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California Great America (CGA) Discussion Thread


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I preferred that paint job. The Purple and Yellow don't do it for me. I would love if they went back to the old paint style. Hell, I would like to see the ride get ANY paint; it looked tired when I visited last month.

 

I agree, the old paint job looks much better than the new one.

 

Was Vortex re-painted into it's current color because Tidal Wave was painted green?

 

I believe Vortex was repainted at the same time Tidal Wave got renamed and received new paint. I don't think X happened because of Y, but more of X happened at the same time as Y. I certainly miss the old color as well, looked a little more striking. It would be sweet if CGA went back to the old color setup or do something similar with contrasting colors.

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I have that clip somewhere as well, lifted it off the old PGA site from...1997 I think?

Also, watching the retro Flight Deck....I mean Top Gun footage, I noticed that the footers in the pond aren't 'connected' (as in the concrete pads now appear to be both a lot wider and seemed to be joined to the center footer in that helix) like they are now. Anyone know why (besides the reason that Top Gun was sinking)?

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^Alternatively, "flight deck" is another word for "cockpit"...why not call it Cockpit? Actually, don't answer that.

 

Oh wow, you just went there didn't you? Bravo for that one.

 

Out of curiosity, why didn't FD keep Afterburn as its name?

 

FD never had Afterburn as a name, so what's to keep?

 

Yeah, they got our hopes up for like a week and then went back to FD. Oh well, they could call it "Kaptain Kangaroo goes Kayaking" for all I car, it's a great ride.

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I keep checking back on the permit page we all know by now, just to see what some of the next steps are. As of lately, it seems to be that every Friday there's some kind of update.

 

Random note: I'm going to try going again this weekend. This season, I'm trying to get out there either every other week or every 2 weeks...I hate long gaps between visits...

Edited by Angry_Gumball
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Just got back from a long day, got to the park a little before 11:30 and left around 8:20. Got on the last ride of the night on FD for the first time ever and in the front which was fun, the ride crew towards closing became Super Tight Line Nazis but more on that later.

Decent sized crowd. The longest wait was Tiki Twirl, though I would assume the reason being was that there wasn't a real grouper assigning people to the 4 "color" groups anymore since the Survivor Theme is gone, and that the queue in the loading area is all confusing since they removed half of it, but that's another story.

They are definitely taking control of the lines with all the Fast Lane/Groupers at all the major rides which is great as it does help the lines flow so much smoother. They were grouping people at Drop Tower and assigning them cabins (so the spiel they say when they say "walk to your assign cabin" finally has real meaning now lol). They did assign rows at Vortex even though there was no line too.

FInally saw Happiness Is Snoopy, definitely a great show, highly recommend for the families.

Back to the Line Nazis, towards closing, the FD crew were getting extremely strict on people abusing the Fast Lane Line to get back in line instead of going all the way to the front, who didn't have FL wristband. I saw a group of nearly 10 people get forced to walk to the front. At least the line jumping is being addressed...

It's nice to know both SFDK & CGA this year are getting more in control of the lines and overcrowding at the stations which is a good thing, even though to the GP it looks like the line is long, it helps with the overall flow.

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Just got back from a long day, got to the park a little before 11:30 and left around 8:20. Got on the last ride of the night on FD for the first time ever and in the front which was fun, the ride crew towards closing became Super Tight Line Nazis but more on that later.

Decent sized crowd. The longest wait was Tiki Twirl, though I would assume the reason being was that there wasn't a real grouper assigning people to the 4 "color" groups anymore since the Survivor Theme is gone, and that the queue in the loading area is all confusing since they removed half of it, but that's another story.

They are definitely taking control of the lines with all the Fast Lane/Groupers at all the major rides which is great as it does help the lines flow so much smoother. They were grouping people at Drop Tower and assigning them cabins (so the spiel they say when they say "walk to your assign cabin" finally has real meaning now lol). They did assign rows at Vortex even though there was no line too.

FInally saw Happiness Is Snoopy, definitely a great show, highly recommend for the families.

Back to the Line Nazis, towards closing, the FD crew were getting extremely strict on people abusing the Fast Lane Line to get back in line instead of going all the way to the front, who didn't have FL wristband. I saw a group of nearly 10 people get forced to walk to the front. At least the line jumping is being addressed...

It's nice to know both SFDK & CGA this year are getting more in control of the lines and overcrowding at the stations which is a good thing, even though to the GP it looks like the line is long, it helps with the overall flow.

 

Hmm what was the shirt you were wearing on the last ride for flight deck?

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Hmm what was the shirt you were wearing on the last ride for flight deck?

 

Was wearing a yellow and grey shirt and was sitting in the front with a family of 3.

 

yea because I would've been checking your seat at the end. I was loader. I was actually limping a little if you noticed. Do you remember if I did anything specific besides say "good". I'm trying to remember what you look like lol.

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Hmm what was the shirt you were wearing on the last ride for flight deck?

 

Was wearing a yellow and grey shirt and was sitting in the front with a family of 3.

 

yea because I would've been checking your seat at the end. I was loader. I was actually limping a little if you noticed. Do you remember if I did anything specific besides say "good".

I remember a Latino looking guy checked my seat who was at Safety (if that's what it's still called; I used to operate Top Gun back in 2000, can't believe it's been 12 years lol) I was sitting on the back before I went back in line for the last ride of the day and remember a girl checking my seat, was that you?

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Hmm what was the shirt you were wearing on the last ride for flight deck?

 

Was wearing a yellow and grey shirt and was sitting in the front with a family of 3.

 

yea because I would've been checking your seat at the end. I was loader. I was actually limping a little if you noticed. Do you remember if I did anything specific besides say "good".

I remember a Latino looking guy checked my seat who was at Safety (if that's what it's still called; I used to operate Top Gun back in 2000, can't believe it's been 12 years lol) I was sitting on the back before I went back in line for the last ride of the day and remember a girl checking my seat, was that you?

 

Yup, my name tag says "christina". Did I say anything specific? Safety is called Unloader now. I guess its called unloader because the person is on the exit side.

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Hmm what was the shirt you were wearing on the last ride for flight deck?

 

Was wearing a yellow and grey shirt and was sitting in the front with a family of 3.

 

yea because I would've been checking your seat at the end. I was loader. I was actually limping a little if you noticed. Do you remember if I did anything specific besides say "good".

I remember a Latino looking guy checked my seat who was at Safety (if that's what it's still called; I used to operate Top Gun back in 2000, can't believe it's been 12 years lol) I was sitting on the back before I went back in line for the last ride of the day and remember a girl checking my seat, was that you?

 

Yup, my name tag says "christina". Did I say anything specific? Safety is called Unloader now. I guess its called unloader because the person is on the exit side.

I remember a girl telling us in line for the front that the last ride was the next so 2 people went to the back after I recommended them, did you have short hair? Oh, when I worked there Level 1 was Control, Level 2 was Safety (The other dispatcher by the queue line side), and Level 3 was Exit (which is now unloader from what you said), I miss those days!

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yup that was me. I always feel bad when I have to do that. Though I saw those people earlier in the day and they had ridden in the front. lol I can vaguely remember the shirt. My knee was in a lot of pain by the end of the night so I was trying really hard not to show it.

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yup that was me. I always feel bad when I have to do that. Though I saw those people earlier in the day and they had ridden in the front. lol I can vaguely remember the shirt. My knee was in a lot of pain by the end of the night so I was trying really hard not to show it.

Ah ok, hope you're feeling better, you did a good job not showing your pain

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I'm out at the park with rolercstrluvr and had the strangest ride on Firefall, let's just say 'epic hang time.' More details tonight with my routine TR.

 

An update: Just got home a little while ago, had a pretty good day out at the park despite it being quite busy for a Sunday. As mentioned I met up with Rolercstrluvr for part of the day where we first hit up the traditional Flight Deck ride, over to Eagles and then a ride on Firefall where we had probably the most interesting cycle. When the gondola makes its first swing over, it slowed down to a crawl up at the top whilst being inverted. I honestly thought something was going on with the ride as we were up there for several seconds very slowly making it around. The rest of the ride performed as normal.

 

Getting a bit warm it was time to hit up Logger's run for a quick cool-down followed by a real quick visit to Boomerang Bay. I wasn't really dressed for waterpark stuff but luckily you can get by with your street clothes on the original 3 slides, mainly being the Boomerango. That said, that's what I rode. My cousin and I doubled up on it and I could swear we must have been trying to compete with Robb's recently shot video of a waterslide airtime and wipeout. No wipeouts happened (we survived) but crazy airtime was to be had, lasting several seconds followed by a hard landing!

 

Grizzly's line was pretty long (more on the experience later) when we got by that so we hit up Drop Tower and then headed to Demon (where the lines were starting just after the cave under the lift. It moved pretty quick since no switchbacks were being used. Afterwards, we hit up Vortex (which the line started at where the path heads towards the stairs...but moved pretty quick.

 

Off to Star Tower to check out the new construction. The trenches are filled in and there are little orange flags everywhere. A bit hard to tell but they seem to dot the outline of the coaster, atleast the "Prudential Turnaround" as we've called it, and the final turn into the brakerun (that I dub the "Elephant Turn" due to it's proximity to the fiberglass elephant...which still lives!). As far as the closed off alley area, no new wood has been added but there seems to be some activity going on there as I saw a bunch of what appeared to be saw horses.

 

1 more spin on Flight Deck before Rolercstrluvr had to head out which had a wait starting at the covered area. Later in the day, I decided to hit up Boomerang Bay's boomerango slide once again as I was having a craving for it. I did that about 3 more times, one of the rides we pulled off 1.5 feet in the air, not landing back onto the slide until close to the bottom of the hump. It was very crazy!

 

Grizzly...yup, time to share my experience with it. Operations were extremely slow to average. I decided to time it and from unload to dispatch, I clocked close to 4 minutes and after a couple runs later, clocked 2:16. It was pretty variable and the slowdowns tend to happen when larger riders attempt riding and have to get off. Couple that with everyone who brings their entire bedroom with them and you get some slow operations.

 

Ready to do Flight Deck again, the line was almost to the entrance. Not willing to wait and needing to take a sit down break, I decided that we should check out their new show "Happiness is Snoopy." Very well worth checking out. And this is coming from someone who normally doesn't attend the shows. The sets were very well done, clever and just pretty cool! The ice skating/dancing was pretty cool and smooth. Sadly, the people in front of us decided they didn't want to watch a 'kid's show' and left before it started.

 

Time for some mis-adventures on Grizzly that came out to a 'win.' Walking down the path, I hear an 'excuse me' from some kids behind us. I somewhat pretend not to hear them since I know what's about to happen. Finally, I let them pass as it is only 2 kids. Then sure enough 5 or 6 others pull the same thing. In the switchbacks, 2 more squeeze by. By then I'm getting pretty mad/annoyed. Indirectly ranting to my cousin about the situation, the 6 that excused themselves past me moved back behind us, one had a worried look, one upset at my ranting as they did say 'excuse me.' Really, if you're going to queue up, be sure everyone in your party's all together...none of this 'excuse me' shenanigans...to the GP: it's called line jumping and is prohibited. You all have rules to follow just as much as I do, you aren't privilaged or special...really annoys me!

 

All in all, 'twas a great day at the park. Snoopy show is worth seeing, and highlight of the day was the weird Firefall maneuver and catching air on the Boomerango, Down Under Thunder!

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Yup, another train ride out to the park! Yes, my cousin looks very creepy in this photo :)

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Artsy Fartsy shot of Vortex, never realized how close to the track you are at the stairs.

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Construction photo time! Grass is even drier now. I'm sure they're going to just let the grass run its course as it's all going to be ripped out soon anyway.

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Looks like something's going on down there.

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Smooth dirt once again. Hard to see but this park has more flags than Six Flags :)

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In this shot you can see where the turn is going to be.

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Overviewage of the area.

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Ok so I attempted a control panel shot and failed...

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Goofing around with the Slow Shutter app I have on my iPhone.

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Om-nom-nom...pretty good burger actually!

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Back up for another round on the tower. Note the pretty busy parking lot.

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Closeups of the "Prudential Turn" and the "Elephant Turn."

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Happiness is.... Snoopy!

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Last ride of the day, line starting in about this area at around 7:30. About a 30 minute wait.

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Random carnie on the way home :) Thanks for reading!

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First off, I apologize for the double post.

 

Reviewing my photos a little more the past couple days and getting a closer look at one of the shots, I made some guestimations as to where elements of the coaster will most likely land. I know that I saw some flags kind of dotting what appeared to be somewhat of a layout, the photos I took didn't quite seem to capture it and it was quite hard to see from the Star Tower. Since no official layout has been released other than the 2008 images, I'm going off of those. Side note: You know you're obsessed with coasters and this ride when you've already memorized the layout of a coaster that doesn't technically exist to the public yet.

 

Anywho, I pulled up the photo and have 4 versions of it. First one is the raw photo as I saw the site Sunday. 2nd one highlighting a couple of the marks/structures I saw in the dirt (center points/hubs where fan curve supports will most likely meet), 3rd being just a simple path of the coaster layout (think No Limits top down view in 3d space), and 4th, giving you a visualization of both the top down view and '3d view.' Keep in mind these are only guesses based on what I'm seeing and am very curious as to how off I am or how close I am to the real deal when things get rolling.

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Raw photo, no editing done.

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Fan curve hubs (assuming that's what those are)

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"Top-down" view of layout

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"3d" view with lift...yea, it's not the best drawing :)

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