jonskinny12

Great report and pictures! Thanks for sharing. I'm glad (and very jealous) that LR was behaving for you.

Having a Platinum Pass, I stay at Econo Lodge at the end of the causeway. If I didn't have a Platinum Pass I'd stay at CP Express. Early entry is worth everything at this park.

This isn't necessarily true if you already have a platinum pass, stay in a cheap hotel, and plan your trip at a time when the crowds are light. I think a VIP Tour sounds like fun and a cool experience, but I can spend much less than $465 on CP tickets/food/hotels and still get my fill of the park. But hey, you visit parks how you want to and I'll continue to visit parks how I want to. It's nice to read different experiences from different people. I'd actually be curious about which parks do and don't offer these perks and how much they cost across the country.

^

Or maybe they're referring to the gun attached to his left arm?

Ah, that makes sense. I figured the extended hours would be for a holiday or something meaning bigger crowds. Thanks!

Does anybody know why SFMM is open until 8 on 9/21? I'm looking at the month of September looking at rescheduling my trip and every weekday Monday through Thursday besides Labor Day closes at 6, but 9/21 closes at 8.

Afterburn is definitely not your typical Batman clone. If I only had a few hours at the park I wouldn't spend any time doing anything besides marathoning Fury as much as possible with a a bunch of rides on Afterburn in there somewhere. Maybe I'd ride Intimidator once if I was walking past and there was no line.

Strictly comparing the two coasters, I would much rather have Scream removed for all the reasons you said. But let's be honest, the land that Viper sits on is much more interesting than the slab of asphalt that Scream sits on. If they removed Scream for another ride, it would likely be another boring ride thrown on top of an old part of the parking lot. Especially if it was a B&M clone. There's just so much more they can do with Viper's land as it sits right now. For all I care they can remove Scream and replace it with nothing. Even when it's running well I don't find it that great when it's right next to TC and in the same park as X2, Tatsu, Apocalypse, Batman, etc. If we're pretending that SFMM would remove Scream, rip up that section of parking lot, and put in something interesting that at least attempts to fit with the theme of the Screampunk District, then I'd much prefer a Scream removal to Viper. But that's not happening based on their recent history.

I agree with this, except it's second to last row for me. I've found it quite fun on my last couple trips, especially at night, while Scream has gotten worse in my opinion.

You must not have visited the Cedar Point thread before they opened this year. I don't know what boards are being referenced here but it's often in a website's best interest to keep a park happy, so when a park asks them to do something they will do it.

^ Good to know. Thanks for correcting me.

^ Oh are they? I was there in March or something and I thought I saw people getting the re-rides with the platinum wristband. I could be wrong though. One thing to keep in mind is even if you get right into the station, on some rides (like Tatsu) that can still mean a 15 minute wait.

It has been a few years since I've used the flash pass here, but in my experience we got either into the station or very close to it immediately after walking up to the ride on almost everything, although the way they do it on Goliath is a mess. If you plan ahead and reserve the next ride as soon as you get scanned in, you shouldn't have any problems there unless things have changed. Plus with the platinum flash pass, they let you stay in your seat for a re-ride each time you use the pass. As far as getting the pass, that's a different story. I think it took us 30-45 minutes to get the pass, but it ended up being well worth it because we were there all day on a fairly busy day in August. Also, I just got a quick day trip set up for September 7! I'm hoping that being a weekday in September right between Labor Day and Fright Fest the park is going to be dead, and hopefully the window between events is small enough that nothing will be down or limited due to maintenance. Maybe I can even get lucky and Revolution will not have VR to get ready for Fright Fest? Does anyone remember if they took VR off for a few weeks leading up to Fright Fest last year? I've been avoiding it since they did work on it and I'd really like to ride it but I refuse to wait in the long lines due to VR.

The first drop is pretty fun in the back left.

They can, and it's AWESOME when they do. That is what in my opinion what makes LL better than it's sister out in New Jersey even though that one is a bit taller. Nothing better than when you get about 3/4 the way up the tower on LL and a Superman car screams up the track and causes the whole tower to sway back and forth. I finally got this the last time I rode LL, and man it was terrifying. SEFK zoomed by when I was about halfway up the tower and I was not prepared at all. It was loud and then watching the shadow sway a few hundred feet below and actually moving side to side in my feet made it so much scarier and so much better overall. To the person who rode X2 11 times in one day... that's incredible. I would love to ride it that many times in one day because it's so awesome but I doubt I could physically do more than 6 or 7 in a single day.

Sounds like you're having a great day at the park! I wondered how the passholder ERT would be since Fury was all that was open but I also rode it 7 times in the half hour before park opening and didn't have to leave the station before that point. Good luck with Vortex if you end up trying it. Somehow my brother talked me into riding it with him and it was the worst standup I've ridden. Lol On the subject of a giga and hyper co-existing, I actually found that Intimidator had a longer line than Fury when I walked past it at different times of the day, although this was probably mostly due to slower operations (the Fury crew was fantastic all day when I was there) and 2 trains instead of 3. People seemed to enjoy riding both of them.

My advice is go to Fury, ride it a bunch. Then go across the park to Afterburn and ride it a bunch. Then spend the rest of the day riding Fury. That's about what I did (while hitting a few other things along the way, although I'd happily replace any of those with more rides on Fury or Afterburn) and I don't regret my decision at all. I don't think I've ever ridden any ride more consecutive times or more times in a single day than I did Fury on my one day there. You're living in Ohio now, and Diamondback is far better than Intimidator, and you have Firehawk if you really want to ride a Vekoma flyer. I guess if you really care about the "credits", then give those other rides a whirl, but you'll be happier on Fury. Side note, my ride on Hurler was fairly smooth but holy crap is that ride boring. Probably the only ride I've ever been on with trims at the bottom of the first drop.

So is that system different on Kingda Ka? I guess I just assumed the launch systems are the same.

When I went opening day, they had a grouper at the top of the steps, but they were usually pretty flexible if you had a request for which row to sit in. I don't remember them ever saying "no, you can't ride in the front/back row" to anyone at all. Just ask nicely and I'm sure they'll accommodate. This was the same for me when I went a couple weeks ago. Sometimes there was a grouper, sometimes there wasn't (it was a 0-10 minute wait all day). We asked for a specific row a few times and were never told no, and it was the same for everyone else that I saw that asked. I also want to say that Fury has a great crew. Those guys fly around the station and really push out trains quickly. They run 3 trains without a MCBR and I almost never saw it double stack, and many times we never even stopped on the brake run. The pre-lift block helps a lot with this, of course, but I was really impressed with how quickly they were pushing out trains.

^ Why does TTD roll back so much more? Does it have to do with the weather and wind gusts?

When I was there I ate at the Front Porch Cafe two times and I thought it was good. It takes a little longer because you have to wait to be seated and they come take your order and they make the food to order, etc. but at least you get to sit in an air conditioned building for a while. The food itself was fresh and I thought it was really good, and the portion sizes were HUGE. (They were at least huge to us, we're from Utah so maybe the portion sizes are just different) My brother and I could have shared the Meatloaf Stacker and probably both had enough to eat.

Not excusing Six Flags' tardiness, but you do realize neither MM or Disney are located LA City right? I think the point he was making was about the new football stadium, and was comparing the city of Los Angeles to SFMM and Disneyland. I feel like this is the general approach best taken when visiting SFMM these days as well. I usually visit once or twice per year and I know exactly what to expect and what I'm getting when I go, and I'm never disappointed.

^^ Pretty interesting video with some cool views of Gatekeeper, thanks for posting!

I don't even know what to say about the last page. Lol