Six Flags Great Escape - June 22, 2024

Over 20 years ago, I visited Great Escape as a child with my family. I don't remember exactly what I rode that time - Comet for sure, since we have a family picture on it - but otherwise I remembered very little about this oddball little Six Flags park in upstate New York. My wife and I spent a rainy afternoon here and had a pretty nice time! Perhaps my best Six Flags park experience in at least two years.

I'll talk rides first, and get to the rest afterwards.

• Bobcat - Brand new for 2024, a family woodie by the Gravity Group. While smaller in size compared to other modern woodies, it offers great airtime and quick pacing, but in a form that is more accessible for children and families. Smooth, fast, and swoopy in the front, and a bit more forceful but still smooth in the back. The smell of fresh lumber throughout the queue, station, and ride is strong. After the removal of Alpine Bobsled, it's unlike Six Flags to have a replacement ride there so quickly. I like how they kept the old entrance up as a photo op. We ended up in line near two nice folks raising a little thoosie of their own - four years old and 12 credits. Impressive, young one!
• Comet - We opened our day with this vintage woodie. I remembered nothing about it from my childhood but expected to get absolutely walloped on it. Surprisingly, this coaster offers a really smooth ride from both the front and back of the train, with some decent airtime and laterals. We ended up riding this back-to-back, not having to leave the station. Super friendly ops running this one!
• Flashback - The park's resident Vekoma Boomerang with a pretty queue running up the middle of the ride, under the cobra roll. Again I expected a rough headbanging ride and ended up with a surprisingly smooth experience. Perhaps the smoothest Boomerang I've ever been on, including Jolly Rancher Remix, which I thought was as good as it gets. Like all Boomerangs (headbanging notwithstanding), it's a solid forceful ride.
• Canyon Blaster - A relocated mine train originally located at Opryland USA. A solid Arrow mine train that seems timid at first but has a few tricks up its sleeve, with unexpected speed during the helix.
• Steamin' Demon - Another Arrow, this time an old Corkscrew model originally built at Pontchartrain Beach in 1978. Like all Arrows of this ilk, it has a few really ugly headbanging moments. I tried to do the old "crane your head in front of the OTSRs" trick and ended up absolutely destroying my neck on the pullout after the second corkscrew. Maybe the single roughest moment I've ever experienced on any coaster, and I was genuinely worried I had actually been injured for a moment. I don't think it has anything to do with maintenance though - that's just how these Arrows are. If you think CP's Corkscrew is bad, just remember it can always be worse. That being said, it does cut a great profile from the road.

Some solid flats here as well, with a good mix for families, including a walk-through Alice in Wonderland attraction, an indoor Scrambler, a Music Express, log flume, carousel, skyride, swan boats, and train. Additionally they have a now-rare HUSS Condor and a unique gigantic spinning swing ride of sorts called Outlaw, which I stayed the hell away from.

On this rainy morning there were virtually no lines or waits for any of the coasters except Bobcat, which maxed out around 10 minutes. This is a small park where it's easy to ride everything multiple times, even without a "Go Fast Pass." Crowds were low thanks to the weather.

The park itself is nicely designed and has some great "storybook" fantasy type theming throughout, along with a really strong Old West section and a Bavarian area that evokes Busch Gardens and jives nicely with the storybook stuff. Obviously a lot of this stuff comes from the park's pre-Premier/pre-Six Flags days, when it operated as Storytown USA. There are a few bizarre and borderline dangerous bridges over the park's little river, which I was worried about eating shit on in the wet weather. Surprised those have not been changed yet.

Ops here were friendly and in great spirits, bopping along to the park's music and generally just making the park a joyous place to be. Kudos to the staff here, they were really great.

We didn't try any of the park's food but the funnel cake sure smelled good. We ended up going across the street for soft serve at Martha's. Wasn't bad, but maybe a bit overhyped. At least the portions are gigantic.

There is a resort hotel/indoor water park on the same property that looked very nice. Seems like you get admission to both the indoor water park and the main theme park with your hotel stay. For under $300/night for a family of 4, that is a damn solid deal compared to similar destinations. If only the rest of the Six Flags chain could be like this.

Since the weather was garbage and we just wanted to get home after a while, we left the park very early to get a head start on the 4+ hour drive back to Long Island. I wish I could say better things about the surrounding tourist area and Lake George, but... meh. Park's cool though.

TL;DR:

• Solid but small collection of well-maintained older coasters with a good selection of flats
• Charming park atmosphere with good theming
• One of the best, balanced family park experiences out there, for a relatively low price