SFOG1991

Both of these situations are disappointing and I am glad there were no major injuries. There could have easily been notable injuries. I really enjoyed this park a few months ago and was impressed by the overall operations and some very friendly employees. I hope this is a wake up call and they can pull themselves out.

This is a really great park. The layout, size and coaster line up are all very realistic. I love the attention to detail and the use of a realistic amount of themeing for a Six Flags park. It's definitely a smaller Six Flags park but the space is utilized nicely. I love the entrance plaza.

I completely agree, Sunday is much less busy. I visit the park about 12 times a year (and I used to visit much more than that as much as I hate to admit it!) and Saturday's are almost always slammed but Sunday is always dead for the first few hours and usually isn't very busy the last hour or 2 either. Word of advise, if you can get to the park early, they usually open the gates 30 minutes early. Georgia Cyclone and Georgia Scorcher are often open during this time. Then at the official park opening time they drop the ropes to the rest of the park. Even on a Saturday, if they have those 2 operating 30 minutes early, it is possible to snake your way through the park and get every credit as a walk on, even when the park will end up having 2 hour waits later in the day. Honestly since you could spend the whole day there Saturday I was tempted to suggest that, but if the crowds end up being terrible I would really regret suggesting that. A few more things, ride Dare Devil Dive immediately! It is the only way you will ever get on it. The line is almost always pushing 2 hours, or at least an hour, no matter how dead the park is due to the terrible capacity. Ride in a front or middle row of Great American Scream Machine (middle of the last car has great airtime and isn't rough). Batman and Superman also get long lines frequently. Acrophobia is definitely worth riding if you like drop towers, it is pretty terrifying compared to the normal sit down models. Monster Mansion is a great classic dark ride. Canyon Blaster is a surprisingly fun family coaster. Thunder River is probably the most realistic rapids ride I've experienced. If I think of anything else worthwhile I'll be sure to add to this!

I rode Roar in 2013 and thought it was a very good coaster, and this still seems like a wasteful decision to me. I know the RMC will be a superior experience, but Roar was still a good coaster and it's sad to see it go. I can't wait to see what they do with the layout though.

^ I can completely understand where you are coming from. While the employees overall were much friendlier than basically any park I've been to and every operation was efficient, I experienced many situations where it seemed that the park's employee policies were overriding all common sense. It really did feel like you were in elementary school and getting disciplined by your teacher/babysitter. Still a wonderful park all around so this complaint is really minimal and I could think of a ton more to complain about at most other parks.

I can't say Six Flags Over Georgia is my favorite but it's the nicest Six flags park with one of the best quality coaster line ups in the country.

^I completely agree! Great location, but other than Goliath everything is either terrible or a clone (or both). Le Monstre seems intriguing at least...

Shocked to see Great American Scream Machine @ SFOG in your list. It's decently smooth and a great classic. I wonder why your experience was so notably terrible. For me it ranks not far outside of my top 10 wooden coasters (and one of the highest classics) and I've been on about half of the wooden coasters in the U.S.

Well they didn't have to get rid of Thunder Road either way with all that space on the other side of Thunder Road that could've been accessed similarly to how Kings Dominion did it... anyways the mistake has been made so I hope the water park expansion is great for what it is. I have a feeling this will be a large expansion but I hope they also completely overhaul the existing water park. It's painfully dated and tired feeling.

I would argue Carowinds' coaster lineup at least compares to Six a flags Ofer Georgia's. You might not think its better, but it certainly is at least in the same league. And I might even argue Carowinds has a better lineup than Kings Dominion at this point. I would say SFOG has a far superior line up, minus a giga (that is just my opinion though, but I feel like people would generally agree with what is below) Great American Scream Machine >>> Thunder Road (which no longer can even compete with GASM) Georgia Cyclone >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hurler Georgia Scorcher >>>>>> Vortex Superman >>> Nighthawk Canyon Blaster > every generic steel kiddie coaster at Carowinds Goliath > Intimidator (I would find this hard to argue against) Mindbender >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Carolina Cyclone Ninja > Carolina Cobra Additionally while SFOG may not have a giga, they do have coasters like Mindbender, GASM and Dare Devil Dive which fall under categories of coaster Carowinds doesn't even offer. All that Carowinds beats SFOG on is a bigger B&M suspended and they have a Giga while SFOG doesn't.

Or you could just answer my question without being sarcastic. Anyways, I prefer the S&S rendering over the layout in the announcement video but both are much more than I would've expected from this park or any park in that area. Adding to my 2016 trip itinerary!!!

The layout in the video still is much different than the image posted with the stats... so which is it? I much prefer the image with the layout and stats to what I see in the animation. Both are huge winners though.

^This Just looking at North America, I would say La Ronde. I would still consider them average/decent though. Carowinds has a decent line-up, and definitely better than La Ronde overall but doesn't compare to parks like nearby Six Flags Over Georgia and Kings Dominion.

Maverick does everything better than Millennium Force other than height so... Maverick.

This is my favorite of the more realistic options so far! I hate getting my hopes up but that would be a really great addition to the park. I'm sure whatever they do will be impressive though. So far they have yet to disappoint.

From my experience at Great Adventure, you will definitely want Flash Pass on a Saturday. That park is just ridiculously busy sometimes. Also, just as a warning, when I went I bought a platinum flash pass and the wait to buy it was horrendous. Not sure if they have fixed that, but basically the flash pass center was so slammed just after opening that they only allowed one person from each party in the building. I had to sit outside the building alone for over an hour. Once we had our Flash Pass it definitely paid off. I don't know how worth it the regular may be. If you can go gold I would, but even the regular will essentially double your number of rides on a busy day. As for Passholder ERT, you can attend regardless of what park your pass was bought/processed at.

Those interlocking Arrow vertical loops are going to look amazing

I absolutely love that final inversion into the brake run. I always hate when coasters have a boring stretch into the brake run and this absolutely does not disappoint!

I am intrigued but I feel like no joy would come from the experience. Maybe I am wrong...

I'm at work and just skimmed this thread quickly, so I apologize if I provide advice that has already been provided. It's always hard to pick which parks to go to and how to schedule a trip. My best suggestion is buy a fast pass whenever it could be helpful. Consider the money going into the trip and honestly if there is any additional budget, fast passes will make the trip at least twice what it could have been (for busy parks). I took a similar trip last year and my biggest regret was not spending more time at Knoebels. I was there for 4 hours and that wasn't even enough. There is just so much offered at that park and you WILL NOT want to leave. Also, if your route brings you anywhere near Conneaut Lake Park (I know you will be at Waldameer which is only 45 minutes away) definitely stop by if you like classic woodies. The park is on life support and a bit of a mess but it's still a beautiful place and quite the experience, plus Blue Streak is a great coaster and in the back car you get serious ejector airtime on the out-run. It's great. If you haven't been to Six Flags Great Adventure before, I would go there instead of Dorney. SFGAdv has a better version of basically every coaster Dorney offers. Demon Drop at Dorney is great though. If you do go to Dorney as planned, you can really do every coaster and Demon Drop in 2 hours if you arrive before opening. Also, Hershey Park has an amazing line-up and I would suggest that over at least half the parks in your list.

Absolutely amazing pictures of Thunder Road. There are some really special moments caught in a few pics! It's such a shame they are removing Thunder Road. It's a solid coaster and there are so many options to keep it, but it is what it is. The return run may be boring, but the ride out is awesome and full of airtime. It is also really smooth except for those last 2 hills.

I just read the entire report and it was great! Thanks for posting! It's too bad you missed out on Vortex at KI (I believe I read you never were able to ride it). Since you like older Arrow coasters, you would've really liked Vortex. I always enjoy old Arrow coasters but I thought Vortex was in another league above rides like Anaconda and smaller ones like Carolina Cyclone. You'll just have to go back!

Same happened to me during HoliWood Nights earlier this year. We knew the park was Central time. What we didn't know was that our hotel 20 minutes north wasn't Central time. We got in from the park and next thing we knew it was 3am then in the morning we were early getting back to the park. We seriously didn't figure it out until we stopped for breakfast on the way in that second day.

That's a wonderful idea in my opinion! Even without elevation change I could see something like a short, not very tall very simply built across a wave pool, maybe right at the base (?) of the wave pool (where the waves begin). That could really help park flow as many times the wave pool in a water park is a pain to walk around and it's usually a cluster of people.

^That would be cool and makes sense but they already have a bowl on their 4 person raft slide (it has a bowl followed by a wall) and they have a 2 person raft bowl slide. Sorry I am bad with water slide terminology but hopefully that makes sense. Regardless, this either means we are getting a HH expansion next year or they are doing some kind of alien related haunt in that area during Fright Fest (which they just announced will be adding 12 scare zones/haunts). It is a nice water park and you should check it out even if just briefly next time you visit, but I would still be sad to see no addition to the dry park.