Associated parks:
None
My first impression of the park as I got close to the parking booths was Six Flags America was going to have a busy day! Of course, the first order of business was using the bathroom prior to getting in line to get inside the park. For those of you that don't know this, here is a little tidbit about the bathrooms. There are a set of seldom used and little known bathrooms outside the main gate by the group sales office next to the Paradise Island midway. After my bathroom adventure, I headed to the main gate and waited in line 15-20 minutes to get through security. Security was checking the bags pretty thoroughly as you entered the parking. Meticously going through each pouch. Nice to see since I heard complaints on several coaster boards about the lack of security as you enter the park.
Once inside the park (by the way, I was on some medication that time to time made me dizzy so, I decided early on not to ride any coasters with loops, or lots of g's so bare with my descriptions) I headed for Roar! first, Roar was roaringly great today. The crew was dispatching the trains pretty quickly and I had only a one train wait. Not bad for a amusement park whose front parking lot was half full one hour after opening. I rode in 4.2 of the black train (my favorite train) and thought the ride was excellent, I hate the fact it ended so quickly.
Next up was a trip over to Penguin's Blizzard River(PBR). While walking past Typhoon Sea Coaster (TSC) I peeked over the wall to see if it had any water in the concrete bed. Nope! Don't look like TSC was going to open today. More on that later.
Heading over to PBR, I noticed the line for Joker's Jinx wasn't to bad, perhaps 15-30 minutes, both trains were running. Dispatch time didn't seem to be spread out to far. Wanted to ride but remembered the sensation of dizziness I felt while driving to work in rush hour traffic on Thursday morning and decided to forgo a trip on JJ till next weekend.
After surveying JJ, I hit PBR. The line was somewhat slow moving but moving. The misters are turned on, the Penguin's Spray Rays are working. After a 45 minute wait, I board a raft with a couple of people who purchased Fast Lane passes (they felt they got their money's worth) and a little boy. The newly refurbished with seat belts 1st year model flotation contraption whisked me up the lift hill. On the way up the lift hill, I noticed between 3-4 warning signs reminding me not to stand up. Hmmmm.... new seat belts, new signs warning me not to stand up... Ride didn't open with seat belts... Something tells me, someone, somewhere decided to stand up on one of these kinds of rides and thus the reason why we now have seat belts. Once I reach the peak, I begin spinning all the way down the ride. Needless to say I fogot about the meds I was on and when I was done, didn't need the meds to get me dizzy, I was plenty dizzy (dizzier than normal). I managed to get wet a couple of times and the Penguin's missed me. I believe the ride line was long because they were not using all of their floats. Two or three were sitting under the ride getting retrofitted with lap belts (IMO).
While I was waiting in line in PBR I noticed S:ROS was stuck on the left hill and didn't return to action while I was at the park. Once again, the blue train was put back on the transfer track and they were working on the red train. This was around noon and I left the park at 3:00 so the ride was down for at least three hours. Anyone know why S:ROS is having so many problems this season? A quick check on Batwing showed them running one train. I didn't walk all the way down to the station to check on the line. So I begin to think to myself, great, now what am I going to do. I quickly decided, this is not going to ruin my day. I beginning thinking (outloud, complete with people starring at me) SFA has 100's of rides, shows and attractions. My fun will continue!
After my revelation, I decided to ride Wild One. On my way to Wild One, I check up on Two Face, the line appeared to be about 30-45 minutes long). I finally arrive at Wild One. Wild One was such a great coaster last season and this season, it's ok. Everyone raves about how good this old coaster is. But for me, it has lost something. Again, I queue up for the line (approx 15 minute wait) and I ride in seat 4.1 of the red train. Perhaps this is the problem. I think the blue train runs better. But the red train seems like it only goes 45 mph and the blue one runs at 55 mph. Well the ride is over before I know it and I'm left trying to decide what I'm going to do. It's 1:30, time for lunch. I decide to eat at Pizza's of Eight (whose Pizza I have grown to like this season) and perhaps catch the Batman Stunt Show. WRONG!!!
I get over to Pizza's of Eight and wait 15 minutes to get to the counter. This annoyed me greatly. There are four registers at Pizza's of Eight. Only one cashier was working the front of the line. While waiting in line, another cashier shows up, but she takes 10 minutes to count her change and chit chats with the manager the whole time. So I end up missing the Batman Stunt Show. ARRGGHHH !!!
After eating my Pizza, I decide it's time to finish out my day. I grab two dollars in quarters and head for Renegade Rapids with the sole mission of squirting unsuspecting subjects with water. I have this down to a science now. As several boats go by and I hit each raft dead on, people begin to notice, and I begin to train others in the proper technique of water canyon blasting. This one group of people and I band together to blast all eight of the water canons at one time and hit each of their kids head on. What a blast (no pun inteneded) I had.
Okay, so I went to SFA by myself. Usually my wife of almost three blissful years (yes, she is standing over my should as I write this) comes with me and goes to the wave pool, but, because she is a school teacher that must be out of her classroom by 4p.m. on June 20th, she was at school disassembling her room (trust me, I thought about her all the time). So I visited the water park real quick to check on the water temperature of the wave pool. Took my sandals off and dodged the gauntlet of people exiting the pool for the 15 minute water break at 2:45, when I notice the lifeguards pulling a unconscious lifeguard from the water. What's this, a unconscience lifguard, this is, well, unconsciencable. Turns out they were just drilling but they managed to draw a rather large crowd of onlookers worried about the poor lifeguard. I wanted to administer the CPR, and be the good samaritain, but they said they had it under control (yes she was female).
So this is how I had fun at SFA. Oh, one last thing. All of the flats were running except TSC, including Tower of Doom (with only two sides). I asked the manager about TSC and they said they don't know when it is going to open. Ride Maintenance has not turned the ride over to Ride Operations. Looks like I may go another season without riding TSC.
A great day for me at SFA. Hope to see you at SFA soon!
------------------
www.sfafans.org
About S:ROS I don't know what's going on with it but it did operate for the remainder of the day following at least two more breakdowns,I noticed that on testing the trains were advancing really slowly,almost crawling in fact into the station.
What time were you over at RR? I was in line & riding it at about 3:30 or so & didn't see anyone over at the water cannons,needless to say I did get soaked by the ride itself though & after trying to dry off by riding WW I ended up getting soaked again by the heavy rains that came over the park.
Oddly enough at about 20 minutes to park closing they shut down all the rides for some reason,I was in line hoping to get one last lap on S:ROS but they all of a sudden began shutting every ride in the park down what's up with that? also for anyone interested Iron eagle got stuck in mid air yesterday but at least no one was on it at the time.
You must be logged in to post