The Master

Hopefully this merger will lead to improvements in GADV's haunted houses as most of them are lame compared to Dorney's haunted houses. Also hopefully that the terrible operations at Dorney will be improved. Of course the big concerns are the loss of competition, likely budget cuts and price hikes, and possible parks either being sold off or closed. 

I wasn't too happy about weekday Fright Fests being upcharges this year. With the new merger I expect Fright Fest becoming an upcharge admission event. 

The daydream of many 13 year old theme park forum posters has finally come true. Besides the other issues many have posted, there is also the issue of market cannibalization. In some areas its not much of an issue like SoCal as Knotts and SFMM target different market segments. Knotts being a themed family park while SFMM is the extreme thrill park and hangout for LA's lowlifes, that is besides both parks being pretty far apart from each, especially with SoCal traffic. But in situations similar to our tri state area where Dorney and GADV are not as far apart and have similar market segment targets will make cannibalization worse between the two. Its crazy to think of Dorney as being the closest SF park to GADV. Guess they will have to change the neighboring SF park sign by the exit.

All that money for upcharge fastpasses and still have a long wait, ugh. That is one reason I don't go to Disney anymore. Hopefully things will turn around sometime.

That is good news about Mindblower, I was shocked how rough it was when I rode if last year. Are the crowds at the Funspots during the day? I only been to them at night and found the other park patrons scuzzy. 

First I ever heard of this. 

I bought the Black Friday sale season pass but they gave me a really hard time trying to activate. They wanted more ID than the DMV, I just got fed up and wanted a refund. 

The Del Taco near Funspot is bad too.They have some weird rule where they will only sale one food item per car for their drive thru. I never heard such a thing before.

Funspot was so bad I got a refund for my season pass. Just terrible service to get my pass activated plus the sketchy clientele.

3 hours ago, harry2004 said:

why anyone so angry about this and blaming on seilm & six flags for it, the reason why wild safari was brought back in 2020 was because of the pandemic (back when theres are so many social distancing), the return of the safari off road adventure will reused the wild safari entrance (& possibly the safari explration station as the entrance for the attraction)

I can't speak for others, but I prefer driving myself in my own car vs relying on the discretion of the truck driver. 

Its a story as old as history, every new regime always undue and changes everything the previous regime had setup to establish their new leadership. The changes aren't always good. Also many businessmen are taught to avoid the sunk cost fallacy.

There is also the fact that operating the trucks does have costs such as insurance and fuel. Those surplus trucks usually use multifuel engines which are not all that efficient. Moreover, military vehicles are hard and expenise to work on due to their size and weight. They require extra heavy duty repair shop equipment, especially lifting equipment to work on them. It takes more than a common floor jack to be able change a tire on those 5 ton trucks.

6ABC has confirmed that the park will end the self drive thru option for the safari this season. Next season the safari will only be SORA.  

On 9/6/2023 at 2:27 PM, BillyG said:

Though, as 29yrs said, it looks like there will still be a way to "drive thru" it in one of their vehicles, without having to enter the regular park (unlike the first time they changed it).

 

So, you still get the drive thru feel without having to use your own car (as they used to offer years ago with their own bus, as I remember).

That is what I am disappointed about, I prefer driving my own car vs riding in a bus. 

I will be disappointed if the park discontinues the drive thru safari which looks very likely. This glamping idea sounds like something Shapiro would have  thought up. 

I had to leave Great Adventure and Hershey early due to cold temps. With HITP I mainly go during daylight hours and can only stay a little bit after sunset even with a heavy winter jacket. Often my fingers become painfull in the cold even with gloves on. When you are out of cold weather for awhile you forget how much it sucks.

The lazy river likely won't be open as it requires many lifeguards and more heating. Still its good to see a local water park extending its season. It use to be more common for local water parks to be open a couple of werkends after Labor Day. 

11 hours ago, Tower said:

Think there's a chance it'll be Chiller themed? As shown with JDC, the park has done a solid job at working to get meaningful theming done for select attractions. The ride itself doesn't even need to bring Batman & Robin into the picture, it could just be Chiller 2 or Chiller Reimagined, something like that.

That would be neat but I doubt it. 

A super boomerang would pretty much be a replacement for Chiller. Even though Chiller had two tracks, the park rarely ran both at the same time. 

Shame they wasted this coaster by putting it in current day Dorney. 

Screamscape reported several years ago that down in the FL parks it was pretty common for riders to attempt to leave the logs on Splash Mountain and Dudly Do Right so they had to install lap bars. 

Not water rides but I remember when the roller coasters at Dorney didn't used to have boarding gates up in the stations. Even Steel Force and Talon originally did not have boarding gates. 

Water rides also require large amounts of water which in turn requires some treatment and replenishment. Restraints can be a drowning hazard if the ride vehicle somehow capsizes. 

On 7/12/2023 at 11:04 AM, Medusa42 said:

According to the Six Flags website, this is closed until Summer 2024.

That is very disappointing. 

6ABC just showed this story. Looks like the crack started at the top of the 135 degree weld and spread into the base steel. Sometijes welds can induce stress in the base metal. 

Its sort of in style to do fusion retro themes on shirts. I saw one that combined Star Wars with 80's GI Joe. Surprised they also didn't make a Weird NJ shirt with 80's Moreys Piers font or Dino Pier font, perhaps too Southern NJ for the magazine as I noticed they seem to prefer more Northern NJ topics. 

Anyone have news on when either the Log Flume or Congo Rapids are supposed to open? I don't see how the flume will open in time for 4th of July. 

The train loses a lot of energy by the camelback.