Ideas for a trip

Hey.

My dad has taken a week off from work the second week of August for some sort of vacation.

I'm trying to find something coaster related as always but I can't quite come up with something.

As of now, we have been thinking about going to SF Gadv and using our Darien Lake season pass as well as going and checking out NYC.

I'm going to be a junior in high school so we were thinking about also checking out colleges in New England since I love skiing. Our idea, or should I say my idea ;) , is to go to Great Escape, go to Killington Vermont to check out some mountain biking, waterslides, alpine slides, etc, check out a few colleges, drop down to SFNE, and either head home from there or go to NYC and SFGadv.

The most far flung idea is that we go west towards Indiana and have the main goal of hitting Holiday World. The problem with that? Well there's Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, PKI, and SFKK that we could hit instead that are closer or on the way. My dad went to Notre Dame for college so Indiana is a possible choice, but HW is still 5 hours away from that, and 12+ hours from my house. It's hard to refuse a trip to CP over HW when CP is just over 1/2 the distance.

Yet another option would be to go somewhere in PA. We could hit Dorney and Hershey Park since they aren't too far apart.

We could always go and hit Geauga Lake and Kennywood, but then why not drive an hour further so I can ride by precious MF?

Instead of me rambling some options, can you guys give me some advice what you would do in this situation?

Things to keep in mind are that we do have SF season passes, but if I went to SFgadv riding KK wouldn't be my major focus, I really want to ride their Beemers.

Any suggestions? Thanks :) *** Edited 7/17/2005 2:29:59 AM UTC by Ride of Steel***

"I'm going to be a junior in high school so we were thinking about also checking out colleges in New England since I love skiing. Our idea, or should I say my idea , is to go to Great Escape, go to Killington Vermont to check out some mountain biking, waterslides, alpine slides, etc, check out a few colleges, drop down to SFNE, and either head home from there or go to NYC and SFGadv."

I only got one question with that.. are you planning on leaving friday night and returning sunday if not that sounds real ambitous....

NYC - I've been at least 10 times and still can find way too many new things to do there.

If you are going to go as far west as to SFKK, just skip it and go to HW. It's well worth that extra hour of driving.

And this is coming from a man who works at SFKK. ;)

No we have up to 7 days to do this, so it won't be a weekend trip.

I just looked on a Map and just realized how far away I am from HW. I mean literally, unlike CP which is still 7 hours, this place is truely in the midwest.

I doubt Holiday World is going to happen this year, hopefully next year.

Heres the current 3 options:
1. Go to Hershey Park for 3-4 days and do some other stuff in that area and drive home. Possibly hit Dorney.

2. Go to Great Escape, go to Killington Vermont, check out colleges, head south and hit Lake Compounce and SFNE.

3. Go to NYC and visit SFGadv.

4. Combine 2 and 3

My vote would be for Six Flags New England,Lake Compounce and Great Escape. My personal opinion there is nothing better than Superman Ride of Steel. I've ridden 315 coasters and so far nothing compares for me. If you love airtime this would be the trip. Unbelievable! Boulder Dash is also very very good. Its in my personal top 5. The Comet at Great Escape is worth the drive as well. All 3 parks are very enjoyable and well worth the trip. Enjoy the trip.

I'd say #2 also... it looks like a great trip.

Number 4 as I said above also would be too much to do in 7 days.

Thanks guys for the input.

I have been to Great Escape and SFNE before and love them both. It's great because we get in for free with my SFDL pass. I've never been to Lake Compounce but I'd love to check it out, it's only an hour from SFNE. Comet at Great Escape is awesome too.

SROS is great, but not as good as MF. S:ROS is my #2 rollercoaster because the extra height and speed of MF. Comet at Great Escape is awesome too.

Boulder Dash beats the pants off Comet. ;) Especially at night.

I would definitely suggest putting HW off 'til next year, as they're going to get Voyage. KK may not be back up, so you may want to put off GAdv. as well, though NYC has a ton of colleges and other stuff to do. On the other hand, Boston has a metric ton of colleges and is my fav. city in the world (went to college there myself) and S:RoS and Boulder Dash are the best steel/wood pair geographically close to each other (Xcel. and GR are quite a bit closer together, but not quite as good. SR and Phoenix are also a good pair to live near).

Looks like my Driver's Ed class is still going the week my dad's off so I'll only be able to go somewhere Thursday-Sunday, and it will probably end up being Hershey Park.

5. Combine 1 and 3.

6. Hershey/Dorney/Knoebels is always a good option if you have the time. All within 1 1/2-2 hours of each other. That could work on a 4-day trip.

6b, Or you could substitute SFGAdv for any of the parks since you already have the pass.

How seriously are you planning to check out colleges? You should have something setup with someone on the campus to meet you and take you around, etc. Just stopping by and bopping around by yourself really wouldn't give you too much of an idea what the place is about.

Speaking as a person with a college degree and a professional license, my best and most educated advice would be to...
blow off the colleges and hit the parks, ba-bay.