Zand

I enjoy the long, well written TRs loaded with pics that many used to post and a select few still post. But I don't have the time and patience to do all that myself lol. I do take pics sometimes!

A couple years ago I went to SFOG for the first time (and it's not a place I'll probably get to very often)...I waited over an hour for Superman just to get the credit because they were running 1 train with terrible dispatch times. I could've ridden Twisted Cyclone or Goliath 6 or 7 more times during that timeframe, but I waited an hour for a credit that I can ride at Great Adventure whenever I want (and never do when I'm actually there because it sucks). Ever since then I decided riding anything just for the sake of a credit will never be worth waiting an hour for, especially in parks that I'm making a special trip to get to that I might not get to again. I like trying to ride everything once if I can, but if it's going to be an obvious waste of time then it's not worth it that much to me. As for kiddie coasters...there have been times when I decided to be an idiot and whore them for no reason other than the credit. Hell I just rode Lil Devil at Great Adventure last year lol. But again, not doing it for the sake of a credit at a park I might never get back to that has awesome coasters that I want rerides on.

Flash is good! Rode twice today, once in front and once in back. Floater on the launch side of the tower is nice. The hangtime on the stall is excellent and the restraints are extremely comfortable and perfect for this ride (after experiencing some squishing in the nether-regions on Copperhead Strike yesterday, this was a welcome relief). Nice air on the double up, borderline ejector in front. Barrel roll is a nice tribute to Chiller. Still trying to understand how they're applying Flash Pass to this ride. When I first arrived (I have all season Platinum FP) it said I could not reserve Flash. I went and rode El Toro and then headed back over, and by then I could reserve a ride so I did. After a couple hours I went to get another ride and once again it would not let me. This time I settled for the one time use FP for $11 (seriously...if you see how slow the regular line moves, it will be the best $11 you'll ever spend). Was on within 5 minutes through the FP line, but the regular line had to be well over an hour. It's a great ride but that line is going to get very ugly on all but the deadest of days. Hit a few other favorites. Toro running the same as last year. Wheel seats will give you a headache. I'm excited to see how nice the retrack makes the ride. Hope it gets restored to its former glory. The first half of the ride is still bonkers, but the second half is pretty brutal at this point and makes it tough to reride. Nitro and Batman both running fantastic even in the cold cloudy weather. Didn't get over to Devil but I could see it crawling through the course. Didn't get on anything else, was in the middle of a 14 hour ride home from Carowinds so really just wanted to hit Flash and anything else was a bonus today. Lots of food stands still closed. Even with the dining plan in hand I still just settled for Wawa. Also, I don't believe Superman opened at all today. Harley Quinn has not run since it's derailment last fall. I think everything else I noticed looked operational.

I finally was able to scratch off a major piece of my bucket list today with a somewhat whirlwind unplanned trip to Carowinds. My plan was to spend the weekend at King's Dominion, but with Pantherian suddenly not opening I had the crazy idea to drive 5 hours to Charlotte this morning, spend 6 hours at the park, and start driving the 13 hours back home tonight. My wife was surprisingly on board and replied with "well you've been talking about that place for 10 years" so we decided to do it. Arrived around noon and headed straight to Fury. This was the main reason for the trip and why would I start anywhere else. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes (and opening queue times to discover that this would be the shortest line in the park for some reason) I decided to purchase Fastlane because who knows when I'll ever be back here. Anyway, of course I built this thing up a little too much in my head. I know it's a lot of people's #1 steel and I get it. But I crave intensity and airtime, and while this has a little bit of both, it's not as in your face as Pantherian, Steel Vengeance, etc. I look at it as B&M's Millennium Force...another ride I absolutely love, but barely cracks my top 10 while being a lot of people's #1. I rode 5 times, lucking out with the front or back each time. Not sure which I preferred...the airtime and speed were great up front but a couple of the elements definitely hit better in the back. On one ride I didn't feel the trims engage at all and we f*cking SAILED through the speed hills at the end. As for the rest of the park: The Top Scan (whatever it's called): Glad to finally ride one here after getting teased by the one at Lagoon which decided to break down just before I went to ride it. I guess it's one of those rides that looks cooler than it is. The cycle just kind of sucks. It spins once or twice and then stops for 10 seconds and you just hang there. Then rinse and repeat a few times. Copperhead Strike: I loved this ride but wasn't a big fan of the restraints which I felt were a little male unfriendly. But the hang time filled inversions were a blast and the pops of ejector were crazy. Very slow moving Fastlane line (regular line pushed 2 hours) or I would've rerode for sure. Wish there were more of these Macks in America. Afterburn: Basically Montu's little brother. Nice intense old school B&M Invert just the way I like it. The tunnels and trenches went a long way to enhance the Montu vibes. Thunder Striker: This is heavily bitched about among coaster enthusiasts and after riding it I have no idea why. Sure, the layout isn't very inspiring but even with the trims every hill absolutely launches you out of your seat. The airtime is just as good as Diamondback. Why is this ride bitched about so much?!? Goldrusher: Basically a couple long helices and that's all. More interesting than Cedar Creek Mine Ride and Trailblazer but not sure how many other mine trains it can compare to. Vortex: Not awful but not my favorite ride by any means. I miss Green Lantern it didn't deserve the hate or the fate. Cyclone: Almost avoided it as it broke down but was open when I was about to leave the park after reriding Fury a few more times. I wish it stayed broken down for my own sake. It's not THE worst Arrow corkscrew coaster I've ridden, but...just...no. Hurler: It's really not that bad. First half is fun with some good airtime pops and fast turns. Second half jackhammered a bit. But I couldn't help but imagine Twisted Timbers elements coming up at me as we rattled through the course. Flying Cobras was down most of the day...no big loss. Ricochet not on Fastlane and I didn't feel like waiting an hour for a basic mouse, no big loss there either. Didn't feel like whoring the Hang'n'bang or the kiddie coasters. This park is obviously very top heavy with a terrific top 4 and then a bunch of crap after that, but that top 4 is among the best in the country. Not sure if I'll make it back in the next several years, but damn am I happy to have finally made it. Do have to mention one of the major cons of this park and that is the groupers. I've never liked not having a choice of seat (luckily as a single rider with Fastlane I pretty much mostly got front or back on everything anyway) but it's even worse when they're terrible at their job. Entire rows going empty on Thunder Striker every ride. Groupers on Fury and Afterburn not putting groups of 2 with other groups of 2 and causing 6-8 seats to go empty every ride. Sometimes they were so slow that the last 2 or 3 rows would go unfilled. This park was by far the strictest about no choice of seats. Parks like Universal, Disney, and Cedar Point scratch the happy medium of having groupers make sure they fill the train as best as possible but also almost always accommodating requests. Or better yet...just let people into the station until every row fills up like Six Flags parks do and call it a day. I noticed this at Kings Island a little bit a few years ago but Carowinds was the absolute worst with this. Kings Dominion doesn't group at all. It annoys the crap out of me seeing 1/4 of the train go out empty when there's a 2 hour line. Sorry for the rant Overall though I am glad I followed through with my insane idea and made the spur of the moment trip to the park. It's hard to know when I'll ever get back since it's just not near much else, but hopefully it's in the cards someday.

Thankfully no...but it's just a damn good coaster and waiting until 4 hours before opening day to announce that their star coaster won't open till this summer is a...choice. Park was rather busy tonight. It's usually pretty dead when I've been here midsummer. Weather was beautiful in the 70s, had to keep reminding myself it's still March. Most coasters were running at full capacity except for Timbers which was running with one train and probably the slowest ops in the park. Glad I got to it early. Station wait (which still took 30 mins) when I arrived was down past the lockers by the time I got off. Lot of flats closed and some others only open briefly. Guess that should be expected on preview night, but I expect they should be 100% tomorrow outside of Pantherian and Rapids. Glad I got to Drop Tower early. Love that thing. Made my rounds to Apple Zapple, Racer, Boo Blasters, Dominator, and Grizzly. Fun rides to be had on all. My first foray into Jungle X, the line for Rapterra was out past Tumbili, around the Dippin Dots stand, and starting to stretch to the entry sign into the Jungle. Reports were the wait was 2.5 hrs. I got in line at 9:20 which at that point was maybe 15 mins outside the regular line entrance. Ended up waiting 1:25 although I got sent to the left side which definitely takes longer than the line for the right side. So a full queue is 1 hour to 1:15 or so, and if it's beyond that good luck! It's a fun ride and much needed for KD, but realistically probably only the 5th best coaster in the park. My time would have been better spent reriding Timbers, Dominator, Grizzly, and that big orange lawn ornament in the back of the park, but glad to have gotten a ride on the new hotness. The whole jungle area is pretty well done now. The music bed really fits in and the theming is mostly cohesive. I honestly walked out of the bathroom and forgot I wasn't at Animal Kingdom for a second or two. I was gonna spend tomorrow at KD again, but with Pantherian closed I have no reason to go back. Therefore, I have the really dumb idea of finally knocking off a bucket list park and driving 5 hours down to Carowinds and then probably 13 hours back home between tomorrow night and Sunday with a quick stop at Great Adventure for Flash.

I just drove 10 hours to get here so I'm glad they waited till today to announce that Pantherian isn't opening till summer.

Wut

Totally weather dependant. More often than not when I've gone during that week it's dead mainly because it's usually in the 40s or 50s and grey and dreary. If there's a chance of rain at all make sure you keep an eye on socials to make sure they're not closed because they know the park will be dead. There are the occasional days that get sunny and shoot into the 70s and it is usually a mobscene, and with college and high school workers not really available yet a busy day during spring break can really get ugly with lots of rides at minimal capacity and lots of food places closed. I love the dead dreary days but you need to go in with the expectation that they will close a few hours early on those days.

That's my impression too is that the new management believes they can make Great Adventure into a park with the quality of KI, CW, and Carowinds but it will take some work (and removing half the park). If that is a case then a B&M Giga would surely be in the plans I would think. This park has plenty of room to build a great one like Fury (then again so did KI...) so fingers crossed that we're headed down that road in the next 5-10 years. This park may take a few years longer to clean up at first than KI, etc did, so there will be growing pains. Especially considering a lot of the maintenance in this park has been jaw droppingly bad. Literally.

Well considering their brand new coaster will probably have an hourly capacity of 300 knowing them, a dip this year may not be a bad thing.

That view is going to take some getting used to Photo from GADV Connoisseurs

If this hill is taken with at least a decent amount of speed, this will be a fun element! Picture from SFNE Facebook page.

I won't lie... it is a little sad seeing it laying there in pieces. But yes, glad we can finally move on from this debacle of a year and see what the future has in store.

I'm sure McDonalds and KFC will be happy to not have a hundred coaster enthusiasts sitting in their parking lot flying drones anymore. Lol

They just blew it up about 10 minutes ago.

Make it EIGHT rides...Dare Devil Dive will be torn down this off-season as well according to new demo permits. I can't help but wonder if they have a plan for Superman. It is one of the more popular coasters in the park from a GP perspective (it's been there for 22 years but people are still mesmerized by the fact it DAGUM FLIES!!!) but the throughput sucks and it isn't the most reliable coaster in the park. Plus it is really out on an island surrounded by many vacant plots of land. The Boardwalk section of the park is a little worn out at this point. I wonder if they build a new section around Superman (including whatever Kingda Ka's replacement is), or if Superman will also take a hike.

Based on the latest Coliwood Studios post... Green Lantern is just a lift hill at this point. And the first track removal of the Kingda Ka airtime hill has taken place. I believe the top hat detonation is scheduled for 2-3 weeks from now. Also the demo on the Lakefront Skyway Station is beginning. Oh and Cyborg is gone if anyone cares.

Officially announced? No(t yet). But instead it's just hiding in social media replies where they hope as few people will see it as possible because that's that the new Cedar Fair-led Six Flags chain does. I guess at least they didn't flat out deny it this time, maybe that's a start towards actually communicating with customers? Edit: According to comments on Facebook the park is giving people refunds on season passes. I'll give them kudos for doing the right thing as far as that goes.

Kings Dominion has officially cut WinterFest starting this year. Of course they've been selling season passes for months with "includes Haunt and WinterFest" listed right at the top, but hey... I'm sure once they decide they haven't already taken enough away from Great Adventure then HITP will probably go away there too.

I rode the Looping Starship at Great Adventure when I was 6 (I'm not even sure if I was really even tall enough for it but I think I wore a hat or something) and after experiencing those horse collars, I refused to ride anything with even a simple OTSR for like 5 years after. I was convinced that any ride that went upside down was guaranteed to be extremely painful. I finally got over my fear of OTSRs when I was 10 or 11, but thank you Looping Starship for disturbing my childhood The horse collars didn't really bother me as an adult because I could kind of hold it off myself, but it was a bit traumatic as a 6 year old hanging upside down basically by my ribs.

Another classic goes silently in the night.

Shellraiser has been closed for an entire year now. Let's charge 4X what Great Adventure charges for a pass.

I mean if I went to guest services maybe they would give me a refund in that situation, but obviously not worth going to bitch over 2 dollars. But this very situation happened way too many times at Kingda Ka and is just a general annoyance. And in this case there's a much better B&M hyper 200 feet away that doesn't require you to get lockers, so sometimes I just say forget it and don't even bother.

It's kind of like a bad 3-bench wooden coaster in that sense. If you get a middle row non-wheel seat then it's glass smooth, but get rows 1 or 3 of either car and you're probably coming off with a splitting headache. Bad thing is with the moving station it's luck of the draw, and there's a 67% chance you're coming off with a headache.

Happy New Year! Few closing day thoughts... The new train on Nitro (D train) runs noticably faster than the others. In the morning I rode A train and it was moving so slow that there was literally no airtime in the first half. The good thing was it was moving so slow that the mid course didn't engage at all, so it absolutely hauled through the bunny hills with excellent ejector all the way through. But then I rode D train and it literally felt like it was a hot summer day. Big airtime on every hill even in the middle of the train and you could really feel the bone crushing positives in the helix. And it just kept getting faster right up to closing even with temps in the 30s and a whipping wind. Easily the best rides I've ever had on it. Marathoned for the last hour and finished with 17 Nitro rides, a great edition of this New Year's Day tradition. Between the jaw dropping sunset rides and the pitch black night rides it just doesn't get any better. Got the last train of the year in the front row (I think this is the 3rd year in a row I've been on last train). Batman running slightly slow in the cold, but always fun riding many consecutive times without getting up. Row 7 had a bad wheel, but 6 and 8 were fine. Dark Knight is using the preshow again which I haven't seen used in years. Only problem is the preshow is so long that the folks that are let into the station are all cycled through and then they just run empties for a while even though there's a 10 minute wait outside. With Ka out of the picture, Devil might be the biggest piece of shit in the park maintenance wise. I did get two rides on it, but two other times I was on the train, it advanced to the end of the station, and then they never sent it and made everyone get off. It's really not the biggest problem ever when the ride is a walkon, but what pisses me off is they get $2 for a locker every time and then you don't get that money back when the breakdown occurs and you never end up riding it. It's a big reason why I rode Ka way less than I should have in it's lifetime and honestly there's a lot of times where I don't even bother with Devil and just ride Nitro more instead. Hopefully the free double sided lockers make their way over here. Park was very dead overall, flats were typically a walk on (and at times not being ridden at all with the ride ops just sitting around waiting, I got zen rides on Jolly Roger and Skyscreamer). But kudos to the park for having everything open on that side of the park (except Harley Quinn for obvious reasons). It was sad looking over at Ka knowing it seems to have officially been sentenced to death sometime in February, and that no one will ever see it from inside the park again. Sounds like opening day will likely be March 15th and employees seemed pretty confident that Flash will open with the park. If that is the case I hope to find myself down there opening weekend!