Theme Park Discussion / Cork, Ed, Blitz, and Xcoaster's NorCal Theme Park Tour

Gonna try to make this as brief as I can. Which usually fails....


July 2: Great America

• Park was surprisingly very quiet. Much emptier than I thought it'd be. It was like Knott's Berry Farm or something. No long waits at all.
• Lots of Paramount signage and stuff still up.
• Top Gun: AWESOME. Short and sweet, with a delayed grayout for me after the vertical loop, while climbing up that 270 turn. Feels like it can be twice as long with the energy it still has at the end of the course, but fantastic ride!
• Boomerang Bay as the busiest area. Tons of kids and teens there playing around. Definitely a good addition to the park, even if it was at the cost of Stealth.
• Reptar's Runaway Coaster: Rode it for the credit.
• Psycho Mouse: Standard wild mouse. Horribly run IMO... could have had like six cars on the course but only had two or three. And they only half filled the cars.
• Grizzly: Ow. I rode this to see if it was indeed worse than Psyclone, and I came out with mixed feelings. Psyclone just plain beats the crap out of you, like Mike Tyson or something. It's blatant about being abusive. Grizzly is more insidious. I likened it to pro wrestler Ric Flair, the "dirtiest player in the game," who is known for giving low blows to people when the ref isn't looking. Grizzly was like that. Lots of low blows. And yeah, kinda boring.
• Drop Zone WAS open.
• Invertigo: smooth. WTF?!?!?! A smooth Vekoma? I'm so confused! I don't know how to view life anymore. This ride was one of the best in the park! That's sooo weird...
• The Demon: rough. Arrow's don't age well. At all. Also, it sounds like farting when you go into the tunnel at the start of the ride (it's supposed to be a door creaking).
• Vortex: also rough. I see what people mean when they cite that as a rough B&M. Oh well, at least they improved!
• Overall, a very charming park and much better than Knott's or Six Flags in their current conditions. I really enjoyed it!

July 3: Gilroy Gardens

• Beautiful park with lots of gardens and a nice selection of rides. Definitely aimed toward kids and families, but I think it's definitely worth stopping by. Plus, I like the way it's run.
• Ride ops were efficient and decently nice. Not "go out of the way to be nice," but pretty cool.
• Timber Twister: Kiddie coaster. You can easily grab the track on your way out, which was interesting. But they don't let you in the area when the train's running.
• South County Backroads is a surprisingly fun car ride. I rode in the 50's cars.
• We beheld Claudia's Garden. Anyone who's been to the park should get this joke. If not, go to the Facebook album linked at the end of this.
• Quicksilver Express: very fun. Good Arrow (I think) mine coaster with two short hills and lots of twists and turns. Great ride for the park.
• There's a bunch of empty land behind the park before it goes up to the hills. I think a terrain woodie would be awesome there, but of course, with the park being bankrupt right now, that's a pipedream.

July 4: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

• I was HIGHLY impressed. I thought it might be a drabbish park, but it's actually quite beautiful! The rebranding has given the park lots of new paint and signage and cool animal statue thingies, and there's lots of trees and shade. It's really quite gorgeous! Kudos to Six Flags here; they've turned Marine World into a fantastic theme park! And yes, I think it's much better than SFMM.
• Medusa: best or second best ride in the park, and one of the top rides on the West Coast. Super smooth. Super quiet. Very fast. Hardly any effective trims. I loved it.
• Kong: Rough. Good layout, actually, all things considered, but damn... that Vekoma engineering... sucks.
• Coba: Kiddie coaster. Like Jaguar. Only with better operations. Bad line arrangement, though, because people can't see open spaces near the back.
• Roar: Oly crazap, so this is what a good woodie is like! Hadn't ridden one since Ghostrider when it opened. Roar was just crazy good. Great lateral G's, some great airtime, and those trains are amazing. Millennium Flyers FTW! Probably even better than Ghostrider when it opened (not sure), but definitely loads better than it is now. Best woodie in California, unless the Santa Cruz and Belmont woodies turn out to be amazing (haven't heard that).
• Vertical Velocity: Fun little impulse. I actually like the effect of the new front, since it adds two inversions to riders in the front two or three cars. Didn't bother to ride more than once, but it's a fun ride!
• Boomerang: Better than the one at Knott's. But still rough. It was a walk-on. Rode it for the credit.
• All coasters were running multiple trains unless the layout prevented it (i.e. Boomerang, V2, and Cobra). Medusa had three trains, and operations seemed relatively efficient, with minimal stacking. Kudos to that!
• There's lots of flat rides and kids rides and shows for everyone to enjoy. This park caters quite well to kids, teens, families, and adults. This is how you run a theme park. SFMM and KBF: observe carefully. Coasters are not everything!

So overall, a very fun trip that added 15 credits to my pathetic credits list. I'd highly recommend all three parks to people. And despite the mid-July timing, crowds were not that bad!


Photos:

DAY 1 - Driving Up
http://usc.facebook....8...&id=3417992

Day 2 - Cedar Fair's Great America
http://usc.facebook....8...&id=3417992

Day 3 - Gilroy Gardens
http://usc.facebook....8...&id=3417992

Day 4 - Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
http://usc.facebook....8...&id=3417992

Day 5 - Everything Else
http://usc.facebook....8...&id=3417992

Now I want Italian. That tomato basil dish really good.

Invertigo: smooth. WTF?!?!?! A smooth Vekoma? I'm so confused! I don't know how to view life anymore. This ride was one of the best in the park! That's sooo weird...

Why everyone think that vekoma coasters are rough? B&M coasters are very, but very smooth. It looks like you don't know what rough means...

Also, vekoma is a lot older than B&M, so it's kind of normal that the mechanic kind of sucks after all these days...

Anyway, nice review of those parks, however, I don't think I'll have the chance to visit them in my life...
Hey, if you could do a park review, why don't you go at Six Flags Montreal (La Ronde). It would be nice to know what you think of it.

Nice photos too, I like your smile.

^Priceless.

Oh, and if you like floorless, if you're ever out Northeast, check out Batman @ SFNE. Awesome ride.

Did you seriously skip Zonga or is it still SBNO as rcdb says? It was the best ride in the park, even if it was tone-downed.

edit, just kidding, it looks like Zonga isn't even there anymore.
http://www.rcdb.com/....htm?picture=46

Edited by gir, 06 July 2007 - 09:05 PM.

where'd my epic gilroy photos go? =(

PS: i was baked while on the first ride of topgun. I highly recommend it.

Why everyone think that vekoma coasters are rough? B&M coasters are very, but very smooth. It looks like you don't know what rough means...

Also, vekoma is a lot older than B&M, so it's kind of normal that the mechanic kind of sucks after all these days...

OMG... so many things wrong with that.

Most old Vekomas are rough. They were badly engineered. They have wheel assemblies that don't even lock onto the track that well (you can put your finger between the track and the upstart wheels). The newer ones have been a lot better (over the past couple of years) because they've changed the way they've done the wheels.

And yes, upkeep is a factor, but you take a similarly aged Vekoma and B&M and B&M still generally outshines Vekoma. Besides, a well designed ride should age well. BeeMers generally have vs Vekomas. It's called reputation. And yes, B&M has some rough coasters (Vortex, SCREAM! sorta), but its got a lot less than Vekoma.

And that "looks like you don't know what rough means..." would be insulting if you didn't sound like a complete idiot in saying that.


For the record, Vekoma generally only stinks in their looping coasters. Their non-looping ones are all actually pretty damn fun. They just couldn't engineer stuff for the life of them for a long time, although, like I said, I think they've finally fixed things.



Chris, which Gilroy photos? Oh wait... those were on Ed's camera, if you're referring to the mist and stuff. Ed took the most badass pic of Chris I've ever seen.

Here's my photos (all in reverse order though):
Great America
Gilroy Gardens
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Psycho Mouse: Standard wild mouse. Horribly run IMO... could have had like six cars on the course but only had two or three. And they only half filled the cars.

I thought it was pretty good for a mouse. And it has banked turns. But yeah, the operations weren't so good.

Gilroy Gardens - Probably the most beautiful park I've been to. Not a whole lot of rides, but just great for walking around and taking it in. And if they ever got the money, a Boulderdash style terrain wooden coaster would be an awesome fit, along with a Rollersoaker type coaster. And is it just me, or wasn't this park supposed to have a Falling Star named the "Dehydrator?" I swear I read a press release for that somewhere. Maybe that fell through with their money problems.

And I really enjoyed Quicksilver Express. It was a perfect fit for the park and had a really fun layout.

Roar: Oly crazap, so this is what a good woodie is like! Hadn't ridden one since Ghostrider when it opened. Roar was just crazy good. Great lateral G's, some great airtime, and those trains are amazing. Millennium Flyers FTW! Probably even better than Ghostrider when it opened (not sure), but definitely loads better than it is now. Best woodie in California, unless the Santa Cruz and Belmont woodies turn out to be amazing (haven't heard that).

I definitely think Ghostrider was better earlier in it's career, but now I think Roar takes the cake for California. And yes, while the Giant Dippers are pretty fun, Roar is far better. It was nice to go on a good wooden coaster again.

Medusa is still pretty awesome as well.

LOL I'm such a dork!


Weeeee cars!!

I'll post some pictures soon. I was on Mt. Whitney all weekend so I haven't had a chance to upload them yet.

Oh and those pictures of me in the "3 Point Challenge" don't really capture the enormity of skill on display in my 1 for 12 shooting performance. You really had to be there to see it for yourself. Just awesome.

PS - I was trying to find the post I made some years ago saying how much I preferred SFMW to SFMM where you laughed at me so I could put it alongside this comment "Kudos to Six Flags here; they've turned Marine World into a fantastic theme park! And yes, I think it's much better than SFMM." but I couldn't find it. Come to think, it may have actually been at Danimation.

PPS - This pic is the best:


(Thanks Nigel)

I'm jealous of you guys for being able to actually have a gathering of that sort. Even if RCT was never discussed (as I imagine it wouldn't be much) it would be great to just go around to parks with other people who simply enjoy the experience of going around to parks, you know?

Man I need to find someone who enjoys those gravity-powered tracked devices as much as I do.

Ride6

Roar: Oly crazap, [...]Best woodie in California.

Uhu. Another GCII whore?
Want to ride that coaster so badly.

And a smooth Vekoma. Wow. Did they actually start to calculate their rides and stopped guessing the correct - uhm wrong - banking?


Nice to see you had a lot of fun out there and thanks for testing the parks already. Will make it easier to choose where to go in two years.

I sympathize with your pain, ride6, I can hardly ever find people to go to parks with.

actually, it just looks harmless... but it's not just a fun-loving gathering... in truth we are constantly planning for our true goal: world domination. This last summit was to decide between nuclear hot-potato, or planting wide spread biological/viral agents in key cities. I think you can gather from the pictures which one we decided upon.

SHHHHHHHHH!!! Don't reveal our plans, Chris!!!

I can't figure out which one it is. But knowing you guys, I'm gonna say biological death virus.

I wish we had done the Southern California trip like we originally planned, because I could have gone...

Blame Kumba for that one.

DAMN YOU Kumba
nah, jk Corky made me do it!

Good pictures Corkscrewed. Dumb stuff but good pictures.

I sympathize with your pain, ride6, I can hardly ever find people to go to parks with.

I just went to Six Flags today...
-JDP

Nice to see you wore your dress shoes out to the park, Blitzy.