BoulderDash

Few quick updates on the park. Boulder Dash has successfully run 2 trains twice so far this season (6/26 + 7/5). I can see them running 2 trains this Saturday for the fireworks and 10pm closing. Wait time is usually 15-20 minutes for the front row with two trains. The lines for the rest of the park definitely do not move as fast on busy days. Thunder n' Lightning is undergoing some work, rumor is they are trying to get both arms going at once. Although all the work I have seen so far has been on the side that has been operating recently. Wave Swinger is going to be down for awhile once again after not running at all last season. Had about 2 weekends this season. Haven't had a good look recently since Zoomerang has been closed a lot, but the Haunted Graveyard is being packed up. Appeared that the vampires and banshees area was completely gone and packed up. Hopefully the park has something planned for this October, but I doubt it and I am super disappointed. Quassy posted a teaser for a new Halloween event and it even looked like some of the gravestones from the HG were in that picture which is interesting. Also went on Venus Vortex once, it is a fun slide. I'll have to try it a few more times, really like the way it looks. You don't really get too wet until towards the end. Definitely seems like the heaver the better for the rafts. And they do have scales, I believe it is around 250-650 pounds max and you need at least 2 people. I think Quassy's water coaster just announced looks like the better ride though.

Lake Compounce was fine with it until a "Karen" incident back in August 2020. They put up signs after saying no snapping. Those signs have been removed, but I think its still kind of a rule. I think they might have slowed it down a bit too. But I have had some insane runs on that thing the last few years. As long as you don't go crazy, I don't think anyone will care.

They have to remove the top of the lighthouse in order to remove the current stairs. I’m guessing that will be difficult. But the plan right now is to bring it back.

ACE had an excellent tour at the park yesterday. I’ll post a few highlights here of what is going on. -It seems like almost everything that needs paint is getting it. Entire front entrance has been repainted and looks good. At first I thought it was a little too much yellow, but it’s growing on me. The dark blue trims help. Also those chaser lights on Wildcat look really good at night. Also the entry process will be touch less now and security will be moved to the main gate instead of the tunnel. Work on Main Street, will have poles with lights and a new sign. Looks really cool. This concrete slab in the picture will be where the old carousel horse from the entrance is going. Clipper Cove is done being rehabbed. Croc-o-Nile and the wave pool are being painted. The Croc-o-Nile slide, Mammoth Falls and Lights Out will also be repainted. Lights Out will be making a comeback in 2022 after a major renovation. Mammoth is also being painted green and purple. New seating area for Johnny Rockets, will eventually become a permanent building, likely in 2022. Venus Vortex the delayed Waterslide should finish construction by May. The crew arrived yesterday and will start building today or Monday. Most of the train track was re-done due to erosion happening. The track was too close to the water before. Wipeout awaiting its next location A stage will be going here for a new food/drink festival. Few photos from the awesome Ghost Hunt walkthrough. New display with a screen at the end of the first room too. Zoomerang is being painted darker colors. Looks similar to Bizarro. The parkside diner is being converted to Timberjack Chowhouse Few other notes: -Saw Mill Plunge is being painted, station and trough. -Croc Pot/Starlight is being painted. -The bathhouse is being completely re-done and will have a mural painted on the water park side. -Caterpillar train has been removed. -New lights on the Ferris Wheel, SkyCoaster, and Revolution. Hopefully the park has a successful season, tons of projects going on and they are impressive.

Just when you thought the park was at an all-time low and couldn't get anymore disappointing. The next bit of news would HAVE to be positive. Well, It appears that the Haunted Graveyard is packing up and leaving the park!! Major yikes!! https://hauntedgraveyard.com/?fbclid=IwAR0zoAKLnlN_-ubIKfR4ky-JNz5iLTT9DXhHhPQfGwyASJpjYIFVM3pCvHQ https://www.lakecompounce.com/things-to-do/haunted-graveyard

I wish the park could revert back to 2016 since that was basically the last year everything was right. Since then we have had: The botched Wildcat remodel, the Sky Ride removal, Boulder crash, removal of drink stations, Lights Out/Wipeout closing, and lots of rides being closed/maintenance issues. Its clear that there are maintenance issues that shouldn't be happening. Last year a section of the floor on one of the cars on BD just detached from the train. It was towards the end of the night and they closed it after a bunch of people noticed. Saw Mill Plunge had a log that stopped at the bottom of the drop on numerous occasions. Revolution had parts fall out from under it while running this year and was closed for a few weeks. Boulder has run two trains one time in the last three years. Wildcat has yet to run two trains (the new trains). The list goes on and on. I am sure there will be issues with Thunder Rapids if they try to re-open it since it hasn't run in a year and a half. Honestly it is embarrassing at this point. Wipeout is no loss at all IMO, but sometimes I enjoyed riding just for the laughs. The program was way too intense and insane. It spins way too fast at the end and is super painful. I am sure they will replace it at some point, but I don't think it will be until 2022 at best. There is a hiking trail that leads to the top Sky Ride terminal and I checked it out last week. Here are a few pictures. It is honestly really sad that they do not have this signature attraction anymore. https://imgur.com/a/7hwIEin

I went to the park last Friday and everything was a walk on. Picked up the Shredder and Sandy credits since they were both closed on my visit last December. Shredder was awesome and I would highly recommend sitting two on one side facing forward and no one on the other side for the best spins. The car would not stop spinning and seemed to spin faster when it hit the brake run. The layout is really cool and as far as I know the first two sections are unique to this spinner. Some of the other sections are similar to some of the clones. Some of the brakes hit a bit too hard but it is still a blast. Sandy was awesome and is a solid ride. I wasn't blown away but it had some great hangtime and the roll at the end felt slightly disorienting. Back row was whippier but I think the front is the best. The front of the train was making a weird noise too but the ride is relatively smooth. It was noticeably louder at the valley of the part above the station too. I did see two breakdowns including once while we were on it, so ride it early incase it has issues. One was a backwards rollback that I saw before I got on. Ops were not allowing any phones on either, but the free lockers are so easy to use. Also got to do the drop tower which was closed last time. This is easily on of the best rides there. The launch is awesome and the spinning view at the top is super cool. Only disappointment is the drop which is very forceless. Swings were good too but the seats were uncomfortable. Shell Raiser seemed smoother than last time but maybe it is just the train we got. I remember the second half being rough including a pothole at the bottom of the drop, but didn't notice much this time. The back row is 100% the place to sit though, much smoother than the front. The front has a weird shakiness that the back doesn't have. This place is great though and I would highly recommend it. I likely will not be back until ticket prices come down and the pandemic goes away. There were very few people there though and feel like the higher ticket prices limits the crowds a bit. I would like to check out the water park too at some point which looks insanely cool, but that price needs to come down big time.

I was at the park this weekend for PPP and had a good time. The ERT was great but crowds hit hard after, busiest I have ever seen the park. Still managed to do a lot and got our first night rides on the wooden coasters. I was blown away by how fast Twister was running later one, it was insane. I have never had a ride on it that fast and the ending was insane. Phoenix was running great too and got some awesome night rides. The dispatches were amazing on the coasters too, trains were dispatching when the Twister train was at the start of the helix and when the Phoenix train went into the double up and double down basically all day.

The employees for the most part were doing a good job given the circumstances. I totally agree that Saw Mill and Ghost Hunt are basically un-rideable unless you get lucky with a shorter than usual line. The park does need major work in the maintenance/capacity/dealing with crowds department. Hopefully that can be addressed when things go back to normal. It was basically impossible to get a drink in under 20 minutes and this is a serious problem when the water fountains are off. IMO BD is running fine but does have a few rough spots. The train is not in the best shape either. The blue train is a combination of basically the 4 trains they have had and it feels that way. The front rows of each of the cars are way better than the back rows as well. Also the park is no longer allowing snap backs on the flyers which is super lame. The park even shut them down yesterday and today. Revolution opened after its extensive breakdown after parts fell off and it went back down this weekend. The food locations were a disaster too especially this weekend. Also I don’t think this has been brought up yet here, but the park does have a new General Manager this year. Larry is now the GM and he was assistant GM for a few years. He has big shoes to fill.

Lets all chip in and buy it for them. No joke, they have 4 logs running right now. There was also one log that got stuck at the bottom of the drop on three separate occasions and obviously the ride had to be evacuated each time. They finally took the log out from service after, and now are left with a whopping 4 logs.

Visited the park a week and a half ago and had a great time. The new front entrance area looks amazing and I love the interaction with Candymonium. It is an excellent ride with some great air. I did find the second trim to hit a little too hard, but it is still awesome. Skyrush seems to get better and better each time I visit. I wasn't the biggest fan of it back in 2012, but my last few rides have been awesome. Rode Fahrenheit for the second time too, awesome layout and very smooth. For some reason iv'e only been on it twice in three visits. Lightning Racer was running great and is one of the best rides there. Don't do Wildcat in the back row, not fun at all. Hopefully RMC shows up some time. Not sure what my favorite coaster is there now. My brother is in the Candymonium group for best ride, but it is a tough call for me. Skyrush is insane and intense with ejector air, but I find the wing seats to be painful and the restraints aren't amazing. Candy is way more re-rideable, has some great air, and is super fun.

Regarding the flyers, we were there a week and a half ago and I got a friendly warning about snapping and the guy said it was a safety hazard. I wasn't even trying that hard and wasn't going very crazy at all. Oh well, still a fun ride regardless, but it is hard not to snap their flyers. The ride wasn't even half full so maybe it was because there were less people to worry about and the op watched me. The flyers at Lake Compounce are entirely snap-able, but the cycle is too short. Snapping is mostly encouraged there and some ops will even do a double cycle. Still had a great time regardless. It was on that day during the huge storm and they were pretty much the only park open. Did pretty much everything we wanted too but they did close an hour early after a huge downpour. The wood coasters were running great and are a blast.

If the plans are happening, Possessed is leaving. They are keeping the mechanical building and modifying pathways around it and adding a path that leads from the road. The plans show them cutting concrete around the paths and even pouring concrete over where the entrance sign is. Seems like a bad decision to me especially with a park with so few coasters.

Ghost Hunt still has the same number of cars as far as I know, usually fluctuates between 4 and 6 throughout the year. They have 7 cars (car 1 got parted out). There are some issues with the cars though. If there is too much weight in the cars, they will occasionally veer off the track and keep going until they hit something then stop. The ride will not shutdown though if this happens and sometimes the operator will not notice, which can lead to trouble. This happened multiple times last year. They implemented a policy to only allow 2 adults per car to prevent this, but ride ops sometimes do not care and will load a car fully. There must be something they can do to fix this as this was not a problem until a year or two ago. The lines were very long last year for the ride because of this. I still wish they would run more logs on Saw Mill, I think 8 is the max they are comfortable with. I would prefer something like 10 or 12. They do need more operators when they run more logs though. I don't expect them to open until late June at this point. I am guessing around 2-3 weeks after whenever SFNE opens. They will have a ton of work to do to get the park ready once they get the all clear. I am also wondering if their new waterslide Venus Vortex has been shelved or not, doesn't seem likely for it to open. Most if not all of the foundation work is done, but it has not gone vertical yet. (And likely won't until things are back to normal). Their website used to say Memorial Day weekend, but now just says 2020. Since attendance is almost guarenteed to take a hit this year, they might choose to open it next season, although there is still a chance for late summer I guess.

Just noticed they are doing a weekday rides schedule Monday-Thursday, this likely started today. Basically most of the big rides and the ropes course are open all the time, but all the other rides rotate being open/closed every 30 minutes. Don’t like the sound of this or the direction this place is going.