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Past or Present Great America?


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I deffinately perfer Great America's Past. It was Great back then when Great America had Great rides:

-Stealth

-Greased Lightnin

-Yankee Clipper

-The Edge

-The Lobster (spinning ride)

-Triple Play

-Triple Wheel

-Orleans Orbit

-The Whizzer

-Add to the list if I'm missing any!

Why did Great America have to get rid of such Great Rides? and what are the most thrilling rides today at Great America? I think only Survivor, and Drop Zone. Thats pathetic! Six Flags Batman is way better than Top Gun! Along with Dueling Dragons at Islands Of Adventure. Instead of investing on a stupid water park, why can't Great America get some new coasters? Especially since they lost 2 Great ones!

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I deffinately perfer Great America's Past. It was Great back then when Great America had Great rides:

-Stealth

-Greased Lightnin

-Yankee Clipper

-The Edge

-The Lobster (spinning ride)

-Triple Play

-Triple Wheel

-Orleans Orbit

-The Whizzer

-Add to the list if I'm missing any!

Why did Great America have to get rid of such Great Rides? and what are the most thrilling rides today at Great America? I think only Survivor, and Drop Zone. Thats pathetic! Six Flags Batman is way better than Top Gun! Along with Dueling Dragons at Islands Of Adventure. Instead of investing on a stupid water park, why can't Great America get some new coasters? Especially since they lost 2 Great ones!

Because Coasters don't always bring in the people...Waterparks in California do...
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I deffinately perfer Great America's Past. It was Great back then when Great America had Great rides:

-Stealth

-Greased Lightnin

-Yankee Clipper

-The Edge

-The Lobster (spinning ride)

-Triple Play

-Triple Wheel

-Orleans Orbit

-The Whizzer

-Add to the list if I'm missing any!

Why did Great America have to get rid of such Great Rides? and what are the most thrilling rides today at Great America? I think only Survivor, and Drop Zone. Thats pathetic! Six Flags Batman is way better than Top Gun! Along with Dueling Dragons at Islands Of Adventure. Instead of investing on a stupid water park, why can't Great America get some new coasters? Especially since they lost 2 Great ones!

 

I heard that Stealth wasn't really that great of a coaster....and I mean Greased Lightning is just a shuttle loop....

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I defiantly love the past park, there were so many cool rides. The best ride there today is Drop Zone, while everything else gave me whiplash. Stealth was such a great ride and they replaced it with a water park. Also, I heard that in 2001 they were going to build Supersonic:XLC in the place of Stealth, now that would've been cool.

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It's not SuperSonic XLC...It's HyperSonic XLC. Yeah Great America was suppose to get it. I wish they did get it because its a low capacity short, rough, and pointless coaster. Kings Dominion is getting rid of it after Labor Day weekend if no one buys. Great America should just straight up buy it now if they were going to get it...

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I am going to have to disagree with you on the Top Gun part! I love Top Gun, it is one of my favorite coasters ever...I have been on both Batman and TopGun, and I think if I haven't ridden Top Gun as much as I have over the years, I would like it better than Batman.

But yeah, I was sad to see Greased Lightning and Stealth go, but I'm sure they had reasons....After all, they aren't out to please us, they are out for the money...

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I remember the old school days of Great America: The interlocking flumes, The Edge, Tidal Wave (The only coaster that baffled me on how it took off before I heard of launched coasters) Ameri-Go-Round (The park's second full sized carousel), and though it's still there, Vortex when it was painted a faded lime green with black supports. I remember Top Gun's opening year where the line started at the Columbia. Anyone remember the old dolphin show they had as well? It was held in the theater area at the Nickelodeon Central/Splat City (another retro name).

 

Oh yea...there's a great site that covers Great America's history.

http://www.greatamericaparks.com

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Paramount's Great America is my Ex-Home park. For 4 years, it was "my shelter and my shade" (random U2 reference). I was there when they first announced Stealth, and went there several times afterwards. I saw it during its several stages of construction. Every time we went to PGA, we rode the Sky Ride to check on Stealth's progress. It got bigger and bigger each time we went. I rode it several times; on the opening weekend, every day we went to the park following the opening, and during ACE events involving the ride itself, Demon, and Psycho Mouse. During the events, I rode it 9 and 12 times in a row. This was a very close ride to me, and I cried when I read that it was leaving. We moved to Tennessee before it was torn down, but I rode it one last time. Triple Play, Triple Wheel, Sky Hawk, and Greezed' Lightnin' were also very good rides. Unfortunately, from what I can remeber, these rides weren't patronized much on any given day. Greezed Lightnin' was sold to SFI for parts, which means that it will never run again.

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67 times??!! Without getting off? That must be a world record! The most I ever rode Greased Lightnin was 8 times in a row. I felt sick! I sure do miss it though, but I suppose V2 at Discovery Kingdom is just as good even though they had to modify one of the spikes because of the hight limit. I'm sure the other one at SFGA is better because both spikes go straight up.

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I think PGA could have used Steel Venom more than Dorney. Of course, that would mean the the Ex-Mariott's parks are the only parks in america with 3 full-size inverted coasters. Also, they each would have had a B&M, a launch Intiman, and a shuttle Vekoma! All of them inverted! If PGA ended up with SV, the irony would be insane.

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  • 9 months later...
I deffinately perfer Great America's Past. It was Great back then when Great America had Great rides:

-Stealth

-Greased Lightnin

-Yankee Clipper

-The Edge

-The Lobster (spinning ride)

-Triple Play

-Triple Wheel

-Orleans Orbit

-The Whizzer

-Add to the list if I'm missing any!

 

Don't forget the Scenic Railway train ride! Perhaps the most pointless ride removal ever...Great America removed the train to make room for Hypersonic XLC, but then Paramount decided to build the coaster at Kings Dominion instead!

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I think PGA could have used Steel Venom more than Dorney. Of course, that would mean the the Ex-Mariott's parks are the only parks in america with 3 full-size inverted coasters. Also, they each would have had a B&M, a launch Intiman, and a shuttle Vekoma! All of them inverted! If PGA ended up with SV, the irony would be insane.
That wouldn't be good since SFDK has V2. Even with V2's modifications, They'd be too similar. And keep in mind, Great America is getting a big GCI woodie in 2009, so they're finally getting the big coaster they needed.
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Well on that other thread about Hypersonic XLC for sale everyone's saying it was a pretty bad coaster & there was nothing really good about it. I think CGA could do w/o it. CGA doesn't need another crappy coaster. How many more coasters do you think we'll get after this big woodie for 09? I certinately hope CF won't invest all their money on it & be like thats good enough for CGA. I mean come on CF sure 1 big woodie but what about a decent launch, floreless, or gigantic indoor coaster? Some new record breaker is what CGA needs thats just as big as Stealth or even bigger. Heres a hint get rid of that awfle hardly moving Grizzly! That will give CF even more space to build.

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I didn't know where else to ask, but I was wondering if Vortex ever had pure yellow paint because I found an image on a book about engineering that I thought could be the ride. If anybody here went to the park in the early 90s, was Vortex ever yellow?

 

 

Vortex wasn't really yellow. It was more of a faded lime green-like color with black supports. I'm pretty sure that image you have is Vortex, maybe the light is hitting it at an odd angle.

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^ That looks like Georgia Scorcher at SFOG.

 

 

I really miss the old Great America. Old, meaning 2002 - the last good year of Great America. That was my first year I visited the park, which also happened to be the last year for Greased Lightnin. Greased Lightnin was the perfect ride for the park because it was thrilling and was the only coaster in the park which didn't have hour-and-a-half lines during the day. Stealth was also an amazing ride.

 

As for the other rides, Vortex beat the crap out of me (rougher than some Vekomas), Demon also beat me up, but that has an excuse since it was over 25 years old, Invertigo had horrible capacity and beat me up almost as badly as Vortex, Grizzly was decent (probably because wooden coasters have no head banging) but it beat me up in different ways. Psycho Mouse - lame excuse for a mouse ride. Top Gun - only "great" ride still at the park today. Most efficient loading I have ever seen on a roller coaster. No joke, I counted a 45 sec dispatch from unloading of a train, to dispatch of it with the next riders.

 

Loggers Run was pretty fun, especially with it's close proximity under Stealth. It's hard to go wrong with a log ride.

 

 

On the subject of the older rides, my parents both remember Willards Whizzer as well as The Edge. My dad visited the park during Tidal Wave's opening year and Greased Lightnin will always be Tidal Wave to him. For The Edge, when I was describing an1st gen Intamin freefall and my parents didn't understand what it was, I just told them it was "just like The Edge at Great America." That shows how well known the ride was back in the day.

 

 

Lets hope the 2009 GCI woodie can put the "Great" back into Great America.

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I really miss the old Great America. Old, meaning 2002 - the last good year of Great America.

 

I totally agree. I have always thought 02 was (P)GA's last good season. It seriously has gone downhill since:

-Stealth, Greased Lightnin, Triple Play removal

-Additions since: Nick Central (yawn), Boomerang Bay (and 2 years of "updating" it), Survivor

-They haven't changed the movie in the FX theater (Spongebob can only be fun for so long). Minor but annoying part of GA.

-In general the crowds have decreased a lot. Weekends aren't even that crowded anymore. You hardly ever see some of the big ride's lines long.

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