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Photo TR: Darien Lake


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Well, before I left Buffalo I decided I needed to use my "bring a friend free" ticket to Darien Lake, so I brought my friend Tony who I hadn't seen in a while. It was a hot day, and therefore everybody was in the water park. Everything was running one train except Superman, and everything had a minimal wait.

 

Superman was running a lot better than it had been in May, and we even got two rides on Predator. Yes, it was tolerable enough to ride TWICE (in a non-wheel seat!)

 

My biggest complaint about the park is how stupidly the water park is set up. It's in three separate sections - the area around Big Kahuna, Hook's Lagoon, and Barracuda Bay - and to get between the sections you have to walk on asphalt or across a bridge. NEVER AGAIN will I visit that water park without flip flops; my feet were scorched.

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Huge mobs of people here too.

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Now here's a ride I haven't ridden since 2001: Boomerang!

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They're rehabbing the red train. Someone needs to tell them to just stop wasting time and money retracking the ride and "fixing" the trains, and just throw the trains in the dumpster and start over ;)

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So pretty. This used to be a really good ride, about 15 years ago. ;)

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The ops didn't staple, and the ride was tolerable. Not good, a bit bumpy at times, but tolerable. I recommend riding towards the front of the train, in a non-wheel seat.

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Wow, just look at the mass of people waiting to ride.

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As you can see, we were VERY excited to ride.

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Then... it was time.

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When we were pretty much next in line to ride, they put the blue train on! I was dorkily excited to see how the transfer track worked.

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But this mechanic guy was here to save the day!

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When we got in line, the red train was stuck on the brake run.

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Thar she blows!

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We decided to hit Ride of Steel first, and on the way we saw Predator (which Tony renamed Death Sentence) running!

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There's the evil bridge of doom that connects the two main halves of the water park.

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The new park logo is quite ugly, in my opinion.

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Pretty fountain outside the park.

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One last stop before we go into the park - Hi Batman!

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Tony is amused.

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We stopped at the bank and noticed... Um... there's something wrong with this sign.

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Lift hill

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It takes longer to walk to the station than to ride the coaster!

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Dumbest queue ever!

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Yay corkscrews! Watch out for the tree!

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Um... hi Derek?

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Then over to Viper, which wasn't running very well

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Next we rode Twister, which was operating on 4-flip super awesome mode!

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Eww!

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The lake by Boomerang is disgusting!

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I was there on Jully 25th. And Almost everything you said was right. Actually this year was the first time I could only go on Predator (Death Sentence) once because it felt like I just got K.Oed on it. But I was more in the middle of the train.

 

But looks like you had a good day.

Thanks for the read

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You think 4 flips on Twister (Huss Top Spin) is super awesome? To me it's "meh". I've ridden programs where there's 6 flips in a row, and some rare instances, 7 flips! Overall, the total flips in the entire ride would come to 9-10 flips. I miss the pre-Six Flags Top Spins! I haven't been to a Strates shows for a while...

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So Darien Lake is going to have two inverted coasters? Or am I missing something?

 

Predator looks really nice in layout-form, it's too bad that it rides so awfully... awfully? Or would that be "awful"?

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You think 4 flips on Twister (Huss Top Spin) is super awesome? To me it's "meh". I've ridden programs where there's 6 flips in a row, and some rare instances, 7 flips! Overall, the total flips in the entire ride would come to 9-10 flips. I miss the pre-Six Flags Top Spins! I haven't been to a Strates shows for a while...

 

The last time I rode it, I only got 1 spin... so yeah, 4 spins IS awesome mode for that ride.

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More from the park

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We decided to ride the Haymaker, which is pretty much a paratrooper, before heading to the water park.

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This was not a good day to have a major water ride down!

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Time for some lunch... after paying $9 at SFNE for a slice of pizza and a drink, $6 seemed like a steal!

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Now this is the kind of line I like! Unfortunately, Mind Eraser was in standard SLC headbanging mode, so we only rode once.

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Next up: Mind Eraser. This ride was running pretty smooth earlier in the year, so I wasn't worried about riding

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Grizzly Run was the only ride with a significant line that day. I can understand why, as it was 90 degrees that day!

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Um... yeah.

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Unfortunately, it made both of us ready to vom!

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We decided to hit another old favorite, Ranger!

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Last update! This was the first trip I had to the water park since before Cascade Canyon was torn down. It would be a great water park if they would just build a path connecting all the sections, and not pave them with blacktop. It really hurt our feet to walk around there, we were like dancing on our toes to keep them from burning.

 

Tony took all these photos; he has a fancy waterproof camera!

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Last but not least, we made the trek over to Big Kahuna. It took us literally 10 minutes to find the entrance. I hate the layout of the water park! It was a long and fun slide though.

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So that's where all the park patrons have been hiding...

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So yeah, this is pretty much MY FAVORITE SLIDE EVER. It was awesome! We went really high up the sides too. If the line wasn't so bad we would have totally ridden again!

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OMG i couldn't believe how steep this was! It felt even steeper when we were on it!

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They have these really funky tubes... good thing they came with directions!!

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Now over to ride Tornado. I had never ridden this type of slide before.

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I like sitting in the shallow water. I LOVE wave pools!

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In the wave pool with Superman in the background! Does it get better than this?!

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I have no caption for this. I like playing in the kid's area, and going down the kiddy slide.

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I love getting dumped on by the bucket.

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It has a really cute play area

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Across the bridge of death to Hook's Lagoon

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Much to my surprise, we found that Floodgate Falls is still there! It's sort of a downhill lazy river. Cool, but you get stuck a lot.

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This slide structure is all that remains of the old Barracuda Bay. The dark slides are pretty fun.

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Which is the longest (in time):

A) Riding Viper

B) Walking through its always empty queue

C) Walking from the exit of Viper back to the entrance to the queue

 

I think it is C.

 

One real question...When I was last at DL it seemed to me that the back spike of Boomerang was higher than say, the Bat at Canada Wonderland. Are there different sizes of these or is it maybe just an illusion because you are up over water?

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Awesome trip report Nicole! Even if it was at Darien Lake. I really didn't like that place one bit, but I still need my Predator credit! And what the hell is going on with that queue for Viper? Have they forgetten that queue would have been necessary 25 years ago, but not today?

 

But all of that is really beside the point. You need to do more PTRs at waterparks, you're looking rather fine!

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i rode my first tornado slide a few weeks ago at Splish Splash here on LI. I was shocked at how steep it was too, freaked me out big time! i had the privilege of going the whole ride backwards.lol. i did notice that went you get to the bottom of the half-pipe area, it gets kinda brutal - you hit a rift of water that jolts you big time. was this one like this too?

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Great TR Nicole! I agree with you about the layout of SFDL's waterpark- I wish all of the water rides were connected better also. That Tornado ride looks really good- it wasn't there the last time I went (in 2003) but I've been on a similar one at Seabreeze that was really good.

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"Those who'd cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side they see!" I have often cursed the concrete expanses at Water Country USA (at least they hose them down from time to time).

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Great TR Nicole! I agree with you about the layout of SFDL's waterpark- I wish all of the water rides were connected better also. That Tornado ride looks really good- it wasn't there the last time I went (in 2003) but I've been on a similar one at Seabreeze that was really good.

 

The overall layout of the entire park is a bit odd- its a giant H

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I remember back when Viper's queue used to fill up and the wait was usually over an hour!

 

It hasn't been anywhere near that since they painted it Green, which is the year Superman opened on the other side of the park.

 

Nowadays, while IMO it's still better than 2/3 of the park's coasters, the only time you get a line is when it's really busy then you wait maybe 20 minutes.

 

They really should consider relocating the entrance maybe so it's closer to where the exit is. As it is now, it spits you out on the complete other side of the ride's structure, in a different section of the park.

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