2010 Summer Coaster Trip!

Last summer I took a week-long trip to visit 6 parks around the midwest and east coast, and here's my trip report! Yeah, it's pretty lengthy, but if you read through you'll find all of my nice pictures I took! Unfortunately, i didn't get a real camera until after Kings Dominion, so bear with me on the blocks of text for a little while...


Day 1: Busch Gardens Europe

Our first day of the trip was spent at Busch Gardens Europe. We met a friend of mine, Kyle, at the park, and we met him again at Kings Dominion (Day 2). As a theme park, BGE is wonderful. As an amusement park? Not so much. As we drove up to the park, I was excited to see apollos chariot running well, but as soon as we got to the back of the park to get in line, it was down for maintenance. We figured it was going to reopen soon since they were cycling trains. When it didn't open for a half an hour, we decided to just leave and go ride Alpengeist instead. The wait for Alpengeist was almost nonexistent, so we were happy about that! We didn't wait for the front seat because, well, frankly I just didn't want to. Alpengeist was surprisingly smooth given the horror stories Kyle told me about the snaps in the cobra roll. After Alpengeist was Loch Ness Monster, whose station was empty except for the front row, which had a 3-train wait. Here, we did wait for the front. Loch Ness Monster was a fun ride; being pushed through those little tiny loops by the rest of the train was really a cool feeling. For an arrow ride, it far exceeded my expectations! Next up was lunch: at a quaint little Italian restaurant near Apollos Chariot. The food here was surprisingly good for park food, and was a surprisingly good value, too! All of us got the chicken parmesan, which cost us just $8.49 apiece, and it tasted good, too! After lunch we checked up on the status of Apollos Chariot, which was still broken, so we caught the train back to Griffon, which also had almost no wait. This was an amazing ride. I was lucky enough to have my restraint locked 4 inches above my lap, so the first drop was absolutely amazing!! Even thigh it clicked an extra one after the first drop, it was still a very enjoyable ride. Because it was the last ride we had to get, we checked back at apollos chariot, which was still broken; in fact they told us this time that it would be down for the rest of the day! So, we made the most of the 95 degree, humid, sunny heat and took a ride on the park's log flume, a little ride called "Le Scoot". Le Scoot was definitely worth the 20 minute wait, even if just to get damp in the insane heat. By this time it was still early in the day, so we started reriding some of the other coasters. We rerode all 3, in fact, all with nothing more than a 10 minute wait! Now, we were really disappointed that AC was still broken down. Finally, we got in line for one last ride on Griffon, and 5 minutes into waiting, "inclement weather" struck the park, ending our day. The storm was very close, and looked really threatening, so we basically sprinted toward the exit, getting to our car just in time for the pouring rain to hit us. Fortunately the storm was short, so the hour drive back to our Richmond hotel wasn't bad at all; in fact the leftover clouds and the setting sun made for some beautiful pictures! Next stop: King's Dominion and my most-looked-forward-to ride of the trip, Intimidator 305!

Day 2: Kings Dominion

We arrived at the park at 10:25, just in time to get in for platinum pass early entry. Obviously, we headed straight to I305, and arrived to find virtually no wait whatsoever. Unfortunately, there was a 2-train wait for the front, so we just went to the middle seat for our first ride. It was awesome. Even though there were some reasonably heavy trims on the first drop, the first turn at the bottom of it was still incredibly intense, and I grayed out with no hesitation. The next airtime hill was far from spectacular; what little airtime there was was very restricted by the fact that my already-stapled restraint was pushed even farther down by the previous turn. The rest of the ride was just WILD. Lots of very fun, quick transitions with some very decent airtime over the now-untrimmed airtime hills along the lift. The only mildly painful transition was the last quick turnover before the final brakes; it ended a bit too abruptly for my taste. After that, we wandered around the park, and eventually ended up at Ricochet, the wild mouse of the park. This ride, too, had practically no line, so we got on it almost immediately. This was a very fun ride, and the brakes on the switchback section were surprisingly light, so the turns were that much more fun! Since we were at that end of the park, we hit Hurler and Grizzly. Hurler was pretty lame, to be honest. The layout showed no creativity; it's literally all right turns with an airtime hill here and there. It was relatively smooth, though, for a woodie of it's type, so that was a plus. Grizzly, however, was far from anything anyone sane would call "smooth". It had a great layout; lots of fun turns and some very decent airtime, but the roughness really ruined it. After that, it was time for lunch! We went to Johnny's for a Philly cheesesteak, whose cheese and steak were good, but the bread was absolutely disgusting. Oh well, it's Cedar Fair park food; what do you expect? Anyway, after lunch, we headed back over toward Intimidator to hit the other rides around there (they didn't open until noon). We hit Backlot Stunt Coaster with almost no wait, which is always a fun ride; this is the second of these I've ridden, with the other being at Kings Island. It's relatively tame, but the theming makes it much more enjoyable than it otherwise would be. After that, we hit up Anaconda, again with no wait. A friendly warning: if you go to Kings Dominion, don't ride Anaconda if you expect to enjoy it; it's worth riding for the experience, but nothing more. After Anaconda, it was time for Volcano: The Blast Coaster. And, indeed it was a blast! The two launches were really great, and although the shaping at the top of the volcano is absolutely hideous from off ride, it felt right from on the ride; something I've always admired about Intamin's design style. The rest of the ride was fun; the barrel rolls were really disorienting, but the final turn into the brakes shouldn't have been the final turn. The ride was far too short, but still vey fun; in fact, since the twists and turns on I305 were too much for my dad, it turned out to be his favorite ride in the park! After Volcano, we hit up the cute little ride next door: a Mack bobsled coaster! As relaxing as this ride was, it was also a whole lot of fun. I had never ridden anything like it before; Disaster Transport at Cedar Point doesn't count. The free-swinging bobsleds were really very comfy; it was almost like reclining while riding! So, after that we got a drink, and then hit Flight Of Fear. Since it was a hot day, and the building is air conditioned, it was a bit busier than the rest of the rides, but still only a half hour wait or so. However, what I did not expect was how wobbly the ride itself was. To be perfectly honest, it was terrible. Even the smooth parts were rough. But enough about my pain, and more about my enjoyment!! Since we were in the vicinity, we hit I305 again for a second run. This time, however, I strongly advocated sitting in the very front seat, and sure enough, the ride got 10 times better. The constant wind in your face had everything great about Millennium Force's front seat, but with the added excitement and intensity of Maverick's wildness. It was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect ride. However, I couldn't in good conscience award it my standalone number one spot because of the trims, but it did deserve a tie for first with Maverick. That ride made my day so much better; even my sister absolutely loved it, and she insists that she hates Maverick...
After that breathtaking ride, we hit Volcano again so my dad could enjoy his favorite ride of the park again, and as we got off, I realized that we had completely forgotten about the only B&M coaster in the park, Dominator!! Without hesitation, we walked over to it to find half-empty trains running, so we scurried to the station and got on and off in no time, including the extra train's wait for the front. The ride was an awesome ride to ride in the front, as are all floorless coasters. The layout was pretty unique for a B&M floorless, which made it more entertaining to ride. It kept a surprisingly good pace throughout the course, and was nearly perfectly smooth, with the odd exception of some strange chattering on a slightly curved part of the track immediately following the cobra roll. But it was still a fun ride, and something I missed by a year when it was at Geauga Lake. After that, we were all pretty tired, and since we had a 2-hour drive to our hotel near DC for the night before Six Flags America, we were just about ready to leave. But of course I couldn't leave the park without one last ride on Intimidator! This time, we got the back seat, just so we could compare it, and it was no match for the front seat. I still find it hard to believe how much better a front seat ride can be than the rest of the train!

Day 3 to come in the next post (with pictures!!!). Don't want to make it look too bad [;)]

Now for the good stuff...
Day 3: Six Flags America


Arriving at the park about 12:30, we were pretty pleased to see a 3/4-empty, well-shaded parking lot. We figured there wouldn't be much in the way of waiting as we rode the rides today. We headed straight back to Superman, but since Six Flags is Six Flags and doesn't let guests take loose objects in line, we had to split our riding duty among us three, leaving me to ride twice in a row (oh, darn, what a shame). I actually rather enjoyed the front seat ride we got, since it had decent speed and decent airtime. It was far from my favorite ride, but still not terrible. My second ride with my dad was farther to the back, and was much, MUCH chattery-er. It was still fun, but I enjoyed my smooth ride at the front a lot more. Since we were already in the back of the park, we hit Batwing. Before I go on, does anyone know if this was moved to SFA from another park? There were some really weird, 30-foot-tall footers in the ravine, and those types of things normally only occur on relocated rides, correct? Now, to continue. Batwing, like all Vekoma flyers, was slow and pretty boring. It was not without its fun moments, though. For example, the vertical loop is always a cool element, and so are the corkscrews at the end. Next in line was Joker's Jinx, another Premier bowl like Flight of Fear at Kings Dominion. I was worried that this would be just as wobbly and painful, but to my pleasant surprise, it was smooth and very, very fun! I tried to convince my dad and sister to join me for a second ride, but they were still nervous from FoF, and honestly, who can blame them? My sister, by this point, was pretty bored since she didn't join my dad and I on Batwing, so we had to do something that she wanted to do. And what was that thing? The weird blizzard river raft ride between Joker's Jinx and S:ROS. I have one thing to say about this: DO. NOT. RIDE!!!!!! Right at the top, the trough is roughed on one side to start your raft spinning, and since it's running on water, it keeps spinning. And spinning. And spinning. And spinning. Soooooooooo not worth it...
After that hell on a ride, I felt like riding a wooden coaster, and since the closest one was "The Wild One", I went and rode that. It was really a lot of fun! It had good airtime, and it was surprisingly smooth for a 90-year old, SF-owned ride. As it turned out, that was actually my favorite ride in the park, even above Superman. Now we had to go to the other side of the park to ride the last few coasters; Mindbender and Roar. I decided to go on Mindbender first, and that was honestly a mistake. It was by far the roughest steel coaster I have ever ridden, and that's including about 5 or 6 old Arrow rides. I had only ridden one SLC before, and since it was my first ever inverted coaster, I didn't remember it being anything other than awesome! Boy, do things change... Anyway, after Mindbender was Roar, which was my first GCI that I knew was a GCI (I had ridden Gwazi several times, but I never payed attention to it enough to know anything about the ride, or to critique it in any way) and I was disappointed, to say the least. It was rough, and not fun. But whatever, I had a 2.5-hour drive to recuperate. By this point, my head was rattled to much that I practically begged my dad and sister to leave, and they didn't argue, since the park itself was pretty dumpy, and the rides weren't at all good. Anyway, we made our way through the rest of Maryland and through Delaware into New Jersey for our hotel near the next stop on our tour: Six Flags Great Adventure.








Day 4: Six Flags Great Adventure


We arrived at the park hoping against hope that Kingda Ka was going to be open today (that was the only ride I didn't get on last time I was at the park). We got lucky: it was open, and running smoothly!! Obviously, we weren't going to take any chances given it's history, so we headed straight for it, and I rode once by myself while I waited for my dad to get his credit card to work as he bought his ticket. I was expecting a wonderful, adrenaline-pumping ride like Top Thrill Dragster, but I was disappointed; the OTSRs killed the feeling of freedom present on TTD, and the setting takes away a surprising amount of the adrenaline; there's no audience on the midway with terrified looks of awe on their faces as you rocket past them, no revving car engine sounds, and no Christmas tree lights to signal your launch. Plus, I felt that the theme of KK was really lame, and didn't fit the ride at all. As if to add insult to injury, it was crazy shaky. I've heard that KK is way overrated, and after trying it out for myself, I see why. Up next was El Toro. As it was last time I was at the park, absolutely AMAZING. The strength of the airtime on the ride is just phenomenal, and the constant intensity is almost unmatched. Best of all, it's REALLY FREAKING SMOOTH. I know a lot of die-hard woodie fans don't like it, but I'm a big fan. Unfortunately, one of the other rides in the park that I was looking forward to riding that day was broken down, Superman: Ultimate Flight. In fact, all of the trains were in storage, so I figured that it was gonna be broken all day. So, whatever, we'll live. Next, we took a relaxing ride on the sky ride across the park, and getting some great angles for photos on the way. We got off the ride and headed for the Dark Knight coaster, which for some reason turned out to be my sister's absolute favorite ride of the park! She even convinced my dad to buy her onride photo on it... But whatever. I managed to convince her to join me on Nitro. As an older B&M mega, it's pretty lame compared to it's newer cousins, but still a fun ride. I was hoping to ride Batman, but it wasn't open, either! So, we headed back to the sky ride to ride El Toro again, but that was broken down too! Fortunately, there was a family coaster right nearby, so we hit it just to waste some time. I noticed one thing about it besides the fact that my sister and I were the only people on it without little kids; it was LOUD. Then, we headed back to El Toro, the long way this time, through the park. There was some nice scenery, and a amphitheater that I didn't know existed, and then a few more trees. We made it back, and realized that we had literally completely forgotten about Bizarro. Oh well, it had a line, and none of us really wanted to ride it, so we skipped it. We hit El Toro again, instead, and since we arrived at the entrance literally as it reopened from a breakdown, there was no wait, so I went straight to the front (my previous ride was in the back). Once again, this was a fantastic ride. By this time, we were all pretty tired, and since we had a 3 hour drive to Harrisburg, we left the park just in time to get really hungry for dinner. Next stop: Hersheypark!



lol Six Flags sign fail................






RIP Great American Scream Machine...if I had known it was gonna be demolished, I'd have ridden it one last time. Oh well.




Hershey and Kennywood are in the next post, so stay tuned!!

Day 5: Hersheypark

Our day at Hersheypark began with a quick ride on Comet - the classic woodie in the park. As it turned out, it wasn't quite as quick as we would have liked; it had about a half an hour wait! It was an awesome ride, really; pretty smooth for as old as it was, and offered some nice airtime. For some reason, the nostalgia from the old woodies is just incredible to me. They're always lots of fun, no matter how rough they are. After getting off of that, we headed for Fahrenheit, which was a surprisingly photogenic ride, especially with the beautiful weather we were having. It was absolutely amazing. The lift was pretty uncomfortable given its vertical nature, but the rest of the ride was fantastic. The Norwegian loop was one of the coolest elements I've ever been on, and that really made the ride. Plus, the ride's pace barely let's up throughout the ride, so even right at the last airtime hill, it still feels just as fast as at the bottom of the drop. Next, we had lunch and then hit the wild mouse. For some reason, these are always a huge hit with my sister, and to be perfectly honest, I don't mind them most of the time. This one was especially fun, since there wasn't a single trim brake turned on for the entire upper section, and if I remember right, not even before the wider turn of the layout. After the wild mouse, we headed over to Wildcat, which was my first coaster ever with millennium flyer trains. Those things are NICE!! Unfortunately, the ride didn't really provide the same, comfortable experience as sitting in the seats in the station. The ride was surprisingly rough, especially since someone I know told me it was really smooth. Anyway, even with it's roughness, it was still a fun ride, and the first drop is perfect for photographing! After Wildcat, we hit Lightning Racers because I had heard from multiple people that that was smooth, so even my dad went on that with us. And it turned out to be at least reasonably smooth (way smoother than Wildcat, anyway), but once was enough for both my dad and sister. I went again, obviously, to get the other side, and it was pretty fun. Not a top-ten ride by any means, but still decent enough to be worth a ride if you're ever at Hershey. The next ride, on the way back to Great Bear, was Storm Runner. If I ever knew an overrated ride, this is it! The launch is short and lame, the top hat is fun, the Immelmann SUCKS, the roll and snake dive are awful, and the final upwards climb is rougher than all hell! It was by far the worst Intamin coaster I've ever been on, and my least favorite ride in the park. Since we were crazy shaken up from that, my sister and I took a relaxing ride on the Trailblazer Arrow Mine Train. For some reason, I always enjoy these rides; they're fairly smooth because of their slow pace, and always feel like...well, mine trains! Next, of course, we had to hit Great Bear, the only B&M of the park, and it was fun. Just fun. Nothing particularly memorable, and the ending really sucked. Plus, what's up with the onride photo being ON THE FINAL BRAKE RUN?????? You could tell that everyone on the train was bored out of their mind by that time, and that's not helped by the fact that the second half of the ride is taken at an average of about 20 MPH... After Great Bear, we realized that we were next door to Sooperdooperlooper, the classic Schwarzkopf coaster! With no wait whatsoever (as in, we literally walked straight onto the front seat of the train that was in the station), it was wonderful. It's glass smooth, and with no quick transitions to throw you around, was very enjoyable, even though we all had headaches by this time. Also, the immense onset of G forces at the bottom of the loop were really something. It was cool to feel my face being stretched farther and farther down [:D]. It was just an overall cool ride, especially for it's time. Since we were basically done, I hit Comet one last time on our way out of the park, and then we realized that there was still a chocolate factory to go to! So we took the free tour ride thing, and learned all about how Hershey's chocolate is manufactured, and then we left the park for good. We were now on our way to the Pittsburgh hotel for the final park of the trip - Kennywood!
























Day 6: Kennywood Park

Last summer, I took a cruise to Canada, and in the teen club I met a nice young lady, Elisha, from Pittsburgh, and since we stayed in contact and she loved the park, we were able to meet up there and hang out for the day. It was really great to see her again, and we had a great time running around the park together. We hit almost every coaster in the park, and still left before dinnertime.

The first ride we hit was Jackrabbit, which was a total blast. We sat in the back row (of course) and since there weren't actually any restraints beyond some sort of handlebar, the airtime was freaking AMAZING!! We were literally flying our of our seat and plopping right back down on the double drop. So much fun. Next up was the Racer, and Elisha's sister was at the park with her, too, so we raced each other. I'm proud to say that my side won [:)]. Racer was actually a really nifty ride, simply because its a Mobius coaster, so whatever side you leave on is the opposite side that you end up on! Next, we headed into the "Lost Kennywood" section of the park and rode Pitt Fall, the park's drop tower. It was fun, and provided some great views of the river that Kennywood is situated on.

The next ride was a ride that I didn't actually know existed at the park, The Exterminator. This strange spinning wild mouse had by far the longest wait in the park, and I really don't know why; it was honestly rather painful. After like an hour wait or so, we finally made it onto the ride, and the theming was hilarious. There were all sorts of shitty animatronics yelling "I'm gonna get you, vermin!" (the cars were the rats, and we were running away from the exterminators). Quite funny, but the ride was just ok. The turns were fun, but as soon as it started spinning, it got bad. I'm not normally one to enjoy spinning rides (I feel nauseous after I ride a carousel) but I have normally been able to enjoy spinning coasters. Unfortunately, this one spun the same way for pretty much the entire ride. So I got off sort of queasy, and we got a drink before continuing on to the S&S Screaming Swing of the park (its name escapes me at the moment). I love these rides! They're loads of fun, and they always give me that lovely free fall feeling in my stomach. Next up was the largest coaster of the park, Phantom's Revenge. Phantom's Revenge was really awesome. The first drop was pretty mediocre (I'm really not a fan of Arrows curving drops) but there were more than enough G-forces at the bottom to keep me interested. The next hill surprised me when it pulled some actual airtime, given it's height compared to the lift hill, and then came the big drop. This was very, very fun. It was just a straight drop for like 250 feet, flying underneath the double down of Thunderbolt and through a concrete trench. The bottom of this, too, pulled a lot of G-forces, and the helix down there was very fun. Next, the train rocketed back underneath Thunderbolt and up into the airtime portion of the layout. After riding Magnum, I was expecting the roughest airtime imaginable, but I was pleasantly surprised to find reasonably well-shaped hills at the end of the layout. There were about 4 or 5 hills up around the station, and all of them consistently pulled mild ejector air of about -.4 or -.5. Overall, Phantom's Revenge is an absolute blast to ride, surprisingly smooth, and it easily scooted into the number 7 or 8 spot on my top ten list. After Phantom's Revenge, it was time to ride Thunderbolt. This little woodie has two nearly unbanked turns at the bottom of the first two drops, which make for some really intense lateral G's. In fact, they're so intense that the ride ops require that the larger person sit to the outside of the train, so they don't smash the little one! The ride overall was reasonably fun to ride, but a tad on the rough side. Fortunately they weren't running the usual PTC trains, or it would have been absolutely terrible. But it was still a fun ride and easily made it into the top 5 in the park [;)]. Our next ride to hit was not a coaster at all, but a shooting gallery game thing like Buzz Lightyear at WDW. This was a pretty fun ride, made better by the fact that I kicked ass, but the story could not possibly have been any cheesier. It was something about "the ghosts that inhabit my mansion like to hide behind the targets, so if you shoot the targets, the ghosts will disappear and leave me alone".

By this time, it was about 4 o'clock, and since I hadn't eaten any food since lunch at 11, I was starving. So, we went to the picnic area and found a shady table to sit at and enjoy some chicken wings. Well, maybe "enjoy" is a bit of an overstatement. In all honesty, they weren't bad, per se, but they were just bland. They didn't even have any sauce on them! But whatever, now it was time to ride the other side of Racer, just so I can honestly say I've been on all of Racer. After that, we hit Phantom's Revenge one last time because it's awesome. On our way out of the park, we stopped at the Kangaroo because Elisha told me it was really cool, but upon arriving and seeing it's a spinny ride, I got scared. But Elisha and my sister convinced me to at least try it; hey, I've got a 3-hour drive ahead of me to recuperate. It turned out to be a lot of fun. It's an incredibly unique ride, and one that probably won't last much longer I'm afraid... The cars roll around on tires along a rail, and in the back corner, the rail raises up about 5-6 feet and then drops off immediately as the cars jump off and then glide gently back to the track. I was surprised how much in enjoyed this ride, given my history regarding that type of ride. All in all, it was a great day, and it was amazing to see an old friend again, especially in such a setting as Kennywood; her favorite park, and my first time there. We caught up with each other, and really made me excited for my next park this summer, Canada's Wonderland, where I'm meeting some other friends from a cruise 2 summers ago. But, I'll save that for another time...










So that's my trip! Yes, I know it took more than a year to upload, but I typed it up on the drive back, and it's just sort of been sitting on my hard drive ever since! Hope you enjoy it [:)]

Boneplaya, this is the exact same thing I did last year but in reverse order...

Superb report after read the report my mind also read for the visit this great park.Busch Gardens Europe only has 5 coasters, Loch Ness Monster, Big Bad Wolf, Alpengeist, Apollo's Chariot, and their newest coaster, Griffon and i specially like the slides in which peoples are crying by the fear..