Six Flags New England - October 9 and 10, 2022

After spending a day at Lake Compounce, my wife, sister, and I moved on to Six Flags New England. I had gone this past July and wanted to come back for Fright Fest. In the time since that last trip, I finally got my sea legs and found the nerve to ride the big coasters that had scared me for my entire life. Inversions, steep drops, vertical lifts, and high speeds were no longer dealbreakers. Now I ride everything. With this newfound courage, I was excited to get on all the coasters I missed just over two months ago.

I'll start with the rides and move onto other park stuff after.

• Wicked Cyclone - You bastards. RMC really is worth the hype after all. Not only is this the best coaster in the park, it is for sure in my Top 3 coasters. The ride is glass smooth with excellent speed. The laterals are violent without being unpleasant. The airtime on the hills is truly ridiculous. And I've never felt hangtime like this anywhere else. My first RMC has only given me a thirst for more. Can't wait to hit Jersey Devil this weekend. First ride was a 15 minute wait on Sunday night, second ride was a walk-on Monday afternoon.
• Superman The Ride - Also worth the hype. I love the slow lift with the Superman music. It's torturous and really just kind of funny. The first drop is intense, the airtime over the camelbacks is fantastic, and the speed around the second half of the ride? Hard to beat. It's clear why this gets such high marks year after year in the Golden Ticket Awards. Both rides were walk-ons, but we got delayed by a maintenance issue the first day.
• Batman: The Dark Knight - We got Flash Pass'd while waiting for this one, which enabled my wife and I to switch from a middle car to the front row. Note to self: floorless coasters in the front row are downright terrifying but also amazing. The Zero-G roll in the middle of the coaster is the best part, but the inversions on this are all really quite good. There is a slight rattle but nothing too bad. First ride was a 30 minute wait, second ride was a walk-on.
• Riddler Revenge - A Vekoma SLC "Mind Eraser" clone, painted green and themed to the Riddler. This is not your usual Mind Eraser SLC experience - the restraints are now the comfort vest style, which really alleviates much of the head banging and roughness that are typical of this model. We also got front row on this and I can confirm that front row on inverts are also fucking terrifying. Pretty intense ride and doesn't let up for a second. Only got one ride on this, and it was a walk-on Monday afternoon.
• The Joker - The same Joker coaster from SFGAdv. I took two rides on this. The first ride was scary but felt fine. The second ride I knew what to expect but my restraint was slightly looser so I felt like I was literally going to die. I would go on it again, but holy shit what a strong feeling of mortal peril. About a 30 minute wait Sunday evening, and a walk-on Monday afternoon.
• Flashback - Vekoma Boomerang clone. Closed both days.
• Thunderbolt - Nice old-school 1940s woodie. Not too rough, good airtime on the bunny hills towards the end. A unique compact design. This thing comes absolutely screaming into the station and I believe the op manually brakes it. It only runs one train, so the line moves rather slowly. Only got one ride and it was about a 15 minute wait.
• Catwoman's Whip - A small family coaster with a dual-figure-8 track and unusually long train. The back cars get whipped around like crazy, so that's fun. Was a walk-on both days.
• Pandemonium - A really fun Gerstlauer spinner with a painfully slow line. This ride often has rides upwards of an hour, and as much as I enjoy it, I'm not sure it's worth all that time. If the line is short, absolutely ride it.
• Gotham City Gauntlet - A run-of-the-mill Wild Mouse with Batman theming. The brakes are a bit rough so watch out towards the end of the ride unless you like the feeling of being Heimliched by a roller coaster. This line also moves rather slowly, expect to wait 30 - 45 minutes. Our second ride got delayed by someone puking in the line.

A good selection of flats to ride here as well, but many were not open:

• Carousel - 1909 Carousel at the park since 1940. For Fright Fest it plays some pretty stupid "spooky" music which detracts from the experience.
• Houdini - Closed for the season for a haunted house. Lame.
• Scrambler - Closed both days.
• Gotham City Crime Wave - An extra zippy wave swinger. Always a good time.
• Kontiki - Polynesian-themed Matterhorn/Music Express. Closed both days.
• Bumper Cars - The waits on this were horrible, so we didn't go on.
• Scream - Triple drop tower that only seems to be running one tower at a time these days. Still not a bad wait.
• Cyborg: Hyper Drive - Chance Freestyle. Decently fun, but too short and the wait takes far too long for what it is.
• Sky Screamer - Running backwards for Fright Fest. Was closed the second day.
• Wild Wheelz - This is an unremarkable antique car ride, but the ride operator was coughing very loudly, violently, and frequently. We were on line for about five minutes before we bailed because we didn't want the op to get us sick. A bunch of other people got off the line after seeing/hearing her cough too. Hope she's OK, but she shouldn't have been working that day.

This decently large park near the border of Connecticut and Massachusetts is underrated by most, but this was a pretty rough weekend for it. The Fright Fest theming kinda sucks and the scare actors were more obnoxious than they were frightening. The park also seemed to be really short on staff, with painfully slow ops and some rides just not operating at all. The food was pretty bad as well, with the park actually completely running out of common items like pretzels. I paid $15 for a damn corn dog!

The theming of SFNE is not bad, especially in comparison with the rest of the chain. The look of the entrance, Old West, DC Universe, and wharf areas are good. The area surrounding Pandemonium and Wicked Cyclone is not too bad either. The Gotham City area is more of the typical Six Flags "bunch of rides in a parking lot" style.

I think this park could compete with the bigger Northeast parks like SFGAdv or Hersheypark if it added a couple more big coasters. Would love to see a launched coaster here. As it is, it's a mid-level Six Flags park that's still worth a visit if you're in the area or live nearby. It is definitely better than either Great Escape or Darien Lake, and is more thrill-centric than the family-oriented Lake Compounce.

The crowds on Sunday were dense, and got worse as the day went on. It seems like a LOT of people come only for the Fright Fest hours, so you'll get on more rides earlier in the day. Monday, especially for the first couple of hours, was a bit of a ghost town. No complaints there - was able to hit everything we wanted on Monday without a problem.

TL;DR:

• Two world class coasters in Wicked Cyclone and Superman, and a great supporting cast make SFNE worth visiting.
• This weekend could have been better (closed rides and slow ops), but I still had a good time.
• For me, Fright Fest serves as more of an obstacle than an attraction.