StatMan22

Thank you for the thorough response! I have lots of fond memories of going to Six Flags as a kid-the progression to bigger and bigger rides was great. A shame to hear there are fighting issues at the park-I probably ignored that when I was child-less. Will join the Facebook group as well and keep tabs on how things go at Six Flags-would still like to make it out there this year. If I could be guaranteed everything is open, it'd be great-I just can't roll the dice with a 4-year old. But I really appreciate the information about Santa's Village! It looks like a more appropriate theme park introduction for a 4-year old, and it's closer to boot. Will probably aim to go next Saturday then, weather permitting. My daughter has been promised Six Flags but is too young to really know the difference, I think Santa's Village will look more appealing to her anyways. Little Amerricka also looks great, but that drive would be too much-perhaps if we're passing through that way someday. Thank you!

Hi all-hoping the group can help me out here. I haven't been to Six Flags Great America in a few years now, but would like to take my 4.5-year old daughter next week in celebration of being done with pre-school. I am aiming for Thursday, June 2nd. Assuming the weather is good, are kids rides (i.e., Little Dipper, Kidzopolis, Camp Cartoon) reliably open even if there's a light crowd? Or would it be safer to go on Friday or even a weekend sometime? Any other advice regarding operations on kid rides (which I have never frequented before)? The drive to the park is about an hour each way for us, and obviously I don't want to hype it up and then get there and have her be disappointed by rides being closed. Thank you in advance!

Anybody who was there this past weekend-did Goliath/Batman/Superman still have single rider lines open? Those made my visits great last year.

Haha, that would be sweet, but I doubt V2 even runs 220 times per day! And I'm just doing the 10K-no way I'd be able to raise enough for the Marathon-but I'll try to do 26.2 miles anyways. The ERT on Raging Bull in the morning should help. Looks like there will be 4-5 people going for the official Marathon-not sure how it works for the groups that raised a lot of money.

Yep! I haven't registered quite yet but I plan to. Should be a fun event trying to go on as many (long) coasters as possible. If my calculations are right, 26.2 miles of coaster equates to 28 rides on Raging Bull, 30 rides on American Eagle, 45 rides on Goliath, 52 rides on Batman, or 220 rides on Vertical Velocity. Will be interesting to see how many people pull it off. Should be fun!

They sure do! I've only used Superman's, but I saw the sign for Batman's as well-I think you just go up through the FastPass line for both. For Superman, just tell the FastPass people you are a single rider and they should send you up to the station where you wait for the grouper to put you in line somewhere. I imagine the Batman one is similar but not sure exactly how that works. The single rider line made Superman basically a walk-on. It sounds like they're using those lines as "tests", so they may add more if those go well (or if they don't, I guess they could take them away).

The park could be decently crowded those days but it might not be too bad. If you are alone/don't mind not riding with the people you are with, there are single rider lines on Superman, Batman, and Goliath, and I'd highly recommend using all three. My plan of attack is always to head over to Raging Bull, X-Flight, and American Eagle in that order first off. You can slip in Viper before Raging Bull if you like but the line won't be bad later in the day if you want to just go back. You'll be able to hit all of these coasters in quick succession with little to no wait as most everyone goes straight to Goliath. Then if Goliath's line is unreasonable even with single rider (Single rider line only uses the overflow portion), just skip it and you can get in Batman and Superman with the single rider line all before lunch. Goliath's line will probably be a bit shorter after the morning rush, and all you'll have left is Whizzer, Vertical Velocity, Demon and Viper if you want to hit everything-the lines on those shouldn't be too bad if you catch them at the right time. Also, only one side of American Eagle will be open in the morning-if it's blue, make sure to go back and ride the red side later in the day. In my opinion, all of the coasters are worth riding. I generally don't ride Vertical Velocity though since it can be a long wait and isn't exactly unique. Make sure to give Fiddler's Fling a ride as well-across from Goliath. Hope you have a great visit!!

This is great, congrats on the weight loss!! Can't wait to read about the VIP tour.

I'd echo this. I've never witnessed a booing at SFGAm myself, but I would imagine (and hope) they were booing the ride ops, not a kid. The general public would always fall on the "let them ride" side of the fence, not the "let's be safe" side. Regardless, they really shouldn't be booing either way-they're either booing a ride op for trying to be safe or a kid, neither is good.

This is an unfortunate situation. The ride op was probably just trying to do his job right, but there should be some consistency between the rides. Don't know how 48" on one ride is not 48" on another. And then the crowd booing is terrible-unfortunately that's the type of crowd that Six Flags gets sometimes. In other (maybe more lighthearted?) news, some guy is trying to sue SFGAm because he was stuck on Superman for 15 minutes: http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/07/28/69871.htm The excerpts from the claim that was filed are gold-"Superman: Ultimate Fight", "...became sick and disabled, and will continue to suffer great pain...". I was stuck on Superman for about 10-15 minutes last year in the brake run because of a protein spill ahead of us. It's not terribly uncomfortable, and we got exit passes for our troubles. I'd gladly trade 10-15 minutes suspended on Superman for an exit pass.

Made a quick visit to the park after work yesterday. Arrived around 5:00 just as it started raining a bit-none of the rides shut down though so it helped with crowds some late in the day. Was able to do Viper x2, Raging Bull, Eagle Red x2, Goliath, Batman, Goliath, Eagle Blue, X-Flight, and Raging Bull in that order before leaving just after 9:00 PM. Goliath single rider line seemed to be working very smoothly-this was my first time using it. Posted wait time was 90-110 minutes but it was about 10 minutes in the overflow line then straight to the station and onto a train. Love the single rider line and hope they keep it permanently! If you're a single rider and into marathoning coasters, you could have ridden it about 20-25 times in the last 5 hours of the park being open last night. I hadn't been to the park in a month or so, so I wanted to hit other rides too. Generally speaking, ops were much better last night than they had been on my last couple visits. But Raging Bull was only running two trains again-does anyone know if this is standard practice now when it's not the weekends? I've not seen it running three trains all year, but I haven't been on a busy weekend yet. They were using a grouper (poor kid-he was overwhelmed-trains still going out with empty seats) and ops were a bit slow (the only ride I'd say that about yesterday), so I don't know if they could have even handled three trains.

Just signed my wife and I up for our first ever TPR Event! And our first ever trip to Kings Island-should be a blast!!

I think that's a pretty bold statement. For what it's worth, the Mitch Hawker poll has Raging Bull as the best steel coaster in the park at 76 overall. Some others are: Batman 87 X-Flight 112 Superman 149 Whizzer 222 But I'm not in the business of telling people which rides are good-everybody has their own favorites, which is great for discussion! Personally Raging Bull was best in the park for me, but Goliath takes that spot, as it's such a unique and awesome ride.

Ha, that is the perfect description for that element! I felt like it was close to total weightlessness-I'll put it this way, my butt was totally off the seat. I could feel my thighs against the lap bar but that was it-it's as if the car was just stopped upside-down, that's close to what it feels like. With no over the shoulder restraints, it's amazing. Best part of any coaster I've ever ridden by far.

The people working at the shoot were still saying Thursday, so I imagine it's not opening up tomorrow, but who knows.

Alright I'm back from the commercial shoot! Here are my thoughts. Overall, it was a fairly well run shoot-obviously more periods of down time to position the real "talent" (paid models/actors that sat in the front two rows) and get the cameras ready, but I ended up getting 7 rides in between about 1:30 and 4:30. Most towards the back but one in row 3. Around 100-120 people there when I was there. The coaster was wonderful-definitely the best in the park in my opinion, but I think we all expected that. I've only been to SFGAm and Cedar Point, so I can't compare to Outlaw Run, New Texas Giant, etc. The view from the lift hill is fantastic as well-can really see most of the park. I'll be interested to see how they run it operationally when it opens. Hopefully it has two trains. During the shoot, they had two people checking lap bars/seat belts-one on each side. When you got in, you only buckled yourself-didn't touch the lap bar. They'd go down front to back checking seat belts, then you can pull down your lap bar, then they went all the way back to the front and went along the train again checking lap bars. I think this was because you had to buckle yourself in before putting the lap bar down? I'll rank the elements by how much I liked them-but they were all great, it's unfair to say one is the "worst": 1. Zero-G Stall: It seemed like this was the consensus favorite part of the ride by all of the riders. You really feel like you are floating, and it feels like you are upside down forever. It feels like the only thing holding you in is the lap bar. This seemed like a totally unique element. 2. First Drop: You definitely are pulled out of your seat, great drop. 3. Airtime Hill: Does what it says on the box-gives (LOTS) of airtime. 4. Dive Drop: This was great-the entrance to the dive drop felt just like the zero-g stall, so I can see why they labeled it as two different elements on the marketing description. You get a sensation of being left to hang for a little bit. 5. Twist & Shout: You get a good pop of airtime going into it and coming out of it 6. Overbank Turn: Just like the Twist & Shout, you get some airtime headed into it and a lot on the drop down to the airtime hill. 7. "Break Run Hill": Maybe this isn't technically an element, but you get one good last pop of airtime before the break run-which is pretty smooth. Overall, the ride is real smooth, but with some hints of it being a wooden coaster. I know there was some discussion earlier about the "moments of airtime" you get-by my count, there would be 9. Let me know if I missed anything-I'm about to head to dinner but will come back if anybody has more specific questions about it. I had a ton of fun on it! I imagine so, but I wouldn't want to make any promises. If the cars are similar to Outlaw Run, someone who has ridden that may be able to answer better than I. There are "shin restraints/pads", which may seem a bit uncomfortable at first, but you don't notice them at all on the ride.

Just got off after two consecutive rides. All I will say now is that it is amazing!!! I will try to write up a longer review when I get home later tonight.

I am in the afternoon shoot, and we are still in the holding area, but I will definitely share my thoughts after I ride! Sounds like the people in the other shoot loved it.

No one that I know (myself included) has heard anything as of this afternoon. Not sure how many they were picking but of the several I know that applied no one had been picked. I just got an e-mail from the park saying I was selected for the 12:30-6:00 PM shoot!! I got the e-mail around 6 PM CT. I am so pumped, can't wait for Saturday!!!

Admissions were slow today-but this should improve as the workers and park-goers get used to it. Didn't mind it once we got in since the slow admissions kept ride lines pretty short for the first hour or so. Everything was pretty inefficient today-admissions, food, ride ops-but it's early in the year and that's typical-should improve in the coming weeks. Goliath looks great!! Can't wait for it to open up.

I'm at the park tonight, was the only person on Viper for the first ride of the day. Odd sensation...

I was at SFGAm yesterday and got a picture of the Goliath site-nothing really to see, just some landscaping going on. There were obviously a lot of advertisements and signs around the park, and a few of the ride operators were even saying "Come back next year for Goliath". In other news, I rode Raging Bull 10 times yesterday, which is a personal best for me! Goliath site on 9/8/13

Hey all, my name is Tom and I live in the Chicago suburbs, making Six Flags Great America my home park. I went a ton as a kid and a little into high school, but this year was the first time I've gone back in 6+ years and I forgot how much I enjoyed it! Got the season pass and plan on getting it next season as well. To be honest, I haven't really been to any other major parks but I'd love to make a trip sometime to see some others. Favorite ride would have to be Raging Bull, with X-Flight a close second.

I have been a lurker here for a few months... But I joined TPR just so I could publicly register my excitement for Goliath. Looks awesome!!!