batmanfan80

I'm gonna try to head there tonight. Tried to go Sunday but the wife made us leave right away because the crowds were worse than the last couple years and she didn't feel like dealing with all the issues discussed here. Whizzer looked to have around a 30-40 min wait around 5:30ish. The place was kinda overrun with unruly kids. Great America probably makes a great babysitter for kids too old for daycare. I'm surprised they don't adopt that as their next marketing ploy. This new flash pass idea is insanity. If they advertise this inside the park, you will have an even bigger imbalance in wait times. We'll get the same amount of flash passers, but now they'll be joined by people who decide they want the instant gratification(and who maybe didn't feel like going through the normal FP process). If people buy the $20 pass instead of a whole pass, to me that's better. I don't see that happening as only SFGAM fanatics have enough ride experience to strongly favor one ride over another. Most flash passers look like people who rarely go and want to hit everything. Yes, there will be exceptions, but I see this as an attempt to sell flash passes to a different market. It may become necessary to purchase some kinda FP on a good amount of the days the park is open. Busch Gardens had instant gratification flash pass stations outside Kumba and some other places, I wonder if their lines are ever bad enough to need them. I feel less and less motivated to visit GA. The coasters just don't feel like they're worth the wait times, especially after riding stuff like Maverick and Montu. For the amount of time we havta wait, these coasters should be longer and have more going on. Unfortunately it seems that GA has been handsomely rewarded for hyping up a new coaster which is over about 30 seconds after you reach the top of the lift, making the already short Batman and X Flight seem epic by comparison. On the topic of operating hours, I always get the impression that GA tries to be closed anytime that is not peak time. There's plenty of demand for the park to remain open at closing time whenever I'm there. Droves of people turn out when it's 30 some degrees. They could be open in a snow storm in January and still probably draw 10,000 if a record Fright Fest day is 50,000. I guess the private event a couple weekends ago hosted employees of Fifth Third and some other financial companies. As I understand it, they open in April, but it's all private events then too. These must be pretty profitable. SFGA must still be making a good gate on most days. I find it hard to believe they lose money much at all. SF has done a great job of cranking up a ton of demand and then maximizing their revenue on the limited supply of rides and operating days/hours.

Wow that sounds bad for a first weekend of Fright Fest. My old trip reports are on here. I had been able to ride everything and even see the hypnosis and love at first fright shows if I recall. 30-40 min waits are a big improvement over July and August though. Wonder how much of this is driven by Goliath hype.

those wait times you posted are actually considered good for this place. Most of the time during July and August, you're lucky if Bull is an hour or less. During October Fright Fest, I think 2 hours is considered below normal for RB. I would go today and tomorrow. Last two years it has been far more manageable than October weekends. Or maybe an October Thurs or Fri. This first weekend of November should be good too in terms of crowds. But, this whole problem of oversaturating the park with flash passers could carry over and make this weekend a nightmare. I'm trying to head out there myself.

Isn't a BG season pass only $100 something? They charge less for parking. Plenty of families spend $300+ to visit Great America. Yelp is full of reviews of people spending a lot to have a horrible time at GA. Low class is a way of acting, not an income level. Walmart often is not the cheapest. I go there and target often. Don't see much price difference. There is, however, a perception that wal mart is way less expensive. Keep in mind too that I didn't see much of any Floridians there, so something besides price can't be the only reason people aren't flooding the place.

I've just arrived back from a trip to Busch Gardens Tampa. Here's how I think it stacks up with Great America: First off, the park is in the middle of Suitcase City, an area considered to be inhabited by far more dangerous people than the Great America trashy/yolo crowd. Went last Tues and Weds. For some reason the locals seem to avoid this place like the plague this month. I think my wife and I may have been the only Americans in the park on Tuesday. It was almost all Brits and Scots with a handful of Latin Americans. Weds had a few semi-trashy Americans with all the foreign tourists, but nothing like Great America. Crowds were really light on Tues. Weds they were a little heavier but Falcon's Fury only had like a ten min wait and Montu only had maybe 4 people in each queue row waiting with it running one train. BG has a tram to bring you from the parking lot to the gate, and even from the back of the lot, this is a closer walk than from most of the spots I get stuck with at GA. Weather here reminded me of GA when we went on 4th of July. Maybe easier to deal with. The bag checking is hardly thorough. Was just an 80 something year old lady touching the bag with a stick. Lines into the park moved really fast, but there wasn't much of a line. There's a train to take you around the park with several stops. There's also a skyride to take you from near Kumba to Cheetah Hunt and back. Why GA can't have our train work better as a transportation method is beyond me. The Zoo exhibits are quite good. A slight step up from Brookfield Zoo. The Cheetah doesn't run very often though. Onto the rides. Despite their reputations, these coasters are actually a lot tamer than GA for the most part. We started with Gwazi. Lots of uncomfortable twists. It's not anywhere as bad as Mean Streak, but it's probably what our Eagle would be like if it kept the majority of the ride in its helix. There's a couple good hills, but there just isn't enough variety or smoothness to make this a winner. One side was closed. Sheikra-It's a big tease like Pretzelman or Goliath. For some reason, it doesn't feel like 200 feet. The lift is similar to X Flight but even steeper. No line here. Third row is a little further back from the other two. It puts you right at the top of the hill before it drops. This wasn't freaky at all. It's basically a dive drop, immelman, another dive drop, a turn, the water splash(which I didn't notice while on the ride), and that's it. The Pretzel loop is better than anything on here. The drops are slightly forceful, but this feels far tamer than anything at GA. Hard to say if I'd take this over any GA coaster other than Goliath. Kumba-A big disappointment. Rough with a lot of mild ear banging. Not as bad as namtab's though. Was hoping for more positive Gs forcing me into my seat like on Demon or Batman but they just aren't there. Maybe in the front you can feel it better. No line here either. Someone put double seatbelts on the side for riders with chests over 52" in rows 4 and 5. Not sure why GA can't do that. The mid course breaks actually detract a lot from the enjoyability of the ride. At this point I'd take most any coaster at GA over this. Scorpion-A nice surprise. The loop is awesome and the lap bars work fantastically for it. Too bad the rest of the ride is a big helix. Still incredibly smooth. If they put these trains on Demon, I think I'd see that as an improvement. Cheetah Hunt-Oh, what could have been. So much wasted track. The launches almost take you up straight vertical. The one spin is good. Some cool drops and laterals. But so much straight track that could be going for more elements. Why even have a spin and launches if you're going for a family coaster idea? I might take this over Whizzer, but probably not. Whizzer has a better lay out and more of the forces that I like. Montu-Now this is what I'm talking about. Has the extra belt seats like Kumba. Ride is incredibly smooth and very forceful in the ways I like. First loop is more like Batman and not anywhere as tame as Raptor's. Immelman starts off cool but when you twist and turn to go back around it loses slight momentum. Spin is great. Didn't notice the very slight trim before going into the batwing the first time. Awesome element. Almost greyed out everytime during the part where you finish the batwing and pop up into the mid-brake. Luckily the mid-brake doesn't detract a lot. I kinda see why they have the trim and and mid-brake, otherwise a lot of people might grey out for the second half of the ride. If I recall, it hits another great loop right away. Some straightish track that turns you on your side, a dip or two, and then another forceful spin. This could overtake Batman as my #1 coaster. The theming is awesome, the best I've been on. Rode this 3x in a row. All on the outer right side seat that I love for Batman. First two was row 5 I think. Then I did the front, which I've never done on a B&M invert(but I have done row 2 on Batman). Absolutely insane. I'm not sure if it was because it was my 3rd ride in a row or because it was the front, but it was unreal how crazy it felt. First thing is that it's very freaky to have nothing in front of you and to see what you're going into. Without seats in front of you, it feels like all the forces hit you about twice as hard. I kept getting thrown into the harness. Very disorienting too. Did this ride the second day back in row 5 and it started to feel more predictable and less exciting, like when I get a chance to ride Batman a lot. Montu is nearly perfect. I'd like some more snap when being pulled down on the inversions ala Batman and maybe a tad less straight track, but, as it stands, the ride wastes very little track and is well-paced. Over and over I've read that Montu never has lines over 20 min even during peak season. Congo River Rapids is probably not better than Roaring Rapids. I think it's slightly longer and more consistent in its speed, but it's not able to hit the speeds RR is capable of at times. Both these rides could do a better job of not hitting walls so much and neither needs the cannons. For some reason this ride had the longest line of anything at 30 minutes. The LCD sign said it was a 5 min wait, like most everything else. Cheetah Hunt had no line Tues but looked like about a 50 person line Weds. Think it was running 3 trains. The wife went on Falcoln's Fury the second day and said it is a million times better than Giant Drop in terms of smoothness, comfort, forces, thrill, everything. Their version of logger's run is smaller but soaks you more. Their Tidal Wave/Splash Waterfalls was down. Food at this place varies a lot like at GA. One place gave me dry chicken alfredo, another place was much better. The shows here are a million times better than at GA. The opening night show had them do a lot of amazing, choreographed stuff with various animals. The song and dance show was done with real adults who seemingly possessed real musical talent as opposed to the so-so teens GA uses in its shows. BG always seemed to take the reasonable approach on everything where you thought they might give a problem. It's hard to rate the operations since there weren't really any lines. For what it's worth, it definitely felt like they dispatched trains in a more orderly fashion than GA. Most of the ride ops and food workers appeared to be teens like at GA, but the sometimes bad attitudes and cluelessness we get here didn't happen at BG. Could be a Tampa thing as we didn't really get anything but good attitudes no matter what we visited in the Tampa area. I really wish I knew why Six Flags attracts so many trashy people chain-wide. It's not just a GA thing. It's just like how Wal-Mart gets almost all the trash around here and Target gets barely any of it-despite the prices not being all that different(and the Walmart we visited in Tampa was about the trashiest I've ever seen, handily beating even the one at 53 and Lake). From what I understand Tampa has some extremely dangerous areas interspersed within 15 miles of BG in most directions. I doubt BG is too expensive for Tampa's Yolos. There's not much of a police presence at the park either, unlike GA. So maybe it's all due to branding or the fact that BG's coasters are too tame. Cedar Point also has a good share of riff raff living around the park, but they don't seem to bother going. It's interesting that BG appears to be kept afloat by so many UK residents. If you took them out, I don't think they could afford to be open this month. And if I had to guess, I'd say the majority of the patrons were more interested in the animals than the coasters. Six Flags does appear to have an image problem. It's seen as the Wal-Mart of theme parks. GA's ride collection is definitely underrated and BG's overrated. Montu was the only ride we rerode the 2nd day(although we would have done Scorpion again if they didn't close at 6, the others probably not). X Flight is light years ahead of Sheikra and Kumba, yet it isn't a very revered coaster so far.

I noticed I forgot to mention that people I talked to in line last time had the same problem with their kids objectively measuring above the height restrictions and then being denied at different rides posting the same height requirements. Apparently some ride ops don't know how to measure correctly. My overall impression of their customer service acumen is that they do the minimum generally. I don't think most of the workers take any pride in how they do their jobs(which no one should think is an anomaly among similarly paid people working at other places around Chicago). If a company has a service-oriented culture, sometimes it's apparent. At most every Oberweis we go to, you can tell they've been trained to emphasize service. Some Chick Fil As are like that. Sometimes one of em will be great, and you go back a couple months later with a new staff and the service sucks. The unique thing about Great America is that they are a default monopoly over here and the average customer is probably driving several hours and maybe spending a couple hundred bucks if they're bringing a family. I imagine there's a good amount of locals who are there all the time, but that might be 1/10th-1/15th of the total guests. SF should try to do a bang up job considering so many of their guests are sacrificing a good deal of time and money to attend. Instead it seems like they're more interested in running on the cheap and maximizing profit. These single rider lines will mean a major improvement if used properly.

Lines are unpredictable. Lately they've been insane, even on Mondays according to the newest Yelp reviews. If you haven't read the last few pages here, you should. Be prepared to see anywhere from 100-300 flash passers go ahead of you and significantly increase your wait time on the major rides(like 40%+ wait time increases). July was a big increase in attendance compared to May and June. You guys can read trip reports on here from previous years' Augusts. If you do buy a flash pass, just get the regular one. I never get to the park at opening so I can't tell you how things are then in terms of lines. Personally, I would take Demon over Goliath and Superman Ultimate Pretzel any day. Goliath is like Maverick if it ended before the second launch, maybe not even that cool. And it'd probably be a better use of your time to drive to Cedar Point and ride that instead of waiting hours for a coaster that ends 29 or so seconds after reaching the top of the lift hill. Demon can be a headbanger and a jawbreaker for a lot of people though. Just try to keep your neck loose on the loops and tilt your head some to the right on the corkscrews if you're not tall enough to bypass the restraints.

https://www.sixflags.com/greatamerica/special-events 7, 10, 15, 16 of this month for ERT plus the Citgo ERT possibilities. The YOLO phenomenon is not exclusive to here. Just google YOLO and Six Flags and see it pop up for other parks. I don't see it as a class thing. There are plenty of low income people who are not trashy. I equate the YOLO types with guests who look and act like they belong on 1998 Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones's "my teen is out of control". Boisterous, arrogant, and obnoxious. Key Lime Cove was full of em when I went there 5 years ago too. These are the type of people who will physically fight over cheap dollar store junk thrown out in the crowd during the Pride parade, even after someone else has already caught the 99 cent plastic necklace. There's just an arrogant sense of entitlement and "look at me" narcissism about them. There's often a lot of equally annoying stereotypical upper middle class teens too. And I say that because I grew up around a ton of obnoxious upper and upper middle class teens and college kids who wear brands like North Face and Abercrombie as a cultural thing. It's done to establish that you're part of that culture, the clothes being one sort of gatekeeper to being accepted in those circles. Of the two groups, I would say the YOLO types are more antisocial and aggressive. They're probably the reason there's all these new line-jumping signs with phone numbers to call if you want to report someone. WWE wrestling went to a PG show and all of a sudden the trash factor in the audience went down a lot. Not saying the product was better as a result, but getting rid of some lowest common denominator elements drove a lot of aggressive and obnoxious people away. If Great America started a marketing campaign saying they were going to go back to the more family friendly Marriott style that would drive off a lot of the trashy types because that type of environment doesn't appeal to them because they can't act out. They could build a Millennium Force clone and these miscreants wouldn't show up if they thought there were any standards for their behavior. That's probably why Cedar Point is so different despite there being a good amount of sketchy looking people living near the park. It doesn't have a rep as some kinda free for all place where obnoxious people can act out. Didn't gangs drive Astroworld out of business? And I heard Great Adventure almost suffered a similar fate. The gun being found on someone at Great America really stained its rep with a lot of people. Forget what year that was. Guess the most important thing they could do to reduce miscreant behavior is just run a tighter ship aside from their GSA security. I'm not sure why they let everyone tail gate in the lot. That costs the park a lot of money in missed sales and leaves a lot of extra garbage. They should just replace some of the Midway games with food places and build extra bathrooms while lowering the food prices. When I was at Cedar, I don't recall there being a ton of tailgating. Great America has this no swimsuit dress code thing that they don't enforce but probably should. Six Flags should raise the standards for themselves and the guests. The flawed operations and other effects of their greed and lack of care probably contribute to people acting out more than they normally would.

Flash pass equivalent are much much cheaper elsewhere. Just booked a Busch Gardens trip. Looked like $20 for a flash pass on the big rides and $35 for one that goes for everything else. Great America does have two big problems that contribute. #1 the lack of non-thrill stuff and #2 the aformentioned operations. There are a lot of times where I'd like something non-thrill, non-spin to ride and there just isn't anything. Cedar Point has two Great America Raceway type rides and a lot of other non-intense stuff. Flash Pass should exist and it should be reasonable. Maybe 100-200, not 1000-2000. I've been on X Flight maybe 40-50 times in the last two years. I know how long the line usually takes depending on length. The only time you cannot count the flash passers is when you're on the stairs(and that's assuming they go back to not instructing people to let the flash passers up the right side stairs). Demon may be the other ride where it's possible to count flash passers. It's simple math. If I'm stuck in the same spot for 10-15 minutes and just counted 10 groups of flash passers averaging 5 per group, then approx 50 people just increased my wait time. This happens multiple times, your 35 min wait now becomes a 70 min wait. Those wait time signs are never accurate. I've seen signs for X Flight saying 120 min and it took 45ish on days when we didn't get bombarded with 100+ flash passers. Viper often has signs that say 45 or 60 and it takes 25-30. When I've bought the regular flash pass, I found little difference in wait time between that and the Gold. There are also times when the signs underestime wait time. Flash Passers are like this unseen variable. There's no way they can factor it in unless someone keeps a tally and knows the average wait time increase per flash passer. I would not be surprised if X Flight or Bull sees something like 3 or 4 thousand flash pass scans per day with people going back for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, rides, etc. When you sell ridiculous amounts of flash passes, you end up giving the majority of guests a miserable time and a small minority lots of extra rides. It would be a godsend if Great America would add something like Sky Whirl and the raceway back. When I came back there 3 years ago after not going for 18 years, I was really taken aback by how different it was from before. Seemed like everything had to be some kinda thrill ride. And while there is a lot of riff raff Yolo people there, there's still a lot of families who are going because the parents liked the park in the 80s and were expecting something similar. I wonder what % of season pass holders go more than 5 times a year. I go pretty often but by the time I get there we basically end up having dinner and getting like 3 rides in before it closes. Without the pass maybe I could get the wife to make an effort to get there early. I think there was maybe two days this year where we got there in time for lunch. Even with all our visits I think we only got in 3 rides each on Batman and Bull this year. Most likely we coulda had a bunch after riding Goliath on the ERT day but the wife wanted to leave. I bet a large majority of pass holders barely go. It's like gym memberships. My advice to pass holders who don't want to gamble on crowds would be to go on all the ERT days and the first weekend of Fright Fest. They've had a lot of ERT days this year. I think this month I won't be going any other days but those. Normally 9pm is kinda like ERT but the other day was the first time I actually saw lines get significantly worse at 9.

Well I went over there today figuring the crowds might be an improvement over the weekend. Nope. This was insanity. A lot less riff raff than usual, maybe due to a lack of buses(15 instead of 50), but it was just a zoo with kids running wild everywhere. But the bigger issue is the flash pass. I have never seen so many platinum pass wrist bands on people in my life, even just walking around. X Flight had about 60 or so flash passers by the time we got inside. Then the flash pass worker decided to let an avalanche of about 40 more flash passers climb the right side stairs(this is a new thing, flash passers never got to go past everyone on the stairs before). This in effect more than doubled my wait time. The line was initially back to the last part of the queue. Without flash passers it's about a 35 min wait. So we get to the top of the stairs...finally. Then guess what, platinum flash passers re-riding. And not just one group. No, we end up with two groups of plat flash passers in front of us in row 4. Same thing happens on Bull, only we end up waiting close to 90 min(and the line was way overflowed after 9:15ish pm). We entered maybe 7:45. It's like they dumped every middle school, high school, and college kid here and had their parents buy 25% of them flash passes. When we used to buy flash passes, I'd see a wall of IDs, but I'd never see other flash passers. When we didn't get flash passes two years ago, we'd still rarely see a flash passer. We go to cedar point and the only time we get ambushed by flash passers is when all the rides but corkscrew closed due to wind a couple years ago. Viper seems to be running better operations wise, I didn't observe the bad behavior mentioned here. So maybe Mr Alvey is having a positive effect. Something is off with this place if a lot of us are fed up. I don't care to go back if now I have to have my wait times increased 40-70% because Six Flags feels a need to sell way too many flash passes. Skipping the line and re-riding should cost a lot more than $110. I'll go the first weekend of Fright Fest and anything else will be touch and go. I don't need to drive 50 some miles to experience the lowest common denominator business model. If there's a unifying theme to Great America, that's it. They could just call the whole park "Lowest common denominator land" and do away with the themed area names. Never heard the term YOLO before, but from what I'm looking up now, a lot of the crowd there do act in a way that seems consistent with YOLO lifestyle. There was just a lot less of those types today. Eagle red was closed around 9. Blue has been trimmed to death. 3x plus some kinda midcourse break thing that make the ride kinda tame after the side to side smashing helix. It reminds me of the anticlimactic feeling on pretzelman With the red side closed this turned a walk up into like a half hour wait. Blue side was plenty comfortable now aside from a little brain scrambling in the helix. Red has more to it and is more exciting without being much more violent. From the train I saw that Demon's line was almost totally full around 5. Eagle's line was not even using the last staircase before you enter the fencing. Whizzer's line was overflowing. Bull's line was overflowing basically the whole time we were there aside from when we entered at 8. They were giving out ride tickets too. It was almost full at 8. Some people I talked to, moms with kids mainly, avoided Goliath due to the line. And these people were not happy about the flash passers either. Eventually everyone clogged the stairs so the flash passers were stuck in the middle. I imagine people will revolt in other ways too. Then the plat passers would upset the regular passers when they'd re-ride. Roaring Rapids looked to have a healthy line from the railway. Bull was running 3 trains. They need to fix that bathroom in JB's. It's basically on par with the SAW bathroom. But at least it has hot water, unlike every other bathroom there. Is that a health violation? One of the Thai workers there almost ran me over he was running around so fast. The majority of these foreign workers have been pretty cool so far aside from that. Last year I don't recall seeing any plat flash passers at all, unless I forgot one or two. Two years ago I saw one guy on Pretzelman during Fright Fest. Guess the new Great America business plan is to attract as many trashy people as possible, hire the cheapest labor from both here and abroad without training them adequately, and sell hundreds, if not thousands of flash passes. I'd gladly take ads everywhere if it would mean less flash passers and increased quality of operations. If this is gonna be the new norm, I'll just save the $400 something we spent on all the season passes and the hundreds spent on tolls, gas, refills, etc, and use it so spend a week in Tampa or Valencia.

I was there the sunday before the 4th along with the 4th and last night. Got there around 6:15. Lines galore for everything around 6:45. Worse than 4th of July. Probably 20 some buses out there. Everything except Demon, Bull, and Whizzer went down by 8:30. After we left X-Flight it took about 15 min to see a train go on Goliath and V2. Everything else but Demon was dead. Those were the last trains that ran and then walking out, all that we saw running was Whizzer. Both Whizzer and Demon had lines just overflowing at this time. Eagle Blue got stuck on top of the lift hill again like it did one of the previous two times I visited. X Flight should be renamed Flash Pass. It's obscene how many flash passers go by whenever I ride it. Hundreds. Would not be surprised if it doubled the wait time. Batman is like that too. I really don't recall there being tons of flash passers a couple years ago. Seems that the more they raise the price, the more people buy it. Why not raise the price, limit it, and then throw some ads all over? The consensus seems to be that the park's operations get worse as time goes on, and I'd gladly take a bunch of ads everywhere if it meant a better experience. The stridex ads on the Demon looked kinda cool I thought. Gave the ride some color. The upsurge in flash passers could be due to Goliath. Maybe not as the most common thing I see are groups of 4-6 who don't look like they'd be shelling hundreds of dollars for platinum passes. Flash Pass is a worthy idea that should be an option, but when you sell ridiculous amounts of them coupled with the oft-mentioned operational issues, visiting the park can be a big waste of time. It's almost better just to arrive at 7 or 8 PM on days when it's crowded and full of flash passers. Batman is another flash pass magnet. Bull ran well that last sunday I went. 3 trains. Line was out to the test seat but they didn't fill the queue so wait time wasn't too long. Maybe a half hour. The Train is back up and running. Watching the fireworks with X Flight/Flash Pass in the background is stunning. I bet it's even cooler if you're on the ride. Angelo's is running well now. Lines move at a reasonable pace and no cold food. Time will tell if Goliath has staying power. Once upon a time Shockwave and Iron Wolf drew huge crowds. I never got to ride them but I've heard their ridership decreased due to reps of roughness? Wonder if the internet emerging had anything to do with that. Goliath may eventually get the rep of being half a ride. Pretzelman still draws though, so, who knows. Eventually theme parks will be competing with virtual reality versions. Might be a couple decades away. Can they put in another new coaster without removing anything? Doesn't look that way. I'd like to see more non-thrill rides and more of an effort to feel like a theme park. It often feels like Six Flags goes for cheapest cost options and tries to attract lowest common denominator people. I was reading some forum post about how County Fair doesn't feel like a county fair anymore. It's true that a big coaster will draw more people than the raceway or Splash water falls, but then it's more like a coaster park than a theme park. You're drawing people who want thrills above all else. Instead of selling the overall experience the way I see it marketed in the Marriott commercials, it's being sold based on thrill seeking almost exclusively. I figured out some approaches to limit the car crash feeling on every drop and inversion on Demon. Seems that adjusting your neck position throughout the loops seems to stop it from being slightly whiplashed as happens when you try to keep it steady. It doesn't reduce all of that whiplashy feeling, but gets rid of most of it. On the first drop you kinda need to lift the knees up a bit like if you were out of your seat in a car crash because it does slam with pretty good impact when you go down that hill. I'm tall enough not to have any real problems with the corkscrews. Last time I went on Batman it was feeling awesome again. Maybe because I sat on the right side. I do get floater type airtime on the loops(if only we could get 2-4 more of these here). If someone doesn't fit, having one person hold and push the harness while another person pushes and puts the buckle in seems to give a couple extra inches of room to fit someone in who would have a lot of trouble if they tried to get in with just one person helping.

the person I was with did not fit on MF 2 years ago, does not fit on X Flight aside from row 4, barely fits on Batman, doesn't fit on V2, and had no issues fitting on Goliath. The crew just kept insisting on pushing the bar down further and further. But they got it. I'm relatively thin and they pushed it down so far that I see why they said no waist packs. There was literally no room left. On the plus side, they monitor the station with a camera for theft so you can feel more secure leaving phones and stuff behind.

Just rode Goliath. It met my expectations in that I had a decent idea of what it was going to deliver and it did deliver on that. It's just not my fav type of coaster and I'm still trying to get used to the rides again. I was getting such a rush off Viper last year, especially at the end, and it's not giving me much of anything so far even though the ride is riding exactly the same. I probably need a few more visits. Heights and crazy drops have never come natural to me. I am not a big fan of these lap bar cars and I really don't like the fact that there's nothing to hold onto in front or anything to anchor my torso area. It kinda feels like I'm riding a coaster in a seat meant for a movie. They really, really push that bar down farther than on any ride I've been on. The lift hill is slower than I thought and kinda steep and intimidating. I would gladly trade that bar for a shoulder harness or something like Maverick has. Going on a near vertical hill in that seat feels wild, but that's not something I really look for. Feels like the hills on RB and AE, just more vertical. The elements are cool and all, it just feels like it blazes right through them. The ride itself feels incredibly short. Like if Maverick stopped and didn't launch into the second part. It's hard to rank it because it is superior to the other coasters at what it does, but as far as being a satisfying ride experience, I'd probably rank it below everything but Pretzelman. Lately I really feel like I want a more epic coaster experience. And definitely a higher number of satisfying inversions along with the variety of elements something like Maverick has. Say 7 inversions for a one minute ride and closer to 10 for a 90 second one. But that's just my personal pref. If you want a short explosive wood style coaster that possesses the type of elements Goliath does, I imagine its the best at what it does.

Just got back from being there a few hours starting at around 4. Two buses, lot of cars in the overflow lot but also alot of spaces open near the buses. Lines same as last two weekends, except X Flight which had a few less flash passers and a line not even back to the control tower(and it got even shorter by the time we exited). Whizzer line was about 20 min. The ride isn't feeling any different than last year. Still jerky on some of the turns. First time I saw RB was when they closed Viper temporarily and the queue was full but not overflowing to the test seat or anything. Posted wait was 75 min. Wife went on Giant Drop instead, which was almost a walk up. Went back to Viper and saw they were doing test runs, so we waited a few minutes and then the ride reopened. It isn't giving me the same charge that it was a few months ago. But it's far less violent than the Eagle and offers a much better experience in my view. Maybe next month my body will have readjusted to it. That JB's place is awesome. I'd say it's on par with something like Smash Burger or Meathead's. Wait is minimal. Plenty of tables. Next up was Demon. I ended up lifting my knees some on that first drop so it feels less like a crash. I'm really liking the inversions more but they are so jerky as you go through them that it takes away from the enjoyment factor some. It cooled down a lot by the time we went on X Flight. Same place as last time, outer seat row row 4 right side. This time it felt more intense and almost disorienting at times. Slightly jerky too. It was forceful enough to push my harness down as many notches as it could after leaving the station. Too bad I couldn't hit Batman for comparison. East River Crawler looks to be back in order with the lobster head rotating all the way now. More spin action than last year. The stage show is better than Ignite but still well below what I've seen at Cedar Point. Fireworks were ok. Nothing too unique. Parade doesn't work as well with Dancing in the streets. The music felt kinda flat to me. Liked Glow in the Park a lot better. Goliath looks a lot more complete.

Was at the park all day yesterday. First thing, I would avoid Angelo's. This is the second week in a row where it's been a disaster. The line there took longer than any ride. The wait was approx 45 minutes around 1:30 PM. And then we end up with frigid cold pizza that doesn't taste exactly edible. The wife requested I go and ask for replacements, which the lead, Antonio, promptly took care of. He offered a free drink, but since we already bought one, the supervisor gave us a funnel cake. Great America should do this for everyone who waited forever for unacceptable food. They have this long offseason and near 40 years of experience, you'd think they could at least get a basic food place running correctly by opening day. It just makes them look like a typical cheap corporation that only wants to hire half the amount of workers needed, even if that's not necessarily the case. Angelo's has really been the only problem dining location for me over the last two years. Might have something to do with there being less options on that side of the park. For dinner there was absolutely no problem at maw and paws. Barely a line. You can get the turkey leg with the dining pass again, for an additional $2. The donut shop has subs on the pass too. Everywhere we looked, more options were added to the dining pass. That is a great improvement. This was grad night so there had to have been over 40 buses. The main lot was maybe 60% full with a few scattered cars in the overflow. Batman had some glitch, but then reopened pretty fast. That line wasn't past the interior part. When we got off the ride, it was out maybe 20 people past the test seat. If you ever have trouble fitting in this ride, take off your coat. That enabled me to push the seatbelt in a couple inches further. For some reason the ride didn't feel all that forceful to me. Maybe because I was on the left inside seat. Definitely wish it had a few more inversions as the ones it does have are over so fast. Whirley gig had no line as usual. Eagle's line was spilling out a bit past the blue side stairs into the tunnel underneath the ride. Wait was probably close to half an hour. Man, that red side felt violent riding in the middle. Not anywhere as bad as mean streak, but the Eagle definitely was very forceful and bumpy at times. Not too different from last season. Tons of air. I keep forgetting how small the seats are. They really seem built for kids 10-20. X Flight was next. Line was a little past the keyhole, which is usual. Back to outside seat row 4, right side. People who think this is slow and forceless are out of their minds. This thing is very forceful on its inversions and any time it puts you on ur side. The inversions are almost up there with the pretzel loop. If this just had one more spin before ending it would be perfect. Demon was the last we rode. Same as last season. Awesome first drop, choppy going through the inversions. It looks a lot more fluid than it feels. Line was a little bit past the part of the queue with the rails. Took about 20 some minutes. It's a little weird seeing the handles with the metal exposed. If you buy a $14.99 Goliath shirt or one of the more expensive ones, you can ride it at 11:59 June 1st if I recall the sign. That's what the wife said, but I thought they meant the Saturday night before it opens. Can't find any verification on the Six Flags site. And despite it feeling pretty cold with the cloudy skies and wind, people were riding Yankee Clipper and Buccaneer Battle. I swear this place could be open in winter months and people will still show up in these numbers and go on the water rides. This weather was probably worse than Fright Fest for me. I don't recall feeling like I needed a hood on much of any Fright Fest days.

got there yesterday about 3:35. Ended up getting in Screams and Dreams, Pretzelman, and the Balloons before the storms hit. Pass processing wasn't long at all. Whizzer had a pretty decent line so we left for S&D in case it rained and we missed both. Pretzelman was about 20 min wait. Think I rode it twice last year so we made it a priority today. The pretzel loop is a great element, then it just sucks after that. They did a test run on Viper after the rain stopped around 6:30, but I didn't see any other runs after that so maybe they never reopened the rides after the rain hit. Most people were leaving when we got there. I only took pics of Goliath from a distance. Great America, to me, is the best place in this area by far, so just being able to go back was exciting enough that I didn't rush to go look at Goliath closer in the rain. It's still easy for me to get preoccupied with everything between Goliath and Pretzelman. I could go there just about every day and never get bored. I'm halfway hoping Goliath sucks people away from the other rides. But it could turn out that Golaith draws Fright Fest October type crowds all the time.

just left. looks like the lot filled maybe to capacity after we went in. love at first fright was good, but didn't seem better at all. liked that they seem to retain the actors. I estimate I saw over 200 flash passers clog the x flight line. I'm in favor of flash pass, but that is just obnoxious. apparently they don't limit them enough to prevent situations like that. viper's line wasn't too big at 7:55 but it kept getting stuck way more than usual. rows 12 and 13 were blocked and saved for people coming in through the exit. probably flash passers. we left the viper shop at 8:28 for pretzelman but it was down. guess the moral of the story is, save up for a platinum and scare pass for both days if you want to do everything. I just don't see how anyone could do the haunts and all the rides without two full days with the extra passes. edited to add things(which doesn't seem to really work off my phone). shortest, tamest ride on whirleygig ever. The balloons here are much better than at Santa's Village, where they ran a lot faster. They played the Undertaker's WWF Volume 3 theme a lot near Pretzelman and Dark Knight. The Kane music with the singing too. Heard the Halloween theme a couple times while near the balloons and batman/whirleygig. In September they played a diverse amount of stuff by the Bull. Even stuff from Nightmare on Elm St 2 and some track from one of the first four Friday the 13ths. One of the long chase cues, I think. Whoever books the music puts a decent amount of thought into it. But it seems they recycle songs on a loop from a small track list outside of SW Territory. I don't even think I heard much music in County Fair. If I recall, they got the yellow demon car back up shortly after it got stuck. When I went to check out the Goliath location all I could really see were construction vehicles. The crowd seemed to have every high schooler in the area and then some. Much moreso than in the regular season. That was probably the biggest demographic. More adults than on a regular day too. My guess is that for crowds this is the worst weekend. Wish I could say what the lines were like on more things later at night. if Whizzer wasn't closed at 8:30, it didn't look like it had much of a line. Demon's 6:45 line looked about 85% full. I also wish I knew what kinda times the flash passes were spitting out to their users since I have no idea how they can accurately predict ride wait times, especially when you have lines at the flash pass entrace as well. If they were going off posted times like the 120 min for x-flight that would've been maybe 45 without all that flash pass interference, the pass could end up making things worse in some cases. In my experiece with flash pass use last season, they seem to underestimate wait times often, giving an even bigger advantage.

waiting for x flight now. posted time says 120 min. never seen so many flash passers. I tried turning around to face the flash pass lane every 20 seconds for a couple minutes and every time but one there was another flash pass group. line was moving great before the avalanche of flash passers. at least it wasn't overflowing. eagle and x flight are completely full queues. batman had a ton of flash pass people flowing in too. took about an hour. row 8 was good again. the bored ride op from our earlier ride on east river crawler rode with us and had a great time. yellow demon just got stuck after the tunnel. ride op had to push the train. couldn't record it in time. lucky it got through the corkscrews. now testing the red train.

batman and pretzelman are slightly overflowing now in case any of u are considering making it over here

anyone go yesterday? someone who went told me the coaster lines looked 2+ hours so he just rode flats. I should be able to make it out today. I know last year I stayed home after guest services said it was crazy like sat the 27th last year with its 49k crowd or whatever it was. then the trip reports on here said the crowds were an improvement over the previous days/weeks, so I felt like an idiot for not going.

I remember a lot of Mays that were cold almost the whole month. Sometimes it can get summer-like. The average probably comes from temps that aren't very constant throughout the month. The weather is still real iffy. I wonder if they ran the rides in 30 degree temps last night. Cedar Point workers said their weather is all over the place, sometimes they were wearing thick jackets in summer. I believe the quote was "this is Ohio, we don't have seasons". Never researched that myself.

The question is what kind of a draw do they need to be profitable. This country doesn't seem to be as into this stuff as much of Europe is. You see all these awesome places in Germany alone. When I go back and read about 49,000 people being there on 10/27 last year, I have to wonder if they really need anywhere near that to be profitable. These season passes must be a good deal for them as they push them very hard all the time. Most people I know love this place, but they procrastinate forever in actually making the trip. I'm definitely curious if Goliath ends up being a big draw next year. The culture is different now. Very different from the days of Shockwave, Iron Wolf, and Batman awing the general public. Goliath will probably be the first ride with a chance of repeating the sense of awe those coasters gave off 20+ years ago. I'm not sure that it will though. The growth of coasters has exploded since the days of GA being the cutting edge park, it takes a lot more to make something people will take note of. The September attendance being lower probably has a lot to do with people wanting to wait until the end of October to show for FF. That and maybe a lack of awareness as to the park being open since they usually close some parts of September. To make November work they'd just need for people to be aware. Without some special event, it wouldn't draw anywhere close to FF, but may still be profitable. A buddy of mine just went to Magic Mountain 3 times a little over a week ago. Said there were barely any lines. Think the most he waited was 45 min for Full Throttle. X-2 had been down for maintenance over a month he heard. Makes me wonder if it ever gets days where everything has a 2 hour wait like we do here. Did GA do good business this past May? I don't see any real difference in being open in early May vs some of these offseason months. Weather is usually about the same aside from the occasional winter storm.

Went there Sunday very briefly. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we only ended up having dinner at that new BBQ place and riding Viper. The ride is still running awesome for me. We just go to the row adjacent to the height measure thing. There was a pretty healthy line for Viper around 7:30ish. Maybe took 20 minutes, perhaps more. Park was pretty crowded considering there were only about two buses at 6:30. The back lot still had a lot of cars in it. To me, it's definitely worth driving 50 miles even if only to ride Viper once. I'm lucky I can do that. Most people in this country have to travel a lot further than that to get to a decent theme park. Hopefully I can get at least two more 5+ hour days in before the season ends. They could draw crowds in November, I bet. Only if they advertised enough. Guess it would depend how many weekends they have to close because of weather. If the sun is out and there's no snow or anything, they could draw year round nowadays. Some of this October weather can be pretty brutal and looks like it isn't deterring too much attendance yet.

My trip report from columbus day last year should be in this thread still. If I recall, it was a good day to go. Just closed way too early. Some of the other late October weekend days were horrid. A million buses and they actually told people not to visit on their sign viewable from the highway.

Was there Sunday. Great weekend to go like last year. Not a bus in sight so the lines were manageable. Even around say 2 PM we only had to wait about 15 min for Raging Bull. The park really feels like a theme park during FF. This is the element that's missing during the regular season. RB, Demon, and X Flight kept running test trains repeatedly in the afternoon. After riding River Rocker the wife and I got some sort of slight nausea that got slightly worse throughout the day. All this burping. Don't know if the huge pulled pork I got with the dining pass at Aunt Martha's had anything to do with it. Viper and Richochet before River Rocket didn't cause any ill effects. We ended up not riding Pretzelman, Condor, ERC, Whirleygig, and Batman because we were afriad we'd throw up. Onto the rides in the order we rode them, started probably around 1:40ish: -Viper: Best ride I ever had on this. Completely smooth and comfortable throughout. Never felt my torso slamming around, didn't have to try to balance by keeping my arms up. Either I adapted or they improved something after turning it forwards again. When it runs like this, I might even like it better than Batman. Rode maybe 3 or 4 rows from the back. ten minute line. -Richochet: First time we rode this. Lots more fun than it looks. ten minute line. -Raging Bull: Tried row 7 for the first time. Didn't think the ride experience was much different from being in rows 3-6. -Demon: This has been consistent. First drop is awesome. Those loops are a little jerky. Haven't found a way to offset that sorta whiplashy feeling. same back row as usual. This actually had a line like last time, maybe ten minutes deep. -X-Flight: wife likes row 4 on the right so we went there again. About the same as last time. This one was less easy to take with the slight nausea. about a half hour line. -American Eagle red: opted for a middle row but row 3 was free so we took that. Horrid ride this time after the great ride earlier last month. Trim brakes kept kicking in and I never noticed em before. When going up the hill into the helix, my wife flew upward so she was about a foot higher than me in the train. I think that's where it was. The last airtime moment before the helix. She claims she got so much air that she was standing upright but I couldn't tell. It felt much faster and rougher. The helix was almost Mean Streak bad the whole time, especially at the end. this was a walk up. -Train: they didn't have much of any FF stuff up for this. -Triple Play: Pretty fun and still worth riding but this kicked up the nausea some. -Whizzer: Airtime in the 3rd to last seat does not happen like it does in the very last seat. It's barely there. This ride is rougher than people think. It's pretty jerky at times. And after that we had to take a break for Fantome or whatever it's called. Then Susan Rosen. That was a great time. Too bad they don't make much use of the Pictorum and the ampitheater. Those should be treated as a lot bigger deal than they are. Parade was great. The FF actors look a lot better this year. Not sure about the construction workers, but I didn't think they were that lame. Most of the FF actors were in Orleans Place and near the carousel. I didn't see any of them really when I was in Southwest Territory and County Fair. Maybe it was too early in the day. I'd like to do the specific FF attractions if I find the time to fit them in with the rides. We could've easily done the rest of the rides we wanted to. I'm hoping we don't get the horrific crowds of last year. Do they really need to let in 20+ buses? The theming is such a big draw with FF. If they could try to come up with some other strong theming for other months, I think that would help a lot. They could probably get away with operating some selected days in the offseason too. A lot of days in May are just as cold as days in the winter. I don't see them taking gambles like that if they don't even bring back the strong theming culture of the Marriot days.