Creds of America 2014 PTR

[peep]

AJ, Conor, Jordan, Peter, Rach, Richard and I had planned to go on a goony adventure across about 8 states of North America. Over 100 rollercoasters were plotted out and before we knew it our adventure began....


Saturday 7th June

Coming from all over the place we had arranged to meet at Heathrow Terminal 2 at a silly time in the morning. We managed to all make it around the same time which was nice (I do love it when a plan comes together). We proceeded to make our way through security and whatnot and made our way on to the plane a couple of hours later. A non-eventful flight across the Ocean later and we touched down in Houston, Texas.

Mornings are not Richard's best friend

Goodbye gloomy clouds and hello to obscene heat and occasional storms....

Getting through security was easy, well apart from Conor who still had a minor complication on his previous paperwork because the US peeps can't sort their lives out. This meant he had to join a 90 minute queue just for a guy to pretty much say ok and send him back out. This delayed us by quite a bit (obviously) but no harm was done and we went on our merry way. We split into our two groups and headed to the first port of call, Galveston Pier.

A good sign that we were in fact in America

All US cities look the same

We drove past this truck which had 5 teens and a dog sitting in the back. Wtf?

It would appier we made it to the pier.

We met back up at the entrance to the pier where we proceeded to make our very expensive pier wristband purchases. The place felt like a bigger Brighton Pier (despite their being less creds).

I wanted to ride this but time was short and it was expensive

Time for cred #1

So it was finally time to get on our first rollercoaster of the trip. Iron Shark was ok, the lapbars definitely provided a different experience on the Gerts. Overall it was all over pretty quickly and I came off feeling rather meh about it. As we got off it had broken down so we only just made it on to the ride before it died for the day.

We were just happy to have obtained a +1 to the count. So we quickly made our way onwards to cred #2.

The log flume was nicely themed

Was so annoyed that we had to skip this. A Rainforest Cafe with a RIDE!

Anyways it was back to the cars and over to Kemah Boardwalk. The sun was starting to set as we arrived and due to rubbish operations it was night by the time we boarded the Boardwalk Bullet. The wait for the ride was tedious, the staff just didn't seem to care about the long wait they had created due to their Mingoland style operations.

Still the ride looked great and it was finally time for us to take a turn. I had never actually heard of this ride before our trip, I now have no idea why, it's definitely one of the best wooden rollercoasters I've ever ridden. It was seriously insane and absolutely relentless. It was just so fast and kept going on and on twisting and diving around the rest of the structure and track. I really loved it.

We then headed over to Bubba Gump for some food. I'd heard lots of good things from Jordan about this place and AJ had a card which got us straight in. The restaurant was full of references to Forest Gump (a film I've never seen) but it was nice. Our waitress was nice, clearly new, and had the ordeal of having to deal with us lot. I had a cocktail which came in an awesome jar thing and was very tasty. Unfortunately everyone had a problem with the food. Firstly it took forever to come out and when it did most of it was cold (apart from my burger which I ate). The manager was called and was very apologetic. At least we talked to him in a calm and reasonable manner, the lady behind us had the same problem but reacted in a way which isn't going to go down well. It was a sour note on a very mixed day.

It was then back in the car and to our first hotel where we slept really well after such a long day.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Great start. Looking forward to many...many...many more additions

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

Great so far! I love visiting Bubba Gump when I travel to the states.

 

[nadroJ]

^there's one opening in London soon ^.^

And yes I am writing a report, but I had the first page written and it got deleted and I couldn't be bothered to write it again.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Do what I do and type it up in Word or something first

 

[nadroJ]

^i usually do that's the worst thing!

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

I was waiting for these to pop up! Looks like a good first day minus the Bubba Gump issue. Woo for AJ's Landry's card! Looking forward to more and I'm glad to hear Boardwalk Bullet exceeded expectations. I wouldn't have expected much from it either.

 

[Jordanovichy]

But with a name as fabulous as Boardwalk Bullet it's bound the be brilliant such a good name.

 

[peep]

Sunday 8th June

Our first full day began like any other. After some fun and games trying to navigate around the American roads we all made it to our first Six Flags of the trip, Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

The weather wasn't looking pretty but we held out hope it'd get better as the day went on. We had arrived before opening so found some shelter as the rain concerned us, there were creds to obtain darn it!

Conor manages to stay positive while the rest of us gain cred anxiety

As it was our first Six Flags of the trip we spent the first 30 minutes of the park opening faffing with annual pass related shenanigans. After getting our bearings and the rain sort of holding off for a while we made our way into the queue for Iron Rattler. Our first RMC cred so there was a lot of hype building up to it. I personally think RMC designs look awful and I've never been greatly excited about riding them but it was finally time to try one out.

I do love the setting of Iron Rattler with the quarry cliff. The first drop is pretty great, then it heads back to the top of the cliff and for me that's where the ride dies. The overbank turns don't really do anything for me and I find it really kills the speed before dropping back down and then up into the inversion. I thought the inversion was ok but nothing exciting. The meandering on top of the cliff I found a little tedious. The inversion which isn't an inversion really annoys me, if there was a flow to the ride it'd totally kill it. I don't think I can actually express how much I detest this element and I hope they don't put it on any future designs of theirs. However after that it does the big drop off the cliff and it's fantastic. It then goes into a tunnel which is awesome but then as it's getting good it hits the brake run. Sad face. As you can imagine, I'm not it's biggest fan but I admit it has some good moments.

Next up was Road runner express, an Arrow mine train cred. It had some amazing forces on some of the turns but overall it was a little rough in a "we're going to throw you around now" way.

We then made our way over to Superman. On the way we passed a tunnel for the park's train which goes through a part of the cliff edge, I thought it was cool.

We then came across a heavily themed log flume and we felt compelled to ride it there and then. It looks amazing, the theming for the queue and station building is great. However considering it's themed to Bugs Bunny there appeared to be a lack of him around. The ride itself was really good fun (such a cred!) and didn't get us too wet.

It was then time for some food so we headed into a large food court which was nearby. We couldn't believe the amount of theming around, we weren't sure we were in a Six Flags park any more.

They were playing Scooby Doo cartoons on the big screen which provided us with plenty of amusement.

We then continued over to Superman where the weather decided to turn bad again. We stood in the shop at the ride's exit and waited for it to pass. About 20-30 minutes later the rain stopped and it was all sunny again. The wait for the ride to re-open began. It took them forever to re-open, thinking about it now I assume all the staff decided to just go for lunch and never told anyone. I felt sorry for the one guy trying to hold everyone back. Cred anxiety started to kick in now we could see other rides running.

The ride then finally opened and we rushed in to get a good seat. We all waited to do front row. The ride is good, I like how it toys with the quarry cliffs like Iron Rattler. Sitting on the far right seat as you go down the drop after the random corner thing is pretty awesome. I'll admit that nothing about it really felt stand out about it but it was enjoyable and very re-ridable.

The turnaround I poorly explained

It was then over to the Kiddee Koaster for the +1. As we made our way over to the spinny cred we passed through a really nicely themed America street thing. I have no idea what was in the big building but it was nice. The little tent in front of it was advertising something by handing out maracas. Cue Richard picking up a maraca and his many attempts at breaking it.

Pandemonium then. Well it was just a spinner plonked down in an empty area. I think these rides are ok, harmless fun.

We then saw a Scooby Doo shooty ride so we headed in. It didn't have a queue and was pretty much the same as most of the others of these I've done in the past.

I used two guns at the same time, I'm right handed...

Poltergeist was next. I liked the two of these I rode in 2012 so I was looking forward to this. I forgot about the stupid restraints. Still, doesn't detract from the great (if very random) layout. I managed to sneak back on for a second go too.

We then rode the Boomerang. I have a soft spot for these (yeah I know, I'm weird). This one was pretty smooth so I was pleased about that.

It was then back to the front of the park for [strike]Batman[/strike] Goliath. Meh, Batman clones really aren't my favourite B&Ms. I find them rather forceful on the legs and I don't like that feeling.

It was then back over to Iron Rattler for another ride. We decided to wait for front row this time. It is better in the front but it still doesn't change the fact I have issues with certain elements.

I do like the theming in this area of the park

We then decided to ride the Gully Washer, the park's rapids. There were some great moments and I think we all came off at least a little moist. As we were already wet some of us decided to go on the log flume again because it's awesome.

Upon exiting the ride we saw this little guy on the rope ladder side-show.

We then went for another ride on Superman. This time I sat at the back, I still enjoyed it, I think I whited out on the exit of the loop. After that some of us went on Skyscreamer, the park's very tall starflyer. It was good fun, the views of the park were nice. It was then over to Iron Rattler for one last ride before we decided to call it a day.

Entrance now sans rain

We then went to our hotel in San Antonio. After checking in and dropping our bags off we went into the city for some grub. We walked along a canal which was beautiful, there was a really nice atmosphere about the place too. There was a boat going round which had a group of people having dinner on it which we thought was awesome. However we opted for another restaurant which ended up being a part of the Hilton hotel.

Dinner boat

My incredible duck salad. Om nom nom.

It was then back to the hotel for some shut eye before another long day.

 

[Jordanovichy]

At last, some food! Although raspberries and duck...not sure that is a great combination if I'm honest great report all the same.

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

^there's one opening in London soon ^.^

And yes I am writing a report, but I had the first page written and it got deleted and I couldn't be bothered to write it again.

Lucky!

________________________________________________________

I love Goliath's paint scheme! So sexy. Cant wait for the next part!

 

[peep]

At last, some food! Although raspberries and duck...not sure that is a great combination if I'm honest great report all the same.

Don't worry, this wouldn't be a peep trip report without some pictures of food! Don't want to be letting Darren down
P.S. Don't be shunning the raspberries, American salads ftw <3


Monday 9th June

I think I'd realised I hadn't taken a photo of our car yet so here it is....

Captain America themed

We got to Sea World San Antonio for just before opening where we were greeted by gloomy clouds and a large crowd. Boo.

The park entrance is a little weird...

Once in past the faffy bag and ticket checks we beelined for the kids cred. +1 obtained we were making good progress...

The carousel amused me

We headed over to the bigger creds which are dotted around the large lake. We noticed that none of them were running. We were met with a staff member who was holding people back from that area of the park and we were informed that the rest of the park will be opening at 11, or an hour after opening. We only had about 15 minutes to wait so we decided to wait on the side by Steel Eel. The ride looks quite impressive by the lake but what is up with it's wonky support structure?

We then spent most of our time watching some 'gators.

Conor stares down a gator

The park had loads of these random statues made out of recyclable materials. They were pretty cool.

It was then 11am and the ride areas opened up. We headed straight over to Steel Eel. They hadn't opened the ride yet, I think they had only just started testing it. I'd love to know what they spent that hour doing. We threw our stuff in the rides lockers and a few minutes later it decided to start raining. The rain just kept getting heavier....

They then decided that the ride won't be opening until the rain lets up. So knowing that the other two creds will be the same we had to think about our plan of action. The rain kept getting heavier. A show was due to start within the next 20 mins so we briskly walked over to that show arena. As we made our way the rain kept getting heavier. By the time we had reached cover it was a proper tropical storm situation. Everyone was pretty wet. Still we were under cover now so it didn't matter. The sound of the rain pounding the huge metal roof was interesting. To the side we could see the rain getting into the arena.

The Beluga whale show was delayed. About 10-15 mins after delaying it they cancelled the show altogether. The weather didn't look like it was going to let up at all and there was lots of lightning and thunder, exciting and depressing all at the same time. We soon bailed on the arena to find a shop with ponchos. We all got drenched just getting over to the shop. There was chaos due to the staff running out of ponchos (they must have made a fortune). We managed to grab up some of the last ones before walking outside to discover the storm had pretty much passed now. Bloomin' typical. Within 30 minutes the sky was like this....

Sigh. We wait patiently back outside Steel Eel. They've started testing it again. I think they managed to then break it which led to an engineer being called. Poor staff members keeping us away from the station had to deal with a lot of bored customers. Richard liked playing with the magnetic strip wait time board much to everyone's amusement. It was then getting horrifically hot, strange how the weather can change that dramatically. We then, like everyone else, give up on Steel Eel and decide to go back later.

We head over to (oh joy) the Batman clone. Called Great White or something, who cares it's a Batman clone. Luckily we didn't have to wait long at all. It didn't ride that differently to all the others.

We then notice Steel Eel still isn't open. After some faff we decide to head over to the awful queue for Journey to Atlantis. We finally make some progress in the queueline to then realise it's broken down at the top of the backwards section and everyone was leaving the queueline. Absolutely fantastic. This is exactly what we wanted to happen *sigh* We were all giving up on this park at this point, it'd been nothing but a complete and utter burden so far and none of us were enjoying ourselves.

We then head back over to Steel Eel again to find it had FINALLY opened!!!! Operations were slow and frustrating but we all finally managed a ride on it. The airtime was absolutely insane but the return to the seat was always met with a horrific pain of unnecessary proportions and killed any enjoyment.

We decided to take a break and grab a snack. We then had a look at the penguins because penguins are awesome.

They also had puffins.

It was then nearly time for the Shamu show so we headed over to that. It was enjoyable.

Arena was weirdly shaped

They had about 5 whales including a new baby

After the show we headed over to Atlantis of fail. There was a horrible queue but it was open. Loading was once again very slow and burdenous and I was dying in the queueline which had no shade apart from right at the end. Why do parks in hot countries always fail to add adequate shade/air con in queuelines and on top refuse to let you take your bags/refreshments into the queue? I'm a little shocked we didn't see anyone pass out (although I did last year at Cedar Point).

I digress. I got a little wet from the ride which was nice after standing in the heat for so long. The backwards section felt pointless and the main drop was good.

We all wanted to do the rapids at this point because it was boiling. Luckily there wasn't a queue but Rach, Peter and I did have plenty of locker faff of annoyance. Glad I didn't take my bag on the ride though, got absolutely drenched (so happy/relieved). At this point I think we'd all sort of had enough so we headed back over to the entrance, looked at some seals etc and left.

I took a selfie, I am so wet, tired and burnt. I think that sums up the day pretty well.

We ended up having food at Logans Roadhouse. OMG it was amazing food. Our waitress was amazing too. It was a good call on Jordan's part even if the last minuteness of her calling it made for terrifying Richard manoeuvres. Some time later in the evening we made it back to the hotel. I love how standard American hotel rooms are and the only differences seem to be in the details (cleanliness/bathroom etc).

So as you may have guessed, I loathed SeaWorld. Had the weather been a bit better to us from the off and crowds a little lighter (or, you know, decent operations) I may have a slightly better opinion of the park but it doesn't have anything that would make me recommend it. Want to ride a Batman clone? Go to one of the many other better parks that have one, want to ride a Journey to Atlantis? Go to Florida and ride the far superior ride of the same name in SeaWorld Orlando. Tis a silly place but at least none of the creds ended up spiting us.


Oh I also forgot to summarize Six Flags Fiesta Texas! I really liked the park, thought it had some really nicely themed areas. Had a good selection of rides and just a nice place for a day out.

 

[Darren B]

Shamu <3

I know exactly what you mean about Steel Eel (although I haven't ridden it). Morgan Hypers seem to have this tendency to give out lovely airtime and then BAM, your arse returns to the seat really abruptly.

 

[tomahawk]

Sounds like Texas thunderstorms. Torrential downpour, then hot and humid the rest of the day, only to rain again later. I miss them.

Batman clones are fantastic...

 

[peep]

Tuesday 10th June

Another day, another Six Flags park. I think we arrived at Six Flags Over Texas shortly after opening and the crowds were light. The entrance was quite nice, in fact the whole park was.

We headed straight for New Texas Giant. We may have got a little lost on the way due to the beautiful setting of lots of little pathways everywhere.

We finally made it to the Texas Giant.

I was yet again underwhelmed by an RMC woodie. The first drop was pretty good and then I feel the speed dies. It does have some good moments but overall it felt rather meh. I never wanted to be a goon who used this term but it feels soulless. I found I was more excited by the small kids ride at the exit of the coaster....

The trains also look stupid with this tall windows on the sides...

We then made our way over to Shockwave which was ok, the vertical loop was intense and smooth, I liked it. It does have a very weird layout though and corners seem to be a little bit of an issue.

It was then over to the Runaway Mine Train which wasn't that great.

It was then over to the Batman area. They had a batwing themed flat ride, it looked cool.

First up in the Batman area was Mr Freeze: Reverse Blast. This was my first experience of one of these and I was really looking forward to it. I quite liked the theming. There was a bit of a slow moving queue inside, the capacity on these are awful.

I really enjoyed it, the backwards launch felt weird and the inverted top hat was even more odd, but I liked it. Richard really didn't, I think he found it uncomfortable. The staff faffed around which meant we had to wait for AJ and Jordan for some time which led to some Gotham faff. Once the group was altogether again we headed into the queueline for Batman: The Clone.

As you may be able to tell, I'm a little bored of these coasters, there were many on my trip in 2012, I've also done the one in Madrid and this was already our third of this trip (oh but no where near our last *sigh* ). It was fairly hot which probably didn't help matters but in the indoor cattlepen there was a bit of a queue but about 4 kids jumped past us to join their friends (quite a large group), still, they were a little rude about the situation which led to Richard, Conor etc saying something. The kids laughed it off or something and so Richard got staff involved. They then had to go behind us in the queue. Lots of evil stares were exchanged.

We had noticed that batching was fairly infrequent and odd, we then got batched through the door in a fairly large group to then have a whole massive safety spiel from this one staff member. It was ridiculous. We then waited quite a long time to get on the ride. I've never seen such poor operations on a two train B&M inverter. I decided to take a picture after the ride of the stupid ride op because amusingly above his head is a sign that says "sense of urgency" which was the total opposite of what he was doing.

After that faff we headed over to Judge Roy Scream which is in such an unusual location. Literally separated from the rest of the park you have to walk there via a tunnel. The ride itself I can't really remember, it was either dull, painful or both.

We then headed back over to the runaway mine train to ride the mini mine train. If I remember correctly (possibly the other way around) the mini one is the one that ends by going through a fake hotel. I liked that.

The trains for the mini one were weird.

It was then over to Pandemonium which had a bit of a queue. There was a nice chap working for the park in the queueline that took down our email addresses for an online survey they were doing. The cred was alright, same as the one at Fiesta Texas.

We then split for lunch. Peter, Rach, Rich and I headed to a little BBQ place. The queue took forever but the food was good. I think I had a pulled pork sandwich. The idea was for all of us to meet outside the kiddy cred. Once we had all gathered we tried to get on and we were REFUSED! Boo.

We then made our way over to La Vibora via a shop or three. I really liked this ride type at Efteling, Intamin Bobs are cool. This one has a different car to what Efteling have. The ride itself was fun apart from any banging around when hitting a brake section. So yeah good fun but I wouldn't queue that long for it again.

We then made our way over to Titan. On the way Richard tried on another hat...

Titan was quite fun, the ridiculous helix made me white out though. After that we made our way to the last cred in the park, Runaway Mountain. We decided to stop for some fake [strike]Stone Cold[/strike] Cold Stone ice cream. I say fake, the theme park versions aren't the full experience where they use an actual cold stone to mix it all up. Still, it tasted good.

We actually spent a fair amount of time faffing in this area of the park, it was just really pleasant, you definitely wouldn't have said it was a Six Flags park.

No one expects the vibrating chair

Finally we joined the queue for Runaway Mountain. None of us knew what was inside which made it all rather exciting. I liked that the queue was themed and in the shade, mainly because it was in the shade.

So Runaway Mountain turned out to be a random coaster built by Premier that isn't too far off a Pinfari Zyklon. It was a fun ride but it would have benefited massively if there were some effects or lighting or sound or just something in there.

We bumped into loads more Looney Tunes characters...

We went for another ride on New Texas Giant. It had warmed up a bit and was a bit better but I still fail at getting excited over it.

It was then time to leave the park and head on for the evening activities which is where I'm going to leave this post. Thanks for reading!

 

[Jordanovichy]

Great addition. I love how on this picture:

I could only tell it was CFers thanks to Jordan's EXTREMELY bright red hair

Looking forward to more!

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

Yay more updates! I'm surprised at your opinion about the RMCs. I've never been on one, but I always thought they looked really good and they seem to be rated fairly highly by people.

It sucks that you had such a bad time at Sea World, but at least this Sea World looks like a decent park unlike the gross San Diego counterpart. I'm pretty impressed by the way the Six Flags parks in Texas look. They don't look like your typical, crap Six Flags.

Always wanted to see the San Antonio River Walk </3 Jel.

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

It looks like he's threatening you . :lol:

 

[nadroJ]

Right, I’m not going to write a full trip report because it will take ages and I’ll get bored, instead I’m just going to do a run down and summary of each park and its stand out coasters and rides, giving my opinion on stuff. Here we go!

Galveston Pier

When we arrived it was stupidly hot. Driving onto the island was quite nice, palm trees and nice holiday homes. This could be nice. However the place took a turn for the ratchet with a bunch of ghetto people hanging around, I did feel quite intimidated walking past them onto the pier. 

The pier itself was fab in that it had loads of old school style signage everywhere and a good blend of vintage and new age rides available. Seeing as we were running late though (because Conor got held at customs due to some visa issues) we only had time for one thing and that was Iron Shark. I was looking forwards to seeing whether a Eurofighter could be improved with the removal of OTSRs. It was weirdly violent? If this thing DID have OTSRs it would be beyond brutal, but the fact that it doesn’t just means you are flung about quite vigorously. In a good way, I have decided. Short and snappy and straight to the point. I’d give it a 6.5/10.

Kemah Boardwalk

We then beelined on down to Kemah Boardwalk, which Galveston had lead me to believe would be just another ghetto funfair town. Wrong. It’s clearly either a) fairly new or b) recently had a lot of money spent on it. It was clean, with a great atmosphere, a gorgeous modern planked pier lined with a ton of restaurants and sideshow attractions manned by non-ghetto/approachable looking people.

The crown jewel of course is the Boardwalk Bullet, which is nicely themed considering where it sits. By the time we faffed, got tickets and queued it was dark. It shouldn’t have been, but the terrible terrible ride-ops meant that a 5 min queue turned into a 30 minute one. But I’m SO glad they faffed. Riding this beast in the dark is clearly the way to go. You have no idea what lies ahead in the pitch dark and are just flung around the track at speed like a rag doll and it is AMAZING! 9/10.

It’s a shame we didn’t get more time to meander around because it was such a pleasant area, with cute things like a train and stuff going around. We finished the night with a disappointing meal at Bubba Gump (food was cold, boo!) and headed on our way to San Antonio!

 

[nadroJ]

Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Easily my favourite Six Flags park. Well themed, gorgeous setting, good selection of rides and generally a pleasant place to be. It somehow doesn't suffer from that concrete paradise feel you usually get at Six Flags parks and everything felt quite fresh and up to date, even the usually perpetually dated looking superhero area. There didn’t seem to be as much ‘copy&paste’ going on as you would usually find in a Six Flags park and FT really benefits from that.

Iron Rattler is SO much fun. My first RMC experience and I was pumped. The trains are ridiculous looking, with a big rattlesnake leading the way. The way it simply dives over cliffs is insane. It was worryingly a little slow to start off with in the morning with some faffing around and not doing much at the top of the cliffs between the two 'big' drops, but this was definitely made up for with the ride it was giving at the end of the day. Great, great ride. 9/10.

Superman Krypton Coaster has a similar setting in that it dives off of cliffs a lot but I felt it was a little heartless. There was nothing that memorable or amazing about this coaster, it just seems to go about its business in the way that B&M floorless coasters tend to. Compared with its Spanish cousin from a few months earlier SKC had nothing. But Superman standing upon the vertical loop is pretty cool. 6/10.

As a bit of a Premier fan girl and a fan of their other spaghetti bowl rides I knew I was going to enjoy Poltergeist. I love the premise of the theme: a poltergeist being ousted from a possessed house then flying around, makes so much such sense and is yet such an underused theme for launch coasters. Sadly this ride seems to have taken a leaf out of Merlin's book when it comes to theming upkeep because it has kind of been left to rot, which sucks because it has so much potential to be outstanding! 7/10

Honourable mentions also go to the Scooby Doo dark ride that stank of weed and the epic Bugs Bunny log flume with bonus airtime hill!