Retro Photo TR: Busch Gardens Tampa 1998 Patrick's Park Pics

Demon. Sorry about the glare guys, couldn't do anything about it.

You mean Turn of the Century.

Cameron asked me about the sky ride that went East/West yesterday, and I seriously do not remember it. I only remember the North/South partion, which might explain my confusion on why they called it Southern Cross.

I'm a bit baffled on the Killer Whale show looking thing too. I'm wondering if this model was for the California version?

^Maybe I haven't started editing the videos yet so there's still plenty of time to bribe me

Who wants ice cream?!

What flavor?

Demon. Sorry about the glare guys, couldn't do anything about it.

You mean Turn of the Century.

Whoops, sorry about that. You know it's yellow and twisty, maybe they were planning on adding Chang all along?

I'm a bit baffled on the Killer Whale show looking thing too. I'm wondering if this model was for the California version?

Isn't that the dolphin show or something that was in the outdoor amphitheater?

Wow! Great report! I missed A LOT, but more the reason to go to the next meet-up I guess!

Oh yeah, thanks for including me in the report!

My sister is in pink, I'm standing next to her

Great TR! I like what six flags did to this Great America much better than what Cedar Fair did to the one in Cali

I was actually very disappointed on saturday. I like that the park had a lot of park improvements done on time, but there were a lot of small things that were frustrating to see such as Raging Bull having multiple rows roped off, ride operators sending 3 groups of two on Giant Drop on separate cars vs. combining them, and not even having the 2nd train on site for American Eagle. I was only there from 5pm-7pm, but the park just seemed like it wasn't ready to open.

I'd like to point out that I think MagiQuest looks completely out of place and is just weird. Do they really need to have hired 'actors' to advertise a virtual reality game. And why do you need a wand to play this game? Why can't you just use a controller like Xbox or any other normal game system. It seems very unnecessary to charge people for a wand.

Besides that I still had fun

I was actually very disappointed on saturday. I like that the park had a lot of park improvements done on time, but there were a lot of small things that were frustrating to see such as Raging Bull having multiple rows roped off, ride operators sending 3 groups of two on Giant Drop on separate cars vs. combining them, and not even having the 2nd train on site for American Eagle. I was only there from 5pm-7pm, but the park just seemed like it wasn't ready to open.

Because adding that additional train would decrease your wait time from five to two minutes?

Opening weekend, small crowds, small employee pool to work with. No waits longer than ten minutes. I'll take that any day. Unless, you like to go in July and wait two hours.

Speaking of which, I already received a Front of the Line pass through Funatics!

I think the parks looking sharp for this year!

Opening weekend, small crowds, small employee pool to work with. No waits longer than ten minutes. I'll take that any day. Unless, you like to go in July and wait two hours.

 

Speaking of which, I already received a Front of the Line pass through Funatics!

I'd take that any day as well. I also recieved a front of the line pass through Funatics, glad it works! Progress is being made on those videos. And don't worry Jo, i'm not including your Lady Gaga dance (but you still owe me ice cream). I'm going to the park again this Friday for Coasters After Class/Grad Night so expect even more pictures!

^Oh you can include my Lady Gaga dance. Who knows, maybe Lady G will see it and will ask me to go on tour with her!

I also got a front of the line pass. My goal is to get the 20% (or was it 30%) off a 2011 season pass.

^Oh you can include my Lady Gaga dance. Who knows, maybe Lady G will see it and will ask me to go on tour with her!

But I want ice cream! I do think that the Funatics reward program is very nice for season pass holders.

I was actually very disappointed on saturday. I like that the park had a lot of park improvements done on time, but there were a lot of small things that were frustrating to see such as Raging Bull having multiple rows roped off, ride operators sending 3 groups of two on Giant Drop on separate cars vs. combining them, and not even having the 2nd train on site for American Eagle. I was only there from 5pm-7pm, but the park just seemed like it wasn't ready to open.

 

Because adding that additional train would decrease your wait time from five to two minutes?

 

Opening weekend, small crowds, small employee pool to work with. No waits longer than ten minutes. I'll take that any day. Unless, you like to go in July and wait two hours.

 

Speaking of which, I already received a Front of the Line pass through Funatics!

No just the fact that they didn't even have it on site. I could care less about waiting and obviously I was just going for the experience, because I only rode about 6 rides and left. It just seemed like they threw some trains back on the coasters and reopened them.

On a side note I was very impressed with the Little Dipper's new location. It would be nice to see them open up the looney tunes area a little bit kind of like KI does with their kiddie area.

And now it's time for the moment that you've all been waiting for, the opening day antics video!!! Hopefully the video shows how much fun we all had together that day I have my other SFGAm coaster video edited, I just need to upload that sometime. I have no idea what happened to the quality guys, it looks fine on my computer but pixelated on Coastertube. I'll try reuploading things sometime. Enjoy the video!

EDIT: Quality is better now, maybe it just needed some time to process.

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=SFGAm4-24-10antics_x5d9[/coastertube]

Awesome video. I'll be at the park Wednesday sporting my Club TPR shirt!

Hey guys! I was finally able to upload my Six Flags Great America music video from opening day and I think that it's my best one yet.

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=SFGAm4-24-10_z6hb[/coastertube]

Six Flags Great America Grad Night/Coasters After Class April 30th, 2010

The Friday after opening day was Grad Night/Coasters After Class and I went down with some of my friends hoping for minimal crowds. There was barely anyone there and a couple bands spread out around the park. We took a ride on Raging Bull towards the end of the night. As we were on the lift hill, it started POURING down on us We were drenched by the time we got back to the station. It rained for the rest of the night. We ran over to Dark Knight and got numerous re-rides on it. Overall it was a fun night!

So we made it to the park and what do we hear? Techno music!

That's right, there's a DJ in Carousal Plaza for Grad Night!

I actually didn't like where the DJ was in front of the carousal because there was no place to dance

Whizzer is still the Karate Kid *sigh*

One of these days the park will be sunny when I go

Raging Bull above the trees!

*GASP* Where are his pants? THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!!

Hmm, this could make a sweet wallpaper.

Much better!

Superman's second train was still being put together on the transfer track.

Hmm, maybe this would look better in black and white?

Amazing what a little editing can do!

That one green pipe is gone.

Looking good!

Here was a band over in Mardi Gras

Cajun got stuck for some reason, anyone know why?

These pics are old. Little Dipper has definitely come a long way since then!

You can see one car on the track.

Maybe a sign of things to come? After this it started pouring and I wasn't able to get anymore pics. Overall Grad Night was fun with very few crowds!

CLASS OF 2010 REPRESENT! Seriously though, congratulations on graduating, I am really looking forward to graduation in like three weeks, cause California sucks. Your grad night looked fun, but rain sucks.

Six Flags Great America Gumball Rally June 1, 2010

So a while ago, my friend and I had an idea. Was it possible to ride every ride and see every show and parade at Great America in one day? We had heard stories of people doing "gumball rallys" at Disneyland, so we wanted to try the same thing at our home park. Did we succeed? Read on to find out!

Here we are at SFGAm for our first gumball rally!

This view will be completely different next year.

Many people think that Chang will be placed right here

Personally, I think that Six Flags will add an alien space port next year

See? Alien symbols!

I think that the UFO landing strip will go right here

I don't go into Hurricane Harbor much, so here's Tornado from the parking lot

Do aliens like waterslides?

The go-karts will be gone or relocated next year

So Chang/alien space port will occupy most of the main entrance

So what's open and what's closed today?

Our first ride of the day was on V2 with its new Axe Twist ads

Well, at least it's not as bad as the ads on the Demon or the Whizzer

We wanted to go on all of the low capacity rides first, so we walked towards Little Dipper.

Little Dipper's queue has some great photo ops of Batman's first drop

Wheee!

It was a lovely day and the crowds were average all day, just a lot of school buses

Nananananananananananananananana Batman!!!

Loop!

There were a lot of signs about the history of the Little Dipper. Sign #1

I'm really glad that Six Flags decided to keep this coaster. Sign #2

I heard that there are a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes on these signs. Can you spot any? Sign #3

I was able to ride the Little Dipper the day before Kiddieland closed. Sign #4

It was a fun little ride then and it's a fun little ride now. Sign #5

Other rides that Six Flags has saved. Sign #6

Here was the first setback of the day, Little Dipper had gotten stuck on the lift hill.

Maintenance got the ride up and running pretty quick though

Ah, just how I remembered it

You can also get a pretty nice view of V2 from Little Dipper's station

The train

Quinton and I rallying it up!

The fresh paint looked great

First drop fun

Six Flags really did a great job restoring this ride

"Keeping the History Alive"

Next up was Ragin Cajun. I noticed that the photo booth was gone.

The Dark Knight. Do I have to watch the preshow or can I skip it?

Next up, we decided to get the water rides over with.

Roaring Rapids opened at 11. We got there a little late and ran into line due to only 1 employee loading rafts.

You can get a nice view of the backside of Cajun

Log flumes. Yankee Clipper wasn't running today.

We got our Spacely's credit next

Yup, more water rides. I don't usually go on them because I don't like getting wet at the park, but they were pretty fun.

The station of Logger's Run.

Old Great America logo spotted!

V2 flying into the sky

And as if we weren't soaked enough, we went on Buccaneer Battle

As always, there was no line for BB

Pirates!

The master gumball rally list

Since we had to see every show as well, we had to sit through Get Ready to Wiggle

Since when are clouds blue and purple?

We also had to sit through one painful song of karaoke

The ropes course by Demon was coming along

Hopefully it will be more popular than Magiquest

They were working on it all day

And now for some Elissa friendly food

This McDonalds has some funny coaster art on the wall

Is this a credit?

We had to hurry back to the park though because we needed to watch Looney Tunes Dance Off!

Big Easy Balloons was up next.

Hmm, what ride could this be?

If you guessed King Chaos, you're correct!

Jester's Wild Ride? More like Jester's Mild Ride.

Time for some East River Crawler action

We continue our way around the park and head on over to Condor

We really had to work out the show schedule because most only had 2 show times that day. Here's Mr. Six's Dance Party

Artsy Triple Play shot

Whizzer had a short line so we hopped on

Raging Bull through the trees

The next show we went to was Face the Music, a trivia game show

That is one giant Imax screen

Not much going on in the future Chang/alien space port location

Dirt!

That's right Mr. Six, aliens are fun!

They took out Sky Trek Tower's sign

Hi Sky Trek!

There once was a fake space shuttle here, soon UFOs will be here instead.

You can see the ropes course sticking up above the trees

It looks like they added a new building in the back for the Glow in the Park Parade. You can see one of the floats sticking out.

It seemed like this area of the parking lot was blocked off, but i'm not sure.

Time to ride the carousal!

Yup, there's a dragon on the carousal.

I had a skip the line pass from the Funatics program that we used to skip the long line for Superman

I forgot to take a picture of Whirligig, so here's a bunch of Iron Wolf.

This is one of the reasons why Iron Wolf is so rough. Anybody else see the gap between the wheel and the track?

We were walking around the park trying to find a ride that didn't have a long line. We got on Revolution, then walked around into the Southwest Territory hoping that Raging Bull had a short wait.

I spy a clown car!

Raging Bull had a line, so we kept walking. By this point in our day we had an hour left and still more than 10 rides to go. We realized we weren't going to be able to go on every one, but we still had a fun day.

We went on Viper twice before moving on to the Orbit

We came back to Demon and noticed that they had gotten a lot of work done on the ropes course.

A lot of these ropes weren't here that morning.

Looking good!

Still a couple more ropes to put up

Artsy shot of Raging Bull

And an artsy shot of Demon. Our final ride of the day was Rue Le Dodge. Overall we were able to ride and see 30 of the 40 running rides and shows. Not bad for a first try! It was a really fun day even though we weren't able to get on everything. We learned a lot from this experience and are going to try again soon! Only next more shows will be running, more rides will be open, we're going to include character meet and greets, and we won't take so many pictures. Hope you guys enjoyed the first Six Flags Great America Gumball Rally report!

Nice TR...I used my funatics skip the line pass on superman as well. Looks like I get 2 free sodas this next time I go!

Excellent report. I love these rallies and even though you didn't win, you did an excellent job of preparing and excecuting. At larger parks, it's almost impossible.

Here's a rally report from KI (from nearly 10 years ago) where they had front-of-line escorts and still barely made it.

Fantastic Report and beautiful pictures! You've probably already thought of this but I would think it would be much easier to do earlier in the season. I went opening day of 2009 and by 5pm we were getting rerides on the coasters without leaving our seats! That's how dead it was. If you do this in any month besideds May I'll be very impressed! It'd be quite an accomplishment even in May! Good Luck!

^Early in the season is always dead, but many rides aren't open yet due to not enough staffing or because they're still getting them put together from the off-season. Hopefully our next attempt will be on Father's Day when there aren't any crowds. Thanks for the comments guys!

Six Flags Great America Gumball Rally Try 2 June 20, 2010

Quintin and I learned a lot from our first gumball attempt, so we were itching to try it again. We did so on Father's Day and crowds were light-medium. Unlike last time though, we had more to do because there were more shows open and we included character meet and greets (one in each location). I'm proud to say that we were successful in our latest attempt and we were able to ride and see everything except for the Logger's Run and Revolution which were closed. We did have time at the end of the day to ride them, but since they were closed we went on Viper 3 times in a row. You really need to plan around the shows because there are quite a few and they are all around 20-30 minutes each. Flat rides are also a bit tricky. The best time to ride them is if you see them boarding so you don't wait in a line. I didn't bring my camera with me into the park to reduce time as well. The park was open from 10-10 and that was just enough time to do everything. Below is a list of the order we rode and saw everything along with times for the shows, a couple tips, and a couple show reviews.

1. Superman: Ultimate Flight (park opening) – Get in line for Superman as soon as you get in the park (the earlier the better). The chain to get onto the rest of the park is after Superman so everybody lines up for it first and has a long line throughout the day.

2. Vertical Velocity – Low capacity, popular ride. Ride at the beginning of the day.

3. Batman: The Ride

4. Ragin’ Cajun – Another low capacity ride that always has a line. Use the single riders line.

5. The Jester’s Wild Ride – Never has a line

6. The Dark Knight Coaster – Low capacity ride. Be sure to be as close to the door as you can to exit the preshow before everyone else.

7. Roaring Rapids (11:00) – Builds a line VERY fast, get in line as soon as it opens at 11. Be sure to bring waterproof/Ziploc bags for your electronics and wallet because you will get wet.

8. Yankee Clipper – Go on it as long as you’re wet.

9. Little Dipper – Low capacity but popular ride. The ride has been up and down as it is still experiencing technical problems. Ride it when you can.

10. Spacely’s Sprocket Rockets – Low capacity

11. Iron Wolf – Get the suffering over with, no line

12. Fiddler’s Fling

13. Wiggles World: Get Ready to Wiggle (12:30) – Plan around showtimes!

14. County Fair: Character Meet and Greet – Never a line for meet and greets

15. Triple Play

16. Hometown Fun Machine – Only open for a short amount of time during the day, go on it while it's open.

17. Columbia Carousal

18. Rue Le Dodge – Depending on the ride op, this can be a decent wait (10-15min?)

19. Condor

20. King Chaos

21. Sky Trek Tower - Yay air conditioning!

22. The Orbit

23. Demon

24. Great America Idol Karaoke - One song is enough

25. Mr. Six Spectacular Dance Party (3:00) - Again, one song is enough

26. Southwest Territory: Character Meet and Greet

27. Chubasco

28. Gun Fight (3:15) - Bad acting, bad gun fight, bad jokes

29. Raging Bull – Any line goes quickly, high capacity

30. Giant Drop

31. Pictorium: Dick Clark’s Face the Music (4:00) - Just not very good in general. It's a Family Feud type of show, but the contestants are never very good.

32. Show Stoppin’ (4:45) - It's a good show if you like college students singing. I think that the song selection could have been better though.

33. Whizzer – Can have a long line

34. East River Crawler

35. Rockin’ Country Live (6:00) - If you like country music you'll enjoy this show. Bad acting though and there really isn't a designated seating area because it's in a restaurant.

36. Whirligig

37. Yankee Harbor: Character Meet and Greet

38. Big Easy Balloons – worst ride op of the day

39. Looney Tunes Dance Off (6:45) - Looney Tunes characters dancing to pop songs. Not my favorite show even though Beyonce is in it.

40. Scenic Railway – Long ride, account for time

41. American Eagle: Blue

42. American Eagle: Red

43. Great America Raceway – Low capacity, moderate line

44. Buccaneer Battle – Tried later in the day hoping no one would be firing at us, there still were. Steal someone’s haystack drier time.

45. River Rocker

46. Ricochet

47. Viper

48. Glow in the Park Parade (9:30) - I had never seen the show before, but I thought it was alright. Not good, but alright. The preshow before the parade sucked, but it did bring in a crowd for the parade. The song selection was just bad and there really was no point. The parade uses the entire entertainment department so if they cut the preshow they could save some money. As for the parade itself, the entire thing looked kind of thrown together and cheap. The floats, while cool looking, looked like they were going to fall apart any second because they were wobbling so much. The people driving them also weren't very hidden along with the speakers. I just didn't get the entire point of the parade. I mean there was a dragon, peacock, frog, and then suddenly Scooby Doo and Batman shows up. Also, those 5 people across things were very cheap. They were already falling apart and weren't very stable at all which made them look even more cheap. It also doesn't help that since they're going 5 across, you can't really have their hands do anything except go up and down. The two trollies and the antique car also just looked thrown in the parade for now reason. Also, the music doesn't match at all. The choreography was awful as well. The people that held the "Glow in the Park Parade" signs weren't even in a straight line. So yea, I didn't like it that much.

Enjoy a couple pictures!

I pass by this sign every time I go to Great America and I finally took a picture of it.

This was the earliest that i've been to the park. They hadn't even opened the parking lot yet!

Parking gates

We're here once again!

Superman from the parking lot

And here is the master map full of scribbles. If anyone wants a clean copy, just let me know. There are a couple mistakes, can anyone spot them?

Holiday World July 10-11, 2010

Holiday World has always been one of those parks that i've wanted to go to. I've heard nothing but great things about the place and I wanted to experience them first-hand. Last year I won free tickets to Holiday World from a Screamscape ticket giveaway and I was finally able to head down there with my dad.

I absolutely loved Holiday World! The atmosphere in each themed area was great, the scenery was beautiful, the coasters were great, the free soda and parking were a nice perk, and the staff was super friendly. There were many times where they asked if they could put my camera in a locker for me instead of me doing it myself. I have nothing bad to say about the place, Holiday World just impressed me that much. My dad and I went to the amusement park one day and the water park the second. I wish that we could have stayed at the water park longer before we drove back because there are a lot of great slides that we didn't get to ride.

I'm going to upload my pictures in two parts. I also made a music video that i'll upload soon as well. Enjoy!

Part 1

Hey dad, where are we going this weekend?

Great America?

Chicago?

Nope, we're going to Holiday World!

I was grinning from ear to ear when I saw Voyage on the skyline.

That's a good sign!

First ride of the day? Raven!

Legend is sneaking out from behind the trees.

Raven was a really fun ride, especially for its size. Despite the one train operation, the line was always moving.

And now for the ride that I was most excited to ride, the Voyage!

Red train spotted!

Every ride had a long line at the beginning of the day, but the queues really cleared out once the waterpark opened.

I see you Pilgrim's Plunge! I'll get to you tomorrow.

Woosh! I loved how the train passed by the queue underground.

Gobbler Getaway was a very fun "shooting" dark ride.

Grandma? Why didn't you tell us you were coming to Holiday World with us!

Call those turkeys!

Unfortunately I lost to my dad almost every time. He had some "special" strategy, I blame my turkey caller.

Voyage is seriously awesome and lived up to the hype in my opinion! It was a very aggressive and airtime filled ride which actually took my breath away the first time I rode it in the back row.

After this hill it just disappears into the trees

Pilgrim's Plunge, looks tall doesn't it?

That's because it is!

What a nice perk!

Liberty Launch was a surprise hit!

Plus the cubbies were the perfect height for a self timed picture That's my dad on the left, me in the middle, and our ghost single rider Bobby on the right.

You can see Voyage from pretty much anywhere in the park, it's that tall.

These were my first flyers, they were alright.

Time for some Legend action!

Through the trees!

Legend is definitely a back row ride. I love how it snakes through the waterpark!

First drop fun! I noticed that the coasters at Holiday World have weird transfer tracks.

You know what I like about Holiday World? I never felt pressured to buy anything. Parking was free and the games were never in your face. But I just had to play a round of skeeball, and for only 25 cents a game!

So what did I get with my tickets?

A yellow rubber ducky! This one's for you Big Mike

Hallowswings, one of the most creative ride names i've heard of.

Hey Voyage!

Hmm, what won't my dad ride with me?

Kiddie coaster!

Us on the train.

I actually braced myself more on the Howler than the other coasters, those turns are that intense!

I second that.

Ooh, action shot!

Ooh, back to back action shots!

I don't get the "sillly bands" obsession.

Noted!

The coaster nerds spotted the Legend train, the girls spotted the guy wearing a speedo.

Flippy flip flip flip flip. The dive show was actually really good!

Raven at sunset.

Artsy

Inside the fudge shop there was a pretty cool exhibit showing off some Lincoln history and old toys. Pretty cool!

Mmmmmm, fudge.

Nice little car ride

As much as I wanted to, I wasn't able to ride PRMR.

Time for some night rides on Legend!

The school bell.

How photogenic of you Hallowswings!

Now for some night rides on Voyage!

Noooooooo!!! Voyage didn't re-open that night and because we had to leave in the afternoon the next day we weren't able to get any Voyage night rides. Just another reason to come back to Holiday World. Part 2 coming soon!

Nice TR dude. I liked your choice of pictures and you keep me interested throughout.

--James

Great TR. I love seeing first-timers reports from my home park. And I'm soooo glad you caught the dive show. It's one of the best things at HW and is often overlooked. Can't wait to see part 2 from Splashin' Safari.

Holiday World July 10-11, 2010

Part 2

Ducky is going back to Holiday World for a day 2!

What a lovely view from the parking lot!

Good morning Raven, you look lovely today.

While we waited for Splashin Safari to open, we woke up to some awesome rides on the Voyage!

The Timberliners look great! I can't wait until they're ready to ride on the Voyage!

Water dummies just lying around

Wheels!

Perilous Plunge was really fun! The lift is unique and you do get pretty wet on it.

Mmmmmm, Voyage

Lens flare? Check

Time to check out Wildebeest!

I love how Legend weaves through the waterpark

We could only stay for a little bit, so we weren't able to go on the bigger slides like Zinga because of the lines. Splashin Safari is really popular!

What can I say about Wildebeest, it's just a great waterslide! It's a pretty long ride, has a little airtime, and is just plain fun.

Signage

I love how Wildebeest has a single riders line. Why?

Because the queue was full the entire day

The loading system worked very well

Final hop into the station

Wildebeest, the only ride that can be yellow and red without people complaining about it.

Yup, full queue the entire day

What a great sight

Wildebeest is tucked back in the corner

Yup, i'm going artsy on ya'll

Zinga

And now I say "excuse me" a dozen times just to take pictures from the top of Zoombabwe just for you guys!

Overview of Wildebeest

Closer up

I love this place

Voyage overview. Well, kinda

Going up

Going down

Why hello Legend, I see you down there!

First drop fun

Wildebeest

Thanks for such an awesome time Holiday World! We're definitely coming back next year, hopefully for Holliwood Nights. Video is coming soon!