![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Six Flags Exhaustion
Aug. 23rd, 2019 11:38 pmLeft the house at 8:30 AM, didn't get back until 8:30 PM -- long, busy day! (That almost didn't get off the ground, because of COURSE what was supposed to be a beautiful sunny day started out rainy. . .fortunately it improved by the time we left, though it never got full-on sunny -- stayed off and on cloudy most of the day.) I am suffering from The Tireds, so I shall attempt to sum up the experience without getting too verbose. The ultra-short version:
Rides good, park meh.
The expanded version:
The rides are good, for the most part -- We went on eight, almost all roller coasters, and enjoyed the vast majority (Thunderbolt, the first coaster we went on, was a bit too rickety and bumpy, on account of being a super-old coaster). My personal favorites were the Superman coaster (the DROP on that thing! It is freaking terrifying and amazing) and the Wild Cyclone (a steel coaster repurposed from an older wooden one, which has great theming -- you're supposed to be storm chasers getting caught up in a massive cyclone, and the area around/in the coaster has fake storm chaser vans and planes, plus storm debris -- and is just a hell of a lot of fun). Fun rides and I'm glad I got the chance to experience them!
But the park itself could use some work -- Let's discount the wait times because that's an evil in every amusement park of this type, and while we had some nasty waits, we also had some decent ones. One of the first rides we went on, Scream -- a vertical drop where you bounce up and down a few times (I ended up babbling through the duration, much to my father's amusement) -- had a longer wait time than it should have had because only one tower out of three was running. And we overheard an employee saying that one of them (the original tower, I believe) had been out of commission for TWO MONTHS. We also missed out on two coasters because of mechanical issues -- The Joker (which only Dad was planning on going on, because holy hell that thing looks scary) and Riddler Revenge (which we were all going to go on until they had trouble sending out one of the cars. . .I'm actually slightly relieved because Riddler is one of those "hang underneath" coasters and I wasn't honestly sure I was ready). Now, admittedly, shit happens with coasters, and I'd rather they keep people off them if there's any sort of malfunction. But that Scream tower should have been repaired AGES ago. Not to mention there was a general look of disrepair around the park -- nails coming up on the wooden walkways, big gaps in paintwork, peeling plastic decorations, lots of trash strewn around the grounds, chunks of foam missing from restraints. Not a great look for a park, even a busy one! And that's not even getting into the overcrowded and messy bathrooms. . .
We also ate in the park, and our experiences were -- mixed. The BBQ restaurant we went to had good food (I got a very decent pulled pork sandwich and fries), but the service was lackluster, and everything was SUPER expensive (in particular, our drinks -- though that's partly our own faults for ordering larges. Couldn't even finish mine and I didn't fill it up all the way!). The ice cream shop we went to. . .the cashier didn't seem to understand Mom's question about wafer cones (she prefers those to sugar when she can get them) and put down the wrong flavor for Dad's ice cream (he asked for butter pecan; she put down Reese's Peanut Butter). And when we tried to explain things to the person actually scooping the ice cream, she nearly got all the rest of our orders wrong as a result. *sigh* The ice cream itself was acceptable, but after a much better and cheaper experience yesterday at Powder Mill. . .
So yeah, my final recommendation for that park would be: If you must go, go early, be prepared to wait in a lot of lines and spend a lot on food (but do go to J.B.'s Smokehouse; best reviews), definitely hit Superman and Wild Cyclone if you can. I don't think we'll ever go back now that we've done those, but, again, glad I got the chance to ride them.
And with that, I'm going to just go unwind a little more for a while and then head to bed. Tomorrow is river tubing day, which is fortunately planned to be more low-key -- we're not even leaving until about eleven, so I can sleep in. Gonna tube, have lunch, and seek out cheesecake, as that's Mom and Dad's desire for tomorrow (I can dig it -- can't have ice cream ALL the time!). A hopefully relaxing day before we do the amusement park thing again on Sunday with Lake Compounce. Just hope the weather is all right. . .night all!
Rides good, park meh.
The expanded version:
The rides are good, for the most part -- We went on eight, almost all roller coasters, and enjoyed the vast majority (Thunderbolt, the first coaster we went on, was a bit too rickety and bumpy, on account of being a super-old coaster). My personal favorites were the Superman coaster (the DROP on that thing! It is freaking terrifying and amazing) and the Wild Cyclone (a steel coaster repurposed from an older wooden one, which has great theming -- you're supposed to be storm chasers getting caught up in a massive cyclone, and the area around/in the coaster has fake storm chaser vans and planes, plus storm debris -- and is just a hell of a lot of fun). Fun rides and I'm glad I got the chance to experience them!
But the park itself could use some work -- Let's discount the wait times because that's an evil in every amusement park of this type, and while we had some nasty waits, we also had some decent ones. One of the first rides we went on, Scream -- a vertical drop where you bounce up and down a few times (I ended up babbling through the duration, much to my father's amusement) -- had a longer wait time than it should have had because only one tower out of three was running. And we overheard an employee saying that one of them (the original tower, I believe) had been out of commission for TWO MONTHS. We also missed out on two coasters because of mechanical issues -- The Joker (which only Dad was planning on going on, because holy hell that thing looks scary) and Riddler Revenge (which we were all going to go on until they had trouble sending out one of the cars. . .I'm actually slightly relieved because Riddler is one of those "hang underneath" coasters and I wasn't honestly sure I was ready). Now, admittedly, shit happens with coasters, and I'd rather they keep people off them if there's any sort of malfunction. But that Scream tower should have been repaired AGES ago. Not to mention there was a general look of disrepair around the park -- nails coming up on the wooden walkways, big gaps in paintwork, peeling plastic decorations, lots of trash strewn around the grounds, chunks of foam missing from restraints. Not a great look for a park, even a busy one! And that's not even getting into the overcrowded and messy bathrooms. . .
We also ate in the park, and our experiences were -- mixed. The BBQ restaurant we went to had good food (I got a very decent pulled pork sandwich and fries), but the service was lackluster, and everything was SUPER expensive (in particular, our drinks -- though that's partly our own faults for ordering larges. Couldn't even finish mine and I didn't fill it up all the way!). The ice cream shop we went to. . .the cashier didn't seem to understand Mom's question about wafer cones (she prefers those to sugar when she can get them) and put down the wrong flavor for Dad's ice cream (he asked for butter pecan; she put down Reese's Peanut Butter). And when we tried to explain things to the person actually scooping the ice cream, she nearly got all the rest of our orders wrong as a result. *sigh* The ice cream itself was acceptable, but after a much better and cheaper experience yesterday at Powder Mill. . .
So yeah, my final recommendation for that park would be: If you must go, go early, be prepared to wait in a lot of lines and spend a lot on food (but do go to J.B.'s Smokehouse; best reviews), definitely hit Superman and Wild Cyclone if you can. I don't think we'll ever go back now that we've done those, but, again, glad I got the chance to ride them.
And with that, I'm going to just go unwind a little more for a while and then head to bed. Tomorrow is river tubing day, which is fortunately planned to be more low-key -- we're not even leaving until about eleven, so I can sleep in. Gonna tube, have lunch, and seek out cheesecake, as that's Mom and Dad's desire for tomorrow (I can dig it -- can't have ice cream ALL the time!). A hopefully relaxing day before we do the amusement park thing again on Sunday with Lake Compounce. Just hope the weather is all right. . .night all!
