aCoasterStory

So I'm going to be in the area the weekend of 8/16-17, and I was looking at visiting the park on Saturday the 16th. I probably wouldn't be able to get there until the evening (6-7), but the rides are open till 11, so I figure I should be able to have enough time to enjoy everything, right? What kinds of crowds/wait times should I expect given that it'll be a Saturday night? I'm not huge on most flats, but I figure I'd like to get several rides in on the coasters. Is a wristband my best bet? Any other must-ride attractions? And are there any special deals/tips/tricks/etc I should know about? Thanks!

Since there's not really an official Gilroy Gardens thread, I figured I should post here. I'm going to be in the Bay area the weekend of 8/16-17 and may have some time Saturday afternoon to visit the park (I have a CF Platinum Pass). I'm an adult male, so I'm not really planning on doing a ton of rides--I'd really just like to ride the 2 coasters, plus whatever I need to ride to see the gardens (I believe there's an antique cars ride and a monorail that go through gardens, right?). I also want to have some time to just walk around and appreciate the scenery. How much time should I budget, given that it'll be a Saturday afternoon? This will likely be my only visit ever to the park, but I'll also be trying to hit CGA in the same day, so I don't want to cut out too much time from there. Suggestions?

Looking to be at the park on Saturday 8/16 for the first (and likely only) time. Any tips? I've seen on here that I can get in an hour early with my platinum pass. My thoughts were to go hit Gold Striker as many times as I can during that hour & then head over to hit Flight Deck right before opening so I can be on my way to Vortex when they start letting people in. I figure I can then work my way around to the back of the park and be on the front edge of the wave of guests. If I can stay ahead of the crowds, it shouldn't take too long to hit all the coasters (plus the drop ride), right? Anything that's definitely worth planning on re-riding (other than Gold Striker)?

That's brilliant and so perfectly ties in the 66 Days at Sea with the actual ride theming. I was beginning to wonder, but this answers all my theming-related questions. I had Holiday World on my list of parks I wanted to revisit at some point in the future, and now I'm *definitely* going to find a way to make that trip from Atlanta next year. I visited in 2012, and while I loved the waterpark & really enjoyed Raven and Legend, Voyage beat me up a good bit. I'm excited to ride Thunderbird (and hoping Voyage is playing a little nicer) next year when I return.

That being said, Paula did mention on the podcast tonight that they paid for a new power substation to be installed across the street from the park & thought it was interesting that none of the enthusiasts noticed it with as anal as they were being with investigating the footers.

Live podcast with Paula going on now: http://www.coasterradio.com/live.html

Wonder if she misspoke about the flywheel or if the animation wasn't accurate? EDIT: this is from the FACTS page: Launch, using LSM technology DESCRIPTION: Thunderbird is the nation’s first launched wing coaster. It is Holiday World’s first major steel roller coaster, with a 0-60mph launch in 3.5 seconds, followed by multiple inversions – including a 14-story Immelmann loop, Zero-g roll, barrel roll, and loop. Continuing Holiday World’s tradition of sending roller coasters through thickly wooded and hilly terrain, Thunderbird at first soars and loops high in the air and then hugs the ground, surprising riders with rapid-fire “near misses” such as keyholes, themed elements, other rides, trees, and even the ground. TRACK LENGTH: 3,035 feet RIDE HEIGHT: 140 feet at Immelmann loop’s peak RIDE ELEMENTS: From start to finish: Launch, using LSM technology Immelmann loop Loop Horseshoe Elevated Spiral Zero-G roll S curve 2 “headchopper” keyholes Carousel 360 in-line twist (barrel roll) 2 Crossovers with The Voyage SPEED: Thunderbird’s top speed is 60 miles per hour RIDE TIME: 1 minute, 18 seconds (station to station) RIDE VIDEO: http://HolidayWorld2015.com TRAINS: Two trains, each with five four-person coaches CAPACITY: 1,140 Guests per hour HEIGHT LIMIT: Riders must be at least 52 inches tall INVESTMENT: $22 million RIDE DESIGNER: Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M), Switzerland LEGEND: In 1620, as the Mayflower neared the end of its 66 days at sea, a mighty storm nearly capsized the ship, taking it hundreds of miles off course. As passengers and crew feared all was lost, an immense bird appeared in the sky. The thunderbird, whose wings created the thunder and eyes flashed the lightning of the powerful storm, rescued the ship by launching it through the sky to the New World.

Wait, did she say flywheel????

Launched Wing Coaster, Baby!

Stream is back working in Safari, but Chrome is still very choppy. IE is still rock solid.

I think it will be. Sounds like the local crowd isn't exactly enthused about it launching or being a terrain coaster. Lol.

This third question (If it's a steel coaster, will it turn me upside down, launch me in the air, or be terrain all the way?) has me hoping it's actually all 3!

My best-functioning stream is in IE on my PC. It's glitchy in Chrome & non-functional still in Safari on my Mac (though it did just start to try to come back up).

It's coming back up for me.

I got a couple seconds of audio/video and then it just stopped. Got a couple shots from what looked like a video and then just black. I've got 2 diff devices going w/ diff browsers & they're doing the same thing!!

Brilliant catch. I missed that one on the first go-around.

So most of those clues are fairly straightforward. I think it's safe to say at this point that it's a $22M B&M steel coaster with inversions. All the 'Birds of Prey' references seem to indicate a wing coaster (though a flyer could also be possible). “One mammoth of an announcement.” The longest magnetically-launched coaster? I know Cheetah Hunt is pushing 4500ft. Is any magnetically-launched coaster longer than that? “I always wanted a younger brother.” No idea. To me this would imply that it's not the biggest/baddest/awesomest new thing. Unless it's talking about a younger brother to Hulk? “Bellyaching and moaning won’t get you any closer to announcement time” Thoughts? Maybe the restraints will put you face-down? That could speak to a flyer or a 4D wing coaster IMHO.

I'm going to go with it being the first 4D B&M coaster.

Or you very awkwardly ask or are grouped with strangers...BTDT Second time, got paired with a random father and his kid... my new policy is: unless it has a single rider line or I can bump into someone else looking for a single rider, skip it. I generally agree, but then I went to Wet'n'Wild, and most of their slides (especially the cool ones) are group only (and I didn't do enough research beforehand to know this), so I had to suck it up and ride with people. There are few things more awkward than riding a water slide with girls that are half your age. When I went to Splashin' Safari at HW, I did the single-rider lines for Wildebeest and Mammoth. Mammoth wasn't too awkward, but I ended up with this family on Wildebeest, and the design of those rafts makes it interesting riding with random people...you have to get a little friendly with them. But of course I did it (because I really didn't know any better beforehand and also because it's one heck of a water coaster). Suffice it to say, I really need to stop going to waterparks by myself.

Look at the employees Six Flags hires, and then look at basically any other quality theme park and tell me if you can't see why customer service, operations, etc. suffer at Six Flags parks. The parks with the best operations don't hire high school kids (who really don't want to be there but their mama made them get a job) to run the entire park--and then pay them jack diddly. But Six Flags is desperate for cheap labor; they think that if they spend more money on quality employees that it will cost them (which it will upfront, but it will pay dividends in the long-run as customer service and operations improve accordingly). I worked for a Six Flags-owned water park for 2 summers in HS, and it was something I looked forward to and actually cared about. Many of my coworkers hated having to show up to work. The supervisor of my restaurant was younger than I was, often talked about drinking and partying, and showed up hung over a few times. His best friend worked in our restaurant until the day he got selected for a random drug test & quit rather than pee in the cup. Several of the employees would whine and complain about having to do the most basic and necessary of tasks, and most liked to hide behind the shelving (instead of being at the registers ready to serve customers) so they could text (and this was before *everyone* texted all the time). I know it was a small sample size, but I do believe my experience is fairly consistent with the general Six Flags experience. Another anecdote unrelated to my employment: I was at a park one time queueing for a coaster when one ride op announced they were going on break. Everyone else seemed cool with it until one kid piped up and said, "Wait! You can't go on break--you're the only one that's 18!" I've never heard of another park that would operate a major coaster with only a single 18yo op and the rest 16/17. Granted, I've also seen this park operate several coasters with only a single ride op, so really nothing should shock me at this point.

The sucky thing is that a quality wooden coaster is really what the park needs to have (keep) its rounded coaster lineup. Think about it--how many major coaster parks do you know of that don't have a single wooden roller coaster but have 7+ steel coasters? And a huge number of parks have multiple wooden coasters for that many steel ones. The biggest park I can think of without a wooden coaster is BGW with 6 steel coasters. (I'm not counting SFFT or SFM here, even though IRAT & Medusa are technically hybrid coasters, and for the same reason I wouldn't mind if Gwazi got the Iron Horse treatment). Once you get beyond all that, though, the next major deficiency in BGT's lineup is the airtime hyper, but I have absolutely no idea where on earth you'd put one. While it'd be really cool to run out along/through the Serengeti plain, there are a few major challenges with doing that 1) I don't know how the animals would react to a coaster that close to them, 2) I don't know how they'd be able to effectively do construction through a populated animal area, and 3) I don't know where they could put the station that would make sense. Jungala is really the only major section of the park without a coaster, and I think they could probably expand to the north but I'm still not sure how they'd do it to make it make the most sense for a hyper. I really can't see them putting in any other type of coaster in the next 3-5 years except maybe if they did a Gatekeeper and re-did the entrance with a wing coaster. Highly doubt we'd see a stand-up or flying coaster from B&M. If they did anything else from Intamin, I'd think they'd go big & intense, but that hasn't really been their MO. I don't see an El Loco or a Eurofighter being the right fit for the park either.

This is actually really surprising to hear. By all accounts, it's been running really well of late. It's been a month or two since I've ridden it myself, but I've never enjoyed the GA Cyclone until riding it this year. Every time before that I'd get off with basically the same thoughts you had, but this year it's been brilliant and dare I say it, fun. Where did you sit?

Or you very awkwardly ask or are grouped with strangers...BTDT

Anybody else notice that we're rapidly approaching 150 pages of speculation in this thread??

I have 4 "rules of coastering". #2 is no spinning rides.