Hutch's Trip Report Thread - Dutch Wonderland & Hersheypark

[dcxs]

I'm constantly surprised how temperamental coasters can be, you would think a 500 ton engineering marvel would be more consistent.
Heres how I rank Helix over the years;
2014; Wow! Glass smooth, one of my favorite coasters. 9.5/10
2016; Wtf?! 2 yrs and its has this rattle? 7.5/10
2020; What??? Its definitely not glass smooth but so much better then my last ride. 8.5/10

Also yes, Balder is the best ride in the park imo..

 

[Hutch]

Friday, July 22nd

Up until today, we had lucked out with the weather. Well, it wasn’t perfect... we were barely keeping ourselves ahead of the heatwave. Every single day was sunny in the high 80s/low 90s, and just about sweating our asses off everyday so far. Today was no different, except for the threat of thunderstorms in the afternoon.

It’s good thing that we decided to sack off Skara Sommerland from the trip (we made the decision during our stay in Hamburg). The cred run probably could’ve been done in joint of Kolmarden in one day, but we still had a four hour drive ahead of us from our hotel outside Gothenburg. Plus, Skara would’ve been purely a cred run, lacking any quality coaster. The S&S would’ve been cool as there’s literally nothing else like it in the world, but even then we would’ve had to sacrifice extra time on something much more attractive.

In fact, the looming thunderstorms sparked some cred anxiety in a park that shouldn’t have any at all.

We arrived at Kolmarden Wildlife Park around midday, with just under two hours before the first of multiple thunderstorms arrived.

We found the first cred, Godiståget, which was nowhere near the other two creds. Someone in our group needed both kiddie creds so he could make a certain coaster his 1200th (holy ****). We all got in line in what would probably be a 20 minute queue. But since the forecast looked iffy, a couple of us decided to abandon the cred so we could maximize our time on some sexy wood.

It took a while for me to figure out which coaster I was most excited for on this trip, but deep down, it was always going to be Wildfire.

In some ways, it’s better than expected. In other ways, it’s worse. But I’d say it does indeed live up to the hype.

Let’s get the drawbacks out of the way: depending on where you sit, it’s not the smoothest. There’s a bit of a woodie rattle going on, but not exactly the standard affair of other woodies. It’s definitely present in the very back, or on wheel seats towards the back. You notice the rattle more in the second half of the ride, but that’s mainly because the first few elements are so crazy that you don’t have time to recognize it. But it’s really not a problem so long as you sit in the front of a car. That’s how I dealt with Lightning Rod back when it was a pure woodie.

But in the grand scheme of things, it’s still in great shape for a wooden coaster. Knowing Lightning Rod’s pothole after the first drop (and obviously seeing how that ride turned out to be) and hearing reports on Outlaw Run getting rough, I could only fear how a zoo could maintain this ride, but it’s really not a big deal.

The other drawback is that, yes, it does exhaust itself at the end. While it doesn’t crawl on that last airtime hill, it slows the train down significantly, leaving little airtime and disrupting the flow. All they needed to do was lower the height of the last hill and it would’ve been fine. Those final s-bends are fun though.

So how was the ride better than expected? Well, it doesn’t exactly involve the ride itself, but how it’s operated: 95% of the time, the ride ops don’t push down on your restraint when checking. The amount of room I left myself would’ve given Cedar Fair or Six Flags a heart attack.

Their loading process is a bit cumbersome. Check the seat belt first, then you’re allowed to lower your restraint. Then they’ll verify on the system that everything is locked, and then they go and physically check your restraints. This last part is actually pretty quick: two of them will race down pulling up on all the lap bars, and if you managed three inches of room between your things and the restraint? No problem. And let me go and loosen my seat belt as we’re climbing the lift hill.

Also how cool is it that 5 year old kids can ride this thing?

And oh my god. That loose lap bar is the main reason why it broke into my Top 10. Wildfire made me its bitch, and ragdolled me around in every direction. This includes one of the best first drops in the world.

There's me getting yeeted in the back row. Look how high our heads go compared to the people in front of us!

The best stall in the world. Prior to this visit, I actually preferred Intamin’s take on the stall for the ragdolling. But this one threw me around even more, and being inside a dense wooden structure made it even cooler.

And further chaos in the outerbank and the following airtime hills and overbanks. The ride threw me around in ways that shouldn’t be allowed.

The other highlight is that last inversion, a whippy barrel roll taken at great speeds. Between this and the stall, Wildfire has two of RMC’s best inversions.

And I haven’t even mentioned the setting. Expectations for the views were high, and they were better than expected. It was seriously beautiful.

We got a few rides in, and eventually the rest of the group caught on to get their turn as well. As expected a swell of thunderstorms started rolling in, closing the ride down for a bit. That was the perfect time for lunch. In fact we barely managed to take cover from the heavy rain, right after we collected our food.

Delfinexpressen remained open, and the heavy rain scared off people in the queue, so we grabbed that quick once the rain calmed down.

The rain remained inconsistent moving forward. Thunder cells seemed to remain in the area, so Wildfire showed no signs of opening soon.

The other major attraction (arguably more important than Wildfire), Safari Sky Ride, had also closed down for weather. We waited around for a bit, before wandering nearby to the other enclosures in the meantime.

Saw some monkeys.

And shortly afterward Safari Sky Ride reopened. A few years back, I always wondered how a random zoo of all places could afford a giant RMC. But after seeing this ride, of course they can! It’s easily more expensive than Wildfire’s investment.

There’s not much to say about the ride that hasn’t already been said, but it’s much longer than I expected. Really glad we managed to ride it, as it’s definitely a must do.

You know all about these shots though. It’s seriously the best view from any park. Nothing quite like looking out on the Swedish bay with a big daddy RMC poking out.

Wildfire had opened back up during our gondola ride, so we managed a couple more rides on it before another storm came.

We even managed to get the last train before they shut it down again. It was even thundering in the distance before we got on. Going up the lift hill and seeing the torrential downpour across the bay was a sight to behold!

It was every man for themselves on the hike back to the entrance. Dark clouds rolled in, winds picked up significantly, and thunder kept getting closer (including a piercing lightning strike that was definitely less than a mile from us… super cool while a bit uncomfortable).

Got distracted by this thing:

We were about a minute away from the souvenir shop before the heavens opened up and baptized us.

We all tried to wait out the storm before heading out in the parking lot, but it didn’t show any signs of letting up. Pretty soon the catch basis couldn't keep up and a tsunami started flowing into the shop, which was our sign to skedaddle. We had a moist couple of hours in the van before arriving in Stockholm.

Of course, I ended up missing the other kiddie cred near the front of the park, but skipping it was ultimately the right move as it allowed a couple extra rides on Wildfire. The plan would’ve been to nab it on the way out (no way we’d be heading back and forth), but the storm killed that opportunity. Those extra couple Wildfire rides were valuable, because it wasn’t quite the whore session we hoped for, even in between the storms. One train operations kept the queue at around 10 minutes, which we shouldn’t be complaining about, but I was spoiled and wanted my walk-on rides that I kept hearing about.

When comparing it to other parks, Kolmarden is hard to rate as there isn’t really anything else like it. The only other “zoo with creds” I’ve done is the Columbus Zoo, which just had the basic kiddie woodie. As a zoo, Kolmarden is obviously much better, and it’s in a better location. But I have no idea how I’d rate it if it weren’t for the RMC. Regardless, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon. I'd return in a heartbeat, especially since we didn't really get a chance to see some of the other enclosures.

Last park of the trip up next!

 

[witchfinder]

Interesting to read your views on Helix, which are very similar to my own but definitely seem to be the minority view. Glad it's not just me though!

Your day at Kolmarden sounds similar to ours too, although I had numerous rides on Wildfire in the train so I guess there is a threshold for how bad the storm is before they decide to close it. Based on that last photo it certainly rained more for you!

 

[Hutch]

Been slacking, but luckily this is the last part of this trip.

Saturday, July 22nd

My flight out of Stockholm was the next day, while most of the group would continue for a few more days hitting up some parks in Finland.

We ended up walking to the park from our hotel, which ended up taking around 40 minutes. We were in no rush, and it was a nice change from having to pile into the van.

Compared to all the other new parks on the trip, I actually wasn’t as excited for Gröna Lund, mostly because they didn’t seem to have that one world class or game changing coaster that all the other parks had. It was a pretty foolish thought, because we fell in love with the park pretty quickly, mostly thanks to its design which added a lot of charm. But it actually had a great ride selection, with a couple creds better than anything at a couple of the other parks.

First thing you see when you walk in:

Started off with Vilda Musen. We entered the park at about 10 minutes past opening, so it had already built up a sizable queue, but we sucked it up to knock it out of the way (the queue remained consistent throughout the day too).

Like the one at Djurs, I thought they had just plopped down a standard wild mouse in the middle here, so it was nice to try another Gerst Bobsled. It was equally as fun as Thor’s Hammer too. While Thor had the better layout and landscaping, this one was all about the interaction with Jetline.

Cedar Fair should also take a page out of the operations here too. Instead of overloading too many trains, staff would just occasionally send out an empty train to prevent any unnecessary stacking on the brake run. I really appreciated this, as it didn’t slow the queue down at all (it’d literally take them 10 seconds to send it out and bring up the next train), and you wouldn’t be stuck on the brake run for five minutes.

Being low capacity, we figured Insane would also gain a lengthy queue, so we knocked that out as well. This was my first Intamin zacspin, and I interested to see how it fared against the S&S free spins. I’ve heard horror stories about these, so expectations were quite low.

It was actually mostly tame throughout the ride. We didn’t actually get a real flip until the last hop into the brakes, but otherwise it was mostly bobbing and weaving throughout the course. The main thing that felt different from the free spins is that the turnarounds/raven turns/whatever you call them felt more like drops as opposed to some kind of inversion. Since we more or less stayed in an upright position, these elements gave some unexpected airtime.

Looking back, it was actually kind of fun, and I’d probably ride it again if it weren’t for the tedious loading process on these things. But these types or rides are hard to enjoy at the moment since you’re focused on bracing yourself for anything unpleasant.

Ok, how come nobody talks about Jetline? This thing is genuinely amazing. We were all surprised at how good it was, and immediately went around for another go since it was a walk-on. The big takeaway is that this ride probably has the best positive g-forces on just about any ride I've done.

I think I expected maybe one good moment and then your typical turns and inclines, but everything about it was fantastic. The first drop is actually reminiscent of Beast’s drop into the helix: comically shallow while visually cool as it slowly builds up speed, before diving into that tunnel and that tight pullout. The forces aren’t sustained, but they’re quick bursts that **** you up.

The big turnaround by Kvasten and Twister have some great laterals as well as some amazing visuals. Swooping over Twister is a great chance to see how everything is weaved in between.

Then the next drop. You ever play RCT and build a coaster with those steep sharp turns? That’s this. Oh man, it has airtime, laterals, and positives in such a short amount of time that not many modern coasters can even do, and you're left overwhelmed with how a ride from the ‘80s can do such a thing.

And it’s not even over from there. While the first half of the ride is vastly superior, the second half still provides plenty of helices and intensity, all with near misses and a fast pace. Even the multiple MCBRs don’t break up the flow, if anything they provide a moment of relief and allow you to contemplate how crazy this ride is.

We all loved it, and—since we missed out on Balder—it’s easily the second best coaster in Sweden and my new favorite Schwarzkopf. The operations were some of the best I’ve ever seen too, even better than Lisebergbanan’s. From opening the airgates, it never took longer than 20 seconds to dispatch, thanks to nobody needing to check your restraint (though honestly if it weren’t for that wild drop, you probably wouldn’t even need the restraint). And they ran three trains, but half the time there wouldn't even be a train on the brake run.

Right around the corner of course was Twister. Even with Monster's installation, I’d still argue that this is the most impressive coaster they’ve managed to design in this space. Monster is able to get away with some elements by staying elevated above the park, but Twister feels more restricted when it comes to packing in its tight layout.

It was good fun. It doesn’t quite reach the level of excitement and thrills that some of the other family GGs achieved, which I think comes down to its pacing. It tries to pack a bunch into the layout with the modest momentum it has.

But it’s still just as fun as the more thrilling models, thanks to its setting and visual appeal. This ride is a great example of extremely tight clearances on all the coasters—you can actually slap the track above you as you go up the lift hill. We didn’t dare keep our hands up after that!

Most of the rides don’t have a lot of theming, relying mostly on the Gröna Lund charm to make up for the visual appeal. But Kvasten actually has some pretty good theming.

And because of that it’s obviously more interesting than its clone in Florida. While not as thrilling as Orkanen, some of the helices are still pretty good.

Had a couple of kiddie creds to grab, including the Tivoli model Nyckelpigan…

And Tuff-Tuff Tåget, the last kiddie cred of the trip, and the most shameful of all.

Ok, onto the main event.

This one actually took a while to get on. We had saved Monster for last knowing that a B&M invert shouldn’t have an issue taking care of everyone, but we were surprised to see that it had a pretty long queue. It ultimately came down to it only being one train operations, which was pretty blasphemous for a Saturday, especially for your new cred. I had to think they were having issues with the other train that day—the ride actually had a delayed opening, so they probably gave up and were like “let’s just get this bitch open.”

In fact, they were clearly having some issues with the train they were using. There were a couple of instances where dispatches took around 7 minutes each, and those two cycles had the front two rows empty for whatever reason. But otherwise, operations seemed fine. It still took us 45 minutes to get on, but it should’ve been less than that thanks to the delays and our extra wait for the front row.

While I had a feeling back row would’ve been the better ride, front row is definitely something to prioritize if you can. It has some of the best views from an interaction standpoint. The swooping drop in particular is special as you’re facing the water before pulling out, but the rest of the ride has some exciting visuals as you fly in between buildings and rides, narrowly missing your feet.

As for how it rides, the inversions were actually the weakest part of the ride, which is a shame as they’re typically the best moments on B&M inverts. That’s not to say they’re bad or wasted, but instead of the snappy goodness, they’re more floaty and graceful.

The really good parts are the moments where there’s actually some intensity, including some forces in the turns in between those bigger elements. Some of the (understandably) taller elements don’t quite hit, but the layout has some tighter turns to make of for that, and everything is obviously elevated by the visuals.

There’s even a surprise bunny hop towards the end, which is a rare moment on an invert.

But the first drop is still the best moment. Between the visuals, the twist down, and the forces at the bottom, it gets you.

Also, look at this thicc boi!

Cred run complete, it was time to check out some of the other stuff. Some of the others really wanted to do the fun house, Lustiga Huset, which wasn’t really my style, so I reluctantly joined.

But I ended up doing something I’d never done before: I exited the fun house about 3/4 of the way through. You see, it was around 2PM, and I was getting pretty hangry at this point, and I knew I needed some fuel or else I’d start to feel sick. Since we only had until 3:30 PM in our park ticket, the rest of the group wanted to delay their meal until after the park, and use our precious time riding things. To me, that meant that we wouldn't find food until after 4PM, between leaving the park, walking around, and being indecisive until picking a restaurant (spoiler alert, they didn’t eat until 5). And the fun house was not doing me any favors. It wasn’t even that special honestly. Sure, some of the things were cute, but the entire time I was thinking “Why are we doing this.” Once I found a small queue for the slides at the end of the house, that was it for me. I broke off from the group, found the nearest exit, and got food on my own.

It was a good decision for me, and the meal was actually pretty solid. Probably the best park food of the trip, and all (including a drink) for under $10.
(Refills were also apparently 10 SEK, but that didn’t stop me from refilling it on my own anyway. If they really want to charge you, maybe move the soda fountains to a place where guests can’t access them?)

Beyond the creds, another ride on the checklist was the dive drop tower, Icarus. We rode some pretty awesome drop towers on this trip, but this one is the best. In fact, Falcon’s Fury can step aside: this is my new favorite drop tower. While these kinds don’t have the sudden airtime like others, facing the ground really is such a special feeling. And the view of Stockholm made it more exciting than Falcon’s Fury.

I actually didn’t do any other flat rides. I would’ve liked to do the Star Flyer, but I was mostly interested in the views and I felt like Icarus satisfied that. We didn’t have a lot more time left in our morning session, so I wanted to prioritize rerides on coasters.

And that meant easy re rides on Jetline. Then I went back and got in the queue again for Monster. They had gotten more consistent with dispatching, so the wait was only 15 minutes. I was able to request back row, and I gotta say, while the front is something to prioritize for the unique view, the back rides so much better. Right out of the gate, the first drop is much more intense. That includes the whip that the ride was otherwise lacking, and even heavier g’s at the bottom. The rest of the elements were taken much quicker too.

As we get back into the station, I barely had to the chance to raise my restraint when the ride op said “You guys want to ride again?”. Turns out nobody lined up for the back row… don’t mind if I do!

Sadly the other guys weren’t able to get their rerides in: they closed the queue for Monster 30 minutes before the end of the session (likely why I was able to get that sneaky bonus ride). But since Jetline continue to be a walk-on, that remained open. Let’s grab a few more rides on that then!

We all would’ve loved to stay in the park for a bit longer, but obviously the end of the session forced us out. It’s kinda annoying… cutting the operating hours in half while maintaining the ticket price (though we can’t complain because our ACE memberships got us in for free). While we had no issues getting all the creds with plenty of rerides, it would’ve been nice to at least have to option to stay a bit longer, or go at a more leisurely pace. But it seems like it was a good business decision, as they essentially double their park days/ticket sales (the place was indeed packed).

Gröna Lund is so cool though. We all loved it! It’s the best park in the country, and the location is fantastic. The aesthetics and lack of theming isn’t really my style (I’m more drawn to the other parks from this trip), but the design and setting more than make up for it. This will certainly be a park to return to, especially when they get that new Vekoma looper (or whatever it is)... that’ll be killer.

The silver lining about the half day ticket—and the convenient location—was that we finally had an afternoon and evening free to relax, which was much needed after a week long cred haul.

We sat down for some food, took a nap, got some drinks, and a couple of us scooted on down to Trädgården. I’m far from a club guy, but this was easily the coolest one I’ve been to.

Luckily my flight out wasn’t until the afternoon the next day, so we could afford a late night out to end off the trip.

 

[Hutch]

I’ll do another one of these posts at the end of the year culminating everything, but I figured I’d do a recap of this trip.

This was one of the best trips I’ve ever done, if not the best. All the parks we visited were fantastic, we rode some incredible coasters, and it was easily the biggest cred haul I’ve done on a trip. It’ll be a while before I do another mega international trip like this, at least to this extent.

New Creds: +46
Total Creds Ridden: 50
Total Coaster Rides: 85
Most Ridden: Piraten x9
Best Flat: Icarus

Parks Ranked:

Djurs Sommerland
Heide Park
Farup Sommerland
Grona Lund
Kolmarden
Hansa Park
Liseberg
(Thorpe Park)

It's also worth noting that each park had its own unique feel. Heide has a traditional theme park resort feel, Hansa has the elite theming, Djurs is well put together, Farup is adorable, Liseberg feels very classic, Kolmarden is obviously its own thing with the zoo in the forest, and Grona is RCT. Oh, and Thorpe is Thorpe lol.

Best Coasters from the Trip

Piraten
Wildfire
Colossos
Fonix
Jetline
Stealth
Juvelen
Monster
Lisebergbanan
Karnan

And honorable mention to Bobbahn!

 

[HandsUpPantsDown]

I’ll do another one of these posts at the end of the year culminating everything, but I figured I’d do a recap of this trip.

This was one of the best trips I’ve ever done, if not the best. All the parks we visited were fantastic, we rode some incredible coasters, and it was easily the biggest cred haul I’ve done on a trip. It’ll be a while before I do another mega international trip like this, at least to this extent.

New Creds: +46
Total Creds Ridden: 50
Total Coaster Rides: 85
Most Ridden: Piraten x9
Best Flat: Icarus

Parks Ranked:

Djurs Sommerland
Heide Park
Farup Sommerland
Grona Lund
Kolmarden
Hansa Park
Liseberg
(Thorpe Park)

It's also worth noting that each park had its own unique feel. Heide has a traditional theme park resort feel, Hansa has the elite theming, Djurs is well put together, Farup is adorable, Liseberg feels very classic, Kolmarden is obviously its own thing with the zoo in the forest, and Grona is RCT. Oh, and Thorpe is Thorpe lol.

Best Coasters from the Trip

Piraten
Wildfire
Colossos
Fonix
Jetline
Stealth
Juvelen
Monster
Lisebergbanan
Karnan

And honorable mention to Bobbahn!

very surprised at how high you rank Heide Park. I went recently and felt something was missing from every ride, watered down, out of date etc...

Very nice trip report all in all, I'm planning to do the main Swedish parks in 2023 so it's good to hear your experience, thanks!

 

[Hutch]

very surprised at how high you rank Heide Park. I went recently and felt something was missing from every ride, watered down, out of date etc...

I definitely liked it more than others in the group (most of them were kinda cranky as they were on a couple hours of sleep and had to deal with Amsterdam security). I'm much more attracted to European parks moreso than American style, and Heide just had that familiar setup of "big pond in the middle with rides surrounding it" design which I really like, and it worked. I loved the architecture too, especially towards the front and up on the hillside. And the ride lineup is pretty balanced. Colossos is everything I could've hoped for in that type of ride, and Bobbahn, Flight of the Demons, Krake, and Desert Race are all solid supporting rides to keep you entertained. And I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff I haven't explored yet.

But for the most part it all comes down to the ride lineup when comparing these parks, except for Grona Lund and Kolmarden, which have an entirely different feel. The rest are all very pretty and have genuine efforts in theming, architecture and landscaping, so it's really just what rides are you drawn to.

So that's why stuff like Hansa and Liseberg round out last because they lacked a standout coaster (I'm sure Balder would've fit that bill).

And Djurs and Farup are elevated because of how incredible the staff were. But if it weren't for Fonix, I'd bump Farup down much lower as the next best thing there is the family suspended.

 

[witchfinder]

Great write-up of Grona, again with very similar thoughts to mine (apart from Insane ) and I agree - best park in Sweden.

Looks like you had a great trip overall!

 

[Hutch]

WE DON’T STOP!

Only two weeks after my Europe adventure, I was back at it with another weekender. A group of us planned to hit up Coastin’ by the Ocean at Morey’s Piers, which, for once, didn’t require a plane ride for me to get to.

So that finally gave me an excuse to pick up a notable cred on the way down.

Friday, August 12

Flashback summer of 2019. I did my second visit to Six Flags Great Adventure. It was the worst visit I’ve ever had at a theme park. I’ll spare you the details (here’s the link if you’re interested in all my thoughts then), but I had never felt more unwelcome and more appalled by a theme park. I told myself they would need a new RMC to coerce me to return. Well, a month after that visit, they announce the damn raptor.

After picking up my friend from Newark airport and escaping traffic, we popped into the park Friday evening.

Jersey Devil Coaster is a great addition to the park, and probably their best coaster now. We got a few rides pretty easily. The highlight is first drop, which is absolutely wild in the back row. The stall is my next favorite element after that.

Everything else is pretty good, but I couldn’t help but wonder if something was off during my rides. I had heard some reports that the single rails can be a little rough in between some of the transitions. While that wasn’t the case here, it didn’t seem to flow as well as some of the other RMCs. This was my first single rail, so perhaps the unfamiliarity contributed to it.

The other minor annoyance I had were the shoulder collars. There was plenty of airtime, but it kept digging into my shoulders, similar to what I thought of Fonix. So overall it’s not the elite ride I saw potential in, but great stuff nonetheless.

I also LOVE the loading process of these models. RMC have designed them so that even the most incable of operators couldn’t screw this up.

Did a quick ride on Nitro, which I previously thought was one of the better B&M hypers. But I gotta say, this was not hitting like it used to. We did back row, and while it was a little smoother than I remember, and there was airtime on every hill, it just didn’t leave me impressed like it used to. Having ridden Goliath at Over Georgia more recently, I can confirm that it’s fallen for me.

Our last bit of business was a redemption ride on El Toro. When I rode it for the first time a few years ago (after being spited four years prior), I was far from impressed. It was rough, and the airtime hurt badly. That being said, I realized this visit that the painful airtime was a result of my whore session on Skyrush the day before. So no pain this time. But the other notable factor was the retrack they did last year. So hopefully it’ll be better?

The short answer is… yes… sort of. We just did one ride towards the back, and while I was actually able to enjoy the airtime, I didn’t think the ride was in much better shape than before. The first half had some rattle in the valleys, and it gets worse in the turnaround, but everything after the rolling thunder hill is just bad. I guess it was only a matter of time this thing teared itself apart, so hopefully the park will actually put in the effort to restore it much like Colossos and Balder.

But regardless, I got my one ride in, and was happy at that. I had a much better time than my previous rides, but it was far from the god-tier reputation it’s had for over a decade. So I was okay with not getting more rides (we were short on time anyway). Colossos is much better, and honestly if El Toro was smooth, I’d probably still prefer Colossos as I think it’s a better layout anyway.

Anyway, we were in and out in an hour. Three rides on Jersey Devil, and a ride each on Nitro and El Toro. I used to hate this park, and while I knew this would’ve been my best time here given the short visit, but they really stepped it up with their operations. Jersey Devil, Nitro, and El Toro had teams that had genuine effort and energy to get these trains moving. It’s exactly the kind of thing Six Flags needs to prioritize, and it seems like they’re aiming for that moving forward.

 

[Hutch]

Really need to start moving it along with these...

Saturday, August 13

We were all moving pretty slow this morning after a wild night out. The tylenol only led me back to the toilet, so when we eventually arrived at Morey’s Piers I settled for another hangover cure instead.

Some of our friends had claimed that the Great Nor’Easter was a genuinely good ride, which I never bought. And it wasn’t. It’s by far the best SLC as it doesn’t try to shake you around like an earthquake, but it’s still bad. Some of the transitions in between the elements were still pretty unpleasant. Though I suppose another redeeming factor is the tight interaction with the log flume.

Doo Wopper existed. It’s Zamperla, which made it a nice change from the stock model.

Runaway Tram was actually pretty solid. Nothing special, but it flowed well and it had some fun turns.

Couldn’t skip Kong, their flying scooters. Not much snapping, but it was still a little unsettling thanks to its elevated position.

Got some much needed lunch on the next pier, before polishing off some other rides.

The Giant Wheel had some decent views.

I was excited and terrified for Rollies Coaster, both for the wrong reasons. This sketchy thing seemed to be an absolute deathtrap, especially after seeing these trains.

But it was just… boring. It didn’t do anything. Disappointed.

Did this indoor boat ride for some reason.

Sea Serpent was the same story as the SLC: easily the best boomerang because the vest restraints negated any headbanging, but the Vekoma track still runs like ass.

Wild Whizzer Visa Spinner. +1

And got a ride on their Wave Swinger. Actually really pleasant.

As you can probably tell, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this park. Though to be honest it’s mostly because I’m trying to get on with these reports and keep things simple. But there’s really not anything notable here, at least so far with what we’ve done. The whole boardwalk park isn’t exactly my vibe, both with the rides and the overall feel. But we actually had a fantastic time, mostly that evening and the next day. And all because of the great group of folks we had.

We regrouped back at the house for a few hours in the afternoon, before returning back to the park for the catered buffet which was included in our Coastin' by the Ocean ticket. The best thing about it though? They had an open bar! (The options were cheap beer, but you can’t complain when it’s free).

The place REALLY gets packed at night too.

We had late night ERT lined up for their woodie, so until then, we took over another bar for a couple hours and had a great time.

I was satisfied with just the one night ride on Great White. I went in with no expectations and it was actually a lot of fun, and it hauled. I rode in the back and it wasn’t the smoothest, but I think it mostly came down to several drinks and it being a midnight ride.

_____________________________________

Sunday August 14th,

We all needed another leisurely morning. In fact our first rides of the day were actually after lunch. This time around, our tickets included ERT on the Adventure Pier. This pier alone actually houses the genuinely good rides for the whole park. It includes the woodie, but it also has some of the more intense rides as well.

First up were the Grand Prix Raceway, and I gotta say, this was the most fun I’ve ever had on Go-Karts. Yes, the course is very simple, but the thing that made it a blast was that you drive on the wooden planks of the pier itself, instead of the usual asphalt track. This meant less traction and more potential for drifting and spinning out. There was one hairpin turn that always gets everyone losing control. On our one race alone, everyone had to come to a stop three times so a ride operator could save someone who span out. One of those spin outs involved me threading the needle full speed through a pile up of karts along the turn. It was so much fun!

Next was Skyscraper, a booster ride, which was a new ride type for me. It was genuinely one of the best flat rides I’ve ever done. I was expecting it to be filled with horrible hangtime, but it was perfectly comfortable. The view of Wildwood while you’re upside down is incredible. The only downside of the ride is that the loading process breaks up the flow. You’ll board, do three rotations, and sit up on the very top waiting for the other arm to load (it’s quite freaky at the top, as you can feel the whole structure wobbling). Then three more rotations, and you unload. Would’ve been better if they load both immediately and spin the full six rotations at once.

Last up was the Springshot. Like skycoasters, slingshots were always something I’d been wanting to try, but it never bothered with as they’re typically an upcharge. This one was included in the package, so it was a no-brainer this time. Also really fun! Don’t love landing on your heading as it bobs up and down though.

That was pretty much it for me at that point. I had a 6 hour drive back up to Boston so I had to hit the road at a reasonable time… but also because I had another stop on the way….

 

[Hutch]

I had some business to take care of about 45 minutes north. I was never gonna end up doing a full mop up of the Jersey shore… it would’ve required more time but honestly hunting down a bunch of visa spinners, kiddie creds, and other **** doesn’t sound fun. But I figured I could at least check out one of the more notable parks in Playland’s Castaway Cove.

Honestly the best part about this quick visit is that the parking meter I used had about an hour leftover from the previous car, so I parked for free a few blocks from the park.

I went in with a pretty open mind for GaleForce. Ever since the park and S&S figured their **** out, there were a decent amount of good reviews depending on where you sit (some even rave it), but I know others weren’t a fan either.

Well I thought the ride was ass. Best way I can describe it was that I would’ve thought it was a Gerstaluer had I not known S&S actually built it. There’s nothing painful about it, but the restraints get a little too comfortable with your crotch, and there’s a solid rattle all the way around. I would’ve liked to wait for the front for a smoother experience, but they load the train SO slowly, and they prefer to wait for a full train to dispatch. The ride wasn't popular this time of day so I didn’t feel like waiting another ten minutes and settled for the back row.

It has airtime, but the ride has the same problem I had with the Sky Rocket IIs: the quick transitions are just hard to enjoy overall. It launches you through the layout twice, which I can appreciate. It makes up for any sort of temptation to reride, not that I had any to begin with.

I suppose it looks good from an off-ride perspective. It dominates the park and even the surrounding neighborhood. Overall, kinda glad the ride wasn’t good so I don’t have to deal with returning to this place.

I had hope for Wild Waves. After riding Hurricane at Fun Spot Kissimmee last year and realizing how janky that thing is, I was hoping for something similar here. I do love how it loops around GaleForce a couple of times, and it’s all just a bunch of triangular hills that look promising. But it was fairly tame. More fun than GaleForce as it wasn’t offensive, but nothing too exciting.

Grabbed Whirlwind… another visa spinner... but I skipped their kiddie cred because I strive to be a respectful human being.

So that was an easy detour, in and out in less than an hour. It’s possible I might return to Coastin’ by the Ocean 2023, so perhaps next time I could hit up another boardwalk on the way for some more creds… maybe wherever that Eurofighter is.

 

[Hutch]

Let’s keep the momentum going again.

Made a weekend trip down to Atlanta at the end of September for another Buzzed Bars meetup. In addition to Six Flags Over Georgia, the plan was to hit up Fun Spot Atlanta for some RMC time, but we all know what happened there. But it’s okay, we settled for something even sexier instead.

The Georgia State Fair was going on that weekend with a couple a creds on the menu. First was a basic Wildcat model. This was actually pretty smooth for what it was.

And guys, I finally did it. I finally rode a Wacky Worm.

I wanted to ride in the front row with the caved-in seat, but they wouldn’t let me.

We ended up visiting Six Flags Over Georgia on the Sunday. I had my flight out that evening, so only had about 5 hours in the park, but the place was dead. It was a very leisurely day with plenty of rides on the good stuff.

Twisted Cyclone deserved some attention as I only rode it once from my previous visit four years ago. It’s about what I remembered: still fantastic, but not as exciting as some of the other I-Boxes. It’s short, but there’s not a whole lot more it could do if it were longer. So it does the job.

A few others needed Dare Devil Dive, so I joined them before the queue got too long. This Gerstlauer is kinda interesting because it’s been known to be pretty smooth… but despite that I found it to be boring back when I first rode it.

This time? Yeah it ran like a Gerstaluer. It shuffled all the way around. During the ride I kept thinking “Oh no… what happened here?!”. I can only imagine how bad the OTSR counterpart Anubis is.

Another coaster that also got worse since my first visit was Mindbender… which I guess has Riddler themed to it now. It’s still fun, but they trimmed it to death. I knew about it going back into it, but didn’t know where. There’s one earlier on, and it had me thinking that was it, so I was SHOCKED to see it nearly coming to a complete stop before dropping into the third loop. Who thought that was a good idea?

It’s still a fun ride, but others were very upset with it. I never rated Mindbender that highly to begin with though.

Goliath was still poppin’ though. I think most would agree that, on paper, this is the best layout on a B&M hyper. I’m still partial to Shambhala, and I wish Goliath’s first drop was steeper, but who can really complain about this? Six juicy airtime hills, big ass helix, and no mid course disrupting the pacing? Please. Only thing that’s holding it back is the smoothness. It’s not as present as Diamondback’s rattle, but it exists.

Was really excited to get back on this version of Batman: The Ride as it’s supposedly the best one. And it is! I don’t know how, but this one is fast, smooth, and kicks your ass. Genuinely one of the better inverts around.

I had one leftover cred from my last visit, the Joker Funhouse Coaster. It was cute. Really solid for a kiddie coaster.

I think that was about all I did. Most of my time was spent between Twisted Cyclone and Goliath. It would’ve been nice to get a ride on Superman or ‘GASM, but I was kinda following with whatever others were doing, and obviously I didn’t have all day like they did. Didn’t bother with Georgia Scorcher either. People keep giving me **** for disrespecting that ride (it’s trash). Part of me wanted to give it a second chance but it was a low priority.

Speaking of Superman, while I didn’t ride it, the park didn’t seem to have a problem with letting the coaster do its thing while some guy is wandering in the restricted field:

But this was actually a pretty solid visit, making it 3 for 3 for my Six Flags visits this year. Obviously, it helped that the place was dead, and I didn’t have to cred run, so I could be leisurely and do the stuff I knew I liked. But the staff seemed competent (except for not paying attention to that guy underneath Superman), and I realized there’s actually one relatively pleasant area in the park:

Just wish the areas at Superman and Goliath were something other than ugly.

I got one more trip to write up! Then should be done for the year.

 

[Hutch]

There was a certain coaster that finally opened last year that everyone had been raving about. And with my SeaWorld pass set to expire by the end of January, I had to make sure I put that to use.

I started off 2022 with a visit down to Orlando, so it was only fitting to end the year the same way. Only this time prioritizing time for Busch Gardens Tampa.

But of course, couldn’t stay way from VelociSexy.

Everytime I return to this ride I go in doubting whether it’ll hold up or not. And it still does. Anyway, I won’t touch on Universal any longer. It had been over five years since my first BGT visit, so there were some more welcome creds to grab. And of course some other great stuff as well.

Showed up to Busch Gardens Tampa in time for opening. It was tempting to hit the RMC first, but Chunt had to be taken care of. It racks up to an hour pretty quickly after opening, which you don’t want to wait for. Snagged a front ride too during the walk-on.

So is Cheetah Hunt a good ride? Depends on what you treat it as. If it’s a family coaster, then you’d be pretty impressed with the design, offering a few thrilling moments throughout the length course. But wait, it goes upside down, so that throws the vibe off doesn’t it. If treated like a blitz coaster, then you’re probably thinking what the hell is it doing wasting everything on these meandering turns that don’t do anything?

But disregarding any expectations, it’s still a decent ride. There’s some good moments, particularly the second launch and the s-bends. It’s smooth. It’s presented nicely. But there’s too much filler without much substance. Ultimately, it’s worth a ride if the queue isn’t too long (which it usually isn’t).

Alright, it was time for Iron Gwazi. Expectations were obviously high, but I wasn't necessarily anticipating a world beater. Got back row for our first ride, and as expected there were a lot of wild and intense moments that leave you breathless. One thing is for sure: it’s pretty overwhelming after one ride. Much like your first ride on Steel Vengeance, your first ride on VelociCoaster, where there’s a whole lot going on and it takes a while to collect your thoughts. Re-rides were warranted, but we left it for now.

Tigris was also new-to-me. Knowing how bad Tempesto was, I was most certainly not excited for this. And I’ve done a few of them now so I'm already kinda over them. They’re not the most comfortable either, both with the train design and the unpleasant elements. At least the queue was nicely done.

Was really excited to get back on Kumba, especially with rumors that it’ll bite the dust within the next few years. Not sure I agree with that choice, especially with how great shape it’s in. Even the corkscrews, which I used to think had a bit of a rattle, ran totally fine.

Over the past few years we’ve seen goons lament over notable rides like Vortex, Wicked Twister, and Volcano getting torn down. But it would truly be a sad day whenever they decide to tear down Kumba. It’s still a fantastic ride, and an intense one. Positive g’s crushing you in the first few elements, snappy transitions in some of the later inversions, and a great setting to make it one for the ages. It’s easily the best of the B&M sit-downs, and—excluding the inverts—arguably the best B&M looper.

After grabbing an early lunch, got a courtesy ride on Scorpion. I used to think this ride wan’t that interesting after the loop, but I don’t know what happened, but it was much more fun this time around! The loop is great of course, but the rest of the ride gave similar vibes to riding an old school woodie, but without the roughness. It threw me around all over the place, even on the first drop. Was not expecting to prefer this over Cheetah Hunt!

Got distracted by some animals, including an elephant that seemed to be stuck in a dance rhythm.

Finished our loop of the park with Montu. A Montu revisit was MUCH needed after seeing it continuously slip to the bottom of my Top 30 over the past 5 years. The highest I had it ranked was at 14, but I think it was 29 right before this trip, thanks to newer creds busting into the ranks and others climbing higher. I wasn’t ready to let this drop further until I got a re-ride. I loved it back then, and had it as my second favorite invert.

It’s still excellent, but I can safely say it’s no longer in my Top 30 anymore. I wouldn’t say it’s gotten worse… the first half is still amazing, especially the zero g roll into the batwing, and I’m not that bothered by the midcourse breaking up the flow. But I think it just comes down to other rides just being better. Even thinking of stuff like Afterburn and Batman at SFOG having tighter, hard-hitting layouts. We got a couple rides in, but I’m a little sad it’s not that elite anymore.

We got another ride on the Gwussy, which allowed me to start forming more of an opinion. Ok, so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the layout. The first drop is incredible, the outerbank is great (although surprisingly one of the lesser moments on the ride). There’s speed, laterals, airtime moments that throw you around, and a pace that does not let up AT ALL. The outer-banked wave turn is probably the best moment on the ride, and the death roll is seriously one of the best inversions in the world.* Even the last few airtime hills were more intense than expected. In fact, I even preferred the later airtime moments over the first big outerbanked hill.

*For what it’s worth, the mososaurus roll is still the clear winner. Upside-down ejector and seeing water above you can’t be matched. And Wildfire’s stall is another contender, but we’re splitting hairs here.

But here’s the thing. Knowing my opinions of the ride itself, this could’ve been a Top 5 ride. But I have it at #9. It seems awkwardly low, especially compared to others’ opinions, and knowing that I have Steel Vengeance at #1. I have two reasons that kinda coincide with each other. For one, the rides I have ranked above I simply just had more fun on. Wildfire was the easy comparison, placed at #8. It’s not as smooth nor intense, but the setting is much better and I had a TON of room in my lap bar. Secondly, it wasn’t that fun trying to get on the ride. We got three rides throughout the day, but on average we waited an hour each. The queue is slow, the operations are understaffed and sluggish (at best, they’ll do 3 minute dispatches, but they were even struggling to achieve that), and the queue itself doesn’t even have a great view of the ride, or anything else to keep you entertained. Compare that queue to VelociCOaster, where it’s constantly moving, the layout interacts with you, and there’s stuff to look at inside? It just sucks the excitement of riding a crazy new ride out from you. It feels like a chore to ride.

And it is kind of a shame that Iron Gwazi is basically plopped on top of an access area. The views from the top aren’t that pretty, and it’s hard to get a good look at the ride from inside the park.

I think after this we did a loop on the Serengeti Train, before relaxing at the Giraffe bar for some drinks. We did another loop around the park, getting the chance to see their lovely holiday light package, and getting some rerides on Kumba, Montu, and Gwazi.

This was a pretty relaxing day at the park. The front half got a little crowded, but we were able to get a lot done and wound up spending a full day there. I will say, while I originally preferred this park over Williamsburg, I actually prefer BGW now. And that primarily comes down to BGW being a MUCH prettier park. That’s not to say BGT isn’t pretty, but BGW has a lot more natural landscaping woven in. BGT has the better coaster lineup however, and it has more animals, so choose your preference.

 

[Hutch]

So that wraps up 2022, which was easily my most exciting year for coasters! I genuinely had a lot of fun writing these up for you guys, and I hope you get some entertainment out of them.

I've got more coming for 2023 (I just got back from a long weekend in California), but before I get those out I wanted to ask for some feedback about the structure of my reports. Instead of making a new thread for 2023, I'm leaning towards just continuing everything in this thread, rename it "Hutch's Theme Park Adventures" or some basic bs like that. It'd also be a nice way for me to keep track of everything in one place. That said, I'd keep it to new-to-me parks, or old parks that focus on new creds or stuff like that (I was kinda like **** it last year and did reports for everything, but you don't need any more repeats).

The only drawback I see of keeping all my reports together in one thread is that it makes it harder to someone to search specific park reports, but I'm still leaning towards keeping it all together. It'd also keep this thread generally active, instead of getting shoved down and forgotten in the following pages.

So yeah, I'd appreciate any thoughts! Thanks for coming along with the ride.

 

[Hutch]

Alright we back for 2023. I've settled on continuing this thread instead of starting a new one, but I've put together a table of contents at the first post. So if you haven't opened this thread in a while and it throws you to the very start, there're direct links to the parks you want to read about, instead of having to scroll all over the place.

Alright. Went to another Buzzed Bars event a couple weeks ago, this time in LA for some meetups at Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain. SoCal obviously has more to offer, but that requires more vacation days and money, plus I’m not all that interested in Disneyland or Universal Hollywood yet. Perfectly happy with the big creds for now, though obviously a return visit is more than welcome.

A bunch of us stayed onsite at the Knott’s Berry Farm hotel the Thursday night before. I flew in pretty late so didn’t get a chance to see the gang till the next morning.

I went into the park with fairly modest expectations. We had heard some horror stories about queues being slammed on some rides and some obnoxious guests, but honestly it was fine. In fact, it was a really pleasant day.

First order of business was rope drop on Ghostrider. It was definitely the move, as the queue filled up very quickly behind. We were warned that it holds a slow queue throughout the day, but fortunately it eased later to allow for some easy re rides.

You tend to either hear people raving about Ghostrider—as in one of the best woodies out there—while others think it’s fine. I never thought it looked that amazing, but I went in with an open mind. It definitely needed to warm up after our first ride. It’s nice and long, with the first half being very different from the second half. The first half, which is mostly big hills, didn’t really impress me, but the second half got surprisingly good. That’s where the pace picks up a bit and you have more opportunities for airtime, directional changes, and violent laterals. Good stuff.

So far, I was really impressed with the theming this park has. It relies a lot on the wild west theme, but it’s really well done.

Got the plus one on Pony Express. I’m kind of a sucker for “straddle coasters” now… at least I love Intamin’s take on them. Being my first time on Zamperla’s model, this was obviously the weakest one I’ve done, but it was honestly more fun than I thought it’d be. The launch was surprisingly punchy for a launch of that speed, and I enjoyed the swooping turns and surprisingly great theming.

Of the minimal things I had heard about the ride, it seemed like this was considered a bad coaster, but it was perfectly fine for what it was. Only thing is that it’s a bit short.

Let’s see if Gerstlauer can do something good for once.* Prioritized the front middle on Hangtime to minimize any potential rattle, and that strategy seemed to work as it was fairly smooth throughout. The layout isn’t really my style, but there were some good moments, including the hang(time) looking down the drop, the non-inverting dive loop thing, and the tight cobra roll. The dip out of the cutback was the easy highlight though. Seriously great moment of airtime there.

*I kid of course. Karnan is awesome, as are some of the Eurofighters, but they all track poorly.

I was dreading Coast Rider and its shin guard restraints, fearful of spontaneous amputation mid ride, but it was fine. Even the hairpin turns were pretty tame compared to the standard layout.

I don't have a photo of Xcelerator, but because of the spite we were kind of pretending it wasn't there anyway. Hydraulic launches are an endangered species these days, so I would’ve loved a ride on it since it had a shot of being the best ride in the park. But it wasn’t too much of a bummer. We knew about it beforehand and I just did Stealth again last year, which is probably the better ride anyway.

We looped around and walked on Silver Bullet. This was always a curious one, as you hear it being regarded as one of the weaker inverts. On paper, the layout looks great, but then you hear things about the lack of intensity or the trains having a bit of a shuffle.

Sat in the second row, and as we go down the comically shallow first drop, I start out by going “Oohh heyy, here we go, ahhh—WHAT?! WAIT A SECOND!”.

Yeah, so, Silver Bullet was shockingly great. It got plenty of reactions out of me throughout the ride, surprising me with its impressive intensity.

The first drop and loop combo actually remind me of Jetline's drop and Beast’s second drop: a slow buildup of speed before punching you with positive g forces in a tight pullout. Great start. There’s a few other moments with great positive gs, including the cobra roll, which is actually much lower than the bottom of the loop.

But it’s all about that final 540 degree helix man. Hall of fame worthy. I can’t remember the last time where my feet were tingling on a ride like this.

Throw in some floaty moments like the stengel dive to break it up a bit, crowd pleaser inversions like the zero g and corkscrews, and forget about the MCBR, you’ve got yourself a top tier invert layout. And no issues with the smoothness. I’m not kidding when I say this is the best invert in the States.

I was buzzing from that first ride, but we still had a couple of creds to get.

Sierra Sidewinder was actually a lot of fun. I hadn't done any Mack spinner, but this was by far better than any of the single-car spinners you see out there. Perhaps my mind has been set on the new xtreme spinners that I never gave any thought to these standard models. The turns were fun and unpredictable and the spinning was good.

I was clearly above the height limit for Timberline Twister, but the ride op was cool with us riding. I actually had to switch to another car that allowed for more leg room, but even then this train was more difficult to get in than the Premier Sky Rockets. I straddled lap bar and it was NOT resting on a good location.

This ended up being the most painful kiddie cred I had ever done. The second turnaround lacks some banking and the train doesn’t take it at a gentle speed, so of course the only thing keeping me in place was the bar that tore up the inside of my upper thigh. My hip was actually sore for the next couple of days, and it took me a while to figure out that it must’ve been because of this. The things we put our bodies through for the +1 man…

At least that took care of all the creds (that were available at least… Jaguar was also closed, but meh) within an easy 2 hours. A bunch of us hit up the chicken restaurant immediately outside the park for lunch, which was pretty solid. Definitely recommend eating here if you visit!

With that, we did our usual second lap around the park redoing our favorites while also trying out a couple other rides. We were surprised to see Ghostrider be a walk-on, so that was nice. It had definitely warmed up a bit, and the pacing is on point. The first half still isn’t the best when it comes to airtime, but it has some good positive forces, including the pullout of the first drop where it slams you into a corner. And I keep forgetting about that unbanked helix finale, it gets me every time. It’s definitely a great woodie, but it was never gonna be a game changer.

Knott’s Bear-y Tales: Return to the Fair, was pretty ****. The car and shooter tech was fine, but the 3D screens weren’t all that interesting and it uses the Toy Story Mania pulley grips, so your arm just gets tired after constantly ****ing the trigger. The queue was also slow, and for some reason a couple cars were always stacking. Honestly wouldn’t recommend unless you’re really into shooters.

But the other far superior dark ride was the Calico Mine Ride. I had no idea what this was, but the whole set is really impressive, both in terms of theming and scale. It’s just a little train tour through a mining operation, but it had some really cool rooms. Some of the animatronics are a bit dated, but who cares. It’s one of the more unique rides I’ve ever done, and not one to miss if the queue is short.

Did another ride on Hangtime. I was curious about how the back row would ride, and while it’s definitely more intense, it’s at the expense of some smoothness, as expected.

Of course, had to get back to Silver Bullet, partly because it’s awesome, but also to make sure our ride earlier wasn’t a fad. It still hits. That being said, this is a front row ride. If it weren’t for the upward helix, I would’ve never guessed that on an invert. The back is still great and is still intense, but front is much better. We were satisfied after another three rides, as it really doesn’t mess around.

Did another ride on Ghostrider, and finished off with something I almost forgot about: Supreme Scream, their S&S drop tower. They seemed to only be running one of three towers, but we got on fairly quickly so we can’t complain.

I went in with fairly low expectations but Knott’s ended up being my favorite park of the weekend. All the notable coasters ended up being better than expected, with Bullet and Ghostrider being really impressive. The other big surprise was how pretty the park is. Sure, most of it relies on the old western theme, but they did a really great job with it. The park wasn’t crowded either (though I could see it being an unpleasant time if the place was slammed… it’s not a big park either). I’d even argue that this is one of the better Cedar Fair parks, perhaps in the Top 3. All it’s missing is the giga.

But it does have arguably the best piece of theming I've ever seen:

 

[Hutch]

It was big mega park time with Six Flags Magic Mountain. A few years ago I would’ve dreaded coming here, expecting to deal with the usual Six Flags bull**** but on a larger scale. And a year round park with this many creds gives more potential for unexpected ride closures and whatnot. Nowadays, I’m less bothered by that kind of stuff, and we had two days to at the park, so we didn’t have to be in full-time cred rush.

Additionally, the club had set up some morning ERT on a few of the rides each day, with today starting out with West Coast Racers, Apocalypse, and SeX2. This gave us a great head start on nabbing some of the creds without having to worry about slow queues later.

With early arrival times, we stayed at a local hotel down the road. You get quite the greeting when you roll up to the entrance.

After some faff by the entrance, we wandered over to the back of the park for some creds. First impressions of the park is that it was surprisingly more pleasant than I expected (at least in the area on the way).

West Coaster Racers then. Actually pretty good and a lot of fun! But Premier still has one of the most poorly designed trains out there. The shoulder straps karate-chopped my neck going into one of the large corkscrews, but other than that it was fine.

The midcourse TV break actually wasn’t too long either… perhaps less than a minute. At least it guarantees duels the whole duration. And that’s the best part of the ride too. It’s visually fantastic, flipping over the other track, looking up and seeing riders beneath you. I wouldn’t say any of the specific elements are memorable, but the dueling aspect makes it a good time.

Apocalypse might be a contender for the ugliest coaster. Not only is the structure in terrible shape, with the wood rotting away to a greenish-grey color, the whole plot is on top of a slab of concrete. Six Flags must’ve loved the idea of a post-apocalyptic theme, because it gave them an excuse to not maintain the area. There's trash and stains everywhere.

The coaster itself doesn’t fare much better. The layout and pace are actually perfectly fine, but it just runs like hell. The pacing does give it some redeeming qualities, but halfway through you kind of want the ride to be over. I have Wildcat ranked below it, but now that that thing is gone for the better, Apocalypse is now the worst GCI. But it has a lot of potential to be great, if it ran smoothly.

Alright, X2 time. At this time, this was easily one of my top bucket list coasters, not because I necessarily thought it would be incredible, but because I’ve done nothing like this. Sure, I’ve done freespins and Zacpsins, but those couldn’t prepare me for something like this. I started out conservative, riding towards the front and taking the inside seat… went through the ride… reached the brake run, and I was left pondering...

Yes, the ride is wild. But it’s also very awkward in the way the seats shuffle around. It didn’t leave me smiling, or shook, or buzzing. Stuff like facing down the first drop and being backflipped later on is obviously intense, but it didn’t give me that rush that so many people get. Maybe I hyped it up too much.

Let’s just try again and pick another row. Heard the back was more intense, perhaps that’ll give me that holy **** feeling.

Did second to last row, outside seat… NEVER AGAIN.

It was bad. The constant back and forth movement with the seats were too unpleasant, and the raven turn at the end gave me a headache. This was the definition of a rough ride. I was almost gonna call it quits there, but since we had ERT and could reride without leaving the station, I might as well ride it once more before it gained any sort of queue. I ended up going with the same seat I had my first ride. Definitely much better up there, but the awkward rumble in the seats continued to bother me, and the headache I got last ride didn’t leave me in the best shape.

Our ERT session was up and the park had just opened (10:30 AM). We had a maintenance shop tour scheduled for 11, which was over by Batman, so a couple of us decided to attempt Full Throttle on the way over there before the queue got too long. Not even ten minutes after general park opening, we had already missed our window. The queue had already extended down the ramp, and we bailed after realizing that they were stuck on one train ops, as we would’ve missed the meetup time for the tour. The plan for now would’ve been to try it again towards the end of the day, but it constantly had a full queue with advertised 90+ minutes. With one train, that must be a torturous wait.

We were actually able to sneak a quick ride on Wonder Woman: Lasso of Truth. Lots of fun here with a great layout. I only just rode Jersey Devil last summer but I already forgot how whippy that dive loop is, as well as the surprising amount of positive gs throughout, which you don’t often see with RMC.

But somehow, it’s already in worse shape than its eastern counterpart. JDC already had a couple of valleys that weren’t as smooth, but those same moments on Wonder Woman were much more questionable. Combine that with the similar shoulder strap issues—they’re just unnecessary and get in the way of the airtime.

And of course, this version offers a couple of extra overbank turns, which don’t necessarily add much, but they’re fun enough. The other notable difference is that you have more vantage points of the ride, while JDC is more secluded. Too bad the plaza itself is rather uninspiring.

So it was time for the backstage shop tour. The head of maintenance invited us back to check out some trains and other stuff being worked on.

Dude had a lot to say, he mostly just kinda rambled on about whatever, but it was all very interesting stuff. Some of the things he shared include how long trains can last before requiring some maintenance—apparently different manufacturers have different standards, whether it’s number of cycles, minutes on the track, or days. The other fascinating fact was that working on a Wonder Woman train is more complex than an X2 train.

There was plenty more to say, but let’s check out some trains.

Superman car… which means spite.

Reason why Full Throttle is on one train operations:

Scream train split apart. Supposedly B&M trains are the easiest to work on.

Wheel covers for Batman. It was running two trains though, so perhaps these were spares or from another park.

Back inside the park, I did a reride on Wonder Woman since most hadn’t had a chance yet. The queue inside the building was pretty full at this point, but it still only took about 15 min. Love how these seemingly low capacity rides can just mow through people.

Added another Batman: The Ride to my collection. This was one of the weaker ones, perhaps the weakest (it’s been eight years since I did the one at Great Adventure, but that also might be a contender). As usual the intensity is great, but it was kinda rattly. One of the corkscrews actually had an unpleasant transition.

Still very good though. The best part about it might be the refreshing paint job.

A few of us did Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom while we were over here. It was a walk-on, and apparently it got up to a 40 min wait later, so it was a good thing we rode it when we did. It’s a nice long drop with plenty of airtime. Really like the open restraints.

Hiked up the hill. Superman’s queue was spilling outside, Tatsu was billed at about an hour, and Ninja was having problems, but they got it open after we hung around for a few minutes. The timing here worked out great because they only had one train running, and the queue seems to fill up pretty easily. That would NOT be a fun wait.

Ninja was pretty good though! It’s my favorite Arrow suspended coaster, not that that’s a high bar to achieve. Iron Dragon is pretty tame, and Bat is a bit short. Ninja has some good speed but also lasts a good deal. Really enjoyed the swooping turns up on the hillside. It takes great advantage of the terrain…it’s just a shame they tore down all the trees and don’t have the fountains going below, so the area looks pretty ****.

I heard nothing but bad things from Goldrusher, but it was actually pretty fun. Arrow mine trains are guilty pleasure, and this one was extra janky. Not exactly the most comfortable, but it’s all for the humor. Again, solid use of the terrain here. I even did a reride later because it was a walk-on.

We looped around for one of the kiddie creds, Road Runner Express.

The park had set up a scheduled lunch for the club at their private pavilion, so we grabbed some lunch and hung around for a bit. There was also a basketball hoop and volleyball court, and I’m not kidding when I say some of us played volleyball for an hour. This was honestly the highlight of my weekend. Just playing some good ol’ volleyball with ****ing Tatsu in running in the background.

Speaking of Tatsu, it was time to grab that, but not before grabbing the other kiddie cred, Speedy Gonzales Hot Rod Racers. Apparently +1 success varied on the ride op, but we got word that after a shift change they were cool with letting adults ride. So we got that out of the way.

And if you were wondering, Canyon Blaster was closed, and I guess it’s physically impossible for adults to even attempt Magic Flyer. Not that I really cared anyway.

Ok, you wanna know the biggest theme park hack ever? Tatsu’s single rider line. It’s all the way up by the exit, nowhere near the entrance of the main queue (which was completely full and at least an hour long). Because it’s hidden, the single rider line is always empty, and the four-across seating leaves more potential for empty seats, so single riders can basically just walk on the next train. Even if we had a decent group of say, eight of us, we’d all get on in about a train or two. And some were even able to sit next to each other. Obviously you can’t choose your row, but that doesn’t really matter for flyers anyway.

I love B&M flyers. I’ve done Manta, Air, and all the Superman flyers, and really enjoy all of them. I love the feeling of flying and swooping around, and the pretzel loops are some of the coolest elements on any coaster. So you’ll be surprised to hear me say that Tatsu might be my least favorite of the bunch, solely because of its pretzel loop. I never imagined that it would be too much for me to enjoy. It’s obviously very intense and the gs are over the top, but by the time you get to the bottom the trains start to rattle your head around. It didn’t treat me well, and it’s only for a few seconds, but even going through the last roll and turn, I was kinda over it. And sitting on the brake run waiting for the team to dispatch the next train is kind of annoying.

That said, I can’t fault the ride otherwise. Others still adore it, and I recognize that it’s probably the best layout on a flyer in the US. It’s such a well-designed ride, and with the terrain, it’s not something anyone would dare try to make these days. I really admire that the pretzel loop is toward the end of the ride, so it’s not like Superman where you do the loop and the rest of the layout is pretty forgettable. It gives you a chance to appreciate the other elements first, before going “oh **** here we go” and getting dumped on your back. The swooping corkscrews are fun, the height is immense, and even the final turn into the brakes it quite forceful. I just wish the pretzel loop didn’t rattle my head around. Otherwise it’d easily be my favorite flyer.

I spent most of my remaining time in the park with a couple others in the back half. We did Scream, which was ass!

By far the worst floorless. It’s a bit of a meme at this point, but the setting really is embarrassing. I was hoping the ride itself would still be decent, especially since its counterpart out east is one of the better ones, but it had a bad rattle, even going down the first drop. The only redeeming factor was the zero g roll.

Spite.

Got some rerides on Wonder Woman and Batman.

We also re rode Apocalyspe. Yeah it’s not good, but it’s still a woodie, so there was some enjoyment to be had for the wrong reasons.

And closed the night out with Revolution. This was also on one train so the queue was pretty long throughout the day, but it finally died down so we managed to get on in about 10 minutes. It sucks to have a ride like this also be one train, since it’s not a short layout, and not a long train. (Obviously these photos were taken during the day)

They actually had a single rider queue here that we didn’t know about until the next day. I attempted it then, but after watching them send two cycles, it got to the point where it wasn’t worth waiting another cycle for the low chance of an opening seat.

Anyway, this was another solid supporting ride! Like Tatsu, I appreciate that they save the loop until much later in the layout. And the loop is great. It’s crazy how the vertical loops on Schwarzkopfs are consistently better than most modern vertical loops out there.

The park had closed, so we drove out, got some In-N-Out, and more or less did a direct hit to bed after that. We had FULL day, and I still hadn’t gotten used to the time zone, so I was exhausted pretty easily.

I might as well include Day 2 here while I’m at it. Only a few remaining creds to discuss anyway.

So you’re probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned Twisted Colossus yet. We were actually supposed to get ERT on it on Saturday morning (along with Wonder Woman and Batman), but we got word Friday night that it was having problems, so they switched our ERT sessions around so they’d have Saturday to figure their **** out. During the maintenance tour, they broke the news that they weren’t gonna have TC ready for another week, which was a real bummer, but it is what it is.

Instead, Sunday’s ERT session had Full Throttle replace TC (along with WW and Batman).

I actually wasn’t eager to ride anything first thing. Despite sleeping nearly 10 hours, I woke up with a bit of a headache. I’m pretty sure it came down to not hydrating myself enough throughout the weekend. It was a good reminder that you really need to take care of yourself on these types of trips. Otherwise, you won’t be able to fully enjoy this hobby that we all love! I got better after a couple hours though. Basically took a couple of Advil and slurped on every water fountain I passed by.

So yeah, I hung outside Full Throttle watching others enjoy for a bit. By the time I was ready to give it a shot, most folks had moved onto Wonder Woman, so I was able to stay on the train for a couple of rerides.

This was a bit of a theme throughout the weekend, but a lot the supporting coasters at this park exceeded expectations, which made up for the disappointments in X2 and Tatsu. Full Throttle is easily the best Premier I’ve ever done (still haven’t done Mr. Freeze yet). The launch is great, and the hangtime in the loop is pretty wild and a bit of a spectacle.

The rest of the ride ran very well, and it wasn’t too forceful, so it didn’t bother my headache at all. The midcourse swing launch is also quite fun, and the Crazy Train YOLO effects weren’t as cringe as expected.

I don’t remember the airtime on top of the loop being that impressive, but I was NOT ready for the brakes to be painful. You’re body falls down before getting shoved into the bar. Nothing super demanding, but just be ready for it.

Short ride, but it was good that we had ERT to get some quick rides in. Honestly, this was a great choice for ERT. It’s not the best ride in the park, but it saves us from dealing with a 90 min queue, and guarantees us some rerides that we wouldn’t have bothered with anyway.

Did another ride on Wonder Woman, but could only do it once as the issues with the smoothness took me out as my headache hadn’t quite subsided. Pretty annoying looking back on it, as others were able to have a solid whore session, but in the moment I just needed to take care of myself.

Pretty soon the park opened up. Someone needed Ninja so I went to ride with them, and then we got word in our group chat: “IT’S OPEN!!”. So everyone congregated to Twisted Colossus!

After some disappointing rides on a couple of the park’s star attractions, and the initial spite of TC (and a couple other creds), this was a big win. The “dueling” aspect made things interesting, mostly because they weren’t guaranteed. The operations team proved to be the best team Six Flags has ever had, rushing people to get going and ready. The problem is, you can have the fastest ops available, but you still can’t guarantee a duel because riders always go on their own time. As much as I hate to say it, since the park has shot themselves in the foot with the mobius design, the easy solution I’d bring to the table is force people to get a locker, and get rid of station bins. Station bins add so much to the dispatch time, that it can really make-or-break a duel. But on top of that, sometimes dispatches were too quick. For example, a train with a quick dispatch would be able to catch up with the train on the green lift hill, but the next train arriving to the station wouldn’t even be hitting the brakes yet, causing THAT train to have no chance to catch up.

You’ve got to wonder what the park was thinking here when they commissioned this. You need everything to line up PERFECTLY in order to even get a half duel (quick dispatches while also having the next train ready on the brake run), let alone a double duel.

For what it’s worth, on my four rides, three of them were half duels, all while we were on the blue side. That’s what, a 37.5% successful duel rate?

At least the ride itself is still fantastic, duel or no duel. You’re kinda trained to expect no duel anyway, so when you actually DO get one, it’s an absolute blast. Funny enough, without the duel, you’re actually focused more on what the ride is actually doing to you, much like any typical coaster. That’s when you notice that the ride is actually more violent than expected, both with airtime and transitions. Most of us agreed it’s a front row ride, mainly for the airtime hill going into the turnaround. From a pure dueling standpoint, West Coast Racers is probably the better coaster, as you’re actually guaranteed a duel and visually the elements are better there, but Twisted Colossus obviously has more to offer element-to-element.

We did a few rides and moved onto other stuff. I gave Tatsu another chance–especially since single rider is so easy—but it was the same deal as yesterday. I gave X2 another chance, again staying towards the front on the inside, and while it was probably my best ride on it yet, it’s still not the most pleasant.

I thought I had missed my window on Superman: Escape from Krypton, as it was down most of the day, but it finally opened up in the evening. It was just the left side (facing forwards), and it was longest queue of the weekend at about 40 minutes. And not an exciting one either as you’re in a tunnel with nothing to see. The ride was very fun though, better than the expected. I had heard that the launch is a bit of a snoozefest but it still had some force to it, and the floater at the top is quite good.

Finished the day off with another ride on Twisted, before hanging out for a little bit with everyone at the sports bar to watch the Super Bowl. I couldn’t stick around for too long, as I had red-eye that evening.

I’m not really sure how to rank the Six Flags parks anymore. I used to solely rank them on the level of bull****tery each park had on my visits, with the better parks lacking that, but lately my Six Flags visits have actually been pretty solid. On paper, Magic Mountain has the best lineup, and while X2 and Tatsu were disappointments, the RMCs make up for it, and the rest of the park has some really solid supporting creds. Riddler’s Revenge, Viper, and Goliath were all spiting, but it wasn’t a big deal: I hate standups, and Arrow mega loopers aren’t good, and while it would’ve been good to try a Giavanola, Goliath was never gonna be a world-beater anyway. I’m happy to revisit, as there’s obviously other parks in the LA area that I need to do.

 

[Hutch]

I guess it was only a matter of time before this park happened. Michigan’s Adventure was FAR from the top of my bucket list, but we tied it with a fun weekend in Grand Rapids with the familiar gang.

In between a couple of later-than-expected nights out, we were expecting a fairly chill day last Saturday. However, leading up to the trip it was brought to our attention that some corporation had scheduled a big picnic gathering the day we were set to be there, which flooded the small park with a few extra thousand people. Honestly it might’ve been the most crowded the park had ever been in, and the parking lot was filled to the brim.

Ok, figured so long as we hit the Mad Mouse first we should be fine the rest of the day yeah? Well not so much. We arrived at the parking lot right at 11 AM opening, but the parade of cars delayed our entry into the park until about 11:20. Hopes and dreams for an easy Wild Mouse were crushed, with the queue already spilling outside, especially with its unfortunate placement at the front of the park. Sadly, at least on a day like this, it sounded like the only way to avoid that queue all together was to show up a half hour before opening, where the line had already built up outside the ride. That extremely tight window just wasn’t in the cards for most of us. Even of few folks, who still showed up just before opening, ended up waiting two hours for the thing. I would rather watch paint dry.

So we shifted over to this thing instead.

Timbers set complete! At least within Cedar Fair…. still need to acquire this edition of Twisted Timbers.

Shivering Timbers was always an interesting one. If anything, he’s a thicc boy. But I never heard anyone rave about it until recently, and even those reviews seemed questionable.

I got shafted with a wheel seat in the middle for my first ride. The airtime was quite impressive, but every valley more or less sucked. Final helix seemed to be the highlight. Let’s try again later…

First impressions of Wolverine Wildcat: why is this more fun than Shivering Timbers?

This is a buffet of different generations of woodies ain’t it. Titan track, fresh Gravity Group retrack, and old wood rotting away. And as rough as some of those older portions at the end of the ride are, those variations in smoothness made the ride really fun. It had me laughing with a big smile on my face at the brakes. That’s all you really need sometimes.

Not gonna lie, it starts out kinda sexy. It was my first experience with titan track on the main valley, and it felt GOOD.

I had caught a glimpse of the other fresh retrack, but didn’t realize it was so soon in the layout. Right after that first turnaround your treated with a few low bunny hills that are comically short in height. The rest of the ride is its old skin and bones, rumbling away into some questionably banked corners and more airtime opportunities. Who knew Dinn could be this good?

Gave Timbers another try. MUCH better this time. Sat towards the back, avoiding wheel seats at all costs, and it ran a bit smoother and the airtime was even better. Ok, NOW we’re talking. It was never going to be a Top 30 contender, but it certainly made the effort for it. Great sustained airtime on pretty much every hill, big or small. Besides the helix, the drop off the turnaround has the only mix of lateral forces as you’re yanked down. Nothing world beating, but certainly a highlight.

There’s some easy comparisons to make here. The first half is reminiscent of Voyage’s camelbacks, with arguably better airtime if you’re towards the back. Voyage is more interesting however, with smoothness, tunnels, and kinky laterals.

How does it stack against some of the other CCIs? Raven and Legend might as well be gatekeepers of the Top 30 at this time, and those are still more wild and more fun than Timbers.

Lastly, the other comparison that may seem surprising is Colossos. Layout wise, they’re more or less clones. Big drop with modest angle, large camelbacks, basic turnaround, low airtime hills, and helix. They basically do the same thing, but Colossos is just much better executed, both in smoothness and strength of airtime.

I’ve mentioned the smoothness a few times now, but that’s really the biggest drawback with Shivering Timbers. It’s still very manageable so long as you avoid a wheel seat, but between a couple shakier moments and an awkward lap bar, it can get a little distracting sometimes. Overall, the ride is much better than I ever could’ve hoped for, so getting a few rides in is definitely a priority, as this isn’t exactly a park that needs to be revisited.

Our visit started to fall apart after that second Timbers ride. So far, first impressions of the park were very good. There were lots of trees, had some pleasant areas (especially with the pond), and the two woodies were very good. But that’s really the only decent things I can say about this park. Once you leave the main area, you’re greeted with more open concrete paths, and the rides we had yet to do simply weren’t good. Add the crowd levels on top of that, resulting in longer queues for some of those unpleasantries.

I suppose Thundercock looks nice though. Apparently this was one of the better SLCs, but it rode about what I expected: bad. The old restraints kept digging into my body at various moments during the ride. There’s really no saving these things is there?

Had to wait 30 minutes for it too.

Woodstock Express had been SBNO up until recently, so that was essentially treated as a bonus cred that I didn’t expect to get. Most of our train were adult goons, so we pushed those drive tires to the limit and barely got up there without slipping back.

By far the low point of the day was Corkscrew. At 45 minutes, it’s by far the longest I’ve ever waited for an Arrow or old Vekoma. With one person in the control booth, and one person checking restraints, you’d think that the ride ops would have a sense of urgency with these crowds, but on average the train was getting sent out every 5 minutes. It doesn’t help that they have the manual restraint release that you see on the Arrow mine trains, further delaying the throughput. Oh and they can’t open the gates until all the other riders exit the platform.

Even the late great Canobie Corkscrew-esque paint job couldn’t save this ride.

At least Zach’s Zoomer showed mercy with a somewhat easier queue. Riding in the back was fun, though mostly because you have the whole seat to yourself and you’re just sliding around during the ride. 3rd best coaster in the park? That can’t be a good sign.

Checked the Spite Mouse for obvious reasons… I’m good (thank goodness for Woodstock opening back up to make up for that). Otherwise cred run complete. Took us 5 hours. 5 hours to cred run Michigan’s Adventure (with lunch in between)!

To lighten the mood a bit, let’s get close out on Shiver Timbers. Front row is much smoother, but row 11 is where it’s at.

Yeah, not a good park! I had low expectations for just about everything, but honestly I was still hoping for a pretty chill day, and I couldn’t even get that. Easily the worst Cedar Fair park, and it’s actually a shame because it has a ton of potential. The general site is pretty nice, but their rides are just bad outside the two main woodies (which they clearly care for knowing the recent work they’ve received). Really bad operations on a lot of them too, and I haven’t even mentioned how they run the mouse. And no, I’m not coming back for that +1.

We DID gain a redemption +1 the next day though. Had some business to take of at Craig's Cruisers outside Grand Rapids.

And here's what's on the menu:

And that essentially does that for the weekend.

Alright, not entirely sure what the next park will be. Might be Hersheypark, but I’ll just focus on the new goodies I’ve yet to experience. I’ve also locked in some international plans, but I may end up making a separate thread for that.

 

[Hyde]

Was glad folks in the group were able to get the full credit run for Michigan's Adventure! Indeed the Corkscrew and Wild Mouse queues can be a bear of a wait; these older Arrows are built for anything but capacity.

Agree that Shivering was running pretty good - there was a weird, pothole?, on the ascent of the second airtime hill, that gave the sensation that a few feet of track had been removed and you were jumping rail. It's still such a neat ride of just blatant out and back airtime hill.

 

[Hutch]

Agree that Shivering was running pretty good - there was a weird, pothole?, on the ascent of the second airtime hill, that gave the sensation that a few feet of track had been removed and you were jumping rail. It's still such a neat ride of just blatant out and back airtime hill.

Exactly there. If the valleys had anything like that pothole before the retrack, oh man that must have been BAD. Still super impressed with how great it ended up being. Seems like CCIs can be really hit or miss depending on what shape they're in!

 

[Hutch]

One of my college friends got married this past weekend in southeastern Pennsylvania. The ceremony and reception took place on Friday, which conveniently freed up the rest of the weekend to swing by one of the local parks before driving back to Boston. Originally, I was more than happy to just do Hersheypark on Saturday, but last Wednesday, a day before I drove down, I realized I could squeeze in a couple more parks as well.

The drive from Boston to the Philly area takes you a stone’s throw away from the American Dream mall in New Jersey. I actually drove past it on my way to Coastin’ by the Ocean last year, but didn’t have time for it. This time around, I was able to pop in for an hour to get some creds at Nickelodeon Universe.

I knew going into it that Sandy’s Spiting Bronco and Shellspiter were temporarily closed (one was scheduled maintenance, the other just got f***ed). For a minute I thought about not bothering since those were the two major coasters there, but I decided to visit anyway since, one: I was literally driving right past it, so it wasn’t out of my way; and two: you can do pay per ride, and parking was dirt cheap. So I might as well grab the other three creds while I can, and potentially try for the other two later at some point whenever I’m passing through the area.

Between the $5 parking (free if you were only there for 30 min), and the points to use on the rides, it ended up being about $42 after taxes and ****. A full-on wristband for the rides would’ve been $40 before fees, so while I didn’t save a ton of money by doing points, the wristband requires you to do at least four of the creds (or if you wanted rerides, which I didn't bother with).

Starting with the “tamer” stuff, I treated myself to a zen ride in the back row of Nickelodeon Slime Streak. It’s actually much taller than expected, though the elevation change isn’t as significant as the overall height.

It’s pretty solid for a family coaster. The drop had some good pull in the back row, and a few of the hills had some decent attempt at airtime. Being a family coaster, the trains and restraints weren’t very ergonomic, but that didn’t match very well with the speed it took through the layout. Ironically this made the coaster more interesting, as transitions showed a bit of playful violence that shouldn’t have been there to begin with.

While going up the lift on Slime Streak, I noticed Shellraiser decided to be a teasing bitch and sent out a few empty trains. After getting off, and not taking any chances, I made my way over to the ride’s entrance where the queue that was NOT blocked off. Sparks of hope?

Alas, when I approached the platform they sent me away. I don’t expect greatness from the ride, but it would’ve been cool to ride this beast of a coaster. I do find it hilarious that they casually have the steepest coaster in the world at a park aimed for kids.

Loved this “theming” set piece of a train just sitting on the floor though:

Speaking of spite, here’s Sandy’s train opened up to bits:

Back to creds. Somehow, Shredder is only my second Gerstlauer spinning coaster, having only done the Pandemonium stock model. Biggest takeaway was how much of a visual spectacle it was on and off ride, and the way it threads with Shellraiser.

I wasn’t familiar with the layout either, so it’s impressive to see this thing be decently tall and last a good amount of time too. I don’t know why the trains track so poorly though. I know it’s Gerstlauer, but I only expect bumpiness on their bigger rides.

What turned out to be genuinely a pretty good ride was Timmy’s Half-Pipe Havoc. I don’t have a good photo of the trains here (since they spent most of the time waiting around for riders to show up), but the giant skateboard aesthetic looked great. This was my first go on one of these Intamin halfpipe coasters, and the best way I can describe these were taking a giant frisbee ride and turning them into a cred. It has some nice bits of floater, some mildly decent spinning, and the initial launches were punchy.

It’s somewhat repetitive, but it has a decent cycle (longer than typical screamin’ swings). Lap bars are very welcome as well.

And that was that. I was actually kind of impressed by the place, and it was a nice way to break up the 6 hour drive. I was expecting it to be a quick and dirty cred run—and while I essentially treated it as such—the whole area was visually impressive. The main entrance from the mall is elevated from the rest of the park, so you get a great view of the whole thing. The coasters have some impressive design with weaving in and out of other rides, and the Nick aesthetic works quite well. I probably would’ve loved this place as a kid. I'll happily come back to collect the other two creds, though only if I’m passing through the area again and I know they’re open.