Six Flags America - 3/28/2021 - First Row Walk-Ons

We landed today in D.C. and took a little side trip before the main event, 5 days in Williamsburg. Our original plan was to visit King’s Dominion but they will not be opening until May. Since we have Six Flags memberships and paid for the 2020 premium dining plan we decided to spend a day at Six Flags America. This was a first for all of us.

We arrived 15 minutes before the park opened and promptly lined up outside the temperature screening station. There were less than 10 groups ahead of us as we lined up. It wouldn’t get much more crowded than that. I don’t know if it was the overcast skies but the park was empty all day. Temperature screening and security were a breeze to get through. Six Flags is using cameras to take everyone’s temperature, which made it super quick. I don’t know how accurate it was but, as has previously been discussed on this board, it probably didn’t make a difference. I was also able to walk through the metal detector with my bag, even with cell phones in it. It was a nice change not to have to go through a bag check. King’s Island had something similar this summer. I hope this is here to stay.

Since the park was empty and we hadn’t seen them testing we figured the coasters wouldn’t be opened right away. The kids did a couple flats before we headed over to Mind Eraser.

Mind Eraser - We weren’t sure if the ride was open until we saw a few people walking down the exit. My son loves B & M inverted coasters but he was hesitant with this one. He decided to take a pass. My wife and I ended up being the only ones on the ride. So naturally we took the first row. The was my first Vekoma SLC. I was expecting a major head banger but it really wasn’t as bad as it’s reputation would indicate. Other than a few odd shimmies it was relatively smooth and had good moments of intensity.

After Mind Eraser we headed to lunch and our only headache of the day. First, the cashier accidentally scanned two of our passes twice, which took awhile to sort out how to work the dinner scanning situation. Turns out we didn’t need to worry about it. The biggest hassle was with the drink bottles. I was under the impression that we would be getting a 2021 bottle so we didn’t pack the 2020 bottles we picked up at the end of the 2019 season at SFGAm. The manager was really helpful and set us up with some drink cups for the meal. We had the pizza meal which was pretty good, for theme park pizza.

Roar - After lunch we headed back to some coasters as we saw more cycling. First up was Roar. Again this was a walk on and we got the first row without a wait. I was expecting a bone rattler that would test my surgically repaired back. Either we got a good run on it or it’s reputation was overblown. I enjoyed the ride.

Firebird - Iron Wolf at SFGAm was one of my first roller coasters. Although it wasn’t a great stand-up coaster I was happy that Six Flags was able to give it a second life as a floorless coaster. It definitely was an improvement over the original but still a bit on the short side. By the way, another walk-on and the second row this time.

After Firebird we tried to ride Ragin’ Cajun. It was closed due to inclement weather. As a consolation we rode the French Quarter Flyers, a Larson flying scooters ride. This was my first ride of this typed and I was really impressed. But I’m getting a bit old for rides the spin in a circle. Since we were in the area my son and I hit up Wild One.

Wild One - What can you say about a ride that is over 100 years old that hasn’t already been said. My son was worried about the ride being rough. I’ll admit I wasn’t too sure myself. Outside of the last 15-20 seconds of the ride it was intense but not uncomfortable. I would definitely ride again. First row walk on again.

Superman - This was the ride I really wanted to tackle today. It didn’t look like it was running most of the day. But on the lift of Wild One we spotted a train going up the lift hill. I wanted to make it there before the rain picked up and shut the ride down. My wife and I took a chance that it would be open. It was and was another walk on. I’m sure you could guess where we sat. The ride did not disappoint. Great airtime and smoothness throughout. There was a drizzle while riding that felt like needles. That brought me back to May trips to Cedar Point riding Millennium Force in the rain.

Batwing - Since we were in the area and this was a new ride for both my wife and I we thought it would be a great idea to give it a whirl. We’ve ridden Superman at SFGAm several times but I found the pretzel loop to be too intense. This turned out to be a great ride but super high on the intensity scale. We had to sit down for a few minutes afterwards. We joked that our younger selves would be ashamed. I’m definitely too old to marathon coasters. One lap is usually enough now. Oh, first row walk-on by the way.

After just three hours in the park we pretty much did everything we wanted to. We passed by Ragin’ Cajun one last time to see if it had opened. No luck, or more likely good luck since I wasn’t up for riding it. We grabbed a brownie and made for the exits. Overall a great day that could have gone off the rails quick. I was impressed with the operations and friendliness of the staff. We’ll definitely head back if they add some more marquee attractions in the future.

Glad to see you had a nice time at a park where not everyone seems to have a nice time. When I did Kings Dominion and Busch Williamsburg a few years ago, I carved out time to head here but was enjoying Kings Dominion so much I wound up doing an entire second day there.

Were they doing every other row still for distancing or were they back to every row (or, for that matter, did they ever even go to every other row last year)?

Nice to see springtime TRs again after last year! I can't wait for the "they weren't ready at all and nothing was open" Cedar Point Opening Weekend reports to resume this May. Not that we didn't have those reports last year, they were just two months late :)

If there’s ever one to miss it’s the spinning mouse.

My wife and I went to SFA on Saturday 3/27, and were lucky enough to get in the park early enough to walk on Roar, Firebird, and Superman. We ate lunch in Gotham City while they were testing Jokers Jinx. It opened up but the wait was longer than we cared to wait for.

We walked back to Batwing and it looked to have about a 1.5 to 2 hour wait. We skipped it. Walked over to see that both Wild One and Rajun Cajun had full queues, so we called it a day.

It was packed when were leaving, and the line to the temperature screening tent weaved the whole way back to their overflow parking lot. I can only imagine how crowded it got when the rest of those people got in.

You guys picked the perfect day to go. We've been to a few rainy days there and it does keep the crowds out early in the season. Glad you guys had a good day.

BrettV said:

Were they doing every other row still for distancing or were they back to every row (or, for that matter, did they ever even go to every other row last year)?

Nice to see springtime TRs again after last year! I can't wait for the "they weren't ready at all and nothing was open" Cedar Point Opening Weekend reports to resume this May. Not that we didn't have those reports last year, they were just two months late :)

They were not blocking off rows. The thin crowds naturally distanced themselves. For the first 20 minutes or so I thought the big rides were not going to be opened until later in the day. It turned out that they weren’t sending trains because nobody was waiting in the station!

RCMAC said:

If there’s ever one to miss it’s the spinning mouse.

My daughter is young enough to love spinning rides but not old enough to love big rides. Her favorite ride is Sierra Sidewinder at Knott’s. Having ridden Ragin’ Cajun at SFGAm I knew what I was in for. I’m sure I would have been down for the count if I rode it. But for my daughter I would have done it!