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Six Flags Great America (SFGAm) Discussion Thread


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anyone go yesterday? someone who went told me the coaster lines looked 2+ hours so he just rode flats. I should be able to make it out today. I know last year I stayed home after guest services said it was crazy like sat the 27th last year with its 49k crowd or whatever it was. then the trip reports on here said the crowds were an improvement over the previous days/weeks, so I felt like an idiot for not going.

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The Raging Bull ERT was a great time! It was so very cold but those night rides with nobody in the park were great.

 

It was awesome, me and my group made sure we all wore gloves, hats, face protection, and multiple layers of clothing including winter jackets. I really only began to get cold on my 9th ride in a row on raging bull. That was the last train anyway, so it worked out well.

 

I saw many people without gloves... those people are just plain crazy or stupid.

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^It was hard to see my last couple visits because they were at night- far too dark for me to be able to take any meaningful pictuee-, but the picnic grove between the Wilderness Theater and the old Iron Wolf site is now gone. There also seemed to be a few footers poured, and they have begun to dig out a trench for the tunnel at the bottom of the first drop. Everything I saw was from the Necropolis walkthrough, you can't see anything but the fence from the former Iron Wolf entrance and the train station- at least at night, anyway. I never visit Fright Fest during the day. The station itself hasn't had any work to it yet. Signs around the park say that it's opening in the summer of 2014.

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waiting for x flight now. posted time says 120 min. never seen so many flash passers. I tried turning around to face the flash pass lane every 20 seconds for a couple minutes and every time but one there was another flash pass group. line was moving great before the avalanche of flash passers. at least it wasn't overflowing. eagle and x flight are completely full queues. batman had a ton of flash pass people flowing in too. took about an hour. row 8 was good again. the bored ride op from our earlier ride on east river crawler rode with us and had a great time. yellow demon just got stuck after the tunnel. ride op had to push the train. couldn't record it in time. lucky it got through the corkscrews. now testing the red train.

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just left. looks like the lot filled maybe to capacity after we went in. love at first fright was good, but didn't seem better at all. liked that they seem to retain the actors. I estimate I saw over 200 flash passers clog the x flight line. I'm in favor of flash pass, but that is just obnoxious. apparently they don't limit them enough to prevent situations like that. viper's line wasn't too big at 7:55 but it kept getting stuck way more than usual. rows 12 and 13 were blocked and saved for people coming in through the exit. probably flash passers. we left the viper shop at 8:28 for pretzelman but it was down. guess the moral of the story is, save up for a platinum and scare pass for both days if you want to do everything. I just don't see how anyone could do the haunts and all the rides without two full days with the extra passes.

 

edited to add things(which doesn't seem to really work off my phone).

 

shortest, tamest ride on whirleygig ever. The balloons here are much better than at Santa's Village, where they ran a lot faster. They played the Undertaker's WWF Volume 3 theme a lot near Pretzelman and Dark Knight. The Kane music with the singing too. Heard the Halloween theme a couple times while near the balloons and batman/whirleygig. In September they played a diverse amount of stuff by the Bull. Even stuff from Nightmare on Elm St 2 and some track from one of the first four Friday the 13ths. One of the long chase cues, I think. Whoever books the music puts a decent amount of thought into it. But it seems they recycle songs on a loop from a small track list outside of SW Territory. I don't even think I heard much music in County Fair. If I recall, they got the yellow demon car back up shortly after it got stuck. When I went to check out the Goliath location all I could really see were construction vehicles. The crowd seemed to have every high schooler in the area and then some. Much moreso than in the regular season. That was probably the biggest demographic. More adults than on a regular day too. My guess is that for crowds this is the worst weekend. Wish I could say what the lines were like on more things later at night. if Whizzer wasn't closed at 8:30, it didn't look like it had much of a line. Demon's 6:45 line looked about 85% full. I also wish I knew what kinda times the flash passes were spitting out to their users since I have no idea how they can accurately predict ride wait times, especially when you have lines at the flash pass entrace as well. If they were going off posted times like the 120 min for x-flight that would've been maybe 45 without all that flash pass interference, the pass could end up making things worse in some cases. In my experiece with flash pass use last season, they seem to underestimate wait times often, giving an even bigger advantage.

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The Raging Bull ERT was a great time! It was so very cold but those night rides with nobody in the park were great.

 

UGH! I was planning on taking part in the Raging Bull ERT, I was at the park all night on Thursday and I walked over to Raging Bull at about 9:45pm to find that the ride was "closed" (or so I was told) after just walking past an actually closed X-Flight I assumed it was too cold and so I left the park.... I'm guessing they stopped letting people in the queue for the ERT?

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So have they started work on Goliath yet?

 

Some footers have been poured and the 15 foot trench for the bottom of the first drop and the bottom of the zero-G stall is being dug up now. They're using some precast footers which should help with construction time, especially since the weather is getting quite cool here in northern Illinois which is hard on fresh concrete.

 

515834985_ScreenShot2013-10-29at8_52_25PM.png.3761cb8210ece9a9d8280dfb013a1cc8.png

From SFGAm's Twitter

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I seriously can not wait for this coaster to exist, even if it's a couple years until I get to ride it. I know it's just a rendering but that POV looks like a rollercoaster I'd ride in a dream... the way it's laid out and the zero G stall, and that combination of webs of wood underneath track that somehow looks barely supported at all... let's just say I'll be following construction of this much more closely than of Banshee.

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Had a fun time at the park on Sunday. Great to get one last ride on Ragin Cajun in it's original home. But the most impressive thing all day was this ride op named Nick. Probably the best SF ride operator I've ever seen (I'm including myself in there!). He's very efficient, gets rides going fast (and safe!), and is beyond a "happy camper."

 

I first saw him on a season pass night operating Fiddler's Fling. He was really excited and getting people all happy about the ride.. but most awesome was how quick he did everything. You could tell he knew exactly what was going on at all times. It gave my buddy and I an easy excuse to stop at Guest Relations on the way out to fill out a compliment card.

 

It's as if he worked at Dollywood, Holiday World, Cedar Point or perhaps all three - and compiled the best of everything. I've never seen anything like it. He should be in charge of training ride ops.

1636087365_nicksfgam.jpg.25311c9044878f204d7f141dc7d3562c.jpg

Nick at Great America operating Whizzer on the last day, Sunday 10-27-2013. Best ride op ever!

Edited by GayCoasterGuy
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^There are so many coasters that would benefit from RMC. But the technology is still new, so it's good to wait a few years until they can see how everything holds up*. I'm wondering what happens to the composite material in the steel tubes? Does it crack in places or shrink/expand?

 

*I bet (and HOPE!) Cedar Fair is keeping a close eye on this.

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^There are so many coasters that would benefit from RMC. But the technology is still new, so it's good to wait a few years until they can see how everything holds up*. I'm wondering what happens to the composite material in the steel tubes? Does it crack in places or shrink/expand?

 

*I bet (and HOPE!) Cedar Fair is keeping a close eye on this.

 

RMC fills the steel topper track part with non-shrink concrete so it won't crack or shrink in anyway.

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^Sometimes results are different than expectations, over time. I'm thinking of all those years (late 80s into the 90s) when we were getting plenty of awesome new coasters from Dinn, and then Custom. Most of them kicked butt for a year or two, then fell apart or were neutered.

 

Heck, Iron Wolf was smooth and awesome for a while...

 

Either way, the RMC rides are getting dynamite reviews.

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*I bet (and HOPE!) Cedar Fair is keeping a close eye on this.

 

I know it's been said many times but I can not think of a ride that would benefit more from an RMC renovation than Mean Streak. It has no classic status to maintain, and is so tall and so big that they have to break the hell out of it keeping it dull and airtime free, making it a massive waste of real estate.

 

Of course, I feel their renovated coasters are kind of ugly (!) and would rather they just knock it down and build a beautiful, innovative new coaster from scratch. But I know cost is a concern.

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^ I do not agree that the renovated projects are ugly, but I do agree that a new Coaster or even two in the area Mean Streak is in would be a welcome addition. Especially if RMC were still to be involved.

 

*My apologies for the Cedar Point reference in the SFGAm thread....just wanted to make the relevant point.

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Of course, I feel their renovated coasters are kind of ugly (!) and would rather they just knock it down and build a beautiful, innovative new coaster from scratch. But I know cost is a concern.

 

I would rather a ride "look foul but feel fair," rather than the other way around. Mean Streak is a nice-looking ride that is very foul of temper.

 

But to get back to Great America, I'm really looking forward to riding Goliath next year. Great America is one of Six Flags' better parks, and this ride should kick it up to yet another level.

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