flashpoint1230

I have been neglecting my trip reports! Since my last report for April 20th, I have made a trip to SFGA, CP, and another visit to our wonderful KI - I hope these can be of use to someone even if they're late. If you want my ride tally, crowd factor rating, and wait times, scroll to the bottom of the post! . Six Flags Great America - Visited May 4th, 2014: TL;DR: Good roller coasters, nice weather (freezing in the evening, though), nice landscaping, no Goliath yet...And let down by mediocre park cleanliness and ride ops...Which led to some unnecessarily long lines. Oh, and some...interesting clientele. One note: I hope nobody thinks that I am being unnecessarily harsh on Six Flags for their management of the park... I know it was only the second day of operations, but I visited Kings Island on the second day of operations and have used it as a benchmark. I didn't plan this trip at all - I just woke up on May 4th, noticed that it was SFGA's opening weekend, and also took notice that admission was only $20.14...Who can resist that? My riding buddy and I made the drive up to Gurnee, Illinois and arrived at the park around 11:30. It opened at 10:30, so I was not able to beat the opening crowds. First note: I know that parking is important, but Six Flags charges $25.00 for parking that is not paid in advance! Yikes! I went ahead and picked my tickets up at will-call - a very dissatisfied customer was chewing a customer service representative out and threatening to sue Six Flags because his name was not in their systems Nice start to the day. I mean, do people not realize that the more you freak out and start pointing fingers, the less anyone is going to be willing to help you out? Anyway...I hope the man found his tickets somewhere. Also, some random teenage girl came and screamed in my riding buddy's face. Like Banshee wailed. Then she walked away laughing. Not sure what was going on there... Six Flags has Great America set up a bit different from Kings Island. At Great America, you step through metal detectors (complete with security guards) into a corral type area before you can enter the gates. Once you pass the metal detectors, you pass through the corral into the actual front gates where you present your ticket for entrance. Needless to say, the process slows operations down immensely...This trend seemed to continue through to the ride operations as well, unfortunately. I had last visited Great America in 2004, so it's been a long while. My riding buddy and I rode V2: Vertical Velocity first. We waited about 25 minutes, which was acceptable given the length of the line. Ride operators were not as speedy as at the Cedar Fair parks I am used to. It took them a full five minutes or so to check the trains. Meanwhile, the riders are just sitting, already strapped into their seats. Not sure what caused the delay. I also noticed that the ride operator does not have an enclosed booth like Wicked Twister at Cedar Point does. I was kind of surprised. The ride itself was good - nothing out of the ordinary for an inverted impulse coaster. V2 has one straight spike and one twisted one, which is pretty cool! Next, we looked at Batman: The Ride and decided to pass it up because it appeared that only one train was running. And the line looked quite long. We headed on over to American Eagle instead. I loved American Eagle when I rode it in 2004! It was like The Racer on steroids. The ride was just as good this time around - although the train did not go as fast in the helix as I remembered it, though I was young the first time I rode it, so I am sure it felt faster then. Only issue was that only one side was operating...Which is fine, except that Six Flags only had one train running! On a 4650 foot long coaster, that is close to unacceptable, I think. In addition, they only had one ride attendant in the station who had to check both sides of the train's restraints. American Eagle is at the back of the park, and it should be a high capacity coaster, but we waited around 40 minutes for it. I checked throughout the day - I never saw the blue side run. I had a nice conversation with the people who were behind me in line though - they were trying to remember the "big, blue roller coaster that used to be here!" Being the nerd I am, I gave them a minute, and then I piped up with "Shockwave." I didn't get to ride Shockwave when I visited last, but I would have loved to have gotten to. Having made a clockwise loop around the left-hand side towards the back of the park, my riding buddy and I came across X-Flight, SFGA's wing coaster. We skipped it because the line was long, but I thought the aircraft control tower (or hangar, or whatever the keyhole element is) looked great! X-Flight is rather compact, as well. I guess they didn't have much space to work with. Because I love B&M coasters, I knew I had to get a ride in on Raging Bull! We headed on over and waited in line about 40 minutes. Raging Bull is great fun because it makes most of its moves closer to the ground than some other B&M coasters - I am partial to Diamondback's hills myself, but sometimes you just need some twisty fun! And Raging Bull obliges for sure. What baffled me though is the ride operations...Once again, Raging Bull has 5,057 feet of track and a mid course brake run...And yet it was only running two trains. That's fine, but the ride ops refused to send the second train until the first train had FULLY COMPLETED ITS COURSE. Completely. As in, my riding buddy and I sat in the brake run for over five minutes because in addition to not sending the train, they still take forever to load. Part of the problem seemed to be that the ride ops didn't call out specific seat numbers as being unlocked - just the row itself. This caused the ride loaders to have to check all four seats in a row. Uggggggh. I just couldn't understand how a park could mess up a B&M coaster capacity-wise...They're designed to practically eat people all day, not to stack trains in brake runs. Anyway...After grabbing a quick bite to eat, my riding buddy and I hopped into Viper's queue. Viper is a great medium sized woodie that I didn't get to ride in 2004. I really enjoyed it! The layout is compact, but the designers threw some little surprises in that caught me off guard (in a good way!). And the laterals don't kill you like I would have expected they would. The ride op was super enthusiastic and tried to get the crowd in the station to participate in some Viper activities, but nobody was really feeling it. Next, we passed by Demon because someone had tossed their cookies . So we headed on over to X-Flight. X-Flight is short, so it can only run one train on the course - the other train has to be in the station. We waited about 50 minutes. My riding buddy commented how the line would've taken 15 minutes at a Cedar Fair Park - oooops. Not much we can do there. We sat in the brake run for five minutes because again, the other train was not finished loading. I could understand if it happened every now and then...But it happened every trainload. Ah well. It's a short ride, but it packs some great elements in! There's a forceful helix and a great heartline roll that goes through a keyhole element. Following this, my riding buddy and I headed on over to Demon - the old Arrow Dynamics four-inversion coaster! It was rough but rideable. Six Flags did try to put some theming in with the strobe tunnel, and it's definitely memorable, though the ride is not so memorable when taken alone! Finally, we grabbed a quick ride on Ricochet (spinning swing around ride) - quite forceful! We headed over to Raging Bull for one last ride. It was about 6:00 PM by this point and it was getting super cold! After entering Raging Bull's queue, a train stopped on the lift hill. We waited about 25 minutes for the technicians to come and fix it - the ride ops sent one train through the course empty and then let the ride start operating as normal again. We made it onto Raging Bull about 30 minutes later... Not too bad a wait, although many people had left the queue when it initially went down. After this, both my riding buddy and I were convinced we had mild hypothermia , so we ditched on out around 7:15 PM or so. Funny note: I noticed multiple posters around the park proclaiming that SFGA was the cleanest park. I was wondering by whose criteria this judgement was made. The bathrooms were less than pristine and I noticed trash and chewed up gum on the asphalt outside. I wonder if it was Six Flags themselves. Also, I did not get to look at Superman:Ultimate Flight, Batman: The Ride, The Dark Knight Coaster, The Little Dipper, Spacely's Sprocket Rockets (I rode that in 2004, haha), or Whizzer this time around. Whizzer went down during the afternoon for some reason, I believe. Ride Tally: American Eagle: 1 ride (red train) Demon: 1 ride Raging Bull: 2 rides X-Flight: 1 ride V2: Vertical Velocity: 1 ride Viper: 1 ride Wait times: American Eagle: Ride 1: 40 minutes V2: Vertical Velocity: Ride 1: 25 minutes Raging Bull: Ride 1: 40 minutes Ride 2: 55 minutes (inc. technical delay) X-Flight: Ride 1: 50 minutes Demon: Ride 1: 10 minutes Viper: Ride 1: 35 minutes Crowd Factor (scale of 1-5, 1=low crowds, 5=high crowds) Not sure how full the park is on a regular basis, but basing on the crowds in the midway that I saw, possibly a 2/5, but no more than that. Looking from Raging Bull, the parking lot was not full and I didn't feel like people were running me over - haha Next up: Cedar Point trip report!

I really enjoyed the Banshee, although only to a point! I was able to ride it three times this weekend (outer right in row 7, then middle left in row 7, then outer left in row 5). It was smooth, the transitions were executed fine, and I was definitely impressed, but I felt like it was missing something. Not sure what, exactly. I LOVED the drop into the valley that followed the zero gravity roll. It just mostly felt like there was a lot of time spent upside-down and not so much time spent doing other things. Not that that's a bad thing. I guess I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly. Banshee ranks just behind Diamondback as my favorite coaster at KI. I don't really think it outdoes Raptor as far as inverts go though. It does rank as a solid second place for my invert list. So within its group, it's fantastic. But maybe I'm just not partial to inverts as a whole. I'm planning on going to Busch Gardens WIlliamsburg this year so I can compare it to Alpengeist. I thought Banshee was a very "safe" roller coaster. Forces were nicely distributed, but the only elements that stick out to me are the helix and the drop into the valley. Kings Island has great terrain to use, and I think it was used well for Banshee. I do wish they'd have found some way to intertwine Banshee with The Bat though. I know that's probably impossible to do, but I think it'd be cool. I'd give Banshee an 8.25/10 - a very solid must ride at least once coaster, and a solid repeat ride choice. Just not really up there in the elite.

I tend to be a little too detailed, so if you want my ride tally, crowd factor rating, and wait times, scroll to the bottom of the post! TLDR: Great weather, very little wait times until about 3:00PM, and overall smooth ride operations (no WindSeeker until about 4:30 PM, and no Drop Tower operating at all, though. And Beast, Firehawk, and Racer experienced short downtimes at least once) I went to KI with three others and entered the front gates at 11:35 AM (park opened at noon). Two of my companions did not have gold or platinum passes, so I couldn't walk in early Once the park opened, my group saw that the Banshee line was waaaaay past the end of the queue, so we decided to skip it for the moment. Went on over to Invertigo and got on after a few cycles. As usual with a Vekoma headbanger, I escaped with just a slight headache and a momentary feeling of vertigo. Side note: Delirium looks fantastic with its new paint. The yellow looks darker than I remember it being when it first opened though. I wonder if they used different paint colors. Skipped on over to Flight of Fear next and hopped on after a cycle or two. I love it, but it's not real popular with my park buddies for the day...So alas, I only got to ride it once. Following that, we noticed that Firehawk had no line, so we took advantage of that and rode it twice (second ride had a slight queue). At that point, my group headed over to Rivertown for some fun! Went on Vortex twice. Thank God for the ride attendant on Vortex today. Normally, they push my restraint down to the point where I become a bobblehead. This time, though, I had wedged my legs and hands in the car in such a way as to leave a little room for my head and shoulders to not succumb to Arrow! The ride attendant asked me if I wanted the restraint tighter! No thank you, and thank you kindly for giving my poor head an option! Favorite ride attendant EVER After that, we headed on over to The Beast. It was great, as usual! It did seem like the trim brake on the longer, straight portion after the first lift hill kicked in harder than normal, though. Boo! Of course, by this point, it was time for me to get my Diamondback fix! We had the good fortune to come upon DB when there was no line (literally...Not even on the stairs near the crushed phones!). Rode it twice as a walk on. I was on row 3 both times. As usual for a B&M, it was speedy and smooth as could be! I left my lapbar up one notch so that I could be pulled up into it during hill crests. There's nothing better than the feeling of flying (almost on a magic carpet since it's so smooth). Went ahead and jumped on over to Backlot Stunt Coaster. Still a nice piece of fun as long as there's no line. And it's the third time in the past year that I've been randomly assigned to sit in the front row. Better take what I can get, I guess! By this time, it was about 1:30, so my group rushed over to Banshee. The line barely filled 1/3 of the queue, and it moved steadily. I give a lot of credit to the ride ops! There were minimal stacking times, and like I said, the line never stopped moving. Jumped on after 20 minutes in row 7 in the teal train. I was on the outer right. IDK how people treat spoilers in trip reports, so I'll go post my Banshee opinions in the Banshee ride thread. But suffice to say, I was impressed, if not totally floored. After that, it was time for The Bat! I really liked the orange paint. It makes The Bat stick out for sure. The ride ops didn't seem thrilled, though. No greeting or exit message. I was actually kind of taken aback, since I've become so used to hearing those perky ride ops. Ah well. The Bat seemed squeakier than normal. I think it was from the wheels of the train rubbing against the new paint, perhaps. By this point, I had ridden almost everything. So I jumped back on Banshee twice with little wait time. Then I hopped over to The Racer. Only the red train was running, and one of the trains was having issues, so there was a small wait time. I did notice that KI possibly replaced the lapbars on the red train? I noticed a lot of taped lapbars last year. This year, I only saw new, bright orange ones. When I got off The Racer, I noticed that the line had gotten substantially longer. I think the train issues were really bogging ride ops down. My group went to eat, then went for one more ride on DB, Vortex, and The Beast after that. We went to eat around 3:45 and noticed that the park was significatly busier after this point. I first noticed the difference around 3PM. Just before we left at 6:00, we noticed that the DB line was wrapped back towards the start point for the queue, although no switchbacks were filled at all. I had to leave because certain members of my KI party were sunburnt! I would've stayed, otherwise. Overall, it was a fantastic, low crowd day with beautiful weather and great ride operations. Even after the park got a bit busier later in the day, it was still a lower crowd day. Maybe some 30 minute waits as opposed to 5-10 minutes. Ride Tally: Diamondback: 3 rides Banshee: 3 rides Vortex: 3 rides Beast: 2 rides Firehawk: 2 rides Invertigo: 1 ride Flight of Fear: 1 ride The Bat: 1 ride Backlot Stunt Coaster: 1 ride Racer: 1 ride (red train) Wait times: Diamondback: Ride 1: Walk on Ride 2: Walk on Ride 3: 10 minutes Banshee: Ride 1: 20 minutes Ride 2: 15 minutes Ride 3: 15 minutes Vortex: Ride 1: Walk on Ride 2: 5 minutes Ride 3: 15 minutes Beast: Ride 1: 10 minutes Ride 2: 15 minutes Firehawk: Ride 1: 5 minutes Ride 2: 10 minutes Invertigo: Ride 1: 10 minutes Flight of Fear: Ride 1: 5 minutes Backlot Stunt Coaster: Ride 1: 10 minutes The Bat: Ride 1: Walk on The Racer: Ride 1: 15 minutes Crowd Factor (scale of 1-5, 1=low crowds, 5=high crowds) Before 3:00 PM - 1/5 After 3:00 PM - 2/5 Total for day (not necessarily an average): 1.5/5