packfanlv Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 We spent Christmas week up at my dad's house in Northern California and decided to visit the Holiday in the Park festivities at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on our way back to Las Vegas. On the way, we also stopped at the charming little Nut Tree Park in Vacaville, CA. Here are trip reports from both parks. Part 1: Nut Tree Park in Vacaville, CA Nut Tree Park was apparently founded in 1921, though by the looks of it you wouldn't know. Apparently the complex was remodeled a couple of years ago. Now what you see is an upscale shopping center with a small theme park in the back. The park itself, while small, is definitely charming. I believe the theme they were going for was that of farming. (Not surprising given the park's heritage.) In my experience most small parks are rotting away and dirty, but this was just the opposite. Nut Tree Park's one coaster is a mix between a kiddie and junior coaster, but they give you two cycles to make up for its small size. Enjoy! Finally the money shot! Look for SFDK HITP coming soon! and a pleasant place to visit. Yes this park is pretty, but that is about it as far as rides go. This is a perfect park for children. I'm glad to know that all of the disabled gingerbread men in the world have a bathroom to use. Ever since I watched Shrek the first time, I have worried about this issue. The park was also sporting a holiday overlay. See I told you they were forceful. Next up we head for the surprisingly forceful bumper cars. Not a bad little ride. A few more pics for fun. This pic gives you almost the whole layout of the coaster. Finally we get to the part Shawn Reece has been waiting for. Yah that's about right! A few of the rides. Ok the train tour is over time to explore the park. From the train we got our first glimpse of the Harvest Express Coaster. Hey this park is nice. Coming around the bend. Shawn Reece is ready for a tour of the park. Yah a mini train! First off we pass the carousel on our way to the train. With our map in hand, it is now time to tour the park. Here are the prices. (Not too bad!) and the park is called Nut Tree Family Park! The shopping area is called "The Village". The Nut Tree Complex features both a shopping center and the park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Good to see that the old Nut Tree Railroad is back in operation. My family was very fond of the Nut Tree when I was kid--the original restaurant was great (especially the mini-burgers and turkey tamales). The railroad used to run from the a toy store to the Nut Tree Airport (they had a private airstrip way back when). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreditCrazy Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Nice PTR. When I was in Northern California once, I almost went here, but decided it wasn't worth it. Maybe it would be...? It kind of reminds me of Adventure City which I guess was worth going to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xmeister Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 I could see Nut Tree becoming like Silverwood as it grows. That actually looks like a really fun kiddy coaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 Following Nut Tree Park, we headed about 25 minutes down the road to SFDK in Vallejo for their Holiday in the Park celebration. I also needed to pick up the Tony Hawk credit, since it was not yet built when we visited for the first time in 2007. During Holiday in the Park most of the children's rides are open along with a select few coasters. On their website they advertise Kong, Medusa, Roar and Tony Hawk as being open, but unfortunately Medusa was down for the whole day. Instead of Medusa, they opened the family coaster Cobra, which is a very very poor substitute in my opinion. In addition to the rides, they have several holiday activities including special dolphin and killer whale shows, decorations throughout the park, Looney Toons characters dressed in holiday attire, a Frosty The Snowman show, Santa's workshop, a holiday parade and a snow hill in the middle of the park. Overall we enjoyed our visit to the park. I think they did a great job with the HITP festivities and I expect it will get better every year as they are able to do more. I was a little disappointed that Medusa was closed, but was pleasantly surprised about how much spin we got on Tony Hawk, so it was a wash. BTW all coasters except Tony Hawk's Big Spin were on one train operations. The other train(s) appeared to be in refurb. I hope you enjoy! After the parade we began to head out, but Jasmine couldn't resist buying a coffee mug on clearance from one of the park's stores. 75% off baby. Let the post Christmas sales begin! Yah Baby it is Austin Powers Santa Claus. Yah! And now for the final float. It is Marvin the Martian driving Santa Claus. But look closely that isn't just any Santa Claus. Speedy Gonzales was so fast that I could only catch the back of his head. Sorry! Followed by a beached Killer Whale and Dolphin on the back of a pickup truck. Now coming down the pathway we have killer Christmas clowns on parade. The parade continues with Gingerbread. Next up: WTF?!? Look, what do we have here? Is it not Bugs and his friends making an appearance tonight. WOW! Followed of course by Frosty himself! Next up we have the Frosty the Snowman girls! Our first section features the rare and endangered white tiger. Finally before leaving for the night, we decided to take in the underwhelming Holiday Parade. I now present it in it's entirety. (Note the pathways at SFDK are very narrow, not allowing for any sort of big float.) The tree lighting ceremony wasn't much, but the tree is beautiful. Around 5:30pm we headed to the entrance for the tree lighting. The decorations in Looney Tunes Seaport were a little light. Christmas tree forest comes alive! As night fall set in, the "Over 1 Million Lights" started to illuminate. We thought about riding Kong, but the line was very long, they had one train operations and IMO that is too much to go through for a painful SLC. Shawn Reece was happy since he still isn't tall enough to ride Medusa anyway. With Medusa silent they opened up Cobra. Inside of it were loads of giant toys. Moving to the other side of the park, the area near Medusa, Kong and Cobra was themed as Toyland. Like I mentioned before they also had special Killer Whale and dolphin shows. We managed only to catch the dolphin effort, which kind of sucked. Besides, this was a more productive way to spend our time. But the line was at least an hour long so we skipped it. They actually did a really good job. Next up it was time to head over to the sledding snow mountain set up in the park. Look mom, I met Frosty the Snowman! Nearby we also watched the cute (for small kids) Frosty the Snowman show. They also had a snow hill in the park for kids to play in. Of course, it was more like ice, but this is the bay area, so you take what you can get. They had fires all over the park. This was great as the temperature dropped later in the day. At this point we just set out to see more of the holiday festivities. This Thomas definitely has a more scenic route than it's counterpart in SFMM. Yay for our 2nd Thomas the Train credit! Six Flags did a great job of drawing families into the park. Thomas Town was rocking! With a small adrenaline rush we decided to calm things down with our second mini train credit of the day! Clever marketing! Or is it? Roar is neither a great nor a bad wooden coaster. Next up we headed right next door to Roar. This is the third coaster of this type that I have been on and IMO the best. After what seemed like a loooong walk we finally arrived at the back corner of the park to get our credit. On our way back to Tony Hawk we could see V2 looking abandoned. My guess is that the train is being refurbished. Along the way we also met some old friends. Yes this means that it is a walkway lined with Christmas trees. Our first stop was to be Tony Hawk's Big Spin for the credit. On our way we passed through the Christmas Tree Forest. The impressive 80 foot tall Christmas tree sits just inside the park entrance. They did a nice job of dressing up the park. After flashing our season passes, we got the special HITP map and were on our way. The entrance area always gets me excited since most of the coasters sit right on the front edge of the park in view from the turnstiles. We finally near the entrance with a silent Medusa in the background. During the walk we got a good glimpse of Tony Hawk's Big Spin. It sits on the edge of the park. Only halfway to the entrance! We opted not to take the tram. I forgot just how far the entrance is from the parking lot. Since our visit was on the day after Christmas the park was pretty busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electerik Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Great TR of some lesser seen parks. Thanks for posting it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airtime&Gravity Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Nice photos and it looks like Six Flags does a good job for Holiday in the Park. Hopefully more of Six Flag's parks start putting on a Holiday in the Park festival, because they seem to draw good crowds for being held in December. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chef kitchen Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Sweet. I love how they have cables holding up the christmas tree, but 80 feet is pretty damn tall so I don't blame them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Mike Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 LOL Would you believe I was going to put up Nut Tree Park tonight too!! Whats the chances of that?? I am always a minute too late and a dollar too short! Nice to see the whole family having fun! Peace, Big Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted January 1, 2009 Author Share Posted January 1, 2009 Big Mike I am sure your trip report will have a certain flair that mine lacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrillgeek Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Great photos of both parks! I really need to get out to Nut Tree and check it out one of these days. Glad you had fun at SFDK as well. Too bad Medusa was closed for you. It was back open for me last night. Haha anyway...thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted January 1, 2009 Author Share Posted January 1, 2009 ^Yah I really like SFDK. It is a pleasant park and much different than any other Six Flags offering. Since we were there more for the holiday celebrations and the Tony Hawk credit, I wasn't too bummed about Medusa. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to ride it, but I was just at SFMM a couple of weeks before and Scream is essentially the same coaster. SFDK is a great park though. Hopefully they continue to grow it in the coming years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSkyWhirl Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Nice trip report, thanks. As I finished it I was thinking "wow, this guy has proven (as others have) that you can post a trip report without being creepy, blowhardy, or bizzare". Then sweet irony of ironies, King Creepy actually posted in your thread. Incredible. I had never heard of Nut Tree Park, really looks like a nice place for families. Between that and SFDK, you visited two really pretty parks! Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Mike Posted January 2, 2009 Share Posted January 2, 2009 Well at least I am a King now, thats an improvement Peace, Big Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.C. Posted January 4, 2009 Share Posted January 4, 2009 Kong actually looks really good (for a SLC). It looks like they have most of the ride painted. I'm glad SFDK finally did something about how bad Kong looked, but I was hoping they were going to scrap it and replace it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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