SFNE 4/17 Opening day (LONG)

Well I had a huge Trip Report written and I hit a button accidently and it deleted the whole thing and now I’m quite upset but I’m going to write it all again, hopefully even better. This Trip report will be a little different. I’m going to list all the rides I went on and give them a rating and a comment or several. This is the first time I’ve gone to a park on opening day and it was great. I got my season pass for the first time as well. I also went on rides I had never ridden before. And the staff was so friendly and I saw more sweepers this day then I had ever seen any days last season. The weather was perfect sunny and warm but at the end of the day around 6 and especially 7 it was really cooling down.

Every ride I rode was with my Best friend Matt, except the last row ride on Cyclone, and we were the ones watching the dancing in the Gazebo.

Rides that were closed: Combo on SCREAM, Chaos, ½ of Double Trouble, Time Warp, Tomahawk, Ship Wreck Falls, Poland Springs Plunge.

Rides that were open that I didn’t ride: (excluding kiddies) - NightWing, Joker, Twister, Wave Swinger, Great Chase, Scrambler, Rodeo, Route 66( I was inline but then got out, and I’ve never ridden it before), Kontki, Carousel, Colloses, Sky Ride and Mind Eraser...

**Notice Spider and Turbo on SCREAM aren’t on the closed rides list**

Food - I ate @ Big Bens BBQ which has become a tradition for me. I always eat there and I got the Chicken and Rib platter and curly fries and macaroni salad. The fries were the best I’ve ever eaten. This is the best food place in the park in my opinion. I also had Dippin’ Dots later on in the day.

Park - I got there @ around 10:10 and bought a season pass but the line to get it processed was to long so we decided to do it later and rode ThunderBolt and then Superman, Then after the 75 minute line we decided to get Q-bot Gold and got our passes processed in a much shorter line. The Staff was easily the best staff I’ve ever seen. They were all friendly and funny. On Flashback the guy told us put your hands in the air, and we all attempted to do so, Cyclone the ride op joked with us and talked about superman, and the crew was racing to get the train dispatched ASAP, due to one train operation. Also there were sweepers every were and I saw no gum in any ques. The park has really cleaned up and was looking wonderful. The funniest thing though was when I saw a Six Flags Supervisor dancing in the front of the park with Marvin the Martian near the Gazebo. All the characters were roaming the area and greeting children and talking to them and even signing autographs. The park had the most wonderful atmosphere. I had some problems w/ my Q-bot and returned to the office 3 times and every time they were wonderful and gave me a new one, and one of the times the guy, Dave, gave me a ride on superman because of the troubles w/ my Q-bot(s). Very friendly, and the park was just plain wonderful today. I also saw a lot of Security, even some walking around the Ques of Superman. Also security cameras in Houdini.

Now onto the Rides:

Thunderbolt - 8.5/10 - First coaster in months for me and it was running great. New wood and lots of air. Great staff as well, other train was no were in sight but when I rode cyclone I saw it behind the ware house (the red train).

SuperMan: Ride of Steel - 9.5/10 - One train operation (blue) - The one train op and no mist are the only reason the ride isn’t a 10/10. The ride was running extremely fast today and it was great. Got a total of 6 rides. First ride in back row and waited 75 minutes. That’s when we opted to get Q-bots and it was 5 minute wait times the rest of the time. Got 3 more back seat rides, one second to last seat rides and one front row seat ride. Back is still the best but the front was amazing as well. My friend Rob lost his glasses on it and I thought it was hilarious but he didn’t think it was as funny. I also noticed there are new seatbelts on Superman. This is the Best coaster ever, its just so damn good. My final ride of the day was on Superman in the back seat and it was pitch black outside, GREAT ride!!!

SCREAM - Turbo (8/10) Space (8.5/10) - Turbo for the first time ever was open (old Hellovator tower) and of course I wanted to ride it just to say I did, and it was pretty fun, and later on we rode the Space shot which was a little better. Combo is still the best though. Both times we used Q-bot.

Cyclone - (7/10) Rode twice, first time no Q-bot due to no lines and we got a second to last row seat and it was fairly decent, second time later on we used Q-bot and rode in the last row and wow, I never got a violent ride like that before, I was getting pounded, it was torture, and for the first time ever I thought I want to get off the ride. I couldn’t believe it, also trims were all on.

Blizzard River (9/10) All day my group wanted to ride it and finally @ 6:30 we did. We went to it twice before and got reservations, first time is when we found out our Q-bot wasn’t working and second time we missed our reservation because we were waiting for Superman. We went this time and no line @ all so we didn’t use Q-bot and the ride was very fun. First 4 times I barely got wet and it was a blast, 5th time I got soaked though and was quite upset because my lucky streak had run out. Still a very fun ride though and I cant wait to ride it in the summer. Another ride I had never been on until today.

Houdini the Escape - (8/10) New theming in the room were the movie is viewed and the ride is just as fun as always.

FlashBack - (7.5/10) Rode once second car, pretty good but kinda rough.

BuzzSaw - (8.5/10) - I love this flat ride, fun ride, but the paint is starting to chip off.

I was inline for Route 66 but me and matt decided to leave because it was taking to long, and then later on we used Q-bot and while we waited we went to Spider but I didn’t know Spider takes an hour to work and we lost the reservation so after Spider I reserved it again and were waiting for front row on Mind Eraser and it broke infront of us. We were on the next train (one train op (red) ) and we just left the line and I didn’t get to ride it today.

Spider - (2/10) - I only wanted to ride the ride for two reasons. A. Its NEVER open and B. Its an old Riverside Classic. Well it is manually operated and the operator really knew what he was doing and was trying his hardest, and the ride takes for ever to load though. But I was determined to ride it. Unfortunately it made Matt sick and was kinda getting to me too. This ride is just plain boring and sickening and takes for ever to ride. I’ll never ride it again, and if it were to be replaced I wouldn’t even mind.

BatMan: The Dark Knight - (9/10) - The ride was short so I reserved it on Q-bot and while we waited the 10 mins for it we got in line for Batman, so in 15 minutes we rode it twice, and it was running both trains, and was very fun. Trim was on though but I got A LOT of air time in the Zero G, which I never really got before. Second to last train first time and last row second time.

The day had a good amount of break downs but to be honest I didn’t even mind. I know I’m going to come back a lot this season and I’ll get to ride them later. It was opening day so I didn’t mind much, the park was so good though despite the breakdowns, most shops were open, and there was lots of staff. I also found out about two bathrooms I had never known about before, one near the stunt show and the other in a pet store themed building in looney toones land. I can’t wait to return to the park and even though it’s a long two hour drive there and back I’m going to go quite a bit and I look forward to it. I hope the park’s staff stays incredibly nice like today and the park just improves overall, this is just as good as a new ride, it was just a wonderful atmosphere, thanks for reading M/M

Wow, sounds like Six Flags really is improving. I hope this continues throughout the year at all the parks.

i was also at SFNE on opening day. A few observations i made:

- For opening day the park was pretty empty. The only ride that there was really a wait for was SROS. About 40 mins. Scream was 15 mins.

- The red train will not be operating until mid-may / early june.

- SROS broke down atleast 5 times (probably more but i was off at other rides)

- The Houdini ride has recieved 2 upgrades. The sound system in the room sounds alot better. And the drop down screen that played the intro movie has been replaced by a $2000+ plasma screen tv. Same video still plays...in my opinion that was kind of a waste of money but oh well.

- The park now has a security guard and emt at all the big attractions.