Enough with the Baloney, X-Flight is open.
We saw it running so headed over there. One Train operation of course, about a 45 minute total wait. We sat in the back and yes they jam you in there tight. Recline in the station and off we went with the sun blaring in my eyes on the lift. Next thing I know I was thrown the other way facing downward for an awesome experience. The First part was awesome and quite intense, after the loop things seemed to tone down a little.
Overall Verdict, it is great and everyone should ride one of theses. I need to go again to see if the "novelty" is still there. I wish it were a tad longer and ran a little closer to the ground, especially on the drop. On my likeness scale, I would put it up there with ahead of Alpie and a bit behind Raptor :). Bottom Line, X-Flight is Awesome.
Now the rest of the park. Today SFWOA was sponsored by the number 1.First I got my pass processed. One man operation and he disappeared for 10 minutes. Probably waited 15 or minutes so to get my pass. Then they only had one gate open, and Luckily since it took so long to get my pass processed the rush of people trying to get in died down a bit. Of course EVERY coaster had a ONE train operation which is a pet peeve of mine. At least they can't stack em ;). On to the Coasters.
Batman Knight Flight 5 laps-30 minutes-walk on later, 5-1,5-4,1-2,7-4,4-1
Great, but I still think the whole Floorless thing is overrated even with one lap in the Front. Not that intense of a ride compared to other B&M's I've ridden, but still darn good :).
Villain 4 laps-20 minutes to walk on later, Various Seats.
Man, what did they do with this great coaster. Did not notice to much of an improvement with the lap bars, not that there was anything wrong with it before. They should have kept it running like last year. A little rough in some spot but overall still great. Please SF, don't hurt the only great woodie close to me.
Superman Ultimate Escape 2 laps, walk on then 20 minutes for front.
Finally Got to ride this sucker and I Fit with no problem. Pretty good but I think the big hype killed it a little. The front is extreme and was a great experience.
Raging Wolf Bobs= Sucks
Double Loop, 4 laps all walk on's
Real Smooth. Not the greatest ride but fun and short.
Big Dipper-2 laps 1-3,4-1
You just can't beat this Classic Miller. What's with the fake brake handless though?
Serial Thriller-One Lap last seat.
Short and Average. Still not a horrible coaster like some make it out to be.
Marine Side
The Batman Stunt Water Show, or whatever the heck they call it was pretty good. I recommend everyone takes a look at this. A spectacular view of the ride side from the grandstand. It was actually a little crowded too over on the Marine Side!
Notes I took down during the day ;).
Good things-
This Park is Really Clean and Tidy
Food is great on Marine Side, especially the pudding :-p
The New Boardwalk is real nice and makes for a short walk across
Mission To Bermuda Triangle was cool until it broke sown in mid ride.
On the Marine side "The Scenery here is wonderful"
Bad Things-WARNING RANTS AHEAD
Gates or Kid Crushers-It's One thing to have a one train operation, but NOT opening up the gates 30 seconds after the ride has unloaded is just plain stupidity. Dispatch times were horrible and with only one train operation's it just made things worse.
Height Checking-Non Existent. Lucky to see an op pull a kid out and even check for heights. They should check Heights at the entrance like a Certain Cedar Fair Park Does Very Well.
S:UE operators. One group of peeps came up the exit and chatted with the ops for a good 2 minutes, then of course they did not have to wait and jump in a seat. What the Hell? It took about 7 minutes to dispatch one train. The Supervisor or manger may have heard my griping and restored order to the platform.
What's with the if the train is empty of the front, everyone has to move up there? I almost had to teach someone a physics lesson on distributing the weight of the train equally, like again some certain Cedar Fair Park does well if there is not a full train of peeps.
Other Notes
Employee Happiness, Overall some looked like they wanted to be there, but most looked like they were being forced to work. X-Flight Crew were the only ones who seemed awake in the park
Overall Experience was decent, better than last year :). Some major operational issue's need to be ironed out and they could have a winner. A hyper would be nice too :).
*** This post was edited by Joe E. on 5/30/2001. ***
*** This post was edited by Joe E. on 5/30/2001. ***
You guys seem to have a very different operation than SFA most days. They almost always have two trains running on everything (S:ROS has been the exception until a couple of weeks ago) at SFA. They even have them running on Roar which most of the time doesn't need two trains. The day I was at SFWOA last year they did have two or more trains running on everything except for the shuttles.
All of my visits have seen two train operation, and height checkers at the entrance.
As for the brake handles, the ride, which ran from its opening through mid-2000 manually did a number, and I guess the manual system finally was showing wear and tear. The electric controls are new this year, and I guess they just left the levers around for "old times sake"
