Five Rides Gone at SFNE

According to an unofficial park website at a recent coaster event an announcement was made regarding the removal of five rides from Six Flags New England. Catapult, Kontiki, Double Trouble (not time warp sorry), the kiddie bumper cars, and Rodeo are being removed before the 2008 season.

Double Trouble I can understand, as the ride never seems to have riders. (Not to mention re-riders.) I am sad to see Rodeo as I thought that the rides and themeing in Crackaxle Canyon were some of the best in the chain. *** Edited 10/25/2007 10:10:37 PM UTC by phoenixphan :-)*** *** Edited 10/26/2007 12:46:15 PM UTC by phoenixphan :-)***

I'm not normally a flats fan, but I guess I'll see what I can do this weekend lol.

^^ I believe you mean Double Trouble, a double Chance Inverter, NOT Time Warp.

This absolutely sucks. SFNE has always had a great lineup of flats, and now they're decimating it. Catapult was only put in in 2006. SFNE is taking after SFGADV, and that's an awful thing to do.

SFNE will still have one of the best flatride selections in the country, and a lot of these make sense to me.

Double Trouble stinks and had a lot of downtime issues.

Kontiki was fine but in a weird location, lots of people didn't even know it was there.

Rodeo is a loss but with Tomahawk right across the way it's a bit redundant, especially when that area of the park is never super busy.

Catapult is a head scratcher but then again it was a head scratcher from the beginning. Here you have a park with plenty of rides that go upside down, plenty of flat rides in general, why did they ever stick Catapult in this park when it could have gone so many other places as a marquee attraction? Especially when you're dumping it in that corner of the park. Never made sense to me, and I can't imagine ridership was ever that great.

The situation with SFNE in my experience is that on busy days you have a big selection of flat rides that rarely garner big lines and are frequently somewhat redundant. Then you have a good amount of coasters that due to popularity or low capacity have massive lines. If they can get rid of some of the pork and bulk up the major ride selection and capacity I think it's a positive thing for the park.

Not to mention you're also gaining a big chunk of staffing by dumping these rides, too. *** Edited 10/25/2007 8:01:19 PM UTC by matt.***

I really enjoyed getting to ride SWAT (Catapult) again, but it did look pretty deserted when we were there (Columbus Day). Given the long dispatch and short cycle, can't say I'm awfully surprised. I thought I recalled it running a somewhat better program in Texas, although that was a few years back and I *might* be mistaken.

Rodeo, the Breakdance, is probably having issues, seems like they have problems at some parks and run trouble-free at others. Agree about the theming though, it looked very nice, and it's a good ride to have in the line-up.

I finally got to RIDE the *DDM-plagued* NightWing. Glad I rode it, but as far as I'm concerned, THAT ride could leave without me shedding any tears. We decided to call it "the panini press"...God-awful restraints.

Losing FIVE flats in one year, though? One themed standard mouse in exchange? Seems like a draw at best, IMO.

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matt. said:
Rodeo is a loss but with Tomahawk right across the way it's a bit redundant, especially when that area of the park is never super busy.

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Please explain to me how a Breakdance and a Frisbee are in anyway similar.

^They both make my wife sick? ;)

BTW: What type of ride is Kontiki and where is (was) it? If it's the ride tucked back behind where they have the Magic Show, I wouldnt be suprised if no one noticed it. I barely saw it myself on my one vist last year.
lata, jeremy

Kontiki is a Chance Alpine Bobs. I was stuck in a little corner of the park near the old entrance to the water park. It never seemed to have a line, possibly due to its location.

Removing five rides!?

Oh my God, they must be closing!

Well, there's been a pretty close correlation lately . . .

First of all these 5 rides all have low ridership and they do not fit in with the parks future plans. Kontiki is be removed and put into storage and will appear at a later date with new theming and placed in a better location. The southend of the park will be rethemed to Gotham, Batman the dark knight will be renamed to Batman the ride. The new coaster Dark Knight will be placed in the DC area where the Batman arena is now. There is also a new coaster to be installed for the 09 season and while no details were released it was said that it will be BIG. You will also see Johnny Rockets in the park for next season. *** Edited 10/25/2007 11:37:29 PM UTC by Ajrides***

They're taking out rides and adding new ones.

Oh my God, they must be investing in the future of the park!

Oh my God, they're a viable business who's product offering matches their customer base!

(yes, all threads lead to Geauga Lake...or at least to the multi-use development that sits where Geauga Lake used to :) )

I got to ride Swat when it was at Astroworld. I thought it was a very cool and unique ride. Though I've heard it could have a lot of mechanical problems. Was this the case at SFNE as well? I didn't get a chance to ride it there. IIRC, it's the only Sky Swatter out there. I hope it doesn't just get scrapped.

^I thought I recalled a European park getting one (Thorpe maybe?)...

Thorpe Park built a Sky Swatter a few years ago, along with a 32 seats Screamin Swing.

Rodeo at SFNE is probably fine mechanically, but what possibly doomed it are the changes Six Flags did chain wide to its Huss Breakdance. To prevent someone from opening their own lap bar, they removed the little handle you pulled to unlock yourself at the end of the ride. Instead, the operator has to come and unlock each restraint by hand! If one poor operator has to unlock 12 or 16 lap bars, go to the entrance, allow 24 or 32 people in, check each restraint and then start the ride... The ridership numbers are going to be very low. *** Edited 10/26/2007 7:03:22 AM UTC by Absimilliard***

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Intamin Fan said:
Please explain to me how a Breakdance and a Frisbee are in anyway similar.

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They're both spinning rides. I've watched plenty of people marathon on both considering that neither has a significant line most of the time, and there's that certain contingent at parks that enjoy spinning around really fast as much as possible.

There's also a Tea Cup ride in the South End of the park, and there also used to Joker's Wild Card down by Superman and Kontiki is roughly in the same genre, too. It's just too much when you have coasters with huge lines, a massive yet STILL packed waterpark, and lots of flatrides with piss poor ridership. You gotta shift your offerings.

I don't recall saying that the park was closing. The park is adding a new attraction in 2008, The Dark Knight. It should be a great addition to their coaster lineup, but I would like to see the park keep a great flat ride selection.

As for Geuaga Lake, am I sad that the park is gone...yes. But does it have anything to do with SFNE removing five rides? It just seems that somehow GL has to make it into every post. Unless Six Flags is taking back rides they installed at GL to replace those being taken out of SFNE...who knows.

^They were joking, we know the park isn't closing.

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Jason Hammond said:
I got to ride Swat when it was at Astroworld. I thought it was a very cool and unique ride. Though I've heard it could have a lot of mechanical problems. Was this the case at SFNE as well?

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When we went to SFNE this year, Catapult was down off and on throughout the day. While talking to the ride ops, they said it was down a ton of the time and very unreliable. It's sad because it definitely looked like a cool ride when it was running.