Photo TR: Coastin' Coast to Coast

I still find it humorous, being from San Francisco, that such a small earthquake cause so much damage in DC. But then again those buildings were never built for any type of quake.

I'm surprised about your thoughts on Wild One and Joker, they were two of my absolute favorites at that park. Superman was tops, but Joker is so much more intense that FoF since it doesn't have to block brakes in the middle that trim it so much. Wild One is just a great old woodie IMO. It's actually top 5 for me.

Thanks for another installment to such a great TR. This trip seems like an absolute dream. You've hit parks that took me years in between to visit and even some I haven't made it to yet, and you did it in one trip!

Another great TR. The captions were funny. I wish I could take this same trip.

The Udar-Hazy Center is very impressive, as is the original Air and Space Museum in DC.

What do you guys and gals recommend? One or better two days at Hersheypark? Planning to go May/June...

 

If you want to do everything in the park, zoo, and chocolate world including creating your own chocolate bar, I would recommend two days.

 

Great pics and TR, Aaron!

Making your own chocolate bar sounds so amazing. Im a fatty at heart.

The photo captions make this trip report even more enjoyable to read.

I'm surprised about your thoughts on Wild One and Joker, they were two of my absolute favorites at that park. Superman was tops, but Joker is so much more intense that FoF since it doesn't have to block brakes in the middle that trim it so much. Wild One is just a great old woodie IMO. It's actually top 5 for me.

I forgot to add that I actually thought it was on OK ride, despite seeming quite rickety! One of the only downsides to taking a trip like this was that because we experienced so many new coasters in such a short space of time there are some unfair comparisons made. If I hadn't experienced Flight of Fear a week earlier at KI then I'm sure Joker would have seemed more exciting, and sandwiching SFA in between Hersheypark and BGW probably made for some unflattering contrasts.

Great TR Aaron - it took me a while but I finally got round to reading the whole thing so far! I love that you include nature/culture photos like Yosemite National Park and the Museum of Modern Art. We need to make more stops like these on our journeys. Epic trip.

Awesome pics! I love Hershey a lot. I am sad I am moving so far away from it this spring.

Really loved the photos! I remember going to Air & Space museum when I was a kid and still think it is awesome today!

Good to see another Shuttle on display

Part Fourteen: Busch Gardens Williamsburg & Kings Dominion

So normally each of these parks would deserve their own post, but since I didn't get a huge number of photos of either, please enjoy this special collectors edition mega update!

Busch Gardens Williamsburg was one of my most anticipated parks of the trip, and it completely delivered. This place is incredibly beautiful and while it doesn't have a huge number of coasters, every one it has is pretty good, and there is so much to do on top of that! Shows, dining, a food & wine festival, one (long) day was barely enough to get a sample of everything this park has to offer. We started our day with the 'Roller Coaster Insider' tour, which was pretty good - basically a backstage look at most of the park's coasters, as well as plenty of rides.

This park has a great selection of shows, Celtic Fyre was really good for a theme park show, with a decent plot and some excellent musical numbers. Pet Shenanigans was a very funny act, kind of like Universal's Animal Actors but using rescued animals rather than film animals. This Is Oktoberfest was good but had too much audience participation for my liking.

The food... wow. Seriously you could go to this park and just eat and it'd be worth the trip. We were lucky enough to be comped lunch at the Oktoberfest restaurant, and the plateful of meat was very tasty indeed. We tried a few of the food and wine options too, and they were all pretty good - not sure how it compares to Epcot but I thought the park did a great job!

In terms of coasters they are all quite good. Our first ride on Apollo's Chariot was in the rain (and we were in the front row! Ow ow ow...) but once it was dry I managed a few more enjoyable rides. Griffon was my first dive coaster, and although it basically does the same thing twice I still really liked the ride. Alpengeist might not be the most forceful B&M invert however it uses the terrain quite well to make things more exciting. Verbolten was a good dark ride, but for a coaster it just didn't do enough with the launches for me. Loch Ness Monster was the surprise packet of the trip, by this point my expectations for Arrow coasters were low, and I was very wrong on this one. Apart from the interlocking loops being one of the coolest coaster elements of all time, the triple-down helix in the dark was completely unexpected and made for a great finish to the ride.

DarKastle was a really good dark ride, especially given the size of the park. I liked it enough to ride again. Europe in the Air was terrible, it's no surprise that ride is now gone. And Escape from Pompeii is a great example of how some decent theming can make an off-the-shelf flume ride awesome!

We arrived at 8am for the Roller Coaster Insider tour. The park didn't open until 10, so it was pretty quiet. Just a handful of security guys milling around, and a dozen coaster enthusiasts.

Obligatory fountain photo. This park is beautiful!

Nobody is here!

As I mentioned, I really enjoyed Loch Ness Monster. It quickly became my #1 Arrow.

The sexiest piece of coaster track ever.

We got to visit the maintenance bay, which was pretty cool. Here is our guide explaining how Arrow went broke and don't make coaster wheels anymore. Or anything, really.

Some coaster bits.

Here I am grinning like an idiot. You'd think I was holding a gold medal, not a used coaster wheel.

This is the maintenance bay track. In the foreground is TPR member homeboy23, who I met on the tour. See you on the Scandi trip, Jeremy!

Couple of dorks on the coaster track.

Griffon's lift/first drop structure is nothing if not big.

Once again we visited the maintenance bay.

The underside of a Griffon train!

More of Griffon's private areas.

Artsy.

You know, this would make a decent profile pic.

More coaster wheels.

We got to watch them move a train from the transfer track onto the regular track. This is about as thrilling as it sounds.

The whole front row is empty! What?

Inside the control booth!

Control panel porn.

The trains await their first "regular" riders of the day. We got three rides in our mini-ERT session that morning.

I really like the way Alpengeist uses the terrain - it's not something you often see on an invert.

Low overheads are the key to profitability.

Yes we got to go in here too.

An Alpengeist train in the maintenance bay. This was about all we got to see of Alpengeist's backstage areas.

Next up was Verbolten. This is what the ride operator sees from the control booth.

I thought Verbolten was an OK ride, the dark ride section and drop is quite good, but the rest of it is a little boring.

More control booth fun. No, we weren't allowed to touch anything.

Cameras everywhere.

Special ride op microphone.

Verbolten's show building/shed. I've included this photo to prevent the trip report from becoming too exciting.

Yeah we went in. Like a pack of rebels.

That coaster train looks pretty cool. I really like the wheels on the front and rear cars.

No pictures were allowed inside the show building, so here's another of the outside.

More people on Verbolten. This coaster is hard to take photos of from inside the park, but the tour guide was great at taking us to plenty of spots to get good pictures.

Another warning sign of doom.

Obligatory photo of coaster geeks + track + train.

The "rickety" bridge effect is fun, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you can just see the track in front of you. A minor niggle for what is actually a pretty good family coaster.

The pet show was quite good. At this point I pretty much put my camera in the locker and didn't take any more photos, we literally were just enjoying ourselves too much to go back and get pictures of everything. I can't wait to get back to BGW one day!

On to Kings Dominion. Originally what was a driving/rest day became a driving/credit run day since our original plans for KD had been washed out two days earlier. There are a lot of coasters in this park and I wasn't sure we'd manage to fit everything - but thanks to some careful planning, good advice from TPR, and passholder early entry we did not miss out on any credits! We were there on the same day as Coasting For Kids and I talked to a few random people wearing the t-shirts - so hello again if you're reading!

Quick take on some of the coasters:

- Volcano: awesome Intamin invert, made better by the mountain they've built around it. The start really makes you feel like you're being launched out of a volcano and it gets better from there.

- i305: Er. Mah. Gerd. I knew it was going to be good, but the balls-to-the-wall forces totally took me by surprise. I don't know if there's such a thing as a perfect coaster, but this would be it.

- Dominator: people were literally fainting in the queue trying to get on this ride. Totally worth it.

- Grizzly: better than Grizzly at CGA. Much better.

- Hurler: has a queue that takes you on a tour of the track before you get to board. Otherwise meh.

- Ricochet: um, it's a wild mouse.

- Shockwave: laughably bad. Didn't hurt, was just a mostly terrible coaster. The loop was OK though.

- Anaconda: another decent Arrow that's probably underrated. Also it goes underwater!

- Avalanche: first bobsled coaster for me. Didn't open until midday and even then there was a long wait. OK but not great.

- Backlot Stunt Coaster/Flight of Fear: refer to Kings Island trip report a few pages back. BSC had different effects working to those at KI

- Rebel Yell: slowest loading coaster ever. Running one side and with a station wait I think it took 30 minutes.

I would have loved to have had more time at this park. Although there are only 3-4 headliner coasters there's definitely enough to fill a day and I certainly felt like we had to leave too early. Overall we had a great time at both BGW and KD, and I honestly reckon Richmond would be a fantastic place to live if you're a coaster enthusiast!

If it weren't for the sign, we could be at Kings Island right now.

They even had the same dinosaur.

More fountains!

Dominator! Angles make photos better, I'm told. At this point I'd like to apologise for the hundreds of non-angled photos I've subjected you to thus far, readers.

That is an impressive set of coaster track right there.

I'm convinced that B&M are obsessed with cobra rolls.

Dominator is definitely one of the better B&M floorless coasters out there.

I like to think that Kings Dominion put their name on their trash cans so that other theme parks don't steal them.

Volcano!

This is a great ride, and very different from any other invert I've been on.

I'm not sure why people are canoeing at the base of the volcano but there you go.

The roll through the middle of the volcano is a fantastic element.

We only had time to ride it once, but even so I'm glad we got the chance.

Snoopy!

Anaconda is another one of those old Arrows that is still pretty good, despite some awkward transitions between elements. The underwater tunnel might be a gimmick, but it's a good one!

The star attraction - i305! We were pretty lucky with this one, our visit was only a couple of weeks before the incident that left the ride down all summer.

I expected a good ride, I did not expect to be totally blown away!

Angled for your pleasure. Also - you can see the airtime on that hill!

I love that this ride actually does something after all the camelbacks - the twists and helix make for a great finish to an awesome coaster!

Whee! That's all from Kings Dominion. Next up - Great Adventure in two hours!

I don't think Europe in the Air (which is, seriously, not good) is "gone," but they did close it early in the season to prepare the building for Howl-o-Scream, and it didn't reopen for Christmas Town.

We shall see.

And the TR gets better, great pictures! I'd really like to do the Roller Coasters Insider tour BGW does, it seems like a lot of fun. I'm also glad to see someone who doesn't hate the Anaconda. Yeah it's pretty slow after the MCBR in addition to the weird transitions, but I don't find the ride as rough as people make it out to be. Hopefully the ride will get more than a paint job for KD's 40th Anniversary and make the ride more enjoyable to others.

I'm loving this TR!

And, yes, I do feel lucky to live in Richmond (even though I haven't taken advantage of my nearby parks the past couple of years).

Fantastic TR!! I wished CF/SF offered paid tours like Busch Gardens Parks do.

LOVE this shot.

I don't think Europe in the Air (which is, seriously, not good) is "gone," but they did close it early in the season to prepare the building for Howl-o-Scream, and it didn't reopen for Christmas Town.

 

We shall see.

Well that will teach me for getting my news from Screamscape. I was surprised to find out that it had only opened in 2010, as the ride film looked a lot older. At least with Pirates 4-D, there was the sense that it had been a decent attraction when it opened, and had just become dated over time.

Part Fifteen: Six Flags Great Adventure

The holidays are over so it's time to start finishing off this report! Our final stop on the East Coast would be Six Flags Great Adventure. We almost didn't get this park - the forecast was for rain, rain and more rain. But because we only had one day left we decided to go anyway, thinking that we'd at least get the two indoor coasters. As luck would have it there was a two-hour window during which the rain let up and we actually managed to get at least one ride on all of the credits, if not a lot of pictures.

I was really impressed with the coaster collection here - Magic Mountain might have a bigger number of rides, I feel like there were more at Great Adventure that I'd want to ride over and over again.

El Toro - if anything this one is underrated. Easily the best woodie I've ever been on (although I hear Balder will give it a run for its money!).

Nitro - after riding Apollo's Chariot and Diamondback earlier in the trip, this was probably my least favourite of the B&M hypers I'd tried. It was a little rough (possibly due to the wet weather) and didn't have as much airtime as the other two.

Dark Knight Coaster - well, it was out of the rain. I always like themed wild mouse coasters, didn't catch much of the preshow over the screaming kids in the queue though... grr...

Batman the Ride - decent B&M invert, I think I liked Magic Mountain's more for some reason.

Skull Mountain - the other "sure thing" in the wet. Pretty dull.

Bizarro - rode it four times with no wait. This has dropped way down the Mitch Hawker rankings in recent years but I thought it was pretty solid.

Runaway Mine Train - the best part of this ride is that you can see El Toro from it.

Green Lantern - the first standup of the trip I'd really enjoyed. At least they put gravel over the carpark.

Superman: Ultimate Flight - so the layout is nothing spectacular and the load times are dismal, but the forces on the pretzel loop are fantastic!

Rolling Thunder - not bad, but hardly a surprise that it's gone now.

Kingda Ka - wasn't going to miss this after wind denied up TTD earlier in the trip. It might be a one-trick pony, but it's a very good trick!

We also checked out the (then) brand-new Safari Off-Road Adventure. Even though it was still very new and unfinished in spots, this was better than some safari-type zoos I've visited, so I came away pretty impressed. A great addition to the park!

It was a very wet day at Great Adventure. I thought June was supposed to be summer in the Northern Hemisphere!

Not as good as the Bizarro in Massachusetts, but decent all the same. The non-existent wait time helped as well!

Theming at a Six Flags park? Awesome!

Artsy.

The park was running three trains too!

I spy an awesome wooden coaster through the trees...

El Toro!

Nothing less than impressed with this one. Ticked all the boxes for me - speed, intensity, forceful, and very smooth for a wooden coaster!

That's a lot of wood...

Traditional "El Toro reflecting in the lake" photo. Love how Kingda Ka is disappearing in the fog.

The ducks were pretty happy.

Once it started to rain again, we decided to go look at some animals.

Puddle: the ride. The queue area had some serious drainage issues.

Not today. Wait time: as long as it took you to navigate the parts of the queue that were still above water.

We were lucky enough to get the accessible tram, which had some plastic "walls" as well as a roof.

Drive along, watch some videos, see some animals. You know the drill.

Animal shaped topiaries are always cool.

These animals don't seem to mind the wet weather.

Elephants. Apologies for the general crappiness of these photos, I was shooting through a plastic tarp which made things tricky.

Did I mention it was wet?

Zebra checking out the truck. The variety of animals you see on this ride is pretty good.

This is where they drop you off mid-trip to do some activities, apparently. We drove right past because (a) it was pouring rain and (b) clearly they were still building the thing.

Slightly blurry bear.

It always excites me to see the "Australia" section of foreign zoos. Something about how our country is perceived by the rest of the world.

Some very wet emus.

The kangaroos were as confused as I was about all this rain in summer.

Another log flume I rode by myself. My argument that we were already wet did not convince my brother to join in, but the dedicated flume enthusiast is immune to a little rain. This one was actually pretty cool, riding out across the lake over to the island and then back again.

If anyone asks me what the tallest coaster I've been on looks like, I show them this. Something about it disappearing into the clouds just looks so foreboding. When we got to the top of the ride you could barely see the ground - awesome!

Angled = good photography, apparently. Rode this in the 20-minute window it was actually opened. The launch is fantastic, no question. It doesn't need to do anything else. That's all from Great Adventure. Next update we head back to California and visit Magic Mountain!

Ha--love those cloudy/foggy Kingda Ka pics!

Good work!

I was a bit behind, but I have to say this is probably one of the best TRs I've seen. Great pics!

-The Udvar-Hazy Center is a hidden gem imo. I wish more people would take advantage of it even though it's out of the way a little.

-SFGAm's entrance is always impressive for me compared to my home park, SFStL. I heard that the metal detectors are up with the turnstiles. Is that true? Being in admissions, it just seems like that would slow things down a lot.

-It's a pity more places don't do that tour like BGW. One of the best parts seemed like the pics of Verbolten. It's a beautiful coaster.

Thanks again for the pictures!

El Toro - if anything this one is underrated.

Just curious, what would you lead you to believe its underrated?

-SFGAm's entrance is always impressive for me compared to my home park, SFStL. I heard that the metal detectors are up with the turnstiles. Is that true? Being in admissions, it just seems like that would slow things down a lot.

The metal detectors were there, alongside the bag check. Saw this at a few parks, the first time kind of surprised me because I'd only ever seen them used at airports back home. But then I guess we have different gun laws and there are other safety considerations in place.

El Toro - if anything this one is underrated.

 

Just curious, what would you lead you to believe its underrated?

It was just so far ahead of any other wooden coaster I've tried, to be honest. My #2 and #3 are Phoenix and The Beast, both superb rides, and El Toro completely blew them out of the water.

Those are some of the best pics of Great Adventure I've seen! Especially the ones of Kingda Ka!

Fantastic photos with lots of "artsy-ness" Great TR!

Amazing TR! Can't wait to see what you thought of California and SFMM.

That angled shot of Kingda Ka totally looks like it's falling down. Great TR!

El Toro - if anything this one is underrated.

 

Just curious, what would you lead you to believe its underrated?

As long as there are still nut-jobs putting Boulder Dash ahead of it on the Mitch Hawker poll it's underrated.