Devil's 2015 Trip Reports - Knoebels and Conclusion

Hey guys! I figured that this year I would start off my trip reports early and go throughout the year. It's not going to be as busy as last year, but hopefully I can get to some cool new places. I have no set plans yet, but I plan to go to Six Flags New England at some point as well as return to Coney Island to cover some missed credits. I'll also be going to Rye Playland for the first time and I will return to Six Flags Great Adventure. Nothing else is set in stone, but I may stay a few nights somewhere and hit a park or two out of my range, possibly La Ronde. So far this year I've gone to Hersheypark and for the first time Great Escape. The good thing is that the new parks that I'll go to will probably be quite abstract and you can get some interesting feedback about parks you haven't heard much about.

Okay I'll start off with my original top 20 and this time I'll update it as I go along. I never updated with my trip to Great Adventure during the fall, but I found that my bad ride on Batman was a fluke and that most rides on it that I've had are amazing. It has moved into my top 20 as it deserves.

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Maverick
5. Phantom's Revenge
6. Skyrush
7. El Toro (GAdv)
8. Bizarro (SFNE)
9. Manta (SWO)
10. Ride of Steel
11. Intrimidator 305
12. Kumba (BGT)
13. Batman the Ride (GAdv only)
14. Superman: Ride of Steel
15. Alpengeist
16. Storm Runner
17. Montu
18. Silver Comet
19. Talon
20. Coney Island Cyclone (2013)

I've already been to Hersheypark, so I'll keep this short. I rode Skyrush first and found it to be disappointingly slow. The airtime wasn't crazy and the laterals were lacking severely. It was a fun ride with some decent ejector airtime. It put it more at the level of El Toro, and I would have to debate in my head which is better if that is what this ride ends up being from now on. The gap between El Toro and my first rides on Skyrush was significant despite being right next to each other in my top 10. I also rode Skyrush which was running great. I had gotten one ride like this before, but other times it is a more jerky and less forceful ride. I bumped itself over Alpengeist for that. My opinion didn't really change on anything else. It was a short trip run by my college, so I only got 7 or so rides in.


Um... Lightning Racer had a line... I was confused. It went away in about 2 minutes though lol.


Didn't get to ride Great Bear this time.


The park was very crowded.


I was very disappointed with how poorly this was running.

My friends had a low opinion of Hershey before this since they never got to ride the better coasters. One of them said that her opinion depended more on roller coasters. My thought was "Um but Hershey has nothing but coasters going for it." They enjoyed themselves when I took them on some coasters though, which was good.

Great Escape

It's a 3 hour trip up Route 87 to get to Great Escape so my desire to go was always in the back burner, but I have a Six Flags season pass this year, so I figured a free trip wouldn't hurt. I actually really liked the feel of this park. It has a very nice atmosphere almost like the front half of Six Flags America. This is by far the "worst" Six Flags park I've been to only because it doesn't have much going for it, but I thought that the park itself had a charm that the other three don't have. The layout of the park stood out as one of the worst. There are very specific ways to get around the park and you can't use landmarks to find your way. There is actually only one bridge going across the stream. I took the trip with my sister as I always do.


I loved the entrance area.

Our first ride of the day was Canyon Blaster, the Arrow Mine Train. It wasn't very good. It was jerky and more so than others, consists mainly of the 2 lift hills. The area around it looks better than I saw in POVs though.



The next ride of the day was Comet. Clearly the reason I was here.


The park was empty so we got as many rides as we wanted.

I loved this coaster! The first drop in the back was great because it just felt so fast and the airtime was great. The rest of the ride was full of great floater air, laterals, and that off balance feel that make classic wooden coasters so great. The bottom of the drop has this jerk going up into the turn around in the front seat. It's not bad, but if you're going to ride it watch out for it. The ride as a whole was great. Some of the hills don't deliver like some of the others, especially near the end. I was surprised how much energy this coaster had in the first half though. I liked it a little more than Silver Comet at Martin's Fantasy Island and took the 18th spot on my list.



We tried to go over to Alpine Bobsled, but it was closed. We tried to go over to the Boomerang, but that was closed, too.


Damn... so disappointing...

We headed over towards Steamin' Demon, but we stopped at a few rides first. The log flume was pretty cool, but it was a very short drop. We then went over to the HUSS Condor and the ride broke down on us near the top.


It wasn't a big deal. It took about 15 minutes to get down and we got a free fast pass, which was great considering how long the lines were.

We went straight for Steamin' Demon when we got down. It was a generic Arrow with painful corkscrews. I got exactly what I expected and it was not good.

We then rode the new ride Extreme Supernova, which we used the fast pass for because we would have had to wait for 1 ride.

We were about to leave after a few re-rides on Comet, but when we passed Alpine Bobsled, we saw it was open, so we ran on line. It was rougher than I thought it would be. All of the seams created jolts and when we hit the bottom of drops, it was quite a slam. I don't remember that on Disaster Transport, which is the only other Intamin bobsled I've ridden. It was good when it flew up the sides though. Not a bad coaster, but not as good as the one at Kings Dominion or Flying Turns at Knoebels. This ended up being my 160th coaster.

It was a fun little trip. Comet is worth the trip. I probably won't return though unless they get a good coaster. It's a nice park, which is refreshing from some of the larger Six Flags parks.

Okay so here's my updated Top 20:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Maverick
5. Phantom's Revenge
6. Skyrush
7. El Toro (GAdv)
8. Bizarro (SFNE)
9. Manta (SWO)
10. Ride of Steel
11. Intrimidator 305
12. Kumba (BGT)
13. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
14. Superman: Ride of Steel
15. Storm Runner*
16. Alpengeist*
17. Montu
18. Comet (Great Escape)
19. Silver Comet
20. Talon

Bold = New Addition
* = Moved

Thanks for reading! I'll be updating as I go along, so expect even more.

[TTD03]

Great trip report! I can't wait to see more!

[mkingy]

Great trip report I like your style and sparing use of photos - that said do you have a full album uploaded anywhere of any other pictures you took?

^Every picture I take is on my Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46313480@N07/ You are welcome to use any of the pictures of amusement parks for whatever you want.

Six Flags New England

Sorry for having very little pictures, I'll take some more when I go again, but for now, you can check out my pictures from previous trips over at my flickr page here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46313480@ ... 5536309276. The intent of this trip was to get my sister some credits and to get a ride on Wicked Cyclone for the first time. I went last Saturday July 18th. It's about a 3 hour drive from North Jersey to SFNE and I ended up having a terrible day. Sorry if there are any grammar errors in any of these reports. I've started to notice it can be a problem with these. I don't really bother checking and I like to write what I'm thinking down quickly, so it ends up disastrous sometimes.

We arrived around 11 which was 30 minutes after the park had opened. We headed straight for Wicked Cyclone to avoid lines. The line wasn't too bad it was just around the corner from the stairs when I got there. The coaster looked great and looked like it was running exceptionally. I was very excited. We were right at the corner before the stairs when the train stopped on the lift about 1/4 of the way up. I figured it would be worth it to stay around and wait for it to open back up. We had waited about 45 min total (including before it broke down) when they started taking the riders off (someone better call the news). We waited 20 minutes before we decided it was a lost cause. The ride op offered to let us in on the flash pass lane if we came back when it opened, so we decided to stick around the area and head over to Pandemonium.









The line for Pandemonium looked to be about 45 min long, but my sister didn't want to ride any of the Vekomas in the area quite yet, so we got on the line. After 10 min of waiting the ride broke down. We waited about 5 minutes and decided we weren't going through that again and walked off of that line. We headed over to Bizarro because we wanted some kind of relief, but as soon as we got there we were told the ride was closed due to weather (the weather predicted no storms for that time, but it happened anyway). We waited outside for about 1-1/2 hours before the coaster finally opened again. By this time, it was 3:00 and we hadn't gotten on a single ride in the 4 hours we had been there. We were at the front the entire time, but some kids decided to slide under the railings and cut in front of us. We started to try to get past them, but my sister hit her head on the railing. She was on the ground in pain and people kept passing, so I stopped them in there tracks and confronted them. I think it's ridiculous how people have no patience to wait because we were all going to hit a line sooner or later. That's America for you. Finally, we stepped on Bizarro front row 15 min later.

Bizarro was running beautifully today. My last visit had been rather disappointing and it made the coaster drop down in my top 10 below El Toro, but this time, it reminded me what was so great the first day I went. Smooth, fantastic pacing for a hyper coaster and an amazing progression of elements. I knew it had to have been running poorly last time when the final hill had the ejector air that it lacked last time. It may have moved up only one place in my rankings, but to me this was a huge redemption for this coaster. The restraints didn't bother me this time either, surprisingly.

We then headed back to Wicked Cyclone to find it closed still with the train still sitting on the lift. Batman - the Dark Knight. Another coaster that vastly disappointed me last time I went, but this time there was no redemption. It must have been running crazy well the first time I went. The second half was decent, but for the most part this is just a generic rattly B&M floorless. While we were waiting on line, though, we had to wait for flash pass people to take their second rides in the front row twice in a row. They tell you where to go, so I wouldn't have minded going to the second row to avoid that and after the day we'd already had, we did not want to put up with it. The queue had already lasted 45 minutes



Wicked Cyclone was a lost cause at this point, so Thunderbolt was the next target. I despise waiting in line for this coaster. It only runs one train, you can't pick your seat and the back would probably be the best if they didn't hand it over to flash pass all the time. On top of that, the 5 minute dispatch time leaves a bit to be desired. The ride ops were especially slow that day. We got to the final stretch of the line when a large amount of flash pass people come to the ride and they fill 2 trains in a row with them without moving our line. That wouldn't be as much of a problem if it didn't take 7 minutes a train. We ended up waiting 1-1/2 hours for the ride. The coaster itself is ok. There are some points of great ejector air, but there is no pacing or progression to back it up.



At this point it was 5:00 and we had ridden 3 rides at a park that is a 3 hour drive from my house. We decided to try to get a few exit passes from Guest Relations to compensate since we used season passes and can't get our money back. We were successful and got 2 exit passes each. We weren't allowed to use them on the 3 rides worth while, Wicked Cyclone, Bizarro and Sky Screamer. Thankfully, we had some credits to pick up. We headed over to Pandemonium and hopped right on with the passes. We got so much spinning this time and it was running pretty well. I was quite impressed.


When we past Goliath, we saw that it had stalled at the bottom of the second spike and some employees were cleaning some kind of dust on the path underneath. Dunno if they're connected.

We headed over to the wild mouse, Gotham City Gauntlet: Escape from Arkham Asylum (that name tho). There was no line so we didn't use our pass. It was bad.

We tried to get a reride on Thunderbolt, but it closed for some random reason when we got there, so we just used the pass on the launch tower.

Wicked Cyclone was still closed and we still had to get the 3 Vekoma credits, so we had decided at this point to return. I used to be impressed with this park. My first trip was fantastic, and I couldn't believe how much better everything was done compared to Great Adventure, but my last 2 trips were not able to replicate that experience. This was the worst theme park experience I've had (and I've been to Martin's Fantasy Island and Clementon Park). I don't plan on returning until they get a new ride after my next visit. It was very bad.

Bizarro was able to move up in my Top 10, but nothing else changed:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Maverick
5. Phantom's Revenge
6. Skyrush
7. Bizarro (SFNE)*
8. El Toro (GAdv)*
9. Manta (SWO)
10. Ride of Steel
11. Intrimidator 305
12. Kumba (BGT)
13. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
14. Superman: Ride of Steel
15. Storm Runner
16. Alpengeist
17. Montu
18. Comet (Great Escape)
19. Silver Comet
20. Talon

Bold = New Addition
* = Moved

Thanks again for reading! Expect updates soon. I will be going to Rye Playland for the first time tomorrow, and I will be returning to this hell hole of a park in the near future.

[Paradox]

SFNE is a very temperamental park. Sometimes the operations are great and others it's pure sh*t.

Sounds like a Six Flags park. They have some great rides, but it's getting to the point where I have little interest anymore in visiting.

Rye Playland

I figured it would make sense to visit the closest amusement park to me sooner or later. 50 minute drive and arriving at 5:00 PM for the discounted wristband. I went with my sister, as per usual. My initial impressions of the park were rather strong. I wasn't expecting the park to be as well kept as it was.

We started the day with the Dragon Coaster, which is single-handedly keeping this park in business. They don't let you wait for your seat and it's a free for all when they open the gate. We ended up sitting in the second to last car. This coaster was surprisingly fun for being relatively forceless. The first half of the ride has a certain progression to it that makes it surprisingly exciting in a way I can't describe. It's like I was actually enjoying something for feeling classic, which I rarely ever do. The second half of the ride is droll, but the positive gs at the bottom of each hill were very strong. The highlight of the ride was the first few drops in the back. The first drop is actually really good with tons of airtime and a crazy strong valley. There is some minor floater in the front, but nothing significant. The coaster was good, but it wasn't good enough for it to make a dent in my rankings.


This was the best angle for a picture and the zoom makes it blurry.




Picture centering fail.

We then went over to the Zamperla Wild Mouse, Crazy Mouse. This is my first wild mouse with this layout. There are no trims through this entire course and by the end of this ride, it has picked up so much speed that it feels like your ribs would break. Every time we saw a turn coming, we couldn't believe the speed we would have to hit it at. Plus the transitions are rough around the edges. It was fun to laugh at how fast it was going, but it was pretty bad.

We couldn't ride the 2 kiddie coasters, so our last credit for the day was the Zamperla death trap known as Super Flight. I have been to 2 parks with one of these in it, and I missed the credit both times. Once at Coney Island where it was broken down and the second time at Canada's Wonderland where I ran out of time to finish the credit run. I wish I missed this one too. I was sure I was going to fall back on the cage that was behind me because of the lack of restraints. The transitions are so hard and the "seat" isn't very comfortable. It is hands down the worst coaster I have been on. It is so ridiculously painful and love up in every way.





We did a bunch of other rides. The log flume was ridiculously good. The first drop has some crazy airtime. The second drop slams into the water so hard. It is the 3rd best log flume I've been on behind the one at Seabreeze and the one at Hersheypark. There's an S&S double shot launch tower that was ridiculously good. I love the crazy ejector air at the top. There were 2 classic dark rides in the park (not sure why they need 2). Both were pretty cool, but didn't do anything for me. I think it's great that they kept these classic rides though. There was a whip that was surprisingly terrible.

We ended the day with 2 more rides on Dragon Coaster. We got to be the first ones on the train, so we got the front seat. The second time, everybody filed in like Roller Coaster Tycoon, and we got the back no problem.

I actually really liked the park. We got everything done in 2 hours and some of the rides were surprisingly good. The 3 best rides were the log flume, the S&S double shot and of course Dragon Coaster. The park has some nice classic charm to it. It kind of reminded me of Seabreeze, but with a tiny bit of the Knoebels charm. I would recommend it if you're in the area and you have time between parks and I would definitely recommend it if you live nearby.

No changes were made to my Top 20.

Thanks again for reading! Expect a second trip to Six Flags New England to come up soon. I plan to go on Thursday if the weather permits.

[mkingy]

Great trip report - I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that the volare restraint system is horrible and unnerving - almost like you have to hold yourself in!

That said I think the method of pulling the cars into the fly position is quite cool - just a shame about the entire ride!

Keep up the good work with the trip reports!

Thanks for all the positive feedback so far!

Six Flags New England (Round 2)

I finally returned to Six Flags New England with my sister after a terrible first trip and I finally got to ride Wicked Cyclone. When you wait in line for a new ride and don't get to ride it, it can haunt you. This definitely did and I finally got to ride. I had to do something in Newark NJ in the morning, so I didn't show up until about 12. The GPS took us into Manhattan over the George Washington Bridge which has a $15 toll entering the city. Thankfully it was after rush hour, so we didn't really hit that much traffic, but we could have just as easily gone north and avoided the toll, but the GPS was stupid, and so were we for not noticing until it was too late. The park was just as crowded as last time, but at least I got to ride Wicked Cyclone.

Obviously, the first ride we went on was Wicked Cyclone. I heard about Six Flags New England's policy on this ride with no choice of seating, but I didn't realize they were this annoying. On B:TDK they at least let you go wherever you want if you ask. Our first ride we had to ride in the second to last car. There wasn't a chance to get in the back because they reserve it for people coming in from the exit. The next time we rode though, we bought 2 $16 Wicked Cyclone t-shirts and we got a free flash pass each onto Wicked Cyclone. They let us pick the front seat because we were flash pass. This ride really impressed me. The hangtime is surprisingly good on all of the inversions. What made it amazing was the lap bars. I've never had hangtime with a lap bar before. The drop was a lot better than I thought it was going to be, but it still isn't as good as the original. The front seat was by far the best seat I got to ride in. In the middle the final outward banked hill had no airtime at all, but in the front it was crazy. I greyed out every time going through the overbank, but the airtime hill fixed it immediately. The twist going into the first inversion is nuts in the front. and the hang time that follows is great. Every hill has great airtime in the front and the outward bank in the middle of the ride is nuts. The pacing is rather inconsistent. There are a few good points and a few slower points. From the double down to the last inversion is probably the highest pace, but even the turn before the triple banking hill was a bit sluggish. The turn after the first inversion was also pretty sluggish. The final portion after the last inversion is pretty weak compared to the rest of the ride too, but it's not as bad as it could have been. The problem I have with the pacing is that the ride never really had a long stretch where I felt out of control and it instead came in spurts and made it feel broken up. That's not to say it doesn't have great pacing or that it's not a great coaster, but it's what keeps it from being the best coaster. It is, however the best steel coaster I have been on and finds its way into my #4 spot above Maverick. It is also the best coaster in the park. I still believe that they should have built a new ride over replacing Cylonce. Maybe they could have built an RMC where Mind Eraser is. That way they would have had 3 great coasters instead of 2.


It kind of sits up on a hill so it makes it look really tall.


This hill has a great burst of airtime, but it doesn't last long.


The queue is deceptively short. People don't realize that even though the queue is almost filled, the line is only about 45 minutes max.


The turns had little jolts of laterals at the top of each wave but it doesn't really add anything and the turns are rather dry.


You don't really notice the extra bank on the inversion. It's clearly there, but it doesn't feel any more different than you would expect from 180 degrees.


The queue hasn't changed much since the original.

I hadn't ridden the rapids yet, so we hit that up. It was ok. It actually picked up a bit of a fast pace near the end, which was cool. The waterfalls were excessive, though.

We decided to get the credits we missed last time next. We hit Flashback first which was ok for a boomerang.



It turns out Goliath was closed... again... not that I really care.


We tried to go to Bizarro, but it was broken down (If it was closed for the entire day, we would have been pissed, but we got to ride it later on, which was good), and we had to go to Mind Eraser next. I can't believe this is worse than I remember. This and the one at Darien Lake are unbearably bad. When I go down the hill I notice how rough it is and that when I'm at the bottom it's only going to get worse, and it does. And we lost Cyclone...



We then did Catwoman's Whip to get my sister the credit.

Finally, we finished up with a 2 hour wait for Bizarro in the front seat. This is actually the only re-ride from last time. It was running just as well. Go to my previous SFNE post to see my feelings about it. I think it's pretty amazing that SFNE has both of these coasters. It is the best coaster duo of any park I've been to and it is the only park to have 2 coasters in my Top 10.


Money!


Bizarro looks awesome going across the back of the park.


Such a great coaster!



Here are some other pictures from the trip:


Didn't get to ride this that day, but it's a fun ride.


I refused to ride this because of the terrible throughput, but it's not a bad ride.


For those who don't know, this used to launch up and then hold you up and drop you. But now it has one launching and one dropping side. It used to be amazing, but now it's generic.

You can find even more photos from today and my other trips on my Flickr account in this album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46313480@ ... 5536309276

I still hate the park. We still didn't get much done even this day. We got 3 rides on WC, but we didn't get on many other rides and it was really crowded again.

Updated Top 20:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Wicked Cyclone
5. Maverick
6. Phantom's Revenge
7. Skyrush
8. Bizarro (SFNE)
9. El Toro (GAdv)
10. Manta (SWO)
11. Ride of Steel
12. Intrimidator 305
13. Kumba (BGT)
14. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
15. Superman: Ride of Steel
16. Storm Runner
17. Alpengeist
18. Montu
19. Comet (Great Escape)
20. Silver Comet

Bold = New Addition
* = Moved

Thanks again for reading! I hope to get a trip in to Coney Island soon or maybe Great Adventure (you know the park I have a season pass too and have only been using it on other parks).

[Paradox]

Aww they stopped running combo on Scream.

Also the only reason Thunderbolt has horrible throughput is because of the skid brakes which only allow for one train. If the park replaced the brakes (which I don't see them doing ever) then it could run 2.

Coney Island

This is my second visit to Coney Island in Brooklyn and I had a lot of cleaning up to do from my last visit. Obviously, we were just here for the rides. I got spited by Soarin' Eagle last time and since then Thunderbolt has been built. I enjoy going here, but it is crazy expensive. Cyclone is $9 and Thunderbolt is $10. Of course you get extra "credits" as they call them if you buy in bulk, but it is still quite a hit. If it were cheaper I would go around and ride some shitty Zamperla flat rides, but I can't. Something else new I got to do was the Wonder Wheel which I missed out on last time. My sister was in the same position with credits as I was, so she got some +1s too. This time around, we convinced my dad to tag along.

We got there a little bit after the rides opened at around 11:30. It's about a 50 minute drive going in, but as expected, there was traffic all the way through Staten Island.The nearby parking was $25 which is pretty ridiculous, but if you've ever been to New York City, you'd know it was expected. We walked along the street side to the "Luna Park" area to get our Luna Card some more points (we had $6 leftover from last time) We figured we would start from one side and walk along the boardwalk to the rest of the credits until hitting Thunderbolt.

The first ride of the day was Cyclone which I had already ridden. By the time I had ridden it in 2013, GCI had quite a bit of track replaced, but it still was bumpy going every hill (in a good way). By now, GCI has all but removed the old track aside from the top of some turns. We only went back seat this time around (twice throughout the day) since it is better. Believe it or not, I found it to be just as good, if not better than the last time I rode it. I did love the little kinks along the track before, but I thought that was compensated for with a hell of a lot more speed. This thing was zipping around every turn and thrusting over every hill. What is amazing is that GCI kept all of the important kinks in the ride. I still felt those sudden jolts of airtime in random spots. And the hills still felt totally unbalanced and awkward. Plus the turns had some out of control laterals. Unlike last time, this coaster had airtime on every hill and crazy laterals every time. I think it's amazing that GCI was able to keep the essence of the coaster in tact, which I thought would have gone away. Sure it's not as rough as it used to be and you may lose one or two jolts that used to be great. But I still felt like I was riding a classic coaster that isn't designed to perfection. I am really impressed with how this coaster turned out and it is going up in my rankings for it being just so fast.




Next was a hell hole that is a clone of the hell hole I had just ridden a few miles north, Soarin' Eagle, the Zamperla volare flying coaster. I'll admit, this one wasn't as bad. They actually had a restraint thing behind you that would stop you from falling backwards into a cage. And it was a little less painful. Still dreadful though.

We then headed over to Thunderbolt. This isn't the first time I've been to a park (if you want to call it that) that has a coaster name Cylcone and Thunderbolt. I find my opinion on this coaster to be very conflicted. The drop is excellent and it got pretty close to actually frighten me. The open train let me see down and the quick radius of the drop made it very unsettling. The airtime on the drop was great and I greyed a little on the loop. The zero g was funky and a little bit painful. It was odd because it was smooth and rough and good and terrible at the same time. The Stengel Dive had a lot of painful kinks and actually wasn't really that good at all. The next weird element is cool when it has hangtime, but the pull up was the most awkward pump and the banking is just hysterically poor. At the same time, the element rides nicely in its own weird way. The next two airtime hills were good, but they were just jabs and the restraints weren't helping much. The cork is just terrible. More kinks than any other point in the ride and even the banked hill following it was weird. I really liked a lot about this ride, but I really disliked a lot too. It is designed very nicely, but the track is just poorly put together. Also the trains are just terrible plastic piles of garbage (or recycling if we are being green). Basically, my feelings are that it is worth a try and gives some interesting experiences, but it also suffers in a lot of ways. I just ends up being mediocre at #55 on my list. I got 2 rides in. One in front, one in the middle (not much of a difference, but the front gives a crazy view over the drop).


This element has a weird pump at the bottom that makes you get shoved forward.





We then bought tickets for the wonder wheel. My sister was frightened on this thing. It was pretty crazy when the car slides forward and you swing out and away from the wheel. We went around three times and the person before us getting off threw up, so we came back with the smell of cleaning supplies.


You don't have to tell me how amazing this picture is... I already know

We got our second ride on Cyclone (which was my dad's first and only ride) and called it a day because we had spent more than enough. The traffic going home was even worse and it ended up taking almost 2 hours to get home. It was a quick day, but I finally did everything I wanted to do at Coney Island and with barely any lines. The only ride I really missed was Steeplechase, but I rode that last time and enjoyed it.

Updated Top 20:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Wicked Cyclone
5. Maverick
6. Phantom's Revenge
7. Skyrush
8. Bizarro (SFNE)
9. El Toro (GAdv)
10. Manta (SWO)
11. Ride of Steel
12. Intrimidator 305
13. Kumba (BGT)
14. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
15. Superman: Ride of Steel
16. Storm Runner
17. Alpengeist
18. Coney Island Cyclone*
19. Montu
20. Comet (Great Escape)

Bold = New Addition
* = Moved

Not sure what else I'm doing this year. I'm probably going to stop at Funplex in New Jersey to pick up the spinning credit which is sure to make a dent in my top 10. Not sure if I'll report on that though. I may also ride the alpine coaster at Action Park (Mountain Creek), which I will definitely talk about. Thanks again for reading!

^ This trip report is just as awesome as Blase and TTD's! Worth reading!

[Paradox]

Did you ride Steeplechase?

lol240 wrote:

^ This trip report is just as awesome as Blase and TTD's! Worth reading!

Thanks a lot! I find it hard to make trip reports about parks I have already been to interesting, so I'm glad to see people are enjoying it. Next year, I will be going to a lot more new parks, so I'll be sure to get reports up on here.

Paradox wrote:

Did you ride Steeplechase?

Not this time around. I did last time in 2013. I think it's a really fun ride. The transitions in the riding position are really quite cool. It's a lot better than the one at Darien Lake which keeps launching while the front of the train is going up the hill (ouch) and it's much smoother. The reason I didn't ride it was because the rides are so expensive.

[mkingy]

I enjoyed your trip report too! I'd not heard about the wonder wheel before now - seems like a bat*** idea to me haha

[Paradox]

mkingy wrote:

I enjoyed your trip report too! I'd not heard about the wonder wheel before now - seems like a bat*** idea to me haha

I think the wheel at Disney, CA does the same thing. It's actually a really fun ride and much better than a normal ferris wheel.

I made a quick stop at Funplex in Mount Laurel New Jersey on my way to school. This thing is called "The FunCoaster." I feel like that takes the cake as the cheesiest name for a coaster. To sum up my day: I had fun on the FunCoaster at Funplex with some fun people. It was a fun day... The first thing on the agenda was The FunCoaster.



Lol. This thing was kind of bumpy, but it was kind of fun. I would put it on the level of any spinning mouse. The staff were really really friendly. Like more friendly than any other park I have been to. The park was weird because you have to go inside this indoor area before going outside and the door to the outside is off in the corner.

I know nobody cares about that though. The real reason I'm posting is to tell you guys about my future plans. I will be going to Knoebels as a final trip for the year on Sunday, and I will let you guys know how Impulse is. Next year though, I have big plans for a Mid-west trip. I'm calling it "The Red States Tour"

I will be visiting 8 parks including:
Dollywood
Beech Bend Park
Kentucky Kingdom
Kings Island
Holiday World
Six Flags St. Louis
Silver Dollar City
Worlds of Fun

Obviously, this trip has an excessive amount of wooden coasters on it, so I am very excited. I will be sure to share it with you guys next summer.

Thanks for reading and expect a Knoebels update very soon!

I care about minor parks, too!

Knoebels

My final major trip of the year for me was Knoebels, my favorite park. I'm going to apologize ahead of time for a lack of pictures. My phone was dead from using it as a GPS. This time, I went with my friends from college. It's a 3 hour drive from my college (which is the same from my house too) and we got there a little after 11. Impulse was obviously a priority for me today as I haven't gotten the credit, and I'll let you know my thoughts.

But first we went to ride Phoenix. This coaster just has so much going for it. I prefer the back because you get some serious laterals on the second to last turn around and the double down is out of control. What really sticks out to me with this coaster is the progression of the forces. The first turnaround is slow and calm and the first airtime sequence is mainly floater. This is the point where my friend who had no idea that I loved this coaster started freaking out because of the restraint. The next turnaround has a crazy airtime/lateral jerk on the drop out of this turnaround that is just crazy. The double down is where the coaster has pretty much picked up. Both points have crazy airtime jolts before slamming into a high lateral turnaround. People complain about Phoenix not having laterals, but every time I ride, I am impressed by those two turnarounds. Finally, i don't think there is anything that needs to be said about the finale. Every airtime hill flings you out of the seat into the single position lapbar. It is such a fun ride and it is great to see people react to it for the first time and be blown away by the ridiculousness of the restraints. I'm once again reminded that this definitely deserves to sit firmly in my #3 position.

We re-rode Phoenix and headed over to the flyers. It is so much fun to get these things to pop, but when you're as light as me, it gets to a point of painful. It is quite a good ride.

Next was the drop tower, which has some serious ejector air at the top. As much as I liked Zumanjaro, I will always like the drop towers that pull you down rather than drop you more.

We then headed over to Twister, where I grabbed the wheel seat, so two of my friends could enjoy it more, but my friend next to me got beaten up too. I've always thought this was a little bit overrated. I really enjoy this coaster, but to me the laterals don't have as much character as I would hope. Yes they are some of the strongest laterals I've experienced, but I have a problem with the fact that there are no crazy fast paced lateral sections like the last turnaround on Silver Comet. I still really enjoy the coaster, but it's kind of like the El Toro of lateral-based wooden coasters. Strong, but no character. I did get a really good ride on it this time, though, so I bumped it up a few spots in my rankings to #35 overall.

After a quick lunch, we headed over to Phoenix to get more rides in. After that, we headed over towards Impulse to get my first ride on it, but first we stopped at the Haunted Mansion. One of my friends was afraid it was going to be scary, so I told her that it isn't scary, it's just really good (which doesn't apply to her, but I needed to get her to go on). So when we took the first car out, I told the friend I was riding with that she was going to be terrified, and we heard her screams behind us. This ride is really cool though. My only problem with it is the strings hanging down. It is a true classic while still being very high quality. Make sure you don't miss it if you go.

Next up was Impulse, whose line hadn't changed since the beginning of the day. It was still piling out of the queue. This coaster is a real eye sore in a very classic feeling park. I also miss not seeing anything big while driving into the park and having the people I'm with doubt the quality of the park (even though that happened anyway). Plus the station feels very anti-Knoebels and looks like it belongs in Hershey. So after waiting in the line for an hour with no shade, we hopped on the front seat. What was fundamentally wrong with this coaster was the restraints. I have had some bad restraints in my time, but these have to be the worst. Imagine Skyrush x2. The coaster wasn't smooth either. Plenty of jerks throughout the ride making my legs even more sore. The inversions that I thought I would enjoy were squandered by the restraints. It was an ok ride, but it definitely had its problems. I actually enjoyed Thunderbolt at Coney Island over this even though this was a little bit smoother. It gets placed at #57 overall.

We were all really hot from waiting in the sun for an hour. We rode the whip which is not as good as the one at Hershey and the one at Kennywood, but is still fun. We rode Kosmo's Kurves which is always fun. At this point we were spent from the heat and decided to ride the log flume. One of my friends sat out and three of us rode on the log flume. We put the lightest person (me) in the back and the heaviest person in the front. Only at Knoebels could you get away with that. And yes we got a big splash from that lol.

We then went over to Black Diamond which was just as bad as it was the last 2 times I rode it lol.

We finally decided to wait in the Flying Turns line. This time, I didn't sit with anyone, so I didn't get long hair in my face. I enjoyed it again. Funny enough it is the smoothest bobsled coaster I've ridden. It's not a great ride, but it is quite fun and it's great Knoebels got this built.

We got a few more rides on Phoenix before leaving. I once again enjoyed my day at Knoebels. I really love the atmosphere of this park. The staff is great, operations are top notch with what they have and all of the flat rides are amazing. It was quite a crowded day being labor day weekend, but we got a lot of rides in. Phoenix is still amazing and this is still my favorite park. Make sure you don't miss out on it if you're in the area.

Ok so that's it for these trip reports. Obviously, I didn't have as great a year as last year, but I still got loads of rides in. If you want to know what I will be doing next year, be sure to check out my previous post. Otherwise, thank you for reading and I'll leave you with a final top 20 from the year with all of the changes made throughout the year.

1. Boulder Dash
2. Ravine Flyer II
3. Phoenix
4. Wicked Cyclone
5. Maverick
6. Phantom's Revenge
7. Skyrush
8. Bizarro (SFNE)*
9. El Toro (GAdv)
10. Manta (SWO)
11. Ride of Steel
12. Intrimidator 305
13. Kumba (BGT)
14. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
15. Superman: Ride of Steel
16. Storm Runner*
17. Alpengeist
18. Coney Island Cyclone*
19. Montu
20. Comet (Great Escape)

Bold = New
Underlined = Ridden this year
* = Moved

Phoenix = Epic Track Design!

[Paradox]

Did you ride Downdraft? I've heard that it's a pretty good ride.

Paradox wrote:

Did you ride Downdraft? I've heard that it's a pretty good ride.

No it was down this year, but I did ride it 2 years ago and it was pretty great. It's one of the better flats at the park.

[mkingy]

Thanks for your trip reports throughout the year - well worth a read!