Lake compounce questions?

I hate to start a thread about this, but here goes.

I am doing a 4 park trip this weekend, (starting at sfga, ending at waldamear). I have a season pass to most of the parks on this trip, but not for lake compounce. We are only going to be at the park for maybe 4 hours because we have to get to great adventure on the same day.

The tickets seem kind of high at $35. Are there any discounts on tickets floating around? I have checked around online, and can't seem to find a solid answer. The only for sure discount I have found is at AAA, and that is a bit of a drive from the park.

Any help would be great.

Also, is all the hype about boulder dash true? Some say that it is more intense than el toro and voyage. Is it possable to do the coasters, dark ride, and maybe the log flume in 4 hours or less?

Thank's a lot:)

local Burger Kings will have coupons and I think you can get your AAA discount online (you should check).

Even the place is packed you should be able to knock out the coasters/flume and dark ride in 4 hours. If you are arriving at the park at opening - knock out the dark ride and boomerang first as they have the lowest throughput.

Don't get your expectations too high for Boulder Dash or you're in for some anticipointment - nothing really comes close to the Voyage (and IMHO El Toro shouldn't be compared to other wooden coasters). Boulder Dash suffers from CCI-itis, in other words it takes a while to wake up to its full potential. To really experience it, you have to get night rides. If you are there only for the first 4 hours of operation, you'll have a good ride on it but you won't experience anything close to its full intensity.

Good luck on your drive from CT to Jackson, NJ on a holiday weekend.

You said starting at SFGA so sounds like LC may be your second stop of the day. If so they have a discounted ticket for $18 after 5 PM which they actually begin selling around 4:30. With the park closing at 8 PM now they may even start the discount a little earlier, call them to check.

As for the rides, BD is a great coaster and well worth the trip. The lines at BD may appear long but if both trains are on you seldom wait more than 30 minutes even on the busiest days. Ghost Hunt dark ride is a different story. Lines there crawl at times even with the addition of 4 rider cars a couple of years ago. Flume can be slow too on hot days. Still 3 hours is plenty to get what you referenced and probably a bit more.

The ride you actually don't want to miss is the skyride which takes you up the mountain and back down. It's located at the base of BD's turnaround. It's a bit of a time investment because it's a very long ride but that's part of the appeal, and it sounds like in 4 hours you could easily, easily fit it in. It's phenomenal, one of the best rides in the country.

I'd put BD in the same league as Voyage. I think El Toro is lousy by wooden coaster standards and I hate the trains so I'm not really one to ask about that one.

Thank's for all the info.

My trip is going like this...

Sat-sfga

Sun-lake compounce, great escape

Mon-waldamear

I will try and contact AAA to see if I can buy them onlne. Someone brought up burger king, but the last time I relied on a fast food place for discount coupons, they no longer had any.

Ghost Hunt has bad capacity, but it's one of the best, if not the best, interactive Sally has done.

With the work done (completed?) after the past off-season, I've been hearing that BD is once again running the way it's supposed to. Agreed that it take awhile for the coaster to "warm up", so if you're only getting early rides, you likely won't get to ride it in top form.

I've been to LC twice. Both times I rode BD in the middle of the day and thought, "Enh." But then once it got dark and I rode it in front, it was incredible. It's easily in my top 3.

Problem is, they are only open till 8pm. So it will not be quite dark at that point.

Even if you're there for only a short period of time, I would say taking the trolley car from Boulder Dash down to the Compounce Mountain Sky Ride, and Thunder Rapids Raft Ride is a neccesity, otherwise you're missing the most beautiful aspect of the park and two of the park's three most scenic rides.

I would recommend hitting up Ghost Hunt immediately upon arrival and then heading to Saw Mill Plunge and Thunder n' Lightning (an S&S Screamin' Swing), forgoing Zoomerang. Then you will be right by Boulder Dash to grab a few rides.

Afterwards I'd take the classic trolley ride to the end the lake---it's a very short, yet scenic ride that will give you the chance to take in all that Lake Compounce has to offer. I do insist that you catch a ride on Thunder Rapids and the Mountain Sky Ride---the latter more than the former. (Boulder Dash may my favorite woodie, but Sky Ride is by far my personal park favorite).

Take the trolley back and hit Wildcat on your way towards the park exit. Don't forget to grab a free soda and stop at Potato Patch before you leave. My final two cents, in all honesty, going on Zoomerang (even if only for the credit) is not worth missing out on the uniquely Compounce attraction the park offers. Skip it!

I'd recommend not wasting the 45+ minutes it would take to walk to the empty end of the park, ride the skyride, and walk back to where all the other rides are. If you had a full day, I'd say go for it, but with only 4 hours it's just not worth it. The view is beautiful, but the ride is quite long and boring. The entire ride up the mountain you just get a great view of the area directly under the ski lift, and you can count the missing flip-flops...the ride down is stunning, but it's not worth giving up 1/4th of your time at the park.

I know coaster tools love getting all the credits at a park, but the only worthwhile rides at LC are boulderdash and Ghost Hunt. Wildcat isn't a very good ride, but it's worth a lap. I would skip boomerang, and instead grab one front-seat and one back-seat ride on boulderdash. It's like riding two completely different coasters.

Have a blast, lake compounce is one of my favorite parks around.

It's one of your favorite parks around...with only two worthwhile rides. Hmm.

Just got home from my trip, and I really had a good time at the lake.

Boulder dash was incredible, wildcat was horrid, and zoomerang was decent for a boomerang.

Ghost hunt was great, and you just gotta love a park that still has a rotor.

The sky ride and trolly ride were fun as well. I did forget to hit the log flume, as we were in a hurry.

That's totally possible, remembering that not only coasters in quantity make for a worthwhile or favorite experience. But, it seems he's referring to only one coaster and one dark ride, so...hmm. And you know, I like coaster credits and get them when I can. I don't like being referred to as a tool, though.

I have no doubt LC is a cool place from what I've seen and heard. The skyride sounds a lot like the one at Knoebel's - the long ride up? Meh. The spectacular ride down? Oh, yeah. You turn around and are suddenly a million feet in the air. And I'm sure the setting at LC is just as beautiful.

So I hope crazy horse writes back to let us know how the trip went. I know it rained in Ohio and western Pa today, and I hope that didn't screw up Waldamear. meer.

I will post some pictures of the park on here when I get a few min of free time.

Pictures posted......

http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/56430.aspx

matt. said:
It's one of your favorite parks around...with only two worthwhile rides. Hmm.

lol, niceness.

Wildcat was horrid crazyhorse? Some people use tame as a descriptor for the ole' WildKitty, but horrid? Was your ride that bad? Keep in mind that I grew up with Grizzy@ PGA, so I'm not too critical of woodies like Compounce's Wildcat or SFNE's Cyclone.

Yes.

Brutal would be another word that comes to mind.

I did not enjoy that ride at all, and neither did my rib cage. I did not relize that such a small coaster could be so ruff.

crazy horse said:
I did not relize that such a small coaster could be so ruff.

Sometimes that depends on meow many times you ride it. ;)

My last ride on Wildcat was one of the 4 or 5 worst coaster experiences of my life, so I'll be happy to corroborate. 90% of it wasn't awful, just bad, but on the first couple of drops the train bottomed out really violently. Just brutal. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Oh.... :) maybe I'm just crazy then. Grant it, I haven't been on Wildcat this year. I get the same reaction sometimes with the Cyclone at SFNE. Most people I know hate the rough beast, but I've had a number of rides on Cyclone where the train comes back with riders clapping. It's still a personal favorite.