DoinItForTheFame

2. Goliath. Finally got another one! Which did you like the most??

Corkscrew at Cedar Point.

Both of those look amazing!! I too can't wait to see more! Keep up the good work.

After our recent trip, I'm going to add The Bat at Kings Island to my list of underrated coasters. That coaster is crazy awesome. Especially in the very front.

Lightning Rod has that effect on a lot of people. Same!

^ ^ My god that thing is huge!!! Still no way I'd ever ride it.

We don't know yet. But traditionally they have been putting the smaller guest in the front.

Well, it's that time of year again! It was time for our annual VIP Tour at Cedar Point. However, to break up the driving a little we drove to Six Flags St. Louis and spent a day at the park. Stayed the night near by and drove the next day to Kings Island. Spent the next day at Kings Island and, after leaving Kings Island drove to Breakers Express (yuck) spent the next day at Cedar Point, stayed the night again at Breakers Express, and made the 16 hour drive back home on Sunday! To save you all from reading one giant post, I'll break the TR up into three parts! Part one: Six Flags, Part 2: Kings Island, and Part 3: Cedar Point! Anywho, on with the Trip Report(s)! Six Flags St. Louis Having never been to Six Flags St. Louis before I wasn't sure what to expect. Well, I'm glad I didn't have high expectations because I would have been even more highly disappointed that I was. The park was decent when it came to appearance, but nothing worth writing home about. There were a few decent attractions, but the park really seemed to be missing a "major draw" attraction. We spent the early part of the day in Six Flags, and when it started warming up after going to the hotel for lunch, we went back and went to Hurricane Harbor. After spending a few hours in Hurricane Harbor we went back to the park to get in a few more rides before calling it a day. With that being said, on with the reviews of the rides! American Thunder: American Thunder was probably my favorite ride of the theme park side of things. It was a nice, fast paced coaster with some good pops of airtime in unexpected places!! However, keeping with typical Six Flags style they were running one train with ride operators, all two of them, who seemed like they would have rather been anywhere but at work, so 5-10 minute dispatches were not un-common and the line moved painfully slow. However, just rating the ride (not the operations) it was a solid 6/10. BATMAN The Ride: What can I say about Batman the ride?? . . . It's a Batman clone. Yep, that's about it. What annoyed me the most about Batman (as I posted in the SFStL thread) was their stupid way of handling the "loose articles" on Batman. We have never seen anything like it in our live's (and we have been to a lot of parks.) Keep in mind throughout all of this there was never any announcements about loose articles, or sandals or anything like that. . . The ride operators would start our by allowing everyone to take their flip flops, loose shoes, sandals, and cell phones over to the side, and set them down. Once everyone was in their seats, restraints were locked, and checked, and the train was cleared. . . The ride operators would then pick up the flip flops/sandals/shoes and go row to row asking whose shoes these were. Once they found the people who the shoes belonged to they would un-buckle the seat belt, and put the belt through the sandals, and have the people ride the ride with their shoes attached to the seat belt. After that they would go get all the phones that were on the side, and go row to row asking whose phones these were. Once they found the phones owners, they would have the riders hold on to the phones through out the ride. Explaining to them that "no loose articles were allowed to be left in the station." Okay, I get that you don't want loose articles left in the station, but forcing a rider to hold on to their cell phone while on the ride seems backwards of all the polices I have ever seen/heard of. Usually you DON'T want a rider to pull their phone out mid ride, much less make them hold onto their phone the entire ride. What happens when someone drops their phone mid ride, or their phone flies out of their hand and hits another rider?? Is Six Flags the ones who are going to claim responsibility?? (Doubtful) But they were the ones having the people hold the phones while on the ride. . . Not to mention it caused for awfully long dispatches. . . Anywhere from 8-15 minutes depending on how fast people "claimed" their items. There must be a better way to handle the situation than what Six Flags was doing. . . I mean, Cedar Fair parks (From those we have been to) never seem to have this problem. However, again just rating the ride, and not the operations, it was just a Batman clone, so 5/10. Big Kahuna: While in Hurricane Harbor we were going to ride Big Kahuna, however the line was all the way down to the bottom of the stairs, and they were only using about 5 rafts, 4 of which were on the conveyor belt all at the same time. So, in order to avoid the un-godly long wait we skipped it. Which was kind of sad, because it looked like a decent slide! Bonzai Pipeline: Having been on KAPAU PLUMMET at White Water Branson, which is pretty much the same slide, we skipped this slide complex as well. Mainly because again the line was all the way down to the base of the stairs. Boomerang: Closed. Shock, surprise. However, I rode it when it was at Six Flags Over Texas so I'm really not missing out on much. JUSTICE LEAGUE: Battle for Metropolis: Maybe I was spoiled by the "good" Justice League at SFOT. When we rode Justice League at SFOT we LOVED it. However, this Justice League just didn't seem as good. Not sure what it was, but it was just kind of... meh. Also, the "on ride photo" was one of the most "Six Flags" things we saw all day. It was seriously a Nikon digital camera strapped to the wall. Talk about ghetto looking. Anywho, it was a nice wait inside the air conditioned building which gave us a break from the heat so it had its pros! Overall, 5/10. Log Flume: We were getting a bit hot, and decided to ride the Log Flume. With it being as hot as it was at the park, the Log Flume had the shortest wait of the day. We waited a painful 5(ish) minutes. The log flume was actually a decent flume! It was also one of the more fast paced log flumes I've been on! Overall, 6/10. MR. FREEZE: Reverse Blast: OUCH!! The SFOT version of this coaster is by far the better of the 2. There is a weird "bump" at the base of the tower. You can tell the tried to fix whatever was there before, because there is about a 5 ft section of silver track that replaced the blue running rail on the right side of the track. I tried to get a picture of it so you all could see what I was talking about, but it wasn't showing up on the phone as well as it was in person. You can see an actual dent in the said silver running rail track, and the train makes an awful sound every time it passes over that section. It also made for quiet an uncomfortable jolt while riding the ride. We also luckily picked the "good" side of the station because the side we were on the ops were sending out 2 trains for every one train dispatched on the other side. That's how slow the ride operators were moving on the other side. Operations aside, this Mr. Freeze gets a 5/10. Down from the 7/10 of its sister ride at SFOT. That jolt really takes away from the ride, and makes it un-comfortable and not worth re-riding. IMO. Ninja (The New Revolution): Well, this was our first VR coaster, and holy hell was it awful. First, I don't think it helps that we had never been on the coaster before, so we were not prepared for how rough the coaster was, but strapping a cellphone to our head blocking our view preventing us from being able to brace for impact during certain elements was not the best idea. The VR it's self was decent. I didn't really get the story line, and my synchronization was about 1 car off, so things were happening in the VR headset before they were actually happening on the ride, which was slightly annoying. Also, my partners VR headset video never left the station the entire ride. So he spent the entire ride still sitting on the launch pad in the station so he had no idea what was going on. Not to mention the ride they put it on was so rough it about ripped the headset off my face during the ride, so I had to spend part of the ride trying to focus on getting the headset back on right. All in all, it was a different experience, but nothing I would care to do again (on that ride) It made us really look forward to what we hoped would be a good VR experience later on at Cedar Point. Overall, 3/10. Pandemonium: We were going to ride this, however the line was out the entrance, so we kept on walking. However, having been on the sister coaster at SFOT we knew we weren't missing much. SUPERMAN Tower Of Power: Closed. Shock. However, I was hoping it might somehow open during our visit. Having not been on an Intamin 2nd Gen tower in YEARS I was looking forward to the possibility of one. . . But nope it was closed the entire day we were there. Screamin’ Eagle: Having both read how rough Screamin' Eagle is, and having been told by people who have rode it how rough it is we opted to skip the coaster. I already have back problems, and we didn't want to do anything that could cause me back problems. (At least not that early in the trip.) SkyScreamer: Skipped this as well. Been on several of these types of rides. I enjoy them, but the line for this one was crazy long, and the ride operators were taking their sweet little time dispatching the ride. Speed Slides (Green): Oh my!! Goodbye slide, hello air!! The drop on this slide was surprisingly good! I was off the slide the majority of the drop!! 8/10. Speed Slides (Red): Oh my again! This was one of the biggest surprises of the trip. The slide started out nice and slow, and then BAM!! Out of no where I was flying up on the sides of the slide, and going a lot faster than I thought I would be. It all happened so fast, I got off of the slide wondering "WTF just happened??" It was a great slide, and had the line not been so long we would have rode it again!! 9/10. The Boss: Okay, so this coaster was a mistake. Remember how I said I didn't want to do anything that would upset my back, and have the possibility to ruin the rest of the trip?? Well, I shouldn't have rode The Boss. The first drop was good, and the weird drop after the first drop was awesome, and provided some nice airtime!! But after that the ride kind of just... fell apart. I have never wanted to get e-stopped on a MCBR so bad in my life. I was just hoping that we would get e-stopped and have to get evaced off the coaster just so I wouldn't have to finish the ride. Sadly we had no such luck, and I was stuck enduring the rest of the coaster. The final helix felt like someone was taking a jack hammer to the entire train. Ugh. So rough!! 3/10. Thunder River: This was actually a fun, decently long rapids ride!! It also provided with some unique views of Mr. Freeze! 6/10. Tornado: The only slide like this I have ever been on was Brainwash at Wet'n'Wild Orlando MANY years ago, and I'm still not sure what all happened on that slide. So I was excited to get to ride Tornado! Boy what a fun slide that is!! I was backwards going down the drop, which put me at the top of the funnel, and holy airtime!! Like, butt say goodbye to the raft, and hello to nothing! It was so much fun! Had we not had to wait an hour for it we would have rode it again and again!! 10/10! Tsunami Soaker: We did not ride this ride simply because the 10 minutes it was taking them to start the ride was a bit much. They literally loaded the ride, checked everyone and made sure they were sitting the right way, or whatever it is they were doing. Then proceeded to walk around from car to car pouring water on random people. After about 8 minutes of this the ride operators stood in the middle of the ride and talked for a few minutes, and then went and started up the ride. We stood on the side, and shot water at the riders in hopes of getting wet to cool off, and not having to wait for that crazy dispatch time. The ride seemed fun from the side lines, but I think the spinning would have been a bit to much for my partner. Tube Slides (Yellow): The only two of the 4 tube slides in the one complex that we went on was the yellow one. For some reason they had one lifeguard at the top for all 4 slides. He was going from slide to slide to slide talking to people, and such before allowing them to go down the slide. I sat in the pool at the top of the slide for about 10 minutes waiting for my turn to go down the slide, while he talked to everyone including the girl next to me about his life, and his wife, and how mean she is to him, and blah blah blah. The slide was fun, and the small drops in the slide were nice surprises, but yet again the operations killed the experience. Not including operations the slide rating alone is 5/10. Wahoo Racer: I LOVE mat racer slides, and this was no exception! Thankfully this life guard was actually doing a decent job, and we got a chance to ride it twice! I love the airtime on the last hill!! 9/10. -------------------------------- All in all, it was a pretty crappy day at the park. Operations were some of the worst I have ever seen, at any park, ever. We enjoyed Hurricane Harbor much more than we enjoyed the theme park. I could see us possibly returning to the park in many years, and it would probably be just to visit Hurricane Harbor. Unless of course the park built some amazing out of the world coaster. . . But then again the operations would probably be so bad that it wouldn't even make the coaster worth it. This park is now tied with Magic Springs for being the worst park I have ever visited. Now, on with what few photos I took. Mainly because after visiting Hurricane Harbor I really didn't feel like keeping up with my phone, or photos. However, the photos I didn't take at Six Flags I will make up for in with the photos I took at Kings Island, and Cedar Point! Thanks for reading! More to come soon!! You know you're at a Six Flags park when there are empty airplane bottles of vodka laying in the que lines. First ride of the day!! . . . Ouch, #BadIdea At least it looks pretty. You could ride this giant wheel, and get a birds eye view of the not so giant park. What goes up, must come down. Six Flags supports Equality?? Huh, who knew... At least he was working! Not going to lie, this sign made me laugh. Through the track. There they go! 10 minutes later there will be more people going up that lift hill. Sorry, but you just don't ride as good as your sister. On our way to Kings Island I saw this. . . "Wetnight RV..." Oh, really now??

Well... Did you get to ride it?!

I'd LOVE to see suspended roller coasters make a come back. The few that I have been on are awesome coasters, and IMO highly underrated coasters. With all the new technology that is available to manufactures now (as opposed to when suspended coasters first came out) I can only imagine how much more amazing a modern day suspended coaster could be.

^ That makes more sense. Having not visited the park prior to 2008 I had no idea what Cedar Point was like back in the day. I just assumed it was always the way it is now. But I can see your point. But hey, at least you get to look forward to KI!

Ahh, that makes more sense. I was not thinking that far back.

^ Just took the survey about those concepts. Concept two was my personal favorite.

Penny.

Batman. Superman, or Joker?

. . . Ultra Twister at Six Flags Astroworld.

Joel. Chicken or Beef?

^ ^ My god that thing is small!! And I thought my Fiat 500 was tiny!!

4/10. Lady Gaga

Like? Oh, you know. . . Like how they lost Disaster Transport for that super crap-tastic B&M Wingcoaster thing-a-ma-gig. And they took out that super amazing log flume for that really bad Intamin Blitz coaster thing. And don't forget the removal of Shoot-The-Rapids!!! How dare they!??!

65mph.

The XL is 47 metres. . . So this one is about 50ft taller.

For those of you who are curious to teh statment, this is from Schlitterbahn's Facebook:

61 meters is roughly 200.131234 feet!! And I thought maXair at Cedar Point was big at 140ft!! I can't imagine a 200ft version!! Looks crazy!! Still too much spinning for me, so. . . Nope!! I'll pass! The lighting package looks awesome though!

Most overrated parks?? Almost all Six Flags parks.