we finally stopped in to ride the Ferris Wheel and check out the mall. The wheel was cool but weird for sure. Basically they meant to order their food court Carousel and f*cked up and ended up ordering a Ferris Wheel instead. It gets super hot up near the ceiling. The rest of the mall is huge, definitely a nice place. I didn't do anything else but they have Go Karts and even one store is just Bumper Cars.

Would be a nice landing spot for Rajun Cajun from SFA. I generally don't crap over Mine Trains and I enjoy quite a few of them, but good lord is Canyon Blaster one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever ridden. Steamin Demon could always go too, but at least it looks pretty on the hill when you're walking into the park. Great Escape isn't due for a new coaster for another 23 years but when the day comes a nice Intamin family launcher would go great in that spot.

Whatever it is that happened, happened in the afternoon on the day in question (it was either the Friday or Saturday of Juneteenth weekend). When it happened they shut down Bugs Bunny National Park and then for a few days after they shut down that part of Frontier Adventures so you had to go under El Toro to get to Medusa and Mine Train. While none of this is proven fact, multiple sources from multiple sites said the same thing about the day in question and the days following. Whatever happened has been kept hush hush because of where it is in the park. Besides the part that goes by the kiddie area (which was evacuated right after the incident happened) the rest of the ride is mostly out of view from inside the park until the final hill. The rumor (and I want to be clear this is just a rumor as obviously nothing official has ever come out) is that a log got stuck just after the top of the first lift (where it cuts over the corner of the kiddie area) and then another log came up from behind and knocked it out of place and nearly over the edge of the trough. If this is indeed what happened, it would literally be the 2nd time in 4 years that this flume has had a log get stuck and then another log come up and knock it out of place. Rides that "open the same year as an accident or death" are often opened quickly because the cause of the vast majority of ride accidents is human error, but otherwise the ride did not malfunction. In this case, when a ride gets stuck in areas where it shouldn't twice in a very short period of time (a period made even shorter by the fact it was barely open in the past 4 years) it's not just going to test for a week and then they reopen it. Obviously there is something major wrong with it. Whether or not the park has actually given up on opening it ever again remains to be seen. Again, I know my post is based on total rumors but a fairly sizeable amount of people thought the Kingda Ka rumors were total bullshit and we saw how that worked out. With the condition the park is in (and has been for quite a while), I think the Flume rumors have some truth to them.

Having it closed since June 21st, during the hottest months of the year, is more than just "moving up the closing by a couple weeks"... Considering all the work and fanfare over the 50th anniversary restoration, something obviously happened that caused it to be closed the entire summer.

I mean, if the rumors of what happened last month are true, then they've managed to crash the Log Flume twice in the past 4 years (2 of those years it was closed for refurb so it hasn't exactly been open a lot of days to have crashed twice!) and the most recent one involved them having to pluck people out of the section over Bugs Bunny National Park just past the top of the lift hill with a cherry picker. Again, just a rumor so take it with a grain of salt. But it wouldn't just shut down for the hell of it so obviously something rather nefarious happened. Also as far as the Round Up goes, it was old (like...45 years old) and has been moved several times within the park. It was one of the slowest round ups I've ever seen and barely raised off the ground. It should be easily replaceable by a new round up but that's probably too much to ask for. Losing the flume would suck for sure. And I doubt they'd ever replace it. Sucks that flumes are going by the wayside.