Animan1
Posts: 5394
Registered: 5/14/2003
Rank: Platinum Critic
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 6/22/2005 5:29:16 PM
Since I turned 16 early this spring and can now drive myself places, I have considered getting a SF Season Pass, essentially to only use at my home park, SFGAm. Well, yesterday I headed over to the park to get my pass and spend my first day at the park in over a year and a half.
The park opened at 10, but due to a bit of a late start and traffic, I arrived close to 11. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the low to mid 80s and abundant sunshine. I parked ($10, which hasn’t increased since my family and I were here last) and proceeded to the ticket booth. I had a $10 off coupon for an individual Season Pass that I got with one of my paychecks, so I used that and ended up paying about $90. I then entered the park and quickly got my pass processed and was issued my official pass and coupon book. All in all, this entire process was very smooth, and from the time I parked to the time I had my pass in hand wasn’t more than 30 minutes.
This was my first time going to a park by myself, so I now had the freedom to go wherever I wanted, though I wasn’t able to experience anything with people I knew. It did happen that ACE was at SFGAm on this particular day since SFGAm is part of the Coaster Con this year. Therefore, throughout the day I saw plenty of people with ACE and/or coaster apparel from around the country.
The park did not seem that crowded, and I wonder if part of this is due to the fact that Hurricane Harbor is now open and spreads people throughout the two parks better. At any rate, I decided to start the day off on Déjà vu, a ride that I had not yet experienced. This was one of my longer waits of the day at about 30 minutes, so that should tell you how bad the crowd levels were.  Overall, I was quite impressed, especially since it’s yet another Vekoma clone (although obviously no where near the levels of the boomerang and SLC models). I was near the front, so I got a nice view of the thrilling vertical spike. The effect of being pressed up against your restraint while you hand 100+ feet in the air is very thrilling, and the inversions were quite smooth, both forwards and backwards. After this, I decided to head over to B:TR, but stopped at Rajin’ Cajun’, yet another ride that I had not ridden since I didn’t go to the park at all last year. This was another good ride. My only other wild mouse was one of the world’s 2 wooden mice at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but this ride did not disappoint in terms of the intensity of the turns. The drops were not as large or steep, but the spinning aspect was unique and disorienting, so they are very close in my book. I do like BPB’s mouse shaped cars however! I waited about 20-25 minutes for this little coaster, and my only complaint about the queue is that there is no shade at all, which makes it very warm. On a funny note, there were some people in line discussing a particular coaster at SFGAm. Here is what I can remember from there dialogue:
Person 1: “What’s that ride where it goes backwards?”
Person 2: “Oh, yeah, that one. I think they took it out.”
Person 1: “Oh.”
Person 2 (to Person 3): “What’s the name of that one that went backwards?”
Person 3: “Oh, that was Shockwave.”
I’ll let you figure that one out.
From here I did proceed to B:TR. It looked like there was a huge line as there frequently is for this attraction, but it turned out that they were announcing something in front of the coaster and the actual line was very short. After waiting for about 15 minutes, I was on in the 6th or 7th row. This made for an even more intense ride than Batman usually delivers, so much so that I actually grayed-out slightly after the first loop. Still a great ride, and as intense and smooth as ever. I had never actually ridden SFGAm’s B:TR, but I had ridden SFMM’s and SFSt.L’s.
Since it was right here, I decided to take a spin on V2: Vertical Velocity. Again, I had never ridden this coaster either, although I had ridden W
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Red Rascal
Posts: 7284
Registered: 1/28/2003
Rank: Croatian Critic
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 6/22/2005 9:11:19 PM
Very nice trip report, Animan.  For a first time visitor, do you have any suggestions or tips on how to spend a day at SFGAM, like what to do first, etc.?
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Animan1
Posts: 5394
Registered: 5/14/2003
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/23/2005 9:58:07 AM
Thanks. As for tips, it will depend, as always, on crowd levels. What day are you going on? But in terms of what to ride when, I would say head toward the middle of the park first. That's what I did when I just went, and then went to the left side and worked my way around. This way, the initial rush that started to the left or right will be gone and you can just follow along a little bit behind them. Lines can be very long on weekends at SFGAm, so I hope you're going on a weekday. If you are going on a weekend, prioritize what you really want to ride (I'd recommend Raging Bull, Viper, and American Eagle, since several of the other big name coasters are clones) and hope for the best. If you catch it on a good weekday though, you should be able to hit just about everything, probably more than once.
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larrygator
Posts: 4654
Registered: 11/7/2002
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/23/2005 12:51:21 PM
Red - I'd ride Deja Vu first if it is running when you get there.
Animan - no Demon rides?
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coaster05
Posts: 6207
Registered: 2/29/2004
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/23/2005 1:59:57 PM
I don't think they follow those Superman rules about stuff either. I left things in the station I believe since I was there with kids.
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sfo1
Posts: 5359
Registered: 7/22/2003
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/23/2005 3:37:43 PM
Great TR. I really like the looks of this park, to me it looks like the best park in the chain.
I've never gone to an amusement park alone, I usually go with friends or family. Is it more enjoable to go alone in your opinion?
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mrceagle
Posts: 13804
Registered: 6/9/2001
Rank: TPC News Minister
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6/24/2005 3:18:25 PM
Great trip report. the parks sounds liek allot of fun. I still have allot of parks to hit.
I know what you meen I've been toa parka couple times myself adn I don't really care for it. I like experiancign parks with other people. But with my I normaly go with my brother and he's laid back as I am with parks we just hit what we can.
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Red Rascal
Posts: 7284
Registered: 1/28/2003
Rank: Croatian Critic
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6/24/2005 5:32:34 PM
Quote:
Animan1 said:
Thanks. As for tips, it will depend, as always, on crowd levels. What day are you going on? But in terms of what to ride when, I would say head toward the middle of the park first. That's what I did when I just went, and then went to the left side and worked my way around. This way, the initial rush that started to the left or right will be gone and you can just follow along a little bit behind them. Lines can be very long on weekends at SFGAm, so I hope you're going on a weekday. If you are going on a weekend, prioritize what you really want to ride (I'd recommend Raging Bull, Viper, and American Eagle, since several of the other big name coasters are clones) and hope for the best. If you catch it on a good weekday though, you should be able to hit just about everything, probably more than once. |
I'll be there on Sunday, July 3, and possibly half of the next day. Thanks for the input. 
Quote:
larrygator said:
Red - I'd ride Deja Vu first if it is running when you get there... |
I was thinking of doing the poor capacity coasters first thing. I assume Superman and V2 get long waits too. I'd like to ride Superman, since the one at GAdv broke down on my visit, but I don't really care for V2. I'm hoping that it'll be hot and most of the crowds will be in the waterpark.
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larrygator
Posts: 4654
Registered: 11/7/2002
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/24/2005 6:03:21 PM
I went to S:UF first because when the gates opened at 9:30 they let you through the gate but had access to the rest of the park roped off. You could not get the the DejaVu queue and it had not started testing yet. I saw that S:UF was testing so I went to wait behind that rope and realized that the rope was set further into the park and a single file queue had started outside the actual S:UF queue. Surprising the V2 line wasn't that bad for me, but not surprisingly the slow loading Ragin Cajun spinning mouse was, well slow loading.
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Animan1
Posts: 5394
Registered: 5/14/2003
Rank: Platinum Critic
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6/25/2005 8:50:15 AM
Quote:
larrygator said:
Animan - no Demon rides? |
Actually, I did ride Demon once, but I forgot to put it into the TR. I rode after American Eagle, before Raging Bull, and in the back row. I had heard that the airtime was good on the first drop in the back, and it was quite good. Also, the ride was not as rough as I was used to, even in the back row. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
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