Park Review
|
Jackson, New Jersey August 1, 2001 For some reason (guilt, pride, arrogance??), I feel compelled to deposit this here, even though I posted it elsewhere first. The funny thing is, I wrote it especially for people on this list and had to edit it for the other boards. Anyway, this thing is long enough so I'll cut my other comments here! Was it really a great adventure?? Yes! Most assuredly it was! Buddy Rob and I made the trip up to SFGAdv from Baltimore/DC. This was Rob's first time to the park since last season and my first trip ever. The drive up was uneventful, yet expensive (damn tolls!). We got to the park, passed up the beautiful-looking Hurricane Harbor (is one of these in SFA's future?), paid the ten (!) dollar parking charge, parked about one row away from the fifteen (!!) dollar �preferred� parking area, and entered the park sometime just before 11am. The long drive up left both of us longing for plumbing fixtures, so we were in search of the facilities. We looked at the Fastlane reservation line. It was a little long, so we decided to just "rough it" and do things the old fashioned way. Funny aside, the bathroom right inside the gates was filled, so we joked that we needed a Fastlane for the toilets :). Anyway, we just decided to find one further in the park. Rob asked me what I wanted to head to first, it being my first time and all. It was still early so I voted for Chiller. I figured that I wouldn't mind waiting hours for Nitro and Medusa, but I might for Chiller (even though I loved Mr. Freeze). Right in the general area of Chiller is Pendulum, the Huss Frisbee. After a much needed pit stop, we made our first ride of the day:
PENDULUM (HUSS Frisbee) After that, we hoped over to Chiller. Now, up until this point, I had not seen Nitro running. I learned in the Chiller line that Nitro wouldn�t open until 1pm (why? I still don�t know!). Anyway, we scored the front of the last car and were off for my first ride on:
BATMAN: THE CHILLER (Premier rides Dueling LIM
shuttle) Keeping with the movie hero theme, our next stop was:
BATMAN: THE RIDE (B&M Inverted) While in the park queue for B:TR we saw a repairman sitting up on the lift hill for Nitro. As we moved into the back alley part, we saw empty trains cycling. Upon exiting B:TR, Rob took another rest stop and I looked up and saw a loaded Nitro train! As soon as he came out I was like Nitro now! We got over to Nitro, and they were just starting to fill in all the zig-zags. When we finally got into the main queue, it was about 2/3 full. The queue looked very small,l so I expected another set of hidden zig-zags to show up, but they didn�t. SFGAdv was running three trains with a pretty consistent ~50 sec dispatch interval (Cedar Point WHAT?!?), so our wait didn�t seem long at all (30-40 min I think). And with that, I found myself in the last row of the largest coaster on the East Coast:
NITRO (B&M hypercoaster) After that, I suggested we head towards Medusa. After only a few steps, Rob pointed out a smallish coaster to me so I said, �What the hay, let's ride.� So we queued up for:
SKULL MOUNTAIN (designer unknown enclosed mine-type
ride) Anyway, as we finally got to the station, I got cut off by this other lady and her kid. At that point I was about to start hurling expletives (I think I was getting claustraphobic), but instead just headed in the opposite direction of all those people and went for the last seat. As for the ride itself, we put the lapbar down like one, maybe two clicks, and the ops were cool with it. When the train went down the first little drop, Rob and I were practically standing. I guess we left it up too high ;). Anyway, the ride was fun with the cheesy backlight effects. I'm a sucker for dark rides so I liked it, but I do not wish to endure that line again. We continued on in our quest to reach Medusa. Rob pointed out to me the Tivoli junior coaster, but after Skull Mountain, I wanted a real ride, so we pressed on. Rob also mentioned that Houdini was on the way. This was one of the two flat rides, along with Evolution, that I really wanted to experience. So I was all for a slight delay in meeting with the snake lady. So after a couple of cycles we entered:
HOUDINI'S GREAT ESCAPE (Vekoma Mad House) About this point, it was time to eat. We headed in the general direction of Medusa (still trying to get there :)) and we saw them testing the Huss Jump, Jumpin� Jack Flash. Rob said that he really hoped to ride it again. Looking at the program, it looked really wicked. We asked the attendant there when they were going to open and he responded with, "Not today". I reiterated, "Not at all?" and he was like, "Nope"! So we just walked away disappointed and came across a food court. Rob spied a pizza joint, but I was having none of that. Being a Chicago boy, I have yet to find any "good" pizza on the east coast and New York is notorious for that thin crust crap, so I opted for the Mexican joint "Casa del Taco". I got two tacos, Mexican rice, nachos and a medium soda (medium in name only, the thing was friggin� huge!) for just under 10 (!) bucks. We sat eating and talking, hoping that the Jump would open, noting the ducks who were just hanging out, and the Rotor (my only recently deposed favorite flat) right behind us. We finished up, took a pit stop, and thought about riding the mine train. I thought the line was longer than I wanted to wait, so we finally made it over to the ride we started in search of oh so long ago:
MEDUSA (B&M Floorless) We journeyed down in the general direction of Rotting Lumber (I mean Rolling Thunder). I had noticed that for most of the day the left side had been inactive or only cycling empties. Walking down the path I took pictures of Viper (SBNO). It's short and looks strange with all those coils. I've heard it sucks like a Hoover, but I wish I could have ridden it for myself. Oh well. I saw a smallish flat ride that looked really similar to one at Six Flags America. There was no line, so I suggested we ride. Despite Rob's protests that the program sucked, we still boarded,
RODEO STAMPEDEE (themed HUSS Breakdance) Now it was time to offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice to the gods of rollercoaster suckitude and ride:
ROLLING THUNDER (Cobb duel tracked out and back
woodie) We crossed the midway over towards the still and silent El Sombrero, which Rob said was a real trabant and not a wipeout or casino and rode:
TAZ'S TWISTER (Chance Rotor) At this point, we saw the Jump running with people on it. Rob's said it's a must ride, so that's what we did. The line was kinda� long but the ride is high capacity. So the third or fourth cycle found me with mush trepidation sitting in:
JUMPING JACK FLASH (HUSS Jump) Next we strolled over to the Boardwalk area where all the upcharge attractions are. Also in this area was our last major rollercoaster:
GREAT AMERICAN SCREAM MACHINE (Arrow megalooper) Rob wanted to do the topspin, but I was a little hesitant. I didn�t like the Zamperla roto-shake and the topspin motion is similar. While in line there was a problem so we got out of line. Rob suggested the upcharge Zamperla Turbo Force, but I balked. I said I would wait for him. So he rode, I watched, and we were both happy :). Everything looked like it was working again so we hit:
THE TWISTER (Huss Topspin) At that point, we had done everything major that we (well at least I) wanted to, so we hit up some things that we passed up. We were going over to the mine train for my count, but got distracted by:
SAW MILL LOG FLUME (Arrow Flume) We immediately crossed the midway and found a much more tolerable line for:
RUNAWAY TRAIN (Arrow Mine Train) Speaking of Nitro, we headed back in that general direction. It was getting late (circa 8:50pm, park closed at 10) and we had aspirations of re-riding Nitro and Chiller. So we walked expeditiously to that area. Pausing only momentarily to look at the wonderful lighting package on Jumpin� Jack Flash and to take a spin on:
BLACKBEARD'S LOST TREASURE TRAIN (Tivoli Junior
coaster) Instead of taking the direct route to Nitro, Rob wanted to check and see if the chaos was running. It wasn't, but this detour would be our biggest stroke of luck. As we are walking, these two ladies asked if me and Rob wanted to ride Nitro again. We said sure. It turns out that they had two Fastland passes that were about to expire. See, at SFGAdv you have thirty minutes from the printed time to use your pass. These were marked 8:30pm and it was 8:55! So we grabbed the passes and hauled over to Nitro. We made it to the platform with one minute to spare! We were quickly ushered to row #2 (sweet, �cause I wanted to ride near the front anyway for comparison). This ride was much better than the back. I thought we were going to get tossed out of the train on those "broken camelbacks". And the helix made my feet tingle like the ending helix on Raptor. Also there was tonnage of float, still no ejection, but good long float. With that stroke of luck, we saved at least 45 minutes of precious time. We looked at the rapids line and joked that there was no line. There was also no line for the other log flume. We said what the hay and rode:
RIPTIDE (designer-anyone-but-Arrow flume) Here we just joined the line for Chiller, and after our wait figured that would be it. However, after our (more painful) Chiller ride, out of desperation, we ran over to see if we could ride Pendulum again. We got over there and the line wasn�t yet closed. The girl running the ride said that there would be one more cycle. SWEET! She was really pumping everyone up and having fun with it, turning the lights on and off and just generally having a good time. Our last ride seemed to be a little more intense than the first one. It might have been that I was tired by this point or whatever. All I know is that I want one a little bit closer badly! So our night ended much as the day had began, with Pendulum and Chiller / Chiller and Pendulum bracketing the day. I searched through the shop for the obligatory t-shirt and settled on a Viper shirt. So what if I'd never ridden the ride, II thought the shirt looked cool. Plus, it was like the only coaster shirt not black (just deep blue). All-in-all, I could see why this might be the Crown Jewel Six Flags. The operations here were great (max trains, four checkers on Medusa and Nitro, funnyman on Chiller), the park was mostly clean (I did see two overflowing trash cans in Medusa's line), and security did their job (busted some line jumpers in the Medusa queue). Also, I didn�t see the rough crowds I was warned about. But most importantly, GAdv has the best collection of non-coaster rides around. It's like a carnival with rollercoasters thrown in. I will most assuredly return in the future!
later days,
Okay, please bear with me. I'm going to write this TR a tad bit differently. See if you notice the changes.
Weather: day=low 70's night=high 40's (yikes) Alright, I picked up a rental car from the airport (Jada Jaguar is having issues) and we get on the road at about 9:15am. The ride up is fairly uneventful (though pricey, darn tolls) except that one of my favorite CDs kept skipping while playing (not good, strike one). Anyway after stopping for gas right outside the park, we get into the parking lot somewhere around 12:20 and head to the main gates. Okay, I went up to SFGadv with this cat, Tim, from Coasterbuzz. Tim does not have a Six Flags pass, so he needed to buy a ticket. I had a coupon for half off from my season pass booklet. We went to Guest Relations to redeem it. After the unnecessarily-slow-moving-line I went to buy Tim�s ticket. I handed the chick the coupon and the money. She looked at the coupon and handed it back to me, rung up the price, and gave us the ticket. So she "forgot" to retain the coupon. Now, likely I wont be visiting another Six Flags park this year so it may be of no use to me, but it's still nice to still have the ticket =]. Now we had to actually enter the park. There were two lines marked "season passes" and several with no designation whatsoever. Now, since Tim had a day ticket, I figured that it would be best to go to one of the no name lines. Choosing the POLR (Path Of Least Resistance) we got up to the ticket swiper pretty quickly. She took Tim's ticket, fine. Then I showed her my pass and she said, "You have to go to the Season Pass line". Stunned, I blurted out "I have to go to the Season Pass line?" "Yes!" "Are you kidding me?!?" Curtly, "No I am not!" At Six Flags America, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, Six Flags Great America, Six Flags St Louis, and Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, a passholder can use any line, but apparently not at SFGAdv. That wrinkled old bag had me hot! Mortified, I went over to the season pass line, thinking, �Well perhaps only the season lines can actually scan the passes.� But when I got over there, they weren�t even scanning the passes! Another (albeit more friendly) old lady was just visually inspecting the passes. More over, a group with one member having a day pass were allowed to enter here GRRRRR! That was strike two for the day! We were both now in the park by 1:15pm. I spied the line for Fastland and it was pretty expansive. I had been told on URC that Fastlane was discontinued for both Nitro and Robin, so it seemed pointless to get any passes. Since I had seen Robin running and knowing Nitro is still "new-to-most", I elected to try and �beat the crowds� and go towards Medusa first. Now outside on the list of closed attractions, Jumpin' Jack Flash was listed. However, as we walked up, I saw it running. Tim hadn't been on it so I said we had to ride. We were on the second cycle out and had a blast. (Note to Mike: Even when that whole queue is full, it's only, at most, a four-cycle wait, or about 25 minutes, never an hour. For an hour queue it would have to stretch almost back to Houdini. =]) Tim was complaining of a mild headache, so I suggested we ride GASM-II. You see, the whole ride up, Tim was saying that GASM-II was really smooth and that Medusa was the one that hurt him. Now, as I have said before, GASM was the roughest steel coaster I've ridden and the only Arrow that I don�t like (well, sometimes I'm not a big fan of Anaconda at Paramount�s Kings Dominion, either). He was cool with that, thinking he was going to finally be right about something. We rode it and admittedly, my ride was better than my first ride, but is was still pretty much a piece of crap. I don�t understand how this is so different from Shockwave at SFGAm (though Nate would say Shockwave is a piece of crap, too...). Maybe the wheels just need to be changed more often. Anyway, we walked up to Runway Train, since it had no line, and rode that. On our train, there was a group of six "super-sized" guests who just coudn�t fit into the train. The ops tried for several minutes to fit them in, but to no avail (here's the helpful staff comment =]). Because of this, the exit ramp of Fastlaners had backed up pretty bad. When we got off, I had to pretty much excuse myself all the way down the ramp. Now some butt-nugget had the nerve to say, "Do you have to say excuse me to everyone?" Okay, now one, all these folks should have just �naturally� stood to one side of the ramp and not straddle both sides. Two, it is good manners to excuse yourself when your climbing all over someone, and three, if people had gotten the hell out of my way I wouldn�t have to say excuse me. Obviously it was still necessary people hadn�t moved! That azzh0le almost made me b!tchslap him (strike three?). But I just called him a very bad name and moved on (Foul tip, not strike 3 =]). We moved over to Medusa and quickly boarded the back row, where I proved to Tim that Medusa is superior to GASM in just about every respect (the first loop on GASM is more intense than the first loop on Medusa). He still said that he got knocked hard on the rise into the mid-course, but personally, I didn�t notice it. It was now on to Rotting Lumber. This time, the so-called �good-side�, the left, was open. They were running two trains, but one car (three rows in the middle) on each train was dedicated to Fastland. Furthermore, several rows on each train (different rows on each train) were closed due to maintenance. This made things really hard for groups trying to ride together. On top of that, every so often they would fill up an entire train with Fastlaners. This one guy was really ticked off because he had to switch several times to get lined up with his others and just when things were right, they did the Fastlane whole train thing. While I am still partial to Fastlane, this made me believe that there are still many bugs to be worked out (ie Disney-esque line merging before the platform). As for the ride, I took Adam Sandy's suggestion and sat in 1.2 instead of going for 1.3. The ride on left was better than the one on right. There were a couple of pops of airtime, but the thing was crying for grease (even moreso than Screamin� Eagle). It lost so much speed on the tops of the hills and the ride was still a bit bumpy. The funniest thing was that the smoothest part of the ride was the skid brakes! About this time we stopped at the Dodge House and I got a footlong chill cheese dog an a medium soda (criminy! ten bucks!) The two teens working the registers were very pleasant and while not excited, seem pleased to have their jobs. After eating, we made the ultimate sacrifice and hopped in line for Chiller. This group of five ladies and one gent in front of us kept me rolling most of the time. The other part of the time I was thinking how much I really wanted a nap. After about an hour and forty minutes, we got to the platform. I opted out of waiting for the front seat (in general, I'm not a front seat fan anyway) and instead headed a-stern. As we're walking back, I notice that they have one car (two rows) marked off for Fastlane. Crap! If I had known Robin had Fastlane, I would have waited in the line at Guest Relations. That line couldn�t have been any longer than the two hours wait for Robin alone, plus we would have gotten other passes. As we are second to our turn to ride, they pull that same "clear out the Fastlane" crap as on RT. Of course, the op tells them to fill up from the rear, so we get bumped back a train. Granted, the extra five minutes we waited didn�t bother me much, but it was the principle. They already had rows blocked off, you're now telling me that the Fastlaners can�t wait, at most, 30 minutes for a ride with a normal two hour wait? Again, I think the �merging� technique would help greatly rather than the blocking off of rows. Funny aside, a girl mentioned to her friend that he should do something and this guy was like, �What can I do?". The only response I could come up with was, "Just be mad". Everybody found that humorous. As for the ride itself, the launch, of course, was like all other Premier coasters. I had my hands up and, this being my first time on Robin, didn�t realize how many handchoppers this ride has. Then, when we went backwards through the heartline, I thought I was going to get flung from the ride! Definitely cool indeed! I'm not sure I'll wait two hours again (who am I kidding, I likely would =]), but I still liked the OSTRed Batman more (and Mr. Freeze over both), simply because of the tophat (and the vertical spike on Freeze). Also, the bars on Robin are a little different than the ones on Flight of Fear @ PKD. PKD uses a belt attached to the seat and an eye bolt on the top of the bar itself to ensure that the bar is down far enough. Robin has a standard seat belt that attaches to the side of the bar. This is much easier for the rider to manipulate. Side note, there is also a sign in the station that says if the belt doesn�t latch, you cant ride. And yes, I did see one guy rejected. They really need a "test seat". We then peaked in on Batman: The Ride and the queue looked mostly full. Now I've been riding "a" B:TR since it first opened in '92, and though it's really fun, I have sort of a "been there, done that" mentality. Consequently, I said let's skip and go to Nitro. The line for Nitro was out of the queues and snaked all the way back past the first drop of B:TR. However, we just conceded that lines would be long regardless, so we bit the bullet and hopped in. SFGAdv was, of course, running all three train and dispatching as soon as the previous train cleared the lift, making for a very fast-moving line (the speedy and efficient part. Cedar Point capacity WHAT?!?). Forty minutes later, we enjoyed a fun, fast, and remarkably frigid backseat ride. With that out of the way and it being 7pm (park closing 11pm), I figured it was okay to ride B:TR. The wait was every bit of two hours! I haven�t waited that long for Batman since, like 1993, but what are ya� gonna� do huh? Anyway, we had good conversation with these three ladies from Queens (gotta� love New York accents), mostly about how to silence these screaming little white teeny-bopper girls, who pretty much drew the ire of everyone in line. To illustrate how loud these chicks were, I could hear their voices above the coaster and SFGadv's B:TR is notorious for being exuberantly loud. I suggested the "non-subtle" approach of a cherry bomb down the shorts, but I was overruled =]. Funny aside, one of the Queens "queens" asked why people were screaming and all excited going up the lift of B:TR. Without missing a beat, I fired back, "Because they're happy to finally be sitting down". Everyone within earshot had a good laugh on that one. Tim had said he was disappointed earlier in the year because his ride wasn�t very intense compared to Alpengeist (Nate! Nate! Stop choking! This kid doesn�t know any better =]). He then also told me he rode in the front. See, that was the mistake in and of itself. I kindly ushered him to the back seat and showed him what B&M used-to-could do. Not surprisingly, he walked off with a new appreciation. We hopped in the Nitro line again and struck up more conversations with people around us (this time from Philly). A girl asked if we liked Nitro or Medusa better. Tim, a fairly new "enthusiast" (i.e. just started branching out to non-home parks this year), started dropping all the jargon, stating how he didn�t feel comfortable "comparing a hypercoaster like Nitro to a megalooper like Medusa". Me? I just gave a simple one-word answer. Can you guess? Wrong!!!! ALL OF YOU! I actually said Medusa, and it's the truth. Medusa is better at being what it is than Nitro is as being what it is (unless Nitro was meant to be a "family hypercoaster," in which case its the best ride possible!). Also, this other guy mentioned that they had kicked everybody out of line for Robin due to a technical difficulty. After our row two Nitro ride, we dropped by Robin to see if the line was short due to re-opening. It wasn�t, so we decided to end our night (now circa 10pm) over by Medusa. However, on the way, I realized that Tim never rode Houdini, so we went there first. When we got out, it was like 15 until 11, so we just decided to break out. Tim wasn�t a big Medusa fan anyway, and I wasn�t looking forward to the drive home =(. There was quite a back up getting out of the parking lot. Why SFGAdv doesn�t have guards directing traffic is beyond me. Even with all that, three hours and ten minutes after getting in the car, I was pulling into my apartment complex for some much needed sleep! Overall, the day was really fun. Like I said before, there was a genuine sense of fun in the air. It's days like that when I really remember why I am a "park enthusiast and roller coaster rider". While I pointed out a few things that bugged me, they didn�t really have a deep impact on my overall day. However, the one thing that did disappoint me was that Tomahawk (Huss Frisbee) was closed all day =( (I really love that ride =]). but all in all, very good day!
lata,
|