California Day 3 & 4 - Santa Cruz & Great America

[Dirk_Ermen]

Yup, 2 TR's in one this time, you will see why later on in the TR:

Saturday 1 November 2008 - Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Today should be the day that I was going to ride the classic big Dipper. The weather didn't look too nice with a prediction of 90% rain but still we gave it a try. On our way it was already raining and on the mountain road it was even very foggy. But we were still hoping to have a bit better weather at santa cruz. When we arrived at santa cruz the raining stopped for a while so after a short look in the arcade for a restroom stop we went to the boardwalk. When we arrived at the boardwalk it didn't really look opened. Still we checked out the ticket stands were nobody was there. Even around the rollercoaster it was very quiet. Damn! After seeing an employee we asked if the ride would still open today. It was closed for today because of the bad weather. Too bad! So I went to the arcade again and played some games on the machines. After playing a few games a group of fellow accicts/pro's came in and played also. Eventually we got into a chat and played some more games together. Funniest part was that the pads didn't work that good. (Arrows got stuck once in a while) So they gave us like 40 free credits on a half broken machine xD So we have been playing pretty long before we went back to the hotel.

Some photo's:

Yeah, the weather really looks good for a rollercoaster ride eh?


Cool, it's dry atm. Let's hope the ride is running!


Oehh... An Arcade! In The Groove!!!


Crap, ride closed! [:(]


Layout looks fun tho...


A closed rollercoaster... Never a fun sight.


Looks really crowded eh?


Supernova 2, wtf? That doesn't exist yet in Europe!


Me with my new ITG buddies xD


Barless player owning a bar player


Uhm yeah, The way back was also really dry.


Mountain + Dark + Heavy Rainfall = Slow driving + Police Escort xD

That was Day 3, Now off to day 4 with much more photo's and stuff!



Sunday 2 November 2008 - California's Great America, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk & San Francisco

Today was the visit to my very first stand up Rollercoaster. Finally, but since we were staying in San Francisco it was first driving for about an hour to California's Great America. At arrival I'd already noticed on the signs that a few rides were closed. Including Vertigo and Demon [:(]. Darn, There goes my change to ride the smooth boomerang and a rough arrow coaster. After some communication I heard Vertigo was closed because the heavy rainfall of yesterday that broke the ride. Too bad some rides opened up later. But that didn't took the chance away to ride them later on. I rode every Rollercoaster possible. So with the closed rides included. Only 4 coasters. I wasn't allowed in the little taxi Jam. I had to bring on a little kid. xD The other kiddy ride was also closed during the full day. Also probably because of the yesterday's rain.

176: Vortex
After we entered the park we went first to the stand up coaster. It's my very first Stand up coaster so I had no idea what to expect from the experience. Eventually it was pretty cool to feel the g-forces on your legs instead of your back. Too bad the ride was a little rough. Mom got a headache on it xD I really liked that short banked turn just before the corkscrew, you'll fly trough with so much speed, it's cool! At the end of the day I asked if I could shoot an onride video. Without a problem I got permission and shot a nice frontseat onride video. Cool! Big plus for the park [:D]

After a huge lap through the park passing a closed demon, vertigo, grizzly and psycho mouse. I ended up at the B&M Inverted: Flight Deck. During the whole lap I took a couple of rides on Drop Zone just to keep my adrenaline level at the correct height. [;)]

177: Flight Deck
Best ride of the park from what I've ridden. Looping was fun, the turn after that gave me everytime a small white-out. xD It was also fun to see that there were 2 spots were the rolls weren't really running smoothly over in eachother. After the Zero G roll, you stop for a moment with rolling, and then you'd continue the roll again. Giving some small lateral forces. Same goes for the exit of the corkscrew. Also got permission on this ride for an onride video. After noticing it was allowed on vortex, I figured out that it was also worth a try on Flight Deck. And with succes. So i've got 2 high quality onrides from CAGA. Including a little bit of offride footage. [:)]

When going around the park again for the 2nd lap grizzly is open now. I did had a short chat with the Vertigo operator about the ride. When I asked why the ride was closed they said they couldn't tell me. After a short chat he eventually told me after all that the ride was closed because of the heavy rainfall and that water came into the electronics so they had to dry everything off and hope that the ride works again after that. When I asked about the demon it was totally unknown for him since he barely works at that ride. Oh well, I guess it's broken with the same reason. Anyway, So I was off to grizzly. The only wooden Rollercoaster in this park so far.

178: GrizzlyThe ride apparantly opened at 11am. Or else I would have ridden it earlier. What a waste of wood is this ride xD The experience is worse than Sierra Tonante. No forces at all, weird banking that doesn't make sense. And only 2 lateral bumps. All you do is bounce during the whole ride. That was terrible. Even tho, I've ridden it 4 times in a row. Just because it wasn't so crowded. During the ride I've seen people working on Demon and Vertigo, so I was really hoping it was going to open later on that day.

After a ride on that pile of firewood it was time to ride the rollercoaster tycoon wild mouse type of rollercoaster! The cars do matches perfectly!

179: Psycho Mouse
I was really surprised since this is the smoothest wild mouse ever ridden. The mack mouse rides really slam in the corners. On this ride it's not. Those drops are damn fun, you'd even get some g's on the way down and the way up. Cool! Only on the 2nd last brake we got like an e-stop brake. Ouch! All other trains fly through there, So we'd expected the same, but suddenly the brakes closed and we got a complete stop. That did damn hurt, the seatbelt made the pain only worse. Still fun ride after all xD

No rides opened after riding all the bigger rides. Seen the park like 3 times and them we decided to leave. It was just 3pm so I forced mom to go to the boardwalk, [devilish] since that was still open till 5pm. Sunny weather insured me that the big dipper must be open!
Eventually we arrived at the boardwalk at 4:30pm, only 30 min left to ride both coasters. Too bad only the dipper was open. Oh well, that was my big target anyway! Rushed to the ticketbooth and bought 6 tickets for the ride. I ran to the ride and started queuing, bare a queueline but still I wanted to wait a ride so I could take a ride front seat. Eventually the guy who takes the tickets was a TPR member, not an active one though but it was a fun chat. [:)] I wasn't allowed to shoot an onride video. As long I had the camera in the bag as the ride departs there wasn't a problem. What I did do after that was up to me xD So sorry Scott, I shot an onride after all [;)]

180: Big Dipper
Woohoo, finally after seating in the ride it was departing, with high speeds we already fly into the tunnel with some S turns we ended up at the lifthill. The ride was damn fun and pretty smooth for a wooden rollercoaster! Some cool turns, some airtime, it was really a fun ride that went far over my expectations. After this ride I dragged my mom onto the ride for a 2nd ride. Even she liked it, since she's not really a fan of wooden rollercoasters [:)] After that ride it was almost 5pm, and you'd really could notice it when it was 5pm. Suddenly everything was closed! All lights immediately off and the mood was suddenly gone in a snap.
After a short walk around the boardwalk with sunset it was off to the hotel and San Francisco where we did some standard sightseeing. Including the Bridge again at night, and a small sightsee tour with our rental car. [:)]

The photo's of the 4th day:


I spy a tower ride


Yup, that's our first stop of today


Loads of people on the parking lot... NOT!


We arrived before opening, we had to wait a while. They opened up the gates after the national anthem was finished.


I spy a rollercoaster through the trees!


Looks like it's a stand up one!


Closed for the day...


Closed in the first hour...


Oh well, then a ride on the drop tower. Always fun!


A small overview from the tower area


Looks like the best ride of the park, I wonder if i'm allowed to ride it?


Woohoo, a working rollercoaster. And it's inverted too!


Hehe, it's me in the front riding it various times without even moving a seat.


Yay, the pile of firewood is running!


Closed for the day [:(]


Yay, the wild thornberries! xD


Oh noes, not Cosmo and Wanda! (Today was a day that there was more employees than guests xD)


Delerium. Do something about that ride program! It goes only once up to the highest point and then they already shut it down again! The loading of the ride took longer than the whole duration of the ride! And no we didn't had to wait until it was fully loaded...


Apparently a new ride in the park. Looks much more spectacular than it is. Barely an inversion. Top spins are made to roll 5-6 times in a row, Do it then!


A lovely view of vortex


Oehh... I spy an inverted coaster again!


Love that turn, it's gives me a white out!


I was hungry so I ordered some pizza. I live from fastfood, so america is heaven to me!


We also took a ride on the sky ride over the park. A nice view of some rollercoasters again! [:)]


Say hello to an RCT wild mouse rollercoaster


We also rode the zamperla Disc'o'. The extended versions are imo more fun then the smaller ones.


WTF?!?!! 4 machines in one arcade? Are they mad?!?


I played a game on the ITG just to place some highscores in the machine. Then it was off to santa cruz, where I still had some coasters to do!



Yes! It's running!


Yup, that's were we are!


Yay for Re-Ride! Oh, Say hi to Scott!


Me and mom again frontseat on the ride. Fun fun fun!


They gave us the camera back and immediately departed us. So that means a lifthill short of course!


Awww... It was evening again. Made the boardwalk about $18,- richer.


The very last ride of the big dipper.


Yay for headchoppers!


The making off xD


Me at the other closed ride, too bad. That's -1 on my coasterlist. Now I gotta go back sometime.


The closed ride at sunset


The beautyfull sunset over Santa Cruz


Back to San Francisco


The Golden Gate Bride. Yes, it's true the bridge. It was only a bit foggy when weren't standing on the bridge.


The sight is becoming slightly more clearer


Aww... It's me and mom standing on the bridge. (Don't worry about our blurriness, we had to stand still for about 15 sec xD)


We're on the bridge alright...


The view was really nice too!


San Francisco it beautyfull at night. (I still wonder what that blurriness is on the bottom of the photo xD)


And when we return to the car, the bridge suddenly hides again in a dense mist.

So that was the TR of 2 more days.

What we did the next day(s)? Check out the next TR:
*url here*

If you'd want to track me LIVE: Go to the VIP forum or earn your VIP status! [;)]

Supernova 2 has been around for a while here. I'd say at least a year.

Sounded like a fun time, sorry about your luck at the boardwalk, the same thing happened to me in March of this year. At least you were able to go back later and get Dipper.

cali baby, got some pretty fun parks there. Great America isnt great, but personally I think that its better than SFDK. Drop zone, the best ride ever, not coaster, but ride, its just so much fun. Have you heard of the giant drop in australia?

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by Austin

Supernova 2 has been around for a while here. I'd say at least a year.

I heard about the game but it just never has been released into Europe yet. Oh well, it was fun to play the supernova extra stages without the reverse mod and 1,5x speed.

[jayman]

i had fun to
day dirk.. this man has insane ddr skills.. he drew a small crowd!

Glad you got to ride Giant Dipper, it's one of my top coasters and always surprises the coaster fans who ride it for the first time. It's not tall, not long and not fast but it packs a punch for all that.

And it's smooth, always, even with it's Morgan trains. Whoever is responsible for maintaining that coaster deserves serious props (as do the people to finance it year after year).

BTW: I got married almost 20 years ago at the Beach and Boardwalk, in the Coconut Grove ball room one floor above the arcade you played in. The entire wedding party rode the Giant Dipper and the Marry-Go-Round.

So yeah, maybe I am a little biased to the Giant Dipper

Fresno? Oh, I'm sorry.

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by Zazu Yen

Glad you got to ride Giant Dipper, it's one of my top coasters and always surprises the coaster fans who ride it for the first time. It's not tall, not long and not fast but it packs a punch for all that.

And it's smooth, always, even with it's Morgan trains. Whoever is responsible for maintaining that coaster deserves serious props (as do the people to finance it year after year).

BTW: I got married almost 20 years ago at the Beach and Boardwalk, in the Coconut Grove ball room one floor above the arcade you played in. The entire wedding party rode the Giant Dipper and the Marry-Go-Round.

So yeah, maybe I am a little biased to the Giant Dipper

Fresno? Oh, I'm sorry.

Are you sure we're talking about the right coaster now? This topic is from the Big Dipper, not the Giant Dipper. [;)]

But IMO: Big Dipper > Giant Dipper

Well, I just noticed you have been calling it the Big Dipper but if we're talking about a wooden coaster in Santa Cruz, the one you have pictures of riding in this topic, than it's the Giant Dipper.

http://www.beachboardwalk.com/02_giant_dipper.html

There were only two roller coasters called Big Dipper on the West coast and they're both long gone.

Name aside at least we both agree it's a good woody [:)]

[Dirk_Ermen]

Uhmm, yeah... I just see on some of the photo's i've taken that it all says giant dipper. I dunno why I suddenly called it big dipper xD I must have seen that name somewhere... xD

Don't worry about it. I've mistakenly called it the Big Dipper probably thousands of times, so that I don't even notice when other people do it.

'Giant' doesn't really seem to fit it, it isn't giant, it's 'fun sized'.

sweet time