"I pledge allegiance to the six flags of Six Flags, and to the parks for where they stand, one nation under constant scrutiny, indefensible, with no liberty and justice for all." (Pledge of Six Flags Allegiance 1961)
The park kindly let us ride Raging Bull for the first hour, well for the first 40 minutes as it took 20 to walk to it.
Check that ride out it, it looks superb; twisted steel everywhere.
The ride was superb, OK so it didn't have massive airtime or anything but it had just started running and would warm up as the day went on.
With the public quickly pouring into the park and running to Raging Bull we made our way back across the park to the new ride for this year. Can you guess what that was? No, Not the Condor.
No, not Superman
Not not Henry the Mild Mannered Janitor
It was The Dark Knight Coaster which loosely ties in with the new rather good Batman movie but unlike the movie this was shit. A really really bad ride. It's just a mouse coaster that you'd find at fairgrounds but indoors and with a few lighting effects.
Oh, the irony! They've built something that makes the park rubbish
Even the cars are rubbish. It's supposed to be a metro train.
Park mascots suffer in the heat.The park played this tune.
Superman is next to Batman and was going to be our next ride but the queue was a bit too long. Being next to the entrance it had gained the biggest queue. It was also obvious that given the number of people already in the park within half-an-hour of it opening that this was going to be a very very busy day. busy admittedly but enough to prompt us to go and invest in a fast pass.
The first time I'd ever done this but it became superbly useful. We went for the gold one which meant the rides would be a walk-on and we could spend a little bit of time queuing for the front. It's quite a nifty system and would prove to be a great time saver.
Superman is a Flying coaster and a really good ride except for one bit.
The pretzel loop in the background puts a lot of forces on the body and it feels like your chest is being crushed. I don't find that bit comfortable at all, but the rest of the ride is great and having ridden this one I'd now ridden all three of this ride.
This is Vertical Velocity, which those who are into abbreviations call V2. Rather disappointingly it's not the sequel to the 80s flick that featured lizard people taking over the world, but its still a great ride.
The Frenchies seem a little apprehensive with the ride having not ridden one before. I've been on a few so knew what to expect.
Its all about the punchy launch. When queuing its great to watch people's heads slam back when they're not quite ready. So there's my tip for this ride, keep your head back.
"What just happened?"The park was playing this track.
This version of V2 has the straight spike on one side and the twisted on the other. I wonder if they'd ever be able to close the loop?
Batman is another umm Batman coaster, this one is particularly famous for being the first one, which I quite liked because it had Jack Nicholson in it, much better than the Clooney farce that came later.
The drop out of the lift hill.
The teardrop loop.
The ride
Can you proceed through if your name isn't "doc"?
Ragin' Cajun is the park's mouse coaster.
Their queue line is sponsored by Geico, an insurance company. Perhaps these guys should be sponsoring the head-banging boomerangs instead of Heinz Ketchup. They'd easily get more trade.
Pretty standard layout but definitely not a standard ride experience. We were spun quite a lot on this ride, and came off a little dizzy. Much better than the Tony Hawk's rides but still not a Han Katten beater.
After the spin ride it was time for lunch. It was average.
I should have gone for one of these lardy monstrosities instead. I don't mean the woman.
This is Camp Cartoon the kiddy bit of the park.
Not to be confused with Snagglepuss, a camp cartoon character
That kid will grow into that T-shirt one day.
Each ride in this part of the park has its own Hannah Barbera theming. No new Shmoo ride though...
There is a kiddy coaster themed around the Jetsons.
It's quite unique as has invisible trains.
Not really..
As well as having the first Batman coaster, the park also has the first B&M stand-up coaster, which was actually their first ever ride.
and boy did it show.
It was way rougher than I've ever experienced on these types of rides and arguably one of the worst steel coaster rides I've ever done.
In the background yet another ride, this park has plenty! and in the foreground.....ah forget it! Too easy!!
The new attraction for this year is Wiggle's World, aimed at the very small kids. I have no idea what Wiggles is but I'd have liked it to have had something to do with the guy from the original Electric Boogaloos
That is American Eagle a racing wooden coaster that takes up the full length of the rear of the park. It wasn't racing today though, the blue train appeared to be down.
Why are they telling us what a bin, sorry "Trash receptacle" looks like? Is it in case we mistake it for a table?
This ride is sponsored by American DIY chain Home Depot. They give us lots of pointless facts like how many nails it takes to hold the structure together, or how many cans of paint it takes to repaint it. It's just a shame they can't tell us how many spare parts it takes to fix the blue train.
Having said that the ride was quite fun in a "running on 50p shaped wheels" kind of why. The outbound section caught us unawares with the excessive vibrations. Fortunately the return was smoother but by that point our defence systems had kicked in and we were laughing hysterically.
Yes, they were as bad as they looked.
This is DEMON, the park's Arrow coaster. For those that don't know Arrow gets its name from the noises often heard coming from their rides. Argh...Ow!
Whoever it was that said American's lack a sense of sarcasm, was clearly wrong.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime ride, as in I only want to ride it once.
Looks alright though, but don't be fooled.
The obligatory "through the corkscrew" shot.
This is NOMED, which is the park's way of telling you there is no medication to help you with your concussion.
We weren't sure we would get to ride Whizzer as it opened very late in the day. Good news for us with the fast pass thing as we were notified when it eventually opened up.It's not easy to photo though as it is hidden in the trees.
The final coaster of the day was Viper a quite good wooden coaster themed around a rogue snake.
I think these two liked it or they're relieved that they survived. It's hard to tell.
Actually I quite liked it.
The queue line to Viper is also the best place to get photos of Raging Bull.
You can't fault the throughput on this ride :D
This stand was pretty popular with the teenage kids as you could win a real electric guitar, and rather weirdly quite a few people were winning.
Stewie looks like he'd rather be elsewhere.
This is The Shocker, an electric chair simulator. It has nothing to do with this
Geeks with an aversion for natural sunlight could be entertained here.
Having gone around the park once we decided to spend the rest of the day milking our fast pass thing as much as possible, which meant a lot more queue-jumping goes on the more popular rides such as V2.
and investing our collection of quarters on the Rapid's water cannons turning pleasant ride experiences from this.
to this
this
and this. After soaking one boat pretty heavily and being shouted out with "I'm gonna 
We did of course have more goes on Superman but not Dark Knight.
Girls getting wild with Bugs, and what is that other character supposed to be?The park was playing this tune.
In a back corner of the park we found this Shuttle with no real explanation as to why. This part of the park was desolate, perhaps it was closed for this part of the season. However there was an observation platform that offered a nice view of the park.
The park is large, a bit concretey, and has an awful taste in park music (I was feeling quite "suicidal suicidal" by the end of the day). But it has a decent mix of rides and I would consider venturing out there the next time I'm in Chicago.
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