#NE2k16://Complete Report Days 0-5

[Jarrett]

So in typical Jarrett tradition, the highlight of my 2016 season was a major trip to a region for the purpose of getting credits at multiple parks there. Continuing my strategy of taking out the East Coast in three of these trips, after I took out Pennsylvania last year I moved on to New England this year. After being told by many people that they had a good selection of quality coasters, my friend Chris (Chris Coasters, a former CF member that is still alive contrary to popular belief) offered to let me stay at his place to get these credits, and everything fell into place. The original plan was to do Six Flags New England, Quassy, Lake Compounce, and three smaller parks, but after my girlfriend toyed with the idea of Six Flags Great Adventure to get me on El Toro and seeing it had more creds, I opted for that.

Day 0
After getting off work the previous day and driving up to Canada around noon, I spent the evening meeting Emily's family and friends before we checked into the hotel and attempted to go to bed. Attempted. I remember crashing with her and my last memory was resting my head on her chest while she played old school Kirby on her phone's emulator, but everything after that was a blur. Didn't even manage to find the energy to get my sleep medication out of my suitcase before I blacked out. Until I woke up at 2, way too early, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I layed there with her for a bit before she was able to get her lazy arse out of bed.

My palms were sweating and I was twitching with excitement to just hit the 401 with everything I had to rip that daunting 10-hour drive to New Bedford to shreds when we ran into an unexpected obstacle, Emily forgot her passport! Luckily we hadn't left when she noticed and I was able to run her back to her apartment to go grab it. After she ran back out of her building we navigated through downtown London and hit the 401. We made a quick Tim Horton's stop at an On Route and continued right to the border. I was planning to grab gas before we crossed but I made the mistake of not realizing that there's no gas within 10 miles of the border! We were stuck sitting in line to cross at Niagara Falls terrified that we would look like terrorists that stole just enough to make it to America and ran out of gas at the border. Luckily the car managed to go a while without gas and we were successfully able to get to across (the American border officer was actually really chill and didn't question us at all) and into New York!

This is when my lack of sleep the night before started to kick in. Everything from here up to our arrival in New Bedford was a foggy impression that used to be a memory in my head. According to Emily I did certain things such as tracing the profile of a B&M hyper in the air with my finger yelling "Boing! Boing! Boing!" She was terrified I was going to wrap us around a pole on the Masspike and kill us! She called me out as being Roy (my sleep-deprived alter ego that passionately defended the guy that peed on her on Dragon Mountain when I was incoherent) as I for some reason confirmed that Roy is in fact short for Royalton. Even though I don't know a Roy or a Royalton. My first clear memory from the time we crossed the border and got gas was hitting Providence and nearly getting killed by the suicidal drivers there, passing a total of four wrecks in the city. Once we got through and crossed back into Massachusetts, Fall River gave me the warm welcome to New England I was waiting for. We drove over this bridge overlooking a classical New England town on the water, a lighthouse sticking out of the harbor as boats weaved in and out and under drawbridges. Finally, we got to New Bedford and drove into Chris's neighborhood...and I pulled into the wrong house down the street.

After Chris came out to wave at us and laugh at me for pulling into the wrong house, we got into his house and I met his mom in person finally. We went over to their computer and ordered Portuguese food for takeout as I tried to decide which fresh seafood I wanted. I opted for a piece of Ritz-coated scrod with fries and rice as Emily went with her trademark pasta and got shrimp scampi. We all got in Chris's legendary car (the one that cannot die) and headed off to get Portuguese. Chris then filled us in on the history of his town. New Bedford is heavily Portuguese (hence the food) and was once the whaling capital of the world. There's even a whaling museum complete with whale skeletons and the like near his house! When we got to to restaurant, we walked in and Chris asked where to get takeout. The hostess told him, "Ova theya by the bah." I had to bite my lip as Chris told us that people from New Bedford sometimes think they're from Boston and have fake accents even though they live an hour and a half away.

I literally dropped my fork the second I took a bite of this. This was amazing! I love fresh seafood and I could tell this was freshly caught, never frozen or anything. Easily the best piece of fish I've had in a long time. Emily loved her scampi and after getting a bite I could see why. All of us talked for a bit before Emily decided to get me to bed for the long day at SFNE ahead of us. Not wanting to get asleep and wake up, I hit the melatonin before flat out passing out.

UP NEXT: Jarrett and Emily's first taste of virtual reality, Wicked awesome RMC goodness, my first ACE event, Chris Ketchum's Pokemon adventures at Six Flags New England, the worst coaster in the United States, and I hit my 200th credit!

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Re: #NE2k16:// Royalton Takes the Wheel (Day 0)

Dear god, I hope your 200th was something worthwhile! You'd be the biggest disgrace on the planet if you're calling that your 200th!

I'm looking forward to your SFNE report!

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Re: #NE2k16:// Royalton Takes the Wheel (Day 0)

There's definitely gas within 10 miles of the border. Lots of it.

Glad you're becoming less basic New England is fab.

Also London is blah, use to live there.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Re: #NE2k16:// Royalton Takes the Wheel (Day 0)

Is the 200th cred behind the larson loop because...

 

[Jarrett]

Re: #NE2k16:// Royalton Takes the Wheel (Day 0)

Dear god, I hope your 200th was something worthwhile! You'd be the biggest disgrace on the planet if you're calling that your 200th!

I'm looking forward to your SFNE report!

I would hope so too, I'm pretty awful but not that awful. People who count Larson loops belong on Darren's "10 Most Offensive Things" list with Six Flags bring your scumbag for free days and SLCs.

There's definitely gas within 10 miles of the border. Lots of it.

Glad you're becoming less basic New England is fab.

Also London is blah, use to live there.

We crossed in I think it was called Lewistown and didn't see gas after our gas light went off. We were even driving around that giant Bass Pro Shop for like ten minutes without finding one. But yeah, this was by far the best region I've ever done on a big trip. As for London, I actually rather liked it. Way better than Dayton, though apparently I didn't see the bad part of it.

Is the 200th cred behind the larson loop because...

You'll get your answer today but in short, no. My 200th cred was not behind that Larson loop. And it was orange.

-x-

Day 1
After being able to actually pass out and die for once the night before, the sun rose out of the Atlantic Ocean to take its rightful place dominating the sky that day. All three of us woke up on time and got ready to start the actual coaster part of the trip at Six Flags New England!

Let's go!

I tossed Emily my button-down to sleep with in the back knowing she was going to sleep the whole way and Chris and I hung out up front. The drive to SFNE wasn't too bad, especially when you consider Chris is a good driver. We were a bit frustrated when we stopped for a pit stop and saw that the Pokestop was on the other side of the Masspike rest area but other than that it was smooth sailing. Chris and I just kind of chatted while Emily did what she did best and slept.

I think there was something we were supposed to do here. And I don't think it was to fix my gunky camera lens that I had to open by hand every friggin' time I took a picture on this trip.

Oh yeah, it was this. The lightpost casually blocked it out of the picture, but I FLIPPED when I saw Wicked Cyclone!

We're here!

SFNE was weird in that it wasn't where one would expect to find a big corporate park. It was plopped kind of in the middle of a residential neighborhood. At least it made it kind of quaint.

Wetting Emily and I's appetite for ERT!

If I was keeping it together before, I sure as hell wasn't after seeing this!

We pulled in just in time for them to let the ACEers in. We went in and got registered and mingled as Chris decided to hang around and catch Pokemon, not about to fork over cash for coasters he's already ridden a million times.

They let us in and walked us back to Superman: The Ride for the only ERT of the day. It was that moment when I realized that it was about to be a sweltering day. All three of us were already sweaty, sticky, and nasty. And it wasn't just Wicked Cyclone making me moist.

Here we are! Ready for ERT! As we waited, another member stated that Superman was just last week fitted with new headsets designed to reduce loading times. Interesting...

We got into the station and were given these big, clunky headsets to wear. Surrounding this mess of padding, straps, and lanyards was a Samsung phone. Our VR headsets. I put mine on and found it fairly easy to get on despite my nose padding coming loose and blocking my left eye, forcing me to fix it. Once we got into the train and buckled in, then we were able to get the headsets on and adjusted for real. While waiting there, my claustrophobia kicked in and the next thing I know I'm latched onto Emily's arm terrified of the casket my head is now in. After a while, the ride op came around to check my restraint and asked me, "do you see a city?" I told him I did and the train dispatched. Eight minutes. On one train. And less than half the ACEers chose to do VR.

Well, VR is definitely a cool experience. You start off by being lifted on this inverted monorail thing as the Superman theme plays from the lift speakers. Suddenly, Lex Luthor's robots show up and hit you with an anti-gravity ray, ripping the monorail to shreds. Just as the theme crescendos, the Man of Steel himself swoops in, slams both robots, and catches you as you come close to falling to your death. From there, your ride becomes a death-defying rampage around Metropolis, dodging buildings and Lexcorp robots as Superman beats the heck out of Lex and brings you to safety. All in all, it was actually pretty cool. The VR synced up perfectly with the coaster, the film threw in an inversion to your vision that felt completely real and I would have believed had I not known the ride had no inversions, and my first time on this coaster was really special because of it. The only major complaints I had other than the load times were the screen looking like it was rendered with a turnip (not quite a potato, but close, definitely some form of vegetable being used to render VR at Six Flags), the lack of something as basic as sound on an otherwise ultra-immersive experience, and my padding coming loose forcing me to fix it myself.

K, techie play time's over, this is a coaster, let's do this the old-fashioned way! Emily and I took two more rides without VR and ended up with conflicting opinions. To me, I felt significantly less power out of this one with about equal airtime to Millennium Force on a good day, and only a little less of a rattle. I thought rival coaster Millennium would keep its spot at the bottom of my top ten. However, Emily liked Superman better, citing that it did more and had more airtime. While I agreed that it did more and that my favorite part was actually the second tunnel dive coming out of the out-and-back segment, Millennium still felt more powerful to me. So we decided to go take advantage of the other two ERT rides and call it a day for Superman. But even the Man of Steel sometimes hates mornings...

Next up was Gotham City Gauntlet: Escape from Arkham Asylum. It was a wild mouse, and a boring and forgettable one at that. Not to mention a bit rough. I shrugged it off and walked away, +1. But a +1 that brought me to 199.

Next up was Catwoman's Whip. I was at 199 and was not about to make this thing 200, so with Chris telling me it never ever had a line I decided to pass for now and get it later when it wouldn't waste a milestone.

But I got this one of Emily getting it!

Got a few more pictures of Superman before heading over to my 200th credit.

As customary, I made 200 worthwhile and got the new credit at the park, the latest and greatest from Larson International, Fireball! Loved this thing, the forces going through the loop on this roller coaster are amazing! Couldn't have celebrated it any other way!

Just kidding.

Citing my newfound respect for RMC as my favorite manufacturer and my new desire to get more of them, I decided to give that honor to the featured cred of this trip, Wicked Cyclone! Before I had actually done an RMC to know how good they were, this one always seemed kind of random to me. Like, the park didn't RMC it to make a good ride but to kill a bad woodie and put something tolerable in its spot. It had seemed that way since it was announced to me, and up until I actually rode an RMC I never understood the hype for it. But now, being the RMC fanboy I was knowing that Alan didn't play around and that this thing had a ton of respect from enthusiasts, I knew I was in for something extremely special.

I would also like to thank Emily for making this sign for me with her non-engineer handwriting and apologize for freaking out thinking you were trying to be a tool and make it look like a girly pink zebra purse.

I was first impressed by how much theming Six Flags put into Wicked Cyclone. They crashed a van into their little weather tower, there were bent up signs everywhere, the storm had tossed weather instruments all over the place, the coaster was littered with rubble from the storm and it really set the mood. Very impressive for Six Flags.

That's sexy.

I feel like the appropriate color choice for a ride of this theme might have been pretty different but it is really beautiful. But deep blue rails or even a blue and orange rail would have worked better I feel.

So I was flipping out walking to the ride as Emily joked "watch it be down for the day." Well we get there, text Chris once the park opened, and hear that our RMC coaster curse had struck. AGAIN. "Ladies and gentlemen, Wicked Cyclone is currently experiencing mechanical difficulties. We apologize and hope to have the ride running soon." Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled. I called Emily a **** a few times (yes, that C word) and banished her to sleep in the bathtub for the rest of the trip. Finally, Chris showed up after becoming a Pokemon master and joined us in line. The sun kept beating down as they tested trains until finally, they opened up the station! I violently slapped Emily's butt shooing her up the stairs screaming at her as Chris reminded me that it was a family park. And just like that, we were in the station!

OH MY GOD THIS MACHINE <3 <3 <3

Wicked Cyclone blew me away! The entire ride is just so smooth and packed full of aggression and airtime, not to mention the best rhythm of any coaster I've ever ridden. It's glass smooth with literally zero rattle to it (probably even the smoothest coaster I've ridden) and twists and bucks you around so violently. I was already hooked at the apex of that first overbank. The relentless pacing, flawless flow, powerful RMC airtime, and even some cheeky floater through the inversions won me over on this one. The only complaint I had was a weak ending, which was one of the strongest points on my former favorite RMC, Outlaw Run. I decided to put it up against Outlaw for the time being and form a better opinion as the day went on.

Emily, however, hated her first ride on it and it was all my fault. She got stapled so being the good boyfriend I was, I leaned on her bar and crushed her with the restraint, pressing the belt buckle into her thigh leaving a bruise. Yeah, I got banished to the bathtub but at least we were sleeping together on this trip again!

We got a few more rides on it as it warmed up and I began to really enjoy it. Ultimately, I decided that it was my favorite RMC. But some coasters don't settle for second place without a fight...

Next up was one of the two neighboring Vekoma boomerangs and the only operational one, Flashback. Chris sat out and I saw exactly why...OUCH!!!! This is easily the worst boomerang I've been on, it had jackhammering, headbanging, everything. It even had a short line, the GP even knew to stay far away from this metal death trap. This thing isn't even fit to be in the same shot as Wicked Cyclone, let alone occupy real estate right next to it.

No pictures, but Chris caught Pokemon while Emily and I did Great Chase. It was a little Miler kiddie cred, and it didn't even give us a second pity lap. Meh.

Up next was lunch with the ACE event!

Not a bad walk back.

After a fun time at lunch getting fat as we all caught Pokemon and Steph showed us pictures of her reptiles, Q&A was underway! I won't go over it all, but a few things I found worth noting from it:

*Goliath's cable did exactly what it was supposed to do and nobody was ever in danger when it snapped. However, the part is a specialty part that needs to be shipped overseas from Vekoma and won't be here for a while. They said they're trying to get it open by fall at the earliest.

*They held up the new and improved VR headsets and asked, "What did we all think of these?" When the response was a universal "Ehhhh," they seemed pretty surprised. They asked what could be done to improve it. In addition to the usual "just take it off," other suggestions were made to have ride ops doing just VR. My suggestion was to give augmented reality a spin with Google Glass on glasses straps.

*Six Flags is proud of their dining plan and plans to add more options to the season pass next year. However, they don't plan to allow guests to get their food to go in fear of becoming somebody's grocery store.

*Some very aggressive ACE member asked them about all season lockers and even pulled the Universal card, something that pretty much went in one ear and out the other.

*I asked them about what it was like working with RMC on Wicked Cyclone. I was told that they were awesome to work with and that there were a few collaborative decisions made about what to do with it, such as "You want an airtime hill here but we'd prefer a stall." Said that they'd love to work with them again in the future but that isn't up to them but it's up to corporate.

Emily and I during the Q and A session on the left.

Pretty fountain in the picnic grove.

Group shot! (Special thanks to ACE New England for this and the one of Em and I watching the Q&A in the pavilion.)

After that we met back up with Chris after he dealt with a Pokemon GO server hack and communicated it to his Team Instinct New Bedford page. From there it was off to Thunderbolt, one of the worst wooden coasters ever! I loved having another ACE Landmark under my belt but the thing was just so awful! I don't think I had ever been jackhammered this badly on a wooden coaster before!

Next up...SLC time! Another cred Chris decided not to ride!

Ready to be hardcore violated!

Should have come better prepared. I was only ready to be hardcore violated not outright given the Chris Brown/Ray Rice treatment! This thing was obviously a relocation, it began life on a picturesque beach in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but then George W. Bush decided that it was inhumane and should be put where it belongs, dug a hole, and sent it to hell. But when it got into hell, the devil closed the gates and said "that thing is too vulgar to operate in hell." So here it is stuck in Massachusetts, probably a remnant of the horrible things done to young virgin women during the Salem witch trials. This coaster, if you can even call it a coaster, has it all. Jackhammering, headbanging, rattling, you name it. The only thing keeping the worst coaster in the States from being my least favorite in the world is the fact that the padding is softer than it is on Flight Deck. But still. Vulgar, offensive, abusive, disgusting, grotesque, wretched, inhumane, if it's a word with negative connotation that isn't "moist" it probably describes this coaster. Human Rights Campaign, step away from Hillary and deal with this piece of mechanical torture!

Speaking of things that go Bam! Pow! Slam! Crash! Koosh! Wowpa! Hoom! Gak! we headed over to Batman: The Dark Knight and saw this massive line for the waterpark!

Not gonna lie, the plaza for this ride looked cool.

So I was getting a picture when we boarded and wasn't paying attention and the next thing I know, Emily and Chris both picked seats leaving me to pick between two empty seats covered in some suspicious moist substance! Eww!

At least this shot was kind of worth it...

Okay, it was a nice little surprise from B&M. Got a few whacks to the head but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, I'd rank this fairly high in my floorless count. Not to mention I really like the colors on it. Not a bad coaster at all.

On the way back over to Pandemonium to put the final nail in the coffin that was Six Flags New England, we stopped by Fireball and I couldn't help but notice that they actually did a good job theming it kind of.

The best 50's themed thing to open in 2016!

(Well it's the only one that actually managed to open so...)

And we were poised to get in another ride on my favorite coaster in the park as soon as we cleaned out!

Um...

Well Chris and I sat on one side and Emily sat on the other. That's roughly 100 pounds on one side and 500 pounds on the other side of these Gerstlauer spinner cars. Needless to say, it spun like crazy! By far the most violent spinning I've ever experienced on a spinner anywhere!

Six Flags New England is cleaned out! Let's celebrate!

Sadly, when we got back we found that they crashed and burned with their operations.

They took the orange train off, leaving blue to pull all the weight. And the wait for it was an hour.

Quite unfortunate, this coaster is sick and I wanted a few more rides on it. However, that ride we got put Skyrush in serious trouble!

Walking off, it looked like they had finally come to their senses and started to get the second train back on! We went to check Superman's wait and get dinner.

Emily's PR brain kicked in when she saw this press event going on for Goliath. That's the PR director for SFNE, the same lady that did the Q&A.

Some good Intamin porn right here.

Cattlepen was full...still on one train. Come on, Six Flags!

Chris and Emily charged their phones and caught Pokemon while we ate dinner. Not gonna lie, this food wasn't horribly priced for Six Flags.

Obligatory booze shot!

Stopped by Goliath on the way to check out the damage.

Silent...as a Vekoma probably should be.

Heard so many horror stories about these new trains...

Looks like somebody's about to get down to work! This was tied to the ride's fence.

Some tool left their hammer in the ride area.

Went for a dusk ride on Wicked Cyclone as Chris went back to his car.

Loved the little cyclone symbol that lit up at night.

Six Flags be like, "moron leaving Providence drove square into this, nail it to the coaster!"

Such beautiful trains on this RMC!

Sadly, Six Flags changed their mind about orange and kept it on one train. Still, amazing coaster that rivals Skyrush for my number one spot! I ultimately let Skyrush keep it simply due to it having more power to it than Wicked Cyclone, but Wicked Cyclone came really close. And it proved to me that an RMC can definitely take out Skyrush.

Not quite a Skyrush beater, but it came close. Really close. If the two coasters were combat robots, Skyrush would have won on a lucky shot flipping Cyclone out of the arena and ended the fight with more damage belching battery smoke.

We ended the night burning our last line skippy from ACE on Superman. Well, that's a ride that likes to warm up! It's a whole different animal at night with the effects, I loved it! That night ride after it had warmed up won it over for me and landed it a spot in my top ten!

After getting our stuff from package pickup, we called it a day and went back to Chris's car for the two hour drive back to New Bedford.

Goodbye, Six Flags!

Final consensus: As of the time we left, it was my favorite Six Flags park. Not as bad as Tragic Mountain or Over Georgia with the issues that made me hate the chain so much, but I feel like park management makes an effort to stay in touch with what really happens and takes action at the corporate level to make sure guest experience is still a priority. Their lineup is a bit bipolar, with two of Vekoma's worst death traps ever and two top ten coasters for me. All in all, I enjoyed it and it made the chain pretty hard to hate. They should focus on operations and getting another high quality ride, however.

All three of us were covered in sweat and anyone who wasn't driving was either completely or half passed out on the drive back, with me fading in and out of consciousness. But we got there in one piece, ready to get a good night's sleep for the next day in New England!

UP NEXT: Sheer shameless copyright infringement, Boulder Smash, a wasted milestone, wonderful seafood, and a coaster that I got off of and screamed to Emily, "THAT WAS BETTER THAN SKYRUSH!!!!" Which coaster was it? Stay tuned!

 

[Bat Fastard]

Re: #NE2k16:// Wicked Sweltering Heat (Day 1)

One train operation is my absolute biggest roller coaster/theme park related pet peeve. Nothing pisses me off more when the best coaster(s) in the park have long, unnecessary waits that could be avoided by running multiple trains. Ridiculous. They have to increase sales for the Flash Pass though, am I right?!?!

Oh and I had my first VR experience on Monday on Ninja at SF STL and my headset stopped working on the way up the lift hill, and then combine that with the ridiculously long dispatch times, so I'm not really a fan at all.... I hope this dies soon being completely honest.

Rant down, Wicked Cyclone looks like one of the best RMCs and I hope to get on it next season.

Great report so far, excited to hear your opinion on Boulder Dash and El Toro!

 

[Jarrett]

Re: #NE2k16:// Wicked Sweltering Heat (Day 1)

One train operation is my absolute biggest roller coaster/theme park related pet peeve. Nothing pisses me off more when the best coaster(s) in the park have long, unnecessary waits that could be avoided by running multiple trains. Ridiculous. They have to increase sales for the Flash Pass though, am I right?!?!

Oh and I had my first VR experience on Monday on Ninja at SF STL and my headset stopped working on the way up the lift hill, and then combine that with the ridiculously long dispatch times, so I'm not really a fan at all.... I hope this dies soon being completely honest.

Rant down, Wicked Cyclone looks like one of the best RMCs and I hope to get on it next season.

Great report so far, excited to hear your opinion on Boulder Dash and El Toro!

Yeah, it was annoying but at least it wasn't at a major park where it would affect cred count. As for VR, I find that odd because we had zero issues getting it to work on Superman. There was a lot of whining at the ACE event but of all the little nitpicky things people were bringing up, nobody said their VR didn't work. I do agree it needs attention but killing the tech isn't the answer I think. But glad you enjoyed! Wicked Cyclone is amazing, it put my number one in danger. Definitely get on it! As for the rest of the report, Connecticut is up today!

-x-

Day 2

After a late evening last night, the three of us decided to sleep in a bit and woke up at 8. However, after we all dragged ourselves out of bed, it got serious once more. Leaving New Bedford, Emily and I packed up into our rental car and followed Chris to Connecticut, or as he calls it, "a giant cloud of sadness over everything except Boulder Dash." So we grabbed the casual Dunkin' and got on the road. And after passing multiple Middles and Burys (Seriously, like all of the towns were called Eastbury, Westbury, Centerbury, Middlesex, Middleburg, and a ton of other similar names that just taunted us for two hours), the three of us got to Quassy Amusement Park!

When you finally find the right town name after literally everything around it has a similar name!

Aww, this little lakeside family park has a little kids wooden coaster like Dutch Wonderland!

That is honestly the visual impression it puts off. Looks no different from Dutch Wonderland or Waldameer's Comet or other little kiddie wooden coasters that are the only coasters in their parks. However, I knew not to expect that at all from Wooden Warrior...

The line was ridiculous for tickets and they shook us down to park in a grassy field but we found it!

At $3.75 for a single ride on anything and a day full of multiple two-hour drives and two parks we didn't even consider doing anything except just cred running the hell out of this place. However, this was kind of interesting to see. This is Reverse Time, Quassy's new flat ride and the first modern Tagada ever built if I'm correct.

Cool logo, though!

Quassy is scenically perches on the banks of Lake Quassapaug, but it's more like Lake Quassapaug having a nasty hemorrhoid hanging off of it...

Let's start by appreciating the fact that Quassy totally has the license to use these Dora characters here. No copyright infringement here, take your pics and move along!

Yay! First cred of the day! Chris informed us that this was a classic kiddie cred, an Alan Herschell. Of course a massive credit whore like him would know that...

It doesn't make it any less filthy that Emily and I rode it, but it definitely has one of the better settings I've seen for a kiddie cred. Right up there with Kozmo's Kurves or Ravine Flyer III for location.

As if we hadn't already misbehaved enough, Emily and I kind of backloaded it...and then got off and realized that we had accidentally made this Emily's 150th credit instead of the Gravity Group across the park. Oops!

I love how Quassy apparently not only has the same license for Peanuts and DC that Cedar Fair and Six Flags do but we now have Batman, Snoopy, and Superman on the same **** ride.

I couldn't help but notice that Wooden Warrior looked a bit different than it did in pictures...

I AM A TILT SHIFT GOD IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A LITTLE MODEL OF IT.

Damn, Jarrett! Back at it again with the tilt shift!

...oh. Nvm.

Okay, enough not being funny, onto Wooden Frickin' Warrior!

Have you hugged your coaster today?

This was my first experience with timberliners and I have to say I was impressed with how they looked. So mechanical and intricate. <3

Coming for ya, Wooden Warrior!

I quickly learned the big annoyance with Wooden Warrior. It can't come off that sloped turn into the station too hot so they have to slowly (and I mean, very slowly) release it by easing it off of complete stops every time it leaves the brake run. And with only one train, it got annoying really fast.

Took our first ride in the back and found it solid. Nothing to shatter a combined count, but it hit the lower reaches of my wooden top ten. Lots of little fun pops of airtime, but it felt like it was really struggling to get us up out of the pull of gravity.

You are a WUSS. You can't stop the train if it comes in going more than 3 mph!

We opted for a front seat ride after that, thinking that might be the extra bit of oomph it needed to really get those pops of airtime to be sudden enough to really screw up my wooden top ten.

Chris didn't want to wait for the front so he just kind of rode again and waited for us. The wait crawled by so slowly between the inefficient brake release, one train, and brain dead ride ops that didn't want to be there. Emily even told me to shut up for screaming across the platform to Chris, "operations here are horrendous!"

The trains on this are beautiful, though. Sleek and mechanical at the same time, a beautiful shade of blue, and they're by far the most comfortable I've been on a wooden coaster. More coasters need these, they're easily my new favorite wooden coaster trains.

Finally, our turn to take on Wooden Warrior on the front lines had come! And Chris was awesome enough to photograph us!

WOW. It's definitely a front seat ride! I was able to get a bit of slack in my bar to get airtime...and that bar is all you have. No seatbelt, nothing. For a modern coaster, it's the least restrictive restraint I've seen. And when subjected to Phoenix-style airtime with RFII-style aggression tossed in there, you have a winner. I was practically standing up half the ride. It twists around briskly and hits you with these random blows of airtime throughout the whole layout, I loved it up front.

Next up we went tat shopping for a bit. All I got was this Wooden Warrior t-shirt (which I am wearing as I type this, pics in the final report) but Emily found this fat cat from The Secret Life of Pets she wanted! I told her not to get it because it was so expensive so I now have to find it for her myself.

After getting out of there (which took ages) I had to plug Compounce into my phone, leaving me not only behind Chris but to take a wrong turn with no GPS signal. Emily and I wandered for a bit before finding a place with wifi to get it done. We ended up at Compounce like 20 minutes behind Chris, it was pathetic. Again, charging us ridiculous prices to park in grass.

The parking lot is really secluded from the rest of the park and you can't see anything on the mountain when you park, it reminded me of a ghetto Dollywood in a sense. This map was the first clue that I was actually in an amusement park.

They had a Kennywood-esque tunnel at the entrance but it was in front of the promenade, not behind it. So you walk in and this nice big promenade opens up in front of you, I liked it a lot. Much better than Kennywood where you have this nice big plaza only to go through it and get frisked by scary security before getting forced into an ugly concrete tunnel.

After epically failing to use my AAA discount and getting half the discount value through the Dunkin' Donuts one because the tickets guy was cool about it, Chris had been in the park long before us. So he instructed us to meet him at Compounce's latest and greatest for 2016, Phobia!

As someone who has a real, legit phobia that can be and has been triggered by certain coasters in the past, I found it ironic that this coaster was called Phobia yet had nothing on it that could trigger a coaster enthusiast's phobia. But don't worry, I can't just have a nice trip with a coaster called Phobia and not have to deal with my own phobia... (more on that tomorrow)

Talk crap about this coaster all you want, there's no denying it's pretty.

I loved it! I know these have been called "vile" and "offensive" on here in the past, but I don't see the hate. It was glass smooth, got a bit of airtime in spots at the top, some nice high Full Throttle-style hangtime in the barrel roll, and generally just a lot of fun. And I mean, a LOT of fun. Fabulous coaster, I think Compounce could have spent their money a bit better but with them being as slammed for space as they seem to be I'll gladly take it. This was easily one of the better surprises on the trip.

We were in a group of three and I rode with Chris, leaving Emily to ride alone. Well we pull back into the station and she asked me how it was. "It's good," I told her, "better than Sky Rocket." Well with all the noise of a train being loaded, she didn't quite hear me. The next thing I know, she's like flipping out at me and I have no idea what I did wrong. So her train cycles and she gets off and screams at me, "THAT WAS NOT BETTER THAN SKYRUSH!!!!!" To her, I got off this little cloned Premier and yelled "it's better than Skyrush!" We had a laugh as I explained that it was by no means better than Skyrush and that I was referring to Sky Rocket.

Overall, I really like these little Premier launchers. Capacity on them sucks but once they can figure that out I believe they belong in the big leagues. This is better than Sky Rocket (not Skyrush) but not as good as Full Throttle, which isn't bad for a cookie cutter product that they're installing everywhere. I wouldn't mind at all if this was the new boomerang.

Next up was the park's legendary juggernaut of a wooden coaster, Boulder Dash! While I've heard from enthusiasts who have more than three times my cred count that it's the best coaster in the world, Chris told me it was massively overrated and that he wasn't a fan.

Operations on this one were ridiculous, way worse than they should be. Compounce was only running one train, and on a ride like Boulder Dash that's stupid long, it hurt capacity a lot. Not to mention Compounce has the dumbest ADA pass ever, allowing anyone who wants to to take up two rows of their choice for two full cycles every hour. We waited for what seemed like an hour station wait for the back. But at least we're here and we're amazing!

Chris rode alone before us, but came back with a warning. I saw him roll into the station with that "Mayday, mayday! Abort! Abort!" look on his face that enthusiasts always seem to sport when they see their friends on the platform for the terrible ride they just rode.

Chris warned me to lean forward and to "prepare for something after the double down." And after the relentless beating I took on Thunderbolt the day before, I wasn't exactly looking to be pummeled to death on a wooden coaster again.

OWWWWWWWWW OW OW OWWW!!!!!!! This ride left me with terrible childhood PTSD flashbacks to Son of Beast. The ride up the lift was beautiful, there are huge boulders jutting out of the wooded mountainside and it's a really nice way to kick off a ride. However, the ride gets to the top and literally takes a turn for the worse. Throughout the entire ride, it felt like it was tracked with gravel and my spine was being violently crushed against the back of the seat. And that thing after the double down Chris warned me about? Yeah, got a good jackhammering blow to the back that splattered my brain into my skull like a NASCAR driver hitting a stadium stand full of hillbillies (so will they name a coaster after me now?). It was absolutely AWFUL, it blurred my vision, it hurt my back, it slammed me around, just all around an awful ride. And the worst part? It didn't have to be. Had it just not been so rough, it would have been in my top ten after that ride! I took to social media to warn everybody about the death trap we were just lured into by UK fanboys and went on to ride something less painful.

Walking up to Zoomerang, I noticed how pretty it was. It was a boomerang, but definitely the prettiest one I've ever seen. Lovely purple and blue hues on the structure and it had these really lovely iridescent trains.

And it actually wasn't bad! Minimal headbanging for such bad trains, I actually had fun on it. Not to mention the family behind us was freaking out so that was free entertainment for our ride.

Next up? Possibly the most spiteful kiddie cred ever, Kiddie Coaster! I tried to walk up the exit to ask the ride op but Emily and I started screaming at me for it. I walked out only to find out that the ride op was freaking out that I opened the exit gate. Yeah, we needed another way...

Chris had the credit so tried to do something similar to what he did. We tracked down a ride supervisor and explained that we were enthusiasts wanting to get the kiddie coaster credit. So he gave us this and we got in line! That cred was in sight!

Never in my life was it more satisfying to get a single crap credit. Second time I got park approval to get around a height limit.

#FilthyCreditWhoreSkyrushCouple

We got the credit, I apologized for opening the exit gate, it was all good. I'm a horrible person in every way, I know.

Wildcat, that famous white woodie that towers over Compounce's main street, was next. Didn't get any pictures because my camera didn't deserve to have to bear an image of that horrible death trap. Yet another New England woodie where the park didn't even own a second PTC train. After the slow operations, we got on and dealt with the vile jackhammering and rough ride this badly engineered thing dished out. So glad to have finally found a coaster in the park worse than Boulder Dash!

Speaking of which, we decided to try it in the front. I didn't want to dismiss it so fast.

Time crept by as they cranked out one train at a time that was stalled two cycles by another ADA pass. But finally, we got on!

Never in my life has something as insignificant as a different seat transformed a ride on a coaster. It was still a bit rough around the edges, but all in all, this went from Son of Beast-Beast incest to a relentless CCI terrain monster in one ride! Tons of aggression hugging the mountainside, tons of airtime, wonderful visuals as you violently cruise over some nicely rugged track. This is one of the better experiences I had ever had on a coaster. Add in the surprise factor of how much better it was than in the back.

It took me three days to comfortably decide where to rank it. Had everything run similarly to that front seat ride, it would have been way up there. However, I'm a person that absolutely doesn't forgive anybody for anything under any circumstances, and I certainly couldn't forgive it for flat out violating me earlier that day. But considering that people in the Lake Compounce Fan Club group on Facebook had told us that it was having a bad year and the fact that I was told part of the rough ride had to do with us sitting on a wheel, I ended up giving it the benefit of the doubt and putting it at the bottom of my top ten.

I'll forgive a machine before forgiving a person. Told you I'm a terrible person.

Emily and I wanted to experience Phobia together once so we did Phobia together once. Fun as always, and a great way to end the day, though I had decided I liked Boulder Dash better after all.

After leaving Compounce, the three of us wanted some good old fashioned New England seafood! So we found a place and headed there! And passed a city park full of people playing Pokemon GO on the way!

Crabby Al's is the place to go for proper New England clam chowder! Everything on their menu was fresh and amazing, great flavor in this and I love that they include the right crackers unlike Dead Lobster back at home!

Crab and Lobster Stuffed Mushrooms <3 <3 <3

After that, we said goodbye to Chris and I told him he was always welcome in Ohio, especially if he wanted Chaser or whatever KI was building next year. Emily and I got on the highway and got about half an hour out of Bristol before the **** hit the fan. Just out of nowhere, the highway had turned into a horrible mess of swerving, darting, jamming, and entering and exiting. I knew we had hit it. One place I never ever under any circumstances wanted to drive in my entire life.

New York City.

It was easily the most stressful drive of my life. The GPS kept trying to reroute us, my parents tried to send us over the Tapan Zee bridge a day before a crane fell on it, we went over George Washington bridge instead, Emily tried to play Taylor Swift's "Welcome to New York" only to find out that our car's sound system had taken a **** randomly while we were at Crabby Al's, and I spent about an hour with my knuckles white around the wheel. And now my girlfriend thinks I have general anxiety disorder because of it.

We got to the hotel and I found out that somehow I had booked the wrong night and I flipped out. I haggled the price of a new room down and they didn't charge us for the other night, but we got stuck in a smoking room. And I kept freaking out that I had let Emily down. Yeah, she definitely thinks I have anxiety now...

UP NEXT: Jarrett rides Emily's #1 wood and Chris's #1 overall, the tallest coaster in the world, ZumanjarNO, two massive surprises, the worst spite of the trip, and the Larson Loop conspiracy!

 

[Bat Fastard]

Re: #NE2k16://Quassyright Infringement, Boulder Smash (Day 2

One train operation strikes again. I always thought Boulder Dash looked kinda overrated. I'm going to guess now that your worst spite was Joker....

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Re: #NE2k16://Quassyright Infringement, Boulder Smash (Day 2

Considering I love Viper so much, Boulder Dash seems like a ride I'd love. But who knows how long it'll be before I go to New England.

I'm excited to hear how SFGAdv went!

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Re: #NE2k16://Quassyright Infringement, Boulder Smash (Day 2

got banished to the bathtub but at least we were sleeping together on this trip again!

When sleeping together really just means going to bed.. </3

That New England food looks amazing. Also, kind of surprised about your opinion of Superman. I think it's way stronger than Millennium Force in terms of airtime and just generally being relentless. Our opinions of Wicked Cyclone are pretty on par though.

I also think Boulder Dash is way overrated.

 

[DelPiero]

Re: #NE2k16://Quassyright Infringement, Boulder Smash (Day 2

Boulder Dash is definitely not running well then, it was the same when I rode it in October, but I got night rides so the front was amaaaaaazzziiiiinnnnngggg.
Hopefully Compounce will actually do some work on it this off season, as it's potentially a top 3 ride.

 

[Jarrett]

Re: #NE2k16://Quassyright Infringement, Boulder Smash (Day 2

One train operation strikes again. I always thought Boulder Dash looked kinda overrated. I'm going to guess now that your worst spite was Joker....

Yeah, one train at the entire park, it was quite annoying. And yes, it is overrated. I liked it a lot, don't get me wrong, but it's overrated. At 226 credits I have it as my #10 so one of the best in America? Maybe. Best in the world? Doubtful. But nope! Fortunately we got Joker, it was fab!

Considering I love Viper so much, Boulder Dash seems like a ride I'd love. But who knows how long it'll be before I go to New England.

I'm excited to hear how SFGAdv went!

Voyage is way better, easily the best of the three giant terrain woodies in the States. Imagine Legend and Beast had a baby and Raven helped, that's Boulder Dash. Insane terrain action and a few Raven/Thunder Run-esque airtime moments. But by no means is it a smooth ride, no matter where you sit. But it's way worse in the back.

got banished to the bathtub but at least we were sleeping together on this trip again!

When sleeping together really just means going to bed.. </3

That New England food looks amazing. Also, kind of surprised about your opinion of Superman. I think it's way stronger than Millennium Force in terms of airtime and just generally being relentless. Our opinions of Wicked Cyclone are pretty on par though.

I also think Boulder Dash is way overrated.

Well let's see...

Sleep- rest by sleeping; be asleep: "she slept for half an hour"
Together- with or in proximity to another person or people: "together they climbed the dark stairs"

On these trips, usually what happens is whenever we need rest, Emily and I just kind of cuddle up in the same bed together and drift off together, usually she falls asleep first. But by those definitions, sleeping together really just means falling asleep together. What else would it mean?

In all seriousness, though, yes. The food was phenomenal. As for Superman, I actually really did like it after it warmed up, it just provided a really weak morning ride. But once the sun goes down and it's all warmed up and the lighting effects are on it's something else. Had no desire to top ten it until after that night ride. But yeah, Wicked Cyclone. That's kind of something all enthusiasts that aren't Jer can agree on. And yes, Boulder Dash was quite overrated.

Boulder Dash is definitely not running well then, it was the same when I rode it in October, but I got night rides so the front was amaaaaaazzziiiiinnnnngggg.
Hopefully Compounce will actually do some work on it this off season, as it's potentially a top 3 ride.

Top three? Not sure about that unless Alan decides to make that his playground. The only thing really wrong with it is the rough texture the ride provides when it runs over the rails, hence why I call it Boulder Smash. I could see it giving a good night ride, though. Not better than Voyage, but still good.

-x-

Day 3

After a nice, long night of sleep, Emily and I got up and saw where we were in the light of day. Bumble **** , New Jersey. Completely rural and devoid of people yet idiots still manage to sneak their way in. I was dreading another day of dealing with gross Jersey people and dreading another Six Flags property, yet at the same time El Toro really had me excited. Chris has it as his number one overall and Emily has it as her number one wood, but at the same time I had heard from other enthusiasts that it was overrated, so I was anxious to form an opinion. Even though I thought it was going to be like Voyage's airtime-less first hills the whole ride.

We were by no means going it alone on this day. Kyle, a local in our Skype group who goes here so often he calls it his "playground" was going to be showing us around and acting as our guide. John from Jersey (same John from the Hershey trip and Morey's day) and Chris (a Hershey local who runs Keystone Thrills, not to be confused with the Chris who hosted us back in Massachusetts) had also arranged to meet us. Three's company, five's a crowd!

We're here! My first time and Emily's first time since she became an enthusiast in 2013! Kyle met us and we went in!

Just the fact that you get a free Six Flags ticket for joining ACE literally makes the club pay for itself. <3

Joker! Second New for 2016 cred of the trip!

The park looked like it was going to be slammed...

Look. Statues of dead white people. Culture. Enjoy.

My first complaint about Joker was that while it looks cool, it looks horrendously out of place. It's the first big thing you see when you enter the park. On its own it would be fine but in a spot appropriate for an Eiffel Tower/GateKeeper fixture, it looks tacky.

We decided to make our first ride of the day Nitro. This is a coaster that Emily loves to cite in her idiotic claim that B&M hypers have no airtime, but she said the same thing about Diamondback which literally had me out of my seat for ten seconds over just one hill a few nights before typing this. Told me to expect a rattle and no airtime, though she's one of those dumb enthusiasts that doesn't enjoy a ride unless it tries to kill her with force so I just kind of rolled my eyes. Even though Kyle was telling me the same thing.

It's true what they say, your girlfriend is always right. I like B&M hypers, while they may not be top-tier rides and while Intamin may do hypers better, I find them enjoyable and I never fail to get a good kick out of the one at my home park. However, Emily and Kyle were completely right about this one. I loved the station music, it got me really pumped up for a good ride full of sustained B&M hyper floater. But there was no floater on this one. It just kind of creeped over the hills, I felt myself levitate a few times but for the most part I was just chilling in my clamshell waiting for the airtime. I have very limited memories of Goliath and Apollo's Chariot having ridden them pre-enthusiast, but I'm sorry, what I remember was better than this. Easily the worst of the hypers. And I hear it's the best and have no idea what people are thinking.

Took another ride to see if I would like it better, and sadly, I didn't. Again, it just feels like you're waiting for airtime the whole ride that never actually comes. I love the station music and harsh industrial accents and that and the hype I heard for it made me think it would be my favorite of the B&M hypers but sadly, the opposite was the case. This goes down below Apollo as my least favorite, Behemoth still reigns supreme as my favorite of the breed.

Next we made our way to their kiddie area and knocked out Road Runner. Not too bad for a Zamperla death machine, but there was a bee buzzing around my car while I was strapped in and the ride op was taking her time dispatching us trying not to laugh at our comments. Despite Emily and I backloading it for the lulz, we got a normal ride on it.

Next up was cult favorite Skull Mountain! I hear bad things about this coaster, however, I know a certain few enthusiasts have it in their top tens as a tiny but dedicated fanbase. The theming in the station was cool but on the ride it was tacky. But the ride didn't need it. For a tiny indoor family coaster, this thing is aggressive! Really brisk and fun, almost like a toned down Cheetah Hunt in a sense. I was laughing so hard the entire time!

Up next was a Batman clone, and they didn't even take care of the theming. </3

Yet another worst B&M of its type I've been on! I already don't like these rides. They're pointless force machines that do nothing interesting and just pound you with force the entire ride. Vile enthusiasts who only enjoy a ride if they grey out and call the ride trash if they don't (same people who have I305 as a number one) lose it over these, and the mere existence of this model only perpetuates one of the most annoying enthusiast behaviors I encounter in the hobby. However, the reason I let this one have the spot at the bottom of my invert rankings is because it takes this perpetuation of an annoying stereotype and adds something else I hate, headbanging. This B&M beat the crap out of me! Hit my head multiple times going around, so it was just my feet tingling and my head being bashed the whole ride. Oh well. Those morons I'm talking about don't even mind a rough ride, they'd marathon an SLC if it were intense. Sorry, rant over. But this is the poster child for coasters enjoyed by the most annoying enthusiasts on the planet.

Next up was the second of four Batman-themed rides here, Dark Knight!

Oops, wrong picture.

Okay, there it is!

You go in and are treated to this really cool pre-show featuring a news broadcast.

And Kyle was kind enough to mouth the entire thing because he knew it by heart.

The climax of the show is when the lights go out and the Joker hijacks the broadcast and these "HA HA HA"s appear on the wall. Quite atmospheric, actually.

Sadly, the actual ride left much to be desired. This definitely belongs in that "queue is better than the ride" thread we had a bit ago. It's a standard indoor cred in a shed wild mouse with broken theming. The only thing that got me was the subway train gag at the end, Emily and Kyle were nice enough to sit me near it but I had heard it activate in the station and it's obvious it's right there. Startled me a little but I didn't poop myself like Emily said I would.

Get that Team Mystic board away from that crap cred! And move the Instinct one closer and put the Valor one on it!

Next we rode the Skyride over to the other side of the park to clean it out.

It's quite nice, actually. Some lovely views of the park to be had up here.

We'll be back for you later!

Here we are!

Runaway Mine Train was our next stop and I didn't really care for it. Felt like a longer, rougher Trailblazer.

Smidge of airtime here, though.

Up next was the final featured cred of the trip, El Toro!

I would have to say this is one of Six Flags's better theming jobs. Between the station, posters in the queue, bull statue, they really made sure a theme was present on this one.

Wow! That really surprised me, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did! The airtime going over the first two hills is insane Skyrush-style sustained ejector (though not nearly as powerful), that drop into the turnaround was absolutely relentless, the Rolling Thunder hill was amazing, and the ride had a nice aggressive Cheetah Hunt-esque finale. Not to mention you can literally hear the upstops ringing against the track as it flies over those hills! This is a wonderful coaster, I put it below Voyage after my first couple of rides on it!

After that we went to Macho Nacho to get some Mexican food when Chris and John showed up. The food here was actually really good, much better than typical Six Flags offerings. Not horribly priced, either.

After lunch we headed to Superman: Ultimate Flight, or to me, Phobia: Phear Coaster. For those of you who are unaware, my claustrophobia and flyers do not go well together. I spent the entire duration of the ride freaking out holding onto Emily's arm. And screamed at the ride ops to hurry up when we were stacked on the brakes. All while Chris, John, and Emily practically pointed and laughed the whole ride. As for the coaster, it wasn't that bad. If the restraints weren't restrictive, this would be a good coaster. Though I prefer the one at SFOG due to the terrain. And Tatsu's still my favorite of a loathed coaster type. So again, least favorite B&M of its type! That's a threepeat for today!

Sadly, with this came a good punch to the childhood. Driving to Nashville to visit my dad's parents as a kid, usually we would have to right past Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville. I always wanted to go but my parents had no reason, so we never made time for it. But I always thought it was so cool to see Chang towering over the airport from the highway. Well we get there, I finally get to ride this coaster, and whoops! Green Lantern is down for the day! All these years later and all I can do is still just look at it and wish I could be on it.

Why couldn't it have been the other B&M right next to it that was out of commission?

However, a childhood fantasy of mine was still about to play out. Since it opened, I had wanted to ride Kingda Ka. I liked the colors and how it looked going over that airtime hill back when I was still a kid playing RCT2. I remember the year it opened watching a Travel Channel documentary on it as my parents stared at our old school cathode tube TV white in the face at this crazy machine they were seeing, as I sat over there thinking it looked like one of the most insane things ever built. And I was about to be on it. I was about to be those two guys finishing the ride and fist-bumping on that Travel Channel documentary.

At that point, I was liking it more than Dragster due to the theming. I liked how it was actually really well themed, despite Impractical Jokers ad wrap on one of the trains and the banners in the station. However, operations accounting for Zumanjaro were ridiculous. Hey Six Flags, next time get permission to run them both at the same time before advertising it as such?

Sadly, this took another bite out of my childhood. I think this ride is the perfect testament to how powerful kinetic energy really can be and how it needs to be controlled well if you're going to employ a lot of it. Was it intense? God yeah! That launch slammed me back into my seat, despite it not even holding a candle to Dragster's. The problem was the rattling. On its own, I could actually deal with it. However, when a ride is rattling that much going 100+ miles an hour and your ears are popping up high, it really just kind of shatters the whole experience of what would otherwise be a great coaster. Not to mention the twist up jerked the train so hard the pointless OTSR practically karate chopped my impingement syndrome-ridden shoulder. The shoddy maintenance of the trains and rattle just killed for me a ride I really wanted to like. And I really, really wanted to like this one. It's Kyle's number two steel, he marathons it, he was raving to us about how awesome it was, but to me I just couldn't like it. When you're forty stories in the air getting your shoulders bashed in a horse collar with your ears about to bust their eardrums it's physically impossible to be happy. I got off the ride seeing stars and forced Emily to rub my tender rotator cuff after that blow on the way up.

After feeling like the trains were about to be rattled apart to pieces, I thought Ka had to be the least safe thing in the park. Turns out I was dead wrong. As Emily says, Canadians are so nice because all their aggression goes to the Canada Geese. Honk.

The guys wanted to do Zumanjaro, or as I call it, ZumanjarNO. So we sat that one out.

I noticed that this hood to keep loose articles from flying out of Ka and striking someone on the Zumanjaro platform seemed a bit over engineered. Something I thought should be able to be done with that normal net mesh they hang around coasters was done with heavy steel mesh mounted on thick iron bars. Anybody know why the hardy safety hood? I don't have my degree yet but I doubt it needs to be that excessive...

Came myself over El Toro on the way back.

You are beautiful.

Back at home, us Kings Islanders have a tradition of offering out of towners the opportunity to get the Son of Beast cred by sitting in a shopping cart while we roll them out and back from that two-foot section of track that sticks out from the disused station. Looks like Great Adventure could do that with two creds here!

After that we went for the latest and greatest from S&S, The Joker!

The Joker features a spot of theming up front and anything from there back is just parking lot.

What theming that's there isn't that great. Honestly, kind of disappointing considering Six Flags usually puts at least some effort in their DC rides.

The colors are pretty, I'll admit.

The station is literally a piece of metal over concrete. Literally no theming in this station.

Joker selfie!

In the tradition of my never coming across an S&S I disliked, I really liked Joker! The lift freaked Emily out but I really did like it! Pretty violent flipping on the green side, comfortable seats and restraints (a first from S&S to me), glass smooth, and really freaky. Definitely better than Green Lantern at Tragic Mountain, I'd love to see Six Flags install more of these.

Standing under it is actually really cool, it looks pretty imposing yet wacky looming over you, it's the perfect coaster to be themed after one of the most twisted comic book villains ever.

I only wish the colors were reversed, that purple is lovely.

Fun fact: The purple side is way tamer than green, and it was mechanically intended so. If you look at some of these pictues, you'll see little metal fins sticking out of each rail. These fins spin the train, and there are way fewer on purple than there are on green. Six Flags doesn't advertise this, but multiple rides on this confirmed it to me.

Chris and John doing their thing!

They loved it!

Got no pics of the actual coaster, but we did newly rebranded Harley Quinn Crazy Train next. This will have to do for a picture. It was just another one of those Zierer family coasters with a stupidly long train, but that's not to say those aren't enjoyable. I got a kick out of it.

Tip: Careful with the restraint on this one. If it flips you forward on a valley and you're a guy, you will never have children. After this I made a statement that prompted Emily, John, Chris, and Kyle to clarify to me where babies came from. Not getting into specifics but I was extremely surprised what I found out, and I can now tell people I was given "the talk" at Six Flags!

We went over to the other side of the park and BAM!!! Rain's coming in, everything goes down!

With rain coming in, we all went to Six Flags's take on a Disney-style attraction, Houdini's Great Escape! I had never done a Vekoma Madhouse before but I kind of knew what they did. Meanwhile, Emily had never even heard of the ride type, so we all agreed on a "don't ask don't tell" policy on this one. If you know something about it, keep it to yourself until after the ride.

(And I literally just noticed the dude feeding another dude a tootsie pop in the bottom of the picture...)

Well that was quite freaky! My inner ear could tell exactly what was going on, but it really fooled my mind! I could never tell exactly how far forward or back we were pitched on this ride. Meanwhile, Emily was actually scared when we got into the ride and she saw pews with lap bars, thinking it was a type of show. Really liked it, though. Good mindless entertainment.

We went back over to the other side of the park and waited on Bizarro to open, considering it was the last cred we needed.

Everybody got a snack at the Western restaurant over by Mine Train and we all got a good laugh out of this. Though in their defense, if I had to find this sign and believe it at a Six Flags park, it would be at this one.

It was about two hours we had to camp out on the water waiting on that last cred of the trip to open back up.

We walked up to this and the first thing I see of this Superman-themed ride is this...wagon?

Literally the most random theming I've ever seen in my life. I know this was called Medusa at one point, okay. But where did this mining/western theme come in? Pretty certain Six Flags just had a few props sitting around and wanted to shoehorn them in somewhere.

Cool little board filling us in on the Bizarro character.

This floorless always left me really skeptical. I hear it's one of the best, but Scream, the worst B&M I've been on, was cloned from this. Therefore, it's like Scream but older. I was prepared for the worst, however, this one wasn't as bad. That isn't to say I didn't get my head whacked a few times, but it's not the dumpster fire in a parking lot Scream is. On the ride, the theming was actually kind of cheesy and fab, none of that weird Medusa Mining Company crap. I think Dark Knight was the better of the two on this trip, but this isn't a bad ride. Fairly generic, but not bad.

Park cleaned out! Let's get some El Toro action!

Sadly, this dropped El Toro in my rankings. We did it twice. The first time, I sat on a wheel and it really drilled some nasty vibrations into my spine at the bottom of the ride's fabulous turnaround. Second time I sat in the back and got stapled and the restraint tried to sucker punch me in the gut multiple times throughout the ride. I walked off feeling very disappointed by this.

Decided to head back over and give Nitro one more shot. This was its last chance to impress. We rode in the back, during a beautiful sunset, the tracks were nice and wet, and it had been warmed up. If it was going to give us anything good, it was going to give us something good on that ride. And it didn't. Sorry, but Nitro just didn't live up to the hype for me. It remains my worst hyper, it barely managed to keep us out of our seats over the entire hills except for on those pops at the end. Sorry Nitro, my girlfriend was right about you. You're a deadbeat.

Beautiful shot of two pretty useless B&Ms.

Joker against a sunset coming back over <3

This ride on the Skyride was beautiful, and getting to share it with Emily was outright special.

I knew the front side of the park would be special at night considering how pretty it is.

There's something about sunsets at parks that just makes them always gorgeous.

I got that itch to get pictures of the trademark lake shot and held the whole group up. And I ain't sorry. <3

The lack of wind really allowed me to play with reflection in water, something I hardly get to do.

I'd ask someone to photoshop the gondola out of this otherwise great shot, but then I'd get things like explosions and flying augmented reality Pokemon and Donald Trump's wall paid for by Mexico blocking it out instead of just clear sky. Luckily I'm okay with clone stamp.

Only thing I hate about wooden coasters from a photography standpoint is that it's impossible to get the train doing something sweet most of the time.

This is one of the best opportunities for photos I think I've ever had at a park.

Getting artsy!

This guy decided to come over and terrorize my friends as I held them up.

Such dirty pictures of El Toro <3 <3 <3

Those Skyride cables are a **** to photograph around.

You kind of have to choose between a stray cable in your shot, Ka looking too tiny from the angle out of the way, or having to completely clip Ka out and it looking weird.

God I wish I had taken my dad's Nikon with me when I was here...

Took advantage of the pretty sky and vantage point to snap this awesome selfie!

...I thought it was spelled "kebab?" :?

We went back to that pretty Mexican area to finish out the night on Toro!

We grabbed a spin on the Larson Loop next for the lulz. I always knew I was going to hell.

Well the ride was actually mildly entertaining, even though there was nothing about it that felt even remotely like a coaster. But wait? It's called El Diablo: LOOPING COASTER. Well on the ride, I saw the ride op touching something in time with the ride's motions, and when I got back down, I noticed she was actually touching this! A joystick! It's called a coaster yet it's controlled with a joystick? Suspicious! But wait, it gets worse...

There are Six Flags. As in, 666 Flags. And the ride's theme is a clear reference to the devil worship done by a secret society somewhere. And these are taking over the industry, almost like a New World Order...

ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED BY LARSON LOOP. WAKE UP AMERICA.

After accepting that I was going to be beheaded in a FEMA camp and buried in one of those plastic coffins the government is buying, we decided to ride a coaster that actually coasted instead of being controlled by a joystick.

We got a ride in that rivaled Voyage in my count, making me consider bumping it back up.

Seriously, this thing at night is phenomenal! You can't quite tell where the hills begin and end and shooting up and over the park all lit up like that is incredible! Took Voyage right out after two more of these at night!

Going back for more, the ride went down! Can we fix it?

Looking cute with my honey waiting on it to reopen!

Maintenance came pretty quickly to transfer the offending train off and bring it down to one train, luckily the ride wasn't packed. We overheard maintenance talking, it was something with the anti-rollbacks that went wrong.

Chris left to drive back to Hershey so that left all of us for the last ride of the night!

Last ride of the night!

Afterwards we got a few souvenirs and left the park. We stopped at a Wawa for food and sat around talking about our feelings for a bit before Emily and I went back to the hotel to rest up for the nine-hour drive ahead of us the next day.

UP NEXT: Jarrett's new gooniform, the drive back, Crabby Joe's, and trip recap!

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

SFGAdv seems like such a nice park for Six Flags. El Toro looks fab, and am looking forward to see more Freespins. Sucks you missed Green Lantern, hope you can go back and get it!

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[tomahawk]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

You know you sound really hypocritical complaining about Batman clone intensity and then marathoning Skyrush and saying it's not bad after your legs go numb.

I need El Toro in my life.

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[Bat Fastard]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

It's a shame to hear that about Nitro.... I always thought it looked like one of the stronger and better B&M hypers.

And yes, what Tom said. I need El Toro in my life.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

Nice report with a great line-up of coasters. Does this mean you've pretty much done the US?

 

[Hutch]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

^Nah, there's plenty left for him to do.

Glad you loved Wicked Cyclone, it's nice to see that RMC is treating you well.

We seem to have opposite opinions about Boulder Dash and Voyage. Voyage beat me up a little bit while I found Boulder Dash much more enjoyable. Boulder Dash is the perfect length imo and uses the terrain a lot better. Voyage just gets absurds and becomes a bit much after a bit. Both are still very good rides though. (But you're still right about Skyrush being the best!)

Your Great Adventure report reminded of my El Toro spite... but I rolled my eyes when I saw you were sad to miss out on Green Lantern. Oh boo hoo.

And I'm sure what you're talking about with Nitro. That had lots of airtime!

Good read though, fun to see you check out some of my local parks.

 

[Jarrett]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

SFGAdv seems like such a nice park for Six Flags. El Toro looks fab, and am looking forward to see more Freespins. Sucks you missed Green Lantern, hope you can go back and get it!

Sent from my VS820 using Tapatalk

Hopefully, luckily I'll be in range if Emily forces me back to Hershey next year.

You know you sound really hypocritical complaining about Batman clone intensity and then marathoning Skyrush and saying it's not bad after your legs go numb.

I need El Toro in my life.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

It's a different sensation altogether though. Skyrush the issue isn't the force itself, it's the device used to work against it, and I can easily get used to that after about a hundred laps. Batman on the other hand exerts way more force in a different direction and I just find that amount of force pulling all the blood to my feet to be painful. But hey, at least I can actually fit on them! Such a shame you'll never ride Toro for that reason...

It's a shame to hear that about Nitro.... I always thought it looked like one of the stronger and better B&M hypers.

And yes, what Tom said. I need El Toro in my life.

Lol no, it felt so weak and failed to actually get me any substantial airtime. But yes, you need Toro in your life.

Nice report with a great line-up of coasters. Does this mean you've pretty much done the US?

Thanks! This knocks out almost all of the major US stuff to do but not all of it. The Mid-Atlantic still has a few things I need, Great America (and frankly the rest of the Lake Michigan region) I need, I still need two of the three Missouri parks, and the last major region I still need to clean out is Texas. Hoping to do Mid-Atlantic in 2017 and Texas in 2018 though.

^Nah, there's plenty left for him to do.

Glad you loved Wicked Cyclone, it's nice to see that RMC is treating you well.

We seem to have opposite opinions about Boulder Dash and Voyage. Voyage beat me up a little bit while I found Boulder Dash much more enjoyable. Boulder Dash is the perfect length imo and uses the terrain a lot better. Voyage just gets absurds and becomes a bit much after a bit. Both are still very good rides though. (But you're still right about Skyrush being the best!)

Your Great Adventure report reminded of my El Toro spite... but I rolled my eyes when I saw you were sad to miss out on Green Lantern. Oh boo hoo.

And I'm sure what you're talking about with Nitro. That had lots of airtime!

Good read though, fun to see you check out some of my local parks.

Yeah, I still have stuff to do but only two, maybe three major trips can be made out of it. Once I have Lake Michigan, Texas, and the last of the Mid-Atlantic, I think it'd be safe to say I've done virtually all of the US. Still need 2/3 in Missouri and Minnesota after what I mentioned but that's not really major.

Yes, Wicked Cyclone was absolutely amazing, plain and simple. Glass smooth, wonderful aggression and rhythm, packed with airtime, add in a theme I could get behind and you had a winner. Had it been a tad more extreme and/or kept its power all the way to the brake run it would have taken Skyrush out.

I find Voyage to be awesome simply because of how ridiculous it is. It takes a while for the ride to really start to bite but once it really gets going it's incredible. Might also have something to do with the fact that I live in the same region as Beast and Voyage but I do feel a terrain coaster like that should be way longer. Boulder Dash was good in the right seat, don't get me wrong, but I can't forgive what it did to my back on that first ride so easily.

Yeah, it sucked I missed it but hey, I'll take a Green Lantern spite over an El Toro spite.

Glad you enjoyed! Should've tried to meet up!

-x-

Days 4 & 5

Emily and I woke up and drove back to London on pretty good time. Only interesting thing we did was go to Wawa and almost stopped at Dorney so I could use my meal plan. Once we got back we went out to Crabby Joe's with Emily and her friends for appetizers and went back to the hotel. On my last day there I ran her home, said a really hard goodbye, and hit the road.

And got pulled over for merging too close to a truck.

Despite the boring commute back, we had a wonderful time and New England 2016 was a blast! Also got some cool stuff!

Love this Wicked Cyclone shirt!

Wasn't going to get this one but Emily talked me into it and I must say I'm glad to have it.

Em and Chris threw some massive shade at me for buying this one after calling this ride every name in the book and calling it terrible, but I did come around after riding it in another seat. Still don't think it deserves the title on this shirt but hey, it looks cool.

Thought this was a cool one to own too. Ten years in it's still an awesome coaster, and this shirt commemorates it. Didn't have the douchebaggery in me to buy the El Frickin' Toro one.

Also walked away with a Bizarro keychain and snowglobe from clearance, Boulder Dash keychain, Kingda Ka shot glass, and Joker mug.

Thanks for reading! Keep an eye on my stuff, the creds from my big trip this year might be bagged but I still have more to get!

 

[Hixee]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

It's a different sensation altogether though. Skyrush the issue isn't the force itself, it's the device used to work against it, and I can easily get used to that after about a hundred laps. Batman on the other hand exerts way more force in a different direction and I just find that amount of force pulling all the blood to my feet to be painful.

The idea that you need more than a hundred laps on Skyrush to understand how to really enjoy it is just absurd. And frankly a nonsense. :lol:

But hey, at least I can actually fit on them! Such a shame you'll never ride Toro for that reason...

I think that's either an atrocious joke, or a very spiteful thing to say. Real classy Jarrett...

Yeah, I still have stuff to do but only two, maybe three major trips can be made out of it. Once I have Lake Michigan, Texas, and the last of the Mid-Atlantic, I think it'd be safe to say I've done virtually all of the US. Still need 2/3 in Missouri and Minnesota after what I mentioned but that's not really major.

That's still quite a lot. :lol:

I find Voyage to be awesome simply because of how ridiculous it is. It takes a while for the ride to really start to bite but once it really gets going it's incredible. Might also have something to do with the fact that I live in the same region as Beast and Voyage but I do feel a terrain coaster like that should be way longer. Boulder Dash was good in the right seat, don't get me wrong, but I can't forgive what it did to my back on that first ride so easily.

I agree. Sort of.

Voyage is an interesting one for me. It's massive, fast, intense and long, but by the time the coaster hits the brake run I'm almost exhausted. It's almost too much. I do love it, it's easily one of the best woodies in the world, but it's hard work.

And got pulled over for merging too close to a truck.

This definitely makes me think you're the problem in traffic.

This has been a good report to read. I'm sure in a few years I'll come back to the New England area and do something similar, and seeing all these new additions, as well as the chance to get back to Boulder Dash will be great! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Ben]

Re: #NE2k16://Lost Land of the Bad B&Ms (Day 3)

But hey, at least I can actually fit on them! Such a shame you'll never ride Toro for that reason...

I think that's either an atrocious joke, or a very spiteful thing to say. Real classy Jarrett...

That's really rude. Especially given that you're one cheeseburger away from getting spited yourself, and hey, at least Tom's still gotten laid in his life.