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Up The 'Merica : SFoG/DW/KK/KI/MAdv/SFGAm/Dells/NickU/VFair!
- Thread starter davidm
- Start date
Re: Up The 'Merica
I'll help the good Lord Morton out a bit. :wink:
I'll help the good Lord Morton out a bit. :wink:
david morton said:First stop Six Flags Over Georgia.
I was lucky that Dare Devil Dive was running and the lap bar restraints are nice.
GASM has been re-tracked and is running great.
davidm
Strata Poster
Re: Up The 'Merica
^ DDD was down at the time that that pic was taken, was only temporary downtime tho' - (and the restraints were nice you are very right)
--
After a little pause yesterday, today I have been mostly doing this
and Dollywood was a new park for me, so that was nice.
^ DDD was down at the time that that pic was taken, was only temporary downtime tho' - (and the restraints were nice you are very right)
--
After a little pause yesterday, today I have been mostly doing this
and Dollywood was a new park for me, so that was nice.
davidm
Strata Poster
Re: Up The 'Merica
So yes, Kings Island today...
Was there from opening to closing and had a rather good time.
Banshee ; very good, restraints are a great improvement, throughput is excellent, crowds seem to love it too.
Otherwise, Diamondback and The Beast (last couple of rides at night) were superb.
(no quick pics of Beast, because it hides out in the woods somewhat)
So yes, Kings Island today...
Was there from opening to closing and had a rather good time.
Banshee ; very good, restraints are a great improvement, throughput is excellent, crowds seem to love it too.
Otherwise, Diamondback and The Beast (last couple of rides at night) were superb.
(no quick pics of Beast, because it hides out in the woods somewhat)
davidm
Strata Poster
Re: Up The 'Merica
So been back for a few days, can actually add some "P" and "R" to this somewhat scant
PTR that has been bumping along for a while now...
---
Was a bit conflicted as to where to nip off to for a little trip, eventually I settled
on a route up from Atlanta to Minneapolis - designed to get a few big coasters that had
been built at parks I'd been to before since I'd been there / a few totally new parks for
me / and a few interesting new for 2014 rides...
Saturday 24/5: Travel
Flight was OK, MAN to Dulles, then Dulles to Atlanta on a little jet (I'd slagged off
Dulles airport this time last year (in fact I got exactly the same MAN-IAD flight on the
same weekend last year) because of the awful inter-terminal transport system that they
had at Dulles (stupid mobile lounges if anyone can be bothered to remember) - so I was
not looking forward to the transfer at Dulles, only to my pleasant surprise the transfer
I needed to do was via a train-thingy rather than the stupid mobile lounge things. So
that was a result, and I even managed to find a TV in a bar in the terminal showing the
Champions League final which was happening as I sat around in Dulles. Atlético were
still winning as I boarded the second flight...
...those that remember these things will also remember that this time last year I had a
stupid issue with my hire-car around this time ; well this time I had some slight issues
but nothing of the scale of last year.
(main car-issue was that it was a rather crappy car;
and it wasn't available for me after my flight, had to hang around for an hour or so
waiting for the stupid thing to come into the lot
and the key-zapper didn't work, which took me a while to realise)
Got to first hotel though easily enough
since it was right by the airport
Clearly just needed to crash by then though, ready for the next day's adventures...
Saturday 25/5: Six Flags over Georgia
I had been here in the summer of 2004 and enjoyed the place, 10 years is a long time
and they had built a couple of decent looking rides since then so it was definitely
worth a trip back.
The most obvious change in the last 10 years is the rather splendid looking B&M that
escapes from the park over the entrance way and meanders around the outside of the
park for bit...
(thats not all Goliath of course, Georgia Scorcher is loitering behind)
Appetite suitable whetted by all that B&M steel visible from outside the park (have
to walk past a Batman as well on the way from the car park) lets get inside
(pausing only to buy a 6F season pass and act all indignant that I can't apply the
ridiculous $20 parking fee to a season pass including parking - pah!)
I'm not quite in the park at opening, its not too busy and I'm soon in the Q for new ride
#1 of the day;
Dare Devil Dive Coaster - must admit I always though that this was called
"Dare Devil Dive", but its more "Dare Devil" "Dive Coaster" (if that makes any sense?).
Anyway, it kinda looks like your normal euro-fighter job, but then you spot that its
got the smaller (nicer) 6 person dart-like trains rather than the boxy 8-person ones
and even better has lap-bar style restraints rather than the OTSR ones on the other
6-person trains I'd been on (just Lynet & Anubis I think).
So all that adds up to much better euro-fighter type ride than the normal affair...
Next up in my world of new rides is the stupidly big obvious B&M Goliath (dumb
common name) - I _do_ like the big B&Ms
..and this is just great, lovely big lift hill, stupid amounts of airtime hills, great
layout sweeping outside of the park and back. All round a splendid ride.
After a few rides on that monster (10 min Qs at most) I wander off through the rest of
the park, next up was the old and venerable Mind Bender, which I remember Q-ing
an hour for 10 years ago - today was walk-on though and the ride is still great for
being 1970s technology. The double-looping ride is hidden from view in the trees a lot
(which is cool) - pic taken from the car park later below;
Batman up next. I've long pontificated how good these old-school B&M inverts are
and there is barely a Q so I hang around for the front...
Strangely though I come off feeling rather ill from the intensity so I don't re-ride;
not a good thing ; perhaps I'm getting too old for these things
some more car park pics from later...
Feeling rather tender from my Batman experience, I get my last +1 of the day (this was
here 10 years ago, but was about 2 weeks from opening back then)
Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster is a nicely themed kiddie-ride - a little out of the
ordinary for kiddie-rides since it is built around a building/courtyard affair so that
makes it at least a bit interesting.
Lots of decent plastic themeing too
Not sure how old this was, but it wasn't here last time I was - I do prefer these style
high rides to the Windseeker ones, these are much scarier
Think that I need a little break for a while, but first I had a quick spin on their next
B&M ; Superman - Ultimate Flight (not the last one of these on this trip).
The park itself is quite nice, pretty clean, somewhat messed up layout, some nice bits
and some not-so-good bits;
After a bit of a chill and some lunch I feel upto a few more rides, in for a penny etc
I brave their rather photogenic, but rather unpleasant Vekoma looper Ninja next
and its next-door-neighbour the old-woody Great American Scream Machine
which wasn't bad and you could see evidence of re-tracking on it but was still full of
"square-wheel" vibrations I thought (sadly).
S'very pretty though
Only a couple more coasters to ride today, but one the way to the next one I pass their
big drop ride (which I skipped last time - I think it was down that day but I was a bit
unhappy with drop rides back then so perhaps I was pretending to myself that it was down?)
Anyway it was running today and looked rather nice (for some reason I thought it was
floorless like Drayton's is floorless, but its not, its more a floorless gyro-drop - cool!)
But just before I get to be loaded on the ride, they evacuate it - big storm coming they
say, closing all the tall rides. Fair enough, storms had been forecast for the afternoon
so was expecting this...
However the storm had not hit _yet_so I grab a quick ride on the mine train Dahlonega
Mine Train (which I seem to have forgotten to photograph) and then the other woody
Georgia Cyclone.
which is a bit hard to photograph too it seems!
So by this time they are closing more rides (still not raining though) so I head to the
indoor ride that I had missed in its previous incarnation before ; Monster Mansion
Lots of people seemed to have the same idea (was possibly the only ride that was
running in the park at that point) so there is a bit of a Q - and it only starts raining
in the last 5 minutes of the Q which is when we board the boats for this dark ride ;
got a bit wet at that point.
The ride was pretty good for what it was - had lots of monsters and a bit of story and
distinct change of theme half way through. Certainly one of the better dull-dark rides
out there.
Crap photo of course;
Its still raining (heavily) as we exit the ride, so get wet again then (an unintentional
wet ride then) so hide in a shop for a while, but it soon stops...
I've only got one more coaster to ride, but fancy another go on DDD so line up in
front of that waiting for them to reopen after the storm ; only they are faffing a bit
so (Goliath is running by now with still no sign of DDD opening) so I head off to the
last coaster Georgia Scorcher.
When I rode this 10 years ago, it was the B&M standup that completed my set of all of
the B&M standups... well they haven't built any more since then so that still stands.
Its pretty good though, up with Riddlers Revenge as the best of the type I think.
The drop-tower has reopened by now so I get my ride in on that - really good!
And round off the day with that other ride on DDD since its opened by now (and the
lines for Goliath looked much longer).
--
So great first full-day of the trip, but I'm a bit wiped out by 7-ish so I call it
a day and head back to the airport hotel, pausing only to take all the pics of the coasters
from the car park.
So been back for a few days, can actually add some "P" and "R" to this somewhat scant
PTR that has been bumping along for a while now...
---
Was a bit conflicted as to where to nip off to for a little trip, eventually I settled
on a route up from Atlanta to Minneapolis - designed to get a few big coasters that had
been built at parks I'd been to before since I'd been there / a few totally new parks for
me / and a few interesting new for 2014 rides...
Saturday 24/5: Travel
Flight was OK, MAN to Dulles, then Dulles to Atlanta on a little jet (I'd slagged off
Dulles airport this time last year (in fact I got exactly the same MAN-IAD flight on the
same weekend last year) because of the awful inter-terminal transport system that they
had at Dulles (stupid mobile lounges if anyone can be bothered to remember) - so I was
not looking forward to the transfer at Dulles, only to my pleasant surprise the transfer
I needed to do was via a train-thingy rather than the stupid mobile lounge things. So
that was a result, and I even managed to find a TV in a bar in the terminal showing the
Champions League final which was happening as I sat around in Dulles. Atlético were
still winning as I boarded the second flight...
...those that remember these things will also remember that this time last year I had a
stupid issue with my hire-car around this time ; well this time I had some slight issues
but nothing of the scale of last year.
(main car-issue was that it was a rather crappy car;
and it wasn't available for me after my flight, had to hang around for an hour or so
waiting for the stupid thing to come into the lot
and the key-zapper didn't work, which took me a while to realise)
Got to first hotel though easily enough
since it was right by the airport
Clearly just needed to crash by then though, ready for the next day's adventures...
Saturday 25/5: Six Flags over Georgia
I had been here in the summer of 2004 and enjoyed the place, 10 years is a long time
and they had built a couple of decent looking rides since then so it was definitely
worth a trip back.
The most obvious change in the last 10 years is the rather splendid looking B&M that
escapes from the park over the entrance way and meanders around the outside of the
park for bit...
(thats not all Goliath of course, Georgia Scorcher is loitering behind)
Appetite suitable whetted by all that B&M steel visible from outside the park (have
to walk past a Batman as well on the way from the car park) lets get inside
(pausing only to buy a 6F season pass and act all indignant that I can't apply the
ridiculous $20 parking fee to a season pass including parking - pah!)
I'm not quite in the park at opening, its not too busy and I'm soon in the Q for new ride
#1 of the day;
Dare Devil Dive Coaster - must admit I always though that this was called
"Dare Devil Dive", but its more "Dare Devil" "Dive Coaster" (if that makes any sense?).
Anyway, it kinda looks like your normal euro-fighter job, but then you spot that its
got the smaller (nicer) 6 person dart-like trains rather than the boxy 8-person ones
and even better has lap-bar style restraints rather than the OTSR ones on the other
6-person trains I'd been on (just Lynet & Anubis I think).
So all that adds up to much better euro-fighter type ride than the normal affair...
Next up in my world of new rides is the stupidly big obvious B&M Goliath (dumb
common name) - I _do_ like the big B&Ms
..and this is just great, lovely big lift hill, stupid amounts of airtime hills, great
layout sweeping outside of the park and back. All round a splendid ride.
After a few rides on that monster (10 min Qs at most) I wander off through the rest of
the park, next up was the old and venerable Mind Bender, which I remember Q-ing
an hour for 10 years ago - today was walk-on though and the ride is still great for
being 1970s technology. The double-looping ride is hidden from view in the trees a lot
(which is cool) - pic taken from the car park later below;
Batman up next. I've long pontificated how good these old-school B&M inverts are
and there is barely a Q so I hang around for the front...
Strangely though I come off feeling rather ill from the intensity so I don't re-ride;
not a good thing ; perhaps I'm getting too old for these things
some more car park pics from later...
Feeling rather tender from my Batman experience, I get my last +1 of the day (this was
here 10 years ago, but was about 2 weeks from opening back then)
Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster is a nicely themed kiddie-ride - a little out of the
ordinary for kiddie-rides since it is built around a building/courtyard affair so that
makes it at least a bit interesting.
Lots of decent plastic themeing too
Not sure how old this was, but it wasn't here last time I was - I do prefer these style
high rides to the Windseeker ones, these are much scarier
Think that I need a little break for a while, but first I had a quick spin on their next
B&M ; Superman - Ultimate Flight (not the last one of these on this trip).
The park itself is quite nice, pretty clean, somewhat messed up layout, some nice bits
and some not-so-good bits;
After a bit of a chill and some lunch I feel upto a few more rides, in for a penny etc
I brave their rather photogenic, but rather unpleasant Vekoma looper Ninja next
and its next-door-neighbour the old-woody Great American Scream Machine
which wasn't bad and you could see evidence of re-tracking on it but was still full of
"square-wheel" vibrations I thought (sadly).
S'very pretty though
Only a couple more coasters to ride today, but one the way to the next one I pass their
big drop ride (which I skipped last time - I think it was down that day but I was a bit
unhappy with drop rides back then so perhaps I was pretending to myself that it was down?)
Anyway it was running today and looked rather nice (for some reason I thought it was
floorless like Drayton's is floorless, but its not, its more a floorless gyro-drop - cool!)
But just before I get to be loaded on the ride, they evacuate it - big storm coming they
say, closing all the tall rides. Fair enough, storms had been forecast for the afternoon
so was expecting this...
However the storm had not hit _yet_so I grab a quick ride on the mine train Dahlonega
Mine Train (which I seem to have forgotten to photograph) and then the other woody
Georgia Cyclone.
which is a bit hard to photograph too it seems!
So by this time they are closing more rides (still not raining though) so I head to the
indoor ride that I had missed in its previous incarnation before ; Monster Mansion
Lots of people seemed to have the same idea (was possibly the only ride that was
running in the park at that point) so there is a bit of a Q - and it only starts raining
in the last 5 minutes of the Q which is when we board the boats for this dark ride ;
got a bit wet at that point.
The ride was pretty good for what it was - had lots of monsters and a bit of story and
distinct change of theme half way through. Certainly one of the better dull-dark rides
out there.
Crap photo of course;
Its still raining (heavily) as we exit the ride, so get wet again then (an unintentional
wet ride then) so hide in a shop for a while, but it soon stops...
I've only got one more coaster to ride, but fancy another go on DDD so line up in
front of that waiting for them to reopen after the storm ; only they are faffing a bit
so (Goliath is running by now with still no sign of DDD opening) so I head off to the
last coaster Georgia Scorcher.
When I rode this 10 years ago, it was the B&M standup that completed my set of all of
the B&M standups... well they haven't built any more since then so that still stands.
Its pretty good though, up with Riddlers Revenge as the best of the type I think.
The drop-tower has reopened by now so I get my ride in on that - really good!
And round off the day with that other ride on DDD since its opened by now (and the
lines for Goliath looked much longer).
--
So great first full-day of the trip, but I'm a bit wiped out by 7-ish so I call it
a day and head back to the airport hotel, pausing only to take all the pics of the coasters
from the car park.
ATTACKHAMMER
Strata Poster
Re: Up The 'Merica : Now with actual "report" starting!
Great report! Amazing photos! Looks like a very decent park.
Great report! Amazing photos! Looks like a very decent park.
davidm
Strata Poster
Re: Up The 'Merica : Now with actual "report" starting!
Monday 26/5: Atlanta
Today was a national holiday (Memorial Day), so the plan was not to hit any parks but have
a looksee at downtown Atlanta and then a leisurely drive to the next destination.
I usually manage to fit in a few trips to aquariums on my roadtrips - ('cos I like them), and
of course this one is no different (and this will not be the only aquarium on this trip either)
so headed off nice and early in the morning to the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta.
I'd heard a little about this place, lost of thing bigging it up as this huge place (in fairness
it was quite large), but to be honest I was somewhat disappointed with the place.
The setup was very like the aquarium at Long Beach - big central area with the exhibits in
little walk-throughs off the central area - so you could do them in whatever order you felt
like. That in itself wasn't my problem with the place, more that there was a lot of "nothing"
in it - vast empty spaces and blank walls - a lack of exhibits really.
When they did have something, its was mostly good though - few jellys;
But then a lot of this sort of thing as well;
Their tanks were nice
This area was by far the best - really good actually, a vast single tank
With the usual acrylic tunnels
and a huge picture window at one end;
its where their whale-sharks lived
I did sit there for quite a while - very nice.
Them giant crabs are always pretty cool, they had a large collection here
To be fair, what exhibits they did have, were good, just that there was a lot of nothing
in the place as well.
There was an exhibition in one of the upstairs galleries of dead stuff, all exploded out
so you could see the anatomy of the animal - not as interesting (nor as gruesome) as it
sounds
But, by far, worse of all was they had a dolphin show. Now dolphin shows are alright normally,
even ones in city-centre aquariums (Chicago's aquarium had one I recall). The problem with
this one was the "show" aspect rather than the "dolphin" one.
The show building is a bit of trek off the main lobby, and the theatre (for it is much more
like a theatre than an aquarium show) is huge - this picture is just the lower-tier there
was a much larger tier behind this...
..anyway the show was all this song and dance stuff with some crummy plot about sea-monsters
and pirates (or something) - every now and then amongst the singing and dancing a dolphin
or two would swim in and do a trick or two and then swim out again. Just awful really.
After a couple of hours in the aquarium I had a wander around the immediate downtown, which
was really just the immediate area and the 1996 Olympic city-park area
Which was nice enough, lots of homeless people living in the park it seemed though, not so
nice. (Less nice for them than me though )
Next door to the aquarium is the "World of Coke" corporate-exhibit-tourist-attraction-thing
so I killed an hour in there (being a tourist and all!) - was well done to be honest if you
can get past the fact you are going to be advertised at for your entire time there.
They made a big fuss of the "secret formula" - all in a theme-park kinda way though
The place ends up with one of the "cokes of the world" things (like at Epcot) where you can
fill your boots on coke-products from all over,
and you got a bottle of coke as you left (big wow huh!)
After the corporate-spiel, I set off on the drive up to Tennessee, for my next stop - somewhat
intrigued by what on earth this was that I could see from my hotel car park that evening, looked
kinda like a booster (the big yellow arm rotated, but not enough to go vertical) hmmmm...
Monday 26/5: Atlanta
Today was a national holiday (Memorial Day), so the plan was not to hit any parks but have
a looksee at downtown Atlanta and then a leisurely drive to the next destination.
I usually manage to fit in a few trips to aquariums on my roadtrips - ('cos I like them), and
of course this one is no different (and this will not be the only aquarium on this trip either)
so headed off nice and early in the morning to the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta.
I'd heard a little about this place, lost of thing bigging it up as this huge place (in fairness
it was quite large), but to be honest I was somewhat disappointed with the place.
The setup was very like the aquarium at Long Beach - big central area with the exhibits in
little walk-throughs off the central area - so you could do them in whatever order you felt
like. That in itself wasn't my problem with the place, more that there was a lot of "nothing"
in it - vast empty spaces and blank walls - a lack of exhibits really.
When they did have something, its was mostly good though - few jellys;
But then a lot of this sort of thing as well;
Their tanks were nice
This area was by far the best - really good actually, a vast single tank
With the usual acrylic tunnels
and a huge picture window at one end;
its where their whale-sharks lived
I did sit there for quite a while - very nice.
Them giant crabs are always pretty cool, they had a large collection here
To be fair, what exhibits they did have, were good, just that there was a lot of nothing
in the place as well.
There was an exhibition in one of the upstairs galleries of dead stuff, all exploded out
so you could see the anatomy of the animal - not as interesting (nor as gruesome) as it
sounds
But, by far, worse of all was they had a dolphin show. Now dolphin shows are alright normally,
even ones in city-centre aquariums (Chicago's aquarium had one I recall). The problem with
this one was the "show" aspect rather than the "dolphin" one.
The show building is a bit of trek off the main lobby, and the theatre (for it is much more
like a theatre than an aquarium show) is huge - this picture is just the lower-tier there
was a much larger tier behind this...
..anyway the show was all this song and dance stuff with some crummy plot about sea-monsters
and pirates (or something) - every now and then amongst the singing and dancing a dolphin
or two would swim in and do a trick or two and then swim out again. Just awful really.
After a couple of hours in the aquarium I had a wander around the immediate downtown, which
was really just the immediate area and the 1996 Olympic city-park area
Which was nice enough, lots of homeless people living in the park it seemed though, not so
nice. (Less nice for them than me though
)
Next door to the aquarium is the "World of Coke" corporate-exhibit-tourist-attraction-thing
so I killed an hour in there (being a tourist and all!) - was well done to be honest if you
can get past the fact you are going to be advertised at for your entire time there.
They made a big fuss of the "secret formula" - all in a theme-park kinda way though
The place ends up with one of the "cokes of the world" things (like at Epcot) where you can
fill your boots on coke-products from all over,
and you got a bottle of coke as you left (big wow huh!)
After the corporate-spiel, I set off on the drive up to Tennessee, for my next stop - somewhat
intrigued by what on earth this was that I could see from my hotel car park that evening, looked
kinda like a booster (the big yellow arm rotated, but not enough to go vertical) hmmmm...