Photo TR: Darien Lake 9/22/07

[sscamatt]

Was headed to Buffalo to pick up a friend and then go to Canada so we stopped at Darien Lake on the way. We arrived at 3pm and spent about 2 hours at the park. The park is having a special called "Fall Family Fun Fest" where there is free admission, rides can be ridden with individual tickets and you can get a POP wristband for $15. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. The has free family activities including a hay maze, pumpkin patch, and a small haunted house. Parking was $7 and my Six Flags season pass allowed me to get a POP wristband.

 

I like the park's logo:

 

First up was Predator. The ride was running very poorly. It has a very loud squeak for the entire ride and felt like the wheels weren't even spinning. The ride itself isn't that rough but it seems like some major work is needed.

 

 

 

Next up was Superman....I mean "Ride of Steel". All the GP at the park still calls it Superman, it will take a while for the name to go away. Compared to SFNE's, obviously the layout isn't as good, but this one seems to be running a lot smoother than SFNE's. There isn't that whole ride "rattle" effect.

 

 

 

They had an interesting way of removing the Superman from the exit gate:

 

Signs were placed at each ride with the amount of tickets needed for that ride. Tickets were sold at any gift shop location:

 

5 gallon water jugs were used for the employees to put tickets in. They also doubled as a sweet drum for the employee taking tickets:

 

Next up was the Boomerang. Pretty much the standard here:

 

 

Little did I know you could make a whole queue line with these awful things!

 

Seems they are getting rid of the Vekoma railings and putting in a nice wooden one with spindles.

 

Viper was next. Nothing special here. The loops and corkscrew were very smooth, but the transitions between them weren't.

 

 

SLC was next. Standard headbanging included:

 

Some other pics from the day:

 

 

 

On a side note, while leaving the park, I was offered a hand stamp. Why would I need a hand stamp if there is free admission and/or I have a wristband?

 

Overall, the park was enjoyable. It was clean and the the employees were very safe. Efficiency was a little lacking, but its the end of the season so it's somewhat expected.

 

Ride Count:

Ride of Steel: 2

Predator: 1

Viper: 1

Boomerang: 1

Mind Eraser: 1

[Axman]

Wow.

 

Looks like you had a sub-par time!

 

It seems so strange that they would swich from admission to a ticket system. The park seems to big for that.

[sscamatt]

Wow.

 

Looks like you had a sub-par time!

 

It seems so strange that they would swich from admission to a ticket system. The park seems to big for that.

 

I definitely had a good time. It's always a lot easier to find the bad things about a park than the good ones. I try to be critical in my TR's as having a good time is given at an AMUSEment park.

[Primogen18]

That is pretty funny they offered you a stamp... that doesn't make any sense lol. I think they should just change Ride Of Steel, sounds pretty cheesy, I guess it's simple but, eh, ah well, itll always be "the other superman ride of steel". They even say "soar like a man of steel" on the description at their website... *A*man of steel?! what other "man of steel" is there? Also check out the Viper video, which is of Viper at SFMM lol....

still looks like a nice park though.

[Tanks4me05]

For everyone's information, they only changed it for the Halloween Fest - basically the rest of the season, and will change back come next may.

[coasterbilly]

i really enjoyed my time at Darien Lake 2 years ago, little sad Six Flags dropped it though because of the loss of themes, plus the indoor Batman show was pretty decent! But, they still have some decent coasters still, kind of wish the stand up project fell through, I guess it will be some time before another major coaster goes in there since it's an independent park again

[niiicolaaah]

I REALLY like the pay per ride idea. This is just for the fall event. Nice to see the new owners putting unique touches on the place like this fall event. Go Parc!

 

In my opinion, Darien Lake being a SF park was a dumb idea. It is a regional park, and the new management seem to realize this and are trying to take advantage of it. I think Darien Lake will be far better off now.

[kraken613]

Its kinda of odd for that lage of a park to have tickets.

[Darien Laker]

Nice PTR. I don't want to get my hopes up when it comes to Darien Lake "turning around", but i've been impressed with what i've seen on my visits this year, as well as some TR's.

 

I found it interesting that you had such smooth rides on ROS. I'm jealous!

 

I tell you, this year, I've had the shakiest rides of my life on that thing. Magnum at Cedar Point even seemed smooth compared to ROS, and that's just an Arrow Mine-train on steriods.

 

Idk. Maybe it's just me. It's still easily the best ride there, by a long, long, long shot. If I wasn't able to tolerate rough coasters, i'd be screwed living near Darien Lake and Canada's Wonderland

 

I personally enjoy Viper quite a bit too, but I agree on the remarks about the other coasters.

 

It's good to see they're replacing that fence on Boomerang too. I've always thought that green fence-thing was such an eyesore. It made the ride look so cheap, like it was only there temporarily or something.

[raptor6]

I went there about 3 weeks ago and the only reason the I would return would be to have more crazy ejector airtime on the back seat of Sup...Ride of Steel!

[robbalvey]

I really, REALLY hope they come up with a name for "Ride of Steel" for next season. Then again, they could just retheme the entire park with "generic" names. "Ride of Wood", "Ride of Spinning", "Ride of Wetness", "Ride of Extreme Headbanging", etc, etc....

[Meteornotes]

"Ride Of Wetness" sounds awesome.

 

dt

[niiicolaaah]

I went there about 3 weeks ago and the only reason the I would return would be to have more crazy ejector airtime on the back seat of Sup...Ride of Steel!

 

LOL... RoS... ejector airtime.... LOL.....

 

I like Robb's idea.... Ranger can be "Ride of Nausea"

[Tanks4me05]

^ Nicole, I have to say that RoS does have ejector airtime, and I went on SFNE's S:ROS, back seat, so I know what ejector airtime is. In fact, the intensity of the airtime on both coasters is quite similar, it's just that RoS simply doesn't have as many hills as S:ROS. Personally, after riding RoS about three months ago, I still think that although it is vibratey, it is still smooth. If anything, it makes the sense of speed a bit better.

[niiicolaaah]

Well, I have also ridden both Supermans (Supermen? ), both of them this year in fact, and I don't think either of them have ejector airtime. But I respect your opinion.

[Tanks4me05]

Hmph. You lucky globetrotters get to prance all over the planet riding Balder and EGF 24/7. I'm stuck in this time zone (GMT-5) until I hit college, most likely later than that.