SFNE - 6/22/05

With rain predicted for the early morning, my friends and I decided that it would be the perfect day of our vacation to go to SFNE. We arrived at the park around 10:15 and headed straight to Superman.

This would be the first time for all of us. After hearing so many great reviews of this ride, I was dying to ride it. I was, however, fearing anticipointment from two years of longing to ride. After a five minute wait, we headed straight for the back car. The staff was doing great, only allowing a trainload of people at a time into the station making it a lot less chaotic inside.

This has got to be the BEST ride ever created! My new favorite ride blew Millennium Force out of the water. From the frist drop to the final hill, it was nonstop action. Throughout the day, we would ride it in the front and middle as well, but decided that the back was the best seat on this ride.

Next, we headed to Batman: Dark Night. Again, only one trainload of people was alowed onto the platform. We got the last row and again, found it to be the best seat. It was short, sweet, and somewhat intense. It reminded me of the original Batmans, but not as intense. With only seven cars per train, during the day it resulted in being one of the longest line (10 - 15 minutes) of the day. The crew was awsone as well and were trying to get the trains moving, but people kept leaving their belonings inside the yellow area of the platform, resulting in major stacking.

We then headed to Mind Eraser. On the way, we saw many kids dancing to the Six Flags Anthem. We were going to pass it up, but figured, what the heck, might as well. It ended up being the worst decision of the day. The crew was grumpy and were stacking trains very badly. It seemed like all they could concentrate on was people hopping over the que rails on the very obnxiously long, non existent line. They also even failed to say clear while dispatching the trains because they were too busy yelling at people as they entered the station! This was the worst SLC that I have ever been on. It shuffled and shook throughout the entire ride. The vibrations were so bad, it felt like a wooden coaster at times.

We then set off on our quest to find Cyclone. We spent a good hour trying to find this ride. Along the way, however, we ended up finding some good rides. We ended up riding Tomahawk, Rodeo, and Time Warp along the way. All three were pretty fun and we rode them multiple times throughout the day.

After our rides, we finally found the entrance. With one train operation, what would have been a five minute wait ended up being twenty. Finally getting on, we were off. This coaster is in need of major TLC. It reminded us of the Wolfbobs at SFWoA before the retracking. Infact, it was actually worse than Mind Eraser! It was so bad, one of my friends actually had to go back to the hotel because he had such a bad headache. We decided not to ride the Thunderbolt for fear of an equally bad ride.

Next up, we decided to ride Flashback. This was actually one of the smoothest boomerangs that I have ridden. Not a lot of headbanging at all. We got lunch at the Riverboat Cafe. Man this park was expensive! A chicken tenders basket with a medium drink cost $11.11! This is absurd, and could be called price gouging anywhere outside of the park.

After lunch, we headed back to Batman. The Op at controls was really having a great time getting everyone pumped up for the ride. A supervisor was even checking restraints, and the best ever, security escorted a man out of the park for wrighting on the wall next to the stairs! Way to go Six Flags!

We then headed back to Superman and as soon as we boarded, the ride broke down and we had to step back through the gates. After twenty minutes, as soon as maintenance gave them the clear to open the ride, they announced it was down due to inclement weather approaching the area! Couldn't they have told us this twenty minutes prior so we could have tried to get on some other rides? We decided to wait it out since all other major attractions would be down as well. The weather passed, and they began test runs. First three, then six, it seemed like they were trying to waste time until another storm came in so they wouldnt have to do any work! After a total of FIFTEEN test runs, they finally boarded the trains. With more bad weather on the way, we decided to hit Superman one last time and then left. Overall, the day started out great, but progressively got worse with some great times in between.

The crews were definately the best we had seen at a Six Flags park in recent years with the exception of Mind Eraser. All coasters were running with maximum trains except for Cyclone. The only major complaints are the food prices, the absurd number of test runs that the Superman crew did and the horrible condition that Cyclon was in. Next year, however, we will definately be returning to the park. Hopefully, on July 6th, Kingda Ka will be open as we travel to SFGRAdv for our first time!

How come you didn't ride Pandemonium? Its a good ride and if you use the single rider line you get on in less than 5mins. I just got home from SFNE and SROS was a 30min wait I only rode it 2 times and it was broke down when I went to get a 3rd one so I left.

You should of went on Thunderbolt, its one of the smoothest woodies out there, and tons of airtime, an awesome coaster!

Pandemonium was down for techincal difficulties both times we walked past it. It looked like a lot of fun, but figured we might as well ride rides instead of waiting for it to open.

Scream is also a good ride when they have it in combo mode. I also agree with MikeMir87 Thunderbolt is very underated it is a great old woodie and the camel humps have great ejecter air on them. The only problem is one train operation sucks and the line can get long.