coneyislandchris

^ I was there on Saturday as well -- got there right at opening, and as such, had next to no wait on Phantom and Exterminator. As the day went on, the crowds definitely filled in and caused lines to back up. It wasn't until the kid and I got over to Racer that we experienced the wait becoming crushing, and since he's an almost-5-year-old that doesn't handle long lines all that well, we ended up heading over to pick up some of their per-ride fast passes. When we used them and got into the station for Racer, I was astonished to see that there was ONE single person checking seatbelts and bars on BOTH trains. No wonder it was ridiculously slow over there. Meanwhile, when we went back to Phantom later in the day, they had actually put a second train on and had checkers on both sides of the platform. All that being said, we had a great time at the park for the kiddo's first visit. He's also addicted to Screamin' Swings now. Can't blame him -- those things are awesome.

Definitely seems as if Six Flags is playing it very safe this year, sticking with established and tested properties and installations. I don't think this is a bad thing at all, and I'm quite looking forward to finally getting a chance to ride Justice League with my family in the 2017 season!

PERSISTENCE! \o/ I'm not sure my wife is going to be too happy with that "big sloppy kiss"...

I am legitimately surprised you haven't changed your location to Wildwood yet.

Ughhhhh. So jealous of you two. Out of the five or so times I've entered always the same old story... the story of my life.

It's amazing how many "new" posters keep showing up in this thread for the briefest amounts of time.

Why can't there be an "Uber" for beer? Oh, there can be. Unfortunately, just not everywhere (as it appears St. Louis, MO is not served by them).

Not going to lie -- he's been wanting to ride MS ever since he saw the POV, since he absolutely loves wooden coasters (I think having Phoenix & Twister as his first two big boy coasters helped in that regard). Thanks to its impending permanent closure, it took a lot of wheeling and dealing with the wife on my part to be able to take him out there in advance of its shutdown. Plus I never got to ride it during my previous visit either, so that's an (arguable) added bonus for me. I think I'm leaning more towards Sunday since it will make the drive back home on Monday a tiny bit easier, and if there's no difference in the operating hours, I'll need every little bit of sanity I can muster.

I am, and about to renew. Only one I could take advantage of there is MF, since the kiddo is just over the 48" mark, so I'm not super concerned about that -- but good to know regardless. See you at Mean Streak, then!

So it looks like my son and I are going to be doing a Kennywood, KI & CP run over the Labor Day weekend. We're going to be hitting Kennywood on Friday as our first stop, but I can't decide whether to do CP on Saturday and KI on Sunday, or vice versa. I've already mentally prepared to drop the cash on Fast Lane at both parks, but what do you guys suggest?

^ Jesus. How moronic do you have to be? It's one thing to attempt to steal something small and concealable, but you're literally walking around the park with a gigantic stuffed dog. I can't find the proper facepalming GIF to accurately express my emotion on this. Help me out, Boldy, will ya?

Shooting for a three-park road trip with my son over the long Labor Day weekend. It'll be his first time at Kennywood, Kings Island, and Cedar Point!

I caught up on 30+ pages in that thread in one sitting, and I could feel the IQ points simply melting away. For your own sanity, don't even bother.

Hey, congratulations on the job! Back on topic: Dorney's Wild Mouse a couple of weekends ago. Gearing up for a road trip with my son over the extended Labor Day weekend, so that's gonna have to tide me over until September.

Man, that's some really unfortunate bad luck. Hope it's back up and running in short order.

The past thirty or so pages of this thread have given me an unyielding headache. Speaking as a father of a four-year-old who's tall enough to ride coasters with a 48" requirement, I'm very curious to see the workings of their "Pre-K Pass". Perhaps I can convince the whole family to go on a Virginia road trip next year. Needless to say, I won't be joining Max's boycott.

I did KD from NYC and back in one day, and by the end of the day, I just wanted to keel over from exhaustion. BGW... yeah, no thanks.

You're hurting my soul with this WHAT IF alternate timeline. Every single time we went over those trims a little bit of me died inside.

Air-conditioned teacups in the dark. It was the best. RIP.

Thanks for posting those photos. Very interesting to see that so few of those rides or attractions from that brochure are actually still around these days. If that carousel is the same one near the new main entrance, it's a shame what condition they've let it fall into. It's literally one of the most beat up carousels that I've seen in the area. I remember both of Dorney's bumper cars from my childhood. The Skooters were located inside the middle of the coaster, weren't they? And the Disco Dodge was a hovercraft style one. Though, actually, SFGA does have bumper cars once again; they opened a new Fender Benders back in 2012 after being gone for several years. Would be nice if Dorney could do the same.

Was at the park on Saturday with my son for a brief stretch. We hit all four of the coasters he was able to ride (so no inverts or Hydra), and he managed to get on his third mine train -- I mean, his first hypercoaster! Steel Force is definitely a good intro to hypers for him since it's one of the tamer ones out there. He absolutely loved it, especially the helix and the bunny hops near the end. Biggest surprise of the day was the relaxed reride policy; we rode Thunderhawk three times in a row. (Of course, it helped that there was no one else in the station when we got back each time, so...) Other than the coasters, we hit up a bunch of the flat rides. I do have to say, Dorney's collection of flats is pretty decent. Lots of the ones I remember from when I was a kid and are very youngster-friendly. I'm especially glad to see that the Zephyr train is still up and running as it's a very nice change of pace from everything else there. All in all, we were there for just a little over three hours before visiting family, and got in just about everything we wanted to do. Considering we're making the trip to PA on a more regular basis these days, I have a strong suspicion we'll be back soon.

Couldn't agree with this more. What a horrible, unbelievable tragedy; as the father of a young boy I've been shaken and sickened by this news, and my heart and sympathy goes out to the family of the deceased.

Jumping queue rails and telling people that your "friends are up there"? You savage... So THAT'S what he means by "VIP Tour"!

Uuuuuuunless the May weekday you plan for ends up being a Physics Day and the crowds become completely unmanageable. I get where you're coming from -- yes, FL+ is definitely price gouging -- BUT... if you visit on a day with crowds, expected or unexpected, AND you don't anticipate being able to make it back any time in the near future, then by all means, do what you have to. When I visited mid-May on a Monday as the last day of a four day trip, the crowds were the worst out of any park I visited simply due to the aforementioned Physics Day unexpectedness. I'd much rather drop the extra $80 on a single FL+ instead of waiting in 1-3 hour lines and getting a total of five rides in.

When I took my son down to Morey's last year, he really wanted to go on Dante. I'm like "you sure?!" -- "YES Daddy, I need to ride!". Okay... and we go through, and although it's not as terrifying as I remember from back in the 80's, it's still got more than enough scary and disgusting stuff in it. We get out and I ask him "do you want to ride again?"... "Nooooo, Daddy. No more rides..." Shared childhood trauma for the (arguable) win.