Mini Six Flags Great Adventure Trip Report!

Hi :}

So I was on my way to Philadelphia from Newark and it occurred to me that it would be silly to drive by Six Flags Great Adventure and not procure the new Joker credit. 

Which, fortunately for me, was open.

Joker is a new S&S 4D Free Spin coaster. It's basically a smushed version of Intamin's Zac Spin coaster, like Green Lantern at Six Flags Magic Mountain. 

You may recall that on our last update we saw lots of Free Spin tidbits on the S&S factory tour. It seemed only fitting that we would follow up with a ride on one. :}

Yea: Six Flags Great Adventure was dispatching Joker quite swiftly and our wait for the ride at 5pm on a Saturday was only 45 minutes.

Nea: You only do one full rotation (coming off the lift) and the rest is just lots of rocking and inverted stalls. Still fun, but a far cry from the "6 guaranteed flips" that were advertised.

Perhaps in the off season Six Flags will make adjustments to the magnet placements on each car to help ensure more flips.

Great Adventure's rotting aqua stadium was replaced by Joker, and with it came some much-needed redevelopment of the surrounding area. Unfortunately the dusty gravel deadzone between Joker and the Yum Yum Palace is still untouched. 

The waterfront bleachers were also finally bulldozed, leaving the stretch of land between Joker and Best of the West rather agape. 

Speaking of which, here is Best of the West: the final frontier of Six Flags Great Adventure's atmospheric integrity. 

Kinda Ka and El Toro both in action.

Water reflects things and is pretty.

Nabbing a backseat ride on El Toro only took 20 minutes. 

It was giving A+ rides, as expected.

Parachuter's Perch will always be the park's other best Intamin.

Yum

Well that's actually it. Yeah, super short report. We contemplated riding Nitro, but being here on a Saturday gets very exhausting very quickly and we decided to pack it in. 

Next month is a very exciting time for Thrillography! 


(well, all of 2016 has been pretty exciting for Thrillography)


But next month especially! After over 17 years I'm finally going back to Walt Disney World! Thrillography will spend a whole week livin' it up with the mouse! Look out for a big chunk of Disney updates in late September / early October!

:}

S&S Power + More Lagoon + Olympic Park Comet Bobsled + Park City: My Salty ACE Preservation Conference 2016 Trip Report - Part II

Welcome back! 

Day 2 of ACE Preservation Con 2016 is a very special day! 

ACE was treated to a very special VIP of the S&S Sansei manufacturing plant in Logan, Utah. It is here that several worldwide amusement industry success stories began, including the Space Shot, Turbo Drop, El Loco, Screaming' Swing, Frog Hopper, and more!

S&S's latest international phenomenon is the 4D Free Spin, which has so far seen a great deal of success with Six Flags. Seen here are bunch of fresh new Free Spin "spoons" (technical term for the ride's seat bases) that will soon be on their way to Nagashima Spa Land!

Here we have a few artifacts from kiddie ride concepts that didn't quite take off. 

Inside the main building there's tons of ride projects in progress. Here we have some seat molds for the Green Lantern-themed El Loco at Movie World in Australia.

Boxes all over the factory provide a little insight into which parks around the world are currently getting parts for their new or existing S&S rides.

Over 250 Frog Hoppers have been installed worldwide, including this very special factory exclusive model. ;}

This amazing contraption is how S&S manufactures cables for all of their tower rides! This machine is currently working overtime to make cables Hersheypark's trio of towers (the project requires 12 cables all together).

Here we have the "brain" of Nagashima's 4D Free Spin! Everything the ride does is managed inside this giant computer.

And here's the ride's operator panel! Despite being manufactured for a Japanese customer, the operator commands are all in English. 

More Nagashima Free Spin bits!

The Japanese really love their bright colors. "Arashi," which means "Storm" in Japanese,  will basically look like confetti when it's done. 

Each set of spoons for this Free Spin are a different color, but the chassis for all of the cars are grey. The track will be green!

The S&S guys have a sense of humor. Some of the workers asked for more light in the factory; when the lighting fixtures in the plant's lobby were updated, this chandelier was repurposed. :}

Product signage is scattered throughout the factory.

Green Lantern's got those extra-wide El Loco cars!

x}

More freshly-shopped Free Spin bits!

Here we have S&S's steel shop. The track for the Free Spin is manufactured by Rocky Mountain Construction in Idaho and shipped to Utah, but tower structures n' whatnot are molded right here. 

***IMPORTANT***

A big piece of S&S's business comes from keeping old Arrow Dynamics rides online by providing custom spare parts. S&S is proud to play such a significant roll in helping parks preserve their Arrow classics! 

Demon at California's Great America has three trains, but can only run a maximum of two as per modern dispatch times. As a result, one Demon train can be sent to S&S for restoration any time of year without hindering the ride's capacity. 

Demon was my first Arrow looping coaster. As you might imagine, I was having a hardcore nerdgasm.

Ever seen or ridden a "Soarin' Eagle" zipline ride? Soarin' Eagle is a division of S&S. If you happen to come across one, give it a shot! They're great fun. 

I recognize this from the El Loco at the Adventuredome!

Here everyone is crowded around ride vehicle "casings" that allow for S&S to fine tune pieces before painting.

Odd little bit of insight: The boxy-looking casing on the left is for the Arrow/S&S 4th Dimension coaster (X2 at Magic Mountain, Eejanaika at Fuji-Q Highland, Dinoconda at China Dinosaurs Park).

Our tour guide said "We don't actually need this one anymore. We can throw it away."

I guess no more 4th Dimension coasters?! Just the 4D Free Spins now?!

x}

This funny looking thing is a magnet for the Free Fly coasters. by adjusting the magnet's placement  (which can be done in about 10 minutes with just a wrench), a park can significantly alter how much spinning goes on with each ride.

Magnets all the way out offer an almost entirely upright ride, while magnets all the way in offer almost nonstop flips. Six Flags is currently running their Free Spins in the middle; plenty of spins, but not too much.

Theoretically, a park could run one side of their Free Spin as a milder experience and the other side as a wilder experience! Our tour guide has apparently encouraged Six Flags to run one side of their Free Spins with magnets all the way in for Fright Fest! I say bring it on!

Welding shop! look at all that metal pixie dust on the floor!

I remember this sign! Those logos are classics from 1992 - S&S Towers will be celebrating 25 years of industry takeover in 2017!

I, of course, came correct in my Adventureland Space Shot T-shirt, which to this day uses S&S's ride logo. 

S&S is actually run by children and I love it. 

My goodness! Just look at all of these 4D Free Spin harnesses! S&S was busy shopping them all week!

It's almost as if there are several Free Spins in development or something...

More random ride pics from around the factory!

The only non-S&S ride picture I saw in that day was this old picture of my favorite Cedar Point ride, Iron Dragon!

Due to S&S's steadily growing level of success, the entire operation is getting ready to move into a much larger facility down the street. More square footage means more Free Spins!

And hopefully more of these things, but apparently they're a little expensive. S&S is working on making the concept more economically viable. 

Look at all of these S&S bits for different parks!

\

Hmm. I wonder who this is for?

Any Arrow fans recognize these?? These are some fresh new lap bars fit for an Arrow Mine Train! They could also work for Magnum XL 200, Desperado, or Pepsi Max Big One, because from a technical standpoint they're all Arrow Mine Trains, too! 

Arrow shoulder harnesses! Fit for a looper or an suspended! Perhaps Iron Dragon??

You never know. :}

Ok! time to get back out there! Day 2 at Lagoon commenced with a morning ride on Cannibal. Here we have the twins leading the way. 

No Ferris Wheel ride this trip, but here's a picture of it.

You know what else I have a picture of?

MOAR JET STAR II

It is just such a nice and pretty thing. 

On this day there was no less than 7 separate downpours sandwiched between lovely partly cloudy skies. This made picture-taking a bit challenging, but man, when the weather cooperated, the lighting was on point. 

Speaking of on-point, look who it is! It's the original Thrillography Super Star, Michael! :D

Here we have various members of the squad getting some Jet Star II lovin'!

Jet Star II's impressive forces lead to choruses of grunts and squeaks from its riders.

It's a straight-up Jet Star II squad takeover!

I just want to shrink this ride down and put it on my keys. 

Lagoon has a beautiful set of Flying Scooters.

Each flyer has a unique paint job.

And they're called "Flying Aces" here! :}

John and Mat are ready for the steampunk version of One Fish, Two Fish at Universal Studios 

Steampunk fish selfie with Dan!

Here's some garbage. Credit. Cha-ching. 

Lagoon has a lot of randomly themed rides with lots of nice details. Reminds me of parks like Tivoli Gardens and Liseberg!

Enter: Bombora, a Malibu surfing-themed custom in-house family coaster with two trains and onboard audio. 

This is probably one of the most pimped-out kiddie coasters I've come across. 

LOG FLUME TIME!

Lagoon's Log Flume is little and old (1969). Honestly that's that's my favorite kind.

ALFE REPRESENT!

Here comes Michael!

M&M is rowing his way to shore with an imaginary oar.

Dan says "I'm the only one here! The camera loves me!"

This log flume is pretty slow loading / low capacity, but that doesn't bother America's Log Flume Enthusiasts!

Both the log flume and the rapids are totally secluded from the rest of the park. You really have to look for them. 

This is one aggressive rapids ride! No seats and no belts! It's up to you stay seated and stay upright!

It's a beautiful ride.

And thanks to this waterfall, Rattlesnake Rapids soaks guests indiscriminately.

Speaking of indiscriminate soakage, this Mondial Splashover (known here as Cliffhanger) left us utterly waterlogged. Crumby ride program, but a great way to cool off. 

No sooner did I dry off from Cliffhanger did the skies open up in a tremendous sort of way.

Lagoon has absolutely no issue running their coasters in a torrential downpour.

Can't see the rain?

How about now?

Ten minutes later the weather is hot and sunny again.

Oh yeah, here's another picture of the mouse. 

Lagoon's Wild Mouse runs with no trims on the hairpin turns, just like the mice in Germany!

Sky Ride selfie with my Derek. :}

I got an absolutely fabulous post-rain ride on Roller Coaster. Stellar airtime. 

Can you find the train? :}

2/3 of the coasters in this picture get two thumbs up from Thrillography. x}

XTREME SKY RIDE POV.

Ok, here's a decent Cannibal picture. Some people got all up under Cannibal's grill and got some amazing shots, but I was lazy and failed to do the same.

Colorful Tilt-o!

Lagoon's combo is actually 2/3 towers and 1/3 lies. 

Turns out Lagoon is situated on a lagoon. 

The sky in this picture gives a good idea of what we dealt with all day. Thunder and sun!

Here's another picture of Dragonfly. Nearby is Puff the Little Fire Dragon, which is a tiny Tivoli coaster that rode but failed to get any pictures of because of my shortcomings as a photographer and as a person in general.

Look at this adorable kiddie car ride! In the background you can see some of Lagoon's water park, Lagoon-A-Beach. The twins and I went into the water park for an hour and rode almost every slide. Everything there is at least 20 years old and the speed slides were absolutely terrifying. 

Here's what happens when the designated bag lady (John) decides to play around with my camera.

After the water park, I got a few more dusk pictures before putting the camera away for the night.

I love the look of Lagoon's Paratrooper. 

OH! And I finished my pre-ERT time at Lagoon with an awesome ride on this Rock-O-Plane. Beautifully maintained ride, just like everything else here. 

After two sensational days at Lagoon, it was time to say goodbye to the stellar family park. We've still got a few more bits of business to tend to in the Salt Lake area, however!

Time to do something genuinely reckless.

Who's ready for a ride on the 2002 SLC Winter Olympics Bobsled Run? 

I was nervous about this and the sign didn't help.

Here is the concrete trough through which we slalom to an early grave.

Just kidding. 75mph and 5.5 positive G's might seem like a lot to a normal, well-adjusted person, but for a bunch of coaster enthusiasts it was no big deal. Tons of fun!

The bobs sound like thunder as they roll through the course. It's actually all surprisingly similar to Intamin Swiss Bob coasters. They're slower, of course, but actually quite true to the experience that inspired them.

It was so similar to a bobsled coaster that I actually feel temped to count this as a credit.

It feels more coaster-like than some rides people count as credits...

As your bob slows gradually on an uphill runout, a tractor backs up to it and tows it to the puck up truck that brings it back to the top of the hill.

(I know that sentence alone completely negates any chance of counting this as a coaster, but still)

WOOSH!

Uphill runout portion.

*actually traveling at 70+mph*

This is one of my favorite pictures ever. 

Also at Olympic park is a rock wall over a large pool.

Also several ski jumps that empty into said pool.

Skiing into a giant pool is actually a really entertaining spectator sport. 

We've still got time for one more (actual) coaster credit before I have to fly home!

Park City has a much more impressive setup than Snow Bird. Lots of stuff to do!

Also probably the biggest mountain coaster I've ridden so far! Good stuff!

That's a wrap! Thank you to everyone who spent time with me on this amazing trip. Honestly it was one of my favorite ACE events ever and I wish I could re-live it over and over again! 

Until next time! 

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