Boston Trip: Six Flags New England

August 23, 2006

My girlfriend Monica and I had plans to camp at Hershey this weekend, but her company had other plans for our us and sent her to go to the ASAE conference in Boston. We decided to make the best out of it!

Six Flags New England

After a ton of trouble with Thrifty care rental, we got our car (an upgraded Jeep Liberty) and headed out to Six Flags New England early Saturday. This would be our second visit to the park. We paid our $15 for parking and drove to what was almost the very back of the lot. We could have waited for a tram, but the one that was loading as we walked up to it was packed and there wasn’t another in sight. In fact, we made it to the gate before the one tram that was running started making its trip back. How annoying it is to pay $15 for parking and not have a good parking amenities? No one guided us to a spot and we would have waited a long time for a tram!

We arrived at the gate and there are huge lines to get through the metal detectors, we get through that and there is a line for the FlashPass! The park is packed. There were lines for the bathrooms it was so busy. We wandered over to Mr. Six’s Pandemonium and saw a two hour line. There is a single rider line, so we walked up and both of us were on within five minutes. Mr. Six’s Pandemonium is one fun ride, I would have liked to ride it with Monica, but that line was just too much to handle.

I saw Catapault had what seemed like a short line, but as Monica would tell me, it was a 1/2 hour for me to wait two cycles of the ride. The ride was pretty fun, but there was way too much pressure on my head at the bottom. I don’t think I will ride it again.

We left this area of the park leaving behind the poorly maintained and run Cyclone, only one train!?, past the hour line for Thunderbolt, only one train!?, past the two hour line for Superman…it was really busy.

Walking through the park we remembered why I liked it so much. There is tons of charm, I love the layout and all the themeing. The only issue I have with the park, besides the fact that it is run like a Six Flags, is capacity.

We arrived at Batman and saw an hour wait and said, screw it, we are going to have to wait at some point and got into line. They were meeting their intervals fairly well, but could have been faster and the people in line were fairly well behaived even though the line is hidden from anyone of authority. We got into the train after a slightly longer than an hour wait and had a good ride. I see what people say about the vibration, but I don’t think it took away from the ride at all, good times, but probably my least favorite floorless. We were planning on seeing the parade and got off Batman five minutes after it started…and it was over. A five minute parade? Is this really worth advertising?

I am honestly not sure what we did next but we ended up at the beer counter and enjoyed the pricey adult beverage at the games midway outdoor food court area. The whole area was disgusting, seriously. No one was around in the 20 minutes to pick up any mess, and the customers certainly didn’t help any by cleaning up after themselves.

I was hoping to get more than one ride on Superman, but the two hour line was way too long for us. After dealing with just a few line jumpers and minimal security to enforce the rules we made it into the station. I was excited. We got a seat in I think the third car, second seat. From the second we went over the first drop I had a smile on my face and couldn’t stop laughing. Superman did not disapoint at all after two years. There is just so much airtime, speed and laterals to not love it.

We made Superman our final ride for the night and made our long walk back to our rental. Monica had a long day ahead of her on Sunday and I had Lake Compounce and Boulderdash to look forward to. More on the rest of the trip in another post!

View this TR as well as photos

If the day we had visited SFNE hadn't become drizzly and cool in the late afternoon.

I could have honestly said we would have thought the park SUCKED.

But we ended up getting about 40 S:ROS rides, A couple cyclone and thunderbolt rides (Yes we did wait the 45 min each for one train coasters)

The park cleared out by 6pm. From 6-9 it was ERT on everything. We even rode scream that for the most part of that very busy day only running two of it's three towers.

We enjoyed our day but it coulda been a nightmare IMHO and Im not paying 85 dollars to do what I should be able to do in their 49 dollar pricing.

Chuck

Being my home park I can tell you don't expect to get there after noon because it gets really crowded.

You should have gone on 9/2 or 9/3 there was 2000 people on saturday and 1000 on sunday 2 days of ERT. Yesterday it was packed but I got there early and rode all the rides before the crowds arrived.

We would not have paid full price to go, and if we would have, we would have got there much earlier and stayed much later. The capacity of the park is seriously bad. A spinning mouse, two woodies with one train...

Another thing I noticed in going from Six Flags to Lake Compounce was the stress level at Six Flags. Kids were crying, parents were pissed. People were ticketd because of line jumpers. Not a whole lot of fun being had except for those two minutes you were on rides.