Devil's 2016 Trip Reports: Adventureland, NY

[Coasterkidmwm]

Glad you didn't pass out heh. I always found it amazing how many people refused to drink water. Now imagine how good Legend was when it first opened before GCI killed the last portion of it.

Thanks for reading!!

Coasterkidmwm wrote:

Glad you didn't pass out heh. I always found it amazing how many people refused to drink water.

Lol thanks. And yeah I saw someone pass out at Dollywood earlier in the trip. I actually drank tons of water beforehand. It's really easy since they have free soft drink stands all over the park. It was really just the heat lol.

Now imagine how good Legend was when it first opened before GCI killed the last portion of it.

I know! It was still really fun though with the new airtime and the laterals are still great, I just always wanted to experience those crazy lateral snaps.

[Coasterkidmwm]

From what I've heard they made the first portion of the ride much better, but the last part is an unforgivable nerf (but probably necessary for maintenance).

Six Flags St. Louis

We passed right next to the gateway arch in St. Louis on the way to the park.



It took us about an hour and 45 minutes to get to the park. We arrived at opening so that we could get right to the rides we wanted. The park is one of the nicer six flags parks with very nice employees and great operations.




If you look closely, you may be able to see that American Thunder is stuck on the lift.

As soon as we got in, we headed straight to Ninja because who the hell wants to wait in a long slow-moving line for an Arrow...



This time we did VR and it was ok. The coaster didn't seem to bash toooo much, but it wasn't good. The VR was interesting for about 5 seconds, then it got old.



I was starting to get worried again because American Thunder was closed, and I didn't want to be spited 2 days in a row. In the meantime, we went over to Boss. The queue path for this ride is sooo long, almost as long as Vampire at La Ronde.



I was actually really excited for this coaster. It looks like a very well made CCI. And I can confirm that it is true, but man I must have hit a bad day because this is really rough. It didn't help that my head hurt from riding wooden coasters for 4 days straight, but this was pretty much unbearable. I still had a great time. There were some cool lats and fun airtime moments and it is really fast. I can say though that I very rarely ever complain about wooden coasters being rough and this one is bad. It sucks because the layout is awesome and there were some great moments. I really want to see a re-track and new PTCs because this approaches Hell Cat at Clementon Park rough.


Maybe if I go another time, it will ride better.

Next, we headed over to Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast.



This reminds me of the days of sitting out on the Chiller at Great Adventure and watching my brother and dad go on. I love the sound and the feel this ride gives. It also rides pretty well. I hate backwards launches as well as going backwards in general, but I still really enjoyed this. We rode in the back, so reaching the top of the spike and coming back down was fun. The tophat is great and gives a little bit of floater hangtime. Really fun ride.





We then headed over to Screamin' Eagle.



We rode in the front, so the airtime was really good and it was overall really fun. There was tons of room under the restraint (I'm quite thin), so I really went flying. Really good coaster!

We had noticed that the boomerang was closed and that it had no train anywhere in site. Then I remembered that it got derailed earlier... shucks. I was looking forward to that coaster... However, the mine train AND the drop tower were also closed. However, everything was running 2 trains aside from Boss and later American Thunder, and those seemed like something was wrong with them, so I'm not complaining.

So next we headed over to what I knew would be my favorite in the park so far, Batman the Ride.



Remember I said that the Boss had almost as long a queue path as Vampire at La Ronde? Yeah well this takes the cake. What is it with these Batman clones? It's not like there's theming or anything... When we were walking towards the ride, a kid said that it was an hour wait, which would be ridiculous considering we hadn't waited more than 10 minutes yet. But we didn't care. When we got to the start of the line it was at the 45 minute mark, with about a quarter mile of switchbacks left closed lol... Silly kids... Anyway the ride was just as great as the one at Great Adventure. As long as these things are going forwards, they're great. The one at Great Adventure is a little more intense, but it's barely noticeable, both are great.



We saw that American Thunder was open, so we headed over there. They were only running one train because I guess they had problems with the other one. They warned us on a sign outside though which was very nice. I've never seen that before.



This is another very fun GCI. Very fast paced. Everything comes at you at light speed. The forces are very weak though. The laterals are good in a few places, but the airtime is just light floater. Thunderhead and Kentucky Rumbler were much more forceful, but I could tell that this one was aimed at families. Still though, the pacing makes for an extremely fun coaster. I'd put it at a slightly higher level than White Lightning. Good, but not a top notch coaster.







I'm not sure why I took all of these pictures and none of them had a train on the track... oops

Finally, we headed over to Pandemonium, which was the last open coaster to ride.



It was about the same as the one at SFNE. Quite fun, but there was a jerk on the wide turn-around that's not on the one at SFNE. It's not a problem, though, it was still very fun.

Now, we wanted to do other rides, so we went to the rapids because they looked amazing, and all I can say is "Best rapids evahhh." Yeah no seriously the rapids are amazing. There is this long stretch of waves that keep pouring water onto the boat, and then we hit a rapid that felt like an ocean wave crashing on me. It was the most drenching wave I had ever felt on a rapids. It seemed like every wave delivered in a big way and there are sooo many. Seriously, every park needs to look at this rapids. Absolutely perfect.

Next was the SkyScreamer to dry off. It was pretty fun. Some guy dropped his hat and I watched it float down the entire way.

We also rode the antique cars ride, which got us good shots of American Thunder.

We did the log flume which has a really cool downward section.

We did a re-ride each on Batman and American Thunder.

For the last ride we did Justice League Battle for Metropolis.



The queue kind of sucked wind, which gave me no hope, but Cyborg was kind of cool.


He just needs to clean the fuzzies out of his hair.

The actual ride itself was really good though. I still hate shooters, but this is the best one I've done. It reminds me of Dark Kastle at BGW. Really Really good, and I'm excited to see this at Great Adventure one day.

So I had a great day at Six Flags St. Louis. It was a cute park without an exceptional unique coaster. (Batman the Ride is exceptional, but I've done it before lol). But it has a good charm to it like Great Escape and the front half of Six Flags America. I would definitely recommend it if you're in the area.

We got our hotel in Springfield and we stayed for 2 nights at the Comfort Inn & Suites, which was very nice (and it was nice to stay in one place).

So top 25 update:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Legend (HW)
3. Ravine Flyer II
4. Beast
5. Phoenix
6. Wicked Cyclone
7. Voyage
8. Storm Chaser
9. Thunderhead
10. Maverick
11. Phantom's Revenge
12. Lightning Run
13. Skyrush
14. Bizarro (Superman the Ride)
15. Kentucky Rumbler
16. El Toro (GAdv)
17. Manta (SWO)
18. Ride of Steel
19. Intrimidator 305
20. Kumba (BGT)
21. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
22. Batman the Ride (StL)
23. Superman - Ride of Steel
24. Storm Runner
25. Alpengeist


Bold = New

Next up was Silver Dollar City, where my sister got to ride her 200th coaster.

I rode the Boss in May 2015 and had a very similar experience. Typically I can tolerate pretty rough wooden coasters (I even enjoyed Timberwolf at Worlds of Fun pre-retrack). This was the first coaster I've ridden where I legitimately wanted to get off before it was over, since the forces weren't exciting enough to overwhelm the pain I was feeling. The coaster looks great, but it just wasn't fun to me.

[Coasterkidmwm]

I rode Boss like 10 years ago. It was definitely a vicious ride. Over the years they're added extra wood and stuff to it but it doesn't seem to fix the ride at all (eerily similar to SOB). It really is a shame because that ride would be easily top 10 if it wasn't built with octagon wheels.

Thanks again for reading!! I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it rough.

Silver Dollar City

It was a nice quick ride to the park and the road through the Ozarks was really cool. The weather was not looking good, so we wanted to move relatively quickly. We got there before the 9:30 opening. As soon as we stepped into the park, I was blown away. The feel of this park is magical. Everywhere you go there are a bunch of little things like glass blowing and pottery. Everywhere there are buildings and architecture that just adds to that old-time southern feel that is not broken anywhere along the paths. The map they give you is cool because it's a newspaper, and it makes it feel authentic, but that becomes a problem when it rains and it starts to crumble under your hands. Sorry for the lack of pictures this time, everything is buried, so I never really thought to look for a good place to take them.

We headed over to Powder Keg first, but they were having problems getting it open. Since we couldn't really ride Outlaw Run yet to make it my sisters 200th, we went to Wildfire.



It was pretty good. Not as good as Kumba by a long shot though. It rode more like every B&M Floorless. The elements were rather forceful, but it didn't whip us around that much though, and it's rather short.

[img]

Next up was my sister's 200th, Outlaw Run. I didn't tell her that it has inversions, and she never noticed it anywhere around the park, so it was great to see her surprise. When we hit the first inversion, she said "Did we just go upside down,"
and the final two she was WTFing all the way through.



It was pretty great! Really good forces all around. The drop is pretty good, and the first inversion is just ok. The next two airtime hills have some good airtime as well. The next two elements is where people were raving about "sideways airtime." Not sure what they were talking about. They weren't exceptionally forceful in anyway. They did weird things, but they felt like just about any other coaster. The final 2 barrel rolls were quite good though. Not quite the hangtime from Wicked Cyclone, but better than the corkscrew on Storm Chaser. Overall, the coaster is really good. What I did like about this that the other RMCs lacked was that the pace was extremely consistent. Wicked Cyclone felt like multiple sections of fast pace oddly broken up by slow paced turns. However, this really doesn't have the craziest pace. It's good, but not crazy like the other 2 RMCs. It ranks around the level of El Toro and Kentucky Rumbler. It's not a top 10 coaster, and I'm not sure where all the hype comes from, but it's definitely really good!

Powder Keg still wasn't open, so we went to Fire in the Hole. It was just like the one at Dollywood, but the splash at the end made this a much more enjoyable experience overall, and it was smoother too.

On line for Fire in the Hole, an employee told us that Powder Keg had opened. We headed there next, but they added a second train while we were waiting, so it took a little while, but we got on no problem. I don't have pictures of the actual ride, but I got the scenery around the station.


Yeah it's the white one in the back.

This ride was also really good! The tophat is cool because as you're getting airtime, you get such a great view. The rest of the ride has tons of airtime and laterals. The Premier section with the wide turn had crazy good laterals. This is a really great ride, but the restraints suck. Since it's an S&S it has the same restraints as their Screamin' Swings, which are great, but when there are laterals it really hurts your hips. Still great though.




There is really cool scenery with the launch at and the transfer table too. Quite good quality.

We headed over to Thunderation, but as we sat down for the ride, and put the restraints over us, they told us to get out because of a thunderstorm. And this thunderstorm lasted a looong time. I'm just saying that this is the third time this had happened on the trip and every time we were waiting for a storm or thunder themed ride. It happened once while we were waiting for Storm Chaser, the next time it was for Thunderbird, and now Thunderation.

We went to the indoor shooter boat ride next that was called the Flooded Mine. It sucked pretty bad to be honest. I'm not sure why they haven't updated it. By that time, the rain had come down. We whipped out our Kings Island ponchos, and started back up.



Then we went to the crooked house walkthrough called Grandfather's mansion, which was ok. After that, there was not much left that was indoor, and the Marvel Cave was closed, so we headed back to the car for a bit.

When the skies started to clear up, we went back to the park and got in the line outside the queue of Thunderation. After a while, it opened up and we got right to the front car. It was a really cool ride and I loved the way it travelled around the trees. One of the better mine trains, but it still can't beat the intensity of Adventure Express at Kings Island. Sorry no pictures, it was kind of buried.

Now that the credit anxiety was done, we were able to free roam. We went to the log flume first. This was really quite terrible. Literally, all it did was slowly meander through a dark tunnel before it went up a lift and dropped. And it's a drencher. I don't like log flumes that drench, I don't see them as something that should really get you soaked. I obviously expect a splash, but this was a bit much. And then it also get's you wet when you get into the station. It looks cool on the outside, though.

Then we went to the rapids, which was also pretty crap. The queue is long and boring, and it get's you wet with spritzers before the ride. Plus, you have to get a locker and the touch screen for the lockers barely works. You have to really slam you're fingers into it. You think with it being 2016, this wouldn't be a problem.

We also rode the S&S Screamin' Swing, which was good, but not as good as the one at Lake Compounce.

So I have a complaint about this park that keeps it from being my favorite park. In terms of rides, it seems like they only ones they really care about are the coasters. The log flume was crap, and the little effects they had (in the small out door sections) just seemed like a fish or a fisherman pissing on you. I don't know why they haven't invested in a new log flume before they invest in a new coaster.

The rapids has an excessively long queue without any notice of the line length and they have nothing along the way in terms of entertainment in a place that would like to call itself a theme park...

Then there's Flooded Mine and Fire in the Hole, which both have way outdated effects. I'm not sure why they update it because these rides are sparse and the theming is terrible. It's not like Knoebels' Haunted House where it is extremely well done effects that are at every corner and still has a classic feel. These rides are just bad. And honestly, for a park that takes pride in it's theming and overall feel, this is disappointing. They can still have state of the art rides and maintain their authentic old style feel. Honestly, it just feels like the park is run by old people who don't want to move on with technology. But then there's Powder Keg which has great effects, so I don't know what to think...

Honestly, though, I loved this park. I rode Outlaw Run a total of 4 times and we were able to get most everything we wanted to done. We would have liked to spend more time around the park (which we did a little of), but we were tired an wanted to get some sleep.

To compare this to Dollywood, I prefer this in a lot of ways. The overall feel of the park is great and the coasters were relatively even. But this lacks the other rides to make Dollywood so great. I only really liked the roller coasters and that was a problem. I would say that they are about even, but I'm more likely to go back to Dollywood (even if it weren't closer to me).

Great park though, and I would say it's a must do. Next is Worlds of Crap Fun.

Updated Top 25:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Legend (HW)
3. Ravine Flyer II
4. Beast
5. Phoenix
6. Wicked Cyclone
7. Voyage
8. Storm Chaser
9. Thunderhead
10. Maverick
11. Phantom's Revenge
12. Lightning Run
13. Skyrush
14. Bizarro (Superman the Ride)
15. Outlaw Run
16. Kentucky Rumbler
17. El Toro (GAdv)
18. Manta (SWO)
19. Ride of Steel
20. Intrimidator 305
21. Kumba (BGT)
22. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
23. Batman the Ride (StL)
24. Superman - Ride of Steel
25. Storm Runner

Bold = New

There's a big jump from Outlaw Run to Superman the Ride, so it is below the border of what I would consider to be amazing.

Thanks again for reading!!

^ Wildfire is, I think, the great example of "simple yet intense" which is kind of unique for a B&M looper that usually offers a pretty long ride time. As for Outlaw Run, I always find that sideways turn amazing! Wow so do you!

You did spend a neat day at SDC!

^Thanks for reading!

Worlds of Fun

We made our way from our Springfield hotel to Kansas City to arrive at Dorney Worlds of Fun at around 10:00.



I was excited for this park because Prowler looked great. I also thought this would be just a nice little Cedar Fair park, but was I wrong. I really enjoyed the rides, but this is one of the most poorly managed parks I have ever been to. It starts at the gate where they have 3 rows of bag checks making it take 30 minutes just to get into the park. Plus operations were terrible, which I will get into. It was a Saturday, so I was expecting 2 train operations with plenty of staff. But no, not at this park.

Another problem I had was the lack of enforcement of the no smoking policy. We passed a guy who was smoking outside a designated smoking area, which should have been stopped immediately. What's worse though is when we yelled at the guy "Designated smoking area!", he said "I smoke where I want!" In which I would have stopped and laughed the guy off if I hadn't already had cancer, and been through months of chemo and radiation this year. There's a point where you just don't give a crap when an idiot doesn't respect the people around them. This is where I said "I already had cancer thank you!" To poor the guilt onto this inconsiderate stain on society. You'd think that'd stop any human being that had any shred of sympathy, but clearly this guy does not as he proceeded to flip me off...

This brings me to how the people here are just insufferable. I live near New York in an area where there are assholes at every corner, and they are the same, but pile stupidity right on top of that, and you have the people going to this park. That's not to say I did not run into nice intelligent people, but I must say between this and Adventureland, I have not run into more obnoxious people at any 2 parks. Anyway, onto the rides, where hopefully we can have some positivity.


Apparently, they've renamed Renegade to Prowler...

We started the day off with the almost Talon clone, Patriot, which had already built up a bit of a line. However, operations were bearable this time around.



I really enjoyed this, as I did Talon. I enjoyed Talon more because I found it more intense, but Patriot worked differently in the way that it was floaty. For example the zero g on Talon has more whip, but Patriot's is very floaty, which I understand why people rave about it, but it's really not my thing. The ride is still forceful though, and the airtime was really coo, as it is on Talon. It is a very good invert, and a great way to start off the day.







Since Timber Wolf was right there, we decided it would be a good idea to hit it before the line got there, and wow was it a good idea.



So yeah time to go off on the operations. I don't understand why you have to wait for every single person to exit the platform to let everyone else on the ride. Then these operators where walking super lazily to each restraint then meandering back to their spot. I timed their dispatch time, and it was 3 minutes 40 seconds. And I'm pretty sure that was a good one. Fine Fine, surely there are 2 trains right? Yea no not here. Thankfully, they weren't running into problems with people not fitting and whatnot. Just so you know, this was the fast lane line:



The coaster was really good though. I rode in the front seat because it's a Dinn. It has a GCI retrack in places, which was interesting, but I doubt it helped the ride at all. The other spots weren't rough at all. The airtime is great and there are a few decent lateral moments, but I don't think it reaches the level of Predator or Thunder Run. It is still great though. I really enjoy these Dinn coasters a lot. Too bad Mean Streak is such a snorefest though.

After Timber Wolf, we headed over to Mamba, the Morgan Steel Force almost clone.


Yes that's the same picture... Yes I forgot to take one of Mamba

I enjoyed Steel Force, so I obviously enjoyed this one. I thought this had better laterals on the turnaround and was generally smoother so I did like this one a little bit more. I don't remember Steel Force or Phantom having many laterals at all, so it was a nice surprise. The airtime is really snappy on these things which I love too. It's just really slow paced and somewhat forceless. Quality ride though.

Next was of course Prowler, the GCI of the park.



We rode back first. It was really really fun. Such great pacing and a few really good spots of airtime, but there were definitely a few forceless moments, which made me really want to ride up front. We went back to go ride in the front and some kid tried to line jump up to his friends. When I stopped him, he was insistent and would not give in. He just didn't understand the idea of line jumping. I feel like in the northeast, everybody's an asshole, but they respect peoples spot in line because we have to do it all the time. Anyway, the ride broke down while in line, so we backed out. Later in the day we got to ride up front, and it was a huge improvement. The airtime was there (still not as strong as Kentucky Rumbler though) and so were the laterals. The final section of hills comes out at such a fast pace, it's one of the best paced sections of any ride. However, it is just regular floater air, and not the stronger kind that I liked from Kentucky Rumbler and Thunderhead. Still really good, and it is way better paced than Kentucky Rumbler. It ended up being my second favorite GCI.

After Prowler broke down, we headed over to Boomerang.



I find it hilarious how people here are freaking out over this coaster. They are amazed that it goes backwards, and they all go on terrified and come off raving. I have never seen so many people freaking out over a love boomerang, and the line was pouring out of the queue. I figured, maybe that means it might not beat the crap out of me. But it did, and the newer style trains didn't help.

We headed across the park to the final credit we would hit, Spinning Dragons


It was good like the rest. I would say of the three I've been this is #2. It was smoother than Six Flags St. Louis, but not as good as Six Flags New England. The operations sucked on this. They had a car leaving the station only after the other car had reached the last MCBR. Just astounding.


This is about the only good piece of landscaping at this park.

We headed over to the launch tower next. The line was long, but my sister really wanted to do it. We had waited about 30 minutest when we look over and see the SAME OPERATORS from Timber Wolf. You know the ones that clearly hate their job... Yeah. They were walking slowly to each restraint and not having a care in the world. Before we got on, the girl that was there must have just ended her shift since it was 4:00 and she was walking out. So this girl who had zero enthusiasm and zero emotion the entire day, steps off the ride platform and jumps in the air cheering like she just got off a ride in Roller Coaster Tycoon... Where was that enthusiasm earlier??? Seriously this park is a joke...



Well anyway, we headed over to Prowler for our final ride, where there was actually an enthusiastic ride op. And the people we talked to in the queue were nice. We told them we weren't from the area and they said "Yeah, we're not from around here either, we're from St. Joes, bout a 45 minute drive," So I said "Yeah we're from New Jersey, about an 18 hour drive."

After Prowler, we bolted. We did not want to be in this park longer than we had to. Between the employees almost all having no enthusiasm, to a complete lack of food stands to some of the worst operations we had seen, this had to be the worst day at an amusement park I've had, even though the coasters were all good. I would never want to come back to this park unless they get something extraordinary. I would compare this to my day at Martin's Fantasy Island it was that bad...

Anyway updated top 25:

1. Boulder Dash
2. Legend (HW)
3. Ravine Flyer II
4. Beast
5. Phoenix
6. Wicked Cyclone
7. Voyage
8. Storm Chaser
9. Thunderhead
10. Maverick
11. Phantom's Revenge
12. Lightning Run
13. Skyrush
14. Prowler
15. Bizarro (Superman the Ride)
16. Outlaw Run
17. Kentucky Rumbler
18. El Toro (GAdv)
19. Manta (SWO)
20. Ride of Steel
21. Intrimidator 305
22. Kumba (BGT)
23. Batman the Ride (GAdv)
24. Batman the Ride (StL)
25. Superman - Ride of Steel

Bold = New

Next up was Adventureland in Iowa for the final park of the trip.

Edit: Sorry for taking so long to post this by the way. I had a few things come up, including going to Six Flags Great Adventure.

[mkingy]

devilsrule911 wrote:

After Prowler broke down, we headed over to Boomerang.

-image snipped-

I find it hilarious how people here are freaking out over this coaster. They are amazed that it goes backwards, and they all go on terrified and come off raving. I have never seen so many people freaking out over a love boomerang, and the line was pouring out of the queue. I figured, maybe that means it might not beat the crap out of me. But it did, and the newer style trains didn't help. The operations sucked on this. They had a car leaving the station only after the other car had reached the last MCBR. Just astounding.

We headed across the park to the final credit we would hit, Spinning Dragons

Not sure if meant to be part of Spinning Dragons or hilarious dig at operations

Great trip report - Prowler always looked a fun ride to me! Sucks about the operations though - best way to kill off enjoyment at a park

Both actually . Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out! And thanks for reading!

Adventureland, Iowa

We stayed the night at the Comfort Suites in Cameron, MO. It was a very nice stay and would recommend it if you are doing Worlds of Fun and Adventureland.

We got to Adventureland right about on time. The GPS told us to turn before the park when we should have gone straight. There were a lot of cars waiting in line, so we were hoping everyone was here for the waterpark. The main street of this park is laid out just like Magic Kingdom. The train going over top with all the stores down the sides, and of course the castle carousel as the focal piece. The difference is it doesn't look that great lol.

Our first ride was of course their brand new for 2016 Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster, Monster with the steepest freefall drop in the world.



The line was very long, but operations were decent. Would have been nice to have another train going, but it moved okay for 8 people per ride. They were rather strict about loose articles on this ride, so it was nice to be able to put stuff on the side (which they don't let you do for any other ride). I was excited to see if this could be smoother than Mystery Mine.



The coaster itself was quite good. The drop was not as spectacular as I would have expected. I much prefer Fahrenheit, Maverick, Thunderbolt at Coney island, and impulse. This one just felt like any other drop. The rest of the ride is quite floaty with some awkward moments of hangtime that was really cool. It was a slow paced ride, but you could tell it was going for that. I liked the seats and I liked the way everything felt awkward. I just wish the "airtime" hill had airtime. I understand it's a slow paced ride, but at least have force. So yeah it was pretty good, but I wouldn't say that anything was really mind blowing. However, it does what it sets out to do just fine. I just don't think this is an exciting way to design a coaster. Cool coaster though.












And of course a fat loop shot for Coasterkidmwm

Next we went to Tornado, the out and back William Cobb wooden coaster. The operations were dreadful since they only had one train going, but the operators were generally nice. They were just slow because they were on the older side. Not sure why they have young people doing food and the older people operating the coasters. Figure it should be the other way around. It's fine though because they were nice.


I apologize for these vertical pictures. My sister took some of these.

So they tell you where to go, so we asked for the front. However, they force you to bring your bags on the ride... that's right, they would rather you have a bag at your feet than leave it on the platform. We made a scene by waiting for the front twice (with three people) so we could trade our bag out. This was ok. It had a few good airtime moments, but it really doesn't have much going for it. It's just a little boring.



Next up was what I was most excited for, Outlaw, one of 2 CCI wooden coasters in the park. But this one is the only one that is important lol.



This was the second CCI coaster to be built and it was designed by Mike Boodley, who went on to make GCI. It really does feel like a older GCI with the way it rides. It reminds me of a less aggressive version of Wildcat. There were good lateral moments and good airtime moments throughout the ride to make this a very fun coaster. To me this is the best coaster in the park

Next was Dragon, the Hopkin's looper. Very cool to be riding a coaster from such an odd manufacturer.



I expected it to be bad, but it only had a few bad spots. No it wasn't good, but it was bearable. The loops are really intense as well.





And a naughty shot:


Since we were done with the outdoor credits, we headed over to what would turn out to be the best CCI coaster of all time, Underground



I couldn't have asked for a better last coaster of the trip. In all seriousness, this is just awful. The theming is terrible and obviously it is barely a coaster. I don't think I will find a worse CCI lol.

We finished off with a ride on the launch tower and the tilt-a-whirl. After a final ride on Outlaw, we headed to our next hotel right next to the airport and we called it quits on a great trip.

So this park was pretty nice, and there were some cool aspects, but the operations and some of the policies were shady to say the least. The employees were nice enough though. The people around the park were crazy again. We got in an argument over what was line jumping after somebody tried to bolt to the front of the line where his friends were. I don't understand how that is acceptable to anybody... Anyway cool park, just wish it had a better coaster and better operations.

We went to the the Days Inn by the airport in Des Moines and it was rather crap, so don't stay there. We took a flight home to Jersey the next day to finish up a great trip.

I liked both of my giant amusement park trips for their own reasons. The last one had a lot of cool small parks with very different kinds of rides, while this one was all large parks. This one definitely had the biggest affect on my top 10 lol, which it was designed to do since I knew how much I tend to like wooden coasters. I would recommend this trip because it allowed me to cover a large area without any long drives, and it only hit major parks. However, it hurt my head by the end because that many wooden coaster rides can really get to you.

Here are all the parks I went to on the trip in order from favorite to least favorite:

1. Silver Dollar City
2. Dollywood
3. Kings Island
4. Holiday World
5. Kentucky Kingdom
6. Six Flags St. Louis
7. Adventureland
8. Beech Bend Park
9. Worlds of Fun

Here is my top 10 coasters specifically from the trip:

1. Legend (HW)
2. Beast
3. Voyage
4. Storm Chaser
5. Thunderhead
6. Lightning Run
7. Prowler
8. Outlaw Run
9. Kentucky Rumbler
10. Batman The Ride

I had a great time, and I'd like to thank everybody for reading as I went along my crazy ambitious trip. Next will be my day trip to Six Flags Great Adventure I took recently. Thanks again for reading!!

[Coasterkidmwm]

Sounds like you had a great trip! Thank you or the fat loop shot lol. I'm surprised the Hopkins ride wasn't horrendous, so that's good to know at least. Again thanks for the great pics.

[Paradox]

Takabisha actually has the steepest drop in the world at 121 degrees. Monster is 101 and isn't even the steepest in America as Cannibal is 116.

Thanks for continuing to read!

Paradox wrote:

Takabisha actually has the steepest drop in the world at 121 degrees. Monster is 101 and isn't even the steepest in America as Cannibal is 116.

I'm aware of that. I said it's the steepest free fall drop, which implies that there are no brakes going down the drop.

Worlds of Fun and Adventureland are the two closest parks to me, and I've been to both this summer. I must unfortunately agree with you about the WOF operations this year - they were absolutely dreadful. It's never been this bad before and I have no idea what happened to their decent operations since 2015. Before this year the staff were a lot more productive, so hopefully they can figure out what went wrong and fix it for next year.

The Timberwolf operators were the absolute worst on my trip. I snapped this picture of them just chatting with each other while the (one) train was in the station. It's a shame, since I've always thought this park was staffed well.



Regarding Timberwolf, the GCI retracking definitely did help the ride immensely. With that, though, they put in a trim break after the second hill. The trim was only added a couple seasons ago, and before that the second half of the ride was almost as painful as the Boss at Six Flags St. Louis. When I rode it this year, I thought it was actually a lot of fun.


Adventureland's policy of not allowing items to be left in the station must be new as of the past few years. They always used to let us leave items on the side until this year, so I wonder what changed that.

I think they changed the headrest padding on the Dragon since I last went, too. Before, it was hard foam with a point that actually stuck into the back of your head, but this year the padding was less hard and not painful (so it's doing its job correctly). The coaster all around is running far better this year than in the past, and I don't remember the Gs on the loops being so intense. That's probably a result of my weight gain since I last went, though.


It's too bad you got stuck at both parks on bad operation days. In my visits in the past they've both been some of the better operated parks that I've been to. No help for the other visitors, though. Hopefully you had at least a decent time.

EDIT: help my picture is huge

Spl Eagles wrote:

Worlds of Fun and Adventureland are the two closest parks to me, and I've been to both this summer.

Well then sorry for insulting the people in your area lol. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who think WoF had crap employees. It sucks because the rides were good, but I look back on the day as one crap situation after another.

Regarding Timberwolf, the GCI retracking definitely did help the ride immensely. With that, though, they put in a trim break after the second hill. The trim was only added a couple seasons ago, and before that the second half of the ride was almost as painful as the Boss at Six Flags St. Louis. When I rode it this year, I thought it was actually a lot of fun.

I can't imagine it was that bad. I heard people say it was the smoothest Dinn, and that Predator was the worst. I thought Predator was just fine, so I think I could have managed on Timber Wolf. I don't mind rough wooden coasters though.

Adventureland's policy of not allowing items to be left in the station must be new as of the past few years. They always used to let us leave items on the side until this year, so I wonder what changed that.

It's one of the oddest policies I've seen. It seems more dangerous to have a bag on the ride with you lol.

I think they changed the headrest padding on the Dragon since I last went, too. Before, it was hard foam with a point that actually stuck into the back of your head, but this year the padding was less hard and not painful (so it's doing its job correctly).

I seem to recall the seats being terrible. It didn't really affect the ride if I recall.

It's too bad you got stuck at both parks on bad operation days. In my visits in the past they've both been some of the better operated parks that I've been to. No help for the other visitors, though. Hopefully you had at least a decent time.

I didn't have that big of a problem with Adventureland. It was just crowded. I know they only have a limited number of trains, so it was forgivable since the operations were otherwise ok. So I had a good time at Adventureland. And Prowler was worth a bad day at Worlds of Fun. Thanks for reading!

[Coasterkidmwm]

The bag policy is probably from theft.

Six Flags Great Adventure

I've been to this park a bunch of times, so expect this to be a different format. This was my first time in 2 seasons which I suppose is weird to do for a home park, but I get a little tired of it. And if it's any better I haven't been to Dorney in 8 years and it's just as close (I've past it multiple times including on the way to Dollywood).

So apparently this opens at 10:30 now? Can somebody tell me when the hell that changed? We knew ahead of time, so we showed up just in time. First ride was Joker for my first ever ride.



I really enjoyed it. It's my first 4D which was cool. What I liked is that the flips feel like they come out of nowhere. Obviously it's not the most amazing thing ever, but it is a really cool ride to have at the park



Kind of disappointing that it is visible right while walking into the park. It makes it feel less welcoming.



We did Kingda Ka next since we haven't gotten to ride it for the past 5 times since it was closed every time.



We rode up front for the first time, and the wind was just unbearable. I would much rather ride in the seat behind. Still fun though. It's really odd how the launch pumps. Also the trims going down are stupid af. I'm not sure I've ever noticed somebody mention it but I'm pretty positive those LSMs at the top also act as brakes.

We did Zumanjaro next which is great. I get that it doesn't have any ejector like most drop towers do, but dropping for that long makes my stomach go after a while.

El Toro was next and as always, it's great. We rode it front car and back car.



Then we went to Green Lantern, so that my sister could get the credit that she still hasn't gotten. Still an awful coaster because headbanging.



We crossed the park to get to Nitro. The line was long, so we only rode once. It's nice to have a reminder that a B&M hyper can be decent after Diamondback. I remember this used to be the B&M hyper I would trash. Now that I have perspective... It's weird that people say this has a rattle because it's really nothing. To me a rattle is a constant, bashing rumble that doesn't stop. Not a few small, painless potholes at the bottom of the first drop. Diamondback and Behemoth bash my head at the bottom of every drop. Maybe it's the trains.



We did Batman the Ride next, which is just a tiny more intense than the one at SFSL. It was walk on in the back. Best seat on the second best coaster in the park is walk on... awesome!



We did Skull Mountain in the back. I always forget how fun the drop is on that thing. Seems like every coaster in this park is a back seat ride and nobody goes for it (because New Jersey), so it's wide open to take.

Then we did Dark Knight. This has smooth turns, but brutal hills.


Interesting map of Gotham. Not sure how accurate it is to the movie.

We did Houdini because it's great.

Then we headed over to the log flume which is a soaker. I always love it though because there's so much nostalgia and it is quite long.

We did Bizarro next which is quite fun. After my trip, I expect every B&M to beat the poop out of me, but this one only does a little and that's just because it's old.



We did Runaway Mine Train next which has mega nostalgia. This one's really good too. Loads of airtime. Nice and smooth in the middle seat of the back car.

We finished off the day with a few rides on El Toro because it's great.



To note the changes since I've been there: The safari is cool that it's in the park now (I think that was there last time, but the park was too crowded to notice anything in the park). The Larson loop isn't obtrusive. It's weird to see the old Zeirer without a building next to it, and the retheme was pointless. Joker is a good coaster, but I hate it's positioning.

That's all. Thanks for reading. The last park of the year was Adventureland in Long Island, so expect that soon.

I know I said I was going to do my Adventureland trip report a while ago, but I was moving back into school and getting back into the swing of things. I've found some time to write this up so I'll do it.

Adventureland, Long Island, NY

So with a Mack spinning coaster being less than 2 hours away from me, I always wanted to go, but you have to realize that in order to get there, you have to go through NYC. Traffic always sucks, and you have to pay over $20 in tolls just to get into Long Island... Anyway, I was excited to finally try out a Mack spinning coaster. I really hadn't ridden any good Mack coasters (Journey to Atlantis in Orlando did not impress me and was pretty rough), so getting on a modern spinning coaster from them was really exciting, and of course we spent some time doing the rest of the park.

I would recommend getting the wristband. Every ride is over $5 and the wristband is only $30. Parking is also free which is nice.

This park is very well kept. The paths are beautiful, the park is clean, and a lot of the rides look like they have a fresh coat of paint. Plus, the park is full of vibrant colors. It's an awkwardly oblong park without much width. First order of business was hitting Turbulence, their Mack spinner.



This was so fun! It starts off with a drop where you are immediately turned around every time you ride. Then it hit's this 90 degree banked wave turn that provides perfect floater air (no seriously legitimately perfect 0 gs) in the middle seat, which is incredible while you're spinning. The rest of the ride is extremely forceful for a spinning coaster providing a few more moments of airtime before you hit the brake run. This is easily the best spinning coaster I've been on. I will still love Exterminator at Kennywood for being oddly amazing, but this takes the cake.









Next we headed to the medium sized Zeirer Tivoli coaster, Ladybug Rollercoaster which has a beautiful new paint job..., which I feel like I should have taken a picture of...

Anyway, it was good. I feel like I like this better than the larger model because it's generally smoother. That ends all the new credits for the season. Final count: 240

We did this adult frog hopper (kind of) thing that was really fun. I wish S&S drop towers kept giving airtime instead of slowly bobbing up and down before it gets to the bottom because small little rides like these are surprisingly fun. I also did a Huss Frisbee, which got me extremely dizzy. Their log flume and wave swinger were both ok. They did an e-stop on the wave swinger because somebody was shaking their chains, so it just drops down and spins really low to the ground. It was pretty crazy because my feet were scraping (I had sneakers lol).

Anyway, what I really loved was the baby log flume and the water ride called Crocodile Run. Anyway, the baby log flume had these fountains spraying water over the track and everything was so tiny. It got our feet soaked though.

The most unique ride though is this thing:



It's called Crocodile Run. You have a steering wheel and you can whip your crocodile to the outside, or bring it back in to the center and everything in between. They have a bunch of places along the way where you can get soaked, so you have to turn the wheel to either get hit or avoid getting hit. I've never seen anything like this. I didn't ride because I didn't really want to get wet, but watching it was fun enough.

Anyway, I had loads of fun at this park. It is very small but it is such a nice park and a lot of the rides are very unique. I got quite a few rides on Turbulence since they were running 2 trains (and it was walk on). I would recommend this if you are in the city or on the island since you would have already had to pay the tolls. Even then, it's worth a look if you're in NJ or NY. It's a nice 3 hour trip even for adults.

Thank you all for reading all of my trip reports and ramblings about coasters this year! I have no idea what I'm doing next year, but I'm hoping to at least get out to Universal Orlando for the first time since it's been a long time coming. I ended the year with a count of 240 coasters, 176 of which are steel and 64 of which are wooden. That includes a total of 72 new coasters this year, which is by far my best year. Thanks again!

[herman116]

It's nice to see something from a park that normally doesn't get that much attention!

devilsrule911 wrote:

It's called Crocodile Run. You have a steering wheel and you can whip your crocodile to the outside, or bring it back in to the center and everything in between. They have a bunch of places along the way where you can get soaked, so you have to turn the wheel to either get hit or avoid getting hit. I've never seen anything like this. I didn't ride because I didn't really want to get wet, but watching it was fun enough.

This ride is a Jetski from Zierer. I think they aren't that common but we have them a lot more in Europe and they are in most of the Legoland parks. All the versions that I've ridden doesn't really get you soaked like this one though! They are still fun because on some of these (if you steer the right way) you can make a big wave which can get the people on the side wet.

[mkingy]

Yeah great little trip report - Turbulence sounds like a really fun and aptly named ride

[Coasterkidmwm]

Jesus I didn't know the green spinner existed! I always found it weird that more parks haven't bought those. Thanks again for the great trip reports.

herman116 wrote:

It's nice to see something from a park that normally doesn't get that much attention!

I always find I have as good of a time at some of these smaller parks because it's a nice leisurely day without crowds and the flats tend to be really good. And when they have a great coaster it's a big plus!

herman116 wrote:

This ride is a Jetski from Zierer. I think they aren't that common but we have them a lot more in Europe and they are in most of the Legoland parks. All the versions that I've ridden doesn't really get you soaked like this one though! They are still fun because on some of these (if you steer the right way) you can make a big wave which can get the people on the side wet.

Oh ok. I've been to 50 parks and this is the first one I've seen so I just figured it was rare. I guess I should do simple research next time lol. Thanks for the info

Thank you everybody for reading!