Rich's USA Trip

[Richard]

Down in Texas now. I can see Judge Roy Scream and Superman at SFOT from where I'm sitting right now. We got into town at about 4:00 this afternoon - the best thing about having a SF season pass is being able to just hop into the park to kill an afternoon... pity that there's only two parks open right now. The Grand Canyon was quite nice. Absolutely freezing, it was snowing most of the way up and back, and hit -12ºC. Don't buy hot chocolate in America unless you want to die of a sugar overdose - that's all I can say. We didn't really do much of the strip, which I think was quite a disappointment. Before I come back (I really want to do it in a few years time again), I'm going to learn to count cards (which isn't illegal, by the way ), win a few hundred and spend it all on a few nights at the Bellagio. Off to SFOT for two days. The park is only open 12-6pm, so it means we can sleep in nicely and get other things done as well for a few days. I rode Titan this afternoon, which is really nothing more or less than Goliath at SFMM, though has a few different turns and whatnot. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the trip down in Florida (a stop in Georgia on the way). It'll be nice and touristy and what'll be the best parks of the trip hopefully.

[Richard]

Report on Six Flags Over Texas, live from Florida: The park opens from November 28 - January 4 for "Holiday in the Park". It's an excuse to open the park in freezing weather, get enormously huge crowds, and open enough rides to count on one hand. We flew in from Vegas December 27 via Denver, Colorado. After changing hotels once, we ended up at a place that was just across the road from the park, meaning a nice quick walk over to the park. As luck has it, I got some sort of food poisoning (it figures, I live off crap for three weeks no worries and then decide to go for nice clean Subways for a change, and get violently ill from it), so I missed Monday at the park. I went the night before for about half an hour, and checked out Titan. Titan is a pretty nice ride. It's similar, but definitely not identical to Goliath at SFMM. The first drop is pretty nice, but prepare yourself for the tunnel, expecially if your arms are up - 140km/hr into a tiny hole makes it feel like you're hitting a solid wall of air. It's hard to imagine it, but it's enough to throw your back off. After a day in bed, I finally headed back out. It was time to do the rest of the open rides. We started the day easy, doing Mini Mine Train, an early Arrow kiddies coaster, which is all that needs to be said about it. Right next door was Mine Train - the first "runaway train" coaster, which has an amazing three lift hills and a cool dive under a muddy pond, presumably called a lake. We then went onto Shockwave, an Schwarzkopf looper. Revolution at SFMM wasn't at all bad with the OTSR, but with lapbars, I can definitely see how much better they are. There's some awesome pops of airtime on this thing, and some cool banked turns. Next was La Vibora, an Intamin bobsled. This thing was pretty cool, a really fun ride. We did Titan again. The queue was significantly smaller than my ride two days before. Compared to Goliath with one-train operation, this thing's two trains make the queue bearable - I'd love to see it (or any ride for that matter... which I hopefully will down here in Florida) with three trains happening. It's the same as Goliath for the first drop and turnaround, but has a pretty different second half, but keeping the same infamous helix. Superman: Tower of Power was the last real ride open that we had to do. Simon's not a fan of any tower rides at all, but I love them. It's the best I've ever ridden. Maliboomer at DCA just shoots you up and down and Supreme Scream just shoots you down, but this thing does both in succession, which is by far the best way to do things. The queue was bearable, but in hindsight, the single-riders queue is a great idea. Because it's four sides of three seats, there's a lot of spares going straight to these people. It's pretty bad that they didn't open Batman or Mr Freeze or even the Boomerang. The park was absolutely packed, and I understand the wooden coasters being down for offseason maintenance and whatnot (and they actually were working on them), but these three rides would have been great for overall capacity (particularly Batman). I suppose it is Six Flags after all, as much as I hate to say it, but two out of two SF parks I've been to are run like this. I'm pretty disappointed that we've had to skip Wild Adventures up in Valdosta Georgia, but it was a bit much, and we weren't sure how quickly I was going to get better again. Boomers! down here in Ft. Lauderdale is also off the list, which is a shame, but once we hit Orlando tomorrow, it gets fun. If you haven't seen, Knott's pictures are up, and SFMM, Vegas and SFOT will come eventually!

[Flea]

Thanks for the TR. It's a real shock to see that they weren't operating those rides (Mr. Freeze in particular.. what's up with that?!), but like you said, it's Six Flags. One thing I'd like to ask you though, when Americans say that certain coasters are rough, are they really rough or is it just because they are spoilt rotten with B&M's? I'd love to hear this from an Aussie. The pictures are great, particular Xcelerator. It's great to see that you went to a park you've never been to before and take the time to shoot a bunch of quality images - I'd be way too excited to even think of taking pictures. Thanks! Enjoy the rest of your trip and stay safe, ~Liam

[rappa]

Thanks for another cool report Richard. In regards to Goliath (and titan) did you do the tunnel with your hand up? I just couldn't bring myself on Goliath, no matter how many rides I had to leave my arms up. Just messing with my brain too much that hill! On the roughness issue Flea. I seriously thing they are a bunch of girls. They winge about every bloody ride and its just crap. And hey Scream (a brand new BM) was not at all what I'd consider 'corkscrew smooth.' Same could go for Batman and Riddler IMO As far as I'm concerned I've found Intamin to have the smoothest coasters...

[joz]

Good to see two from two Total Thrills members who have holidays in the US this year have had holiday plans shortened due to food poisoning. I swear there's something in the water too . Are you sure you didn't eat at Jack in the Box Richard?

[Richard]

More correctly, there's something in the chlorine over here. Nah, it wasn't Jack in the Box. I had that in San Diego, and I think you just had a bad go. It's just nothing different from all the smaller (meaning there's only hundreds of locations around the place) franchises here. In fact, the manager at this place would have to be one of the nicest guys we've met overhere. I'm reporting from International Dr, Orlando Florida. We've got twelve days and ten parks before coming home. It's nice and warm, so it won't be quite as stupid as it has been to go on some of the mega-soaking rides.

[joz]

The manager... Did you get to meet the real Jack? I think Jack in the Box is just my obsession now since I got food poisoning there, especially since reading about all those people that got sick eating the stuff. Good to see it didn't get you though, I was starting to think Americans were immune to salmonella, as if all their fat cells get rid of it.

[Richard]

Well, not the real Jack, his head is much much bigger and whiter. But he was just a really nice guy who was joking around and was glad tohave a conversation with us (he's one of the very few who have traveled, let alone seen Australia), and even the bums that seem to loiter around outside the place, who aren't the nicest looking people. Yesterday we did Universal Studios Orlando. It's a much much prettier park, that's tried to be more than the Hollywood equivalent, but still lacks quite a lot. At least unlike Hollywood, it's not built on the side of a mountain, so you don't need to take 400m long escellators that go down the side of a mountain just to get to different rides, which is slow and pretty unintersting the after the first time. We just did things in the order that they appeared, starting with Twister. Compared to the USH equivalent, Backdraft, it's not nearly as good, and often just silly. You'll see photos soon, so I won't go into detail, but this is basically where all the theming ideas from Cyclone were "borrowed" from, right down to the ride shop name. Next was Earthquake, which starts of silly, becomes annoyingly silly, but ends with the subway ride that you've all seen. The cool thing about this part of the park , was it's San Francisco theme. As someone who's both been there, and absolutely loves the city, it's great to see something as Authentic feeling as this. You could be walking along and swear you're in Fisherman's Wharf, aside from the heat (it's Aussie-summer hot down here!!). We went to Men in Black next, the dark ride shoot-em-up thingy. The queue outside wasn't too bad, so we went in, but the majority of the queue was inside. At least it gave a great opportunity to soak in the theming, and it's great to watch it go from what are the best animatronics I've ever seen to some of the worst from one room to another. The actual ride is pretty cool once you're on. The idea is to shoot as many aliens as you can along the ride, getting bonus points for shooting another car and whatnot. Some would say the highlight is Will Smith's appearance at the very end, which seems to be for no other reason than to say "Look, we got Will Smith in our ride!". We had to compare Back to the Future to that back west, so on we went. It's absolutely identical, but the movements are way too rough and sudden. I prefer the other one much much better. E.T. was cool. It's basically a suspended dark ride, which starts off cool and by the end it's just It's a Small World with singing and bright colours and all that (not that it's not cool ). Woody Woodpecker was another Vekoma roller skater - it's the short model, the same as Disneyland's. One train makes it a pain for capacity, so we ended up waiting about 20 minutes for this thing. And that's Universal Studios Orlando. We had lunch over in San Francisco before heading to IOA to walk around frustrated by the disgusting crowds and incredibly plain stupid and ignorant people that that place had. Note to parents: a stroller is NOT something that gives you right of way and allows you to cut through and in front of anyone. Thankfully a foot in front of the wheel quickly stops them. We didn't actually ride anything in our five hours or so there, but got some photos and video. Today we went to Wet 'n' Wild Orlando. For a water park in the theme park capital of the world, it's hard to think you could find something so crap right in the middle of the tourist area. They have seven slides (I don't count a structure of three or four of the same basic thing, just with a slightly different order of turns, different) and a wave pool. It took some convincing to get Simon out of the place, even though he didn't like it either. We went back to IOA after lunch, as Universal's only a fairly quick walk away. Today as we entered a guy who was leaving had some nearly-expired Express Lane (that's the Universal's upcharge Fastpass equivalent) tickets for Spider-Man, so we took these and walked past the 75 minute queue into the 10 minute EL queue. You've all heard about this ride, a moving dark ride that combines just about everything into one. It's basically Disney's Indiana Jones, with the added element of 3D, and a slightly longer and more meaningful ride. It's damn hot, so we trusted the sign which said Ripsaw Falls had only a 45 minute queue. It ended up being an hour, and they seriously need to work out a way to make the EL system integrate better, because as it is it just punishes the non-EL people, unlike Fastpass. The ride's pretty good, but not worth the queue. It really soaks you, right down to some guards on the side which actually direct the splash right back into the boat, soaking you, which is cruel. The drop isn't that bad, but they've got these money making water cannons (a quarter a squirt), which are aimed straight at riders, are are really powerful. I came of head-to-toe wet, which was pretty nice in the weather. The sign out the front of Ripsaw said only a 10 minute wait for Dueling Dragons, which is on the other side of the park, around the lake. By the time we got there, it was up to 25 minutes, which we were willing to do, but their no-items policy insists you leave items with friends or get a free locker. All fair, but the queues for lockers alone were about 15 minutes thanks to a hopeless design on IOA's behalf and stupid people, so we called it quits and headed out of the park (we're coming back to really do the park once the vacationers head home). In Universal's CityWalk (that's Downtown Disney, only nicer), we decided to see a movie and had dinner at Hard Rock. Tomorrow's Busch, and I'm in the process of getting all the photos up until now online, which should be done tomorrow.

[Ian]

good to hear you are enjoying florida rich You should have gone to Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon water parks at Disney way better then wet n wild orlando. I did ET at universal hollywood when it was open such a fun ride .

[Daniel]

And then when you're about to get off, 'Goodbye Daniel'! Good stuff that was.

[Richard]

We haven't done Disney yet - that's starting tomorrow morning. It's freakin' hot over here, and those two water parks look seriously cool from all the Disney ads we've seen (actually, there's a dedicated Walt Disney World advertising channel which Simon's taken a liking to, or rather Krissa, the host 8)), and from reports I've heard over the years from relatives and friends. The five day passes come with an extra two tickets for some of the non-theme park things, and we're using them on the water parks, so that'll be cool.