My friends and I had been planning this trip all summer. Although I have a season pass, and am at Great America almost weekly, my friends hadn't been there yet this year, and a couple of them hadn't been in several years.
A lot of things we planned on, ended up not happening. On the downside, our group of 6 ended up being a group of 3, after sickness, work, and other commitments. But everything else we planned on ended up for the better. We expected it to be horribly crowded, it wasn't - more like a Thursday than a Friday. We expected it to be horribly hot, it wasn't - more like an early June afternoon, than the dog days of August. We expected Fast Lane passes to sell out, and to end up waiting forever to ride only a few rides - but we still got the passes, and we rode to our hearts content. Overall, it was nearly a perfect day !
On to the rides...
We skipped all the flat rides, because one of my friends didn't like "spinny" rides.
Coasters, in no particular order:
Viper - 4 rides for me, 3 rides for my friends (I got there before them). As usual, great ! It starts out good, and gets better and better until you hit the end breaks. We always rode in the back of the train (my friends didn't believe me when I said it was the best, but they do now !), and don't forget the "must" night ride - it's sooooo much faster (or at least it seems that way).
Shockwave - 1 ride. We rode in the middle, more towards the back. Fun, but rough.
Roaring Rapids - 1 ride. Normally this would be a candidate for the Fast Lane pass, but cooler weather and smaller crowds made the line reasonable. We got soaked ! I loved it, but my friends were cold. Maybe we should have ridden in the afternoon. ;)
V2 - 2 rides. Thank you Fast Lane ! The novelty is starting to wear off a little for me, but it was the first time my friends had ridden. All the same, A wicked good ride, as always.
Iron Wolf - 1 ride. I'm actually liking this more this year than last. Probably because I don't over ride it, so it stays "fresh". The new padding makes it more comfortable - which def. helps a lot. It's still too short, especially for the long lines it usually has, but again, Fast Lane helped us out there.
American Eagle - Skipped it. They only had one train running all day (red), so the lines were too long to make it worth it.
Demon - Skipped it. The lines were too long again.
Deja Vu - Fun to look at. Too bad it's not open !
Giant Drop - Skipped it. Two sides are out of service, so the capacity has been greatly reduced (and it's already a low capacity ride !). Because of this, they were not allowing Fast Lane passes for this ride (or so I assume). The wait just wasn't worth it.
Whizzer - 1 ride. The wait was a little longer than I would have liked, due to the families and kids, but I had to pay tribute to Anton (We miss you !). As always, a fun, although tame ride.
Batman - 1 ride. We ran from the other side of the park (Raging Bull) in order to get on here before the park closed. We got in line with one minute to spare (9:59) ! It was too late to ride in the front, but the back was just as good, since it was too dark to see much anyway. Another great coaster for night rides.
And now, the grand finale...Raging Bull:
5 rides for me, 4 for my friends. The lines were never over an hour for this approx. 1600 people per hour line eater. We used the Fast Lane again for a re-ride on one of the rides (not exactly - we still had to get out of the train, and come around, but it sure was a lot quicker than waiting again). Every ride was great, as expected, but the last ride of the night was extra special...
It was 9:15 pm, and my friends and I were deciding on what should be our last ride of the day. We had just gotten off a fantastic night ride of Viper. My friends wanted to ride Batman, since we had skipped it earlier in the day. That was fine by me, but they had never ridden Raging Bull at night, which I strongly suggested they do. We checked out the line, and decided we had time to do them both. 15 min. later we are in the legendary back seat, flying down the first drop, around the turnaround and up the hump...
NO TRIM BRAKES !!! Airtime galore ! it was so beautiful, I almost cried !!!
Of course, this wasn't supposed to happen, and we were stopped in the block brakes until they had maintenance reset the ride. The 2nd half kinda sucked (too slow), but boy did the lack of trims on the first half make up for it !
I'm still glowing from that ride.
Well, there you have it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was my 10th or so visit to the park this year (I have a season pass), but it was obviously one of the best. And to think, we still have 3 months left !
Please wait until the trip report comes to a complete stop before exiting. When the report comes to a complete stop, please push down, and pull up on your lapbar and carefully exit to the forums. Thank you for challenging the Great America trip report and enjoy the rest of your day here at Coasterbuzz. ;)
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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
I was at the park the same day and was in line when you were stuck on the block break! It was my first time to SFGAM (flew in from Detroit just to hit it!) and it didn't disappoint :) Raging Bull and Viper blew me away!
What was real cool is that a guy that we had waited for SOB ACE walk back at PKI a month before recognized us early in the day and hung with us and showed us around, which was real cool.
When we got off of our last ride on Raging Bull at night, a girl getting on the train while we were getting off noticed a puddle in her seat!!! ewwwwwwww! And then as we were going through the exit, Marcus (the ACE guy we met up with) tripped over a pair of discarded girls underwear!!! Hahahahhahaha We figured the girl that left the puddle must have been wearing a skirt and quickly got out of her underwear while exiting the ride! hahahahahhaa What a funny end to a great day :)
You mean no brakes on the camel back and no mid-course brakes?
Bull fan said:
"You mean no brakes on the camel back and no mid-course brakes?"
Were were stopped on the mid course. But yes, no trims on the camel back (I call it the hump).
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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
Weren't the trims on the hump inactive in previous years? This is the first year I've noticed it. Maybe I'm mistaken.
So you the train completely stopped on the mid-course breaks?
No trim break on the second hill, SWEET!!!!! Air time heaven :)
To bad it was working when I went :(
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"Duff Man Says... Ohhhhh Yaaaaa!"
Current Favorite Coasters:
1)Raging Bull 2)Millennium Force 3)Medusa (SFMW) 4)Vertical Velocity (SFGAm) 5)Dueling Dragons (Ice)
StealthmF5m3 said:
"So you the train completely stopped on the mid-course breaks?
No trim break on the second hill, SWEET!!!!! Air time heaven :)"
Yeah. The stop on the mid course kinda runined the 2nd half. But the air on the hump made up for it !
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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
