About me
On a whim I bought a Play Pass for Six Flags Great Adventure last summer and found out my wife and I both really like roller coasters. We started off 2011 with season passes to Six Flags, Cedar Fair and Busch Gardens and plan on visiting most, if not all, of their parks this year.
I thought you guys might like to hear from someone that's visiting these parks and coasters for the first time. Noob's if you will.
Visit Overview
We stayed at the Comfort Inn which is on the road leading into the park. We got to the gate about 45 minutes early since we had passes to process. We bought Cedar Fair Platinum Passes for our local park, Dorney Park, so we wanted to allow a little extra time just in case they had issues.
The first thing that surprised us was that they had separate parking right in front for season passholders. This isn't an upcharge or reserved for super special passholders. Anyone with a season pass is free to use it. We were there so early we parked right up in front by the gate. I didn't know that any park did this but we though it was a really cool bonus perk for having a season pass.
We got to season pass processing and they had to swap out our vouchers for Carowinds vouchers but within about 10 minutes we had our Platinum Passes and were in the park.
We hung out under Nighthawk and it was really cool to see the park come to life. This was our first time being at a park before opening and we got to see all of the rides start up and do their testing. It's something we are going to make a point to do more often.
Park was fairly busy but not crowded. Lines were walk on to 30 minutes. Weather was low 80's with an approaching storm. We left about 4pm to beat the storm and are glad we left when we did. Within an hour after we left they had severe thunderstorms with strong winds and hail. If I heard correctly the park closed early around 6:30pm that day due to the weather.
Coasters
Thunder Road - N/A - Our first stop of the day was Thunder Road, only to find out it was closed for the day. Sadness.
Carolina Goldrusher - 5/10 - We decided to make a clockwise trip around the park and this was our next stop. It's a pretty basic mine train coaster. No big drops but it was an ok ride as far as mine trains go.
Ricochet - 6/10 - Rough wild mouse, but they're all a little rough. The drops could have been a bit bigger but pretty standard for a wild mouse. The fishing pier theming in the front was really well done, but we weren't sure how 'Ricochet' fit into the area and theme.
Carolina Cyclone - 6/10 - This was one of the roughest steel coasters we've ever been on. The coaster itself was ok but it lost a few points for the roughness.
Hurler - 7/10 - This whole area is themed really well as the Carolina Boardwalk and this coaster was right at home here. It was a rough wooden coaster but had some good drops and kept up a fairly good speed considering the smallish footprint it had.
Intimidator - 10/10 - Wow. Just wow. I ended up on the 2nd row on the right side and my wife was on the 2nd row on the left side. The view and the speed of this coaster were awesome. We both absolutely loved this one. It kept up some big speed and raced around the track from start to end. It lived up to every bit of the hype. We would have ridden on it a 2nd time but our time was cut short due to the approaching storm.
Afterburn - 7/10 - I liked it. Didn't love it, but also didn't dislike it. It had some big sweeping dives and turns that I like. It also had a cool really fast dive underground that was great. The sign warning about bees and wasps was unique. I made it a point to keep my mouth closed on this one.
Carolina Cobra - 5/10 - It was closed the first time we went past it. Similar to the Carolina Cyclone it was a bit rough. It also had one of the longer waits of our day. Might have scored it higher if we could have just walked on it. It wasn't worth waiting 30 minutes for.
Vortex - 3/10 - This was our first stand up coaster. Neither of us really enjoyed it. It was rough and standing up was uncomfortable.
Nighthawk - 2/10 - This was one of my biggest disappointments of the day. I was really expecting to love this one. It started off bad right from the beginning. The line was long and moved really slow. Finally we get on the ride and are on the way up the lift hill. We get to the top and it turns us over into the flying position. I really wasn't in my seat well once we were turned to the flying position. I had to adjust myself the whole ride to try and feel like I was in a secure and comfortable position in the harness. I ended up just pushing up on the arm rests to push myself into the seat back so that I would be comfortable. I did enjoy the loop but that was it for me. The end of the ride was the worst. I figured you'd be laying flat. You're not. You're laying past flat so all of the blood rushes to your head. We were laying there at least 5 minutes waiting for them to load the other car. I don't know what the problem was but it took them forever. All of us in our row couldn't wait to get off it.
Other Rides
We didn't go on many non-coasters because we were racing the approaching storm.
Boo Blasters on Boo Hill - After finding Thunder Road was closed we stopped in for this ride. It was something we wanted to check out but didn't want to wait in line for. It was cute and I set the high score for the day of 1290 points.
Character Carousel - Pretty standard carousel. Fun but tame.
Carolina Skytower - Great views of the park and the area. Wish the ride would have lasted longer.
SpongeBob 4D - I was as crazy excited for as as the 4 year olds were. We got in and were seated and were ready to go. One of the automatic exit doors wouldn't close. We were offloaded and it was broken. Bummed.
On a whim I bought a Play Pass for Six Flags Great Adventure last summer and found out my wife and I both really like roller coasters. We started off 2011 with season passes to Six Flags, Cedar Fair and Busch Gardens and plan on visiting most, if not all, of their parks this year.
I thought you guys might like to hear from someone that's visiting these parks and coasters for the first time. Noob's if you will.
Visit Overview
We stayed at the Comfort Inn which is on the road leading into the park. We got to the gate about 45 minutes early since we had passes to process. We bought Cedar Fair Platinum Passes for our local park, Dorney Park, so we wanted to allow a little extra time just in case they had issues.
The first thing that surprised us was that they had separate parking right in front for season passholders. This isn't an upcharge or reserved for super special passholders. Anyone with a season pass is free to use it. We were there so early we parked right up in front by the gate. I didn't know that any park did this but we though it was a really cool bonus perk for having a season pass.
We got to season pass processing and they had to swap out our vouchers for Carowinds vouchers but within about 10 minutes we had our Platinum Passes and were in the park.
We hung out under Nighthawk and it was really cool to see the park come to life. This was our first time being at a park before opening and we got to see all of the rides start up and do their testing. It's something we are going to make a point to do more often.
Park was fairly busy but not crowded. Lines were walk on to 30 minutes. Weather was low 80's with an approaching storm. We left about 4pm to beat the storm and are glad we left when we did. Within an hour after we left they had severe thunderstorms with strong winds and hail. If I heard correctly the park closed early around 6:30pm that day due to the weather.
Coasters
Thunder Road - N/A - Our first stop of the day was Thunder Road, only to find out it was closed for the day. Sadness.
Carolina Goldrusher - 5/10 - We decided to make a clockwise trip around the park and this was our next stop. It's a pretty basic mine train coaster. No big drops but it was an ok ride as far as mine trains go.
Ricochet - 6/10 - Rough wild mouse, but they're all a little rough. The drops could have been a bit bigger but pretty standard for a wild mouse. The fishing pier theming in the front was really well done, but we weren't sure how 'Ricochet' fit into the area and theme.
Carolina Cyclone - 6/10 - This was one of the roughest steel coasters we've ever been on. The coaster itself was ok but it lost a few points for the roughness.
Hurler - 7/10 - This whole area is themed really well as the Carolina Boardwalk and this coaster was right at home here. It was a rough wooden coaster but had some good drops and kept up a fairly good speed considering the smallish footprint it had.
Intimidator - 10/10 - Wow. Just wow. I ended up on the 2nd row on the right side and my wife was on the 2nd row on the left side. The view and the speed of this coaster were awesome. We both absolutely loved this one. It kept up some big speed and raced around the track from start to end. It lived up to every bit of the hype. We would have ridden on it a 2nd time but our time was cut short due to the approaching storm.
Afterburn - 7/10 - I liked it. Didn't love it, but also didn't dislike it. It had some big sweeping dives and turns that I like. It also had a cool really fast dive underground that was great. The sign warning about bees and wasps was unique. I made it a point to keep my mouth closed on this one.
Carolina Cobra - 5/10 - It was closed the first time we went past it. Similar to the Carolina Cyclone it was a bit rough. It also had one of the longer waits of our day. Might have scored it higher if we could have just walked on it. It wasn't worth waiting 30 minutes for.
Vortex - 3/10 - This was our first stand up coaster. Neither of us really enjoyed it. It was rough and standing up was uncomfortable.
Nighthawk - 2/10 - This was one of my biggest disappointments of the day. I was really expecting to love this one. It started off bad right from the beginning. The line was long and moved really slow. Finally we get on the ride and are on the way up the lift hill. We get to the top and it turns us over into the flying position. I really wasn't in my seat well once we were turned to the flying position. I had to adjust myself the whole ride to try and feel like I was in a secure and comfortable position in the harness. I ended up just pushing up on the arm rests to push myself into the seat back so that I would be comfortable. I did enjoy the loop but that was it for me. The end of the ride was the worst. I figured you'd be laying flat. You're not. You're laying past flat so all of the blood rushes to your head. We were laying there at least 5 minutes waiting for them to load the other car. I don't know what the problem was but it took them forever. All of us in our row couldn't wait to get off it.
Other Rides
We didn't go on many non-coasters because we were racing the approaching storm.
Boo Blasters on Boo Hill - After finding Thunder Road was closed we stopped in for this ride. It was something we wanted to check out but didn't want to wait in line for. It was cute and I set the high score for the day of 1290 points.
Character Carousel - Pretty standard carousel. Fun but tame.
Carolina Skytower - Great views of the park and the area. Wish the ride would have lasted longer.
SpongeBob 4D - I was as crazy excited for as as the 4 year olds were. We got in and were seated and were ready to go. One of the automatic exit doors wouldn't close. We were offloaded and it was broken. Bummed.
