TombRaiderFTW

^^ Timberliner or Millennium Flyer? I've seen a similar truck in that area, and it was for (if I remember correctly) Beech Bend.

I know the title's weird, but hey--you're reading, aren't you? Sounded nicer than "SFGAm and STStL TR, 7/4-7/6" to me, anyway. Last Christmas, my ridiculously awesome family got me a gold pass to Six Flags Great America. The stars finally aligned last weekend for me to make use of it, with an additional visit to Six Flags St. Louis shortly afterward. So, here's a trip report about it! NOTE: This post is a work in progress. If you see any posts indicating that certain parts of the TR aren't complete, that's why! For the uninitiated, I do my TR's a little differently than most. I'm not the biggest fan of the "we stayed in Motel 27, and Janice the maid was super nice, and then we ate at Mickey D's before we went to the park but my breakfast burrito was super ewww" format. There's nothing wrong with that; I just have a hard time writing that way. I'd rather just cut straight to the details--ride reviews, theming thoughts, and employee encounters. Typically, they'll end up in chronological order. But enough explanations! Six Flags Great America, July 4th >>ATMOSPHERE In some ways, I totally love the park's theming. In some ways, I feel like the name of the area has next to nothing to do with what's there. Carousel Plaza, Hometown Square, Southwest Territory, Mardi Gras, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Orleans Place are easily some of my favorite themed park areas in any park. Carousel Plaza feels like a miniaturized International Street with what I felt was a more present "weenie," the iconic double-decker carousel. It's a nice change from what I'm used to at Kings Island, and I have to admit that I liked it slightly better. Hometown Square feels to me like how I imagined the center of Maycomb looked in To Kill a Mockingbird, except with a ginormous white Luminosity esque-stage plopped down in the middle of it (not pictured in photo--the gazebo island is not there now.) Southwest Territory stepped out of a vibrant western and is tied with Great Adventure's Golden Kingdom for the most immersive seasonal theme park area I've ever been to. There are artistically crumbled brick buildings and high Alamo-esque bell towers, complete with a (LOUD) bell that rings in one of the towers at noon. Mardi Gras is covered in a variety of purples, yellows, jesters, and confetti, with ride names to match the theme. (I can't explain why, but I love the fact that their HUSS Top Spin is purple and in this area. It's probably because I'm used to associating Top Spins with dark green jungle themes... Wonder why. ) Orleans Place is an extension of the Mardi Gras theme, but it's slightly distracted by the placement of Superman: Ultimate Flight and The Dark Knight. They're both in this part of the park. Nevertheless, the park still acknowledges the theme with live entertainment; during the afternoon, an a cappella quartet performs on the second story of one of the buildings. If Kings Island were ever to acknowledge the themes of its areas like this, I'd die happy. In contrast, Yankee Harbor, Yukon Territory, and County Fair all hardly acknowledge any theme at all. The best of the group is Yankee Harbor, but even then, there's hardly any theme at all thanks to the placement of V2 and Batman: The Ride. Yukon Territory is the kids' area, and it might as well be themeless. County Fair tried to feel like Coney Mall to me, but I think Coney Mall skewed how well the theme of County Fair stuck out to me. I expected to see classic flats, but instead it felt more like a collection of the latest and greatest family flat rides. I suppose that would technically be the modern definition of a county fair, but it just felt disjointed to me. Toss in the presence of X-Flight in this area, and it felt like someone who hadn't been to an actual county fair was trying to make up for several people before them who hadn't been to an actual county fair, either. Still, all these areas are towards the back of the park, and the whole front of the park more than made up for it for me. (Seriously, I love the Mardi Gras area.) >>RIDES •Raging Bull (8/10) I think I finally found a B&M hyper I genuinely like. Having taken advantage of the park's early-entry-with-a-Coke-can deal, we were quickly in line for Raging Bull. Less than a half hour later, we were sitting in the last row. With all the enthusiast hullaballoo about the trim brakes on this ride, I wasn't expecting much. It's one of the "older" B&M's, which popular opinion says means the ride will be forceful and amazing and throw everything at you but the kitchen sink. Personally, I've been on "older" B&M's, and they rarely did much for me except on a few rare occasions. If nothing else, this was my first B&M hyper with a pre-drop, and the idea of essentially having a double-down for a first drop on a B&M was definitely interesting. •Batman: The Ride Backwards (1/10) "First backward roller coaster since Recar? This'll be awesome!" thought the poor sucker. So if you happen to remember my Great Adventure TR last year, you'll know that I loved Batman: The Ride. •V2: Vertical Velocity (6/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •American Eagle - Red (7/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •Demon (5/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •Whizzer (10/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •Viper Backwards (4/10) Forwards, I think this ride would have easily cracked my top 10. asdfjkl; •The Dark Knight (7/10) In theming: meh. In ride experience: vastly better than SFGAdv. asdfjkl; •Superman: Ultimate Flight (5/10) Inexplicably superior to the New Jersey version. asdfjkl; •Giant Drop (4/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •Ragin' Cajun (5/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; •X-Flight (9/10) asdfjkl; asdfjkl; >>EMPLOYEES Great America has a surprisingly friendly workforce! I still have yet to find the "couldn't care less" attitude enthusiasts seem to find in Six Flags parks. I think just about every employee we encountered was smiling and willing to go out of their ways to make sure they answered any questions fully. Truth be told, it was better than I've ever experienced at just about any park besides possibly Dollywood. When I had trouble finding the Flash Pass entrance to Viper, I asked a sweep, who admitted he wasn't sure but found an employee wearing a Lo-Q polo for me. That employee in turn walked me almost all the way back to the entrance (it's hidden on the path to the waterpark, for the record) and made sure I was able to find the rest of the way there. The foods employees always smiled and asked how they could help us, and the ride ops would high-five people on the way out of the station. As much of a Holiday World fanboy as I am, it's touches like this that actually make an impression on me. At the risk of sounding like an employee handbook, I love it when staff actively engage customers. Holiday World is friendly, but more in a "the employee handbook doesn't say I necessarily have to talk to you, but I'm going to talk anyway" kind of way. SFGAm is friendly in a "I'm expected to be friendly enough, but I'm going to put my own style on it without it seeming forced" kind of way. HW's way is in no way bad, but it's not a parkwide feeling, in my experience. At SFGAm, there's something impressive in the fact that it's a strong constant in just about every department you encounter. Two thumbs up! >>FINAL THOUGHTS I know next to nothing of Great America's history, but for what it is, I liked it a lot. It's more than enough theming to make me nostalgic for my favorite theming-based rides from the past, but it's got a Cedar Point-like concentration on thrills to compliment it. The only thing I can really critique the ride lineup on is the placement of everything since Superman: Ultimate Flight. For heaven's sake, why is The Dark Knight in Orleans Place? Why is X-Flight in County Fair? What do Batman: The Ride and the themeless Vertical Velocity have to do with Yankee Harbor? The place is asking for an Action Zone-like area themed to comics and thrills, but I don't feel like that would blend well with the existing areas. But I'm just being nitpicky; it's Six Flags we're talking about here. They do comic book superheroes and occasionally large rides. It is what it is.

Son of Beast and Hersheypark's Sidewinder both get the prize from me. Honorable mention to Batman: The Ride, when backwards.

The only ride I've ever been on by myself is Zephyr, but I've been to Kings Island by myself a ton of times. It's not nearly as lonely as you'd think. It's the only way I can take a camera with me and feel free to take as many pictures as I'd like, as anyone I go with would much rather ride rides.

^^ NO. Please. I'm still trying to get over Namtab: The Vominator at SFGAm. I'm curious to know how CP would do a dark ride these days. The only IP they currently (license? rent?) is Peanuts, which doesn't really lend itself to any dark ride ideas I can think of. Maybe one of the ride ideas from Sally?

^ What does that even mean? I have to admit I'm impressed that the wave pool is in working order already. That's a lot more progress than I was expecting at this point, though I didn't know with any certainty how bad things had gotten in the park. If Hart actually gets the park running and open by next May, I might have to check things out. Especially Thunder Run!

At least at some point in the past year and a half, you could have Twitter text tweets from any account to any phone, whether smart or otherwise. You could also tweet via texts. I won a WindSeeker cup from the KI Twitter once doing this. Does Twitter not do this anymore?

For strangest/most exotic: Conneaut Lake Park. By far. What clearly used to be an incredibly charming little lakeside amusement park near a charming little lakeside town has turned into one of those closed amusement parks that people break into and take pictures. Only problem is that the employees forgot to stop showing up, so the rides are still running despite collapsed and burned down buildings and light graffiti everywhere. The entrance to their kiddie area scares me more than anything at Halloween Haunt: Source. It's looking into my soul. Okay, I'm being facetious. The place actually is in that bad of shape, but only in certain spots. The park actually has a massive amount of potential. After visiting, I told the friend who went with me that, if I ever had $20 million to spare, I'd somehow invest it into Conneaut. And I mean it. Clean the place up and give Blue Streak love in the form of retracking and paint, and CLP would easily be my favorite park I've ever been to. Easily. I've heard they recently acquired more funds to pay taxes/revitalize the park, so I'm really hoping they can keep their heads above water. For farthest: of Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America, Kings Dominion, and Coney Island (the one in New York), I'm not sure which one is the farthest from home. I'm thinking Coney, but don't quote me on that.

The area between the turnstyles and fountains, the tables alongside the fountains, and the area between the Eiffel Tower and the fountains. I realize sitting at the tables may mean your view of the tower would be blocked in varying amounts by the trees, but the tradeoff is that you'd have a better view of the fountains. I've never been to Wonderland and don't know a lot about it; is their International Street better for watching something like this?

I just got around to watching this video, and wow. That is seriously impressive. If that sort of grandeur could somehow be coherently meshed with our International Street (i.e., something equally impressive involves the Eiffel Tower like CW's involves the mountain), I'd be in heaven. If Ouimet wants to keep people in the park after closing that's one hundred percent the best way of doing so at a park like Kings Island, in my opinion. I like the idea of Luminosity, but it would have been very Kinzel Cedar Fair to bring that anywhere besides Cedar Point. The legacy Taft/KECO parks are perfect for a fountain show like this. I could go on and on. My only qualm: I don't love the idea of our fountains being black. I feel like there might be alternatives to that, though. Why not paint them within a few shades of TARDIS blue? (Apologies to non-Doctor Who fans--I don't know what else to call that color.) It's still a nice color for International Street during the day, but it's not light enough at night to detract from the light effects. Just a suggestion! Oddly enough, that strongly reminded me of Paramount. Especially Tomb Raider. I don't know why. But geez, I'm so not complaining.

Zamperla uses old Coney Island names for its rides. There's also a Tornado ride there that isn't a roller coaster at all, as I recall. Ideally, they'd be at least a little similar to their namesakes. Zamperla isn't in the wood coaster business, so I think it's cool that they're acknowledging a history they didn't even have a part in. (I would still SO love to see a GCI version of the Tornado/Bobs and a Gravity Group rendition of Thunderbolt, but I guess I'll have to keep dreaming about those for now!)

I think BB1's point may have been that the Madame Fatale's "Shipping & Receiving" sign is still on it. According to Don at the KIC event, Massacre Manor is the haunt that won't return this year. I didn't notice anything in his words indicating that multiple haunts may be leaving. So I'd say MFCoT will return this year.

No; it has smoother transitions, which means more comfortable airtime (but still abundant, if you sit towards the back!) Yes. They're classic while still being quality rides; it's like riding through a history book instead of just reading it. Except instead of being boring like a history book, they're actually good to great rides. Every wooden coaster there is best in the last car, in my opinion. Racer in particular has a vastly underrated last row. Kids, but it's enjoyable if you appreciate older style amusement park attractions. Some say you shouldn't ever miss it; I say it's worth a shot if you've already ridden all the coasters. The most I've ever waited for either was about 1.5 hours. That was for Phantom on Kennywood's opening day this year, and it was that long because the ride broke down for an extended amount of time. I've only been twice, but both seem to average half hour to hour waits on the weekends. Yes. He's Kenny Kangaroo, and he's here to mess you up. (Actually, he's a friendly character. It just felt appropriate to add something threatening after "he's Kenny Kangaroo.") The regular food is somewhat better quality than Kings Island. The big draw is the Potato Patch fries, which are hand-made steak fries covered in delicious cheese, etc. (if you so please.) Potato Patch WILL have a line all day, so bite the bullet if you want to try them. They're good, but I personally find them to be on par with Five Guys' fries. Still a fairly crucial part of the "Kennywood Experience" if you want to get a feel for the place. Not sure. I know a couple coasters have bins to store your stuff in, but they aren't secured in any fashion. I wouldn't put anything valuable in them. In my experience, Kennywood. I've only been to Kennywood twice and Dollywood three times, though, so I'm probably not the best judge. Tickets: Dollywood. Everything else: more or less a tie. Hardly. Thunderhead has its rough-ish patches, but it's very well maintained. Also one of the few rides I recommend riding towards the front, despite my being a back seat rider through and through. It's more intense than anything. Tennessee Tornado is quite frankly the only Arrow looper I've ever truly enjoyed. It's short, but Arrow perfected their designs with it. Not a rough transition to be found on the ride. Mystery Mine's decent, but I personally find the theming more enjoyable than the actual ride itself. Your mileage may vary. I thought Wild Eagle was a decent looper (the zero-G roll is great), but popular opinion is that it's fairly bland. If you've ridden Gatekeeper, it's less intense than that, but has comparable pacing. Haven't been to Dollywood this year, but last year Wild Eagle had the longest lines in the park. Then again, it was new last year. Dollywood's food is DELICIOUS. I've yet to eat anything there that wasn't ridiculously good. The pizza by Thunderhead is one of my favorites, though I hear the chicken restaurant is not to be missed. There's cinnamon bread that will change your life. I'm not joking. Never been. My memory's fading... I want to say Dollywood has bins for all the rides, but I'm definitely not sure.

The only ride I've ever been on that was above-and-beyond terrible was Son of Beast. Since the OP requested operating coasters, I'd have to say either Thunderhawk at Michigan's Adventure or Sidewinder at Hersheypark. Vekoma tried their darnedest to sprain anything of mine they could with those two. (I know some of you guys out there have been on SLCs typically considered far worse than Thunderhawk and are thus rolling your eyes. It's the only one I've been on.)

With the way Big Sexy continuously uses it, I can only conclude it means "pieces of steel". Beast, Racer, etc. would then be POW coasters, as they're made of pieces of wood.

What coasters do you like? I don't think I've ever read a positive comment about any coaster from you.

Yes, but how is it reaching the media? I wouldn't think the park would voluntarily release info like this to the press just because. Then again, what do I know about public relations?

Why is this kind of thing newsworthy this year? It's happened for years without being published.

Waldameer has a similar card system which is REQUIRED if you plan to ride any rides in the park (unless you get an unlimited wristband.) It can also be used on food, merchandise, and games, but you can also use credit/debit cards for those. In the case of riding rides, it's actually really convenient and streamlines the process pretty nicely compared to using paper tickets. Where KI has ride ops that pulse guests into the stations, Waldameer has one employee who mans the scanner. You scan your card, the scanner shows your remaining balance, and the employee presses a green button to unlock the turnstyle to let you into the station. Much nicer than the way Diamondback usually works, for instance. I've seen more than one guest, unknowingly or otherwise, walk past the ride op at the top of the stairs if the operator is otherwise distracted. Plus, it keeps Ravine Flyer II's tiny station from being the shoulder-to-shoulder headache it could easily be. In the case of everything else: If everything was rounded to the nearest half-dollar like the rides, it would be great. Unfortunately, it's not, which means I've got $0.74 on my Wally Card that's never going to see the light of day because I bought a caramel apple one time. I'm sure that adds up for the park. In the case of pay-per-ride parks, I really like the idea of money wristbands/cards. Otherwise, I think I'd rather just use cash or credit. I can see the benefit for families where the kids are doing their own thing and need to store money where it won't easily be lost (e.g. cash falling out of a pocket during a ride), but I'm not that bothered by carrying those things with me. That's why I've got zippered pockets in my shorts.

Terp trip report? I like it. How was Volcano? Any hiccups? And did the station change at all over the off-season, as was rumored?

^ Wow... Guess we'll have to strip KI-ORIG-EMP of his Kings Island Fan Card. The nerve! How dare he not know! It's not quite that serious, compadre. I don't think there's any shame in not knowing or caring how to recognize the difference between major manufacturers' tracks.

Thank you so much for putting this together! I'm definitely tempted to attend. We'll see!

There was nothing frightening about Demon Drop, then? I knew those screamers were faking it...

Yes, but isn't Drop Tower just dropping straight down and then boom! it's over? Oblivion's the same idea in coaster form, except it uses the terrain.

*mutters something about the difference between being punched in the head and being punched in the head with boxing gloves on* I'm not really getting my hopes up with Kentucky Kingdom. I think Terp's probably hit the nail on the head, although I think the fact that things are happening at the park is a good sign. The lack of communication is telling, but I'm thrown off by the fact that work is being done at all in the park. Time will tell, I guess.