I did a TR earlier this year on a visit to SF America, so I'll keep this short...for ME, anyway.

I decided to take a ride down Saturday. The park wasn't gonna open 'til 1pm. I went to McD's for lunch and headed to the park.

Don't really remember the order of things I did. I believe I started with ROAR in a back seat..running much rougher than in April. I ended up with a few more rides on it later, including a front seat. Not bad, but the mid-train night ride was best. Still like Skull Mountain, but the setting lends itself so well to Halloween, you'd think they'd do more with it for Fright Fest (this was Opening Day of FF)...nothing. I went on the White Water Raft ride, but only got a few droplets...the empty seats got wet, though. Superman was running great. I think I got 5 rides on it. Mostly in or near the back. Keeping with the day's theme, night ride was best. Wild One impresses me more each time I ride it. It looks tame, but I find it pretty forceful and fun. Again, night RULES!

Joker's Jinx (YAWN...) and Batwing were on and off all day, but I did get one ride on each. I heard Batwing has the exact same layout as FireHawk/X-Flight. I'm not tech-savvy enough to know that, but it has a different feel to me. I've stated before how badly I was affected by flyers when I first tried them. Batwing was my first, about 7 years ago. Now I like 'em, and was even planning a second ride yesterday, but it was down on my return. I got a last ride of the night on a kiddie coaster in the Looney Tunes Land...carbon copy of SFGAdv's Road Runner Railway. The only credit I needed here was Great Chase (junior.) It was down in April, and yesterday was shut as part of a hayride attraction.

Speaking of Halloween attractions, the park had a lot of decorative cobwebs, but not much else. I did enjoy getting my ankle grabbed by a hidden ghoul while walking up Wild One's ramp. I caught three shows: A God-awful DEAD MAN'S PARTY wanna-be called TOXIC-THE FINAL BREATH. Neon day-glo toxic waste-spawned zombies with no discernible talent for singing, dancing, or showmanship. FRIGHTMARES was a little better, despite the exceedingly lame monster jokes..at least they did the Time Warp! Best was an Old West-themed zombies vs. humans stunt show. Lots of WWE style stunts.

Haunted train cost 5 bucks, and certainly didn't look worth it. Broke down, too, I understand. Did a number of flats too, and split the park about 9:45. I decided not to try to find a room in the area of the park, and wanted to get some miles under my belt. So I headed back north and found a Knights Inn in South Jersey just over the Delaware Memorial Bridge. So I only had about an hour and 45 minutes to drive to Bayonne from there this morning.

All in all, not a bad day. Crowd was light, even late..longest I waited was abot 15 minutes(?) Got multiple rides on every major coaster except Batwing and JJ. I just wish they had more Halloween stuff going on.

Thanks for readin'... as always!

Mike

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Nice TR, Mike. Was it warm there or somethin?

I'm going to freeze my butt off next saturday. It's supposed to be a high of 48 and a low of 35 up in Gurnee. Hope the weatherman is wrong and it ends up in at least the high 50's. Brrrrr.

-Josh

I agree.

Roar has really taken a turn for the worst this season.

I hope the park really gives this twelve season old coaster some much needed TLC.

I'd hate to see this coaster go the way of KD's Hurler/DL's Predator/SFKK's Thunderhawk...not re-rideable.

Joe
Great_Ump

Joker's Jinx a yawn!?!?

Man, Poltergeist blew my socks off this summer (as it always does.) Joker doesn't have brakes on it, does it? Gosh, I love those Premier LIM coasters.

I was glad to hear Wild One was treating you nicely, though.

Pat-O

> Nice TR, Mike. Was it warm there or somethin?

Warm during the day, cooled off at night, naturally.

Mike

> Joker's Jinx a yawn!?!?

> Joker doesn't have brakes on it, does it?
>
> I don't really know specs on brake placement, but the middle third feels like one long trim brake to me. I do find the last third enjoyable, as well as the first third to an extent.

Mike

> Joker's Jinx a yawn!?!?

> Man, Poltergeist blew my socks off this summer (as it
> always does.) Joker doesn't have brakes on it, does it?
> Gosh, I love those Premier LIM coasters.

> I was glad to hear Wild One was treating you nicely,
> though.

> Pat-O

Pat-O, I'm in the middle between you and Mike on JJ (aka, the outdoor Premier Spaghetti bowls. I can't imagine Poltergeist is that much different). The ride was originally designed as an indoor ride, so the middle section makes sense. The ride is short enough without a lift hill, so what good would it be as an indoor coaster that flies through the layout so fast you see NOTHING? (including the fact that, you can't see anything). That's the one thing I love about WDW's Space Mountain; it is a simple ride, but you are in there long enough to know that you can't see anything. Once Premier took the design outside, it loses a lot of its intrigue milling around through those inner curves until the final figure 8 into the corkscrew.

I don't find JJ a yawn because the triple boomerang and the final corkscrew are pretty intense, especially without the OTSR's. However, it is far from a great ride due to the poor pacing in our opinions.

Paul

PS,
Just in case no one mentioned it, JJ doesn't have the block brake, either.

Poltergeist and JJ do spend some time just slowly swirling through the curves after the first 3 inversion. When the trains had OTSRs this was slightly brutal, but with the lap bars, it is fine. I like the build up as it traverses the windy course. The visuals are great. Then, the train slowly picks up speed as it winds downward, and it finally whips you through several tight turns and changes in direction before the finale. I can't get enough!

Pat-O

I have ridden both JJ and Poltergeist. I think the experiences were similar. I am in the camp that these are great rides. The launches are fantastic and they feel a lot better without OTSRs. There are no trims - Flight of Fear always brought the train to a complete stop, but these just plow right through!

MarathonRunner

> Nice TR, Mike. Was it warm there or somethin?

> I'm going to freeze my butt off next saturday. It's
> supposed to be a high of 48 and a low of 35 up in Gurnee.
> Hope the weatherman is wrong and it ends up in at least the
> high 50's. Brrrrr.

> -Josh

Six Flags Chicago holds one of thee BEST halloween attraction memories for me and my teens. Amazingly had a blast there two years ago.

Have fun!

~MommaBeast, who sez drink lots of hot chocolate to keep warm!
;)