GoBears

They opened a new Holiday Inn (last year I believe) off Grand Avenue just a couple minutes or so from the entrance to the park. It's very convenient and for one night it's about $85 for both the 21st and 28th. Almost every Friday during the summer is pretty busy. After all, there's only one theme park (unless you count the Dells) in the whole Chicago/Milwaukee area which is about 11.5 million people combined. Sometime you'll get lucky though but as someone who has been going to the park since the 90's, chances are it'll be busy. There will be days where the lines are shorter than usual but that's hard to predict. I would expect waits around 30 minutes to an hour but it could be more or less. Wish I could be more help but it can be so unpredictable!

Thanks for sharing. Now I really can't wait until I'm able to go in a couple weeks!

My favorites are: 1. Dudley Doo Right's Ripsaw Falls 2. Shoot the Rapids 3. Jurassic Park River Adventure 4. Log Flume at Timberfalls 5. Logger's Run

I'm not a big fan of flat rides mainly because I get nauseous on any of them that spin but here are some of my favorites: -Trailblazer at SFGAm (Defunct) -Skyhawk at CP -Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios

-Maverick in the back row on the first drop always makes me see black dots. -Batman: The Ride at SFGAm is small but still very intense. I sometimes start to grey out on the loops. -The Beast's double helix finale shakes the cars side to side in the tunnels. It's a lot of fun! -Hades' tunnel (both trips) tosses you around but it's still one of my favorite moments on any roller coaster. -HellCat (formerly Avalanche at Timberfalls) is very deceiving. It may not look tall, but this is one of most out of control rides I've been on in the back row.

I've been on I believe 8 inverted roller coasters but my favorite by far is definitely Dragon Challenge. I prefer Chinese Fireball over Hungarian Horntail but both are a lot of fun.

The roughest coasters I've been on (no particular order): Boss - It's extremely rough, especially the last helix but I still find it very fun. Racer (KI) - I did not enjoy riding this at all. Every time we went down a drop, it felt like the train was hitting concrete. Hades - One of my favorite wooden coasters and one of the most aggressive ones at that. Very painful but the tunnel is pure fun. Zeus - Ouch. I leaned forward and the back of the seat still kept hitting my back which left bruises. Mean Streak - It didn't shake me side to side so much as it was just very bumpy. HellCat (Timberfalls) - This little ride is a ton of fun but very rough. Still one of my favorite woodies! Corkscrew (CP) - Definitely gets your neck on the corkscrews, but that's how most Arrow loopers go. The Beast - My favorite wooden roller coaster. It's indeed rough, but I absolutely love it!

SFGAm is my home park and I would love to see a compact Intamin added to Wolf's former spot. However, the spot is definitely more tight then what some people realize but removing the Wilderness Theater would provide a bit more room. I think an Intamin would be a great addition to an already great collection of roller coasters at the park. The only Intamins at SFGAm are V2 and American Eagle. I believe Eagle is the first Intamin coaster (besides Jr. Gemini) ever built but I could be wrong. Here's a look at the former spot of Wolf and you can see the Wilderness Theater off to the side (left) that they could remove to make more room... I wish they would remove Winner's Circle Go-Karts in Yukon (though it was built recently) which looks very ugly to the area and move the kids attractions from Camp Cartoon to that space. That would create even more room on the side of the pathway where Wolf was for a bigger coaster.

There's many things I love about Hades but my favorite thing is how aggressive the ride is, especially in the tunnel when it kind of tosses you around in the darkness. Something I did notice like many others on here who have ridden it is how much rougher it has become over the years. It really started becoming painful around those last few turns towards the end of the ride around the 2008 season. I remember riding it in 2007 and while it was still rough, it seemed like a big jump from 2007 to 2008 in terms of how violent it was during the 2nd half of the ride. I have yet to ride Hades 360 but I'm hearing the Timberliner is pretty comfortable though the ride is still quite brutal in the 2nd half of the course. I'm hoping to be able to go up to the Dells for a day sometime in the next 2-3 weeks to get some rides in on Hades 360 and I'll be sure to post my review of the ride. Also, they are still planning a media day which will be sometime this month. As long as my schedule stays clear, I should be able to attend that as well. Looking forward to riding this again!