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Hi Everyone! When the news broke that the land under CGA had been sold I decided to prioritized getting down there. It's the closest Cedar Fair park to my outpost in the coaster desert, and I had always been intrigued by it's unique setting, history, and line up. I didn't want to regret not going. And...well...I'm sorry to all the local fans but...I'm not all that sad that this park is going away now... While I am sad that the massive investment plan that CF allegedly had for this park is not going to come to fruition, in it's current state the park is kinda sad I think. Please though, allow me to explain. I think it's cool that the park shares a parking lot with Levi's Stadium. It might be a logistical bummer on game days but I think the park is in a cool spot. It's a little weird walking past that relatively large amphitheater and down a path ala Worlds of Fun to get to a security screening/ticket booth area that has seen better days, but the reward of the the view with the carousel is a good one. With Gold Striker on the right side of the entrance let's start there. Gold Striker was fun, not as fun as I thought it was gonna be though. It's got the signature GCI twister layout, though I think Thunderhead (when running well) does it a bit better. I thought there were a few moments where some potential was wasted, on a ride that was built in a location where space and therefore element utilization is at a premium. I didn't think it was too rough which was really nice. I hope it get's relocated, though I have my doubts. RailBlazer was an interesting one. It's of course the older clone of a coaster at my homepark, and it operates a little differently than Stunt Pilot does. It seemed to be in better shape than Wonder Woman, though I don't know if that's bad maintenance on Six Flags' part or not. I think I'm in the minority though when I say that the elements didn't feel as well executed as they do on Stunt. Same intensity I think, just Stunt is just smoother and has better transitions in my opinion. There are some variations in the profiling between the two of them, and I think I prefer SP's. I hope RailBlazer gets relocated, and I think the likelihood is good. Demon on the other hand...just get rid of this thing already. It's old, rough, and has a not very interesting layout trying to shoehorn some loops in there. I normally like older Arrow's but this was not a good one for me. Grizzly was closed. Wah wah wah...I'm so bummed...I'll have to plan a return trip JUST for that credit... An Arrow that was gun was Psycho Mouse. Probably my favorite wild mouse, though it's just a wild mouse so...is there really that my to say about it. Hope it gets relocated, though with so many alternatives in the family coaster market now I'm not 100% hopeful for it. Patriot was a blah floorless. Not very smooth, not very interesting. Don't care about it's fate. Flight Deck was a solid invert. While short, I enjoyed it's use of space and intensity. I know it's a custom layout so moving might be difficult, but it's probably the one ride from this park (Skyride and Carousel aside) that I hope to see live on somewhere else. Speaking of the Skyride, this was my first Von Roll Skyway and I can say I'm a fan. It had cool views, and it made me wish that more parks had rides in this vein. Thinking of this park as a whole, I'm of course bummed that a park is on a timer yet after visiting I think the writing was on the wall. It's in a major metro area, sitting on prime PRIME real estate. I can see why CF would want to invest a lot here in the past, but I can see how attractive it was for them to sell it. The best case would obviously be for someone to swoop in and buy/long-term lease the park from Prologis. But even if they did, I think they would have to put a lot of money into the park to keep it viable long term. There's not a lot of expansion room (not none, but not very much) and it looked to me like the park had a lot of deferred maintenance/blight. I noticed several buildings that looked abandoned for a long time (the large theater behind Gold Striker comes immediately to mind) and while these may be for sound or storage or haunt or whatever, I still thought that for a park in such a nice area it wasn't a positive image. It looked to me like Marriott had a great plan when they built it, but much like SFOT somewhere along the way someone stopped caring about the plan and just did whatever. And ultimately I think that's backed the park into a corner of poor space usage and long-term maintenance. I hope the park is saved, and revitalized cause I think it could be a really REALLY cool park, but right now I'm not devastated to see it go. CGA kicked off a small NorCal trip for me, so I'll be back with my next stop SFDK! See you guys then!

Hi Everyone! My new years resolution is to be more timely when posting trip reports... So before the holidays get away from me I figured I better get them done. After SeaWorld I wrapped up my Texas trip with a stop at what many argue as one of the better (pre-merger) Six Flags, Fiesta Texas. An I have to say that of the 3 Six Flags I went to last year (OT, FT, and DK) this one definitely felt like the nicest. For one thing it is the newest, opening in 1992, but also when Gaylord designed it your can for sure tell that they cared about the theming and were willing to spend the money to build a nice park. (Definitely makes me wish Opryland was still around). The overarching themed areas (or at least the ones Six Flags hasn't monkeyed too much with) are well done, and details are plentiful. There is still a lot of "Six Flags stuff" which is a shame because I think the park would be even better without the ads, upcharge go-karts, poorly implemented DC themes, oh and the boomerang... But even with this "stuff" it's a very nice park, so let's see what I thought of it's lineup! Iron Rattler is of course the star of the show. The photogenic-ness alone of this ride is enough to impress. And how smooth! For being 10 years old now, it feels like it opened for the first time yesterday. No other RMC that I have ridden is that smooth. My only real complaint with IR is that it felt a little short. 3200 feet is respectable, especially when compared to RMC's built at that time, but it just felt like it was meant to have another 500 feet but the Six Flags budget was like nah... Maybe that's just me though. The surprise of the whole trip for me was Dr. Diabolical's Themed to a Strange Degree Not on the Wall Skydiving Machine (I mean Cliffhanger...sorry got a little carried away with the name). When this was first announced I thought "Cool! Dive coaster on the quarry wall", and then I found out that it wasn't gonna be on the wall and I was like "Ok whatever, next coaster" I knew about the theming going in which I was very impressed with, though I thought it weird that you go outside and bam there's the coaster and the theming ends instantly. I feel like they could have put SOMETHING in the outside portion, literally ANYTHING but no it's just some grass. Theming aside though I really enjoyed this coaster. Granted it was my first B&M dive, but it really surprised me. I'm in the camp that I want a lot of the smaller regional parks to get these small dive coasters. The drop was one, the inversions were pretty intense for B&M, and it was just fun to ride. That to me is a big win for any attraction at any park, is just being fun to ride. Big thumbs up from me, and I'm kinda excited for Iron Menace now too. The next headliner here that everyone talks about is of course Superman. To me this ride was like two-face, first half fun and solid B&M floorless. Second half? POS. It just meandered around some inversions while trying to rattle your brain out of the skull. Not my pick for best floorless (yay, Medusa!). Walked away kinda disappointed as I had heard good things about this ride. Next up was Wonder Woman, and I know this was the prototype raptor but this thing was in rough shape. I think it's pretty evident why this ride is undergoing the refurbishment it is. The drive tires were worn down, the magnetic breaks were all banged up, and the train tracked horribly. Fun layout, which I really enjoy, but man was it rattly. I hope this is not the inevitable future of these rides since that would be an awful shame. I have had the privilege of riding all three prototype raptors and this was easily the worst. Poltergeist and Batman: The Ride Great White Goliath were both fine supporting coasters. The theming in the station for Poltergeist was cool, though the rest of the ride I thought was just ok. Goliath was just a rough Batman clone. Oh, and I rode their Boomerang, no comment needed. Roadrunner was a slightly below average mine train, if it still had the Wylie Coyote statue at the top of the lift I think I would have liked it a bit more. It only beats Pandemonium for me cause it was the last Arrow mine train, and at it has a custom layout. A ride I did not like was Batman, there S&S Free Spin. I missed the one at OT cause of the weather, and I'm actually kinda glad I did. I strongly dislike these rides, there just stupid, uncomfortable, pain machines. I tried the one at SFDK as well and I hope that's the last one I have to ride, at least for a couple years. I also road the train, which was great, and the Bugs Bunny Log Flume. I loved the execution of the Looney Tunes theme on the flume! Imagine if that's how Six Flags did all their LT/DC Comics theming? I think that be pretty cool. And that wraps up my Texas trip. Both San Antonio parks were great, though I think I slightly prefer SeaWorld. I thought their ride lineup was a little stronger, plus the balance with the animals made it more interesting to me. I hope I can find a good excuse to get down to SA again soon! I got three more TR's to do all from NoCal, so we will see you all then!

Hi Everyone! Wow...and I thought my homepark's thread was quiet! I'll have to liven it up a little bit! When it came to planning my NorCal trip I knew I wanted to hit CGA, and since I had a rental car and a Six Flags pass I decided I should do SFDK. When looking for what else to do in the area, and being a fan of independent parks in general, I decided to throw in the Boardwalk as a nice bonus. I figured it would be a nice way to kill a few hours before heading to the airport or after spending most of my day at CGA. I man did I regret planning it that way cause was I blown away by this place! I'll kick this off by saying: Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the best park in Northern California. The whole place made me think of Knoebels, but at the beach! Which to me was like a perfect match! I love the old school feel of Knoebels, and the beach added a whole different atmosphere. I wish it was a little bigger, but the crazy multi-level-ness really added to both the unique-ness and the ride lineup. The star of the show is of course Giant Dipper. Now you here "Giant Dipper" and you think old wooden coaster (with Morgan trains), like REALLY old. And old wooden coasters are hit or miss. Some are fun, some are rough, some are just plain boring. To me though, Giant Dipper is hand's down the best coaster in NorCal and easily the best classic wooden roller coaster I've ridden. It beats out Phoenix, Racer, The Beast, Judge Roy, and Flying Turns for me. The best way for me to some it up is "They don't build 'em like that anymore...". It was totally out of control feeling from the minute we went into the tunnel to hitting the final breaks. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted too I could smack one of the support trusses at 40 mph those tolerances are so tight, and your just flying every which way in your seat. I would not call this ride "smooth" nor "rough", more like I don't know..."smough". It felt like a well cared for old school wooden coaster, lovingly cared for but still having the many engineering and construction imperfections of a ride built at that time and operating for so long. Some might find it uncomfortable, and I unfortunately ran out of time before I could grab a non-back row ride, but for what I like this is what I want in a wooden coaster like this! Oh yeah, they have a Maurer spinner called...uhhh...Underflow? (Check's rcdb) Undertow! Pretty standard family spinner, but my vote for best of it's type. I liked it better than Pandemonium or Sierra Sidewinder. On top of having an awesome wooden coaster, the Boardwalk has not one (but two!) awesome classic dark rides! Cave Train Adventure is a hilarious journey under the boardwalk into a black light filled city of cave men. I got a lot of laughs from this one! The Haunted Castle was a fun old-school haunted house, again on par with Knoebels. I think this one has a few more modern effects than the one at Knoebels, but same kinda of scary but also fun experience. I wanted to ride Logger's Revenge, since I'm a sucker for log flumes, but the long line and my limited time prevented me. I got some custard from a stand next to Haunted Castle (I think) and enjoyed that while watching the ocean. I know most of the vendors here are third party, but dang that was some good custard! And after a few hours my time was up... I really wish I had planned a full day for this park, or even had skipped SFDK and just come down to Santa Cruz for a night. There seemed like so much to do on the Boardwalk and the near by warf. I really REALLY liked this park, and it's probably the only one in NorCal that I legit want to go back to soon. It is a little spendy, but it's also in a resort area and I think it could have been much more expansive. But that's really it's only con in my book. Otherwise, Knoebels on the Beach? SIGN ME UP!!! And that concludes my little trip to NorCal, and my 2023 TR's! I don't have much planned other than a Florida trip this summer, so we'll have to see where I end up this year. See you guys all next time!

Hi Everyone! Next up on my quick NorCal trip was Budget Busch Gardens Six Flags Discovery Kingdom! Coming off a little disappointed with CGA this park surprised me in that liked it better. Not THAT much better, but a little better none the less. It might be a lower quality Busch-esque park but I appreciated the uniqueness. What is is with NorCal parks and weird entrances. At CGA you have to walk around there amphitheater, and at SFDK you have to walk past like half the park to get to the gate. Can't you like move the entrance a little? Oh well, doesn't matter. Here's the coasters as best I can remember. The big standout was Medusa for me. Having ridden Superman and Patriot, I hadn't really had a floorless that stuck well with me. I was surprised that I enjoyed this ride a lot actually. The sea serpent roll was unique. It wasn't rough, and all around a solid looping coaster. I think this ride tends to get overshadowed and forgotten about in many floorless discussions now days. I'm also gonna ride Kraken later this year and I'm curious how it holds up against that. Joker was down or busy most of the day so I only got one ride in. While I thought it was fun for an I-box, I can definitely see why it isn't the highest regarded. I don't think it's a bad ride by any means, but it just doesn't hold up against other rides RMC has made. It's focus on inversions is unique but I think there were some missed opportunities for a more exciting ride. I really like the Joker/funhouse theme as I feel like it's one of the better expressions of this theme at the Six Flags parks. Another ride that was fit or miss all day was Flash:V2. I was curious about this ride having never ridden one of these Intamin Impulses. I really liked the launches, and the 45 degree spike was a nice twist on an otherwise uninteresting layout. I think I'd rather have these than Sky Rocket II's, but I can also see why we didn't get more of them. The rest of the lineup did the following for me: - Sidewinder Safari: Broken - Kong: POS - Boomerang: "eh" - Cobra: Didn't ride - Superman: I'm sorry but I'm not waiting an hour in line for a Sky Rocket II - Batman: POS (Hate those free spins!) I think that's it...I'm not too worried about kiddie coasters at this point in my life. Outside of a relatively weak coaster lineup, the rest of the park came across as a mishmash of "Six Flags stuff" and animals. The animals were to my surprise actually pretty well presented. I thought there would be more "old zoo/safari park" vides with the exhibits but most (especially the ones that looked like they had been redone in recent years, were actually quite nice. Not top notch stuff necessarily, but much better than I was expecting. Part of me is kinda surprised that Six Flags never removed the animals. They must be something of a draw since I always seem to here that animals are expensive to take care of especially in settings like this. Plus the park is pretty full from a development standpoint, so I'm curious as to why some exhibits haven't been sacrificed for more rides. Overall, I thought this was a fine park. No burning desire to go back, but what I would expect from a mid-tier (pre-merger) Six Flags. A couple good rides, a lot of mediocre ones, and "Six Flags stuff". The animals were a nice bonus that made the park special. I'm curious to see what direction this park goes with additions or if some CGA stuff migrates over eventually. The final park on my short trip was one that I threw in as a bonus initially, and walked away from pleasantly surprised! See you guys then!

I don't know anything about Cedar Point being cheap. (FL+ and Breakers are mandatory for us...) Even if Ka was smooth I don't think it would be as thrilling as OG Dragster. The shoulder restraints are a buzz kill. It also felt like the launch characteristics were numbed. Dragster had that feeling of the instant snap of letting go of a rubber band. Ka's acceleration felt much more reserved and linear to me. It was a one and done for us.

We also spent some time at Ba Na Hills theme park. You could probably do a full day there if you wanted to really explore, but a lot of the rides there were copies of films we'd seen in Korea, so we didn't buy any buffet tickets and opted to leave after half a day since Korea has some of the busiest water parks in the world, we wanted to maximize our hotel water park time. The park is supposedly one of Vietnam's busiest tourist places, a theme park on top of the mountain and home to the Golden Hand Bridge aka 'The World's Most Instagrammmable Bridge', this park features in 100s of reels and YouTube videos on the topic of Instagram/Reality. So how bad was it really? Off to Ba Na Hills we go. Like most Vietnamese theme parks and the one In my previous TR, this one is owned by Sun World. We'd been warned that Ba Na Hills has it's own climate and heard many horror stories of terrible views and shut down cable cars. This was the only time we ever saw the resort all the way from our hotel, and with only that one cloud in the whole sky we chose to go that day. Being a Saturday and the best weather day in rainy season we knew we'd probably be in for the worst. Despite it being only a 30 minute taxi drive from the hotel clouds quickly formed. Instagram Vs Reality 1: We'd seen people recording hour-long queues for the cable car and tons of tour buses. We had an early breakfast and were at this entrance by 8:30.... ... and were not only on instantly but it was quiet enough even small groups weren't made to share gondolas yet. If you look to the right of the picture you can also see they're installing a 4th cable car line to reduce the lines. Despite the blue sky at the bottom, we entered the clouds after 15 minutes, at over 20 minutes long this is, I think, the world record holder for longest cable car journey. The famous bridge appeared out of the clouds. It's mostly there to connect the two cable car stations. Instagram Vs Reality 2: This bridge is known for being horribly crowded, but at 9am it wasn't bad at all. A lot of the crowds moved on because of the clouds wanting to come back when it was clearer but I kind of enjoyed the mist and clouds as a back-drop. Personally, if you just want to enjoy the view and don't care too much about getting the perfect shot on the bridge, head to the back side of the park. 99% of the crowds will be on the bridge and you can enjoy looking down the mountain without being jostled. Later in the day the bridge was starting to look more like the videos, and only got busier from there as guided tour groups packed in. The gardens are also in this area. At the other end of the bridge is the cable car to the theme park area. Note all the different lines that go to the other areas or back down the mountain. The twin alpine coasters, the parks signature attraction. Normally even on quiet days these rides can have an hour queue and shut down easily from weather. We'd been told the track in this picture, and the one you'll come across first from the cable car is the quieter one of the two, but this information is now outdated. Operations have now changed That one is now the free alpine coaster, and the other is fast-pass only. A fast-pass ticket was about $3 a person so skip the free one and just buy for the ticketed one. Also, tell the staff if you want a fast ride. They were great and would always check the car ahead was almost done before dispatching us. We saw many cars stuck behind slow riders but every time we asked the staff for a fast ride they obliged and we had brakeless runs whenever we wanted. Between the alpine coasters is the main indoor theme park, home to some kids rides like this ferris wheel, SBF Airborne Shot (closed for maintenance), single rail horse ride, and bumper cars. Also home to a 4D cinema, Desperados shooter, and a 360 screen. We've rode this many times at Seoul Land but it's always funny watching people jump out of their chairs on this when the dinosaur head closes around them. The main attraction indoor is the drop tower that goes and gives you a view outside. Like a lot of Vietnam, the arcade games scattered around were set to free play. There was also a dark ride but the line was long and a Youtube search suggested not worth the time. Link The outdoor area is mostly full of buffet restaurants and photo ops. But there is a chair ride and Merry go round here. The rides outside go down at the tiniest bit of rain which is pretty common even on sunny days. On the other end of the park, is the newest area,this empty castle, where there are 2 more movie rides. One a 4D cinema for 300 people showing Monster Family every 30 minutes. We'd seen it at Everland so we skipped it for the other ride. A 20-seater ride as you fly across the world feeling heat rain and wind. It felt like it was designed for a Flying Theater ride but they budget cut it back to a regular simulator. Before heading out we decided to sample Vietnam's coffees: Coconut coffee and egg coffee. We wanted to grab some swimming pool time so we left early but it started to pour, my son was saddened he might miss out on the outdoor pool but we would hit up the indoor one instead. However as we descended it became clear, Ba Na Hills really does get different weather than the rest of the city.... the rain disappeared.... ... and the journey back was sunny with a slight chance of cow. So we abandoned the rest of the day at Ba Na Hills for a indoor water park Plus a public clothed onsen (and gender-specific private areas for the more adventurous) Outdoor water park And Vietnam's 2nd? biggest lazy river. And the infinity pool, however unlike the rest of the water park above, where day tickets can be bought, you needed a hotel room key for here. This ends the Vietnam Parks TR. We had originally planned to hit the 3rd Sun World park, a zoo/water park/theme park combination,Link, but with 2 theme parks done and a water park-inclusive hotel booked due to the rainy season (and weights on rides posted at 75kg, something we couldn't find any information about ever actually being enforced but didn't want to risk it with me over that weight), we used the rest of the good weather days to experience the cultural sites and other tourist places like the famous lantern and basket boats instead. Bad coaster enthusiasts but good tourists.

That Dragon Bridge looks awesome! And it shoots fire and water? What could be better than that?! Great TR on the park, and what you did ride, etc.