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Six Flags New England (SFNE) Discussion Thread

p. 337: Quantum Accelerator family coaster announced for 2025!

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Quick SFNE question: if I were to buy a SF Gold Pass online, can I show the voucher the first time I go to the park to get free parking? I am thinking of going opening weekend and need to know if they will honor the pass before it is processed.

Thanks!

 

I got the Gold Pass online for SFFT and it printed out the Free parking voucher separate from the season pass voucher. I showed it at the parking lot gate and they let me in so I'm assuming the process should be the same at all the other parks so you should be ok.

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Question - I notice on the SFNE website it reads that Houdini is closed for the rest of the season. Is this for last season or it is already closed this year? I will be going in July with a friend who has never been to the park and he loves the one in Jersey and wanted to compare the two.

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It's probably from last season as it closes during Fright Fest for a haunted maze.

 

The one in New England is good much the one at Great Adventure is much better as the theming is a bit more extensive and the audio is much easier to hear.

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^As everyone knows the train has been in storage for quite awhile now. However word on the street is due to weather during the off season and everything having to do with Catapult the park never found time to test the trains and Goliath will not be opening until May with the new trains. What I'm wondering is what are they going to do with the station?

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Six Flags New England: Our New England park will open next weekend, on April 13, with a food drive and discount tickets benefiting Newtown Food Bank and the Sandy Hook Family Healing Fund. Despite being covered in snow, pieces to their new water slide, Bonzai Pipelines, arrived just a couple weeks ago. Six Flags New England will also debut a new kid-themed area, Whistlestop Park, and a new Weather Guarantee program.

 

http://content.sixflags.com/news/greatadventure/around-the-world-six-flags?ic=I00578190&gc=GTESTUSER000002

 

Weather Guarantee program? Wonder what that entails?

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I don't think they had done that in the past. It is the only park in the chain with the weather thing listed. It's definitely interesting.

 

I've gotten rain checks in 2009, 2010, and 2011 when the park decided to close mid afternoon due to rain (I have horrible luck with weather at SFNE). In all cases the bad weather had mostly passed but the park was too empty for them to keep open. They didn't announce that they were giving them out, but they would give them to anyone that asked or complained and word got around quickly.

 

They are probably announcing it as a policy because word is getting around about them closing early due to light crowds. I've been at other parks (mostly Magic Mountain) where the park stayed open after bad weather had passed despite there being less guests than employees in the park.

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SFAW and SFoT used to do rain checks back in the 90's whenever there was inclement weather. When I worked at SFFT during the Time Warner era (1996-1997) we used to do them there as well. Once Premier took over the chain, customer service, cleanliness, theming, etc.....went out the window. This is definitely a good move on Six Flags part to better their image. I hope this is something that is implemented in all the parks.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A quick update from opening day at SFNE. I spent 4 hours in the park and hit most of the coasters and then spent 1 hour in the line to get my season pass processed. This year they moved the Season Pass center to the train station/gift shop in the former Thomas Town. The train ride entrance and exit has been moved over to the left side of the building and the season pass line enters to the right and exits through the former gift shop. It is a huge improvement over the very small season pass center they were using last year.

 

As for the rides I managed to get on most of the coasters today. I skipped Pandemonium (line length) Catwoman's Whip (closed when I walked past) and Bizarro (one train operation and the line looked like it was at least half full all day). As for the rides I did ride...

 

Flashback - one ride, toward the back of the train. Technically, this was today's Pass Holder ERT ride of the day but since I got there after 11, that was no longer in effect. It wasn't quite as rough as I remember it being last year but I also decided to ride defensively brace myself through the rough spots so that may have helped.

 

Cyclone - 2 rides, one back row, one front row. After two rides, I was kinda bored with Cyclone. I didn't notice any new topper track on the ride (compared to last year) and it appears that the last section of track into the station (the turn under the first drop) has been replaced with normal wood coaster track (fresh wood, etc.). The topper track sections from last year are still smooth and the wheels still make a horrible screeching noise while traveling through that section of the ride (the only negative I can see to Topper Track).

 

Thunderbolt - 2 rides, one mid train, one back row. Thunderbolt is still a fun ride. There is a large banner on the exit bridge saying they are working on fixing it up and painting it (paraphrasing here). From what I could see, they have replaced the track leading from the station to the lift and have scraped and repainted the bottom 10+ feet of the entire coaster. I really should have taken a picture because the bottom 10 feet are nice and shiny white and the rest of the structure is in various states of being repainted. Its great to see Six Flags taking the time to fix up Thunderbolt. Hopefully they can get the rest done before the summer starts.

 

Gotham City Gauntlet - 1 ride. This was closed during my visit last summer so I had to take a ride just for the credit. I have to give SFNE some credit for running at least 5 cars (maybe 6) while I was in line (I think, I do know that 2 were not in use, I can't quite remember which Batman villains where running). Overall it was a pretty fun ride and a pretty decent wild mouse.

 

Mind Eraser - 1 ride, second row. Its a Vekoma SLC... The slight headbanging I experienced (defensive riding again) was made worse by the fact that my ears were very cold and more sensitive to touch than normal.

 

Batman The Dark Knight - 2 rides, both mid train. I liked this a lot more this visit than I did last year. I think its probably a bit more intense as far as B&M Floorless coasters go due to its much more compact layout (versus Medusa at SFDK and Scream! at SFMM). There is some rattle in the corkscrews but its not too bad.

 

Goliath is currently closed with a sign saying it will reopen later this spring. The new train is sitting in the station and it looks very cool. The cable for the station side tower is only partially installed so testing will have to wait.

 

The tower for the new water slides appears to be built up to the main platform height with only the last flight of stairs and the slides left to be installed.

 

Overall, it was a fun day in the park. I was disappointed that I didn't get to ride Bizarro, but I really didn't feel in the mood to stand in that long of a line for one train operation. (Both Mind Eraser and Batman were running 2 trains every time I walked past and each had maybe a 1 train wait.) I will definitely ride when I head back later this year.

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I think Goliath may have been the only major ride that was closed all day. Catwoman's Whip was testing when I went past and from conversations of other guests, had been running earlier in the day. When I was leaving the sign at the front of the park said that Goliath, Blizzard River and whatever the spinning raft ride is called were closed, but both water rides were operating when I walked past.

 

From what I remember;

Cyclone was running one train (not sure if it has a second train in the shed)

Thunderbolt only has one train on the track

Pandemonium was running maybe 4 cars

Bizarro was running one train with the second sitting covered on the storage track

Mind Eraser was running two trains (with about a minute wait on the brake run when returning to the station)

Batman was running two trains (with up to a 5 minute wait on the brake run while the other train was being loaded and checked)

 

Operations were slow but considering it was the first day and there was definitely some new hire training going on at Batman I wasn't too bothered. That said, the most frustrating part about Bizarro only running one train was the line had to have been over an hour long yet both Mind Eraser and Batman were essentially 1-2 train waits.

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I just don't understand Six Flags sometimes. So they way they "welcome" everyone to the new season is by running the #1 steel roller coaster in the country with one train and a long line, their most recent new addition is closed, and you have to wait an hour in line to get your season pass?

 

I guess the real telling sign here is that there was an hour long line to get your season pass. Even with a day of mediocre operations, people will still line up to get their pass.

 

Hopefully, things will improve. I don't think we've ever had a visit to the park where it looked that bad, so I would have to hope this was more of a case that they just weren't as ready as they thought they would be for opening day. Which I'm still not sure is an excuse. Don't they have six months between closing and re-opening to prepare?

 

--Robb

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^ Not sure why it wasn't on Saturday, but I've seen posts saying that Bizarro is running two trains today. As for Goliath, I'd be interested to find out when the new train arrived and if the blame should fall on the park or Premier who already had to delay building the train by a year.

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^^SFNE has a new season pass processing center this year. They are using the former Thomas Town store which give them at least double the number of actual pass processing stations (and all of them were open when I made it inside). They also had maybe 15 computers open for guests to fill out their personal information if they upgraded the pass in park. I think that the biggest problem was that I went opening day and Six Flags has been very successful at promoting their season passes online. The hour long line was only for people processing their online vouchers. It moved fairly fast considering how long the line was thanks to them only needing to scan the printout and take your picture. That said, if I had decided to buy a season pass at the park, the wait would have probably been 5 minutes plus the time it took to fill out the form on the computer.

 

With the exception of Bizarro running one train, I really couldn't complain too much about operations while I was there. It wasn't up to what I would consider necessary for a weekend in the summer, but it was opening day so I give them a little slack. It was a little cold on Saturday morning and the crowds were not bad when I got there (maybe 1/3rd of the parking lot was full) and as it warmed up (as much as it did) the crowds picked up to the point where when I left at 3:30 most of the main parking lot had cars in it.

 

As for Goliath, the new train looked like it was fully installed and ready to go. I mentioned in my TR that the cable on the station tower was not fully installed (looked to be over the pulley wheel at the top of the tower and then tied to the support at the bottom). The park is open all week this week so they might not be able to get in and finish the cable install until next week. Hopefully testing can begin sometime soon after that.

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SFNE seems to always have problems at the start of the season. I'm not sure if its lack of the student employees that are still in school or if its that they are still working out the kinks with new employees.

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