Bake & Jen's USA West Coast PTR

[Jake]

Seeing as I didn't even turn my camera on, Neil said I could steal his pics for a TR, lol. Although I was with him the whole time anyway, so they might aswell be mine!

I think Ben might post his TR in this topic too, to make it one super super thread.

But if not, we'll have 2 super threads anyway.

Day 0 - Sightseeing etc.


The first freeway we had to go on in LA, the awful 405.

Beverly Hills <3

Hollywood Blv.

My foot is in this one!

Hollywood sign...

Ben with some footprints:

Oh, please.

Chinese Theatre thing:

So LA.

'Muscle beach'

Ben and I in the pacific:

STRAW HATS <3, although I lost mine at some point

Bonus park, Santa Monica pier!

Awwww:

First coaster of the trip... a 40ft hypercoaster?

It literally consisted of a helix, a hill and another helix, LOL!


This place reminded me of Brighton, but hotter.

Campness at the front of the coaster

The coaster at night. Most of the park can be seen here too! It really was TINY.

I'll end this day with a pic of the weirdest pavement show guy i've EVER seen.

 

[marc]

Yuk the 405 got stuck on that most days lol.

 

[Snoo]

You kids are so stereotypical. I <3.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

I bet you counted that purple dinosaur ride as a cred .

Haha, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this topic! I'd love to do a trip like this and you guys are lucky to have gotten to do so.

 

[Martyn B]

I hate you. I have just changed my trip to states next year from CA, to Florida, mainly due to the sucky travel agents bumping the price up all of a sudden.

I'm looking forward to Florida, but not as much as would CA.

CA looks awsome already, damn my ****ing decision making!

I always thought that ridiculous 'hyper' had a small train, as if it has the proper full size train! Better than PMBO though yeah?

 

[Jake]

^ Of course! It had more airtime than PMBO on that one hill. Seriously, it did.


Day 1 - Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Neils battery died, so i'm going to steal photos from Natalie (Visage) on this occasion (she's fit, but taken, sorry guys ).



This park was weird, as all the coasters were crammed into a 'thrill section', and then the rest of the park was full of animals and stuff.

Me and the woodie, Roar, which was average. I look foul!

My 12th Boomerang wasn't too bad.

...and the camel was FAB.

Boobs and a cute creature thing...

Medusa was pretty awsome, I prefered it to the one at Great Adventure, due to the more original layout, including a rollover, which can be seen in this photo!

Medusa put my coaster count up to 399, so the next coaster was to be my 400th.

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Euthanasia: The Ride.

...otherwise known as 'Kong'.

OMG, it was one of the worst SLC's ever. It was putrid.

Cred.

At lunch we got attacked by these scary park mascots:

..uhhh??

This penguin was soooo cute.

Next up was V2:Vertical Velocity, the Impulse coaster that had to be made shorter due to the park lieing about how tall it was in the first place.

They made the twist a 45 degree angle to make it shorter, meaning it's now an inversion, with hang time!

I see meeeee at the front

This was actually a really good coaster, much better than what it used to be like (going by Voodoo/Posessed at Dorney).



The shamu rip-off was alright.

Medusa <3

GOLD Q BOTS <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Night ERT on V2, Roar and Tony Hawk was fabulus:

This was the 'nicest' Six Flags park i've visited so far. Great Adventure and Magic Mountain have better coasters, but Discovery Kingdom felt like a proper theme park. It didn't feel Six Flags atall, untill we went to the Tiger show and they played adverts, haha!

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

OMG THEY LET YOU TOUCH THE PENGUINS!? Aww!

Cool report though, Medusa actually looks pretty sweet.. I didn't know it had a rollover! And nice choice of your 400th credit, Jake .

I do agree that Gold Qbots = love, but what I don't agree with if SFDK being one of the nicest in the chain.. I can't see it being better than Great America <3

Glad you had fun though!

 

[rollermonkey]

^I would have agreed with you that it ouldn't possibly be nicer than the park I work at, but..

It is. It's awesome, and by far the nicest 6F park for atmosphere. It's beautiful, too.

The coaster collection is OK, but not amazing, though.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ Wow, really?

I must get there then, I never heard of it being that nice.

 

[Tomatron]

Discovery Kingdom seems much nicer now that Six Flags have renamed it and done it up.

Santa Monica brought back some nice memories of 2006, hopefully I'll be able to get back over to California again before too long!

 

[Jake]

I'd even say it was up to the quality of SeaWorld, only with a better coaster selection!

They were also some of the best staff we came across too, and like 90% of the guys working there were gay! Haha <3.

 

[Martyn B]

That does look like a real nice little park, with nice selection of things to do. Thats why I'm in a bit of grump for going to Florida instead, I was looking forward to going to some 'proper' American parks, like this one, Knotts & Magic Mountain.

The only bad thing about the park that I can see, is the the colours for that SLC...YUK.

 

[Jake]

^ Well, the fact they have an SLC PERIOD, lol.


The following day we visited two small parks, Gilroy Gardens and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Gilroy Gardens was GORGEOUS, and they had some weird rides like the 'Garlic Ride', but yeah, i'll talk about that later.

It's hard to comprehend the fact that this park is managed by Cedar Fair.


Gilroy Gardens has some real RCT style scenery:

Monorail and the parks main coaster, Quicksilver Express:

This was a pretty decent mine train. Nothing amazing, but it had 2 lift hills and a couple of pops of airtime in the back...

My favourite ride in the park, THE GARLIC RIDE!

We called it 'Garlic Jail' for the duration of the trip, due to the excessive metal bars on the 'windows'.



Pwettyyyyy:

This palm tree started to die, so they gave it viagra:

The Artichoke ride / Vagina Ride

It's just... wrong on so many levels.

Me and Jen getting the other cred, a standard tivoli coaster (medium):

This tree is supposed to remind you of a revolving door...

Free Blowjob to the first person who guesses which chocolate bar this tree reminds me of:

I think they have something like this at Heide Park:

GARLIC JAIL

Oh yeah, the monorail went through this huge greenhouse thing, which was supposed to have birds in, but I didn't see any. It was SO humid.

...and i'll leave you a photo of me and Neil by a waterfall. aww...

 

[NeilOrNoDeal]

^^If you're in it for the coasters, California is a good choice. They have a lot more extreme rides. The quality of the parks, though... not so good. Knotts had a horrible time keeping their rides up and running, and Magic Mountin could have done a better job with ride operations as well. We drove past Magic Mountain the first day, but didn't go, and as we passed it on the freeway, we did not see a SINGLE ride going. Out of the probably 10 visable coasters, they all appeared SBNO. The Disney Competition in Florida causes the parks to be in tip-top shape, so the parks are run much better. Though I do have to say, after visiting California, I really didn't add too many of the coasters to my Top 10. But it's still just a Quality over Quantity question. Good luck!

Edit: and excues me? *Cough* Free Blowjob? *cough*... *grumble*

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Gilroy Gardens is a Cedar Fair park?! I didn't know that! It looks like an interesting park and LOL at the vagina ride. Doesn't look anything great in terms of coasters but at least the park itself looks pretty .

BRING ON MORE REPORTS!

 

[Nadia]

That tree is soooooooo a Curly Wurly Jake!! I'm ok for a prize though thanks ;-) haha!!

Loving the trip report so far, I love the look of the parks on the beach, they look pretty awesome and the party you guys had on the beach, very jealous!!!!!!

 

[Jake]

Haha, ok! Nadia wins... sorry guys, the prize has gone!

(Although, depending on who you are, I might just dish more out anyway )

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

^ Aw but we don't have those chocolate bars here so it was an UNFAIR competition!

 

[Jake]

That's life, thats life as you would say.

(Ben is probably the only person on here that will get that, but what the hell!).

Anyway, back on topic... uhhh... I LIKE TREES.

There

 

[NeilOrNoDeal]

It's a Curly Wurly Jake! It's a Curly Wurly Jake!

Is there a second place prize for those special Americans who wouldn't have known the answer and who took that photo anyway!?

Hmmm?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?