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Hey everyone, I'm back from a month in the US (With a brief amount of time in Canada) and this was probably my biggest theme park trip ever. Ended up riding 90 roller coasters that were new to me, and a total of 14 parks, including: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Great America Six Flags Magic Mountain Knotts Berry Farm Disney California Adventure Canadas Wonderland Darien Lake Waldameer Cedar Point Kings Island Kentucky Kingdom Beech Bend Holiday World Rainbows End I got a Cedar Fair season pass, and a Six Flags standard pass, which worked well for my purposes. In particular, the early entry and free parking offered by the Cedar Fair one made things much easier. Another little tip, but get an AT&T "go phone" sim when you arrive. $60/m.o, 2.5GB, no contract, they happily sell to non US residents, they even use a test sim at the shop to make sure it will work in your handset, made things a heap easier in terms of being able to keep in contact with others, look stuff up, use google maps navigation etc. Way cheaper than using roaming, and less bothersome trying to find wifi. I probably won't write full blow by blow trip reports, but rather stick to the rides. Discovery Kingdom Quite a nice park, and in some places looked as well presented as Busch/SeaWorld (Shocking, I know!). Getting there you can take a ferry from Downtown San Fran to Vallejo, and then a bus to the park. Be aware the last 30 mins of the trip is a slow crawl up the river to Vallejo. If you've ever used the ferry to Parammatta you'll know what it's like. Getting home I used a bus from Vallejo to Cerrito Del Norte BART station, which was slightly quicker. First up did Superman Ultimate Flight. Better than the maurer skyloop. Because it "loops" twice you don't keep covering the same section of track over and over, it feels more varied and unexpected, launches are good too. V2 Vertical Velocity was my first impulse coaster. The LIMs sound terrible, like an old washing machine, but pretty cool ride with a powerful launch. The way the track barrel rolls over the entrance plaza is a nice touch. Roar was a mixed bag. Some parts ran better than others since its part way through retracking. Many GCIs feel the same, but it was a good length ride, and the crews were really fast, getting the one train onto the lift before the 2nd was back in the station. Kong, well run of the mill SLC without a helix, still beats you up so I'm thankful Arkham has the good trains. Medusa was a typical solid B&M floorless, a lot of fun in the front seat with your legs stuck out in front of you. Cobra was this Zierer kids coaster with a hillariously long train, it didnt go very high, and the steel support structure looked like it was made out of sticks, but still decent fun. The Boomerang, well they're one of the few ride types that makes me slightly queasy, so once was enough. The animal exhibits were nice enough, with the exception of the seal one with its crappy seaside cardboard cutout backdrop. They were scattered around the two ends of the park, and had everything from dolphins, sharks, elephants, tigers and even one of those humid butterfly enclosures. The park had coke freestyle machines in a couple of places, basically its a postmix machine with a touchscreen with 20 or so products on the main menu (fanta, sprite, cokes, Mr Pibb, minute maid, Hi C, Dasani, powerade etc) picking a product then brings up a submenu with multiple variants of a product, Eg picking coke brings up the lemon, lime, cherry, vanilla, but also unique ones like orange coke. I liked vanilla orange hi C myself. I did the Skyscreamer, a star flyer type ride (first for me), not particularly scary or thrilling, but a nice view. I liked how during the cycle when it reaches the top it raises and lowers a few meters a couple of times so you get the sensation of spiralling up and down. Highlight of the day was waiting for a bus at the end of a day when a triple car rear ender happened. Relatively low speed knock between the first two, but the 3rd, innatentive driver came through and really caused a mess. Great America Again, great park, and the place was immaculate. They play the US national anthem at opening time. Again, getting there is easy. You take Caltrain from San Fransico to Mountain View (Home of Google......The train was full of Silicon Valley employees, and I felt like the only one without a laptop) and then switch to the VTA light rail system which drops you right out the front of the park (And the new 49ers stadium). Only main fault with the park was the utter lack of shade on most ride queues. When I got to the park 3 other people were there, initially a worrying sign, but turns out it wasn't that much of a busy day. It did fill up as the day went on. Gold Striker wasn't ready for opening, so I started off with Flight Deck . An early B&M inverted and I loved it, only 3 inversions, and it was a sharp ride that was to the point and did what it needed to do. I like helixes over water, so that feature was a good one. Next up I did Demon, an older arrow looper. Starts off with a tunnel before the lift, before a drop, a couple of loops, a couple of corkscrews and a helix to the brakes, as i soon discovered on this trip a lot of the older arrow loopers are quite similar, and only feel marginally more involved than Sea Viper, it was "okay". Next I went back to Vortex, a stand up coaster, and B&Ms 2nd coaster ever. Had heard these old B&Ms were rough as guts but I was fine, great little ride which had quick changes of direction, making the most of the stand up position. Psycho Mouse is a rare example of a mouse coaster by Arrow Dynamics. Its interesting to see how the track and support style lives on today in El Loco coasters like Green Lantern. Decent as far as mouse coasters go. After that i jumped on the sky ride (Which is named either Delta Flyer or Eagles Flight depending on which end/themed area you board in) and got some photos. I then started working back again, and did the Flying Eagles flying scooters ride. Despite my best efforts, all i could do was get them to twist a bit, and couldn't "snap" them. It was hot so Rip Roaring Rapids seemed like a good plan. One of the better rapids I have been on, with a couple of quasi waterfalls on them. A giant water spray akin to fire hydrant covers the full width of the final lake before the final conveyor, and this will soak you if it cycles on when you are riding. it did for me, lucky i have a waterproof phone You can have a lot of fun on the 25c coin operated geysers in the viewing area, and the staff member in the nearby watch tower eggs people on, put about $3 through, worth it. Gold Striker was excellent and running really well. Probably my favourite GCI, doesn't let up from start to finish. A cool feature is how after the first drop it races at full speed along side of the queue, station stairs and load area, pumping people up for the ride. I had panda express for lunch (This is one people should try when they are in the US, their flagship "orange chicken" lives up to the hype), and it was funny to be the only person eating with chopsticks. Grizzly is a mirror clone of Wonderlands bush beast. didnt run as catastrophically rough as people say it does, but overall it was nothing great, very shallow drops and wide turns. I'm sure if you missed Bush Beast you could come and ride this, but you'd probably come away realizing how far things have moved on from it. Woodstock Express is a really old kids coaster from Intamins early days, nothing really to say about it. Loggers run is a lengthy flume ride, including a bizzare section where it just does multiple u turns on an elevated section a good 15m in the air. Capacity was huge on this one due to a revolving station and twin final drops (boats alternate between the two so they can drop independently without risk of a rear ender), after the drops the flumes merge together for the station. The ride offered some good views of the Boomerang Bay water park, though I didn't bother going in since all the slides I've done elsewhere (WnW Sydney having everything will do that lol!) I also did Drop Tower, similar to space probe except it had 6 drop tracks, and no theming. Good, but hey, we're lucky to have a really tall one like Giant Drop aren't we?

Sounds like a great trip! Anything you would love to see move from the American parks over here?(rides, operations etc.)