We’ve been stepping on a mysterious bump under our bathroom tile for months thinking it was a nail or a rogue clump of thinset. Finally pulled it up today. First of all, who leaves a spacer? Second of all, why are you using spacers for vinyl?! Flipper logic at its finest.
With our legs on fire, our thighs nicely bruised and our brains fried we hit the road towards pigeon forge, and dipped in for a cheeky +3 and some time in the waterpark.
It was a strange place, with some bizarre contraptions and a pretty hefty entry price but the staff were super friendly and it was pretty well kept. (Aside from the changing rooms at the waterpark, they were grim)
The park's headliner is Kentucky Rumbler, a medium scale GCI that feels a bit past its prime. The layout is fine but it bleeds a lot of speed through its ageing track.
There is a section of titan track after the drop that helps but it still seems to lose a bit of steam by the end.
They also have a spinning mouse and an SBF kiddie spinner, nothing to really write home about.
Some of the other contraptions here absolutely were though.
First off we have Michael Jackson's pirate ship from his infamous Neverland park, and over by the wild mouse is an absolutely bizarre mechanism called "Scat 2".
Now I don't know what happened to Scat 1 but looking at the state of this thing I can hazard a guess. The ride is essentially two giant chip frying baskets mounted on a rotating angled arm. The whole thing spins up and basically works like a roundup where you stick to the wall and suffer for 45 seconds before doing the same in the other direction.
This thing was actually pretty brutal, especially after the previous weekend's insanity, and I was pretty happy when the cycle ended.
I had to ride it just for its name alone.
Then there was Lazer Fury 360, a shooting ride mixed with a Jurassic world gyro sphere and bumper cars, all built with a budget of whatever was in some blokes garage.
It was a cool concept but unfortunately it just didn't work, one car broke within 20 seconds and e stopped itself and by the time it was swapped out for another one, the game aspect of the ride stopped functioning and I just started flipping around for fun.
After clearing the park we dipped into the waterpark, which was small but had some pretty fun slides. The changing rooms were full of vomit, rubbish and had such big gaps in the stalls, that using a towel outside was a far more favourable option.
After finishing the slide lineup and vibing in the lazy river we decided to call it a day after one more lap on Rumbler and left just as the rain came in.
Overall a successful visit and a good time, though I doubt I will be returning anytime soon unless they build something crazy.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I am indeed still alive, just been too battle worn to bother posting anything.
We had a long drive on Thursday with a quick stop over at SFStL to ride a few of the highlights. No major changes in opinion on this park, though I did enjoy the Boss a bit more because I was not fucked up from HWN like last year.
As you already know if you have done this event before, it's basically impossible to describe the experience of night ERT on the Voyage. I wrote a whole damn essay on it last year so go and check that out if you need some more detail.
In short, this is by a longshot the best enthusiast/park event on earth if your a fan of rollercoasters, and you should absolutely try to get here at some point.
I knew what to expect this time and I was still absolutely blown away by the complete unmitigated terror and chaos of blasting round this layout at speeds you didn't think were possible.
This year was especially spicy, from what I've heard this was the fastest the Voyage has ever run. The damn thing was flying through the midcourse so fast you were getting small pops of air over the bumps on it.
The second half is just pure raw survival and feels like charging into battle. I genuinely have no idea how those trains can take so much abuse.
Some of the rideforces recordings were picking up nearly 4G on the final low turn under the path, with lateral forces in excess of 1.8 and full blown ejector airtime in multiple places.
I firmly believe that Trimless Voyage at night is humanity's absolute peak rollercoaster experience. Nothing built in the past, present or even future will ever compete with the glorious visceral anarchy of this masterpiece.
Raven has got some new track in the second half and is much smoother than last year, Legend is definitely on the rougher side at the moment but I'm sure they are aware and I would not be shocked to see it get some work this off-season.
Once again a huge shout-out to Holiday World for keeping this event running, I hope this experience is kept alive and well as long as humans are on this planet because it really is a complete enigma and genuinely feels like a fever dream every time.
I don't think I will ever not try and get tickets to this event, once you do it, "normal" coasters never feel the same again.
It's unfair to even include Voyage ERT in my coaster rankings, it will forever remain as one of my craziest experiences full stop, it's in its own category in its own universe. A completely separate entity that must be experienced to be understood!
We are currently driving to Dollywood, our final park of the trip, and have just left Beech Bend, which I will report on later tonight.
Just a short one today, for more detail on SDC you can find my more detailed review from last year's megatrip, all my thoughts pretty much remain unchanged. (I love this park)
Did everything bar Fire in the hole, which seemed to be having a really bad day.
Started with a morning cave tour which is a must do for first time visitors here.
Construction of the new coaster between wildfire and powder keg was well underway, looks like a pretty sizeable layout from what I could see.
Was definitely busier than my visit last year but operations were pretty good, got my last ride ever on thunderation and capped of they day with some laps on time traveller when the queue died down.
Popped into the tourist pit after park closed to throw way too much money on a mountain coaster, gotta get the number to go up!
Tomorrow is a driving day up to our Airbnb for Holiwood Nights, might pop into Six Flags St Louis on the way just to say I did both Mr Freeze's on the same trip.
Popped back in today with the hope that Titan would be open after yesterday's washout and once again the coaster gods blessed us.
Mini mine train also opened but no luck from the big mine train.
We had a bunch of laps on Titan, used our flash pass again on NTG, another on Batman, mopped up the kiddie cred and one more on Aquaman.
Then the storms once again rolled in so we hit the road early to rack up some miles towards Silver Dollar City.
With that, the Texas portion of this trip has come to an end, with most major coaster objectives met, the only losses were Shockwave, Runaway Mine Train and Iron Shark, which we sacrificed to maximise our chances of riding Boardwalk Bullet.
Onto the SFoT coaster Reviews!
Mr Freeze, #576:
First time doing one of this forwards, I think backwards is cooler but it's a crazy ass ride regardless, brutal from start to finish with crazy whip and violent positive G Valleys, definitely my favourite old gen premier layout.
Joker, #577:
Another 4D Free spin, exactly what I expected.
Judge Roy Scream, #578:
Old ass woodie, surprisingly smooth but also nothing particularly interesting, some moments of floater and a classic out n back layout.
Runaway Mountain, #579:
While definitely not worth the ordeal we went through to get on this thing, it was surprisingly fun. The restraints are extremely cursed but somehow not uncomfortable, the layout is very compact with some crazy moments, I was in the back car and got absolutely thrown into the tight downwards helix half way through. I would have loved to ride again but the one train ops made it a 2 hour wait on both days.
Aquaman Power Wave, #580:
Significantly less well presented than its Belgian brother, but still just as fun on ride, backwards launched airtime will never not be fun. A great way to cool down in the Texan heat. The “splash zone” however was a bit crap, with just a random corner surrounded by rusty metal fencing.
Pandemonium, #581:
Starting to lose track of all these clones now, it's fine, go and read the Fiesta Texas report lol
Batman: the ride, #582:
Good Batman, better than Chupacabra, running fast less rough, (but didn't survive hurricane Katrina so probably not that much of a flex)
New Texas Giant, #583:
The OG RMC, definitely weaker by today's standards but still solid fun, loses a bit of steam in the second half but without this coaster, the world may never have seen the likes of Steel Vengeance, Iron Gwazi or Zadra.
Also bonus points for the cool car themed train.
Mini Mine Train, #584:
It's like a mine train… but smaller! Cool view of Mr Freeze.
Wile E Coyotes Canyon Blaster, #585:
Not my proudest +1, but also definitely not the worst.
Titan, #586:
Goliath with a bonus helix, if you ever need to know if you require some water, take a spin on this bad boy and wait for the tunnel vision to set in! New colours really pop and one of the only coasters in the park that was actually operating at a decent capacity.
Final thoughts:
While it's far from the best Six Flags it's also not the worst, I know this because I was not in New Jersey. The corner by Joker is an absolute hellscape of concrete and broken dreams, but the other two thirds are pretty nice, especially the area around the log flume, which feels like Silver Dollar City at home.
It was mainly the shocking operations that let it down, having more than half of the headline rides on one train for memorial day weekend is crazy. With Runaway Mountain being especially egregious.
Tormenta looks absolutely enormous and will for sure be a huge crowd puller and headliner that the park needs, just gotta hope it doesn't ride like hot ass!
Until next time!
Today was the day of inevitability, the day where our run of good luck finally met its demise.
To be fair, it could have gone even worse and we still almost cleared the park, which seemed inconceivable just two hours before the park closed…
Things started off pretty terribly as we committed to a ride on Mr Freeze, after half an hour of barely moving we came to the conclusion that it was broken. Zero announcements of any downtime, we just had to go off vibes.
We were committed at this point though so firmed it out and eventually got our lap in.
After getting off freeze we caught Joker just as it reopened from its own breakdown. There were maybe 40 people ahead of us in line but thanks to some far from speedy ops combined with a metric shit kilo of flash pass, this killed another hour.
Operations here were a huge step down from SFFT both on speed and competency.
After having our restraints checked on Joker, some issue on the opposite station required them to be unlocked.
From what I can tell the operator must have accidentally also unlocked our side, however the message to recheck was not given to the host on our station.
Luckily we had already tightened our restraints again but we were dispatched without so much as a glance at our row and could easily have been sent at minimum verify with a huge gap.
If there was a small kid who didn't pull down the harness that could have easily gotten messy…
After Joker we made it over to Titan, which was posted as a 10 minute wait.
Titan was running on two trains and there was no stacking here so credit to that team, unfortunately it was now time for the weather to step in and spoil our fun.
Due to a storm forming right on top of us we were left with only one option, Runaway Mountain.
What followed was one of the slowest moving queues I have ever experienced.
Turns out it was running one out of 3 trains, which consists of just 3 cars of 4 riders, with half of each cycle taken up by flash pass, this means it was 6 riders per cycle for the main line.
There was nothing else open so we firmed it out.
Towards the end an unholy amount of rain began to fall, causing a comedic amount of chaos as people hid under theming, bailed out of the line and tried to crowd into the station.
At this point we had accepted our fate, and treated the experience as a water ride.
About 2 and a half hours after joining the line, we had our ride (which was surprisingly fun) and walked around while waiting out the storm.
Then, as we began to lose hope, slowly but surely things started to reopen.
By this point it was 6pm and most people had given up and gone home. Thanks to this we managed a pretty decent creed run, and used our daily flash pass on NTG.
Going into day two all we are missing is mini mine train, Runaway mine train (which we probably won't get tomorrow as the tunnel is flooded), the kiddie coaster and Titan.
Shockwave is currently SBNO but that was already known so not a surprise.
So yeah a bit of a Six Flags Day but definitely improved towards the end of the day.
The pirate darkride is an absolute fever dream and we probably would never have done it if it wasn't for the storm so I'm kinda glad about it in hindsight.
Hopefully we can get on Titan tomorrow and if we miss the rest I won't be too disappointed.
The actual park itself seems nice, apart from the area around joker which is an absolute concrete hellscape right alongside a highway.
Weather looks a lot better tomorrow so fingers crossed, I will save the individual coaster reviews for tomorrow's report when the final cred tally has been scored!
Not much to add today, it was definitely busier than yesterday but queue times were still reasonable, Iron Rattler was posted as a 60 minute wait but only took about 20 mins to get on, we had more rides on Poltergeist, Wonder Woman and Superman then stayed on Irat until around 5pm.
We left early to hit the road and have some time to chill before what I'm assuming is going to be a rough day tomorrow at SFOT. Luckily we also have Tuesday to mop up anything we miss.
I think SFFT is my favourite Six Flags park when it comes to vibes and presentation, the only area that feels a bit rough around the edges was the boardwalk area, which could definitely do with a refresh, it also didn't open until 2pm which I found odd especially at such a busy time.
One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's post was Joker.
I have never seen a walkthrough/pre show for a gyro swing before and that was pretty cool. The pirate darkride and the theming overall on some of the attractions took me by surprise. The entrance plaza is also super nice and colourful.
Operations were pretty solid throughout our visit with the exception of the roadrunner, which was on one train the whole time and hit a whopping 120 minute posted queue. The other train seemed to be intact but I can only assume it had some sort of issue as all the other coasters were running multiple trains.
I think my possible hot take is that I prefer Iron Rattler to Wonder Woman, it's way more comfortable and the air is just as strong if not stronger on the back row. In fact it might be one of my favourite RMCs, definitely in the top 5, I guess I have a thing for cliff interactions!
Hopefully we can at least get close to clearing SFOT tomorrow...
Woke up this morning to half an hour of continuous thunder noises, as it turns out, this storm was going to be more of a blessing than a curse.
We were expecting today to be a bit of a stinker with the crowds, however we arrived at a near empty carpark in the pouring rain.
Nothing opened up until around 12:30 as the storm finally passed, and when it did, the combination of rides all running multiple trains and way lower than anticipated crowds gave us near walk-on rides across the whole lineup!
In fact due to knocking out 3 coasters the day before, we had cleared the park entirely by around 4pm and could have easily done it quicker if we didn't reride iron rattler again.
We ended up using our daily flash pass on the rapids to bypass a whopping 90 minute queue later on in the day, and even caught the boomerang on a station wait.
Fiesta Texas is my favourite OG Six Flags park for presentation and vibes, helped by its super unique setting below the sheer cliff sides.
A couple of highly anticipated coasters knocked off the bucket list today and they did not disappoint!
In order of riding:
#565, Iron Rattler:
Was curious to try out the gerstlauer Ibox trains and was a big fan, way better than either generation of the RMC trains imo. They feel more open and the shinbars are less restrictive, with the back row of each car featuring taller seats and only one leg guard on the outside, definitely a better choice for the taller enthusiast.
The ride is super fun, not the best RMC, but it has an incredible first drop and insane ejector on the final dive into the tunnel, it loses a bit of steam on the run at the top of the cliff but given the original layouts constraints they did a good job keeping the vibe and feel while significantly upping the ante. I wish I could have tried the original wooden version as it looked like pure chaos.
#564, Batman: The Ride:
The first installation of the 4D Free spin, done a few of these now and they can be pretty crazy but feel a bit watered down compared to the Intamin ZacSpins, though that might be for the best, even though I love them.
#565, Wonder Woman: Golden Lasso Coaster:
After being a bit disappointed by Jersey Devil last year, this layout was way better and significantly more intense, IIRC it has been modified and nerfed a little bit since opening but still a blast, was smoother than Jersey Devil aside from one pretty brutal pothole in the second half that was worse towards the rear of the train.
#566, Dr Diabolical’s Cliffhanger:
Was not expecting a double preshows at a six flags park, we actually tried to ride this yesterday, got through the preshows only to have it shit pant on us. It was also having a hard time today with regular downtime that seemed to be related to the station block spazzing out.
The layout was fairly standard for a dive coaster, aside from the crazy sharp looking airhill, which unfortunately looks crazier than it rides.
Front row was the place to be as usual, I believe this was the first B&M to be manufactured with the lower quality rails and it's a little shaky in the back rows, again not as bad as some of the more recent B&Ms but definitely noticeable with a weird kink on the zero g roll and a decent shuffle on the final helix. Nothing uncomfortable though.
#567, Chupacabra:
I'm tired and lazy and I've done nearly all of these clones now lol, It was a Batclone! Middle of the road, little on the rattly side. Kinda cool to ride a coaster that survived from the ill dated Six Flags New Orleans.
#568 Poltergeist:
Definitely the best of the spaghetti bowls, way faster and smoother than the flight of fears with some crazy whip and intense positives, they don't make coasters like this anymore!
#569 Superman Krypton Coaster:
My new favourite floorless coaster, dropping down the cliff side is a crazy feeling. The layout is solid with some cool terrain interactions in the first half, no real dead spots, a little rough but I can forgive it given how old it is.
#570: Road Runner Express:
Fun and janky mine train with some surprisingly violent moments of high G, one of the last generation of arrow just when they started to dive into computer design and ditched the coat hangers.
#571: Boomerang:
It's a Boomerang I do think these are overhated a bit, with the vest trains they are good fun.
#572: Pandemonium:
Standard gerst spinner, it's fine. +1
#573: Batgirl: something idk lol
Nobody was riding it so we jumped on for a shameful+1. Is this the world's smallest Vekoma?
We are back again tomorrow, might post about it if something wild happens or my opinions shift, but it will be a smaller one! Great day overall, ended with a night ride on Poltergeist with the fireworks going off. 10/10.
After a successful completion of the gravity group holy trinity and a very stormy drive to San Antonio it was Sea World time.
Being the Friday before memorial weekend I was expecting a fairly crowded day but was pleasantly surprised to arrive at an almost empty park.
Today's opening hours were also better than expected, with the rides closing at 9pm despite saying 6pm online.
The park has a much better layout than Florida, with the dry park and waterpark sharing an entrance plaza, everything was nicely presented with the rides having a clean stylised look, nothing crazy theming wise but good presentation and vibes all around.
There were a few non coaster rides that I was interested in here, the main one being catapult falls, the world's only launched log flume.
It was certainly a unique experience but It didn't really do anything special other than the launch, and had a pretty short and sparsely decorated layout compared to the other attractions.
The hill after the drop is heavily trimmed keeping you planted in your seat the whole time, which is a shame as Chiapas, another intamin flume, has great floater.
The rapids here are absolutely brutal if the waterfall chooses you, luckily it was a very hot day and I was already soaked from filming JTAs splashdown in the danger zone.
Great White, the park's Batman invert clone, was not operating today but I've done loads of these already so I was not particularly sad about missing this.
All other coasters were operating on just a single train, but given the crowd levels this was perfectly reasonable, although wave breaker was a bit of a drag given it's long ride duration.
So with that, let's get on to the creds, in order of riding!
#559 Barracuda Strike:
The falloff in quality of B&M very much continues with this ride, in fact I'd say this one is the worst for roughness out of all the B&M family coasters with the ride experience more comparable to an early jinma both in sound and feel than the B&M perfection of old.
Luckily the open seats and restraints mean the roughness isn't a deal-breaker unlike Rapterra.
The layout is very fun and very punchy for a family coaster, with some good dynamic moments and stronger than expected forces, the presentation is also very nice with the station being themed to the underside of a pier.
Overall it's my favourite of the B&M family inverts.
I don't quite understand why they didn't put two trains on this layout given there is ample space on the brake run for a proper block setup and transfer track.
#560 Steel Eel:
The final US Morgan hyper on my list and a very fun one at that, unique layout full of good floater, weaker airtime than the others but still a great laugh.
I love the bright colours and insanely overbuilt supports that really gives it a unique look and dominance over the park's skyline.
#561 Beach Rescue Racer:
Actually a pretty fun layout for a kiddie coaster, quite long and actually has some noticeable forces, smooth, decently presented and fits well into the park's coaster lineup. Zeirer have been on a roll with these rides as of late.
#562 Texas Stingray:
Oh boy, I think I have a new #1 GCI, this thing is absolutely phenomenal from start to finish, great use of the terrain, near perfect sequence of elements with no deadspots at all.
The flow of this thing is insane with some of the strongest pops of air I've ever felt on a GCI, it holds it's speed and intensity right to the very last turn into the brakes.
It's also super smooth, tracks beautifully and has some pretty spicy positives thanks to the steel supports.
I don't think there is anything I would change other than maybe replacing the straight drop with more of a downwards curve into a pop of air as it straightens out.
I hope we keep seeing more classic style layouts get built despite the evolution of the Infinity Flyers and the crazier ejector filled layouts and steel track.
#563 Journey to Atlantis:
God this thing is bizarre, and not really very good lol, the completely exposed turntables and backwards section is about as immersive as an American suburb and it's also weirdly rough and sounds like it's falling apart, it's a far cry from the vastly superior version in Orlando, but a +1 is a +1, it also completely soaked me.
#564 Wave Breaker:
Definitely one of the weaker straddle coasters in terms of layout, it feels like it's running slower than it should.
The presentation is ok, nothing special, the pre launch sequence feels weirdly long and the launches are significantly weaker than Darkoaster or it's European cousins.
While nothing special it offers a unique ride experience for the park and makes use of all the space over the water.
We actually left the park around 4pm and nipped over to SFFT to activate our passes in advance and get a few cheeky rides knowing that tomorrow is likely to be hell on earth, will save that for a future report though.
We got back to Sea World around 7pm and basically had Stingray to ourselves for the evening, racking up at least 40+ rides while barely leaving the station. It almost felt like an ERT session and was one of the more memorable coaster marathons I've had. I definitely was not expecting our day to end like this.
I have a feeling that the next few days will be a lot less exciting and a lot more torturous, so I was very happy for a nice bit of preemptive coaster karma.
Depending on how well tomorrow goes you will either get a full park review or an enthusiast horror story.
We have two days at SFFT and a single use flash pass each day so hopefully we can clear the park if nothing explodes!
Hosts said it was the slowest run they had seen since the refurbishment.
A new year, a new ticket to Holiwood Nights and a new mission.
Welcome one welcome all, to the slightly less mega US road trip 2.0. After completing a biblical cred run last year we are back again for another dose of coaster chaos.
We started this trip to Holiday World in a completely reasonable manner, by landing in Nashville, and immediately starting a 2 day 900 mile drive in almost the exact opposite direction.
The plan, complete the holy trinity of gravity group with Boardwalk Bullet and mop up the Texas credits, before heading back up north to revisit some highlights and once again ascend to a higher plane of existence on the Voyage.
Our journey was not without the standard dose of excitement, starting with our jeep wrangler coming down with a case of the shivers, resulting in a detour to Louisiana to swap it out for something less American and more functional.
With the new whip acquired, we made it to Texas after 12 hours on the road and awoke today with Kemah Boardwalk on the horizon.
Unfortunately for us, that same horizon was angry, dark and alarmingly damp. After assessing the weather we decided to abandon Galveston pier and Iron shark in favour of maximizing our chances of getting a gap in the weather.
Upon arrival things seemed promising, the coaster was cycling and expected to open. We acquired our wristbands, during which we were informed that there were no weather refunds and we essentially threw 30 bucks each on red and hoped for the best.
Little did we know at the time that this roulette spin was going to have more twists and turns than gravity groups' most demented layout could ever provide.
Attempt #1 ended with one loaded train dispatched, some lightning and a station evacuation. I did at least get to walk over the train, so I guess that's like 5% of the credit… right…
2 and a half hours later Attempt #2 ended with yet another station evacuation, but not before one of the slowest runs ever recorded, 2 saddles on the brakerun, and a whole lot of pushing.
At this point hope was starting to fade, but somehow this coaster refused to quit and as the weather cleared, the empty train once again crawled into the brake run. But this time, gravity lost its fight and after nearly a minute of painful crawling, it made it back to the station unassisted.
After that, each run got a little bit faster and slowly but surely, it seemed like the coaster gods had seen our plight, and reached out its heavenly arms to save us from a brutal spite.
One more test later and there we were, ready to board. It was finally time for the first coaster of the trip!
#558: Boardwalk Bullet.
Now obviously it was not exactly running fast, however by the end of our session this coaster very much earned it's spot as an elite tier woodie.
By the time we left it was definitely closer to what I assume is a more normal speed and boy oh boy does this thing rip.
The back row was definitely the place to be but don't sleep on the front either. This layout is a masterclass in compact design with an insane amount of track packed into its plot.
The first drop has some extremely strong airtime for a PTC train and the low and fast twisty sections after it are completely out of control.
You then rise up to a second highpoint and dive back down for another round of chaos. The sense of speed is phenomenal with head and arm choppers pretty much everywhere.
The little airtime pops and the off axis hill over the station entrance were some of the highlights for me.
The final third does lose some steam but it was probably not fully up to speed after its sluggish start to the day so I'll cut it some slack there.
It's very much a perfect warm up for the Voyage and I think I prefer it overall to Ravine flyer II.
The park itself is a nice place to hang out, we did also ride the drop tower but didn't bother with anything else as we were too busy lapping Bullet to care much for a Larson loop and some other generic flat rides.
Tomorrow we are hitting up SWSA and the weather looks pretty good, after that however it's going to be a proper mission to collect creds with a combination of memorial day crowds and storms galore.
Stay tuned to see how we fare and please send some positive vibes to your respective deity, as we will need all the help we can get!
Also a huge shout-out to the op crew Tori, Elissa and Aaron, as well as the whole maintenance crew for managing to get this thing open for us today!
More to come tomorrow!