"Our promise to you is to bring you something new to every single park, every year," Six Flags CEO Jim Reid-Anderson said in this morning's video announcement. Here are the highlights:
Zumanjaro Drop of Doom: Six Flags Great Adventure
Following Magic Mountain's addition of a Lex Luthor-themed drop ride to its Superman roller coaster tower, Six Flags in New Jersey will add a trio of 450-foot drop tower tracks to Kinga Ka's tower.
Goliath: Six Flags Great America
Six Flags' Chicago-area park gets the chain's fifth coaster named "Goliath," but, again, this one won't be like the others. Great America's Goliath will be the world's fastest wooden roller coaster, with tallest and steepest drop, Reid-Anderson said. This Goliath will feature an 85-degree, 180-foot, 72 mph drop, followed by a zero-G roll, two overbanked turns, taking the fastest and steepest wooden coaster titles from El Toro at sister park Six Flags Great Adventure.
Colossus and Batman backwards, Expanded kids area, New waterpark ride: Six Flags Magic Mountain
Magic Mountain will be following Great America's lead by sending two of its coasters backward for the 2014 season. The wooden coaster Colossus and the B&M Inverted Batman get the call. In addition, Magic Mountain will be expanding its kids area, including another kiddie coaster, and adding two Bonzai Pipelines slides to Hurricane Harbor.
New England Sky Screamer: Six Flags New England
The Massachusetts park is getting another one of those high-in-the-sky swing rides, this time with a 400-foot tower. (The highlight of this announcement, however, might have been Reid-Anderson cracking a Sarah Palin joke. Follow the link below to the video to watch.)
Six Flags also will expand the kids' area at its original park, Six Flags Over Texas, while building a new Hurricane Harbor water park at Six Flags Over Georgia.
You can watch the announcement video, as well as follow links to all the new attractions at Six Flags' smaller parks, on the Six Flags website.
What do you think?
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Goliath looks interesting, and I am curious how Rocky Mountain Coasters builds a coaster from the ground up, and not just s retrofit of an existing installation. A dive loop on a woodie? I never thought it would happen.
Something not reported here, and not widely reported at all is that Six Flags America, my home SF park, is installing Rajin Cajun, which is a spinning wild mouse (like Primeaval Whirl, just one half though). While the coaster installation (along with a spinning eagle-style flat ride) is not of particular note on a national level, what is interesting is the rumor that the area where these rides are being installed (near Mind Eraser) will be Mardis Gras themed. The area is currently western themed, and the rumored change would represent one of the first parks to eliminate a western themed section out of a park. The western theme lends itself to so many attractions, shows, food, and is easily executed. Western themed sections are staples of the theme park industry. USH, USF, IOA, DAK, DHS, all three SW parks, and EPCOT (if you discount the western-ish themeing of the Canada Pavillion) are the only parks in the US I can think of that don't have at least a small section of the park with some type of American/Wild West theming. If the Mardis Gras theme works, more power to them, but I think they're making a huge mistake by eliminating one of the core themes of just about every theme park in the world.
Very single???
It was 8:00 in the morning here..
I think the new ride looks absolutley amazing, all except one thing --the name, with a unique, record-breaking coaster, why not go with a unique name istead of an old re-tread that SF has used over and over? Your paying millions already for the new ride, how much is it to just trademark a new name?
Six Flags Great Adventure isn't saying that Rolling Thunder must be actually removed to make room for the new drop ride. Their choice of words is just a figure of speech or in other words we're replacing one for another. They however clearly explain why they're removing Rolling Thunder- declining popularity. The operating expenses of Rolling Thunder will clearly be budgeted towards this new ride.
Also, Eric G. is correct, RMC's Outlaw Run was built new from the ground up. And it is worth a four hour drive!
From local reports, Goliath is going where Iron Wolf is (at least its station (which was the original station of the roller coaster that stood BEFORE Iron Wolf). However, this area is extremly small and bumps up right with the train station. I believe they are taking away part of the picnic grove (used for special events) and this strange amphitheater that hasn't been used for about 20 years. Saying all this, I think building will start after Fright Fest because of the large presence of ghosts and ghouls in that section of the park.
Russel's statement about Western lands going away intrigues me. I never thought about it before, but probably the best land of SFGA is Southwest Territory. It has rides for everybody and the theme has pretty much remained intact since it opened.
For parks like Six Flags St. Louis the major additions will come much less frequently than parks like Great Adventure, Over Texas, Great America and Magic Mountain.
If I wanted to have a day at the water park, I'd go to a water park. I do not want to go to Six Flags and pay that much to get in to then have to take time out of my day to change into a swimsuit and sort of be casual at a pool and such while knowing that I need to hurry up and change back into dry clothes soon because I will not have much time left to do other things in the park. Really, pretty much only local season pass holders win with this type of addition.
We are indeed getting Ragin Cajun spinning roller coaster, however it's not going near Mind Eraser. It's actual location will be in our Southwest Territory which will be the new Mardi Gras area. Ragin Cajun will call that area home, along with French Quarter Flyer the new flying ride.I just wanted to clarify as I don't want your readers to think we're taking anything away or losing the theming in Coyote Creek, which is all cowboy all the time!
So it appears that, no, theme parks cannot remove Western-themed areas without risking a fatal rip in the space-time continuum. Thankfully, it appears that the universe remains safe. At least for now. :^)
Yes, I agree taking time out of the day to change into a swimsuit is a HUGE inconvenience. Oh my, how do you survive?
Personally, I think the water park addition is fantastic! The park is adding needed capacity, plus this expansion will be very appealing to park visitors during the hot summer months.
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