Dirk's huge USA tour - 4th Edition (BGW update)

[Dirk_Ermen]

So yeah, no Themepark TR today. Why? Because we left a camera in Lake Compounce. After a call we drove that way to get it. On the way back, we had such a delay because the NYC traffic. That SFGAdv wasn't open anymore. Well, according to my research, the park should have been open until 8pm. When we got at the gates at 7pm, the park was already closed... Meh... It's gonna be hard tomorrow to get all 15 credits...

Originally posted by slosprint

We can pick it up on Sunday and mail it to you if you want.

Not Necessary anymore, we got it back. Eventually....

You didn't spend any more time at LC today?

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by Freddie

You didn't spend any more time at LC today?

Nope, since we expected to be back on time to do a couple more hours in SFGAdv...

If I knew earlier that the park was closed at 7pm. I would have stopped at Rye and made again a detour via Astroland. Since the weather was much better today...

[Dirk_Ermen]

Whoa, had big delay because 'slower than telephone modem which was causing timeouts'-internet and no internet.




11th June 2010 ????????? Six Flags Great Adventure

Today was going to be a busy day. We lost a full day at this park yesterday. So time to be on time at SFGAdv and hit as many coasters as we can do today!



We arrived perfectly on time and went straight for Nitro. It wasn't that crowded in that area. I guess everyone ran off to Kingda Ka and El Toro. We did a ride backseat. It was a really fun coaster. Really nice floater air over a lot of hills. Helix had some good power. The best B&M Mega Coaster to me yet. Front seat had also some G's that had ejector. But still very tiny with the force of about -0.3g.

390: Nitro



Right next to Nitro was a BTR clone. They stay pretty cool rides to ride. Nice and forceful. But usually better at night! [:)]

391: Batman The Ride



We had the biggest coasters in the right side of the park. Now it's time to explore the left side with the most huge coasters in the park. But suddenly I got a text message from a friend who was also in the states on the ECC trip: ?????????Kingda Ka is awesome!?????????. I was like: ?????????WTF? Are you also at SFGAdv?!?????????? Now it was waiting on a reply, in the mean time we went all the way to the back of the park. To Medusa Bizarro. We did a ride backseat and immediately noticed how Six Flags killed the trains again... They had the sound box mounted on the back car, with the 2 seats in the middle taken out! So Six Flags gave only 2 outer seats to the backseat fans... Great job... Anyhow, we boarded and took a ride. With the tiny train modification aside. This was probably much more of an improvement than on S:ROS. The weird contraption in the middle of the interlocking corkscrews was cool. For the rest they have used exactly the same theming objects in the ride as on S:ROS. Also the onride music follows the exact same music. Only slightly modified because the order of some visual effects was changed. Cool ride in overall, but still the typical B&M Element order.

392: Bizarro



During the ride on Bizarro, I got a couple a calls and one text. It was my buddy again! He was at the same park! So re-tried getting contact with him while walking towards El Toro. After I've reached him I heard that he was at the Flash Pass Counter. Since 2 friends from him on the ECC trip. Didn't want to wait all day. Just at that moment, we were at El Toro and saw the monstrous line of 90 minutes! Holy Crap! We're not going to wait that. After hearing all the positive things about the flash pass from him. We decided all to get for once the most expensive Flash Pass there was: Platinum. It gave us a 90% short waiting time, (Which means hardly queuing at all) and even a re-ride on every ride! So only once queuing and riding it twice in a row! That'll help a lot for today!



So after we've got the Flash Pass, We went in a group of 5 people to El Toro. I heard tons of good things about this ride and I can't wait to find out how much of that stuff was true. We'll, so far I noticed nothing was a lie. It has some awesome airtime. Every steep hill pulls at least an ejector air of -1g, and to top that off. The final steep hill pulls even more. Probably around -1.2g? After that you'd get some quick turning but no real cool forces anymore. El Toro is an extremely awesome ride because it's airtime. But as a wooden coaster. Airtime isn't the only thing that you should have. We'll since this is an Intamin Woodie. It will never have those other 2 factors that wooden coasters need to have, and that's the 2 magical L's: Laterals and Love. If this was a steel coaster, it would have hit my top 10. But since this is a so called woodie, it's outside the top 10 because it missed the other 2 important factors. But for sure, this is definitely the best Intamin Wooden Coaster ridden. Just not the best wooden in overall...

393: El Toro



Up next, Rolling Thunder. We heard it ran both sides which is apparently unique. We gave it a ride on both sides and both were pretty cool. I loved that it had 2 complete different layouts. So one airtime hill bigger than the other, than one side does a huge hill meanwhile the other flies over a small bump. So yeah, pretty cool ride.

394: Rolling Thunder Left
395: Rolling Thunder Right



Time to ride the currently fastest and highest coaster in the world. Kiddie Kha. We took a ride front seat. Always fun with our re-rides. Kingda Ka is cool, all it actually does is a launch and fly up to the highest point possible. Only to plummet back down the same distance. The hill was a nice addition but there was absolutely no special g's on this hill. No awesome ejector air like on Kiddie Kha's Younger Brother: Stealth. Just nothing on this hill. What a shame! And all stories about the back row are also true. What a shakey ride! All cars just bounce right after the first car. It's almost like it had square wheels. Kingda Ka is a cool ride but TTD is definitely better.

396: Kingda Ka



Next new coaster for us was the Great American Torture Scream Machine. Great forceful ride until the MCBR where they completely stop the entire train. I would love to have a ride without any trims activated and no MCBR activated. I guess you would experience around 6g in that batwing element than. It's a cool ride with it's typical Arrow shaping causing pain throughout the ride. But without caring how bad the ride is: Re-Ride! [:D]

397: Great American Scream Machine



We haven't seen superman running all day yet. So we walked up the superman entrance since that was right next to the torture machine. Apparently Six Flags started last week on some work on the ride. So it's been closed for the next 2 to 4 weeks. Darn!



Oh well, the Runaway Mine Train was running again after it's breakdown earlier in the morning so this was now up next. The ride didn't really had any special forces but the helix was cool tho. And of course it fails tunneltest like about any minetrain ride does. I had to pick twigs during the ride. The most fun part is handing those to ride-ops after the ride Usually you'd get the look as in: ?????????Where the hell did you get those from??????????

398: Runaway Mine Train



After this we had a small break. It was just before 3pm. The ECC members had their lunch so we had our lunch too. At 4pm we decided to meet up again at The Dark Knight Coaster. This ride is exactly the same ride as the coaster in SFGA. Same movie, same theming. Yeah, exactly the same ride. Oh well, it was another credit.

399: Batman The Dark Knight



After this ride we booked a ride on Skull Mountain. I was completely lost on where the 14th credit in the park would be. But when we got to the entrance of this ride I saw it was another Rollercoaster. Awesome. There weren't any big coasters left as credit for the 400th, so yeah... I'll just go ahead and let me surprise by this ride. We took a seat in the back row and it was of course the best row we could have picked. After the 2 lift hill sections we went completely indoors for the ride. This ride was hilarious! It had 2 moments of a good ejector airtime and that for an indoor coaster. Also because it was indoors it was hard to follow this ride. So we got flung from left to right on this one. Best ride of the whole park! I couldn't have gotten a better coaster for the 400th coaster credit at this park!

400th Coaster: Skull Mountain



Now there were only 2 more kiddy coaster credits for me left. After some other coasters for the other people to ride first we went eventually to Looney Tunes Land for the kiddie coaster in that area. It was a Zamperla coaster for us. Always fun to ride! After getting seated we were off with more adults than kids on this train! It was a fun ride that went 2 laps. Credit!

401: Road Runner Railway



Now on to the final new coaster credit of the day, it's the awesome Zierer Tivoli Large coaster with it's long train, that's just as long as the name of the ride. And best part was, it went 2 laps! (Didn't expect that to happen on a Six Flags park! [:D]) These rides always stay cool so we had fun.

402: Blackbeard's Lost Treasure Train



After this coaster we re-rode a lot of rides, multiple times. Various times on El Toro, a couple more on Kiddie Kha. At least we've ridden everything possible today. Never expected that to happen this smoothly. But yeah, what are the odds that you'd meet a Dutch friend, in the same shirt, on a completely different trip! This day was a great day to make up the time again we lost yesterday. Tomorrow, Six Flags America. Time for a Vekoma Flying Dutchman! [:D]

Nice pictures! So on GASM, they completely stopped it on the MCBR? Huh... didn't know that.

[Dirk_Ermen]

12th June 2010 ????????? Six Flags America

Today was the final Six Flags park on this trip. It was time for a Premier Lim Bowl, Vekoma Flying Dutchman and one of the 3 SROS clones. The park was open from 10:30 to 9pm. Plenty of time to do everything we want. So we decided to take our time in the morning. Because of that we came into the park around 11:00. It was crowded, but everyone was still in the front side of the park. We flipped open the park map to check where the low capacity coasters were like the Vekoma Flying Dutchman coaster. Just when we did that, a park manager walked up to us and told us about the same information we already knew before entering the park. Batwing low capacity, SROS popular ride, Joker's Jinx mild to low capacity, etc, etc. Oh well. XD



After a LONG walk towards all the back of the park where the first coaster was located. It's the Vekoma Flying Dutchman Rollercoaster. Finally going to ride a more powerful flying coaster than those B&M's. The queue wasn't too extremely long, but since they had only one train running. Because the 2nd train was still in maintainance, the wait was long! After the wait of like 15 minutes and 2 trains seeing departed. It was our turn up next, we took the backseat as a starter. Since the front was already taken. The 2nd generation trains are pretty uncomfortable compared to the 3rd generation trains. Also it was getting used to the weird restraints on how to get in to them the easiest way. The backwards tilting was a funny experience and we had a nice view on the lift hill. The drop was cool, the rolling went smooth. Ride began and it started already much more powerful than any B&M Flying ever felt. The rolling on the back again was cool. Loop provided a good amount of positive g's. Back in flying position it was fun and the inline twists were tons of fun. Helix and than back to lying position. Brakes were a crazy feeling but nothing really uncomfortable. Batwing is a really cool ride, too bad it was running only one train today. They were putting the 2nd train back onto the transfer track, But it was far from finished. Not even the upstop wheels or whatsoever...

403: Batwing







Af the ride we walked back and saw like no queue on SROS. It was bad enough that I could stay seated for 3 times in a row. Sometimes with moving a row but I could stay seated. Trains were okay, if you were riding one again in the back row of each car. In the front row they have still the casing where the middle bar usually goes into. Which makes the room very small and uncomfortable. The 2 rods on the side were okay tho. But why the hell do they have those cheap-ass seatbelts on this ride? You can find these seatbelts about anywhere in the world. Why not the proper Intamin Seatbelts? I guess this shows how cheap-ass Six Flags is doing? The ride was okay but weird. Long straight sections and than the flat turns of course. The first massive long helix was cool. It made my vision go blurry but that could also happen because it was burning hot today and extremely humid! (My shoulders are the proof! ) Cool ride but yeah, the straight section just misses it purpose. The 2nd smaller helix did do nothing to me and ended up being lame to me. One of these should have been enough. I'd rather saw some more twists and turns. The airtime was alright. First drop nice short pop of airtime. The first hill did nothing to me near the front. In the back it had some nice floater. The 2nd hill after the helix was fun tho. Good ejector over the hill, front and back. [:)] The bunnyhills on the end were fun too. Some nice floater and ejector combination. Depending on where you're seated. Cool ride, but from all Intamin Mega Coasters that I've ridden, was this the least fun ride.

404: Superman - Ride of Steel





Up next. The premier LIM bowl coaster. I've ridden some other Premier Rollercoasters and those were extremely fun. So let's see how this one turned out. The queue was long! One reason: Only one train... I guess the same reason, the other train still somewhere in maintainance... They really could have used the capacity today! After the long wait, boarding. Staff really tries to get the mood in with some people but their attempts cost so much of their capacity... Apparently the staff has some tick that they must Hi-5 everyone before even giving the ride clear. Than they are stalling the ride until everyone did what they said: ?????????Everyone hands up or else we're not leaving!?????????. After the ride they lose also precious seconds on capacity because they wait until the ride came to a complete stop. Do again a check if the station is clear. And after that they let the train come back in. It's fine that you'd recheck the safety, but that could also have happened BEFORE the ride came to a complete stop... I didn't clock those people but I'm sure they lose like 1-2 minutes per ride in total on their working speed... That's another full lap through the course they throw away. So yeah, no wonder they had a massive queue...



Anyhow, the ride... Launch was tons of fun. Some inversions. After that the ride went pretty slow for a while. But after the MCBR it picked up it's pace and ended up feeling pretty fast. Tight turns are awesome. Cool rides! I love compact rides anyhow. [:)]

405: Joker's Jinx







Up next was a coaster layout that I've seen before in SFDK, but this time it had the old trains they used on GCI's. I've loved this ride in the backseat, so a good reason to ride this again backseat. Now I can tell that the old trains ru?????????n a lot of the ride. The ride was significantly slower than with Millennium Flyers on the track. So it takes away speed and pacing. Also I remember something that these trains damage the trackwork much quicker than the Millennium Flyers do. Not much to say actually anymore about this ride. All I hope is that Six Flags ever will be smart enough to replace these trains with Millennium Flyers so that this coaster can be ridden with it's full potentional.

406: Roar





Time for one of the catalog coasters again. Yes, it's an Vekoma SLC! No complaints about the ride because these coasters provide the typical SLC experience. But again the staff again was clueless to me. There was an average queue on this ride, roughly around 6-7 trains wait. But they had 2 trains runnning on the track. But they filled up only one train?! WTF?! Also everyone eve had stacking when returning to the station. How hard is it to send an empty train away without stacking? Loading took even longer. In the time they had their train boarded and started to lock the restraints the train could have already ridden the track 2 times. I guess even when you'd burn their asses those people won't run...

407: Mind Eraser





Up next, another Zamperla kiddie coaster. Same ride as yesterday, only with a little more rules aparently... Both legs on one side of the restraint. Gah... There goes my comfort... It did 3 laps! I had fun [:)]

408: The Great Chase



Final coaster left in this park. A good classic wooden coaster. Six Flags brags a bit that they increased the top speed of the rollercoaster and stuff. But this was actually a very fun ride in the front seat. Got some nice ejector air over a couple hills meanwhile you don't get anything more than an floater in the backseat. Also the ending was hilarious to me. The helix with barely any banking and than our first ride without that trim. The laterals were insane! Very fun ride but no top 10 mark for me.

409: Wild One





Six Flags America is a cool park with some nice rollercoasters. But there is a huge downside from this park and that's their extremely slow staff! If a ride was running with 2 trains it had major stacking because the operators take too many time on doing nothing. Luckily the park wasn't extremely crowded since the forecast predicted a thunderstorm later in the evening. Also because the high humidity and extreme heat most people just went to the waterpark. So we still were pretty lucky on that. Another down side was that their wettest water ride was closed for the day. I got told that there was something in the water that they had to drain it out. Sounds like a cause of salmonella to me. There was also some Gospel concert happening today. That was probably the only crowd today, without that. I assume the park would be pretty much empty... We left the park around 5pm, we were sick of waiting in line on all the rides with slow staff, plus we were tired of the heat. (Nowhere was a proper solution to the heat, not even (working) drinking fountains!)



Tomorrow it's off to Washington for some sightseeing. After that we're heading to Kings Dominion for roughly 2 days. See ya until the next TR! [:)]

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by coasterpimp

Nice pictures! So on GASM, they completely stopped it on the MCBR? Huh... didn't know that.

Thanks and yup, apparently it did. I'd rather saw it flying off with still a decent speed.



Giving a final update from the airport. I'm currently waiting for departure to Atlanta. After that I'll be flying back home to an airport just over the boarder. I've had some great time here.

and the people who are waiting on the final 2 TR's from KD and BGW. Don't worry, I'll finish them on the plane and post them when I get back home. Maybe if you're lucky you'd get to see the KD TR already before departure.

[gouldy]

Dirk: how cool is Skull Mountain @ SFGAdv.!? I was so surprised by it. We were expecting some crappy kiddie coaster, and in the back seat it was so awesome!

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by gouldy

Dirk: how cool is Skull Mountain @ SFGAdv.!? I was so surprised by it. We were expecting some crappy kiddie coaster, and in the back seat it was so awesome!

[lol] At least I'm not the only CC member that was surprised by this coaster!

Boarding almost starts. Why do they always mention it again that it's a non-smoking flight. To my knowledge it's prohibited to smoke for a couple of years now on planes! Or do there still fly planes where you are allowed to smoke?

[Dirk_Ermen]

14th & 15th June 2010 ????????? Kings Dominion

Today we had to drive first a couple hours to Kings Dominion from our hotel near Washington. But we had plenty of time, since we're visiting the park 2 days. Eventually we arrived around 1:30pm at the park. The park was open until 8pm. Depending on the crowds it looks like we still could ride everything on the first day.



We headed first towards I305, I heard to many stuff about this ride that I just have to experience it myself. There was barely any queue. Only 2-3 trains wait! Wtf?! I've got to change my opinion of the lifthill supports. When I first saw them on photo's and the animated video I thought it looked pretty ugly. But now that I've seen it IRL it's actually not that bad and looking pretty good. Anyhow, we started off with a ride in the backseat. The lift hill was lovely fast, preparing for a good drop but yeah. Then you'd get those trims. Fine, there goes the nice floater/ejector from the huge drop. The turn at the bottom still pulled some good forces but then the huge hill was just way too slow which resulted in a very slight notice-able floater... Millennium Force can do better than this! After that it's the quick turns and twists. I don't know why but those turns do absolutely nothing to me on this ride. It might be the length of those turns but I just miss the complete out of control feeling here. The fast transitions do provide a nice jolt of ejector air but because these restraints it hurts on the transitions. Especially the final quick twist before and the twist onto the final Brake run took my neck on every lap that I've ridden. Overall opinion: If I'd think those trims away at the start and removing the problems with the transitions. It's still not one of my favorite rides. All this ride does what the name says. It intimidates you... All it currently has is speed and some fast transitions. Without the trims you'd might get some cool ejector over the hills which would improve the ride slightly but definitely not far enough to reach into my top list. Sorry I305 fanboys, but I'd prefer Millennium Force at any time over this ride. Currently this ride is WAY overhyped to my feeling.

410: Intimidator 305



The next coaster was right next to the I305 ride. It's completely indoors so that's always fun. When I read the name of the coaster I knew already exactly what this was. This was going to be another Premier LIM-Bowl coaster. Tons of fun! This ran a little different than the coaster in SFA. It had a loading and unloading station. Also the launch and first part of the ride seemed much faster than on Joker's Jinx, but than again. JJ didn't slow down on the MCBR and FOF did slow it down almost to a complete stop. Damn... Personally the ending on JJ was better because it was going faster than on FOF. [lol] Cool ride tho. The indoor effect and the few spotlights in the ride added a great touch to the ride. I've ridden the ride a couple more times throughout the day.

411: Flight of Fear



The next ride entrance was a small walk, we saw a nice arrow coaster so we queued for it. Very long queueline before we actually reached the station area. The ride was cool. Did only a ride backseat. The tunnel under the water was cool. The loop and immelmann were cool too. Turn onto an MCBR and then almost to a complete stop. [lol] I wonder if the brakes are strong enough in case of an e-stop. When the ride releases it's brakes the first 2 cars of the train are already off the MCBR. [lol] Then we got some weird element which I personally liked. I can't remember it on a different arrow coaster so yeah. 2 more corks which had hangtime and then the ride was over. Too bad I didn't re-ride it throughout the 2 days.

412: Anaconda



Up next: The Launched Intamin Invert. I think this is one of the first Intamin Inverts which was a full circuit. Anyhow, I remember this coaster from some discovery documentaries that I used to watch too many times in the past. The ride starts with a simple slow turn but then you'll be launched suddenly away to a high speed. You'll be taking a turn and then you're launched a 2nd time back into the volcano only to burst out on top. Too bad the fire doesn't go off anymore. Used to be a cool finishing touch. The ride rolls with a decent speed down and those 3 heartline rolls are smooth and fun. Just when you'd expect to get something more you'll drop down into the volcano and the ride is over. Awww! The ride itself is very cool but to my feeling a bit too short. I hoped to get a longer ride since you'd fly into the mountain with a good amount of speed.

413: Volcano ????????? The Blast Coaster



Right next to this volcano there was a mack bobsled. You can never ride enough of these. This was a cool one which had some cool speed throughout the ride. There was even a cool transition near the end. Usually I don't get floater air feelings on mack bobsleds, well. That transition gave a short one to me. [lol]

414: Avalanche



The next coaster was again a short walking distance from the previous coaster. It's a custom premier rollercoaster that used to be named after the Italian Job. Now they probably lost their rights on the name and then they have made some small changes to the ride. Now we have 3 separate colored trains instead of 3 trains with all the same colors in red, white and blue. I only remember this ride from an animation long ago when it was built. Cool to finally ride it in real. Since there was like no queue we started with a ride in the front row, cool launch. Not as powerful as most of the launched coasters but still powerful enough for a family coaster. The helix upwards gave some nice positive g's that kept a nice and long duration. A cool zig-zag between the 2 police cars. Immelmann turn, some nice turns and drops and then you'd get the mid-show. It's okay to see if for the first time. But I'm seriously missing all the effects happening, especially the fire blast that should go off. All you get now is a helicopter that makes shooting sounds. Anyhow, after the little show you'd get the best part of the ride. The short part in the dark is cool but the drop out that tunnel is just awesome. At the top of that drop it has another boost, so it fires you out of that tunnel down that drop. Backseat provides this an awesome ejector air! Too bad about the deceleration at the bottom of the drop again tho. So that's a bit awkward. In overall, a fun family coaster with a very good ejector air at the end of the ride.

415: Backlot Stunt Coaster



Wow, that were a lot of coasters in a small area. Now we had to walk a bit further to ride the next coasters. The first upcoming coaster we walked by was the kiddy wooden coaster. Which ended up being the best wooden coaster of the park to my opinion. It has more variation of g-forces than the rest of the coasters. [lol] It had some ejector on the first drop, good floaters on other drops and even some laterals through the turns. Cool kiddy coaster. Would love to have it in my backyard. [lol]

416: Ghoster Coaster



Since mom met a different mom who needed another mom for her lil kid to ride the ghoster coaster. We asked them a favor to borrow us a kid for the kiddy coaster in the park. Eventually we both got a ride on the kiddy coaster because of them! How awesome! This was one of the better kiddy coasters too! I did enjoy the ride and after 2 laps they asked even for an encore! We won't let that pass, right? So we did a whopping 4 laps on the kiddy required kiddy coaster in this park! [lol]

417: Taxi Jam



During the riding of the kiddy coaster we heard some good B&M Roars. That can be only from one coaster in this park. It's a B&M Floorless and definitely one of the better ones that I've ridden! Not a standard B&M layout. A cool first drop which gave some cool G's in the back. Very nice loop, cool 90 degree turn, a unique turnaround that I haven't seen on any floorless so far. There were some trims before the cobra roll but they weren't activated. So that made me happy. The cobra gave also some good G's. Up the MCBR, going down into the interlocking corkscrews gave completely backseat a nice short pop of ejector. The 2nd backrow was already not much more than pop of floater air. After the interlocking corkscrews you'd get some more track and then the ride is over. The layout was tons of fun to me. Enough reasons for me to re-ride it tons of time when the queue was barely to none. I was also surprised that we were allowed to stay seated in this Cedar Fair park. That's something I didn't expected.

418: Dominator



Time for some woodies, we still have about 4 wooden coaster credits left in this park! We headed to the grizzly, according to the stories a very painful wooden coaster. Because of that mom insisted to ride it in the front. Since usually wooden coasters are smoother in the front. I love it how this coaster is hidden between the trees. There aren't really any spots in the park where you can take good photo's of the layout. But what a rough ride! [lol] The first turnaround went extremely slow, way to build up some tension and after that all hell breaks loose. [lol] The tunnel was very cool but insanely rough on forces and g's. The rest of the ride was just tons of shaking.

419: Grizzly



Up next was the racing coaster of the park. Rebel Yell. Too bad it ran only one side. Right side, blue train. The ride was nice, too bad I missed some serious airtime over all the hills. The only place where you got some airtime was backseat off the first drop and the drop after the turnaround. The next day the ride was still open on one side. Same side open again! Gah... There goes another credit [:(]

420: Rebel Yell ????????? Right / Blue Side



After the disappointing ride on the wooden we saw still another steel coaster left to do. It was one of those death contraptions build by Togo. This was my first togo stand up coaster ever! That's going to be fun. Trackwork looked like it exported straight out of RCT! [lol] There was no queue so that was going to be fun. Boarding was already extremely weird. You'd have to move some restraints out of the way before you can board. Comfort was like zero. [lol] The restraints weren't really made for tall-upper-body-sized people. Anyhow, we dispatched. Very slow lift hill, coming close to Jet-coaster speeds. [:D] Finally, we're at the top. The first part of the ride was okay, until the helix came. I guess the designer of the ride really wanted to have a 90 degree bank somewhere. All hill transitions after that helix. Rough. The 180 degree turn had typical RCT banking. Seriously one of the weirder coasters that I've ridden up-to-date. [lol]

421: Shockwave



Up next was the last wooden coaster credit that I can ride on this trip and what a coaster this was. It looked like a fun ride. Some nice hills, good first drop and a couple flat high speed turns. But when riding it first in the front it seemed too beautiful. Cool first drop but at the bottom you'd have already a trim brake! Wow! That's lame! But it was there for a reason, in the front you'd get a massive lateral shock into the turn. Which is only mild in the backseat. Barely to no airtime over the hills in the front and some slight airtime in the back at a couple turns. Even tho this ride has it's extremely rough sides. It's decent in the backseat so pretty re-rideable [:)] Staff was cool too, they had no problems with re-rides. [lol]

422: Hurler



One final coaster left to do in this park and that was a Mack wild mouse with the 'large park' layout. Aka. The same coaster as in Europa Park, but then with a regular lift hill instead of the elevator lift. It was cool, they used a double load and unload feature. For the rest the ride wasn't that special, the only down side was that it slowed down a lot at some brakes, took out the fun from some of those turns.

423: Ricochet



Since we rode about everything already on the first day with about 2 hours to spare. It was time for re-riding. Some dark clouds were coming up near the end of the day so I tried another ride on I305 in the hope it changed my opinion slightly. Eventually I managed to get the last ride of the day because the upcoming weather. I just got off the ride and they announced they had to shut down! [lol]


[r]Rainbow![r]

2nd day we mostly used for relaxing in the waterpark. We started also at noon in the park so we headed straight for the waterpark that opened at noon. What a crappy waterpark actually... The slides that look fun aren't fun because they didn't smooth out the transitions of the pieces... You'd ru?????????n your entire back on some of the slides. There was only one good fun slide, and that's the tall white one sliding down the funhouse! [:D] [lol]



I didn't really took any pictures from the waterpark. After the visit to the waterpark we went for a couple more hours in the park. Did a tiny marathon on Hurler and Dominator. At 8pm we left to the next hotel near the next park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

[slosprint]

Originally posted by Dirk_Ermen

This ran a little different than the coaster in SFNE.

OMG! SFNE HAS A PREMIER LIM BOWL NOW?!?! I GOTTA GET THERE!!!

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by slosprint

Originally posted by Dirk_Ermen

This ran a little different than the coaster in SFNE.

OMG! SFNE HAS A PREMIER LIM BOWL NOW?!?! I GOTTA GET THERE!!!

Haha lol! Just noticed the mistake.

I guess I was tired when I wrote that down.

Too bad Grizzly was rough for you, it was definitely the best ride there when I went. Night rides on it were up there with Raven.

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by Freddie

Too bad Grizzly was rough for you, it was definitely the best ride there when I went. Night rides on it were up there with Raven.

I wonder what happened with this ride than. It took some good hits during my ride. But layout wise it's pretty good. Some insane air. Too bad I couldn't enjoy it enough because the extreme shaking.
Don't get me wrong here. Usually I don't mind the roughness but this was a little too much.
Hopefully they do something soon about it, since sounding from your experience it used be a lot smoother.

It was definitely rough when I rode it, but not in a bad way. Even the back wasn't bad, with 5 of my 8 rides being there (front had more air, but back felt more out of control). The roughness was actually kind of odd now that I think about it....it was more "gritty" than anything. The train tracked the ride very well and there were no potholes or jack hammering or anything like that, but the ride wasn't smooth (it actually has one of the harshest lateral slams I can think of, coming out of the fan turn in the last row. The tunnel is excellent too). But this was almost 4 years ago, so it probably hasn't had any work since then and now needs it.

[Dirk_Ermen]

16th June 2010 ????????? Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Today was going to be the last themepark of the entire USA tour. Meh... I would have loved to stay longer and visit more parks. Oh well, when we drove up the parking lot we eventually got a 'sorry'-note. Why? Well, Apparently Apollo's Chariot was closed! Noes! Out of all the B&M Hypers on my trip, this was the one that I really was looking forward to. Damn! [:(] We parked our car and went with the little tram to the entrance gate.



The park had a good overall look. Very green and well maintained. We started off at the first coaster we walked up to: The famous loop through loop coaster! That's going to be a cool experience. We took our ride backseat and went up the slow long lift. Pre-drop small turn and then the first big drop. That was cool. Going up for a turnaround for the 2nd drop to the first loop. But suddenly... TRIMS! [lol] The loop effect was weird and cool at the same time. Up next was a helix. At first look it looked like only 1 helix indoors. But when riding I found out there were 2 more hidden in that tiny mountain! [lol] It was a journey through darkness that seemed endless. [lol] And when coming out the helix with some nice speed. Going up a 2nd lift hill, with activated brakes before the lift! [lol] Best way to lengthen the ride duration! [lol] Yay, finally up the top. Another slow turn and then it was time for the 2nd loop. Cool! Up next, final brakes! [lol] Wtf! The ride was definitely fun and not too bad at all. I had good fun on this ride.

424: Loch Ness Monster







After this beautiful monster we walked down the catwalk across the water. You'd get some cool angles from below at the loop. After that it was walking all the way up again at the other side! We were close to Alpengeist but first we went to the indoor darkride: Curse of Darkastle! I heard good stuff about this ride and since it was early there was barely a queue for this ride! Under 5 minutes, that's cool! I've loved these types of darkrides since the first one I saw. (Spiderman @ IOA)Great story and great effects during the ride. I enjoyed every bit. Again definitely one of the better darkrides in the world. Can't wait to see the first one coming to the Europe Mainland.



So up next was the tallest inverted coaster in the world! I remember the coaster from all good ol' documentaties on Discovery Channel. Back since than I'd always wanted to do a ride on it. So we got in line, I guess the whole crowd was somewhere near Griffon. There was totally NO queue for it. We took a ride backseat and we took off. First thing that I noticed when dropping off the MCBR that the brake on top of the lift was activated to kill some speed. In some way it's too bad since it costs like 2-3mph or maybe even more on speed. The first element a cool immelmann. Some awesome theming on one of the roofs. 8 skiing tracks in the snow [;)] Next a cool loop and then we got a huge but powerful Cobra Roll, that snap on the top went so unbelievable fast! It surprised me every ride, it also pulls some good amount of laterals at that point. Twisting back upside down went less fast and with a better controlled laterals, probably different shaping? Since it doesn't matter what row you are in... After a nice zig zag bit the mcbr came up. Slamming up the mcbr with tons of lateral force, we slowed down a lot and went back down again to the zero g roll. Even with all that slowing down it still pulls some good forces through the zero g. Nowhere near zero-G tho... [lol] There was another corkscrew coming up that went nice with the typical B&M snap and the ride finished off with a much slower helix and turn. The speed is suddenly completely gone after that corkscrew. Which is imo too bad since I love a good, powerful ending. Overall the ride was awesome. Too bad mom wanted to ride Griffon a lot of times. So I couldn't ride as much as I wanted... [:D]

425: Alpengeist







After walking around the ride I noticed a bit why the ride snaps and slams at a lot of spots. They used a completely different heartline value for the ride. Looking at the zero g roll for example it looks that B&M used the line of the head (or maybe even higher) instead of the heart? So my opinion is that this ride doesn't have a heartline but a headline. [:D] (yeah, lame. But had to be said. [lol])





Next ride for us to ride is my 3nd Dive Machine on my list. With this ride I've ridden half of all the current B&M Dive Machines in the world! Wow, I wonder how many people could say that. [lol] The ride is basically the same as Sheikra, 2 huge drops. Splash pool and an inversion. Only difference here is. Bit in layout and another immelmann is used for a turnaround element. Both drops are always cool. Good floater all down the seat. Especially when you manage to keep the restraint on it's minimum requirements to be locked. (It's only 1 extra click and than it's closed in the normal position for me. So nothing to worry about. [lol]) Well, the drop is cool, immelmann is okay. Up the mcbr for the next drop. Mcbr is crappy enough to make the train come to a complete stop first. Meh... There goes the little chance of good ejector. Another Immelmann, little cool hill in there for a feeling that comes close to floater air. Splash, turn towards the final brakes. Some awkward hill again with a nasty kink which causes a split second ejector. The ejector is cool bit the sudden kink not. Overall, I gotta say this layout is a bit better than Sheikra. Sheikra was seriously JUST 2 drops and an immelmann. This had a little bit extra. Again JUST 2 drops, 2 immelmanns and a funny hill. Personally, I think it would be cool to see a Dive Machine that does more and has a bit more layout. [:)] But I guess you are going to need a lot of space for that....

426: Griffon







We went to check out a couple more rides in the park. The skyway was a bit lame. It went in a triangle and you HAD to get out at the next station, only to queue again if you wanted to travel to the next station because there doesn't go a skyway in the other direction... Another bad experience with the transportation was with the railway. A train was still at the platform, we are rushing to the platform, got on the platform a lame staff member told us that the train was going to leave now and that we couldn't board anymore! Wtf! There were still enough empty spots so that wasn't a problem. What's even worse was that he told us the next train came in 20 minutes. (And all that time talking to him the train was still there and we could have boarded and departed in that timeframe.) Seriously, how hard is it to let 2 people last minute on the train. It's not that there is a schedule to hold tight to. Also very guest friendly to tell people to wait 20 minutes for the next train when they could have boarded already in seconds... (FYI, in less than 20 minutes time you could easily walk to the next station.)


cool tree!

Anyhow after walking around more we came near Apollo's Chariot. Closed of course. I walked to a staff member who was nearby and I asked since when the ride was down. I got the answer that it was down since a couple days ago and that they are waiting on new parts from B&M. Damn...




*sigh* Closed...

There was a river rapid nearby in that area, I saw people coming off completely soaked, so it was a good idea for me to put all valuable stuff in a plastic bag, roll it up and put it firmly closed in my pockets. The weather was super humid so we could use a refreshment like this. We boarded and had no clue what to expect from the ride. First part of the ride made us slightly wet. So we started wondering what on earth could make people soaked. Well, that didn't took long to figure out. First we were hold up by a short blockage, probably to keep control of the number boat through that section. But then the waterfalls came... Various waterfalls in a row made us completely soaked. That was awesome! On rides like these you'd expect just to get wet because the many big waves... But a good row of small waterfalls that soak at least people in one side of the boat, completely unexpected. I loved it!



Since we were soaked anyhow we went for another waterride. Escape from Pompei. I've know the name from before. But I couldn't from where I've heard the ride. No queue, so why not. We took a spot backseat. Best spot to stay as dry as possible on about any splash boat ride. When I went up and saw the first fire effects all memories came back. I remember seeing it in some random youtube video. [lol] Very cool ride, great fire effect up there. Also some good effects on collapsing. After all the cool effects up there it was drop time. We stayed nice and dry from the drop. But then the evil people on the sideline with the quarter dollar water shooters came. There is one evil one that hits everyone in the boat when you think you're cleared from those. [lol] But we didn't care since we were wet anyhow.





Last credit for me to catch in this park was found in the kiddy area. Sesame Street, that's like ages ago that I've watched it on tv. [lol] Up to the kiddy coaster there was just no queue at all. Saves me time again in this section. [lol] Very cool Zierer Force coaster. I don't know this layout so I think it's a custom one. Only one lap, that's too bad. Now the boarding takes like twice or even three times as long as the ride itself. Cool final coaster credit of the trip.

427: Grover's Alpine Express





To finish the day off we finished with tons of re-rides on Alpengeist and Griffon. (Griffon was mom's choice. Alpengeist was mine [;)]) Seriously too bad about Apollo's Chariot, I heard that this was one of the better B&M Hypers out there. The positive side is that I'd possibly return sometime to ride it after all. [:D]







Oh... When we exited the park we saw like tons of fireflies. That's cool since we have never seen those irl! They didn't light up very long at the time of closure but still very awesome to see green lights going on and off in all the bushes! [lol]


Find the green light! [lol]



17th June 2010 - Return Flight

Only a couple pictures from our flight back home:

Atlanta!


Soaring through the sky.


Beautiful!


Look! Another plane!


And it's landing too! Best way of airplane spotting evah! [lol]


I hope everyone has enjoyed reading all my TR's from my holiday through the states. Thanks to everyone who I met up with. These were awesome days! I've had tons of fun, a bunch of new experiences and as expected: A changed top 10 list! [:)]

Sorry Apollo wasn't open for you manne!

[Dirk_Ermen]

Originally posted by griffonluv

Sorry Apollo wasn't open for you manne!

hehe, say hi to the cool operators from griffon. They had tons of fun with their beatboxing and attempts to beatbox through the intercom.