dakota381

If you go during the day on a Sunday, you won't have to worry about scare zones or lines. If you're going on a Fri or Sat night when they reopen for Scarowinds be prepared for lines. The scare zones are scattered throughout the park with different themes. I don't remember any being directly up front but there were some around Intimadator. If you start freaking out when you see one, they'll come over and mess with you. The only one that got me was over by Cobra and only because he'd run by and scream in my face when I was talking to someone in my party and not paying attention. Albeit it was 4 years ago when I went, Sunday was lots better than Saturday night. I can't speak for Saturday during the day. AND, the closer it gets to Halloween, the more crowded it becomes. Saturday night the first couple hours of Scarowinds wasn't too bad. The later it got the worse all the lines got. We tried to get on Afterburn an hour before close and they had closed off the line because it was about 2 hours long. I'll be happy to report back after I go this weekend.

Thanks all for the input! Great comparisons Bill. You're the man! I'm very excited for this trip and can't wait to try out Fury. My sis is excited about Intimidator but I keep telling her Fury is going to be better and it sounds like I'm right. She's only been to a handful of parks but so far her favorite has been Apollo at BGE so, I think she's really gonna love Fury. Last haunt I went to was Scarowinds 4 years ago and we didn't do any of the mazes because of lines. It was so packed that Sat night it was hard to do anything. (Why I bought fright lane this time) There was 4 of us and we were so frustrated we almost didn't go back on Sunday but were glad we did as there were no lines at all!

Thanks Bill, that makes me feel better. Rain or shine, here we come! How would you compare Fury to Millennium Force or Intimidator 305?

My Sister and I are going to Carowinds this weekend. This will be her first ever Halloween type thing in an amusement park. We were able to get our Sunday day-time tickets for free for purchasing Scarowinds tickets online. I'm not sure how long they'll run this special but it's a good deal if anyone is looking at going this weekend. We also got Fright lane with the skeleton key and I hope that wasn't a waste of money considering they're calling for rain on Sat. I'm trying hard not to hyper-focus on the weather forecast being it's 5 days away but I really hope it's not pouring buckets. Neither one of us has been on Fury 325 even though this is considered our "home" park but I can't wait to check it out!! Oh, and I love me some Afterburn! (I still want to call it Top Gun lol)

We did the Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster once during the day and once at night. Night ride was awesome! The line was a LOT longer at night but moved at a steady pace.

Agreed. Great theming and the ops were pretty entertaining as well. (the canary right before the vertical lift )

I always lean into the OTSR on Mystery Mine to prevent headbanging (and crotch banging). The crotch nubs on these OTSRs require a bit of a defensive riding posture for me, especially on that ejector bunny hop into the brakes. I don't have any crotch bits so I don't need to worry about crotch nubs but sure wish I'd known about the leaning forward thing. Oh well, it must not have been that bad because I rode it 4 times.

Oh yeah! Quicktime! Let's party like it's Windows 95! Sorry about the quicktime. I tried to fix it but I couldn't figure out how so, I just left it. Teach me oh tech savvy coaster peeps! (I have internet Nazi's and a dinosaur computer at work)

Oh and there's this... 20160807_103435[1].mp4

I actually liked Mystery Mine. I think it's more like, wow this is soo cool! OWWW..OMG that was a fun element...headbang oof...check out this lift... ouch, that rattled me...holy crap that hangtime! Shew! That was fun but I need to wait a few before we do it again. And, thanks for the tip. I'll try that next time. I'm not ready to write all that again but just a couple quick things about the parks. LOVE the mountain setting and ambiance of the DW. Wait times in DW weren't bad at all even for LR. Night ride on LR was amazing. Splash Country was PACKED!

So, I wrote up this huge review on Dollywood and when I tried to post it, I got an error message saying I do not have access to this file. Signed by Rob Alvey. Man, that really sucked. Anyway, Dollywood is a great park. Lightning Rod is AWESOME and the cinnamon bread rocks! We were there last week on Sunday and Thurs. Any questions?

Can anyone tell me how crowded/busy BGE will be on opening day of Christmastown? Hubby and I are passing through and thought we'd stop to check it out on Black Friday. Hope everyone will be shopping so we'll have the park to ourselves. TIA!

My Brother-in-Law and I rode that a few years ago when it was at SFGAm, and came away with the same reaction. We both laughed virtually the entire time the ride was spinning! I've never laughed so much on a ride before, or since, and we gave the ride ops a good laugh as well as they watched us! I was disappointed the ride was removed from Great America, which is closer, but it just gives me one more reason to go to SF America someday now! Great TR, BTW! Thanks! I think it's worth at least a day at SFA and if it's a weekday, you'll be able to ride everything multiple times. If you like waterparks, make it two days.

Not me, my 8 year old stepdaughter did but not in one day. She's officially hooked on coasters.

Thanks! I wish I could've brought myself to try some other techniques on mind eraser but I just couldn't. I didn't bring that much Tylenol in with me.

There's no help for Mind Eraser. My ears were bright red and stinging when I got off that monstrosity. Not worth the Tylenol IMO. Kill it!

Thanks! This is just a few of the ton of pictures I took. We went to DC to see the Natural History Museum and the Zoo as well. It was a hot week but we had a good time.

Hello all, just a quick run down on SFA. My hubby and I were there last week with my teenaged sister and 8 y/o stepdaughter. Crowds were light, ops were ok. Could've been better but not terrible. They were only running 1 train on everything every day we were there. (Sun, Wed, Thurs, Fri) The water park was decent but became incredibly crowded mid afternoon. Hubby and SD spent more time over there than Sis and I. BTW, Hubby doesn't do coasters so, he spent even more time at the water park catching rays. Ride reviews; Mind Eraser beat the crap out of me so much, I couldn't bring myself to get back on and try again. (we rode center train) Apocalypse wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just a couple bangs to the side of the head. We rode in the 2nd row and I tried to anticipate the turns to prepare for head-banging but didn't do so well. Rode it twice and I was done. We rode Roar a couple times in the center and it wasn't as bad as I expected. My stepdaughter loved it but she liked Wild One a whole lot better. Her and my sis marathon'd Wild One the first day we were there since there was an ERT for discover card and gold pass holders. I think they ended up with a total ride count of 19. I rode it 3 times once in the front, once in the middle and once in the back. I liked the middle best. It didn't hurt as much but it was probably the least exciting spot. I'm not a huge fan of woodies but I went on for the girls. Sis and I rode Batwing 5 times and I just couldn't get used to the restraints on this thing. I'm not a small chested woman and the G's just plain hurt. The barrel rolls gave me bruises in my armpits. Guess I should've kept my arms down. NOT! lol Sis kept saying she couldn't breathe and that her future children are going to be malnourished. I like Ultimate Flight at SFOG better than Batwing and Nighthawk at Carowinds. I lost count on how many times we rode Superman ROS and Joker's Jinx. We loved both of them so much. ROS ride ops were great until the last day. They like to squeeze you in so guys, be careful with that bar in the "middle" area. On JJ the ops were really good at playing with the riders. It was a lot of fun watching the trains fly out unexpectedly and the looks on people's faces. One guy kept asking if people were ready before they even checked the restraints. Talk about panic! It was great. Rajun Cajun was interesting. I'm not much for spinning rides but this one had all three of us laughing our arses off. Rode 3 times with the girls. The first and third time we spun like crazy but the 2nd time not so much. I'm not sure what the difference was other than different colored cars?? We sat in the same spots each time. I only rode Fireball once when my sis didn't want to ride it with SD. SD loved this thing. I've been on so many at county fairs over the years, it was nothing spectacular to me. She enjoyed it so, it made me happy. I rode the Voodoo Drop 4 times and 3 of those times the girls were with me. The first day they looked at it and said "no way!" So, I went alone on day one. I'm not sure what changed but they wanted to try it on the last day and then proceeded to go on it a bunch more with or without me. We rode Shipwreck falls once and got SOAKED! Had no idea it would be that wet. The girls really wanted to go and we were the first one's in on the very first day we were there so, none of us knew how it would be. They loved Pompeii at BGE and we thought this would be fun too. OMG! Bring a towel... (no picture, sorry) SD and I rode Renegade Rapids once, it was a nice peaceful ride through the woods with very little water. No waterfalls or geysers to worry about. Only people shooting with the water cannons which I never saw happen. (didn't get a good pic of this one either) I credit whored the Great Chase with SD. We were both bored but we can both mark that one off now! lol It didn't appear that you needed a kid with you but one guy on our train couldn't fit so he was booted. We did a couple of the other flats but not many. I kept looking at the Flyers but couldn't bring myself to try them. Circular repetition bothers me so, I didn't do it. Shows; We did watch all of the shows. That seems to happen when you're with kids at a park but they were entertaining. The best one is the EFX 3.0 in the Grand Theater. It was a nice air conditioned break and several surprises that had me in tears I was laughing so hard. Sit in the middle a little towards the front or a little towards the back. We ended up in here 4 times, going once per day. (the kids loved it) The dancers and stunt guys worked their butts off. I'm impressed only if it's because they did it all in the blazing June heat and all with a smile. I have to hand it to the people dressed up as the Looney Tunes characters as well. It was horribly hot out and they weren't just walking around to stop for a brief picture. They were actually acting like who they were dressed as. We saw Bugs and Daffy fighting, Sylvester chasing Tweety and Pepe purposed to me! haha Other than one group of teenagers on the first day that were a little rowdy and obnoxious, I never felt unsafe or threatened. Besides, they were escorted out by park security. Oh, and as far as food goes. It's typical park food but we had decent service everywhere we went. I have no complaints. The BEST we were treated was at the Goldrush Chicken Co. LOVE the people over there! All in all we had a good time for such a small park. It probably had a lot to do with being there with kids. If you're in the area, you should check it out. Any questions, feel free to ask! Thanks for reading!

Hello TPR Peeps! I've been lurking here for a while after I found this forum while googling wait times at BGE. My family will be in the Williamsburg area starting this Sunday for 5 days. We will be visiting Busch Gardens and Water Country while there. I'm a 30-something coaster nut married to a 30-something coaster NOT. I will be traveling with my step-daughter of 7 who has never been to any kind of amusement or theme park before. Such a cool step mommy, huh? And I will also be bringing my younger sister of 13. She has only been on about two roller coasters so far but I am here to change that! I just wanted to stop in and say hello. I have really enjoyed reading up on BGE and some other parks I have yet to visit and I hope to talk to you all soon about my trip.

Hello all! I'm new to TPR. Been lurking for a while and just wanted to jump in and say, my family and I will be at BGE this Sunday spending a week in the area with a 7 day pass to Busch Gardens and Water Country. I haven't been to BGE since 2001 so Griffon and Verbolten will be new to me. (Mach Tower too but a drop tower is a drop tower, right?) I'm taking my lil sis here for the first time and she's really new to coasters. (only 2 under her belt so far) I'm hoping to turn her in to a junkie just like me. Anyone else going to be in either park during this time?