MISSION: Firstly to have Fun, Secondly to have more fun.

Start Date: DAY 1: Friday July 19: PKI:
Leave around 5:00AM for our fourth visit to PKI this season. Should be at the park just after 1:00PM stay till about 6:00PM and drive to Louisville for the night.

DAY 2: Saturday: July 20: Lake Winnie
While in Louisville we will pick up an extra passenger... Namely John Keeter (Shaggy). Saturday was a toss up. We didn't want to go to SFOG on Saturday so we choose Lake Winnie over Dollywood. Why? mainly price and it is a shorter drive to SFOG. Looking forward to John Allen's Cannonball.

DAY 3: Sunday: July 21: SFOG
From all reports it warns you not to go to SFOG on a weekend. But some park had to be done on the weekend and we took the lesser of two evils and are trying Sunday. Really looking forward to the entire park but especially S:UF. LO-Q maybe the order of the day.

DAY 4: Monday: July 22: Paramount Carowinds
The little talked about Paramount park. Why does it close so early? 8:00PM huh? Top Gun B&M need I say more? Drop Zone ... Maybe not!

DAY 5: Tuesday July 23: PKD (Late)
Spend most on the day on the road and probably catch PKD for the evening. But this day is up in the air and anything can happen.

DAY 6: Wednesday: BGW
Got a real sweet deal on tickets at CAA... purchased $42 tickets at par. Over a $100CDN savings. More money for BGW souvenirs. Apollo's Chariot B&M. Yum Yum. I think I will even go on the wet rides here.

Day 7: Thursday: PKD (all day)
I didn't think it would take us so long to get to this park. Grizzly vs. Wild Beast can't wait to make the comparison.

Day 8: Friday: SFA
Should be fun riding S:ROS which is the mirror of SFDL's. Roar looks so sweet.

DAY 9: Saturday: Dorney
First we have to get rid of our passenger who will be flying back to Louisville from BWI airport. Talon B&M yummy. Too bad Coaster 3:16 will not be able to meet us as his home park. Any takers?

Day 10: Sunday: Drive Home (8 Hours)
There are lots of choices on the way to stop. But I already know what the better half's response be. NO!

There it is the big Adventure 10 days 8 parks. For the Reids all 8 parks will be first times which should add some serious notches on the coaster counts. For Shaggy Lake Winnie and Carowinds are the only new parks. 4200 kilometres wish us luck!

Regards,
Kevin Reid

LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN:

Oh my GOD!  Where do I start to even being to describe the experience we had over the last nine days? We visited nine parks and ridden sixty one different roller coasters.  Kevin reached the 200 level in his coaster count while the rest of Reid clan only require a few more to reach the same level.  Six Flags Over Georgia was added as a new favourite park and Paramount Carowinds' Top Gun was added to our list as a favourite inverted coaster.  We probably learned a lesson about hotels… be careful when booking cheap hotels.  If it has a night window then maybe… Next time I will spend the extra $20-$40.  The catch phrases of the trip were… “If you say so” (Beech Bend Park); “I smell eggs” (John and Nolan) and “I like rice”.  We met two new URC folks that we are very happy to consider friends… AtlantaCoaster and Capler.  Thanks again to Bill and Robert you guys were fantastic at your home parks.

 PREPARATION:

This trip started way back in the non coaster riding part of the season… you know that time of the year when the white stuff flies? Shaggy indicated his willingness to do another trip with the Reids this year so it was up to Kevin to come with a plan. I really wanted to get to Paramount’s Carowinds and added SFOG to the wish list with the news of the new B&M flying coaster. So what else do we do? To keep costs down we tried to stick to parks that we already season passes for.  Dorney was added to list because we had purchased Cedar Point passes in June.  SFA and PKD were also included because they fit into the season pass scheme.  Busch Gardens Williamsburg was also added into the plan when I was able to purchase CDN$ at par tickets from CAA.  We were just not sure what order we were going to do them in.  The drive from Newmarket to Atlanta is approximately  sixteen hours. Just too far of a drive for one day then expect to hit the park next day.  We did not want to do SFOG on a Saturday.   We came up with the final plan…  We would leave early on a Friday morning for a short eight hour drive to PKI spend a couple of hours at the park and then drive to Shaggy’s apartment that evening.  Shaggy would then join us in the Lumina mini van on Saturday and he would fly home the following Saturday from Baltimore’s airport.

So we had the itinerary almost finalized but the first  Saturday was still up in the air. We had a decision to make… where to stop on the way to SFOG?  First idea was Dollywood… but after checking out the admission prices and the length of the drive to SFOG we turned our attention to Lake Winnie.  So the trip was finalized as follows:

Day 1 - Friday, July 19 – PKI
Day 2 - Saturday, July 20 – Lake Winnie
Day 3 – Sunday, July 21 - SFOG
Day 4 - Monday, July 22 – Paramount Carowinds
Day 5 – Tuesday, July 23 – Drive to Richmond, VA - PKD (evening only)
Day 6 – Wednesday, July 24 – BGW
Day 7 – Thursday, July 25 – PKD
Day 8 – Friday, July 26 – SFA
Day 9 – Saturday, July 27 – Dorney
Day 10 – Sunday, July 28 – Drive home

Everything pretty well stayed on schedule except for Day 2 and Day 9&10.  Day 2 – Saturday while driving to Lake Winnie and approaching Bowling Green, KY we pull out the ACE Guide To Ride and exclaimed!… There is a park here called Beech Bend Park.  Day 9 – following Saturday we were pretty well parked out and decided to do Dorney ASAP and head home rather than wait till Sunday.

One of the hardest parts of this trip was not driving the 4500kms but rather all the time it took to plan the routes and book the hotels.  I have a certain system I follow when I do this chore.  I heavily rely on Rand McNally’s Trip Maker and CAA maps. It has proven to be an invaluable tool for finding Hotels and route planning. The final trip tick was 25 separate pages of maps. Okay! so I spent countless hours on this task. Next task get the Lumina in tip top shape. This included changing the oil and confirming that the cooling system was okay. Also had to throw on a new set of tires for the trip.  I also like to have a clean vehicle at the beginning of each trip so a wash and waxing was in order.  Load the van… Going for 10 days which meant we needed enough socks and underwear for those days.   Luggage space was limited to the area behind the rear seats. With John Keeter joining us also meant the lost of one seat that could be used for storage.  Each person was allowed one duffel bag even though John did violate this policy with his oversized carry on bag.  The TV/VCR and X-Box was strapped to the middle seat and the DC Cooler was packed with bottle water and pop. Adam's job was to make sure that he had all the DVDs and X-Box games neatly packed in Case Logic cases.  Before X-Box the most VCR tapes we could store was about six because of the room.  Now we can easily take dozens of DVDs. The TV has been a god send. Looks like we are ready to get this trip on the road.

DAY 1 – Friday, July 19 – PKI

Normally a trip to PKI starts pretty early in the morning. This is actually our third trip to PKI this season.  Today the Reid troops received a bonus… Alarm went off at 5:00AM (day half over)… and normally we can be up and dressed and in the van within 15 minutes. This day I was in no rush and we were on the road by 5:30AM.  Made our first stop near a London service area for our normal dose of Tim Horton’s do-nuts and coffee.  So much for a clean vehicle because it rained “cats and dogs” from London to Chatham.  Arrived at the Ambassador bridge (Windsor/Detroit) at about 9:45AM and took about 15 minutes to clear US customs.

Steak and Shakes has become one our official eating establishments while traveling in the US. We stopped at a Lima, OH Steak and Shake around 1:00PM before getting to PKI.  Arrived at the PKI parking lot around 2:40PM and got a pretty good parking spot. We only planned to stay a couple of hour before our drive to John’s apartment in Louisville.

Arrive at guest services and we were disappointed that Mr. Siebert was not there to greet us like our last visit. Gee! I guess he has other thing to do?  The weather was pretty hot but you could tell that a storm was brewing.  So what to do first?  Heard the announcement for Graveyard Shift over the PA so we immediately proceeded to the Paramount Theatre to partake in our second showing this year.  Last year we had the same show at PCW and we loved it and probably seen it a dozen times.  This would not be last time we saw this show because PKD also had the same show.

After Graveyard Shift we noticed Sonny was not running so we decided to ride one of our PKI favourites… Adventure Express. On the way over we stopped to watch Madine the Juggler in Action Zone.   Adventure Express was in its best smelling condition. I rate each ride on Adventure Express by the smell in the final tunnel.  I love the smell of the grease as you enter the tunnel on a hot summer’s day. Today was a great smelling day. LOL!

Next up backward Racer which is oh so ever sweet.  Did not return for a forward Racer because Papa was calling.  The skies were continuing become grayer so we hurried over to Beast before the skies opened up. Nolan and I took a back seat ride while Donna and Adam waited for the front.  Beast was running quite well and we were amazed how far it went up the second lift before the chain caught it.  Thank you PKI for getting rid of the skids and making Beast a more reliable ride in any weather conditions.

Time to leave and no trip to PKI would be complete without a stop at the Emporium gift shop. We picked up a SOB/Beast souvenir Coke glass for niece Chelsey who broke hers on our way to Cedar Pint on the July 1^st weekend. I picked up two SOB coasters one for my office and one for home.  Then we purchased two souvenir PKI maps… One of these will look very nice framed hanging in my office.  By this time it was raining very lightly as we walked back to the van.  As soon as we reached the van the skies opened up and started pouring.  It was quite funny watching the couple across from us trying to fold their stroller. The more they rushed the wetter they were getting because the stroller would not fold.

We left the parking lot at 5:40PM and were on our way to Louisville.  The drive through Cincinnati was quite busy and the rain was still pretty heavy.  Arrived at John’s two hours later were we spent the evening.  Went to TGI Friday for eats where we discussed the week ahead of us.

That is it for day 1.  PKI was a nice stopping over spot instead of trying to drive to SFOG in one go. Besides I will use any excuse to stop at our second favourite park in the world.

DAY 2 – Saturday, July 20 – 3 Parks

Distance to Lake Winnie from Louisville approximately 500 km or around five hours.  We knew we couldn’t get there before opening so we started the trip off by not rushing off to Lake Winnie.  We left John’s apartment around 8:15 AM EST (very important EST). For some reason everybody but me wanted to stop for breakfast so I was out voted.

The seating arrangement for the whole trip was as follows: Kevin and John up front; Adam, TV/X-box, & storage in middle row; while Donna and Nolan where in the third row.  We were about one hour south of Louisville when John says, “you know Scott and Carol said that there is a small park in Bowling Green, KY”.  Adam grabs  The Guide to Ride  and say “yes it is called Beech Bend Park”.

Beech Bend Park – Bowling Green, KY

Beech Bend Park was not on my original trip tick map set so John pulls out the Road Atlas  and directs me to the park. This should work out great… It is approx 9:45AM.  By the looks of the parking lot we are one of the firsts to arrive.  Admission $5.50 per person. I was trying to be nice to the sweet little lady in the ticket building by letting on that we drove all the way from Toronto, Canada just to visit their park.  I was expecting some gracious reply in return but in instead with that annoying thick Kentucky accent… “If You Say So”.  One once not enough so I repeated my introduction and once again got … “If You Say So”.  That statement alone was worth the price of admission and stayed with us the whole trip.  So lets get over to ticket counter and buy some tickets and blow this Popsicle stand ASAP.  We purchased 40 ticket which would be enough and asked “what time does the park open” , “10:00AM” she replied. We look at our watches and it is already 10:10AM and our next question was, “ What time zone are we in?”  “Central time zone.”  Oops! Looks like we got 45 minutes to kill.

Beech Bend Park has a front gate that just plain scared the heck out of me.  A very heavy steel gate that swung from the ceiling to ground and held by a steel cable…this indeed could kill someone if it fell from its open position.  Gate was suppose to open at 10:00AM and didn’t open until almost 10:20AM strike 1.  After receiving directions for the fastest route to their Pinfari Looping Star we were off.  Nolan was listening close to these directions and would later crack us up by repeating them in the exact same accent later that evening. Why! even AtlantaCoaster was treated to Nolan’s imitation of the directions at SFOG.

The Pinfari Looping Star … well enough to say that it was a coaster credit.  Seats without working OTRS were marked off with yellow tape. Which of course looked like a crime scene?  I couldn’t resist… I told the two young boys on the platform that the seats were taped off because of the deaths yesterday and ride op smiled and went along with the gag.  Well we survived our ride and once was enough. 

The Wisdom Flying Dragon was next and I think we should have said one rotation would be enough kind ride op.  John had just purchased a new camera for the trip and asked the ride op to take our picture.  Gee! It was nice of him to take the picture but not one on every circuit.   Haunted House was next and there was no way of getting Adam to ride.  John and Donna  then Nolan and I went together.  There sure was a scary buzzing blue light bulb in there.

Adam and John rode the Tornado while Nolan rode the antique cars. John did his best to spin Adam sick on Tornado.  Just a couple of tickets left so John rode the Zamperla Power Surge.  A quick stop in the small gift shop were the boys picked up a t-shirt.

We left Beech Bend Park just after 12:30PM EST and drove south of Nashville and stopped around Manchester, TN for gas and eats. Oh! The horror at the Wendy’s we stooped at. There was no more than five guests in front us and it took almost an hour to get out of that place.  One person working the cash and tons of help else where. Here is the routine… cashier takes your order and money and then proceed to fill your drink order rather than take more flipping orders.  This seemed to be standard operations procedure at the Wendy’s we visited.

Lake Winnepesaukah – Rossville, GA

Okay back on the road and heading toward our original destination for Saturday… Lake Winnie.  We arrive at the park around 4:00PM and it looked like the park was pretty busy.  We opted for admission and tickets because it was so busy. Admission was $3 per person plus four times $8.50 coupon strips. We figured we would do the two coasters credits and leave.  Upon entering we discover that there were three coaster credits rather than two…Bonus.  First up Wild lightning a wild mouse coaster.  Best way to sum up our ride experience… Once was enough.  Canon Ball the 1967 John Allen Out and Back was our next coaster.  Donna, Nolan and I got the front seats while Adam and John rode the back.  This coaster I would like to ride again… very enjoyable but there was at least a 15 minute wait and tickets were limited.  We then waited in line for our coaster credit on the Wacky Worm.  Just enough tickets left for John, Adam and Nolan to ride their giant PTC carousel.  A very nice Carousel but it could use some TLC.

Lake Winnie was still pretty busy so we figured we would check out the gift shop and head for Atlanta. While Donna was exiting the gift shop the lady (Kim Keeton) at the cash register noticed Donna’s PCW visor.  A conversation was struck between Kim and Donna.  The story goes as follows: Kim said that her husband, Mike, was transferred to Wonderland from King’s Island for one year in 1981 to start up the games area at the new park in Canada.  They even lived in Newmarket, Ontario which is where we live. Kim asked that we stay put and see would try to find her husband Mike who also worked at the park. Within a few minutes Mike found us in front of the gift store.  Well John and I were in our glory being able to talk to someone who had a past connection with both King’s Island and Wonderland.  Thanks to Kim and Mike Keeton for making us feel so welcome in their park.

Six Flags  Over Georgia – Austell, GA

When we were leaving Lake Winnie the general consensus was to drive to the Hotel in Marietta, GA and call it a day. Then John and I got thinking… have we ever been to three parks in one day?  Of course Donna spoke from the back seat and said, “Drop me off at the hotel if you guys are going to SFOG tonight.”  Well the closer we got to the hotel and Donna had fallen asleep so we took a vote among the remaining awake occupants and the vote  was unanimous that we should indeed go to SFOG.  We were only a few minutes from the SFOG when Donna woke up and asked, “how close are we to the hotel?”  “Real close” was the response.  “What is that Six Flags exit I just saw?”  Sorry Donna we took a vote while you where napping and we decided to go to SFOG.  

SFOG is like my home park of PCW in the sense that it gives a spectacular view from the passing nearby highway.  We pulled into the park lot at 8:20PM and we still had to pay the full price of $10 to park.  Arrgh!  We did get revenge for this at Six Flags America …. More on this with the SFA trip report.   We get a parking spot right near Mindbender and make the trek to the front gate.  I like how all Six Flag parks make the use of the same database for their season passes. No need to stop at guest relations for entrance.  Walked into the front entrance and that feeling hits you … you know the one you get when you walk into a Paramount park for the first time? We could tell right away that we were going to love this place. 

John was previously at SFOG during the IAPPA event in 2000 and generally knew his away around.  Since our time was limited, tonight, and we figured it was the end of a pretty busy Saturday at SFOG we would just try to take in a bit of the park.   One of John’s favourite ride here is Mindbender and he figured that would be an excellent starting point.  John was not wrong Mindbender is still a great steel coaster after all these years.  We waited no more than 15 minutes to ride.  John, Nolan, and I road the back while Adam and Donna road near the middle. We walked out of Gotham City and we were all curious to see this new for 2002 little coaster .   Who?  am I kidding we were all so anxious to get over and have a peak at Superman: Ultimate Flight.  We figured that the line would be in excess of three hours and that line would already be cut.  Wrong!  It was a few minutes after 9:00PM and we decided that it would be a good idea to get in line and wait it out. Now everybody wanted to ride except Donna. What? You say.  Donna had already passed on riding SFWOA’s X-Flight and we said three characters to her. B&M.  “ Donna this is a B&M the masters of steel coasters” The trick was to keep her talking.  The queue for S:UF goes right through the ride and gives you a spectacular view of the ride.  The common thing that happened when the train went through the pretzel loop was… silence from the riders.  The closer you get to the platform you have to make a decision whether to go to the right or left of the platform.  During busy operation I would recommend the left side because all LO-Q riders come in on the right side.  While coming up to the platform we were able to see the pure genius of the B&M engineers.  The mechanism that they developed to load/unload was marvelous.  The Vekoma flying Dutchman version is a joke when compared to B&M’s.  Basically B&M took their inverted four across seating and made it tilt up to track which put you in the flying position. I would also say the flying position is the default position for the train and uses its hydraulics to lower the train back into the inverted position. We watched in astonishment as this operation was repeated until it was our turn to ride.

I am not much for describing a ride.  Donna was still pretty nervous but still wanted to ride. We took our normal B&M positions… Kevin and Nolan on the outer seats with Donna and Adam in the middle. No eyeglasses even with straps are permitted on the ride.  Which was the only negative about the ride for me… I kind of like to see where I am riding.  When the restraint is closed and locked it grabs your ankles and locks them in place.  Your torso restraint is also locked in. The clear signal is given and you are tilted back into the flying position. Your entire safety now relies on that B&M engineering I spoke of earlier.  Maybe just maybe an extra seat belt lock would give the rider that extra sense of security.  Because if your torso restraint ever opened it is over because you would be hanging on with ankles for about one second.  Going up the lift if the flying position is so much nicer that that other ride that takes you up backwards on your back.  The first drop swoops to the right and dives into the pretzel loop.  Wow! At the bottom of the pretzel loop are pretty extreme  g-forces and this where the screams from the riders stop.  Because everybody is taking a deep breath. Your on-ride photo is also taken here.  For rest of the ride it is superb B&M riding.  What a ride! Fantastic! I want one! Please! Please!  Bought the photos and it was now 10:00PM and time to head to the hotel.

We were all glad that we did this 90 minute park stop at SFOG… even Donna.  We also new that no other ride on the rest of the trip could possibly come close to S:UF… or could it?  The ride to the hotel was only about 15 minutes but it was kind of tricky to find.  We stayed at an Econo Lodge in Marietta  $50 for the night and was one of the better stays of the trips.

Stayed tuned for a full day at SFOG with AtlantaCoaster .

Day 3 –  Sunday July 28, 2002 - Six Flags Over Georgia 

After getting a sneak at SFOG the previous evening we were all eager to get back to the park.  But for some reason everybody else likes to start the day of with breakfast… what a weird concept? We had a pretty good night’s sleep and stopped at Waffle House for a quick breakfast.  Donna got her first introduction to “GRITS”.  No we don’t have grits in Canada. If we do we call it something else… maybe warmed up mush?

 We get to SFOG just after 9:00AM and park in the preferred lot $12… actually $2 more is worth the shorter walk… $10 is a crazy price but that is a topic for a whole other post.  Before we left Toronto we got an e-mail from AtlantaCoaster (Bill Menichillo) stating that he might be able to meet us at the park.  I gave Bill my cell number but didn’t check my phone when we got to the park .  The next day I turned on the phone and there was message from Bill.  While waiting  at the front gates and taking some group shots some guy was trying to get into our pictures… It was Bill.  Fantastic! Bill made it… we now have a tour guide.  We had already previously decided that we were going to rent a LO-Q BOT for the day.  Let me tell you this $70 was one of our best buys of the trip.  Bill was nominated the guardian of the Lo-Q Bot.

Gates open around 9:30am and we rushed over to the Lo-Q sales booth to rent a Bot.  We decided that Georgia Cyclone would be a our first ride and first wood of the day.  The park doesn’t official open until 10:00am but Cyclone is already running. Nice! We are liking this place more and more.  John and Adam took their normal back seat riding position while rest of us took a very front seat. In the of words of Bill, “See Dinn and Summers could make a good wooden coaster.”  Where is that Dinn shuffle? Nowhere to be found on this coaster.  We all agreed that we must get back and ride Cyclone later in the day.  Unfortunately this would be our only ride on Georgia Cyclone.  Bill tells us that Cyclone and Georgia Scorcher normally open before 10:00am so we made our next trip to Scorcher.  Bill tried to Lo-Q it but for some reason didn’t work.  We got in line anyway which was looked like maybe a 5-10 minute wait.  I think there was a protein spill so Georgia Scorcher went down so we bailed on Scorcher and headed over to Gotham City. 

Batman was our first ride in Gotham City but, before we got in line for Batman Bill Lo-Q’ed Mindbender and then also Lo-Q’ed Batman as we were walking into the queue.  At this time of the morning the Batman queue was empty.  Bill made a point to show us the massive queue line that handles the crowd.  I love any coaster with the B&M logo on it and I am especially partial to Batman’s.  I love the speed and the g-forces this rides put on your body.  I find that my feet really feel the g-forces the most. After a great ride on Batman Bill says, “our ride on Mindbender is ready”. 

Here is how Lo-Q works as I understand it.  Near the entrance of a ride you  place your Bot next to an infrared port.  The port then sends this message back to a central computer and within a couple of minutes a message is transmitted back to your Bot with a reserved ride time. Now at the time when you rent your Bot for the day you give each riders height.  If there are riders under 54’’ then a spot for them is not reserved on the rides they can not ride. You have a gateway of 15 minutes when your reserved ride time is available.  You can show up to 5 minutes early or up to 10 minutes late for your reserved ride time. If you don’t show up the reservation cancels itself after approximately 10 minutes. When your reserved ride time is available you usually enter the ride at the exit and there is another infrared port to place your Bot next to. This port will confirm your reservation and display the message – “Enjoy your ride”.  You proceed up the exit show your Bot to the attendant and get ready to ride. The Bot also tells the attendant how many are in your party.

Mindbender is still a great steel coaster.  The third loop on Mindbender is obviously a PR person doing what they do best.  Please! This is not a loop.  Donna didn’t really like Mindbender for some reason.  I liked it but not near as much as John does.  After Mindbender Bill informs us that our Georgia Scorcher reservation must of worked from earlier because we are now ready to ride Scorcher.  I think it was also around this time that Bill disappeared for a few minutes.  Bill had run over to the Great Gasp to get a reservation.  Bill would be constantly running ahead to get reservation during the day. I just hope this is not what caused him to become ill and miss his coaster trip later in the week.

By this time Georgia Scorcher already had a nice little line up happening and Lo-Q was making sense.  There is just something that feels so devilish when you can walk up an exit and get right onto a ride.  He He we loved it. I guess this how Paul Rubens feels all the time. LOL! Scorcher is a very nice B&M standup and very little standup head bang.  The problem with all standup is the constant stacking of the trains.  I don’t for one minute blame the ride ops for this because I have seen it at every park that has a standup coaster.  Even Cedar Point knows they can’t run three trains on Mantis.

Gee! As soon as we finished our ride on Scorcher it was time to head back to Gotham City to get our reserved ride on Batman that Bill had swiped as he walked pass on our first ride.  As we were boarding our seats the guests who had just gotten off were asking the ride op if he seen a FRS radio. We took a look around our seats but didn’t see anything. So off we go for our second ride on Batman.  We get into the brake run and here static you know the sound that comes from a two way radio? Donna and Adam reach behind them and find the lost FRS radio tucked in between them.  Get back into the station and people are still there so we hand them their radio.  I guess they did not listen to this piece of advice. SECURE ALL LOOSE ARTICLES.  Wow! This radio survived two circuits on Batman without falling out or hitting someone on the ride.  I guess I don’t blame parks for not allowing certain items on rides.

After Batman we walk over to the Great Gasp – Parachute drop ride.  For some reason Lo-Q ride did not have an attendant so Bill made his own line.  Adam and I went first. This is the first one of theses for me. No! It is not a Drop Zone.  For some reason Mr. “DROP ZONE” Keeter screamed like a little school girl on this.  Says it has something to do with chairs and cables. 

John was also told that there was a must do family ride much like PKI’s Phantom Theatre called Monster Plantation.  Monster Plantation is rumoured be headed for the same fate as Phantom Theatre… Scooby Doo’s dark ride.  I believed we just walked onto this ride rather using Lo-Q but used Lo-Q for a second ride later in the day.  Monster Plantation uses boats I guess similar to Kennywood’s.  The entire ride was quite good but I still think I will miss Phantom Theatre more than Monster Plantation.

It was around this time that Bill noticed that Déjà Vu was working and he hustled over to get a reservation.  Before Déjà Vu we had one Ninja to battle with first.  Walked over and there was no need to Lo-Q because it was a walk on.  Donna classified her Ninja ride as “That is a one timer”.  I think that is a pretty fair assessment of Ninja. Bill explained to us why he thinks the OTSR have that big orange bulb on the front of the restraint. He believes it is to prevent riders from sitting in front of the restraint.  You know? Kind of makes senses because anything is possible when a person enters a theme park because their brain is usually left in their car. Of course not us seasoned theme park goers and all the good readers reading of this trip report.

After Ninja our reservation for Déjà vu was ready.  I hadn’t really decided if I wanted to ride because I opted not to ride at SFGA back in October 2001 . But the coaster counter in me got the best of me and I was willing to give it a try. Nolan was almost convinced but there was no way Adam and Donna were riding.  So only three of us made the trip up the exit ramp. Bill says , “ you know if we were real nice we would grab three people coming into the line and save them two hours”.  But we were not nice and only showed up with three instead of six riders. We were on the ride within a few minutes and sat near the back. Which is my preferred spot on a boomerang. I hate boomerangs… Why? Just hate going backward through inversions. But I do have a boomerang riding technique…Ready?  First I try everything not to ride and when that fails … On the backwards part I close my eyes and take deep breaths and hold them before the inversion. I used this technique on Déjà Vu successfully.  I actually didn’t mind this ride because the elements are so large you don’t get disoriented. Would I do it again? NO! But I will do the others just for the count. Thank Lo-Q we didn’t have to wait two hours for that.

Getting close to lunch and we have already gotten one heck of a lot of rides in and this a Sunday in July.  Before Lunch we wanted to get Superman: Ultimate Flight onto the Lo-Q for a reservation.  Before S:UF we had a reservation on GASM.  The 1973 John Allen Great American Scream Machine which is such a great site to look at. Lo-Q seating was in the rear and only one middle bench available.  Bill and Nolan got that seat while Adam and I got an axle seat. GASM was pretty uncomfortable in an axle seat but, Nolan and Bill really enjoyed their non axle seat.  We returned later in the day for an non-axle seat and the ride was so much better.  This is too bad because this should and could be great ride in any seat.

A tradition that we have started with John is riding the Carousel at all the parks we visit. SFOG has a really nice Carousel perched high on top of a hill.  John always wants the lead horse but he has to fight Nolan and Adam to get it first.   We particularly liked the rocking chairs in the carousel building.

After the carousel we went down to ride Superman and got two rides.  Since the line was not very long we were pretty sure we could get a ride in before our reservation came up.  On Saturday evening S:UF was running all three trains but on Sunday they were down to two trains.  Superman is a capacity monster even with only two trains the ride ops were able to get the train onto the lift before the second train got to the brake run. Very impressive. As soon as we got off our first ride Lo-Q was calling us to enter for our reservation. Bonus! Two rides within a few minutes on the newest attraction in park.  After this ride we purchased the photo because the one purchased the night before you could not see Nolan.  So we changed our seating arrangement so dad was on the far end.

Time for lunch and it was already well past noon and Bill suggested Miners Cook House. No complaints here just your normal over priced theme park faire.  This was a great time to relax out of the heat and exchange a few stories. Actually the weather this day was quite nice and not very hot.

After lunch we did a little bit of shopping. Adam and I got a nice S:UF t-shirt while Nolan picked up a mini Georgia Scorcher basketball and pennant.  I wanted to get back to the van and start it up because I left the cooler running all day.  I knew there was no way I was going to do their Drop Zone …Acrophobia so John rushed back in to meet Bill to ride.  No thanks! Not my cup of tea.

Our coaster mission at SFOG was not quite complete we still had the 1967 Arrow Dahlonega Mine Train to get in.  No Lo-Q available for this ride so we had to do it the old fashion way… get in line.  The wait for the ride wasn’t too bad no more than 15 minutes.  I do believe this was the first coaster that we have ridden that uses three lift chains.  Dahlonega like most mine trains was a fun ride with a very abrupt ending.  Donna loves doing the Trains at any park that has one so we road the Six Flags Railroad.  The young ride op working the microphone was very enjoyable to listen to. After our train ride we made our second stop of the day to purchase more ice flavoured smoothies.  About the only bad thing I can say about SFOG is the lack of water fountains and the ones we found barely worked. So hence the need to buy smoothies.  John convinced everybody that we needed one more ride on Monster Plantation. I think he just wanted to go back in order for to gain trivia knowledge for a game we played later in the trip.

The skies were continuing to become darker but we figured we might be able to Lo-Q Superman once more before the sky opened up.  We made a reservation and waited our time out by taking an other ride on GASM only this time in non axle seats. As previously stated a much more enjoyable ride.  Then the thunder and lightning started and we knew it would be minutes before Superman would be closed and so much for our reservation. We decided to take cover at the carousel house which Bill had recommended.  After a slight break in the rain we thought it was time to call it day and get on the road. Well we only got down to the washrooms before the skies opened again.  We ran for shelter in the men’s washroom.  This lasted about 15 minutes before we were able to walk up to the front of the park to return our Lo-Q Bot.   We remembered our Georgia Cyclone on ride photo numbers and purchased those.  A final stop at the gift shops at the front entrance.

We left the park at 7:00PM and our destination was Spartanburg, South Carolina which would leave us about a 90 minute drive to Paramount Carowinds on Monday.  We never got to our hotel until almost midnight because of a hour delay in traffic just before we entered South Carolina.  It was during our drive to Spartanburg that John came up with the “Theme Park Trivia Game”. The idea was to remember unique trivia about the park and challenge the sense of awareness later that evening of the other park goers. This was played every night after each park.

Wow! We all agreed that SFOG was one fantastic park and right up there with Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Great America.   We came to the conclusion if SFOG is not rated in the top tier of a Six Flags list then that person must not of never visited this wonderful park. We also knew that it was going to be tough for another park during this trip to top the day we just had at SFOG . Secret to having a great time at a park... is the people you go with.  Thanks to Bill and John for a great one at SFOG.  One more thank you to Bill for spending the entire day with us and showing us his park. 

Stayed tuned for more.  Up Next Paramount Carowinds and the best steel coaster in the Paramount chain.