Hops & Drops 🍻🎢 USA East Coast Road Trip - August 2024

[Burbs]

Today we have returned from a thoroughly fantastic frolic across the east coast - and beyond - of the US, visiting 10 different big-hitter parks (some bigger than others) for a major summer holiday this year! This particular jaunt involved regular forum and meet-up members @AstroDan, @Alsty, @John @Rob, @Ancient and myself doing a round-tour road trip from Philadelphia over 2 weeks. The plan was as follows:

Day 0: Travel to Heathrow {LHR}
Day 1: Fly to Philadelphia {PHL} via Dublin {DUB}
Day 2: Dorney Park (Pennsylvania)
Day 3: Hersheypark (Pennsylvania)
Day 4: Kennywood (Pennsylvania)
Day 5+6: Cedar Point (Ohio)
Day 7: Brewdog New Albany and Columbus Dogtap (Ohio)
Day 8: Kings Island (Ohio)
Day 9+10: Dollywood (Tennessee)
Day 11: Carowinds (North and South Carolina)
Day 12+13: Busch Gardens Williamsburg (Virginia)
Day 14: Kings Dominion (Virginia)
Day 15: Six Flags Great Adventure (New Jersey)
Day 16: Fly to London via Dublin

Quite hardcore I'm sure you'll agree, and a lot to pack in. This was the "less intense" version of the trip, and given how tired I am right now trying to write this report (partly to try and overcome the jet lag by staying up as late as possible), I'm kinda glad we didn't add any other parks on like Sesame Place. All of the parks were brand new to myself, Alex and Gaz, which made the trip even more exciting, whereas Rob had visited 7 of the 10 before, and for the veterans Dan and John, it was a case of mopping up anything new while enjoying the rest of what was on offer.

Day 0+1

In order to reduce costs, it was decided that we'd make use of connecting flights in Dublin to get us to the States. We booked the whole journey with Aer Lingus, although the DUB-PHL part was operated by American Airlines. The added benefit of flying from Dublin is that TSA Pre-Clearance is a thing, which means that you don't have to queue for potentially ages at your destination to get into the country; it effectively acts as a domestic flight. We headed down on the Friday night and stayed in the Hilton Garden Inn at Hatton Cross which isn't too expensive and is walkable from a nearby pub (The Green Man), meaning you're not tied to hotel restaurants and bars. Not the cheapest option around (that honour probably goes to T4 Premier Inn?), but it's a lovely hotel you can guarantee a good night's kip in.

Our flight out of LHR was slightly delayed but this was no issue as we had lots of time at DUB before our connecting flight, which ended up with a delayed take off anyway! Pre-Clearance was easy enough, although always slightly more tense than most other border controls, and both outbound flights were perfectly comfortable. However, when we landed at PHL, there was some weather rolling in, which resulted in us sitting on the tarmac waiting for a gate for over 2.5 hours. By this point our plans for the evening were scuppered due to how late it was (drinks at Foundry Pub and Beerhall, then a meal at BJ's Brewhouse), so we ended up just picking up the hire car and driving straight to the hotel, calling it quits for the night. Our hire car was more like a bus - a 7-seater GMC Yukon. Mostly very comfortable, extremely reliable and it served us well for the duration of our holiday.

The first hotel of the trip was a Motel 6 in Allentown, just a short drive away from Dorney Park. A mixture of budget-friendly and more lavish accommodation options had been booked, in order to keep the average cost per-person-per-night down while providing us with better nights where required.

I will endeavour to update this thread as regularly as possible with my views of each park and the rides within.

 

[Burbs]

Day 2

After our first night at Motel 6 and having not had anything to eat the night before, we headed to the diner Perkins between the hotel and our first theme park of the trip. Originally we were to be having something a bit lighter, but a more filling breakfast was certainly needed! Plenty of options, and options for your options (ready for the follow-up questions?) to satisfy all needs - I ended up having eggs, bacon and pancakes for $7.

As already outlined, our first park was to be Dorney Park! This is certainly a third-tier Cedar Fair park and clearly doesn't get anywhere near the gate figures of other amusement parks in the region, such as the behemoths of Hersheypark, Six Flags Great Adventure and Sesame Place. There was a bit of stress beforehand with forecasted thunderstorms throughout the day, but these didn't materialise and the weather was glorious! A mixture of the popularity of the place generally and weather forecast clearly put off the crowds, as every ride was pretty much walk-on all day, besides in the evening when Iron Menace had a 5-minute wait, and the Wild Mouse with a 20-30 minute wait all day. That being said, the water park which is included in park entry and effectively just an area of the main park, seemed rather busy with notable queues on all of the slide towers.


DP Main Entrance

Seeing as we'd be visiting 5 Cedar Fair parks across 6 days in total, we bought into season passes which gained us effectively 1 free day. With these passes though, we were also able to add on All Season Dining and All Season Drinks cups, meaning that we wouldn't have to consider the costs of food and soft drinks at any CF park. These deals enabled us unlimited soft drinks from fountain machines (including Coke Freestyle where available) with a 15-minute cool-down period, and 2 meals per day (a main and side). The vast majority of meal options were available but excluded anything particularly high-end, which at Dorney only consisted of their newest eatery Iron Mill Grill and Bar. I believe the separate All Day Dining includes a main meal and side every 90 minutes. The relatively low price of these add-ons meant we very quickly broke even on the deal, in fact with the drinks I think we may have got our money's worth at Dorney alone!

I quite liked the park itself although the lack of crowds definitely helped that. There were some really pretty areas and more greenery than initially meets the eye. There's only 8 coasters up for grabs at Dorney Park (small fry for the US) and nothing that's going to shatter anyone's top-10 necessarily, but it was a great park to ease us into such a hardcore trip. They had a Summer Nights event on during our visit with various small stages and acts, as well as unique food options which took over some of the park's main street outlets.


Hydra

The Rides

• Hydra the Revenge x2 - Really smooth, albeit "lolliger" small B&M floorless, which is quite unique and nicely presented within a small valley. On the front row it's really cool seeing down the first drop into the perfectly straight heartline roll from the station.
• Iron Menace x2 - A disappointing B&M dive coaster with a questionable 7-across seating arrangement. It's good fun at night and not as rough as we were expecting, although the jolt right at the end of the layout is just plain bizarre. Not their finest work I must say.
• Possessed x2 - Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to ever ride Wicked Twister at Cedar Point, but this just about makes up for it! Really great swing launches and a true sense of speed.
• Steel Force x3 - Wow! Not the greatest coaster in the world but it's long, smooth, packs a load of air time, it's fast and the helix at the extremity of the layout is rather intense. Undoubtedly my favourite ride in the park.
• Talon x2 - A fairly tame B&M invert but it certainly warms up throughout the day, showing some forces at night that it hides away in the morning. I wasn't exactly gripping on in fear though, so just as well they officially changed the name.
• Thunderhawk x2 - The first old-school woodie of the trip, this one celebrating its 100th anniversary! It's surprisingly smooth and pretty intense in places, although it is quite short. Good fun all round.
• Wild Mouse x1 - Maurer Wild Mouse. Nothing to write home about particularly.
• Woodstock Express x1 - Zamperla Family Coaster with single-helix. These seem to be at loads of parks in the US, all of which were worth it only for the +1.
• Cedar Creek Cannonball x1 - One of two miniature railways at Dorney, which goes around the rapids and water park. Both act solely as an observation ride as they only have 1 station each.
• Dominator (Drop) x1 - S&S Drop Tower, standard stuff.
• Dominator (Shot) x1 - S&S Shot Tower... standard stuff! There is a 3rd tower too which doesn't have a ride vehicle on it, but all 3 towers are connected at the top which I guess is kinda cool.
• Demon Drop x1 - The infamous Intamin 1st Gen Drop Tower! This thing is as terrifying as it is unreliable. We waited several hours for it to open then successfully attempted to get on as quickly as we could. Really glad we managed to as there aren't many of these things around, even if it is sketchy as hell.
• Kaleidoscope x1 - A HUSS Troika, there don't seem to be a great many of these around so always good to do them when they present themselves.
• Whip x1 - Another European rarity, although it's not quite as good as I feel I had lead myself to believe.
• Zephyr x1 - The other miniature-railway, this one goes particularly slowly and the trains are very uncomfortable to sit in. It encircles the south-west section of the park with a highlight on Iron Menace.

Iron Menace by night

After the park we drove back to the hotel for night 2, ahead of a longer drive in the morning to a more anticipated park!

 

[Burbs]

Day 3
We had a relatively short drive on this morning of about 70 miles and just over an hour to Hersheypark. This is where the major coasters were going to start rolling in! I was particularly looking forward to trying out Skyrush after it has been so revered over the years, but also some of the classics I've known about for a long time now like Great Bear and sooperdooperLooper.

We stopped for breakfast at Starbucks (which has a far greater selection than here in the UK) en route, as we deliberately wanted something a bit lighter, since at Hersheypark we had bought into All Day Dining for $40/person. The food at Hershey was pretty good on the whole, most notably the smoke house lunch we had involving a huge brisket sandwich with coleslaw! For an afternoon snack we went to Subway for a salad and then in the evening we ended up with various items including wraps and Philly Cheesesteaks. All pretty good food and I think we just about broke even on the deal.

The entrance of the resort is quite grand! There is a large new entrance building as well as the Hershey Chocolate World experience (think a bigger version of Cadbury World with World Of Disney-esque retail options) which includes a free-to-play dark ride. Hersheypark itself has quite a linear layout making it fairly easy to navigate, although it can take quite a while to get from one end of the park to the other. Candymonium and Skyrush are at the entrance end, then at the other extremity you'll find Wildcat's Revenge, Laff Trakk and Lightning Racer.


Main entrance

The Rides

• Candymonium x1 - The first of many B&M hypers over the holiday, and this one was pretty good! It does have an unfortunate trim towards the end but aside from that I really enjoyed it! With its location being at the entrance of the park, it had a massive wait at the start and end of the day, scuppering our plans for a night ride as we didn't really want to wait an hour when we'd queued for about 10 minutes earlier in the day.
• Comet x1 - I don't remember much about this so it can't have been very good nor particularly bad.
• Fahrenheit x1 - 97 degrees and falling fast! We started the day on this ride and I thought it was rather punchy with an acceptable amount of air time, whilst being all round fairly comfortable.
• Great Bear x1 - Great Bore? I don't think so. This ride seems to get a lot of hate but I enjoyed it for what it was. The forces in the first half are fairly strong and the strange layout adds to the quirkiness of it. It does seem more like a flying coaster mind you. Bonus points for the cursed supports at the end over the river!
• Jolly Rancher Remix x1 - Vekoma Boomerang - standard stuff with new style trains. Unfortunately not as smooth as some but not horrific either.
• Laff Trakk x1 - Turns out this is just a travelling model Maurer spinning coaster. The theming is nice inside the building but the queue moves painfully slowly to the point where I wouldn't entertain waiting for it if the queue was in the outdoor section at all.
• Lightning Racer x2 - Dueling GCI woodies, the "Lightning" side seemed far rougher than the "Thunder" side. Not the greatest example of GCI's work, although with it being their second oldest that's still operating, I'll give it a pass.
• Skyrush x2 - The first proper contender on the trip for a top-10 coaster! This thing is ace and really warms up towards the end of the day - tonnes of ejector airtime and being flung off the lift at the back of the train is insane.
• sooperdooperLooper x1 - Old-school Schwarzkopf, pretty smooth as you'd expect and the tight loop is rather forceful!
• Storm Runner x2 - an RCT classic! I really enjoyed this at the start of the day but at night it had warmed up significantly and surprised me with just how good it was! A childhood dream come true.
• Trailblazer x1 - My first Arrow mine train!!!!!! Utter balls. Boring.
• Wild Mouse x1 - We spent the entire ride in fits of laughter after seeing how good the operations were! No, genuinely. This is a Mack Wilde Maus with a not-exactly-slow rolling station and we flew straight through it without having the car stop. The best operated ride in the park, perhaps.
• Wildcat's Revenge x3 - A mid-tier RMC from the looks of things... but oh boy is this thing deceiving! After a fantastic pre-lift, the layout transitions really well with near-constant air time and 4 awesome inversions. I was not expecting it to be so good, it has gone straight up and remained in my top 5.
• Chocolate Factory Tour x1 - After the park closed at 9pm, the Chocolate World experience remained open until 10pm and this included the dark ride. It gave Journey Into Imagination (Epcot) VIBES and went on for quite a while, taking you through the Hershey chocolate making process (complete with singing cows). There were racks and racks of queue line, which must hold several hours worth if full - fortunately for us it only had a 5 minute wait and we were greeted with free fun-size Hershey chocolate bars at the exit. A delight.

Main entrance

The park wasn't particularly busy, nor were the waits very long on the whole, but there is a LOT to do at Hershey. We had an 11-hour park day and still only got the coasters done when there are a lot of other worth-doing attractions in the park. I'd certainly recommend 2 days at Hersheypark to properly enjoy the place and not feel as time stressed. After our day in the park we drove to our accommodation for the night, which was a Holiday Inn Express about 100 miles up the road and about half way to the next park of the trip.

 

[Rob]

I'm not going to be posting full reports from this trip, but may hijack this thread from time to time to share a few thoughts!

I really enjoyed this visit to Hersheypark, probably more than my previous visit in 2018. The new entrance is fantastic, and vast! The entrance area could do with some more shade, but it really gives the park a much grander feel than before.

Skyrush is still brilliant, but maybe not quite as good as I remembered it being. I'd forgotten how much it warms up throughout the day, doing it late on is essential. As I said the in the top 10 thread, Wildcat's Revenge was a real surprise, it looks mid-tier RMC but it is absolutely top tier; unrelenting fun, airtime, and quite punishing! Storm Runner remains one of the most underrated coasters in the world.

There is just so much to do at Hershey, loads of F&B options, and an all round nice atmosphere. I wholly recommend this park!

 

[Burbs]

Day 4

The Holiday Inn Express was a bit of a step up from the Motel 6 that we begun the trip with! A complimentary breakfast was included complete with turkey sausage patties and disposable plates and cutlery... because America. The next major park of the trip was to be Cedar Point, but to break up the long journey it would be rude not to stop off at Kennywood! When planning this trip, we didn't know that Steel Curtain was going to be SBNO for the entire season - if we did then perhaps other parks would have been an option instead.

Arriving at the park was a bit of a nightmare, the road signs seem almost non-existent and we took a couple of wrong turns. Even by the time we'd got into the car park it was rather unclear as to where we were meant to park up! The main entrance is a bit weird too, as the turnstiles are on one side of a dual carriageway with the park being on the other, so you have to go through an underpass... it's like arriving at a Planet Coaster park coming out of the tunnel!


Main entrance

The park itself is actually really nice and a bit like Blackpool Pleasure Beach if it hadn't lost its way in the 90s, although I hadn't realised quite how large Steel Curtain is and with it being sat there as a monument slap bang in the middle of the park, it is a rather awkward sight. Seeing as we wanted to make it to Sandusky in good time, we had decided we'd need to be leaving Kennywood by around 4pm, so we'd bought into Speedy Pass to ensure that we got on everything. The park wasn't particularly busy but the throughput on most of the rides isn't that great, so it was a good job we had it, especially as Exterminator seemed to have a 45-60 minute wait and a nearby thunderstorm closed all the rides at about 3.30pm. Without it we'd not have got on all the coasters, so very much worth it in hindsight!


Exterminator

The Rides

• Exterminator x2 - Undoubtedly the best Reverchon Spinner I've ever been on! I always think these are better indoors (Ice Mountain for example) but with more hardcore theming and elongated sections of complete darkness, it's a brilliantly out-of-control experience. Unfortunately it's hindered by its throughput as only 2 adults can ride together in any 1 car, and as a result the main queue was massive.
• Jack Rabbit x1 - The oldest operating roller coaster in America and it still rides really nicely! It has a unique (or so I thought) layout of a large drop straight out of the station and then having its lift hill half way through the ride. Would have loved to ride this again but time didn't allow.
• Lil' Phantom x1 - A shameful cred-grab.
• Phantom's Revenge x1 - I wasn't expecting a great deal from this but my word did it deliver! Incredibly smooth, the second drop is incredible and there's some serious ejector airtime towards the end, which is quite disconcerting when you've only got a Morgan lap bar...
• Racer x1 - A rare Mobius layout duelling woodie. I don't remember a great deal about this particular ride.
• Sky Rocket x1 - The first Premier Sky Rocket, and it's actually not that bad! It has some quite jarring airtime scattered throughout the layout.
• Thunderbolt x2 - This feels like Jack Rabbit on steroids. A much larger ride but still with a big drop straight out of the station. Surprisingly smooth and intense in places, it also has more layout after its lift hill, unlike Jack Rabbit. It won the "King of the Coasters" award by the New York Times in 1974 and I can totally believe that. Still holds up today and is possibly my favourite "classic" woodie.
• Noah's Ark x1 - Immediate nostalgia of BPB, although this version seems to be slightly smaller and with fewer fun house elements. It is more of a themed walk-through.
• Old Mill x1 - We were so looking forward to a charming classic dark ride. Unfortunately it seems to have been recently rethemed and now just feels a bit soulless. Got any Barbara Cartland?
• Turtle x1 - Another classic ride which is certainly worth doing if the queue isn't too long. It won't change your life but these things need to be supported IMO!
• Black Widow x1 - My first Zamperla Giant Discovery! After much faffing about with restraints and narrowly avoiding a rain shower, the ride was great fun and really quite forceful. Not quite as good as the Intamin variant mind you. As @John put it, it is made by an Italian company with "passion and flair, but not necessarily good engineering."

Phantom's Revenge

After we left the park, slightly bitter that we didn't get another chance to ride Phantom's Revenge, we drove through the storm that prematurely ended our day and headed on to a rather windy Cedar Point, via Wendy's for food and Walmart for beer!

 

[Burbs]

Day 5+6

Cedar Point was naturally going to be the most anticipated park in the trip, and we'd elected to stay on site at Hotel Breakers for 3 nights, purely for the convenience of being so close to the park. We had Cedar Fair annual passes which would have gained us free parking and early entry anyway, which are also included with a hotel stay, but the close proximity to the park was very useful. It meant that we could split up if we wanted to and head back to the hotel at different times, rather than waiting for everyone to be ready to drive off.

I wasn't a big fan of the hotel - it didn't feel like it had much character, despite being nearly 120 years old, and all the restaurants and cafes inside it were chains, like Starbucks and Perkins. It also seemed to take an age to check in, and once we did, the room for 6 didn't have the sofa bed made up and there was no soap in the bathroom - the latter of which we even got in the sketchiest hotel on the trip, so CP have no excuse. The sofa bed was also collapsing in the middle and had to be propped up by @John's small suitcase. For the premium price you pay, you expect the basics to be correct at least. On the positive side, the room was fairly spacious and had a separate sink/wash area to the toilet and shower, allowing for efficient bathroom usage! We also had a nice view over the lake and, if you craned your neck enough, Magnum XL-200 on the left-hand side.

The first day at CP unfortunately saw some adverse weather conditions, with wind speeds reaching 25+mph a number of attractions were closed throughout the day. That being said, far less were closed than I expected (Magnum, Raptor, Rougarou, maybe a couple of others?), with some of the particularly tall rides like Valravn, Steel Vengeance and Millennium Force continuing to operate all day. This wasn't a huge issue though, as we had pre-booked FastLane Plus for our second day on park, and there's so much to get done there anyway that it would be nigh-on impossible to do everything in 1 day.


Hotel-side entrance

The park itself is absolutely huge. It's very long too, so it feels like it takes forever to get from one end of the park to the other, more so than Hersheypark. There's a rather lovely western-themed area which takes over a good third of the park, however the rest of it is a fairly generic midway, not exactly sparking joy. I was lead to believe that the operations at CP were really good, but this didn't seem like it was the case apart from on a couple of rides like Steel Vengeance and Maverick, where the staff were doing their damnedest to get trains out.

On day 2, as mentioned, we had FastLane Plus which we'd forked out an absolute fortune for. Seeing the cost, you'd think it would price a lot of people out, but apparently that's far from the truth as it feels extremely oversubscribed to. You certainly expect a more premium service for what you pay for, as after tax it was around $180 per person for us for one day. For that you expect to be walking onto rides with no more than a couple of minutes wait, but what are you greeted with? 20 minute FL queues for Millennium Force. 30 minute FL queues for Steel Vengeance. 45 minute FL queues for Maverick. Granted, there are some rides which are far better managed (pretty much all the B&Ms actually), but these seem few and far between. We even had to queue 20 minutes in the morning to collect our wristbands from the hotel shop - FL at Cedar Fair, specifically CP, needs a thorough overhaul.


Corkscrew

The Rides - Day 1

• Cedar Creek Mine Ride x2 - Tactically doing this on the non-FastLane day as it doesn't have FL access. The layout is really odd and a bit wild mouse-esque at points, it's also really janky and the common lap bar across 3 rows is very much a sign of the times. Quite good fun at night.
• Corkscrew x1 - Wish we hadn't queued for this (it looked about 20 minutes but ended up being 60) and was somewhat unpleasant to ride. 1 and done.
• Gemini (Red) x1 - Great fun as we managed to split the group across both sides of the ride. It feels old-school and a bit rickety but it was extremely enjoyable nonetheless.
• Iron Dragon x1 - Draggin' Iron more like. It doesn't even have a single good moment. Another tactical move considering it's also not on FL. Fortunately this wasn't the last Arrow Suspended Coaster of the trip and the next one we'd do would be infinitely better.
• Maverick x1 - My first ride on this was front row, at night, not knowing the layout. My word. I was left speechless, this was the most exhilarating ride of my life. How is it so smooth? It was built a year after RITA for god's sake! A fluke? Perhaps. It's unrelenting whilst being extremely comfortable - I could happily sit on it for several rerides. POVs don't do this ride justice and I can see why it's so praised within the theme park community. Insane.
• Millennium Force x1 - An iconic ride, the speed is truly excellent and really warms up towards the end of the day. It is a bit lacking in airtime but I appreciate that's not what the ride is about.
• Steel Vengeance x1 - The best coaster in the world? I didn't think so, at least not on a first ride in a seat in the middle of the train. It's exceptionally good and flows beautifully, with intense airtime and a punishing ending. World class. On day 2 I rode towards the back, at night gone 10pm and it was next level - I conceded and it went straight to my top spot. RMC's finest.
• Valravn x1 - Having heard poor reviews I didn't go in with many expectations, but you know what, it's really not that bad! The scale is impressive and isn't the worst dive coaster on the trip, so that's something at least!
• Wild Mouse x1 - A nice variant on a classic spinning mouse, with more interesting transitions and banked corners. Filling a car with 4 adults (shock horror) we managed to get a decent spin going too! Certainly worth doing if you're visiting and the queue's not too long.
• Woodstock Express x1 - This is a very standard Vekoma Junior Coaster albeit with less theming than literally any other one I've done. Yay go Cedar Fair.
• Calypso x1 - Genuinely quite intense, this Mack flat ride is a bit like a Twister but on a rake. Particular shout out to the poor ride op who was running the whole thing on his own, sprinting between all the cars to check restraints like it's nobody's business!
• Cedar Downs Racing Derby x1 - A less good version of Derby Racer at Blackpool.
• Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad x1 - A miniature railway with show scenes throughout the ride - this certainly acts more as an observation ride than transportation, as is the case for most of these in the States, but the scenes are good fun and the closest thing you get to a dark ride in this place.
• Skyhawk x1 - A massive S&S Screamin' Swing which reaches some great heights!

Maverick

The Rides - Day 2

• Blue Streak x1 - This classic woodie I recall being quite smooth, but don't remember much else.
• Gatekeeper x2 - One of the closed rides on day 1, this is another modern classic well worth riding. B&M Wing Coasters don't do a great deal for me personally, but the sheer size of this one really adds to it, along with the keyhole near-miss elements.
• Gemini (Blue) x1 - No different to the other side.
• Magnum XL-200 x2 - And I can see why this is so revered too! Big One who? It's smooth and delivers seemingly endless moments of seriously jarring airtime at the end of the layout. Excellent stuff.
• Maverick x2
• Millennium Force x2
• Raptor x2 - Despite being one of the biggest inverts, it is dwarfed by the other rides around it. Even so, it's a top-class B&M and sits up there with Nemesis and Montu for me.
• Rougarou x2 - Gotta love a floorless on the front row! This appears to be one of the less popular coasters as it didn't seem to every generate much of a queue. Completely inoffensive although it's a bit "lolliger" at the end.
• Steel Vengeance x2
• Valravn x1
• Cadillac Cars x1 - Petrol-powered oldtimers!
• Power Tower (Shot) x1 - This must be one of the tallest shot towers? Great for some views over the Erie, the park and Sandusky.
• Skyhawk x1
• Windseeker x1 - Instant Regret: The Ride. Horrible thing. I thought this would be a bit nicer than a Star Flyer since you're not held on by chains, but nope. Not doing one of those again! Fortunately the ride cycle was quite short, even if it did go 300ft in the air.

Steel Vengeance by night

We finished our time at Cedar Point with a night ride on Steel Vengeance (well, half the group did, the other half thought they had time for another one on Maverick...) and a final night at Breakers.

 

[Burbs]

Day 7

After 5 action-packed theme park days, it was time for a well-earned rest. With Rob and Dan in tow, this was naturally going to include visiting a Brewdog if there happened to be one nearby, and as luck would have it, there were 2 in Ohio almost equidistant between Cedar Point and Kings Island... how convenient! Given the prices of beer in the parks (sometimes up to $18/pint after tax), I was expecting the worst, but greeted with prices no worse than what you'd expect to pay in London whilst the beer is generally a higher ABV than the UK equivalent. Winner winner!

We stopped for lunch and drinks at Brewdog New Albany, then pressed on to Dogtap Columbus, complete with the Doghouse hotel where we'd be staying for the night. The hotel felt exclusive: there must have not been more than 20 rooms in total and the rooms were really nice, with gorgeous bathrooms and plenty of unique features... shower beer, anyone? Upon check in we were given a free can of beer and we'd also booked onto what ended up being a private brewery tour which they didn't charge us for and gave us another free can. For dinner we ate in the Dogtap restaurant and finished up the night with playing pinball in the bar area, then table tennis in the hotel lobby, as you do! A grand time was had by all.


Brewdog Columbus brewery tour

Day 8

I'd always had Kings Island in the back of my mind as a poor-man's Cedar Point and a bit like the Thorpe Park of the US. The coasters don't seem as good and from an outsider's perspective there's not a great deal of charm about the place. What I found was almost the exact opposite; naturally the ride lineup isn't as impressive as CP but what's there is actually really decent on the whole. Likewise the park has a bit more about it than CP, with it being slightly easier to navigate and having less areas of soul-crushing unshaded heat traps. The 2 central islands that you have to walk around, featuring Backlot Stunt Coaster and the Diamondback splashdown, are a bit annoying to get around but they provide good visuals. I can really see why people like this park so much.


Kings Island entrance

We were visiting on a Saturday and knew the queues were going to be rather long, so we admitted defeat and bought FastLane as soon as we entered the park. This cost $135 each (£107) which is an awful lot of money to just throw away on a whim, but in hindsight it was absolutely the right decision. The queues were really long all day for pretty much all the major rides and we'd have not got on anywhere near as much as we did without it. I'm not even convinced that we'd have completed the full set of coasters without FL, despite the park being open 10am-10pm.

The biggest issue, as @AstroDan has alluded to in other posts, is the fact that a number of rides (Beast and Orion to note) closed for an extended period of time while the park's night time spectacular took place, however we weren't aware of this until about an hour before when they rolled out the A frames to the ride entrances. This meant having to completely re-evaluate our evening priorities at short notice, which for some of us involved standing in The Beast's queue line for nearly an hour without any movement. Not ideal.


Our reactions to The Beast after dark

The Rides

• Adventure Express x1 - The first half-decent Arrow Mine Train of the trip, but the anticlimactic ending is hilarious. Nicely done overall.
• Backlot Stunt Coaster x1 - An iconic ride, the effects are good and the helix surprisingly intense! Always a fan of a completely dark coaster section too.
• Banshee x2 - It's just not that great is it. There's hardly any forces and it rides more like a flying coaster. The heartline roll at the end is an especially bizarre choice too.
• Diamondback x2 - Not a terrible example of a B&M hyper (there's worse to come) but it's completely overshadowed by its little brother across the park. Not a fan of the staggered anti-social seating either, it just doesn't add anything to the ride experience.
• Flight of Fear x1 - Despite the slow moving queue line (30 minutes wait in the FL queue...), the theming inside the building is more akin to what I'd expect to find somewhere like Movie Park Germany, so kudos for that. The coaster itself is a bit like a more hardcore Rock 'n' Rollercoaster. I'm glad we waited it out at KI since the one at Kings Dominion would turn out to be closed for most of the day.
• Invertigo x1 - My first Vekoma Invertigo after countless Boomerangs and, well, I'm not exactly in a rush to do another one.
• Mystic Timbers x2 - Well, this caught me off guard. Lots of sustained floater and threatening-ejector airtime throughout, along with great elements of speed. Top tier GCI.
• Orion x3 - I wasn't expecting much from this but actually enjoyed it an awful lot. It doesn't feel as short as it first appears, and even when you look at it properly it does go on a fair distance. It's unfortunate that the brake run is so high up though, if it could have been one final airtime hill it would have rounded the ride off brilliantly.
• Snoopy's Soap Box Racers x1 - A very nicely themed Vekoma Family Boomerang.
• The Bat x2 - An Arrow Suspended Coaster that actually has interesting elements to it?! Colour me shocked! Genuinely really enjoyable and it warms up nicely by the end of the day. Why can't Draggin' Iron be anything like this?
• The Beast x2 - To ride The Beast was a real privilege. I went in without really knowing the layout and I was really surprised by how good it was. You really feel like you're travelling out to the back of beyond and that it shouldn't be going at such speeds. The drop after the second lift hill into the tunnel was mildly terrifying too. And to ride it at night was something else entirely - one of the greatest coaster experiences on Earth.
• The Racer (Blue) x1 - It's so smooth, and therefore very rerideable! See what you get when you actually look after your old woodies?
• The Racer (Red) x1 - No discernible difference to the other side.
• Woodstock Express x1 - The first of 3 kiddie woodies. There's a moment that threatens some airtime but it doesn't deliver. I consider this a step up from, and a wooden equivalent of, a Big Apple/Wacky Worm.
• Woodstock's Air Rail x1 - Old-school Vekoma SFC. It rattles and is not very pleasant.
• Drop Tower x1 - Pretty standard Intamin Gyro Drop. Not particularly impactful but still good fun.
• Eiffel Tower x1 - Having known about this for a number of years it was great to finally experience it in person, considering it is the icon of the Kings parks. There's a fair amount of space on top and you can spend as much time up on the observation deck as you please. Great for getting a scale of the park!

Orion from the Eiffel Tower deck

Notwithstanding the problematic end to the day with ride closures, overall we had a great time at KI, and it was one of my favourite days of the while trip! After we left the park, we drove a short distance to another Motel 6 ahead of a long drive the next day down to Tennessee.

 

[Burbs]

Day 9 + 10

After our overnight stay in Kentucky (bonus state!) we had a 4-hour drive down to Pigeon Forge in the Great Smoky Mountains! We'd allotted 2 days at Dollywood, although we knew we weren't going to be arriving until mid afternoon on day 1 (open til 10pm), and leaving late afternoon on day 2 (open til 7pm). Our accommodation for the night was at the new Dollywood HeartSong Resort, which is a beautiful Kronasar-esque hotel just up the road from DreamMore. We had a room for 6 which was much nicer than the suite at Breakers in my opinion. The sofa bed was really comfortable and the double bed huge, as well there being a separate room with a bunk bed.

It was a really nice change of scenery to get to Dollywood, since this was the first proper "theme park" of the holiday - they seem to be few and far between in the USA! The park areas are beautifully themed on the whole, with the new Wildwood Grove area not being dissimilar to the sort of thing you'd expect to find at the Magic Valley in Toverland. There had been a bit of stress leading up to this point about whether Lightning Rod would be open or not, seeing as it had been down most of the week according to queue-times, but fortunately it had reopened by the time we got there.

Staying on resort afforded us the option to leave the park whenever we wanted (John and I stuck around for an extra hour or so to bang in a few more rides), and despite the hotels being quite far from the park itself, there was a trolley bus service put on to transport guests between the resort and park throughout the day, ramping up the frequency of service once the park had closed. Choosing to stay on site also grants you 5x complimentary TimeSaver passes per day. This was pretty useless on our first day as the park was completely dead, with the only queues being for rides not included on the fast pass system anyway, however on day 2 the park was significantly busier and we ended up using 4 out of the 5 passes. With the TimeSaver wristband you also get unlimited rides within the first hour of the day, which effectively acts as their equivalent of an ERT session. We got a bonus one in on Thunderhead with this when the queue was posted at 40 minutes!


Dollywood entrance

The Rides - Day 1

• Big Bear Mountain x2 - Sprawling yet sparse. The ride is really good fun and you certainly get bang for your buck, but the theming is non-existent. To call a ride "Big Bear Mountain" and not see any bears at all is somewhat of a disappointment. Bonus points for the rather brilliant on-board audio, though!
• Blazing Fury x1 - Having not been to Silver Dollar City I didn't have anything to compare this to, but for what it was I really enjoyed it! The coaster section at the end certainly catches you a bit off guard, and there's a couple of impressive set pieces throughout the ride. The train moves quite quickly so you need a couple of rides on this to catch everything.
• Lightning Rod x2 - Oh dear. Something's gone badly wrong here! It's rough in places, not overly comfortable, nor particularly fast, and the quad-down is good fun at best. By and large my least favourite RMC.
• Mystery Mine x1 - What the hell Gerstlauer?! The cars are simply not nimble enough to navigate the track well... at least the theming is nice and the second half sort of makes up for it.
• Tennessee Tornado x2 - A great half of a coaster! We rode this at night, and it's a pity that they lit up the valley with 2 bright floodlights. Besides that, a great example of an Arrow multi-looper.
• Thunderhead x1 - Not expecting much from this, but it turned out to be an absolutely top-tier GCI! It's fast and packs a surprising amount of airtime given its small appearance. Best coaster in the park.
• Whistle Punk Chaser x1 - Shameless cred grab.
• Wild Eagle x1 - Yeah, wing coasters still not doing much for me. This feels very separated from the rest of the park as it is very much in its own area slap bang in the centre. Nice views.

The Rides - Day 2

• Big Bear Mountain x1
• Blazing Fury x1
• Dragonflier x1 - A much nicer, new-gen Vekoma SFC. The biggest issue with these is their popularity versus capacity.
• FireChaser Express x1 - Not as terrible as I was expecting, and the show scene is really well done! It's got nothing on Pegase Express, mind you.
• Lightning Rod x1
• Mystery Mine x1
• Tennessee Tornado x1
• Thunderhead x2
• Wild Eagle x1
• Drop Line x1 - One of the smaller drop towers I've done, and again I don't recall it being particularly forceful.
• Wings of America x1 - Ostensibly this is a bird show, but it was nothing more than a glorified lecture. The birds didn't even fly... I can't recommend wasting your time with this if you go to Dollywood.

Tennessee Tornado

We spent the evening sipping beer and cocktails in the exterior hotel bar which had a number of fire pits. On the second day we wanted to do the Dollywood Express railway, but this is an extremely popular ride and only runs once per hour. We just missed one of the dispatches and noticed that to wait for it you'd have to stand in a completely unshaded holding area, not moving at all. It was at this point that we gave up, called it a day and drove on towards the next park!

 

[Alsty]

Misery Mine, the only ride to have ever injured me

 

[Burbs]

Day 11

The next park of our trip was to be another Cedar Fair joint: Carowinds! Whilst driving there, the weather was absolutely atrocious and the forecast for the day not much better. In the US, often with anything more than extremely light rain, all outdoor rides will shut until it passes, so there was an air of anxiety about what, if anything, would even be open. Thankfully our concerns were unfounded as the only rain was a few spots in the morning, and the predicted thunderstorms didn't materialise. As a result of the poor forecast, and the fact we were visiting off-peak, the place was absolutely dead and we didn't wait for anything all day!


Carowinds entrance

Carowinds straddles the border of North and South Carolina; now I knew that this was the case to some extent, but didn't realise that the entrance and main street literally runs perfectly down the centre of the border! The park feels a bit unloved, with areas of clear neglect (the dirty Afterburn queue line for instance), and if it was going to be a busy day I think it would have been somewhat miserable to be in, especially after seeing some of the operations, but this was of no concern for us on this particular day! There's a lot to get done at Carowinds and the park hours were the poorest of any park we visited on the trip (10am-7pm), but even so we managed to get on the most rides of any park day so far. Unfortunately we had our first unplanned "spite" of the trip, with the Mack Wilde Maus Ricochet being shut all day, but frankly there's worse things for us that could have been closed instead!


When I say there were no queues...

Would the rides at Carowinds be CaroWIN, or CaroBIN? Let's find out...

The Rides

• Afterburn x5 - Considering I'd never even heard of this B&M invert before, it sits right up there with my absolute favourites. It's so forceful, especially around the batwing element, and the one moment of "trying to be an airtime hill but failing" lulls you into such a false sense of security before chucking you into the corkscrew. CaroWIN.
• Carolina Cyclone x1 - A classic Arrow looper. CaroBIN.
• Carolina Goldrusher x1 - One of the better Arrow mine trains, these seem to be the US equivalent of the powered coaster. Caro...win.
• Copperhead Strike x3 - I wasn't expecting a great deal from this, and it's unfortunate that the launches don't pack more of a punch (nor does the launch through an airtime hill actually do much), but if you like hang time and random moments of ejector airtime whilst not going at a particularly fast speed, then this is certainly a ride for you! CaroWIN!
• Flying Cobras x1 - Nicely themed multicoloured cars but shocking throughput (250pph) and somewhat of a rough ride. CaroBIN.
• Fury 325 x7 - Don't be fooled, this is not a typical B&M Hyper. This ride has been designed solely for the purpose of speed, the couple of airtime moments are just sort of... there. However, speed it very much does deliver and the first drop is insane. CaroWIN!
• Hurler x1 - Boob Shake: The Ride. The only real positive to this is that a few days later we'd get to ride the RMC'd version! CaroBIN.
• Kiddy Hawk x1 - Another old-school Vekoma SFC with the massive OTSRs. Bordering on actively bad. CaroBIN.
• Nighthawk x1 - My first Vekoma Flying Dutchman! This ride is extremely unreliable and the capacity is woeful, with them running one train and having numerous seats out. It had a long wait all day, expect for at the end of the day when we walked straight on to it. The restraints felt sketchy as hell and I regretted every moment of being on it. Caro...incinerator.
• Thunder Striker x3 - Urgh... this could have been so much better if it didn't trim so much. It just lollops around the latter part of the layout and the first half doesn't do a great deal either. It's boring and completely overshadowed by Fury. CaroBIN.
• Vortex x3 - I was expecting the worst but it actually wasn't too bad. This is the only standup coaster I'd done other than Shockwave at Drayton, and this reminded me that they could actually be alright. We had one more B&M Standup coming up on the trip so I'm glad I did this smaller one first to assess my views. Caro...it's alright.
• Wilderness Run x1 - Kiddy coaster. Caro...it's not really for us, is it?
• Woodstock Express x1 - The second of three kiddy woodies, fortunately this one had no wait! I do quite like these as they're a step up from the Zamperla Family Coasters and more interesting than, say, a Zierer Tivoli. Carowin.
• Boo Blasters on Boo Hill x1 - This seems to have been refurbished recently and there's a somewhat decent animatronic at the end now! Caro...win.
• Carolina Skytower x1 - Intamin observation tower, providing lovely views of the park! I always like to do these if time allows. CaroWIN.
• The Grand Carousel x1 - A throwaway ride we did. Caro...it was alright.

Two extremes of B&M Hyper quality

After our day at Carowinds we went for dinner at Chili's (Quesadilla Explosion Salad ftw!) then headed to our hotel, Days Inn Lexington. This hotel was horrible: dirty floors, sketchy clientele smoking all sorts, gaps in doors and alarms going off outside all night. Fortunately we were only there for one night (for which we barricaded ourselves into our rooms as much as possible... the doors were outside-facing in classic US motel style), then headed on to our next park.

 

[Rob]

• Thunder Striker x3 - Urgh... this could have been so much better if it didn't trim so much. It just lollops around the latter part of the layout and the first half doesn't do a great deal either. It's boring and completely overshadowed by Fury. CaroBIN.

PUT IT IN THE CAROBIN!!!

Carowinds was another new park for me, and one that I really did enjoy. This was certainly helped by the fact that the park was pretty much empty, with only Nighthawk getting a queue due to its awful capacity.

Fury 325 is superb, but I could help find it highly amusing that the cracked supports that were removed and replaced last year are just sitting there under the lift hill! It certainly is a speed machine, and on the front row it's so exhilarating!

Copperhead Strike was a tad disappointing after my first couple of rides, but it did warm up later in the day and is a fun coaster with some good pops of airtime. Miles better than Icon (which isn't difficult) but not a patch on Helix.

Afterburn was the biggest surprise of the day, easily one of the best B&M Inverts I have had the pleasure of riding. The whip and force in to the batwing element is something else. Such a pity that B&M don't make them like this these days.

 

[Burbs]

Day 12+13

The next stop of the trip was to be in Williamsburg, for 2 days at Busch Gardens! This is another of those classic US parks that I've known about for years and it's generally in the public psyche, so to finally get the chance to visit was awesome. The drive from Lexington to Williamsburg took a few hours, so we didn't arrive at our Holiday Inn (which was infinitely more luxurious than our last hotel) until about 2pm. Once we'd checked in and got settled, we drove 10 minutes down the road to the park. During the longer drive in the morning we were to discover that Verbolten, one of the coasters I was looking forward to most, was down for maintenance. It put a bit of a dampener on the journey and it would have been nicer to have known beforehand, but hey ho!


Main entrance

Upon arrival we headed straight for the Oktoberfest Festhaus for a late lunch and a drink. The park was extremely quiet and predicted to be so the next day too, so we were in no particular rush, especially considering the smaller number of rides to get done compared to other parks on the trip, and with it being open until 9pm both nights. Most of us had the Sausage Sampler (ooh matron) which consisted of bratwurst, knackwurst and smoked sausage along with potatoes, sauerkraut and cabbage, all for a relatively reasonable price. We actually ended up getting all 9 available coasters done on day 1, including a ride on Loch Ness Monster in the dark! This allowed for a completely cred-stress free second day.


We missed the basically-free beer by a day but they taunted us by not removing the adverts...

The Rides - Day 1

• Alpengeist x1 - Retaining the title of tallest B&M invert, this thing is an absolute beast. The forces around the massive elements are second to none, and the theming is pretty good on the whole (custom supports on the lift hill to make it look like a cable car, for instance). It's a real shame it loses so much momentum after the extremely harsh MCBR.
• Apollo's Chariot x1 - Appalling Chariot. That is all.
• DarKoaster x1 - So. The coaster is actually perfectly adequate. The theming leaves a lot to be desired, however, as does the utterly woeful capacity. It's no surprise that on a very quiet day this thing gets 60+ minute waits still. I believe this is a bit of a downgrade over what was there before unfortunately.
• Griffon x1 - Now THIS is what I call a dive coaster! The sustained floater airtime is incredible and the sheer size of it impressive. Sitting on the front row in an outside seat is possibly the furthest you can sit away from a coaster's track whilst riding it, anywhere in the world - a real feeling of isolation.
• Grover's Alpine Express x1 - Nice to have a kiddy coaster that's not a Zamperla Family Coaster! This Zierer Force was most welcome.
• InvadR x1 - And I thought Heidi at Plopsaland was bad. This GCI is like Wicker Man if it was crap and didn't do anything.
• Loch Ness Monster x1 - One of the most iconic coasters in the world, and it rides pretty well after the retrack too! Great to finally ride this thing, and the indoor section took me by surprise.
• Pantheon x1 - The 5 rolling dogs of Pantheon! There's some really cool elements, and I think it rides better at the front than the back seeing as you seem to get pushed into the airtime hills than pulled over them. The multi-pass launches are super intense too, but I found that the stall serves little purpose as it doesn't really do much? Toutatis is superior for me.
• Tempesto x1 - This has no business being as smooth as it is. Really good fun to ride and comfortable too, just a pity that the queueing experience is miserable thanks to the station bays holding 5-8 trains worth at any one point.
• Aeronaut Skyride x1 - Felt like a bit of a throwback to riding Drayton's cable car. This one goes in a triangular, one-way route around the park, and you have to get off at each station as a result. Each gondola only holds up to 4 adults too, so just as well otherwise you might be waiting for a very long time to ride!

Alpengeist - excuse the vertical image

The Rides - Day 2

• Alpengeist x1
• Apollo's Chariot x1
• Griffon x4
• InvadR x1
• Loch Ness Monster x1
• Pantheon x2
• Tempesto x1
• Aeronaut Skyride x2
• Busch Gardens Railway x1 - A very pleasant steam train ride around the park, with the best moment being the views of InvadR the section across the bridge over the river! Awfully quaint, and we could actually get on this one, unlike Dollywood's.
• Escape From Pompeii x1 - An Intamin Spillwater so no excessive wetness here, fortunately. The effects in the dark ride section are rather cool, even if some of them didn't work properly. A proper dark ride would be great in this park...
• Finnegan's Flyer x1 - A relatively new S&S Screamin' Swing which goes much further past the apex than Rush could ever dream of!

On the BG Railway

Busch Gardens is a thoroughly beautiful park, although recent additions leave a lot to be desired on the theming front. It's badly operated, staff don't look like they want to be there, stations are poorly designed, and prices - even before taxes and the ludicrous 5% surcharge - are astronomical on the whole. I'd love to want to return to BGW but the overall experience of being there is poor.

 

[Rob]

• Apollo's Chariot x1 - Appalling Chariot. That is all.

You seem to have got your keyboard in a bit of a fiddle, as I am sure you meant to say A Hauling Chariot. What a ride, I can't believe how well it was running. It takes the likes of Fury 325, Nitro and Silver Star, chews them up, and spits them straight back out! IN. THE. WOLRD!

 

[Burbs]

^ Please ignore my friend.

Day 14

Onwards! After a particularly nice breakfast at the Holiday Inn, we took a leisurely drive up the road to Kings Dominion, the final Cedar Fair park of the trip. We were treated to a lie in on this day, seeing as the drive only took an hour and KD didn't open until 11am - we also weren't expecting the park to be particularly busy, which it wasn't. Arriving at KD felt like a parallel universe Kings Island, with the Eiffel Tower centrepiece at the end of the main street and fountains stretching down it. These two parks arguably have the best theme park entrance areas of any of the parks we did, notwithstanding the sub-par entrance buildings themselves.


Kings Dominion entrance

The new area where the Wing Coaster is being built is really nicely presented, and possibly better themed than any single area at Alton Towers. Along with the newly refurbed areas at Carowinds and the higher-end Snoopy area at Kings Island, Cedar Fair certainly seem to be stepping up a gear with attempting to create a solid, proper theme park experience. Unfortunately it jars somewhat with the area just round the corner which is home to Project 305, but hopefully this will be addressed in the not too distant future.


Rob was very excited to ride Boo Blasters

The Rides

• Apple Zapple x1 - My first "standard" Mack Wilde Maus large park. If you shut your eyes you could almost have been *there*.
• Backlot Stunt Coaster x1 - A clone of Kings Island's, although with less reliable effects. This had a 90 minute queue at KI but was walk-on here, so winner!
• Dominator x2 - An absolutely banging B&M floorless! On our first lap we ended up being e-stopped on the MCBR then trundled round the last part of the layout in a very "lolliger" fashion, however later on we got a proper ride on it and it really is very good!
• Grizzly x1 - Gravity Group actually making improvements to rides? Who'd have thought! There's some half decent air time on this.
• Project 305 x3 - This very much pushes the limits on what is acceptable forces-wise on a ride. The first drop into the right turn is absolutely bonkers, although I found the restraints quite uncomfortable with some of the stupidly fast transitions, with it hurting my neck quite a bit.
• Racer 75 South x1 - Another smooth, old woodie. Great fun.
• Racer 75 North x1 - No real difference from the South side.
• Reptilian x1 - It rides quite similarly to Schweizer Bobbahn and has a not dissimilar layout. This completes the set of (operating) Mack Bobsleds for me!
• Tumbili x1 - A real step-up from the Intamin Zacspin equivalent, it was nicely smooth and quite good fun, even if it is the smaller model.
• Twisted Timbers x2 - This is my least favourite RMC. The first drop is fun and it is extremely smooth, however it's not particularly quick and the airtime hills are almost too jarring. I didn't find it comfortable, with the tight seats (width wise) on the trains and constantly being flung from side to side, I was almost dreading the next hill. It's Steel Vengeance's punishing ending if it was an entire complete coaster. That being said, it's an improvement from Hurler!
• Woodstock Express x1 - The 3rd and last of these family woodies. Unfortunately it was only running 1 train and broke down while I was waiting, resulting in me waiting longer for that than anything else that day I think...
• Boo Blasters on Boo Hill x1 - While the queue is more substantial than Carowinds', the ride could do with the refurb treatment that the aforementioned version has had. Seeing the actually-quite-impressive animatronic at the end sat there not working was quite sad.
• Drop Tower x1 - Another not overly forceful drop tower, and it doesn't spin.
• Shenandoah Lumber Co. x1 - Very acceptable wetness! The layout is quite sprawling and goes off into the trees, it was somewhat reminiscent of The Flume at Alton Towers.

Dan and John on the back row of Project 305

Unfortunately Anaconda (the Arrow looper) was down for maintenance, and for some reason Flight of Fear didn't open until late afternoon, immediately gaining a long and slow-moving queue which we just couldn't be arsed to wait in (especially since we'd done the equivalent ride at KI). Penultimate park of the trip out of the way, we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us to our accommodation for the night. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication on their part, the La Quinta Bel Air cancelled on us when we were about an hour away, so we hastily had to book something else. By a stroke of luck there was a Holiday Inn Express next to said hotel which we quickly booked, turned up, and flicked La Quinta the v's.

 

[Burbs]

Time to round off this trip report...

Day 15+16

The last park of our trip was in fact the only (legacy) Six Flags park - Great Adventure in New Jersey. I believe that this particular park has been put on a bit of a pedestal and is counted as the flagship of the east coast, what with Magic Mountain being the west coast equivalent. SFGtAd is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and in fact the day we were visiting had been noted as an anniversary event day on the online calendar. As a result, we were looking forward to a day of the park being on their A-game: good operations, fun VIBES, tasty food and decent weather was in order.


Main entrance

Now the latter I don't suppose they can do a lot about; we very nearly got drenched on Medusa thanks to an almighty rain shower. But that could have been avoided if they were running more than 1 goddamn train. This would be a bit of a theme throughout the park, the operations were absolutely appalling, but not because of lazy staff members (all the staff were actually doing the best they could), rather the resources available to them were really lacking. For example, they have a big new ride that's incomplete, another major coaster (Superman, B&M Flying Coaster) completely closed off, a distinct lack of trains on tracks, and two extremely unreliable behemoths as their starring attractions shutting down and reopening all day. Add to this an unpleasant atmosphere after nightfall and the highest cost v quality food options of any park we'd been to, it wasn't a great park to finish up on.


Rob thrilled about Superman being closed

We'd pre-empted a busy day, as we visited on a Saturday, so had bought into the Flash Pass service which reduces all queue times by 50% and allows you to queue virtually. What we noticed was that they just didn't seem to bother updating the posted waiting times for much of the day. None of the rides have queue time boards out the front of their entrances and there are no overview boards anywhere in the park - the only way you can find out the wait is by looking in the app. This worked in our favour mind you, as all the posted wait times were chronically understated, often allowing us to just walk straight on. When queuing for Green Lantern, the main queue didn't move for a solid 15 minutes while they kept batching through Flash Pass at the merge point. It would have been a thoroughly miserable day for anyone who didn't have Flash Pass.

The one saving grace of the day was that we managed to finish on Kingda Ka and El Toro, despite doubting whether we'd get on them at all thanks to their incredible unreliability. @Rob, @John and myself re-rode El Toro 7 times back to back at the end of the day without leaving the station, which was absolutely awesome. A light in the dark, eh.


El Toro and Kingda Ka

The Rides

• Batman The Ride x1 - Great little invert, I can see why these have been cloned so much! This was my first Batman and looking forward to riding some more, given that we only got 1 in on this.
• El Toro x8 - Well, this was one of my most anticipated rides and boy did it deliver. I appreciate it's got rougher in the past few years but after 8 rides I can solidly rate it, and it was an absolute blast every time, if a little uncomfortable in certain seats towards the end of the layout. The airtime is just phenomenal and the finale is almost RMC-esque. A ride ahead of its time.
• Green Lantern x1 - Having done Vortex I was slightly nervous about this one as the forces on the legs are quite a lot, however it actually rode pretty nicely. While I was thankful for the final break run, I was only just reaching the upper limit of my tolerance - it knows when it's outstayed its welcome, which I liked.
• Harley Quinn Crazy Train x1 - Zierer Tivoli Large - they are what they are! Somewhat of a rarity in America so nice to do.
• Jersey Devil Coaster x2 - I've wanted to ride this since it was announced, and whilst very good, it's nowhere near as wild as RMC's IBox/Topper Track models. I'm also lead to believe that the smaller variants are a bit more impactful, which I can see as being the case. Solid fun though and grateful to have ridden a single-rail coaster.
• Kingda Ka x2 - Another one of those lifetime highlights of my coaster riding career. Yes yes, I know TTD was probably better, but this thing is utterly bananas. The fact the launch just keeps going on, and on, and on, accelerating all the way to the point where my ears were beginning to pop at the bottom of the incline. I also had a row-2 ride at night (effectively front row considering the raised seats) and this was just one of those pinch-me moments after I got off. Tallest coaster in the world? Completed it mate.
• Lil' Devil Coaster x1 - Thank god I've seen the back of these Zamperla Family Coasters for a while. The SHAME.
• Medusa x1 - Not bad at all! Another floorless with some cool near-miss theming, which I believe was left there from when it was Bizarro.
• Nitro x1 - One of the best B&M Hypers out there, but it still doesn't beat Silver Star for me, which has generally better air time in my view. That being said, the helix approaching the MCBR is incredibly intense, I felt myself greying out a couple of times and grabbing on to @AstroDan's arm!
• Runaway Mine Train x1 - Another largely forgettable Arrow Mine Train.
• Skull Mountain x1 - X:\ No Way Out lives on, apparently. To the tune of Mr Roland Mack and visuals consisting of a bad DJ lighting rig, I'm not sure what this ride has to do with mountains or skulls?
• The Dark Knight x1 - Has potential (I was expecting similar thrill levels to Exterminator at Kennywood, sans spinning), but the lack of audio was a massive distraction and made it not particularly enjoyable.
• The Joker x1 - A larger model of S&S 4D coaster than Tumbili is. Even though they're quite smooth I find them unpleasant on the basis that they're completely unpredictable and you can't properly prepare yourself for the next transition or element.
• Swashbuckler x1 - My first roundup. It was fine.
• Justice League: Battle for Metropolis x1 - This could have been a great dark ride, but it was unclear what you were meant to be shooting at with the guns. Also on our ride the car was facing the wrong way for a lot of it which was frustrating. Unfortunately we didn't really have chance to go and ride again, in favour of getting more of the coasters done. The theming in there was actually pretty good though, with some advanced animatronics!
• Twister x1 - Must do a HUSS Top Spin when they're available! A dying breed!

The EXIT!

And with that, 2 weeks of world-class coasters and bucket list amusement parks came to an end. We had a night at the Crowne Plaza King of Prussia, followed by a morning at the KoP mall and lunch at Ruby Tuesdays, then an overnight flight back to Heathrow via Dublin. It has been an absolutely incredible holiday, increasing my credit count by 116 (up from 378 to a frustratingly-close-to-a-milestone 494) and spending time with great friends.

Thank you for following this incoherent stream of consciousness, if indeed you have, and sure as night follows day there will be a video montage being created soon which I shall post here too!

 

[Alsty]

Turns & Terns - August 2024

For those of us who count birds instead of coaster creds, this trip also meant seeing some new and unusual birds!

These were all new sightings to me as you don't see any of these in the UK or Western Europe. Thanks to the excellent Merlin app for helping to identify some of them!


Northern Cardinal


Red-winged blackbird


Common Grackle

Perhaps the most bizarre thing was I didn't see a single pigeon, either feral or woodpigeon, throughout the entire trip.

The Birds

• Northern Cardinal - a vibrant red beauty unlike anything you see in the UK.
• Gray Catbird - named after its call which sounds like a meowing cat!
• Northern Mockingbird - the ultimate cover artist, switching tunes mid-song. A true performer.
• Carolina Wren - just like the wren you find in the UK, a small bird with the lungs of an opera singer!
• Field Sparrow - looks almost identical to a house sparrow.
• Laughing Gull - sounds just like its name. A coastal comedian!
• Ring-billed Gull - similar to the UK herring gulls but sporting a stylish black ring around their bill.
• Red-winged Blackbird - with flashy red and yellow patches, this bird puts its UK counterpart to shame!
• House Finch - the cheerful warbling song and bright red plumage are a delight.
• Mourning Dove - the soft, mournful cooing is a soothing sound for lazy afternoons.
• American Robin - more of a brown belly than red.
• Common Grackle - the most prolific bird we saw with with iridescent black feathers and piercing yellow eyes.
• Blue Jay - bold, noisy, and dressed in blue.

 

[Burbs]

It's taken a little while, but I've finally finished editing together the video from this holiday!


From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4frN_CFP74


Enjoy.