Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (SFDK) Discussion Thread

[cwf_777]

I was there yesterday too. When we first got to the park,the parking lot was nearly empty but the employees forced us into the fairground lot for apparently no reason, then let the cars immediately after us go to the real parking lot. This was especially annoying considering that we were in a group with multiple cars and we got split between the two lots. As for lines, we didn't end up doing too much. When we first got to the park we were waiting for others in our group so we went back to Boomerang, where we had no wait at all and walked right on. We then went to Joker (at this point about noon) where we had about a half hour wait. We then just kind of wandered around the park until we tried Pacific Rim for the first time (Nothing to say about that ). After that we went down by Medusa where we found close to no wait, as the switchbacks inside weren't being used at all, which may be why you saw the line stretching out. We ended up leaving after this due to the crowds and heat. Overall, not a very good day

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

Yikes that does sound quite crowded. I might make a spontaneous trip tomorrow so I guess I'll get what I get!

[The Geek Mojo]

Question: I'm going to the park for the first time this weekend. I have the option of going Friday or Sunday. I was going Friday until I saw that they were offering an hour of ERT Sunday before the park opens for people who bring a coke can that enter the park. That hour of ERT sounds tempting, but something tells me it's going to be super crazy crowded Sunday and that my best bet will be go Friday with smaller crowds. As for the other day, I've reserved that day for California's Great America, so I'm just trying figure out if the hour of ERT will be worth it for SFDK.

[Fire2box]

Question: I'm going to the park for the first time this weekend. I have the option of going Friday or Sunday. I was going Friday until I saw that they were offering an hour of ERT Sunday before the park opens for people who bring a coke can that enter the park. That hour of ERT sounds tempting, but something tells me it's going to be super crazy crowded Sunday and that my best bet will be go Friday with smaller crowds. As for the other day, I've reserved that day for California's Great America, so I'm just trying figure out if the hour of ERT will be worth it for SFDK.

 

well friday and sunday are both outside of the new, additional Bring A Friend Free days. Both are likely better then going Saturday but Sunday is the day before july 4th so people will likely have the following day off. So I guess go on friday if you have the choice.

[singemfrc]

Question: I'm going to the park for the first time this weekend. I have the option of going Friday or Sunday. I was going Friday until I saw that they were offering an hour of ERT Sunday before the park opens for people who bring a coke can that enter the park. That hour of ERT sounds tempting, but something tells me it's going to be super crazy crowded Sunday and that my best bet will be go Friday with smaller crowds. As for the other day, I've reserved that day for California's Great America, so I'm just trying figure out if the hour of ERT will be worth it for SFDK.

This whole weekend is likely to be very busy at both parks, so if you can get any ERT that's probably a good idea. I didn't see the ERT deal for SFDK but if theyre doing that Sunday, then I would go to SFDK on Sunday at opening to get the ERT and do CGA on Friday.

[The Geek Mojo]

Need a can of coke.

ERT July 2, 3 and 4th.

[j_dreamfinder]

Question: I'm going to the park for the first time this weekend. I have the option of going Friday or Sunday. I was going Friday until I saw that they were offering an hour of ERT Sunday before the park opens for people who bring a coke can that enter the park. That hour of ERT sounds tempting, but something tells me it's going to be super crazy crowded Sunday and that my best bet will be go Friday with smaller crowds. As for the other day, I've reserved that day for California's Great America, so I'm just trying figure out if the hour of ERT will be worth it for SFDK.

 

Even without the ERT, Friday is the better option especially considering it's your first time at the park. Between July 4th festivities, fireworks, and hordes of people on Sunday due to the next day being a holiday - chances are you won't have a good park experience.

 

Friday will be less crowded allowing you to enjoy all that the park has to offer which includes the unique animal elements.

 

Whichever day you go, please share a TR!

[VegasBaby]

I went to the Coke ERT last year during 4th of July weekend and only Kong and Medusa were open, but they were complete walk-ons during that first hour. The ERT is even better this year since it includes Joker and Superman, which typically have the longest lines in the park. I would go Sunday with the ERT as you should be able to get multiple rides on each of those during that hour.

[singemfrc]

Oh lol I was the one who posted that. I guess I just dismissed it from my head so fast I forgot about it since I knew I couldnt go those days.

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

Was at the park yesterday and might stop by today for a bit. No more than 15-20 minute waits for Joker all day with some 10 min or less waits. I got 12 rides in, might post a few ride photos if we have any good ones. This coaster seriously never gets old.

 

My only concern/complaint are the sounds the ride is currently making. There is a harsh grinding metal against metal sound on some of the turns, and a loud roar at the bottom of the drop and a few other high g places. I don't remember ever hearing these sounds on TC or Wicked Cyclone so maybe Joker just needs to break in more.

 

Don't get me wrong, the sound is nothing compared to the awesomeness of this ride, and I'm sure it'll be fine, but has anyone noticed these sounds on other RMCs in their first few months of operation?

[LiftThrill]

I know both NTaG and IRat squeak a little going into the lift hill but I don't recall any out of the ordinary sounds coming from them. Outlaw Run is pretty loud but it makes awesome sounds.

 

Then again, all of these were ridden significantly after opening year, so who knows.

[singemfrc]

All those noises are normal, the squeaking/grinding happened on Twisted Colossus when it was brand new too, it seems to be caused by the trains' shocks/springs.

[JGuy]

All those noises are normal, the squeaking/grinding happened on Twisted Colossus when it was brand new too, it seems to be caused by the trains' shocks/springs.

 

 

Even being normal, the sound is very loud. I could hear it from the parking lot. It's coming from the front, and in the front car, you really feel the vibration. It's not annoying, though.

It ran perfectly today. No breakdowns and it operated with at most a 20 minute wait all day.

[singemfrc]

All those noises are normal, the squeaking/grinding happened on Twisted Colossus when it was brand new too, it seems to be caused by the trains' shocks/springs.

 

 

Even being normal, the sound is very loud. I could hear it from the parking lot. It's coming from the front, and in the front car, you really feel the vibration. It's not annoying, though.

It ran perfectly today. No breakdowns and it operated with at most a 20 minute wait all day.

Yes, still normal. Was very loud on TC when it opened too. It will die down with more cycles.

[JGuy]

All those noises are normal, the squeaking/grinding happened on Twisted Colossus when it was brand new too, it seems to be caused by the trains' shocks/springs.

 

 

Even being normal, the sound is very loud. I could hear it from the parking lot. It's coming from the front, and in the front car, you really feel the vibration. It's not annoying, though.

It ran perfectly today. No breakdowns and it operated with at most a 20 minute wait all day.

Yes, still normal. Was very loud on TC when it opened too. It will die down with more cycles.

 

Oh, I know it will. Although, I kind of wish it wouldn't. The roar it makes seemingly advertises the ride to every corner of the park.

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

I'm glad to hear it will. It was a bit annoying to me after having ridden other RMCs when they were broken-in more and sound-free.

 

Tuesdays seem like the days to go! We had 20 minute waits max a week ago on Tuesday.

 

Also, I just took a survey about shopping at the park. I think they're trying to sell their season shopping pass for $25, but you'd have to buy over $125 to make it worth it. I buy coaster shirts and occasional sweatshirts and shot glasses and whatnot but I don't think I spend that much. If the pass worked for all Six Flags parks and esp if they started an online store (which they asked about as well) maybe I'd consider it more. Or if it was a year where I reallyyy thought I was gonna buy a lot of park merch.

 

There were also a lot of questions about brand names and what we'd like to see at the park. Some of them made me go, "huh?" Apple store and Victoria's Secret? Because I totally want to go to Six Flags to buy my laptop and undies...

[JGuy]

I'm glad to hear it will. It was a bit annoying to me after having ridden other RMCs when they were broken-in more and sound-free.

 

Tuesdays seem like the days to go! We had 20 minute waits max a week ago on Tuesday.

 

Also, I just took a survey about shopping at the park. I think they're trying to sell their season shopping pass for $25, but you'd have to buy over $125 to make it worth it. I buy coaster shirts and occasional sweatshirts and shot glasses and whatnot but I don't think I spend that much. If the pass worked for all Six Flags parks and esp if they started an online store (which they asked about as well) maybe I'd consider it more. Or if it was a year where I reallyyy thought I was gonna buy a lot of park merch.

 

There were also a lot of questions about brand names and what we'd like to see at the park. Some of them made me go, "huh?" Apple store and Victoria's Secret? Because I totally want to go to Six Flags to buy my laptop and undies...

 

I just want my Panda Express back.

[StevenX]

I visited the park last Friday, July 1st during my vacation to San Francisco, mainly to ride The Joker - my first RMC!

 

I have to say I was hugely disappointed by the park. I've been to a number of Six Flags parks and this by far was the worst. The animal exhibits were small and dirty, the operations were slow and just all round bad, and there really isn't a great deal to do - particularly when pretty much all the major rides seem to be down at the same time.

 

V2 was down (obviously, it has been for some time), Kong was down until ~2pm, Joker didn't open until ~2pm (and subsequently broke down again for a bit later on), Medusa broke down twice in the span of a couple of hours (seems unusual for a B&M of this age and model). Even some Point Of Sale terminals broke down and left long lines of customers waiting for food and beverage as hordes of staff behind the counter stood around achieving nothing. In the end, we only got on Medusa x 1, Superman x 2, Kong x 1 and Joker x 3 despite the park being pretty empty because we had to leave around 6pm to return to San Francisco. Honestly, I wouldn't spend the money to go back there even if I were to be in the area again, it was such a frustrating and disappointing experience.

 

On to the coasters though...

 

The Joker is really good fun and the definite standout of the park. It was running 2 trains from when it eventually opened, and throughput wasn't terrible although the nagging about the airgates and seatbelts is irritating. The first drop is great, particularly in the back, and the inversions are fun. Some of the twists and turns are really nice; particularly the after the second (I think) inversion which banks left before going right. There are a number of really good airtime moments also, and the restraints gave a really nice feeling of upper body movement. I do think perhaps it and RMC might be done a bit of a disservice by some of the praise/hype online though - it is really great after a few rides, but I couldn't help but feel slightly deflated having read the hype and having waited all day for it to open.

 

I actually really enjoyed Superman, which was a bit of a surprise. I'd never been on a Premier Sky Rocket and wasn't expecting anything particularly thrilling, but it's actually super fun and re-rideable with some good forces. The throughput wasn't the worst either, despite the tiny train - although I'd hate to see it on a busy day.

 

Kong was... an SLC, although actually a little bit less rough than the other one I've been on (at Canada's Wonderland). It was still pretty rough and not exactly what I'd call enjoyable, but you're at least able to somewhat enjoy parts of the experience and know what's happening unlike Flight Deck which is incredibly painful and which you hope to just survive.

 

Medusa was OK. I weirdly don't like this or the other Six Flags floorless B&Ms I've been on despite really liking some of the non-Six Flags ones I've been on. I find them all to be a little bland and forceless and this was kind of similar. It was also pretty rattly for a B&M. Unfortunately only got one ride due to downtime.

 

So all in all it was kind of a disappointing day; sort of wish we hadn't gone in the end and spent so much money on it when we could have spent another day in San Francisco instead.

[singemfrc]

Tuesdays seem like the days to go! We had 20 minute waits max a week ago on Tuesday.

I guess the park noticed too, they just made Tuesdays in July BAFF days.

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

^^I'm sorry you had a bad time at the park, sounds like it was possibly just a bad day with all the breakdowns. Which Six Flags parks have you visited? A lot of the other parks are just a lot bigger and more rounded out with rides. Operations can be bad but definitely not as bad as SFMM! We could use more flats and obviously the animal exhibits aren't to the quality of many zoos, but I still think our park is a fun little park, idk what all you were expecting.

 

Also, in the newsletter they talk about ERT on Monday 7-11 day if you buy a slushie, has anyone done this before? Doesn't say which rides but if it is Joker....definitely worth the purchase of a slushie!

[StevenX]

^^I'm sorry you had a bad time at the park, sounds like it was possibly just a bad day with all the breakdowns. Which Six Flags parks have you visited? A lot of the other parks are just a lot bigger and more rounded out with rides. Operations can be bad but definitely not as bad as SFMM! We could use more flats and obviously the animal exhibits aren't to the quality of many zoos, but I still think our park is a fun little park, idk what all you were expecting.

I've been to Magic Mountain, Great Adventure and Georgia, all of which are obviously a lot larger and have way more capacity to soak people up when things go wrong than SFDK does. I'd say the staff are nicer and seem to generally care more at SFDK than at SFMM but there isn't much difference in the operations other than that (other than Tatsu, which can be excruciating). If anything, it feels more tolerable at SFMM because the crowds have tended to be spread so thin on days I've been there and there's so much to do there compared to SFDK where it just gets really tiresome really quickly when their one or two major attractions are down at once.

 

I guess it probably is kind of a fun park for locals to go to, but it's sorely lacking anything to keep out-of-towners happy I think. Maybe I was expecting a little too much, but then again I've been to some fantastic local parks recently too (Liseberg in Gothenburg for example) which have maybe spoiled me - but they prove how great small, local parks can be. The bottom line for me was that SFDK wasn't a great Six Flags park compared to some of the larger ones, nor is it a good local/regional park compared to other parks like Liseberg or Tivoli Gardens (or some of the UK Merlin parks even) which are similar in size and status in my opinion.

 

I'd be hesitant to go very far out of my way in future to go to a Six Flags which wasn't one of the headliner parks.

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

Well you're talking to someone who has had SFDK as my home park my whole life, so I feel the need to defend the park but obviously you are entitled to your opinion as someone who doesn't have the same nostalgia for the park (and seemingly wasn't too impressed by the animals, because that can definitely be a factor).

 

I've been to SFDK, SFMM, SFGAdv, SFGAm, and SFNE. Besides maybe SFNE (which still has more coasters than SFDK), the other parks are huge and have very impressive coaster lineups. I can admit that our coaster lineup isn't the best, especially when one or more of the coasters are down. We've gotten better since the addition of Superman and Joker, but with V2 and Kong down, Boomerang being a very skippable lawn ornament, and others suffering breakdowns, I could see why you'd be not impressed. Also, we have a height restriction of 150 so we can't get the crazy big coasters that those other parks have. Having an awesome hyper would make the park more exciting, but we just can't have it. All the parks you mentioned have hyper coasters. I also think SFDK is the smallest Six Flags park as far as number of rides go. It's the animals that set us apart from the other parks.

 

Also, maybe you've gotten lucky at SFMM, but I've been there on days when all the coasters have "hell no" lines (like 2-3 hours on the somewhat worth it coasters and an hour or more on rides that I barely like waiting 15 min for, like Viper) and there's nothing else to do there. They also have stupidly slow operations worse than I've seen at SFDK and running one train on rides for no apparent reason and just weird policies and stuff that can make for an awful day.

 

SFDK rarely gets lines longer than 20-30 and even on days where the coasters have hour long lines, there are still rides with short lines (like VooDoo and Taz) and the animals and shows. I saw the animal show at SFGAdv and it sucked so bad. We're not up to par with Seaworld but our shows are still a nice break when the coasters have long waits.

 

Thanks for reading and letting me have my say, I usually hear people say that it was a cute little park on their first-time visit but not a crazy thrill destination, and that's kind of how I see it (when I put aside the nostalgia). I think people are underrating Joker, though. I really think it's better than Twisted Colossus and the other RMCs I've been on at the parks mentioned.

 

 

On a different note, I just noticed that RCDB has V2 listed as SBNO. However, I forgot to mention that when I was there last about a week ago, it looked like they might be putting trains back on (there was someone working a forklift with what looked to be a gutted car on the tracks), and an operator at Joker said she heard they were trying to get it up and running soon (she said "next week" but it sounds like it's not running yet).

[JGuy]

Thanks for reading and letting me have my say, I usually hear people say that it was a cute little park on their first-time visit but not a crazy thrill destination, and that's kind of how I see it (when I put aside the nostalgia). I think people are underrating Joker, though. I really think it's better than Twisted Colossus and the other RMCs I've been on at the parks mentioned.

 

 

On a different note, I just noticed that RCDB has V2 listed as SBNO. However, I forgot to mention that when I was there last about a week ago, it looked like they might be putting trains back on (there was someone working a forklift with what looked to be a gutted car on the tracks), and an operator at Joker said she heard they were trying to get it up and running soon (she said "next week" but it sounds like it's not running yet).

 

Joker is definitely a more intense ride than Twisted Colossus. Even being rather short, it manages to pack in a lot of thrilling moments before it reaches the brake run.

 

V2's train was almost completely assembled on Tuesday when I went. The restraints were on the ground, but it looked like every seat was attached. Employees worked in the station all day. Hopefully this means it will be open soon.

[StevenX]

Well you're talking to someone who has had SFDK as my home park my whole life, so I feel the need to defend the park but obviously you are entitled to your opinion as someone who doesn't have the same nostalgia for the park (and seemingly wasn't too impressed by the animals, because that can definitely be a factor).

 

I think I have definitely lucked out with SFMM - and SFGAdv and SFOG as well to be honest. Every time I've been to a Six Flags, the longest I've waited in line is maybe 20-30 minutes. I've always been on vacation from the UK though and able to pick a weekday to go, which probably helps. The only thing is I've never managed to get a ride on X/X2 as every one of the 3 times I've been to SFMM it's been down for some reason or another, which is really frustrating as I'd love to get on that.

 

I also don't think SFDK needs hypers or anything over 150'; like you say, Joker and Superman are both excellent and Medusa is perfectly fine too.

 

The Joker's my first RMC so nothing to compare that against. I did really love it and it's probably somewhere in my top 20-30, but probably no higher than that. It is definitely the stand-out attraction at SFDK of course.

[ABW]

Random thought: If there's Superman, Penguin, and The Joker all in the same area as V2, shouldn't we expect a retheme of V2 soon? Seriously, doesn't that outlier of theme seem a bit odd?