sfmman2000

We took a visit to the annual California State Fair 2012 on Saturday, July 14. Some notes: 1. Pictures hide most of the dirt and grime of the rides. 2. The Fabbri Spinning Wild Mouse was not present at the carnival, although the fair website says otherwise. 3. (not pictured) was a decently fun ride. 4. Spinout, a KMG/Tivoli Move It, was awesome! Really unexpectedly great. It doesn't look very enjoyable, but this is one of those rides where it's a lot more fun than it looks. 3. I should really hold the ride operators to a higher standard. But it's hard. They rarely pay attention to their ride, are overall not very friendly. A little "rough around the edges" I would say. But I really shouldn't expect anything more -- it's a carnival. Then again, Butler's motto is: "Family is our business" and "The cleanest show in the West." I don't know what to think. 4. Enjoy the photos... Two zippers, one picture! The underwhelming Zillerator's station The Zillerator was heavily trimmed and not nearly as exciting one would expect for a compact carnival-style coaster This Zipper sure looks pretty. It was a great idea for them to bring two Zippers. There weren't any lines during our stay, but I'm sure during peak hours, the Zipper attracts the crowds. Standard Fireball. Subpar cycle. The Jumping Jumbos! Which are not a rip-off of anything. Nope. First time on a Skydiver. Wow. Not the best idea putting two adults in one car. Really insane and unique ride. Yum. Free ice coffee samples and free $5 gift cards. Not bad. Toy shop model train. Buried alive, coffin simulator. What could go wrong? Whiting's, operator of concessions at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk brought this stand out to the fair. Evolution from Fabbri. This is one of those rides that is quite awesome to watch, but gives a fairly average ride. Unfortunately I was too dizzy from previously ridden flat rides to take a ride on Crazy Train. But just watching it, it spins ridiculously fast! Anyone care to share their experience on one of these? It looks wild! Cal Expo's permanent monorail. The Cal Expo grounds are quite nice. They brought a 100 foot Chance wheel, as seen in the background. No thanks. A Super Round-Up, which our passing monorail train got quite close to. ARM Super Shot, 105 foot tower in the background, I believe. Quite a nice ride. It even held at the top for about 15-20 seconds. One of the main waterslide structures at Raging Waters, Cal Expo's on-site waterpark. Note the interesting architecture of the concrete building in the background. Butler scooped up some rides from Neverland Ranch. Yep. Cal Expo's shaded solar panel parking lot Do yourself a favor and ride this solely for the old dark ride smell. This ride (no exaggeration) is composed of just a few cardboard cutouts moving about. So the bumper cars are running and one operator hops in a car and starts driving it while the other walks across the ride floor. Great operations team you've got, Butler. They actually brought out three wheels! This one is an Eli Bridge Eagle 16 wheel at 67 feet tall.

Unless there's something I'm missing, if the ride is getting 450 pph, the ride is running about 37 times per hour. Is that even possible?

This is the best news I've heard all day!

Yeah, that sounds logical to me too. Just pulling up some quick stats shows that Supreme Scream has a 252 foot drop at only 50 mph. Drop Tower at CGA has a smaller drop at 207 feet, but reaches 62 mph. My guess is that the initial release of a Turbo Drop is faster than the pull of gravity (as claimed), but the ride isn't maintaining a real freefall after that point due to the friction and pull of the cable and pneumatic system. I'm sure someone has a better explanation of this, and if so, I'd like to hear it.

On an S&S tower, the ride carriage is permanently attached to a cable at both the top and bottom, on all four sides. On an Intamin tower, cables are only attached to the catch car (which hooks onto the ride carriage from above). This makes Intamin towers as close to a freefall as possible, whereas an S&S tower is more controlled due to the attached cables. On an S&S Turbo Drop, compressed air pushes the carriage down at a fast speed after being released from the brakes at the top of the tower, but anyone who has ridden both products knows that a Turbo Drop "freefall" doesn't quite match up to an Intamin freefall.

Great trip report! I think Glenwood Caverns just beat out the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for having a Hurricane-style ride in the most awesome (outdoor) location. But the real question is: How did you feel about having to sign your life away before going on any of their rides? http://glenwoodcaverns.com/pdfs/Release_Form.pdf

Depending on the size of the rider, the Crazy Surf lapbars may staple you in. There is a maximum point that the bars move in towards you, so if you're really skinny, the bar will barely touch you, but if not, the bar will give constant pressure on you for the whole ride (kind of like the shoulder bars on an Intamin Looping Starship). Cool that you found some pictures of the old Arrow train. I didn't know they had a green one! EDIT: I found a few shots from Sting II, which shows the Arrow trains with another color scheme. And here with a black (and red?) color on the interior: And yellow here:

Crazy Surf is a KMG X-Factory. I detailed a few pages back on how the restraints work. They are very unique! I can try to explain in even more detail if you would like. Dipper has two Morgan trains which started out as black and yellow during the late 80s though 2006, and were switched to blue and orange (some say red) at that time. There has never been more than two trains on the track at the same time.

Sounds like they want the park to look its best for media day.

Great trip report and great pictures -- thanks! I've seen some poor operations before (often at Six Flags parks) but never have I seen an operator resort to swearing at the guests. That's a new low, Six Flags.

Does anyone know what typical 4th of July crowds are like at SFDK?

Does anyone know if both carriages are connected and must rise at the same time?

Besides being the cutest girl on TPR... awesome trip report!

Do you really think we'll see any Arrow loopers use lapbar-only restraìnts?

At West Coast Bash 2012 a few months ago, SFMM park management mentioned how they are able to keep Viper running reliably at a low maintenance cost, and they see it being at the park for many years to come.

See page 50 of this thread for a similar discussion. I don't think the city has any official height limits for amusement park rides. Although, if something tall were to be built again, it would have to pass through a variety of agencies. I think we'll be seeing a standard Maurer Sohne SC 2000, as well as some reorganization and removal of kiddie rides on the deck.

Thanks for the trip report! Did the réstraints on the S&S Double Shot even ratchet down at all, or was it just the seatbelt holding you in?

The other retro videos, for those interested:

I like the old green color of Vortex better, also. I dug up a short video of Vortex back when it was green.

Another thing to note is that in the event of a lift hill evacuation, a rider with no hands would not be able to utilize the handrail when walking down the stairs.

A single rider line would be great, but only if used effectively. There has to be a somewhat dedicated person to quickly spot and assign empty seats. With ride operations how they are, I don't think Skyrush could handle a single rider line.

Thanks for the report and pictures! This is what I experienced all day, on nearly every ride during my first and only trip to Hersheypark a few years ago. And I'm sad to see that nothing has changed. Who on earth is training their operators? On the subject of filling as many seats as possible on a 4-across coaster, I realize it can be difficult to do. But at the very least, they should have a grouper directing traffic and making announcements over the PA system for waiting guests to form groups of 4. I imagine with 2 different types of seats to choose from, this becomes all the more difficult, as guests try to wait for specific seats.

^ Thanks! They really have an incredible amount of stuff going on in the basement. Maybe if TPR comes back to the Boardwalk on one of their trips, they can arrange a tour...

^ Interesting. I figured I went late in the season, so maybe the employees were burned out, but hearing from a few different people now, it seems like what I experienced was the norm. I think nearly every park in the country could learn something from how Knoebel's runs their park (and especially their coasters). I do realize that Knoebel's coasters don't have seatbelts and have a much lower height requirement, so there isn't as much work for the operators as far as some things are concerned. But still, the overall vibe for the employees operating the coasters there is that they work very quickly to send the train out. And at Hershey, it couldn't be further from that.

I don't know if this counts as seriously bad, but we were sure disappointed. In August of 2010, we took an East Coast trip to KD, BGE, Morey's, Knoebel's, SFGA, and finally: Hersheypark. I'd been looking to going to Hersheypark my whole life. And I came out a bit disappointed. When I go to a park, I'm judging it based on the rides and coasters, as well as how to park operates. It's hard to enjoy a park to its full extent when the operations don't live up to your expectations. I can honestly say that I have very rarely experienced worse ride operations at any theme park across the country. Nearly every coaster was constantly stacking trains, and employees worked at a lethargic pace. Fahrenheit was laughably running three trains, which the operators were taking forever to load. Trains were trains being sent out every 5 minutes or so with two trains stacked up behind the station every time. Often times, the train on its course would be finished and waiting, while the trains parks in the station was still releasing lap bars for the returning guests. Talk about slow! Other rides such as Great Bear, which one would think is fairly high capacity, was reduced to slow, 5+ minute dispatches every cycle, due to the employees working ever so slowly. Heck, the air gates for the new riders rarely opened before the other train was stacked behind it. In conclusion, Hersheypark has some decent rides, but with such poor operations on a busy day, it was a rather disappointing experience. Skyrush looks like a world-class ride. But taking a look at the station, I have to wonder if they made the right choice to design it for single-sided loading/unloading. I can see the ride being a capacity nightmare, especially if they don't force guests to fill all four seats of each row. Combined with the bins for guests to store and retrieve their loose articles, and not being able to open the air gates until all previous guests have exited, I could see each cycle taking 5+ minutes.