SFNE and SFGADV help and advice needed

Hi there guys. I have just found out i have a wedding in Boston in june and thought that i could hit one of the two parks in that rough area and i need to get some help and advice from you guys in the area.

Now i am flying from Sydney so the flights will probably be a bit cheaper if i land in New york, but obviously i will need to then drive up to Boston.

Firstly how far is Great adventure from new york's airports and how long to drive to Boston?? SFNE appears to be pretty close to Boston, is that right??

Now on to the parks. I dont want to start a flame war here. SFGADV seems to have the better and bigger coaster line up. But i have heard great things about dark night and the ride of steel at SFNE.

Not having riden a floorless, i am looking forward to either, any comparisons between Dark Night and Medussa. They are not clones right??

Nitro does look amazing- does the B+M compare favourably to the Intamin giant?

It does look like SFNE has a better selection of flats. Is that the case?

So if i could get your thoughts that would be great.

Schools wont be on vacation in june will they?? I hope not- hate q's (who does'nt)

Great adventure is about a hour and a half ride from NY and Boston is a four hour ride from NY.SFNE is an hour and a half ride from Boston. Medussa is 3times the size of BTDN. IMO you would be better off going to SFGAdv to ride 4 B&Ms. SROS is the best but Nitro is a great coaster.If you go to NJ make sure you ride SUF first because the line gets long. SROS is always a 1to2 hour wait. As far as the flats go there both about the same.

Even if schools aren't dismissed yet by the time you go, you can expect tons of field trips, etc. There's always long lines at SFNE for one reason or another.

I've had the two as my respective home parks for the last 7 years (SFNE for 5, GAdv. for 2).

When you drive from NY to Boston (the way I do it) you come up from Connecticut and hit I-90 in central MA. SFNE is about 30 min. West of that intersection and Boston is about 1 hr. East of the intersection, so if you come up from NYC, SFNE is more or less on the way. If you want to go to SFNE from Boston it's 1.5 hrs.

Coasterwise, B:DK is pretty small, but fast and intense. Medusa has bigger elements and has the typical B&M smooth easiness. I'm not really a big fan of either coaster, but I'd give Medusa the slight edge. Either way, both must be ridden in the front to be fully appreciated. That said, the station design for B:DK is so terrible that there's never a long wait for the front, whereas front row on Medusa can be a 8 or 9 train wait.

S:RoS beats the tar out of Nitro. I've ridden both on the order of 100 times, and I can say that Nitro has gotten a little boring where S:RoS never ceased to deliver. Granted, Nitro is still an amazing amazing ride and re-ridability will probably not be an issue, but S:RoS' tunnels, mist, and just sheer overpowering airtime are the stuff of legends.

Unfortunately, after that SFNE has little to offer in the coaster department (a boomerang, a hang n bang, and a couple of mediocre woodies), whereas GAdv. still has S:UF, B:TR, B:TC (which may have both side running, but will probably have at least Batman running with one of my favorite elements: the top hat), GASM.

Summary: I would say if you're looking to try a whole bunch of new stuff, go to GAdv. If you're looking to ride the best coaster in the country, possibly in the world, over and over and over go to SFNE. (Beware that SFNE is putting all your eggs in one basket too. If the ride breaks or if there's single train op....)

Linewise and staff wise, SFNE has done a pretty good job of letting me down, especially on S:RoS. I wasn't at the park too much last summer (only one visit) so I don't know if it's improved, but two seasons ago, the park was plagued with single train operation on S:RoS which was pretty bad as a regular and would make me homocidal if I had made a special trip. GAdv. runs 3 on Nitro, 2 on S:UF and 3 on Medusa pretty consistently. Chiller will probably only have 1 side open. Unfortunately, the Medusa crew last year was God awful, stacking all three trains the majority of the time. Nitro's crew was great though and even a full queue was only 38 minutes. I don't know if SFNE is doing the same, but GAdv. claims that most of their improvements this year went into better staffing and better facilities.

If you do end up going to GAdv. I would disagree with Aj and say ride Chiller first. It has such bad capacity and the line is obscured so lots of people get into it thinking it's small and then it moves really slowly and when they think they're almost there, they realize their only about a 1/4 of the way. Towards mid afternoon, its one of the longest lines in the park and definitely the slowest. S:UF does get long pretty quickly, but this will be its second season, so it will probably have lost a bit of the novelty. Additionally, it has 2, 32 passenger trains (compared to Chiller's 1, 20 passenger) so it can move pretty quickly through the mid morning - early afternoon. It may have about the same # of people, but it doesn't crawl at a snail's pace. *** Edited 3/29/2004 3:32:30 AM UTC by ApolloAndy***

gyjdnb - While I can understand the desire to visit SFGAdv let me suggest parks you can visit between NYC and Boston:

NY: Coney Island, Rye Playland

CT: Lake Compounce, Quassy Lake Amusement Park

MA: SFNE

Also northwest of Boston is Canobie Lake in New Hampshire.

mOOSH

Funny, I also might be attending a wedding in Boston this June. Lake Compounce was the first park that popped into my mind, but I forgot that there are many more parks in the area (including SFNE, with arguably the #1 steel coaster in the world). Having never been to New England, and having only one day to ride coasters, what park(s) would you recommend?

Fit LC and SFNE in, Mike. Then you can say you did it all. Just deal with the drive, and make it happen. :)

I've got *three* separate business trips to Bahstahn this upcoming season. Looks like I'll keep busy. :)

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gyjdnb said:
Not having riden a floorless, i am looking forward to either, any comparisons between Dark Night and Medussa. They are not clones right??

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I like Medusa better than Batman. They both have a loop, dive loop, zero-g, and interlocking flatspins. Medusa also has a cobra roll, which you won't find on the SFNE Batman. Medusa is a much longer ride.

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Nitro does look amazing- does the B+M compare favourably to the Intamin giant.

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In my opinion, S:RoS is a million times better than Nitro.

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It does look like SFNE has a better selection of flats. Is that the case?

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They're both about equal on this one, since most flats are never open. (This is true at SFGAdv anyway. I only was at SFNE only once, and most flats there were closed; I'm not sure if this is the norm.)

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Schools wont be on vacation in june will they?? I hope not- hate q's (who does'nt)

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Depends on when in June you're going.

Nitro does look amazing- does the B+M compare favourably to the Intamin giant?

SFNE's Intamin-made Superman Ride of Steel is so much better than Nitro that it's in a league of it's own. Nitro is fun, but you'll have an afterglow and feel like smoking a cigarette after riding SROS...if ya know what I mean ;)

mOOSH

<insert M:TR joke>

Thanks a heap guys- i think i will try to hit SFGADV it seems to have a better selection- and i am huge B+M fan having grown up on them at Alton towers, so it seems the logical choice.

A couple more questions:- This q bot thing that they advertise on the web site. Does it allow you unlimited q jumps?? Can you 'book' more than one coaster at a time?? I have been to magic mountain and they used paper tickets (so high tech)with each q jump costing you $4. I may be english but i hate q'ing- and having read some trip reports, it sounds like there is some bad q jumping (illegal) at this park, which would annoy me immensly. Is the q'bot worth it in June??

Just curious after reading how much people rave about ROS, those who have ridden it and Millenium force which one do you prefer? Is it a close run thing?? I rode MF in the summer and loved it, but it is not my favourite coaster.

Moosh- what exactly do those smaller parks have to offer?? Would love to be able to fit them all in, but time is a bit tight and as i am going to try and take a day on the way back to do SFMM, dont think i will be able to do any more.

Will be there June 8-15. Are schools in or out- God i hope they are at their desks working

And finally- is the Great American Scream machine a clone of Viper at SFMM. It looks very similar- not a bad thing as i actually loved Viper.

Thanks a lot for all your help- most appreciated, my parents will think i am mad- flying to New york just to go to a theme park, but hey why the hell not.
Cheers *** Edited 3/29/2004 5:38:42 AM UTC by gyjdnb***

I was gong to write a whole spiel here, but Apollo Andy pretty much made all of my points for me. =) Superman is the best ride I've ever been on, period. And I've also been on MF and thought Superman was way better. But, if i could only pick one park to go to, it'd probably be GAdv, simply because there's more rides and a better theme park atmosphere.

The only thing to consider that no one else mentioned is that you could hit LC and SFNE in one day (assuming you only have one day to go to a park), and they're both on the way to Boston from NYC. Also, SFNE has arguably the better water park and it's included with admission - don't know if that's your bag or not.

School should still be in session on those dates, but either avoid the weekends like the plague and you should be fine with lines. And if you do go to GAdv, A.A. is right - hit the Chiller first. It's by far the slowest line - all the big beamers have great capacity.

All in all, if i lived out of the area and made a trip to the northeast, I would do everything in my power to hit both parks (and LC), as I couldn't see being that close and passing one or the other up. But if you only have one day, so be it. You'll have fun either way!

~me

Moosh- what exactly do those smaller parks have to offer??

In terms of what? # of coasters? # of rides? I'm not sure what you're asking.

Look...if what you are interested in is coasters and only coasters than you're wise to stay with SFGAdv and SFNE. I'm biased...I prefer smaller, more traditional parks.

mOOSH

Coasters Moosh, the bigger and baddest the better. I am a total size queen!

As much as i do enjoy the little traditional parks ( and i went to a few in the uk- quaint) i like the monster theme parks and coasters.

Than skip the smaller parks I mentioned and stick with the big themers.

mOOSH

SFNE and LC in one day. Nice to know that it's possible to do...or is it? Is it realistic to think that I can tear myself away from S:RoS halfway through the day? ;)

Perhaps, if I keep thinking, 'Boulder Dash...Boulder Dash...'

Well, when I went to sfne this last year I spent the entire day there and got 3 rides on superman. 2 at night. I rode the other coasters once, went to the waterpark and enjpyed the park. It was a Monday and it was really busy.

I personally would have a hard time leaving one park for the other.

"Is it realistic to think that I can tear myself away from S:RoS halfway through the day?"

You got it backwards. Start your day at LC, then move on to SFNE as it's generally open 1-2 hours later than Compounce.

Yeah, but then you lose night rides on Dash. Granted, night rides on S:RoS (if the misters are on) are about as close to heaven as I've gotten on Earth, but Dash is still pretty godly at night.

(No, I'm not training to be a minister.)