coneyislandchris

Is anyone else getting a "funeral for Mean Streak" vibe off of this announcement so far?

Hey, we were there on Saturday as well... my wife and my best friend's wife were on a girls' night out on the town in Philly that evening, so we decided to take the kids out to Dorney. Definitely agreed about the Flyers. So short and kind of punchless. The only upside is when we rode them early in the day, the wind was super strong and really caused us to sail much more than those ones typically allow. We didn't do too much of coasters throughout the day... we started off by heading towards Possessed, but it was down for a bad sensor. Thankfully after two rounds on the Flyers it had just reopened and we got two rides on that. The only other coaster we ended up doing was Woodstock Express at the behest of my daughter, and I gotta say, I'm just getting too damn big for these tiny little Zamperlas these days. She loved it though and that's what's important, right? We were going to try and do Steel Force as well but that also ended up down for maintenance early. Other than that it was all flats... Monster, Whip, Dominator, Apollo, the carousel, and a handful of stuff in the Planet Snoopy section. Shout to whomever was operating the Kite-Eating Tree... most ops on kiddie rides look like they're so ready to be done with their shift, while this guy was just hamming it up for the kids with audience participation call-and-responses. It was a nice change of pace. Also, we ended up discovering that kids with a pre-K Pass got select free midway games. We found this out at the balloon burst game, where after checking her pass, the game op allowed my three year old daughter to stand up on the counter and try throwing darts at the balloons. She didn't hit any balloons, or even make it more than halfway past the floor, but she came pretty close to stabbing my shoulder with one of those darts. Great idea, guys. We ended up booking it out of there just before five to try and avoid the haunt stuff, but overall it was a pretty good if short and uneventful day.

To me, Indiana Beach's was the one to top with the most airtime in the US, but I don't know if they still run it the same. I didn't get a chance to ride Indiana Beach's Falling Star last year due to really bad luck and poor operations. I waited until 5 minutes before closing to get in line. There were maybe 10-15 people ahead of me in line. When the previous cycle ended, the riders on board asked if they could stay on. The operator said yes. However, by letting the people stay on the ride, there wasn't enough room for everyone in the queue to ride (myself included). We were unapologetically told it was the last ride of the night and they couldn't run another. I had never seen riders denied a ride if they were in the queue before closing and that's exactly what Indiana Beach did. I've still yet to ride a falling star, which is unfortunatell since they're becoming rarer each year. When we were out there last year, it just didn't open at all the entire time we were there. Then again, there were maybe about 10-15 people in the park all day long, not counting employees. (I'd go so far as to say the employees outnumbered the guests that day.)

Frightening? The kids practically attacked it (and all the other anthropomorphic candy) with hugs and high fives the entire time we were there this past weekend. Don't really have much of a report to write up -- we got in Friday afternoon, and since the park itself was closed we took the opportunity to explore ZooAmerica. It's relatively tiny but still pretty entertaining. Afterwards we headed to the Tanger Outlets to pick up some much-needed outfits for the kids and the new school year. We ended up eating dinner at The Forebay in Hershey Lodge. OMG... the mango BBQ shrimp dish they currently have on the menu is DELICIOUS! Can't recommend it enough (nor their chocolate martinis... yum!). On Saturday we got there early for Sweet Start, did a bunch of stuff in the Hollow and Kissing Tower Hill, then ate lunch at the Overlook food court around 11:30. As soon as we left that building we discovered that the place had gotten jam-packed and lines for just about everything were starting to get unruly. We didn't do too terribly much in the afternoon aside from play arcade & midway games and ride kiddie rides for the three-year-old (including Trailblazer, she loves that darn mine train). The kiddo refuses to ride Wildcat ever again until it gets the RMC treatment, and honestly, I don't blame him. We made our way all the way back towards Lightning Racer for our last coaster of the day. Thanks to its location the line was much shorter than just about everything else in the park. We hopped on the Lightning side, had a bad start, but came from behind and won the duel! We ended up leaving around 5:00 PM to grab some dinner and head back to the hotel for evening swimming. Overall it wasn't as successful as I had hoped it would be, the beautiful weather really ended up cramming the park, but everyone left happy and honestly, what more can you ask for? Side note, we were planning to hit up Dutch Wonderland on Sunday, but some real-life engagements got in the way of those plans, and so we still have yet to get out there. Probably won't be until next year at this point.

Lightning Racer at HP, "Lightning" side. Such an unbelievably fun coaster, made all the more better by winning the race with a huge come-from-behind victory.

Okay, this is why I've gotta stop reading your trip reports during my lunch break at my desk. Now I have to explain to the office manager why I'm wiping chicken remnants and caesar dressing off of my iMac's screen. Unexpected Mets dig resulted in a much larger belly laugh than expected.

IIRC the source for the Screamscape rumor is from a random poster on Reddit or Facebook who claims to have gotten the information from one of the park's security guards. So, basically, slightly higher than Dippin' Dots guy level veracity, but not by much.

I'd be surprised if another family friendly coaster takes its place. They just added a SBF Visa spinner on the other pier this year. What are the other options? A janky little dime-a-dozen Zamperla kiddie coaster? This is indeed pretty disappointing, this is one of those coasters that the whole family enjoys (even the wife and daughter). I don't claim to know the specifics behind its removal but it's disappointing regardless.

I feel like the Zamperla ones are a touch more intense and disorienting than the Maxairs at CP & KI. Delirium at KD is weaker than both. I definitely prefer the Discoveries and am glad to see them getting spread around.

Great additions on both counts! Looking forward to riding both of these when we visit again next year. We actually ended up making our 2nd annual pilgrimage to Williamsburg over this past Labor Day weekend, and since I'm rapidly discovering that hey, waterparks are actually kind of fun after all, we ended up visiting Water Country USA for the first time with everyone. Surprisingly on Saturday it was pretty dead, with most of the stuff being walk-ons and only about a 20 minute wait for Big Daddy Falls. My son and I did Colossal Curl twice in a row within the span of ten minutes. God, that thing is amazing and balls-out terrifying when going down it backwards. Unfortunately passing thunderstorms ended up running us out of the park around 3 PM on Saturday, so we retreated to our hotel's pool instead. On Sunday we ended up taking a second shot at WCUSA and the crowd levels were considerably jacked up. We didn't get to do nearly everything in the park, but we had fun chilling out on the lazy river, checking out some of the kid-friendly areas for our littlest, trying out the body slides back in Rock 'n' Roll Island, and finishing off with the pitch black nightmare that is Aquazoid. None of us literally had any idea which direction we were travelling at any point in this ride, and as we splashed down into the pool at the end, we were just left looking at each other like "what the heck just happened?!". We decided to leave around 3 to get cleaned up and changed, and headed over to Busch Gardens proper after a late lunch around 6 PM. Talk about slammed -- as bad as it was over at WCUSA, BGW was ten times worse. All the walking paths were crammed with groups everywhere, and though we were expecting the heat to taper off in the evening, it was just so humid that within a few minutes of entering the gates we were drenched. We didn't end up getting a chance to do much of anything; the four of us rode Grover's Alpine Express together, then the big kiddo and I went off to Apollo's Chariot for his first ever B&M hyper experience (thanks, 52" height requirement!). We ended up waiting about 45 minutes for the front row, and by the time we pulled out of the station the sun had set and it was just dark enough for a bit of mystery. Long story short? He absolutely LOVED it and promptly declared it his new #1 favorite coaster. I promised him we'd come back during a slower season and marathon the crap out of it. Unfortunately by the time we caught up with the ladies, my three-year-old daughter was in the throes of a full-on toddler meltdown thanks to the heat, so we finished off the night by giving the kids a ride on their Lil Balloons, grabbing some glowy Sesame Street stuff from a souvenir stand, and heading back to the comfort of our air-conditioned car to watch the fireworks show from afar. In any case, lesson learned... probably don't visit on Labor Day weekend next year.

I'll be honest, this year my family and I haven't been visiting Six Flags parks as frequently as we have in the past, and I'm not even sure if we've gotten the value out of our 2018 dining passes. We're all still grandfathered in on the Gold Combo memberships at a lower price than the cheapest current offer, so I think we're going to let the dining passes expire at the end of this season, and then just continue to hang onto Gold Combo until they unceremoniously retire it at some point in the future (or cut the included benefits to a point where we'd need to pick up Gold Plus). I can't see myself shelling out the $340 or so for four deluxe dining passes for us if we only go a handful of times.

This guy down at BGW. That's my kid on the right, taking his first ride on a B&M hyper... looking like he's seen the face of god. He loved the ride, not so much the wait for the front row, but definitely wants to come back on a slow day and marathon it when there's no huge crowds like a Labor Day Sunday night. Wheeeee

For parts, naturally.

Yeah... I was contemplating heading out that way at the end of September for Phantom Fright Nights and for the kiddo to hit the 52" height rides they have, but honestly, we might as well just wait at this point until next season when Steel Curtain opens. No point in going if the two "new" coasters for him are going to be closed. Guess we'll have to figure out something else to hit up on Friday night before heading out towards Kings Island on Saturday.

I love the Giant Discoveries, so automatically it's a fantastic addition for me. Interesting to see that they're getting the Screampunk theming out there. I actually really like the Pandemonium logo done up in that style, I think it looks way better than the Pandemonium coasters' logos. Color theme is pretty nice too. More importantly, when the hell I am getting down to this park? I keep hearing and seeing nothing but good things about it (DDD's capacity notwithstanding), and frankly, it's been too damn long since I've been down Georgia way. I've got to put this on my must-do list for next year.

Having skipped out on Apocalypse last year when the kiddo and I visited, I was going to try to make it down to SFA tomorrow while in transit to Williamsburg, but y'know what... I don't really need to ride a standup THAT badly before it closes, especially not if they're going to be converting it to a floorless next year. I'll save myself the leg and crotch pain (gods know I've got enough of that already!). Looking forward to giving it a spin with the new trains and new name!

Damn, they are going all in on the Giant/Giga Discoveries this year. Not a bad thing! They're my favorite flats and I'd be happy if there was one of these at every park everywhere. An excellent addition to an already excellent park!

Feels very YOLO-esque to me -- and IMO, that's not a bad thing! I don't know when I'll get back to Gurnee but I'm definitely putting it back on my list with this one.

This looks really cool. I'm kind of interested to see how the whole "pit stop" element pans out. Are they going to load both trains at once and both run through the layout simultaneously? Or have one sitting in the pit stop until the other train gets loaded and ready to launch? If that's the case it sounds like there should never be a reason for missed duels like on TC. I can't wait to get back there next year, and hopefully by that point the kiddo will have grown enough to enjoy all of Magic Mountain's offerings!

I echo Boldikus' booty-shaking, twerktastic reaction. These giant Discoveries are my favorite flat rides, and I'm super happy to finally have one a little closer to home than at Kennywood and SFNE -- and the world's tallest, no less? AWESOME.

See, I was GOING to say that, but I didn't want to sound greedy. spoiler alert: yes i do

To be fair, in October, most of the rides there are walk-ons. When I was there last month in the middle of the week, I got three rides in a row on it during their Sweet Start early entry program. As soon as the gates opened to the GP, the station was packed and they were sending out full train after full train, with lines being approximately 30 minutes all day long according to the wait times on their app. Only Comet and Laff Track were longer, and that's due to their capacity issues.

That really looks like a gorgeous flume. A vast improvement over the Wild River they currently have over there. I have to assume that one's days are probably numbered. And my little guy loves ropes courses as well (even if he gets terrified at certain points and completely unable to move...) so that'll be a nice, fun addition as well! Definitely looking forward to this in the future!

The wild mouse at Morey's Piers / Surfside Pier, the Doo-Wopper. Not particularly noteworthy, but it happened to be at 10 PM on a Friday night, and as my kids and I climbed up the lift hill, the beach-front fireworks show started. Instant smiles on all of our faces, and a prime moment for all of us to feel some of that Wildwood magic.

We got a little bit of rattling in the back row, but absolutely none up front. In any case, it definitely wasn't enough to make it an unenjoyable experience for us, and behind Nor'easter down at Morey's, my second favorite SLC. I've done that once, and that was enough for me. It was terrifying on a completely different level, especially since the day I rode it like that, it was windy AF.