shepp

Y'know, it's not just kids. My last experience with queue jumping was, like the pee story, a family affair, and when I pointed out to Dad that they all should get in the back of the line, it was he - not the kids - who gave me attitude. To be generous, not everyone in line understands the rules as well as, ahem, some of us do. Heaven knows they're usually not prominently posted IN BIG LETTERS, but are mixed in with the bad-back and pregnant-women warnings instead. But here's a self-flagellating if somewhat OT question: when I go to a park before opening, I'll often have my partner drop me at the gate while he parks, and then he joins me later. Is this, too, Bad Behavior?

In my experience, yes, every Six Flags park I've been to requires a check of all backpacks before entering. How thoroughly they do it varies, but I definitely wouldn't count on being able to smuggle in food and drinks. On the other hand, I regularly carry protein bar snacks in my pockets, and no one has ever noticed.

Well, I wasn't going to ask this in this thread, but since people have bringing up scheduling strategy.... I've always been to SFMM early in the season, when it wasn't open late. But now I'll be there around 7 till 10:00 closing the night of Monday 6/8, all day Tuesday, then Wednesday until evening. (Don't plan on paying for Q-Bot, since I'll have a few days, schools are just starting to let out...and, hey, as an old guy, a little recovery time spent standing in line isn't always a bad thing.) Since I want to ride Terminator after dark, I figure I'll head for it first thing and grab a couple of rides. But I have no idea what X2's queue is like on weeknights. Understanding that things can vary a lot, does it make sense to walk back to X2 from Terminator, figuring the line will have died down considerably since midday? Or should I just maybe head for Goliath or Tatsu and resign myself to doing the X2 sprint the next morning? Or could I maybe even squeeze in Terminator, Tatsu, and X2? What say you, SFMM experts? Oh, and that famous tunnel. Since I've only visited the park five times, I'm not 100% sure of the terrain. There's an under-the-hill passageway from Revolution's exit to the back of the park, correct? Where, exactly?

Been thinking about this some more, and I realized my own mental distinction is between "coaster parks" like SFMM, where there's basically the thrill rides and maybe a second-rate stunt show, and "theme parks," where there's a bunch of other stuff to do, too. So IOA is my favorite "theme park," while SFGAdv is my favorite "coaster park." (And my home park, SFDK, would therefore be a "theme park," I guess, despite a lot of half-assed theming.) I'd agree that part of the negative/defensive tone in this thread is a reaction to your choosing to use IOA as an example, though you haven't even been there. But one thing that hasn't been mentioned is how damn much fun a lot of the IOA theming is. Yes, I'm the kind of person who prefers the over-the-top exoticism of Port of Entry to the nostalgia of Main Street, USA. So to me, just walking around Seuss Island or The Lost Continent, taking in the amazing architecture and the level of imaginative detail, gives me considerably more pleasure than being in Frontierland or World Showcase. In the Disney Parks I've been to, only Toontown and the India section of DAK measure up on my delight-o-meter. And yes, even the twisted steel of the Hulk works well with the zappy look of Marvel Superheroes Island. But you know, I could very well be wrong; I have lousy taste.

Funny how the sign calls the ride "all new." Um...er...right....

The ride looks great, the movie a lot less so. It got a pretty miserable 31% on the Tomatometer, and the San Francisco paper called it "unsalvageable." While it sounds like it's full of the kind of amped-up CGI sure to appeal to the coaster's core ridership, I'm wondering if bad word-of-mouth will make the movie a box office disappointment, leaving SFMM with their equivalent of Disneyland's Howard the Duck Mountain. I guess it shows the perils of closely theming a ride to a yet-to-be-released sequel in an aging franchise. Maybe they should have just added a Drew Barrymore animatron to Scream?

With all due respect, it seems like you're spinning your wheels, and that you're less into definitions than value judgments. I really have no problem with the USF coaster, in part because the park's exterior theming isn't all that impressive. Sure, it's supposed to be a movie studio with soundstages and all, but is the Shrek building anything more than a big, blocky lump? And why should MIB and the Simpsons be in the same "themed" area? What's that theme, again? Though you decry IOA as a rides park, in fact, much of it (especially Port of Entry, Seuss, JP, Lost Continent) is more consistently, immersively themed than any of the stuff next door. In any case, the new USF coaster is in the very front of the park, with a location more visually linked to City Walk than the San Francisco area. And I bet that the vast majority of repeat USF visitors, like me, are thinking "Oh, goody," rather than "What a travesty!" I'd hardly call IOA's coasters "extreme," but they are truly major coasters-as-coasters, and - for budgetary and engineering reasons - most indoor coasters, including the Rock 'n Rollercoaster, Flight of Fear, The Dark Knight, and Space Mountain, IMO simply aren't. (And since we're splitting hairs, I'd say The Mummy's less "a coaster" than a dark ride with coaster elements.) It's just not that easy to thoroughly wrap a 150-foot-high coaster in theming. Expedition Everest, yeah, but that's essentially a snazzier Matterhorn. And maybe Volcano. Big Bad Wolf's village section. And what else? So we're left with the "suspension of disbelief" question. Does anyone, unless they're drunk on their butt, walk around EPCOT thinking, "Gosh, here I am in Paris?" For that matter, do visitors at Busch Gardens lament that the "illusion" of being in Europe is somehow shattered by the presence of the Loch Ness Monster? It's safe to say that precious few actual parks totally fit your definition of "theme park." Most Disney parks, yeah, but even then...what's the Teacups but a repainted standard flat ride, or the Astro Orbiters but a tarted up carnival oldie? I can't find the post now, but are you the same guy who decided not to go to IOA because it was insufficiently themed? Ah well, if so, your loss.

Wow, congrats! Queer airtime forever!

And my point is that, depending on the design and tightness of the temple pieces, glasses that normally "stay on" because gravity presses them down on the ears and nose, may very well fall off if somebody sweaty is hanging upside down, say on a Top Spin or V2 or... Oh, forget it...this conversation is getting pretty peculiar.

Also on the Science Channel this Saturday, 11 am Eastern, on Really Big Things, "Matt Rogers rides the king of the rollercoaster's" (incorrect apostrophe theirs, not mine.).

^ Yeah, I get your point, but you're off a little base. What I love about IOA is that it incorporates both ends of your dichotomy. Sure, IOA's two (or three, depending) three coasters are "out in the open" (like, um, the Matterhorn or BTMRR), but they're also, most folks would agree, better than anything at Disney. Jurassic Park is like a bastard child of the Jungle Cruse and Splash Mountain. Both Grizzly Peak and Kali River are "out in the open" raft rides that aren't, IMO, nearly as cool as IOA's. The Cat in the Hat is Fantasyland-quality. And, lest we forget, Islands boasts what is arguably the very greatest dark ride in the universe. IOA's immersive theming soundly beats anything SF, or Universal Studios, for that matter, has to offer. Sure, for theater-type shows, USF beats IOA, which basically has a stunt show and a walk-through damn near as elaborate as anything Disney has to offer. To me, hopping between IOA and USO is pretty much theme-park nirvana.

If price is an object...in my experience, hotels in Santa Clarita tend to be rather more expensive than elsewhere in LA. Last year, I used the Burbank Airport area as a base, getting an Extended Stay America through Priceline for $45 a night. It was just off the 5, sorta equidistant from SFMM and KBF (and really close to USH, but you're not going there). Only thing is, it's somewhat of a trek to LAX, but if you stay near the airport, you're looking at dealing with rush hour on the 405.

I somehow doubt that some designer at L.A. Eyeworks thought, "Let's see, will these stay on during hangtime on a Top Spin?" Like I said, Croakies. Cheap, portable, effective, make you look like an absolute geek.

^ We should be so lucky. Just SF painting over the parking lot underneath would be a miracle. SFDK is my home park, so I've already been a couple of times this season. In addition to some refurbing, there seems to have been a major improvement in attitude - ops and other staff have been notably friendly and efficient...though, given the Swine Flu thingy, I could do without the ops high-fiving all the riders. And yeah, as a coaster park, SFDK is second-rate. But if you're into looking at walruses and butterflies and dolphins and tigers and stuff (which I am), it makes for a really nice day out, and, apart from SW, BGT, and DAK, is pretty much in a niche all its own.

Seems awfully sweet but kinda brief, unless there are some edits to the video I didn't notice - what, around 45 seconds from the first drop to the brake run? Anyway, certainly nowhere near rcdb's 3-minute estimate.

^ I'm not sure it's "politically correct" oversensitivity. After all, antebellum Southern plantations were built by slave labor, and if I imagine an African American stumbling on the Monster Plantation might feel as queasy as I would if I went to a German park and discovered a mine train called "The Auschwitz Express."

^ Okay, I grew up in a real nice part of Pennsylvania. And yes, Knoebels is special, and Hersheypark is pretty good. (Haven't been to Kennywood yet.) But - little as I love much of Florida - are we really saying that those three parks actually beat the collective juiciness of WDW, IOA, USF, BGT, SW, and the Dania Beach Hurricane thrown in for good measure? Really?

^ Nope, didn't lose my glasses on El Toro. Did have my wallet lifted in the station, though. Clearly, I should have had THAT strapped on.

^ Can't readily locate my park map from a couple years back, but as I recall, they didn't have that info on it then. And it's nice that they do now. Even though it's no substitute for free beer.

Even on Top Spins? I recall one strapless Top Spin ride with my finger on the bridge of my wanting-to-fall-off glasses throughout. Like Radiohead says, gravity always wins.

^^ Wow! You're THE Diablo Cody, huh? That...is...so...cool!

One thing to keep in mind about BGE is that they don't always open the entire park up at one time (at least not when I've been there), so you can be headed for a ride only to be totally stymied. I mean, blocked paths and everything. Rather than doing a lot of running around and backtracking, you might try finding out beforehand what's supposed to be up when.

Ah, welcome back, old thread. I always wear my glasses, always with a Croakies strap. My vision's really poor without them, and besides, just like I'd never ride my motorcycle without eye protection, I'd rather not have a Sandusky bug hit my eyeball when I'm going 90 mph. And, of course, having survived a near-miss with a cellphone a while back, I understand that it's only considerate to others never to ride with unsecured eyewear. The only ride I've been on that consistently forbids strapped glasses is XCelerator, weird when there's no problem riding its bigger and faster sibs TTD and KK with them on. Last time I was at KBF, I'd forgotten to carry a hard case and just stuck them in my pocket. They were trashed by the end of the ride. First time I rode Tatsu, I was also forced to take them off and stick them in an unsecure jacket pocket (I am NOT gonna leave them on some boarding platform). Since then, Tatsu's changed its policies, as has Speed:The Ride.

I'm really not shilling for the company, but I recommend looking into the Los Angeles Go Card. It's a one-price pass that includes a lot of the museums and stuff you're considering, and a lot more (including KBF, USH, and SFMM, but you've got those covered). It also includes a really good walking tour of Hollywood, and the excellent, high-priced tours at Warners and Paramount, each of which is, oh, about 1000 times better than the USH tram tour...unless you're really into plastic sharks. Getting your money's worth out of the pass involves a lot of planning and dealing with the horrors of the freeways, but I found the whole thing totally worth it. Also note that after 5:00, when a lot of other museums are closed, LACMA is pay-what-you-wish, and it's really first-rate.

^^Wrong. But I have it on good authority that the TOT is going to be changed to The Jonas Brothers Tower of Virginity.