piedude81's California/Chicago TR

[piedude81]

Hi guys! This is my first trip report on TPR, so any feedback on my TR would be great. For spring break this year, my family visited both Chicago and California this year. We ended up doing both because we drove to Chicago from St. Louis because we could save $300/person on airfare for a round trip ticket to San Jose. The family left on Friday, March 14th, and this first part will cover both Friday and Saturday of our trip. This part is pretty short, but part 2 will be posted soon, and will include a trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk!

View of the Midway parking lot. We drove 6 hours to Chicago from St. Louis to save money on airfair.

Authentic Chicago airport gyro. Good stuff.

After a 5 hour flight from Chicago to San Jose, we finally landed around 10pm local time; 2 hours behind what I'm used to.

Weird statue thing at the San Jose airport that was covered in surveillance equipment. Probably a monument to the NSA or something.

The next morning at the Sheraton in Milpitas, CA.

Pretty awesome pool.

You could see the new 49ers Stadium from my room!

Pic of the beautiful surrounding in California. We ended up seeing a ton of tech company headquarters since we were in the Silicon Valley area.

Speaking of tech companies... we drove by the factory that makes the best cars on Earth.

Edited March 24, 2014 by piedude81

[piedude81]

Here's round 2 of my pictures from California. Sorry about how boring the last one was, hopefully this part will be more exciting! Like I said in Part 1, this part will be featuring my visit to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I got there, but I was actually quite impressed with the park as a whole. The park is adequately clean, the rides are decent, and the views of the Pacific Ocean are quite spectacular. We visited during the offseason, so the park wasn't very crowded at all. I never waited for a ride for more than 15 minutes, which is way better in comparison to any chain park. Unfortunately, about 25% of the park's flat rides weren't operating. The park is also incredibly pricey, with rides on the Giant Dipper and Undertow costing you $6 each. The alternative is buying an all-day ride pass at the same price as a one-day ticket to Six Flags for only half the attractions. But all in all it's a decent park that's worth a visit if you're in the area. However, if you want to visit the Santa Cruz area, I recommend heading out EARLY, since the drive from San Jose to Santa Cruz is almost entirely comprised of driving on a narrow 2 lane highway, and even without traffic it's a 45 minute drive at minimum. Anyways, here are my reviews for the parks major attractions:

 

Undertow: The park's latest attraction is Undertow, a spinning coaster from Mauer Sohne. All in all, this ride fit in really well with the park's lineup of rides. It managed to be a fun family attraction, but it's also just intense enough to be fun for the most seasoned coaster veteran. My one gripe against the ride is how inefficient the ride's operations are.The station was only designed to load one train at a time, and the crew were slow at loading each car (they were extremely friendly and had good attitudes, so I expect this is at fault of the park's training). I seriously don't want to know how long the waits for this are during the peak season. All in all, Undertow is a fun, moderately intense family ride, despite being plagued by poor operations.

 

Giant Dipper: This ride is an absolute classic and has held up extremely well for it's age (almost 90 years old at the time of this post). Despite being an older ride, it's relatively smooth, and still provides some decent airtime. I only had time for one ride, but the middle seat I ended up in provided a decent ride. The Morgan trains currently running on the ride aren't bad at all, but the ride still suffers quite a bit of roughness on the turnarounds. Also, the ride only had a 15 minute wait despite only running one train and being the busiest attraction at the park, so I guess the station crew are pretty good when it comes to load times. On another note, the ride LOOKED amazing! The paint looked brand new, making the ride incredibly photogenic. Definitely the park's premier attraction as well as a must for anyone in the area.

 

On to pictures!

Picture of the narrow two-lane highway. You get some pretty cool views of the mountains though!

Undertow from the parking lot. TWISTY!

Undertow from the queue. TWISTY! This doubles as a pic for the lift hill nerds.

Very pretty park in general. Note the delicious deep fried everything stand in the bottom left corner. Yummmm.

Speaking of pretty, the Giant Dipper has to be the most photogenic coaster of all time.

Very red, much color.

Station picture.

The semi-comfortable Morgan trains. Also, it looks as if someone has had a deeply moving experience. Feel free to post your own captions for this one.

Didn't realize there was an on-ride picture until we got off the ride. I'm in the Sriracha shirt, the weirdo next to me is my Dad.

Final shot of Giant Dipper.

Yes, I'm a credit whore. I paid a whole $4 for this credit. SO worth it.

The park's S&S Double Shot. I was really excited to ride this, but it was closed the day I went.

The park's log flume. This was closed, but the weather hadn't warmed up enough to open the ride anyways.

I'll leave you guys with what appears to be the new movie prop Zamperla has produced for Saw 29!

[XYZ]

I have seen many cases of some interesting reactions on the Giant Dipper. It's probably due to how it is a free admission park and many people go there who have not been on a roller coaster for quite some time.

[cal1br3tto]

Thanks for the update on one of my most-missed parks. Did you happen to go on a limited operations day? If not, then it's a shame so many rides were closed. Next time I go I'll try to hit it on a day it's open late so I can enjoy some night rides on Dipper. I'll agree that it's a beautiful ride and they seem to take loving care of it, but you seem to be one of the few people who agrees with me that it can be rough as well. All in all, it's one of my favorites still.

[piedude81]

Thanks for the update on one of my most-missed parks. Did you happen to go on a limited operations day? If not, then it's a shame so many rides were closed. Next time I go I'll try to hit it on a day it's open late so I can enjoy some night rides on Dipper. I'll agree that it's a beautiful ride and they seem to take loving care of it, but you seem to be one of the few people who agrees with me that it can be rough as well. All in all, it's one of my favorites still.

 

I don't know if I went on a limited operations day or not, as there wasn't anything about scaled back operations on the website or at the park. However, it was during the offseason, so I can imagine that they struggle to get college students to work that time of year.

 

Also, Dipper's roughness isn't at fault of the park. There's very little banking on the turns, causing some uncomfortable experiences with your fellow rider. And I can't see the park getting GCI or Rocky Mountain to come in and fix the banking on the turns. It's a monument after all.

[simon8899]

Note the delicious deep fried everything stand

 

These stands and what they do to the good sweets disturbs me always alot visiting the US...