SFNE, Lake Compounce, The Great Escape, 6/9-11/2017

On Friday the 9th I took my first trip to a park I had never wanted to visit with a coaster I had always wanted to ride. Those are, respectively, The Great Escape and The Comet. TGE does just what it's supposed to do for the local market, but outside of their signature wooden coaster it has little-to-nothing to offer an enthusiast from out of state. I'm a huge fan of some of the notable classic woodies still operating like Phoenix, Kennywood's Thunderbolt, and the Santa Cruz Giant Dipper. Despite all the crazy stuff RMC and Gravity Group are doing today, these rides from 40, 70, even 90 years ago are still world class in their own way and I hoped Comet would be one of them. No offense to any Comet/TGE fans and NY locals, but I really wish I had picked a different park. The park itself with its varied, if dated collection of rides was about what I expected, but Comet was a disappointment.

The Comet (6/10)
This coaster shares much in common with Knoebels' Phoenix and Hersheypark's Comet, two other Herbert Schmeck woodies built around the same time. They all appear to be designed with similar philosophies in mind, but Phoenix is fast and smooth with tons of airtime, while the Hershey Comet feels much slower with no airtime at all. By all accounts I had read, TGE's Comet was supposed to be more akin to Phoenix, but I found that it had far more in common with its Comet brother. This was especially frustrating because it essentially looks like a 25% scaled up and stretched out Phoenix 2.0. It just doesn't feel like it. It had not one moment of airtime the first four or five times we rode it. Not. A Single. One. All those hills taken at such high speed and you don't leave the seat once. I just don't understand it. By evening it had sped up just enough for the hill before the second turnaround to deliver some mild air in the front and then on one of the ending bunny hops in the back. It probably sounds like I'm dumping all over this historically significant coaster (being the zombie incarnate of the Crystal Beach Cyclone and all), and yeah I probably am, but that might just be a case of misplaced expectations. I still enjoyed it despite my relative disappointment.

Alpine Bobsled (3/10)
A 1,500 foot long bobsled with three MCBRs. Unbelievable. This actually had one or two thrilling moments. It also had three or four jarring, painful moments. I'd say tear it down, but then what else does the park have left?

Steamin' Demon (3/10)
Fun fact. Four of TGE's six coasters are relocated from other parks, including this one! It apparently operated at some place called Pontchartrain Beach from 1978-83. I say all of this because there's nothing else to write about this rough, little Arrow loopscrew.

Canyon Blaster (4/10)
It's not the worst Arrow mine train. And well, the landscaping is pretty nice.

Flashback (5/10)
At last, the park's top steel roller coaster, a boomerang. This is actually one of the better ones I've done. Relatively smooth and worth a reride.
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Saturday, the 10th was the day for a much better park and now one of my favorites in the chain, Six Flags New England. I had been here once before, five years ago, and the park has improved substantially since then. We had a great day here with plenty of rerides on two of the best coasters in America. This park is laid out as one long midway with an entrance in the middle and no way to complete a circular navigation of the park. Yet even on a summer Saturday it never felt overcrowded. There are enough quality rides dispersed evenly throughout the property that crowd flow didn't become a problem. Superman didn't open until 4pm due to a blown lift motor and it hardly mattered with Wicked Cyclone around. We rode all of the major coasters and flats with the exception of Pandemonium and had the perfect nightcap with passholder ERT on Superman after closing.

Superman The Ride (9/10)
This ran much faster than it did in 2012. An Intamin masterpiece even if it's not the world's #1 steel anymore. Fantastic views from the lift, especially with a full moon shining across the Connecticut River at night. Every hill packs major airtime, in particular the third cammelback. I didn't get a sense five years ago of how intense this thing was. The twin helixes are very forceful, the perfect contrast to all the airtime before and after. As good as Wicked Cyclone is, Superman is still the park's flagship coaster for me. Unfortunately, I do have to be one of those people and bring up the restraints. The retrofitted lapbars are just terrible. Not painful (I don't even say that about Skyrush), but they are so uncompromising and restrictive that I can hardly fit in the train, much less move once I'm seated and I'm a thin 6'2". It takes so much work to fight against the damn thing it distracts me from the ride experience. It's in my top 10, but with the original restraints it might be top 5.

Wicked Cyclone (9/10)
Between this and Superman, an enthusiast cannot go wrong. One of the most relentless coaster's I've ever ridden. No element is wasted on this thing. Tons of crazy airtime, even in the last third of the layout where others have complained it slows down. At no time did WC feel drawn out or slow to me the way New Texas Giant gets at the end. Too many awesome sequences on this to list all my favorites, but if I had to pick one it's second inversion into an OMFG ejector cammelback.

Batman The Dark Knight (7/10)
A perfectly adequate B&M floorless and a good #3 at the park after Superman and WC. Kraken, Dominator, and SKC are my favorite floorlesses, but this and Medusa at SFDK are not far behind. It's a good, fun looper that is still mostly smooth. I rode it a lot more back in 2012 than I did on this trip. With two vastly superior coasters so close to it, a couple of laps per visit is all you need.

Thunderbolt (6/10)
A pleasant, classic wooden coaster I found more enjoyable than I remembered. Now contrast this with how I described The Comet. I gave both the same rating, but Comet left a worst taste in my mouth because it clearly has the potential to be so much better. I like both coasters about the same, but if Thunderbolt is more than the sum of its parts, Comet is something less than.

The Joker (6/10)
Only rode this once and we didn't get a single inversion. I know from riding Fiesta Texas's Batman that this isn't indicative of a typical ride on a S&S Free Spin, so I'll cut it some slack. These coasters can be fun even though they're not really my kind of ride.

Gotham City Gauntlet (6/10)
A pretty good Maurer wild mouse. No braking at all through the top section of turns and only used sparingly thereafter. Maintains its speed nicely with good lats and a bit of airtime.

Goliath (4/10)
The new trains simply do not work well on this. I wish my last memories of it were still from its days as Deja Vu at SFMM. It really beat us up.
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Lake Compounce was up on Sunday, the 11th. Like SFNE, I went here once previously in 2012 when Boulder Dash instantly became one of my favorite roller coasters and remains so today. Wildcat was down for some reason that year and it was closed again this year as they were still completing the full retrack. So that means that I've visited Lake Compounce twice, five years apart, and still have not ridden Wildcat. Bad luck I guess, as we really could have used it since we devoted a full day to this park when we could have gotten by with about six hours. I like this place for Boulder Dash and its mountain/lakeside setting and simple, timeless atmosphere. It's just not a full day park.

Boulder Dash (10/10)
Very close to matching The Voyage as my #1 wooden coaster, but as magnificent as it is, it's not quite there. The M&V rebuild that replaced the triple-up on the return leg is great. Smooth with better airtime than the old element had. This, not Voyage or The Beast, is the ultimate terrain coaster. There's nothing else like hurdling through the trees going up and downhill and grinding out some strong laterals on the corners. I'd actually take just Boulder Dash's serene, scenic lifthill over the entirety of The Comet and I'm only 35% joking. I noticed it took a while for it to warm up as is the case with quite a few woodies. You have to ride in the front to get the full extent of the airtime until late afternoon when the train has sped up enough to get equivalent air in the back seat.

Phobia (6/10)
Some people love these Premier Sky Rocket 2s and I just don't. I think they're gimmicky one-trick ponies with a trick that isn't even all that good. The appeal of these seems at least to me to be entirely about creating fear in the visual realm. There's one good pop of gut wrenching air going backwards if you ride in the back seat and that's the only part that stood out to me.

Zoomerang (5/10)
Another one of the slightly more bearable Vekoma boomerangs. TGE's Flashback felt a little smoother though.


My top 10 lists after the trip.

Steel:
1. Skyrush
2. Maverick
3. Intimidator 305
4. Medusa Steel Coaster
5. Millennium Force
6. Fury 325
7. Superman The Ride
8. Kumba
9. Raptor
10. Phantom???s Revenge
*13. Wicked Cyclone

Wood:
1. The Voyage
2. Boulder Dash
3. El Toro
4. The Phoenix
5. Outlaw Run
6. Ravine Flyer II
7. The Legend
8. American Thunder
9. Timber Terror
10. The Raven

More pics.

[Paradox]

Sorry you caught LC on a bad day! I can't wait to ride Boulder Dash again next month! Next time you're back here give me a call I might be able to meet you.