sportscapper

This is my home park. I'm extremely happy to see what they did with what little space they had. This is a great addition to a great family park.

I figured I would start a thread for people to ask about specific coaster experiences. If there is a coaster that you have not ridden, that you are really interested in the experience, then ask it here. Most of us know about the big boy rides. What about coasters that look like a great ride, but people don't really talk about. I will start with this ride... Sky Rocket - Kennywood This looks like it would be a blast. For the people that have ridden it, what did you think?

I don't remember the name of the place. It was at Seaworld Orlando. It was a BBQ place towards the back of the park. We where expecting crappy food, and it was amazing. Real southern BBQ, we where amazed.

Yankee Cannonball @ Canobie Lake Park on Saturday. It was actually running better than past years.

I'm not a Club TPR member as of yet. However, I will 100% be there if you open this up to everyone. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend July 30th, then to get ERT on Bizarro.

Here are a few cell phone camera pictures of Untamed that I took today. They are running the cars with dummies. I can't believe how quite this ride is. It also almost completely stops when going through the loop. It's also amazingly compact. Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us

What a shame... I hate taking a day off and spending hundreds to ride a measly 5 rides. That happens to me all the time. You figured that the new ride would reduce lines for Medusa, thought wrong I guess!

Massachusetts officials say four people are dead after at least two tornadoes swept through western and central parts of the state. Scott MacLeod, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, confirmed the deaths Wednesday night but said there were no details about the circumstances. He said two people died in Westfield, one in West Springfield and one in the town of Brimfield. The storms have also caused an unknown number of injuries and extensive damage. Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency and called up 1,000 National Guard troops. One of the tornadoes struck in Springfield, the state's third largest city. Watch Tornado Here

Great TR! I have never visited Sea World SA. I have been to the one in Orlando several times. It's my second favorite park behind Epcot. I really enjoyed the walk through at Manta. It gave you something to look at while in line. I was there the year it opened, the line was over 2 hours. Fortunately, I rode alone, and Busch provides single rider lines! Steel Eel looks impressive. I just can't stand the looks of the trains. It looks like you can barely see out of them?

Wow! That's very interesting. I'm wondering if this is similar to the flume ride at Holiday World where it's an elevator style?

Alvey - I have seen your videos for the new Twister at Grona Lund. This ride's statistics are mild, but the ride looks amazing. This looks like a unique coaster with lots of quick pops of air. They just build a smaller version (if you can believe that) of this coaster in Connecticut. I'm thinking about taking the trip to ride it. On a scale of 1-10 what would you rate this ride? Also, what kind of air-time are we talking about when riding this thing?

I apologize in advance if this has been asked. Just curious on what coasters got better after being refurbished. If a wooden coaster got a new track, or if a steel coaster added or subtracted an element. What where your best and worst refurbished rides. I don't really have a best. But, I would say the worst would be cyclone at SFNE, after making the first hill smaller. It use to be out of control before they made the hill smaller. You would get insane ejector in the back row. I have also heard they refurbished the track for this season, wondering if it made an improvement? Also, I'm going to go out in a limb and say that the New Texas Giant will take the prize for the best one?

The Great America Scream Machine- Six Flags New Jersey However, this was back in 1998. I never rode it after that year. I'm wondering if it became rough, or it always was rough? I really enjoyed it back then. Maybe it was just nostalgia.

SFGadv in the 90's for Batman the year it open. I waited over 3 hours in 90 degree heat. They where selling slushies for people in line, i had 5 of them that day.

This was my first time on Toro, but it was awesome! Can't say if it was running good or not. If it was running bad, I can only imagine what it would be like on a good day!

If I go this summer. I will bite the bullet & purchase the fastpass. I want to get all the major coasters in. I didn't buy my season pass for SFNE yet, so I was unable to ride Green Lantern. Looks like a fun ride though. I also never got on Superman, but I did Manta 10 times last year, so not a big deal to me.

They have flashpass that cost $45.00 per person. I think that's really pricey. I would pay it, if I where alone.

The unplanned trip to Six Flags Great Adventure! Friday night I was looking at the forecast for our area. It was supposed to be the first nice Saturday in over 3 weeks. I also was dying to ride El Toro! So.. I told the family that we where waking up at 6am to drive 5 hours to New Jersey from Boston. They all new that I was craving some El Toro action. My oldest daughter (12 years old) loves coasters as much as I do. She also was craving to go to SFGA. 5 AM was finally here. Woke the entire family up, got ready and hit the road around 6. We figured that we could get their around 10:30-11:00. Friends that we know in New York said crowds are at a minimum this time of year. We finally get to the park at 11:30 (after getting caught in NY City traffic for over an hour. By looking at the parking lot, it looked rather empty. We didn't really have any plan of action to what rides to hit first. Since this was my first trip here since the year Batman opened. We get through the gate, grabbed a map and headed right towards Batman & Nitro. My daughter is a big fan of Dueling Dragons, she wanted to ride Batman first. The last time I was here, we waited 4 hours to ride this. Batman: The line was at the 90 minute marker. I couldn't believe it. I knew we where in for it, since this is a high capacity coaster at the back of the park. We actually only waited 50 minutes. Rode in the last row. This was a decent ride, not as exciting as it was the year it opened. I was actually disappointed that they painted it yellow too. The all black coaster from the 90's looked better. Since we had rode several B&M coasters like this, it lacked the intensity that I love. Fire dragon was much better IMO. 6/10 Nitro: After batman, we decided to ride Nitro. The line was to the 60 minute marker. Once again, a little aggravated because I was told that the lines for this are usually smaller because of the capacity. It was really sunny and warm on Saturday in Jersey. I noticed that the line had very little shade areas. By the time we got on the train, we where a little sweaty and tired. Never the less, this ride was AMAZING! We sat in the second to last row. This was my first B&M hyper. I have heard many people that say these coasters are just alright. Judging from Mich Hawkers poll, it would seem that Intamins are much better. I have the luxury of being 50 miles from Bizarro in New England. I have ridden it hundreds of times. I wasn't expecting much from Nitro, being that Bizarro is ranked #1 and Nitro #19 or so. Let me tell you, I think they are much closer than people think. They are very different rides. I will say that the floating air time on Nitro was awesome. Every hill packed a nice punch. On the 3rd hill It felt like I was out of my seat for 6 seconds. It was that good! We ended up doing this ride twice back to back. This is a great re-ride. I could have rode it all day, it was that good. I didn't give it the full 10, you will see why on my next review. 9/10 Skull Mountain: Not much to say really. Just a basic indoor coaster, with very little to speak about. We waited 10 minutes for this one. Not worth a re-ride. 4/10 After Skull mountain we wanted to let the little one have some fun.I took her in the little kids section and I let my wife ride Nitro a few times. By this time it was already 3:30. This kids where hungry, so we took them to Johnny Rockets. I don't want to go on a rant about the food here. The food was awful, the attendant couldn't speak English either. We kept asking for a burger, and I guess all they had was chicken fingers. So that's what we had! We where really hot and wanted to get cooled off. We headed over to the log ride. Unfortunately, it was broken. So we decided to head over to Bizarro. Bizarro: aka Medusa Line was at the 90 minute marker. It was getting really hot at this point. People where all talking about the end of the world. It was 4:30 and people where counting down the last few minutes of there existence. Rather comical if you ask me. So a little over an hour later, we had reached the Que. This ride offered very little space for people to get by. People where fighting about which line to be in. We where actually in line, when some lady yelled at us that we “F******” cut her off. I remained calm and told her that we didn't, and we where in line. The folks in front of us told the woman that we where here first. She got all famished, and said the hell with you F***** people. Her kids (yes 10 year old kids) where yelling at her to stop, and to just find a new line to get in. The little boy actually apologized to us for her behavior. I guess it was an everyday occurrence with her? The ride... well we had the 5th row. We where actually looking forward to hear the sound, because we wanted to compare it to the Biarro in New England. Unfortunately, there was no sound. We had to ride it soundless. This ride didn't do much for me at all. I have been on a few floorless coasters in my life. This one may be the worst. I actually preferred the one at SFNE over this one. It lacked intensity in all areas. Seemed slower than a usual floorless. I loved Kraken at Seaworld, this coaster didn't hold a candle to it. Maybe I was just upset over the women being an idiot, I don't know! 6/10 Kinda Ka: (round #1) The line was ridiculous! It was all the way out past the concessions. We asked how long the wait would be, and they told us 2.5-3 hours! I couldn't believe it! It was already 5:00 and we where not waiting until close to ride this thing. We had more important things to do {El Toro} NA/10 El Toro: This was going to be our last ride ever! Simply because 6:00 was looming. We got in line at 5:15. The marker said it was a 90 minute wait. The guy behind us said it would be a lot less than that. I got in a nice conversation with him about the park, and roller coasters. He said that Toro was his all time favorite ride. He described the ride as being as much fun as sex. I was assuming that depended on the girl? Since I have done a lot of research on the coaster in the past, I know that it is described as being incredibly smooth and fast. Almost like it's not really a wooden coaster. So I proceeded to ask him about the ride. He said this... “Picture Rolling Thunder but 10 times faster, and 10 times taller” he then said “It's a wood coaster, it will beat you up a bit, but in a good way!” “It's very rough, but worth every second” I knew that this was his interpretation, but was really confused. I was told the exact opposite as far as “roughness” was concerned. So I needed to see for myself. Then we looked up in the sky (not to see if Jesus was calling for us) because it started down pooring! I mean really coming down. The girl in front of us was really panicking, she had an all white t-shirt on, and clearly wasn't expecting rain. She was holding her chest like she was smuggling cocaine onto an airplane. The guy behind us said the rain would shut the ride down, and that's what happened. We all heard a lowed siren, must have been to inform the attendants to stop the ride. It took 5-10 minuted for the rain to let up, and then they started up the ride again. People went crazy, it was almost like people where in line to pick up a bag of herion for there fix. People where that anxious, and that excited. Every train full of people would scream and pump there fists (jersey thing) when they where going up the lift hill. I was so stoked to finally ride this baby! It was finally my time, and in the back of my head I was thinking “please don't let this prophet be right” I just want to ride El Toro before the world ends. Ironically enough, we sat on our train at 5:55. So we where sure to be on the ride at 6:00. We also knew what kind of ride this was going to be when they absolutely stapled us into our seats. I mean, is it that necessary to be nailed into our seats as if we where going to fly out! YUP! It was necessary! This ride was like nothing I have ever experienced in my entire life. It was like pure roller coaster goodness. No other coaster gave me the feeling like this one did. So much ejector air. I couldn't believe how fast this thing was, and how smooth too! The ride doesn't let up like most rides do. There isn't enough words to describe how great this coaster is. It's almost a shame, because everything else I ride will never live up to the hype like this one did. This ride gets the full 10/10. 10/10 Kinda Ka (round #2) After watching a brief dolphin show with the kids, we decided to try Kinda Ka again. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't that excited for it. It didn't offer what I like in a coaster, but my daughter was really excited. We get in line at 6:45. The line was at the 90 minute marker this time around. It would have been a lot longer, but hundreds of people got out of line because it broke down. We decided to take the chance that it would operative again. After 5 minutes, it started back up. We where ready! We waited 90 minutes before we reached the queue area. It was 10 minutes till close. Then what do you think happened, it broke down again. We waited 15 minutes for it to start back up, but it never did. So that was the end of the day for us. I was a little upset that I didn't get my ride on this, it just would have been nice to say I did it. Oh well, we may take another trip this summer. All in all we had a good time. I wouldn't say that SFGA is great park. It's perfect for thrill junkies like myself, but not a great family park. There is literally no flat rides to speak of. They took them all out for coasters I guess. The food was awful. However, we did see a huge line for some cheese steak place at the end of the night. I guess that was the place to eat? Also, I would never return to this park on a Saturday, way to crowded. We spent a lot of money for me and my daughter to get on 5 rides in 9 hours!

Wow... Looks like a great ride! It only took them 19 years to replace "shockwave" This looks a tad bit better! I'm driving down from Boston this Saturday, what do you expect the crowd to be? Will it be jammed?

Hey Guys! We are taking the trip down to GADV this Saturday from Boston. I wanted to know what kind of crowd I should expect? Being that it's only May, will it still be packed? What kind of wait times for Eltoro & Nitro should we expect. We want to make sure we leave ourselves enough time to get everything in.