Photo TR: Northern California Trip

[odie]

Last year, on the way home from Silverwood, we were all talking about where we could travel next summer. About 10 minutes into the conversation, when I suggested a Northern California trip, my dad looked back at me and told me that we'd go if I planned it all out, and found him the best discounts I could. So I took his word and, this last weekend, we went!

 

The original schedule was: leave on Thursday, CGA on Friday, SFDK on Saturday and Sunday, and then come back home Monday. We ended up leaving on Wednesday at 11pm and traveling through the night to arrive at our hotel (1 mile from SFDK) at about 2pm, Thursday. Coming over that hill into view of Vallejo and seeing my first B&M next to a Intamin and a GCI was enough to give me a heart attack. It towered over the rest of the city and it was impossible for me to take my eyes off of it. We got to the hotel earlier than expected and we had Big Six Passes, so we ended up hitting the park that night.

 

We walked through the entrance and I was ready to take off. We walked over to Roar first and immediately got on the train. I was so pumped for my first GCI and it didn't fail me! It had lots of airtime and I love the little bumps, including the one in the tunnel and the one out of the big turnaround. This ride was very fun, a bit rough, but still worth it. I can't wait to ride another GCI. I rated it an 8/10.

 

My little brother was along with us on the trip. He's 5 years old and 45 inches tall. So, obviously, we needed to get on Tony Hawks Big Spin next. It was his favorite ride of the trip, but just average in my opinion and my dad just hated it (He doesn't like spinning rides). This ride had the longest line, due to popularity and low capacity, and it was only worth it once. I gave it a 5/10: OK but nothing more.

 

Next up was my favorite ride I've EVER ridden: V2. This ride had so many aspects that made it awesome. The launch was intimidating, the front spike was like nothing I had been on before, and the back spike had great airtime! The back spike is by far the best point of the ride though. Your looking straight down from 100 feet in the air and free-falling toward the ground. It's amazing.

 

We hit the kiddie coasters on the way to Medusa, nothing much to say about them (Roadrunner Express hurt, Cobra was OK). Now, it was time for my first B&M ride! It definitely lived up to my expectations and every element was smooth. The first drop was sweet and I really liked the forceful turns at the end. Overall, it was really close to V2 on the favorite scale, but i am more of a sucker for airtime than loopage, so V2 remained number 1..

 

Kong was next; it hurt. My ears were burning and my neck felt beat up. I was expecting the ear banging but not the whole forward to backward banging thing it had going on. We also hit Boomerang before we left the park and I have to admit, I actually liked it! I sat in the second to back row and I liked the suspense of the first hill because you didn't know when you were going to drop, and when it finally did, the airtime was awesome. The loops were not as cool but the shaking wasn't so bad. I just kept my head in front of the OTSRs and it didn't hurt at all.

 

Since we didn't really sleep on the car ride over, we were all dead at this point. So we left the park with all the coasters under our belt in less than 4 hours. We went to sleep at about 8 and woke up the next morning ready to hit CGA!

 

The first day at SFDK I took very few pictures because I just wanted to enjoy my time without having to worry about the camera. But I did take a lot on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so hold your horses. Anyways, here are the photos from Thursday and there is definitely more to come!

 

PS: Thanks to my friend sarah for editing my review! She's amazing.

Don't worry, much more to come!

Not the type of tree I'm used to.

I'm surprised I was still alive to take this picture at this point!

My first view of a B&M! Wow, was it a great one.

About 8 hours later we were in California!

The time we left

[onewheeled999]

Great TR so far, Odie! As a big fan of that park, I completely agree with your opinions on the coasters. I'd never been on Tony Hawk's Big Spin before, is it really that bad?

 

Keep up the good work!

 

--Eric (Why don't I EVER take pictures?) B.

[odie]

Great TR so far, Odie! As a big fan of that park, I completely agree with your opinions on the coasters. I'd never been on Tony Hawk's Big Spin before, is it really that bad?

 

Keep up the good work!

 

--Eric (Why don't I EVER take pictures?) B.

 

Well my dad was really tired from driving all night and pretty dehydrated. So I think he hated it more than he really did if that makes any since at all. And to me, it just kinda felt like another wild mouse. It's really not bad though.

 

Onto the rest of the TR:

 

On Friday, we all slept in pretty late. When we got out on the road, we had some traffic problems and then my dad saw a In-n-out. So, of course, we HAD to stop . We ended up getting to the park at 2pm (Yes, that is 4 hours after opening! Oh well, at least we made it to the park). At least it wasn't very crowded.

 

We hit Flight Deck first and man, was it forceful! I loved it. It threw a few punches but that's all I could complain about. My favorite parts HAD to be the helix over the lake and the turning drop. It got my vote for the best ride in the park that day (A couple rides weren't open so I can't say it was THE best). We rode it 3 times in a row because there was a small 3 train wait.

 

It got pretty hot in the park so we went into the magic show to cool down. It was OK and there were some pretty cool tricks. He kept the audience active which made his performance better overall. When the show ended, we made our way to Vortex. This ride was a little too painful, uncomfortable, and short for me. I almost wet my pants going through that corkscrew as fast as it did! Scary stuff. I think this ride has a lot of potential, it just needs some smoothing.

 

After a while, we needed to get to the water park. So we worked our way over there and got on Delirium on the way. I really had no idea what to expect but I ended up liking it. You can totally tell when your above 90 degrees and you get tons of airtime. It ended up being one of my favorite flat rides.

 

The water park was fun but nothing insane. The best slide here had to be Down Under Thunder. The drop had plenty of airtime, it's probably the best drop I have been on when it comes to water slides. We left the water park pretty early 'cause the lines were pretty long.

 

Next we went on Loggers Run, Taxi Jam, Rugrats Runaway Reptar, and Physco Mouse. They were all pretty much your usual family rides. Next up was the feared, the dreaded, the shaken: Grizzly. I knew what to expect and I got what I expected. This ride was like a bad No Limits coaster: badly banked, jerky, and paced wrong. Was it always like this?! There was times when my butt was three inches off the seat, not from airtime, from bumps in the track. I'm very glad CGA is getting a GCI in '09 because they need something to replace this thing. I gave it a 4/10 for the first drop and the effort to build it.

 

We noticed drop zone was closed when we entered the park (That would have been my first Intamin drop tower ) so we went to Survivor next. We were next on and... it broke . Up next, we walked passed Invertigo because it was broke . Then, we actually made it on Demon! It didn't even break! At this point it was pretty dark and on Demon, that was a plus. I love tunnels on rides so this ride made Odie pretty happy. It's probably my favorite Arrow Looper.

 

Next we hit Firefall which looks cooler than it is and The Flying Eagles. The Eagles were fun but the ride op was VERY slow. I don't know if he's always like this but it took him almost 5 minutes for him to unload and reload. I didn't snap the flyer because I thought I was going to spin it around (I truly don't even know if I could even if I tried), but it was still a fun ride.

 

We ended the night with a awesome front seat ride on Flight Deck. Overall, Great America is a Great park. Very family friendly and I like the music playing around the park. I think the new coaster in '09 will improve this park tremendously. The park just needs a little push to get started again, and with the new coaster, I think it'll get a big push. I wish the best of luck to CGA and I can't wait to come back!

 

Onto the pictures.

More CGA pics to come.

This was my first Cedar Fair trashcan I EVER used. There's something special about them, almost magical! = O

We found this creek in line for the log flume. It was FULL of coins. I didn't get it.

My favorite Wild Mouse coaster.

Cool anytime!

Less cool in the daytime.

You're a evil little ride.

Next couple photo's are from the Skyride. Taken by my father.

First up.

The entrance was beautiful.

B&M Invert! Yay!

Finally!

It wasn't so In-n-out. It was more like In-n-wait-n-eat-n-out.

My first experience in California traffic! Exciting.

[odie]

A couple CGA pictures left.

That's all from CGA, more SFDK tomorow.

The entrance looked even better at night!

Fire!

Here's why Firefall is way cooler at night...

Swings at night.

They were already setting up for their halloween event. Watch and learn Wild Waves.

This was pretty cool, especially for my brother. I can't remember the name but you put your little boat in the river and watched it race down the crazy rapids. My boat won

Invertigo *looked* nice.

Ouchie.

Phyco Mouse airtime is good airtime.

Oh, how badly I wanted to wait in that line!

No Drop Tower. Can you imagine working up there?

Aww, no Survivor

Yay Survivor!

[yankees15]

Looks like a pretty fun trip especially with no lines! I want to experience V2 with that slanted front spike. That thing look very interesting and I wonder how it feels. I have only been on one Intamin Inverted Impulse and that is Voodoo. I didn't think too much of it at first but the ride is definitely growing on me. It's becoming more fun each time I ride it.

[odie]

Looks like a pretty fun trip especially with no lines! I want to experience V2 with that slanted front spike. That thing look very interesting and I wonder how it feels. I have only been on one Intamin Inverted Impulse and that is Voodoo. I didn't think too much of it at first but the ride is definitely growing on me. It's becoming more fun each time I ride it.

 

It really doesn't feel like anything. Just like your going upside down I guess It's the back spike that's the fun part!

 

And about the whole no line thing: that didn't last all weekend, trust me! We'll let that statement start off the review for Saturday:

 

We got to the parking lot on Saturday, but we pulled up to the booth just to be shooed back to the parking lot across the street; the main one was full. So we go to the fairground lot and, luckily, we found a spot in the second row. We looked at the line for the tram to the entrance, and we made a quick decision to walk. The park was FULL.

 

There was no room to walk anywhere so we didn't even bother with the coasters. We picked up a show schedule and decided it would be best to visit the animals today. I'll let the pictures talk about them. We only got to see two shows through the day though (mostly because the stadiums were already full when we got there ). We saw the Sea lion show in Odie's Stadium (Now that sounds like a nice stadium ) and the Wildlife Show. They were both filled with dumb jokes but the animals were pretty exciting to see.

 

We did happen to get on 3 rides today! Voodoo - just like Firefall except worse because there were no effects or free-swinging rotations. Plus, it was WAY more uncomfortable! Tazmanian Devil had a 30 minute wait but, in a way, it was almost worth it. I really liked this flat ride, almost as much as delirium. Then we got on V2 with only a 15 minute wait. I was very happy with the crew and their dispatching skills. Way to go! They even looked like they were having fun. We also came back to the park later that night and got some more rides on V2 and made it over to Thomas Town for a while. My brother LOVED it there and the ride ops where so nice.

 

Overall: I don't like Saturdays

 

Onto the pictures:

I thought this picture turned out pretty cool. It was a rainbow lightsaber and my brother just HAD to get it. So, I took a picture of him playing with it and this is what happened. I'll update Sunday's adventure tomorrow.... Thanks for reading.

Shouka diving through Medusa's loop.

The train ride was pretty fun too.

A great place for kids. My brother gave it a 10/10.

We left to go eat and came back later. By then, the crowds were flowing out the gates.

One of my favorite flats.

No, she wasn't punching it.

Sea lion show.

Great job on dispatching times V2 grew!

Walrus.

Umm, wrong.

I really like the shark tank. I had never been in anything like that before.

I couldn't even get this picture without people in the way of it.

Bush Baby's are awesome. They can jump so far!

The boy won the ant eating contest. I don't think it's fair though, the ant eater obviously had A.D.D.

The lion was eyeing me down. It actually made me nervous!

This is where they keep the animals when they're not doing shows. After PETA buys Seaworld, I think SFDK is going to need to watch itself!

He's distracting us so Odin can come out and attack... I know it.

The tiger looked really bored.

Saturday is a good day to visit the animals.

Yep, it's Saturday!

[odie]

OK, last update of the trip: Sunday.

 

Sunday was about half as busy as Saturday which worked out great. We got lots of re-rides (on the rides we liked) and even got on some we hadn't been on yet. The highlight of the day had to be our family ride on the White Water Safari. Sure, the line was long but it was a great finish-off-the-trip ride. We all got completely soaked; it was a blast. After the ride, it was time for us to walk the sad path out the exit for the last time (for who knows how long!).

 

Thanks SFDK and CGA for making that weekend one of the best weekends ever!

 

Onto the last day pictures:

...and it's raining. Thanks for reading!

On the road again...

OK, I want back in now.

There was a party going on in the games area.

Shouka.

We also visited the Butterfly Exhibit.

Monsoon Falls.

Pre-lift madness.

One more trip around Roar.

MORE V2!!!

The front's cool, but the back is still WAY better.

First, we hit Medusa for a front seat ride.

This is the only picture I got of Kong, I wonder why?

No re-rides for us on Tony Hawk's Big Hour Long Wait.

[R.C.]

odie, I'm so glad that you had a great time at the two northern California parks. It's pretty awesome that your family made the trip down south. You have some really great photos from both parks.

 

I'm interested in your opinion, which park was better CGA or SFDK?

 

It's awesome that you were able to get on some new types of rides. We have a pretty diverse collection of roller coasters here in Nor. Cal.

[Vffreak07]

I like singing that "I'm blue da ba de da bu di" song while looking at the pics. Enhances the experience.

[odie]

I'm interested in your opinion, which park was better CGA or SFDK?

 

Well, being the thrill seeker that I am, I have to admit I like SFDK better. Mostly because their rides where a little better and more enjoyable. Now, if I were someone who enjoyed the theme park atmosphere and the family rides more than the coasters, I'd have to go with CGA.

[dino]

Nice TR with cool pics. That part at CGA seemed really cool where you put your boat in the water and watch it race down the rapids. And I really liked the lightsaber shot, very nice.