My roller coaster withdrawals ended at last with yesterday's trip to Six Flags New England. All in all, I had a really good day, but of course, there are a few of the expected Six Flags quibbles, the first of which is the price of admission: $36.99 plus $8.00 for parking. I guess it's to be expected, though. Fortunately, I caught a sign while driving along Main Street in Agawam that buying a can of Pepsi, even without the special Six Flags marking on them would give me eight dollars off admission. Not bad. So I'm driving down Main Street guzzling my (it had to be empty to get the discount) and I pull into the back parking lot to find it closed. What the heck? Well, as it turned out, the front parking lot was open so we were able to park three rows back. Score!
We entered the park, and paid our admission and sat around for twenty minutes before we were allowed to leave the Main Street area in the park. We rolled our eyes at the pathetic pre-opening show featuring Bugs, Taz, and Daffy doing some really corny dance moves to some stupid song about Six Flags. Finally, at 10:00, our own very small version of CP's Running of the Bulls started as we sprinted for Superman. I'd say there were about fifty people in the park at this time, and just about all of us bolted for SROS.
We rode the first train out in the second to last row. And how was it? A disappointment. The train wasn't full, and the track wasn't warmed-up yet, so I shrugged it off and headed for the front. It was fantastic! More airtime, more speed, and a really great view. Amazingly, there were two trains running, and the ride crews were doing a good job of preventing stacking for the most part. We rode another ride in the second row, and headed off for Cyclone.
Good old Six Flags never fails to amaze me. The Cyclone's modifications were left completely unpainted making the coaster look even more ghetto than usual. We walked on and sat in the fourth row. The first drop was okay. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they ruined it. The rest of the coaster was very rough which led me to believe that the whole ride needs to be retracked. Taking a ride in the back was a definite improvement. Although still just as rough, there were a few reminders of the old Cyclone with ejector air on every hill. The back is worth riding, the rest of the train is not.
After Cyclone, we headed back for a few more rides on Superman. Waiting about five minutes, for each ride, we increased the ride tally to six. The great thing was that the back was back! After warming up and running full trains, the back was very impressive. We got yanked over the first drop and had that same ejector air on every hill.
We decided to take a spin on Mind Eraser, which we projected to be the last due to rumors of roughness. Running only one train, the wait was about twenty minutes including the time it took to have maintenance remove a somebody's shirt from the lift hill. Riding Mind Eraser was pretty fun, but defensive riding is a must. There was a ton of roughness as the train not only jolted from side to side, but forward and backward. What I had failed to notice on earlier rides was that there were so many really great foot choppers. If not for the roughness, SLC's would be really great.
We headed for lunch at 12:15 and enjoyed chicken fingers and fries for a little over eight dollars, and headed off for Thunderbolt. The good old figure-8 was a delightful change from the Cyclone's brutality, but this classic didn't do for me today what it used to. After that, I wanted to try Poison Ivy's Twisted Train, the park's Tivoli family coaster. The announcement for this ride is the corniest thing ever. It's really funny. The ride was one big yawn, but I wanted to do it once. Next, it was back to Mind Eraser for a final head bang. They has added a second train even though the line was non-existent. Why hadn't they done this earlier? At this point, my friend's stomach was starting to bother him, so we sat around and rested between rides.
Before retiring to Superman for a few last minute rides, we did what we'd been putting off since entering the park: Scream. The wait was forty minutes because they stupidly ran only one tower. It was in combo mode though, and re did have a good ride. I do think the line fore the ride merited running a second tower though. Oh, well, back to Superman.
We finished out the day with Superman, before leaving the park at 7:00. It really was a good day, but I do wish they had at least one other good coaster because by the end of the day, we wanted to do other things besides ride Superman. Many of the park's rides weren't running including Flashback and Twister, the Huss Top Spin. Still I can't complain after 12 rides on Superman, 3 rides on Cyclone, 2 rides on Mind Eraser, 2 rides on Thunderbolt, 1 on Scream, and 1 on Time Warp.
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"If we built a ride that everyone wanted to ride, it would be called an elevator, and that's not an amusement ride."
-Stan Checketts, S&S Power
