HELP! Planning East coast(er) trip...

Depending on where you live, you can fly to Baltimore-Washington Intl. (BWI) for cheap. From Cleveland the fares go as low as $65 by some freak of nature. From that point, with a rental car, driving to BGW, PKD, SFA, SFGAdv and Dorney is a breeze.

My suggestion, in July is that you'll need every minute of each day. My personal favorites are BGW and Dorney, which are unforunately also the two furthest away from each other.

Last year, I did SFGAdv and Dorney in the same day, but only spent three hours at SFGAdv riding only the three B&M's. It was August, so that was to be expected. Dorney we rode everything, and I absolutely loved that park.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Awww, now you got me anticipating this season, Jeff. I just moved to Allentown and live literally 4 and a half miles from Dorney. We've only been here 6 weeks and I've driven past the park at least 6 times just to take a look.

With that kind of endorsement, I like a kid waiting for X-mas!

redman822 said:
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It's just the fact that I am on a limited budget both in cash and vacation time. I was figuring that I could afford airfare, rental car, and three nights worth of lodging (4 day weekend)which would only cost me two vacation days. I could probably add one more day but that would be my max."

This is how I would work it.
Day 1 - Fly into Baltimore/Washington Int as early as possible (say noon), and head straight to SFA. By the time closing comes around, you should have been able to ride everything.
Day 2 - PKD - After closing, I'd drive alittle north about an hour away from DC and get a hotel.
Day 3 - Lots of driving day! - Dorney for awhile, then head over to SFGAdv til closing.
Day 4 - SFGAdv in the morning for the rides that you may have missed (if you miss any), then head north to SFNE (gotta leave SFGAdv kind of early if you want ample Riding time at SFNE) then SFNE til closing.
Day 5 - Scenario A - Head to Hartford, CT/Springfield,MA airport and fly home
Scenario B - Lake Compounce in the morning, then drive to the Hartford/Springfield airport for a late flight home.

This would definitely be a power-riding schedule, but would be the best way (imo) to experience as much east-coast riding as possible.

Edit - If you can't afford to workout the 5th day, you could cancel Dorney on day 3, and on day 4 hit SFNE and catch a flight out of Hartford/Springfield airport late in the day.
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Corey
"Have you ever tried backing out of a drive-through bank?" - George Carlin

*** This post was edited by rOLLocOASt on 1/10/2002. ***

If you're looking for steel (which I presume based on the choices you started with) skipping Knoebels, Hershey, and/or Lake Compounce would not be a big loss.

SFNE is not really close to Logan as was earlier stated by someone. It's about a 2 hr drive.

SFA, PKD, and BGW are all relatively close to each other, but driving during the daytime on that stretch of road is a nightmare (Going to PKD from SFA, got bumper to bumper for 2hrs. once).

Dorney and SFGAdv. are a nice combo (I, like Jeff, loved Dorney) and not too far apart, but the trek from either up to SFNE is quite substantial (three hrs.+).

If you need a couch to crash on to save travel expenses in Metro Boston, drop me an e-mail. I can probably spare one.

Also, using rcdb.com can help you figure out milages between parks (as the crow flies, and also obviously not taking traffic into account), but with that and mapquest, I've found it's pretty easy to gauge what's in reach and what isn't.

HTH and happy riding.
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The legend lives!

ApolloAndy said:"SFA, PKD, and BGW are all relatively close to each other, but driving during the daytime on that stretch of road is a nightmare (Going to PKD from SFA, got bumper to bumper for 2hrs. once)."

It's really not that hard if you know the tricks: Dont drive north before 11am, dont drive south after 2pm. With that you can usually get decent driving times. Just pray that there is no extreme weather: snow, sleet, rain, sun (yes SUN! really sunny days here cause backups for some strange reason. Partly sunny is the way to go!)
jeremy
--"Who been puttin out they Kools on my flo?!?"

OK, so how do you explain the insane traffic jam at I-295 and I-64 with no accidents late in the morning, outside of Richmond on the way to BGW?

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Hey Jeff - Any ideas as to when CoasterBuzzCon will be? That could affect any trip I plan this summer.

AppolloAndy - No, I like woodies as well as steel - I just was unaware of the "smaller" parks and their locations. I am from the Chicago area and have heard "of" those parks but was unaware of their relative locations to the "big boys" out east.

As of now, I think that Rollocoast's plan is looking quite good. The driving has a max of 3 hrs or so per leg - not tooo bad. Thanks dude.

The only problem with that plan is now the expensive part of the trip is going to be a rental car instead of the airfare since the rental is a 1-way the costs have gone up to near $300 (55/day) from less than $200 for returning the car back to BWI. Airfare went up too, but not too much -$195 from $183 (RT to Chicago Ohare). So although, I'd love to to the trip Rollo proposed, I think I'll have to split them and make the second half a trip for summer 2003 ;) -oh the misery. ;)

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"It's Deja Vu all over again." - Yogi Berra

Hmm, Jeff that is what I would call "Hinkey". As I said before, was there *any* type of weather? I tell you, they make announcements on the news about "sun delays". Otherwise, was it a "special" weekend (Labor Day, etc...)
lata,
jeremy
--who is pretty familiar with B-more/DC traffic but has only gone *PAST* Richmond thrice...

This was a perfect park-going day, and now that I think about it, it was a Saturday. A friend who used to be stationed in Virginia said it was probably one of the common August weekend city exoduses (exodi? ;)) to the beaches, but wasn't sure because apparently there's a better route for people coming from DC.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

hit wildwood,coney island,and hershey or sfne,and lake compounce and maybe canobie lake.

If you hit SFNE and SFGadv you'll be getting 4 B&M's, the 2 best hypers on the planet, and some of the best park grafitti around. Any ???'s

yeah Jeff i live about 10 min from that intersection...I295 and I64...in the summer on weekends, its traffic going to Va Beach. as far as I95 is concerned 2Hostyl has the right idea...im a VA native, so ive kinda learned the perfect times to drive it. also redman, consider US 301 as a possible route...a little longer milage wise, but WAY LESS traffic. and the speed limit is only 55mph. 301 is only 3 miles from SFA, and you can take that almost DIRECTLY to PKD. it comes to VA route 30, about 4 miles from PKD.. you will see signs for it on 301. if you have any questions man, fee free to email me at k ayakboy65@hotmail.com. so thats my vote...if you only have limited time, do PKD and SFA. thats 20 coasters...12 at PKD and 8 at SFA...and who knows, SFA might get somethin...(one can only hope) hope youre trip rocks man!!
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ROLLERCOASTERS....BETTER THAN OXYGEN BABY!!!!!!

I've done all the parks discussed and since I'm from the UK I'm not biased towards any only the ones I enjoyed the most.

SFNE is a must to ride the best steel coaster in existence - S:ROS, the one at SFA is no where near as good. It also has the Cyclone which provides an insane ride in the back seat, plus the new floorless.

SFGAdv has Nitro, another great hyper, plus 3 other good steel coasters, but no decent wood and lots of crowds.

PKD has 3 awesome steelies - Hypersonic, FOF, and Volcano, plus the Grizzly which is also a good woodie. The park would provide a far more unique ride experience, including 3 launched coasters.

BGW has Alpengiest and Apollo's Chariot (but I'd take Nitro any day).

With these four parks to consider, I wouldn't even contemplate Dorney or SFA. The coasters at SFA are quite good, but most are clones (or near clones) and the theming and landscaping is very poor.

Regardless of driving distances, I'd choose:
1) PKD - (3 of my top 10 fave coasters are here - I've ridden 229).
2) SFNE - (SFNE No.1 Steel)
3) SFGAdv - (Nitro 5th fave coaster).

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Coaster Grotto - No Ads, No banners, Lots of Coasters!

To minimize costs, I think I will go with the plan below for the trip - between the (small) cost savings on my airfare and the (large) cost savings on the rental car, I will have to hit SFA and the smaller parks next year.

BWI - SFA.....0.75h....Day 1.....Thursday.....Fly in via BWI airport /
SFA - BGW.....3.25h...................................Day at SFA/Drive 1/2way to BGW
BGW - PKD.....1.50h....Day 2.....Friday.......Finish Drive to BGW/Day at BGW/Drive to PKD
PKD - SFGAdv..4.75h....Day 3.....Saturday....Day at PKD / Drive 1/2way to SFGAdv
SFGAdv........0.00h....Day 4.....Sunday......Finish drive to SFGAdv/Day at SFGAdv
SFGAdv-BWI....3.00h....Day 5.....Monday......1/2 Day at SFGAdv - Fly home via BWI Airport

Total Est. Drive: 13.25h

(edit - formatting)
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"It's Deja Vu all over again." - Yogi Berra

*** This post was edited by redman822 on 1/11/2002. ***

SFGrAdv and SFNE

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SFOGeorgia.
Can't wait for Superman: Ultimate Flight
Drachen Fire, RIP: 1992-1998 Dismantled 2002

BTW, Canobie Lake Park isnt 10 minutes away from Boston... It's about 45 minutes to an hour, and it isn't even close to 30 minutes from SFNE, it's about 1:50 minutes.

My choice would be SFGavd and SFNE.

#2. Add Lake Compounce, and stop there for reduced admissions at night (if they still have it) to ride Boulder Dash. That ride comes alive at night.
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B&M of New Jersey=best baked beans
B&M of Switzerland=best rollercoasters

Number 2 Gadv has changed alot in two years Nitro plus chiller lapbars are amazing, then you have the b:dk and s:ros.
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3.2.1 launch