Hello to all,

Just got back this week from a nice little short coaster trip.

Here's what I had to report

06/09 - Paramount's King's Dominion

I had a great day, the kids were still in school so there was like NOBODY in the park!

The new Drop Zone was working and was basically a walk on! I rode it only once, as I'm not a huge fan of drop towers. It was fun, and wayyyy up there in the sky, but I couldn't tell that much difference from PKI's DZ.

Everything in the park was a walk-on except for Volcano, and Hypersonic. Those were about 15-30 min depending on what time of day you went over there.

Most of the time when I rode FOF it was a walk-on, but one time it was about a 10 min wait.

I got multiple rides in on each of the coasters, except for Rebel Yell, which I don't ride much because it's so much like Thunder Road at CP.

The shorter trains on Hypersonic seem to make it a little less jerky over the hump. That ride kills me though, I just rode it twice.

I hadn't been back since Anaconda got it's makeover. Great looking new paintjob!!!

Mysterious Happenings! : To the left of Avalanche they are doing some sort of construction! Land has been cleared, and dozers, etc are sitting there. It's not a very large area. It doesn't look big enough though to put in a Tomb Raider. But I could be wrong. I've been known to be It really could be big enough area to put in a coaster station, and just have the coaster snake around Avalanche.

06/10 - Six Flags America


The only snag I really ran into was trying to get into the park. The lines were so slow! I can't figure out why though. Once I got into the park, it was empty most of the day.

This was my first visit to this park, and only my 2nd Six Flags park I've ever visited (that will be taken care of next year, I hope).

On coasters, I thought it was a great park. On the park itself, ick! It looked so unattended to. It looked dirty, and I just wasn't that impressed with it over-all.

The Gotham City section however looks nice, but that is fairly new from what I've read on the net.

Ok enough of the negative, on to the coasters.

SM-Ride of Steel - Wow! What a great hyper! I hear a lot about the SMROS in NE, but I haven't ridden it yet, so I don't have that one to compare it to. I really enjoyed this hyper and got multiple rides on it. It was a walk-on! Couldn't believe it!

Batwing - Loved it, but they were only running one train up until about 1:00, then it broke down completley. It didn't run the rest of the day, I left about 7:00 and I don't think it ever re-opened. This was my first lay-down coaster, what a weird sensation! I still think I like SM:UF at SFOG though, even though there's not as many inversions. Batwing is getting kind of noisy already which is weird, I think that's a B&M right?

Joker's Jinx - I was dissapointed a little with this one, it looks so cool on the videos, but after I rode it, I realized it's just a clone of Flight of Fear, but out in the open, instead of inside in the dark. I'll take FOF any day.

The Wild One - I heard in the park, that this one was broke down since 06/05, don't know why. It was down all day until 5:00. I was standing at the entrance when they finally opened it, and I got to take the first front-car ride!!! I thought this was a really fun wooden coaster. They still had problems with the Blue Train. Apparantley it's not flipping a switch of some sort in the station, so that they can open the gates, and also unlock the restraints. The Blue Car was sent empty while they were able to fill the Red Train.

Roar - Wow! I had heard about this coaster, but man! I was impressed with this one. I couldn't believe it was so smooth, and fast. And that first drop was a total surprise. Lots of airtime, loved it!

Mind Eraser - Well, this would get my headbanger award of this trip! A fun looping, twisting, inverted coaster, but man! What a headbanger! You can't even hold your head to one side, because it flips you both directions lol. I did ride it 3 times though.

Two Face - Another clone of the Face/Off Invertigo's of the world, but i still had fun on it.

And finally the biggest one they have, The Great Chase! Ha ha. That little kiddie coaster will about make you hurl for sure!

As a side-bar if you go to that area, and want to leave your wife/friends that aren't into coasters at a mall for the day, drop them off at Potomac Mills, I loved that mall. I shopped for like 3 hrs, and their sales tax is only 4.5%!!! Ours in NC is 7.5% Yikes! I did some serious shopping.

I had a great time, and this will be all my coaster riding this year until I go to BGW in the fall. Have a safe and fun coaster-riding summer!