Our family of four went to SFGAm today. Today made sense for us because of our schedules, but it was a crazy day to go as far as weather was concerned. As we pulled into the parking lot just after noon, the big sign flashed 104 degrees. Fearing a mutiny by my wife, I kept this bit of information to myself. Those big thermometer signs exaggerate, anyway. Still, it was easily mid-90s, and humid as old Ned’s armpit.
Anyway, the heat kept the crowd down early, I think. Our first two rides – Raging Bull and Viper – had waits of about 20 minutes each.
Raging Bull is magnificent, but you know that. Riding it, you experience the brilliance of genius-level engineering the way you do when you drive a top-line luxury car, but I’ve never driven a car this good. It’s big, fast and as smooth as a baby’s five-o-clock-shadow.
Viper, a Cyclone in rustic timbers, is my favorite ride in the park. Allow me two quibbles. First, it does this snail crawl over the top of the first hill … a corny attempt to build suspense, unworthy of a ride so fine as this. Second, the walk off of the ride is really, really long and funnels you through this dull, pseudo-southwest gift shop … although, in today’s heat, the shop provided “airtime” of a different sort which we appreciated.
A very sensible way to experience SFGAm would be to spend all day going back and forth between Raging Bull and Viper, but we weren’t that smart. We rode them early and late. In between, the park wasn’t as satisfying.
We went next to Whizzer, which I kind of like for its funky cars and odd spiraling electric lift. Set in a field it wouldn’t be worth riding, but the tight turns through the trees and over the terrain features make it special. The wait was 10 minutes.
After a flat ride and some R&R, it was on to Batman:TR, my first time on it. I wish I liked it more. I respect B&M through the roof, it looks cool, it sounds cool … I just didn’t like it much. We didn’t feel like waiting for the front seat (this was the only real long line we endured of the day, about 50 minutes … V2 was down at the time, which probably didn’t help). Near the back, there’s virtually no visual interest, just stuff whizzing past your feet. Physically, you loop, you corkscrew, but it’s just heavy Gs pinning you in your chair. Okay, I guess, but people stand on line for this? I’d ride it again if the first row was easy, but other than that, I don’t really get it.
In fact, I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but I liked Demon more, even though it’s far inferior from an engineering standpoint (B&M is to Arrow as BMW is to Yugo). The tunnel before the lift has some audio noise meant to be intimidating, but it made me observe that “the theming on this ride is badly-tuned FM radio.” I liked the loops and corkscrew, though. Rough as it was, at least you could see something. The only bad bit of headbanging for me was the transition into the corkscrew, which threw me sharply to the left and whanged my ear. My 11-year-old son sitting next to me, however, said he got headbanged throughout. OTSRs are a bad idea whose time has come and gone. Less than 10 minute wait.
We did a couple of flat rides and the Splashwater Falls flume, which is a genuine soaker. In this heat it was worth walking around the rest of the day soaked. Otherwise, I’d pass.
A few more general notes:
V2 was down when we were nearby, but was up later. Déjà Vu was down, of course, but the interesting thing to me was that there was nobody working on it or around it. On a Tuesday. In August. Have they given up on it for 2001?
Look up “gouge” in the dictionary for a picture of a SFGAm food concession. One example, the pizza/ice cream joint with the firehouse theme just outside Southwest Territory: family of four has four slices of cheese pizza, four regular fountain drinks … $24. If Wolfgang Puck had been flippin’ the pizza it would have been a gouge, and my tastebuds reported that Wolfgang Puck was nowhere in the vicinity.
Not to end on a negative note, we had fun. Raging Bull and Viper are truly great rides, and we enjoyed the park overall. For a big themer, it delivers what big themers are supposed to deliver, both good and bad, but more than enough good to make the trip worthwhile.
