Fun Spot Atlanta and Arie Force One

So I'm here in Atlanta for a month straight, training for my new job with a company that isn't Yellow. During one of my days off I was able to meet up with an old high school friend (Brian) who lives down here and we went to Fun Spot with his pre-teen daughter. (Lucy)

First time to FSA, but I've been to the FL parks once or twice. First impression is that it's a lot more open, probably sits on more land than the FL parks do. That being said, there really isn't a whole lot to this place.

We ended up hitting a few smaller rides first, because Lucy didn't want to hit the big coaster first. The first thing we hit was their other signature ride, the Samson go-cart track. This track was very fun, with huge elevation changes and spirals.

Brian told me that AFO would be Lucy's first "Big" coaster. And I don't think Brian had ridden a coaster in almost 15 years. From what I could tell, neither of them cared much for it. They elected to only take the one ride, even though we were allowed to re-ride an empty row. I took a 2nd ride. Hard to say about this ride. For one, it is quite fun. The first 3 elements are great, the diving loop, inverted stall (one of my favorite coaster elements) and the outward banked airtime hill (similar to Steel V.) All great, then it just kind of becomes your standard RMC. Airtime hills, rolls and a sweeping turn. Again, all good fun, but it's like they put everything they had into the first 3 and then hit the "return to station" button. As noted, the return run to the station is just a series of small, sharp airtime hills. (Similar to SV again.) All that being said, I'd be more than happy to have this coaster near my house. Of course, I'm 30 minutes from the Cedar Point lot, so there's that.

We hit most of the other rides and go-karts, spent a little time in the arcade, and I was able to sneak away for another ride on AFO. This time I wanted to wait for the front seat. Like a lot of RMCs, it really doesn't seem to matter where you sit, you get a great ride everywhere. However, on this one, I neglected to move my metal wallet to the side of my front pocket and got one of those extra painful rides I'd been hearing about. In fact, the lapbar was so tight, I was unable to move the wallet from under it and had to tough it out.

As for the other 2 coasters, meh. I was able to get some good movement on the Phlyers, but got asked to stop, so I did.

Overall, it was a nice visit to an okay park. It's a place you can go to spend a few hours. It was great seeing an old friend again and meeting his daughter for the first time.

But...

The operations at this place were atrocious. We were glad we showed up early because by 3 or 4 in the afternoon it was pretty painful. AFO has only one train, and there was never more than a 2 train wait, but the Go-Karts were another story. We tried to get a 2nd ride on Samson Karts, but despite the fact that there were 3 rows of karts staged, they only operated one at a time. They could have easily been staging a 2nd row while the 1st row was racing. This was true on all of the GK tracks, and they were also doing alternating Flat Ride ops. Despite the fact that there weren't a whole lot of people there, it was starting to get quite painful, so we called it a day.

While I enjoyed AFO and wouldn't have minded another few, more wallet conscious rides, I'm not sure if it's a place I ever need to return to.

At this point, it's looking doubtful that I'll be able to make it to SFOG during training, as my only days off are weekdays.

Arie Force One is my fav of the RMC's I've ridden. The turnaround behind the arcade is allegedly called the 'Raven Turn' because it mimics Holiday World's Raven turnaround on Lake Rudolph. The barrel roll going into that turn is pretty wild.

Yeah the rest of the park isn't anything special, AF1 feels very oddly placed as far as investment goes, but I'm glad it's there. Up here we have Swings N Things entertainment center, Funspot Atlanta gives me that same vibe except there's an amazing RMC as part of it. Hope you back out there again to really enjoy it.

Thanks for sharing.

I find the economics of AFO fascinating, such a large coaster at such a small park is fascinating to me.

Something about the Arie family creeps me out. A dude claiming on TV that "it's huge!" probably doesn't help. The weird prayer for Melania at the media event for Mine Blower was also pretty weird.

Arie Force One truly a great ride! I was able to ride it for the first time about a month ago. I was surprised by the "Raven" turn around. I loved how coming out of the barrel roll, right into an outer bank, then it flips back to an inner / more traditional turn. Great ride, was very glad we made the stop. We were at SFOG earlier in the day and family didn't really want to leave. But I felt that we couldn't pass up this credit, very glad we made the visit!

Odd / small park. I do wonder if the investment of AFO will pay off, hoping things work out for FSA.

My boys really enjoyed the go-karts!!

In terms of FS, are the 2 FL parks worth the visit? My concern is that the 2 GCI's are going to be overly rough (heading to FL / ORL next year) and the rest of the coasters are just meh and not worth a re-ride.

Rick_UK:

I find the economics of AFO fascinating, such a large coaster at such a small park is fascinating to me.

Same. These things rarely work out so enjoy while you can.

Off the top of my head:

Dania Beach Hurricane, ZDT's - Switchback, Clementon - Tsunami/Hellcat/J2, Timber Falls Wisconsin Dells - Avalanche, Nascar Cafe Vegas - Speed The Ride

Then again, sometimes they lead to breakout success. Knoebels and Holiday World being the most obvious examples of adding large coasters and "putting themselves on the map." But Fun Spot ATL has a long way to go before they can be mentioned in the same sentence, awesome big coaster or not.