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Six Flags Darien Lake (SFDL) Discussion Thread


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Do you locals think the park will rename Ride of Steel back to Superman, now the Six Flags is in charge, or will they leave it as is? What have you heard, if anything?

 

If they can use that to justify repainting it and adding a second train as a “new-for-2020” addition then yes I could totally see that happening. Otherwise I wouldn’t count on it. It’s like a pipe dream at this point but I’m still trying to have some faith that they’ll do something with these rides.

 

Remembering back to when they did the new wraps on the viper trains, that was one of my favorite “little things” that they did that I wish they’d do to other rides too. Plus it’s six flags. I wouldn’t put it past them to spend $1-2 million on a new train and some TLC and call it new. Folks around here have wanted that for ages, it’s a perfect way to invest in the current infrastructure and claim there’s a new experience.

New experience, aka the ride operating as Vekoma intended.

 

 

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I agree with the ops manager that infrastructure investments take time and money and do not happen overnight. My big question is has attendance this year warranted two train ops? If so, will they be ready for two train operations if it does? That will be the big tell

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I agree with the ops manager that infrastructure investments take time and money and do not happen overnight. My big question is has attendance this year warranted two train ops? If so, will they be ready for two train operations if it does? That will be the big tell

Everything except ROS and Boomerang has two trains on site, Viper and Tantrum have 3, its just a matter of making the 2nd trains available. That Ops manager is slightly off, I know they ran a second train on Viper sometimes in 2015.

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You should see Great Adventure at night. You would think that you’re walking around rural North Korea.

tl;dr: SFDL wont be getting lighting packages.

 

Still wishing theyd light the Wheel again though.

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Do you locals think the park will rename Ride of Steel back to Superman, now the Six Flags is in charge, or will they leave it as is? What have you heard, if anything?

 

If they can use that to justify repainting it and adding a second train as a “new-for-2020” addition then yes I could totally see that happening. Otherwise I wouldn’t count on it. It’s like a pipe dream at this point but I’m still trying to have some faith that they’ll do something with these rides.

 

Remembering back to when they did the new wraps on the viper trains, that was one of my favorite “little things” that they did that I wish they’d do to other rides too. Plus it’s six flags. I wouldn’t put it past them to spend $1-2 million on a new train and some TLC and call it new. Folks around here have wanted that for ages, it’s a perfect way to invest in the current infrastructure and claim there’s a new experience.

New experience, aka the ride operating as Vekoma intended.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

RoS retheme - featuring new paint, second train, some sort of effect that won’t last (like music or something), some sort of cut out things similar to Bizarro at SFNE and SFGAdv and suddenly it’s a new thing to market.

 

Mind Eraser retheme - See SFNE 2018.

 

It’s gonna happen eventually, I don’t think it’s all that crazy to consider for 2020.

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You should see Great Adventure at night. You would think that you’re walking around rural North Korea.

Yeah, but this isnt about whats realistic anymore. Its just a 927 page letter to Six Flags Santa clause.

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You should see Great Adventure at night. You would think that you’re walking around rural North Korea.

tl;dr: SFDL wont be getting lighting packages.

 

Still wishing theyd light the Wheel again though.

 

That’s ridiculous not having an illuminated giant ferris wheel.

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Great Adventure let so many lights burn out on their Ferris wheel that they stopped lighting it for Holiday in the Park because it’s too ugly. I’m honestly not sure if they light it up at night any more during the rest of the year but if they do it looks like ass.

 

To their credit, the chain’s new flat ride additions have often come with great lighting packages but going through and updating the lighting on older rides is not something that they care about.

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You should see Great Adventure at night. You would think that you’re walking around rural North Korea.

Yeah, but this isnt about whats realistic anymore. Its just a 927 page letter to Six Flags Santa clause.

 

Your point?

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You should see Great Adventure at night. You would think that you’re walking around rural North Korea.

Yeah, but this isnt about whats realistic anymore. Its just a 927 page letter to Six Flags Santa clause.

 

Your point?

 

Aside from this thread, TPR generally likes to deal in reality. I can't tell people not to post crazy things but nobody should be surprised when crazy, unrealistic expectations are treated as such either.

 

I can't speak for TPR, but this is how the "Why can't people just voice their crazy hopes and dreams without anyone responding with a dose of reality?" fantasy usually goes around here.

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^

Could it be an individual park thing or have you noticed it throughout the chain? SFDL is the only SF park ive been to.

Outside of Magic Mountain (my home park), I've only visited Discovery Kingdom. Aesthetics are not a priority at either park. Burnt out light bulbs, faded paint on the coasters, dead plants, ads everywhere, etc. Judging by people's comments on the other parks, this seems to be chain-wide.

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DaRieN lAkEs mAINtenANce iS tOo ChEap aNd laZy tO pAiNt

 

Darien Lake’s Maintenance is by no means too cheap to paint. It’s not their choice what funds are sent where. The “big issue” is that one of their repaint projects was abruptly cancelled (or at least indefinitely put on hold) midway through its completion leaving Mind Eraser basically to rust away as most of the paint was sand blasted partially to allow for new paint to be applied to it, and as a result it’s terribly noticeable that the ride’s “refresh” was halted.

 

In all reality the park doesn’t “desperately” need anything to be repainted. However. The common grumblings I’ve heard from park guests when it comes up (for whatever reason) have been the following:

 

- 1 train operation

- paint on Ride of Steel

- Lights on the wheel

 

Darien Lake has actually been really great at painting their rides fairly regularly up until 2015. Viper and Boomerang were both completely redone and still look great, they repainted the main entrance and a bunch of the buildings have been redone recently as well. What was done on Mind Eraser looks nice too and in all honesty if they wouldn’t have started the project, they may not have needed to as the faded pink/sea foam green color scheme looked just fine (see: Xcelerator). From what I remember, they didn’t care to paint RoS due to cost and the fact that most of the ride isn’t closely visible to park guests so it wasn’t a huge deal in the first place.

 

Sure, the Viper station could use some love, and yes, it would be nice to have both of the coasters that haven’t gotten paint jobs redone, but as I’ve said in the past several times, I just don’t see them doing that if they can’t market it. Same thing with the second train for RoS. They very likely won’t purchase a new train without some sort of justification. Doing something like a re-theme could be that marketable justification that’s needed. And that isn’t out of the realm of realism or possibility as it has happened before in the chain and really it’s much more realistic (and likely cheaper) than a brand new multi launch record breaker that most everyone knows the park isn’t going to get (no comment on the B&M idea... but you get the point).

 

Maverick doesn’t really need to be repainted, does it? It’s got that rustic worn out vibe that fits the old west theme. Millennium Force, Raptor, Magnum and Top Thrill Dragster are all such well known and well photographed machines that made sense for a park like Cedar Point to want to keep them into a nice and shiny state. If they saw it necessary I’m sure they’d hop on painting Maverick too, but so far that hasn’t been the case, and in a way the same applies to RoS and Mind Eraser at Darien Lake.

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Just edited and added Wicked Twister, its supports look like sections of ME. My whole point after visiting 3 parks this year is that only one looked regularly painted and fresh, and that was BGW (which they are noted for). At Hersheypark I saw a lot of the same "issues" that this thread has with DL.

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Just edited and added Wicked Twister, its supports look like sections of ME. My whole point after visiting 3 parks this year is that only one looked regularly painted and fresh, and that was BGW (which they are noted for). At Hersheypark I saw a lot of the same "issues" that this thread has with DL.

 

I'm at Canada's Wonderland and Behemoth is starting to look pretty faded...

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I’ll give you a good justification for purchasing a second train for RoS:

 

The concert days where the line gets to the point where it is well over an hour. An 80 minute wait because the park is too freakin cheap to buy a second train like how any other park would for a hyper coaster, is absolutely unacceptable by all means.

 

And as for CP, Maverick looks better faded, actually fits the western area’s look a lot better. Wicked Twister on the other hand, it’s a forgotten about ride at the park, nobody cares enough to notice paint on that thing. Ride of Steel is the park’s star attraction and Mind Eraser is one of Darien’s most well known attractions. You don’t see most parks letting their star attraction look like crap, do you?

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