Zand

I would be pleasantly surprised if they went with a coaster over a waterpark addition next year. Maybe they'll both so they can recycle that "one wet, one wild" thing they used to do back in the day. If they go with the family coaster hopefully it's something with decent capacity. The last two family coasters added have been mouse and spinning mouse. A straddle coaster at SFNE would have a throughout of about 18 riders per hour. Edit: Randomly checked queue times for no reason and...I hope everyone in line now enjoys riding Batman on Thursday!

Sorry I totally forgot to grab a pic while I was there. The track itself is built but I didn't see any sign of a ride vehicle. Knoebels has been known to open new rides in like October right before they close, but also took 7 years to open Flying Turns so you never know if it will be open by next week or next year or 2030. Good news is if it's not open and you get bored, you could always go check out the world famous Shamokin Dunkin Donuts!

Fun day at Dorney yesterday! Did a loop of the park to start (which takes all of an hour and a half at Dorney) and then spent a lot of time on the many classic flat rides that they still have. Everyone shits on this place but honestly as someone who has SFNE as a home park, I would trade in a heartbeat. Flat rides are important, and the fact that Dorney still has an Enterprise, Whip, Tilt-a-whirl, and whatever the hell Apollo is supposed to be is really awesome to me. As far as coasters go, Steel Force was actually running really well, with abundant ejector in the 3rd row on the return hops, and even some good moments in the first half. No one is gonna confuse it with Magnum, but it definitely wasn't keeping to the Steel Forceless moniker. Iron Menace was pretty good, quite intense for a Dive Coaster. However a few posts back someone said it's kind of redundant in the same park as Hydra and I can't help but agree. They ride almost exactly the same. They probably would've been better off with that rumored switchback woodie in that spot. But hey, at least Dorney finally got something new and the theming is great. It's almost bizarroworld how in the past couple years BGW built a totally unthemed coaster in an open field and meanwhile Dorney nicely themed something. Talon, Hydra, Possessed, Thunderhawk all running pretty normal. That death trim on Thunderhawk is really a killer, those ending bunny hops would probably be really good! I finally rode the Flume for the first time. It's basically a brother to Lake Compounce's flume, with the nice layout on the hillside and complete with the terrible capacity! I got drenched by a rogue wave in the section before the big drop (riding alone, mind you) and other people were coming off almost totally dry, so good luck figuring this one out. The real star of Dorney is Demon Drop, which I rode probably 6 or 7 times. I loved these 1st gens as a kid, and was sad when Cedar Point announced they were removing it as it was the only one remaining on this side of the country. For some reason, instead of scrapping it like everyone else did with their 1st gens, they moved it to Dorney where 15 years later it still operates somehow. The thing looks, feels, and sounds like a deathtrap but it's just so much fun. Even ran into Bill and Brit on one ride who also stopped in to partake in some 1st gen goodness. My two biggest negatives on this park are the ops and the cleanliness. The ops are slow (which is fine at this place) and also love to chain off the stations for 3 minutes at a time while trains dispatch half empty and a line builds up outside the station (I saw this happen at Talon, Hydra, and Steel Force). This made no sense to me. Also, if you're planning on eating at Dorney expect to sit at a dirty and sticky table. Never saw a single table get cleaned all day. Hopefully Six Flags improves the cleanliness. Unfortunately my PA swing is over but it was a great time! If there ends up being a Six Flags mega pass next year I could definitely see myself at Dorney more often, mainly to ride Demon Drop a bunch of times.

Great day as always at Knoebels! Moderate crowds and thankfully the humidity that was plaguing the northeast the past few days was replaced by a refreshing breeze for most of the day. Twister was running immaculately today. Last time I was here it was getting a little rough but they've obviously done some great work to it in the past few years. Ejector pops in front, great laterals throughout, and it was hauling through that double helix with no shuffling. Phoenix fun as always, although I think I actually preferred Twister today with it running in perfect condition. I wish they would run two trains on these to really make them lapable, that's the one thing that they never seem to do that would really make the day even more awesome. Don't always make it on Flying Turns or Impulse, but got great rides on both today with not so bad wait times. Flyers, Stratosfear, Bumper Cars, etc phenomenal as always. Unfortunately never made it on the Carousel. Also the Flume was closed all day which was a bummer. Kosmotron seemed to be running slower than ever. Kind of a lame excuse for a Music Express type ride. Also rode Rotojet which I ended up in a broken jet that would not raise more than 1/4 way and caused a rather uncomfortable ride. Bayern Curve, Power Surge, and Paratrooper seem to be on a Six Flags maintenance schedule. I don't think any of them are actually going to open this year. Psyched for whenever they do get Bayern Curve up and running. Pierogies and Pizza delicious as always! Off to Dorney tomorrow. Iron Menace will be cool. Talon and Steel Force will be fun. But the real star of the show is Demon Drop. Riding a Larson Tower and an Intamin 1st Gen on back to back days makes me want to move to NE PA! Finally, going back a page we were having a discussion on Sheetz vs Wawa. Turns out there's another option in central PA as well called Rutters. You guys have it f*cking made with good gas station eats around here. I don't want to go home to my shitty Cumberland Farms.

So I guess it's not necessarily that the airtime is any less, it's more that the new restraints obviously contact your lap/waist area a lot more instead of your thighs and allow for less upper body movement. The old restraints were so unconventional that they kind of added to the intensity because your torso was able to get thrown around a lot more by the forces of the ride.

It used to have intentions on sending you to Pluto. Saturn is still pretty far though

Nervous start to today with Wildcat still down in the AM but they got it running a little after 1. Park was busy feeling today but walk ons almost everywhere. Wildcat's Revenge is a different feeling RMC, with more of a focus on insane laterals that are especially intense at the end of the ride. Quite a feel nearly unbanked and sharp turns. Some good airtime and overall a nice ride. Not sure if I put it above the two good Intamins (sorry Fahrenheit, you're okay but not god tier like the other two) but an awesome addition to an already stacked park. Storm Runner was closed for me in 2020 and I made sure to lap it like crazy today as it was a total walk on. Forgot how much of a masterpiece this is outside of it being super short. I like how each part of the train offers different experiences. Front gives you great ejector on the top hat and before the barrel roll. Middle gives you bone crushing positives in the saddles. Back gives great air off the back of the top hat and really accentuates the twisting dive near the end of the ride. What can I say, no one creates masterpieces like Intamin. Mediocre Bear running fast today with some good positives in the first half. Just wish it did something...anything...in the second half. Maybe a 3 train wait midday. Coal Cracker and SDL total walkons. I'm growing to hate PTC single lapbars. Comet stapled me to hell. Still a really fun ride, but I'll be on Phoenix in about 16 hours so one and done on this. 3 train wait which is about as little as I've ever waited for it. Skyrush only running 1 train but still only a 3 or 4 train wait. I purposely stapled myself which kinda helped it feel like the old thing lol. It's still amazing. Just neutered a bit. Fahrenheit had a pretty short wait when I was in the area so I grabbed a back seat ride. It's super underrated, yet super overshadowed in this park. Just wish they wouldn't run 3 trains on it and make you sit for 4 minutes before you can get off. Candymonium... whatever. Usually a B&M hyper is the best ride in any given park. This barely cracks the top 5 here. There's no such thing as a bad B&M hyper but this is the weakest. But I'm glad everyone stands in line for this and makes the lines for the Intamins and Wildcat shorter.

So far tonight I've waited through a Skyrush breakdown, a Storm Runner breakdown, and then went over to Wildcat's Revenge to find it totally deserted and clearly closed for the day. No mention of that on the website. Did Six Flags aquire Hershey too? I really hope it's open tomorrow because that would be a very disappointing 6 hour ride home. The new restraints on Skyrush neuter the intensity quite a bit. Was always my favorite Intamin but it no longer has the insanity that the old restraints gave it.

How have weekdays been crowd wise? Queue Times is useless at this park. Wildcat's Revenge isn't even listed. Usually I use preview night to power ride Skyrush and Storm Runner and then rope drop Fahrenheit the next morning. Does Wildcat's Revenge get insane lines after the water park closes or should I try to get to that end of the park on preview night instead?

I'm guessing there's still that one new lawn ornament to the right of the entrance gate that was not open. Maybe they're just waiting for Holiday in the Park.

Rode a coaster for the first time since February tonight. And that was the extent of my night. Intended on hitting the park from 6 till closing but as soon as I turned into the parking lot, I noticed that mother nature was about to have other ideas. I quickly marched into the park and only waited 2 trains for a front row ride on Superman with sprinkles starting to fall. Running great as always on a hot July evening. When we hit the brakes they were dumping the train in front of us due to the incoming storm. Had dinner at JBs and upon looking at the radar it became clear that the storm just to the west had no intentions of moving anywhere. Close enough to stay down for lightning, but not close enough to bring any heavy rain in so we figured we should just head out while it was still dry. Good to be back in the park for 40 mins, I suppose. Nothing else to really report. Like I said it was my first time this year but from what I could see there was absolutely nothing new to report. Obviously I didn't walk around very much, but I don't think I really missed anything.

Why is everyone all up in arms? Once Six Flags officially merges in, there will be no more free lockers anyway. Cedar Point will basically be Great Adventure without the Saturday night fistfights

There is a new(ish) casino called "Ocean" that took over a few years after Revel closed. The giant escalator and rooftop terrace are pretty cool but otherwise a pretty forgettable property IMO. And no there is no giant water park or ferries to Manhattan or whatever other pipe dreams they thought of 10 years ago. From a casino standpoint, other than Borgata, there's nothing really worth visiting in AC anyway. And if you're not a casino fan, just wave as you drive by on your way to Ocean City and Wildwood.

I just got the email today. It doesn't really say what happens when you have dining as part of your pass, so I'm curious to see what it goes up to.

We did After Hours on Monday and it was a really great event, but somehow even 6 hours, 3 of which were in a totally dead park, didn't feel like enough! Part of that was our fault, the wife insisted on dinner at Be Our Guest which was at 9:00 and kind of ran over into the After Hours portion of the night. Also we watched the second fireworks show, then rode Astro Orbiter before heading to Tron. I feel like everyone watching the fireworks all marched right over to Tron afterwards which resulted in us probably hitting the line when it was at its longest (40 mins). Missed Big Thunder which is a bummer as it was down when I circled that end of the park. Also missed Pirates for some reason. Like I said, those 6 hours go very quickly. But walk on Jungle Cruise, Mansion, Space Mountain, Seven Dwarfs, etc was really fun and it was a cool atmosphere in the park late at night. It was borderline bizarre on the Adventureland side of the park which was totally deserted. I would definitely do this again for Magic Kingdom and, as someone who very rarely gets to Disney, I also feel like it would be totally worth it to do this at Hollywood Studios. Just a heads up, and everyone else might already know this, but be aware that the Monorail stops running before the park closes and you have to take the ferry which had a line and it was almost 2 am when we got to the car.

Yup, a one park ticket to Universal is $5 less than an Animal Kingdom ticket today (the only Disney park with the same total hours of operation) which is insane when you consider Universal annual passes are about $1k less than Disney. And the other Disney parks are only $15 more for 2-3 more hours of park time. Edit: Velocicoaster is back up to 3 trains today with a consistent 1:06 dispatch rate! I guess the hunt is on! Reedit: As soon as I got in line they went back to two trains and it's dispatching as slow as yesterday. Line is in the outdoor section, so I got out. Not waiting an hour longer than I did yesterday.

So just as a heads up to those who may be headed down in the near future while Velocicoaster is running at a reduced capacity, here are some dispatch times I sampled today... As you can see, they're still consistent as ever, but two train ops has the ride at 2:20 intervals instead of the usual :55, and that 600 per hour rather than 1600 per hour throughout makes the line move painfully slow. I got over to the ride right after a breakdown and the line was at the raptor statue, which in the past would've meant a 25 minute line. The sign said 75 minutes, and in actually ended up being 1 hr 55 mins. I'm not sure if it broke down again at any point but they didn't announce one while I was in line so yeah, be prepared. When I got off the line was into the outdoor portion and they listed it at 3 hours, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more. The throughput would be slightly better if they rolled trains by sending one when the other is about to come back, but for some reason they were purposely stacking for a good 10-15 seconds before sending a train. I'm sure between them and Intamin they'll get the issues figured out as soon as possible, but just be aware of what you're walking into if you get in line. Also there is absolutely no seat choice right now. The ride still kicks all kinds of ass no matter where you sit, but make sure it's worth taking up two plus hours of your day at a park like Universal. Otherwise, it's been a busy couple days which leads me to my biggest question: Why the hell does Universal close so damn early? It was mayhem getting out after the park closed at 7 tonight especially with a 6:15 Mardi Gras parade. They closed at 6 last night. Room rates were about 60% higher this week so they knew it would be busy, so what gives? Just seems insane that a park of this magnitude closes that early at any time of year. Last night I left Universal at closing and went to Disney and spent 6 hours there. Not that I'm expecting Universal to be open till 1 am, but that's insane.

Just got a nice $12 ride on Mine Blower, and seeing as no one has said anything since it was partially retracked I figured I'd add my two cents. I would say from a smoothness perspective it's definitely improved as what were the worst spots on the ride are now totally smooth. A couple of the transitions to and from the new track cause a bit of a jolt and then obviously there still some areas of old track that it still kinda jackhammers through. But overall when the ride was over I wasn't checking various body parts to make sure they weren't broken in half like I used to do. That said, when it goes through the new steel track it squeals like crazy and it definitely slows the train down a bit, so the insane ejector in the back half of the ride isn't quite like it once was. So the speed and airtime was kind of sacrificed for comfort. Still a really awesome coaster but a bit tempered down from its heyday. Keep in mind there were four people on the entire train so maybe it runs better with more weight.

Going to be in Orlando next week and ended up buying tickets to After Hours on Monday. The price point is, on one hand, kind of insane. On the other hand, when you factor how much a day ticket plus Genie+ costs, it's not that far off and the idea of being at an empty Magic Kingdom for a few hours plus free snacks and drinks was too good to pass up. Has anyone else been to one of these yet?

Fingers crossed! Funny how it didn't even exist 3 years ago and now the park would feel so wrong without it open. Edit: Velocicoaster is back open this morning!

Figures a couple days ago I just booked a trip down for next week Maybe it'll be back up by then but it doesn't sound promising.

I think there's still a noticeable price gap between the two (for now anyway). On some of the low crowd days I'm seeing rooms at Aventura and Cabana Bay for around $110 and Endless Summer for $75. Haven't seen the All Stars below $180 and those places are dumps (although to be fair I didn't play around with the dates as much for them). Annual passes for non residents still have about a $1000 gap. Day tickets and food are pretty close at both though. I'm sure the gap will close when Epic opens but there's still deals to be had at Universal that you're not getting at Disney.

I went in yesterday expecting to buy the Twilight Pass (good for the last 2 hours of the day) for the low low price of $46. But then I checked the closure list and saw Sandy's on it (which is somehow the first time I've been there with it closed) but also saw Skyline Scream is closed which I did want to get a night ride on. Wouldn't hate going back sometime in February if Sandy's is open to get an off-season fix in. And at the rate this winter is going, maybe I can bring my skis and manage a day without skiing in mud.

So I think I figured it out... As you can see in the first picture, on that sign there is a tiny little NJTP logo and a left arrow. I DID see this when I was driving through. But if you look at the second picture, the left turn lane is coned off both on Google Street View and also coned off currently in real life. So I guess I ended up taking the next left but apparently you're supposed to go straight another...half mile? Then it loops around back to the NJTP ramp that you just drove by because it's coned off. And there are NO SIGNS at all past this coned off intersection. F*cking Jersey. If anyone here has been to Boston's airport, it's the same convoluted layout where you drive around in circles 3 times before you finally get to the correct garage after having to dart across four lanes of traffic to get there because the exit ramp from the highway comes out on the left and your terminal is 300 feet ahead on the right. But at least Boston gives you clearly marked signs to get back to the highway as long as you successfully dart back across 4 lanes of traffic to get to the exit. This place? "Yeah f*ck you welcome to New Jersey we're gonna make sure you get a nice tour of beautiful downtown Rutherford before you leave." No wonder Jets fans are so miserable...you just watched your team somehow lose to Mac Jones, now we're gonna trap you in this circle from hell so you can't get away from this debacle!

Stopped by the mall this afternoon. Went into the park just to ride Shellraiser as I had never ridden it at night before. Due to technical problems they were only running one car which created a 20 minute wait. I have read in the past that the back row is smoother and I can confirm that is now my experience as well. First time riding in back and what a difference. The bottom of the big drop in front feels like it's going to jostle your brain out of your head, but in back it's just the slightest if bumps. When you get a smooth ride, this thing is truly a great coaster with awesome forces and it definitely completes with Nitro and Gale Force for best steel coaster in NJ. I also ponied up the money to ride the Ferris Wheel which is fantastic to experience once, with great views of the city, MetLife Stadium, the Turnpike, the guy getting arrested on the road underneath, etc. Mall had a good crowd but still way too many empty areas. And for the love of God, put some signs up for the exit so I don't end up in some giant parking lot for MetLife and then onto route 3 north (which is the opposite of where I needed to be) because there are ZERO signs when you're heading out telling you how to get to the Turnpike.