USCoaster

I went to the park on Sunday after deciding not to get off the Mass Pike in Springfield to go to SFNE. I arrived around 1PM to a very packed parking lot. So packed, I ended up past the employee housing and the very popular ice cream(?) stand along the main road. Luckily, most of the people were in the water park so I think the longest I waited for a ride was maybe 30 minutes for the Screamin' Eagles. I headed to Canyon Blaster first due to the backwards promotion and after maybe a 3 train wait, hopped into the last row. I really wasn't expecting too much because the layout doesn't really have much to it, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was thrown into the seat divider as the train whipped me down the first curving drop. That was really the only surprise of the ride. The big helix off the second lift feels pretty intense when you are going backwards but nothing really extreme. I went on it a second time later in the middle of the train and it was still amusing but the twist into the first drop was nowhere near as forceful as in the last row. I also took one ride on the Screamin' Eagles. This is only my second flyers experience (first one being the ride at CGA) but I felt like I got a lot more out of the ride after having seen some videos of people riding the flyers at Knoebels. Definitely a fun ride and I think that more parks should put these in as a smaller off year addition. That said, capacity isn't great so some of the bigger parks either need a larger model or maybe dueling flyers. As for the rest of the park, I ended up with: -2 rides on Steamin' Demon - The corkscrews are fairly rough but the rest of the ride is OK) -2 rides on Alpine Bobsleds - One ride in the front seat and one in the back. The back was pretty violent when entering the blocks. I'm still amazed at the weird pops of air you get when the car transitions between turns. -2 rides on Comet - One front and one back. The front seat was definitely the better ride. The back was rougher and the lap bar clicked down at the bottom of the first drop so it wasn't as comfortable of a ride. I still think Comet may be the only coaster Six Flags owns that speeds up at the top of the lift hill instead of slowing down. I also have to say that the Comet ride ops were doing a pretty awesome job while I was there. They were running two trains and as long as the guests weren't having problems, they could get the train in the station dispatched by the time the second train made out of the first section of the final brakes. -1 ride on Boomerang - This has to be one of the slowest Boomerang lifts around. It feels like the initial pull out of the station takes forever and the train's engaging on the second lift was more violent than I remember other Boomerangs being. That being said, I didn't notice too much headbanging in the Cobra Roll element so it wasn't a completely horrible experience. -1 ride on Sasquatch (launch side) - Typical Space Shot. I think the Space Shot at La Ronde may be a little more forceful because I was caught off guard by the force of the launch when I went on it last year. -1 ride on the Grand Carousel - Its a carousel. A very loud crunchy carousel that 'rolled back' a quarter turn at the end of the ride cycle. Overall it was a good day at the park. I skipped the Condor once again for fear of not being able to deal with the spinning at the top of the tower. If it had been a little cooler, I probably would have hopped on, but spinning rides on a really hot day sometimes get me a little sick and so I decided not to take the chance.

The video on the NY Daily News site has footage of the tower swaying and I can understand why they were concerned. It may be within the design limits of the tower, but if it continues long enough, it will begin to weaken the steel and could potentially become a more serious hazard in the future. Considering they have had 2 hurricanes in 2 years come very close to NYC, its probably safer to remove the problem while the weather is nice. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/astro-tower-coming-coney-island-article-1.1389974

Technically, both Grizzly and Demon were built before the offices were built next to that edge of the park so any complaints can fall under a "you built your office next to a roller coaster so deal with it" response from Great America. Unfortunately for Great America, they have not been able to expand that from "roller coaster" to "amusement park" thanks to I assume Prudential and other companies in the office space having more political power with the local city council and planning boards. (That is pure speculation, but I do know that it is a lot easier to move an office to a new building in another city than to move an entire amusement park and businesses leaving town never goes down well during elections.)

^I think they add money when you are not playing the game. I've come back in after work and had the amount go up but never by a lot. As for the Coelacanth, I wonder if Nintendo made everything slightly easier to find this time (4 fossils a day instead of 3, etc.). It feels like I am running into the rare fish and bugs a lot more than I did in the previous games and when you look at the different pages in the encyclopedia, its amazing how full they are considering the game has been out for almost 2 weeks. That said, it will probably drive me crazy waiting for some of the winter only critters since they will be the only blank spots left soon.

According to the park's Facebook page, Goliath will be open tomorrow.

As much as I like the idea of the Top Spin, I have always been disappointed with the program that Six Flags runs on their rides (as seen during visits to SFNE and SFDK). I haven't been on Twister at SFNE, but after watching it run the same boring program that Voodoo at SFDK runs, I couldn't be bothered to wait the one cycle to get on. I'm not really expecting to see it run anything like the version I saw running at a fair in France, but I wish that they would consider running a slightly longer or more intense program.

I paid for it by shaking trees. That's also why I have a swollen shut eye on my ID.

^You have been added. I am opening my gate right now but I'm out of fruit after I sold it all on Sunday and I'm waiting to see how long it takes to reappear.

The game uses the 3DS friend code you set up with the system. I think its the center icon at the top of the system menu. All of your friends have to be added through that screen also.

I also got the rainbow this morning. It's good to know about the fortune cookie. I bought one but hadn't bothered figuring out what to do with it once I ate it.

I'm John in the town of Kiki. My native fruit are Cherries and since the friend codes are based on your 3DS friend code, John 3d - 3780-9190-3313. The downside to downloading the game at midnight is all the stores are closed.

Based on my rides last year during Leviathan Bash, I would rather see Wild Beast get made over. I loved Minebuster and ended up taking multiple rides on it at the end of the night before the park ended their normal operation. It may have been a little rough in places but it had pretty decent pacing and was overall a really fun ride. I think I took maybe 2 rides on Wild Beast due to the roughness. That said, I think Minebuster is probably the easier of the two coasters to give an "Iron" makeover thanks to the out and back layout. (There would be some tricky spots during construction thanks to the water park above but that's why they have cranes.)

I was wondering how SFA's new slides were doing since SFNE's seem to have had their opening delayed until next week. If they can get one tower operating correctly, SFA should be able to avoid whatever problems SFNE is having.

I will be picking up Animal Crossing as soon as it comes out. I spent a year and a half playing the DS version every day. The Wii version required too much work to sit down and play every day so after 6 months or so I started slacking off on the daily stuff.

I think that was me. At that point, I was just dumping eggs in towns that sounds like they needed them with the hopes that EA wouldn't randomly stop the event before they were collected. I have another 100 I'll drop by today. If anyone else wants eggs, if I can figure out your user name on the game I'll leave some. (This mostly applies to any that may differ from your TPR user name.)

I just dropped off my last 175 eggs in your town.

I just left 100 for Shawn, 100 for disney4me2001, and 62 for Eric. (I think that was the breakdown.) I am building my motel so no worries if you want to drop your eggs somewhere else.

^Thanks Robb, I'm dropping off 100+ in your town right now.

Looking at the tower design, I assume they will probably just assign slides to each person as they reach the platform which should be good for speeding up the line but bad for trying to get all 6 slides.

I have 150 eggs to trade right now (probably around 200 later this evening) if anyone wants them.

I'm dropping 100 off at John W's town right now. (May have been slightly less, the server kicked me off in the middle of the laying of the eggs.)

I'm about 1000 shy of the hotel so I'll keep dropping off eggs as I get them for people who need them. I would be helping KT, but I was purged from her friend list at the beginning of Whacking Day when Elissa was removing people she didn't recognize for fear of people stealing eggs.

Shawn and Eric W. I'm dropping 100 in each of your towns right now.

I just dropped off 100 to Robb and Chris.

Robb, I'm going to drop 100 in your town.