805Andrew

I guess we all better get our last rides in at West Coast Bash We can all marvel over KBF's concrete ornament for a final time anyway next weekend I never got to ride, but I'll get to marvel over it for a second time next weekend. I didn't get to it on my last visit to the park during Halloween Haunt 2011. Oh well, I'll eventually ride a Windseeker at Cedar Point (if its still there when I finally visit Cedar Point).

Nice TR! The Pacific Northwest is definitely not for a coaster specific trip but should not be written off as they are many nice natural sites to see and some of the cleanest air one will ever breathe. Growing up, my family did several Northern California camping trips including visiting Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Redwood National Park and the State Parks inside of it, Oregon Caves National Monument, Crater Lake National Park, Lava Beds National Monument, Mount Shasta, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Burney Falls State Park, and Lake Tahoe, amongst other places. In November 2010, I did a road trip to visit a friend who had moved to Seattle and drove up Hwy 1 north of SF until it merged back with US 101 and drove up the Oregon Coast over a couple of days. I stayed in Seattle over a week and saw sights in and around Seattle including a day trip to Olympic National Park. I also drove to Vancouver from Seattle and spent a couple of nights there and to drove to North Cascades National Park on my way back to Seattle. I got to experience sun, rain, and snow while in Seattle. After Seattle, I took I-5 south and spent a night in Portland on my way home. All in all it was a really fun trip and your TR reminded me of a mix of my summer camping trips and my road trip. The only NW theme park I have heard of back then was Wild Waves, and I assumed it was going to be closed in November. I think I saw some waterslides off of I-5 south of Seattle and was pretty sure it was Wild Waves. I thought about spending a night at a Great Wolf Lodge in WA but I wanted to get further south of Seattle in a day so I decided against it. Had the Great Wolf Lodge been located in central OR, I probably would have spent a night there. I had originally planned to drive towards Mt. Rainier but scrapped it was snowing/raining my whole drive from Seattle to Portland and I couldn't see Mt Rainier or any mountain in the background. I definitely would want to do another NW road trip when I get a new car, but in the Spring or Summer. There are places I wanted to see that I just didn't get around to (or weather wouldn't permit) and they are places I wouldn't mind revisiting. If I was staying with my friend in Seattle again, I would invite him to Wild Waves for a day as a thank you as he also likes theme parks and water parks, and I could cross that park off my list.

I guess we all better get our last rides in at West Coast Bash

While I'm bummed that X2 will be closed being its I'm favorite coaster at the park, I've ridden it plenty of times and I'm glad that Apocalypse should be open as I haven't ridden it yet. I'm also looking forward to riding Green Lantern First Flight, Lex Luthor Drop of Doom, and Superman Escape From Krypton for the first time at SFMM, and I'm glad Xcelerator should be up and running for WCB. It is what it is.

I'm glad to hear that another Six Flags park is going to be open year round. This makes sense is as there isn't really any extreme winter weather in the Bay Area, except for the occasional storm when it pours. And Vallejo is typically warmer than San Francisco, although sometimes SF will have better weather in February than July (go figure ). I'm assuming the water rides will be closed, but most of the other rides could be up and running during the winter time. I hope more parks in places were there aren't extreme winters will become open year round if its successful at SFDK (and I think it will). Why aren't Texas parks open year round? How bad can San Antonio's Winters be?

Ooh, fancy. I had a couple of Full Sails tonight. An Amber followed by a Pale.

Yay, another RMC transformation! This looks awesome, especially the inversion into the first drop. I'm glad to see that RMC is going to be very busy with projects. Hopefully we'll see more RMC transformations in the coming years *cough* Colossus* cough*.

This sounds like a cool addition to the park. I didn't realize Canada's Wonderland had a mountain like that, although it looks like a fake one. I'm glad they are making use of it. That guy in the video said that this shooting dark ride is going to be better than anything we've seen at Universal or Disney - wow, that's saying a lot! I highly doubt it but we'll see. I'd like to see more renderings or details about the project.

Grizzly is not the worst or roughest wooden coaster in the world (or even that rough), its just incredibly boring and short. I feel most coaster enthusiasts would rather ride a rough coaster than a boring one that doesn't really do anything, and that's the reason Grizzly ranks so low in coaster polls. Also Grizzly's proximity to a large urban area means more enthusiasts have been able to ridden it as opposed to a woodie in a remote area or another country, and more of the enthusiasts/poll rankers that rode Grizzly may have been on less wooden coasters (I have only been on nine so far) so Grizzly could be their worst by default. I ranked Grizzly the lowest of the nine woodies I've been on, but I know there's worse woodies out there that if/when I ride them will rank them lower. I rode Stampida in 2012, and it has gotten really rough, and I almost ranked it as low as Grizzly, but I couldn't get over the yawn factor of Grizzly. It's a shame for Stampida, because that ride used to be really fun and has a great racing layout. We'll see how rough Ghostrider is at WCB, but I doubt it will displace Grizzly for me. Call me crazy, but I preferred the shakiness of Psyclone to the yawn factor of Grizzly. If they were able to lower the height requirement of Grizzly, they could keep it around as a family ride as it seems kids who have never been on a big roller coaster before would like it, but since they have Gold Striker now with the same height requirement, Grizzly seems pointless to me. I also hate the fact that every time I've gone to CGA that Grizzly has had longer wait times than most of the rides there including Top Gun/Flight Deck. I would be more forgiving to Grizzly if the wait times were shorter and/or the ride time was longer, but I'm ready for CGA to remove Grizzly in the coming years and build something better.

And the winner for best new Six Flags addition for 2014, and possibly best new overall addition is...Goliath at Six Flags Great America. Seriously, this thing is going to rock. It even made the news on CNN last night. This just put SFGA on my radar, and I see it will be on a TPR trip next year, hmm. PA to Chicago trip? I really like this relationship Six Flags is having with RMC, first SFOT, then SFFT, now SFGA. Will we hear an announcement next Summer in CA for the next RMC project? I'm also glad this RMC is different from the other ones and has different elements than Outlaw Run so you have to ride both to compare. A Midwest Coaster trip is near the top of my list - probably the only reason for me wanting to visit the Midwest (besides Chicago of course).

It will be a cool drop ride being on Kingda Ka's drop tower, but I don't see how they have to get rid of Rolling Thunder because of this. They must being getting rid of Rolling Thunder for a future attraction.

I'm calling it now ... YOLOcoaster Jr. I like that one. Lets all call it that. I forgot to mention earlier that I'm glad Hurricane Harbor is getting a couple of capsule drop slides. I went on a capsule drop slide at Raging Waters San Jose and it was a lot of fun. I'm guessing its not going to be a looping one like at Noah's Arc otherwise they would have probably mentioned it.

Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout

I like the SFMM announcement for 2014 for the most part. Colossus backwards is a lot of fun and Batman should be too. Interesting that they are emphasizing the backwards part in the Spring, will they be some type of announcement next summer? Maybe there should be a Backwards Bash event next Spring with ERT on Colossus and Batman (just throwing an idea out there). I liked SFMM's promo video a lot better than CP's, a lot less cheesy, shorter, and more on point. I don't really care about the new kiddie coaster, but I hope it will be more for "all of the family" and not "adults with a kid only". I feel the DeJaVu spot would have made more sense for the location as the kids rides should be more spread out among the adult rides as opposed to being bunched in one location.

Nah, its all about Swedish Meatballs and Lingonberry Punch I love the Swedish Market section of the Ikea stores. Sometimes when I'm visiting my sister in Berkeley I'll go to the Ikea in Emeryville just to buy some things at the Swedish Market.

I was shocked when Stealth was removed from CGA (PGA back then) after three years. It was the most expensive ride PGA had ever built at the time I believe and I never got to PGA until 2004 when it was already removed. I was bummed until Tatsu was built so I could get the flying coaster experience (and a better version of it).

Great trip report Marcel. Makes me excited for my first TPR event in a week and a half. Maybe I'll be able to go on a tour next year.

I certainly hope Apocalypse is open again by West Coast Bash. Last time I was at Magic Mountain, Apocalypse was also closed. I've never had X/X2 closed when I've gone to the park, so if it is closed during WCB it will be a first for me.

I saw that video on Action Park, it was pretty interesting. It would have been a cool place to visit if they had proper brakes working on the Alpine Slide, though having all those kids spit on people going down the slide would have been gross. I'm amazed Action Park got away with what it was doing for that long. I believe some of Acton Park is still open as Mountain Creek Waterpark including the Tarzan Swing.

Just catching up on the CP thread now. Wow, that video announcing the 2014 stuff was God Awful Cheesy. Was a video even necessary? Couldn't they have just used pictures and artists renderings? Anyways, I knew it was going to be an off year for CP since they just put in Gatekeeper and the family ride additions are fine, but hopefully they will keep the height requirements 42" or less to ride (or at least w/ an adult) because if these new family rides have a 48" height requirement, what's the point?

^^^ They have a single trap door slide at Raging Waters in San Jose called Bombs Away. But I wish they would build a slide complex like this at a California water park. It looks really cool.

5FDP - Hard To See

For SFMM, I would say Scream. It is off in a hidden corner of the park and I've never seen it with a line longer than 30 minutes all my times in the park. The first time I rode it in 2004, it had a 30 minute wait while DeJaVu, Riddler's Revenge, Batman the Ride, and Goliath, all had 1 hour + waits, Viper 45 minutes wait, and X had a 2-3 hour wait, and Scream was the newest ride in the park then being built in 2003. For Knott's, I would say Silver Bullet. Its the first thing you see when you enter the park, yet it seems to by overshadowed by Xcelerator, Ghostrider, and the Timber Mountain Log Ride. EDIT: I will stick with the E Ticket attractions. I am going by what I have actually ridden. I guess one could also say Green Lantern First Flight for SFMM. No one is really talking about it anymore.

Goose Island Summertime. Pretty good. And yes, I made that sushi myself.

The button wasn't "return to merchant" but was something similar like "return to Theme Park Review Store" or something like that. Check your email to see if PayPal emailed you saying it the charge would show up on your CC statement as PayPal*Elissa and that the payment was made to Elissa Alvey. That's what it did for me when I bought my WCB tickets several days ago.