SFNE 8/6-7/02
Associated parks:
None
After Lake Compounce we headed up to SFNE. We caught the last 3 hours on Tuesday and first couple on Wednesday. It was a good plan to do this because the park was packed both days in light of beautiful weather. When we arrived we headed straight to
Superman: Ride of Steel (Intamin Hyper)- PARK IN AURORA, GET ONE OF THESE.... There are 2 towards to describe this ride INSANE and SUSTAINED (it rhymes ya know) Our 2nd lap we caught a night ride in seat 9-1. I like the forward seats in Intamin Hyper cars because of the room and I think it rides better in those seats despite it not being tiered. Well I found the drop all right, but nothing spectacular. After falling off MF about 400 times all first drops aren’t exciting anymore I guess.
The red lighting in the tunnel with the mist makes for a weird setting then we burst out of the tunnel still shrouded by the fog. As the train climbs the 2nd hill it breaks loose from the fog. At that moment we were catapulted up with great force while the train is trying to pull us down. After the train finally collects us immediately there is quick over bank turn to the right turning us around. There is a little flat stretch of track where the track dips down into a little depression, which supplies a pop of air. Then the fun starts.
The next two hills contain an ungodly amount of air. It’s not a quick ejection or just a gentle floatation, but it feels like for 5 seconds I was constantly trying to be ripped from the train. When we do come back down I was slammed so hard I almost hit the nose of the car. After that there is a series of hills which lead into intense helices. When riding in the back the front of the train is already at a 90-degree angle from our car while we are cresting the hill. This causes some ejection up while the train is getting pulled into the helix. I don’t know what to say here, It’s like trying to describe the indescribable, It's Just Amazing.
They could have ended it here and I would still have the same opinion of the ride. One more Dive into a tunnel then into a bunny hop finale (On a hyper? Never!). This ride never lets up and gives it to you till the very end. (Honors)
Thunderbolt- (wooden coaster built buy somebody who has never been in my kitchen) Another classic wooden coaster. A nice all around coaster but nothing great. (B-)
Batman: The Dark Knight (B&M Floorless)- This ride is short, yet intense much like B:TR. I think it’s a tad to short for me though after riding some longer floorless coaster (B)
After that we finished off on SROS for a total of 3 on the night. Next morning we hit SROS for one last time and finished the rest of the coasters
Mind Eraser (Vekoma SLC) this is the smoothest I have ridden. Not bad (C+)
Riverside Cyclone (Cobb woddie)- In it’s former day I can see this being a great woodie. I found this ride to be intense at some point yet rough has heck. There was one crazy pop of air that I did not see coming and a few pops here and there. It was weird seeing the old track underneath the drop. I wonder why they don’t just get rid of it; it’s almost disgraceful. Beside the reprofile it was trimmed to death yet it still has some jump to it. I would have love to ridden it back in the day (B)
Capacity. Superman, Mind Eraser and B:TDK both ran 2, the rest were 1. Batman had trains stacked on the brake run for up to 5 minutes at a time so running 2 may have been a mute point. Superman always stacked which is pitiful for a ride that long and two trains. The main culprit is they would wait forever to open the gates. The SROS crew at Darien Lake was able to dispatch trains with plenty of time even though their ride is shorter. We had a one-train wait for cyclone yet we waited for 10 minutes because that's what the dispatch interval on that ride is. I saw so much stupid crap go on I don’t want to describe it now, it’s like either they don’t care or don’t have brains. (D-)
Atmosphere/Theming -The Park had good landscaping and some nice theming around superman. Fairly clean (B)
Operations- In this case we will exam their consistency of policy on S:ROS. Is it possible to be this poor?
Our First ride everyone had to keep behind the red line or the gates would not open. Why they have a red line on all the rides as opposed to the customary yellow line I don’t know. So they wait a few moments fopr everyone to get behind this red line which is about a foot behind the gate and it opens. When they check lap bars they then asked everyone to put there hands up so the ops could run by and check fast. Aright fine.... Our next ride you could be standing on the gate and they would open it. Then they would not tell people to put their hands up so they could check the bars.
My first two rides I take off my hat and hold it in my hand and one I even have it on my head before I took it off on the lift. Nobody says anything. The 3rd ride and the same op that checked me the one time tells me I cannot hold anything in my hand. I suppose they made the ride faster or something in 30 minute so Alright, no problem. This is the way it is at home on Millennium Force so I stuff my hat down my shirt like I'm used to He then yells at me for doing this and I cannot ride unless I put my hat on the platform bins. OK I give up trying to argue senselessness.
When it was getting close to close they announced they would only be sending 2 more trains and all rows had to be filled. The problem was they never told the 30 some people waiting in line about this and of course they get upset. Even more hilarious is the girl said they would only be sending two more trains and if you were not on them you would not ride. She failed to count there was more than 100 people still on the platform when she made this announcement. People started to panic trying to find seats and almost created a near riot over fights for seats. I guess they don't require people who have the ability to count for anyone to operate rides at New England.
(D)
Overall-One great ride with a few other which were all right, but shoddy capacity and operations. (C-)
*** This post was edited by Joe E. on 8/10/2002. ***
*** This post was edited by Joe E. on 8/10/2002. ***
-----------------
Im the #1 Canobie Lake Park Fan!!!These are my top 3 coasters:
1. S:RoS @ SFNE 2. Yankee Cannonball 3. Cyclone/B:TDK
Joe's TR pretty much sums up the way I feel about SFNE. Superman is probably honestly the best coaster I've ridden, but the operations and capacity in that park are horrid. I wish so badly that Superman was at a park that knew how to run it. I live two hours from SFNE and that ride would be worth making a weekly trip for if I knew I could get more than one ride on it. The past couple times I've gone to this park, I've left feeling more disgusted than anything because I usually spend the majority of my time waiting in lines for coasters with five minute dispatch intervals and a bunch of line jumpers. There have to be a few people working at that park that know how things should be run! They need to speak up! That place is truely an embarassment! It shouldn't even be possible to stack a coaster as long as Superman with two trains! One train should be on its way up the lift as the other one is starting the bunnny hops. They need to learn about interval over there! Maybe they should watch RaptorCam to see what I'm talking about (a train up the lift about every 1:10).
-----------------
-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
After my first visit there last week, it seemed to me that the park was more worried about taking my friends spiked bracelet that they deemed was a weapon than providing any sort of service. Mark at guest relations was horribly rude, and their rent-a-cop, powertrip security guards don't even know anything about Massachusetts law and what is legal or illegal. There was no shade, and all of the ride ops were extremely lazy.
At least the SROS line was only 40 mins w/ 2 trains, and I got 2 rides in. This is the best roller coaster I've ever been on. Too bad there are no Intamin hypers in FL (heck, I'll take any kind of hyper close to home). This ride was incredible, but was more intimidating to watch than it was to ride. My GP friend was scared of the drop and all, but afterwards she didn't think it was bad at all. Now we have to convince Eisner of this....
-Matt
MDommis: I'm in the same boat. I live in Boston, about 1.5 hrs. away, and I always say it's such a shame that SFNE was the park to get S:RoS. The park is horribly run and the crews/staff/management/everybody, could care less if you have a good time at their park. It's really a disgrace to the six flags name. I would be there every week if I knew that I wouldn't have to wait 2 hrs. for S:RoS to open in the morning for something that should've been taken care of while the park was closed (don't get me started on the second train for S:RoS). I would LOVE to see S:RoS in a Busch park, run with Busch crews (from whom I have seen nothing but the best) and Busch theming. That would definitely make me want to come back every week or even many times a week.
Joe E. - I'm sorry to say that you didn't hit SFNE on a bad day, but that's pretty much how all days at SFNE have been this season. I don't really get it because last season was a lot better. Maybe all the money they spent on B:DK was taken from staff training budgets or something. Hopefully, next season will look more like last season and less like this season.
-----------------
On second thought, just get the crews from CP. :)
-------------
TOGO!
*** This post was edited by PT300 on 8/12/2002. ***
You must be logged in to post
