Six Flags Darien Lake (SFDL) Discussion Thread

[coasterbill]

If you guys all hate this kind of behavior then why are you giving it clicks and views?

[bert425]

9 minutes ago, coasterbill said:

If you guys all hate this kind of behavior then why are you giving it clicks and views?

I didn't realize it worked that way. . thought it went off "likes" really.   Noted for the future tho.

for my part, once I realized they were pleased with how they were acting (fairly quickly in), I just closed the youtube video.

[pryonisys]

Finally got on Predator with the Titan Track and here are my thoughts -
The Good: The Titan Track feels great, it's incredibly smooth and maintains/builds speed better than pretty much all points on the ride
The Bad: Coming back out of the Titan Track you are immediately reminded how rough the rest of the coaster is, the speed that you build/maintain through the death turn (that you previously lost due to the track slowing you down) makes the next bit of track feel like getting in a bit of a car accident.

Final thoughts: The Titan Track is a huge success and improvement for that portion of the ride, I'd like to see a whole coaster done with Titan Track, but unfortunately with only a few hundred feet on the retracking done on Predator I don't really think it helps the whole experience (even thought it does massively help the one section of track).  If Six Flags wanted to keep Predator's profiling mainly the same, but transitioned the whole ride to Titan Track I would not be upset about that at all.

[Prof Kaos]

Hey folks,

Going to be camping in New York state between August 6th and 14th, planning on going to Darien Lake during that time.

 

Any recommendations on day of the week, time of day, and strategy for how best to navigate and enjoy them park?

 

Appreciate any insight.

[Sk610]

I can tell you that the park is closed on Tuesdays and closes for the day at 7 except for Friday and Saturday when they close at 9.  

 

Usually as long as there is not a concert it's not so busy

[CNYCoasterguy11]

Hit up Ride of Steel or Viper first, they are the only two that usually have a long line. Most head to RoS first so I usually go straight to Viper. It tends to be a slow line due to the ride being long and the manual restraints. Everything else should be short to no wait if any day but Saturday or a concert day 

[anonymouscactus]

If you spend more than two days at Darien Lake, you are spending too much time at Darien Lake. I know your just said your were camping in the state, but hopefully you weren't planning on Darien Lake to occupy much of that. And if you're spending two days, some of that time should be occupied in the not-so-great waterpark.

You'll get bored, quick. Unless you camp here:

 

[Prof Kaos]

Thanks for the insight folks.

Yeah, we're just going to spend an afternoon there, nothing more. I don't expect it to be mind blowing or anything, just a little day trip.

 

[Golddisk]

Laser show is set to return next year with a number of other events. Based on that the park will have to be going back to a 9 or 10 pm close during the summer.

Looks like FF will still only run until mid Oct.

https://www.wkbw.com/six-flags-darien-lake-announces-new-special-events-lineup

[Haymaker]

The Giant Wheel lives on... as FF props. 

Also found it weird that theyre selling Superman merch in the ROS gift shop. Enough people still call it Superman and thats just going to perpetuate it, lol.

[Bob325]

^ I think that's awesome!  I hope they leave them up all year.  Much better than some random benches strewn about.  It really gives the park some character and a nice place for your group to sit and chat.

[TheAmericanKnight]

So, now with Six Flags going down the path that it is lately, is SFDL just going to stagnate now in regards to additions? Like, how bad is it going to be for the next decade or so? Also, is it now confirmed the Warner Bros. IPs are never coming to the park?

[coasterbill]

Nothing is confirmed unless it’s confirmed. 
 

As for the future. The industry changes all the time, new CEOs with dramatically different ideas come in all the time. I wouldn’t expect anything next year, but no way I’m predicting anything anything beyond that.

[anonymouscactus]

 

Despite this being the busiest couple of weekends for major parks, SFDL is now closed for the season. They had this in the spot of the Giant Wheel. Ouch.

I realize weather plays a factor (Canada's Wonderland says hi!)  back in the early days of their Halloween event they drew pretty decent crowds. Times have definitely changed and I know there's no way they can support the staff with it being in the middle of nowhere and they always have to close half the park anyways even back then. They should do a Michigan's Adventure (edit: I hadn't realized Great Escape had a full blown fright fest all month long) and just not open for Fright Fest at this point. I'm curious what attendance was like for the 6 whole days of fright fest. Yes, 6 days.

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by anonymouscactus
Oops

[MoreyMan]

2 hours ago, anonymouscactus said:

They should do a Great Escape or Michigan's Adventure and just not open for Fright Fest at this point. I'm curious what attendance was like for the 6 whole days of fright fest. Yes, 6 days.

You do realize Great Escape does a full length Fright Fest every year, right? Every weekend in October, along with Oktoberfest starting in September.

[anonymouscactus]

^ my bad! I'll edit my post. Thanks for that I had no idea.

[coasterbill]

Any park not located in Siberia should do a full Halloween event. This park is dumb, get creative. I don't even care if you open nothing but coasters and mazes like BGT does. Pay $30 an hour if you have to. It will still absolutely print money. It's not like the mazes have to be good to get hordes of people to show up, Six Flags has proven that time and time again...

[DarienPoint]

9 hours ago, coasterbill said:

Any park not located in Siberia should do a full Halloween event. This park is dumb, get creative. I don't even care if you open nothing but coasters and mazes like BGT does. Pay $30 an hour if you have to. It will still absolutely print money. It's not like the mazes have to be good to get hordes of people to show up, Six Flags has proven that time and time again...

THIS!

 

Like yeah, the distance from Rochester and Buffalo is long enough that it is hard to get folks to want to work there... but why not introduce a transportation method or something?

 

If y'all remember that scary bus ride they used to do... I'm sure they could use that to transport people. 

[Haymaker]

Unfortunately this weekend wouldve been perfect for an event, 70+ and sunny through Sunday. But the areas fickle weather showed out this week, as it was 40-50 all week and drenching rain

[coasterbill]

Yeah, it would be pretty problematic to have an event like this in an area with fickle weather.

This was yesterday by the way…

[Haymaker]

13 hours ago, coasterbill said:

Yeah, it would be pretty problematic to have an event like this in an area with fickle weather.

This was yesterday by the way…

If CP had the same weather as we did yesterday, then yeah, you proved my point.

[coasterbill]

I'm not arguing with you. I'm laughing at the park.

[Sk610]

Screamscape is reporting more Titan Track for Predator in 2023.  If they did that and got second trains for ME, ROS and Motocoaster I would be happy with those additions

[pryonisys]

The thing that I wish they would do that would cost them very little would be to re-open the path from Boomerang to Motocoaster, creating 2 dead ends with no real reason is silly (to be fair I'm sure there's some reason I don't know, but I still think it's stupid)

[Sk610]

^ I agree.  Having two dead ends in a similar spot is silly.  I wonder if they can't put a path so close to the Boomerang  or something.