Clint's LDI TRs

[rappa]

TR - Day one (SFMM) Well today was one pretty damn full on day... Brief synopsis goes like this; 7am - Wake Up (on 4 hours sleep) 10:50am - Scheduled departure from Sydney 11:50am - Actual Departure from Sydney 8:00am (LA time) - Arrive LA 9:00am - Pick up Hire Car - Drive to SFMM 10:00am - 4:00pm - SFMM 4:00pm - Drive to Orange Country 6:30pm - Finally Enter Paradise Pier Hotel, Disneyland 10:45pm - Typing this. So yeah it’s been a damn long day, and I pretty much didn't sleep on the plane either. Was a good flight but being an hour late totally screwed me. This meant that I didn't get to SFMM until 10:10am so missed getting in first thing to hit X, when I got there the line was already back over the bridge towards Revolution. My thoughts on that were pretty much 'screw that' and I went towards Viper. That had its queue down out of the station and into the downstairs queue. Again, same thought. I decided to head around to the back side of the park as usually the stupid people pack the front half leaving the back empty as. Yup, that was the case however the Mountain being the Mountain nothing back there was even testing yet. I did manage to hit Batman though in the front and it was awesome as ever. Next stop was Goliath which as usual was pretty much a walk on...although it’s not running all that first rate its still a great ride, I did pretty much overcome the helix though this time round! It started to rain again as I made my way back around to the front of the park. I decided I'd tackle the X queue which was much shorter round. This was around 11:10am... ...fast forward to 1:14am when I boarded the single train that was running on 6min dispatches. I pretty much wanted to go and throw the Op. off the bridge and start operating myself because she was too busy sitting on her fat arse than to even bother pushing the train through the station as quickly as possible. X itself was very much the ride I remember...bloody awesome. I was much more prepared this visit and had much more of a sense of what was going on. It’s true you get a little bit of jerking in the seat rotation however the train was running pretty smooth. I went on to hit Riddlers, Colossus, Goliath again and Gold rusher. Riddlers is one coaster I'm a big fan of, just the site of it and how many elements are jammed in make it really great. They even had 2 trains running :eek: ! Biggest surprise was Gold rusher. This was the first Coaster I ever rode at Magic Mountain and didn't really take it in before. Today I was hit with a great ride, bloody nice mine train. I then thought I'd give Freefall a try just because its there. WHAT A SCARY PIECE OF ****. Like it was rattling all around and something fell from the car in front as we were at the bottom of the lift. Its one unhealthy ride but the G's were unbelievable. Last of all was my favourite...DJV. The ride by nature is not all that high capacity but it was churning through the people. Unfortunately it went tits up the ride before I was about to board. The Mechs came and got her running and made the comment "ah, we'll send it through and see what happens:) LMAO I was in the very back seat and this smooth beast packed a major punch. Yes I know I just said a Vekoma was smooth! OMG That was enough for me, by this point I was totally un-pumped to try and get the others in. I just couldn't take any more unnecessary lines and stupid, turd people that go to the mountain. The staff today just made me soo angry, they were disgusting. There were too many coasters with 1 train op. (DJV included, with the capacity that thing has they really should put another train on) and the slackness of the Ops just made the situation worse. I just don’t know how they can stand to be in a job they so clearly couldn’t give a toss about. I don’t know why Six Flags hires the people they do. There is just ZERO efficiency, the ride crews just wander back and forth checking trains and the guys on the panel would just happily chat away rather than dispatch trains as soon as they were ready. Another idea worth considering perhaps is the thought of hiring some staff that speak English! I don’t mean to sound offend but there was barely a ride Op. that had a vague grasp of the English language. Don’t put people on PA unless you can understand a word they say. I left the park about 4:00pm, spend a good 20mins wandering the car park trying to find my Hire Car…  Pretty crap effort on my part but funny none the less. When I did finally find my tasty GRAND AM I left the park and headed for trust Maccas. This was the first thing I’d eating all day since getting off the plane LOL The real ride of the day came next, getting back on the freeways and heading down to Orange Country. Dropped the car at the airport and got a shuttle over to Disney. Checked into Paradise Pier about 6:30pm which is a nice enough hotel. I have photos for Rabid so you can check it out when I get back. It’s nothing special but has that great Disney service and looks right into California Adventure. The park was still open when I arrived so I got to check out the view of the amazing lighting scheme on Tower. Headed over to Downtown Disney for dinner at ESPN… Got just what I had needed all day, fantastic US customer service, bunch of BBQ Ribs & Chicken and a couple beers! Got back to the hotel around 10pm and started typing this trip report and fell asleep writing it (sorry Liam) so just finished it now after day 2. Till then…

[rappa]

TR – Day 2 (Disneyland Resort) Well what a day of contrast to yesterday, except for the weather, still raining on and off but morning started out very nice. The photo below sums up today perfectly… Indiana Jones and the Temple of the 3 Hour Line as usual was not so fortunate in its wait time and the line actually blew out to a whopping 15 minutes at one point in the day! If ever there is a time of the year to visit Disneyland, this is it. The park may has well been empty, the longest wait time for any ride all day was 20mins and for the most part they were all walk ons. I got into the park before opening and made my way to the end of Main Street. As it was only 9:40 I waited with everyone else behind the rope for the park to open. On opening I headed straight to Indy as at this point I didn’t know what the wait would be like. I think I was on the second Jeep of the day and well, Indy is Indy, not much left to say really. I then went on to hit Splash Mountain, Big Thunder, Star Tours and my favourite, Pirates before midday which was just awesome. I am on a park hopper so I then headed over to California Adventure to hit the main rides there. First Up I went over to get a Soarin’ fast pass as it was only an hour till it was due and I figure if I can save waiting 20 mins why not. It’s a far cry from the 80min wait I had on my last visit. I then intended to ride Tower but on my way over Aladdin was about to start so I headed in there. I can’t say enough about this show, I saw it last year and was amazed then and today was no different. The whole thing just blows me away as someone who works in theatre. First of all the theatre would be as big as anything we have in Sydney and this is just for a free theme park show. Then there is the show itself, from a technical point of view it’s amazing. The sheer number of sets, effects, lighting and machinery is crazy, the crane for the flying carpet in the roof is simple beautiful. The Genie stole the show again and was great to see his new lineup of jokes. After the show I walked over to Tower of Terror. Despite what any of the winging yanks may say this ride is unbelievable. First of all you have the physical building itself. I saw it being built last year and couldn’t believe the size of it then, now it’s finished it really does impress. It is certainly the actual size of a real hotel. As at Disneyland there are no waits in this park either so it’s straight into the themed part of the lobby. The attention to detail is 100% Disney. We then headed into the library when the quality continued as for the boiler room. The cast members loading the lifts come close to those on Jungle Cruise (my favourite Disney attraction) in terms of personality and originality. Each one adding a certain something to the ride. The ride itself is literally breathtaking. The special effects and ride sequence are top rate and the ride is extremely thrilling in its drop sequence. I spent ages waiting to find the un-themed corridor the yanks were talking about but I never did. I don’t know what they were looking at but everywhere I went was done well. From here I headed over to Soarin and jumped straight on. I sure am glad it looks like MW isn’t going to attempt to build a copy of this. I’m sorry but we just don’t have the skills. This ride is damn amazing both in mechanics and experience. It’s just such a beautiful piece of work in every way. I then rode Cali Screamin’ several times and Maliboomer. Screamin’ is a top class coaster in every way. It’s an Intamin which are my favourite coasters however it was getting a bit of a roughness to it. I hope its just train rehab time otherwise it could be a bad sign. You just have to love this thing, the launch, speed, airtime and transitions are all perfect and it just works so well with all demographics. Plus it’s physically beautiful. Unfortunately they were only running 3 trains today and one side of the station so the amazing capacity and huge train count didn’t get a look in. I hit Grizzly next and with no wait this Rapids only gets better. It just makes SRR look like a joke HAHA I then went back over to Disney for a few hours. I went to Great Moments with Lincoln as I was there and was completely surprised. This attraction has some fantastic audio effects and I’m surprised that isn’t made more public. I grabbed lunch at the French Market which was pretty good and well priced. I caught another ride on Indy and some other stuff before heading back over to DCA for the last hour. I was originally going to take photos around Disneyland in the afternoon however the weather went bad so I’ll do that tomorrow. I grabbed some more rides on Tower before heading back over the road. I’m sure I did something else but can’t remember  Unfortunately it wasn’t yet dark so I won’t get the see the Tower lighting up close. Back over at Disney I again rode Pirates before heading to Haunted Mansion Holiday. It looked great but truth be told I don’t remember it well enough from before to know what they did in the makeover… I hit Splash Mountain again in the dark and then went back around to Big Thunder. This turned out to be a water ride as it started pouring as soon as we pulled out of the station. I was in the death car and the ride only gets better in the dark and wet. The train was flying around the mountain and I got absolutely soaked. It of course stopped raining as soon as I got off and I went to ride Jungle Cruise in the dark. The ride was damn funny as well and it’s kind of cool in the dark. I then rode Indy and JC another time before leaving for the night. All in all it was a fantastic day, WAY better than yesterday. The park is looking great with all the refurbs they are doing although I think closing access off completely to Tomorrow land from Fantasyland is a bad move and makes for a big dead end. It’s just nice to get back to Disney where service is as it should be and theming is done as it should be. I am being joined tomorrow morning by my mate Nev and we’ll be hitting the parks again tomorrow. Cheers Guys

[Richard]

See, there's a reason I've vowed never to return to SFMM (and I'm doing my best to stick clear of the whole chain). I'm sure I told you not to waste your time there again too. It's funny that SFMM sounds like it's exploding with crowds while Disneyland Resort is empty. Reminds me of a park called Dreamworld, which overflows with crowds while two parks down the road cope fine, with no less than equal attendance. How is Disneyland? Is the worst of the "closed for rehab" over, or are there still plenty of shoeboxed attractions around the place? At any rate, your visit this year gave Disney an extra $100 to spend on getting the place extra shiny for my visit next year. I'm eager to try Tower of Terror, having done Florida's version. Judging by photos I've seen on Westcoaster and the like, I do think that Florida's will come out ahead, if not solely for the slightly better theming and the wonderful 5th dimension room. Good to see you also agree with me on the so-called "unthemed room" of the queue. I saw the photos of the room, and my thoughts were that it looked exactly like what you'd expect a back-of-house hallway to look like in a 1930s hotel. How's California Screamin' getting rough? When I was there nine months ago the loop was strangely shakey, but outside of that it was as smooth as you'd expect any Intamin coaster to be. I missed Moments with Lincoln too while I was there, simply because I had no idea it even existed. I made an effort to see Hall of Presidents at the Magic Kingdom, simply because "The Art of Walt Disney" (an outstanding book by Christopher Finch that I'd recommend to any Disney fan) goes into quite a lot of detail about it, and when I found out that the original was still at Disneyland, I was quite annoyed I missed it.

[T-bone]

Yeah i agree with richard about SFMM. IT'S SIX FLAGS. DO YOU THINK THEY CAN DO A GOOD JOB AT ANYTHING? INCLUDING HIRING ENGLISH SPEAKING STAFF.

[rappa]

Well yeah my theory on SFMM is I would brave it to hit a few Coasters I really love and that's about it. I just couldnt believe the people there, that's what pissed me off the most. Seriously if anyone knows a make US teenager that didnt get a piercing and a chain for their pants on their 13th birthday send me a photo! They are just feral man! Well no there is a GIANT hole in the entire right hand side of the park with Mattahorn, Space Mountain and Small world all shuttered, Subs being worked on, Buzz being build and the main roadway around the Lagoon torn up. I just stayed out of that part of the park for the most part because it looks like **** and its hard to get around. The rest of the park looks amazing and I am one who thinks all this work is definately worth the mess for now. I'm sure Florida may be better from what I hear but I don't think that should diminish this version in any way, it is first rate. The exit hallway is actualy themed quite well, looks very realistic and much better than the photos show. Also on your first ride you don't even thing to look down it when you walk into the elevator. Two things I didn't like... The doors aren't soundproofed enough so you can hear the previous group exiting the lift and when you sit in the lift, if you look to the left or right you can see 'ride bits' in the loading shaft. Other than that it's great, again though you'd have to be looking to notice. Shakey is exactly how I'd put it. On the big sweeping turns and the loop I could feel the train shaking along the track, my guess is this is more a Train/Wheel refurb issue than anything else. Anyway I'm sure this Dial-up call is going to end up costing me heaps so I'll get off, more to come...

[Ian]

I need Anaheim. Funny how everybody says the same about six flags from my 8 trips over there I hated the service of that place, a mate of mine just got back and said the same about SFMM and SFGA but did say SFNE was better. But Disney I need Disney but as Richard said this Year would be bad to visit as everything is in rehab stages for next years 50th. have fun dude and enjoy vegas

[stdragon03]

Hey clint good trip report I did the same thing Flew into La hire car got loss on the way to SFMM Spent the afternoon or evening jetlag riding coasters. I agree with your sentiments about GoldRusher especially at night.But i didnt fine the staff their not to bad i would definately return. I feel sixflags at the moment a copping unfair criticism i think their parks are way better than Paramounts parks and buschgardens and even some cedarfair parks.Sixflags America and New england are very attractive and efficent parks i found their staff friendly.If it wasn't for sixflags their wouldn't be X,Goliath,Superman ride of steel,Batmans,Nitro,Medusas etc sorry to bring up this topic again. Cheers Ed

[rappa]

Well looks like the sun is out this morning so that is a good thing. Just waiting for Nev to get here so I can walk over to the park (I love being able to say that!). See I'm not condeming Six Flags, just SFMM. The coasters are great, and I can see the park would have once been great too. Its just the staff and the maintanance that ****s me. They really don't deserve the coasters at that park, the really don't. Good on them for building in the first place but in recent years looks like it has all gone pear shapped. It's just criminal what they have done to Colossus, it looks and rides like crap. A shaddow of the ride I have on tape being built. Anyway all that is behind me now, this place is the complete opposite as we know

[joz]

The sad thing that all this talk about SFMM being crap is compelling me to want to go. Keep us posted good sir, makes for good reading.

[mikrowave]

Great TR's, they really made me miss Anaheim (it's only been 2 months and I am already pining for Disney so badly hehe). I can't believe you drove straight up to SFMM on the day you flew in, that's a huge effort! I can barely function after a flight let alone negotiate LA traffic. Sounds like you hit a pretty bad day at SFMM which is sucky, altho please tell me you're joking about 2 trains on DJV?! Disney sounds excellent as expected, altho it is a little disappointing with all the construction going on at the moment. But hey at least you get to see the top spire of the castle, it was completely wrapped up when I was there . My favourite time at Disneyland is at night, the atmosphere & lighting make it so much better, and the rides take on a whole different experience. It's too bad the Matterhorn is closed at the moment for you because I found it to be so much fun at night. Anyway great TR's, please keep them coming, they help me daydream and wish I was over there again. (only 6 months until Tokyo Disney hooray!)

[rappa]

TR - Day 3 (Disney again) Well the again makes it sound like a bad thing but certainly not...yesterday was another great dat at a great place. I started this day with a fantastic omlet breakfast over at Grand Californian, gorgeous hotel. Richard did well with customs and arrived here (my mate Richard (nev) not our lord and master here) about 9am. We headed over to the park and were at the rope about 9:45. We started the day with a walkon to Splace Mountain which only gets better everytime I ride it. It just amazes me how good these attractions are despite their age. I had my camera with me so I went on a photo binge today, it started with Splash mountain. We then hit Haunted Mansion Holiday and Pirates (i have another wait time update below) before heading over to Big Thunder. BTM is really growing on me with every ride, one thing I'm really enjoying about this trip is getting really into the rides. We had lunch a the Blue Bayou resturant (the one in Pirates) which was great. I had the Monte Cristo sandwhich which is what they are famous for, although it was so bad for you I couldn't finish it, it was fantastic. We wrode Star Tours and headed over to DCA. I'm not going to go into all the rides again as we did that yesterday but we got plenty of rides on Screamin' and Tower. Unfortunately the Cast Members on Tower weren't quite as funny today but was still a great ride. The rain was with us again today which sucked but we survived. After spending the afternoon over at DCA we went back into Disneyland to get photos, video and more rides. The crowds were a bit more today but we're still only talking about 20min waits max. Indy did hit 40mins at one point but that was because of a jeep breakdown. It was the one in front of us and it had issues with its restraint locking. That meant we got to have a sneak peak backstage where the walls open and the jeep heads off into the garage, swinging its back end out as it goes That's about it for Disney from today, if the rain goes away its Knotts tomorros, if not then it'll just have to wait. Cheers Guys

[rappa]

TR - Day 4 (well Disney again...and sleep) Hey Guys Well woke up this morning to see it was still raining so thought "screw that" and went back to sleep. We got up about midday and decided to go back to Disney, why not, we're already there. Fortunately you can upgrade your park hopper ticket to the next day so it was only 30 bucks to get in to both parks again. Today we took more on ride videos and stuff and thought we'd get in some of the rides we hadn't ridden before (the lower grade attractions). Also made sure to get heaps of rides on Splash Mountain because it has really grown on me. First thing we thought we'd give a spin was Pooh...funny thing is we got into the second room and the ride broke down. Like we stopped, all the work lights came on and we had to be walked out LOL We then headed over to DCA to get some rides. It turned out to be wet DCA as we hit Grizzley and got soaked. I have a pretty amusing on ride of it however we left Night Shot on from the previous night so its a bit screwed LOL. Hit Tower many many times and then it started to rain. We wanted to get another ride on Screamin which turned out to be damn funny. I wanted to film it so we went for the front but as the heavens open it was clear that was out. As the train pulled it it began to poor so we donned the jackets, hoods and glasses. The girls from the previous ride copped it pretty bad and were in pain. Turned out to be the funniest ride on a coaster I've ever had. We got soacked and I could barely see from covering my face from the razor like rain. The on ride photo says it all, we were drenched. With that and the rapids combined, my shoes still aren't dry still and that is 24 hours later. After DCA we went back to Disneyland and rode the train and the small dark rides in Fantasy land. Mr Toad was the big surprise as it had a section of Hell at the end which provided much needed warmth. We finished off the night with another ride on Splash Mountain (LOVE IT) and Pooh which had some cool effects in it, however I wouldn't put it in the E-ticket class. Last ride of the night was Big Thunder, another great ride that gets better in the dark. We rode in the death seat and survived. This ends Disney, had a fantastic time, bumme about Knotts but I just heard it was closed anyway so glad we didn't go. I have an extra day after Universal when I leave Vegas so I'll probably try and get down there, pity about Haunt though. I'm now in Vegas and turned out a beautiful day in LA today, have hi-speed net here so I'll around if I'm not too drunk BTW We also managed to sneak On Ride of tower however Richard had it zoomed in so the result was less than spectacular, he was a bit pissed Talk to you soon guys, hope its all good over there.

[rappa]

TR - Vegas and Universal Howdy all...just got back to my hotel room at Universal, between dodgy internet and being drunk or tired most of the time I didn't really have much to say in Vegas. I can give you a brief rundown on things of interesting in Vegas for anyone who's interested... Between the 4 days I was there I picked up, ME, Speed and Big Shot. ME has really gotten bad since I was there 18 months ago. Rough, rough, rough...the only saving grace is the diving inversion but after riding such a brilliant coaster in Screamin' for 3 days this thing was just crap. Good to see they have changed the final brakes to no be so loud anymore though. Big Shot still has the best tower launch ever and was a great ride, bummer X-scream was down for maint. Speed is/was a great coaster, still smooth and still a good ride. Best thing of course in Vegas is the fountains at Bellagio, spent a lot of time watching them. The upgrade to the screens down at Freemont street is spectacular too and the new Wynn tower building looks amazing and will certainly be a new major landmark on the strip. Today I arrived back in LA and we spent the day at Universal Studios. Staying at Universal Sheraton, at just over $200 US for one night BEFORE tax I can't say I reccomend it, the location is good but its just not worth the cash. As for the park it was pretty empty which was great, not really any waits on anything. First up we hit Mummy. WOW, what an amazing let down this was. All I kept hearing was how good this was and how bad Tower at DCA was. Couldn't be further, these two rides shouldn't even been in the same sentence together. The coaster segment is good as far as coaster is concerned bit the rest of the ride is just plain underdone, and cheap. If you want to know more just ask me. Jurassic park was great as always and good to see its had a bit of refurb work done. We did everything else in the park but highlights include: Shrek 4d = GREAT! Was extremely well donw, funny and one of the better 4d films, this park now has 2 of my 3 favourite 4D films, the other being; T2 - Simple most well done and fantastic 4D ride out there, no words really. Rest of the park was good, Waterworld being the great show it is in particular along with the SPX stages. I won't however make this a 'must visit' again until they get something new. If The Mummy is as good as it gets its a bit sad for Universal. I'm currently deciding whether to try to hit Knotts tomorrow before I fly back or not, just a very long trip down and back if I do go... Cheers guys.

[rappa]

Final TR - Knott's ...certainly saving the best till last. Being as I was staying at Universal the night before getting to Knott's on Tuesday was a bit of an effort. I decided it would be worth the effort and ended up hiring a car to make the long drive down to Knott's. Funny thing is in the end, the day at Knott's probably ended up costing me a good 200 bucks, sooo worth it though... By the time I made it down to the park and got in it was midday and with the park closing at 5:30pm for Haunt that left 5.5 hours to hit the park. First thing you notice at the park is Silver Bullet. It's one HUGE addition, you more or less walk straight into the first support as soon as you enter the park and you can see it wherever you go. The ride looks amazing and no photos do it justice at all, funny to think that this thing and Lethal Weapon belong to the same category of coaster LOL Park was EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY, there was less than a wait for everything. First thing was exactly what I went for, the big XCEL! First ride was in the front seat and this baby was everything I remembered it being, one amazing ride. I was glad to see crazy Richard was on board riding as usual, his current count is over 7200 rides in just 2 1/2 years! I bagged 10 rides and then decided to head off into the park. Went over to Ghostie, rode the back seat. WOAH! I'd never ridden in the back and this was too much for me to handle I recon, it packs a serious punch. Throughout the day I also got the front and the middle. I also wrode Timber Mountain, a great log ride which was much longer than I remembered. I also got Monte, Jaguar and La Revolution. Although old, Monte is still a great shuttle. I skipped the bloody Bommer because I've got that credit so why go through the torture! I did the other hits the park inclduing the awesome Supreme Scream throughout the day. I kept coming back to my baby though, the amazing Xcel. Pity after another 3 rides she broke down and failed to launch, that took it out of action for about 45mins and left time for more Ghostie and other stuff. The afternoon was spent getting as many rides as I could on Xcel, end ride count for the day was a whopping 42!! The ride crew on Xcel are still my favourite, they do a great job and have fun doing it. Funny thing is we actualy spent time in the day WAITING for enough people to launch as opossed to waiting in line. I actualy only had to get off ONCE in all 42 rides, other than that it was constant ridding all day. Left the park at 5:30 and headed for the airport, fitting great end to a great holiday. Current Xcel total count in 2 visits 92.