SFNE - 6/30/23

It’s taken awhile to post this as we have been busy sightseeing in Boston. Anyway, our next stop on the coaster road trip was Six Flags New England. Once again, a new park for me.

Some highlights:

• Wicked Cyclone was wicked awesome. Constant action without being out of control.
• Pandemonium is a decent spinner. A slow loader as expected but at least the majority of the queue was in the shade.
• Houdini is a unique experience but not over the top amazing. I had to laugh when a teenager claimed after the ride that he almost fell out of his restraint. Luckily one of his friends was able to explain that the room was spinning as well.
• Gotham City Gauntlet is a typical off the shelf wild mouse. For some reason they were only sending cars with two riders which lengthened the lines a bit. We still waited only about 10 minutes. Decent ride until the brake run when I got the wind knocked out of me on the restraint.
• Catwoman Whip is a good family coaster. Not much else to say.
• I wanted to love Superman but the restraints knock it down a bit. I loved the air time but I found the restraint just too uncomfortable. That said, we did two laps since there was no wait.
• Riddler Revenge had a short wait. A Vekoma SLC? What was I thinking?
• Dark Knight is a pretty standard floorless coaster. It’s been awhile since I had ridden a floorless. Given my low tolerance for B&M inverts I was concerned that I would have issues with this ride. Fortunately, I was able to handle the ride with no issues.
• Thunderbolt was our longest wait but still only about 30 minutes. One train operations and slow loading turned a walk on into that wait. The ride itself was quite rough but did have some fun air moments.

Overall it was a good day. We didn’t experience any downtime and very little waits.

I echo your experience with Thunderbolt. As we stood there and stood there I tried really hard to come up with a good reason for the slowness and couldn’t see one. One train, yea. Ops that were slow as snails, yes. But the question was why? It was a busy day.
Superman is one of the best rides I’ve ever ridden, and I don’t recall an issue with the restraint. I only got one ride though. It was a busy day.
Houdini was closed. I love a good Mad House so I was disappointed.
Dark Knight was awesome and the biggest pleasant surprise of the day.
I wish I could remember more about Wicked Cyclone. I wasn’t about to leave without it but we waited soooo long. There was down time, two trains, one train, two trains again, and I thought I was gonna die. By the time we got on I just wanted out of there and nothing was going to make that wait worth while. It was a really busy day.
I’m glad I have the park on my list but there’s not much to make me make the trip back there any time soon, if ever. Nearby Canobie Lake, on the other hand…

Glad you had a better Six Flags day than the last! SFNE is probably my favorite Six Flags park and when I read about other people’s experiences there I count myself as lucky to have had such good trips. Superman is still in my top 5 even though I haven’t ridden it in more than 15 years.

I was super surprised that it wasn’t busy. A warm rainless day on the Friday before a holiday weekend? Maybe everyone was at the airport instead.

Have not been to the park in a long time but grew up near it. Remember it having two trains as a kid but has Thunderbolt had 2 train operation in the last decade? Remember there was a station crash on old Cyclone and seems like everything wood went to one train after that regardless of how busy it was.

Had SFNE as my home park from 2000-2002 and then only made a recent visit in 2017 or 18. Thankfully we hit it on a day when everything was a walk on (it was 95 degrees), but I could/have seen some pretty awful operations at the park.

The thing I really love about S:RoS that the new RMC's don't have is the sensation of speed. Whereas the RMC's assault you (in a good way) with air and strangely banked turns and hills, the Intamins are paced a little bit slower so there's time to appreciate how fast you're going. On S:RoS in particular the far overbanked turn and the dive into the last tunnel as well as the helices do a good job of that.

Nice TR. Wicked Cyclone was my first RMC. Glad you got the Houdini credit. The restraint modifications on SROS do suck, but I still love that ride. Its a top 5 to 10 for me. Was fortunate to do an ACE event (around 2004 or 2005 i think,)years ago and got 26 laps at night. I need to revisit, but not until I've see positive moves from Six Flags corporate.

We went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg over the 4th and were disappointed at the closed shops, operating rides with minimal staff, and Pantheon(main reason for visit,) was down all day. Luckily we still had a good day.

We're going to BGW in early August. Any tips or thoughts on how to attack the park? What order are they opening things these days?

^We got in the park around 1100 and rode in this order Lochness Monster, Apollos Chariot, Verbolten, Darkoaster, Alpengeist, Invadr, and Griffon. We paid for quick queue and and took multiple laps on all the coasters except Darkoaster(Invadr and Darkoaster are one time use with unlimited,) and wouldn't have needed it.

Waits were averaging 15 - 45 minutes for almost everything except Darkoaster was at 2 hours when we skipped the line. We've been to Williamsburg over several 4ths and this was by far lowest crowds of them all.

Their app has wait times on it so it comes in handy when entering the park. You can buy quick queue in real time if you decide they are too long, and your barcode is right on the app. No mobile ordering on there. I like using that in Disney. The $49.99 Dine all day is a bargain and a family of 4 can easily share 2.

Did you ride Pantheon? Obviously there's a lot of great stuff at BGW, but that the coaster I'm most interested in. We may skip Tempesto and Darkoaster if the lines are prohibitive, but I'd love to get lots of laps on Pantheon. Quick queue is $100 on the day we're planning on going and QQ+ is $129, so with three thrill riders in our party, that's pretty much a non-starter.

Nope. Pantheon and Tempesto were down for the day. We have been trying to get a lap since the delays from the pandemic.

Yes definitely worth it. For that price with the plus you'll get to skip the line for Darkoaster, tempesto and Invadr once and the rest of the coasters unlimited

ApolloAndy:

but I'd love to get lots of laps on Pantheon

Pantheon's operations are so dreadfully slow that it's actually impressive so be ready for that.

Is there a "-1" button? Are they so bad I should rope drop it if I hope to get multiple laps or can I hit, say, DarKastle and Verbolten first as a warm up for the kids?

Not really sure about rope drop because the times I tried it didn’t open until later in the day. That was during its first season so I don’t know what it’s like now and my experience is also based on spring visits.

Last time I was at Busch I happened to be nearby when they opened it up, I was one of the first trains to go out and by the time I got off the queue was full.

You’ll be in Festa Italia early because it’s one of the first parts of the park to open (Apollo’S Chariot walk-ons) but I wouldn’t waste your time waiting for it to open while the rest of the park is starting to roll open.

I'd say shoot for Darkoaster and Verbolten. They were both up at rope drop on our visit. Good start with the kids.