abovethesink

I mean that is why it is being closed. Hardly a shock.

My son and I took our first visit to Carowinds last Sunday and Monday. The temperature hit 98-100 both days and I was really anticipating having a problem with that, but honestly we didn't, at least not in the way I expected, Here is how it went for us: Sunday - 8/29/21 Presented in the order we experienced them... Nighthawk - We hit this one immediately after rope drop because of having read about its capacity issues. I was expected it to be terribly uncomfortable and didn't expect getting placed in the back row to help all that much. I was very wrong. This is a good ride! I don't get the hate at all. Intimidator - All B&M hypers are very good in my book and this one is no exception, but I would place it pretty low on my rankings of B&M hypers. The trims were pretty ridiculous. Why does it kill off so much of its own speed on purpose? Still an excellent ride though. Harmony Hall - One of our party members wasn't feeling well so we dipped into the AC of Harmony Hall and had lunch. I had a Turkey Burger, which was fine I guess. Nothing special, not terrible. Nice space though and there was live music. Woodstock Express - Charming little family woodie. I did have a weird experience though. I did not fit in the front seat (5'9" 230 lbs) due to the seatbelt, but the seat behind it clearly had an absurdly longer seatbelt so I hopped back to it and was fine by a wide margin. Kinda strange. Afterburn - This is a high quality and intense B&M invert. Very good ride that lived up to its reputation. At this point unfortunately our party member not feeling well was pretty much out of commission. We decided to go grab a ride on Fury so his girlfriend could ride it with us before taking them back to where we were staying. Accordingly, we turned around in that direction. Fury 325 x2 - AMAZING!!! This is now in my elite tier of coasters with El Toro, Voyage, Wicked Cyclone, and Phoenix. These rides were incredible. Powerful, great and interesting airtime, fun twisty sections, incredible first drop that goes forever... It is near perfect. We loved it so much that we hopped back into the relatively short line to grab a second ride before taking the couple out of the park. We were out and back pretty quick, maybe 40 minutes tops. At this point we were down to just me and my 11 year old son and we decided to continue down the direction Fury is in. Vortex - Uh. Not good. Not good at all. I can somewhat tolerate a standup and don't absolutely hate say Green Lantern at Great Adventure, so I thought this little guy would be fine. It isn't. It brings all of the discomfort of a standup without any elements worth experiencing. This is the worst ride in the park. Ricochet - This was a wild mouse. Nothing really notable about it. I did find the swinging turns slightly more painful than I have on other versions, but it was probably just running a little faster due to the heat. This would become a theme in time. Carolina Cyclone - This area of the park needs some help. Prepare for headbanging. Get your credit and get out ASAP. Hurler - Why? This is kind of low key a hilarious ride. It tracks so poorly that it should be extremely rough and painful, but it doesn't actually do anything so it never actually gets rough and painful. That was a lot of pointless meandering. Strange ride. Carolina Goldrusher - This is a nice family coaster for kids stepping up, I guess. It was just a credit for us. Flying Cobras - I was dreading this until we got in line and saw the vest restraints. It doesn't run as well as say the one at Hershey, but it is still night and day thanks to the restraint improvement. They should really all have these. Copperhead Strike - Wow. This is not what I expected. I swear I have read that this is not a super intense ride, but it very much was during our visits. I think that running all day in nearly or exactly 100 degree temperatures had this thing FLYING. I did not get the consistent hangtime I see described and in videos. We FLEW through the inversions and had massive airtimes and extremely whippy turns. Great ride. Kiddy Hawk - Thanks to RCDB we realized this was the only non-kiddie credit missing so we snagged a ride on it. I positioned by hands to stop the headbanging and it turns out there isn't anything else to these family rides! We just wandered around the course for a bit and that was that. Probably a nice ride for kids if they can tolerate the head banging. Harmony Hall 2 - This time I had a turkey leg. Or I tried to, anyway. It was too difficult and messy to eat in that setting so I only had some of it. The mac and cheese I got with it was good at least. Again, this is a nice space, had live music again, and the AC was wonderful on the hot days. Fury 3 - With the park about to close, we darted to our third and final Fury ride of the trip. I gotta say... This was much worse. Still a great ride, but my god was this thing going significantly faster than it was on our early midday rides. We went through the elements so unbelievably fast that it was all sort of a blur and just felt like a little too much instead of perfect. This was probably due to the heat not only in terms of the trains moving faster on the track, but also had me exhausted at the end of the day in it. Monday, 8/30/21 I definitely was not looking forward to this "Bonus Day" and probably would not have gone if my 11 year old would have been fine with laying around all day. But he wasn't, so off we went... Copperhead Strike x6 - We decided to rope drop Copperhead Strike right and noon and that was a good decision. There was nobody back there but us and a couple other people. We would hit the station, get on, go through a cycle, and then be sent around a second time without getting out of the seat. They would only let you ride twice in a row though, so we had to circle back around twice which wasn't a big deal. Our first two rides we slower and more hangtime filled, but the last four were more like the one from Sunday. I like this ride a lot. Flyers - I didn't ride, but my son did and there was a guy snapping the cables nonstop. That was fun to watch. The ride op didn't care. Giant Swings - Not gonna look up what these were called, but they provided a nice view of the park. My kid has been strangely afraid of these even though he will ride any rollercoaster, so it was fun to finally get on one. I had to agree to ride the boomerang during the day to get him on though. Observation Tower - We put our mask on to get photos of the park from the tower. The glass was a little dirty, but it was worth the trip up for the views while being able to take photos. Harmony Hall - I had the Turkey Burger again. This time we missed the live music as they were finishing their last song of the set as we walked in. Intimidator x2 - Intimidator had a minimal line so we hit it twice in a row. It seemed to be trying to run faster than the day before, but that just meant the trims hit even harder to get it down to the speed they want it at. I want to stress that this really still is a great ride though. Night Hawk - Gotta say... This was less good this time. Still loved that first ride, but that was at rope drop and this one was after it had time to really warm up in the heat. It was run much faster and more aggressively and I got thrown around more uncomfortably. I was also in an outside seat instead of an inside seat, so maybe they contributed too. I still liked it though, just not as much. Flying Cobras - I owed the boomerang so we backtracked to it. It is what it is. Intimidator x2 - Again we got two rides on Intimidator, back and front. Again they were fun. I was pretty much tapped out at coasters at this point, so I relaxed outside on a bench after these rides and let my kid cycle a couple more by himself. He got 3 or 4. There were station waits only. All in all, I ended up enjoying the Bonus Day a lot actually. Seems like it is so bad on paper that no one bothered showing up and we got to ride Intimidator and Copperhead Strike as much as we wanted. Can't complain about that. Other Thoughts Just a couple quick things: It was nice being in a Cedar Fair park. Living in the northeast, we don't get that opportunity often and end up at Six Flags all the time. Everything was open and running two trains that could. Fury was running three on Sunday. The food lines were short. There was a lot of shade and the park was clean. In multiple stations ride ops kept talking about their throughput stats which was really awesome to hear. In Copperhead and Intimidator especially, they were clearly trying to run trains as fast as they could. That was really cool. One negative though: PUT BINS ON FURY and CS. Why the hell are people made to hold on to potentially dangerous loose articles on the most aggressive rides in the park? Are they trying to get someone hurt? I mean obviously on paper they are going for increased throughput, but I don't know how much of that is realized because of rider confusion about the policy anyway. On top of that, it is dangerous! It also feels like a likely money grab, but we just left our drinks by the exit in the shade so I never checked if the lockers cost money. They were always there when we came back. I used my zipper and button pockets to hold everything else which was a little uncomfortable but tolerable.

I watched a guy snapping pretty much nonstop during the short ride at Carowinds while my son was riding. It was pretty fun to watch and the ride op did not care one bit.

Do we know why this park seems to operate so differently than the rest of the chain? It just feels like they have a lot more freedom to be individual. Is it just Six Flags giving them more money because of the rapidly growing San Antonio market or is there more to it than that?

Forcing people onto memberships is pretty annoying. This is too common now. It is just plain manipulative as it relies on the fact that many people just won't ever think to cancel a small recurring charge and the company will get free money. Six Flags is pretty late to the game on this, which is the best thing that I can say about the practice as someone who manages money for a living and sees this stuff constantly. There is a reason they don't let you prepay X months in advance and have the membership automatically terminate at the end.

Haha this thread was made for you. I'm sorry you had that experience at Holiday World though. I rode Voyage for the first time last summer after all the extensive retracking it had and it was absolutely incredible. What an amazing ride. Easily top 5 for me (though I am barely over 150 overall for reference). I also enjoyed Raven, but share your hate for Legend. I just don't really get laterals. They aren't fun for me. Anyway, as for the topic at hand, I don't have an answer. I would go back to any park I have been to. If I tried to pick the park that I have been to that I would be least likely to return to, I guess it would be Canobie Lake? Yankee Cannonball was pretty good, but the other two coasters were bad. While the park was adorable and I loved the atmosphere, there isn't enough there for me in particular to go back to given that it is just far enough out of the way to be a difficult day trip and equally difficult to pair with any other parks. But even then, I could swing by on the way too and from Maine again someday. And I would gladly go back if they added something new in the coaster department.

I would think it is safe to assume that all the retracking doesn't bode well for the GCI Titan track plan ever happening. I guess they could be doing areas that just plain had to be done to run it this year or areas that were never planned for the Titan track anyway, but that plan feels more and more like a pandemic casualty as time goes on to me.

Obviously Six Flags has no interest in investing rollercoaster money into The Great Escape, they've made that abundantly clear, but I do think they might face a sort of reckoning with needing to do something in the next decade. We are consistently losing old Arrows for a reason. Do we think Steamin' Deamon is still going to be there at the park entrance in 2031? I'd be downright shocked if it was. I am also skeptical that Alpine Bobsled can survive a decade too and the above discussion only reinforces that. I would full expect them to just close up the bobsleds like they've never existed and do nothing to fill that void, but that spot visible from the road is going to need to be filled with something eye catching. It doesn't have to be a rollercoaster, and if it is one it will probably be a mediocre to bad relocation from a bigger Six Flags, but that is the one point in time where I do think it is potentially possible for the park to get a coaster. I'm not even saying likely, just actually possible.

It is really not a good ride, but I feel lucky I at least got the credit last year if it does go away. It'd be a real shame if the plot was "wasted" (entitled coaster nerd alert!) on waterpark expansions on top of that versus a new coaster, but I am sure they know best what will drive the highest ROI.

It would be pretty funny if they ripped of the Dragon Slayer killing the Dragon marketing campaign from Adventureland and kept teasing a Joker beats Batman reveal that eventually led to a Freespin.

One thing I don't think anyone mentioned is considering the psychology of the crowds when its rope drop time and a park opens. Most people are generally going to ride/experience attractions as they see them. This means that the rides at the front of the park get long lines right away and the rides at the back of the park get long lines later in the day when the crowds work their way back there one ride at a time. Now your particularly circumstances (ex. having flash pass/fast lane) or park circumstances (brand new ride in the back of the park might cause crowds to rush there first instead, unreliable ride might be worth going directly to to make sure you get a ride, etc) can change this, but it is a good and reliable rule of thumb overall.

Not saying you did draw some grand conclusion from it, but it is a time tested human mistake to try to draw conclusions from someone's body language when under duress. People are basically a random button when it comes to how they react. Some people will always appear calm no matter what they are feeling. Some people will actually feel calm even when that seems crazy to us. Some people will appear acting wild when they feel calm and some people have anxiety all the time over what other people would consider nothing. You can't get anything reliable from it.

Yes, been that way for at least a few days now.

There was no visible activity on El Toro when we were in the park the last two days. Also, I got my first two rides on Jersey Devil. And since I am a northeasterner, my first ride on a raptor too. I was really disappointed with my first ride. It just felt really cheap with the hard plastic seats, clanky lift hill, and surprisingly present rattle (completely inoffensive and harmless rattle, just added to the cheap feel). It also didn't seem to do a whole lot on a high level and its ridiculous definition of "loose articles" was frustrating too. But then I thankfully grabbed a second ride and wow, I loved it. Funny the difference what was probably only a few MPH can make on a ride. The elements just hit a lot harder all around and it quickly became my third favorite ride at the park, behind El Toro and Nitro, shooting past Kingda Ka even though I got my best ride ever on Ka while at the park too. I was also in the second seat from the front instead of the second seat in the back, so it could also just be a front of the train ride, but I don't think that was it. I think it just warmed up later in the day, or maybe I just made peace with the stuff I didn't like and was able to enjoy the layout the second time.

Wow, this is a really nice addition for SFFT. I also think B&M might really be on to something here with this "budget" (for them) dive coasters that run about 2,500 feet of track and stand about 150 ft tall. Emperor at SWSD is basically the same thing. Obviously that's still a really big buy for a midsized park or a park in the Six Flags chain, but it does open up the possibility. That B&M door had basically been closed to anyone but big spenders for a long time now.

Fuck it, maybe it is going up at Fun Spot Atlanta too. They will be the next Energylandia!

Did Dollywood get ruled out here at some point?

My son and I are also heading down there for the first time at the very end of August. We will be in the park on Sunday the 29th and Monday the 30th. I am hoping the lines will be pretty reasonable on that Monday at least!

Wow, some of what is being alleged is really, really bad for the park. As bad as it gets, basically. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2021/07/09/adventureland-park-fatal-accident-2021-raging-river-ride-11-year-old-drowned-michael-jaramillo-david/7912842002/ Summary: The emergency access gate was chained, so first responders struggled to get in. When the ambulance did get in, they were furthered barred by stored fireworks. Bystanders called 911, not the park. Park security was not immediately notified. Employees did not use the emergency release valve to rapidly drain the ride. Employees watched and did not act during the emergency. A sixteen year old boy remains on life support as well, though there does seem to be some hope for a recovery there thankfuly. This very well could be a lawsuit on the level that pushes out ownership if this level of negligence can be demonstrated in court.

I rode it Memorial Weekend for the first time in a number of years and I was surprised by how it wasn't particularly rough. It jackhammered a bit in spots, but I was expecting much worse based on memory and reputation. With that said though, roughness is only one of its two sins. The other is that it is just... bad. I felt pretty much nothing on the ride. I don't know why anyone would get back on.

"The cart did not derail." - Six Flags "What happened then?" - World "The rear wheels came up off the track." - Six Flags "So, they derailed?" - World "No." - Six Flags

I had a pair of outstanding rides on Kraken toward the end of 2019. It was running perfectly. I also had two rides on Mako the same day. The first was slow and disappointing and the second was better but still weaker than I expected, especially for a warm, busy day. I wish I got the kind of ride on it that most people seem to get. I got back seat both times too which has always been the go to for B&M or really any hypers. EDIT: It was 2019, not 18.

Hey, they could make a really, really awkward attempt at Juneteenth now too... For real though, I like the idea of a Gravity Group family woodie next. It would fit in really well. Their next coaster should be a family coaster regardless of what it is. That's the biggest hole in their lineup right now.

We went to Hershey Park for Memorial Weekend on Saturday 5/29 and Sunday 5/30. We also visited Chocolate World Friday, 5/29. Expecting big crowds we bought Fast Track Unlimited passes for Saturday, but we probably could have gotten by just the same without them due to the cold, rainy weather. Oh well, couldn’t have predicted high 40s, low 50s in the last days of May in PA. It was my first trip back since Fahrenheit opened. Here are my thoughts on the experience, we will start with the non-coaster stuff: Food - This was a pretty big let down overall as we got some pretty terrible stuff, including desserts, in a park where we were expecting there to be some decent options. A rock hard funnel cake my wife bought was a particular lowlight. The rest was just okay, including those beautiful looking king sized milk shakes. The monkey bread was great though, for as long as I could tolerate the sweetness anyway. Reese’s Cupfusion - I might have butchered that name, but I am talking about the shooter. We rode it a few times Saturday to warm up and it was fun, if not a little inessential. General Park Condition - The park was in nice shape aesthetically. I also didn’t find it particularly hilly or difficult to navigate, but I read those complaints a few times before the visit so your mileage might vary. Zoo America - I really, really enjoyed this little zoo focusing on North American animals. I could easily have watched the animals for hours. To me it is much more interesting to see wildlife from my region of the world than the same exotic big animals in every zoo, but I might be alone on this one. Again, it is small, but if I had it my way and was alone I could have spent half a day there easily. Waterpark - This was supposed to open, but never did because of the cold weather. That call was a no brainer. It would have sat just as empty open. Chocolate World - Everyone should swing by to check out the store and ride the free tour, but otherwise there isn’t much interesting here other than some overpriced upcharge attractions. We did the 4D movie, which might have been worth it, and the Reese’s Unleashed tasting, which 100% was basically flushing money down the toilet. It was bad. Operations/Dispatch Times - I want to get this out of the way here so I don’t have to repeat it too many times. They were terrible across the board. Candymonium in particular with its ultra simple belt and clamshell restraints shouldn’t be taking 3-4 minutes per each train. I have no idea what was going on as the coasters all appeared fully staffed, surprisingly. It didn’t really hurt the weekend too much, but they did hold us up quite a bit. Hopefully the staff just needs to be broken in and it picks up through the summer. Now, the coasters, alphabetically: Candymonium - This thing was running amazingly well. The floater was ridiculous in the backseat, especially over the first hill where it was consistently the most sustained floater I have ever experienced when we were in the backseat. We got five rides on this and absolutely loved it. It was also a nice credit #150 for me. My only complaint would be that our first ride spoiled me on the wave turn as the trims hit too hard on the rest of our rides to get the awesome pop I got there on the first ride. Otherwise, it was B&M hyper heaven. Well, that and the operations. They put three trains on the track, but I don’t know why. It always ended up with two trains stacked and waiting for a couple minutes to get into the station. One train would have had the same capacity. Comet - Poor old Comet doesn’t like the cold and was the big loser of the weekend for me relative to my expectations. I suspect this is still a great old ride and I remember loving it before, but it was just too slow to get any of the airtime that all those hills should have provided. It just didn't do anything at all on my ride this weekend. I chalk it up to the cold. Fahrenheit - I don’t think Fahrenheit is aging well as it had a pretty intense rattle, but it was far from killing the ride. I really wish more of these were built. You can’t beat the vertical lift hill and beyond vertical drop, plus Intamin did the rest of the layout much better than any of the Eurofighters I have been on with similar starts. Very good ride. Great Bear - I forgot how much of a weirdo, B&M invert Great Bear was with how they had to shoehorn it into an odd plot of land. This is an excellent ride with its intense, wippy transitions. If you ride towards the back you have no chance to see what is coming either which adds to the out of control feeling. Montu remains the king of the inverts I have experienced, but Great Bear is pretty comparable. Laff Trakk - This little gem was an unexpected show stealer. We got two rides and this goes to show how well you can dress up a standard model if the park wants to. What a fun, delightful experience from the queue to the ride itself. Our spinning was beyond out of control on the first ride, which my wife and kid loved but I did not. On subsequent rides we balanced our weight in the car and that fixed that, for me anyway. Don’t skip Laff Trakk. Lightning Racer - Closed all weekend. It tested Saturday, but never opened. There was a couple behind me in the Wildcat line talking about how it was because one of the sides kept overshooting the station and they were trying to fix that, but I have no idea if that was true. Sidewinder - As president of my own imagination, I hereby demand, by executive order, that every Vekoma Boomerang must immediately be closed until the time comes where they can be retrofitted with the vest restraints. Then, and only then, can they reopen. Sidewinder was the first time I enjoyed a boomerang since I was a kid. What a difference those restraints make. Night and day. Sky Rush - This was a tale of two rides for me. I wish I got a third, but I wasn’t able to with everything we had to fit into two days as it was a lower priority for the rest of my group. Skyrush only having one train to run didn’t help. I assumed the other train is broken because even the minor coasters ran two trains otherwise. The first ride I had was very janky and painful. The rattle was the worst I have experienced on a steel coaster and the first that ever bothered me at all. The crazy ejector was also painful on the legs due to the poor restraints. Yet, I still loved it. What an amazing layout. The experience overall reminded me of an even more exaggerated Superman from SFNE as that ride is also awesome but bothers my legs, but Skyrush was even better and bothered my legs even more. Then I got my second ride. No rattle, no pain in the legs from the airtime. I don’t know what changed, must have been my seat, but it went from a top 25 ride to me to easily a top 10 with that second ride. A rush indeed. It is worth noting that my thighs did not get crushed on either ride. The pain on the first ride came from flying up into them and I had room to do that the whole way. Sooperdooperlooper - What an underrated relic. That drop into the loop is just awesome and the loop is even better. Then it meanders around as if it regrets doing its trick too early and now has no idea what to do, which is pretty funny to experience through a modern coaster nerd perspective. I hope it is around for a long, long time. Storm Runner - As expected, closed all weekend with no sign of life. They are not in a hurry to bring Storm Runner back, unfortunately. Trailblazer - This is what it is. It is a short, family mine train with an okay helix finale. It must be a great step up for young kids. Wild Mouse - This also is what it is, but I enjoy these rides. This one was a bit painful on the sides ripping around those turns but it was good fun anyway. I don’t think anyone here needs me to describe a wild mouse for them otherwise. Wildcat - I went into this with such ultra low expectations from both my memories and its reputation that it turned out sort of fine. I mean it is a bad ride, don’t get me wrong. It is rough, especially in its last section, and the layout isn’t interesting anyway, but I was expecting Predator at SFDL levels bad and it wasn’t there at least. So, that’s something. All in all it was a very good weekend at Hershey Park, even if it wasn’t perfect. Hershey is just plain a good place to be if you love rollercoasters. Everyone should visit.

Also, from a meta-coaster nerd perspective, I really always enjoyed Le Monstre. It never did enough to get rough enough to be a real problem and the way it just sort of pointlessly meander that massive structure was always really funny to me. Le Monstre is my "movie that is so bad that I love watching it" coaster.