Last friday, SFL and I went to The Great Escape, a Six Flags amusement park about an hour north of Albany.
I’d been wanting to visit this place ever since we moved to Albany. In that time it had changed from an independent park to a Six Flags park, and when Six Flags had gone into bankruptcy protection there were mutterings of it closing. All I cared about was the fact it had rollercoasters and was close to home, and the regret I would have felt had it closed without me ever checking it out.
I’ll spare you the suspense: The Great Escape is ‘not very good’ 🙂
But a bad destination can be fun when visited with a good friend, and even though this is far from the best park in the world we certainly had a good day!
The first two rides we went on were the two coasters (of 4 running) closest to the entrance. On the left is the ‘Canyon Blaster’ and on the right is ‘Steamin Demon’. There was some trepidation from my companion before riding the first one, which I kept dismissing as a ‘baby ride’ (and saying “as a physicist… you shouldn’t be scared!”). But even though it had no real drops, the Canyon Blaster banks more than it appears to on the big downward spiral so it had some measure of thrill. The Steamin Demon on the other hand was a very vanilla three inversion ride that was extremely short (under 30 seconds). An instantly forgettable coaster.
Incidentally the pictures above illustrate another big problem the park has: very poor landscaping. Not only are the trees and flowers mostly random and ugly (and much of the greenery in the park looks like weeds…) but the layout of the rides is uninspired. The best theme parks do such things as put their coasters over the walkways so even those not riding them can see them. At Great Escape they hide them behind fences or put them at dead ends.
The park opened aeons ago as a homemade ‘fairy tale’ park. Some elements remain, such as the above sculpture of the Three Little Kitties and a gondola ride. We rode that gondola. It starts nowhere, goes forever, and then turns around and heads back. It is insufferably slow and terminally boring: 21 minutes and 8 seconds of soporiphia. When you visit The Great Escape, skip this ‘ride’.
The above left photo shows the most interesting ride at the park: Alpine Bobsled (inspired name isn’t it?). It is a coaster of sorts, but lacking a track. Instead the four-person car free-rolls on wheels through a fake bobsled track, only being railed through the very tight corners. It was thrilling and even a little scary since it was easy to imagine it tipping on the banked turns. But ultimately it lacked the true thrill of a coaster since the walls were so high you didn’t know how high you were off the ground.
Now, now we get to the good stuff. The (terrible, again I blame landscaping) photo on the top right shows The Comet. This hybrid (wooden track on steel framework) coaster was built in 1948 in a park in Ontario and moved to The Great Escape in 1993. It is known as one of (if not the) best wooden coasters in America and after riding it I’m inclined to agree. The ride is very long, very smooth and has an incredible amount of ‘air time’ (the illusion of weightlessness) on the hills. There are three or four great drops as well, and many very fast and tight turns. In fact the only negative I have is the deceleration at the end is brain-squeezingly rough, but that wasn’t enough to stop us riding it twice.
It’s worth pointing out that although SFL was a bit hesitant about riding the coasters at the start of our trip, by the end she was hopping onto The Comet for a second run like a professional 🙂
The conventional rides only ate up about 2 hours of our day. The rest were spent in Splashwater Kingdom, the waterpark inside the main park. This was clearly the big draw, for it was packed to the gills with people enjoying the water rides on a very hot day. We rode seven different innertube rides and splashed around in the wave pool (more like a ‘ripple pool’) for a good few hours, managing to each get nice sunburns. Since the camera was stashed in a locker, I did not take a single photo of this part of the park!
Speaking of the locker, another notable aspect of Great Escape was the extreme price gouging going on. Here’s a shot of our lunch. As you look at it, please estimate the cost:
< How much?
If you guessed twenty five dollars, then give yourself a prize! It is perhaps indicative of the ludicrous prices that $13 for the (free refillable) cup seemed like a good deal at the time. The locker at the waterpark cost us a whopping $11 as well. And even snack items – such as fried dough or popcorn – was $9 and up. Outrageous!
With more than half the rides designed (and scaled) for children it is clear that Great Escape thrives on family business. But if you are looking for thrills this is not the place. Even so, we had fun, especially because the waterpark is actually very good.
So all things considered, a good day was had by all 🙂
But now I’ve been, will I ever return to The Great Escape? I doubt it.
