Six Flags America

The final new park of the trip was Six Flags America in the crab-cake state of Maryland. Originally a water park it was bought by the Six Flags chain just before the turn of the century, which when written like that makes it sound older than it really is.

On the majority of parks visited so far we'd been allowed in before the public did. The upside is that we got to ride the best rides, the flipside however was that we got to miss the wonderful opening ceremonies. Here Sylvester, Daffy and the often overlooked Grandma from the Tweety Pie cartoons prepare to flip the switch that signifies the park opening.

First coaster of the day was Superman - Ride of Steel, a very large blue and red monstrosity that towered over everything else in the park. It is similar in design to the one in New England but the layout is nowhere near as good, relying on large helixes instead of the more exciting twists and turns that the other has.

Because we'd rushed over here queue time was next to nothing and we took the opportunity to have a few goes before the queue got bigger.

Its fair to say that this is the best coaster in this park, by quite a long way!

After our morning Superman wake up riding session was over we headed to the back of the park where they had buried their flying coaster Batwing. Unlike the flying Superman rides seen earlier on, this used the same trains as X-Flight and Borg Assimilator.

When we got to the station they were only running a single train, the other sitting idle on the far side of the station with passengers still stuck in it. You have to laugh! At least they were lying on their backs, had they been stuck on Superman their rib cages would have been pretty sore by now!

With one go being enough on Batwing we headed back into the park. Penguin's Blizzard River is one of those water rides where you all sit in a circular raft and slide down the bottom. This started out quite impressive with some clever use of braking strips to spin the raft, which I hadn't seen before. It soon became obvious that they were also there to slow the raft down, effectively removing any enjoyment out of it whatsoever. You barely banked on the bends and the final splash was really lousy. Why build a water ride if you don't want the riders to get wet?

Joker's Jinx was the last of those must-do rides that I'd seen years ago. Such a complicated knot of a track it's one you just look at and spend ages trying to figure out. This is actually the same layout as the Outer Limit rides at the Kings' parks, just out in the open. However the ride was down on the day we were there as a precaution following an accident on Chiller in the Great America park a week earlier (although there was no signs saying this just one saying it was being worked on, which it wasn't). I was disappointed that I didn't get to ride it but given the number of coasters I had ridden by this point I wasn't overly bothered.

This is Seacoaster, a flume ride that according to Keith is closed whenever the park finds out he's on his way to visit. It didn't look like it was going to be running today either.

Wild One is one of the park's wooden coasters and its not too bad. At least it was running!

It rather nicely cuts the Gotham City part of the park away from the rest of the park. You walk beneath this ride to cross between the two halves.

Roar is the other, and by far the better of the two. I'd ridden another Roar in 2002 at Marine World i California and hated it as it was just a little bit too twisty for my liking (thinking about it I think it was my first twister wooden coaster). Perhaps I've gotten used to rides of this type since then as I really liked this one.

Mind Eraser is the SLC ride and again this was had a little more headbanging than I would have liked but it was still enjoyable. I'm guessing this changes its colours a lot as on the six flags website its shown with red and blue track yet here it was yellow. The ride was sponsored by Slim Jims, a manufactured sausage snack, who's colours are red and yellow. I'm guessing that the colour scheme is to tie in with that.

The park did have some nice little touches to its theming such as this bull look to its breakdance ride in the Western section of the park. Fortunately the ride lasted longer than the 8 seconds the real bull riders have to last for.

In an attempt to escape from the heat we armed ourselves with brain-freeze inducing smoothies and headed over to the shaded stunt show enclosure. The Batman stunt show started out looking like the any other, up until one point where for reasons unknown at the time the show just stopped and we were asked to leave. I'd never been evacuated from a show before! Later on we could see mechanics working on the batmobile so I could only assume that it was a fault with that that was to blame.

Interesting Sign #29
"Please Pardon our Progress"
What progress? There's nobody working here.

Two Face is one of Batman's enemies, so why this ride was positioned outside the Gotham City part of the park I can only put down to inept decisions made by the park. This ride had the longest queue of the day, too long for Keith who escaped for some liquids but alright for me, as the queue line did at least offer some shelter. The ride was alright but I think they could move people through it quicker if they added a second train, one just isn't enough.

Some more nice theming as a myriad of loony tune statues appear to hold up the roof of the main theatre building, and if photographed from the right angle almost looks like they're flipping you the bird at the same time!

Could it be that the Skull Coaster was running after all? Looks like the curse of Keith had been lifted, or had it? On our first attempt we had endured a young girl vomiting up her mountain dew in the queue line and were just about to board when the ride broke down.

We did stick around until they fixed the ride and brought stuck people back into the station but then they needed to hold an investigation and make checks before they could re-open the ride.

It wasn't until later in the day that it reopened and we finally got our go, that was up to the point where you reach a turntable that prepares you for the final drop. Two boats elsewhere on the circuit had got too close to each other and tripped the emergency stop again. We had a brief scare when the train behind us continued coming up the final lift straight for us. Our cries of "you might want to stop that" to the non-plussed operator up there with us eventually led to that car stopping on the hill where it was stuck for at least half an hour in the sun. Poor people on that boat, at least we had shade. I doubt it helped that the ride operator telling them to keep calm was openly drinking water in front of them and not offering any. After the delay we were dropped without warning into the final splash where we returned into the station. One blessing is that the people who would have blasted us with cannons at the bottom of the final drop had all given up waiting for us to appear and left.

A second visit to the stunt show saw the show complete this time.

The last ride of the day had to be on Superman and after having our goes we enjoyed watching a guy, clearly terrified of the ride, being literally dragged onto the ride by his friends. As the ride came back into the station I think we caught a brief glimpse of him holding on for dear life and screaming rather loudly. A rather amusing finish to the day.

Six Flags America was perhaps the worst run corporate park on the trip, with signs of standard Six Flags operation policy (not running rides for no obvious reason etc.). The staff were friendly though even when refusing me permission to ride the kiddy coaster (c'est la vie). The park does have a good selection of rides and although rumours said it was earmarked to be sold, we could see track and cars from another park ready to be erected which would contradict that.

At least Keith managed to shake of his curse and finally got his go on the Seacoaster, its just a shame it doesn't work as it should.

The final park of the trip and a return to Great Adventure.