Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
A few weeks ago, ACE Southeast announced that ACE members were invited to go ride Twisted Cyclone on its Media Day. Knowing how much I love RMC and love Media Days, I was really happy to see I was off those days and able to go. Now, I had been to SFOG before, but I was twelve. It was my dad's home park growing up for part of his childhood so in 2006 (the year Goliath opened) we made it part of our family vacation. When we went, Georgia Cyclone was down, so that was one I missed, and in the time between now and then, they got one new coaster, a Eurofighter called Dare Devil Dive. So the plan was to leave as soon as possible, get there for a few hours in the evening to mop up Dare Devil and reride Goliath (I hear amazing things, I can't properly rank it as I was twelve when I rode it), wake up ridiculously early the next morning to go to Media Day, and drive home the rest of the day.
Such a cheery forecast for this event...
So I knew it was a bit of a gamble, but I decided that the possibility of getting to ride Twisted Cyclone this early was worth it. So that morning I hopped into my car, drove to Hertz...and realized I booked from the wrong one. There are two south of town, I booked one that was a bit more out of the way than the other, so that was a lovely little slowdown. Continuing on, I headed down 75, and onto 275 around Cincinnati. Or as I like to call it, Cincinnasty, the car crash capital of Ohio. I actually caught myself thinking "these idiots are going to run me off the road today" just in time to pass wreck shrapnel on the side of the road (a theme for this trip). Continuing on, Kentucky was a breeze, didn't even put my feet on the ground through the three hour state. After stopping at Tennessee's welcome center to eat my packed lunch, I continued on through the state with no problems. Keeping up, I got to Georgia, and then to Atlanta, and that's where the trouble started. There were spotty showers around, and enough traffic to keep me from getting to the park until 5:30, with a 7:00 closing. And to make it worse, they couldn't even run anything outdoors with showers in the area. Processed my pass, popped in, Dare Devil's down, Goliath's down, another nasty round of thunder is rolling in, I had my pass in hand for Texas, so I decided to just get a few shots of Twisted Cyclone and leave.
Hello, Six Flags!
They had their main street all decked out and ready to go with these Twisted Cyclone banners! They're ready to unleash it on the public this weekend and it's obvious.
Close up of said banners.
I had not been to this part of the park when I was twelve because it's kind of out of the way and nothing of interest was running and I have to admit, I kind of like it. It really does feel like a little southeastern beach town like Isle of Palms or the Outer Banks, right down to the cheery colors and music choice.
I LOVED the approach to the theme they took with this ride! Wicked Cyclone has some cool theming, it's dark, it's imposing, there's smashed hurricane debris everywhere, and I love the storm theme on rides in general. But Twisted Cyclone, they didn't even mess with that. Everything is painted pastel colors, it looks really happy and fun...but it's a hurricane! This bit got me because my grandparents got me a set of drink coasters with almost the exact same thing on them.
Possibly one of the funniest Christmas gifts I've been given, so to see it on a coaster kind of caught me off guard.
Merch employees busting it to get the shop ready for tomorrow morning!
Open Inside; Cyclone Party!!! The nihilist in me loved this happy take on such a violent theme! Makes me want to just board up the windows, hunker down, whip up one of my infamous mai tais, and throw a hurricane party!
Because the coaster is sandwiched between trees and a restricted area, it's kind of hard to photograph, but from the ground it looks like a twisted mess of standard parts and machined rails, I love it. It might actually be the prettiest RMC with the color choice.
I hated the logo for this one at first but it's grown on me. I like the teal colors with the wood and steel, and the font conveys the attitude of the ride pretty well. Even though it depicts topper track for an I-box.
Nice little Georgia Cyclone tribute, again with the ironically happy theming.
Me with Twisted Cyclone!
It tested while I was there, no still photos but I did go Facebook Live and film it.
You taunt me...
The wind was starting to pick up so I left before the only pair of sneakers I brought got soaked. Good night, Twisted Cyclone! I'll ride it out tomorrow!
After I left, I was supposed to meet another local enthusiast from a Planet Coaster Facebook group I'm in, but traffic was getting really bad so we weren't able to, she said Atlanta's impossible to get around when it rains. But I had booked a really nice hotel for the night so I headed back, grabbed some accessible food on the way from a RaceTrac, and cued up the streaming player in my hotel room over some buffalo chicken pizza and beer. Then I hit the sack early, knowing I had not only an early day the next day but also an 8 hour drive back...
Media Day
I actually woke up way too early, getting up at 3:45 for a 5 am time slot. Then I got turned around on the way to the park due to an accident, leaving me to take the interstate there, making me somewhat late to check in.
My rental car as the only car in the parking lot! Not a photo op you get every day!
Here we go! I was hoping either Fred or Alan would sign this credential placard for me but they weren't there
As if the ride's name wasn't appropriate enough, I knew there would be rain. Took us a while to get to ride because a sprinkle turned into a steady shower.
Whatever they were doing up there they were really busy with it! We waited for them to rig up their A/V equipment but then the rain got so bad they had to hold us off for a bit.
While we waited for the storm to pass so we could ride Cyclone, they had us wait in the queue house. It's small but they at least themed it. It has newspaper stickers stuck to the wall, kinda like but not entirely like Wicked Cyclone, and a random surfboard propped up in the corner. The ACE Southeast bunch was great to wait with too. Apparently the running joke is to randomly ask Josh (the regional rep) if Lightning Rod is open at the most random times, you had to be there but this happened several times and it was hilarious.
But finally, the sun started to rise a bit, and it was finally time to ride! It's Twisted Cyclone time! They strapped us in, checked our restraints, cleared the train...and we were six minutes from our go live time. My first ride was broadcast live on television in Knoxville!
And I was really surprised! I grabbed the first public train in the back seat of the first generation train (Twisted Cyclone runs Gen 1 trains), first person who didn't work on this project to sit back there on a ride, and all I could say was wow! Definitely had more bite to it than I was expecting, especially for such a tiny coaster!
Oh yeah...the rain hadn't completely stopped. It was on its way out, but we still got rained on for our first ride. Tracks were dripping wet, it was nice and slippery, and the sun had barely come up, so it was almost a pre-dawn darkness rain ride, perfect way to get this coaster credit! Though I did bring my hair product and do my hair (knowing I'd be on TV) only for it to be turned to a gloppy mess by this one ride.
Twisted Cyclone starts with what's now my favorite prelift of any RMC. It's fun, it's wacky, and it sets the stage nicely for the ride to follow, playing with both banking and elevation. I hadn't looked much into that part of the ride so it surprised me a bit. From there, it's up a short, shallow lift, if I'm correct the lift angle wasn't even modified and the apex was just moved, could be wrong on that though. Regardless, it's a short lift that leads into one of RMC's better drops. It's a short, straight dive right under two of the C-channels holding the wave turn up, which makes for an insane headchopper, this element might be the reason we were reminded not to swear on the ride since we were on live television. Coming out of that drop, you go into the ride's twisted horseshoe, which is the ride's "gimmicky" element. It looks cool traveling through it, you get some hangtime on entry, exit felt exactly like Chaser's drop with how slow you take that turn, but it's all visual.
Then the ride really gets started.
Coming out of that twisted horseshoe, the ride heads up into its signature wave turn, and that's one of my favorite parts. Feels a lot like Outlaw Run's but with slightly stronger air and better visuals, seeing the horizon turn sideways and having the rest of the structure emerge from under you while being ripped from your seat at an extended time interval is amazing! From there it's a nice airtime hop into a mildly amusing overbank. But coming out of the overbank, there's this tiny hop, and in the back, the ejector is insane, probably most comparable to Wicked Cyclone's double down, and easily the strongest moment of air on the ride. Out of that there's a nice zero-g roll with some decent floater. Then you go through this little airtime "bump" (I wouldn't call it a hill) that kicks you out of your seat a bit, think a drivers ed turn but straightened and unbanked. Heading into the structure there's a small overbank that's very reminiscent of Steel Vengeance's, same geometry, same visual. Out of that, there's a drivers ed turn that makes up the first half of an S-curve into the brakes, ending a very short but awesome ride.
Now...thoughts on the total package? It's a weird little RMC for sure. You can tell it's a low momentum situation around the layout, and RMC handled that really well. Intensity-wise, we know positive force is irrelevant to me, but we also know RMC doesn't exactly try to make you black out either. Airtime-wise, most of it was probably Storm Chaser or Goliath level, with the one exception of the step down from the first overbank. It's weaker RMC airtime for sure, but it's not all about the airtime with Twisted Cyclone. This was a small coaster where they crammed as many tiny elements as they could into a low-momentum context and just had the train snap through them with what speed they were able to get going, and they did it beautifully. The entire run back to the last turnaround is paced gorgeously, and the finale of the ride is awesome. And the icing on the cake was a good, unique selection of elements. There's a pretty healthy mix of inversions, airtime, and aggression elements on this RMC, and they work together to create an awesome experience. Rankings-wise, I knew it would end up somewhere around Chaser and Outlaw, I knew it was better than Goliath, knew it was worse than Wicked Cyclone. Decided it was closer to Chaser in ride quality, but comparing them was hard. I gave Cyclone the edge over it in the end due to having a better drop, a few more ways the airtime was exerted, and the context in which I rode them. I had ridden Cyclone after riding Steel Vengeance the week before, last time I rode Chaser it was during a pretty RMC-free year, with the only other one having been Goliath three months prior, knowing that likely affected my memory of how Chaser currently rides.
They ended up letting us go around three more times before kicking us back to the queue house.
Got a better panorama of it in full sun, if you're curious as to what it looks like.
Obligatory joint stamp nerd shot, interesting to see they went with TC as the code for this job, I know the other conversions this year had the previous names abbreviated (Steel Vengeance's read MS, I think Twisted Timbers's are HR or HL). Don't remember track up before it was announced though so that probably has something to do with it.
They then pulled some more of us up into the station, giving understandable priority to those who had not yet ridden.
Pretty minimal theming in the station, nothing beyond architecture choices.
This really is the only decent photo op of the ride in the park that I was able to find. Lots of trees and buildings in the way on the midway.
Down that small but killer drop!
Close up of the side of the train side panels. I really like the chrome on these! Not sure why they went with a car theme (more on that in a bit) but they look great.
Coming back into the station, one local guy who knew me was nice enough to give up his seat, knowing the time slot was ending and I didn't have the opportunity to ride it whenever like he did. I got to ride in the middle!
I'm a bad RMC fanboy.
Since all the excitement of riding it had worn off, I was able to really take this one in and think about everything analytically. Having gone from Steel Vengeance's gen 2 trains last week to these this week, I see why people complained about the gen 1 trains. The old restraints aren't as ergonomic as the new ones and the belt buckle ended up somewhere rather...uncomfortable. Now don't get me wrong, it didn't affect my ride and I still loved it, but I now see what people meant when they had negative things to say. Maybe they're just 1000x more bothered by it than I am, but I see what sensation people are referring to. But still, something barely noticeable like that isn't nearly bad enough to ruin such an amazing coaster.
I loved this wall decal by the gift shop! It reminds me of the kinds of frescoes you'd see at boardwalks like Morey's Piers.
Sadly, however, the ride's theming seems to stop past the cattlepen. Would have been nice to see some props in the station or around the rides, even if they're just signs. I kind of made the connection that the car is supposed to be you driving out of the storm, but it would have been nice to have something to allude to that a bit more. Wicked Cyclone had a few evacuation route signs around it, why couldn't they just do the same? Maybe theme the station like some beach bum's garage with surfboards and inflatables and stuff hung overhead? Something to directly tie the car to the hurricane theme would have been nice, and the ride seems to lack any theming past a certain point.
The exit gift shop is really nice, though they don't have that much merch for the ride. Hats and lanyards were the things I immediately noticed they don't have.
I liked the design on this shirt better than the other one, but I got the other one because the coaster looked less cartoony.
The other shirt looks more like a classic loud Six Flags RMC shirt, like the ones everyone was getting from Wicked Cyclone in 2015. I bought the green one on the right.
They did have towels though, something everyone joked about on the rainy morning.
In case you need something to hold your fruity tropical adult beverage for your next hurricane party!
I left as my time slot ended at 9 to make the 8 hour drive home...or so I thought.
Stopped by on the way out to watch it go around from the outside once.
Best moment on the ride!
If anything, it's visually impressive. As if we needed anything else to tie it to Wicked Cyclone, it's a great welcoming sight when you first get to the park. Certainly something where you walk up to the entrance and the kids point at it and exclaim "I wanna ride THAT!!!"
I didn't get to ride Goliath this trip, I might be back here to ride this soon, who knows. But one thing's for sure, if that big, drawn out, high momentum hypercoaster is Goliath, Twisted Cyclone is certainly a worthy David to match. It's tiny, it's low momentum, it has inversions, almost everything Goliath isn't, but it's not to be underestimated!
Then the drive home happened.
The drive home was awful. It started with Atlanta traffic (which I was slowly learning to avoid), complete with a wrecked car in a spot where I can't even figure out how it got there. It was on a concrete slope under an overpass, over a guardrail, turned facing the direction of traffic, smashed against the guardrail. No road over it for it to drive down, I'm still stumped and I'll probably never know. Then in Kentucky, there was some idiot who put retreads on a trailer that was probably too rusty to be on the road. These retreads blew a lane over from me, which was strong enough to damage the corroded metal, throwing the fender of the trailer to the shoulder and sending metal and rubber shrapnel all over the place, hitting my rental car a few times. There was no damage when I looked at it, but when I tried to take the guy's plate down to give Hertz in case there was, he swerved into the left lane and sped away with that piece of scrap metal bouncing on the old tire under the blown retread. Then a bit later, there was a mess of traffic due to construction that I had to detour, which saved me a whopping hour and a half. Before I was able to get off the highway, it was so slow that I was in park and the semi in front of me was fully shut off, all because people can't get down to two lanes. I was at the speed limit whenever I could be, but that traffic jam absolutely screwed up my arrival time. Should have gotten home at 5:30, got home at 7:30.
Then to add insult to injury, after I dropped my car off and grabbed the Jarrettmobile to drive back home...there was traffic in Dayton just because people can't get down to two lanes from four.
I was super, super frazzled walking in the door, having walked in a little bit after 8. But my dad was awesome and had Buffalo Wild Wings doordashed in for the Survivor finale! After being up since 3:45 am and making that long, grueling, hellish drive, sitting down with a fruity adult beverage (that's a peach fuzzy navel you see there) and getting to watch a great finale to a show I've been into since I was 9 was pretty awesome. Also first ever tie at the finale, perfect way to end the day!
And ironically, the theme of next season was revealed to be David vs. Goliath.
What a great little trip! Most of it was spent in the car, but the five rides I got on Twisted Cyclone more than made up for it! It's not the biggest RMC, but man does it pack a punch! It was RMC number seven for me and currently ranks fifth, and ended up at #6 in my top ten. Makes me even more excited to try some more different RMCs in Texas next month! I'm so glad Six Flags Over Georgia and ACE Southeast gave me such an incredible opportunity! Definitely get out there if you can, I think the park has a real sleeper hit on their hands.
Maybe they'll even have the third lap up by the time you go.
Such a cheery forecast for this event...
So I knew it was a bit of a gamble, but I decided that the possibility of getting to ride Twisted Cyclone this early was worth it. So that morning I hopped into my car, drove to Hertz...and realized I booked from the wrong one. There are two south of town, I booked one that was a bit more out of the way than the other, so that was a lovely little slowdown. Continuing on, I headed down 75, and onto 275 around Cincinnati. Or as I like to call it, Cincinnasty, the car crash capital of Ohio. I actually caught myself thinking "these idiots are going to run me off the road today" just in time to pass wreck shrapnel on the side of the road (a theme for this trip). Continuing on, Kentucky was a breeze, didn't even put my feet on the ground through the three hour state. After stopping at Tennessee's welcome center to eat my packed lunch, I continued on through the state with no problems. Keeping up, I got to Georgia, and then to Atlanta, and that's where the trouble started. There were spotty showers around, and enough traffic to keep me from getting to the park until 5:30, with a 7:00 closing. And to make it worse, they couldn't even run anything outdoors with showers in the area. Processed my pass, popped in, Dare Devil's down, Goliath's down, another nasty round of thunder is rolling in, I had my pass in hand for Texas, so I decided to just get a few shots of Twisted Cyclone and leave.
Hello, Six Flags!
They had their main street all decked out and ready to go with these Twisted Cyclone banners! They're ready to unleash it on the public this weekend and it's obvious.
Close up of said banners.
I had not been to this part of the park when I was twelve because it's kind of out of the way and nothing of interest was running and I have to admit, I kind of like it. It really does feel like a little southeastern beach town like Isle of Palms or the Outer Banks, right down to the cheery colors and music choice.
I LOVED the approach to the theme they took with this ride! Wicked Cyclone has some cool theming, it's dark, it's imposing, there's smashed hurricane debris everywhere, and I love the storm theme on rides in general. But Twisted Cyclone, they didn't even mess with that. Everything is painted pastel colors, it looks really happy and fun...but it's a hurricane! This bit got me because my grandparents got me a set of drink coasters with almost the exact same thing on them.
Possibly one of the funniest Christmas gifts I've been given, so to see it on a coaster kind of caught me off guard.
Merch employees busting it to get the shop ready for tomorrow morning!
Open Inside; Cyclone Party!!! The nihilist in me loved this happy take on such a violent theme! Makes me want to just board up the windows, hunker down, whip up one of my infamous mai tais, and throw a hurricane party!
Because the coaster is sandwiched between trees and a restricted area, it's kind of hard to photograph, but from the ground it looks like a twisted mess of standard parts and machined rails, I love it. It might actually be the prettiest RMC with the color choice.
I hated the logo for this one at first but it's grown on me. I like the teal colors with the wood and steel, and the font conveys the attitude of the ride pretty well. Even though it depicts topper track for an I-box.
Nice little Georgia Cyclone tribute, again with the ironically happy theming.
Me with Twisted Cyclone!
It tested while I was there, no still photos but I did go Facebook Live and film it.
You taunt me...
The wind was starting to pick up so I left before the only pair of sneakers I brought got soaked. Good night, Twisted Cyclone! I'll ride it out tomorrow!
After I left, I was supposed to meet another local enthusiast from a Planet Coaster Facebook group I'm in, but traffic was getting really bad so we weren't able to, she said Atlanta's impossible to get around when it rains. But I had booked a really nice hotel for the night so I headed back, grabbed some accessible food on the way from a RaceTrac, and cued up the streaming player in my hotel room over some buffalo chicken pizza and beer. Then I hit the sack early, knowing I had not only an early day the next day but also an 8 hour drive back...
Media Day
I actually woke up way too early, getting up at 3:45 for a 5 am time slot. Then I got turned around on the way to the park due to an accident, leaving me to take the interstate there, making me somewhat late to check in.
My rental car as the only car in the parking lot! Not a photo op you get every day!
Here we go! I was hoping either Fred or Alan would sign this credential placard for me but they weren't there
As if the ride's name wasn't appropriate enough, I knew there would be rain. Took us a while to get to ride because a sprinkle turned into a steady shower.
Whatever they were doing up there they were really busy with it! We waited for them to rig up their A/V equipment but then the rain got so bad they had to hold us off for a bit.
While we waited for the storm to pass so we could ride Cyclone, they had us wait in the queue house. It's small but they at least themed it. It has newspaper stickers stuck to the wall, kinda like but not entirely like Wicked Cyclone, and a random surfboard propped up in the corner. The ACE Southeast bunch was great to wait with too. Apparently the running joke is to randomly ask Josh (the regional rep) if Lightning Rod is open at the most random times, you had to be there but this happened several times and it was hilarious.
But finally, the sun started to rise a bit, and it was finally time to ride! It's Twisted Cyclone time! They strapped us in, checked our restraints, cleared the train...and we were six minutes from our go live time. My first ride was broadcast live on television in Knoxville!
And I was really surprised! I grabbed the first public train in the back seat of the first generation train (Twisted Cyclone runs Gen 1 trains), first person who didn't work on this project to sit back there on a ride, and all I could say was wow! Definitely had more bite to it than I was expecting, especially for such a tiny coaster!
Oh yeah...the rain hadn't completely stopped. It was on its way out, but we still got rained on for our first ride. Tracks were dripping wet, it was nice and slippery, and the sun had barely come up, so it was almost a pre-dawn darkness rain ride, perfect way to get this coaster credit! Though I did bring my hair product and do my hair (knowing I'd be on TV) only for it to be turned to a gloppy mess by this one ride.
Twisted Cyclone starts with what's now my favorite prelift of any RMC. It's fun, it's wacky, and it sets the stage nicely for the ride to follow, playing with both banking and elevation. I hadn't looked much into that part of the ride so it surprised me a bit. From there, it's up a short, shallow lift, if I'm correct the lift angle wasn't even modified and the apex was just moved, could be wrong on that though. Regardless, it's a short lift that leads into one of RMC's better drops. It's a short, straight dive right under two of the C-channels holding the wave turn up, which makes for an insane headchopper, this element might be the reason we were reminded not to swear on the ride since we were on live television. Coming out of that drop, you go into the ride's twisted horseshoe, which is the ride's "gimmicky" element. It looks cool traveling through it, you get some hangtime on entry, exit felt exactly like Chaser's drop with how slow you take that turn, but it's all visual.
Then the ride really gets started.
Coming out of that twisted horseshoe, the ride heads up into its signature wave turn, and that's one of my favorite parts. Feels a lot like Outlaw Run's but with slightly stronger air and better visuals, seeing the horizon turn sideways and having the rest of the structure emerge from under you while being ripped from your seat at an extended time interval is amazing! From there it's a nice airtime hop into a mildly amusing overbank. But coming out of the overbank, there's this tiny hop, and in the back, the ejector is insane, probably most comparable to Wicked Cyclone's double down, and easily the strongest moment of air on the ride. Out of that there's a nice zero-g roll with some decent floater. Then you go through this little airtime "bump" (I wouldn't call it a hill) that kicks you out of your seat a bit, think a drivers ed turn but straightened and unbanked. Heading into the structure there's a small overbank that's very reminiscent of Steel Vengeance's, same geometry, same visual. Out of that, there's a drivers ed turn that makes up the first half of an S-curve into the brakes, ending a very short but awesome ride.
Now...thoughts on the total package? It's a weird little RMC for sure. You can tell it's a low momentum situation around the layout, and RMC handled that really well. Intensity-wise, we know positive force is irrelevant to me, but we also know RMC doesn't exactly try to make you black out either. Airtime-wise, most of it was probably Storm Chaser or Goliath level, with the one exception of the step down from the first overbank. It's weaker RMC airtime for sure, but it's not all about the airtime with Twisted Cyclone. This was a small coaster where they crammed as many tiny elements as they could into a low-momentum context and just had the train snap through them with what speed they were able to get going, and they did it beautifully. The entire run back to the last turnaround is paced gorgeously, and the finale of the ride is awesome. And the icing on the cake was a good, unique selection of elements. There's a pretty healthy mix of inversions, airtime, and aggression elements on this RMC, and they work together to create an awesome experience. Rankings-wise, I knew it would end up somewhere around Chaser and Outlaw, I knew it was better than Goliath, knew it was worse than Wicked Cyclone. Decided it was closer to Chaser in ride quality, but comparing them was hard. I gave Cyclone the edge over it in the end due to having a better drop, a few more ways the airtime was exerted, and the context in which I rode them. I had ridden Cyclone after riding Steel Vengeance the week before, last time I rode Chaser it was during a pretty RMC-free year, with the only other one having been Goliath three months prior, knowing that likely affected my memory of how Chaser currently rides.
They ended up letting us go around three more times before kicking us back to the queue house.
Got a better panorama of it in full sun, if you're curious as to what it looks like.
Obligatory joint stamp nerd shot, interesting to see they went with TC as the code for this job, I know the other conversions this year had the previous names abbreviated (Steel Vengeance's read MS, I think Twisted Timbers's are HR or HL). Don't remember track up before it was announced though so that probably has something to do with it.
They then pulled some more of us up into the station, giving understandable priority to those who had not yet ridden.
Pretty minimal theming in the station, nothing beyond architecture choices.
This really is the only decent photo op of the ride in the park that I was able to find. Lots of trees and buildings in the way on the midway.
Down that small but killer drop!
Close up of the side of the train side panels. I really like the chrome on these! Not sure why they went with a car theme (more on that in a bit) but they look great.
Coming back into the station, one local guy who knew me was nice enough to give up his seat, knowing the time slot was ending and I didn't have the opportunity to ride it whenever like he did. I got to ride in the middle!
I'm a bad RMC fanboy.
Since all the excitement of riding it had worn off, I was able to really take this one in and think about everything analytically. Having gone from Steel Vengeance's gen 2 trains last week to these this week, I see why people complained about the gen 1 trains. The old restraints aren't as ergonomic as the new ones and the belt buckle ended up somewhere rather...uncomfortable. Now don't get me wrong, it didn't affect my ride and I still loved it, but I now see what people meant when they had negative things to say. Maybe they're just 1000x more bothered by it than I am, but I see what sensation people are referring to. But still, something barely noticeable like that isn't nearly bad enough to ruin such an amazing coaster.
I loved this wall decal by the gift shop! It reminds me of the kinds of frescoes you'd see at boardwalks like Morey's Piers.
Sadly, however, the ride's theming seems to stop past the cattlepen. Would have been nice to see some props in the station or around the rides, even if they're just signs. I kind of made the connection that the car is supposed to be you driving out of the storm, but it would have been nice to have something to allude to that a bit more. Wicked Cyclone had a few evacuation route signs around it, why couldn't they just do the same? Maybe theme the station like some beach bum's garage with surfboards and inflatables and stuff hung overhead? Something to directly tie the car to the hurricane theme would have been nice, and the ride seems to lack any theming past a certain point.
The exit gift shop is really nice, though they don't have that much merch for the ride. Hats and lanyards were the things I immediately noticed they don't have.
I liked the design on this shirt better than the other one, but I got the other one because the coaster looked less cartoony.
The other shirt looks more like a classic loud Six Flags RMC shirt, like the ones everyone was getting from Wicked Cyclone in 2015. I bought the green one on the right.
They did have towels though, something everyone joked about on the rainy morning.
In case you need something to hold your fruity tropical adult beverage for your next hurricane party!
I left as my time slot ended at 9 to make the 8 hour drive home...or so I thought.
Stopped by on the way out to watch it go around from the outside once.
Best moment on the ride!
If anything, it's visually impressive. As if we needed anything else to tie it to Wicked Cyclone, it's a great welcoming sight when you first get to the park. Certainly something where you walk up to the entrance and the kids point at it and exclaim "I wanna ride THAT!!!"
I didn't get to ride Goliath this trip, I might be back here to ride this soon, who knows. But one thing's for sure, if that big, drawn out, high momentum hypercoaster is Goliath, Twisted Cyclone is certainly a worthy David to match. It's tiny, it's low momentum, it has inversions, almost everything Goliath isn't, but it's not to be underestimated!
Then the drive home happened.
The drive home was awful. It started with Atlanta traffic (which I was slowly learning to avoid), complete with a wrecked car in a spot where I can't even figure out how it got there. It was on a concrete slope under an overpass, over a guardrail, turned facing the direction of traffic, smashed against the guardrail. No road over it for it to drive down, I'm still stumped and I'll probably never know. Then in Kentucky, there was some idiot who put retreads on a trailer that was probably too rusty to be on the road. These retreads blew a lane over from me, which was strong enough to damage the corroded metal, throwing the fender of the trailer to the shoulder and sending metal and rubber shrapnel all over the place, hitting my rental car a few times. There was no damage when I looked at it, but when I tried to take the guy's plate down to give Hertz in case there was, he swerved into the left lane and sped away with that piece of scrap metal bouncing on the old tire under the blown retread. Then a bit later, there was a mess of traffic due to construction that I had to detour, which saved me a whopping hour and a half. Before I was able to get off the highway, it was so slow that I was in park and the semi in front of me was fully shut off, all because people can't get down to two lanes. I was at the speed limit whenever I could be, but that traffic jam absolutely screwed up my arrival time. Should have gotten home at 5:30, got home at 7:30.
Then to add insult to injury, after I dropped my car off and grabbed the Jarrettmobile to drive back home...there was traffic in Dayton just because people can't get down to two lanes from four.
I was super, super frazzled walking in the door, having walked in a little bit after 8. But my dad was awesome and had Buffalo Wild Wings doordashed in for the Survivor finale! After being up since 3:45 am and making that long, grueling, hellish drive, sitting down with a fruity adult beverage (that's a peach fuzzy navel you see there) and getting to watch a great finale to a show I've been into since I was 9 was pretty awesome. Also first ever tie at the finale, perfect way to end the day!
And ironically, the theme of next season was revealed to be David vs. Goliath.
What a great little trip! Most of it was spent in the car, but the five rides I got on Twisted Cyclone more than made up for it! It's not the biggest RMC, but man does it pack a punch! It was RMC number seven for me and currently ranks fifth, and ended up at #6 in my top ten. Makes me even more excited to try some more different RMCs in Texas next month! I'm so glad Six Flags Over Georgia and ACE Southeast gave me such an incredible opportunity! Definitely get out there if you can, I think the park has a real sleeper hit on their hands.
Maybe they'll even have the third lap up by the time you go.