xVicesAndVirtues

Omg no...what happened to Maverick?? Also, I read someone say a little ways back that they are now selling Fast Lane, but only to passholders. I checked the CP website and the Fast Lane page is back up but the two daily options say "not available", whilst the season-long Gold and Platinum Fast Lane Plus are available for the rest of this year and all of next. Definitely not going back this year but can anybody clarify?

Awesome, thanks so much man! I’m excited to finally be returning to this park and El Toro for the first time this year. Hopefully we’ll get lucky and be allowed to request the back row. I know this weekend’s weather is looking warm so we’re preparing for it to be pretty busy.

Hey guys, I'm going to be visiting the park this weekend and I have a few questions: First, how flexible/inflexible is the park staff with regards to reservations? We made two reservations but we're also going to be spending some time in NYC beforehand, so we may get there earlier or later than the time we've reserved depending on traffic heading down there and what we have going on. If you're early, do they make you wait in one particular spot until your time comes? And if you're late, will they deny you entry at some point? I see a few people have posted about some coasters going back to loading all rows. Does this only apply to the B&Ms or are other coasters doing this as well? Does anyone have experience to share with the Flash Pass experience? The past few years, I've been getting Gold level, as in my experience *most* of the time the "50% wait or less" is way less than that. For example, last year when we were at Over Texas and Texas Giant had a 60 minute posted wait time, our wait on the Gold Flash Pass was only 7 minutes. But then, Mr. Freeze had a 90 minute line and we had to wait about 30 for it, but things like that still aren't really an issue enough for us to make the jump to Platinum level. And Bill, if you're in the thread and can let me know what the beer/liquor situation is like, I'd greatly appreciate it!

After reading everyone else's experiences with Lightning Rod and Canobie Coaster's downtime data (thank you for that) I can definitely consider myself incredibly lucky to have been on it as many times as I have, especially since I have to fly there. I've probably had 50-60 rides on it over the course of 6-8 visits. I do hope they find a way to fix the ride and make it run reliably without having to do something as drastic as an IBox conversion, as it's an incredibly unique ride and topper track gives RMCs so much more character than IBox track RMCs...but we've also been hoping they'd find a way since 2016. I rode during the first drop pothole and again this year with the slam at the bottom of the quad down, and I just wonder what seems to make this different/less reliable than the other topper track RMCs other than the fact that it has a launch.

^Has it been down since they began? Or are they taking some kind of piecemeal approach? Kind of odd that they'd up and do it in the middle of the season like that...but as I said, the one spot was pretty harsh when we went, so maybe it developed mid-season. The rest of the ride was running beautifully, though.

I know it's a bummer to see Lightning Rod down, but I can definitely see the need to do track work and this seems to be the appropriate time (post-Labor Day) to do it. When we went, there was a rough spot in the track immediately following the quad-down, where the track turns to the right before the little speed hill into the final overbank. It was tolerable in all rows except the back row, where it slammed so hard that we only rode back row twice during our visit. I mentioned it to one of the ride ops and they were aware of it, too.

Great report! You got far luckier than I did when I went last weekend with the access passes. We didn't stay on-site (we rented a house on Airbnb that was about 3/4 of a mile from the causeway), so we had to run with the masses to get the access passes and by the time we got to Steel Vengeance, they had already shut the queue to standby. The access pass lines for Steel Vengeance are insane and it was exactly the same when I was there, all the way back to Gemini. A ride op at Millennium Force told us that Steel Vengeance has the least number of access passes available of any of the coasters. Seeing as we got the very last 3 access passes for Maverick for the 3pm-4pm return time slot with less than 1/3 as many people in line there, I don't see how people toward the back of the line got any. Maverick was the same when we were there, it was pretty much constantly a posted 2-hour line and was backed up right to or just outside the entrance. Oddly, Millennium Force only once had a line in the first set of switchbacks when we were there, and countless other times when we walked by it was only halfway up the ramp. It's posted wait time never went beyond 30 minutes. One thing I'll give the park credit for is the fact that Top Thrill Dragster was up and running almost 100% of the time while we were there and only went down for wind and rain. I've never, ever had a visit to Cedar Point with it running so consistently and it was the only thing we got 3 rides on over the course of the weekend.

^Exactly. And even high capacity rides like Millennium Force have rows blocked off, so the other person in your party will be 2 rows away and that pushes back the next party as well. Hersheypark’s method was just “one party per row”. This makes the process go much faster.

^I have no idea. We went to Hershey on Thursday and it seemed busier than Cedar Point in terms of total guests but the only thing with a long line was Candymonium. We didn’t even bother getting fast track. We waited 2-3 trains for Skyrush and Fahrenheit and that was it. They also had pre-selected seats that were closed. So like parties of 3 (us) had to split up on B&Ms which is totally stupid. We didn’t ride Valravn due to 2-hour posted queue and we saw a train with literally 2 guests in the middle row while it was that full. We didn’t even check to see wtf was going on. I’d recommend getting to the park an hour early and absolutely hauling ass to Maverick. Then do the same to get to Millennium Force and you might get lucky and get one of the last 3pm-4pm passes. Another thing that’s incredibly frustrating is that if a ride is experiencing technical issues, they’ll either not start pass distribution until it’s up or if it is up then goes down, they stop distribution until it’s open again. So like, say Steel Vengeance is down at opening and doesn’t start running until noon, pass distribution won’t begin until noon. And yup, I’d absolutely get to Steel Vengeance with a few beers an hour before 3:30 distribution. On Saturday afternoon, the Steel Vengeance access pass line was backed up to Gemini. I promise I’m not exaggerating. The front the park was insanely busy still at closing this past weekend. We were over it and left about 10-15 minutes before park closing. Raptor’s queue was posted at 2 hours and full, no longer letting guests in. Magnum was still letting people in when we walked by a few minutes prior. Gatekeeper was still letting guests into its 2-hour posted queue. The Sky Ride randomly started running right at closing.

So, I'll definitely write more about my experience later, but I visited the park over the weekend and I could not possibly recommend anyone go there right now. Like, seriously, if I had another flight scheduled there, I'd take advantage of the low cost or zero change fees most airlines are offering and go somewhere else. They absolutely do not let riders in until noon. I'm not sure if this is a recent development but the operators told us yesterday that Millennium Force has a max of 350 riders they'll let into the queue before access passes are mandatory. I'm not sure if this is the same for every ride. On Sunday (yesterday), that 350 limit was reached at 11:20 AM, but luckily we got one ride on it beforehand. Access passes for the 11AM hand-out time were gone by the time we got off our first ride at 11:20 AM. On Saturday we tried getting to Maverick at about 11:30 AM and were denied there, too, but snagged literally the last 3 access passes for the morning. As far as Steel Vengeance goes, we rode once the entire weekend. People towards the back of both the morning and afternoon access pass lines missed out on passes. Everywhere we went was allowing a maximum of 15 minute window after your hour, then denying you. For example, if you didn't get in by 4:15 for a 3pm-4pm access pass, you were SOL. Some things at the end of the night were very arbitrary and inconsistent. Steel Vengeance let riders stand aside the entrance after 7PM to "maybe" get in. Maverick wouldn't even let riders with access passes in at 7:15 PM from the 6pm-7pm hour and had the line closed at 7:15 PM when the park closed at 8pm. Some random rides like Mangnum were letting people in as late as 7:45 PM when we gave up and left. The B&Ms all had 2-3 hour lines. The parking lot was about 7-8 rows deep. Not super busy but not dead either.

^We heard them do it twice on Tennessee Tornado and once on Thunderhead. Lightning Rod was kind of a tough one to keep your mask fully in place for obvious reasons, mine got pushed down a few times by the forces. However, they were holding every third train to clean, then they’d dispatch empty to dry it out. This was also the case at other coasters as well. Yes, we did, and found it to be a great family ride! Had some good moments for the train to pick up speed and the turnaround was fun as well. This park’s commitment to being a well-rounded destination is great!

I'm probably not going to do a "2020 Adventures Photo TR" as I have in the past, as it'd consist of very few PTRs due to the dramatic reduction in trips I'm taking this year for obvious reasons, so I'm just going to go ahead and post this here. This past weekend, the boyfriend and I took a trip to: Dollywood Yes. You are in the Dollywood discussion thread. I'll just come right out and say that Dollywood is really doing an outstanding job in terms of service and managing things in terms of COVID and you should absolutely pay them a visit if you can, as they deserve your money. Two things that the park did that knocked it out of the park: when you enter any single ride or attraction, the attendant in the station gives every rider a squirt of hand sanitizer before they get on. Other parks should do this. They should even do this when there isn't a pandemic to protect us from the unwashed masses. The second thing the park did really wowed us. On two different occasions, we had a park employee come up to us just to simply ask us how we're doing, ask some basic questions about where we're from/what we do/how long we're in town for, then thank us for being there and wish us and our families well. Such a simple gesture but such a nice touch. Everything was open although most coasters ran one train, spaced a row apart. We did get time saver passes but the employees were definitely hustling to make the process go as quickly and smoothly as possible. The park made announcements about social distancing, had queue spacers, and since people can't follow simple directions, they'd actively make announcements such as, "We have cameras and if you take your mask off during the ride, we have to stop and clean your seat after, making everybody else wait longer". Good, call b*tches out. At one point, we got poured on while riding Wild Eagle, and when a park attendant saw me trying to wring-out my soaked mask, immediately walked up and offered me a new one for free. Good ol' Dollywood hospitality. Welcome to Dollywood! The park was having their Flower and Food Festival during our visit. We were honestly just happy to make it up here. We had an entire trip planned to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for the end of March with friends flying in from out of state, a mountain cabin Airbnb, and plans to do both the park and surrounding area, which we had to cancel due to COVID-19. There was a 60% chance of rain that day. Clearly, Dollywood was prepared. Mmm yes. It had been a minute since I'd been on an RMC and Lightning Rod is still the best one I've been on. I don't know if it was just the fact that it had been months since my last ride on a really intense coaster, but Lightning Rod seemed particularly insane. My boyfriend had been to Dollywood once before but he didn't know about the cinnamon bread. Since carbs don't count during COVID, we killed a loaf immediately after buying it and it was heavenly. I don't make the rules, man. Some of the hedge art making up the horticulture part of Flowers and Food Festival. This little trash panda was waiting for someone to discard some cinnamon bread scraps. Whenever possible, the staff was doing their best to encourage social distancing. However, when they couldn't be around...humans, man. Wildwood Grove was actually new for me, as last year I went before it was finished. I was really surprised by the sheer size of the area. It's a LOT bigger than I expected and seems ripe for new expansion, if and when. I'm sure this has been said before somewhere, but Wildwood Grove gives some great, never-before-seen views of Thunderhead. Which, by the way, is running excellent and I really appreciate Dollywood's commitment to maintenance on what is such a masterpiece of a GCI woodie. Do you even vape, bro? We had a second half-day at the park before we had to head back to Orlando, and after getting a ride on it then doing a loop of the park, we came back to find that Lightning Rod was being very Lightning Rod. Some things never change. Thanks for reading, we plan to return to the park before the end of the year, if possible. Other parks take note- we will literally spend our time and money flying here for the experience and the commitment to guest safety before going to parks in our home market not doing the same. And, for the record, Lightning Rod can still jizz on my face. Stay safe, everyone!

^I'm glad they're at least open! I'm more of a vodka drinker myself, unless it's Crown Peach, then f*ck me up. I remember like two years ago spending a while in Chickie's and Pete's during a big typical Lake Erie rain storm and having quite a few of their menu-item mixed drinks. Also, maybe slightly off-topic/anecdotal but holy crap are car rentals pricy right now. I booked a 5-day rental at $390 out of CLE airport. Looking back at least year I only spent $179 on a 4-day rental. And after doing a few quick quotes online it seems to be that way everywhere, so definitely take that into consideration if considering booking a trip!

^Thanks so much for the info, that really helps a lot! As of right now we're crossing our fingers, as the park at least has posted hours despite not having entry times available for the dates we're going yet. I really, really hope that they start offering FL and FL+ again. We do have flights without change fees and refundable hotel and rental car in case we have to put off the entire trip, but we're hoping that isn't the case.

I went ahead and booked a Cedar Point trip for late August and now I have some questions after seeing all the reports about the access passes and return times for coasters. Is the park still offering Fast Lane and Fast Lane Plus? I went on their website and it just says "not available" next to the Fast Lane options. If so, and if FL and FL+ can be purchased in the park, does this supercede the access passes or not? For example, would there just be a dedicated FL queue per usual and you wait in it, or would I still need to get the access pass with return time and return at that time and enter the FL queue? Also, is the access pass system at all rides and does it ever stop? For example, if the park were at low capacity, would they just go ahead and open the queues up and cease access passes until a certain attendance threshold is met? Or, say there's only a handful of riders at Rougarou (per usual), but a crap ton at Millennium Force, would MF require the access passes and Rougarou not? I'm glad to hear that Melt is open since I ate there last year and it was basically heaven on a grilled cheese sandwich. Last, and most important question- is the bar at Chickie's and Pete's open/is it still possible to get mixed drinks and/or beer in the park? Thanks!

So, I wasn't planning on doing a report or anything nor did I take any photos from my visit, but my boyfriend and I went back on Monday, and honestly it was some of the same sh*t that's been said about SeaWorld Orlando, with some miniscule improvements that I think they made after getting a lot of negative publicity over the weekend. Going into the park, I actually got flagged for registering 102 degrees when they put the gun to my head, but I was quickly whisked away into the secondary screening tent, re-checked twice, and was good to go after about 3-5 minutes. The park did enforce mask-wearing when entering, but a lot of people were walking around with them pulled down or with their nose exposed, or just not wearing them at all. I think we saw two employees all day actually enforce mask wearing and that was about it. One guy walked up to us and told us to "watch out for the mask police". We weren't sure if the guy needed to lay off the meth or the Fox News. (Probably both). Social distancing was pretty much not a thing at all both out in the park and in queues, people were really piling in. The only place we witnessed it being really enforced was at Kumba, but only once you got past the attendant going into the station. They did run two stations for the first time I've seen in like 8 years on Sheikra, which was nice, but even past the ride attendant there people were right on top of each other. The way they loaded the trains was super random. I saw one row of Sheikra with one seat between two parties, one with two, another with none. A lot of parties were merging with one another or asking other people to merge parties because they didn't want to wait. Sometimes a group of two would just follow another group of two onto a ride and nothing was said. Unlike SeaWorld, we did not once see a train seat wiped down between riders. We weren't at all about to be big enough of dicks to ask for our platinum pass re-rides with the long, slow lines, but I did ask an attendant if we could re-ride through quick queue. She replied, "we aren't doing the platinum pass re-rides anymore". I pointed to the sign above us that was still up advertising platinum pass re-rides. It's still being advertised on the website, too. It's obvious that staffing cuts were made to save money but they seemed to stupidly cut the staff in areas that literally make them money; food and retail. We were disappointed to find a sad, scaled-back menu at the BBQ place by Sheikra, which is usually one of our favorite places to eat in that park. Only one side of the restaurant was open, so the line was super long and people were packed in with, you guessed it, no social distancing. The liquor stand we usually frequent on the path across from Stanley Falls was closed. Ride exit shops were closed. It was over 90 degrees and it took us a good minute to find somewhere to buy a bottle of water. There were just so many missed opportunities where we literally WOULD have spent more of our money there. And like, I get it may not make sense to staff something like a full-service restaurant, but did they really make the call that they didn't believe they'd sell 1/2 of one cocktail or a cheeseburger without fries per hour to make up for the $7 they'd have to pay one employee to be in a few of the smaller stands each hour? Whew, when I started typing that I didn't think it'd end up being this long. In a nutshell, SeaWorld as a chain seems to need to get their sh*t together. On the way out we even saw the repo man demanding the keys to Iron Gwazi. Jk about the last part.

I need some time alone with those nighttime photos of Iron Gwazi... Great report! I love everything this park is doing lately and the other day we walked past the booths as they were being set-up, and some of the food options are really looking great!

Ugh, of course Six Flags went with comfort collars for WCR. I don’t find them uncomfortable at all during the ride but they make an already-awkward train entry and exit have an additional degree of awkwardness. The one thing I do wish Premier would change would be to put soft-touch (or more than angular metal) material on the lower surfaces. 9 times out of 10 I bang my shin or ankle trying to get in and out. And comfort collars f*ck up my hair.

Late to the party but love your reports! I also went to Walibi Holland while in Europe and I loved both the park and Untamed. We did a nighttime visit during their Halloween event and the temperatures dropped into the high 40s, so Untamed ran a little less crazy for us, likely due to the temperature. But we thought it ran perfectly and it reminded me of a love child between Steel Vengeance and Twisted Timbers, in the best way. One of these days I have to visit Efteling, likely in 2021 when we do a trip to Walibi Belgium for their new Intamin Megacoaster, and we'll likely go back to Walibi Holland again then, too. I just wish I could have ridden Bob before it got taken down, as now the only two Intamin Swiss Bobsled coasters remaining are the ones here in the states, and they're both the cloned Sarajevo Bobsled model. I've also always wanted to ride a traditional-style Intamin Invert, as they look incredible. I definitely trust your judgment when you say there's head-banging though. Looking forward to seeing your report from Parque Warner Madrid, that park has always intrigued me.

Thanks for all the comments, guys! I'll definitely clarify and say I'd recommend this park; just visit on a weekday when it's not peak season, as there are definitely a lot of quirks about this place and our visit probably wouldn't have been so great if it wasn't a ghost town when we were there. I honestly can't thank you guys enough, as you guys have a platform and use it very well. After I read the reports about Hyperion I was concerned, as I've definitely experienced some shaky rides on winged Intamin coasters (ie Furius Baco), which can really make or break the ride. Hyperion rode so smoothly for us that they must have listened and gotten right on it with maintenance. And the new Vekoma looks awesome!

^From what I remember visiting early in the season, the big turnaround after the first drop was all new wood, as were 2 or 3 of the low-ground turns. It ran extremely smoothly back in April. I've never found this coaster to be rough or uncomfortable at all, only aggressive.

The bf and I visited the park the other day for Christmas Town and crowds were non-existant, per usual for a weekday just about any time of the year. I love having this park just an hour down i4 and almost always being guaranteed unlimited walk-on rides on Kumba and Montu. The Christmas Town Village area, which opens at 4, was very cute and their waffle sandwiches were bomb. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a pic of the one we got, but it was the one with turkey, cheese, and cranberry on it. Iron Gwazi looks very imposing entering the park and really dominates the skyline. I can't wait for the aforementioned weekdays with no lines to ride this over and over again. Iron Gwazi's lift, sans-chain right now, has been completed. Track has made it's way about 3/4 of the way down the first drop as well. I'm happy to report that Gwazi: Tiger was spared demolition and will live on in Jungala. Going down The Skyride was open again, making for some good views of Iron Gwazi's progress Same Skyride, different angle The sun beginning to set behind the new RMC tower As the sun set, we were starting to freeze our a$$es off (it was like 55 degrees, for you non-Floridians), so we ran to the car to grab jackets for the rest of our night rides. The new view of the park's skyline when walking into the park Now that the Christmas Town Village area was open, we were able to get some unique looks from right under Iron Gwazi The bf and I awkwardly posing for a photo in front of some Christmas trees at the far end of Christmas Town Village The entire park really looked beautiful with all the Christmas lights illuminated with the sun going down The quieter side of the park near the kangaroos and flamingos was lined with these cute little trees They had the SheiKra-Kumba shortcut path open, which was covered with this tunnel decorated with lights, which were coordinated to change color to music The Crown Colony House was also decked out with music-coordinated lights. When we were nearby, it was jamming to Christmas Eve in Sarajevo You can get your nuts cracked, if that's what you're into Even the alligators had this cute little Christmas tree to look at And lastly, the park's entrance area was also fully illuminated with lights, holly, and wreaths. Busch Gardens Tampa is a beautiful park and Christmas Town really makes it come alive at night. We really enjoyed our visit and hopefully we'll make it back again before the event ends. I highly recommend the food/drinks in Christmas Town Village!

I'm definitely behind in this year's trip reports, so now that it's the off-season for most of the seasonal parks, there's no time like the present to get a little caught up. I'm going to perhaps skip a park or two that I've already wrote about in the past and fast forward a little bit to the Europe trip my friend and I took in mid-October. We bought some slightly-complicated flights, in order to fly both on a budget but also comfortably for what is a good amount of traveling to Europe from Florida. The first park we had to hit was one I'd never even heard of two years ago, but that's been interrupting my sleep and stirring my imagination since the beginning of last year. That park was: Energylandia We planned this trip some time in July, and once the reports from the TPR Europe trip started coming out, I began to worry if we'd made a mistake spending the extra time and money adding Poland to our trip that was otherwise focused on parks in Germany and The Netherlands. Like most enthusiasts with a pulse, I'm mildly obsessed with Intamin Mega/Giga coasters, because they are really all really awesome, even when they're trying to make you a double amputee ala Skyrush, giving you a karate chop to the neck like Maverick and Storm Runner before the merciful invention of soft shoulder straps, or trying to give you an aneurysm like i305. Naturally, as Hyperion got built and POVs of it came out, I just had to get there. When the less-than-stellar reviews started to surface, I was really bummed, as this was one I'd been seriously hyping up in my brain. However, I was very excited that Zadra would be open for our trip, as the pics online of this going up, too, were borderline pornography. I know Intamin sometimes makes a coaster here or there that can be a little too violent or does the track layout right but throws in restraints that make the experience less pleasant, but RMC has been spot-on since the moment they built New Texas Giant. To make it kind of a double-whammy of a worry going in, we sadly could not possibly fit Legendia into our plans despite my repeated re-writing of the trip itinerary, based on the park's lack of weekday operations during the time we'd be there and the flow of our trip between other parks' hours and flight schedules and costs. So...how was Energylandia? To sum it up, our day and a half spent at the park were f*cking awesome. That being said, they could have just as easily not been awesome, we just really lucked out. Yes, operations at this park suck. Ride operators are slow and detached, and I'm somewhat convinced that they're just really well-detailed robots. Animatronics have come a long way in recent years, after all. Plus, whoever is bankrolling Energylandia clearly just shovels money at manufacturers and says "just build us the absolute best thing you can possibly make, cost be damned"...so they can definitely afford high-end ride operator bots. Does anybody know who owns this place? I wouldn't mind having them as my sugar daddy. Rules for rides, especially the previously-discussed station-sorting systems, seem to make no sense at all. There's a crap ton of fluffy bunnies, and the ride instruction videos say to put all your things in them, but they still allowed loose articles to be left in the station, so that's nice at least. You can definitely tell, as again has been previously reported, that some of the rides and areas of the park were installed before they came up with their vision for the future. But it's still unclear what that vision really is. Just don't be tricked into expecting Universal or Disney. Look at it more along the lines with the old Paramount parks, where they'd throw in a cool name and theming but it was just kind of there. So normally I don't do the whole "paragraph where I describe and rank coasters", but I have to for these two: Zadra is absolutely incredible. It smashes the crap out of every other steel RMC. It has that totally insane, out-of-control feeling like Lightning Rod, but with a longer layout. Yes, it has many elements very typical of other RMCs, but moves through the layout more quickly, if that was even possible. Huge drops, head choppers, airtime, hangtime, a speed turn that feels like it's trying to fling you out, this coaster really has it all. This thing is nuts, yet also completely re-rideable. I already had 3 coasters to rank as #1 when I eventually complete the TPR poll. Now I have 4. We were lucky enough to get about 10 rides on this monster in the day and a half we spent at the park. It would have been double that or more if not for the queue. But- holy. crap. the. queue. You guys who hate the queue for Hyperion are really going to hate this. It's seriously obnoxious how long it is. It's at least twice as long as Hyperion's queue, maybe more than that. That's one thing that people are NOT kidding at all about. If Zadra is a total walk-on, which we experienced 2 or 3 times during our visit, you might be lucky to get 2 rides in a half hour if you walk very fast, considering the length of not just the entrance queue but also the exit path. This park needs to build shortcuts. Even if the park was "Cedar Point Halloweekends" busy, I don't think 1/20th of Zadra's queue space would be full. Remember Dueling Dragons old queue with the castle and when they had the longer outdoor section? It's got to be 4 or 5 of those in length. There's also a pointless elevated section where you walk up a bunch of stairs just to walk back down a bunch of stairs again. At least you can take pictures of almost every angle of the ride, as the queue goes around 3/4 of it. Hyperion is also an amazing ride. This was the one I was worried about due to previous reports I'd read. It was only running one train, and I got one of the Operator Bots who spoke English to tell me that the other train was "away for repairs". I suspect but also hope that the reviews about roughness on this ride got some attention and lit a fire under the park's ass. The rides we had on Hyperion were super fast and glass smooth, even in the outer seats. Hyperion's layout kind of reminds me of a new-age SFNE Superman, in all the best ways. The drop is seriously terrifying, especially in the front row, with the newer, minimalistic Intamin lap-bars. The second hill is full of airtime, mild ejector in the front, hard floater/borderline ejector in the back. The turnaround/maybe/non-inversion scares the sh*t out of me. When you invert (or not quite invert), the lap bars just don't seem adequate and you feel like you're going to fall out. Then, the rest of the layout has a few moments of orgasmic ejector airtime, some weird twists that were seemingly taken out of RMC's playbook, and this one low-to-the-ground twisted hill element that seriously feels as if you're about to be ejected from the ride. The totality of this ride is what makes it. The airtime isn't quite as strong as coasters like EGF or El Toro's best moments, but it's there. The pacing, speed, airtime, and general terror of going through this crazy layout with such a small lap bar, elevated on a bare platform, makes me have 5 coasters to rank as #1. Seriously, it was that good. So, now we have two #1 coasters in one park, which just seems crazy. Anyway, that was a whole lot of text for me, now let's let the photos do the rest of the talking. Welcome to Six Flags over Auschewitz. Another Intamin masterpiece for the books. Hyperion begins with a HUGE 269-foot drop into an underground tunnel. Immediately after, you rush up into this also-huge hill providing loads of airtime for the kids. Hyperion then threatens to end your life, the way any good Intamin coaster should. A back-side view of some of the action, taken from a rest break in the middle of the mile walk to Hyperion's station. Hyperion's finale is this small airtime hill. While floater in most of the train, it's borderline ejector in the front row. Eventually, those who aren't left to die in the desert make it to the HYPER_NOVI station. Nerd thought: it kind of looks as though Hyperion was originally intended to have a cable lift, considering it has what looks like the catch car rest position spot in the track that coasters equipped with cable lift have. Maybe they decided to go with a chain lift last minute? After a looooooong walk through what is a pretty large park, we made it to our second immediate order of business. The newly-built Dragon or whatever area. It looks kind of like they copied Universal's Wizarding World homework here. I'm pretty sure we were skipping with excitement at this point. I'm going to quote my earlier self here: Zadra can jizz all over my face and I'd be sticking my tongue out. Hey, at least Energylandia is nice enough to let you know that it's going to take a while. Yep, the park's bizarre 1-2-3 system of pre-organizing the station made it to Zadra as well. People didn't seem to understand this at all and I would seriously hate to have to deal with this on a busy day. But like, Zadra tho, yo You close? Alright, if you didn't finish yet, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that you see a doctor about that. I'm happy to report that the Operator Bots are Energylandia are treated well. They're given cups of coffee and a chair to sit in while they stare at their iPhones between dispatches. The then-new-for-2020 pile of dirt that we now know will be the new Aqualantica section, featuring new coaster Abyssus Oh yeah, so Energylandia also has this awesome little Vekoma coaster, Formula. It packs a punchy little launch, followed by a quick, albeit short layout with a couple of fast, zippy inversions. You can definitely tell the progression of theming from what the park was doing for this coaster in 2016, to Hyperion in 2018, to Zadra and it's land in 2019, to what looks like a stunning new land in 2020. The coaster's theme is very "Top Thrill Dragster". Also pictured is the new generation Vekoma trains, which are supremely comfortable. Honestly this new Vekoma was every bit smooth as a B&M. Some inversion and some sky In 2015, Energylandia installed "Roller Coaster Mayan", which is a Vekoma SLC. It would seem suspect that a park would be drunk enough to buy a brand new SLC nowadays. Roller Coaster Mayan was far and away the smoothest SLC I've ever been on. My friend even said, "I didn't think it was possible to like one of those". Not only did Mayan feature the new age Vekoma trains a la Mind Eraser at SFNE, the transitions even seemed like they'd been smoothed out, likely by some CAD programming. Energylandia has several "pathways to nowhere" that make you feel like a lost RCT peep. Zadra got built across this path that seems like it existed beforehand. The entrance and exit queues both cross directly through it, with just temporary-looking barrier walls like these on the sides. Odd. Also, this outward-banked element on Zadra was insane and taken at speed, going from extreme banking in one direction and rotating the other direction before flipping back again. I'm happy to see that Iron Gwazi has this exact same element. This "20 min" marker in Mayan's line came not after, but before a "30 min" marker. Very strange... "Viking Roller Coaster" was the spinning Wild Maus of death. From first glance, as a non-Wild Maus enthusiast, I assumed it was a Zamperla or Reverchron model. Turns out it's made by the SBF Visa Group and is VERY different from a lot of the others I've been on. First off, it was running absolutely balls-to-the-wall fast. I don't think we got trimmed a single time, so before we even hit the first dip, we were flying around corners so fast and hard that I don't know how the ride vehicle hasn't gone off yet. Second, the ride vehicle's unnecessary over-the-shoulder restraints were hard as an old SLC's and there was no padding on the sides of the car. Every single one of the aforementioned turns slammed us around so hard we had bruises for days. The park's zillion-kiddie-coaster collection also includes one of these new-age Family Boomerang coasters. The ride wasn't memorable but the theming was cute. Going from the frames on the walls, the theme for the family boomerang apparently is wine and grapes. It also featured a station fly-through like a GCI woodie. Some of the seemingly-newer areas of the park were very cute and had plenty of detail Others were very "state fair". Hopefully the park is in the process of updating these other areas, as some of them really stick out as eyesores in comparison. You enter through the "O". At this point, after going on most of the rides we wanted to and skipping the kiddie coasters because we aren't that desperate, we spent the rest of the day going back and forth between the park's three major, awesome coasters. Despite being very long, Hyperion's queue was definitely cool and futuristic-looking. Here you can see what Hyperion's trains are like. They're a plain, flat platform kind of like Skyrush's, but with the platform below all 4 seats and with much, much more comfortable restraints. Hey, Hersheypark, could you guys PLEASE buy some of these newer Intamin restraints and convert? They'd honestly improve Skyrush tenfold. Although the park was only open until 18:00 that day and it was never dark, they did have these stilt-walking scareactors roaming around not really scaring anyone. "Halloween theming" came in the form of a ton of random pumpkins and bales of hay scattered throughout the park, but it did add a nice touch. Oh, look, I had a picture of Zadra's "stairway to nowhere", after all. At least it made for some good overview shots of the coaster. Autumn at Energylandia I'll end the report with a few photos taken of Hyperion and Zadra during the rest of the first day and the following day before we headed off to Germany. That wraps it up. Thanks for reading! I would definitely recommend Energylandia to anyone, considering the great coasters they have and their continued future expansion plans. Poland is also a fantastic country and everything is very cheap, considering their currency is about 0.25 to 1 US Dollar!

Whew, it's been a busy summer/fall for me thus far. I didn't even realize I hadn't posted an update since the end of July and now it's the end of October. Anyways... The second and final park of this trip up to the Northeast was, Six Flags Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom Hurricane Harbor Or whatever we're calling it nowadays. One of few Six Flags parks that (maybe mercifully?) has never been officially "flagged" with the Six Flags name...although sometimes in publications they do include the Six Flags name...and the hotel is called Six Flags Great Escape Lodge...and the entirety of the property is called Six Flags Great Escape Resort. Annntyways...this serene park in upstate New York is the one I used to call my home park and I even worked in the finance department here for a stint in my late teens. Having not visited since 2017, I was looking forward to coming back. Now, pictures. Hey, if the lack of "Six Flags" in the name is what's keeping these nice planters at the entrance instead of steel concert barricades, I'm cool with it. It's either completely genius or totally idiotic that Six Flags has these "VIP DIAMOND PLATINUM ALL ACCESS ELITE PLUS" entrances at the front of each park. Idiotic because it's so hilariously stupid, but genius because b*tches like to feel special and "walking through the VIP entrance past the plebians" is a mood. Not that you'll have much of a wait getting into this park's entrance even on the busiest of days. "Hey Disneyland, you seen this?" Instead of a main midway, Great Escape has a collection of cute shops leading up to this area in front of their carousel, with the skyride overhead. Wholesome af. It's a hike up a hill to the park's Ghost Town area, featuring one of the few old haunts left from Opryland. This is Canyon Blaster, formerly Rock'n' Roller Coaster from Opryland. It had to be modified a bit for Great Escape but is still mostly it's same old self. That is, an old Arrow mine train that doesn't do much at all In true Great Escape fashion, though, they do give you some nice things to look at while queueing and on the ride. Believe it or not, this was actually Great Escape's last "big" roller coaster put in, way back in 2003. I was in middle school in 2003. The coaster's single train beginning it's descent into the helix that's the fastest part of the ride Speaking of older things...the Nightmare building still stands as a large, expensive piece of theming for the log flume. From 1999 to 2006, there was a Schwarzkopf Jet Star in this building, which was removed and scrapped in the off season between 2008 and 2009. Nightmare was at Beech Bend, Kentucky Kingdom, and Six Flags Darien Lake before spending it's twilight years here. It only ran 2-3 cars at a time and double-sitting wasn't permitted, so a queue of 30-40 people would consistently take an hour or more. The Desperado Plunge log flume sure was popular on this high-80s day in upstate New York. Rest assured, however, that even a full queue for this ride clears in about 15-20 minutes. So the new for 2020 Vomatron ride, which I'm perfectly okay with never riding, will go immediately to the right of where this photo ends. Although tbh I'd be perfectly okay with Wells Fargo getting torn down too. From what I've heard, the Condor will live to see yet another season. And you know the Dippin Dots guy is never wrong. The mascot on the Steamin' Demon is...a wide-faced, buck-tooth rat thing? Fun fact about Steamin' Demon; the coaster originated down in New Orleans at a now-defunct park called Ponchartrain Beach. The previous owner of Great Escape, Charlie Wood, bought it when the park closed in 1983 and it opened at Great Escape in 1984. The first drop and loop on these older Arrow loopers are always great! Good airtime in the back, good positive g forces through the loop... ...sensing your pleasure from the first bit, Arrow then goes into full S&M mode If Six Flags put in a swear jar on their Arrow coasters, they wouldn't have to buy into the leases for other parks just to expand their membership/dining plan purchases in order to pad their metrics and please their shareholders. Boom. Here we have a typical Great Escape queue... Speaking of pain, here we have a Boomerang. Actually, Great Escape's Boomerang, called Flashback now for some reason, is pretty smooth. This park is beautiful. Arguably the best-themed area of Great Escape is their Fest Area, which is a Bavarian-themed area with nice shops and buildings, a Fest Haus food hall, and of course, Alpine Bobsled ...well, that's a bit embarrassing now, isn't it? New! Now Open! Machismo Nachismo! ...well, that's a bit embarrassing now, isn't it? Mucho good! Mucho closed! Well, maybe the park is one step closer to being flagged by re-naming their water park Hurricane Harbor Part of the Hurricane Harbor re-theme of Splashwater Kingdom was re-theming the Black Cobra from it's "Pollen-Colored Cobra" state it's been in for the last 15 years to...Orange and Blue Cobra. Cool. The rest of what we used to refer to as "Lower Splashwater" (the waterpark is split between the top and bottom of a massive hill) appears to have gotten some paint and new umbrellas. The Comet. The Comet is one seriously underrated woodie. It was designed by Herbert Schmeck, who brought us greats such as Phoenix at Knoebel's and the also-named Comet at Hersheypark. This coaster is actually a whole lot like Phoenix, even in layout, but is a little bit larger and longer. When maintained well, I actually prefer Comet over Phoenix. However, the past several seasons have been kind of odd for this ride. For a few years, it ran pretty rough, then some track work got done, and the past 2-3 years it's seemed a little slow. I mostly ride it in the back for the strong airtime, but I suspect that a few trims have either been newly installed or dialed up a bit. Areas that have always had strong airtime, including the double-down, felt a lot weaker on this visit. That aside, it's still one of the very best classic woodies out there and you should hit up Great Escape and ride it! Walking back from the Comet, the next thing I saw made me wonder whether or not Herbert Schmeck had just knocked a few screws loose in my mind from the afterlife. This couldn't be real. Surely, some kids knocked the sign down and pushed open the gate... Not only was it open, but I had not seen the Great Britain sled out on the track in at least 15 years. Like whaaaaat Now, rest assured, one thing Great Escape doesn't...escape, is Six Flags' oh-so-stellar operations. Running one station platform (they have two), plus the back row of each sled roped off, they still managed to take quite a while between dispatches and did the seat belt check before allowing riders to lower their lap bars like it was a f*cking RMC. I'm happy to report that some of the easier-to-reach sections even got a little bit of fresh paint, including what appeared to be almost the entirety of the inside of the trough. You can see here in this photo which sections got fresh paint and which didn't. Which begs the question...Six Flags, would it really kill you to go over the transfer track area with a white sprayer FFS? While a little rough and tumble, I actually really enjoy these rides and they're becoming extremely rare. I believe Alpine Bobsled and La Vibora are the only two left hanging on in the world, now that Bob at Efteling has met it's demise. This one and La Vibora are both the "Sarajevo Bobsled" layout, and theres a moment where the train seems to "hop" off the track in one spot that's crazy fun. Luckily, Alpine Bobsled is likely to stay with us, for at least the time being. I know that several years ago, a rumor ran rampant about the coaster's demise. Since this is old enough and now-irrelevant information to share; back several years ago, the park and corporate had been looking at plans for this site, which included removing Alpine Bobsled and replacing it with one of a few different proposals that had been made. Plans got put off for a few seasons before they were ultimately shelved. Unfortunately, Great Escape is kind of a back-burner park for the company in terms of capital, they just don't do the volume necessary to justify a huge expense, and most of the money made at this park comes from the waterpark. What a difference 2 hours makes. I'm pretty averse to water rides, but I'll ride this flume, knowing it's typically just a few drops or small splash. Also, old Arrow flumes are awesome. In the exit area of Desperado Plunge, just after the photo sales area, you'll see some frames from the park's history, including this photo of Steamin' Demon in it's inaugural year An old frame of the park entrance, showing off the Huss Rainbow that once sat where the Sasquatch S&S towers now are And a frame of their old Huss Skylab, similar to a Huss Enterprise, which once sat where the Skycoaster is now. I may be wrong, but I think the difference between an Enterprise and Skylab was that Enterprises have single gondolas while Skylab models have double. ...and just like that, I feel old. One last look at the front area of the park on the way out. Thanks for reading what turned out to be a pretty long PTR! Hopefully I'll get the next report out sooner than later.

I visited the park on Friday night and I was very impressed by how operationally excellent everything was. I was worried about the 5pm-midnight hours and Fright Fest, combined with bring-a-friend weekend being crowded...the 5-6 hour almost made me think we'd lucked out, as we got about 8 El Toro rides in without ever leaving the station and a walk-on for Kingda Ka. Well...by 7pm the park was absolutely mobbed but the park handled it extremely well. Every single coaster we went to was at maximum capacity. El Toro running both trains, Nitro running 3 and rarely stacking, etc. Gold Flash Pass was definitely our friend, but needless to say, this park has the best operations I've seen this year in the entire chain. As for El Toro, some work definitely got done between my spring visit and now. In the spring, the turnaround was brutal and the pothole pulling out of the Rolling Thunder hill was killer. It was running super smooth this time around on all the rides we had, and while the turnaround was still slightly jarring, the rest of the coaster was extremely smooth and the pothole, which had been developing for a few years, was completely gone. Bravo to Six Flags Great Adventure for keeping this excellent coaster running in tip-top shape.