Trip Report for Six Flags New Orleans
6/25/04
Crowds/Weather: Empty/Thunderstorms
Park Rating
Clarisse: 2.3 out of 5
Clarisse’s Park Comments: I will start with a caveat; I started the day grumpy and hungry and as usual, there was nothing in the park suitable for me to eat. Its an ok local park, with a few fun rides. Given the character of New Orleans, they’re probably not going to draw tourists, even if they add the best coaster ever or have awesome concerts. The other thing about the park that is also a characteristic of New Orleans is that there is standing water and puddles everywhere. Even before it rained! Under the Mega Zeph looked like a swamp! Batman is their newest coaster and only 1 year old, yet the seats and the storage bins are filthy, I didn’t want to put my head against the moldy looking restraint or put my stuff in the cubbies. The filth is probably due to the humidity and general water rot of being located in a virtual swamp.
As a counter to Mike's rant about the trains on the Mega Zeph, I didn’t mind them at all.
Mike: 2.25 out of 5
Mike’s Park Comments: I’m going to be honest, I’m probably never going to return to Six Flags New Orleans. This is not because I won’t I won’t be returning to the city. In fact, I’m already hoping to get back to the city sometime in the winter. Not likely after the cost of this trip, but I’m hoping. Regardless, the reason I won’t be returning is because the city has so much more to offer then the park. Maybe even more problematically, there’s nothing I’d really like to marathon on at SFNO, except the steel Batman coaster, and I can accomplish that at various other parks.
The problem for SFNO for me rests firmly with Mega Zeph, or more specifically it’s trains. Mega Zeph has a great layout, but the trains were simply horrible. This was my first experience of the trip with what’s called “G-trains” by my friend. They are coaster trains made by a company named Gerstlauer. The trains vibrate on wood coaster tracks like a laundry machine during a spin cycle. The seats themselves are rock hard, as are the sides and back. The restraints are of a similar nature to the old Schwarzkopf coasters – there is a rectangular bar that lowers against your privates. For tall people like me, the bar makes your thighs very snug against the two metal sides.
During the course of my ride on Gerstlauer trains, both sides of my upper thighs will receive bruises. The seat below me will play a vicious game of ping pong with my testicles, and I will arch my back forward in the desperate hopes of not making contact with the actual back of the seat, which is rattling violently.
If you’re missing the larger point here, these “G-trains” are very, very unpleasant to experience and they make any coaster that uses them very unpleasant as well. In the case of Mega Zeph, this is a shame, as it seems as if it could be a kickass coaster. Well, it’s not.
This was also my first introduction to true coaster geekdom as, for the first time, I noticed the trains on a roller coaster. I generally don’t pay attention to details on coasters, I prefer to soak in the whole experience then attempt to dissect what makes one coaster so much greater then another. However, these trains just so jumped out and screamed “horrible” at me that I had to dissect the train (which was very bad) from the general layout of the coaster (which seemed very good).
Otherwise, there were some fun and nice touches at SFNO. The food is a little more unique then usual park fare and for a Six Flags park (though not so good that I’m suggesting you actually eat it unless you have to. As with most parks it’s a smarter choice to bring in your own food). I appreciate a theme park piping old blues and jazz instead of the total crap I’m usually forced to listen to at parks. Operations were fine, with nothing outright aggravating happening to us during our day. I can also note that this was the only park day of the trip where a Batman ride was a walkon all day, so it was here that we were able to get intimately familiar with Batman’s layout.
This is a fairly average, but absolutely ok park that’s probably doomed due to the many other non-park related amusements available in the surrounding area.
As a regional park, I guess SFNO works, except that no one from the region was actually in the park the day we visited. In fact there was pretty much no one in the park at all, despite it being a weekday in June. However, there were thunderstorms in the late afternoon, so if they were predicted, that certainly may have kept the crowds away. Even with that qualification, we have been to other parks that were emptier due to predicted rain that day, and they were nowhere near as empty as SFNO was on this day.
I wish SFNO the best of luck, but I won’t be returning short of a new coaster there or, even better, new cars for Mega Zeph. If not, you can find me at the French Quarter finding some much more exciting New Orleans amusements.
Mega Zeph
Clarisse: 4.7 out of 5
Comments: On our first ride I wondered why no one was riding in the back on this 1/2 empty coaster. we soon found out, it feels like your riding on a runaway horse which makes all but the most hardened coaster fans go for the front or the train. I loved the coaster in all of the seats, because although it was rough it wasn’t so rough that the fun was taken out of the ride. Mega Zeph is very jarring and very fast. It features steep drops that provide good airtime, which in turn force the restraints to slam into your lap and belly. The ride is so much fun though, that it almost negates the pain it creates.
Before Mega Zeph, we hadn’t ridden any Gerstlauer trains before. We found that Mike really hates them while I don’t mind them so much. Instead of jackhammering one part of your body such as spanking your ass or back, these cars distribute the vibrations throughout your entire body. This makes them less debilitating for me than the back crunch that other trains provide. Apparently, these cars were also built for smaller people, the foot difference in height between us showed this since they didn’t give my legs any damage while Mike was continually complaining abut the beating his legs and knees were getting.
Mike: 4.25 out of 5
Comments: A truly terrifying wood coaster due to a very bumpy ride and restraints that give the rider the equivalent of a hard punch to the stomach during one element of the ride. This coaster seems to have a top 10 or top 20 layout, but is ruined by trains that hurt its’ potential.
Jester
Mike: 4.0 out of 5
Comments: Take anything and turn it backwards and it becomes good in my book. That’s absolutely the case with The Jester, a crappy sitdown multi-looper that is actually a pretty decent amount of fun due to being backwards.
Clarisse: N/A out of 5
Comments: I really hate old crappy multi-loopers. My hatred extends to most looping coasters with over the shoulder restraints. More specifically I hate over the shoulder restraints. I’m mildly height challenged, not so much that I can't ride coasters, but enough to almost guarantee that I will get headbanged. Getting headbanged hurts and makes me worry about brain damage. Running a coaster backwards doesn’t change that.
Batman the Ride
Mike: 4.75 out of 5
Comments: It’s a Batman ride – so it’s very good. The best ride in the park, in fact.
Clarisse: 4.63 out of 5
Comments: I will reiterate Mikes comment: It’s a Batman ride – so guaranteed to be very good. It’s also very forceful, which also guarantees that I will grey out.
Muskrat Scrambler
Clarisse: 3.7 out of 5
Comments: Wow, an unbraked mouse coaster! Is it possible? We’ve been on lots of mouse coasters so far; and I haven’t experienced this much fun on a mouse since Quassy. The Muskrat Scrambler whips you sweetly around turns. By sweetly I don’t mean gently but I also don’t mean painfully. One turn is pretty memorable. The turn is set in a spot on the track next to the top of the loading platform building. On the roof of the loading platform, there is a baseball cap graveyard from people who assumed this ride was mild enough to keep their hats on!
Mike: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: Whoohoo! An unbraked mouse! This mouse is about as much fun as a mouse can get, which is about 3.5 out of 5 fun in my book. Regardless, mouse fans need to check this guy out.
Addendum: The above sentence is no longer true for me. The mouse at Lakeside in Denver, Colorado is actually much, much better then any other mouse out there. It’s a legit thrill coaster, the Lakeside mouse is – so there is, in fact, a mouse out there that is better then the above average mouse coasters like the one here, at Quassy and Hershey.
Dizzy Izzy
Clarisse: 1.6 out of 5
Comments: After the rain this ride was the first we saw them testing. And we saw them testing and testing it for a long time. I said to Mike “I hope that’s not the ride time!” I was skeptical of riding, because it clearly looked like the kind of ride that makes me nervous, but it had just rained and we were the only ones on line waiting for it so I agreed.
Unfortunately, the test run time was the same as the ride time. In addition, the test run was so long, that the line filled up and by the time we rode all of the seats were filled. I really don’t like flat, hurler rides, especially when they’re full and go on forever. (except it was amusing then a 12 year old lost his sneaker in the ride). Dizzy Izzy swung back and forth like a pendulum, on the bottom is a circular ring of seats which face inward. The circular ring of seats also rotates, confusing riders as to where their position will be on the next rise and fall of the ride.
Mike: 1 out of 5
Comments: It's a Frisbee flat ride. It’s horrible. Not thrilling and boring. I’d think all Frisbee rides sucked because of this except I took some good advice and got on the Frisbee at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, so I know these types of rides COULD be good. This one is not.
Sonic Slam
Clarisse: 4.1 out of 5
Comments: Drop towers down are always more fun than up. You get more time to check out the view from on high & there’s nothing like your seat dropping away leaving you hanging for a millisecond.
Bayou Blaster
Clarisse: 3.8 out of 5
Comments: Just because I said that drop towers down are more fun than up, doesn’t mean that up is no fun. Its pretty rad to have your body feel the woosh up while your brain doesn’t quite comprehend, despite having just strapped yourself into the contraption. I also appreciate that is there is no warning before your body suddenly moves.
Zydeco Scream
Clarisse: 2.7 out of 5
Comments: This ride is a clone; a Vekoma Boomerang. Somewhere during month one of the trip I vowed never to go on one of these again because they hurt me by pinballing my head. They’re also over rated, some of them are actually smooth and fun but I didn’t want to risk pain & injury trying them all out. I haven’t been on one since the beginning of the trip & Mike wanted to ride so I reluctantly agreed to go on it. I’m nervous though cause I know the probability is high that I will experience some sort of pain on the ride. More nervousness sets in as the girl in front of me doesn’t want to go on, because she too is afraid it will hurt. Have I made a bad decision by riding? No…but it’s not a good decision either.
Jocco’s Mardi Gras Madness
Clarisse: 2.9 out of 5
Comments: This is an old ass shoot the beasties dark ride. I love this type of ride! The final score was 4200-6700 with Mike in the lead. I usually totally rock these games…I blame the gun. It had a wide-angle light to assist you in aiming your gun. I think this made it harder to aim than the laser pointer that we’ve encountered in other dark shoot-em rides. Apparently Mike disagrees with my opinion since he beat me this time where I usually beat him.
The animatronics in the ride respond to shots from the gun which is always fun. The animatronics themselves are old and dusty but classically cool. Some of the animatronics look like they should be in a museum.