Jodon

Went to the park yesterday for the first time in over 20 years and had a really good time with a couple of "firsts" for me. Here are a few thoughts/observations/frustrations/etc. Overall, they have a pretty good collection of coasters for a small park, and Mamba, Patriot, and Prowler are a nice combination of headliners. I thought Mamba was a really good ride. I rode in the front once and the back twice. I liked the first drop better in the back, but I thought the rest of the ride was better in the front. The second hill and entrance into the helix had some great air time in the front seat. Mamba didn't treat us very well on the operations side of things. For the first time in my coaster riding career, I got stuck on the lift hill for about 15-20 minutes before it started back up and we got to finish our ride. Kudos to ride op Ashley who had to walk up to the train about 2/3rds up the lift. I will admit I was a tad disappointed when we got back to the station, the only thing awaiting us was a cup of water. I know that they don't have to do anything for us, but an exit pass would have been appreciated. Prowler is a great ride. It was my first GCI and I really liked it and is challenging Boulder Dash in my Top 5 woodies. I loved how the ride gives you some pops of air then throws you in a different direction. I also loved the setting of the ride with all the trees. If this is a good example of what GCI has to offer, I want to ride many many more of them. One other thing I loved about the ride is how the train goes kind of quiet at the top of the hills and then just roars through the valleys. It's a really cool effect. I also really liked Patriot. Not as forceful as the other B&M inverts I've been on (Batman Clones, Banshee, and Raptor), but it's a solid ride with a unique layout. I rode in the front and 6th row and noticed a significant rattle in the 6th row, but not the front. Spinning Dragons was more fun than I was expecting and had a couple surprise pops of air. The operations in the park were "ok." I was very frustrated at the beginning of the day when all of their major coasters started with 1 train operations. Not sure if WoF wasn't expecting very large crowds, but the park was decently busy, and it was a welcome sight when the ride ops put the other trains on the track. My party was very thankful that we had splurged for the Fast Lane as we did not have to wait long to enter the station, but I wish they would have had a grouper at the entrance to the station to help even out the lines. I was a bit disappointed in the food operations at the park. My party ate lunch at Chickie's and Pete's and it was decent to good food, but my 7 year old nephew wanted pizza and for some reason, they were not serving pizza that day, though it was on the menu. Not a big deal, but not ideal either. I was also surprised that their $11 sandwiches did not come with fries. Even though we shared their crab fries, which were really good, it ended up being a fairly expensive lunch for what we got in an amusement park. Dinner was kind of frustrating as well as a lot of the Cedar Fair run restaurants were closed well before park close and seemingly with out warning. It ended up working out for us as we left the park and ate at a Waffle House on the way back home. The park looks pretty, especially in the Africa area with all the trees! The back part of the park by Detonator/Planet Snoopy needs another bathroom, and I was surprised at how small all of the bathrooms were. Most of them only had one stall and a couple of urinals. All in all, it was a really good day with great weather. I don't have any strong desire to head back any time soon, but I was happy I was able to go.

Heading to the park today, does anyone have any recommendations how to start the park? We will be getting fast lanes.

Got a quick question: If I buy tickets online, can I show the ticket for entry on my phone or do I have to have a hard copy?

^ From the water slides that they do have it would appear as HW has attempted to avoid body slides as a whole. The only body slides they have are in the two play structures. While I love the drop slides and could see them at HW eventually, I really like that I can partake in most every attraction in the Splashin' Safari while wearing my water shoes and shirt.

They could do so, but it would slow down the queue. They would have to load each train in about 60 seconds (which won't happen) or they would have to stall the first train on the hill until the second train loads. Realistically, I think the high five moments will be very rare as someone else pointed out. I would agree with you if they are using 2 train operations with a 4 minute total ride time, you would want the trains getting back to the station as fast as possible and dueling will be rare. However, if they are using 3 trains, I do not see how running the "green" side through with out dueling will move the queue any faster. Lets see if I can describe why the two sides should always duel with 3 train operations in a hypothetical situation...Train A completes the blue track and is ready to go up the green lift hill. Train B is in the leaves the station and is perfectly timed with Train A through their course. While that happens Train C is loading in the station. Unfortunately, Train C is taking a little longer than the prescribed 60 seconds to load up. At this point, Train A is now waiting on the blocks behind the station and Train B has two options, wait at the blocks before the green lift for Train C, or go up the green lift and complete the circuit. For this hypothetical situation lets say that Train B continues on with out Train C. Train C takes a little longer than expected and Train B is already off the lift and half way through the course when Train C dispatches. Train A enters the station and begins to swap out its passengers and Train B enters the blocks before the station about 10 seconds after Train A got to the station. Train B then waits on the blocks until Train A is ready to be dispatched and this cycle is repeated until the day is done. From riding Outlaw Run and Goliath at SFGAm, it is not out of the question to see 2:30-4 minute dispatch times on these rides. If that's the case, there are two options, stack one train in the break run and one before the green lift, or stack both on the break run. One train will always be stacked unless they hit a 45-60 second dispatch which is extremely unlikely and if they do hit that dispatch, then the trains will duel anyway. My point is this, regardless of how slow the dispatches are, the train on the blue track will have to wait to enter the station or to start the green lift, personally, I'd rather wait before the green lift and duel every time...but that's just me.

I don't see how, with 3 trains running, throughput would be diminished if the "green" train waits to duel with the blue side. If there are 3 trains, the "green" train is either going to have to wait before/on the lift or on the break run. Therefore, with 3 trains, I don't see why they wouldn't make the "green" train wait until the "blue" train is ready. These RMC trains, to my knowledge, were not designed to have seat belts with them, but after the NTAG accident, RMC retrofitted Outlaw Run (the only RMC train at the time) with seat belts. Because of the way RMC had originally designed the seats, the seat belts are inaccessible when the lap bars are down, so the ride ops have to check seat belts first then check lap bars. On Outlaw Run and Goliath at SFGAm they will typically have two ride ops per side, one to check seat belts then one following right behind checking and assisting with the lap bars. One of the biggest problems with the loading procedure is the public not listening to instructions and lowering the lap bar too early and then they have to re-check the whole car. It can take a long time.

^ ^^ Thanks for your replies! Does FL ever sell out at WoF?

Can any of the locals offer any info? I'm heading to WoF on Memorial Day, how busy is Memorial Day if the weather is nice? Is FL a must for someone who hasn't been to the park in 25 years? Are most of the FL merge points at the station or do they merge pre-station? Thanks!

From what I've seen it's the pathetic 5 minute dispatch times combined with the likelihood that it will be running one train for whatever reason. This, and a couple other reasons. The trains only hold 24 so it's already a lower capacity ride in that regard. Also, the restraints on the RMC trains are not conducive to quick dispatches once they added seat belts. Even Silver Dollar City has slow-ish dispatches on Outlaw Run and they are known for good ride operations. Once they added the seat belts, the load procedure got a bit more complicated and requires the GP to listen, which causes it's own issues as well. On top of that, the restraints are somewhat unfriendly to larger guests that want to try to fit and hold up the train while the ops try to smash the lap bar down, it's not uncommon for a 3-5 minute dispatch.

^ FYI, mid way through last season, Great America added another reservation for Goliath for Platinum Flash Passers allowing a group to reserve up to 2 rides throughout the day. Not sure if that is the case last year, but they added it at the park without changing the website last year, so I'd say that there's a good chance.

Apparently, Goliath is closed today as the red train valleyed in the turnaround before the break run. It looks like this was during testing as no one was on the train. That's...not great.

Planning on hitting up Worlds of Fun with some family on Memorial Day. A couple questions for the regulars...Is Fast Lane a recommended item? Do most of the FL lines go right to the station or do they merge away from the station? Any good rides for the whole family? Anything unique to the park that I must do whether it be rides, shows, or food? Thanks!

^ Half way through the season last year, they added a second ride on Goliath to the Platinum Flash Pass and there was not an additional upcharge to the PFP. I would guess that 2 rides for PFP would continue this season, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

My guess is there are couple reasons for the cost discrepancy. 1. The 22 million includes all the infrastructure for the whole area, i.e. Will Power building, clearing of the trees, paving the paths, the new restaurant/Pepsi Oasis, bathrooms and such. X-Flight cleared out two old rides and is built on flat land, so the infrastructure should not have to expensive. 2. I would guess that a launch coaster would be more expensive than a traditional lift coaster, which would account for some of the differences.

I was fortunate enough to go to the park yesterday with a member of CDW for their employee appreciation day. The park was really quiet in the morning and walked on X-Flight and Raging Bull. My buddy and I walked to Goliath first thing but they weren't even testing it yet which I found to be frustrating. When it did open later in the day, they were only running the red train with the orange train under the station in storage, which made the wait really long even though there weren't many people in line. I asked two ride ops about the orange train. One said that it wasn't ready yet because if it was they would be using it. The other ride op I asked said that it was ready, but that the park wasn't busy enough to warrant the use of the second train. While the second guy may be correct, I'm not sure I buy his answer. The park was busy enough to have 2 train operations on every ride except X-Flight, and Goliath is still the new hot ride at the park. Regardless, Goliath was running great. The turn around before the lift was much quieter than last year, and I was quite happy to see the fog still emanating from the bottom of the tunnel. Here's a couple other tidbits I noticed: The American Eagle Blue trains were not on the track yesterday and no where to be seen. Not sure if that is normal or not. Batman looks great with it's new paint job. The old SkyTrail spot looks terrible. It's a big ugly concrete pad with some footers still sticking out and a new smoking area. It needs a lot of sprucing up. Although the paint job is not finished, the Carousel looked really weird. The colors will be great when it's finished, but the way they put the gold on the facade makes it look really sloppy, with lots of over spray and not very detailed. I'm sure that it will get cleaned up (at least I hope it will) before it's finished, but I was surprised that the gold paint was so haphazardly applied. One other thing frustrated me a bit. I know that Six Flags shoots for Memorial Day weekend for their new rides to be open, but when a park is celebrating 40 seasons of thrills and is adding 3 small kiddie rides, why wouldn't you try to get that done before the park opens. The concrete pads aren't even poured yet. It's just frustrating to see most other seasonal parks open their park up for the season with the park ready to go, it makes me wonder how much Great America actually does in the off season.

^ Personally, I would get to the park well before opening and hoof it over to Goliath first. If you get to the park early enough and jog over, you should be on the first few trains of the day. From there, I would hoof it back to Superman which should have a smallish wait at that point. If you don't get to Goliath well before opening, your wait will likely be over an hour and a half, at least that was my experience last year. It could be a bit better this year, but it's still the new hotness. I would also wait until later in the day/evening to ride Whizzer when most of the smaller kids have left the park. Whizzer is a fun and unique ride that is worth a lap or two, but it has terrible capacity and is one of the few family coasters in the park so the line can get really bad during the day. Hope that helps a bit.

Did anyone on here do the Coaster Challenge for the Special Olympics last year? Sounds like it could be fun. http://www.soill.org/event/coaster-challenge/

Regardless of how you feel about the laws recently invoked by Indiana and Arkansas, does everyone calling for a boycott of Indiana realize that there are around 20 states with a similar law on the books including Illinois and Kentucky? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/27/19-states-that-have-religious-freedom-laws-like-indianas-that-no-one-is-boycotting/

^ As someone who has been to Holiwood Nights a couple times, what kind of waits were there during the ERT's both coaster and water coaster? Did you spend all of Saturday in the park, or did you primarily go to the park during the ERT sessions and for the walkback? Any tips you can offer to get the most out of the experience? I imagine that Holiwood Nights will be more attended this year due to Thunderbird, so like a lot of people, I'm planning on going to Holiwood Nights this year for the first time and want to know what to expect as best as possible.

Not sure about previous years, but this year, both sets of wheel covers were in the transfer track tunnel on the ground, seemingly fine, just not on the trains.

Sorry to take a break from Thunderbird talk, but I was thinking about going to Holiwood Nights this season and was wondering if anyone here had any experience with the event and could answer a couple questions for me. In the past, how crowded are the ERT's? I know that Thunderbird will likely boost the numbers a bit, but it would be nice to know what to expect. I'm also curious to know if I would get enough laps during the ERT's to not need to ride any coasters during the regular hours. Was there any down time on Saturday to head back to a hotel and sleep? Do most of the guests stay as late as possible, or do the ERT crowds thin out as it gets later? Any other experiences that I should know about/expect? Thanks.

1. Blu-Ray 2. Netflix 3. 2-5 4. Apple TV 5. Watch YouTube for most everything else, from coaster POV's, to music, to tv show clips, to how-to videos.

^do you know if they were running all the rides this evening? I'm planning on going Sunday and curious if any of the coasters won't like the cold.

^ I'm local and live not too far from Santa's Village. While I realize that there are several parks that closed recently, those parks catered to kids more than all age groups. I truly believe that a second full fledged theme park could be supported and welcomed in the Chicago market, but the significant cost to build a park will likely prevent such a park from being built.

I've thought for a while that the Chicago market could use another park to help disperse the crowds. Great America is seemingly never not busy during the summer and Fright Fest is packed in the fall and it has been that way for a while. The Chicago/Milwaukee market is big enough to support two parks and I'd love to see a Cedar Fair property open up in the south west or western suburbs. At this point, Great America's biggest competitor is Cedar Point which is 6 hours away. I would also think that having a close competitor would make Great America really look at their operations and would in turn make them a better park. Competition is frequently very good for the consumer and I think that another park in the Chicago area would be fantastic. However, I can not imagine how much it would cost to build park able to compete with Great America would cost in this day and age. So, while I think that the market could support 2 parks and should help Great America have less lines and focus more on their operations and customer service, I realize that this is a pipe dream that will likely never come to fruition. It still doesn't stop me from thinking that this is a great solution to a lot of the issues at Great America.