Merv Posted May 16, 2016 Share Posted May 16, 2016 Hi guys! Loooooooooooooooooooong time lurker here with my first post. I think I started following TPR around 2002 or 2003 possibly even longer. I don't remember that far back. I think I had an account around 2005 but since I never posted, I forgot my account info. So, here's my first post! I recently finally got a job that gives me time (and enough pay!) to travel and I'm here in CT from California on a 2-week business trip. Now that I'm back from my trip, I finally have time to write this post. With one weekend off, I figured I'll definitely go to Lake Compounce since Boulder Dash has been the #1 coaster on my bucket list since it was built! The timing was perfect that I'd be here for the first day of the season and the media day for Phobia. I slept in a little since I had been getting up at 6am all week due to work. I arrived a little after 11am and saw that Phobia would open to the public at 11:30. I figured, why not? The last media day I attended was Goliath at SFMM 16 years ago. I briefly considered doing Boulder Dash first since it was what I was really looking forward to and I have already ridden Superman: Ultimate Flight at SFDK which is my home park and, although I enjoyed it, found it to be a one-and-done ride for me. But since I was already in line, I was committed. 11:30 came and there seemed to be no activity. 11:45 and I was still in line. There were a few costumed characters walking around to represent fears to keep people preoccupied but the people in line seemed like they were getting antsy. It wasn't until a little after noon that they did the rope-cutting ceremony. Season pass holders and the people at the front of the line huddled to watch the ceremony and since I was about 30 feet away, I just stayed in line. There was no microphone so I couldn't even hear what was going on. Finally around 12:15, a good 45 mins after the scheduled opening time (not really complaining since I had the whole day and the park was empty), the lines opened and the general public was allowed to queue. I went straight for the last row since I had already ridden the front row at SFDK and everyone else was heading for the front. While waiting in line, some bloke behind me commented on how there was no netting above us to catch any falling objects. I mentioned that Superman at SFDK was at least enclosed and we had a brief chat about the ride and I mentioned that I was here from CA looking to ride Boulder Dash for the first time after waiting 16 years. Then we boarded. I think I enjoyed the back seat much more than the front row. I don't really know what else to say about the ride. It's fun but definitely a one-and-done for me. I got off the ride and went straight for Boulder Dash. Since there was NO LINE, I went ahead and figured I'll get a front row ride first for the view. Of course it was everything I expected and then some! Full of airtime and nothing can beat the scenery. After getting off my first ride, I ran around for a second ride. They were only running one train and I made it back to the station queue before the train even made a cycle. Everyone was waiting for the front half of the train and I went straight for the last row. Then the same bloke from Phobia walked into the station, saw me, and got in line with me for the last seat and we started talking. He asked me if I was in the coaster clubs and I told him I wasn't but I have been lurking roller coaster websites since the AOL 2.0 days in the mid 90s. We got on the ride and he told me about the one particular rough spot at one of the double-ups towards the end of the ride which we figured was around where the trick-track used to be. I guess we were too into our conversation that we didn't even notice that we had already climbed the lift hill and was already dropping down the first drop! XD After the ride, I mentioned that TPR is one of the websites that I frequent and he asked me if I've seen the Gravity Max TPR video. I told him I've seen pretty much all the TPR videos and he said, "I'm the guy in the front seat." Then we discussed several of the other videos that he was in and other roller coasters for about an hour until he finally had to leave. After our conversation, I walked over to Wildcat to give it a spin. Some Bloke told me to ride in the middle seat of the cars since those rows seem to have a lot less roughness than the front or back. So I sat in the middle seat of the middle car. One thing I noticed on this ride that I've never noticed anywhere else before that I thought felt really weird was when the train made turns, I could feel the lap bar kind of shift side to side as if the cars themselves were twisting. It was most prominent during the pre-lift turns and even though it was probably less than half an inch, it was enough to be noticeable. After Wildcat, I needed some coffee and got some Dunkin' Donuts coffee and took a nice stroll around the park taking in the sights. Then I walked back over to Boulder Dash to get another ride only to find it closed. I went to the smoking area next to Boulder Dash to see if I could wait it out. 3 cigarettes and 30 minutes later, it was still down and I noticed that Phobia was down as well. At that point, I figured since I'm standing right next to Down Time (who's name I found apropos for the moment), I might as well get one last ride before I head back to my hotel in Milford and get some work done. Now, on to the pictures! Yay! I'm here! Heading over to Phobia Standing about 30 feet from the entrance to Phobia where the media stuff was held and Boulder Dash hiding in the trees teasing me FINALLY! Had to take a selfie with Keith, some bloke I met. Decided to skip the credit since I have been on plenty of boomerangs. Pretty pirate ship! Might as well. This is what the line pretty much looked like the whole time I was here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted May 16, 2016 Share Posted May 16, 2016 Nice first post. Thanks for sharing. The weather looked a little iffy. Was it cold and rainy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBpony414 Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 I've never been to Lake Compound or SFNE so this is a fun read! It's great you could get some coastering in while on a work trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanTPM Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Thanks for those pictures and the review, a really good first post for sure! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merv Posted May 21, 2016 Author Share Posted May 21, 2016 Day 2! Sunday 5/8. Sorry about the delay, work has been kicking my butt this week! So I took the long drive all the way across CT from Milford to Agawam to visit SFNE. Took my time and slept in a little since I had been getting up at 6am all week and didn't get to the part until around 11:45. It pretty much rained the whole way there and finally stopped right before I got to the Massachusetts border. Weather forecast was cloudy in the morning and some sunshine in the afternoon so sleeping in let me skip some of the rain as well. Since it was my first time at the park and I'm not sure when I will be returning, I went ahead and splurged on the platinum pass. After getting my pass, I went straight for Wicked Cyclone, my first RMC. Holy crap! What an amazing ride! I can't wait for Joker to open at SFDK. I got a back row ride as my first ride and the airtime on this ride is insane! I don't think I've ever experienced airtime like that. As amazing Boulder Dash was yesterday, I think I'd have to place Wicked Cyclone as my #1. I immediately had to get back in line and get a 2nd ride, this time more towards the middle of the train due to SFNE filling the station one train load at a time. Next up on the list was Superman. Again, I went for a back seat ride on this beast. I don't want to bore everyone with a line-by-line analysis of this ride since there are tons of them out there, but when I got off the ride, I was out of breath! I think it's mostly due to age though rather than the ride. From Superman, I trotted on over to Batman: The Dark Knight. It was a one-and-done ride for me just to get the credit so I didn't really care where I sat and got on row 5. I found the ride to be quite rough! A lot of jittering, some headbanging, and a rather painful jerk going into the second corkscrew. Not the worst B&M ride experience but i didn't find it enjoyable. After the ride, I realized that I'm not in my twenties anymore and had to take a break from riding for a bit. Looking at Mind Eraser did not make me feel better. At that point, I had to get to the nearest smoking area and take a 10-15 minute break. I noticed that Fireball was running and it was listed on my flash pass. Guess it was a soft opening. Since I had already been on Dare Devil Chaos at SFDK, and I really didn't feel like puking today, I skipped it. Then I got an overpriced water bottle and decided to take a second ride on Wicked Cyclone. This time, I got on the 4th car. At this point, I realized I was hooked. I loved every second of every element of that ride. From the reactions on the ride, I think many agreed that this is the best ride in the park. Since I was taking my time, I walked over to Superman to get a second ride. As I was passing Thunderbolt, I pulled out my flash pass to queue and noticed at all the rides had been shut down due to high winds with no estimated time of reopening. So I did the only thing I could think of doing at that time: bitch and moan about it on Facebook. After a few minutes of posting on FaceSpace (as my husband calls it...), I decided to hop on Catwoman's Whip since I was standing right next to it. Rode dead center since I find the front and back rows of those really long trains rather uncomfortable to ride. Rides reopened right when I got off the ride so since it was right there I queued up for Gotham City Gauntlet Escape from Arkham Asylum which is a really long name for a ride and I just cut-and-pasted that from RCDB. And since the ride had just reopened, I pretty much just walked right on to the ride even though I walked through the flash pass lane. There wasn't even an attendant there and I walked right in the queue. Got on and a little girl, maybe about 10, got on with me. She looked nervous as we climbed the lift so I asked her if she likes to ride with her hands up and she said, "ALWAYS!" I gave her a high-five and we screamed through the whole ride. Then it was Superman #2! Car 5 ride. Man, I really want one of these in my back yard! Don't think I could fit it, though, in the suburbs of Oakland, CA. Next was a smoke break then another stroll towards Wicked Cyclone. On my way there, I decided to hop on the ACE classic, Thunderbolt. I got to the end of the flash pass line just as they were letting 2 other flash pass riders on. The attendants would load the standard riders first and then have flash pass riders fill in empty seats and there was one more open seat for me. Since the lady next to the open seat had already put her restraint down, I decided to wait for the next ride since I was hoping for a back car ride. When the train returned (it was a single-train operation), they loaded the standard riders and the attendant had me sit in the front row with a teenager who immediately pulled out his phone once he sat down. After about 5 minutes, we were still sitting in the station. The riders around me were clearly getting antsy and we could see the line growing but since I had a flash pass I didn't really care. I considered it a chance to have a seat and take a break. I lost track of how long it actually took since I wasn't really paying attention but finally we saw the attendants escorting a man off the ride and the 2 girls behind me commenting that he's "too fat." I found that comment to be quite rude. The guy was by no means morbidly obese; he was a stocky guy but he didn't have a huge hanging gut and he didn't look like someone who wouldn't fit on a ride. Well, whatever, we got going. As we began climbing the lift hill, the kid next to me began playing with his phone—textin', FaceSpacin', or whatever these kids do these days. I saw that he had a badly cracked screen and I said to him, "You sure you want to have that out during a ride? No wonder it's cracked." I found Thunderbolt to be quite enjoyable! It had some nice pops of air here and there and it wasn't unbearably rough. I don't remember any significant rough spots, but I do remember people on the ride comparing it to Wicked Cyclone during the turnarounds. That made me giggle. I continued my trek towards Wicked Cyclone and took a smoke break at the "smoker's lounge" next to Goliath. I took a look at Deja-liath and thought back to when I rode it at SFMM. I rode it back when it had the staggered V-shaped seating arrangement. I remembered the ride being painful but not too unbearable so I figured why not? That was a mistake. The restraints clamped down on my thighs during the inversions. The combination of the painful restraints, the forces trying to pull my legs off the train, and the rough and shaky ride made me want to die before I even got through the cobra roll. I'm not a big guy. I'm 5'3" and barely 100 lbs and this ride really hurt like someone was jamming a metal bar on the back of my thighs right above the knee. I really needed a break after that ride so I got another over-priced water bottle (oh, well. Company was giving me $50/day for food for the 13 days of this trip) and went back to the smoking area behind Pandemonium. I really wanted to ride Pandemonium but I was worried that after riding Goliath that it would really make me vomit. So I took the time to relax a bit and answer some work emails. Then it was time for Pandemonium. I got on a car with a mom and 2 kids. One adult and one child on each side so the weight distribution was pretty even which was something I was happy about since I didn't want to spin too much. I enjoyed the ride but it wasn't anything to write home about. Then it was time for yet another ride on Wicked Cyclone. This ride had the longest line of any ride at the park so the flash pass was money well spent. I can't say enough how much I loved this ride. I'm looking forward to my next visit in the area and I will definitely come back to SFNE just for Wicked Cyclone. At that point, it was now 4PM and I pretty much got to ride everything that I wanted to. I still had a one and a half hour drive back to my hotel. I had a little more work to do before bed and I had a very early morning the next day, so I figured it was a good time to take off. Overall, it was a great weekend hitting both Lake Compounce and SFNE. It was a rainy week so I feel lucky that the rain cleared up for the times I was at the parks. Wicked Cyclone now resides at my #1 spot with Boulder Dash a #2 and Raven at #3. Superman comes at a close #4. I think this is the first time that a steel coaster has taken my #1 spot. I also think I'm starting to care less and less about ranking my rides and more about just enjoying the rides. And I also realized that I suck at taking pictures, forgetting to take more of them when I travel—I didn't get pictures of Gauntlet and Pandemonium. . I know this won't be the last time my company will be sending me to CT and my husband also wants to make an East Coast trip sometime in the near future. I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! I'm here! Why place a giant inverted boomerang next to a standard boomerang? I see you, Wicked Cyclone! Had to get a 2nd and 3rd ride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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