Massive New England/PA trip

Hey all,

I just returned from my super sweet HW/KI/CP trip. I'll post a TR soon on this. Now I have the bug to plan another super trip as life is just too short. Here are the following parks I am considering in order of a trip route. Let me know if there are other parks that I'm missing or those that just aren't worth it.

Canada Wonderland

SFTGE

SFNE

SFGAdv (I've been here before but a lot has been added)

Dorney Park

Knoebel's

HersheyPark (Same thing as SFGAdv)

Kennywood

Thanks!

Rod *** Edited 8/17/2007 7:12:43 PM UTC by X-Mania***

Try to put Lake Compounce on your itinerary. This Park is near Hartford and has that great wooden coaster BoulderDash, two other major coasters, and Ghost Hunt, an interactive darkride among other things. It's run by the same company as Kennywood which means a well maintained park and reasonable pricing.

TGE is not the former SFDL. TGE is located in Lake George, about an hour north of Albany. Darien Lake is near Buffalo but both can be easily reached on your route.

Great add for Lake Compounce and thanks for the clarification on DL and TGE.

CW, DL, TGE, SFNE, LC, SFGAdv, DP, Knoebels, HP, KW

Any other mods to this Allstar lineup?

Definately Lake COmpounce and Canobie. Dutch Wonderland is not too far from Hershey and there is a two park pass but you can do Dutch Wonderland in about two hours.

Seabreeze, Just because!

Lakemont and Idlewild, Just because.

Quassy, Skip it. Great setting but not much too do.

Martins Fantasy Island is ok for a stop. If you wanted to do that and Seabreeze in a day, Thats a nice day. Darien Lake is between them.

Chuck

How many days do you plan to do this trip in? You could also hit Clementon Park, Delgrosso's, Lakemont, and Idlewild.

Check to make sure Boulder Dash is actually open before going (you didn't specify a time of year). The word is both trains were damaged recently and they are going to use the former PTC Wildcat train(s) from Hersheypark to finish out the season. It is currently listed as closed on their website.

Just for clarification, Darien Lake and The Great Escape are two different parks. Darien Lake used to be a Six Flags park, while The Great Escape still is a Six Flags property.

Life may be too short, but with this Super Trip, yours may be too if you don't take it easy Rod! I'm seeing a few three or four-hour trips between parks, and that's a lot of driving to do by yourself, especially with nine parks in the itenerary.

I think your routing is great. I remember on my first trip to KW, that there were brochures for Darien Lake in the lobby, so it can't be too far. You didn't mention where you live, but if you're in that general New York area, then you've done well.

If I can pass along one big tip, get your lodging somewhat settled ahead of time. Great Adventure (from what people have said on here) is particularly tough to find decent lodging around.

This will be a planned trip, more than likely in Spring of 2008. I'm from Utah so flying in, doing the circuit, and flying out, either out of Pittsburgh or back up to Buffalo, Niagara or Toronto.

As for the driving, no worries there. I'm a solid driver. My main concern with a trip like this is length of time at each park (how many multiple parks can be done in a day to reduce the trip duration, while still allowing time to hit all the good rides and not feeling like I just busted out of jail). I'm thinking no more than 2 parks a day, even with the little ones.

Also, I'll more than likely have one of my kids with me as a non-driving sidekick.

For us landlocked lubbers here in Utah, we have to drive 12 hours to So. Cal, or 10-12 hours to Sacramento (SFMW) just to sniff another coaster park outside our home park - Lagoon. Vegas has some great single coasters but that is also 8 hours away. So, 3-4 hours between major parks is nothing and a dream.

BUT....the drive from SLC to SFMM is a pretty cool drive...now just to confirm, going 95 mph from Mesquite to the Vegas Racetrack is NOT as legit as I thought it was?!

Also, driving through the AZ gorge was cool too...gotta watch out for mountain goats!

X-Mania, I would wait till 2008 to do your trip. Canada's Wonderland will be getting a new B&M, Dorney will have Steel Venom. The parks I would suggest hitting up are:

Six Flags New England/Great Adventure, Canada's Wonderland, Maybe Toronto Island or Ontario place, Marineland, Martins Fantasy Island, Darien Lake, Dorney, Geauga Lake, Knoebels, Hershey, Kennywood, Six Flags America??, Kings Island or Dominion or BGE if your willing to trek it that far.

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tigellinus said:
now just to confirm, going 95 mph from Mesquite to the Vegas Racetrack is NOT as legit as I thought it was?!

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If I was driving 95 mph through there I might get run off the road... I don't think they drive that fast at the Racetrack. ;-)

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*** Edited 8/17/2007 9:25:47 PM UTC by X-Mania***

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Ѕіx Flαgѕ Đαrієή Ĺαkє said:

Six Flags New England/Great Adventure, Canada's Wonderland, Maybe Toronto Island or Ontario place, Marineland, Martins Fantasy Island, Darien Lake, Dorney, Geauga Lake, Knoebels, Hershey, Kennywood, Six Flags America??, Kings Island or Dominion or BGE if your willing to trek it that far.

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I've already been to SFA, KI, KD and BGE - all great parks. I'll have to look into the others on your list, but probably won't make it that far west to GL the way the arc goes from Toronto to NJ to Pittsburgh. I'd be too tempted to keep going to CP. Nah, I just want to hit the parks I haven't been to for a one shot deal.

Who knows? Maybe Conneaut Lake will be open again by next year . . .

Oops. Please excuse the can of worms I accidentally re-opened.

If you wait until next year, make sure that you get to Waldameer in Erie, PA. They should have that Ravine Flyer 2 up and running by then.

I think one of the problems looking over your list is that you have a lot of parks that are stay-all-day parks. They're either just plain big (like HP and Gadv.), have a couple or multiple rides that you'll want to re-ride (like SFNE's S:ROS, Knoebels Phoenix, Twister and hopefully The Flying Turns/Gadv.'s El Toro and Nitro etc.), or have lots of flats if you like those (Kennywood and Knoebels for example).

For example, splitting Hersheypark and Knoebels is difficult. I know because we did it last year and it was a failure. True, it was August, but by the time we left Hershey, it left little time at Knoebels.

I was going the opposite direction in 05' the day after the Coasterbuzz event at DP, and ran into the same problems--too little time at HP, although I did get every major ride in including a re-ride on The Claw. I might mention that my legs were killing me for several days after trying to move quickly from attraction to attraction. HP has several steep sections.

Another potential obstacle to doing multiple parks in one day is that you didn't say what age the kid you'll be bringing is, but if they're young, Gadv. and HP have a massive amount of kiddy rides. Instead of having just one kids section like some of the other parks, Gadv. has four kids sections, and HP disperses the kids rides throughout the park.

So in conclusion, I would stick with what you have and add Lake Compounce as it's not too far from SFNE. Hopefully, Boulder Dash will be completely retracked by next year (word has it that it got really rough in 06'), and will have its own original trains back on the rails for next year as both were recently damaged.

Ok, here is the basic trip:

CW, DL, TGE, SFNE, LC, SFGAdv, DP, Knoebels, HP, KW

Does anyone have strong opinions on whether any of these should be excluded for any reason?

These are other parks suggested:

Canobie, Dutch Wonderland, Seabreeze, Lakemont (2), Idlewild (2), Martins Fantasy Island (2), Clementon Park, Delgrosso's, Toronto Island, Ontario place, Marineland, Conneaut Lake (I'll bring the $300K to open it up ;-)), Waldameer

Anyone have strong opinions on whether they should be added for any reason? I'm not opposed to stopping in for several rides on an awesome coaster, but if there is really nothing that stands out I probably won't add it to the list. I'm also thinking of 7-8 days maximum for this trip.

When is this trip planned for?

Boulder dash is now open with a 1 train op as they put one of the Hershey wildcat trains on to finish out the season. SROS will be closed for an undetermined time at SFNE. SFNE will be getting a new coaster for 08 and another new ride that is not known yet. They are doing a major transition of the southend of the park also for the 08 season.

So what you got now is a 22 park, about 10 day trip, with a ton of driving. Looks good to me!

Yup, it is a 22 park fun fest. Honestly, I don't think that will fly, even though I wish I had unlimited time and resources to do that. If there is nothing out there that indicates a strong reason to stop at any of the smaller parks then I'll probably leave the itinerary as is.

Thanks for the input everyone! Your experiences with all of these parks are invaluable in making this a worthwhile trip.

Has anybodt considared Canobie Lake in Salem, NH? The Yankee Cannonball is still a good old woodie and worth the trip. It'sa nice half-day park, plus they did a major overhaul on the entrance.

www.canobie.com is the website.

I completed a similar trip in late May and early June. We attended Canada's Wonderland, Darien Lake, Martin's Fantasy Island, Seabreeze, Great Escape, LaRonde, Canobie Lake, Lake Compounce, SFNE, Rye Playland, Astroland, SFGAdv, Morey's Piers, Dorney, Knoebels and Lakemont. We spent 11 total days on the trip. If you have the time you should visit LaRonde in Montreal. It is a nice park and Goliath is a great ride. We were certainly glad we make the hike up there. Morey's is also a great addition if you have the time. I can send you some info I gathered for the trip and our itenerary if it would help.