SFNE, Quassy??, & Lake Compounce...Long but worth it 8/11

I had Monday off and so it was time to finally go to one of the parks that I have been dreaming of ever since they built the Mona Lisa of roller coasters with Superman-Ride of Steel. Earlier in the season I had an opportunity to ride this coaster’s twin cousins at Six Flags America and Darien Lake so I was interested to see how this would stack up against those sweet rides.

Thanks to work I have been in Rome, NY for a couple of weeks and have had opportunities to hit some great parks out here that are quite hard to get to from Oklahoma! I set out from Rome around 6:30 in the morning and had a nice drive into Agawam, Mass. I found the park and paid my $15 for parking and was grateful I had a season pass so I wouldn’t have to fork over any more money. I didn’t remember until later that they have some controversial cheaper parking around the park…oh well.

I was early and the park had all the guests waiting at the main street intersection. There was an employee asking the crowd some questions and giving out prizes. If you are there during this process try to answer her questions because she gave away a front row first ride of the day on Superman to a couple of guys that answered one of her questions. I thought that was cool.

The park finally opened and I followed the crowd to the park’s giant icon. The security slowly escorted the crowd all the way to the entrance and through the queue up to the loading platform. I guess they have had issues in the past with the initial crowd barreling towards this gem.

I was able to get on the first train and off we went. I was so excited to ride this. As we climbed the lift I took a look back at the spaghetti bowl of track that makes up the second half of the ride. It looked delicious. Quickly the train was at the top and down we went! The first drop is fantastic. I love the tunnel and the first hill is huge. The turn back is the only breather on the ride because right after that it is air hill time. One after another and then right before the train dives into the spaghetti you get an incredible ejector air hill! Off into the twisted section and the ride just gets more intense with g-pulling turns and more air popping hills. Then you take one more fog/mist filled tunnel followed by a couple more bunny hops. A final quarter speed turn and then the brakes.

“I don’t know much, but I know I love you!” were the words going through my mind as we pulled into the station. Seriously I had fallen in love and I had to break it to my wife, but before I did that I ran around to get back in line before the wait got really long. I grabbed a seat towards the front and just couldn’t believe how well this ride delivers. This was not one of those cases of anticipointment. This ride doesn’t just live up to the hype, it exceeds it in air hill after air hill. This ride doesn’t really even compare to its cousins. It blows both of the other Superman rides away! In my opinion, overall this coaster is better than Millennium Force. The steel coaster that has been on the top of my list for a long time is “X”. I honestly don’t know which one is better because they are two different animals. I guess I have two #1’s. By the way, I did tell my wife that I had fallen in love and she took it better than I thought she would.

After two of the best coaster rides ever I was off to experience the rest of SFNE. Catwoman’s Whip was next. This was one of the longest coaster trains I have ever seen! This is a fun little ride and great for a kids coaster.

Next was Mind Eraser. This would be my second Mind Eraser in as many days, since I had been at Darien Lake the day before. You can look at that review to find out what I thought of this ride.

Batman The Ride is not your normal Six Flags Batman. A new kid is on the block and ready to throw down. B&M did an awesome job once again with this floorless, but I still love the invert even though you can find it everywhere.

I was excited to try out the wood in New England and Thunderbolt looked like a good place to start. With only 1 train ops the wait was about 30 minutes or so. I took the back seat and went for a spin. I enjoyed this figure eight layout that gives some nice pops of air and decent laterals. After I got off I gave my six year old son a call because one of his favorite books is a Bearnstein Bears book called “Thunderbolt”. I told him I just rode the Thunderbolt and he was so excited.

I went to ride Pandemonium after Thunderbolt. As I got close to the ride I saw a pretty full queue line but then I saw a single rider line! Yes, I love it when parks have these. It’s like a get out of jail free card! I waited 2 minutes and off I went. This is an extremely fun ride and I could see why the line was packed. I love the layout and the spinning. No wonder they are putting more and more of these into their parks. It has a small footprint with a huge fun factor.

Time for some more wood. This Cyclone was not what I imagined but it looked great as I walked up to it. As you make your way through the queue Six Flags has a bunch of signs with tributes to other great wooden coasters at their other parks. I thought that was cool. Once again they had 1 train ops but I only waited about 20 minutes. I got the front row and off we went. This ride was built back in 1983, but it seemed to have a layout more like a GCI of today. It isn’t that elaborate or smooth but the ride was really good. I was pleasantly surprised by this coaster.

Last and least was Flashback. Actually I take that back. Least would be Mind Eraser. Once again look at the Darien Lake review for a review of this ride.

Now that I had ridden the other coasters in the park, I went pack to my new love. I got another four rides on Superman before we had to part our separate ways. If you are looking to ride one of the very best coasters in the world then make your way to the land of the Patriots, Sox, Celtics, and Bruins……..at least we know they have one real winner with Superman!

I would have ridden Superman all day but I have to make the most of my trip so it was time to drive to Quassy in Connecticut. As I was driving by Hartford, it started to pour! I drove through a raging storm but as I pulled off the freeway the weather cleared and I was ready to hit my second park of the day, but as I soon found out, they were not ready for me. I pulled into an absolutely empty parking lot?!!?! Where is everybody? I swear their website said that they were open today. I got out and started walking around and taking pictures. This park is set on a gorgeous lake with some good looking rides. The Mad Mouse has one of the most interesting layouts I have seen on any non-spinning mouse. As I was back by the Little Dipper a black truck pulled up and the guy gave me a funny look as he rolled down his window. I asked him what was going on and he said they just had a storm roll through with the most lightning he has ever seen and so they sent all of the employees home and were closed for the rest of the day. Maybe I should have told him that I had come all the way from Oklahoma to experience his park but I didn’t as the sun was shining down upon us with 4½ hours still to go in their operating hours. He drove away and I walked around the rest of the park. As I left the park I noticed their sign still was welcoming guests to Quassy. I threw my car in park, got out and spun that sign to the other side so it would let all of the other guests know that Quassy was now closed for inclement weather on this sunny afternoon.

So what…Quassy was closed. No big deal. Why you might ask? Because I still had Lake Compounce to finish off the day right and Boulder Dash was calling my name just like Superman was a few hours earlier. The drive to Bristol was nice and I found the park pretty quickly. As I walked under the road to the park I saw a sign, “Rides closed today”……Boulder Dash…….NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I told myself before I left that as long as I got to ride Superman then this trip would be totally worth it. Can I take that back?? No, the trip was totally worth it because of Superman but Boulder Dash would have been the icing on the cake. Once I got into the park and took a look at this coaster, I really wish it would have been open. It looks absolutely incredible. When will I ever get back to Lake Compounce?

The Wildcat is the center foundation of this part and it is wild! The back is a crazy ride. The front isn’t as crazy but still gives a ride. It is some good wood but lets you know who is the boss.

I rode my 3rd Boomerang in two days. This one looks the best but rides the worst out of the three.

I got a trip on the Flyers. Fun but not the same as the Flyers that I used to love at Kings Island.

I was pumped to ride the S&S swing. I have only ridden one other one at Silver Dollar City and I loved it. This is a great ride but it was way too short.

The log flume here is a lot of fun as you get a nice scenic tour through the mountain side.

The haunted house was a fun interactive dark ride. I am sure the families love this ride.

I took plenty of pictures of the masterpiece built into the mountain and then walked down to the scenic lift. I took a ride and saw why Boulder Dash was closed. They were retracking the turn around. The scenic lift lets you get a gorgeous view of Connecticut and the park. After this I rode the trolley back towards the unique looking waterpark and get one last ride on Wildcat. I bought a couple of postcards to send home to the kids and decided to start my drive back to Rome a little bit earlier than I had planned because there would be no marathoning on Boulder Dash like I had dreamed about.

The drive home was beautiful and uneventful. I had a wonderful time and hope I can get back to Connecticut someday to experience Quassy and that awesome looking coaster literally built into the side of a mountain. Even if you miss those two parks you can make up for it by going to SFNE and riding my new favorite coaster, Superman: Ride of Steel!

Thanks for reading this novel!

Doug *** Edited 8/16/2008 1:46:48 AM UTC by S&SFAN***

I need to remind myself to do more flumes, I totally missed that one at Lake Compounce when I was there.

Yes, it was a good flume, but I would have traded it to get on Boulder Dash in a split second.

Nice TR! Congrats on getting Supes on your resume. Someday I hope to find something I like better than that thing...but it's going to have to be an *awesome* ride to do that.
If nothing else, missing BD just gives you a great reason to get back to beautiful New England (and catch more Supes rides too)... ;)

It's always nice to know about the cool "non-coaster" rides at parks you're heading to. One good reason to check out the forums before you travel. Compounce's skyride and flume are VERY nice, and I love Ghost Hunt, it's still among the best interactives IMO.

Speaking of non-coaster rides...a note for anyone going that way who's into "park nostalgia"...there's a really cool carousel workshop and museum near LC...and the uber-cool antique carousels at SFNE and LC are pretty special too.