Quick trip to SFNE -- 10/14/01

Erik Johnson · #1 10-14-2001, 08:49 PM

I wanted to round out this year's less-than-impressive coaster season with a quick trip to SFNE. You see, due to my inability to schedule time off, I was only able to make one other park visit during this season: SFNE in May. Despite my best efforts, that was the all I could do. Next year will be better, I hope. Anyway, I watched the weather all day on Saturday and kept hearing about unfavorable conditions for an amusement park visit. It turned out to be a perfect day in the park, at least for someone hates waiting in line: sixty degrees, overcast, and drizzling. The New England fall weather didn't scare as many people away as I thought though. When my brother, father, and I arrived at 11:45, fifteen minutes before the park opened, we saw cars all the way back to the end of the water park in the front lot. So we went in and paid our $32.00 per person after an eight dollar discount with a coupon and watched the truly hilarious albeit pathetic Looney Tunes dance number that all park guests are forced to endure before the gates open and SFNE's version of the running of the bulls commences.

Since we had to leave at 5:00 and time as of the essence, we decided not to participate in the mad dash for Superman and stopped for a quick ride on the Scream free-fall tower. Unfortunately, they were only running one of three towers so it was good to get it out of the way first since we anticipated long waits later in the day. They were operating in combo mode so we got to experience the Space Shot and Turbo Drop sensations in one ride which was very cool.

Hoping to further avoid the crowds, we headed next door to the Thunderbolt and enjoyed the delightful little woodie after two cycles. This is a really great little coaster that is smooth and provides a few surprisingly strong moments of airtime. As always, we got off with a smile. With the rain stopped, it was time to head over to Superman and see how the line was. I decided that my father's first ride on the world's number one coaster should be in the back. The wait time was about fifteen minutes. This would have been a lot faster except that the red train was still out-of-commission after the accident in August. Still, we got two rides in the back within a half hour.

Next up was a swing down to the southern portion of the park. On the way to Mind Eraser, we stopped at Twister, a Huss Top Spin. I have to say that the program was absolutely the worst one I've experienced. There was really only one part where they really let the car spin freely. Lake Compounce has a much better program on their version. We then made our way down to Mind Eraser which was running two trains much to our surprise. The wait was only a few minutes so we got our ears bashed courtesy of Vekoma on quite possible the worst ride I've ever had on this particular coaster. We did get a great view of the pieces of the 2002 coaster from the lift though. Actually, the area where the new ride will be installed is very small. They essentially used a little space between the end of Superman and Island Kingdom making the south end of the park almost a straight line. There's still tons of room for expansion so the future of SFNE looks bright.

As if one Vekoma clone wasn't enough, we stopped at Flashback on the way to Cyclone. It was pleasant enough, and didn't take up a lot of our precious time in the park due to the fact that we walked on after one cycle.

The Cyclone was also walk-on so we headed for the back and were off on the first train out of the station. Man, has this ride deteriorated since I rode it at the beginning of the summer! In the summer, it was slightly unpleasant. This time the two-year-old PTC train squeaked its way around 3600 feet of pitted lumber while rattling the brains of every one of its passengers. For the first time in my life, I was looking forward to the end of a coaster ride. It was that bad. There is a fair amount of wood piled next to the coaster and rumors are that the ride will be completely retracked for the 2002 season. Should this happen, the Cyclone will surely rebound from the bottom of my wooden coaster list, but as of now, it's on the coaster disavowed list.

Seeking nourishment at the half-way point in our visit, we stopped and ate some delightful buffalo wings and curly fries in a little restaurant across the midway from Flashback. It was expensive, but the food was quite good. As we ate, we discussed the park, it's promising nature and the things that need to be changed.

Feeling full, perhaps a little overfull, we headed back to DC SuperHero Adventures for two more quick spins on Superman. This time we rode in the front which I believe to be better than the back because of the tremendous view and the extra airtime. The ride op changed and the new guy was great. He canned the pre-recorded announcements and made them all himself throwing funny lines in here and there. Pete, if you ever read this, keep up the good work! Again, we made it through two rides in the second row of Superman in about twenty minutes. When there's a line, always head for the second row. There'll usually be only two cycles of wait time there since everyone wants to ride in the very front. Intamin's brilliant stadium seating make the second row almost as good as the first but with a fraction of the wait.

We took a ride on the Huss Fly-Away dubbed Night Wing which was okay, but nothing special. There was so much stuff holding you in the the flying sensation was kinda lost. It was still pretty fun.

We then decided to return to the Thunderbolt and Flashback for a little variety before returning to Superman for one more ride to end the day. It turned out to do nothing more than drizzle on and off throughout the day so we got our share of good rides in. The problem with SFNE is that it's coaster collection is so poor in comparison with Superman. Thunderbolt stands as the only other really enjoyable coaster in the park with Flashback following behind it. Mind Eraser and Cyclone are rough beyond belief making them worth one ride each, but that's it. With a new B&M in the park next year and the possibility of a retracked Cyclone, SFNE could become one of the nation's must-visit amusement parks, but as it stands, it is simply a mediocre corporate theme park which happens to have the best steel roller coaster ever built.