CrazedZooChimp

Yep, and it's definitely a spot that wouldn't fit anything else. It's very impressive how small the footprint is.

I didn't have any big problems with lines Sunday, although only stayed for a few hours in the morning. By far the longest wait was to get a hot dog at Schultz's Wieners. No idea why it was so slow, the food was ready, and it went plenty fast when I got up to the front and ordered, I have no idea what the people in front of me were struggling with. Season pass processing was probably the second longest wait (but it moved quick enough). Grizzly still seemed to have incredibly slow load times, although the crew seemed to be trying hard. Is there a reason they can't replace the trains on it with ones that would be easier to load quickly? It seems like that would be limited investment to fix a recurring issue. I'm glad I went in the morning, when I left the parking lot was already a bit of a mess (although I did see lots of WWE fans walking or taking transit instead of driving). All in all the park looked good, can't wait to get back.

Anyone else at the park this morning?

Anyone have any guesses on how bad traffic and parking are going to be Sunday? I'm hoping to go to the park in the morning that day since I don't think I can make it Saturday. I figured that if I get there early and leave in the early afternoon, maybe it won't be too much of a mess, but I have no idea what to expect with Wrestle Mania going on (was the park open during any preseason Niners games that would be comparable or something).

Not to hijack the thread, but when I was growing up Looney Tunes was of no interest to me, but the related early/mid 90s WB cartoons Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs were huge influences on me (esepcially Animaniacs). I didn't live near a Six Flags park back in the days, but were characters from those shows ever in Six Flags Parks? I know neither had very long runs (I think both did ~100 eps), but Disney manages to be successful with older characters and themig, so it would seem characters for a show that was on for several years could still have at least some success at Six Flags (it's not like character costumes or newly branded T-Shirts could possibly cost that much). I'm actually a little surprised Adventure Time theming hasn't popped up anywhere, since it's hugely popular among adults as well as kids, and doesn't really seem like it's going anywhere (based on the consistency of it's ratings) unless the creators decide they run out of ideas.

Welp, kind of sad Screamin' was closed, but otherwise the trip was great (well, except that my initial flight down was cancelled...). Park was relatively empty, I don't think anything had a wait longer than half an hour or so, except Radiator Springs which we just fast-passed and single ridered. It was actually my first time down there during Christmas, I might only go down during Christmas from now on (except when I really want to see the traditional Haunted Mansion). It was also my first time on the new Big Thunder Mountain, the new effects are awesome (and the track feels much faster and smoother than I remembered), great stuff!

I was at the park in the evening this past Sunday, like SafariRob said it was pretty empty. It was pretty fun with an empty park being able to ride everything we wanted a couple times in only three hours. I was surprised how dark the park was, I feel like I've been to night events there before and it wasn't quite as dark. If I could ask for one improvement before next year it would be light up some more of the rides. Right now SkyScreamer is really the only thing brightly lit; the only other I noticed were the Superman "S" and the Christmas lights on the lift hill of Medusa. I assume it's because when most were built the park wasn't scheduled to be open year round. I wonder if Dare Devil Chaos will be lit up now that they know the park is open year round (and late). By far the slowest thing to do was get dinner at JB's Smokehouse. The line to order was incredibly slow, and the person at the register didn't seem to know what they were out of and what they had (which I assume was the cause of the slowness).

Goddamn it, really? I'm flying down tomorrow from SF for a couple days, that would suck if it's closed!

Goldstriker at CGA on their last day of the season. Still one of my favorite rides anywhere.

Part of what makes me optimistic is that Knott's/CF/Triotech must know that they're competing directly with the big boys at USH and Disneyland. If they didn't think they could pull off something of near equal quality, they wouldn't be trying/spending the money (I hope).

Surely they could find another spot for the movie nights (like the fancy new pavilion near the front?).

So wait, what's the confidential announcement at IAAPA going to be after this was already announced? Also, I love the art design for this ride, hopefully the actual video and themeing matches that quality.

And if it's anything like past years they'll offer it again sometime in the spring. I know one difference is you have to get the pass processed at the park it comes from. That screwed a buddy of mine when he hadn't gotten his SFDK pass processed before going to SFMM. He still got in, but had to wait in the customer service line and pay a fee for not having his pass.

Son of Beast is definitely my worst experience, only ride I think I've been on where I've wished it would be over after the first drop, heh. Kong at SFDK is one I currently always skip because of it's unpleasantness, probably similar for other SLCs (I hate having my ears banged). I would also note that while I love Maverick at CP, and have ridden it multiple times on all my trips to CP, it sure leaves a lot of bruises on my shoulders. I assume that has something to do with my height and/or skinniness, but it'd be nice if those restraints were padded just a tad...

Like a couple others here have mentioned, my first Intamin was also my first coaster period, Blue Streak (now Woodstock Express) at California's Great America. I sure made my parents ride on that a lot with me (and having recently re-ridden it, i don't know how my Dad could possibly have fit in the trains)...

My issue isn't so much that it's painful, as it is that it's short and boring Although it does help make the others more fun if you don't ride Gold Striker first (when I was there a week or so ago, I actually thought Grizzly was not only less rough, but also more thrilling, maybe the retracking sped it up?). Really I just wish they had another new exciting coaster, and taking out Vortex to do that seems to make the most sense if they can use the Tidal wave stretch and Invertigo lawn to expand it (which may not be possible for other reasons).

The talk of vortex leaving got me thinking about what could be done with that space. Since the former location of Invertigo is still a lawn, and I assume the strip where Tidal Wave was is still basically empty, I wonder if you could make a much longer coaster that basically combines the areas of the three. They were all more or less adjacent to each other... Hey, I'm allowed to dream of some Maverick-like multi-launch coaster going there, aren't I? I will say the Grizzly is much better than it was before the retracking, and that effort implies it's not going anywhere soon. My attitude towards Demon is similar to others, I've been riding it for 15+ years, so maybe I just know how to brace myself. I find Vortex much more uncomfortable, and it's soooo short (at the park last Sunday a little kid in the row behind me shouted to his friends when the train pulled into the station "is it over? Was that it?!"). It would be nice for some announcement from CF about some kind of improvement coming next year, although really Goldy is the reason I get a pass, and that's unlikely to change...

Amusement parks in general, because I'm mostly there for the coasters and a park with great coasters is almost always going to be better than a park without them. But, good themeing definitely makes amusement parks better, and a top notch theme park is definitely better than a o-so amusement park (as in I'd be much more likely to travel to Disneyland or Universal than to a random Six Flags with no particular coasters of note). This was a surprisingly hard question to answer. There should have been a both choice...

Was at the park this past Sunday, it was surprisingly empty (maybe lots of soccer and/or Nascar fans tend to fill the park?), especially when we arrived a little after 11. Got a couple rides on Superman to start the day with almost no line, followed by Roar and V2. Roar feels better than I remember it being, not too rough and still solid airtime. The biggest downside was they were only running one train, so it had the longest line to start the day. Medusa had almost no line at all, to the point the operator was joking about how quiet it was and how empty the train was (he was particularly entertaining, big props to Neil). Took one more ride on Roar and one more on Superman, which now had a longer line, probably about 30-40 minutes versus the 10 minutes it was earlier in the day. All in all, it made me think I should go again while the World Cup is still going on (or just that Sunday morning/early afternoon is always empty). Oh, one other thing, Tsunami Soaker wasn't running in the morning, but was operating in the afternoon. It wasn't quiet hot enough for my buddy and I to feel like getting wet, but it did look kind of amusing. I was a little confused by how slow it seemed to rotate and spin, though. Is it supposed to go really slowly? At times it looked like the "cars" just sort of sat there as people sprayed each other.

I went to the park this past Sunday for the first time of the year, had a slightly amusing experience. We got there pretty early (maybe 10:30) and the park was relatively empty. The wait for Gold Striker was ~20 minutes, so we went on it twice then. It has held up beautifully, I forgot how good it is. Also got to ride it in the front for the first time, as there were no fast lane riders and we happened to be at the front of the next group to go. It was awesome, I loved having no one in front of us, especially on the stretch that runs past the station, it really feels like we're flying (although the air time in the back is still the best). We then wandered around the rest of the park (I need to learn the lesson to not go on Gold Striker first, since it makes everything else feel extra slow). Grizzly was closed, although they were running trains on it. Then the kind of amusing bit happened. We got over to Flight Deck, and the line was almost empty. I turns out it was down for some reason, and the attendant at the front of the line had been telling people to leave instead of saying it might be fixed but they didn't know. That seemed odd to me. We asked if we could stay in line and he mumbled something, so we walked past him and got in line for the front. There were a few other people at different places in line, one group in front of us for the front seats. The technicians and supervisors were there, and they were running trains so we figured it would get back up at some time. In maybe 15 minutes they let the first load on, and we moved up to the front of the front row line. No one else had gotten back in line (we think the first attendant was at the main entrance to the ride turning people away). By the time the first train was dispatched and they were loading the second one, still no one else was in line. So the train loaded with just me and my buddy in the front and they sent us off, with the operator wishing us a pleasant "private flight." How often do you think it happens that Flight Deck has only two customers on it? It seems like it must be rare. Then another thing I hadn't seen happened. The line was a little more crowded but still basically empty, so we went around to ride it again. We asked the attendant standing at the top of the stairs if we could ride in the front and he "no, that's only for Fast Lane holders." We looked around and there were clearly no fast lane holders, in fact there was no one in the front row line at all! We didn't feel like arguing, so we went to the back row instead, but the front was completely empty and they weren't letting people on it. What the hell is up with that? Is that a new policy, or just a new employee who is following the letter of the rules a little too closely? Of course, after they loaded us onto the next train, the ride went down again and they made us get off, so we wandered back to Gold Striker for a couple more rides before heading home, thankful that we had managed to get a private ride on Flight Deck before it broke again. So has anyone ever been the only person on Flight Deck/Top Gun before? And, does anyone know what the deal is with this new policy of not letting people wait for the front of flight deck? I understood it for Gold Striker last season because it was brand new and so crowded, but now Flight Deck too? And with the front row empty??? Lame. I should send an email to management, along with my regular complaint of "Rue le Dodge" being turned into a lame, boring, worthless, one-way non-bumping bumper car ride...

Agree with everyone who mentioned the behind th scenes of the entire coaster design process, starting with how the park decides what they want to add, how the park works with the designers and manufacturers to locate and design the ride, how it goes into actual construction (and how they get it done so fast) and up to the testing/marketing of the ride. I've especially always wondered about the breakdown of who does what between the park/designers/manufacturers in the planning stages (like how much does the park already know what it wants versus letting the coaster designer go wild). Another thing I thought of was specifically looking at unique coasters and "first of their" kind coasters, and how much extra care needs to be done with something like that. I'm thinking about rides like the first flying coasters (or even all flying coasters based on how long Tatsu has problems) or the first LIM/LSM coasters. Sort of looking into how designers and parks come up with these ideas, and what extra efforts they need to put into them to make sure they'll be safe/reliable/fun when they're doing something basically brand new. And of course, any behind the scenes about park operations are interesting, especially if you cover a wide range of parks that maybe have different requirements.

3) Gold Striker 2) Tatsu (definitely most frustrating too, stupid breaking all the time) 1) El Toro Two of them new for me. An honorable mention not-quite-a-coaster was Transformers at Universal Hollywood, it was more awesome than I expected.

A bit belated, but thanks to all for the advice! I got back to California last night and was still thinking about El Toro. That was my favorite ride without question, although Nitro was pretty awesome, especially at night in the front, having never ridden it before . Friday night the park was pretty empty, and we were able to get in some good rides despite our flight being late and only being at the park for ~2.5-3 hours. I assume Fright Fest started so early to have it start on Friday the 13th, right? Sunday also wasn't too bad, and we were able to check off most of what we missed on Friday before heading to the airport. Definitely a great time, and I'll have to make my way back again (need more rides on El Toro, and to have time for the Safari). Thanks again for the tips!

Hi there Great Adventurers, I'm making my first trip to the park this coming weekend (out in New York from California, decided to finally get down there), going both Friday night and Sunday during the day before flying home that night. I know more or less about the famous coasters there, that's basically why I'm going, but was wondering if there were any general tips for the park (and navigating fright fest, I'm mostly interested in just coasters, not all the Halloween stuff), and which of the coasters that I probably haven't heard of I should make sure to hit up (of course I plan to try to get on everything if I can). Sad that I missed Rolling Thunder by a week. Thanks very much! Apologies for not digging through the thread and finding the other posts where you've no doubt answered similar questions

Looks like I'm going to be able to make it down tonight, I can't wait to ride it! I need to find more of these promotional shoots; free rides, free food, this is the best thing ever!