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Six Flags New England (SFNE) Discussion Thread


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Went up around 5:30 with the 8 yr old and stayed until 8:30.....real nice....temps were perfectly chilly....the warming stations were nice - especially the ones burning real wood.....because I was only with the 8 yr old we only got on the smaller stuff but thunderbolt really ran great in the front I thought.....our second ride in the back of car 2 was good but not as good as the front row....really hauled up there for whatever reason....Best I’ve had up there....

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^ I regretted not going yesterday. The forecast originally called for rain, but there wasn't any precipitation during the park's operating hours. I'm always leery during HITP (or even the regular season now) going on a day with precipitation since the park seems to have a quicker trigger now about reducing their hours with little warning.

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Thanks for the reports. I haven't gotten up there yet but planning on Sunday if the weather is good. We really enjoyed it last year and it extends my theme park fix.

 

It will be interesting to see what goes in Panda Express! This year we enjoyed the new outdoor buffet by Goliath.

 

We have a DP and will get the hot chocolate that is really a good deal!

 

I hope the weather cooperates later in the season would like to go up till New Year's.

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Great report! Hopefully it's cool if I piggyback with another brief report from Saturday.

 

Even though we live less than two hours from the park this was somehow our first visit of the season. Since our last visit we've somehow managed to hit Great Adventure, Over Georgia, Discovery Kingdom, America, Over Texas and Fiesta Texas despite this park being closer than all of them. I don't really know how that's even possible but somehow it is.

 

That said, the park definitely managed to leave us feeling like we really need to get up there more often. New England is a really nice park with every coaster sporting a nice paint job, rides with cool light packages everywhere and a bit more of a focus on aesthetics than we're used to from it's sister park in New Jersey.

 

Obviously the park's two star attractions are closed for Holiday in the Park but it creates a small-park atmosphere that's actually quite charming and in a way it makes us appreciate the other coasters more. There's also no shortage of things to do between the great rides, great shows and awesome lights.

 

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Some people would shovel the whole walkway but that's really way more effort than Six Flags is comfortable with so now we have cones and caution tape.

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After exercising extreme caution we made it to the gate!

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For whatever reason we made this our first stop. Normally I don't particularly enjoy Boomerangs but we find Flashback to be totally smooth and generally a lot of fun. It was really awkward ascending that second spike while listening to Jesus music on full blast though. I sort of felt like it was a sign that the ride was about to kill us and send us to the afterlife but no... it was just a really, really good boomerang somehow.

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I always joke that regardless of crowd size, season, weather conditions, raptures or acts of god the line for Thunderbolt is always 25 minutes long. Fright Fest Saturday with every other ride posting a wait time over an hour? 25 minutes. 200 people in the park? 25 minutes. State of Emergency declaration in Massachusets due to Dunkin Donuts and Sam Adams forcing locals to display the ability to pronounce the letter "r" correctly when purchasing their products? 25 minutes. That said, for the first time ever we actually caught it at 15. I still can't get over the shock.

 

PS: The ride is butter smooth and tons of fun per usual but it's Thunderbolt so you already knew that.

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The giant ornament epidemic has spread, but this is the OG

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The lights looked great!

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Tree lighting! PS: Six Flags serves Dunkin Donuts beer because it's Massachusetts and of course they do.

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This was our first trip to the park since they added Harley Quinn and it's an awesome addition. Not only is it one of the best rides in the park but it looks great from basically everywhere (especially when the lights come on).

 

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Beautiful...

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I scored a quick Joker ride at some point. As usual Brit sat that one out.

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Batman being awesome per usual. This ride is incredibly underrated.

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Brit's crazed marshmallow arsonist face. I prefer my marshmallows with a nice brown exterior. She prefers her marshmallows on fire.

We had a great time at Holiday in the Park. The lights and atmosphere were awesome, the rides were great and we really enjoyed the show. That said, we had one major takeaway...

 

We first got Six Flags season passes when we were kids and I've been going to this park pretty routinely since around 2000 or 2001. On our first ever visit we rode Mind Eraser and I vowed to never subject myself to that piece of sh*t ever again. There were bad rides and then there was Mind Eraser which was almost in an elite class of terrible. About 15 years later I rode again during Brit's first visit to the park and if anything I hated it even more than I did the first time I rode it.

 

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When they announced that it was getting new trains I barely cared as I had no intentions of riding it ever again but Boldikus came up and I gave it a shot. I didn't enjoy my ride as I spent the entire thing bracing for impact but I admitted when we hit the brakes that it was actually somehow okay.

 

We rode again during Holiday in the Park last year and once again I prepared myself to embrace the suck but once again it never came. It's hard to enjoy a ride when you're bracing for pure misery at every turn but after last year I sort of admitted to myself that Mind Eraser was somehow no longer terrible and I was excited to ride again this year.

 

"No longer terrible" is an understatement. Mind Eraser is f*cking great. We rode it once after our first Harley Quinn ride and absolutely loved it. We thought it would still be a one and done but that’s not exactly how it played out.

 

At the end of the night we planned on hitting Harley Quinn but it was down and didn't seem like it would be opening up any time soon. Initially I figured we'd head over to Batman, but without even really discussing it we sort of just made our way into the Mind Eraser queue instead. I love Batman, but this ride is every bit as good. It might actually be the best coaster open for Holiday in the Park. There's no headbanging to speak of and when you can actually enjoy it it turns out that the SLC layout is action packed, super intense and sort of awesome. The double barrel roll is insane and has incredibly tight clearances, the first element (that used to just be the element of death) is great and overall the ride is basically awesome from start to finish.

 

I love Mind Eraser. What the f*ck????? We actually managed to ride a few times, ending our night with a front seat ride on the last train of the night. Not on Batman... not on Thunderbolt... not on Fireball... on f*cking Mind Eraser.

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It's a Holiday in the Park miracle!

I know it's hard to justify traveling too far for this event with the two star attractions closed but if you're within a few hours of the park then I strongly recommend their Holiday in the Park event. Plus, you should really come and check out Mind Eraser... it's bangin' (but not in the normal Mind Eraser way, lol).

 

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Everyone else: "Holiday in the Park will never work at Six Flags New England. It's too cold and nobody will show up in such frigid temps"

 

New Englanders: "Yeah actually give me two scoops of Ice Cream and I want fahkin sprinkles too!".

Edited by coasterbill
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I always joke that regardless of crowd size, season, weather conditions, raptures or acts of god the line for Thunderbolt is always 25 minutes long. Fright Fest Saturday with every other ride posting a wait time over an hour? 25 minutes. 200 people in the park? 25 minutes. State of Emergency declaration in Massachusets due to Dunkin Donuts and Sam Adams forcing locals to display the ability to pronounce the letter "r" correctly when purchasing their products? 25 minutes. That said, for the first time ever we actually caught it at 15. I still can't get over the shock.

 

 

 

Thanks for the trip report, Bill (as well as Sluggo)...the park looks great!

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Great report! I agree 100% on Thunderbolt's line. That queue is always filled since the ride's capacity is so low, but the queue can't hold more than 30 minutes worth of people.

 

Those new trains are on Mind Eraser/Riddler are a godsend. Wasn't the Great Nor'Easter still terrible with the new trains before the retrack? If so, I shudder to know how rough that one was.

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Great report! Hopefully it's cool if I piggyback with another brief report from Saturday.

 

Thanks everyone! Bill thanks for your better than mine addition. Wish I knew you both were at the park. Would have been awesome to meet you. This is really a great event at SFNE and I totally agree that Mind Eraser “The Riddler” may be the best coaster open during HiTP. Crazy to say about an SLC but true. The new restraints/trains have totally improved this now fun and aggressive coaster.

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Great report! Hopefully it's cool if I piggyback with another brief report from Saturday.

 

Thanks everyone! Bill thanks for your better than mine addition. Wish I knew you both were at the park. Would have been awesome to meet you. This is really a great event at SFNE and I totally agree that Mind Eraser “The Riddler” may be the best coaster open during HiTP. Crazy to say about an SLC but true. The new restraints/trains have totally improved this now fun and aggressive coaster.

 

Yeah, that sucks that we missed you. I was the asshole walking around in a Jets jacket blisfully ignorant of the fact that the Jets were playing New England that weekend (I'm a casual fan at best but it's a warm jacket and that's all I cared about). I'm surprised I wasn't thrown over the park gate by an angry mob.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Whats the deal with thunder bolts second train? I feel like it will pop up once a year on the transfer track but probably hasn't been used since 2005. I know they don't run 2 trains on thunder bolt anymore but its weird how they don't rotate trains every now and then

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^Yeah it’s infrastructure and a name change. No true new water park ride this year. I think the park has something bigger in store for 2020. Totally assumption though. They spent a lot of money with new full park’s as additions this year to the chain so smaller additions to current parks this year make sense.

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Plus SFNE has been treated pretty well. In the past 8 years they've gotten the following:

 

- 4 new coasters (5 if you count the Super Loop like Six Flags)

- 2 awesome flats

- 1 big slide tower

- new trains on Mind Eraser making the ride enjoyable

- conversion back to Superman

- Holiday in the Park

 

Plus I think Cyborg is a really solid addition. I'm definitely intrigued to see how far they go with theming. Even a bunch of strobe lights with one of those Chance Freestyles is sure to be one of the park's better flats.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Plus SFNE has been treated pretty well. In the past 8 years they've gotten the following:

 

- 4 new coasters (5 if you count the Super Loop like Six Flags)

- 2 awesome flats

- 1 big slide tower

- new trains on Mind Eraser making the ride enjoyable

- conversion back to Superman

- Holiday in the Park

 

Plus I think Cyborg is a really solid addition. I'm definitely intrigued to see how far they go with theming. Even a bunch of strobe lights with one of those Chance Freestyles is sure to be one of the park's better flats.

 

I think that SFNE is just situated in a pretty lucrative part of the country. They're within 2 and a half hours from both Boston and NYC. They may have space constraints, but its a little surprising that they haven't tried to push for it to be a big time top tier park. If they made it more of a destination park, they could probably tap into the bottomless financial potential of the technology hub of Boston and the financial capital of the world in NYC.

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Compared to other Six Flags parks near a large metro area, SFNE quite a bit further away. Assuming there's no traffic, it takes 2 hours to get from Boston to SFNE. I think that's a bit too far to tap into the average Boston tourist. Plus to get to SFNE, you really need a car. I think the only public transit option would be a Greyhound bus to Springfield (and the station isn't in the best neighborhood) and then an Uber/taxi to SFNE.

 

For comparison, parks like SFOG, SFMM, SFOT, SFFT, and SFSTL are within 45 minutes of downtown metro areas.

 

From NYC, I think a Greyhound bus again is your only option to Springfield. Meanwhile, SFGAdv is serviced NJ Transit Bus from Port Authority or Penn Station. From the perspective of Six Flags, it makes more sense to market Great Adventure for NYC. Great Adventure is not only closer, but it's a more impressive park.

 

SFNE does an excellent job pulling locals from all the New England states. Most of my friends and family (unless they have younger kids) consider SFNE head and shoulders above New England's other parks.

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Compared to other Six Flags parks near a large metro area, SFNE quite a bit further away. Assuming there's no traffic, it takes 2 hours to get from Boston to SFNE. I think that's a bit too far to tap into the average Boston tourist. Plus to get to SFNE, you really need a car. I think the only public transit option would be a Greyhound bus to Springfield (and the station isn't in the best neighborhood) and then an Uber/taxi to SFNE.

 

For comparison, parks like SFOG, SFMM, SFOT, SFFT, and SFSTL are within 45 minutes of downtown metro areas.

 

From NYC, I think a Greyhound bus again is your only option to Springfield. Meanwhile, SFGAdv is serviced NJ Transit Bus from Port Authority or Penn Station. From the perspective of Six Flags, it makes more sense to market Great Adventure for NYC. Great Adventure is not only closer, but it's a more impressive park.

 

SFNE does an excellent job pulling locals from all the New England states. Most of my friends and family (unless they have younger kids) consider SFNE head and shoulders above New England's other parks.

 

Yeah, it is pretty remarkable how despite being in the same tiny state as Boston, its really not on the radar of people who live in Boston (I used to live in Boston). And Mass is very, very tiny. SFNE may be two hours away, but everybody who lives within a two hour radius of WDW either is a Disney addict, or knows that most of their friends are Disney addicts.

 

I still feel like Six Flags would be smart if they get their crap together chartered fleets of busses to NYC and Boston/Cambridge/Somerville to get people to the park... but when has SF ever shown to be great strategists?

 

If I was really trying to take it a step further, I might rent space in the downtown parts of Boston and New York, and make it a waiting area for the buses with a walk-in space so that locals, tourists, and families could see Six Flags ads and talk with Six Flags representatives to help plan their next Six Flags vacation or get set up with season passes for SFNE, SFGadv, or their local park. Tons of foot traffic in those areas. But again, when has Six Flags ever been strategic? That would require the company agreeing to lose money on a building in hopes of improving the quality of the brand and betting on the long-term.

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I'd say locals to Boston are plenty familiar with Six Flags New England and if they want to visit a local park, SFNE is their choice. The distance from the metro area is more a deterrent to tourists.

 

SFNE used to have a connecting bus from the Springfield Greyhound Bus Station. I don't know anyone who has ever taken it and they quietly removed it from their site a while back. I'm guessing they didn't find it worth the expense if they stopped offering it.

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