singemfrc

The brand new RailBlazer raptor track coaster at California's Great America.

Went down to CGA to check out the RailBlazer new hotness Sunday so as long as I'm 2/3 the way to Santa Cruz of course I'm going to visit the Boardwalk as well! Especially as I recently picked up that free wristband pass at the Giants game! The park appeared pretty busy when I first got there, but being Sunday night it emptied out before too long. I realized it's actually been about 26 years since I've been to SCBB at night, so quite a treat for me. I live a good 3 hours from the park, so if I stay until night time, it's a long dark drive home through the mountains, so I don't do it often. Weather was great though, especially after it was 105 at home and even pretty hot earlier in the day in Santa Clara. The overcast and breezy weather was refreshing. So I didn't notice this before. Outside the coaster is shown to be the 6th oldest in the US. Inside it is now the 5th oldest. Which of the top 5 went down? I don't remember hearing about that.

After RailBlazer I did spend a few more hours in the rest of the park as well. I haven't had a season pass for a couple years but got one this year as I plan to come back at least once more and visit Gilroy Gardens as well. One thing I loved was that CF now lets you upload your own photo from your PC at home when you purchase the pass, so when you go process at the park, you skip the whole line and they just scan your barcode and hand you the card. LOVE this process. Here are some photos from the rest of the day: Decided to head from RailBlazer to Gold Striker but due to the hour delay getting RB open, Gold Striker already had a pretty long lines, it was just inside the entrance with the switchbacks getting used. Looks like morning rush from people stopping here first, so I'll come back later. I rode it later and I have to say, it's getting pretty rough. It might need the GhostRider treatment already. These are AWESOME. SFMM needs these. They're working, they're ice cold, and they even have a dedicated drink filling tap. And they're all over the park! And now for "Ouch the ride" aka "Well its better than Vortex" Looks better than it feels. Surprised how rough it is given age of trains. Ahh..one of my all time favorites. Love me some Demon. I literally love this roller coaster. Loopin' through the trees. I love the old school 70s/80s look of the station, I hope they never change it. Will have to come back down to ride this during Haunt. Ok, coming back at 2pm so there's no line, cause thats the only acceptable line length for riding Grizzly. Time to relax and glide across the park a few times. I mean, it's Flight Deck, right? Have I mentioned I love Delta Flyer? Every park needs one of these. What a fantastic way to cool off, rest, and get across the park at the same time. Damn..well that's a first, came back at 1:30 and they had opened Grizzly early and it already had a line. Line is just out of the station, but that's probably 45 minutes given the speed of dispatches so no thanks I'll pass. Obligatory. Also obligatory. Parking lots pretty full, but crowds pretty manageable. Until next time!

Finally got down to the park to check out RailBlazer on Sunday, and oh man did it not disappoint. What a freakin blast. Got to the park nice and early so I could go straight to RB before the crowds hit and got on the third train in row 8, then went around, waited about 30 mins and the grouper was nice enough to allow me to wait a few extra trains to get row 1. Maybe it's me but other than the first drop, the rest of the ride actually feels faster in row 1. Statistics don't tell the tale with this thing, the height and speed numbers may not be the most impressive, but it's just stupid fast in the space it takes up. It feels much faster than it is. Speaking of the space it takes up, the access around the ride is pretty amazing. It reminds me of Silver Bullet at KBF, it's almost like they wanted you to be able to photograph it. Particularly the area underneath the lift and first drop - there's a very nice area there you can walk under and photograph or sit and relax in the shade where it would have been easier and cheaper to just fence it off like SF probably would have done. Photo TR below, all of these photos were taken with a cell phone with no zoom and none of them were taken in restricted areas! Empty lot, bright and early, let's do this! It is a pretty sexy looking ride. And trains have begun testing! Quite a few tests, the ride didn't open until almost an hour after gates. Beautiful wood in the station, one of the nicest stations I've seen. Really impressed. This crap is already all over the ride queue. I think from now on I'll just write these down and then tag both them and Santa Clara County Sheriff. Maybe they can look these people's social media up or something, I'm really sick of kids vandalizing rides for social media hits. Goin' up! So many angles This was the only blight on the appearance of this ride. Already green nasty looking standing water. Hope they fill this up and make it look nicer soon. Standing shallow water like this reminds me of SFMM. Not as many hands up as on most rides, this thing is intimidating people! Right behind the queue now Check out that hair time! So many beautiful curves... Demon photobomb Comin atcha! Acceler8! Look at the face in row 1..that's about how fast this feels. #RailblazerFaces #RailblazerFaces #RailblazerFaces Take the tunnel! I think this is my favorite photo that I took. Inverted, sun behind, hands in the air! You can get really close to the drop. So curvy Row 2 is clearly loving this. I think we have an airtime fan. Waterpark fan in the front row? What a great addition to the park! RMC has hit a huge home run with this design, these things are going to be everywhere soon and we're all gonna benefit from that!

Yeah I agree. It's doable, just not fun. Many times I have stayed at the HGI with plans to walk to the park, but then as I got ready to do it I decided I really didn't want to. Plus it makes it that much harder to rest in your room in the middle of the day and come back.

Definitely Giant Dipper (1924) at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Amazing how good of shape it's still in, SCBB takes wonderful care of it. It was my very first "big" roller coaster and was my favorite woodie until the refurb of Ghost Rider overtook it, but it's still a very close 2nd. Looking forward to riding it tomorrow actually!!

As far as needing a Taxi from the Hilton you will not need it. Long as its the Garden Hilton 27710 The Old Rd, heck they are closer than some parking spots at SFMM. Also they offer a free shuttle to main gate from the hotel and pickup service also. Travel from LAX I will look at later. Thank you so far. That's nice to know about the free shuttle service as I'm staying in the Garden Hilton you mentioned! Youll love it. No more convenient place to stay for SFMM. It's so nice to be able to just walk back to your room in the afternoon, shower, change, grab a bite, and then go back to the park for the rest of the day nice and refreshed.

The park just announced Harley Quinn will officially open on June 17th, and SP preview is Saturday the 16th from 0930-1030. For the rest of the day Sat 16, purchasing a Harley Quinn T-Shirt gets you on, and I'm guessing SP will still work too, I believe they did the same thing with Joker if I remember correctly.

Yes they're allowed to, they just don't care to. They rarely run both sides at the same time at all except summer weekends. Man, having both cars come up the tower at the same time while riding Lex Luthor would be an awesome experience!

I'm just shocked they haven't announced the date yet considering they have riders on it, even if they are employees. I agree, it's weird, leads me to speculate that there's something going on similar to what happened with gold striker - though the ride is ready to go, city and/or state may not yet have given it the go ahead to operate, so it just can't open to the public yet.

That's what I think they should do for these Arrow loopers; instead of junking them . . . get those kind of trains I don't think it would make much of a difference. The primary cause of the roughness with old Arrow Loopers is the track. It is notorious for warping, and there's basically nothing you can do about it. New trains would be nice for a little while, but ultimately it would still be rough. The only Arrow I've seen that hasn't gone bad is Canyon Blaster in Vegas, perhaps because it's indoors. If you watch the Arrow documentary (the whole thing is on youtube) they go into more detail about the issue.

I heard the opposite, from someone who rode it today.

Definitely the best promotional giveaway I've ever gotten at a game! Has to be used by 6/29, but that's fine with me as I was planning to visit the park this month anyway, yahoo! SCBB also sponsored the fanny pack giveaway tonight, and the Giants were giving away SCBB shirts all night. Very cool promotion!

Hey hey hey... don’t be mean to YOLO! Guests and enthusiasts alike love it! Also kinda biased as a Throttle ride op haha. But Wow, checking seats and grouping into rows at the same time is not easy. Yeah the only thing disappointing about that coaster for me was the promotion. Sure, it's short, but a pretty unique coaster and always fun.

It's definitely employee only status at the moment, but employees may have been able to bring a +1. Either way, with employees riding now, it will be open very very soon. I got a free unlimited rides wristband voucher for SCBB tonight at the SF Giants game which is awesome, as I was planning to visit SCBB at the same time when I go down to CGA to ride Railblazer. That will save me $40!

For anyone in the SF bay area, the first 20,000 fans into AT&T Park for the giants game on Saturday 6/2 get a free all day wristband for SCBB! I happen to be going, so hope I get there early enough!

Forgot they filmed an episode of Lucifer at the park. Just came up on my DVR. Some really nice photography of the park actually. Couldn't help bursting out laughing when they refer to Viper as "the scariest ride in the park", and after the characters literally walked there from X2. Weird how TV and movies always gravitate towards Arrows. I saw the movie Action Point last night where Johnny Knoxville runs his own theme park, and the Six Flags stand-in had one coaster which was an Arrow Looper. The new vacation movie featured an Arrow looper. Wonder if there's something that makes the track photogenic or something.

Yeah, basically. The one year that I bought a platinum pass since I was planning to visit both KBF and CP that year, I had the same problems at CGA. They looked at me like I was trying to scam them with a forged card I made myself or something. There's just no CF parks out here on the west coast for the most part..most people who live here don't see the value of buying a platinum pass, because most go to either just CGA or just KBF, and even going back and forth between those two gets expensive fast, so as a result, they don't see very many. I bet even KBF sees more platinum passes than CGA.

Of those dates, I would pick Thursday 6/14 for sure. Weekdays are always better than weekends, and always avoid holidays. With Independence day being on Weds 7/4, a lot of people may just take weds, thurs, and fri off of work, so that thurs and fri may be really busy.

It is bad, but I think SpinZanity is worse.

I know they said there would be one for 2018, I dont remember if they gave a date range. We'll probably get more info within a few months.

Fashion doesn't really matter at the park. Most people know why you're wearing cargo pants. I was thinking about buying some myself to not have to deal with the storage containers.

Sorry Im late to answer this and you've already been there, but for others who may go on limited days I've seen that limited rides ALWAYS includes the 'Dipper, and ALMOST ALWAYS includes Undertow. The east end of the park is usually entirely closed on limited days. See photo:

Yep I bet you're right, makes sense why they'd have a temporary catwalk there for that until they dial in the controls.

Depends on the ride, some are more strict than others. X2 is storage container mandatory but has $1 lockers in the station. Tatsu isn't mandatory but should be. Empty your pockets before boarding Tatsu or it will empty them for you, trust me.