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Six Flags Great America Buccaneer Battle Media Day


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Today was Media Day at Six Flags Great America for their newest attraction, Buccaneer Battle. For those unfamiliar with the park, it's in the old footprint of Deja Vu. Right between Hometown Square and County Fair. So, it's theming is a bit out of place, but the attraction overall more than makes up for it, and you don't notice it.

 

It's a splash battle ride from MACK that is heavily themed to pirates. Who doesn't like a good pirate, right? There's 10 "ships" (which are awesome by themselves), that seat eight, each seat with a cannon to fire upon targets, and those that choose to fire back at you from the sidelines. And yes, the cannons for the general public wussies on the midway (like me) are FREE!

 

Between the water effects, and the cannons along the midway, you'll be soaked. Six Flags has got a winner on their hands for family fun, which is definitely what they're leaning towards. It's also always nice to see additions other than *gasp* coasters at your home park. I've always loved SFGAm's flats and flumes, so this was really nice to see.

 

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Other items to note, are the new Cyber Cafe, and their new recycling program. Keep your eyes peeled for the not so hard to miss Coke bottle recycling bins this year.

 

Thanks again to Six Flags, and Dan who once again put up with me for few hours!

 

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Buccaneer_Battle_dpau[/coastertube]

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Buccaneer Battle. A great new addition. Check it out!

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Seriously. More Flags. More Fun.

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We stayed so long they made us clean up....

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Joey?

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Think he'll play Final Countdown?

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For an upcharge you can dry off with Cameron.

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Another shot of the station.

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I call this 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

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Overall look of the area. A lot different without Deja Vu.

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This is how I showered this morning.

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Attention to detail.

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Nathan likes to make you wet too.

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These ships are just so cool!

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This is pretty much the entire course.

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Or would you prefer crabs?

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This sexy Aussie will make you wet.

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Yeah, that's not good, dude.

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As per Dave. Anything with sharks is kick a$$.

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I'm Mr. Angry Squid Who Will Soak You. Give me some candy!

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He'll never find a jar of dirt there.

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You betcha!

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Proof that Mr. Six is evil.

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Theming that will make you wet. Er....get you wet.

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The adventure begins (and the cannons are active at this point!)

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That Blackbeard was one wise dude.

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The queue. Of which we were told should move quickly, as this has higher capacity than older splash battles.

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Awesomely themed station.

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and then it was off to search for booty.

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A quick ceremony with Mr. Six....

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The festivities began with, what else? Pirates!

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Nerd shot

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Evil not Dan approved wetness level cannons.

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The "ships" are excellently themed, right down to the sails.

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I think they may be here....or I have a bad case of deja vu.

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Uh oh. There be pirates lurking about....

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By this bird. *Sqwauk!*

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Keylime Cove was represented.

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Which you can eat while looking at pictures of SFGAm coasters!

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Free Wi-fi and yummy treats!

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The new Cyber Cafe at in Orleans Square.

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Can't start a report without this, right?

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Very nicely done--should be a big hit with families. I had my first experience with a Splash Battle ride at Dollywood last year and got absolutely soaked (those cannons give you quite the upper-body workout, too).

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Hey Matt!

 

Great report. I agree the ride doesn't fit with the theme of that area, but boy does it look a WHOLE LOT BETTER than Deja Vu!!!

 

Did you happen to notice any height restrictions on this version? I know that at Dollywood, pretty much anyone can ride as long as they can sit up and don't mind getting wet!

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^There will be a 42" height restriction

 

Very nice, although it looks like it would fit in better in Hurricane Harbor. Of course, like Elissa said, it looks a lot better than Deja vu, and even though I miss it, Buccaneer Battle looks great. The theming looks fantastic, and it looks like this will be just a lot of fun to ride. I wasn't expecting much after looking at the concept art, but this ride has exceeded all my expectations. It is also amazing how much they fit in the area, and construction went really fast this past month.

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Looks great, well done SFGAm! Thanks for posting, Matt, looks like you guys had fun! Where's the Matt pics though?! Nice addition to the park, I reckon, and how I love that carousel, so beautiful! I want to ride it!

 

Loving Cam's longer hair too!

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Great report. I agree the ride doesn't fit with the theme of that area, but boy does it look a WHOLE LOT BETTER than Deja Vu!!!

 

Actually, I think pirates fit in with New Orleans. Actually, LA and the southern states are related to pirates. Jean Lafitte was a notorious pirate who is tied into LA and New Orleans.

 

-Tatum

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Actually, I think pirates fit in with New Orleans. Actually, LA and the southern states are related to pirates. Jean Lafitte was a notorious pirate who is tied into LA and New Orleans.

This is in the County Fair area of the park not Orleans Place. It does look out of place, IMO this would be great where the SBNO Shuttle is with entrances from both HH and SFGAm (similar to Pilgrims Plunge). Despite the location (and another huge unthemed/unshaded queue house of death) the ride looks like a great addition to the park. It is really strange seeing that DejaVu sign re-used for Buccaneer Battle, but im glad they filled in the space with some paths surrounding the ride instead of just making it gravel.

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I used to think that SF wasn't that great at theming rides, but their recent attempts at theming have really impressed me!

 

This seems to be a great addition for families on top of the high attention to detail.

 

It looks absolutely amazing!

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To me, this ride fits in alright...a fair usually has a mish-mash of rides/themes along the midway, and it being a "county fair." a random water ride doesn't seem so out of place...across from the Demon no less.

 

Now if you want to talk strangely places rides, let's focus our attention to Batman: The Ride in Yankee Harbor, Superman: Ultimate Flight in Orleans Place, and The Dark Knight in Orleans Place.

 

While Batman is still one of my favorite rides and themed rides at Great America, I still sort of wish it had gone on to be named The Hurricane like originally planned. Time Warner bought the park in 1991 and to coincide with the release of Batman Returns changed the then unnamed inverted coaster to Batman.

 

Tidal Wave fit the Yankee Harbor just a bit better...

 

But back to Buccaneer Battle!

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I will piggy-back on top of Matt (cough) here, and add some more photos. The ride is really great, and I will admit that I went in there not expecting much. The only other Splash Battle I've been on is the one at Indiana Beach, and while I love that park, the ride is pretty dull. Plus there's the fact that I just don't really like water rides that much. However, I was really impressed! I can't imagine anyone not having fun on this (provided they don't mind a soaking).

 

There are loads of guns around the ride for people to use (and yes, they're free). The course has the boats passing each other several times, so you can have fun firing on other riders. The theming is very well done, and it's all just very well setup.

 

The staff running the event were really cool, very friendly and chatty; and obviously really happy with their new ride. The general feeling there was extremely positive, which was great to see given the economy.

 

With a capacity at over 1000 people per hour, this thing is going to rock in the busy summer days.

 

I'll post two batch of pictures, the first will be some of the theming..

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This is what one of the guns looks like (they're the same on the boats). You can really get the riders very wet from these guns, and the crank turns quite easily (the ones at Indiana Beach are hard to turn - these are much better).

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Amazingly there's a hanging shark in the new boat racing game that my company will soon be selling. There's actually a hidden secret if you jump through this shark :)

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When the bucket tips, there is a lot of water! Don't worry though, this is extremely well done - people on the ride (or walking through) will only get "rained" on, the bulk of the torrent is deflected to the sides. It's very well done as getting completely drenched here would be just too much.

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At the end of the ride you pass through this structure, that looks very innocent at the moment. Riders also walk through here after they ride. (Note the shark hanging on the left....)

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Pickles!!

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These have like shower-heads at the end, and after firing they alternate position (the on in front tilts back, and the one in back tilts forward). These are also on a trigger, but fire randomly from time to time.

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While not animated, they do frequently squirt water at riders (although for some reason they decided never to do it while I had my camera ready!).

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The course is full of little bits of theming like this, and it really adds to it. Some of it is motorized, and all of it squirts water (often triggered from a target, but they will go off randomly anyway).

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Upon exiting the station, riders are treated to this scene. Note the black and red target there which you're supposed to aim at. There are several of these around the track, however I found it far more fun to just drench other people. Note that the guns on the boats start working and can squirt people in line :)

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And then we lost the title of "Cleanest Park"! :) Seriously though, who doesn't love confetti cannons! (And to their credit, it was all cleaned up by the time we left..).

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And then Mr. Six christened the ride (note the remains of the bottle in his hand). It's tradition to smash a bottle of alcohol on a boat just before it enters service, I thought this was a nice touch today.

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The pirates put on a nice (quick) show to christen the ride. This got several laughs out of the crowd.

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The Mr Six Dance Party showed up to get everyone into the dancing spirit! (No, I didn't dance - I'm a programmer!)

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One boat was sitting outside the ride, this served as a platform for the festivities.

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I must say that walking into Six Flags on a Tuesday morning when it's 70 degrees out, is pretty freaking awesome!

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My second batch of photos highlights some of the action. I can't state enough how much fun people were having, lots of laughing, and shrieking (especially from the kids - which I guess is the point!).

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When Matt and I left we had to go through the horrid ordeal of trying to find our cars in the *gigantic* car-park. I always hate that, I wish there was just some way I could remember where I parked...

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I said to move on!

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Some other pirate turned up too .. wearing incredibly cheap party-store pirate gear (that really stinks when it gets wet!). Probably best to move on...

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I guess he doesn't get much of a chance to shower at the Old Folks home, he took advantage of this opportunity today :)

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Even Mr. Six took a spin!

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Here you can see the relationship between the boats and the spectator guns. From off ride you can easily squirt people sitting on both sides of the boat, which is good.

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Anyone wearing a poncho was bound to get totally slammed - the trick is to aim for their face :)

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Some boat-to-boat action right there, I imagine this will be insane when the ride is running to capacity (as you can see, there weren't many people there today so they were mostly empty boats).

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Some of the pirates on the ride. The red-head chick on the far left was hysterical.

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The pirate characters were having a lot of fun. I don't know if they were all Six Flags employees, or hired for the event, but they really got into it. They also all rode many times, and had fun heckling the spectators (causing them to get drenched many times over!).

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There weren't many kids present today, any who rode were bound to get soaked - as Nathan demonstrates here.

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We had to take this photo really quickly: an ass as hot as Matt's doesn't stay wet for very long!

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I got bucken' wet on Buccaneer Battle!

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The boats sit lower than the walkway, so it's actually slightly more difficult for the riders to wet the spectators than it is for the spectators to wet the riders. This works well though, because there are four riders per one spectator. One trick is to aim for their face, they will instinctively look away and then find it hard to aim.

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There are guns everywhere, so you're really never safe. Here you can see Matt and I getting targeted from one of the guns on the exit platform.

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Matt and I take a spin, and here we are drenching as many people as we could. I was very glad that it was sunny and warm today (however I did bring a complete change of clothes - that I ended up not needing). There is also a "people dryer" near the exit, and I was told there's now one over by Roaring Rapids too.

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I have to say this ride defiantly exceeded my expectations!

 

The themeing is marvelous and the thing itself kicks serious booty!

 

 

 

 

But I noticed in that one picture (first one were you have the pirate stuff on.) I have quite the facial expression...

Half "Oh crap!" and the other half "Hooray!"

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