josephcissell

It's mixed if it rains.. Sometimes the coasters are open sometimes they aren't.. I have been there with pouring rain and nothing closed but been there in a drizzle and half the park closes.. Of course if there is a storm in the area the rides will also close.. It really just depends!! Lol It has also been a mixed bag in my experience, but generally most things stay open in rain if it is only rain. Mind Bender and Dare Devil Dive seem to be the most rain sensitive of the big rides. For Mind Bender, that is probably due to the fact that it uses friction braking and the brakes are mostly uncovered. DDD just seems to be highly fickle to changes in weather in general and often doesn’t open with the park.

I’m in agreement that the rules are stupid and ban almost all types of camera, but this just seems like a case of legal butt-covering to me. It’s pretty easy for the lawyers to throw this into the stated rules to protect the parks from getting sued from potential camera damage caused by rides or whatever. Just seems like catchall phrasing that protects the parks and gives Six Flags the power to enforce or not enforce the rules as it is convenient for them. It may be silly to us, but it makes sense for Six Flags.

I assume you mean rougher in relation to other Batman clones as opposed to other Batman clones when run backwards, yes? Batman didn’t seem any rougher backwards to me. I consider SFOG’s version to be pretty much butter smooth both forwards and backwards. If anything, there seems to be some added vibrations in the last row, primarily in the batwings. I don’t think it’s an issue with anything being out of tolerance though, the elements are just that intense. Consequently, I wouldn’t describe those added vibrations as “roughness” so much as simply the natural dissipation of a very forceful element on the train. In relationship to other clones I’ve been on, I would say SFOG’s clone is on par with SFOT’s Batman. SFFT’s Goliath seemed a bit on the rougher side to me in relation to the two aforementioned clones, but I would still consider it perfectly acceptable.

I believe the first or second weekend in May is the last weekend for it.. It leaves very early May I wanna say it's May 10th May 10th is what I recall as well. Really happy to hear about Mindbender being back to two trains. Despite its glory, knowing how quickly a good crew can churn through people with two train ops makes waiting for one train that much more painful!

Your pun makes Captain America sad. But I was rather amused by it. The Dive Machines are one of B&M's better creations. They definitely beat the Wing coasters.

That puts you into the rare position to actually really do something about bad ops. Truthfully, I would really enjoy working as a ride op if I didn’t live on the other side of Atlanta. Let us know if you get the job and best of luck!

I have to say that I disagree with all the negativity surrounding namtaB. Were it a permanent change, I would understand the complaint, but I don’t personally find it to be particularly worse in reverse than it is normally. Just a very different experience. While we as enthusiasts (myself included) often tend to see the B:TR clones as nearly perfect for what they are, the GP are completely eating up namtaB. GP excitement/attendance = better ROI for Six Flags = more investment in the future. Like it or not, namtaB is only temporary and it seems to be helping the park’s bottom line, so I see it as a very positive thing overall.

I didn’t think the ops were *that* bad for an opening day weekend, or necessarily that much worse than they have been in previous years. There’s new ops and new procedures and lots of training happening, and despite best intentions, there will be some issues. Though you’re right that the park isn’t ready to go in a lot of areas right now, note that this is their first season after having a Holiday in the Park, which effectively cut their off-season maintenance time by almost half.

DDD was also running only two (of four) trains on opening day, which makes an already low capacity ride nearly unbearable. Also, Ninja was not open the other day and no trains were in sight. My advice would be to start with namtaB, and then work your way back toward the front of the park. So after starting with namtaB, you would go to Mindbender, then DDD (if it’s open by this time, it frequently doesn’t open with the park), then Scorcher. Scorcher and DDD can be interchanged if DDD isn’t open yet. Doing it that way should knock out the lowest capacity rides (outside of Superman) first with minimal amounts of walking (the park has several BIG hills). Assuming that goes according to plan, you really shouldn’t have too much trouble hitting Goliath, Cyclone, and GASM as they all move through people pretty well. That would only leave Superman, which moves kind of slowly due to finicky restraints, but otherwise isn’t too bad. IMO, Cyclone is excellent and airtime filled in the second to last row. Also, for the smoothest ride on GASM, try to sit in the middle row of any car or the front row. If you like drop rides, Acrophobia is generally very well regarded. If you enjoy dark rides, Monster Mansion is very well done and worth a wait (it was beautifully redone a few years back). Very un-Six Flags in the best way. While the park gets very busy in the summer, you shouldn’t have any trouble knocking out all the major stuff and getting some rerides in this early in the season with a little strategy. Hope you enjoy your time in our park!

The second train to Mindbender is still in pieces you can see it going down the first drop. I think the weather might have had something to do with it being so crowded today, it was cloudy and crappy all day yesterday, I went and got my pass processed and stayed an hour before I had to check into my hotel room and I got 5 rides in a row on Goliath, so I'm assuming a lot of people treated today as the real opening day since it was sunny and low 70's. The platinum was $80, you get $5 off with your pass, last summer I got a platinum at Great America for me and my sister and dropped $220, so I'm not sure if they go up during peak season, or if it differs from park to park, Also Ninja & Monster Mansion were both closed, but they remained active on the Flash Pass, while Batman said closed on the flash pass when it went down. I was there about 4 1/2 hours today and this was my ride count GA Cyclone:2 Scorcher:1 [ I was going to do my reride, but when I was sitting in the brake run, I got a buzz that Batman had reopened after being down all morning, so I flew] Goliath:8 Daredevil:5 Mindbender:2 Batman:2 Scream Machine:2 I was going to do Superman, but after Batman backwards disoriented me, I decided to leave, so maybe it was a good thing I didn't ride it till later in the day. That's a bummer BC mindbender can get a pretty long line with just one train.. I was hoping they would have had it fixed this season.. This makes me believe they really don't have any intentions to actually fix the second train lol Did they ever say what was wrong with the second train?? I've been on Mindbender sans flash pass before with one train operations, and I have to hand it to them, they haul A$$, where as on most other rides one train operations are a death sentence. Last year the train was stripped down to the guts.. Maybe they are refurbishing it? Idk but it was probably as stripped down as they could get it Given that this has been such a long rehab, my thought was that they may be doing some extra preventative maintenance to make sure that the issues that Shockwave at SFOT had back in 2013 don’t repeat themselves on Mindbender.

I tried to ride in the backseat of Freeze alone last Tuesday (3/10) and was asked to move up a row. Just my .02. That was also my first time visiting SFOT and I have to say I was really impressed. You guys have a solid ride line lineup, everyone was very friendly, the park seemed cared for, and I thought that operations were pretty decent overall.

So last week I finally made the trek over to Texas and visited Fiesta very briefly. I had set aside one and a half days to really soak up the park last Monday and Tuesday (3/9-3/10), but the weather did not play nice. The park ended up only being open for about two and a half hours that Monday and remained closed the rest of the time I was there due to lots of rain. Bummer, but it's out of the park’s control, so I understand of course. I will say you guys have a beautiful park though and I hope to be back sometime when the weather doesn’t completely suck. Though it is irrelevant for me personally being an out of state guest, the park did give out rain tickets, which was a nice gesture. One issue I had though, Iron Rattler’s crew was pretty frustrating. At park opening, that’s where I headed first. The ride wasn’t ready yet though, so I waited 15 minutes or so before an attendant came and allowed me to queue. Once I had walked the entire queue though, I was then told I would have to exit because maintenance hadn’t signed off on the ride yet for the day. So I exited and waited another 10 minutes for maintenance to show. 15 minutes after arriving, they had swapped the train in the station for the train in storage, no idea why. Then a few minutes later after a successful test run, someone yelled down from the station that the ride was closed due to technical difficulties. So I finally gave up and went to do the couple of other things that were open in spite of the rain. After eating lunch, I was back over by Rattler, so I tried again. This time I was again able to walk the entire queue and made it up to the station. There were literally zero guests in the station outside of myself and two buddies, so I asked if the ride was open. I was told yes, but the park was closing at 1pm due to weather (it was 12:40pm at that moment). In the span of time it took me to cross the station and walk into the station queue for row one however, the ride ops conferenced and decided that the ride was closing at that moment and I would not be able to ride. So I ended up with no rides on Rattler, and had to step through the train to exit the ride. I don’t type all this because it’s fun to retell. I understand that the weather and possible ride breakdown earlier were out of the park’s control, however, the park could have handled this much better by either not allowing me to queue in the first place when they knew the ride wasn’t ready to go yet or by making some effort to honor the fact that I had queued when I wasn’t supposed to due to their mistake. Am I out of line for thinking this?

I might be a little biased, but it was delivering amazing rides in the front, I didn't notice any knew trackwork on Cyclone, a couple of hills on Scream Machine, looked like they may have had some new wood on them. I wouldn’t quite say it was running “amazing” but in my two rides on opening day (once in the second row, once in the penultimate row) it was probably on par with last year, which was an certainly an improvement over previous years. In the second row, some of the later drops that didn’t get topper track over the last couple of years were rather painful, but that’s pretty much par for the course for Cyclone. The ride I had in the penultimate row was legitimately great though. Lots of airtime and minimal roughness. A few other notes from my opening day trip: -Namtab was fantastic! I’m a big fan of the ride forwards and I have to say it didn’t disappoint backwards either. Very intense in the last row, a bit less so elsewhere and very enjoyable over all. Really appreciated the pass holder ERT the park gave us in the morning. Only around until May 10th, so if you live in the south, now’s your chance to ride. -From Namtab I spied at least once piece of Joker on site. Doesn’t look like they’ve done much construction yet other than putting up fences. -The Namtab queue’s fountain was working and the landscaping had been spruced up. I appreciate the small touches. -Scorcher was not happy at all, probably due to chilly temps in the morning and some residual moisture from the previous night’s rain. In the span of 45 minutes or so in the mid morning I saw maintenance come, reset the ride or adjust something, and go four separate times. -Cyclone’s queue received some paint. Sadly the ride itself is still sorely in need of a fresh coat, as is Scorcher for that matter. -On most rides it seems that the attendants now verbally say “check” after checking each restraint. I also noted this at SFOT this past week, so it may be a new chain policy. From an operations standpoint, I like that this policy forces the attendants to focus on the task at hand and hopefully complete it efficiently rather than, say, carrying on a conversation with another attendant. -I thought operations were average for opening day. Lots of inconsistency, but it’s the beginning of the season and that’s to be expected. -As has been noted already, Mindbender’s second train is still in pieces. No idea when it will return, but this seems to be a rather long rehab. -Ninja was the only major ride not open for the day. Neither train was anywhere in sight, so I can only assume the park chose to rehab all the other rides first due to Ninja’s lack of popularity. -Last but not least, the employees really seemed extra friendly and welcoming. I’ve never felt that SFOG struggles in this area, but I had some very pleasant conversations about the park and how my day was going with ride ops during breakdowns. Great opening day overall in spite of the weather, looking forward to another season at SFOG.

Georgia Scorcher at SFOG. Seems to be regarded pretty consistently as the best stand up, or in the top couple, and I personally really like it.

This seems very exciting to me. Perhaps we will see Six Flags change the configuration or placement of the flips in the future to add diversity to the ride experience. That is some pretty cool engineering that S&S has come up with. *Edit: Removed a word for proper grammar.

Mind Bender, Dare Devil Dive. I wouldn't mind a SFOG YoloCoaster While those may be multiple inversion coasters definitionally, I tend to mentally categorize them very differently from Ninja. In terms of ride style, Ninja is far more like Viper at SFMM, Vortex at KI, or one of the several B&M floorless models found throughout the Six Flags chain. My point being that most parks have a more traditional (sit down or floorless) coaster that has at least 5 inversions, and without Ninja SFOG would be lacking in that category. Your point is well taken though. I wouldn’t mind an SFOG YoloCoaster either.

^I second most of this though I would slightly correct that our Sky Screamer was originally planned to be 242ft, however that was later changed to 227ft. In the near term, I think our most likely coaster additions are either an RMC’d GA Cyclone or an S&S 4D Freespin. Assuming Batman: The Ride is successful down at SFFT this year, and I do think it will be, I could very easily see a clone or similar ride coming to SFOG that might be placed back where Deja Vu used to be over what is currently parking lot. Though Ninja is almost universally disliked, I can’t see the park replacing it until they have something pretty large for that plot of land, as it currently fills our “big” multi-looper spot.

Gwazi at BGT last summer was truly awful. When it was brand new it was probably a pretty cool ride, especially with the dueling aspect, but the years and Florida weather and train issues clearly beat the heck out of this ride. I’m particularly forgiving when it comes to rough woodies, but Gwazi is the only ride I’ve ever been on where I wanted to be off by the time we were cresting the lift hill. It was simply terrible.

Thanks for the awesome photos and info. I love how close and unobstructed the views will be for Batman. I do think this will be very successful and I hope that they will pop up at a lot more Six Flags parks around the country. Seems like a really fun ride that doesn’t take a lot of space and I’m sure Six Flags would love to advertise all the inversions. Great report!

This seems more likely to me. While it would be easy to say that this is an overreaction at the behest of the lawyers, the fact that they put in new trees hints that they care at least a little bit, but there were likely issues that required the removal of the old ones. If the lawyers had said “You know, it would really reduce our potential liability here to just clear cut the hillside and leave it that way.” I doubt that MM would have given much push back and you wouldn’t see new trees planted. Just my 2 cents.

^No, but I will be visiting Fiesta for the first time with some friends when they are open daily for spring break. Any suggestions for how to best attack this park?

I have to say, I happen to really like the lighting package. Makes sense that Cedar Fair wants to show off their latest and greatest ride all throughout the park and for several miles around. I doubt that they come across quite as brightly in person as the photo would make it appear though. Hopefully I will get a chance to check out Fury this spring.

Well I come bearing good news. Spring Break, while busy, has its lighter days on Tuesday/Wednesday and with the park open 12 hours you should be fine. It should also be noted that not all (but pretty much most) Texas schools are on spring break that week nor are the surrounding states further adding to the lighter crowds. But outside of that, with Mike Apple having retired, rumor has it the new hat in the office is making changes with the goal of improved operational capacity and efficiency. Another option in your favor is the weather. Keep an eye on it, if the rain chances are 40%+ it's likely crowds will be lighter, sure the rides might go down for an hour or two but re-rides will be a plenty. Thank you for the response and advice. Glad to hear that it probably won’t be too bad. Can’t wait to get my first RMC in and check out this park!

Just thought I would resurrect this little gem of a post. Just laughed my butt off over this.