PhotoTR : Davey's California Adventure

[davidmorton]

(apologies to Tom for plagiarising his TR Title!)

 

So there I was at work, get an email reminding me to use up the year's

holiday entitlement, work out I've got about 7 days to spare, a quick

whizz on t'internet and I'm off to LA for some warm weather and some

silly coasters.....

 

--

 

Sat 18/11 - Get up stupidly early (~3am) to get a flight from Manchester

to LA (via Paris - all I can say about THAT is NEVER change planes at CDG

airport - nightmare, and I'm pretty used to this airplane-age).

 

14.5 hour flight later, at LAX (by Saturday lunchtime), so get me car, get

on the interstate and find the hotel (Hilton, right by Disneyland, bargain

for $99/night - I'm partial to Hilton's as I have a Platinum Loyalty card

with them (due to excessive business usage) so I always get cool upgrades

and free rooms....)

 

I didn't think you meant to be able to see into Disney? Well you can from my hotel

 

Too wiped out to do anything exciting on the Saturday, so a bit of fast food

and its off to sleep for me!

 

Sunday, I deliberately didn't want to go to a park, so I wander off to Long Beach

for the day, mainly because of the Aquarium (bit of a aquarium-geek as well as

a coaster-geek you see), which was good, weather was ridiculously hot and they

have a bridge that looks like a coaster, in tribute to the old coaster that lived

there. Seems to me it would have been better to have a coaster there rather than

the bridge, but what do I know.

 

So I walked over the bridge, thats a credit right?

 

Mary and some ducks

 

Queen Mary was reasonably impressive, and the downtown/marina area very pleasant place

to kill a few hours in the sunshine.

 

A lighthouse

 

Had a wander around Downtown Disney in the evening, wasn't very impressed with

it to be honest, the place was packed with people and packed with pretty

soulless restaurants and the like. Caught a flick at the cinema there and called

it a day.

 

 

 

Monday 20th...

 

Park 1 - nip up the road from Disney and there I was at Knotts Berry Farm.

 

I was reasonably excited about this place, something about it being pretty old yet

having to keep up with the Disney neighbours appealed to me!?!

 

Anyhoo, first up was the beamer, Silver Bullet - now this gets a lot of slagging

off from all quarters for being a bit dull and forceless...but I liked it! Quite

a bit. Now I'm no B&M virgin, far from it, been on all the big inverts in my time

and I thought it was definitely worthy - nice to see something that isn't a B:TR

(nothing wrong with B:TRs but after your n-th clone, the novelty wears off).

 

Anyway, Silver Bullet, nice 1st drop, interesting banked turn thingy, cobra roll

over the entrance plaza, zero-g roll (I do like them) - job done!

 

Cobras to you!

 

Zero-G silhouette

 

Wandered over to Ghostrider (back of the park didn't open until 11 so you can't

rush off to XCelerator straight away) next. Again wasn't sure what I would get

here - this always looked good to me on the "coaster-shows", but again heard a

lot of bad press too. As it happens I quite liked this, but I could see why

people complain. Its a good layout and all, big and twisting in on itself all

the time, but pretty rough. I guess if was nice and smooth back when it opened

it would have been excellent, but probably a bit under-loved - a shame.

 

Best picture I have of Ghostrider (honest)

 

By now the back of the park had opened and off to Xcelerator I went. Again I

was a bit intrigued by this one, the first accelerator and all. And again I

liked it. Not quite got the sheer oomph of TTD or quite as imposing, but much

better than Rita (these being my only accelerator comparisons, I can't be bothered

with Thorpe's poor effort!). The launch is excellent and I do like the overbank

business after the top hat, it always seems a waste to me to have all that speed

built up and to do nothing with it (looking at YOU TTD!!). Brake run was a bit

harsh though, throws you into the restraints something rotten.

 

As for the other coasters there, Montezooma's was not open, which I was disappointed

with, I do like a good shuttle loop, but Jaguar was OK. The Boomerang was a boomerang,

not the most painful I've been on, in fact one of the least painful, maybe I just

got a lucky ride?

 

They didn't open the big wet ride until later - I don't tend to do these though so

I wasn't too fussed, but it was hot day so the other patrons were quite keen on it.

Really slow cycling though, there was pretty big Q for it and boats were taking well

over 5 minutes to get out - a bit poor!

 

The park wasn't too busy, not empty at all but at most 10 minutes Q for Xcelerator

in the afternoon. I managed to entertain myself for the rest of the day happily

playing on the trains and stuff, didn't do the kiddy coaster, I try not to stoop

to that level!

 

Whats that over there?

 

Tuesday 21st...

 

Off to Disneyland then. Might be strange, but this was the park I was least looking

forward to. There’s just something about Disney that leaves me cold. Don't get me

wrong, they do a good job (I loved DisneySea for example) and they do the odd ride

really well too (ToT etc), but I think the whole Disneyland thing is all a bit

old-hat. I mean Jungle Cruise, Small World, Innovations, that Tiki-room thing, crickey

what’s that all about?

 

I liked Space Mountain though, very nice. Better than Tokyo's I think, less

violent anyway? Big Thunder Mountain was OK, but not a great "mine train" ride and the

Matterhorn is shut at the moment (boo!). (didn't do the kiddy coaster).

 

For the non-coaster stuff, Indy was really good, as was the Haunted Mansion / Nightmare

 

stuff. Pirates was full of teenaged girls in Johnny Depp T-shirts, the new Disney

demographic? And I got SOAKED on Splash Mountain you'll be pleased to know.

 

Place was packed as well, the busiest I've seen a park for quite a while. And I suspect

it wasn't THAT busy at all in the scheme of things, no wonder they open from 8am till

midnight!

 

Not too shabby!

 

When it got dark, I wandered over the plaza to California Adventure. This WAS a place

I was looking forward to (maybe I'm just odd?). Anyway I liked it, much more than the

old place over the road. It was pretty good to get in there when it was dark, the place l

lit up very nicely indeed. I had a few dark rides on California Screamin', which I initially

liked a lot, but got less keen the more I rode it. By the end I just thought it was

just a Disney production-line. And what do you need speakers on the trains for? Is the

ride not enough for you? Hmmmm.

 

The other coaster is just a production line Mack mouse, I actually like these, think that

they are a good addition to a park for the GP, been on too many of them to get too

excited by it though!

 

I liked Soarin' a lot (single rider Q helped) and of course Tower of Terror. Now this gets

some slating as not being as good as Florida's version, but I think I liked it more? Its

a couple of years since I went on the original (and I'm by no means an expert on it), so

I couldn't do a direct comparison as I went along, but what I thought was better was the

transition from the loading bit to the drop bit - at Florida’s don't you mess around in

some big room full of stars and you have to move forward on a track and stuff until you

get to the drop shaft - in DCA's you just slide back from the loading bit and you are

in the drop shaft. I really liked the transition effects there as well, with the room

dissolving into the star-field, and then in reverse at the end. Well cool, and great fun!

 

Otherwise at DCA, I liked the Sun-wheel thing, and the wave-swinger-in-giant-orange-thing. All

very photo-genic at night.

 

Wave-swinger-in-giant-orange-thing

 

More stuff at night that looks cool all lit up

 

Wednesday 22nd...

 

Went back to DCA the following morning in the daylight to do everything again and all the

things I missed. Got soaked on the rapids (boo), which were pretty good. Thought the

Monsters Inc was a bit lame (but I'm not the target audience am I), MuppetVision is good

though, if that Whoopi Goldberg film was not.

 

Launcy launchy

 

Loopy loopy

 

No-one has EVER taken this photo before

 

I was kindof mesmorised by the waterfall at the rapids!

 

Overall then, I much preferred DCA to DL. Am I just strange, or perhaps I just don't have

the cultural reference points (not having grown up in SoCal!) to really enjoy DL?

 

Then, I made a major error it seems. I had planned to drive up to Valencia in the

afternoon - that was my mistake. Day before Thanksgiving and I5 was just one big car park.

60 miles in just under 4 hours, not a fun drive. But I ended up at the Garden Inn right

outside Magic Mountain (saved myself $15 SFMM parking - whopee! - actually this was a free

stay, paid for with my "Hilton Points" - double whopee!!), ate at the Wendys over the

road and recovered from my ordeal!

 

Thursday 23rd...

 

Look, I can see MM from the hotel (not quite as impressive as the Anaheim Hilton)

 

I thought I was being clever; go to SFMM on Thanksgiving, it'll be quiet. The gangs will

be home doing drive-by turkey shootings and I'll have a good day. Well I was spot on,

apart from Tatsu I did not wait more than 2 trains for anything all day and most of the

day it was walk-on. Excellent.

 

I'd been here before, about 4.5 years ago and had a good day then, (despite X being down

then as well as today).

 

I was familiar with the park layout from my earlier visit so, a brisk walk from when

the gates open got me on the first Tatsu train of the day! Tatsu is good, some great

bits to it, easily the best first drop on a flyer, massive pretzel loop etc, but the

majority of the ride is done so far up above the ground it detracts a bit from the

experience. The thing that makes Air for example is all the interaction with the

ground, and you just don't get that on Tatsu. Don't get me wrong, it is a better ride

than Air or the S:UF (or the Vekomas, but that’s not a fair comparison), but could have

been much better if it just spent a bit of time ground hugging! It rather dominates

the park as well, dwarfing Revolution something rotten. I must watch "Rollercoaster"

again to see how good Revolution looked new!

 

Revolution is in there somewhere!

 

After Tatsu, I managed to walk around the rest of the park in the next 2 hours walking

onto every ride I wanted to. Straight onto DejaVu (much better than Stuntfall, my last

GIB, I think Stuntfall just went too slowly through the inversions?), straight onto Ninja

(which was closed last time I was here - yay), straight onto Superman (in fact there were

only 3 of us on the train, so rerides in order - and it was the "other side" to when I

rode it previously (extra credit right???), straight onto Goldrusher (nothing to shout about

though), straight onto Riddler's (my first and my favourite B&M standup (done them all!)),

straight onto Batman (good as usually), straight onto Scream (new to me, this was still a

car park when I was last here (oh yeah it still is a car park) - a great ride, but that

car park, crickey!), straight onto Colossus (duller than I remember) and then I hit my

first wait of the day, a 2 train wait for Goliath. Phew!

 

DejaVu - open, good!! DejaVu - open, good!!

 

Goliath I like, I preferred its Texan cousin, just from the extra helix, but it is a monster

ride and very impressive.

 

Yum, Goliath, another original photo I think

 

Flashback shut (natch), X shut (natch), straight onto Revolution and then Viper (both MUCH more

painful that I remember them being).

 

Twice I've been here, twice this has been shut - pah!

 

Decent snap of Superman, thats about as high as it got though

 

Didn't do the kiddy coaster and Psyclone was closed - odd though, there wasn't any sign

indicating it was closed so there were people (me included) periodically wandering up the Q-line

only to get to the deserted station and coming back again - bit like RCT when you suddenly

shout a ride

 

Queued for about an hour in the afternoon for Tatsu again, but the place was pretty

quiet otherwise. An excellent day, even if I did feel quite ill after all the riding!

 

Again SFMM gets slated by people but based on my day I thought it was excellent and anyone

who is keen on their coasters really should go here, its just packed with the things!

 

Tatsu and some clouds - had to wait a while to get this shot right!

 

Anyway, that was the end of my original holiday plan... but I still had a few days left

in the country, so

 

 

Friday 24th...

 

Get up, get in a car, drive to Las Vegas (like you do).

 

Stop off at Primm as you hit NV, hang around until noon when they open the coaster and

have a quick go on Desparado. I was reasonably interested in this ride, but didn't think

a lot of it after riding it. Sure it was quick big, and its quite a long ride, but its

full of poor transitions and ultimately a bit meh!

 

Quite enjoyed the drive to Vegas though, some cool scenery, unnervingly straight roads broken

up by the odd (and I mean odd) populated place. You can see Primm from miles away, and when

you turn a slight corner in the road and see Vegas 10 miles in the distance, that’s pretty cool!

 

Whats that coming over the hill, is it a monster?

 

After getting sorted at the hotel (the big pyramid one) just spent the rest of the day wandering

up and down the strip looking at all the pretty lights!

 

Pretty lights

 

Saturday 25th...

 

This was going to be my "ride day" in Vegas, so get the monorail up to the Sahara and wander up

to the Stratosphere for starters. Now this I was worried about. Coasters never scare me anymore.

Drop rides I can deal with. Heights I am OK with, big fan of tall buildings. The Big Shot didn't

worry me, been on enough S&S towers to be blasé about that. Rides that throw you off the edge of

big buildings I WAS NOT HAPPY with. But you just have to do it.

 

Warmed up on Big Shot, and in fairness this WAS quite a bit more unnerving that I thought it would

be. In fact I cam off that a bit shaky, which surprised me. In for a penny, in for a pound and

over to XScream. That I did not like. Not only did it scare me senseless, I actually thought

it was a pretty poor ride. Bit rich of me saying that a ride that scared me silly was poor, but

there you go. After being even shaky-er after Xscream I just got onto Insanity before I lost

my bottle. Without any doubt whatsoever, this was the most scared I've been on a ride ever.

It was a really pleasant change to feel that way instead of the normal rather too-cool way I

end up riding stuff. Insanity was just brilliant. From the slow drag of the arm taking you out

over the side, the gradual build up of speed and the when you are going full tilt the view down the

tower to the ground far below you - fantastic!

 

Pretty scary indeed

 

Very scary indeed

 

It was good job that the gift shop at the top sold beer, I just had to sit down for a while

after that.

 

If you can't tell, I LIKED IT (and at the same time I HATED IT) - Excellent!

 

 

After calming myself down somewhat, had a go on Speed at the Sahara, was OK, over a bit quick

though.

 

A guy on the Strip tried to sell me some Speed, is this what he meant?

 

Shootin' up?

 

Bit of a walk later down to Circus Circus (by far the least impressive hotel I went into

on the strip, really dingy and crowded - must be something to do with the cheap rooms?) and out

the back to their bizarre indoor theme park. I was only ever going to ride the coaster (and I did,

actually thought it was pretty good considering its constraints) but I wandered around for a while,

the place was packed with people so it made it all a bit unpleasant, impressed how they managed

to get so much stuff in such a small place though!

 

Not bad at all!

 

and its all under a big pink roof, very odd!

 

Later in the day I was back towards the south of the strip so had a couple of go's on Manhattan Express

(and what was all that business about it changing its name, everywhere it was referred to as M/E,

not some "the coaster at NewYorkNewYork"). Strangely I quite liked this one too. It wasn't as painful

as I thought it was going to be (although that snake-dive thingy wasn't at all comfortable), not great

but better than I thought it was going to be.

 

That’s it for the rides, rest of the time in Vegas wandering around, the odd-beer, the odd-fruit machine

(I must have lost all of $10), couple of shows (Blue Man Group - excellent and one I can't talk about

in a family forum (technically the girls weren't naked, after all sequins count don't they????))

 

Random hotel shot

 

Go up the Eiffel tower and watch the Bellagio, nice!

 

Monday 27th...

 

Get up at 5am, drive 5 hours to LA, get on a plane, get to Paris, have your duty free stolen off

you by ba*tard French security (and YES I knew the rules and YES I was following them as far as I

was concerned), get on another plane, get home Tuesday afternoon.

 

 

Job done.

 

[Tömmioh]

Great TR! Sounds like you had fun. Also cool photos, like the coasterbridge. Walk-ons at SFMM, darn that would be cool (even if X was/would not be open).

[christianscoasters]

Great job! I especially liked the DCA pics. A job well done.

[Gnome]

paid for with my "Hilton Points" - double whopee!!), ate at the Wendys over the

road and recovered from my ordeal!

Hurray for the wendy's across the street! I think I eat there almost every time we go do SFMM.

 

Also, very nice pictures, I liked how you pretty much showed a little bit of everything of what SoCal has to offer, as well as showing almost all of what LV has to offer as far as thrills go.

[Xme3]

I've a;ways wanted to ride the rides on top of the stratosphere, now I know what to expect!

 

oh and BTW, do they still have the red roller coaster that goes around the top?