SFGAM 7-13 *Long*

Since I was 16 I've been an enthusiast, but last season I decided to take a year off of riding coasters. After riding so many so often they just became Blas'e. Anyways, A friend of mine works at SFGAm and asked if I wanted a ride there with him, I figured I might as well because I had nothing else to do.

I arrived at the park 9:30, my first time back to a park in a year and bright and early. I figured I might as well buy a season pass since it pays for itself in two visits. No line at the ticket booths and I quicky paid the hefty $89.60. Expecting to recieve the usual normal-looking ticket to get inside the park, they gave me a receipt looking thing to fill out. My only complaint is that its much easier to lose/destroy.

I entered the park through the season pass early bird gate which was nice because I really didn't feel like waiting in line forever. My two second attention span took ahold of me so I figured I'll have a cigarette. Oh wait. "After 45 years, Six Flags has STOPPED smoking". Great. After 10 minutes of searching I finally found the "designated smoking area". It doesn't really bother me that this new policy is enforced, it just is hard to get use to/locate the areas throughout the park.

Anyways, 10 minutes till park opening and they had the usual 80's-style song/dance. Extremely corny, but it seems like all the kids were pretty enthused. Mission accomplished Mark Shapiro.

The rope is dropped and everyone is doing the mile run towards everything. I decided I was too lazy to run and walked over to Raging Bull. Rode last row, outside seat. As usual the airtime off the first drop is great, but it hit every trim. Pretty lackluster.

After Bull, I walked over to see if Deja Vu was open, and yes it was. This is the only ride in the entire park that is still thrilling to me, so I was excited that it was open with a five minute wait. Even with the short wait they still had someone grouping which sucked because I was stuck with an inside seat. Looks like Vu can only operate with maintenance personnel standing by because the train miss-parks almost every cycle. Props to Vekoma for their high standards of engineering. They can design a pulley system that lifts a 3-ton train 191 feet in the air at 10 m.ph., yet struggle with stopping the train within a 2 foot radius. Anyways, the ride was great and intense as usual.

Next, I rode American Eagle Red. Looks great with the new paint, but seems to me it's alot rougher this season. I figured I might as well take two "beatings" in a row, so I walked over to Iron Wolf. The first thing I noticed were the new harnesses. Although they look much better than the old ones, they're ultra-stiff. The ride was O.K., and my ears definitely took a beating.

I walked through Yukon Territory and stopped at V2. Boring. A 65 m.p.h. top speed after two swings just doesn't compare with a 120 m.p.h. launch in four seconds...

Batman was next, same good ride as usual. Reached the Mari Gras area and stopped to take a look at Ragin Cajun. I really don't understand why/how they operate with five cars. Capacity must be horrid. King Chaos didn't look very appealing, those Huss harnesses are the worst.

It was around 11:30 now, and getting pretty hot/humid. Also, the lines were getting kind of long aleady. Superman had a 30 minute wait, for some reason I still enjoy this ride. Seems like they somewhat fixed the rattling problem at the bottom of the first drop.

At 12:00 all the lines were getting long, and I was hungry so I called it a day. Even though I didn't get as many rides as I expected it was still enjoyable. Props to the employees for keeping the park looking great and especially the ride ops for saying/dealing with those "wonderful" new spiels.

^ Especially the every corny "There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, It's (insert coaster name here), enjoy your ride!" Heard that on Deja Vu, Demon, and Viper. Not to mention, did you see the capes the Superman operators were sporting?

KING CHAOS IS THE BEST RIDE IN THE WORLD! We thoght that and superman were the best rides there cuz that stuff messed you up lol

Wow, I'm suprised you find V2 boring. I've been on a ton of launched coasters: H:XLC, S:UE, KK, FOF (x2), Joker's Jinx, Poltergeist, Batman & Robin the Chiller, Mr. Freeze, Volcano, Greezed Lightnin' (SFAW), King Kobra (KD), and I still found V2 extremely exciting this year. To each his own I suppose. I'm glad that you appreciate Deja Vu, and are down with my assesment of Raging Bull.

You don't have a track record, but if you're getting bored with coasters, maybe you have ridden one too many! For me, there's always new parks and rides to conquer. I'm 35, and I still haven't done the deep south, far midwest, or the west coast. Heck, in Pennsylvania alone, I'm missing many credits due to only visiting four of the parks.

By the way, your trip report was far from being long. I've seen (and read) some trip reports that are like mini-novels.