Six Flags New England

Visited: September 26, 2021

Attending: Brian and Carole

In late September, Carole and I decided to take a trip to Maine and other northerly locations, because there were a handful of little things we wanted to do, we’d never been to Maine, and we (once again) had no vacation in 2021. One of the minor things we decided to do was visit Six Flags New England, since neither of us had ever been, and we still had Six Flags season passes. It was a reasonably nice day, the crowds weren’t bad for a Sunday, but it wasn’t exactly dead, either. We decided to spend only a couple of hours there, so we didn’t ride a ton of things.

Superman the Ride

This Intamin hyper was about a third of the reason I wanted to visit this park. I’ve ridden really intense Intamins like Intimidator 305 and Skyrush, and Superman at Six Flags America, but this one had so much praise heaped on it when it was new, I was anticipating a great ride. And for the most part, it was. As many people have noted before, it has an airtime-filled first half, and a twister second half, both high quality. The view of the river from the lift hill is also pretty cool. The airtime second is good, not exactly the level of Fury or even the better B&M hypers, but still good. The twister section is really first-rate, because not a lot of coasters do that. It doesn’t have snappy transitions like I305 or Maverick, but it does have nice banked turns, and the tunnels produce a good head-chopper effect. It made a good first impression, and I’d like to ride it again to see how it holds up, but it had a fairly long line, so we didn’t.

Batman the Dark Knight

This is a B&M floorless that’s near to Superman, and Carole and I both like that type, so we went there next. There wasn’t as much line as Superman had, so that was nice. As a ride, it’s...fine. It’s not as tall or as long as other B&M floorless I’ve ridden, so there isn’t really a lot to talk about here. The track goes through the big vertical loop, and that’s always kind of cool, but that’s really about it.

Riddler Revenge

We didn’t actually ride this. I was curious about it, because it’s a Vekoma SLC with the new trains, which removes the head-banging, and I wanted to see how that went. However, they were only running one train, and the line was barely moving at all. After 20 minutes of going almost nowhere, we bailed.

Goliath

No, we didn’t ride this, either, because it was closed, probably for good. According to most enthusiasts, we didn’t really miss anything, but come on. There are only two Giant Inverted Boomerangs left in the US, and one is in Northern Idaho. So I would have ridden it, just to see what it was like. I’m mentioning it here because it really is an imposing physical presence in the park, being close to the middle, and tall enough to be visible from the highway.

Wicked Cyclone

This was my primary reason for wanting to visit this park, and I admit I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been on some top-tier RMCs by now, so knowing that this one isn’t so tall, my expectations were lowered a bit. Carole decided not to ride, and I was worried about how long the line would be, but I needn’t have; there was barely any. I found another solo rider in the next-to-last row, which also saved me some time. The ride is not tall, that’s true, but that’s the last bad thing I have to say about it. I’ve been on compact RMCs like Twisted Timbers and Twisted Colossus, but I’ve never been on one that intense. I have no idea how they fit so much ejector in such a small space, but they did. A PoV does not do this justice, because the layout doesn’t seem like anything special, but it’s popping all over the place, with a bit of outside banking thrown in when you least expect it. I was breathless after finishing this ride. Carole asked me if I wanted to go again, and even knowing that she wouldn’t ride it, I almost did anyway. I want to get back up there to get some more time on this excellent RMC.