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Shane

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Jun 2, 2011
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So I will be heading to SixFlags over Georgia tomorrow morning! It will be my first visit to SFoG and my fourth SixFlags Park. It is also the opening night of their Fright Fest, but that is not why we are going. I'm hopeful everyone will be too busy with that and the rides will be walk on, but who knows, I don't know what their guest traffic is like.

Anyway, I'll let you all know what I think when I get back!
 
So I didn't take any photos but there are tons of photos on Google Image Search and on RCDB if you want to look at anything. So I am just going to tell you about the park and what I thought about it.

I've been to several Six Flags parks over the years (SFA, SFGrtAdv, LaRonde, SFMM) and I have to say that this is the nicest SF I have been to. The park has a lot of trees and shade and is very hilly like BGW. Of course in true SixFlags fashion the whole park is paved in asphalt and "hamlet" themeing has been lost over the years, but overall I was impressed with the cleanliness and atmosphere of the park.

We arrived at about 11:30 and the park wasn't scheduled to open until noon but they did open the main entrance area and the two roller coasters at the front of the park, Georgia Scorcher and Georgia Cyclone. As can be assumed by any Six Flags coaster, they are all in dire need of paint.

Scorcher was a bit of a surprise. I was expecting it to be awful, but was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't terrible. It is actually the best stand-up coaster I have ever ridden. Now that is not saying a whole lot as generally its the worst coaster concept ever created, but the ride was actually not a terrible headbanger. I think it might be the best B&M stand-up coaster ever built. Other than its horribly peeling paint, it stands majestically at the front of the park and has some great terrain features. It is sort of cut into the side of a hill and looks really cool as you are walking up to the gates of the park.

Cyclone was terrible, it was a really fun layout as it is a classic Cyclone Clone but it needs a lot of work. Anyone who has complained about rough coasters at KD or anywhere else doesn't know anything about rough wood coasters. I think we will see this be the next RMC conversion. I don't know if it will end up being identical to Wicked Cyclone at SFNE but I am sure it will get the treatment either next season or the following one. Believe me it needs it.

Once the park opened officially to the public we made our way over to Dare Devil Dive. This ride has horrible throughput and we waited over an hour. I think I would have really enjoyed the ride a lot more if we hadn't waited so long. The ride is not included in FashPass, or FlashPass Plus. You have to pay for FlashPass Platinum to get this ride. Also, I don't know if the ride always did this or if this is a result of the Smiler incident, but the system holds a train at the bottom of the lift hill until the train ahead of it hits the final break run. The ride has a MCBR but the ride does not allow the car to climb the hill until the car before it has completed the circuit entirely. I thought this was very odd given that there is a full MCBR and it really hurts the already very low capacity that this ride has.

We invested in the basic FlashPass after that line and that is when we learned it wasn't included and was really surprised. You have to get Platinum ($85) to get Dare Devil Dive, Batman: The Ride, and the new Larson Fireball flat ride, The Joker's Chaos Coaster (not a coaster), which I thought was ludicrous.

Next up was Mind Bender which was amazing. Schwarzkopf was a brillant coaster designer. This ride is perfect. Two loops and lapbars and it swoops through the trees through hills, past a waterfall. It has a gorgeous, senic backdrop and a fantastic layout. It really is a jem and this ride alone is worth the trip to the park. It's not glass smooth which is to be expected from a ride opened in the 70s but it is pretty damn smooth and is just the perfect must have coaster credit.

Batman: The Ride was the next coaster which was exactly like every other B&M Batman the ride coaster. Intense, thrilling, and a true display of what a B&M coaster should be. It was very well themed just like all the other ones like this.

I look a hard pass on The Joker's Chaos "Coaster." The line was insane and Zachary and I rode a Fireball at a small shopping center fair last year so I saw no reason to put myself in that situation again. I did ride Harley Quinn's Spinsanity though as I had never been on a Tilt-A-Whirl before and I loved it!

Goliath while having a reused many times Six Flags name is a unique and fantastic roller coaster. It is one of the best B&M Hypers I have ridden. Its fast, has a ton of airtime, isn't trimmed to hell like Caro's Intimadator, swoops through the woods, over the road leading to the park, over a body of water, and the midway. It's all around an excellent coaster and is one of my top 5 of all time. It's orange paint is now a peach color, appropriate for Georgia's Peaches, and its name needs work, but overall its a fantastic ride.

Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster is a fun little kiddie coaster, excellent theming and terrain. Best kiddie coaster ever ;)

Ninja can go to the scrap yard. It's rough has hell and is made worse by using the old trains from Six Flags Great Adventure's Scream Machine not to be confused with the Scream Machine at Over Georgia which I will get to. Ninja MIGHT be salvagable with Vekoma's newer trains like what is on Carolina Cobra, but It is such a rough rough ride. I feel bad for the kid that has to ride it every morning before it opens.

The Great American Scream Machine was the next stop and boy is it a gorgeous long out and back woodie. Thats where it stops. It was the roughest most painful wood coaster I have ever ridden in my life. Anyone on this forum that complains about rough wood coasters knows nothing until you have ridden The Great American Scream Machine and the Georgia Cyclone. These two coasters are the roughest most painful abominations on this earth. While I only have 126 ride credits as of the writing of this post, I have been on my fair share of wood coasters but these two take the cake in terrible terrible maintenance. Scream Machine needs a total top to bottom rebuild by either GCI or Gravity Group and Cyclone needs the Iron Horse treatment from RMC. There is no question about it. It has been 3 days and my back still hurts and I have a chiropractor appointment scheduled.

Superman - Ultimate Flight was the next coaster. It has been cloned two other times at Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Great America. I've ridden the one at Great Adventure as well and while all three have the same layout, Georgia's, the original, is the best and is a really fantastic flying coaster. It's the first flyer with the pretzel loop which is super super intense, it has a duel loading station which SFoG does not use anymore and was removed from future models, and it is a terrain coaster! It's tucked in the hills, dives into trenches, and swoops through a great tunnel. The other two are parking lot coasters even though the layouts are identical! My mind was blown.

Dahlonega Mine Train was last. It was a mine train. Just like any other mine train really. I can't really speak much on it except it was well themed and traveled through picturesque landscapes. If you are a fan of mine-trains, its a good mine-train.

We proceeded to re-ride Mind Bender, and Goliath two more times. They are really the reason to come to this park.

My hands are starting to hurt so I will tell you a couple other things in another post. Fright Fest, food, an amazing dark ride and ride/park ops.

Thanks all!
 
Sounds like things went well. On paper, I've always been impressed with Six Flags over Georgia's collection. Good to know it doesn't (really) disappoint.
 
I went to the park to experience their Halloween event as well as visit for the very first time.

Twisted Cyclone - Top 10, nuff said. A little short but it packs a punch in its short length
Mindbender - I didn't expect this ride to be as intense as it was and I was pleasantly surprised.
Goliath - Would easily be the best hyper around if it wasn't so rattly
Batman - Gotta love these things. They may be a dime a dozen but they're still awesome
Georgia Scorcher - Smooth, forceful, and it needs to be painted badly
Dare Devil Dive - Has some interesting forces but nothing to go crazy about
Superman Ultimate Flight - I skipped the one at GAdv on my visit there. Looks like I wasn't really missing much
Blue Hawk - I could see this thing getting lots of hate as Ninja. A lot more rdeable as Blue Hawk
Great American Scream Machine - I see a great ride in here but the trains totally screw with the roughness
Dahlonega Mine Train - Doesn't do much but its fun enough. Good starter coaster
Joker's Funhouse - I could've skipped this and not bat an eye. Its alright but I wouldn't go out of my way to ride it again.

Fright Fest stuff was interesting to say the least. During the day they play Halloween themed family music around the park and then swtich over to atmospheric music after 6pm when Fright Fest starts. The scare zones are huge but the atmosphere is a bit weak compared to the Florida haunts. Still for a regional park its not too bad. Staffing was also an issue throughout but again, regional parks seem to have that kind of problem in a lot of their haunts. One thing that brings their event down a bit is its difficult to find the mazes. It took us a while to find most of them and the maps are super confusing since they're not labeled.

Mazes from first to worst. They all had names but there's no indication on the park maps and there's no signs out front for half of them.
The Witch one - Basically takes place in the rapids queue. While there aren't as many actors as I hoped, a lot of the maze takes place in tight quarters. Halfway through there's a 10 foot animatronic that rises up and moves around, which is a pretty cool sight. Set pieces look cheap but actors are pretty effective.
The Alien one - The park gave this maze its own little warehouse. An interesting concept, aliens set up shop in a doctors office and are experimenting on humans. There's a little skit halfway through involving some guy getting his head crushed. Set pieces were nice here and the actors had great costumes.
Killer Camp - I love the entrance with the rave music. This is another maze with a fun little skit right before you enter. A snarky camp counselor comes up and gets killed by Casey Jones. Nice long walkthrough with some decent sets. I wish the jump scares were a bit better but its enjoyable enough.
Zombies - Zombies are a bit overdone but this walkthough is crazy long and full of cool props, special effects, and gimmicks to help keep things fresh. The park utilizes the Batman stunt show arena pretty well with this one.
3D Maze - Not a huge fan of 3D mazes but this one had some really cool special effects and makeup. Unfortunately there's a LOT of dead room here that could be filled so that's a huge minus.
The maze that just had like four rooms and that's it - Luckily this was the very first maze we went through, otherwise I would've been sorely disappointed. Its staffed really well and there's some really cool set pieces and some neat animatronics but other than that its not that special.

I was disappointed in the lack of chainsaws in the scare zones. I hope this is just an early season thing as chainsaws are pretty much a staple of any major haunt.
I was indifferent about the scare zones overall. There aren't as many actors roaming around but the scare zones have mini-haunts you can walk through. Some better than others. More parks should do stuff like that.
I'm not a huge fan of making the mazes upcharge. I don't think the mazes have an extra edge over Busch or CF's haunts. The props aren't any gorier and the mazes themselves aren't anymore intense than your average theme park haunt.

Fright Fest overall is a solid event on par with most of the smaller haunts I've been to. Not amazing by any means but not the absolute worst either.
 
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