Skycoastin' Steve's 2011 Season Extravaganza!!

^I just get embarassed by my back sweat every time I see it.

 

That ride made me nervous!

Don't worry Neil you were not the only one. I was scared and nervous. I was hanging on for dear life, and once we started swinging Canadian Nick is laughing is butt off. I wanted to hit him!

I didn't really understand the fascination with the Wonderwheel, it was just silly.

My facination was with the fact you didn't have to walk more than ten feet in any direction to buy a beer. I was disappointed with the Wonder Wheel, I wanted it to be scarier than the one a DCA, but it may have been even less scarey.

Great report, I thought Coney was awesome, wouldn't mind going back there again some day.

It's even better that Kim is sitting next to you motionless, like she's just watching TV. She's hardcore.

I was actually paralyzed with fear.

Great TR so far, Steve! Love the photos and bonus points for "The Sign" lyrics.

I still love the video of Neil....it was so much fun just sitting back and watching his reaction!

Masterpiece of modern engineering, kinda like my body.

Psh.

Oh, and your pancakes are ready.

 

Masterpiece of modern engineering, kinda like my body.

 

Psh.

 

 

I didn't really understand the fascination with the Wonderwheel, it was just silly.

I agree, it was a pretty silly ride, but I like silly things.

Great update of Coney

I too was petrified of the Wonder Wheel.

Is everybody ready for more? Yes? OK!

After our wildly successful day at Coney Island, it was actually time to start the official portion of the TPR Northeast USA Trip! Our first stop on the official trip was Quassy Amusement Park, somewhere in the middle of God's Country, Connecticut. As many of you already know, Quassy is home to a brand new Gravity Group family woodie, named Wooden Warrior. I want to say that I already kind of expected this ride to be at least moderately fun, simply because it's TGG and they always make good rides. However, I was completely and utterly blown away by this ride. Every single hill has airtime across the entire train, the turns have good laterals, the tunnel adds a lot to the turn around, and the Timberliners are like riding in an office chair! It was good enough to almost crack my top 15 wooden (out of over 80 ridden). I'm foaming at the mouth to see these trains on Voyage, but we'll have to wait and see if Holiday World can get the track up to par so those trains can show their stuff properly.

As for the rest of Quassy, it was a charming little park that seems to be heading in the right direction now that it has a "signature" coaster. There was a nice little collection of flats, a beautiful setting on a lake, and an all-around friendly staff (they seriously rolled out the red carpet for us and were REALLY excited to have us there, it was rather humbling I thought). And their kiddie coaster had airtime. After a few hours at Quassy, we moved on to Lake Compounce!

Lake Compounce has been on my "to do" list for quite some time now, just basically for one reason. Boulder Dash. Boulder Dash is one of those coasters that I've never heard anything negative about. With Voyage, it's too rough. With El Toro, it's too short and only has a few good airtime hills. With *insert GCI here*, they're all the same. I've never heard anything negative about Boulder Dash except that it's so hard to get to. And I gotta say, it definitely lived up to its hype and more. Like Wooden Warrior, there wasn't a dull seat on the train, airtime EVERYWHERE, the most insane element on a wooden coaster (other than 90 degree banked turns), the triple-up at the end, and night rides were complete roller coaster nirvana. I can't describe how badly my thighs hurt after ERT, simply from the airtime! It came in at #2 in my rankings, ahead of El Toro and behind Voyage.

Lake Compounce itself was a very nice park, as well. They had a good mixture of big flats, family rides, water rides, and a huge Skycoaster! The staff here was also very friendly, and they provided free Killian's at the welcome dinner! My only "pseudo" complaint was that Boulder Dash was only running one train, but as I understood it, it was because of maintenance, so there wasn't much that could be done. Either way, it didn't matter, I ended up riding Boulder Dash 13 times, so I can't really complain.

All in all, great first day, and AWESOME night ERT. Picture time! As usual, since I can't upload all my pictures, the full album can be found here.

First stop of the trip, Quassy!

First official coaster of the trip!

They forgot to add on here that a butt is not required to ride Wooden Warrior, since it will never be in the seat anyway.

Crappy picture of the station. You get the point.

Robb filming, everyone else looking at him.

A look at the tunnel, it's amazing what putting a wooden box around a section of track does for the ride experience.

The airtime is so abundant that all you see is a blur.

See?

Happy faces all around.

And it wouldn't be a TPR trip without a little credit whoring!

I once had an ex-girlfriend call me the Little Dipper.

Gary is enjoying this Little Dipper, maybe he'll love me the way my ex never could.

Even the airtime on the kiddie coaster was blurry.

Has the Wooden Warrior come to life?

This triple-up was awesome, even if it didn't compare to the one on Boulder Dash. There was a lot more terrain on this coaster than I was expecting.

Yep, 35 feet tall.

The back seat on this drop was a tad terrifying.

Front row, left seat.

Time to run a train. I mean, ride the train.

Here's a nice overview of Wooden Warrior.

Is "take the tunnel" still funny?

Mammoth first drop.

Allow me to take a moment to say how much I love Gravity Group.

I love Gravity Group.

Thank you. Moving on.

More blurry airtime.

Canadian Nick and Shawn showing proper form for riding Wooden Warrior, which involves both hands being placed directly overhead for the duration.

Thanks to Nick and Shawn, all these people have learned how to properly ride an awesome wooden coaster. Thanks Nick and Shawn!

One of the funniest moments of my entire life. True story.

Moving on to Lake Compounce!

I think every trip report I've seen so far has this picture. But none of them were taken by me, so here ya go.

For those of you not familiar with this particular S&S drop tower's history, it used to be at Alabama Adventure before it was repossessed by S&S. Lake Compounce bought it, and now it resides here. True story.

Slightly more ferocious looking than Garfield. This was my only picture of Wildcat. It hurt. True story.

I loved the theme for this repossessed S&S tower.

As another little connection to Alabama Adventure, it has the only other boomerang in the world named "Zoomerang." True story.

Forwards or backwards? The world may never know.

Now for the 3rd and final connection to Alabama Adventure, it has the only CCI on the planet that I like more than Rampage, which is also on the side of a hill.

It's so fast that the train looks like this the entire time. True story.

The lack of banking at the bottom of the first drop was as I like to say, "nucking futs."

Where are they climbing to?

The Screamin' Swing decided to photo bomb me.

As I said before, the amount of airtime on this ride (especially on the return run) is absurd.

Just look at all those hills.

This was GCI's handy work, and it was marvelous.

In case you forgot which park we were at.

Another terrifically themed S&S ride.

These are always fun.

Canadian Nick and kcsteve got to ride the Skycoaster with Skycoastin Steve. Even though they aren't, I'm just going to call them my fanboys.

You usually don't get to ride this without a kid, but we're awesome, so they let us.

We could only load three seats at a time, and we got exactly one lap, but it was a credit! I do want to say that the young lady running this ride was VERY friendly, and we appreciated her staying after hours to help us whore.............credits, that is.

Neil had a great time whoring, that was sort of a theme for the trip.

Psychedelic tunnel leading to and from the park. Next time I come back, I'm taking acid before I walk through here. True story.

We could only load three seats at a time, and we got exactly one lap, but it was a credit! I do want to say that the young lady running this ride was VERY friendly, and we appreciated her staying after hours to help us whore.............credits, that is.

I agree, I love these updates because I forgot about certain things since so much went on all week!

I think I've officially become a fan of your TRs. They're funny, have great pics, and I can practically feel your ride/park experiences just by the way you describe them. Thanks for the report, I look forward to more

^Thank you!

I love these updates because I forgot about certain things since so much went on all week!

Agreed. I even remember stuff just by going back and looking at the pictures I took. It's a good problem to have when you did SO much during a short period of time that it's tough to recall everything at once.

Great report so far Steve! The Zoomerang caption made me LOL.

This was a great update. True Story.

Edit:

We could only load three seats at a time, and we got exactly one lap, but it was a credit! I do want to say that the young lady running this ride was VERY friendly, and we appreciated her staying after hours to help us whore.............credits, that is.

Yes, she was awesome. She's a nominee for best ride opp of the trip. I want her to be my new BFF.

I LOVE this photo of Roxanne!

Great TR as always Steve - looking forward to more!

I loved Wooden Warrior. Such a wonderful surprise, and to start off the trip with that, awesome. And Boulder Dash. Amazing.

You have some great pictures here.

I did not know Skycoastin' Steve had fanboys, creepy. Cool report, you can see in the pictures how humid it was, the humidity seriously was killing me. Waiting for your next update, guess I should work on mine.

^I thought you were my #1 fanboy.

I agree, Wooden Warrior was such a surprise and a huge hit! Quassy was a great little park with quite a few rides. And Boulder Dash at Compounce? Wow, it was just, wow, yea. That triple up at night? Heavenly. Can't wait for more pics!

Revisited this thread to check out your Jersey Shore-Whore trip and got caught up on a lot of stuff I'd missed, including the awesome Cheetah Hunt and Wooden Warrior shots. Awesome all around.

(And those freakin' Cheetahs, the real ones, are truly among the most beautiful animals to walk this planet. Magnificent.)

^Thank you, much appreciated!

And I agree about cheetahs, those animals are absolutely gorgeous!

Moving right along, we had made it to Bizarro Bash at SFNE, which would be quite an..........interesting day for me.

Let me preface all this by saying that I am 6'5", which is 77", which is 1 inch taller than the max height restriction for Bizarro. More on that later.

Upon arriving at SFNE, we waited for a little bit outside the entrance for all the Bash stuff to get organized, and then we were walked back for our ERT on Bizarro, the new Wild Mouse, and Batman. We went straight for Bizarro, and upon arriving, found out we had to purchase l.o.c.k.e.r.s for ERT. Really? For ERT? Whatever. So we did that, and then the fun began. They had someone at the entrance to the ride measuring people (which is fine, "safety" and all), and despite them KNOWING that a few of us were too tall, let us on anyway (which obviously made me happy). They also had one train running for a group of almost 200 people (yay, go Six Flags). So we rode Bizarro, had fun despite the horribly uncomfortable lapbars, then went to the Wild Mouse. This was also another ride that several of us were too tall for, but they let us ride anyway (remember that for later). Then we did Batman (meh) and the waterpark ERT (which was excellent, my first water coaster and the funnel slides are always awesome!).

Once the park opened and the flood of GP came pouring in (park was packed), we started using our Gold Flash Pass. Thank goodness for those things and ERT, otherwise we would have basically ridden nothing all day. Slow crews, several rude employees, hardly any employees I would describe as polite, dirty bathrooms and walkways, no shade ANYWHERE (except for the lunch pavilion). At some point we went and rode Bizarro again, and I was let through the entrance again by the height checker who LITERALLY looked at the top of my head and her height stick as I walked by and just shrugged. I think at that point I had ridden it three times without getting denied.

For some of the other rides, Cyclone had AWESOME airtime in the back car on the first drop (even if it hurt), and the rest of the ride was just OK. The new section of topper track was incredibly smooth, and I'd like to see more parks using this in the future. Thunderbolt wasn't anything special, and it was pretty rough. The boomerang and SLC were typical Vekoma offerings. I did really like Pandemonium, as the Gerstlauer spinners are leaps and bounds better than the Zamperla spinning mouse coasters. I know at some point we also did Houdini, which was one of the most bizarre rides I've ever been on, but still lots of fun. We also got the two kiddie credits and did the S&S tower a couple times.

Back to Bizarro. At various other points during the day, I started getting denied for being too tall. Once was by the rude kid at the entrance, and another time a different girl was at the entrance, measured me, said I was OK, I waited half an hour in the Flash Pass line, and then got re-measured by one of the ops on the platform and I was sent packing. So by this point, I said screw it for Bizarro until night time ERT. During night time ERT, I made it through fine and got three rides in, including one in the front row, and not once was I checked for height (and this is with at least two supervisor/manager type people in the station). The fourth time I come back around, sit down in the train, and the little bitchy female ride op in the station has me get out and get measured. Of course, I was too tall, and unable to ride the rest of ERT even though I had ridden three times already right in front of them.

Someone asked them why they have the max height in place even though there are ZERO issues with clearance on the ride (I rode hands up every time and never came close to hitting anything). Their answer? "It's for efficiency, we don't want anyone that could possibly not fit in the restraints to get in line." OK, for starters, that kinda makes sense. But here's a good idea for increasing efficiency: GET FASTER RIDE OPS. I will admit that the lapbars were REALLY tight on my legs, but I was able to get it far enough down to lock properly every single time. So what's the issue? If you see someone that might be too tall, have them sit in the test seat (just like people who might be too large), and if the lapbar goes down far enough, let them ride!!!! Once again, Six Flags' lack of common sense shines through. And for comparison, Superman at SFA has the exact same max height and I've never been denied. Not once.

That ended up being a bit wordy, but if you can imagine my frustration the entire day when I was the proper size to fit in the kiddie coaster, but couldn't even ride one of the top steel coasters in the country, it was bad. And I do want to say that Robb and Elissa put on a KICK ASS event for us, I just felt bad that the park basically ruined it for me. I don't see myself going back to that park any time soon.

Here come the pictures, full album can be found on facebook here.

To start the day, KidTums was obviously a bit tuckered out, so she had pallbearers carry her down the Trident steps.

Entrance to the park, basically the same exact entrance as SFA.

Time for ERT on Bizarro, get your money ready! And get ready to wait for our one train!

Hey, there are six flags! These would change later..........

Ridiculous first drop in the back. Almost to the point where it almost seems like it was a mistake.

You can see the old first drop underneath the current first drop.

Foghorn Leghorn was always my favorite, so this cracked me up.

I loved how the line went through the structure.

This looked rather interesting, but since Boulder Dash had turned our thighs into mush the night before, and Bizarro was doing the same this morning, we decided to skip what we heard was mainly a "really painful ride for your thighs."

Gerstlauer spinners get the Skycoastin' Steve Stamp of Approval. Any ride that gets the SSSOA is A-OK!

These are so much better than the Zamperla spinners. And these have airtime hills.

The subtitle for this trip should have been "Vekoma Tour 2011."

You're too tall for Bizarro? No problem, you aren't too tall for the kiddie coaster!

I usually give old woodies the benefit of the doubt, but there wasn't much benefit on this ride.

I say, I say, I say.....

Crappy picture, not sure why I kept it for this update.

I don't want to.

S&S combo tower, these are terrific. Except later in the day they were only launching instead of combo-ing. Odd.

I'll give you $100 if you can tell me which direction it's going.

See? I told you the flags would change.

If you go to this park and don't take this picture, Foghorn Leghorn will smack you silly.

Someone left their hair in the Bizarro queue.

I didn't realize it when I was taking the picture, but you can see the tops of Neil and Kim's heads in the 2nd row.

I did like how the 2nd half of the ride interacted with the midway.

This ride did have an extraordinary amount of airtime.

And now for a random milestone, this was my 250th steel coaster.

I highly considered making love to this statue.

The world would be a better place without these.

Neil took this while Jen and I were getting our minds erased. Nice shot, Neil!

This is what four TPR members look like after their minds have been erased. And yes, it's huge.

I don't know if it was the beer I chugged at lunch or the skull bashing that occurred on the ride, but I wish I could remember riding this.

Best Q-Bot group EVAR! And yes, it's huge.

Hopefully they didn't have to pay by the letter for that sign.

This ride wouldn't fall out of Superman, it has three legs.

Photo walkback! These are always fun to do.

Normally, if you tried to get this picture and you weren't at a TPR event, you would be ejected from the park. Take that, GP!

"Dorks of the world, assume the position!"

I always wondered what a photo walkback looks like from the perspective of the rider. Knowing the GP's intelligence level, they probably thought we were filming a commercial.

Large parabola.

I'm glad those people survived busting through that big sign.

I do like this shot.

I was surprised by how much force was in this turn.

As you can see, it was a sunny day. One without a lick of shade. This park made Cedar Point and Carowinds look like national forests in comparison.

I spy with my hazel eye, TPR members in rows 2 and 3!

Six flags?

Bizarro and the S&S tower dueling to the death. Bizarro has killed before, so my money is on that one.

Zero-g roll THROUGH THE TRACK!

Cyclone near sunset.

Up close look at the topper track, this stuff was great!

"Even though you've ridden it 6 times today, you can't ride anymore cause you're too tall. LOLZ."

Bizarro is now #5 in my steel rankings, still behind MF, 305, Maverick, and X2.

Neil took this while Jen and I were getting our minds erased. Nice shot, Neil!

I'm surprised it came out that well. Apparently I become a better photographer while intoxicated.

I edited my Bizarro Bash TR after reading yours - I think I was a little too nice! If the height restriction policies made more sense - and were consistently adherred to - then different story. Sorry to hear you had such an annoying time - idiotic policies and employees can really fuck up your day.

Even despite, the hight restriction on Bizarro, I had to deal with too. You have made some really nice pictures !

Did you actually get to ride the Mouse ? I have ridden it once, and suddenly, I suddenly was to tall when I wanted to ride it with night ERT.

-JK-

I agree with you about Pandemonium compared to the Zamperla ones. I HATE spinning rides, so I was little hesitant about riding this one but we had a fairly balanced car and it was a great ride.