Well here comes a trip report about a week late, as seems to happen with my blogs lately. I'm typing this on a Megabus where my laptop battery may very well short out as it seems to do every half hour or so. Hoping that I get a fair amount of this done before the laptop gods inevitably cut this little typing session short.
I was lucky enough to have the company of the wonderful Natalie Hunter on this trip to Patriots (ugh) country. The drive from Rhode Island to Springfield, MA was absolutely beautiful. Fall colors everywhere and the TomTom was good enough to take us through some great state highways that were full of turns and hills. That combined with sunshine and 60 degree weather made the two hour drive fly by. Getting into the park was simple. We actually parked at a side lot for 5 bucks instead of the highway robbery Six Flags parks tend to charge (15-20). It was actually a shorter walk from our side lot than it was the Six Flags lot anyway, so that worked out quite well. Without a coupon for Natalie we were looking at a pretty stiff admission price. Armed with my season pass and persuasive power I asked the admissions lady if there was any discount for season pass holder's friends. I was expecting perhaps a $7 discount if anything at all, but the admissions lady was good enough to give us $12 admission for Natalie instead of $40. So far, so good, Six Flags.
As I tend to do with new parks, Natalie and I just wondered around for about 20 or 30 minutes checking out everything the park had to offer rides wise and such. I really liked the front of the park, it reminded me of Six Flags St. Louis with fairly narrow streets with old shops everywhere and not a whole lot of advertising. The back of the park was a different story. Its easy to see where the park was before Six Flags bought it, and what was newly added. Cozy theme park cobblestone streets replaced with giant concrete paths littered with Papa John's Pizza and overpriced Johnny Rockets. I'm the kind of person who obviously loves roller coasters and thrill rides, but its the overall park experience that gets me to come back to a park, not just the coasters. That's why my favorite parks are ones like Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Islands of Adventure, and Dollywood. Parks that have thrill rides, but focus more on overall experience such as theming, landscaping, and hiring employees that aren't 16 year old jerks. I know what I'm going to receive when I go to a Six Flags park. Some stellar rides, sure, but also snobby service (if any at all) dirty pathways, and an overall lack of upkeep which is just depressing. Six Flags New England was no different (except for one fantastic worker at a restaurant who nearly made my night with his customer service) but luckily they had some great thrills and I had great company, so the day turned out great. Now that the little rant is over, here's how things went:
The weather turned out way nicer than expected during the day, so for the first time since Hurricane Harbor opened at Six Flags Great America, we got a locker to put our coats and bags in all day. We came back 3 or 4 times, so it may have actually been worth it. The number one reason why I came to this park was for a ride called Bizarro. For those of you who have read my previous installment, you might be thinking its the same Bizarro at Six Flags Great Adventure, but you'd be wrong. This Bizarro does not go upside down, instead it drops you 200 feet and it packed with loads of airtime and tons of turns, tunnels, and bunnyhills. It has won Amusement Park Today's Top Steel Coaster award atleast five times, so I have been pretty excited for this coaster for awhile. It did not disappoint. Queue was about 25 minutes long all day, and our first ride was in the back row. First drop rocked, so did the second and third. The onboard audio was the same as Bizarro in Great Adventure, but that was fine. The second half of the ride was the best because it wasn't traditional like most big steel hyper coasters. It was filled with twisting and turning track that dove into the ground and back again, airtime the whole way. Once it was done I had to ride it again, this time towards the front, cause I knew it'd be even better. More on that later.
Something this park really has going for it is history. It still operates a 70 year old wooden roller coaster called Thunderbolt, and has another old wooden coaster called Cyclone. Cyclone had about a 25 minute wait as well, and after waiting for the front row it was decided that the ride was different than most wooden coasters I've ridden. It was big, and the turns were way intense. Yeah, it was a little rough, but I was okay with that. Fun coaster, not top ten worthy, but definitely better than most for how old it is.
I just need to interject that Air Force One will be our inflight movie today. This might make blogging more difficult. So badass. You rock, Harrison Ford.
I hit a milestone at the park last week. Not about how many coasters I've ridden (as it stands, 180, adding over 30 coasters this summer) but the types I've ridden. I have never ridden a Vekoma Boomerang or SLC until that very day. All coaster dorks know what I'm talking about, but they are the two most cloned coasters in history. They are everywhere, and somehow this was my first time riding both. Turns out the rumors are true, SLC's kick the living crap out of your head. That was a one and done. Boomerang however I found to be quite intense and fun. I'd ride it again. It's not Deja Vu, but its still fun! There was also a flatride made by S&S that I don't know the name of, but it was totally amazing. So intense! Wish I had pictures to show, but forgot the camera. Sad.
At one point we walked through a haunted maze. It was the lamest thing in history. This shows again the Six Flags attitude to the whole park experience. Scareactors were few and far between, and while makeup looked nice, I only saw maybe three actors the whole night. Couple that with the ridiculous prices to get into the real haunted houses, its ridiculous. On the upside, the park did have a B&M Floorless coaster themed to The Dark Knight before the movie came out. There were cool cutouts of Batman characters in the Queue which were fun to read. The ride itself was short but packed a punch. Rode it a couple of times during the day. Quite fun.
After riding all of the coasters in the park (including having a screaming contest with two random people on the wild mouse ride) we decided to ride Cyclone, Batman, and Bizarro a few more times. Bizarro the most. Cause its the best. While waiting in line for the coaster at the end of the night there was a twenty something year old who thought it'd be a great idea to start smoking AND drinking in the middle of the line. After 3 other guests asked the guy to put out the cigeratte (with him just ignoring them completely) security was called. After he ignored security for 10 minutes, 5 or so rent a cops showed up to get the guy out of line. He just kept walking until a security guard cornered him off. At this point everyone wants this guy out of line and out of the park. He pissed off everyone in line and had been taking too many pulls of Jack Daniels for anyone to care what happened to him. I may or may not have told him to stop acting like a third grader, which may have almost got me hit, but after that he went with the security gaurds. Who knows if they kicked him out, but atleast he didn't get to ride. It was just nice to see Six Flags actually enforcing policy.
This is getting a bit long, so I'm going to end by saying that Bizarro was even better in the front, its now my #4 coaster of all time, and I want to ride it more because I think its got potential to grow on that list even more. Great stuff.
Thats it for trip reports. For those of you who hate them, good news! I'll be blogging about life a little more often now. There are so many life questions that need to be answered, and this blog has to be it.
Infact, I've still got a good 2 hours on this Megabus, might as well start another now.
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