rubysparkles

I would choose Hersheypark and Knoebel's over SFNE and Lake Compounce. It also saves a lot of time driving. But you're very different from me, you'd probably like Bizarro and Boulder Dash more than I did.

18 days and I will be at Knott's Berry Farm. Only a 14 hour flight to get there...

The park has posted some more construction photos over the last couple of weeks on their twitter. Looks very interesting. I wonder when it will be ready for riders. I'm in the area at the end of July but I'm not going to hold my breath for a July opening.

Definitely Bizarro at SFNE. I don't think it would even make my top 20 steel coasters.

Great start to the trip report and fantastic pictures, can't wait to read the rest. Maybe I am crazy, because I loved that Rock-o-Plane!

Dollywood Six Flags Over Texas Six Flags Fiesta Texas Efteling Europa Park Lotte World Kennywood These are all parks that I want to visit, not for a specific ride but for the overall experience. I have a list on my computer of roller coasters that are on my bucket list too.

What kind of weirdo gets scared on Windseekers? Not me, that's for sure.

I love the damn things. The only thing I love more are single rider lines. Most of the parks I visit I have one day and I will have traveled a long way to be there. It doesn't make any sense for me to spend a lot of money on air travel and hotels just to miss out on attractions and have to stand around bored for hours. So in that sense, all the parks I've visited so far where I have bought one have been a long distance away, I probably won't ever go back to or there's no way to do everything I want to do without one. I'm so glad they have that option, otherwise I feel like a lot of the places I went on my last 6 week trip would have been tiring and I wouldn't have gotten everything done. Some of the bigger Six Flags (Great Adventure, Great America and Magic Mountain) annoy me a little because it is essential that you buy one to get everything done in a day, but then look at the number of coasters in those parks! If you are an enthusiast on your first visit why wouldn't you want to get everything done without wasting 3 days of your time waiting in line? Vacation time is precious and sometimes it is more financially viable to spend less time in a park but buy an add-on like Flash Pass to get everything done. It's not a "rich person" thing. It's often more expensive to pay for a hotel, tickets, food etc for an extra night, than it is to buy a Flash Pass/fast pass. I do not understand people who complain about it so much. Some people act as if you're taking something away from someone else when buying them. Where is the logic in that?

Same plus definitely USH (courthouse square in 2015, yes please) and maybe Santa Monica Pier. I would like to fit in a trip to Japan sometime this year, but I will see how things go. Mainly to do TDR and USJ again. Another possibility would be South Korea.

B&M - Nemesis. Intamin - Intimidator 305.

Thunder Dolphin! It was much better than I expected.

1. Nemesis 2. Banshee 3. Batman the Ride 4. Alpengeist 5. Raptor The more I've ridden Nemesis, the more I have come to appreciate it.

Yep. It's got my vote for worst coaster. It's more of a torture device than a roller coaster.

Great trip report, all these parks are on my list to visit. Really enjoyed your pictures.

Phoenix. It would be a sad day if they ever changed anything about that ride.

I'll just add some suggestions. For the Dorney, Knoebels and Hersheypark, stay in the same hotel somewhere inbetween these places as they are not that far away from each other and it's really nice to have a base for a few days. It is possible to do Dorney and Knoebels in a day but you really don't want to rush Knoebels. The fastpass thing, I would also play it by ear and check on the day. If you're planning on getting to the park for opening you should have no trouble securing those anywhere. The only ones that I would say are definitely needed are SFGAdv and SFGAm. I didn't get one at SFNE this year as I was playing it by crowd and it was fine. As you're going to so many Six Flags parks, I'd expect you're getting a season pass. Try and go into the park you activate at the night before (if time allows) so it doesn't eat into your time on your actual day of the theme park. This is also handy to check out the layout of the park. I would choose between Atlanta-Boston and Boston-Atlanta based on flight prices. Both getting into the country and the internal flight you're taking to Chicago. More carriers fly internationally to Boston than to Atlanta, as far as I know. I hope you're planning rest days inbetween, I did a similar trip this year and it was amazing, but you really need some rest days inbetween. Try and plan them on Saturdays if you can and try to drive outside of rush hour.

Love the report already! Are you going to rank the coasters? Can't wait for the rest.

Every Disney park and every credit at Fuji-Q. I've been to Los Angeles twice, but I didn't make it to Universal either time, otherwise I would have been to every Universal park. Also I would have been on all the coasters over 300ft in the US if stupid Superman: Escape From Krypton was open at Magic Mountain the day I visited.

Great addition to the report. I forgot about how slow the food service was here. You would have thought getting stuck on Demon was going to be the worst experience but that was quite pleasant compared to watching some of the crews *cough X Flight cough* load a train.

First: Flying over the Rainforest/Parrot Coaster at Ocean Kingdom (why they changed that name, I'll never know). Last: Mine Train at Ocean Park I doubt I'll get any more rides in this year, but you never know!

The Flash at Ocean Park which is a Mondial UltraMax, it's a really fun ride. I wish more parks would install one of these. I think the only other one in the world is at Fantasy Island, but I can't really find that much information on it online.

They've started taking photos while you are sitting in the station on Hair Raiser for you to buy at the end. Row by row. So after the restraint is locked a photographer takes a photo of the entire row or part of the row. Yeah, let's just wait while you take a photo when you could have dispatched the train 3 minutes ago.

I would never be able to get anything done. I'd just play that game ALL the time.

Ignore Judd, he's just jealous he didn't hear that guy singing Iggy Azalea on Flight of Fear.

Okay this is my last update for this trip! Before I went on this trip I decided to predict what I thought my top 10 steel and wood coasters would be (only from the new coasters I was riding). Along with their rankings in the most current Mitch Hawker polls. This was my list... Wood 1. Boulder Dash (4) 2. El Toro (1) 3. Goliath (NA) 4. Outlaw Run (3) 5. Voyage (7) 6. Prowler (22) 7. The Beast (48) 8. Raven (28) 9. Phoenix (5) 10. Kentucky Rumbler (29) Steel 1. Maverick (9) 2. Skyrush (7) 3. Millenium Force (14) 4. Bizarro (2) 5. Raging Bull (57) 6. Top Thrill Dragster (29) 7. Nitro (19) 8. Kingda Ka (72) 9. Banshee (NA) 10. Lightning Run (NA) I can't explain to you WHY I thought I was going to like Raging Bull that much. I'm a strange person. Anyway here's the actual top 10's after riding 123 new coasters this summer. Wood: 1. El Toro 2. Phoenix 3. Outlaw Run 4. Goliath 5. The Voyage (I preferred night rides on The Beast, but The Voyage was good in the day and at night...) 6. The Beast 7. Boulder Dash (My biggest regret on this trip was not riding it at night.) 8. Prowler 9. Kentucky Rumbler 10. The Raven Steel: 1. Skyrush (If this wasn't a family site I would use lots of expletives to describe how much I loved this ride.) 2. Maverick 3. Millennium Force 4. Diamondback (These hypers are interchangeable, I think I gave it to Diamondback for awesome operations and having a splashdown and the newer B&M seating arrangement.) 5. Nitro 6. Lightning Run (I still think it's so weird so many people hated these restraints but I found them some of the most comfortable of the trip.) 7. Banshee (This was probably the best invert of the trip.) 8. Kingda Ka (Look it's not a great coaster, but there's something about being able to say I've been launched 456ft in the air that really makes me smile.) 9. Superman: Ultimate Flight (I really do love pretzel loops.) 10. Possessed (This made the tenth spot because it was so fun and made me laugh and took me by surprise.) I'm not going to make a long list of negatives, but I will tell you the worst coaster I rode was Superflight at Rye Playland. Which was more of a torture device than a roller coaster. The biggest disappointment was Bizarro at Six Flags New England, which I thought I was really going to enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised by most of the parks on my trip but I especially loved my day at Hersheypark. I think it has a really great coaster collection, it has s'mores and it was just a great park to hang around in. Six Flags Great Adventure is now my favourite park in the Six Flags chain (next Magic Mountain, Great America and then New England). I liked Kings Island a lot more than I expected and Cedar Point matched my very, very, very high expectations. I don't think I could choose between those two parks though, maybe it would be different if I had visited Kings Island outside of Banshee Bash. Knoebels, Holiday World and Silver Dollar City were all great parks. The kind of parks that I would recommend to non-theme park fans as great days out. I would take my family to these parks, none of whom like coasters or rides at all. Knoebels for the setting & food, Holiday World for Splashing Safari & quirky themeing and Silver Dollar City for the shows & crafts. It was my first US TPR tour and I still can't believe how nice almost all of those parks were to us. From Ed Hart asking for our opinions to Holiday World basically giving us ALL the ERT possible (and the rad sense of humour) to Kings Island having the most excited staff ever to Indiana Beach giving us all that time to take over Fascination to Beech Bend and that ridiculous night time ERT on Kentucky Rumbler. Of course the surprise trip to Stricker's Grove was also brilliant, I never thought I would ever make it to that park. I'd also like to give a big thank you to Robb and Elissa and all the parks who really made us feel so welcome. My summer was ridiculously amazing, but the TPR part was on another level.