Golddisk

It is likely.

Mind Eraser was operating this year, mostly on weekends. On weekdays staffing affected those rides in the back half of the park.

Darien Lake contracted with Magic of Lights which is a branded holiday lights event with locations across the country. Magic of lights provided the displays. Darien Lake set up the displays with support from the magic of lights people.

Some trees and bushes are decorated, but not all of them. The sections of Magic of Lights are themed to different areas (as shown in the map above) so the cutouts in that area are at least all connected to a theme. While the route is a bit shorter than the one at the fair grounds, there are more displays/lights at Darien Lake then what I can recall from my last visit to the fair grounds one.

A new event for this year has been announced. Darien Lake will be open for a holiday light drive thru this winter starting November 18th called Magic of Lights.

I rode it as well this weekend and it definitely felt smoother. I was in the 2nd car, no special strategy needed to help with the roughness. It was regularly wood. Titan track was tabled for this year. Everything moved very slow, and with the park being open for only 4 hours it was a challenge to get on much. Predator's line was quick only because we got there right at park open. Ride of Steel and Boomerang were closed, boomerang eventually opened. Blast off's line was slow. The rides capacity has always been an issue but now they are supposed to leave a gap between groups so its a trainwreck loading it. That was probably about 40-45 minutes. Food lines were 30-45 minutes. Viper was about 30 minutes, but at one point it was through the whole queue to the midway. Ride ops were moving fast but again the limited capacity was making a mess of loading it and slowing everything down.

There was also a lot of work done that people might not realize (or really care about, but it's things that are still needed). Multiple buildings got repainted and new roofs. New metal detection was added to the entrances, same system that all other Six Flags properties are using now. Lots of new signage on buildings. Photo place by main gate was renovated into a season pass service center for season pass issues/upgrades. Don't get me wrong, there is still a TON that needs to be done but it's not like the place sat totally idle for the past year. Hopefully some attention to the parking lots and midway is up soon, those are looking rough. And of course, doing something with the giant wheel.

Not my picture, but this was posted by someone somewhere else online.

Galaxy theater is used for fright fest as a haunt, so it's not unused and not empty. Pirate will be open this year after an extensive refurbishment. Sleigh ride has been completely refurbished. Definitely not going away in the next few years.

Darien Lake released it's operating calendar for this upcoming season. You can see it here. Some highlights: - only open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until the end of June. Friday's are only 5-9. Saturday and Sunday 11-9. - during full season Monday-Thursday is 11-7, while Friday-Sunday is 11-9.

Never said they would be retracking the whole thing, just that it makes sense as to why they would do some work to it beyond the normal wood retracking based on what SF said.

The corporate earnings call did say they identified rides to add, refurbish, and remove. So sounds like predator was maybe identified as one of the rides to refurbish. They tend to retrack portions of it almost every year with so over time I suppose this would result in maintenance/retracking savings.

Festival of Lights at the Fairgrounds would like to have a word with you... It could work for sure even with cold temperatures and snow. That event draws crowds every year. Everything coasterbill said is 100% correct though and it would be in everyone's best interest to not start it this year of all years.

Six Flags announced that they would be cutting 10% of their full time workforce or 240 employees last week. Not totally surprising to see the cuts but it is pretty late into the season and this whole mess. Source - Market Watch

And now onto phase 3. So far everything has been on time. https://www.wivb.com/news/new-york/watch-gov-cuomo-makes-an-announcement-provides-daily-briefing-2/

Gov Cuomo released the plans for reopening of businesses in NYS last week. Based on that, amusement parks would fall into phase 4 and it will be a minimum of 6 weeks from May 15th that DL would be able to even considering opening. That's also based on Genesee county entering phase 1 on the 15th and hitting the required metrics to advance to the next phase every 2 weeks.

Oh, they've been sold and being dismantled for over a month now: https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/erie-county/grand-island/some-fantasy-island-rides-already-sold/ Also a couple of drone pictures of what the park looks like currently: https://wyrk.com/pictures-look-how-eerie-fantasy-island-looks-like-without-rides/

I think I was last at FI in like 06 or 07. It was a decent small park then. Recently it had really fallen into disrepair from what I'd heard. Lots of complaints, even the local news did some stories on it. Lots of garbage around the park and poor ops. It seemed that they had totally overwhelmed the park's infrastructure by trying to drive high attendance with very low prices.

It would be interesting to see what they do with the actual parts and pieces for the "Wahoo Wave" or whatever it's called, just drove past the park about a week ago and it was all out in the parking lot - sure just large slide pieces but still. Assuming they open the park at some point (for hypothetical purposes), I'd be curious to see if they just leave those slide pieces in the front the parking lot roped off (which let's be real the way they rope off the parking lot now is sad so I can't imagine they'd do much better if they added more) or if they'd move it elsewhere. They have to do something with the thing its already sitting there and I have to imagine it's already paid for if they have it? Total speculation and not at all sure what they actually intend on doing. It's just not something I think folks have considered / noticed yet Based on corporate news, it sounds like the budget for construction of anything capital-wise this year has been cut. So the ride itself might be paid for, but it sounds like the money to build it has been cut by Six Flags. I assume they will move it somewhere to store it. Just roping it off wouldn't be enough to keep people out of them if the park was to open, so they'd have to be moved somewhere else. And since we're obsessed with that storage building, if it wasn't already built, that's probably been cut too.

To answer the question on the early ride time... Accommodations and membership early ride time starts for both at 10. A b&m dive coaster would be amazing. Valravn is one of my favourite coasters. But there is no way Darien Lake would be adding some thing like that any time soon.

I think a frisbee style ride would be a good addition for the park and definitely a possibility if you look at what other SF parks have. In regards to Six Flags coaster additions, you point put a good point. Even SF's largest parks haven't seen a coaster added recently like what you would see at a CF park. It's kind of a sad reality. In Darien Lake news, Corn Popper is back up and running.

Most parks actually prefer to sell season passes over day tickets so that they can get repeat visits from those guests and therefore repeat spending. You're right that not everyone is going to spend money in the park, but most people will on something whether it be food, merchandise, games, rentals, and upcharge attractions.

If you look around you will see quite a bit. Repainting at the tolls booths and front gate, the remodeled membership buildings, some roads within the park property being repaved... Six Flags is definitely spending money to bring the parks up to par. Off-topic from the park, Live Nation is also working on improving the amphitheater. They posted recently that they are upgrading the screens.

Soon, like a week or two.

With how off the rails this thread has gone I can't tell if you're joking or not. But it was actually originally built "themed" to Orange County Choppers, a show that was on Discovery channel. They gave away one chopper I think and had another on display when it first opened. Then the theming was removed a couple of a years after.