Six Flags Great America (SFGAm) Discussion Thread

^When did they say Glow in the Park wasn't returning?

[CMVI Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

Tweet on August 4th, for the following night's performance. Maybe I took it wrong, but it didn't specify last "of the season".

I checked it out on the 5th. It was pleasant, but nothing I'd make a trip up just for. Returning or not, it's immaterial to me.

^ The event they made for it on Facebook said last performance of the 2012 season, so I'd guess it's coming back. I don't see why it wouldn't as it's a huge improvement over the last parade and seems to be much more popular.

[batmanfan80I Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

Hello everyone

First off, thanks for all the great info. It's been helpful on my visits to the park this year. Went a couple times last year after not going for about 18 years. Got over my fear of heights enough to ride the coasters. The only other parks I've ridden coasters at are Cedar Point and the Indoor Mt Olympus. Batman is still my fav coaster by far with Maverick coming in second.

The wife and I bought season passes along with dining and parking. Our first visit was early last month and we've gone about 6 or 7 times total. Lines seemed to get worse and worse the closer to August it got. Last time there was 8/5, if I recall. We are most likely going today and next Sunday. Then most weekends til the park closes for the season. Even with the Gold Pass, Superman had an over 40 minute wait. Batman broke down and some people said they had been waiting 2 hours. First time I've seen them open the very back part of the queue for that one. Eagle's wait was over an hour so we said forget it. X Flight's queue looked like it was overflowing. Even the Scrambler was a good half hour wait.

I prefer GA to Cedar in terms of atmosphere and ride consistency. I'm kind of surprised at all the hype about Cedar and the lack of hype about GA. The only thing I really like better about Cedar is their locking ride bins and their fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo system. The prices are better and you just type in a 4 digit code. The smart carte papers are a pain. When it's been more low key I didn't have a problem getting a ride op to hold the paper for me in their pocket on Roaring Rapids. When it's busy all I seem to get is this rigid "we can't be responsible" attitude. Still found one dude on Log Jam that held it for me after I explained how silly it is for them to give paper print outs and not have locking bins. I forget if the non-ride fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo have paper or not. They are a lot more expensive than Cedar's. When I have left stuff in a GA bin, it's been safe aside from one stolen Blue sports bottle on Batman. Maybe someone grabbed it by mistake. Once again I got that whole "we're not responsible" attitude from most everyone. First thing out of their mouths and I wasn't asking them to give me another one or anything. The attitudes of the employees get noticeably worse when it's extremely crowded. On weekdays we've gone where there isn't an overflowing crowd, they're pretty cool about things. Didn't care about me bringing a small bag on Whizzer aside from the last time. I believe most of the rides had an hour plus wait on the 5th if you weren't using a flash pass. Plenty of people were re-riding with Plat Passes then too. First time I saw that. Usually we get Gold passes if there's crazy lines.

Seems like the only solution to the belongings problem is to find a waterproof container that the ride ops don't care about me bringing on.

As for the rides:

Demon: Felt smooth and easygoing last October. This time it felt much more intense in the corkscrews. Wife got pretty beat up by it. I'm tall enough that I can't have my head banged on the restraints. Avoided the back per comments I've read. We were probably in the 4th or 5th row. May or may not ride it again this year.

Eagle: Ride quality varies. Early last month it felt relaxing and smooth on both sides when we rode after 9. Almost always between rows 3-6, I think. The more recent rides have felt rougher and faster. Very brief parts of it toward the end of the helix on the blue felt like Mean Streak. I never felt like my chest was going to explode like it did on Mean Streak, but it would've felt like that had Eagle maintained the roughness for more than the brief second or two. Think we rode it around 8ish the last couple times. Someone I know rode it last week and said it was very bumpy too.

Roaring Rapids: Sucked the first time we rode it maybe 3 weeks ago. Seemed to be moving slow, kept hitting walls, and never got any momentum. Last time was awesome on the 5th. Good speed, good momentum the whole time. Wish they'd take out the water cannons as they don't feel necessary.

Log Jam: Rode it once on the 5th. Smells like Brookfield Zoo. Fun ride but banged my shin and ankle on the drop like I suspected I would.

Viper: Rode it in the back a couple times as most everyone said it's best there. Felt like I was about to be catapulted out of my seat on the first drop. That gives me a slight headache. Definitely a great and underrated ride. The last time we rode in row 4. Felt like the train got stuck at the top and then finally went over the first drop. Felt kind of dull in comparison to the back, but I had also just ridden Raging Bull in row 4.

Raging Bull: Didn't ride this til after going to Cedar as I don't really like heights. RB looks small in comparison to stuff there. I'm not a huge fan of these type of coasters, so, when they didn't let my wife ride MF, I didn't bother to go on it alone. I really prefer looping coasters. This is a pretty fun ride. When riding in row 3 I felt that it was pretty smooth. Then I rode row 4 and felt like all the float and fall was a bit rougher. Maybe the trains feel different? I wonder what this would be like without the trim and mid-course brakes.

Batman: My fav, by far. Early last month it felt like it was running slower. Didn't feel the amount of force I felt last Fright Fest. Rode in the middle. Thankfully it feels forceful again. We always ride row 6 or 7. I love that the ride never lets up. Even the helixes are exciting. Sometimes I wish it had a couple more inversions, but I never feel like the ride lacks. Raptor seems to lose its momentum some. It also looks to be somewhat rusty. Batman never feels lacking when the ride's over. I'm looking forward to one day trying Montu, Alpengeist, etc, but I'm pretty sure I'll still prefer Batman.

Superman: The pretzel loop has about the most intense g-force I've felt on a ride, but it's pretty dull after that. Totally don't understand the lines this thing generates. Seems more intense the further back we ride.

X Flight: Rode it maybe 4 times. Middle right, middle left, and last in the very back left. Fun ride with some good forces, but it doesn't seem to get better the more I ride it. The first drop is really crazy and the rest is really good, but I usually leave feeling like "that's it". Was much more exhilarating the first two times I went on it. Looks like the flash pass only leads to the right side.

Whizzer: Almost always the first thing we go on. Kind of bored with it at this point. Maybe I need to try it at night.

Giant Drop: Probably the scariest thing at the park. Blind guy next to me counted it down perfectly. Will probably go on it again but it's the only ride I feel hesitant about beforehand.

We rode Dark Knight at FF and didn't think much of it. My wife liked V2 but they wouldn't let her ride it this time although they let her on last FF. I'm not dyin to go on it either way. After riding the mouse coaster at Mt Olympus, we haven't gone on Ragin Cajin. It's not like the mouse coaster sucked that bad, but my wife doesn't like all the spinning and I'd rather ride the other stuff.

I'm hoping that the parks gets something like Maverick some day. There's all these cutting edge coasters I read about or see on TV and it feels like it's all passed GA by. I remember when GA was the cutting edge place. X flight is good, but I could see how it'll be passed up by better wing coasters eventually. Superman and Raging Bull both seem to be more popular.

We're going back to Cedar soon. I'm most looking forward to Iron Dragon. Maverick is great but it's so forceful that somehow my left hand fingertips were numb after. I never rode Iron Wolf but I heard how bad it was at the end. The wife says Mantis is how IW used to feel. To me Mantis wasn't that good. Lot of force pushing down on my legs. I'll try other stand ups but I am not that big on the idea. Inverteds are probably my favorite type of seating.

We haven't tried to re-ride anything, although I see how it could be done. The ride ops rarely try to fill empty seats. They really should considering how horrible the lines are. Luckily people often let us go in front of them bc they want to keep their group together. One time on Batman a non-employee walked down the stairs to let everyone know that the non-front rows had no line. Guess the front row line was overflowing. I've never ridden anything front row. I think I prefer the back due to the difference in forces, aside from RB and Viper where I want less force.

A ride op on Sky Trek tower told us people throw up on that ride more often than you would think. We've seen all the basic shows. Good stuff. Love at first fright is probably the best. Screams and Dreams 2 was cool. Vibe of the park seemed more magical back then. The glow in the park parade is really good. Seems like the overall theming has gotten weaker over time.

Other then that, not much else to say. Thanks again for the info and I look forward to more discussion.

Sadly, X Flight had a really bad day today, and the rest of the park didn't have a great one either. About an hour after opening, one of the trains got stuck on the lift hill. Not sure how long for, but they were able to get it moving and then test and reopen the ride. This didn't last long as again about forty minutes to an hour later another train got stuck only this time they couldn't get it moving again. Everyone had to be evacuated off the train and the ride stayed closed for the rest of the day. The train didn't move until about 5:45 when it got to the top of the lift, stopped, and then finished the course about 5 minutes later. So for the whole day, it probably got around two hours of run time.

The rest of the park wasn't great either with the combination of a huge crowds, bad weather and closed rides. I didn't see King Chaos, Dark Knight or Loggers Run open all day. Rajun Cajun had a train stuck on the turn after the first drop so that was down for most, if not all of the evening. American Eagle opened with only the blue side running and a full queue. Red opened sometime between four and five. Demon and Raging Bull didn't have all their switchbacks open unnecessarily sending their lines out into the midway. This wasn't a huge problem for Bull as the lines turns, but Demons went straight out to the hot dog stand so you had to walk though it to get by. Not the worst thing ever, but it could have been so easily solved by opening the switchbacks.

So overall, just not the greatest day. It was obvious that they weren't anticipating such a large crowd, and it was weirdly crowded for this time of year, but it just kinda seemed like they were still acting as if the crowd was much smaller.

Edit: I didn't personally see this happening, but today the SF CEO was in the park filming the 2013 announcement video in front of X Flight.


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[CoasterCreator9A donkey is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family.]

I agree, was also at SFGAm today and the past weekend. Slightly surprised as this has been the busiest day so far (tomorrow is the last day) and the rain early in the day really didn't help. Waited way too long for Giant Drop.

[NoahM3I Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

I agree, was also at SFGAm today and the past weekend. Slightly surprised as this has been the busiest day so far (tomorrow is the last day) and the rain early in the day really didn't help. Waited way too long for Giant Drop.

I'm with him and I've really enjoyed myself at the park. It's been pretty bustling but the flash pass is a nice perk, and the coasters are top notch. I did manage to get stung by a bee on the back spike of V2 and then lose my hat on ragin Cajun, but otherwise it's been awesome, got on every coaster and some repeats in less than 2 days! 2 thumbs up!

This weeks clue has been released.


YouTube Videolink

[jzooleI know more about donkeys than women!]

I'm thinking this is gonna be another SkyScreamer. The way they were pointing up in the air, the word "effects" in the picture (the ride might have a lighting package), and the fact that several other parks are rumored to be getting the same. I don't think the park would hype up new fireworks show or something the way they're hyping this up. But who knows.

[CameronDon't make me kick you in the donkey!]

In the video you can hear Whizzer going up the (spiral) lift hill - clearly the Sky Screamer will be built in the middle of the spiral!