Five-inversion B&M floorless that is somewhat overshadowed by this park's top two coasters, but is still solid and fun with some forces. The initial l...
Five-inversion B&M floorless that is somewhat overshadowed by this park's top two coasters, but is still solid and fun with some forces. The initial loop and the zero-g roll are particularly good. The entrance to the station has a little bit of Gotham City theming, about the most you'll see at this park.
Note: This coaster has a single-rider line! Go in the ride's exit and you'll see signs leading you up the exit staircase to hop right on in an available single seat. Since it doesn't seem to be used much, it can save you a lot of time in line.
This is PortAventura's racing/dueling woodie, and I suspect it inspired Hersheypark's Lightning Racer, made by successor company GCI, though it is not...
This is PortAventura's racing/dueling woodie, and I suspect it inspired Hersheypark's Lightning Racer, made by successor company GCI, though it is not as big as Lightning Racer. The dueling element is fun, it seems to actually race/duel most of the time (you'd be surprised how rare this can be for this type of coaster), and it has a clever layout and some good forces. I had a back-row ride and I honestly do not understand why this ride is often regarded as rough and unpleasant, because it really wasn't for me. Just a little of that wooden rumble. I rode the red side, which may be relevant. Red did not win.
I do have a very specific complaint, that comes with a warning: there are NO bins for leaving your loose items on the platform, and this ride does have airtime, so you need a strategy for dealing with them. You'll want to put them in the lockers (which take euro coins) or in a zipper pocket. I had so much stuff jammed in my jacket pockets that I looked like I was with child.
This is a fairly long, rather nice Arrow Mine Train, with three lifts, and the jank you expect from such rides, but that's part of the fun to me. It m...
This is a fairly long, rather nice Arrow Mine Train, with three lifts, and the jank you expect from such rides, but that's part of the fun to me. It maybe meanders a bit in the middle. But I really liked the big swooping dropping turn off the third and final lift that serves as the ride's climax. Decent family coaster. Major thrills are not the point here.
For a time, this was undoubtedly the roller coaster I had ridden the most times, because my young daughter would often want to marathon it when we wen...
For a time, this was undoubtedly the roller coaster I had ridden the most times, because my young daughter would often want to marathon it when we went to Canobie. It's a basic powered kiddie coaster with dragon-shaped trains and two helixes, and they send you around twice, for a total of four helixes per ride. If you think about it, that's more elements than you get on some much larger family coasters. So it's a pretty good value for your time in line, if you've got a kid who is into these things.
This was my first roller coaster, when it was pretty new in the 1970s. It's short and mild even for an Arrow mine train: there's only one lift, and th...
This was my first roller coaster, when it was pretty new in the 1970s. It's short and mild even for an Arrow mine train: there's only one lift, and the most thrilling moments are a sudden dip under the Dry Gulch Railroad tracks (baby's first headchopper!) and a helix near the end. But it's a good family coaster to take little kids on that is not a kiddie coaster per se. Many years later, my daughter loved it.
I rode this in 2014 when it was very new, and at the time, it was a smooth, absolutely wild ejector airtime machine, the kind of serious thrill ride y...
I rode this in 2014 when it was very new, and at the time, it was a smooth, absolutely wild ejector airtime machine, the kind of serious thrill ride you'd never expect to ride at a kiddie park like Story Land. It's short, but it maintains such intensity that I'm not sure it would make sense to make it longer, especially since fairly young kids are getting on this ride. They had a chalkboard in the station where they maintained a running tally of unsecured rider possessions lost to the negative G-force. I have heard that it has gotten rougher with age, but I have not ridden it lately. The lead car has a cute dinosaur head.
This is my home-park favorite, the first new coaster I saw being constructed after I got back into riding coasters. It's a short ride but a lot of fun...
This is my home-park favorite, the first new coaster I saw being constructed after I got back into riding coasters. It's a short ride but a lot of fun--it was my first experience with a vertical lift and beyond-vertical drop, and there is something uniquely unnerving about going up flat on your back, seeing nothing but sky as you crest the top. The drop has a nice pop of sideways airtime and then it's into a lovely, hangtimey loop. There's a quick cutback inversion, then a turn into another hangtimey inversion, a twist. Then a helix and you're done.
It's a standard model, but the thing that stands out with this one is its elaborate theming, with a station styled as a backwoods hunting lodge with deer antlers everywhere, bear-themed trains, supports painted like birch trunks, and locally-sculpted little wooden bears all around. Also, it's got a single-rider line: go around the back of the station to get on almost immediately. I can ride this one any time I visit without taking up too much time.
This ride has over-the-shoulder restraints and many people report rough transitions and headbanging. It's never been a problem for me, possibly because of my height.
This is the only Sky Rocket II I've ridden, and it's apparently one of the good ones since it has ONLY simple lap bar restraints (no "comfort collars"...
This is the only Sky Rocket II I've ridden, and it's apparently one of the good ones since it has ONLY simple lap bar restraints (no "comfort collars", not even a seat belt). The attention-getting feature of the ride is the roll inversion that slowly dangles you upside down 150 feet in the air, like a sort of high-altitude jojo roll, but what really impresses me are the whippy lateral forces as the track twists around to keep you upright through the rest of the ride. The launches and the forces are a lot of fun and it's really smooth. All the times I've ridden this, it's been a near-walk-on since many of the general public visiting Compounce seem terrified to ride it, true to its name.
Boulder Dash SHOULD be the best woodie and maybe the best overall coaster in New England. Its brilliant layout, using the natural terrain of a mountai...
Boulder Dash SHOULD be the best woodie and maybe the best overall coaster in New England. Its brilliant layout, using the natural terrain of a mountainside to produce coaster hills on its outbound leg as you speed past tree trunks and rocks well below treetop level, is one of a kind. On the far turnaround, the coaster somehow picks up massive speed, then subjects you to a series of intensely forceful bunny hills by the side of the lake.
Unfortunately, it's not the best because of its uncomfortable jackhammering. This used to be worse, with a nadir around 2022 or so, but GCI has been gradually replacing parts of the layout with steel Titan Track and seemingly doing some wood retracking too (good, because I want this to at least stay a woodie to SOME degree). But parts of the ride, especially on the outbound leg, are still very rough.
This is my favorite coaster in the world at time of writing, though that's probably because it's my only RMC. It's far from the biggest coaster at Six...
This is my favorite coaster in the world at time of writing, though that's probably because it's my only RMC. It's far from the biggest coaster at Six Flags New England, and lacks the extended lift hill truss that most later RMCs had, but it is the most furiously hyperkinetic ride at the park and really gives you the feeling of being in the hands of a madman (Alan Schilke). Every few seconds it's throwing something new at you, usually involving ejector air. There are three inversions: a long zero-G stall punching crosswise through the lift hill, and two roll inversions embedded within the support structure. The most intense moment on the ride may be the double down followed immediately by a camelback hill.
Earlier reviews of Wicked Cyclone tended to complain that the third lap is slow. This has never been my experience, and comparing reviews, I suspect they did something to it around 2021 that improved the pacing. I do think that the lap bar restraints can be a bit bulky and you have to fold yourself into the car to some degree, but your upper body is still completely free to respond to this ride's crazy forces.
There is some modest theming in the queue and station about a giant storm that hits New England, and the cars are themed to an anthropomorphic storm cloud. For Six Flags, it's not bad.
