New Orleans!...Party! Party!..oh, and SFNO

Left Columbus ohio saturday july 31, to New Orleans and arrived the same day.(lol) Went to burbon street and magazine street, St. Chalres and to the french quarter. Had some drinks, did the party scene and tanned my A** Off all week! Went swimming and shopping like I was addicted and Did a really cool swamp tour.

Some good moments: The Best T-shirts ever. I got one that read " I wish I was Barbie, the B**** has everything!" and I got another one that said "Caution! I can go from princess to full blown b**** in 3.5 seconds"

I went to a lot of good restaurant such as Deanies..Emeril's Delmonico..Bravos..and Irenes.

Also we went to the Audubon Zoo and aquarium(which were awesome) and we went to the Gulf/beach.

Now on to SFNO

Upon Entry

You can see the park from the highway and it looks really cool.(Made for a really good photo) The entrance is very nicely done and well themed. There are plenty of people waiting to take your picture(got to love that) and the lake is very beautiful.

The bad:

What can I say. This is by far the worse SF park in the chain that I have ever been to.(And thats being nice) It could've possibly been the worst park I have ever visited if it wasnt for the good chicken tenders. The dispatch times on all the coasters were slow and there were barely any lines. They were stacking with one train(yes they pulled it off..lol) Every coaster ran one train even with lines. Mega Zeph has the best wooden coaster layout but is the worst wooden coaster ever! It gives the roughtest ride..EVER! Everything needs to be repainted except for the Superheros area(which is new..so thats not saying much) The ride opperators were very rude and very Dumb. Me and my sister were going to the line for Lex Luthers Invertertron and the lady closed the gate right when we got there and didnt let us on the ride and we werent waiting for a whole ride when we we were the only two in line, so we left the line. The operator on Bayou Blaster was all over me and creeping me out and there is tax on the " Only" ONE DOLLAR refill! It was the worse trip ever! Not to mention the Extreme heat didnt make it any better.

The Good: The park closed and I got a really good Pina Colada

* I really hope SF has something in-store for this park in the next few years, because it wasnt very crowded for a saturday and during the week we stopped by and it was a ghost town.* *** Edited 8/6/2004 11:16:30 PM UTC by Alizabeth***

Ah...NO...my new home :) Sure, I'm losing S:ROS in my backyard, but I am getting Megazeph in my backyard. You thought it was rough? I was there last month and it was anything but rough that day.

I agree the park is quite poor, but they have some potential, plus 2 or 3 great coasters.

Heh, I was there in the Big Easy the same time you were, 7/31-8/2. I was going to do a TR but I'll just add my random thoughts here. This park does need some work. I enjoyed the themeing in the DC area, especially on the new rides. The Invertatron was closed. Catwomen's Whip wasn't quite as stomach churning as I had heard. I absolutey agree on Mega Zeph. Awesome layout but the G-Trains kill a lot of the fun. That trick track or whatever towards the end is just brutal, especially in the back. The ride-ops wouldn't speak to guests to save their lives. The Jester wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be but I still wouldn't ride it again. The area down below the Muskrat Scrambler was disgusting. The whole place was stinking hot and very moist but heh, I guess that's Louisiana during the summer. We also hit Carousel Gardens in City Park and ran up to Dixie Landin' in Baton Rouge. BTW, we saw that Barbie shirt in a store and had a laugh. We also drank a lot, went to the Aquarium of the Americas, and took a ton of pictures at Mardi Gras World. We enjoyed New Orleans a lot and plan on coming back. You just gotta watch out for the shady looking characters. SFNO wasn't the best park but if your visiting the area and have a pass, it's at least worth a look.

Sounds like Six Flags over Swampland to me! If you ever visit this park again COMPLAIN to Guest Relations. They have a new policy to run ONE train on EVERY day except Saturday no matter what sized lines you'll see! It's absurd and I don't know if we'll ever see any improvement with these idiotic policies in place. I visited a few Fridays ago and had to wait about an hour for Batman: The Ride due to bad ride ops, one train ops, and breakdowns. I now only visit this park on Saturday nights since they CUT Friday's hours and since every other day sucks due to bad operations and the potential for random crowds/bus groups etc with no hope of having trains added. Yes, this park pales in comparison to other Six Flags parks, which for the most part don't get rave reviews.

I was there last Saturday and it wasn't so bad though. It was actually the least crowded Saturday of July I've seen (more than likely the bad weather forecast and storms in the area didn't help). You have to visit at night to be able to enjoy the place since the heat is so brutal down here. It has been packed the past few weekends. Believe it or not, last July in their premier season was a lot worse since we had even worse weather than this year. The park is doing fairly well compared to last year.

Mega Zeph rough? It's one of the smoother woodies out there really. Just make sure you don't sit on a wheel seat as it is a little uncomfortable if you don't know how to handle it back there. Car 1 Row 1, Car 2 Row 1, and Car 6 Row 1 are all great seats. Car 2 seems to have even bouncier airtime in the bunny hills toward the end and some other surprising airtime earlier in the ride.

*** Edited 8/7/2004 2:56:34 AM UTC by Cameraman***

Sorry to hear about this. I've never been to NO, but I guess the park is no reason to make the trip!

Sorry you had such a horrible experience at SFNO. Im curious to know which ride needs a new paint job. Mega Zeph never had one, Jester already has a new paint job and the flats all still look new. The water rides and the muskratt scrambler however have gray supports and could use a color scheme, if thats what you mean. Maybe the girl (operator) for Lex Luther didn't think you were ALL THAT like the guy for the Bayou Blaster. I guess she was the only SMART OnE LOL! no offense. Yes, If you come to New Orleans always expect extreme heat during the summer. Glad you enjoyed the drinks. It should be better in the near future. By the way, Mega Zeph in my opinion is the best CCI ( at the time) out there. Yes its ruff if you sit on the wheels like CameraMan said. SFMM also have been running one train on most of there coasters and two train operation if it have 3 when I visited.

The whole Pontchatrain beach area of the park needs new paint. The whole place(pontchatrain beach) looks faded and worn down. What SF really should add is a warter park(Hurricane Harbor). I t would get a lot of guest, due to the major heat and will give the guest more options and things to do. Overall I just had a bad experience and really don't plan to go back anytime soon.

A water park is in the master plans to be built by SF in the very near future. Hope next time you visit SFNO it will have a lot more to offer you. But I am glad you still had a great time with the city itself,there is a lot to see. I've always wanted to take a swamp tour,but never have. Everyone say its great.

I went back during opening weekend and I thought the park was pretty nice. I loved megazeph accept for the double up. That part just throws you into the lap bar.

I love all the B:TR's and since this one was a mirror image of most (Namtab:The Ride) I thought it had it's own uniqueness.

I thought a Coaster over the lake would be cool addition.

I can see how it can get very busy with the one train operation but I wasn't there long enough to experience that. *** Edited 8/8/2004 7:04:24 PM UTC by S&SFAN***

yeah that double up has become a stomach puncher. Its time for some PTC trains.

So how could this park be so ghetto already?? Didnt it only open like 4 or 5 years ago?? I know it was operated by a different company before..but still...

Wow... I was at SFNO early this spring and had a great time. I thought the park, though small, had an awesome selection of rides, especially flats, and I loved every part of MegaZeph, including the double-up.

The park seemed clean, visually attractive and in good shape to me. Hmph.

I was looking around the Pontchartrain Beach area this weekend and it actually still looks really nice paint-wise. I don't think it's in that bad a need of painting. It does need some landscaping done and some work done to that aweful looking pond (they were trying to clean it up, but it looks like they gave up). A lot of areas that did desperately need painting *got* painting this year. So I will give them that. As for the park struggling.... last weekend appeared to be record attendance (probably above 32,000 people) it was packed to the gills, several rides had lines overflowing, and Batman and Mega Zeph both had lines hovering around an hour the entire day, both doing very quick dispatch times (I was impressed how good Batman's ops were, they were ready to dispatch a train before the other one even stacked!).

I personally do not mind Mega Zeph's double up as its really the only surprisingly forceful moment on the ride. The ride is more about floaty airtime rather than ejector, but that spot sends you flying in a few directions in a very short amount of time! I was impressed that they did replace quite a few boards in the first turnaround that made it significantly smoother up there. There's a few orange markers around the track where it looks like they will do some more board replacement/track work (helix, double up, etc.)

Word has it SFNO may be getting a fairly large expansion next year, probably a waterpark... Whatever's coming it sounds like it may be more costly than the Jazzland to SFNO transformation.

Alizabeth, little girl, dear--
you aren't even old enough to drink.
and btw, you better quit that skin-frying habit before its too late...