SFA 2005 Trip Reports (Starting 4/17)

I hope there is not too long of a line and it doesn't break down

Ok i plan to go to SFA this saturday,july 2 and i really want to ride batwing but it always breaks down but this saturday i am going to ride it. Should that be like the first thing we ride? And i hope there is not too long lines. But i don't want to have to run just to get on the ride.

Whenever I am there, its fine, knock on wood. I'm going tomorrow through Friday. Question: On ME and TF, am I allowed to take off my sandals, put them in the cubby holes, and ride barefoot?? That may sound stupid, but I want to wear my Birkenstock sandals, and not have them fly off. Thanks.

Yep, you can take your shoes off on both of those coasters

Batwing first thing in the morning usually doesn't have a long line. Everyone usually heads to Superman first.

*** Edited 6/29/2005 5:25:18 AM UTC by coasterguts***

Yea, I was there today,the park was just about dead. Be there through Friday,only there today 3 hours, but got on S:RoS 12 times, BAtwing once, and JJ once,and became friends with the two coolest ride ops on S:RoS. I will do a TR sometime after Friday.

im going to go on saturday and i think batwing is going to be good i hope

Why do you always say your going to SFA and never write TR's? I meen you don't have to but you always say your going, atleast one TR would sound kinda cool. :D

-Colin-

*** Edited 6/30/2005 5:05:44 AM UTC by Colin Fisher***

Yeah, which ride ops coastergurl? Most of them at least recognize at this point, I know them by name but they just know me as the guy that waits in line to ride Superman for 8 hours (before the ride opened for the season).

Costerguts, lets just say that they look alike, and there sister is an op. on Batwing.

I have to say, they are the bst ride ops ever.

BTW, I always do TR's.

lol, coastergurl I was talking to hellokitty. But anywho, heres how my day went. July 2nd.

Got to the park when the park opened to people at 10, but we waited about 15 minutes for everything to open were they rope you off. My brother and I wanted to go ride BB since we hadn't been since HH opening and BB wasn't working then. Get there, pass by tornado, no line, so we get a ride. Going down backwards on Tornado is five times better then going forwards! Went on Torndao twice then checked BB. As we go to get our wheelie for BB, the big *Macho* lifeguard came down (BTW this lifeguard was a woman but acted like she owned everything in the park, maybe head lifeguard?) Anywho, said they are not opening it, just our luck. Head over to HB for a awesome wave set. Then over to the lazy river. Is it me, or is this the slowest lazy river ever? I meen, a lazy river is a lazy river, all the same thrill, but it was incredibly slow flowing.

BB opens, we head over. NO one knows were the entrance for this slide is! Hello! It's under Tornado, they all enter through the exit. Anywho, we do what everyone else does, figures since we would look like complete idiots since the 30 other people walked up through the exit. Get to the catch pool, no rafts. Turns out that SFA needs to buy LOTS of more proslide rafts for there new slides. But that didn't stop us. We waited, then like 5 people just get in front of us and take the raft rite before us....HELLO we were here first, I yelled I scream and fianally got my way when I totally lost control. (I don't need to go over details, lets just say there was no blood or violence, it was ALL verbal!) We get our clover (No wheelie since my dad got into his bathingsuit and wanted to try the new slide. We get up, only about 7 minutes from the bottom of the start of the stairs to the top, I would say thats extremely good.

Bahama Blast - Overall this slide is definently what SFA aimed for. It delivers to us thrill seekers, but is also family friendly. It's mellow, but also fast and furious at the same time. The tunnel is *Pitch Black* no light what-so-ever. In the end, BB is a ride that delivers.

Buccanear Beach was open to the public...BIG hit with the tots and little ones. After BB we hit all the other slides, but Shark Attack wasn't open quite yet. Water Flowing, and a guard at the bottom, just no one was aloud up.

After all that we dryed off and headed into the theme park. First ride, ROAR! Ok, Ok, I'll admit it, this is the only ride today I encountered were I wanted to kick the ride ops ASS! Heres what goes down...lol. We get up the ramp, no line at all, back seat, walk on. Get in our seat. Then the ride op on the right side, goes and talks to the op at the controls. He never closes the gates. The ride op on the left about two minutes later yells. "If You Don't Feel Like Closing The Gates Whenever You Feel Like It, Then Ill Check The Restraints When I Feel Like It." I turned around with what my brother calls, "The Evil Look" and yell "Just shut the hell up and check my restraint and get us out of here!" She gives me a look, comes up walking all snotty, checks it, and moves down the row. By this time its already been over 5 minutes. "Dispatch," Finally! when we go over the pre-hill part I yell, "Too F****ING SLOW! The op at the controls gave me a dirty look, o well we most likely won't see him ever again.

ROAR has inproved this year, not as rough and not as bad in the last turn around, this season I would acually wait for this coaster, last season, hell no! Then another SFA wonder happens, we hit the break run, and what do you know, the next set of riders gets into the train, then 5 seconds later, they all get out....10 minutes on the break run with the restraint the op pused way to far down against my, *Jewels* shall we call them ;). Anywho we get off, and I promise that was the only bad experience we had all day.

Next Superman, 5 minutes although it was almost to the entrance, I gotta hand it to the Superman Ride ops, they really did do a quick job, the trains only had to sit on the break run for maybe 30 seconds, which is good with those damn Intamin restraints. Ok, I take back what I said about Superman running slow, with the extra heat during the summer, its smooth as silk and fast over those last bunny hops, airtime in all seats. We hit the break run, ok I said last bad thing, I would consider this bad, but this experience turned out to be good. Anywho, we hit the break run, and they send out the blue train, about 20 feet up the lift hill...Cla CLINK! the dog chain catches the train and the all the lift hill lights shake back and fourth. Dunno what happened, but EVERYTHING just stopped. It was acually kinda cool because it was totaly silent around Superman except the every 3 minutes JJ would launch. Any who, the ride ops run up to the lift hill train check to see if everyone is ok, visa-versa with us. In the end, it was only about 10 minutes, the Mechanics were really fast. But I had a really good chat with a cool ride op. And a security guard. And also, I noticed that Batwing, was acually running two trains in one side of the station, and it was efficiant!

The Security guard was watching for line cutters, he caught the ones that cut us and made them walk all the way back and wait like everyone else. I gave him a little pat on the back (not real of course) for that, He told me that, no one likes ride cutters, especially not me! I was like thank God for someone like you! He also told about 4 people to put out ciggeretes (I have asthma BTW, and I react easily to ciggerete smoke, that was another big plus for SFA Security) All in all the ride ops made the Superman break, a fun one (minus those Intamin restraints).

For those of you wondering, Krypton Comet was still down, with lots of side panels off the ride. Does this relate to the other chaos accident a while ago? Who knows. And that was the only ride broken. All lines were full, and they kept them moving (minus ROAR). And the highlight of the day, was Sky Coaster. My Dad, finally gave is the OK to ride it. He's superstitous (<--Spelling) about the cable snapping. He made me fork over the 20 bucks for two people (We had 5 dollars off from our season pass booklet). Now, this was my first time ever on any type of sky coaster, so I didn't know what to expect. First of all, they didn't ask me for my weight (I'm kinda shy about that hole topic if ya' no what I meen ;). The ride ops were really cool, interacting with the guests for once. OMG the ride up was so suspencefull. My brother made me pull the orange line. Ye Haw! Sky Coaster is awesome, It would be better if we didnt have to fork over that 20 bucks everytime though, but o well.

Did the usual after that, more flats, TSC opened and cloased all day, but we got a run. Another reason they might not run that ride is because it needs lots of staff, 4 staff throughout the ride course on turn tables and such and 3 in the station usually. Iron Eagle, running a good program. After flats we hit some waves at HH. JAMMED PACKED! solid people, just an ocean of bodies. HH is totally sucking in the money this season, there is no way that they can't make a resonal profit with all these people. It was unbeliveable, you just had to be there to belive it. Tons, just hundreds and hundreds of people. Not one sun chair was open, all taken, and all rides had full lines, even Deer Park Plunge. But what made me mad was people would take Deer Park Plunge rafts and use them on all they rides.

Anyways, I could go on. The day recived a B. The ride ops on ROAR were just to slow, and Superman breakdown was un nessisary. Over all the park was Super Clean! and all the ride ops were nice. (Except the ROAR rides ops of course). And BTW, the third over flow parking lot was almost full when we left (4:00). SFA is really racking in the money, because there was still a huge line for tickets when we left. And people were still flooding into the parking lot.

-Colin-

Krypton Comet was down before they began having all of the problems with the other Chaos rides. The sad thing is Krypton Comet is usually one of the more reliable rides in the park, but when it goes down, it goes down for good. Perhaps I-Fan can fill us in a little bit on why it might take so long to fix the ride.

I'm heading out tomorrow for a few hours and I might torture myself and go for a few hours on Monday just to see what a 4th of July is like at SFA.

*** Edited 7/3/2005 1:12:56 AM UTC by coasterguts***

I wish I knew what was taking so long with KC. It's quite the complex ride. There's a lot of stuff you don't notice from the queue, like the pit underneath the ride that has a lot of the mechanics to power the ride. But, it appears that they are working on the top half of the ride, and that could all be electrical in nature.

Me, my friend Matt, and his friend John visited yesterday, 7/1. We spent at least three hours in Hurricane Harbor. The only thing not operating that concerned us (the left half of Buccaneer Beach appeared to be closed) was the green slide of Deerpark Plunge. The water temperature was fantastic. The lifeguards were also much better yesterday. It's when we crossed into the themepark later on that things weren't as good. The ride ops just don't seem to care about the guests that pay them their income. There's just way too much fooling around, especially among the girls. As night was falling, the humidity increased too due to impending storms to the west, and the last thing you want to be doing is waiting in a station for much longer than normal because people aren't doing their jobs.

The only other comments I'd make was that we were just a little bit pissed off that we just missed the cutoff for Typhoon Seacoaster. It is so stupid that it closes at dusk. Why? Give me one good reason. Because it gets cold? Give me a break, it was still 85 degrees and humid. We wanted to get wet, ok? I also learned that there was no one at the HH locker rental after they closed, even though I could still get my stuff. I went to Guest Relations first, who then sent to me where they rent the strollers, and still got my $2 back. I think they should post a sign at the rental booth after they close.

I belive TSC closes at dusk is because it needs so many people to run it in certain places and there arnt big lights throughout the ride. At one point a person needs to be inside one of the tunnels watching a turn table, which has no lights, so it would be pitch black. There are also no lights on in the turn table rooms, and its just to much of a hassle to unload if it breaks down at night. Which happens frequently already during the day.

-Colin-

P.S. thats just an assumption, it's not fact ;).

I got 2 rides on TSC, both during the day. I like this ride, I wish that it were open more often.

Well, my day was pretty good as well. I got four rides in on Superman in under an hour, would have been six except everytime I tried Superman in the front row on the red train, they would get an air gate error on the console and had to restart the ride. Bottom line, no rides in the front row on Superman today. Argh! I will say Superman is giving kick but rides on the front row of the blue train. It still seems the further back you go, the ride isn't as fun.

Overall, the park was cleaner than my last visit. All though I still wouldn't eat off the ground in the Superman queue. The red train on Wild One seemed to be going up the lift slow and didn't seem to be giving as impressive a ride as in the past, don't now why and the trim brake before the helix seems to be grabbing earlier and tighter than in the past. Loved the new signs hanging over the queue.

Roar was giving kick but rides as well, it seems the track was greased and the turn into the brake run did seem smoother and not so jarring. The Roar crew does seem to take the cake when it comes to laziness. The ride op seemed energetic but the folks checking the restraints this morning needed an i.v. of Jolt pumping into their body.

The water park was once again packing them in. When I left today, every ticket booth (not every window, just every booth) was being used except for the one closest to the group sales building, with lines extending into the parking lot. The cabanas have finally opened and look pretty neat. Each one has two chaise lounge chairs, and a couple of chairs under the tent with a little end table. The price today was $55 and a couple had been rented.

Here is a picture of the new cabanas for those that haven't seen them and a picture of the new sign hanging over the queue for Wild One.

http://www.sfafans.org/DSCF0060.JPG
http://www.sfafans.org/DSCF0052.JPG

If you already haven't heard, a 27 year-old woman died on one of the Shark Attack slides yesterday (7/4) due to a heart attack. She was found floating at the bottom of the catch pool, and obviously CPR didn't work. I've submitted the story to the news. If you want to read the small article, you have to register over at washingtonpost.com

It just boggles my mind how anyone could have a heart attack in that small of a timeframe. Either slide takes 30-seconds or less to reach the bottom. It sounds like from the article that she was on the fully-enclosed slide, so maybe it was fear of the dark that got her?

Are you kidding? I just started a topic about the 27 year old, no one replyed to this before I stared the topic...Sorry!

-Colin-

It boggles my mind as well I-Fan... I've thought of countless but the one that I keep coming back to is choking on gum or something to that effect. Oh well, I don't want to speculate anymore than I already have. It doesn't do anyone any good. *** Edited 7/5/2005 11:39:11 PM UTC by coasterguts***

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coastergurl said:
Costerguts, lets just say that they look alike, and there sister is an op. on Batwing.

I have to say, they are the bst ride ops ever.

BTW, I always do TR's.

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Let me just say that I too met this ride op! Wow, I also agree that she was the best SFA ride op I saw, and that is NOT saying a lot.

SFA proved to me that I COULD in fact have a bad theme park experience and proved that I could go a day without seeing a ride hit interval.(20 minutes on the Mind Eraser brakerun without a breakdown is not what I consider efficient.)