Vaughan to Six Flags Darien Lake: the theme-park day by chauffeured Sprinter

Darien Lake, and why Vaughan crosses for it

Vaughan has Canada's Wonderland on its doorstep, and the families that drive three hours to Darien Lake do it for the difference: a park where the Ride of Steel — a hypercoaster of 63 metres — is the headline, where the water park is inside the gate on the same ticket, where the concert amphitheater beside the park has the summer's touring acts, and where the lodge and the campground let the family sleep two hundred metres from the entrance and be first at the gate. It is the American theme-park day with a border in it, and the chauffeured Sprinter is the reason the day works: the Peace Bridge handled, the lot's walk gone, the wet towels in the bay, and a driver for the two hours and forty-five minutes home after twelve hours of rides. The park's site has the season and the tickets; the border guide has the bridge.

The road

From Maple the 400, the 407 and the QEW to Fort Erie, the Peace Bridge, I-190 and I-90 east past Buffalo's suburbs to exit 48A at Pembroke, then Route 77 south for ten minutes to the park's gate at Darien Center — just under three hours by the estimate and three and a quarter with the booth on a summer Saturday. A family that wants the gate at opening leaves Vaughan at seven; the lodge version leaves on Friday afternoon and is at the gate at 10:30 Saturday with the parking already behind it.

The coasters

The Ride of Steel is the park's spine — a hypercoaster with a 63-metre first drop and a top speed above 110 km/h, one of the country's tallest when it opened in 1999 — and the teenagers' first and last ride of the day; Tantrum's beyond-vertical drop, the Predator's wooden track, the Viper's loops, the Boomerang's back-and-forth, the Motocoaster's launched motorcycle seats and the Mind Eraser's inverted track fill the middle; the Silver Bullet and the drop tower round it out, and the children's area has the coasters the eight-year-olds can ride. Six Flags' fast-pass system — the Flash Pass — is the paid line-skip that a family with a twelve-hour day and a three-hour drive considers, and the park's site sells it with the tickets.

Hurricane Harbor and the day's rhythm

The water park inside the gate — the wave pool, the lazy river, the tube slides, the children's splash structures — is the afternoon's heat escape on the same ticket, and a Vaughan family's day is coasters from opening to one, the water park from one to four with the towels from the Sprinter's bay, coasters again as the lines shorten toward closing, and the fireworks or the concert if there is one. Lockers at the water park take the passports and the phones; the chauffeur holds the envelope for a family that prefers.

The amphitheater and the concerts

The Darien Lake Performing Arts Center beside the park is western New York's summer concert venue — twenty thousand on the lawn and in the pavilion for the touring acts from May to September — and a Vaughan group of eight books a concert night as the trip: the park in the afternoon, the show at seven, and the Sprinter home at eleven with the Peace Bridge empty at 12:30 and nobody driving. The venue's schedule is on the park's site and the ticketing sites, and the concert's parking and the park's are one lot.

The lodge and the two-day version

The Darien Lake Lodge on the Lake and the campground's cabins are inside the resort — a two-hundred-metre walk to the gate, early entry for guests, and a family that wants two days without two drives sleeps here: Saturday's coasters, Sunday's water park, and the drive home Sunday afternoon with the 48-hour exemption on the souvenirs. The travel desk holds the lodge, which for July weekends books in the spring, and the Sprinter is a return with the chauffeur's Saturday released.

The day, in shape

From Maple at 7 with the swimsuits under the clothes: the Peace Bridge at 8:40, exit 48A at 9:35, the gate at 9:50 for the ten o'clock opening; the Ride of Steel and Tantrum before the lines; lunch at noon; Hurricane Harbor from one; the coasters again from 4:30 as the day cools; dinner in the park; the Sprinter at 8:30 with the towels in the bay, the Peace Bridge's Canadian booth at 10:15 — under 24 hours, the souvenir cups declared — and Maple by midnight with everyone under sixteen asleep. Seventeen hours of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, and a parent who rode the coasters instead of driving home.

What the chauffeur replaces

The QEW and the bridge twice in a day that begins at seven and ends at midnight; the park's lot and its walk with a cooler; a parent who cannot ride because someone has to be fit to drive at nine; and the drive home after twelve hours of rides, which is the drive the chauffeured version exists for. For a couple the day is Wonderland's; for a family of five or two families in a Sprinter it is one fare against two cars and two exhausted drivers.

Seasons

The park opens in May and closes after the autumn's Fright Fest weekends in October; the water park runs June to Labor Day; the concerts run May to September; July and August Saturdays are the fullest and the Flash Pass's day; June and September weekdays are the quietest and the chauffeured family's choice when school allows. Rain closes the coasters and the park's rain policy is the day's risk.

Pairing it

Darien Lake pairs with Buffalo's wings on the way home, with the Walden Galleria for the parent who would rather shop, with Letchworth forty minutes south for a family that wants a gorge on Sunday, and with Rochester's Strong museum for the younger children's version of the weekend.

The concert night, in order, for a group of eight

Eight friends from Woodbridge for a July Saturday concert: the Sprinter at 11, the Peace Bridge at 12:40, the park's gate at 1:45 for an afternoon of the Ride of Steel and the water park with the tickets bundled, dinner in the park at 5:30, the amphitheater's lawn at seven with the blankets from the bay, the show, the lot's slow exit at 11:15, the Peace Bridge's Canadian booth at 12:45 with the T-shirts declared, Woodbridge by 2:30. Fifteen hours of daily hire split eight ways against eight fans in two cars and two drivers who did not drink on the lawn — the hourly page's logic of a vehicle that waits in the lot.

The younger children's park

A family with children under eight has the park's other half: the children's area's small coasters and rides, the water park's splash structures and the lazy river, the games, the shows and the characters, with the Sprinter's afternoon nap in the lot for the youngest and the boosters at $25 each fitted for the drive; the Ride of Steel is the parents' one turn while the grandparents hold the stroller, and the park's site has the height requirements that decide the day.

Costs, plainly

The Darien Lake day is one daily hire in the booking engine — seventeen hours of Sprinter for a family or two — and the tickets, the Flash Pass, the food and the lodge are the family's own; against the fare are the QEW and the bridge twice in a seventeen-hour day, the park's lot and a parent who could not ride because someone had to drive home at nine. A couple does Wonderland; a family of five or two families in a Sprinter books the American day for one fare and the sleep on the way home.

Fright Fest and the autumn weekends

From late September to the end of October the park runs Fright Fest — the haunted houses and scare zones after dark, the family-friendly Halloween activities by day, and the coasters in the cold — and a Vaughan family with teenagers books an October Saturday as the version where the Ride of Steel in the dark is the point; the younger children do the daytime trick-or-treat trail and the Sprinter takes them to the lodge before the scare zones open. The park's site has the event's dates and the separate haunted-house passes.

Buffalo's wings, and the Galleria, on the way home

A family that leaves the park at six rather than closing does the Buffalo post's Anchor Bar at seven and the Peace Bridge at 8:30, home by ten with the children still awake for the wings; a parent who would rather shop than ride is dropped at the Walden Galleria on the way in at 9:15 and collected at five, the Galleria being fifteen minutes from the park's exit on I-90, and the Sprinter's two stops are inside the daily hire.

The two-park summer

Vaughan families with season-long children do the American double in one summer: Darien Lake's Saturday in July and Cedar Point's weekend in August, the second being the coaster capital and a seven-hour drive; the Darien Lake day is the trial of whether the twelve-year-old is ready for the Ride of Steel's 63 metres before Cedar Point's Millennium Force asks for 94.

The lodge's morning, and the early gate

Guests of the Lodge on the Lake and the campground's cabins enter the park before the public on the mornings the resort runs early entry, and a family that slept two hundred metres from the gate rides the Ride of Steel three times before the day-trippers' cars have cleared the Peace Bridge; the lodge's pool and the lake's beach are the evening after the park closes, and the travel desk holds the room, which for July Saturdays books by April.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the day or a return with the lodge's night; tell us the concert, the Flash Pass, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Darien Lake day