KGA29

California's Great America Park Management - The longest lines in the park are for Flight Deck, Survivor, Firefall, and Invertigo, so hit those early! Also water ride lines can get huge on hot days. -The circular shape of the park makes it difficult for effective touring, so I recommend starting with Flight Deck and Firefall, but then touring in a counter-clockwise rotation. -The water park is empty for its first 2 hours of being open (usually 11-1), but after that the lines for the slides grow quickly. -No Flash Passes, but none are normally needed, except on special event days Best time to go to the park -Weekday During The Summer -Weekends very early in the season. Don't know about how Halloween Haunt will affect October crowds. Food Recommendations - Nicktoon's Cafe, Outback Shack, and Maggie Browns are all decent. - Food Festival is a nice food court with tons of options. They even offered Dole whips last year (not quite as good as Disney though) Ride Recommendations -Flight Deck- One of the older B&M inverts. Short, but intense throughout the entire ride. Very smooth. -Firefall- Great Huss Top Spin program along with some amazing fire effects and water cannons/fountains. Since it's new, it generates long lines. -Survivor: the Ride- Zamperla Disk-O Coaster with water misting tikis and fire torches. Great ride, but lines are long and move slowly. -Carousel Columbia- Classic huge double-decker carousel. Never has long lines at all. -Delta Flyer/Eagles Flight- A classic "bucket" style ride from one side of the park to the other with a bird's eye view of everything. An old ride that isn't seen often nowadays. Not usually a good use of time for transportation as lines are generally pretty long. But for the view, it's great. Extras -Summer of 08 introduces an all new Ice skating show in the Great America Theater towards the front of the park

I rode Firefall yesterday. It is an amazing ride and a much better program than Voodoo, plus it was different both times I rode. I think it has to do with the weight of the car. I loved the fire in the volcanoes! The only problem with it is its extremely slow loading time! It probably takes 4-5 minutes to load and it's a 1-2 minute ride. But the queue line is really nicely landscaped. The ride was popular all afternoon/evening. I got in one ride around 6 and another right before the fireworks around 9:30. Both times the line extended all the way out to its entrance. There were some line jumpers that were reported and security did a good job of handling it. Apparently they had been line jumping all day, but when they got up to the ride, security escorted them off the ride. Go CGA! BTW, the fireworks show was very long and had an amazing finale! The park was semi-crowded, but not overly.

SFMM's Log Jammer in the front is really intense and fast paced. The drops are steep as well. DL and MK's Splash Mountains of course for the theming and the drops. Timber Mountain Log Ride is fun, especially when it's Elf Mountain. And it also sounds very cool during Halloween Haunt, but I haven't experienced it yet.

Another vote for CP here! I have never seen a non-Disney park move their lines so quickly. And the employees seemed to be having fun and asking incoming riders "How was your ride?" It was great. And of course the Disney parks.

I saw the midnight show this morning/last night. I thought it was good, but it had a very strange plot and there were a ton of unrealistic scenes (well of course, but it seemed a little too much). It was entertaining and I really liked the tie-ins they made to the previous movies (the ark and the snake!).

Anyone notice that in the first picture (with the car and the family), the car seems to be travelling downwards, but the track looks like lift hill? Overall from the movie it looks like a great ride.

I agree with you 100%. coasterbear30, you obviously did not go to the park when Paramount was running it. Along with what dpxtreme just listed, Paramount also cancelled the park's Halloween event, didn't advertise the park very much, and had low energy, unenthusiastic employees. All of these have changed within the past two years (which is a pretty short time period for all of these changes). This year marks the return of a Halloween haunt (well last year they tried a preview which was extremely successful). I see advertisements for the park a lot more, which I think has increased the attendance. The employees all seem more energized and just more happy to be working. I hate it when people take CGA as an example of how bad CF is. It's been a year and a half. Just give it time. CF has great potential to undo the bad that Paramount did. The park is prettier than a lot of parks (especially with some new paint in certain areas over the past couple years) with lots of shade (except ride stations!) Their flat ride collection is great and their water park and kiddy areas are decent enough, so CF can focus on the roller coasters in the near future. I'm so excited for what CF has for the next couple years.

Let's just hope that they can get it running by that date and not have to turn away bidders who paid for an "opening weekend" seat. :cough:CGA's Firefall:cough:

If I'm not mistaken I do believe the 1.1 billion did not include Toy Story Midway Mania.

15/20

I went yesterday. No Firefall , but the park was surprisingly crowded, which is a good thing. I have not seen the park that crowded on a normal weekend in a long time. Still lines were only like 25-30 min.

I went on a Friday in August and got all credits, played in the water park for a couple hours, and got in some other rides. Granted, I did have gold Flash Pass, but I only used it on I think 4 rides. I highly recommend buying your Flash Pass in advance if you are going to use it. That way, in the park you don't have to stand in the Flash Pass line. People weren't too happy that us with printed Flash Pass vouchers skipped the line. But it was easy and fast.

Having been on several drop towers here's how I'd rank them by the strength of the "stomach feeling": 1) Drop Zone at CGA 2) Demon Drop 3) Tower of Terror (both DHS and DCA) 4) Moser drop tower 5) Mega Drop at fairs 6) Supreme Scream/Superman Tower of Power (SFoT)/Power Tower drop side 7) Double Shot at SCBB 8) Frog Hopper (actually give some decent air sometimes) 9) Power Tower shot side/Maliboomer (very weak)

At CGA it has been like $15 a person during summer weekdays the past couple years. Really cheap for a skycoaster.

The bottom of Demon's first drop is horrible. It's white, not red and black. Wasn't Invertigo painted a couple years ago? I also really like the Endeavor's paint job put on last year or the year before. But the coasters really need some new shine.

That's funny you mention that. I was at the park on Saturday, and my friend and I were in the very front and we were both bracing ourselves for a very bumpy ride. To our surprise, it was actually smooth. And it seemed like the train went through the 10 minute turnaround fairly quickly. So I'm not going crazy. When I went last week my dad and I sat in the very front and also experienced an abnormally smooth ride (except for the death turn, the one closest to the station that slams the rider on the right into the side). It was still slow and boring, but at least smoother.

The thing is that they stopped playing the video (late last year) that explains the whole interactive stomping thing. So they don't allow everyone to fill in the spots that are affected, and therefore they're not even giving the guests in line a chance to create the fire.

The April quiz is up. It's pretty easy. www.rollercoastermedialibrary.com/ 17/20

You're right. The last time I visited SFMM was 06 and the only improvements I have seen are through TRs and updates. You say that Thomas Town will bring in families which means more money for big additions. Well in the case of PGA their "family focus" from 03-06 really didn't do them well. And CF has realized that. Enter Firefall and new GCI woodie. I do agree that a nice coat of paint would do CGA's rides well. You say CF has made everything an eyesore. Two ride signs is hardly everything. Plus I actually don't mind the Flight Deck sign. I also can't see your good argument when you list "More Typical Cedar Fair Crap" as a way CGA is harmed by CF.

Yeah, I know that. It can only make it worse. I sense a very bad future for CGA. If you want to see a park improve, just look at SFMM. I couldn't agree less. What has SFMM done that has been so special? -removed a ton of rides that were already closed before -New trains and effects to X -Thomas Town -New paint on a couple rides CF is definitely one of the best things that has happened to the park. I don't see how you can blame the park's problems on CF at all!

I think most of the damage came from Paramount around 03 or so: -Removal of Stealth, Greased Lightnin, Triple Play, railroad, many other rides an dthey were going to get rid of the Orbit -No new coaster since 01 -Reduced park hours greatly -Elimination of the Halloween event (other than the lame Nick or Treat) -Increased admission prices -Added to the water park 3 out of 4 years (04-07, yes I think the wave pool last year was Paramount's idea) CF has: -Renamed a couple rides (ok all of the other Paramount parks are going through this too) -Lowered admission -Extended hours -Reinstated a Halloween event -Promised a new coaster for 09 -reopened Orbit All of this in only 2 years. CF can't just take what a mess Paramount had and transform it instantly.

Here's what I think. That this year is going to be a slow transition year. With the longer hours, new ice show, new (hopefully well themed) Firefall, and new halloween Haunt I can see a bright future for the park. The thing this park needs is attendance. I remember a few years back (when they still had Stealth and Greased Lightnin) the lines for the major coasters were like 45 min-hour on weekends. In recent years, the only ride with a line like that has been Survivor and even that line has died down. I don't remember the last time Drop Tower, Vortex or Invertigo's lines used a bunch of the switchbacks or the Star Tower or the Carousel having a line at all. The decrease in lines may have something to do with the addition of the water park, but even when the water park is closed on weekends during the spring and fall the crowds are never large.

But they did put up a new "Action Theater" sign. I didn't get a pic though.

So after my baseball practice me and my dad headed off to CGA for the afternoon. Basically all I wanted to do was process my Gold pass and check on Firefall's construction and hit a couple rides. So we arrived at the park around 1PM and got a spot in the back (behind the handicapped spots near the old IMAX theater). This is a shot from over there. This view is going to look totally different next year. A shot of the Star Tower: So we enter the park And go get our season passes processed We passed by the Great America theater And we rode Demon in the front seat with only a 3 train wait (other rows were walk ons) Then we both rode Grizzly in the front with a sizeable wait. The whole station was full and the line was spilling out occasionally. I haven't seen that in such a long time. They were running it very slowly though. The ride overall wasn't that rough. It was still sluggish, but not really death bumpy. Maybe in other rows. I had to hit Drop Tower (Zone) which was running 5/6 cabins (later they did add the 6th). Such an ugly cartoonish sign Good ride. 3 cycle wait I think. It got new bright white railings in the queue: Then I went on Survivor, which didn't have much of a line. So I got on (orange seat of course) and we get all loaded up. When the ride begins, usually the disk rocks back and forth a couple times before it starts to gently spin. However this time, it started spinning (and pretty fast) and it wasn't moving along the track. So after maybe 6-7 spins in the same place, they finally hit the E-stop and called a mechanic. We were sitting there for at least 20 minutes with that nasty restraint lodged in our backs. This poor little girl was almost crying because the restraint was hurting her so much. However there was a worker who tried to calm her down (the employee asked about her day so far and kept asking if she was ok) and I thought that that was great! So after what seemed like forever, the disk moved into the correct spot and the restraints were released. I took a couple pics while just sitting there: Tiki! Here's a pic of the shop back there that used to be called "Thrills are Paramount" Now it's "Thrill Seekers" So my dad and I rode Psycho Mouse with a 25 or so min wait. They were dispaching cars about average speed. However I noticed one thing about the Psycho Mouse ops. So whenever someone is sitting on the handrail, they're supposed to tell them to please get off. Well these ops were borderline rude. They were yelling really loudly at the guests for first time offenses. I thought it was a little too much. As we continued, I hit up Endeavor, which was cycling pretty full boats which I haven't seen in a while. Delirium was next and I got one seat section away from the money seat. It's one of the more intense rides at CGA, also one of the more popular ones. We came up to the site of the new Firefall ride. There's still a ton left to do, but it looks good. I never realized how much space is there. It used to be a swamp. Here are some construction pics. They were working on painting this volcano looking thing. Looks like decent theming. The ride op building and a bunch of wires and stuff The actual ride vehicle A view from the front An overview of the whole area Here's a shot from behind They had Firefall's logo signs all over the park To finish up the day I rode Flight Deck (front seat 3 train wait, other seats were walk ons) once and Vortex once (4th row, walk on, extremely bumpy). I thought I saw dpxtreme working there, but I wasn't sure. Here's some shots of Flight Deck's new signs Then we left, picking up our stylish CF windbreakers at Inside CGA of course. A couple of notes for the day: -The crowd levels were low, however for a Monday in March, I thought it was going to be much less crowded. GA hasn't seen a really crowded day in a long time. It would be nice to see some this year. -All rides were open (at least until they broke down) except Firefall -I really like the designs on the season passes this year -Weather was nice, but a little windy -A big deal is being made about the longer hours and about Halloween Haunt (advertised well on park maps and park signs) -Demon's sound wasn't working in the first tunnel Ya, so I had a good afternoon at the parks. Hit like 8 rides in 3-4 hours, plus I got stuck on Survivor. While this year may be a bit rough for CGA, I can not see this park doing anything but improving, especially with the new GCI next year.

I second Le Cellier! Yummy pretzel bread and delicious melt in your mouth steaks! Now I'm hungry.