Trip Reports

[Cthru3]

I really enjoyed Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in the California Bay Area.  And I like SFA.

I'm willing to give them all a chance as a kid I went to SFoG. It wasn't Busch Gardens. I remember it being packed and dirty. It was hot from lack of shade. All of the lines were long. Ive been told SFA is one of the worst and to stay away. I haven't been so I can't pass any judgement. I also am more willing to give it a chance hearing that at least you like that one.

 

[Pretzel Kaiser]

To be fair, Six Flags is really trying to do one thing, and that's rides. They don't really try to be well rounded like BGW.

 

[Nicole]

SFDK was clean. It was heavily themed. The staff were friendly.

My observation is that both CF and SF parks can be charming, if the park was nice before it was bought. Obviously, they can become run down, but some of them are clearly maintained by attentive local management.

There is a lot of received wisdom about which parks are nice and which are bad. I have found those agreed upon truths, very often you be incorrect.

 

[Zimmy]

I think Dorney may be a good example of this. When I was there in the early mid 90s it was... bad... But clearly it was also under renovation. I have heard that since it has blossomed and is now beautiful.

 

[EdK]

I was at SFGA yesterday and I just want to say I was impressed with the park. All the coasters were running but there were some technical problems with Jersey Devil, El Torro and Kingda Ka but the problems were fixed and I was able to ride all the coasters. All the lines were walk ons and for some reason they were running three trains on Nitro (I wished they were just running two so we weren't cooking in the sun as long waiting to enter the station). Still not the best place to be on a hot day since there aren't many trees or shade in the park. I can only imagine how hellish that place gets on a hot crowded day. It was bad enough I went into a store to get sun screen and the guy at the counter says you don't need that, we have lots of shade except for this entire stretch of stores. I was thinking the whole park is like that. The whole boardwalk section doesn't have a single tree, it's just a slab of concrete with rides on it. The nicest section is back by Medusa (if you go look for the wagon with the square wheels).

Overall the staff were friendly and a couple of times let me finish my beer at the entrance to a ride (one was an indoor coaster with AC which was nice). Speaking of beer they had a lot more places to purchase beer and some really good craft beer choices. You can also walk around with a beer but you have to have a wrist band saying you're over 21.

My other complaint is the locker policy for some of the coasters. You're not allowed to bring anything (keys, phone, wallet) on Jersey Devil, El Toro, Kingda Ka and Joker so I had to rent a locker twice at $10 a pop to ride those coasters (I asked an attendant which coasters have that policy - initially I thought it might be all of them). You can move the locker location so I rented one for Jokers and JD and another for kingda ka and el torro.

Overall if they planted some trees or provided more shade it would go a long way to making that park a lot nicer.

 

[Crunchewy]

I was at SFGA yesterday and I just want to say I was impressed with the park. All the coasters were running but there were some technical problems with Jersey Devil, El Torro and Kingda Ka but the problems were fixed and I was able to ride all the coasters. All the lines were walk ons and for some reason they were running three trains on Nitro (I wished they were just running two so we weren't cooking in the sun as long waiting to enter the station). Still not the best place to be on a hot day since there aren't many trees or shade in the park. I can only imagine how hellish that place gets on a hot crowded day. It was bad enough I went into a store to get sun screen and the guy at the counter says you don't need that, we have lots of shade except for this entire stretch of stores. I was thinking the whole park is like that. The whole boardwalk section doesn't have a single tree, it's just a slab of concrete with rides on it. The nicest section is back by Medusa (if you go look for the wagon with the square wheels).

Overall the staff were friendly and a couple of times let me finish my beer at the entrance to a ride (one was an indoor coaster with AC which was nice). Speaking of beer they had a lot more places to purchase beer and some really good craft beer choices. You can also walk around with a beer but you have to have a wrist band saying you're over 21.

My other complaint is the locker policy for some of the coasters. You're not allowed to bring anything (keys, phone, wallet) on Jersey Devil, El Toro, Kingda Ka and Joker so I had to rent a locker twice at $10 a pop to ride those coasters (I asked an attendant which coasters have that policy - initially I thought it might be all of them). You can move the locker location so I rented one for Jokers and JD and another for kingda ka and el torro.

Overall if they planted some trees or provided more shade it would go a long way to making that park a lot nicer.

I love SFGAdv, but yeah shade is lacking. El Toro is amazing. I haven't been since they added Jersey Devil. Hoping to get back there soon to try it out. Will go on a weekday and hope for a similarly empty park.

 

[bill s]

I had to rent a locker twice at $10 a pop to ride those coasters (I asked an attendant which coasters have that policy - initially I thought it might be all of

I thought they were $1 2 years ago, or maybe it was 2, although I paid $8 once because couldn't see the small text on the big screen without glasses. Is this real?

 

[EdK]

I thought they were $1 2 years ago, or maybe it was 2, although I paid $8 once because couldn't see the small text on the big screen without glasses. Is this real?

It was $10 to rent a locker for two hours with the option to move it to another location. To rent a locker at just that location was less but I'm not sure what the cost was. Since the lines were short I needed to move the locker to other locations.