Gallivanting Around the Great Lakes - Part 3: Six Flags Darien Lake

Edited: August 11, 2025, 8:50 AM

When putting together the itinerary for this trip, everything was built around the Alpen Fury media event, which was not finalized until less than 2 weeks prior. A trip to Toronto was likely going to be the primary destination for our summer vacation, not only because of Alpen Fury, but also to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame given that Alex Ovechkin had broken Wayne Gretzky’s all time goal scoring record this past season. We were also looking at going further north to Ottawa and beyond to Montreal and Quebec, which would include a visit to LaRonde. However, as the potential opening of Alpen Fury pushed later into the summer, and our window to take a summer vacation shrunk, driving beyond Toronto was not practical if we were going to get back home in a week’s time and still have time to explore a region of the country we had never visited before. Instead, we decided to do a much smaller loop around Lake Erie, which would include stops at Darien Lake and Cedar Point, given that both TT2 and Siren’s Curse were both consistently operating.

This would be our first ever visit to Six Flags Darien Lake, but given the park’s lineup, we felt confident that we could experience all of the top attractions as a 3-4 hour pit stop on our drive between Toronto and Sandusky. Unlike most other theme parks we’ve been to around the country that are located directly off major highways or interstates, Six Flags Darien Lake is over 2 miles south of I-90. We didn’t experience a lot of traffic getting into the park after crossing the border at Niagara Falls early on a Sunday morning, but I could envision backups along the single-lane roads leading to this park. In addition to the theme park and waterpark, Darien Lake has an expansive campground and a large amphitheater adjacent to the theme park that hosts major musical acts over the summer. The theme park also has its own amphitheater inside the park for smaller performances and festivals that can be included with theme park admission or for campground guests.

The overall layout of this park is very strange with a u-shaped design around a central lake with 2 major dead ends that force guests to technically leave the park and reenter to get from 1 side to the other. The reason for this is because the area that connects the 2 dead ends contains the restaurant, camp store, and arcade for the campground, so guests technically have to leave the park to walk through this area and go back through security to get back into the theme park. It’s probably nice for campground guests, who can easily enter the park through 2 different back doors, but for guests that enter through the front of the park, it’s a strange setup.

Another interesting quirk about Six Flags Darien Lake is that the park’s beverage contract is with Pepsi, so the park is not listed on the chain’s all-season drink cup since the cup has Coke branding. However, Six Flags all-season cups still work at Darien Lake, and the park sells the same all-season cups (with Coke branding) sold at other legacy SF parks in the chain. On the day we visited, it looked like a majority of the guests in the park were spending the day in the adjacent waterpark, which is accessed from inside of the theme park. We just wanted to experience all the rides in the theme park, but the waterpark did appear to have a decent collection of slides including a pair of trap door slides, large raft slide, racing mat slides, and a tornado slide, among others.

Six Flags Darien Lake is one of the smaller parks in the chain, and visiting this park was frankly depressing knowing that the chain was selling Six Flags America, which is located in a larger market and has what I would consider a superior attraction lineup. If the rationale for keeping SFDL open while closing SFA is because of the proximity of other SF-owned parks, it took us @2 hours to drive from Toronto to this park (though across an international border), which is about how long it takes to drive between SFA and KD without traffic. SFDL has a handful of unique attractions but is mostly comprised of clones of rides you can experience elsewhere. The coaster that most attracted my interest was Tantrum, a small Gerstautler Eurofighter that features a 97-degree drop and 3 inversions. It’s a good thing we headed to this coaster just after we arrived, which was a few minutes after the park officially opened for the day, because they were operating this coaster with just a single train (with a maximum of 8 guests per cycle) and an extremely slow loading process. We managed to get on one of the first trains of the day, and by the time we got off, there were 30 or so people in the line, which represented a 15-20 minute wait. You really feel the beyond vertical drop on Tantrum, but aside from that, the coaster is pretty forgettable and falls way short of other similar coasters that have superior theming like Mystery Mine, Saw, and even Spongebob Squareparnts Rock Bottom Plunge. I’d say even Dare Devil Dive at SFoG is better than Tantrum, because at least that coaster operates with at least 3 trains and has some minimal theming along the course.

SFDL has a custom Arrow looper, Viper, which was also running just a single train, but since that train can hold up to 28 passengers per cycle, we only waited a few moments to ride. Viper is not the roughest Arrow Looper I’ve been on, but it’s also not the smoothest. The coaster has a custom layout with a vertical loop followed by a batwing (double inversion) before the MCBR with a double corkscrew and enclosed helix to finish the course. My expectations were low before riding this, and I would guess that it met those expectations with the enclosed helix being the highlight of the ride. Given that so many Arrow coasters from the 80’s are being removed, I would expect that this coaster is getting close to the end of its run.

The other unique coaster at SFDL is Predator, which is a Dinn woodie that opened in 1990 with PTC trains. The coaster has a twister-style layout, but what makes this coaster truly unique is that it has been recently retrofitted with GCI’s Titan Track. While most Dinn coasters have either been removed because of their notoriously rough rides (Raging Wolf Bobs (Geauga Lake), Hercules (Dorney Park), Psyclone (SFMM)), many have been converted by RMC to hybrid coasters like Texas Giant to New Texas Giant, Georgia Cyclone to Twisted Cyclone, and Mean Streak to Steel Vengeance. Instead of being converted by RMC, Predator’s rough wooden track has been replaced with steel Titan Track, which seamlessly meshes with the original track and supports. About half of the coaster’s track has been replaced, and it’s instantly noticeable on the ride. I had actually forgotten that this coaster had been refurbished when we boarded, and the first turn before going up the lift, which is still composed of original wooden track, was so rough that I was preparing for the worst. However, at the bottom of the first hill, the track transitions to Titan Track, and the change in ride quality is profound. The course transitions between original wood track and Titan Track with wooden sections remaining where the train is moving slower and on straighter sections. The difference between the tracks is like night and day as the Titan Track is like riding on glass and is strategically installed on parts of the course that are typically the roughest parts of a wooden coaster along high speed turns and larger hills. While I wouldn’t place Predator ahead of other top wooden coasters, the Titan Track makes places this solidly in the middle tier of woodies I’ve ridden. If Kings Island wants a solution to the constant issues with Beast without doing an RMC conversion, Titan Track might be the way to go.

The other coasters and attractions we rode at SFDL were all clones with Ride of Steel being the biggest and a mirror clone of Superman: Ride of Steel at SFA. It was interesting making a left-hand turn after the first drop here instead of making the sweeping right hand turn at my home park. Also, having a large portion of the course over water was different, but the single train operation and complete stripping of DC theming from SFDL’s version of this coaster would place my home park’s clone a bit higher in my rankings. Mind Eraser was not operating during our visit, but when it last operated, it was with the original trains (not sure if they’re planning to install the next generation trains here). We did ride Boomerang, which, as you would guess, is a Vekoma boomerang. The coaster is located at one of the park’s dead ends and was actually running pretty good even though it still has the original train (not the next gen version with the vest-style restraints). Moto Coaster is located on the other dead end and was down when we initially walked by on our first loop of the park. We had ridden a clone of this coaster a few years ago at Luna Park (Steeplechase), but when it looked like maintenance might be finished completing repairs to the launch track, we lingered nearby to see if the coaster would finally open for the day. Eventually it did open, but because others were already lining up, we did have to wait almost 15 minutes to ride with single-train operation. Moto Coaster is a pure novelty coaster that places riders in a position that is duplicated by far superior coasters like Tron and Hagrid’s. The launch is fun, but the rest of the course is just a series of turns and humps over a concrete slab.

Beyond the coaster, SFDL has a handful of flat rides including a Sky Screamer, Larson Loop (Rolling Thunder), and S&S Power Tower (Blast Off) as well as a lengthy antique car ride. However, my overall impression of this park is that it’s not any better than SFA, which is closing forever at the end of the year. While I’m sure the land value for SFA is exponentially greater than SFDL, it’s disappointing that the chain is keeping this park open with its vastly inferior attraction lineup while closing SFA. I guess the one redeeming quality of SFDL is the proof of concept for the Titan Track renovation on Predator. We ultimately spent less than 4 hours at this park and were able to ride every coaster and major attraction despite slow, single train operations. I don’t wish for any theme park to close, but I wouldn’t be surprised if SFDL is next on the chopping block, so in that respect, it was good that we took a slight detour to spend a few hours here.

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