Six Flags Over Georgia
Austell, Georgia – Saturday, June 10th, 2023
The various ineptitudes of the Six Flags chain can both giveth and taketh away. Mostly, if you’re an average guest, it taketh away.
Prior to departure I tried to reserve the preferred parking benefit on my high-level Six Flags membership. But the online portal wouldn’t work. I spent a total of three hours troubleshooting and then dealing with guest services, where the eventual solution was “the system isn’t working, so no reservations are required, just show your card and get preferred parking on a first-come first-served basis.” Okay, sounds good! But upon arrival, I’m asked for my date-specific reservation when I produce my pass. I explain the situation, but the only solution that’s offered is to park in the general lot and walk to guest services who can better explain the pre-booking policy through my thick skull so I can do it right next time. (Not the exact words, but the intent wasn’t far off.) A distinctly sour note to start the day, mitigated only somewhat by the fact that it was still early
in the morning and our spot in the general lot was only a minute or two further walk beyond the preferred section. Way too much fuss over too little benefit.
For a moment, things only seemed to get worse at the front gate, when my membership scanned in, but then our next one showed an error. Unsure why it was reading invalid, the soft-spoken young employee also offered the solution to speak to guest services… and waved us to a structure just inside the main gate near Georgia Scorcher. As we’re sauntering in that direction, we realize the credit card linked to that membership had been replaced earlier that year and never updated, meaning the dues hadn’t been paid for months. No need to wait in line at guest services to identify that issue! And, since we’re already on our own inside the park, we could simply deal with it much, much later.
It was a free admission loophole the size of a four-lane highway mountain tunnel; much easier to just go with the flow straight through than volunteer the extra work to go around.
This was only my second visit to the second original Six Flags theme park, after my first visit twenty years earlier. Things had changed, but not as much as expected for a two decade gap. There were only four new coasters for me (plus one removal), which includes a kiddie coaster and a wood-to-steel conversion. Atlanta is booming as a metro area, but Six Flags management seemed not to have noticed the opportunity. Which might have some benefit, as the park still retains elements from its original state history theme park identity that might have long ago been ripped out by more aggressive planning
found at a place like Great Adventure. But it also left it with a muddled identity and a confusing infrastructure, as well as an adequate B+ collection of rides that includes a mix of below-average examples of good ride types (Twisted Cyclone, Riddler Mindbender) above-average installations of bad ride types (Georgia Scorcher, Blue Hawk), average versions of middling ride types (Dare Devil Dive, Batman & Superman), and one bona-fide winner (Goliath). As I write this two years after my visit, there’s strong indication that new management sees the potential in this park and is aiming to grow it while cleaning up the identity crises and returning the park to its roots. Hopefully it won’t take me another twenty years to check in on their progress.
Twisted Cyclone
Twenty years ago, the Georgia Cyclone was my favorite attraction at Six Flags Over Georgia. Riding in the back row, the violent combination of lateral and negative G-force whip over the drop-offs of each fan curve gave this Cyclone-clone real teeth that I still distinctly remember to this day. I can’t speak to the state of the wood track in 2017 and thus whether or not the Twisted Cyclone RMC Ibox renovation in 2018 was a “much needed” change. But in a landscape increasingly overpopulated with RMC Ibox creations (including one of the best in the same metro region), Twisted Cyclone was not very memorable, in which case I must cast my vote in preference of my memories of the original.
Twisted Cyclone actually starts out pretty good. The “hurricane watch party” story (with radio DJ) in the queue is fun, the hot rod trains look pretty cool, and the first set of elements are actually quite good despite the small size. The sharp first drop includes a slight twist with a nice headchopper effect; I love the symmetry and weightless rotation of the double rollover on the first elevated curve; and the 90 degree outward floater hill provides great visuals both on and off ride. It’s a clever RMC reinterpretation
of the classic Coney Island Cyclone opening act, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.
But after that point, it loses the connection to the Cyclone identity and becomes a pretty middling collection of the most basic RMC tropes: jabbing airtime peaks, lateral-forceless over-banked curves, and a random zero-G roll because that’s the easiest inversion to place atop an existing wooden support superstructure. The traditional Cyclone layout, which the Georgia Cyclone also did quite well, is able to build tension through a pattern of hold and attack in the first half, before sprinting breathlessly through the final act. Not only do these RMC elements all feel divorced from one another in any sense of flow or story, but it had to shorten the layout by nearly 500 feet, leaving an abruptly truncated ending. An RMCified Cyclone could have been outstanding, but unfortunately this one only gets part way there before fudging the rest of the assignment. I feel no compunction about rating Twisted Cyclone the worst of the Ibox conversions… yet even still, I must give it credit as one of the better rides in the park.
Acrophobia
I normally don’t care much for drop towers, but I remembered Acrophobia’s unique floorless tilting variation made an impression on me twenty years ago and I was curious if it still held up. Despite the name,1 Acrophobia is not particularly tall as far as Intamin drop towers go, but the precariousness of the seating (standing?) arrangement is effective, and if anything the shorter stature gives the impression that there’s not enough dropping distance to safely and smoothly land. Acrophobia had no wait, so I had no regrets or disappointments in renewing my acquaintance with it.
Six Flags Railroad
One of the few remaining opening day rides from 1967, this train shows its age through its quirkiness. Apologies for any potential offense, but this is quite literally the short bus of theme park train rides, with only two passenger cars trailing its steam engine. The scenic ride is also very slow as it navigates the windy, uneven loop route through the middle of the park with awkward backstage views of almost everything. It makes up for it with a Jungle Cruise style live narration as the ride op tries to hype everyone on board for the other attractions in the park, but mostly build hype for the train. I was ready to groan all the way through, but the energy of the host and buy-in from the audience honestly made the overall experience pretty endearing, and we had positive things to say about it as we completed our loop tour of the park.
Also boosting our mood: the free VIP members lounge next door while we waited for the train. Only one of us qualified for the lounge, but the receptionist saw no issue with letting our full party enjoy the air conditioning, lounge seating with phone chargers, and free soft drinks and snacks. (Another example of when Six Flags’ lax attitude unexpectedly giveths.) The snacks proved sufficient to substitute paying for the usual Six Flags meal in the park, and the cooled lounging area is simply an amenity that should be available to everyone in any modern theme park, not just VIP passholders or as upcharges. More parks are introducing autism-safe sensory rooms that also provide similar benefits, but universally accessible design would recognize that these kinds of spaces can benefit everyone, especially as the summers grow hotter and parks more overstuffed with overstimulating rides than in years past.
Dahlonega Mine Train
Another original 1967 attraction, also making the Dahlonega the second oldest mine train coaster ever built, just one year after its sibling at the Over Texas park. The formula still had a ways to be perfected: while most later mine trains evoke a feeling of setting out on an expedition across an unknown wilderness, the Dahlonega Mine Train’s short frequent lifts and meandering layout across a lightly forested hillside plot is more evocative of riding a toy train around a childhood backyard. Which is still quite a lot of fun, especially with its random bunny hops, improvised banking techniques, and an underground finale that gives the first almost-semblance of thrill during the entire layout.
Joker Funhouse Coaster
What a weird kid’s coaster. This custom Chance Big Dipper features a terrain layout mostly by virtue of the large elevated deck built for the kid’s area that it navigates over, under, and around. It begins with a lengthy pre-lift around a back of house area, before the lift feeds into a main layout that includes only three drops, a low number even by kid’s coaster standards. Yet it’s a surprisingly powerful layout for the diminutive ride vehicle size, hitting a top speed faster than the Dahlonega Mine Train as it circles down the hillside and under the walkways a pretty significant distance below the station grade, then using all of its energy to just barely make it back up into the loading platform. I might have tried it a second time if the throughput wasn’t so poor.
Justice League: Battle for Metropolis
When Six Flags commissioned Sally Rides to get them back into the dark ride game, they should be commended for their ambition to tell a coherent superhero story across a multifaceted dark ride. The story is a bit of a grab bag of characters from across the DC Universe, but the odd couple pairing of Lex Luthor and Joker is acknowledged and played for laughs, the interactive element meshes reasonably well with the story while avoiding blinking red lights, and the scenes have enough variety between 3D and practical effects to keep it consistently engaging. Of course, this variety and ambition also represents one of its fatal flaws, which is that maintaining show quality is not a prerequisite for Six Flags’ ability to physically open these rides each day. Expect numerous effects missing or miscalibrated on any given ride through, although as I recall Georgia’s version fared better in this regard than many of its compatriots. Bonus points for sharing a plaza with Superman: Ultimate Flight, the only park in the chain to have a Metropolis section with both Justice League and Superman attractions.
Superman: Ultimate Flight
I didn’t ride it this visit. I had already ridden it the year after its debut as the first B&M Flying Coaster in North America, and was mildly interested to revisit it to compare the difference to the later models at Great Adventure and Great America, with its dual loading platform, shorter trains, and semi-terrain coaster setting. But as we walked by, the reality set in that it was hot, it’s not a comfortable ride, and even with Flash Pass there was going to be a bit of a wait, so it felt easier to keep on moving. Superman as a flying coaster should be one of the most obvious superhero-themed attractions imaginable, and it’s too bad it hasn’t been done to a higher standard of excellence than this attraction, yet.
Great American Scream Machine
As wooden coasters have gotten more dynamic and daring, they have also gotten uglier. Despite its name, the Great American Scream Machine is not a particularly thrilling coaster, but the 1973 John Allen creation is certainly Six Flags Over Georgia’s most attractive coaster to look at, its elegant whitewashed structure reflecting against the lake.2 I had remembered there being a decent amount of airtime on my last visit. While recent retracking efforts have kept the Scream Machine relatively smooth, it did seem more sluggish around the course, with faint whispers of airtime that never quite delivers. The pacing is still quite enjoyable, progressing from big drops and high turns to a faster-paced, bunny hop focused ride. We liked it enough to go around and ride it twice back-to-back, which is more than can be said for most other coasters on this side of the park.
Blue Hawk
One thing that irked me in RollerCoaster Tycoon was when players would take a predesigned track and simply plop it over an open body of water. It looked bad and wasn’t realistic. Well, Blue Hawk (formerly Ninja) has been standing over its lagoon since 1992 to offer an example of just how realistic the practice actually was. While it’s one of the park’s least loved coasters, the compact Vekoma multilooping coaster was quite advanced at the time of its manufacture in 1989, showing a much higher CAD sophistication than anything Arrow Dynamics was producing in the same era.
Some refurbishments, paint, new trains and a new identity since 2016 have also helped give it a newfound respect among park goers. What seemed like it could have been an ideal candidate for the old ride rotation program (or the scrap heap) has earned the longevity to become the fourth oldest coaster to remain at the park. Those butterfly and sidewinder inversions are still pretty exciting all these years later, as are the numerous headchoppers as it weaves through its own layout in a seemingly too-small footprint. Six Flags Over Georgia might not have the best coasters in the South, but if this is perhaps the worst of its collection, they’re doing better than a lot of parks.
Monster Mansion
…Was closed for mechanical problems. Boo!
I had been so looking forward to what is reportedly the best dark ride in the entire Six Flags chain, especially as it was in the middle of a major refurbishment and reported to be in excellent condition. This was easily the biggest spite of the entire Southeast trip, and especially annoying because it had been open for much of the morning while I was elsewhere in the park, but then it shut down and never reopened. When you have a lot of attractions to get to it can be hard to prioritize, and I never figured a mill chute dark ride operating since the 1960s would be one susceptible to major mechanical gremlins that I should try to do early.
Unfortunately I don’t have anything to say about the Monster Mansion here, so I’ll just note that an earlier incarnation was actually the first-ever ride to be inspired by Disney’s Song of the South featuring the adventures of an anthropomorphic rabbit, fox, and bear… but created by Sid and Marty Krofft in the style of Hanna-Barbera and Rankin-Bass cartoons. (Watch Defunctland for more.) Six Flags at least had the good sense to retheme their version of the ride all the way back in 1981.
Goliath
When it was announced for 2006, the generic name (one of two Goliaths to debut that year) and diminutive height3 made it feel like Six Flags was adding only the minimum viable product necessary to give their Georgia property its long awaited flagship coaster. Thus I was somewhat surprised when the reviews came in that not only was Six Flags Over Georgia’s Goliath an almost universally well-regarded ride, it was commonly cited as one of the best B&M Hypercoasters, period.
Having finally gotten to try it myself, I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s still much better than the stats would indicate. The difference is in its sharper, borderline-ejector airtime, which went further than the circa-2006 standards for B&M Hypercoasters of light floater (Apollo’s Chariot, Nitro, Silver Star) or no airtime
(Raging Bull, minus back row on the first drop). Finally, the open recliner seating and clamshell restraints were being put to their full use!
Unfortunately Goliath had developed a pronounced rattle by the time of my visit that limited its enjoyability and, I suspect, ability to sustain its full speed. I’ve had hot days on Nitro that produced far more aggressive forces than this, and in the intervening years Mako has largely stolen the crown for below-average sized B&M Hyper with an above-average dynamic force profile. That said, larger coasters generally need to be more cautious with how much and how long they sustain forces, which can be to the benefit of slightly smaller coasters to get a little bolder with their dynamic range, something Goliath seems to have taken advantage of.
The layout quality is a bit of a mixed bag. The coaster fits the park rather poorly, with most of the valleys pulling up some 20 to 30 feet above ground level due to the placement of roads, pathways, or support buildings beneath them, and offers few good viewing angles from within the guest area boundaries despite the station being in the middle of the park. But there’s a lot to like about the layout too, including the aforementioned sharp pitches to nearly every hill producing a pleasing variety of negative-G sensations depending on your placement near the front or back of the 9-car trains. The downhill spiral helix is one of the better turnaround maneuvers on a hypercoaster, the sustained force and increasing speed offering a simple if satisfyingly dizzy logic. And the finale sequence of small airtime hops, eventually cascading through a thicket of trees to surprise us with a tight curve and airtime pop combo into the brakes, keeps the ride interesting all the way up to its very last moments. Maybe with a good refurbishment (and new color scheme), I can return to more fully appreciate everything this ride has to offer. In the meantime, Goliath will have to settle for still being the best coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, if not quite any longer the best in the metro Atlanta area.
Georgia Scorcher
The seven B&M Stand-Up Coasters fit into one of three classes: the original three compact two-inversion stand-up coasters at Carowinds and both Great Americas; the subsequent three mega-stand-ups at Cedar Point, Kentucky Kingdom, and Magic Mountain that each took the same formula and one-upped the previous in size and inversion count; and finally, the lonely Georgia Scorcher, which combined the modest size of the original class with the most advanced engineering quality of the mega-models, especially the Riddler’s relatively comfortable ride (okay, very relatively). The Scorcher pointed the way toward a friendlier, more modern and sustainable stand-up coaster experience that could have spread around the world in the new millennium. But it was far too little, too late, becoming the last of a much maligned, now nearly extinct ride model.4
The layout avoids the parade of similarly-paced inversions that typify most B&M looping coasters of that era, even the other mega stand-up coasters, in favor of a more varied twister layout with a number of tight twists and highly-banked curves that flow surprisingly well especially considering the rider’s higher center of gravity; my favorite part is a sideways near-airtime hill that then seamlessly twists back into the corkscrew inversion.
Overall, the coaster is a little too small, and the stand-up restraints (as always) a little too awkward, for the Georgia Scorcher to rank anywhere close among the greats. But with luck, it will be preserved as a stand-up experience for decades to come as a reminder of what the concept was capable of under the best of circumstances.
Dare Devil Dive
Before the RMC Raptors were advertised as low-cost, low-capacity, high-thrill coasters perfect for small parks only to be bought mostly by big chain parks looking to cut costs, there was the time Six Flags Over Georgia bought a 6-seater Gerstlauer Eurofighter. A variant of the Anubis layout from Belgium’s Plopsaland, Dare Devil Dive traded the launch and tophat for a vertical lift to slightly reduce the already low theoretical capacity. They then further halve that theoretical number through operating procedures that rarely see more than one car out on the track at a time. We actually had decent luck with getting to ride it twice in a day, first by getting there as early as possible at opening and second by using our Flash Pass’s limited one-time access later in the afternoon, where a 20 minute wait past the merge point was still in order.
Gerstlaurer coasters usually don’t fare very well with over-the-shoulder harnesses so I didn’t have very high hopes for Dare Devil Dive, yet it exceeded my expectations by offering a mostly smooth ride. There’s some funky shaping to the dive loops and overbanked curves, and the heartline roll serves as an adequate finale. It’s still not very good; comparing a video of Anubis, it’s clear the gravity-driven Dare Devil Dive doesn’t have anywhere near as much power to sustain its speed through the layout, resulting in lots of hangtime and near-stall around the high points that are sometimes fun, but mostly awkward. This would have been a decent ride at a much smaller park, but in Atlanta those parks are too preoccupied with building top ten megacoasters so it’s the legacy property in the largest regional theme park chain that gets it instead.
Batman: The Ride
Same as the others: a tightly paced, intense layout that’s over before you know it. Great to have at your home Six Flags park and worthy of one courtesy ride when visiting a Six Flags further afield.
The most notable thing I have to say about this version is the color scheme. In my 90s-kid impression, Batman is always supposed to be an all-black coaster with a few yellow accents on the trains, reinforced by the strict branding guidelines of possibly the world’s most lucrative single superhero property. Yet that hasn’t been true for any of the models for over a decade (except the mirror-universe version at Six Flags St. Louis), which have experimented with various combinations of shades of yellow, blue, or grey. Over Georgia’s is perhaps the most unusual, a royal blue track spine with steely navy blue columns. To me this reads as the color scheme for a coaster named something like the Great White, or Top Gun, or maybe Afterburn, but I guess it works as a Batman color palette too. I am curious who is responsible for selecting the Batman colors, and why neither Six Flags nor Warner Bros. has decreed a uniform standard across all installations.
The Riddler Mindbender
I always had it in my head that Over Georgia’s Mindbender was one of, if not the best coaster ever made by Anton Schwarzkopf. I had few memories from my one previous ride twenty years earlier, but a comparative analysis made sense to reason that Mindbender was something special. I’d rate Magic Mountain’s Revolution and Over Texas’s Shock Wave within the top tier of coasters at their respective parks, 9/10 if not 10/10 quality coasters to this day. And Mindbender seemed to take the best elements of each and even improve on them. Like the Revolution, it has a wooded hillside setting that allows it to maintain speed and hide surprises to the very end. And like its 1978-built sister coaster Shock Wave, it features steeper drops and more sharply pitched turns, and even saves one of its two vertical loops as a climax near the end of the layout instead of packing them together at the beginning.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the Riddler Mindbender is still an absolute classic and one of the best rides at Six Flags Over Georgia. Yet as I compare it to the standard set by its 1970s-era looping Schwarzkopf peers, I find a different point of comparison: Hersheypark’s Sooperdooperlooper, the fun if lightweight classic that’s basically a mine train coaster with a loop. Compared to the powerful Shock Wave, the Mindbender just feels a little sluggish around its course, never coming close to the volley of positive and negative forces that the Texas sibling subjects its riders to. And it also lacks the elegant, purposeful pacing of the Revolution, with the Mindbender’s most exciting moments (the two inversions and spiraling downward helix) happening not with anticipatory drama but rather some uneventful dead space in between. Even the terrain setting is smaller and more sparsely landscaped than I realized, with the parking lot never far from view. Maybe the 2021 refurbishment that added new, shorter trains from B&M didn’t do the Mindbender the same favors as its California cousin’s 2016 update,5 but I also think a lot of it comes down to Anton’s design needing a little more refinement.
I should also warn that I didn’t get the best experience with the Riddler Mindbender on this particular day, which may have also colored my (limited) impressions. After two rides in the morning, I had intended to save the rest of my time with the Mindbender for the very end of the operating day. The Saturday schedule was the only day of the week open late enough for about a half hour of dusk/near-night riding, and I couldn’t think of any ride I’d rather focus on than the Mindbender.
The queue had mostly emptied by the time we arrived so it seemed like a good plan. But as we dispatched for our first lap, our train came to a halt on the stretch of transfer track before the lift hill. The ride operator, who was leaning over the control panel in a mock nap at the end of the day, announced she had accidentally pressed the E-stop button. Oops! Ha ha! An easy reset was not possible, so maintenance had to be called to perform an evacuation. While it was perhaps of moderate nerd interest to walk the short length of transfer track, the lengthy procedure not only robbed us of the opportunity to get more rides on the Riddler Mindbender, but from any night rides at all, stepping off to freedom just minutes after everything had closed.
Once again, the ineptitudes of Six Flags usually manage to taketh away.
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