Disneyland or California Adventure?

I've got two and a half unplanned days in San Francisco anyway in addition to my trips to SFMW and PGA.
-R

Public transit to the Bay Area parks from SF will be a huge hassle, especially PGA.

At least for SFMW, you have the one option to take a ferry from Fisherman's Wharf for a pretty reasonable price, and get a very nice and scenic cruise out of it:

http://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/html/six_flags_marine_world.html

For PGA, don't have any good suggestions. The park is a good 45 miles from SF, with no direct public transportation. You might want to look into some sort of bus tours, but other than that, plan on spending a few hours on trains and buses to get there.

Personally, if you don't rent a car to get there, I'd consider skipping PGA. Really the only stand out ride in the whole park IMO is Top Gun, which is the smallest B&M invert ever built. Vortex, the smallest B&M stand up ever built, is as rough and painful as any Vekoma coaster. So if you've been on others, seems like a huge hassle and expensive excusion IMO for a handful of mediocre rides in a mediocre at best park.

http://www.pgathrills.com/attractions_rides.jsp

Or as janfrederick suggested, check out the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, the jewel of the NorCal parks. Total throwback in time, with a great collection of new and classic rides. The Monterey Bay ocean views and old time atmosphere of the Boardwalk can't be beat.

http://www.beachboardwalk.com/

*** Edited 4/7/2004 10:34:45 PM UTC by jomo***

How does one get to the Boardwalk from San Francisco via public transport? Or can it be done? I'm trying to avoid renting a car here to avoid the under-25 tax.

While I realise getting to PGA will be an effort, I nonetheless do want to visit it in order to complete my list of having ridden all seven B&M Stand-Ups (how sad is that!). I've still got the last one to be built left to do (Georgia) but I'm anticipating a work trip to Atlanta at some point in the next year or two, which should finish things off :)

I had one of the best days of my life at Disneyland. DCA is nice, but I can't imagine being within 500 miles of Disneyland and not going back. The whole place is just 100% perfection to me. Especially after spending a few very crowded days at the Magic Kingdom a few weeks ago.

If you're not going to be back in the area I might try really hard to do both parks. Maybe try to get in all the classics at DL and then hit the big stuff at DCA, especially at night. You don't want to miss DCA at night.

I think you can take Caltrain from San Francisco to VTA (Silicon valley's public transportation). I am not sure of the linkup, but you can check Caltrains website.

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While I realise getting to PGA will be an effort, I nonetheless do want to visit it in order to complete my list of having ridden all seven B&M Stand-Ups (how sad is that!).

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Totally understandable! I still have to make it to PCW to complete my list of having ridden all the North American Arrow Suspended Coasters, a personal favorite of mine!

At the bottom of this link are your options to get to PGA via public transit:

http://www.pgathrills.com/visit_directions.jsp

Because of it's location, the SCBB is even more difficult to get to by public transit. You can check out some of the options in the above link, they may have something that I'm not aware of.

Come to think of it, after this trip I'll have only three out of ten Arrow suspendeds left to do... the ones in Korea and Japan, which will have to wait. I've done the UK one.

Hire a car and take 101 down to Santa Cruz if you're heading that way. There is simply no other way to do that part of the country. If you're anything like me, you'll be stopping ever 15 minutes to take photos because of the amazing scenery.

It's only a few hour trip each way and there's loads of nice stuff to see all the way. Call in at Pebble Beach (there's a toll to get into the area, nothing too much) and check out the golf course and very nice houses in the area - the staff at the golf course are nice and will let any reasonably dressed tourist in to have a poke around, provided nothing big is on. *** Edited 4/8/2004 9:05:07 AM UTC by auscoasterman***

...and all this time I thought PGA stood for "Paramount's Great America"...;)

I'd say do the 2 for one deal and see both parks, but that expires at the end of April and will not be available when you are here.

So we are down to one park. It comes down to what you are looking for I guess. If you are just looking to add to a track count you could get 3 credits (or 4 if you count each side of Matterhorn) at DL but you could get only two at DCA.

ToT @ DCA will probably be a good E-ticket type attraction, but then again, so is Indy at DL.

You'll be doing the latest versions of HM and Pirates in Paris...but it might be fun to visit the originals while you are here so DL would win. And the Matterhorn isn't at any other park although neither is Calif. Screamin. Still...I think Matterhorn is more of a classic. It was the first modern steel tube coaster, so it's historical for a coaster enthusiast.

So if a choice must be made...I'd say go with Disneyland. It's more magical, it's the original and there are some historical things to see there as well.

I agree with auscoasterman. Get a rental car. Specifically, take Skyline boulevard down the crest of the Santa Cruz mountains all the way to the 9 West which heads into Santa Cruz. Take the coast (Hwy 1) back up.

I'm telling you, skip the other parks up there and hang out in San Francisco for a couple of days. You'd be missing a great opportunity if you didn't. You can have great amusement/theme park experiences just about anywhere in the country. But you can't ride a cable car halfway to the stars anywhere else. Think about it.

For what it's worth, I ended up doing both. I spent most of my day in California Adventure. Illustrated trip report here -

http://www.bannister.org/coasters/trips/200406-reports/

Richard

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ShiveringTim said:
mmmmm...Blue Bayou Monte Cristo (drool)

Three words why you should go to DL rather than DCA:

Matterhorn. Matterhorn. Matterhorn.

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Quoted for truth, Seconded, Agreed etc..

This is the absolute best ride in the park, by all means.

California Screamin' makes DCA worth it, though.

I'm glad you went to both. Very good decision. I can't wait to get back out there, I love the Cali Disney parks.

edit: I kan spel gud *** Edited 6/25/2004 3:26:24 PM UTC by Raven-Phile***

Not sure if missed something or not, but did you actually skip the best ride (IMO) in the entire resort, The Indiana Jones Adventure? Certainly hope not, alone almost worth the price of admission.

Gr8 TR, and sorry to hear about your Tragic Mountain visit. It is too bad because they do have some excellent coasters, but I can understand how the shoddy operations could ruin anyone's visit. It's alot more fun in the off season when it's not so busy, try another visit then if you can.

Don't know if you've made it SFoG yet, but of the 6 B&M standups I've ridden, Scorcher was my fav. (though trimless Mantis gave it a run for its money). Scorcher felt like the B:TR of standups: A little tighter and lots more intense. It also had scary good air on the first drop in the back...weird.