Six Flags New England Trip Report (5/31/17)

Before I get to my day at Six Flags New England, I have to mention the chaos that occurred leading up to it. First off, I parted ways with Drew in Atlanta when our terminals split around 5pm. My flight was supposed to leave at 7:45pm for Boston but due to some mess back at Logan, it was delayed until 10pm. Therefore, we didn’t even land in Boston until around midnight. Luckily, I flew Jetblue for the first time and they have the TVs in the back of their seats, so I entertained myself with some Family Guy episodes and other stuff to pass the time much more quickly.

Once we landed in Logan, we had about a two mile walk to the baggage claim, and then we all sat staring at the belts while they didn’t move for about 25 minutes. I finally got my bag and jumped a shuttle to the rental car center. Well Logan has 5 terminals and the shuttles go to each terminal and the Rental Car Center, so that took another 20 minutes. I finally got to the Rental Car Center, waited in line at Dollar Rental Car (where I had booked my car months earlier) only to get up to the counter and be told I couldn’t rent the car because I have three debit cards (I keep three bank accounts for various expenses) and no credit card. Luckily, Avis was right next door and DID take debit cards. The only downside was that I since I lost my Dollar reservation, I had to pay full price at Avis, which ended up being about $75 more. I finally got into my car, which was a brand new 2017 Kia Optima and took off for my hotel, which was about 45 minutes or so away. I arrived around 2am and finally crawled into bed about 2:30.

I got up around 8am Wednesday knowing I still had a bit of a drive ahead of me (over an hour). I arrived at Six Flags New England around 10:15am. The last half hour or so was spent driving in an annoying, misty rain.

Immediately upon entering and going through security, I made my way towards Wicked Cyclone. I wasn’t sure what lines would be like, so I wanted to hit WC and Superman early just in case. Now Six Flags New England does something I really really liked. For $5, you can buy a locker and move it around all day long to different areas. That way, you don’t need to keep buying $1 lockers or storing your stuff in one part of the park. For a guy that likes to ride-shoot-ride-shoot-etc., this was fantastic.

Let me preface my day by saying that nearly everything was walk-on or close to it throughout the day.

So after storing my stuff in a locker, I walked up the steps and down the path and queue to WC. I nearly got a train to myself as I jumped in the front car, but some 70-year old enthusiast who knew the ride ops yelled to them to hold the train and jumped in the front car with me. He then proceeded to lecture me about all kinds of enthusiast stuff, not knowing that I too was an enthusiast. Now, for me Wicked Cyclone was a fun ride, but it was my least favorite of the six RMCs I’ve ridden up to this point. If I ranked them in order of how much I like them, it would go something like:

1. Lightning Rod

2a. Outlaw Run

2b. Storm Chaser

4. New Texas Giant

5. Goliath (would be higher if it were a longer ride, but that stall is sick)

6. Wicked Cyclone

As I said, I enjoyed it, just not as much as any of the others. I did find it pretty cool that the color scheme of the wood supports matched the color of the steel supports, so it almost looks like all steel supports from a distance. The other thing that drove me crazy was the lack of areas to take good pictures from. I remedied this later using my zoom lens, but there are still a limited number of angles to shoot from.

After I got off WC, I decided to ride Pandemonium because it is right next to the lockers. There was a small line, but it only ended up being about seven or eight minutes. That said, I was super nervous about the ride. Rides don’t scare me in terms of height, speed, etc., but I HATE spinning. Typically anything that free spins will make me dizzy and light-headed. I sucked it up though, rode it with a guy and his absolutely terrified girlfriend and luckily, the spinning didn’t bother me. It was nearly as much free-spinning as it appears from watching it.

After I retrieved my camera, I walked down towards Superman. I took the long way so I could take some pictures of the ride itself. Now, my only complaint about Superman is the way the lockers are set up down there. I could figure out with such a big queue and not that many people there, why the line kept bottle-necking. Once I entered though, I realized that the lockers are in the first part of the building, with the queue lines on the other side. While that in itself could be a pain, it was more annoying after getting off the ride because if there were any line near the front of the building, you had to fight your way through them simply to go retrieve your bag.

The ride itself I thought was fantastic. It had a small rattle, but I really enjoyed the ride from start to finish. The first drop was fantastic, there were a bunch of airtime moments and some great overbanks. As always with the DC stuff, the theming was great as well. I really, really enjoyed this ride. Since I didn’t ride Joker, this was by-far my favorite at SFNE.

After retrieving my bag, I happened to pass their wild mouse coaster, Gotham City Gauntlet: Escape from Arkham Asylum. It was pretty much walk-on (as were most rides during the day) so I hopped in the back of the car with two high school kids there for science and math week. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t horrible. Really just did it for the credit. I did enjoy the theming on the cars though, with each one being a different villain or hero. Much better than terrible ads.

I walked up the steps and through the small kiddie area past where all of the media stuff was set up for the Joker and decided to ride Mind Eraser to get it out of the way. After locking my things up, I got into line and just jumped into a spot with a short wait. Typically I try for the front or the back when possible, but didn’t feel like waiting. I got on shortly after, but then the restraints were released and we were told to get up and go back behind the gate. It turns out someone had thrown up in one of the front cars and it had to be cleaned. Several trains were cycled and we probably waited around 15 or 20 minutes, which was aggravating, but I didn’t want to get out of line at that point, so I waited. Eventually we boarded and the first thing I noticed were the new trains. The new restraints were pretty comfortable actually (and I’m extremely picky when it comes to them). Now, we all know that an SLC is an SLC, so the design was basically the same as the rest although I didn’t find it nearly as rough. Wouldn’t ride it again though.

I walked over to Batman: the Dark Knight at this point, and as I went by, I noticed the Joker testing (it wasn’t running when I walked past the first time). I was already feeling lightheaded by now and the line waiting for Joker to open was huge, so I decided I probably wasn’t going to ride it. I walked right on to the back row of Batman and I found it ok. It was fun, but not great. Had a little rattle and was a little bumpy, but it was fine.

At this point, I was feeling really light-headed and starving, so I decided to eat. I remembered passing the large pavilion-type cafeteria on my way in, so I headed over there. I had a burger and fries, like many other things this day, it wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad.

After I ate, I let me stomach settle by walking around and taking pictures for about a half hour before storing everything back in the same locker bay I started with at the beginning of the day. I knew that I had three coasters left, two of them bound to rock my head hard.

Now, I already found it weird that a park had two boomerangs, but imagine my surprise when I found out they are about a hundred feet away from each other.

I walked up to Flashback and I thought it was closed because there wasn’t a single person in line and the three-man crew was sitting around talking. They made me go in the back car and I’ll tell you that this might have been the worst ride on a coaster I’ve ever had. I wedged my hands in between my ears and the restraints to stop the headbanging as best I could and for the first time in years, I closed my eyes on a ride to stop myself from feeling nauseous. It was that bad. I hate boomerangs anyways, but this might be the worst.

After getting off, I immediately went to Goliath because if I’m going to have a headache or feel nauseous, I might as well hurry up and ride the other one for the credit before that point. I will say the restraints on Goliath were much better and the ride itself wasn’t AS BAD, but it is still a boomerang. I didn’t enjoy it but credit achieved.

Finally, I walked over to Thunderbolt, knowing I was in for a semi-rough ride at a minimum. I took one of the back cars and had a decent, albeit bumpy ride. But I expected that, knowing the age and makeup of the ride. It was an ok woodie though.

I did a little bit of souvenir shopping after I got off and I was again dismayed to find no lapel pins for rides or for the park. I walked back to Wicked Cyclone and bought some keychains and a t-shirt and then retrieved my camera. I switched to the zoom lens to get some closer pics of some rides, especially the harder ones to photograph before heading out around 5pm (the park closed at 6pm anyways).

Overall, Six Flags New England is a nice park. It has a weird layout with some dead-ends that I ran into without knowing where I was going. I didn’t notice nearly as many ads here as I did at SFOG but the theming wasn’t nearly as good in my opinion. What I mean by that is that although you have the DC section with Superman and the wild mouse Batman coaster, The Joker and The Dark Knight aren’t in that area and the ‘western’ style area by the boomerangs is really oddly themed in terms of not being promoted very much. The other thing that surprised me is that you really associate Six Flags New England with Boston, but Agawam isn’t anywhere near Boston. I didn’t mind the drive, but it really surprised me how far it was. The shopping options weren’t great but they did have a bunch of different kinds of foods available. Although many of the stands weren’t open.

A special thank you to Colin B. for all his tips on the park, it helped me immensely throughout the day.

I do hope I get to make it back there someday.