First off i'd like to thank everyone that showed up for the SFGAmworld event. Yes it was kind of short, but I wanted to make sure everyone had enough time to take a few laps on Wolf. This was my first visit to SFGAm in over 3 years, we got on all the coasters despite a few long lines and getting to the park late (flight didn't come in till 10 then drove from Milwaukee), and had a great time. Was nice to see old friends and meet new ones.
Here are a few pics
I'm really not a fan of blocking theming with lockers and cell phones, when things are designed they are designed to look a certain way and that just looks bizarre. Now when people take pictures with Batman, instead of getting the Gotham City Park scape with the the theming and ride in the background it is blocked by the lockers.
Another random note in Batman's line, the first scroll screen you see when in the sewage tunnel says "Welcome to the Batcave," when the theme is that you are not in the Batcave, you are supposed to be in the sewage tunnel and then you escape via the Batcave. Also the background music wasn't working in the queue, only in the station.
Great America's is still the only Batman that has theming decals on the back of the trains
Might be time to change this to a Dark Knight Rises poster haha
It was very bizarre riding this without the holding brake
One thing I noticed is that the park is back to it's old background music, which means once again you can totally rock out to the bluegrass Drunken Sailor song in line for Vertical Velocity
The Extreme Danger signs that have made their way around to all SF parks due to the SFOG lawsuit
A random no line jumping sign in Loggers Runs trough
Just in case you missed the front side and the ads on the train
Maybe they should put a modified version of this sign at the entrance to the parking lot that says if you were kicked off property for refusing to pay to park your motorcycle then return later in the day you will be banned from Six Flags for life
DejaVu
This ride was made in Bremen, Germany, just in case you were wondering
It was a little strange seeing all the Wiggles theming pulled out of this area
Quite literally pulled off, they pulled the fruit salad deco off the top of this ride
This area will look much different next year
Super popular
While I don't think this was a bad addition to SFGAm at all, it just had to be in this area? Walking by this thing in the old DejaVu/Skywhirl spot is just depressing
They were pretty quick getting this sign back up
This thing is very loud
Its great to be at the cleanest theme park in the world
Already starting to see some nice fall foliage
The Demon trains look amazing, especially the black one with the flames on the side (wasn't running though). Major props to the artist.
Unfortunately the same can't be said about the queue railings
This spot used to have one of the coolest views in the park
Sky Trek Tower looks great!
This...this does not O_O
Does this really make anybody want to buy Kraft Twists? If anything it makes me not want to buy it.
So the way Vipers Flash Pass is setup is...well interesting to say the least
A very underrated wooden coaster, tracks smooth, fast, and loaded with airtime
Though the trains could use some cosmetic work
Trailblazer is now blocked off by a wave runner sales display
Sometimes I think SFGAm purposely tries to stick as many signs as possible at a rides entrance just to see how many they can fit
Can you spot the coaster enthusiast on this train?
This guy didn't get enough face time at V2
So here was a huge dissapointment
A lot of the theming has fallen into despair since I rode it in 2008
The way that they pulse the line without the preshow was ridiculous, I don't know if it was the lo-q guy or if thats how they always do it, but they basically let like 100 standby people go then stop it again for an extrodinarily long period of time
Then theres this, which was the best part of the ride and now has been Cedar Fairized/gotten rid of. I don't know if SFGADV has gotten rid of the pre-show also, but I liked how they did it with the queue switchbacks setup in the preshow so that way there is no bottleneck.
Random brokeness
The lights weren't timed properly with the cars so we missed some of the themed signs, and the sound effects in the graffiti tunnel didnt work
Almost time for the trivia contest
This is what my bedroom looked like after scouring for trivia contest prizes
Man, I wish I could've been there for the Iron Wolf trivia contest, but I was busy. But, these are some great pics, just like that album you have from 2007. Thanks!
--For Condor in case you are wondering why no N, they just put those letters back up this year with the LED in them, and than the N didn't light up at night, so they now took the N down. Hopefully, they are fixing that letter.
--For Superman looking like it's faded, for me the ride doesn't look faded from the ground. It's the top of the ride that looks faded. You have a zoomed in camera from Sky Trek Tower, and that picture makes it look faded, but when I'm looking at it from Sky Trek Tower, it never looks that bad nor when I'm in line.
--For Dark Knight, I like the no preshow better than with a preshow. It's so boring watching it over and over again. Though, I don't get why there is a tv in the preshow in the back of it now. What's the point of that??? If they put switchbacks in there though, and put Batman cartoons on, or one of the movies on, that would even be better. Though, with how the line is setup with the flash pass, I don't know how that would work. I'm thinking they do it like how Spider-man has it in that one room where they show video while you wait in line.
--For Demon, that red train even though it's good that there are no more stickers, I don't know the paint on it doesn't look too good - like it's sort of a little faded. Maybe, it's because the took the paint off when they removed the stickers?? For Demon and that fence, I thought they painted those stupid things. Drat, drat..
--For Viper, I don't ride it that much and I don't really understand that Flash Pass, so can someone explain it to me? What I know is that there are 2 employees watching gates. It doesn't make sense to me... ??
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
Update for what I said on Demon about the fences. The side in which the people are in line, that side of fences doesn't look bad at all. It sort of looks painted. The other side (the left side) in which no one is supposed to use, it just looks bad.
And I just want to say I don't think that LEDs are that great! For Condor, the C is half lit on the backside of it (the side facing Superman). They just put that in. The C as in the yellowish color. The C red is fine, but the C for yellowish isn't good.
And did Hometown Square train station get a new roof? It kind of looks newer, but it's not like I look at that roof that much anyway to know if it's new. The worst looking roof has to be Dark Knight / Theater Royale.
Ricochet has some paint coming off the line wood. Superman has certain areas where the blue is going for the line.
At a day at Six Flags you will see spider webs, you will see that dust "worm" that has been in the Batman the Ride line forever (over one of the signs that says Exit now), you will see rust on back of the Batman the Ride sign and Condor tower, duct tape on a ride, black spots on harnesses, and you will see missing paint on lots of lines. I guess you can say anything about a park, and people will believe it. (cleanest park in the world-huh)
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
On the topic of the fences, they may have been painted earlier in the season who knows but when things are in guest reach they are going to get abused, nothing you can do about that other than expect it to happen and continuosly paint it. The same can be said for Raging Bull's queue, those looked awful and it looked like they tried to repaint it recently but with a lighter shade of brown so now it looks even worse that the top of the railings are not only all beat up but also a different color.
I remember in 2003 when we were always the first in line for SUF for the day, the path that leads up to the station the paint on the handrailings was always scratched up, and we made sure not to put our hands on them when walking up to the station. Since it was morning with the dew combined with us being first in line, if you put your hands on the handrails at that time your hands get brown and rusty. When the time came for me to work on SUF, we always made sure someone ran through the queue with napkins and wiped down the railings so peoples hands don't get rusty. They really should replace the top of those with stainless steel railings like they have in most other queues (and in the old Shockwave part of that queue).
One good thing that SF has been doing recently is the Baynum paint that they have been using on their coasters is fantastic. Many of the coasters at Magic Mountain, Raging Bull, etc all were painted several years ago and still look brand new. The paint is made especially for coasters to be super UV resistant and long lasting. Of course this is super expensive but seeing the end result it's definitely worth it.
Honestly, I still think it should be done. I don't think they should be giving up on it just because they have to do it every 5 years. If they want to replace some of the lines for Superman, fine but at least it will look better than paint that has come off of it. In my opinion, if they can't keep with line maintenance, they shouldn't even being building anything new because the something new is probably going to look bad down the road too.
I kind of think this stuff happens because the higher ups don't experience what the regular people experience. Batman the Ride right now also has something wrong with the speaker system going up to the station. Even the floor in the Dark Knight looks dirty near the bottom set of switchbacks.
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
Sorry for the bump but I thought I'd let you know that I had a very different experience on Viper when I rode it on that same day. Perhaps you rode a different train than me, but the ride felt the roughest it's ever been. It definitely made it more exciting, but the sheer noise and bouncing of the train on the tracks of Viper were FAR higher than anything Eagle acheived (forwards OR backwards).
I have ridden Viper hundreds (or maybe thousands?) of times in the past and never found it rough, even on a bad day. Most other wooden coasters I have ridden are far rougher than Viper, plus the only operating wooden coaster in the state I live in is Gwazi, which is about 500x rougher than Viper ever will be.
Ilovthevu' wrote:Update for what I said on Demon about the fences. The side in which the people are in line, that side of fences doesn't look bad at all. It sort of looks painted. The other side (the left side) in which no one is supposed to use, it just looks bad.
And I just want to say I don't think that LEDs are that great! For Condor, the C is half lit on the backside of it (the side facing Superman). They just put that in. The C as in the yellowish color. The C red is fine, but the C for yellowish isn't good.
And did Hometown Square train station get a new roof? It kind of looks newer, but it's not like I look at that roof that much anyway to know if it's new. The worst looking roof has to be Dark Knight / Theater Royale.
Ricochet has some paint coming off the line wood. Superman has certain areas where the blue is going for the line.
At a day at Six Flags you will see spider webs, you will see that dust "worm" that has been in the Batman the Ride line forever (over one of the signs that says Exit now), you will see rust on back of the Batman the Ride sign and Condor tower, duct tape on a ride, black spots on harnesses, and you will see missing paint on lots of lines. I guess you can say anything about a park, and people will believe it. (cleanest park in the world-huh)
Hey, if you want to see a bunch of cobwebs and broken lights go to Indiana Beach. They have plenty of cobwebs right on the outsides of the skyroom windows. Nice to look at when you are eating.
Candy: What you lookin' at? Otis B. Driftwood: I'm lookin' at you, mama. Candy: Yeah, you see something you like? Otis B. Driftwood: Maybe. I set my standards pretty low, so I'm never disappointed.
I miss the old Coke machines. Now, the park just has generic coke machines instead of Superman or Batman.
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
Well, those machines had rides listed on them that no longer exist, like on the Superman ones it had SUF at Six Flags Ohio and Superman Tower of Power at SFKK, which they def don't want on there, also the Batman one listed Batman at SFNO and Batman Knight Flight at SF Ohio. Also besides all that, 20oz soda dropped in price this year from $4whatever to $3.50, now I refuse to pay either price, but I guess it's progress.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 222, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 822, Wood: 178, Total: 1000
