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A bunch of my classmates down here at Baylor Law School decided to use our Good Friday holiday to make a trip to SFoT. We arrived at the park at about 10:30 and the line to get into the parking lot was a foreboding sign. After getting parked we headed for the entrance. Since many of my friends did not have tickets we had to wait about 30 minutes in line to get tickets, it was just the beginning of our waiting. We decided to head for the Titan/Texas Giant area first. One of my friends is a newbie to coasters and just didn't think he could start with Titan so we did the Giant first.
Texas Giant- The queue line was all the way outside the normal queue path into the main walkway area. I figured it would be close to an hour and a half and I was right on. Luckly we had lots of conversation about the hells of law school to discuss and there was beautiful weather to enjoy. When we finally got on the ride I was slightly disappointed. The Giant is one of my favorite woodies but it is very tempermental. Today was not a good day, and it was quite rough. I've noticed later in the day is better for the Giant, but when your with a big group, you have to go with the concensus.
Titan- After the Giant we were able to convince my friend to ride Titan. My main selling point was that this coaster was smooth. The line was backed up to a point I have never seen before, but the high capacity of this coaster allowed us to get on in an hour and a half. I rode the second to back row and allowed some friends to get the back row. One of my law school buddies that was riding with me freaked out at the top of the lift and he turtled for the drop. It was hilarious, he ducked down and got into a fetal position as best he could with the lap bar. It was a reaction I had never seen before. Meanwhile, I had my hands up (at least until the bottom of the second drop when the G's pulled them down for me) and was just enjoying the ride. I don't know how many G's this thing pulls, but I know that I always lose the ability to see in the first helix. The problem was further complicated this day by some foreign object flying into my eye on the ride. All in all most liked the ride including our previously scared newbie friend.
Lunch-McGhee's Gator Cafe?-After Titan we were all pretty hungry and decided to eat. The lines were crazy at all of the eating establishments, but I decided I wanted to eat at the Gator Cafe next to Runaway Mtn. The line was insane and they actually set a queue up for it, this wasn't the situation the other times I have been there. Our group split up at this point as some wanted to look for shorter food alternatives. My 3 friends and I decided to stick it out and were rewarded with another hour and a half wait. We figured a wait that long should include a ride at the end, but we only received our lunch as a reward. The food is good, which should be a requirement after making people suffer that long in line.
B:TR-After lunch we headed for Gotham City. Mr. Freeze was stilled closed, which only added to the line for Batman. The line started pretty much at the entrance to the Gotham City area. I knew it was going to be a long wait, but really everything was a long wait this day. The sun was pretty hot this day, and we started taking wagers on whether anybody would lose the dehydration race. Fortunately, the placement of soda machines about half way through the line prevented anybody from earning the dubious distinction. We finally reached the loading platform after 2 hours. The line for the front row looked like another hours wait so we took the last row. This would be Chris' first invert and first inversion, so we were breaking him in to coasters pretty good. Even though this coaster has been cloned out the wazoo I still love it. The only thing I hate is how short it is, I got spoiled with Alpie all last year, but it really seems short after waiting two hours. Still all in all it is a great ride and is intense from beginning to end. Our friend thought that it was incredibly scary and intense, my thought was what he would think of Freeze if it was open!!
Well after the wait for Batman it was pushing on 6 o'clock. We were a little bummed about only getting to ride 3 rides after being in the park for seven hours, but our energy had been sapped so that we didn't want to do anymore hour plus waits. We took a look at Shockwave and Titan to see if we could get on in a reasonable time, but both still had very long lines so we decided to call it a day. Before we left we had to get some Dippin Dots. To our surprise the first Dippin Dot stand we went to was closed, so we headed to the next and told him that the other was closed. He said that it was so busy that they had sold out, and that in fact the only flavor he had left was vanilla, and not much. I couldn't believe how crowded the park was all day. My wife and I did BGW last year on July 4 and it wasn't nearly this bad. I vowed never to do a holiday again. We decided we would have to return on a weekday sometime, as we were dejected by our low ride count for the day. All in all it was a much better day than class would have been, and a welcome relief from the moot court tournament we were all in need of escape from.
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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.
I know only too well how bad it can get on crowded days. My first visit to SFoT was in 1971. I have gone to the park hundreds of times since then and though a lot had changed, one thing has not.......huge crowds SUCK! lol
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TITAN RULES!
*** This post was edited by DAN-EL on 4/7/2002. ***
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