Six Flags America (SFA) Discussion Thread

[livai]

This is ridiculous. The ride's safety features worked as intended. Why is this ne...

 

(sees what park it is)

 

... you know what, actually yeah. Maybe for safety reasons they should shut this place down and replace it with a better park. You can never be too careful.

you think you're funny, you're actually just ridiculous

[coasterbill]

 

Yeah... in an effort to not start a thing that spirals and makes any unnecessary work for Larry or Robb while he’s on vacation in Japan, I’ll just leave this alone.

[djackson]

It's sad that the media decided to report this of all the stories they could report about the park. A story about how people are getting their ears bashed in on Mind Eraser.

[boldikus]

^ For real. ABC covered it on the evening news and teased it before all 23 commercial breaks, talkin' bout "riders left dangling in mid air" while they show the shot of an empty train. barf. Its literally the most non-news 'roller coaster stuck' news article in the history of non-news 'roller coaster stuck' news articles.

[VACoasterdude]

It was also on NBC Nightly News last night. Good timing for SFA as ACE's Coaster Con was occurring @ SFA yesterday with nearly 600 attendees at the park.

[hoppedup]

Apocalypse was closed the day we were there recently. My daughter said, "We weren't going to ride that one anyway, were we?" Nope. We went straight to the back of the park and got two front row rides on ROS without getting out of our seats. Then we did a few more moving around the train without leaving the platform.

 

I really enjoyed ROS, Joker's Jinx, and The Wild One. ROAR and Batwing, not so much. We were there about 2 hours and got multiples on everything we wanted to re-ride. We skipped ME based on reputation but thoroughly enjoyed Riddler's Revenge at SFNE. The knowledge gleaned from this forum is invaluable at making coaster/park decisions.

[CoasterAuditor]

I just had a co-worker point out "another disaster at an amusement park" in regards to Superman getting stuck on the lift hill. The media is so useless sometimes

[Highridin]

SFA is finally in the 4's on Google. Stayed in the 3's for years. Just thought I'd share. Found out while looking for park hours.

[Rayj]

Is there a reason why six flags doesn’t do the summer concerts or Batman show anymore? I definitely think it will boost tickets sales. If they’re not going to add a new coaster to the dry side, then I think this a good addition.

[JG-77]

Hey guys, I’m thinking of riding mind eraser next visit. I haven’t been on it in many years, and that was long before I was an enthusiast, so I’m thinking of seeing just how awful it is (though some people have said it’s tolerable if you ride it certain ways). What tips do you guys have so that my ride won’t be as awful as it needs to be?

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Is there a reason why six flags doesn’t do the summer concerts or Batman show anymore? I definitely think it will boost tickets sales. If they’re not going to add a new coaster to the dry side, then I think this a good addition.

 

 

Budget

[Highridin]

I'm one who has no issue with it. Ride in front.

[Rayj]

Hey guys, I’m thinking of riding mind eraser next visit. I haven’t been on it in many years, and that was long before I was an enthusiast, so I’m thinking of seeing just how awful it is (though some people have said it’s tolerable if you ride it certain ways). What tips do you guys have so that my ride won’t be as awful as it needs to be?

in my opinion, minderaser is more tolerable than apocalypse. At least it has a somewhat exciting layout. Even gp and locals hate apocalypse.

[Jason Maier]

Well . . . maybe someday SF Corporate will show SFA some love with more of a budget for better shows/concerts (I thought this year's stunt show wasn't as good as last year's stunt show).

 

As for Apocalypse and ME . . . only way I'll do them is front row

[Rougarou]

SFA is consistent. For the last 3 summers, the park has made national news with stories of horror. People being trapped on a rollercoaster!

[JG-77]

Thanks for your responses! I actually don’t mind Apocalypse and enjoy a ride if there’s no line, as I can avoid most of the head banging by keeping my head forward.

 

Anyway I visited the park today, it was slammed (especially the water park). Wahoo River is open! I’ll have some photos up later today probably.

 

EDIT: I won't be able to get the report up until tomorrow, since I have to go to bed and I have work tomorrow.

[livai]

WTF ???

[Jason Maier]

SFA is consistent. For the last 3 summers, the park has made national news with stories of horror. People being trapped on a rollercoaster!

 

And there was also a bomb threat in 2016. And a couple weeks ago, a 14 year old boy nearly drowned in the wave pool

[boldikus]

^^

 

Is that new?

[coasterbill]

Apparently...

 

It kind of looks bent in this picture but maybe that's just my eyes.

 

I'm not going to armchair engineer this (even though Six Flags apparently did ). But that's certainly different.

[boldikus]

I have so many questions.

[alilstronger]

That is actually a really good picture of Apocalypse.

 

Well . . . maybe someday SF Corporate will show SFA some love with more of a budget for better shows/concerts (I thought this year's stunt show wasn't as good as last year's stunt show).

 

As for Apocalypse and ME . . . only way I'll do them is front row

 

All of their shows are terrible - summer, Halloween, and Christmas! The worst is the black light show in the main theater during the summer. They could take a lesson from Cedar Fair, Dollywood, and Hershey for quality shows.

[Highridin]

Not including this year, I like their shows. The blacklight show is not there this year. Most people love that one. I enjoyed it.

[Highridin]

Thanks for your responses! I actually don’t mind Apocalypse and enjoy a ride if there’s no line, as I can avoid most of the head banging by keeping my head forward.

 

Anyway I visited the park today, it was slammed (especially the water park). Wahoo River is open! I’ll have some photos up later today probably.

 

EDIT: I won't be able to get the report up until tomorrow, since I have to go to bed and I have work tomorrow.

 

Yup, I saw the river. Looking forward to Thursday, when they'll have it all finished.

[JG-77]

Mini TR, Wahoo River photos coming soon!

 

Note: I should be posting my photos of Wahoo River after I'm done writing this mini-TR

 

Headed down to the park today, pretty hot but not unbearable. The park was even more crowded than on memorial day! We had to park in a branch of the parking lot I didn't even know existed, and then walk to the park along the road which could really use a proper sidewalk. There was a tram but it was only running a single car and wouldn't have saved us anytime due to how poor it's capacity was. The line to get in was super long, probably took ~30min of waiting in line just to get in. Luckily, that was the worst part of the visit. Lines were reasonable in the dry park, but Hurricane Harbor was slammed. Turned out today was a bring a friend day, which explains much of the crowds.

 

I didn't know where to mention this in the report so I'll just put this picture here, but I found this sign quite funny

I have zero regrets in my choice not to ride anything at Hurricane Harbor. This is just a fraction of the huge crowds, you can see a bit more how crowded it was in some of the Wahoo River photos.

 

The first thing I did was head into Hurricane Harbor to check up on Wahoo River, which was open! More on that after this mini TR. As mentioned in the captions of the last photo, I didn't ride anything in the waterpark due to massive crowds.

 

Once in the dry park, I headed over to Superman for a back seat ride, since I had never taken one and was curious what it was like. The ride went down briefly while I was in line and most people left, so I decided to wait it out at the station hoping that it'd reopen soon. My patience was rewarded, and I got to walk onto the back row for a ride. I was hoping to marathon it while the line remained short but alas, it returned to it's original length by the time my ride was over.

 

I found the back row had two main differences from most of the other rows:

1). The back row provides some nice air on the drop that most of the other rows lack, which I always like.

2). The 4 main ejector hills give their air mostly on the way down instead of throughout the whole crest of the hill, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just different.

 

Overall the back row is fun and worth a ride if you have the time, but the front row is still by far the best seat on this ride.

 

One does not simply say no to an Intamin hyper! The guy in the yellow vest is back there b/c this shot was taken while the ride was down and the guy in the vest was explaining to everyone what was going on.

 

After S:ROS, I decided to give the Penguin water ride a try, since I had never rode before, some people had told me that you don't get too wet, and the line looked short. While in line, I debated whether or not to change from my sneakers into my crocs (I brought them in case I decided to do any water rides). I ultimately decided to put the crocs on, which was a good choice since the raft for penguin had accumulated a couple inches of water at the bottom. While I didn't have to wait too long for my ride, the operations were very bad for this ride when I was there. The ride itself was a bit weird. When going up the conveyor belts, if you had your feet on the ground, you could feel every individual roller on the belt. I did get decently wet on the ride, mostly because the twisty parts at the beginning pour many drops of water on the riders, though the drops feel more like they're from leaking pipes than planned sprays, but I didn't actually look at the source.

 

tl;dr for the below paragraph: Penguin went down for 5-10 min leaving lots of riders in the area behind the station. Several people got off despite it being against the rules, but to be fair the employees did little to enforce the rules and at least one op mistakenly told people they were allowed to hop off.

 

While we were waiting to get back in the station, the ride went down, and we had to wait 5-10min to get back into the station. While it was down, the other group in the raft asked the operator closest to them if they could just get out, and climb into the station. After some verbal exchanges between the group and the two ops, the op closest to our raft said that they could hop out. Unsurprisingly to me, it turned out that there had been some sort of miscommunication between the two ops. The op in the back of the station shouted to the group and the other op that they weren't supposed to be allowed to get out, but it was too late - the group was right next to the station, and it didn't make sense for them to turn around and head back to the raft since they were so close. Another group in a raft behind us asked to get out since one of them needed to go to the bathroom. I forget whether an employee told them explicitly if they had permission to get out, but after some talking with employees they got out, and climbed over the fence into the queue. No employee made any effort to stop them despite the fact that at least one watched the whole thing if I remember correctly.

 

After the weird experience that was Penguin, I went to Wonder Woman to dry my feet off. This was actually my first time riding it despite visiting the park several times with it open, as every other time either the line was too long, or it was too cold for my to want to ride it. While dispatches were quite slow (Loading/Unloading + Ride cycle = ~7 min), one of the ride ops made did great job of making sure every ride was sent with all 32 seats filled, counting and grouping people in line while the ride was running and announcing to all the riders that he wanted every seat filled. I'll be sure to mention him in the SF satisfaction survey! The ride itself is quite fun, and pretty relaxing if you're not freaked out by the heights. It offers great views of the park (even if the park isn't super pretty), and was worth the ~20 min wait to ride for the first time and dry my feet off from Penguin. I actually felt the blood pull to my toes a bit on the ascent up. Side note: does anyone have good tips to avoid the feeling of blood pulling to one's feet on rides where your feet dangle? I've had the same problem on some B&M's.

 

Getting off Wonder Woman, I met up with the rest of my family. (Note: I forgot to mention that I was visiting with my family since I can't drive. My Mom and sisters spent the beginning of the trip at the wave pool while my dad spent his whole time in the dry park. My dad and I met up after I finished looking at Wahoo and spent the rest of the day together.) We headed back to superman for my sister and I to grab a front row ride (My sister's 1st front row ride on this coaster). We wound up waiting a bit longer than anticipated because it turned out that there were more people in front of us than we thought, and a couple with flash pass took the front row before we could get on, but it was definitely worth it (my sister who is gp also agreed that the front was worth the wait).

 

After S:ROS I grabbed a ride on Joker around the middle, which was good fun, and gave me my fix for coaster launches. I chose the middle as I'd ridden front and back multiple times each and wanted to try out the middle just because. With only 45 min left before we wanted to leave, I took a ride on Wild One (2nd to back, underrated ride with solid air unless on a wheel seat), and then we rode Zydeco Zinger, a Falling Star, to finish the day. The ride is pleasant and generally relaxing. When at it was at top speed, I felt mild uplift forces at the peak and a bit of tingling in my stomach. A little surprise with this ride was that my other sister spotted a toad sitting inside the ride's support structure, which was neat.

 

Zydeco Zinger, SFA's Falling Star, had a surprise toad inside! Photo taken by my mom.

 

Heading out of the park, a pair of employees were handing out free packs of Haribo gummy bears, which was a nice surprise!

Overall this was probably the least pleasant visit to SFA I've had over my past 5 visits (including this one) due to high crowds, but I still had a nice time in the end, and enjoyed getting to ride some great rides!

 

Wahoo River photos coming very soon!

 

Final Note: If anything I wrote in this TR was confusing to anyone, or if I made any significant grammar mistakes, don't hesitate to ask me about it!