SfGam 5/25/05 HH Media Day

[DejaVu The Ride]

Date: Tuesday May 24, 2005

 

So I left my house Tuesday evening with my dad to hopefully get a couple rides in before close. That didn't happen because of traffic, but I did manage to see the last cycles on Giant Drop and Raging Bull.

 

We got dinner and checked into the Hampton Inn and I went for a walk to the park. I went and walked around admissions and to check out the waterpark. Things looked good and I took a couple of neat pictures.

 

Went back to the hotel and saw some people who I think worked for corporate or something and saw some girls who were going to be at media day. It was obvious that there were a lot of hotel guests who would be there. I got to sleep around 11.

 

Date: Wednesday May 25, 2005

 

I had three means of getting myself up; the hotel wake-up call, my cell phone, and the alarm clock. So I got up at 3:45am and was ready to leave around 4:20am. The short drive to the park was very odd. Went and parked (Inside the barriers next to HH) and learned that there were tons of models from Barbeco(sp?) that would be participating in part of a commercial shoot and that I was invited to participate. So I went in the pretty dark and eerie waterpark and grabbed a beach chair. My dad was with me and decided to take pictures for awhile and then head back to the hotel.

 

At about 5am everyone was invited to walk around the back part of the park and to enter into Castaway Creek. About 3 or 4 tubes were being allowed to enter at a time and it was freezing cold. I got to go around half of it and then had to exit.(BTW, there were lots of fountains puring out of tiki heads and other things. The other half also looks exciting.) Went back to dry off, but then decided to jump into Hurricane Bay. The water was freezing, but the wave rotation was pretty decent. Just be aware that inexperienced swimmers are not allowed past the black line towards the back of the wave pool. It is also only 5 or 6 feet deep.

 

Throughout the day, I rode all the slides at the 6 slide complex.They had ride superviors working at the top of the towers. Here's a review of each of the slides:

 

Toilet bowls: These are fast and fun. The better one of the two is the green one(If I recall) because it has a faster drop into the funnel. Be sure to ride double because that has much more speed than single. You basically go around the funnel 3 or 4 times, depending on the weight of the raft. These were the most popular.

 

Teal tube slide: This was very good, but my least favorite on the complex. It has a nice drop right off the platform and has 4 waterfalls throughout the course. You even get slight airtime down the final drops.

 

Gold tube slide: This was great! It had decent speed and a pretty intense part near the middle where you go through one waterfall, then do a quick dip through another one. It was neat.

 

Blue body slide: This was the best slide on the complex in my opinion. The speed is amazing and you even feel G-Forces at the end! One of the best waterslides I have been on. The only downpart is that your back will be a little red afterwards.(But not as bad as the Point of No Return at Noah's Ark.)

 

Purple Body slide: This was also fantastic! It starts off slow but then there is a quick turn and into the final "airtime" hill. And YES, you feel like you are freefalling.(At least I did.) Your back doesn't hurt at all on this one.

 

(Note: If you are under 5'6 you will be putting your hands behind your neck and if you are above that, you will put your arms across your chest. Also, NO metal rivots on the back of your suit!)

 

The other slides were expected to open, but never did. First of all, the path contructing one half of the park with the other was not finished in the morning and they had to wait to officially open up the other half of the park. That is where the media food/drink tent was. They had some great Cocoa in there.

 

Back to the slides. I was told that Hurricane Mountain and Wahoo Racers would "definately" open, but do to contruction issues, that was impossible. The purple and orange family slide was also supposed to open, but they had some problems. The green and blue family slide was just not ready yet. And obviously, Skull Island is not structurally complete.(But might be now.)

 

Later in the day, they had a press event where Ron Sevart, Michelle Hoffman, the president of Koala playqroup, and the mayor of Gurnee spoke. Basically about stuff most people already know. But also, that Skull Island is 4 times larger than the previously largest complex. And that it is the size of two football fields. The buckets are also supposed to pour water at the same time and every two minutes.(Not 100% sure if the interval of 2 minutes is correct.)

 

They also served pizza for everyone and had bottles of Coke products sitting out for whoever wanted any.

 

The "beach" is almost done as they had most of the sand layed out. The beach stage is completed and Dj Bob was entertaining people with beach games and music.

 

The also had tons of Looney Toons characters walking around in swim suits including Babs Bunny. They also had pirates walking around with real parrots. They will be there opening day along with Mr.Six. But I don't think they will stay all summer.

 

There is really so much to say about the waterpark. Visually, it looks like it will be one of the best around. I didn't feel like I was at Six Flags. It will definately change your view about the park. It makes it a whole new place.

 

I'm sure that there is a lot more to tell you. If you have any questions, then just ask, and I will also add more things to say as I think of them.

 

I had to leave around 11:30 to meet up with my cousin, but soon learned that he wasn't able to make it. He had too much work to do. So I was off to change and head back into the main park.

 

Earlier in the morning, I was amazed to see DejaVu completed morning test runs! It wasn't supposed to be open today as it is a weekday. But I'll get back to Jeza later.

 

Rides on the rides closed list: Great America Raceway, Stargate, one of the water rides(or Condor?) and DejaVu. A few others were closed at first, but most reopened before close.

 

Now I'll just tell you what I rode and how long I waited:

-Sky Trek Tower- Walk-on

-Demon-5-10 minutes in row 6:1. Red and Yellow trains were running.

-Raging Bull-10 minutes with Red and Yellow trains running. Rode row 9.

-Viper-Walk-on. Back row.

-Revolution- Walk-on.

-American Eagle Red(Blue closed.)- 10 minutes. Rode toward the back.

-Iron Wolf- 30 minutes. There was 1 breakdown and 1 guest illness. The wait would have been maybe 10 minutes for the front otherwise.

-Fiddler's Fling- 1 cycle wait.

-Batman-10 minutes for a back row ride.

-King Chaos-Walk-on. Only 4 people were in the back row.

-Big Easy Balloons!- Walk-on for the credit of riding it this year.

-Superman- 25 minutes. Broke down on me again and I waited it out for row 7. This ride is really of piece of you know what now. It is always breaking down.

 

Met up with my friend Dan.

 

-Whizzer- 5-10 minutes for a ride towards the back. 2 trains were running.

-Demon- Walk-on for row 6:1. Great ride!

-American eagle Red- Walk-on. We got to ride twice but switched rows. It was seriously hauling today with VERY light trims. There was no trim after the double helix so the drop out provided excellent ejector air!

-Iron Wolf- 1 train wait for front row on the "good" train. One of my best and smoothest rides ever on it.

-Spacely's Sprocket Rocket- Walk-on for row 2!

-V2- 2 train wait for this POS! I don't like it anymore, but it still gives a nice thrill.

-Batman- Walk-on for the front row. One of my best rides ever on it!

-DejaVu- Rode 6 times during the last 50 minutes and got my total for the year to 40. The crew was pretty good tonight with a few things that made me mad(BINGO!!! ) Also, the 1 seat rows really worked to our advantage!

 

Basically, it was nice to go to Media Day and see people that I knew or now know. It was also nice to go get some rides at the main park, too. Hurricane Harbor is truly going to change the face of SfGam forever. Now for a few random notes.

 

1. Giant Drop was at half capacity.

2. The Highway sign now entails a huge logo for HH.

3. The gates at the entrance to HH are orange. I almost asked the painters if they were going to re-paint it.

4. The lights in the Batman fan are back on with a few other improvements.

5. Logger's Run was using a couple switchbacks.

6. Vu being open was a nice surprise.

7. The Virtual Reality zone in the Eagle tent now contains 3 news games. A newly placed DDR machine, a HUGE claw game(for big stuffed animals.) and another smaller claw game.

8. Much of Hometown Square was repaved.

9. 2 of the new SWT area games are now open.

10. Mr. Six will be at the opening of HH on Saturday and is doing commercial shoots today and tomorrow.

 

Until next time.....

 

Edit: A couple sites with pics.

http://midwestcoastermadness.com/

 

http://sfgamworld.com/