Six Flags was something I've wanted to do since I was a kid. It sets itself apart as a theme park for roller coaster enthusiasts. While every other park has an over-arching theme (Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knotts, etc), Six Flags just tries to have the biggest and baddest rides.
The entire experience of the day can thus be easily broken down to each thrill ride:
Goliath is what I would call the epitome of a roller coaster. Fast, fun, and a great 255ft drop that almost reaches 90mph, which makes you feel like you just drove your car off a cliff. In fact, the opening drop was recognized as the longest and fastest on a closed-circuit roller coaster in the world when it opened in 2000.
I would have loved to ride it again but the lines
were too long, didn't want to sacrifice other rides for it with the time
we had left in the day.
This was the second ride of the day. Tucked in the back of the park, you can tell this ride was a popular attraction upon its debut, but quickly faded into comparative obscurity.
The lines were non-existant all day long. There were 2 cars that would run almost continuously, back-to-back.
You ride in a shoulder harness, but your legs are free to dangle and you can see everything beneath you (giving you a great fear-of-heights-rush).
This ended up being my favorite ride at the whole park. It doesn't
have any record-blasting bragging rights or numbers you can throw in
someone's face. But it has the tightest turns, most loops, and all out
frequency of changing g-forces of any ride I've experienced. Instead of 1
or 2 big features (loop, drop, etc), the entire ride is just turn,
loop, inversion, another loop, left to right jag, etc.
This
combined with the economic utility of being able to ride whenever and
for as many times as you like, puts this one at the top of my list.
I tried to theorize as to why this ride was so fun but yet was also so ignored. I
had a realization that "fun" is something that is hard to characterize
and describe with advertising power, and also that it is extremely subjective. But I
was still uncertain as to why the ride was so unpopular.
This ride was supposedly one of the most fun/popular in the whole park. Maybe that led me to overhype it or have too much anticipation. But I felt it was kind of a letdown. Yes it's cool that you get to ride in a "superman flying position" where the shoulder harness straps you in horizontally, but that felt more like a gimmick to me. I think others really like it though.
Once was all I needed on that one, and so much the better too, because it had 1-2hr waiting lines for most of the day.
Touted as the tallest freefall drop ride (drop tower) in the world (until slightly exceeded in 2014 by the other Six Flags park in New Jersey), it's definitely the place to get you desensitized of your base-jumping fears. It goes up to 400ft, which is as tall as a 40 story building. The view from the top reminded me of one of the mid-rise towers I was
involved in building from South Lake Union, Seattle area. It was about
the same height.
This was the only ride at the park to actually scare me. I always deny having a fear of heights, only a "fear of falling out of an apparatus that would result in my death". As we scaled up the tower, the thoughts of mechanical failure couldn't help but enter my mind. "Maybe it wasn't designed for people as tall or heavy as you, or it was, but the latch mechanism that holds you in place is starting to wear out". I decided to hold on really tight just in case my muscles ended up being the only thing keeping me held in place on the way down.
There's literally nothing beneath you. Your feet are dangling, and you sit on a chair with a shoulder harness that comes down in front of your chest. That's it. It feels like leaping off of a mid-rise tower while sitting on a 5 gallon bucket, with a backpack strapped to it to hold it in place.
It doesn't look that tall from the ground, but up there at the top, it was so high, I had to use a substantial amount of mental effort to not look down. I would look out at the nearby residential developments. "Oh look, they're building more houses over there, interesting.." I remember saying to Sarah.
You don't know exactly when they drop you either. You get about 15 seconds to admire the view from the top, look around, etc. Then out of nowhere you are falling, extremely fast. The only sound I heard was the rushing air moving up and over our faces.
Then the pneumatic system pressurizes and slows you down at the ground.
Although I enjoyed it, and despite the short wait lines, I couldn't bring myself to ride this one again. Sarah was a champ, probably less scared than I was.
This pendulum ride was decently fun. Another record breaker,it swings you around up to 175ft up in the air, getting up to 75mph. It also rotates the pendulum while it's doing this, spinning you around in addition to swinging you up and down. Short and sweet, it feels like a grown up swingset. Nothing crazy or insane in my opinion, (as the ride's portmanteau-name would suggest), but fun nonetheless.
I thought it would be better if the pendulum could do full 360 degree swings, but it the full arc goes about as high as 220-something degrees, just more than half of a circle. Probably some kind of mechanical or other difficulties in achieving a full rotational swing.
This ride was a lot more fun than it looks. It has a very simple shape, and watching people ride it from the park grounds below, you wonder why the wait lines are so long. It's what some people call a "boomerang" ride, meaning it basically goes out and comes back along the same path.
After our 80 minute wait, we finally got a chance to be in the hot seat(s). The 3 of us sat side by side. Zack had a last minute panic as to where to put his newly purchased baseball hat. The operator wasn't watching when he tried to hand it to her. (typically the operator can hold loose articles nearby for you to pickup on your return). But it was too late, they left to begin the launch sequence.
He called over to Sarah and I, "what should I do with this hat?" in a subdued panic tone of voice. I thought quickly, and yelled back "sit on it. Put it under your butt!". We had very little time as all riders were strapped in and we were set to go. Before he could squeeze the hat between his shorts and the seat, something sucked us out of the building from behind. I only had enough time to hope that he could hang on tight or it would flutter gently to the ground like a falling leaf. The cave entrance we were just in was getting smaller and smaller in our view. The g-forces were intense.
Pretty soon we were going up the curved tower, while focusing on the ground beneath us. Gradually, we came to a stop at the height of the tower, and you start falling back down to earth. This ride definitely produced some of the most unique thrill ride feelings I've experienced. When we got back to the cave entrance, I noticed that Zack did in fact keep his hat securely held in his grasp. A happy ending.
I saved the craziest ride for last.
This one is like a traditional roller coaster, but your seat can spin 360 degrees of rotation while you are going down the track. Sometimes you're right side up, sometimes upside down, sometimes backwards and can't see where you are headed. It kind of reminds me of a gimballed device, where you have an additional degree of freedom compared to normal coasters.
While definitely innovative, it didn't make me question my reality or anything like that. The 2+ hour wait times also cause me score this one lower than it otherwise would be.
All of the other rides that we did that weren't worthy of their own section.
- Viper, a decent but somewhat standardcoaster that you would find at most theme parks.
- Riddler's Revenge. You ride this one standing up, instead of seated. It was nice and actually pretty comfortable, but nothing special.
- The Classic Revolution. This was a coaster from the 70's that was supposedly a game changer when it was released. I think it started the 'revolution' of "modern" coasters that were steel tubular construction. I'm sure it was fun for the 70's. They supposedly revamped it with VR headsets, but I guess that only lasted a couple months, because they would overheat and cause huge ride delays.
- Scream. A decent speedy, and modern coaster. It had significant wait times and didn't seem worth the idle time standing around, but still a good coaster ride.
Six Flags has to constantly have the craziest and the best to attract enough visitors to stay profitable. This
usually leads to them pursuing record-holding bragging rights. Tallest
drop, fastest accelleration in reverse, most G forces for a pendulum
ride, etc. While the ability to advertise with flashy numbers might
impress Guiness record officials, I found that my favorite rides were
the ones that were "the most fun". That being said, I enjoyed the Batman ride the most. I could see myself going back for a day and just riding that one over, and over, until the park closed for the night.
Overall this trip blew away my expectations. And I was expecting to have a blast.
