Six Flags over Georgia

I was in Atlanta on business (I work for a package shipping company), and I had some free time so I visited the World of Coke and Six Flags. I didn't fell safe enough in downtown Atlanta to do much else than the Museum (SFOG is actually outside of the city). The World of Coke was okay. The coolest part was where they let you taste the different flavors of Coke from all around the world. I like the Mandarin Orange flavor (China) and absolutely hated Beverly flavor (Italy).

Anyways, I headed down to the park and bought a two-day pass for only 10 dollars more than a one-day admission ticket. This was the first theme park outside of Texas in over a decade. I had recently got back into theme parks a couple of years ago when a friend took me to Astroworld (it's second to last season I think.)

Six Flags over Georgia, looks wise, is a nice park located right off of I-20. The park has a lot of trees and has a kind of circular layout. The first ride I rode was Mindbender. The wait was only about ten minutes. Since it was about 35 degrees on this night, the park was not busy. This was my first roller coaster ride in about six months, so I was expecting to really feel the ride. The first drop was really weak, as I didn't feel it at all, and overall the ride was just okay. There was nothing really special about the horizontal loop. I think that this ride is a bit overrated reading what some other people think of it. The vertical loops were the highlight of the ride as is the case with rides like this.

The next ride I took was on The Great American Scream Machine. I skipped Batman because it was the only ride open of the night that had a really long line. I rode in the very front and had a smooth ride on a very old wooden coaster. It had some airtime in the beginning and was not lit so riding at night was a great experience. The next ride was on the Ninja which had no line at all. I soon figured out why. This coaster was very rough, and on some of the transitions my neck hit the harness pretty hard. Suffice to say once was enough on this; easily the worst coaster I had ever ridden. Maybe with just a lapbar, this would be a good coaster, but as it is, it is really bad.

The next ride was Superman: Ultimate Flight. I have to say that this is the first ride that I would say, was worth coming out to the park for so far. The pretzel loop element was very intense but short, and the rest of the ride was great especially the surprise heartline roll at the end. I did not get my souvenir photo on this night, I figured I'd buy one the next day. I'll get to that in a moment. Next up was the Georgia Cyclone. At Astroworld, we had an exact model of this one which was very good. This particular model was not so good. At the bottom of the first two drops, I felt sharp pains in my back. I sat forward a little the rest of the ride and it helped, but this was a rickety, headache enducing machine. Luckily, the pain was only for a few seconds, but this coaster can seriously cause injuries to someone. This was definitely not the Texas Cyclone. Since I like souvenir photos, I thought I might buy one, but as it turns out, the girl in front of me blocked my face on the photo. I wasn't about to ride that again.

Next, I rode the Georgia Scorcher. I wasn't expecting much since the only other standup coaster I had been on was a batman themed one at Astroworld, which was horrible. I had to say my expectations were exceeded. There was some airtime on the first drop, and the loop and corkscrew elements were great, especially standing up. I really loved this ride. I was going to ride the freefall ride, Acrophobia, but it was closed. I was going to ride DeJa Vu, which looked cool, but it was closed as well. I like the old freefall rides that I used to ride as a kid, but the model at SFOG was closed. This left me a tad disappointed as three major rides were closed. I took a spin on the Batman Inverted Model that I had ridden at two other parks, and this one seemed smoother and faster than those for some reason. Maybe it was because it was at night and also that I waited in near freezing temperatures for about thirty minutes. The theming on this Batman was the best I had seen.

My last ride of the night was on Goliath. I only waited twenty minutes to ride. The lifthill is very steep and it seemed like the train sped up as we were about to crest the hill. The first drop was great, a freefall sensation the whole way and the subsequent hills were great as well with airtime at the top of each hill. The helix on this coaster was not very intense and used, in my opinion, the way a helix should be; as a transition element. The rest of the ride consisted of bunny hills and I purchased my only souvenir photo of the trip. I got in another ride before I went back to the hotel. Overall a great way to end the night.

The next day, I revisited the park hoping to get in a full day's full of rides on Goliath and Superman and a few others, but what I found were the longest lines I had ever seen. Goliath and Superman had signs in front of them that said two hour waits I believe. I should have purchased a flash pass. I will from now on purchase this so I dont have to spend time in line to wait. I did get some rerides in. The only ride that was dramatically different was the Great American Scream Machine. I rode in the front car, just before the axle of the first and second cars. The train seemed to lift off the tracks and slam at the bottom of every hill. This was one of my worst rides of the trip, almost as bad as Ninja and The Georgia Cyclone. I waited in line for Superman later in the day, not having ridden Goliath yet, and stood in line for thirty minutes. The line didn't move much and the ride kept breaking. Of course the ride ops did not let anyone know this I could just tell, so people sat in line not knowing what was going on. This was easily the worst job of running a ride I had ever seen. Even the flash pass line was backing up. I left the line after about an hour, because I was almost in the immediate queue when the ride ops said the ride would be down for thirty minutes. I heard many people say that they would never return to the park after this experience. I left the park to get some food and when I returned, I was told to turn back because I would not be let back in. I was told this by one of the park security crew. They were outside directing traffic when I was told to leave by one of the guards. The park would be open for two more hours so I did not see a good reason why this was. The guy told me to go ahead and try to get in, saying I would not succeed. I did and there was no one at the gate to tell me to turn around. They guy was either dumb or just screwing around with me. I had already made up my mind not to return to this park. Luckily I got in a ride on Goliath after an hour and a half wait.