abovethesink

I was at the park for the first time in years on June 1st. We stopped the day before to get my son (15 this summer) the three credits at Seabreeze. It was in the 50s and windy, so that place was empty, and we were in and out in less than an hour. The spinner was as I remembered it and the two wood structure coasters were crawling in the cold. Not ideal, but the next day looked better for Darien Lake. We were there at rope drop and headed to the back of the park like we always do. I apprehensively got in line with him to get his Mind Eraser credit first. We grabbed the front row and, with the new vest restraints, it wasn't too bad. It was no Great Nor'Easter, but it was better than the one they did the same thing on at SFA (RIP). Tantrum was closed and remained that way. I guess it has been down for a little while now. And of course it was as Tantrum is the only credit I don't have yet having grown up being taken to the park every summer. Oh well. We'll be back. Viper was next and it was the same old gem I fondly remembered. By modern standards, this old Arrow looper is of course pretty tame. It runs through its course smoothly though with surprisingly little headbanging. I still approve. Viper has always been and remains one of my favorite Arrows. Predator was up next and this was to be my first ride post-Titan track. Given that this was my absolute bottom coaster in any possible ranking with my last experiences with it, I still figured the non steel portions would be so horrible that it couldn't be redeemed. The ride was good though! The upgraded portions were smooth as silk and the layout got to shine, finally. The still wood sections were not as awful as I expected, either, though they were far from smooth too. Superman, er, Ride of Steel followed for my son's 250. We had absolutely awesome rides on the clone down by the capital this summer in 104 degree heat, so this slow running original on a day barely warmer than half that number was pretty disappointing. Still fun, but it hardly had anything left for the bunny hills at the end that always used to be so great. I chalk it up to the cold day. From there we walked over to Boomerang, which was a credit for him and I am not sure why I bothered to ride it to be honest. MotoCoaster capped the first rides. I remembered this one as having a punchy launch and then doing nothing. It indeed had a punchy launch, even stronger than I remembered, and I am happy to report that I remembered wrong. The swinging turns were taken at a good speed and I actually ended up liking this one a lot. From there, we walked back to take another peak on Tantrum, grabbing another good ride on Viper on the way. We ate lunch and then gave not-Superman another go to similar results. Finally, to cap the day, we decided to take a last ride on Predator. This was our best decision. We waited for the front car (which took forever for like six trains -- I am not going to whine any more than this, but operations were horrible all day) and the ride was a rush. I don't know if it sped up a little or if the front is just where the airtime is at, but my old wooden nemesis was hitting almost every hill exactly right. This was a GREAT ride and easily our best of the two park trip. I really look forward to visiting Predator again in the future and a younger me would be very confused by that statement. Final note: Predator was running the purple train that I had read appeared recently. Even though it was a weekend and wait times were growing, they did not ever put a second train on. Nor did Mind Eraser. This park may be viewing having a second train as having a backup in case the main train breaks. There doesn't seem to be much intent of actually putting two trains on the track at once.

Same for about 10 days later!

I've got the park penciled in for Sunday 6/2 if the weather doesn't look like a disaster. It has been a while, so I am looking forward to it. While La Ronde and Great Escape were closer, this was my "home park" every summer growing up because my parents liked to camp in the campground and I was the right age to be a coaster kid during the big SF investment. It has been over a decade since I have been back, however, even as I have roadtripped around the country multiple times and it is still only 5ish hours from me. Twice it has been x'd off our trips, once due to torrential rain all day and another due to illness. I still don't even have the Tantrum credit somehow.

Minebuster got serious Gravity Group love this offseason, didn't it? I am curious as to how it rides now when we are back in early August.

No, I do not have any inside information. It is a great question though. The answer would definitely shape their decision making.

Six Flags does not make the largescale type investments at its smaller parks to move and refurbish a monster like Superman. It would be pretty similar to just building a new hyper in all likelihood in terms of cost and we know they aren't going to do that at parks like Great Escape or Michigan's Adventure. And not that it matters since they wouldn't do it either way, but it would also be worse than building a new one too.

I think this deserves its own place of discussion. We have two parks on the way out, as we all know. California's Great America and Six Flags America. The connective tissue between the two closures is quite clearly and openly the huge value of the land they sit on. That's got to be the starting point on any speculation of any future potential closures. It doesn't have to be the only talking point. It doesn't have to be the only reason Six Flags could close or sell a property. Being on super valuable land also doesn't mean a park will close. But I am definitely curious. Which other parks are on land as valuable as SFA and CGA? Are there any others they might be looking at the value of selling/developing the land for other uses versus the profits of running the current park?

It is hard to come up with a reason as to why Six Flags would be interested in purchasing Darien Lake when they are otherwise openly looking to downsize their portfolio. It is also just as hard to imagine a large company that is saying "hey, we want to have less" viewing the sort of management contract they have with Darien Lake as something positive too. Obviously I don't know for sure, but I'd say all signs point to them getting out of the deal at the first point it makes sense and Darien Lake losing the Six Flags name once again. But still, regarding the trains that Six Flags America literally just bought, where else could they even go? SFNE? They'd have to be modified to make Massachusetts happy, but I guess it is possible. Anyone know how old those trains are? I am not sure there is a single other competitor for them. Could they be ran on any other Intamin hyper?

If SF does continue managing SFDL, they just bought new trains for Superman at SFA literally this year. Those trains feel like a lock to go to SFDL. Even if Six Flags pulls out, the market for those is pretty small and they need to sell them somewhere. Darien Lake could still end up with them. Honestly, it feels likely no matter what unless Darien Lake straight up closes.

I would love to be wrong, but I think there is a 0% chance anything other than the spinning mouse gets relocated for the coasters. Anything else would be a really big project and not move the needle much at all for whoever does it. What a bummer to see any park close though. Sad day. The only hope left is probably local government causing a stink, but it is hard to see this one surviving with the underlying value of the land in that area being so high. I am real glad we got down there last year. Not a great park, but any place that is open has potential and it did seem like they were slowly moving in the right direction. What a shame.

14 million plus people travel to within a couple miles of the entrance gates annually. A population to pull in from is not the problem no matter what it looks like. You can sit here and list dozens and dozens of parks that live and many that thrive on much, much less.

It is a purchase that makes a lot of sense. It goes without saying that this is prime potential real estate for a majorly successful park if there was a company in position to eat the massive upfront costs of building a desirable one. It would be a strange time economically in the world to do so, but ignoring that, if someone were to do so, the reasons SeaWorld makes a ton of sense are swimming around in the open. They wouldn't even have to try to salvage the even more awful than their own reputaiton of this place as a home for animals, either. As questionable as SeaWorld's own habits and faciliies continue to be, there are levels to being bad at something. If they shipped the wildlife off to their own parks, it would be an upgrade for the wildlife. Then this is a wide open canvas for Busch Gardens Niagara Falls. Hell, I think the acreage of MarineLand is close to 3x Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Over time, if successful, this plot of land is literally big enough to be an Aquatica, a Sesame Place, and a full size Busch Gardens. Obviously that is dreaming EXTREMELY big, but they are within eyesight of Niagara Falls. A top ten most visited spot on the entire globe. The potential here is legitimately off the charts. It would just be so expensive to get started at any real scale. But they could just start with a Sesame Place and see how it does, or anything like that.

I am an accountant in the hospitality industry. From my experience, I would expect something like this to be an effort to increase likely sad occupancy numbers on Monday/Tuesday. Pay for Friday and Saturday, which is probably common, and get two more days for the half the cost of the already lower Monday rate? People will take the deal. Most of their customers are not hardened theme park vets that have a solid understanding of how much there is to do at the park. It makes sense to use the beds as a loss leader to drive further revenue in the park to offset it. Food, drinks, souvenirs, etc.

Yeah but then I can't add them to my spreadsheet and see my nerd count tick up. Did you think of my nerd count?

Six Flags buying Darien Lake feels like a pipe dream at this point. I expect them to end the lease to even operate the park as soon as possible, whether there is an exit clause or they need to wait for it to expire. This is entirely speculative, of course, but I just have a hard time seeing this weird operating set up as something Six Flags wants to spend time on when they have all these parks they need to operate now. Plus, they have already making it clear they are looking to downsize on some level.