PTR: Paul's 2009 TPR West Coast Tour

[Paul_Hollibone]

G'day Everyone!

I was a little reluctant at first to do this, but thought what the heck.

 

So i've decided to post a Trip Report (my first ever mind you) of the TPR West Coast Trip. So bare with me, and hope it all comes out ok.

 

First Day. Well I arrived at LAX at about 9:40am after a long 12 hour flight from Sydney. I was lucky enough to ride on the Qantas A380. I'll just say that this was an awesome plane, absolutely loved every moment of the flight. For some reason I came off the flight not feeling all the bit tired, despite getting no sleep on the aircraft, and having quite a long time awake. With all the drama right happening right next to me, is it any wonder why I didn't sleep? First the wonderful lady sitting right next to me had just purchased a Macbook but didn't know how to set it up, so I got to play with one of those beauties, and secondly that same lady collapsed. It was quite good though, she was alright, and I had airline hostesses looking after me and her for pretty much the rest of the flight (how's that for Economy seating!) Can't beat service like that I say!

 

I also met some quite nice American's on the aerobridge boarding the plane at Sydney. Something told me this was going to be a good trip.

 

Once I arrived in LAX, and everything was all good, I checked into the Holiday Inn at LAX (after 2 American couples argued on the bus which was better, Santa Monica or Venice Beach (I say Santa Monica for the Record). Checked out the Macca's store, got some lunch, then crashed on the bed watching Seinfeld (yep, I really wasn't tired .)

 

Anyway, TPR was awaiting me for the Extra Credit trip to Santa Monica Pier, so off I went. First stop was Venice Beach to meet with the rest of the gang on the early sightseeing trip. It was then I made my own conclusion of Venice Beach! At Venice Beach I was asked twice if I wanted some "Medicinal Marijuana".

 

Anyway, Santa Monica was where I really got my first taste of "TPR".

Once all our Wristbands were handed out, where do you think our first stop was? Why the WestCoaster Credit of course! The park was reasonably quiet mind you, so there was literally no lines for any of the rides (except the Ferris Wheel). WestCoaster was surprisingly ok. It was my first ever morgan coaster, and found the whole wheel assembly to be weird, but it was an alright coaster for what it's worth, especially that last bit.

 

I then went onto the Ferris Wheel as I wanted to get some photo's of the park and beach from above before the sun set. I was quite surprised that they actually take your photo and try to sell it to you on this ride. Wow, that was my whole "Toto, I don't think we are in Australia anymore" moment.

 

We also did the Cha Cha (or Scrambler as you like to call it) and was quite surprised at how long the ride actually lasted, you won't find anything like that in Australia. It was quite awesome.

 

We had dinner and I became welcomed and introduced to my new friends. We also found these awesome bumper cars (why are they called Sig Alert?) which are rotating bumper cars which I loved. I later found out that these are common in America (why don't we have crazy Bumper Cars like these?). Overall we had an awesome time, and an awesome start to what would be some crazy but awesome times, that will be cherished forever.

 

Anyway, onto the photo's, because we all know thats what your here for!

 

Anyway, Stay Tuned, next up (thats if you want my antics) is Day 1, the Bus Trip, our Hotel, and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom!

And i'll finish up with this. Took me 4 attempts to get this photo!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my first ever PTR (or TR). Next up is another first for me, my first Six Flags Park, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom!

Quite Pretty at night.

Somewhere out there in the great outdoors is Australia! Hi Australia!

An Overview of the park.

Pacific Park was a pretty good park for what it's worth. I was certainly impressed, beats our seaside amusement parks for sure.

Where's the Hoff? What about Pamela?

And we have arrived at Pacific Park! It's an Octopus in disguise (it certainly is GIANT!)

Santa Monica Beach. One thing I was surprised about was how wide the beach was, it was massive!

This place was certainly questionable. I didn't particularly want to stick around, there were coasters (or Coaster) to look ride!

I was worried...

The TPR Day Bus off-loading at Venice Beach. After the argument on the shuttle bus to my hotel, I didn't know what to expect at this place.

And I had to try an American McDonalds! I'll say very Different from our McDonalds! Our Macca's seem to be priding themselves on trying to be healthy. I did not see this at all over in the US! Nothing wrong with that though.

My first glimpse of the "Real" America.

It was awesome, these planes have Camera's on the tail of the aircraft for you to see what's happening outside (especially helpful if you don't have a window seat). It's awesome though, the little touch screen tv's were essentially iPods, with heaps of music, great movies and tv shows, as well as games. I loaded my iPhone with heaps of stuff to watch, and I did not once watch it!

Mr Pilot, take me there!

For those who want to see what the inside of an A380 looks like, this is for you!

The Qantas A380. Much like a normal Airbus A380, but Qantas-ified! An Awesome Aircraft.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Paul_Hollibone

[Jds03]

Yay! Great update Paul! I was hopeing you would post a PTR because of all your great photos on Facebook!

 

This really remind me how confused all of us "Bonus credit" people were when we walked into the middle of vennice beach and got offered medical marijiana by 400 different people.

 

Looking forward to seeing more!

 

Oh and for the record the octupus is Giant, rather than Mega.

[wlmoorer]

What an awesome plane...I have been wanting to ride on one!

 

Props Paul, Way to arrive in the States in style!

[gisco]

I see you previewed your report and thought you had the pictures backwards so you reordered them. By now you know that preview reverses the order but they post correctly.

 

Nice report so far, Keep the pictures coming!

[Speeddeamon128]

Awesome report so far Paul keep it up!

[Paul_Hollibone]

Ok, so i've fixed it, 3rd time luck hey!

 

Thanks for all your kind comments guys, it was a pleasure to meet you all (and to those who I haven't met, well just don't listen to that bit

 

And yes wlmoorer, it was a sweet plane.

 

And Josh, for legal copyright reasons I just said it was a Mega Octopus instead of Giant (hey, thats my reasoning and i'm sticking with it!)

Oh ok, i've adjusted it to the correct name.

[atem122]

Awesome start to the PTR! But yeah, I havent seen Pamela or The Hoff on that beach...but I have seen sharks!

[Paul_Hollibone]

^I hear Megasharks are all the craze these days!

[Jds03]

I almost steeped on one when I went back Santa Monica to swim.

 

Then I ran out of the water.

[Paul_Hollibone]

Hello Everyone. Firstly thanks for your kind comments. I'm sure the photo's will get better as we go along (as I kinda worked out how to use this camera)

 

Anyway, if anyone wants a full res copy of the photo's I post, just ask and i'll send it off to you!

 

Day 1 & 2 - Bus Trip and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

 

Anyway, as I was staying in a different hotel to the rest of the TPR gang, I did miss out on the porno store visit the previous night and "Six Fags Magic Mount-em" . Anyway, day 1 consisted pretty much of a long scenic drive of the Californian Highways. I will say now that the whole countryside was very different than I anticipated, and even the area where Magic Mountain was very different than I anticipated (for some reason I anticipated that the park was going to be on the opposite side of the freeway than what it was).

 

Anyway, today was the first day I broke my TPR virginity, Day 0 didn't really count. Today was the day that I was going to meet the wonderful Mr Robb Alvey, the guy which I have spoken to many times yet have never met him. If I was a stalker, that would have been my dream come true, but I am not a stalker, but was still pleased to finally meet this kind person that would be our "camp leader" for the next 2 weeks.

 

We all met in the lobby of the La Quinta Hotel in LAX and boarded the bus from there. Destination? Disneyland! Oh wait, thats right we had to head up to San Francisco first. I will just say that one of my biggest goals on this trip was to visit Disneyland, and to a lesser extent Six Flags Magic Mountain. Thats all I cared about really, but strange thing is with the amount of fun we had on the trip, as much of a Disney freak I am, I pretty much forgot about Disneyland until we saw the Fireworks when we arrived in the Anaheim area.

 

Anyway, the bus trip was entertaining, and somewhat weird (you have no idea what was going through my head when Yo Gabba Gabba came on screen!) but it was that humor that kept me quite entertained on the boring bits (not that there were many) of the trip. And it's that humor that makes me crave another TPR trip in the future.

 

We stopped somewhere in the middle of no-where for a meal break, which had a service station or 2, a Macca's, Carls Jnr, and Taco Bell, and it was there where I was introduced the massive portion sizes of the USA. I couldn't believe it for the second time when I asked for a Medium sized drink at McDonalds that it was rather large size cup (the "regular size" cup over in the US at the fast food chains is pretty much our "Large" sized cup in Australia). We then ventured into one of the service stations for some "Americana" and I couldn't believe the drink and food portion sizing! It was massive.

 

Anyway, we arrived at Silicon Valley at the Avatar hotel where we got settled in, and did Snack Exchange. My packet of Chewy Caramel Tim Tams went pretty quickly! As others vegged out with the Snack's, and a couple of others went to CGA to grab some coaster credits in, me, josh, mikael (hope I spelt that correctly) and a few others went for a walk around the area, mainly to snap some shots of the Yahoo building, but also to check out the area, check out CGA and whatnot (can you blame us? There was an amusement park across the road!)

We then went back to the hotel where a bennigens establishment was located and most (not me, I didn't get service!) had a meal. I also found out that they sell Fosters over there, so scored a free Fosters Key Ring from the bar because I was "Aussie". Free stuff = Win.

 

Anyway, this hotel was really cool, with nice room's that have big LCD tv's, an iPod dock, and Roller Coaster pictures in the room, an IHOP, free WiFi and decent "Computer Room" which has 2 free to use iMac computers to use. Score! It was a great hotel, and was very comfortable to stay at. You wouldn't be able to find anything like that in Australia unless you paid a bucketload for it, and even then things like WiFi are an add-on over here.

 

Day 3 - Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

 

Day 3 we all hopped onto the bus for the drive upto Six Flags Discovery Kingdom for Bay Area Bash. Driving around the bay area, we thought we saw a little tornado forming, and all we thought (well I did) was "Uh Oh". Luckily nothing really formed of it, and all was ok.

 

We arrived at SFDK early (that was a common trait among this trip, we always arrived early to our destinations, but that ain't a bad thing). As soon as I hopped off the bus I had already experienced one of my firsts, that being a Six Flags Parking Lot Tram, or a parking lot tram. They aren't exactly common over here, but then our parking lots aren't exactly huge, or "far away" from their venue. That was kinda cool, but I was more interested in what was ahead. Medusa, Roar!, V2 and all sat there teasing me. Kong, not so much.

 

Once we entered the park we had a really decent animal presentation and a tiger presentation (sorry guys, not as good as our tiger presentation at Dreamworld) then it was off to Medusa for some ERT. I only managed to get 2 rides on Medusa, but I did wait for the front so it was well worth it in my opinion. This was my B&M virginity about to be broken, it it lived upto it's every expectation. It was such a good ride I would have loved to bottle it up and take it home to Australia. Me and Bas checked out the rest of the parks offerings with our Gold Qbots and for my first ever Six Flags park, I was surprised, this park was very nice, and what was more surprising was the Boomerang was actually very smooth and enjoyable (unlike that Boomerang at Knotts!).

I was so surprised with this park, it was everything that I was told a Six Flags park wasn't.

 

Lunch was quite good (well food wise, rather average) but the gathering, the free giveaways, the Animals and characters were quite awesome and well done. I won a painting that had been painted by Terry the Dolphin, which was quite awesome.

 

Anyway after lunch all I wanted to do was ride Roar. I wanted to ride that beast. Unfortunately I didn't ride until just before ERT, but that only made the ride sweeter.

 

Most of the gang opted to go to the Jelly Belly factory for a tour which was held after lunch, which was quite awesome (traffic wasn't though). The Traffic turned what should have been a 15 minute drive I believe into a 40 minute drive. Not to worry, that gave me time to "bond" with the rest of the TPR gang (for the record, I quite enjoyed Bus Time).

After I went looking for Oompa Loompa's, we all headed back to the park.

 

We had night ERT on V2, Roar and Tony Hawk with the Tony Hawk Water Challenge. That was fun, and quite challenging (I lost my cup of water on the first drop, landed all on Mike Moody who was sitting opposite me. But I came out quite dry compared to my other riding buddies (and the other people on the trip who had whole water coolers full of water dumped onto them!)

 

Overall it was an awesome few days, and I thought if thats awesome now, I can't wait till we get a bit further on in the trip!

 

Anyway, if you've made it this far, Congratulations! You win the right to view the photographs below. If you didn't read this far, well naughty you. For your punishment YOU MUST VIEW THE PHOTO's below...

 

Till next time folks.

Why is this so big?

The Jelly Belly Beatle. I used to drive a 1970's VW Beatle. I'd kill to have that car pictured.

Hmmm, bed time.

Bye Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I'll be back (highly un-bloody likely).

This turned out well.

Rawwww. Whats that? I'm doing it wrong?

This Cobra snake coaster had the biggest coaster train I have ever seen in my life!

Woa, what a big loop.

Kong and V2. I actually had a decent ride on Kong, one of my most smoothest rides on a SLC.

Tony Hawk's Surprisingly Decent coaster.

No Oompa Loompa's here. I asked the lady. She said the Moose out front should've told ya.

Yep, thats the cause for our delay.

Damn this ride is a tease.

Hmmmmmm. I think the thing that ruins this ride is that unless your near the front of the train, the whole front part of the ride is rather sucky.

Don't worry folks, i'll get you out-a there, Fast, Superman fas.... Oops wrong ride. Hey, it's the same track colour and track design.

Hi Terry!

Water Water Everywhere. I didn't bother with this ride, didn't feel like getting saturated.

Aye Aye Captain Donald...Oh wait.

The Colourful swings (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Pretty Fountain.

How awesome is that ride? Much better than Scream thats for sure!

Through a tree?

As much as I heard that Boomerangs suck, this baby was teasing me so badly.

So apparently it's a myth that Camels store water in their humps.

Shampoo jumping through the Loop!

So since we found out that they water down this ride in the morning (anyone know why?) can it count as a Watercoaster?

I would have walked, but there was a tram right there... It was teasing me.

Very Similar to how it looks in the film.

Ahhh, Wonderworld...

The Yahoo Property. I was amazed at just how many buildings Yahoo Occupied in this area. I contemplated walking into the reception of the main building though and asking the receptionist to Google something for me though. (Seriously, who uses Yahoo anymore?)

That was not our bus (our bus was right behind this one).

[Jds03]

Haha, it's the BFC!!!!

 

Great Update.

 

I hope in the next one you have tons of pictures of me and Matt being pathetic on those two kiddy rides!

[Gav]

Good to see you getting into the TRs Paul....I missed the San Fran parks, but It'll be interesting to hear/see another aussies take on the SoCal parks when you get around to them.

 

One thing I haven't worked out though is why the trip didn't just start in San Fran to avoid the long northbound drive....Something I missed?

[SharkTums]

^There was an option for people to fly directly to the Bay Area and start there instead. Only 6 people chose that option. Everyone else went round trip from LA (Mostly due to cheaper airfare, but also because everyone knows long TPR Bus Rides are the best!)

[Jds03]

Yeah, The Bay Area people missed the epicness of Shark Attack 3.

[SharkTums]

^And the Paper Mache Volcano!

[moinab]

Great report! It's interesting to hear the comparisons between the US and Australia.

 

Looking forward to the next installment!

[Paul_Hollibone]

Damn, posting PTR's on TPR is addictive!

 

That first epic bus trip was a great introduction to the craziness that is TPR. How long was it? Something like a 7 hour drive, it honestly didn't feel that long though, it felt more like 3 hours to be honest. It was nice to see some of Americana though that you don't see in the cities like LA (such as how desperately dry it is over there compared to Australia, and even then we are pretty dry). I remember driving past this massive water catchment dam, (anyone know the name of it? it was massive, but there was so little water in there, it was awesome. It was a great "Welcome to America" introduction for me.

 

I could have flown into SFO, but I would have had to make my own way to the Santa Clarita area, more hassle than its worth. At least flying into LAX was rather easy and relatively painless.

 

So gavin, never been to SFDK? Well I see it as if Dreamworld and Sea World had a baby. It has plenty of animals, plenty of rides, and just a nice atmosphere. It hasn't got an immersive theme on the rides, but some nice scenery details, great landscaping and so on.

 

Oh Elissa/ Robb, how is the construction of that Paper Mache volcano? Have you been given land approval yet?

 

And does anyone know what BFC stands for on the Monster Can? The only thing that comes to mind is "Big Fu..en Can"

[Meteornotes]

Yeah, The Bay Area people missed the epicness of Shark Attack 3.

 

Exactly.

 

dt

[Paul_Hollibone]

Hello Everyone.

Now we have had a short intermission (I have been demoted to Page 2 of the forums, better fix this) it is time to continue this photo trip report.

 

Day 3 - Gilroy Gardens & Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

 

Today for me was a day of unknowns. I knew very little of Gilroy Gardens and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. All I knew about Gilroy Gardens was that it was previously Bonfante Gardens, had Mushroom Swings and Garlic Tea Cups, and it was managed by Cedar Fair. So I had no idea what was coming. I'll just say that this park really surprised me. Not only was it beautifully landscaped & maintained, but it had some pretty kick arse rides. The Day started off with some ERT on Quicksilver Express which was a surprisingly awesome coaster as it was. Once we had finished the ERT, me Josh and Matt worked our way around the park, viewing the parks "birds" and natural wonders.

The staff at this park really were exceptional, and a big thanks goes out to them for making the day such a great day.

 

We checked out pretty much all the rides in the park, and I insisted that we did the flower boat ride, as I always have wanted to do it. Whilst lame at the beginning, the un-loading procedure was sure worth the lame ride

 

Another worthy note was the Car Ride at the park. It was very well themed to their respective decades (there are 2 decades, one with the vintage cars, one with the retro cars). Sorry, I can't remember which years they represented, but it is very well done, and dare I say better than Autopia at Disneyland (braces for a bashing from those Disney fans who don't agree!). Overall Gilroy was a great park, and if i'm in the area again I will certainly make the effort to revisit.

 

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

After Gilroy Gardens, it was time for a scenic drive down to Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Again I knew very little about this park, with the exception that it was located on a beach and was reasonably historic. After fighting with the traffic, we finally made it to the park. First stop? Tornado. Whilst there were a few in the group that liked it, the general consensus was "Nup, it's shit". Giant Dipper on the other hand was a great ride offering some awesome surprises. Unfortunately Matt's cell phone was swallowed by the Dipper, so he went off to go get another one before the stores closed whilst Josh and I continued to enjoy the park.

After Dinner and the backstage tours of the carousel and Giant Dipper, Matt once again decided to join us, and we continued exploring the rest of the park, including the array of classic rides and dark rides the park has to offer.

 

Anyway, again this park exceeded my expectations, whilst a little crowded, it was still a great park, with plenty of atmosphere and charm. It certainly reminded me of the classic seaside amusement park, and fortunately this park still has what makes a really good seaside park. I can imagine this is what our Luna Park's in Australia would have been like back in the 1950's and so on.

 

Anyway I'll finish the boring "text" bit of the report here, and let the photo's do the rest of the talking. For those who are leaving us here, thanks for reading. For those who are staying on, what are you doing? There's pictures below!

It was now time to say goodbye to Santa Cruz Beach, and say hello to Larry who was sitting in the bus, bored as anything. As you see whilst larry was the bus driver, due to the parking situation at this park he was unable to join us inside the park. We all felt sorry for Larry.

And thats all for this update. We all had a great day at the two parks. Next up is California's Great America (Wonderworld!) and Six Flags Magic Mountain.

After we peeped under the skirt of the carousel, we thought it would only be appropriate to ride the carousel. It was my first ever "ring" carousel, and whilst I didn't understand the concept at first, once I saw how it worked it all made sense. It was awesome.

The Cave Train adventure was one of those "What the Hell" type of rides. Sure, it's probably 50+ years old, but still, what the hell?

This park was really awesome at night time.

Who you gonna call? Don't say Ghost Busters, we'll get in trouble from the movie studio's about it.

Surfs Up!

As the sun sets, the lights go on. There's nothing like a Seaside Amusement park in the summer at night.

Everybody put your hands in the air, like you just don't care.

This ride was so smooth it was unbelievable. This park needs to teach the likes of Six Flags and Cedar Fair something about maintenance of Wooden Roller coasters.

Jokes aside, whilst some of the American Population may have troubles finding their brain cells, the majority pretty much rock. You guys rock.

Whilst Josh and Matt were on this coaster, I saw a lady of middle age jump the rides fence to fetch her/ her kids hat that she must have lost on the ride. It was then I realised why so many Americans die from getting hit by a roller coaster.

It's an amazing fact that at the time of this photograph, this dragon was doing considerably more than the Fantasmic Dragon at Disneyland.

Again, whats with the wide beaches?

There's a classic carnival attraction that you don't see in Australia. Needless to say I did not ride the rock-o-plane.

Giant Dipper goes Zooooom!

Spot the TPR members! I decided I would not be a credit whore at this park, and opted not to ride this ride.

How awesome.

I wasn't really in the picture taking mood today. As you can see, this one turned out pretty bad.

As you can see here, lots of the parks history has been kept in-tact with many of the parks original buildings still standing.

On the way to our pitstop, we noticed a game in the arcade which was having a few technical difficulties. Which one's the any key?

First ride of the park? Well we were thinking of doing the S&S Tower or the Chairlift. But we opted for the Hurricane.

After Gilroy it was time for an evening at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It took us forever to get to a close proximity of the park due to the massive amount of traffic. The trip down there was quite scenic, which took us through many small "american" townships. It was everything I expected it to be like.

B E A uuutiful....

No TR of Gilroy Gardens would be complete without a photo of the Garlic Tea Cups. For those who don't know, Gilroy (the town that is) is the garlic capital of the world, so that kinda works.

The Flower boats were quite lame (I originally thought it would be some sort of mild rapid ride). But not all was lost. This was where I found out that Cedar Fair chained up their employee's to the wall. Gave some good views though.

I was contemplating riding the monorail, but once I saw the amount of movement the cars had as they travelled slowly along the track, we decided to pass.

The only shot I have of the car ride. You can see the retro side of the ride, the other side which operates in the opposite direction is the "vintage" side.

Bloody Hell.....

The Mushroom swings are awesome, yay for the mushroom swings!

This park sorta reminds me of how Dollywood would look like.

No pictures of the Kiddy Coaster for me, but I believe this was the first time I said "oh bugger it, lets ride it".

I was in awe as to how awesome the landscaping was. Why can't my garden look like this?

I think this ride would have to get the award for the "Most under-rated coaster of the trip". The general consensus was that this ride rocked. Not many morgan coasters get a rating like that.

Yeah, it's that good. Unfortunately the park at this stage was still rather empty, and I preferred to make use of the ERT session that we had so no pictures of a full train for me.

How nice does that sign look? I have to say I was very surprised by just how awesome this ride was.

Walking down this boardwalk, I had no idea whatsoever what I was in for. Was I in for a cheesy carnival park in a botanical gardens?

Me trying to be artistic. I think it turned out quite ok.

Look at how awesome that is, and just think that was all done by a crazy dude.

Some would say thats a bad thing, because it's in the middle of no-where, I say it's good because it gives you the sense of not knowing where the hell you are.

And here we are at Gilroy Gardens. A little park tucked away in the middle of a valley.

[Jds03]

Nice TR. I liked your pictures personally.

 

I couldn't believe how long we waited for that stupid kiddy credit. I felt bad for making you wait while we were whoring.

[gisco]

Nice trip report and yes I did read it. Keep the pictures coming.

 

Damn, posting Photo TR's on TPR is addictive!

 

That first epic bus trip was a great introduction to the craziness that is TPR. How long was it? Something like a 7 hour drive, it honestly didn't feel that long though, it felt more like 3 hours to be honest. It was nice to see some of Americana though that you don't see in the cities like LA (such as how desperately dry it is over there compared to Australia, and even then we are pretty dry). I remember driving past this massive water catchment dam, (anyone know the name of it? it was massive, but there was so little water in there, it was awesome. It was a great "Welcome to America" introduction for me."

 

That would be the San Luis Reservoir. They steal the water from Northern California and store it there until Southern California needs it.

[Paul_Hollibone]

Thanks guys.

 

Gisco, that water dam was massive though, thanks for pointing out what it's actually for.

On another water related topic, I saw just outside of LA some big water channel things which went down some of the hill sides. Anyone know what i'm talking about? They were awesome looking.

 

Anyway, without further ado, here's California's Great America!

 

Day 4 California's Great America

 

Today was the day I had been looking forward to most. The day I would finally go to Wonderworl.... Oops I mean California's Great America. I had been staring at the park for the last 3 days, and even got so close to going inside, but I just couldn't get in. It was also a day that unfortunately California wanted to show just how hot the state can get. This was also quite unfortunate considering that lots of the rides in Great America don't contain covered stations (whats the deal with that?)

 

Anyway, the day started with ERT on Top Deck, or is it Flight Gun? Quite a surprising ride, was much better than I expected it to be. It's also worth noting this was my first B&M Suspended coaster, so it was quite an experience. After the half hour of ERT on Top Deck we went over for ERT on Vortex. I think I survived 2 rides (or was it 3?) on this machine, some didn't even last that. Quite rough, quite painful, but the loop and the swooping parts of the ride made up for it, but I wasn't willing to go anymore. This was also my first B&M standup (why do you look so shocked?).

 

After Vortex me and Josh (hello josh) went over to try and ride Grizzly. As we were going over there, the park was opening for the General Public. The national anthem was playing, I didn't know whether I had to stop whilst it playing for respect or not, but Josh didn't, so I just followed his lead (Blame josh for the bad influence on the Aussie!) Grizzly was an epic fail though, the ride was scheduled to open at 11:00am (but the ride didn't actually open till 12:30pm). So we made our way onto Invertigo. Invertigo was alright, wasn't great but wasn't terrible. I think I prefered DeJa Vu at Magic Mountain over it. After this we tried Demon, again not operating at this stage so we checked out the rest of the parks offerings. Drop Zone or whatever it's been called, many thought was good, I was like "I've been on taller". It was a fun little drop, but I was quite concerned about the shuddering noise it makes as it hits the brakes. For what it's worth, the Giant Drop at Dreamworld makes a smooth "Whoosh" as it hits the magnetic brakes, not sure if the rest of the drop towers make the shuddering noise as it hits the brakes or if it's just CGA's. Anyone care the clarify?

 

After a couple of rides on the tower (the park at this point was literally deserted, except for the few TPR freaks ) Josh and I checked out the remainder of the parks offerings, including the Chairlift, Nick Central, the Demon, Hanna Babbera Land (or whats left of it) and Boomerang Bay.

 

Some things worth noting, Boomerang Bay was awesome, but the direction signs to various places in Australia, I can't vouch for their accuracy. Other than that, it's a great homage to Australia, works really well. The Rapids ride was rather awesome, it's been some time since I have seen a rapids ride with a rotating platform. I was also quite suprised to see the park still had their Bayern Curve. We rode it, but seriously it's been slowed down to the point that the cars hardly even tilt, one of the best features of that ride. It also had a really short cycle. For that I was rather upset that this great ride had been practically killed.

 

Anyway, Grizzly. Everyone bagged this ride before and after they rode it. Me? I thought it was a great ride. Sure, it ain't no Terminator or Roar!, but it's still a great ride, and I was surprised at how good it was. It wasn't the smoothest, but then again it was no-where near as rough as I was expecting it. If we didn't have some time constraints I sure would have ridden it again.

 

Anyway, onto the pictures. Today I was in a better picture taking mood, so these pictures should be more upto standard.

 

For those who would like to continue on, just look below. If your getting off here, please remain seated until the train has come to a complete stop.

 

Anyway, a great Day at California's Great America.

 

Next Stop Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Anyway, what a day at California's Great America. The general consensus was that this park sucked. I on the other hand loved this park. Ok sure, it isn't Magic Mountain, but it's still a solid park. I really hope this park sticks around. Anyway next up will be Six Flags Magic Mountain. Till next time, well keep cool.

I've been on taller. Much taller. This was like a baby drop for me.

Love it.

Very Stereotypical. This place is great! 10 Thumbs Up!

As I said above, I can't vouch for the reliability and accuracy of this sign.

This looks crazy mate.

Splash. That water was very inviting. I wonder if the water was shipped over from Australia for Authenticity?

Boomerang Bay was better than I also expected.

Wonderworld, Wonderworld, where happiness is here.

I was upset. I don't want to go to the America Cafe. Why would I want to go there when I am already in America?

It was better than I expected.

Yummy. I have a piece of wood, bolt and nail from this ride's mirrored sister that was at Wonderland.

Ahh, there she is. The ride I have been looking forward to most at this park.

Quite Patriotic. It's a shame there aren't many parks these days that have the good old classic chairlift.

Firefall was down for the day, a shame because I would have liked to ride it. I wanted to see if all Topspins suck, or if it's just the one at SFDK that sucked.

Yay for pictures with 4 rides in it!

I didn't ride the swinging ship. I once rode the same ride at Wonderland, it sucked badly.

Timed to perfection.

Little did we know that the next day, this sight would have been quite common for a few hours during the day. Just a question, if we did happen to go that day, and some members got stuck on the ride, what would happen if we were stuck on the ride when the bus was due to depart? We can't call anyone due to our phones and stuff being in the station.

This turned out ok.

Invertigo, it's ok.

I got some nice photo's from up here. Well I think so....

Going into that loop is probably the best feature of the ride, especially considering it's a standup.

That Tangled mess is Vortex. Geez it's a mess.

Through the tree's?

Top Deck Flight Gun, or is Top Flight Gun Deck? Nevertheless this ride rocked!

It's Funny though, come to think about it, most movies which include a Theme Park (so National Lampoons and Beverly Hills Cop) seem to take the piss out of Walt Disney, with his "Signature" chatacter (Marty Moose anyone?), Uncle Dave (Uncle Walt?) and the Theme Park.

This Park was heavily featured in the film "Beverly Hills Cop 3".

Welcome to California's Great America!

[Jds03]

After Vortex me and Josh (hello josh) went over to try and ride Grizzly. As we were going over there, the park was opening for the General Public. The national anthem was playing, I didn't know whether I had to stop whilst it playing for respect or not, but Josh didn't, so I just followed his lead (Blame josh for the bad influence on the Aussie!)

 

I don't know how I don't rember this, but I guess I just didn't notice. haha

 

Nice Update. I actuly enjoyed CGA too, it was just too easy to make Cedar Fair jokes and come off sounding mean.

 

Looking forward to the next update! You're probably going to pass my crappy PTR, which is preety sad on my part, considering I started almost two months before. haha

[Angry_Gumball]

Aside from CGA being my home park, it's really a shame how much this park is really overlooked. Sure, it doesn't have any record-breaking coasters but the park does have probably much more than what SFMM has: Flat rides. This is an area where CGA steals the show, along with the variety of water rides and included water park. Glad you had fun, and love the "Wonder World" references, I loved that movie as a kid!

 

And about Grizzly, yes this ride isn't the best woodie out there but it does have it's few moments it tries to have, especially in the rear.

[printersdevil78]

Wow, Paul, it sounds like you and I had a lot of similar experiences at this park. I kind of paused when they started playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," as well, then noticed no one else did, so I went on with the search for an open ride. I agree word for word with your description of CGA's version of the Bayrn Kurve, and I mostly agree with your assessment of Grizzly, which I thought was an OK coaster... though I'm not sure I would have stood in line to ride it again, time constraints or not.

 

I was one of those who didn't particularly care for this park as much as some of the others, but I'll give it this much: As far as Cedar Fair-owned parks go, it was probably the second-best one I've visited (behind Dorney, which was so well-operated and had such friendly staff when I was there last year that it barely seemed like a Cedar Fair park at all).