Six Flags Great Escape
Queensbury, New York
This amusement park was founded by Charles Wood in 1954. It was based on Mother Goose fairy tales and was first called Storytown USA. While elements of this original theming still exist, the park has been expanded to
include activities geared toward grown-ups. Its name changed to the Great Escape Fun Park in 1983, and then Great Escape & Splashwater Kingdom when its water park opened in 1995. Premier Parks, later renamed Six Flags, purchased the properties in 1996.
From 2012 to 2021, the park's name reverted to simply Great Escape. The park has been called Six Flags Great Escape since 2022. The theme park, water park, and adjacent Great
Escape Lodge & Indoor Water Park are located extremely close to Lake George, New York.
One coaster has been built since my last visit. Bobcat is a small wood coaster built by the Gravitykraft Corporation, a division of
The Gravity Group. Operating with Timberliner trains, the small family coaster is just 55 feet tall.
Four coasters have left Great Escape:
- Alpine Bobsled (1999-2023) was an Intamin "Sarajevo Bobsled" model. Before operating here, it was
Sarajevo Bobsled in Six Flags Great Adventure from 1984 to 1988 and Rolling Thunder at
Six Flags Great America from 1989 to 1995. (See pictures below for details.)
- Italian Roller Coaster (1971-1988) was a Zyklon or Galaxi model. This design was produced by several different manufacturers, so it is unclear who built this coaster.
- Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon (1999-2006) was an enclosed Jet Star 1 model built by Schwarzkopf. Beginning in 2007, it was Standing But Not Operating for two or three more years before it was scrapped.
Before operating at Great Escape, it was Jet Star at Beech Bend from the late 1960s to 1984 and Jet Star at
Noble Park Funland in Paducah, Kentucky in 1985 and 1986. It operated indoors as Starchaser at Kentucky Kingdom from 1987 to 1995, and ran indoors as
Nightmare at Phantom Cave at Six Flags Darien Lake from 1996 to 1998. (See pictures below for details.)
- From 2005 to 2009, a Vekoma Suspended Coaster was stored in pieces in a field just outside of the park, but it never was reconstructed at Great Escape. The coaster was originally
Serial Thriller at Six Flags AstroWorld from May 1999 until the park closed permanently in October 2005.
After nearly half a decade here, it was relocated to Canada and opened as Ednör - L'Attaque at La Ronde Amusement Park in 2010.
