SFGAm 05/14/04 "Rain Rain"

[chiatrain]

Well, I decided to celebrate the end of another school year with a trip to SFGAm with a friend. The weather report for Gurnee called for rain until 5pm(park closing). I knew that my sister and cousins would be at SFGAm with their school for Physics Day(unoffical, with park open to the GP), but the entire park seemed to have been made up of Physics students.

We arrived at the park at around 9:15-ish, with only a handful of school buses and less than a dozen regular cars. Oh, the parking attendant handed us a phonebook-size Best Western guide (but I couldn't find a coupon for Gurnee). If you didn't know, there is a Season Pass gate entrance(gates #1-4) that let us into the park a few minutes earlier than the other guests.

By 9:30 am, the rain was steady and didn't want to let up. We got in line for S:UF, hoping that it would open up with the park. It did test 4 or 5 times before 10:00, but S:UF was closed due to the weather. After this announcement, a lot of the line dispersed, but we decided to wait it out. That wait turned into about 2 hours. S:UF opened up a little after noon, and we got on the first train of the day. I don't know if the offseason helped, but the ride itself was great today.

Knowing that V2 was closed just as long as S:UF, we headed towards County Fair and got a few rides on Eagle: Blue (Red was not operating today). We noticed that quite a few rides were closed at this time: Sky Trek Tower(it was being worked on, and opened up at around 4 or so), Whizzer, Deja Vu, Orbit, all the water rides, the train, and other rides.

After lunch, we decided to check out the new Stargate simulator. The movie wasn't bad, and I'm not a follower of the show. After that, we got in a few flat rides, including Condor. Condor has seatbelts now(unless if I just didn't notice them before), and you can see the Triple Play cars from the ride.

The longest lines for the day were Raging Bull and Batman. Raging Bull seemed to be down for a portion of the day, but was up and running again. The Mardi Gras street performers, parade, and the Looney Tune characters weren't out today(perhaps due to the weather). The Venga Boys's music was being played throughout the park, and several students, guests, and ride operators were getting into the act and having fun.

After a couple of rides on Chubasco, Fiddler's Fling, and Revolution, I think I've had enough spinning until Ragin' Cajun comes around.

V2's line went to just about the top of the stairs later in the afternoon, so we got a few rides on it. Before leaving the park, we got a chance to get on Jester's Wild Ride and Big Easy Balloons. King Chaos had the water dummies taken out and set out in front of the ride.

All in all, what I thought would turn out to a not-so-great day turned out to be a not-so-bad day. The rain didn't want to go away in the morning, but it did get nicer as the day went along. The crowd, even with the down rides and Physics students, was not too bad. While on Condor, I would guess that less than 100 cars(closer to 50?) were in the parking lot and the rest of the park was made up of students.

[Carlo]

I not surprised that no one was there on a raining Friday.

The Charters are not out on weekdays during the month of May. (Weekends Only) They will be there everyday starting in June.

[SFGA 11]

The Venga Boys music was played throughout the ENTIRE park? This past Saturday it was just played at the entrance. Didnt they have any of the other old music playing?

[twixmix0303]

Maybe they thought that because it was Physics Day most teens would rather listen to that instead of the traditional old music ???

[Papas]

It's part of the parks new music system apparently they started this past Sunday.
It's not played 24/7 but definitly a lot more than it was before.

[SFGA 11]

So, its like a mix of the old music and the new music?

[Binks Drake]

yeah, oh my gosh! the venga boys song gets stuck in your head and you think it's the most annoying song in the world to you!

And the reason the mardi gras performers weren't out is becasue today wasn't part of "Mardi Gras". It's only saturdays and Sundays.

[twixmix0303]

...In May!