SFoG - Spring Break (4-9-2010)

Went to SFoG with some friends on friday, April 9. This is my "home" park and my friends and I go a lot so this was more of a social outing rather than "trying to fit all the rides in as we could" kind of trips. Being that this was Spring Break week, I had a feeling the park would be very busy. The day mostly consisted of long lines and vomit! And here we go......

The park opened at 10:30 which is about the time we got parked in the SFoG parking lot. Not all of us had season passes so we had to wait on a few people to get their tickets at the ticket windows.

We finally get into the Park around 11 and headed straight to Goliath. I've ridden this coaster numerous times (mostly in the front) but decided to ride in the back. The wait time was about 45 min. and they had 2 trains running. There isn't much to say about this ride that hasn't already been said. It's definitely the most popular coaster in the park and deserves the good reputation that it constantly receives. (Personally, The Georgia Cyclone is my favorite coaster but that's just my opinion). There really isn't a bad seat on Goliath and it's a must ride for first time visitors.

After Goliath, we headed over to Batman. Has a new paint job this year. The track is a freshly painted blue. I liked the grey and black better but whatever. The wait for Batman was about an hour. They had 2 trains going but only 1 train was being used for the general public. The other train was being used only for people with flash passes. This is why the wait was so long and we booed the flash pass users every time they loaded the train. Usually they just have 1 or 2 rows reserved for flash pass users. Never seen a whole train reserved just for flash pass riders.
Anywho, we rode this ride on the front because you cant really see anything when your riding in the other rows. This ride is all speed. You really don't have much time to enjoy it because it literally only lasts about 30 seconds.

After Batman, we left the park and grabbed some lunch at McDonald's cuz the food lines were very long at the park plus we didnt wanna spend $10 on burgers, fries, and a coke.

After returning we headed towards the back of the park to Superman, Scream Machine, and Ninja. The wait for Superman was 2hrs+ so we decided to skip it. I've ridden it dozens of times and other than the pretzel loop it really doesn't do anything worth mentioning. Mostly just twists and turns.

Scream Machine only had 1 car running for the pubic. The other car was being used for a radio promotion for contest winners. The wait was almost 2 hours so we skipped it a moved on to Ninja since it had a short line. I've ridden The Scream Machine too many times to count and it is a great coaster and this is another must ride for first time visitors. A great out and back woodie with lots of floating hills.

Like I said, the Ninja line was short compared to the other rides so we jumped on. The wait was about 30 minutes. This coaster receives a lot of flack because of its roughness. I will admit that its definitely not the smoothest coaster in the park by any means but I do feel that its roughness is exaggerated quite a bit. If your a fan of loops and corkscrews then you will love this coaster.

After Ninja we headed over to Mindbender. This is one of the jewels of the park. The Mindbender was my first "big" coaster when I was little and it's still one of my favorites. We waited an hour and 45 min to ride. This is another must ride for first time visitors. I love how you just have the lap bars. I wish there were more coasters around like the Mindbender. Great hills, some loops, and just the right speed. An all around fun coaster that any coaster fan would enjoy. I love how the track twists in and around the Georgia pines.

After the Mindbender it was about 5:30 (the park closed at 8) so we headed over to The Georgia Scorcher. When we got in line the sign said it would be an hour wait so we figured that after the Scorcher we would head over to the Georgia Cyclone. After about 30 minutes waiting in line for the Scorcher they had to stop the ride. Apparently somebody had thrown up in the 2nd row and there was puke all over the 2nd and 3rd rows of one of the trains. The train operators were in no hurry to clean up the mess either. After 45 minutes of cleaning, the ride was back open. 30 min later we finally got to ride. I've ridden this coaster a lot of times and it really doesn't do anything for me. I wouldn't consider it a must ride and I'm not a fan of stand up coasters. Don't get me wrong, its still a fun ride but its just an average coaster in my opinion.

After the Scorcher we didn't have much time for anything else so we headed home. We never got to ride my favorite, the Georgia Cyclone, simply because we ran out of time with all the long waits and large crowd. I plan on making up for it on my next visit.

All in all it was a fun social outing with friends but we didn't get to ride everything we had hoped for. But its not a big deal since we live only about 45 min away and make several trips a year.

I keep contemplating a first-time visit to this park, and after your TR, I am once again having second thoughts. Two-hour waits, when the park is only open for 10 hours? Half the capacity for a coaster is for flashpass? Fourty-five-minute downtime for a protein spill? Very long lines for expensive food? Single-train operations? Slow operators?

...I will once again mention that I have a funny feeling that they sold a truckload of flashpasses that day. What happened to Six Flag's new objective of better guest service and better ride capacity?

If you go in the middle of the week during the summer the crowds arent bad at all. You should be able to get all the big coasters in plus a few other rides.

I also forgot to mention that Acrophobia was the only ride closed for the day. All the other rides were operating including the water rides.