CycloneMan

The gang heading up to Georgia. Left to Right: Myself, Lauren, Joy, Matthew and Jackie. We left Orlando at 3:30am to get to Six Flags Over Georgia for opening. Here's Matthew adding up his coaster count so he can figure out what coaster to make his 100th. We made a pit stop a long the way. Joy showing off the classiness of South Georgia. We arrived at the park a little bit after opening. Batman - The Ride Mindbender. My personal favorite steel roller coaster. Look at those sexy Schwarzkopf curves From the plaza you get some nice angles of Goliath Time to try out our new season passes. It's a little strange not having our photos on the pass anymore. Jackie using the bio-metric scanners We started our day by heading the British section of the park. First ride of the day was Georgia Cyclone. The line wasn't terribly long. The gang in line for Georgia Cyclone. All of us on this trip, except Matthew have been to Six Flags Over Georgia. A couple of the coasters were trying out a Single Rider line. ...it made absolutely no sense. It was just one of the rows in the station, and the attendants would sometimes pull people from it. We saw a lot of your typical first day of operations problems. Such as hitting any sort of dispatch interval. It was 5 - 7 minute dispatches. We were pleased to see that Georgia Cyclone was running with the trims OFF! Matt's very excited for his first ride. The airtime on this part of the ride is ridiculously terrifying. Seriously, Georgia Cyclone was kicking total butt! My cousin Joy in line for the Dahlonega Mine Train. The crew here was doing a great job sending trains out on time. Next, the kiddies went and rode Canyon Blaster. I watched One of Six Flags' greatest gems. Monster Mansion is one of my favorite dark rides. Matthew and I ready for the picnic. Lauren, Jackie and Joy are also ready to go to this monster picnic. The operator was letting us know that humans are allowed. If you have zero idea what I'm talking about, click here. We were impressed to find that they were giving out actual cups of water. Ugh...Matthew needed the credit. Joy and Lauren for their brutal ride on Ninja. They came back claiming it wasn't as rough as it has been. Note: These are Arrow trains on the track from Scream Machine at Great Adventure. I'd like to point out the random left-over Arrow restraint on it behind Joy. Also, they were running only one train and dispatching every 8 minutes. Next was on to the Great American Scream Machine. GASM is a beautiful and fun coaster. Almost our turn to ride. Yup, that's Superman - Ultimate Flight. Yup, we rode it. ...yup. Moving on Hanson Cars, Up Up and Away and the Riverview Carousel. Lickskillet. Time for some Sky Buckets. Matthew on the Sky Buckets. It's a little higher than the ones at Busch Gardens Tampa that he's used to Still not as terrifyingly tall as Great Adventure's. Goliath. Monster Mansion from the Sky Buckets. This is the only photo of Georgia Scorcher I took on this visit. It was decent. I actually enjoy it. Goliath towers over the front of the park. Some more photos of Goliath. Time to head down to Gotham. Crime Wave was not having the best day. We saw this multiple times throughout the day. Matthew in front of his 100th roller coaster. Mindbender! This coaster is pure perfection. It's filled with airtime. And it's very forceful. Generic Batman The Ride. But still fun. Open door leading to restricted area fence. ...this is how people get beheaded! Batman / BatMobile / BatMatt Oh Dare Devil Dive... It's really not that thrilling. The capacity is pretty terrible on it too. Seriously... Goliath is a really fun, smooth, airtime filled ride. Time to hitch a ride! (Oh yea, gotta love lame captions) Mindbender Dare Devil Dive Goliath Georgia Cyclone Great American Scream Machine Ninja The girls went shopping, so Matt and I rode Monster Mansion again. Sky Screamer. The only ride in the world that literally terrifies me. The Riverview Carousel is always a must. In typical fashion, Acrophobia was down most of the day. But it did open, and we got to ride it. We ended our day by riding Mindbender. Unfortunately Mindbender was only running 1 train all day. Matthew and Jackie love Mindbender just like the rest of us. We'll end this PTR here. Everyone exhausted at the hotel. Overall, we had a great visit. -Dainan "Wishes I was still riding Mindbender" Rafferty

My friend Matthew and I decided to get some use out of our SeaWorld Orland / Busch Gardens Tampa Bay annual pass and head out to Busch Gardens for the day. Montu greets us in the parking lot. Here's Matthew and I on the parking lot tram ready to head into the park. Oh no! Not the Watering Hole! You know it's a busy day at Busch Gardens when... We decided to wait in line for Gwazi anyway. Why? I don't know, I really don't have an answer. So, Gwazi use to be two sides. But they now have the Tiger side permanently closed. As Matthew shows here, they are now using the Tiger station as Quick Queue. Rumor is that Busch Gardens closed Tiger and is only keeping Lion open till they have the budget next year to take the entire coaster out. It's a shame really, the park has tried so hard with this ride. And now they're just letting it go. After Gwazi we headed over to Walkabout Way. How can you not love kangaroos? Just chillin Pretty blunt My fingers are not food! Go away! We then went over to Sesame Safari of Fun so Matthew can get his only needed credit at the park on Air Grover. Success! and of course we played around. Oh...I guess SheiKra's open. It had a full queue so we decided to come back later. Stanley Falls was very popular on this hot summer Floridian day. Sleepy tigers. Still the best coaster in the park. Just gorgeous! Attempted to get a fly by shot while in the station. Okay, last photo of Kumba! Alright, let's check on the progress of Falcon's Fury. It's coming along. Um...what happened to Scorpion's sign? Schwarzkopf Silver Arrow The new logo has been on the train for a while now. But it's the first time I've taken a picture of it. Such a little ride packs such a big punch. I love it . Walking from Timbuktu, through Nairobi to Egypt, you can get some pretty great shots of Cheetah Hunt. In the Edge of Africa, you can get pretty close to sleepy hyenas. I really do love this park. Montu is the staple of Egypt. Still one of the best B&M Inverts out there. Budget cuts are starting to spot up all over the park. Here's King Tut's Tomb closed with all the scenery taken off it. Here's the lovely Crown Colony. The top floor is a sit down restaurant which is scheduled to close in a few weeks. Now onto a random photo of Cheetah Hunt's awkward overflow queue. We got in line and it shut down for weather, and then like a good little Intamin, shut down for technical difficulties. But we waited it out. After an hour and twenty minutes of waiting out downtimes, we got to ride. When we got off the ride, a guest handed us her Quick Queue - Handicap Access ticket she got for the ride that she decided she didn't want to use on it, so we got to ride again. Matthew's freaked out by the elevator in Cheetah Hunt's station that we had to take. We decided to wait for the front being it was only a 5 train wait. Cheetah Hunt through the trees!!!! We decided to take the Skyride over to the other side of the park so we could ride SheiKra. Cheetah Hunt from Skyride. Nice dyed mullet dude! SheiKra...yea, can't really think of a clever caption. We rode it. It was alright. Loses the novelty after the first 40 times tho After SheiKra we took the Skyride back to the front of the park. Kumba <3 This cheetah's had enough for today. And so had we. On the way out of the park, I saw some kids dancing with some very enthusiastic Busch employees. Back at the car, we found some nice shoes for us next to our parking space. Stay classy Tampa Bay. -Dainan "Till next time" Rafferty

Hey guys. It's been a while. Long story short, I was on vacation for 16 days in NY staying with my family and stuff. I moved to Florida in 2009 and have been there ever since. While I was home I did go to all the local parks (more PTRs later). The park I was looking the most forward to was Six Flags Great Adventure of course. I was able to go twice while I was visiting and got to meet up with a bunch of old friends. The park's changed quite a bit, but also stayed the same. Either way, on to the Photo Trip Report! 6/21/13 After three long years, I've finally returned home. The skyline's changed a bit since my last visit in 2010. Started the day with my old best friend Dan and Jackie. Yes...Jackie and I planned our trips home to overlap that way we could go to Great Adventure together. At least they're nice enough to warn you. God I missed this place so much. New to me was Green Lantern. By principal I strongly didn't want to like the ride that replaced GASM... But it really wasn't that bad. We got there first thing in the morning and got to ride it a bunch of times. There's Jackie and I in the back. I've been on 4 other stand up coasters. Mantis at Cedar Point, Riddler's Revenge at Six Flags Magic Mountain, Georgia Scorcher at Six Flags Over Georgia and Le Cobra at La Ronde. Honestly, this one ranks right in the middle. Scorcher being my favorite stand up. This is right below Riddler's Revenge and way above Mantis. And all I heard was negativity about it. My friend Joe operating Green Lantern. Hey, look what's actually open. Kingda Ka was actually running way better than it did before I left for Florida. Our group started to grow at this point. Matt (right) and Chris (center right) joined us. Still the tallest But not the fastest. Group photo before riding Ka. One of the best sites in the world On to the new Safari Off Road Adventure. While in line we ran into my old friend Eric. This was the longest wait of the day. About 40 minutes. The queue and station weren't really finished yet. The trucks are nice and open. I don't have any photo's of the actually safari. So there you go. Bizarro number meh. I'm sorry, I'll always loved Medusa, but I now live within an hour of Kumba which is way better No more speakers. Bad dispatches. Sigh. Up next is El Toro, ole! El Toro was running a bit rougher than it used to. And it didn't seem to have that kick anymore (it may have been because I rode Skyrush a few days earlier). It was still a great ride tho. Three former Rolling Thunder Leads return home They were running all four trains and doing a decent job at their intervals. Tho when Chris, Matt and I worked there, we did spectacularly We then had lunch at Best of the West. While there I ran into my friend Peter (You'll notice this trend a lot through the PTR). Be grateful Great Adventure kids that you still have this. So...I rode Sky Screamer. As predicted I hated it. I cried...no really...I did. I HATE these rides. Jackie's diggin the old logo. As am I. How I missed this ride. You never realize how much you miss a great thing until you're away from it. Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia is good, but it's no Nitro. Batman It's still going forward!?!? What gives!?!? Dark Knight Coaster. To be honest, I do actually like this ride. It's nice to see Houdini opened full time again. Now if only all the effects will work. All so strange to me. Chutes is the wrong color. Where's ErUPtion and GASM? Finally getting to meet some of the new Great Adventure people. Here's Rob. Here's Matt (left) and Kevin (right). Jackie and I's none Great Adventure friends joined us. Hayley (right) and Stacey (middle right). Rob at work. From one Rob to the next. Got to see me other friend Robbie a couple of times. Some of you on here may know him Unfortunately El Toro was having some problems that day and didn't re open. We rode Ka again. Why not? Some Green Lantern love. Last photo from this day is me on Deja Vu. Overall it was a great day. We got to do every coaster and most flats multiple times. 6/25/13 The day before I flew back to Florida, I went back to the park with my brother and we met up with Jackie again and our friend Shia. Shia and I go way back. it was great seeing her again. This update just has random photos I took. No cohesive PTR to be honest. This is a photo I took of Ka from Green Lantern's queue. Everybody say "ooooooh!" Everybody say "aaaaaaaaaaah" Here's Green Lantern. Longest line of the day with a 15 minute wait. This is the best crew I've ever seen at a Stand Up coaster. Shia and Jackie next to go on Kingda Ka. This was new to me...and it was closed. My twin brother Anthony and El Toro. We got to ride El Toro a couple of times this day. Ran into my old friend Jess while at Mine Train. Of course I had to stop at Mama Flora's and get Pizza Fries. We also got to marathon Nitro a bunch of times thanks to the empty station. This is as close to riding the Big Wheel as I got. I finished my night by marathoning on Rolling Thunder. Best way to end my vacation back home . On the way out of the park, I ran into my old Supervisor Jim. Last photo I took at Great Adventure. I hope it's not another 3 years before I come back. -Dainan "Felt real good to be back" Rafferty