xVicesAndVirtues

I wish they'd topper track the entire layout and run trains that aren't PTC. Or just RMC it. I rode it at the very end of June and the only smooth-ish part was the first drop and in the tunnels.

This looks awesome! I really dig the recent creations by GCI, like Mystic Timbers, which is an incredibly smooth woodie that still has some out-of-control feeling and a fun layout with airtime and laterals all over the place. This looks to be right in that category and adds to SWSA's already unique line-up.

Did they fix the spot at the bottom of the Rolling Thunder hill? It was really brutal there back in June.

And here I thought it was my phone/service buffering the live stream because I was attempting to watch while waiting for the ferryboat out of Magic Kingdom.

Continuing along my 2019 Adventures, the next trip was a visit up north to see family in New York. As part of this trip, I also visited two parks, the first of which is a park I make a point to visit at least once a year. The park I visited was: Six Flags New England People tend to say that Texas, Six Flags' home market, is the best place to go for Six Flags parks. I wholeheartedly agree with this, but if there's a runner-up region for good Six Flagsing, it'd have to be the Northeast trio of Great Adventure, New England, and Great Escape. New England in particular has always been a favorite of mine. If I had to name a "favorite Six Flags", I'd logically say Fiesta Texas, but New England is a close second. It's a pretty small park but they really fit a lot into their space. The park is located right alongside the Connecticut River so it has some natural scenery in addition to some nice older buildings from its pre-Six Flags days when it was called Riverside Park. Their admission-included water park, Hurricane Harbor, is actually one of the nicer Six Flags water parks despite not being a separate ticket. Oh, and this park also has the kick-ass one-two punch of Superman and Wicked Cyclone. The park has also always had pretty consistent operations. However, I'm very disappointed to report that that couldn't be farther from the truth on this visit. On this visit, not only were operations the worst I've ever seen here, but honestly the worst in the chain right now. This wasn't isolated to one area, this was park-wide, with the exception of an otherwise consistent Superman crew. Rather than typing it out all over again, I'm just going to quote myself from the SFNE thread. I could go on and on with more examples but I won't. Luckily, this is simply a matter of employee training, accountability, and oversight. I really hope that they can get their act together soon and correct this, because they're better than this and from my previous experiences, they've always been better than this. Anyway, I hate to post a negative report because this is a hobby that we all love and enjoy! So now, onto the photos Heading in, I knew this was going to be a busy day, as the parking lot was full all the way back to their farthest-back overflow lots. One other issue I had, and this wasn't really a SFNE issue but a chain-wide problem right now, is that every time I try and enter any Six Flags park, my membership comes up as "wrong park", every single time. I'm not sure if any of you have had this issue, but apparently it's such a widespread problem that now the parks are keeping stacks of "wrong park comp tickets" on hand instead of directing guests to GR to get one every time, which is what I've had to do up until now. But...wouldn't it be much easier to just identify which guests' memberships are causing this error and correct it? Oh, Six Flags. Oh, wow! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this pile of sh*t running. This is my first visit in 4 or 5 years in which I've seen it going. In case any of you were wondering, Goliath (formerly Deja Vu at Six Flags Magic Mountain) makes Top Thrill Dragster look very reliable. The "main street" (or whatever its called) area of SFNE is very pretty and very New England, leading up to an iconic S&S triple-tower complex proudly wearing Six Flags' logo More nice buildings, this time showcasing the remnants of SFNE's old gondola ride. To this day I still think it's a shame that it was removed. It was still running, but I decided back in 2014 or 2015 that I'd had my last ride on it ever. I want to say I rode in the back or towards the back at that time, and it was totally brutal. Six Flags New England trying some Busch Gardens Williamsburg up in here My friend I was with on this visit made me do this thing once. It truly was 400 feet of a$$-clenching terror. Oh, don't tell me... Luckily, by the time I located and placed my belongings in the newly-inconvenient fluffy bunny, they were back up and running. Before, there was a set of these fairly close to the ride entrance. Now, you have to walk back down the hill to where they're shared with Blizzard River. Back up and running! Wicked Cyclone was running a little bit sluggish at the beginning of the day. However, by the evening, it was running mostly at it's normal pace. One thing I really love about Wicked Cyclone is how true to it's original layout it is. You pretty much follow the old Cyclone's path to a T, just with a lot less pain and a lot more excitement and airtime. This is one of my favorite spots on the ride. To those who are unfamiliar with either WC or the original Cyclone; in it's original form, Cyclone would "sway" back and forth when the train traversed this hill, which was both terrifying and entertaining to watch from the queue. I absolutely love how RMC turned the spot into a fake-out inversion, as it essentially has the train do the "sway" the same way it used to. This was also one of the most necessary RMC conversions, right up there with Mean Streak in my opinion. The original Cyclone was a huge pile of sh*t. And with that, it was time to head to the DC section of the park to ride this absolute masterpiece. Remember that time when Six Flags bought a custom Intamin Megacoaster and built an entire section of a park with it as the centerpiece? Superman is 208 feet tall but it seems way bigger than that. The unique park layout has most of the park on a hill with the DC area downhill next to the river with Superman along the edge. Everything else around it is small, so the perspective of it all makes Superman seem more like 300 feet tall when you're standing next to it With all that said, let's talk about the ride...which at this time, I was about to get 5 rides on within about an hour, as everyone was in the water park. The name...Superman the Ride. Ehh, Superman Ride of Steel was a much better name, but they can call it whatever they want and it'll still be great. Just going up the lift on this coaster is awesome. They put the catwalk on the right hand side so your left side is exposed to the Connecticut River. The first drop...at 75 degrees isn't all that steep by today's standards, but a 9-car train gives a unique hang in the front and great pull and air in the back, then you're straight into an underground tunnel. The second hill treats you to some pretty strong, sustained floater air, especially in the front. I'm happy to be able to say this, as apparently a wheel change is responsible for an injection of life back into this coaster. While I'm still not a fan of these trains and I really wish they'd order a new set of the originals again like Darien Lake did, Superman is currently giving it's best rides in years. The third hill gives you some mild ejector air, while this fourth hill seen here launches you directly into ejector air heaven One last look at the ejectorgasm. The verdict: Superman is still one of the best steel coasters anywhere. Train/restraint issues aside, this ride is seriously amazing and I always look forward to riding it. In my opinion, this is probably the "best coaster layout" ever drawn-up. It really has it all. Setting, midway interaction, 2 underground tunnels, strong airtime, and great positive lateral G force in the helices. There are newer, stronger, faster, and more intense coasters today. But Superman is so re-rideable and the fact that it can still hang with the best when it's in it's 20th season is a true testament to Intamin's brilliance. Which begs the question: when you have a reliable, thrilling Intamin Mega with consistent uptime, which guests run around to re-ride and is generally loved and considered one of the best...why are parks still building B&M hypercoasters en masse? We're about to get Candymonium, half the Cedar Fair chain has a B&M hyper, Six Flags even went on it's own B&M hyper spree...yet, it's exceedingly rare to see an Intamin mega/hyper get built. Don't get me wrong, B&M hypers are fun, but not a single one of them can touch a ride like Superman. I guess the other side of the coin is that these rides are special, a reminder that we have a pulse. Moving along down to the south end of the park, we have Joker, which is now a pretty ubiquitous ride among Six Flags parks. We also have Batman the Dark Knight down at this end as well Complete with a hangtime-filled vertical loop, Batman has a snappy, compact layout and makes it one of the more underrated B&M floorless coasters I waited a minute or so wanting to grab a photo here before stowing my phone away, but the glacial, zero-f*cks-given attitude of Batman's crew meant it'd be a while before another train was to be dispatched. Mind Eraser is now excessively green. And apparently these people thought I was taking their photo Dinner was to be had at the understaffed JB's, but the food quality and portions here were still good. In Massachusetts, every home and business is required BY LAW to have a shrine honoring Tom Brady. I can respect the fact that Six Flags wears the fact that they're trash with pride. Crackaxle Canyon is a quiet, well-themed area of Six Flags New England. It's exceedingly dead here ever since the park closed off the path from the entrance to this area a few years ago, but Houdini is still going strong. I used to love these 10 years ago. But now if I rode one I think I'd be sick for days. Six Flags New England also seems to seems to be the park of twos. Two Boomerangs, two frisbees, two spinny Wipeout-style rides. Now if only they could tear out the Boomerangs and become the park of two RMCs, that'd be great. It was getting towards the end of the day and my friend left a little early, so I decided to close out the night with some rides on Wicked Cyclone, which was running pretty strong at this point. So far this season, I've done Twisted Timbers and Storm Chaser. While both of these are more powerful rides than Wicked Cyclone, the more interesting layout, headchoppers, and general awesomeness of Wicked Cyclone makes me prefer it over the other two. And that's all from SFNE. Still a great park that I love to visit, just please, please fix the operations problems. Thanks for reading!

Glad you got that late ride in on Superman! That honestly is such a great coaster, it was running excellent when I rode last week, I even got airtime in the little twist-hills between the helices and before the second tunnel. My trick is usually to ride in row 2, as it's the same car and you get basically the same effect as row 1, but a much shorter wait.

Haha, apparently that where we separate for our seasonal trips. Despite growing up in the Northeast, I have yet to do Coney Island, Story Land, and even your namesake Canobie. A few times I've tried to plan out a trip to hit Story Land, Canobie, and Funtown Splashtown, but it's just never panned out. One of these years for sure!

^^I'm also a big Boulder Dash fan as well, and while I haven't been on it since maybe 2015 or 2016, I've always found it to be a great ride and mostly tolerable, save for maybe a few spots. I really, really wanted to love Voyage as well. I was really looking forward to riding it on this trip, especially after experiencing the brutal spots on El Toro a couple of weeks ago. I thought, "since El Toro has these killer spots, how bad can Voyage be?", then realized why you should never ask yourself that question. After visiting Holiday World, I feel like everything at El Toro is a-okay.

Nice report, I swear I've been doing all the same parks as you this year lol, I literally did SFNE and Great Escape this past weekend after also doing Kentucky Kingdom/Holiday World. I'm happy to report that this weekend, the red train and blue train seemed to be running the same. I got about 8 rides in, split roughly half and half, in both front and back, and the coaster was running excellent! I also got to ride Alpine Bobsled as well, so at least they're making an effort

Welcome and thank you for taking the click-bait! Did you think I was serious that they should RMC Voyage? Of course I was, and they really should. So, obviously, the next place I went was, Holiday World At risk of everybody pounding away at their keyboards for my blasphemy, I'm actually going to offer a somewhat critical opinion in this report. Of course, Holiday World is an outstanding park with Disney-level hospitality, great food, incredible atmosphere, and with free parking, soda, and sunscreen to boot. But, let's be honest with ourselves, we don't go out to rural southwestern Indiana for free soda and sunscreen. We go for a park that is known for it's legendary wood coasters. Sadly, none of these wood coasters are in great shape right now. This was my first visit since 2016, and while there were definitely some rough spots on Raven and Legend back then, both of these coasters have gotten much worse. I've read this online and didn't want to believe it to be true, but it is. The Voyage is another story entirely. I actually really mean it when I say they should RMC it. Maybe not turn it into a steel RMC (though I really wouldn't complain), but I'd love it if they did something like tear all the track out and replace it with topper track, then convert to run RMC trains. I know this would require all new ride systems and all that, but it'd honestly be worth it. It really does have a brilliant layout, but the combination of awful rough Gravity Group track combined with PTC trains just makes it a giant pile of sh*t. Sorry not sorry! I love Holiday World as a park. But unless they were getting something new or it were to be reported that they were doing some significant re-tracking and TLC to the wood coasters, I likely won't go out of my way again any time soon. If I was doing the same trip to Louisville again, I’d likely go north to Kings Island instead. Welcome to Indiana, the state that gave us Mike Pence. Hopefully someday they’ll apologize for that. Walking up to the Holiday World entrance, you’re greeted by what is, or should be, a world-class coaster. I personally love the coaster and think it’s the best at Holiday World, I just wish it could still be enjoyed without being jackhammered to death. Welcome to The Legend! Cool layout, great setting, and just an all-around beautiful ride...except again, you’re jackhammered to death and there’s one long turn that seems like it’s never going to end while you get smashed into the seat divider like 26 times Just look how beautiful the setting for this ride is! Happy thanksgiving!!! Sooo many enthusiasts swear by this ride. Every time I’ve been to the park I always *want* to love Voyage. It’s tall, it’s beautiful...but I’m sorry, it just sucks. PTC trains and Gravity Group’s washboard track have no business going this fast at all This huge drop is so awesome. It’s the best part of the ride before the pain and suffering begins. I subjected myself to a few rides in both the front and back of the train. The double-down in the dark is the best and most OMG part of the ride, and if this coaster was bearable I’d love it. I’m not a wood coaster p*ssy either. I love coasters that others find rough, such as Boardwalk Bullet. But Voyage jackhammers, has fast laterals that just slam you into the sides of the train and seat dividers over and over, and even the lap bars beat you up. Every time I rode I was just begging it to end. Another thing I didn’t understand whatsoever is how enthusiasts compare these large hills to El Toro’s large hills. El Toro has ejector airtime at the top of its large hills. Voyage doesn’t even have floater. Maybe people count the “bump” at the top of this hill where you can watch the car in front of you violently skew to a weird angle from the track being mis-aligned? I can’t imagine riding this thing without trims. That has to hurt so f*cking bad. This spot is undeniably awesome with the Thunderbird head chopper. Imagine doing an abrupt airtime hill into a low-ground inversion right here on Steel Voyage! Or Twisted Mayflower. Or Iron Pilgrim. Speaking of Thunderbird, it’s still pretty rad. If there’s one coaster worth visiting Holiday World for, it’s this one. It begins with a surprisingly forceful and sudden launch, right into this floaty inversion Going through a vertical loop while riding a wing is great! Tbh, it’s better than a keyhole or slow roll inversion They definitely have awesome food. Thanksgiving turkey in June at a theme park! Ok, I’d gladly come back for this After doing another lap of the park, I made one last lap on Raven, which is a coaster I really love, especially for the surprise large drop into the trees. If I could enjoy it without constantly bracing, this would be top ten wood material for me. Raven is complete with a “Batman the Ride” entrance tunnel And I’ll end with a photo of the beautiful entrance area buildings. Holiday world is beautiful, scenic, and a great experience. Just please fix the woodies.

^^Typhoon didn't operate yesterday, at least not when we were in the water park and I never saw it going when walking past a few times. One thing I forgot to mention...the water in the wave pool (the one with the large jets all around) was really murky and gross-looking. We also went into Hurricane Bay, the half lazy river/half pool thing, and the water there, while clearer than in the wave pool, was also cloudy.

Visited the park today (Sunday the 15th), came away believing that this is the worst park in the chain right now in terms of operations, which is a real shame because up until now, I've never really bad a bad experience here ever, and I actually really love this park. The only exception was Superman, which was the only place where there seemed to be any sense of urgency or employee training. Superman was definitely running well, the third and fourth hills were giving great airtime even in the back. Also the first time I've felt meaningful airtime in the helix transitions since probably before the trains were changed. Wicked Cyclone was running sluggish in the orange train in the morning, but I got some pretty great rides later in the day, especially in the blue train. This is definitely one of the better steel RMCs in my opinion. The Sunday evening crew, however, should all be either terminated or re-trained. They were more focused on going up to the operator's booth and standing around to have personal conversations than with getting the trains dispatched. Restraint checkers on the left side of the platform were unnecessarily crossing over the train to go joke around with the employees on the other side, including the booth operator. At one point, someone who was either just friends with some of them or was an off-duty employee out of uniform went through the exit, crossed the train, and was chatting with them all in the operator's booth. Same with Batman. The train would be in the brake run for so long that you'd think they went down for maintenance. I walked from the teacups/in front of Joker to the entrance without seeing a train go, made it all the way behind the coaster before they finally dispatched. Again, same thing. Personal conversations/general joking around happening between the staff and not much working going on. One of the girls who was a restraint checker was also literally jumping off her feet and putting her full body weight against every restraint she checked, which every guest was complaining hurt. Eventually I'll do a trip report from my visit. I hope the park can fix these problems, because this is an outstanding park and having these things affect guest experience and set them back shouldn't be happening.

^Storm Chaser definitely gets the "ugliest RMC" vote, as it also has a steel support structure, much of which is pretty old and rusty-looking. The ride, though, definitely not ugly at all

^ Or maybe the bets are going up from $115 to $150 on which subsequent cycle it'll break down on next. It is at a Six Flags park, these people have to make money somehow.

^Yeah, you definitely get jerked forward after an abrupt pop of airtime in that spot, just to get yanked back again with more airtime. I found it borderline between being fun and unpleasant, but after several rides it wasn't the kind of thing that made me want to stop riding or anything like that, so I'm cool with it. But, I do think the coaster would flow a little better without it. And yeah, I basically did a morning/early afternoon Friday at KK, Friday afternoon/evening at Holiday World plus took advantage of the 1 hour gain time change, then Saturday morning/early afternoon I did KK again before my flight. They sure do! I believe it was something like $40 plus tax, but then you also got the next day free plus a wristband for free soda. I'm not a soda drinker, so I didn't use that, but I did take advantage of the next-day-free deal. The good thing about Louisville is that it's actually a small liberal bastion in otherwise blood-red Kentucky, so you'll be fine! The park is within the city limits, so the crowds were reassuringly diverse and typical of what you'd see at parks in medium-sized cities. You do see some of the backwoods types, but honestly I even see that here in Orlando at the parks.

Continuing my trend this spring/early summer for the solo mini-trips, I caught a cheap flight, this time on Allegiant and without any delays or issues, out of Orlando-Sanford International straight to Trump Country. Oh yeah, I was going to hit up, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom I last visited the park in 2016 when Storm Chaser was brand new. I enjoyed the park then and the park has continued to improve and grow since. It's really impressive that the park is now independently owned yet adds rides and attractions as frequently as a park owned by a major chain. Honestly, if the park were still under the Six Flags chain, I highly doubt they'd be adding/replacing rides this frequently at all. It really shows the commitment that Ed Hart and his team really have to this park, and when visiting the park this is clear as well. I actually learned a lot about this park before/during this visit. For some reason I wandered to the Wiki page on the park and read a bunch of articles about it. For one, I knew I'd been on a former SFKK coaster, Chang, which now resides at Six Flags Great Adventure as Green Lantern. I also thought that the coaster was removed as part of the Six Flags break-up, but it was actually earmarked for removal a year prior for a water park expansion. Also, I had no idea that two of Six Flags New England's coasters that I've also been on, Flashback and Gotham City Gauntlet, also came from SFKK. The more you know! Regardless, this park has had a storied history and I hope the success and expansion can continue for years to come. Upon parking, presented in front of you in all it's electric blue glory, is Lightning Run. Now, for all you size queens out there, this coaster is exactly 100 feet tall, but you wouldn't know it. It's kind of like they just kept riding the ending of Phantom's Revenge over and over, and said "can you make this an entire coaster?" Kentucky Kingdom and Hurricane Har...Bay. This park sure has some interesting weather fetish that I'd like to know more about. It's about all they name sh*t after. This visit actually took place over the course of two days, with Holiday World sandwiched in-between, but more on that later. I came up with a weird split-visit strategy that actually paid off quite well. This photo was taken on Saturday around noon, and the park was was more crowded than I expected it to be, but it made me happy to see that this park is popular! Lightning Run's entrance on Friday Lightning Run's entrance on Saturday. They only ran one train both days I was there, with one sitting on the transfer track. Needless to say, I skipped it on Saturday. The train for this coaster almost seems comically too big for it's own lift hill. I have a question for those of you who know way too much about very specific things- I noticed this time around that Lightning Run's train interiors, namely the seat cushions, backs, and restraints, all look strikingly similar to those used on RMC trains. Is there some shared parts/familiarity here? Lightning Run through, well...the trees. An overview look at Lightning Run before we move on. Lightning Run is very good and I highly recommend going to Kentucky Kingdom to ride it! It's small but extremely fast with airtime usually found on large hypercoasters. New for 2019, Kentucky Kingdom pranked everyone saying they built a new wood coaster, when really all they got was a swing ride! lollllll But surely, it wouldn't be safe to twirl you around a tower in Timberliner cars attached to a bit of chain, would it? In all reality, they just want you to take the scenic route past the swing ride in order to find the coaster entrance. Now, I'd be extremely confused if I was really trying to find the swing ride and ended up at this coaster instead, but as I don't like swing rides, that really isn't my problem. This was the only other photo I got of Kentucky Flyer. The coaster is a cool "kid's first coaster", but otherwise is really nothing memorable or worth going out of your way for. There's a few little pops of air here and there, but I think GCI makes a way better junior woodie with something like White Lightning at Fun Spot. Oh, I remember one thing about it- like Mine Blower in Kissimmee, even when brand new, these coasters have a weird roughness to them, which I'm not sure is going to age very well. Maybe the word "rough" isn't appropriate right now, more like...coarse. There's just a weird grinding to them, and Mine Blower was exactly the same when it was new, and I haven't been on it again since. I know people seem to really heap praise on these small Gravity Group woodies, but I personally just find this unacceptable. The competition has figured out ways to really smooth out wood coasters. I feel like Gravity Group is stuck in the early 90s, still making old CCIs. The line for this POS was longer both days than for Storm Chaser, which just blows my mind. Then again, Trump won Kentucky by 30 points, so there's that. I don't have the "credit" for this, because f*ck. that. Continuing the weather theme, the park also has Thunder Run, an older Dinn Corp woodie. It's also pretty forgettable, but they take good care of it Continuing the long walk back to Storm Chaser, you walk past evidence of the park's Six Flags past with this generic big shoot-the-chutes ride, complete with splash-down pool to ensure all riders come down with Ebola. As only the strong make it in this long walk of hot, humid, and stagnant Kentucky air, you're essentially guaranteed a short line for this fantastic RMC. Serving up contrast realness with the bright neon trains and red track And. This. Ride. Delivers. This hill is one of the single best moments on any RMC out there. There are certain elements that different RMCs have that make them memorable, like Iron Rattler's cliff dive, Steel Vengeance's double inversion, Wicked Cyclone's nah-inversion, this is Storm Chaser's. This sustained ejector airtime hill kicks a$$ Storm Chaser also sports these low-ground roll inversions that are as quick and snappy as an old B&M corkscrew This is the most WTF moment on the coaster. I almost don't like this spot, but it's crazy unique. It's like a double-down with a directional change in the middle, plus you go up before the second down...if that makes sense. If you had something in front of your face on this element, you'd smash your nose into it. The following few photos are just going to speak for themselves Ride smart- don't vote for Trump again! Of course, I'm going to compare Storm Chaser to Twisted Timbers. It was the OG inversion drop, but it does it better, as it whips into it faster. Which is better overall? I honestly have no clue, they're actually pretty similar. They're both repetitive airtime machines with low-ground inversions. I think Twisted Timbers may have a higher quantity of elements. They're both amazing, as are all RMCs. One final look at the airtime. If you haven't been to Kentucky Kingdom, what are you waiting for? It's conveniently located RIGHT next to Louisville Airport. Like, seriously, I don't see how an Uber between the two could cost more than $2-3. The park is well-kept, the employees friendly and mostly efficient, and you literally have a walk-on RMC all the time, even on a Saturday when the rest of the park is slammed. I'll definitely be going back to this park again as soon as I can!

^I ride it every year and that spot was jarring last September, but it was downright brutal this June. I haven't been either! so love reading the reports. .thanks for sharing. How long was the drive from Dorney to Great Adventure? I had absolutely no idea it was so close that you could leave Dorney and still spend a good chunk of time at SFGA. . .otherwise during our trip thru Penn. a few years ago (where we ended with a few days in Philly), we would have made an effort to go to SFGA but yeah. .gotta get to SFGA. You guys who haven't been should absolutely go! Like others have said, its about an hour and a half, sometimes even less. If you were in Philadelphia you were only about 30 minutes from the park.

Thanks again for all the comments, guys! So, splitting the day in half, I left Dorney early in the afternoon and made the somewhat brief, uneventful drive to, Six Flags Great Adventure So, okay, this is a very well-documented park that most members have been to. I try to visit this park once a year or so, sometimes I even get there twice in a year. It's a huge park with a lot to do. I feel that it's kind of a bellwether and snapshot of the Six Flags chain as a whole. I've noticed that when the entire park chain is having a good season, Great Adventure is having a good season. The park has a little bit of everything Six Flags in terms of rides diversity, coasters, etc. You get to see the best and the worst of Six Flags at different points of any single visit. Anyways, I now really need to rip the band aid off, break the glass, and sound the alarm: There are some serious issues with El Toro right now that need to be addressed. I haven't seen anyone else post about this and I'm really surprised. I say this as someone who absolutely adores this coaster and has El Toro tied with Lightning Rod and Expedition GeForce as their #1 coaster. Okay, so maybe not everywhere on the entire coaster, but there are three spots on the coaster where the roughness and violence is so severe that I can't believe it's about to run an entire season like this. Namely, the turnaround, the "floater hill", and especially coming out of the Rolling Thunder hill. You seriously slam into such a hard pot hole at the bottom of the Rolling Thunder hill that I'm surprised I didn't have a stroke in my sleep that night after riding in a wheel seat. Middle rows of cars on the train were much more bearable. I got about 10 rides in total that day, including 4 back car, middle row at the end of the day, and I could have had more, but I had to walk away. I rode Colossos in May 2015, just a few months before the big closure. This is how that felt. Now, as I said, this isn't everywhere, it's limited to these named spots, and to the best of my knowledge, Six Flags has done some re-tracking here and there (correct me if I'm wrong). But please, Six Flags, you have one of the absolute best coasters in the entire freaking world. Please make it right. And with that, photo time. Disney entrance arch ain't got sh*t on the chromed-out Six Flags sign in New Jersey. Wanna fight about it? The obligatory Great Adventure parking lot shot. I arrived to find the parking lot the emptiest I think I've ever seen it. Guys...guys...Six Flags has actually re-painted something! This should be front page news right here. I'm happy to report that the parking lot poles have been FRESHLY PAINTED YELLOW. F*ck, I should've put a great big watermark with my logo embossed in the photo for when this gets shared across the interwebs so everyone knows I took it first. Oh wait...Superman got painted too! Whaaaat is this craziness? Honestly, Superman looks about 10,000x better without the yellow rails. Wait...maybe they intended to paint the rails yellow, but the guy doing the painting screwed up and painted the parking lot poles instead. I mean...they are RIGHT in front of Superman. Like, right there. In fact, the more I repeat this in my head, the more plausible and true it seems. And there you have the process in which new coaster/ride rumors get started and subsequently get reported on Screamscape. Remember that time...when Six Flags actually themed an area of one of their parks? It almost seems untrue, but they actually did that once and they did it well. Why didn't this idea last? The Golden Kingdom is probably the single nicest area of any Six Flags park, periodt. Oh you know where this is going. I clearly have my phone in my hand to take a photo, so this is going straight to the fluffy bunny so I can ride El Toro. We pick it back up over in front of Green Lantern, formerly Chang at formerly Six Flags, now just Kentucky Kingdom. Wouldn't it be cool if for Fright Fest they took Bizarro's trains and retractable floor system and traded with Green Lantern's stand-up trains and solid floors, then switched it back again after? The funny thing about all these hypotheticals today is that they all sound exactly like something Six Flags would do. And just like that we're magically over by Batman! Batman: the Ride: proving since 6 years before Dueling Dragons were built that B&M Inverts last a long time and their level of awesome lasts even longer! Not 1% of the greatness of Batman has been lost in its 26 years of existence. Not 1%. For the first time in 4 or 5 years, I got some of those "legendary Nitro rides" that sometimes I pinch myself and ask if they're real or not. For starters, the trains got a ton of maintenance in the off season. You could tell because they ran without a squeak or rattle and the restraint covers were fresh. I have some friends who weirdly fetishize Mako, and since the layouts are so similar (at least the first 1/2) I always tell them about these rides on Nitro that can be had that crap all over Mako. To be clear, we're not talking Intamin hyper levels of great, but sometimes B&M hypers can deliver a ton of airtime and give extremely fun rides. This was one of those times. Back over to Plaza del Carnival, because if I'm going to be beaten up, it sure better be El Toro doing it. The bottom line, this coaster is still incredible and we are not worthy of the airtime these huge hills shower us with. El Toro is a masterpiece of a wood coaster and there's just nothing else like these rides. In a way, I'm almost glad the Intamin pre-fab woodies didn't catch on like RMC's rapid-fire growth. It makes us appreciate El Toro, Balder, Colossos, and T-Express all the more. A train of riders about to be absolutely thrown into what I believe is the best first drop of any coaster. Funny how El Toro can be like 180 feet tall and stand right next to the tallest coaster in the world, far more than double its height, yet have the superior drop by a mile. Hey, kids! Now that you have your diamond elite platinum plus extra special top-level exclusive membership, what better way to take advantage of how VIP you are than to bring more of your dollars to these other locations and spend them there too! Go to LaRonde!!! Lol, but really, don't go to LaRonde. Oh, no, I didn't forget about her. She was being a b*tch that day and never opened. They did cycle 2 or 3 trains about 15 minutes before closing, though, likely in anticipation for the following day. Ttyl!

Moving right along, I'm really keeping up the pace with my trip reports this year! After a lot of crazy One Magical Weekend activities at Disney and their host hotel for the first weekend in June, in which they host LGBT-friendly events in and around Walt Disney World that attract thousands, all the partying and day drinking got me in the mood for a little solo trip. Like many others on here, I'm pretty frugal and try to "cheapskate" my way into doing a large quantity of short trips, instead of spending a thousand bucks each on fewer, longer trips. One of the ways to achieve this is by flying the budget airlines. It's nice flying with an Even-More-Space seat on JetBlue showered in unlimited snacks, but the plane ultimately gets you to the same place as Frontier, where you're basically told to "sit down and shut the hell up" by overworked flight attendants who will slap the sh*t out of you if your bag doesn't fit under the seat. So I booked a trip from Orlando to Philadelphia on a whim for about $75 RT, giving me a day and a half for parks. It's only a two-hour flight, how bad can it be? Well, sometimes flying a cheapskate airline such as Frontier or Spirit really teaches you a lesson in the dice you're rolling on them. On the day of my trip, I woke up at 5am due to my phone getting a message saying that my flight had been canceled. Grudgingly, knowing I better take action immediately, I shook myself awake and waited on hold for 45 minutes until I got a Frontier agent on the phone. Turns out, they canceled both their 10:40am and 1:00pm flights from MCO to PHL, and the agent told me "nothing else is available today" and that they could book me the following morning for 6am. Luckily, I had already checked online to find that they were taking advantage of people who really needed to get home by jacking up the one-way cost of their 5:55pm flight to $399 one-way. I promptly told the agent that seats on this flight were still available for purchase, and they "checked" and miraculously found that I was right. Funny how that works! Fast forward several hours and checking MCO's flight status, I found that the flight had been delayed to 7:30pm, even though f*cking Frontier never sent out any kind of alert. Then, a little bit later, I checked and it was un-delayed. Then again, about 45 minutes after that, I finally got a text from Frontier saying it was delayed to 7:45pm. Checking over and over again, I decided to finally just get there to be on time for the 7:45pm flight time. Well...I get to the gate, and the flight is now delayed until 9:15pm. But I was able to witness a very amusing moment of citizen justice. It turns out, the further delay was due to Frontier deciding that the aircraft that was already parked at the gate was now going to Indianapolis instead of Philadelphia. A bunch of extremely-pissed Philadelphians who had been apparently there since 9am that morning stormed the ticket counter, screaming at the gate agent, and then blocked the gate and door area from being able to be used for the other flight, resulting in police and airport security being called. Eventually, some higher manager for Frontier at the airport came, called corporate, and the aircraft was re-assigned to Philadelphia once again. Only one problem...now there was no crew members to work it, as they'd already been re-allocated elsewhere. Finally, around 9:30pm, a crew that had landed from elsewhere got our plane ready, and we were finally on our way. What a mess. Well, moving on, my plans got totally messed up but I was still determined to make two parks happen. So after finally making it to Philadelphia, I got up early the next morning in order to arrive close to opening time at: Dorney Park This would be my first visit to Dorney in a number of years, since about 2014 or so. I know a lot of people feel it's mediocre because it kind of is, but it's a cute little park that you can visit with zero wait times for a handful of halfway-decent coasters. Despite being Cedar Fair corporatized, it does have a decent and cute setting, sandwiched between two hillsides with a river running through the center. In continuing Cedar Fair consistency of the last two years or so, the park was impeccably clean, operations were pretty consistent, and the park looked freshly painted and landscaped everywhere. It would be nice to see this park receive a thing or two, like maybe a medium-sized GCI woodie as has been the rumor for ages now, but I just don't see too much happening any time soon. It's a business, and Cedar Fair clearly doesn't see a bigger investment generating that much in the way of a return. Anyway, here's a bunch of photos I took as I leisurely made my way through this laid-back park. The view of the park from the stop light on Hamilton Blvd. This park can also be seen from I-78. Steel Force going up the lift as I got out of the car The star attraction of this park is arguably Talon, their above-average B&M Invert. It's right in your face as soon as you walk in. The best part of the ride is the ending. A quick, snappy corkscrew followed by some low-ground turns. For me, the greatest B&M Inverts are made not by their giant inversions, but by being able to ride in the back row and have no idea where the train is going, with fast turns and snappy, surprise inversions. If Talon did just a little more of this, it would be a higher-tier coaster for me. I do really love this ride, though! Hold. The. Phone. Is there a line...at Dorney? Holy crap, I've never, ever seen this before and I've been to this park like 4 or 5 times. Turns out, this was just the opening rush with a bunch of schools visiting the park that day. An hour later, there'd be no wait at all. Like I said above, I really love and enjoy Talon, I always look forward to this coaster every few years. It has some uniqueness to it and I love the little trenches at the bottom of the first few inversions. The paint still pops and looks on point, and this coaster opened in 2001! I also really love Hydra. It has a unique hillside setting and it uses the terrain really well. It's not the most forceful, but the unique layout makes this one of my favorite of the B&M floorless coasters. Dorney owns in the paint scheme department. It's not every day you see a B&M that has a corkscrew inversion before the cobra roll Hydra also has a crowd-pleasing pass right past the station with this turn and then an airtime hill An artsy shot next to Hydra's cobra roll. A fun and unique cobra roll, you're *almost* not upside down on either side. Both inversions in the roll kind of blur the line between over-bank turn and upside down. Also featured is the famous "Jojo roll" not used again until just this year on Copperhead strike. The slow roll is super disorienting and weird. You don't want anything in your pockets here! Dorney Park also keeps it classic, featuring older flats such as Tilt-A-Whirl and Music Express. Notice how, despite these being older rides, Dorney keeps them looking 100% new. Question for the Dorney Park aficionados- thinking of it now, I don't remember seeing the Whip when I was there. Was this ride removed or did I just miss it? This S&S triple-tower complex actually isn't! Notice the lack of electronics in the third "hollow" tower in the back. I've seen S&S do two-tower complexes like at Universal and Great Escape, and Great Escape's is even joined at the top with just two. These two towers also don't seem to run Combo mode- the left tower is space shot-only, the right is a turbo drop. A little bit of Dorney Park herstory Steel Force doing it's thing. This coaster makes up the entire length of the park, but they have a lot in this small-ish park It's nice to see Cedar Point's old first-gen Intamin freefall enjoying it's retirement in the Lehigh Valley. These rides are still genuinely terrifying. If you haven't been on one, don't discount the amount of a$$-clenching terror they manage to give as you bump-bump loudly into the drop position. Then, when the drop gives way, it's real, honest freefall. A little more herstory, this time about an old dance hall that burned down I guess they keep the Haunt buildings up year-round now, but I'm sure this just makes financial sense. The last time I did CornStalkers at Dorney (about 10+ years ago), it was in the water park entry path behind Talon, and my friends and I got genuinely terrified several times "Possessed", the coaster awkwardly named an adjective. I wonder why this got changed from it's original name, Voodoo. Maybe something to do with all the religious people in PA? Hey, Six Flags New England, our lawn is always working, unlike your big Boomerang! Sometimes you have to know when to quit while you're ahead, and Dorney/Cedar Fair did just that. I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but I've never found Invertigos to be smooth at all, they smash my head over and over. Some pretty landscaping next to the rough old wood coaster and stream that runs through the center of the park Steel Force is a great way to get some nice views of the park and surrounding area, between it's 25-minute lift hill and big mine train ride style. I find these Morgan hypers to be dull, but nothing bad about them. The Dinosaurs walk-through attraction has become simply a nice nature path. Oh well. This area and the adjacent former Stinger site could make a great spot for a future new coaster/land/attraction, but let's be honest, this is Dorney. I remember reading all the way back when Prowler opened that "maybe they'll use this space for a GCI woodie" It's good to have hopes and dreams. Let's end with some nice shots of Talon, shall we? Prepare to be gripped by fear! Hopefully not grabbed by the p*ssy. This is more like it! I got 6 rides in a row before I left Coming out of the big vertical loop Thanks for reading! This entire visit was actually only about 3 hours, but it was more than enough time. For risk of sounding like a broken record, the thing I keep saying about Cedar Fair parks also held true here. The park looks outstanding, better than ever. Everything was extremely clean, freshly painted, and landscaped. The little details really show in a small park like this, the place really shined. Thanks Dorney Park for a great visit, I'll be looking forward to a return trip!

Nice report! I'm really looking forward to visiting some time next month. I hope I get one of these killer rides on Superman everyone keeps talking about, because I really love this coaster so much. I'll lament the T-bar trains to the end of the world.

^I've heard the same. From what I was told years ago, she wanted Dragons gone when the original Hogsmeade area of Wizarding World was in the development phase.

Like I said, if they call up B&M and say "hey, we're building a new park and have this huge plot of land so let's crack open the 1999 blueprints vault over a bottle of wine and see where we're going to superimpose Dueling Dragons over it", then all will be forgiven. And, f*ck, just put us through an airport-style X ray machine beforehand so they can duel the coasters. Anyone caught with loose articles automatically goes to the firing squad.

^Not to mention, Grond Lund 20 years later is building a B&M Invert and said that Dueling Dragons was their inspiration. It just shows how loved these coasters really were. I totally agree that they even stood their own when they weren't dueling. B&M Inverted coasters were all the rage in the 90s and they're arguably the coaster type in B&M's catalogue with the most staying power. They've consistently sold this product to parks since the first Batman clone and continue to do so. Say Dueling Dragons had never been built and a park made an announcement today that they were building these and opening in 2020, that park would instantly be on my must-visit list. As far as what you said about what it shows per the direction of the park, I totally agree. That's why I'm looking forward to the Jurassic Park coaster but not holding my breath too hard even if they promise it to be a "thrill coaster". It really depends on where they set the bar. I have 0% expectations that Universal is building something with the power and intensity of Maverick or i305. I won't be surprised at all if it's more on the level of Cheetah Hunt with an inversion or two. I really, really hope they prove us wrong.

Ugh, now you guys have got me all nostalgic for Dueling Dragons. The last day of operations in 2017 was actually on my birthday. Like Robb said, it was running AWESOME even on that final day. In a way, it was even better, as clearly the maintenance was kept to a minimum once closure was announced, so the lift hill dampers/silencers were worn out and it sounded like an old Batman clone going up the lift. There was old-school B&M invert rattle and the castle wall cobra roll was snapping crazy hard in the middle. The back row edge seats on both sides gave such crazy rides, you'd literally be dizzy and the directional changes were so abrupt. Can they just like...get B&M to clone Dragons and put it at the new park, far away from the stupid Harry Potter bullsh*t and theme it to a Nintendo duel in Mario Kart or something? Universal, if you're listening and you did that, I'll take back any negative thought I've ever had about you and shout from the rooftops about how everyone needs an annual pass.

Great reports! I think I read somewhere along the line that Darien Lake actually asked Intamin to build them a brand-new, original-spec train for Ride of Steel, which is what it looks like they did. Looking at the photos, it even looks like the T-bar is the original style and not one of the evolved versions that Dragster/Xcelerator use. I also really wish SFNE could have these for Superman instead of the horribly thigh-crushing restraints, but who knows if we'll ever see that. I haven't been to this park in 10+ years but it looks like it's been taken care of well!