4th of July Weekend Coaster Trip (IN, IL, & WI)

[johnjniehaus]

I was able to coordinate a long weekend trip with my new friends I made at the ACE spring conference. The one girl lives in Chicago and seeing as that is pretty centrally located i suggested that we all meet up there and she could show us around her home park. The plan of course grew to include the Wisconsin parks and Indiana Beach. So it begins - 

July 4: six flags great America - We were able to ride quite a bit during the holiday. Mainly stuck to coasters but it was a great day full of beautiful weather and fireworks at night. Consensus was that Goliath was the star rollercoaster in the park but our group actually ended up having an obsession with Demon too. Such an underrated arrow looper! Whizzer was fun and of course there were lots of bad jokes about how our significant others would feel about us sitting in each other's laps. American Eagle is such a great woodie and I really hope one day they can get it racing again. Gravity group maybe? Batman, Superman, & Viper were all good. I personally think X-Flight has too much of a rattle to be enjoyable but I was in the minority on that. I always end up getting a headache after that ride so to me it's not that great. GateKeeper is a superior winged coaster. I finally got my back row ride on raging bull which was ruined by the worst op I've ever experienced at an amusement park. This guy shoved the lapbars down hard and stapled my friend and I to the train. I was irritated so I said to my friend loud enough for the people around us to hear, "that was just unnecessary" my friend then made a comment to the op about how he was a little bit rough checking the restraints. My friend is the kindest guy ever so it wasn't said in an angry fashion at all. The op then replied, "do you want me to come push it down harder?". I was really ticked off so I told him to try but that he wasn't going to get it down any further. He then proceeded to come back over and saw that my friend was wearing a KI T-shirt and snarled, "oh so you're from Kings Island! Because of that I'm going to push it down extra hard" he then gave two hard thrusts against the bar which didn't go down any further. Of course one of the guys in the group who used to be a racer op yelled at him and called him a bunch of 4-letter words. Funny enough the guy working the teacups was super nice and was talking to everyone waiting in line and we mentioned how much we appreciated his effort and attitude after having a bad op on raging bull. The teacups guy then asked us, "did his name happen to be Rudy?" And we said yep that was him! He just rolled his eyes and shared our opinion that he's awful. Funny enough Rudy was working a flat ride at the end of the night so we got to experience his lovely attitude again! Needless to say I made a complaint to the park because responding in an antagonistic way to a guest is unprofessional regardless of what comment was made. He could have ignored the criticism or just apologized. Instead he made a huge scene about it and then proceeded to pick on someone based on them wearing a KI shirt. 

July 5: Six Flags Great America - second day at the park it was packed so we focused more on getting the remainder of the coasters (maxxforce, joker, flash, dark knight, and the two children's credits) I think that rue la dodge is the second best dogem I've ridden after the one at Knoebels. Cars are fast and hit hard! I also loved the lobster and realized how much more it spins than our Everly monster. Fiddler's Fling was a classic, got to do sky Trek tower. The only one we missed was condor as it was unfortunately closed both days of our visit. At the end of the night, we were looking in the gift shop and came across a maxxforce tshirt that had all incorrect stats. Speed was wrong, length of the track was wrong, number of inversions was wrong, etc. So hilarious I actually bought it! 

July 6: Little Amerricka and Mount Olympus - little Amerricka is such a strickers Grove type park. Loved the classic meteor and the chance tobbagan was super unique. I also found that I love an Allan Herschel Wild Mouse. Best flat in the park was their rollo-plane. I'd never ridden one so that was a wild experience. Of course the 30 min train ride is legendary! After a few hours there we hit mount Olympus and got all 4 major coasters and 2 go-kart tracks. I personally loved Zeus and Cyclops was also good. Pegasus had a weird rough layout that I wasn't a huge fan of. Hades 360 is a beast but it's so rough! I was near the back of the train which I've heard is worse than the front but this ride and El Toro are the only two coasters I've ever had intense back pain on and just had to ride it out and hope it would be over. Only two coasters that I've ever thought, "I hope this doesn't continue hurting me after the ride" thankfully the pain went away but it's such a tragedy that an amazing layout like that is so painful! 

July 7: Indiana Beach - totally walked out of my teenager years of stacking rides on top of another in a RCT park. Unfortunately Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain was down the entire time we were there so we didn't get that credit. However, we did survive the All American Triple Loop. We had heard very bad things about how rough it was and painful and I must say that both my rides were free of headbanging and pretty smooth. I liked it a lot. I did think the loops were less forceful because of the short trains. Tig'rr is another classic Schwarzkopf and did not disappoint. Hoosier Hurricane had a few bumps but was a good out n back. Cornball Express was the best ride in the park! Wonderful CCI laterals and airtime. Of course the cyclone was fun too. Got to ride some of the flats including my first time on a yo-yo swinger and a falling star. It was great to see the Coney Island flying Bobs from when I was a kid in its new home delighting kids and adults. Overall I loved IB and love everything they are doing up there to improve the park. 

Sorry that was so lengthy but a lot can happen over 4 days or coaster riding and park hopping! 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Thanks for sharing.

[Hoeter]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. 

I had the opportunity to visit Indiana Beach back in 2016 - it's a nice little park and I could play Fascination! all day long

Similar to your experience, Lost Coaster was also closed on my visit however Cornball Express was also closed so I wasn't able to pick up that credit. Steel Hawg was one of my favorites there and Tig'rr was unlike anything I've ever ridden in the sense that I didn't brace myself for the intense laterals/turns. I felt Hoosier Hurricane was fairly rough but overall was enjoyable. Speaking of Cornball Express, I did observe one of the workers smoking a cigarette while working on the track which was rather interesting.

 

[johnjniehaus]

23 hours ago, Hoeter said:

Speaking of Cornball Express, I did observe one of the workers smoking a cigarette while working on the track which was rather interesting.

That's great! Back when I was a kid it seemed that 70% of the ride ops at Strickers Grove in Ross, OH were senior citizens smoking cigarettes. I'm not sure when the park became a smoke free zone but I was telling my one friend that as soon as they put up the no smoking sign, I like to imagine half of  the old employees walking off the job. This one old lady is permanently imbedded in my mind. She worked the flying elephant ride and was always super mean. She'd open the gate and snarl at all the kids, "Where's your adult?" My cousins and I would point to our parents and grandma who were in the line directly behind us and she'd say, "you need them with you!" Then you'd get a nice whiff of her cigarette smoke as you walked past her now holding your adult's hand so she knew you had one with you. Then she'd come around and fuss about the way you buckled the seatbelt the entire time puffing out more smoke. By the time she was done, there would be a nice haze around the entire ride and as a little kid the fun had just about been ruined.