WEATHER: Mid-to-low 70's and cloudy most of the day. Given the crowds, we were hoping for a spat of rain mid-day to disperse everyone. Unfortunately, it was raining in Milwaukee as we left and the radar showed a line of rain passing through Chicago as we were at the park, but the rain missed Gurnee until it decided to taunt us with some sprinkles on the way out of the park at 10:20. Thanks, Mother Nature.
CROWDS: Moderately high. I've been there when it was worse, but it was pretty packed — although the nature of the crowds kind of took me by surprise.
OOPS: The girlfriend had a busy July, too, including a trip to Dallas. So as we got ready to leave and made the essential decisions: No swimsuits (too cool), no Icee Boot (had too much to eat at the Wisconsin State Fair the day before), yes water bottle, yes ... wait ... where's Pam's season pass? Pam is usually one of the more-organized people I know, but for the life of her, she couldn't find her pass yesterday. Alas, we took off for the park and headed straight to Guest Relations for a replacement.
For all of you wondering: The line was short and the process was pretty painless. They still had her picture on file and the $15 cost is high enough to make losing your pass non-trivial but low enough that it's not insufferable if you make the error. Yea Six Flags.
ODD CROWD BEHAVIOR: OK, there are some times when crowd behavior makes sense to me. Other times, though, you can't help but scratch your head. This was one of those days. For instance:
- Raging Bull was consistently at least a 75-minute wait all day and RideHopper was occasionally showing it at the full two hours. OK, makes sense.
- Superman was up around two hours most of the day as well, and the switchbacks near the ride entrance were nearly full at one point. Not surprising, either.
- But what was surprising was X-Flight was never listed at more than 45 minutes all day and was 30 or less each of the times we rode it. Riddle me this, people: Is Bull that much better than X-Flight that you're willing to wait an extra hour and a half for it? Seriously? People, I'm telling you: Distribute!
- Furthermore, some rides were consistently bustling while others seemed fairly open. Revolution was busy all day, as was River Rocker. But Fling, Ricochet, ERC and Triple Play all had fairly short lines. As a result, it ended up being a flats kind of day for us, though we did catch Whizzer, repiV, X-Flight twice and each side of Eagle.
- It even seemed to apply to the restaurants. All kinds of people in the park, yet we go to eat at Aunt Martha's for lunch and we basically had the place to ourselves. Is it just that particular place? It didn't help that they have no music in there — Pam and I felt like we had to whisper because it was so quiet.
ON THE RUMORS: I didn't see anything out of the ordinary, relative to new rides. I also wasn't exactly looking, so ... meh.
EAST RIVER CRAWLER: Got to ride ERC for the first time since the refurb and for the first time since the whole situation with the one motor breaking. Pointed it out to Pam before we rode, then as we rode, she said the ride felt slow and kind of lame. She mentioned that she thinks, without that added element, the cars don't spin as much, if barely at all. She was saddened by this, as ERC used to be one of her favorites — used to be. I told her my philosophy on the ride — keep it open for a few years to make the refurb worth it, then replace it with something else — and she thought that wasn't a bad idea, though she said, "Couldn't you just buy a new one?" I said yes, but that if you do, you'd probably have to re-theme it so you could market it as a "different" ride to make the install worth it. After all, if you buy a new one and keep the old theme, folks probably won't know the difference and won't bother to ride it any more than they already do, so what's the ROI?
¡VIVA LA REVOLUCION!: Rode Revolution at night and it kicked patoot. Recommended.
RIVER ROCKED: River Rocker really does tickle your tummy when you ride it, so we make a point not to hop on right after a meal. However, as it was getting on towards dinner and our mid-day nacho snack had settled, we gave it a shot. Bad call for two reasons:
1. It tickled Pam's tummy a bit too much as she got off and felt nauseated. We went straight to Angelo's for a spaghetti dinner and that, plus about 45 minutes of rideless time, was able to settle things down to where she felt fine again. But yeah, Pam's decided she's done with River Rocker.
2. The two girls sitting in front of us decided to make the ride an even less pleasant experience. They were sitting in the seats closest to the middle with their friends across from them and they decided to start spitting at them during the ride. What was not cool about this was that their aim was pretty poor, as was their understanding of physics and timing, resulting in a lot of other people getting hit. One attack did reach its target, though, as we got to see a loogie in the hair of one of the girls across from us for half the ride as well. I was tempted to tell the ride op, but didn't. Wish she was paying attention, though, as I believe that would be a kicked-out-of-the-park, or at least a stern-warning, kind of offense, even for a couple girls that looked about 13 or 14 or so. Disgusting and another affirmation of my general misanthropy.
igNIGHT: Finally got to see the show, and interestingly, I think we picked the right night to do it as I got the impression last night was the final night they were doing the show this season. General thoughts:
- Having a DJ before the show is pretty cool, as is having some of the park employees out in the general crowd area trying to get folks dancing. It makes it kind of interactive. The tough part is picking out a balance of songs that is cool while being recognizable and not lame. I don't think there's necessarily a winning formula for that, or if there is, it's one that's pretty tough to get without playing the same songs night-after-night, which I'm sure would get boring. For instance, the DJ played YMCA as one of his last songs ... good if you're at a wedding or a sporting event, kind of cheezy elsewhere. The show itself had a few bars of the Cupid Shuffle. Personally, I might have gone with that before the show, or The Wobble. Participatory, but newer and a little cooler.
- Being dancers, we had to inquire about how we could get into the middle area where folks were dancing with the staffers. Found out you have to have something that glows to get in there. We weren't going to spend however much it is on one of Six Flags' overpriced glowsticks, but we might try and find some cheap glow necklaces at Target or whatever before one of next year's trips so we can sneak in and show off.
- The show's plot was predictably bad and cheezy, but I didn't come in with high expectations.
- I did think the graphics with the burning down of Chicago were a little intense, considering they were at the start of the show when families are most apt to still be around and would also be most apt to see a few minutes of the show then decide to leave. The windows breaking out would have scared me as a kid.
- Was it just me or were the guy dancers a lot better than the girl dancers? Same goes for the male lead versus the female lead. He was on-key. She ... eh.
- Also, there was some sort of issue with the sound system. The bass and the treble were fine, but some of the mids got very lost and there were certain songs that sounded like a muddy mix of loud bass and muffled lyrics. I am hoping this is just part of the season coming to an end and the speakers wearing out after a year of use. Also hoping this gets fixed and hasn't been the case all year.
- The music was good and upbeat and the staging was very well done, particularly the graphics. Overall, I think it serves its purpose as an expanded version of the end-of-night show, which I think was needed to keep up with the Jonses at other parks (Cedar Fair). But yeah, not must-see material by any stretch.
)!!! That sucks man. It's probably the single worst guest behavior for me. Even with shameless line cutters, you're not getting someone's fluids all over your face.