Photo TR: California Dreamin'

I agree that Grizzly is simply boring. There are worse wooden coasters in California that simply beat the crap out of you (I'm looking at you Ghostrider).

Grizzly has really come a long way in the last few years. It's still boring, but it is reaching Giant Dipper levels of smoothness. They park has done an amazing job on the track work. And now with Gold Striker there, Grizzly is a great ride to have. It's much more family friendly, and people generally love it. If it's not enough for a thrill seeker, then they can just go ride Gold Striker. I have very fond memories as a small child absolutely loving Grizzly. I'm sure thats why the park is intent on keeping it and maintaining it.

I just read through this whole thread and enjoyed every update. Great captions too... especially this one

Riddle me this, riddle me that. What ride is green and sucks? This one.

Which made me literally burst out laughing at work. I guess it serves me right for looking at TPR at work though. lol

But I did stoop this low

Don't feel bad! I do too! An Intamin kiddie coaster?!?! What's the problem?

Always remember, YOLO.

Hey! Those are at the wrong park!

I know; it would have been so more fitting if they were outside a certain Premier Rides launched coaster.

I agree that Grizzly is simply boring. There are worse wooden coasters in California that simply beat the crap out of you (I'm looking at you Ghostrider).

I heard I didn't miss much when Ghostrider was down for a rehab when I was at Knott's but I still wanted to give it a try. For reference, Hershey's Wildcat with the PTC trains was one of my favorite coasters because of the intensity of the ride. I don't mind getting thrown around a bit on a wooden coaster. Headbanging is a major no-no for me though.

Grizzly has really come a long way in the last few years. It's still boring, but it is reaching Giant Dipper levels of smoothness. They park has done an amazing job on the track work. And now with Gold Striker there, Grizzly is a great ride to have. It's much more family friendly, and people generally love it. If it's not enough for a thrill seeker, then they can just go ride Gold Striker. I have very fond memories as a small child absolutely loving Grizzly. I'm sure thats why the park is intent on keeping it and maintaining it.

Grizzly had one of the longer lines. While that is partially due to painstakingly slow-loading and a one-train operation, there were several families in line. It's a perfect gateway coaster for kids and I'd take that over a Zierer tivoli coaster anyday.

Which made me literally burst out laughing at work. I guess it serves me right for looking at TPR at work though. lol

That's why I can only go on TPR during my lunch break

Don't feel bad! I do too! An Intamin kiddie coaster?!?! What's the problem?

I felt a little weird sitting in the back of the train with a beard while the rest of the train was filled with kids. It kind of felt like walking into Chuck E. Cheese's alone to play the Mario Kart racing game (which I debated a few weeks ago until I realized how creepy that could look).

California gave me the opportunity to visit the largest fair I have ever been to, the Alameda County Fair. Back in New England, there is the Big E, but I have never been able to make it out there due to school or its distance from my house. The two largest I've been to are the Marshfield Fair and the Topsfield Fair. While both of those fairs are quite good, I visited so many Fiesta Shows carnivals when I was younger that I sort of rode their rides to death.

The Alameda County Fair was in Pleasanton and had a midway provided by Butler Amusements. The ride lineup was fantastic! There were two areas of the midway- a kiddieland and a major ride area. I thought it was great that the fair split the two areas up to disperse the older crowd and families. Butler Amusements definitely didn't skimp on pendulum style rides, as they had a KMG Fireball, a Fabbri Footloose (kamikaze), and a very rare Fabbri Evolution. My favorite ride was the Zipper, which shouldn't shock anyone.

The midway also had four roller coasters- a Fabbri Pole Position, the Zillerator Coaster (Pinfari Z40), Wisdom Orient Express, and a Wacky Worm. The Zillerator had some surprisingly good drops and pops of air. Pole Position was smooth for the most part, but the spinning was sort of weird and segmented. Then the two kiddie coasters were credits.

I was a Good Samaritan. After I saw that a parent was too large to fit in the vehicle with their child, I kindly offered to ride. It makes it sound better than I was a credit whore desperate looking for any excuse to ride the dragon.

El Toro...for rednecks!

Very fitting name. The water was indeed very white.

The large fun house was fantastic! It spanned three levels and had a moving vertical staircase (my favorite funhouse element anywhere), a barrel, and several other gags. It also had the slide of death. I definitely shouldn't have had that corn dog before going in there since it was quite the tight fit.

Here is an overview of the midway from one of the three full size Ferris Wheels.

I don't discriminate, I also paid a visit to Waterworld California! I was a bit bummed out that Break Point Plunge, their new drop pod water slide, wasn't open yet and quite a few guests were as well. I had heard several commercials for the ride on the radio and their website said that it would open "early summer." I was there in mid-July, but at least the slide appears to be mostly complete except for the final runoff portion of the slide.

Other than that, I had a great time! The park had an excellent mix of water slides for both families and thrill seekers. The park had one of my favorite types of water slides anywhere, the halfpipe slide, and I loved how they let me ride down it backwards. Along with that, they had a 5 story funnel, 4 body slides, 3 tube slides, 2 speed slides, and 1 family mat slide not in a pear tree.

The park lacked a theme, but it was very clean and well taken care of.

Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride anyone?

This was probably the park's most popular attraction. I waited close to 30 minutes for it, which wasn't bad at all. And I may have forgot to take a photo while I was in the park...

This slide had some really wild turns near the end. I love these slides so much more when they are open rather than enclosed.

I loved the straight drop one far more since I kept crashing into the sides of the slide on the triple drop one. Both slides caused some back pain after, but there's no crying in water sliding...unless you get too much chlorine in your eyes.

Here's the not-yet-completed Break Point Plunge. I swear that I remembered to take a photo of this one!

See, I wouldn't lie to you. This thing looks like it will pack quite the punch when it opens.

I originally wasn't expecting to get down to San Diego during my time in California, but one of my friends invited me down for a visit so I was able to get two of the three big parks in the area in SeaWorld and Belmont Park. I missed out on Legoland, but that's something I can look forward to when I have a family someday.

SeaWorld San Diego popped my SeaWorld cherry. I absolutely loved the park! All of the shows were incredibly well done and incorporated the animals very nicely. My personal favorite was the Sea Lions Tonight show that parodied all of the park's other shows. I'm just glad that we decided to see this show towards the end of the day after we had seen the park's other shows. The killer whale show during the day was somewhat of a let down, but the night one (Shamu's Celebration- Light Up the Night) was fantastic and the best night show I've seen at a park outside of World of Color.

As a thrill seeker, I also made sure to hit the park's three major rides- Manta, Journey to Atlantis, and Shipwreck Rapids. Manta was excellent. The Mack trains were unbelievably comfortable and the first launch was very well done with the sea tunnel. Despite the ride's small stature, it flew through the course and had several moments of really good air-time. It was one of the most rerideable coasters I have been on in a while.

Journey to Atlantis was very fun as well. While the story was basically non-existent (along with the theming outside of the queue), the major drop was very thrilling and the coaster segment was nice and smooth. Then I especially enjoyed the indoor elevator segment and the neat little trick that it executes.

Shipwreck Rapids was one of the better river rapids rides I've been on. The rafts absolutely flew through the course and several of the rapids were massive and completely soaking. Though if you somehow managed to avoid all of those, there is an unavoidable waterfall to get you. The wait for this was over an hour all day, so my friend and I decided to use the single rider line. We got on in 30 seconds in the same raft. While we definitely were happy to ride together, we felt sort of guilty skipping the whole wait like that. We were more than willing to separate, but the grouper made no effort to call for parties beyond the group in the front of the standby line which led to a lot of empty seats on the rafts.

One final note, my friend and I tried the all you can eat pass and we would say that it was a waste of time and money. All of the food that we got was good (for amusement park food), but the lines were insane. It took us 30-45 minutes for each food line.

So this turned out to be the only photo of the roller coasters. Whoops. At least it's a good one.

Cirque de la Mer! Or what my friend and I coined "Forced Abduction the Show." The actors selected two random people from the audience to compete in an awkward dance-off and the winner was abducted and sent into this zorb.

The show even had pole dancing...well technically ribbon dancing, but pole dancing sounds better.

And trapezes! Trapezes sounds weird.

The big guy can get some serious air.

Even at night...I'm pretty sure I was soaked about 2 seconds after this photo was taken.

The whales really interacted with the trainers well.

Sea Lions Tonight, the park's best show in my opinion.

Belmont Park was the final new park that I visited in California. While small, the park has a very nice collection of rides, the historical Giant Dipper, and a perfect setting by the beach. I love beachfront parks and wish there were more of them still around.

The Giant Dipper didn't have much in terms of airtime, but the ride made up for it with laterals galore. There was never a dull moment on the coaster as it gave a fairly wild ride, especially in the back. The park also had some really good flats. Most notably, there was Control Freak and the Octotron. Control Freak was basically a top spin where the rider could control the direction that the arms traveled in. This interactive element was very cool and allowed for some crazy rides once you got the hang of how it worked. Then the Octotron was an insane Chance Unicoaster that moved very fast. While it wasn't as historic as Knoebels's Looper, it was far more intense.

Belmont Park!

The only way to get a full shot of the Giant Dipper's layout is to walk quite a bit from the park. Everything in the park is right on top of each other.

While the Giant Dipper's cousin up north excelled at air time, this one excelled at laterals.

This turn was extremely picturesque. It's top notch coaster porn.

I just realized using the word "porn" to describe something nearly 90 years old is really wrong.

I'm so glad I wasn't driving anywhere near the park. It was magnetic for my eyes.

It was easy to get up nice and close to the coaster.

Finally, playing all those video games has paid off. I can press buttons. I can press buttons real well.

Octotron was nearly impossible to get a good photo of due to its placement and elevated platform.

I liked how Beach Blaster was located a little below ground level. It made the ride more mysterious.

They had both a normal set of bumper cars and this version. I honestly preferred these ones, as they hit harder.

The park didn't have a kiddie coaster, so I had to be a whore with regards to something. I deemed a kiddie drop tower fitting.

The park had a lot of upcharge attractions nearby as well. The Sky Ropes Adventure was the most popular of them.

The Rock Wall was quite popular as well.

I hadn't seen this one before. It was called the Leap of Faith. It was still under construction, which was a bummer, but basically it looks like you climb the tower and jump off.