Stay tuned! There are More posts incoming soon for my trip. Can’t wait to share.
CoasterGuy95’s 2024 California Adventure
- Thread starter Thrills & Chills WQAQ
- Start date
Who else up goldening their gate
Didn’t go fully across due to wind but wow that was incredible
What a wonderful park! Operations could use work, but no complaints otherwise. Beautiful and really fun. New favorite teacups too btw, the garlic spin is NO joke
After a day here yesterday and a half day today (heading back to the hotel to nap) this park is quite nice. Gilroy is much better but this is no slouch. All the rides here besides goldstriker, and yes, that includes railblazer are just ok. Railblazer as of now hurts way too much with the straps and I need more straps without them since you can move em off. I need more rides on it. Flight deck I won a lift walk for and it was SO cool! The ride itself is again just ok, some of the transitions are not the best, especially the one heading into the final helix after exiting the corkscrew. If you want thoughts on a specific ride please just reply and ask I will gladly say. Although I just need sleep now,,,, the lift walk was at 7 am,,,
Glad to hear Gilroy Garden has found another stan. Truly a unique, brilliant, and tremendously underappreciated park. One of the nicest, most charming, most relaxing, and certainly THE most beautiful theme park I've ever been to. I wish monthly that there was an equivalent on the east coast.
Are you hitting Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk @Coasterguy95? It's EASILY my second favorite Bay Area park.
Are you hitting Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk @Coasterguy95? It's EASILY my second favorite Bay Area park.
Yes I am! Thursday and Friday. Tho Saturday will undeniably be the most insane day in my life..
And that’s a wrap on CGA! Here’s my final thoughts on all that I got to do
Coasters: Gold Striker is undeniably the best in the park. A furiously paced, airtime machine. I got one ride where I was practically standing up because the operators were very nice during our ert sessions and giving a lot of room! The tunnel over the drop makes the drop even more insane, hell on my minimum verify rides I think I saw god in the tunnel. Railblazer is number 2 in the park. Another furiously paced airtime machine. Though this ride has issues. 2 issues stand out in particular. The straps are my main problem. Unlike jersey devil where they’re ok and tolerable for a ride, I cannot ride with these straps. I have to hold them out to the side in order to ride comfortably. I cannot do the collarbone pain, and it gave me 2 bruises from them. I am sorry if park management sees this but my god I can’t do it. Additionally, red train shakes a LOT more than the grey train. Asides from this, this ride has it all. Powerful airtime, powerful inversions, insane pacing. Clear no2 in the park even if it’s short. Flight deck is a ok B&M invert. It’s extremely short but most of the layout doesn’t do much. I did get to lift walk it as I won the raffle for that and it was incredible. Stunning. The best part is the corkscrew which is extremely whippy. After that the ride dies. Good ride but too short. Patriot is a interesting ride. For one it’s extremely short, however the elements do the talking. The loop has decently good positive g force, and the corkscrew is incredibly snappy and has a pop of airtime. Very weird ride that would be better as a standup, but still enjoyable. Demon is a ok arrow looper. Janky and weird but it’s fun! Better than LNM still. It at least does something interesting. Great head choppers on the ride but it’s just ok. Third favorite arrow looper, ten tor and anaconda are still better but it’s still a good ride. Grizzly is a fine wooden coaster. It’s smooth and has one good lateral moment but zero airtime. This is my favorite version of grizzly though as my only other experience with it was grizzly in 2022 at KD which was fucking BRUTAL. Psycho mouse is a very sub par arrow mouse. It has ok laterals but does in the second half and has brutal operations. Woodstock express is a very interesting intamin family coaster. It’s boring and doesn’t do much but it’s cute and charming. I enjoyed it but the trains are a tiiiight squeeze. Lucy’s crabby cabbies is a standard miler kiddie coaster. Fun but doesn’t do much. For what coaster they need next, a family coaster with good capacity would do wonders. Additionally a solid multilooper with decent length would be nice.
Flat rides: drop tower is king here. A truly excellent drop tower, and I really like it. Centrifuge is a Schwarzkopf doohickey. It has the loudest, screechiest brakes I’ve ever fucking heard but it was awesome doing alone and being pinned to the side by the laterals! Orbit is an enterprise that has good positive gs, I like it. Liberty twirler is a standard scrambler that’s enjoyable, has good laterals alone. Pacific gliders seems like a very tame family ride, but with my friend we were able to swing out past 90 degrees multiple times. The trick is to go all the way up, and then go up and down while shifting your body weight around to swing farther. Carousel Columbia is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL carousel. The upper deck is really nice. Star tower is a ok observation tower, just needs a deeeeep clean on the windows. Rue le dodge is a very sub par set of bumper cars. One green car is incredibly fast and I got that my first ride, but I got a really slow car the last time.
The food and ops are good, all employees besides one were very friendly. Hopefully that employee was just having a bad day or something and isn’t always like that. Most crews here move at a good pace.
Complaints: the park needs more shade. It feels wayyyy too warm. Most lines have barely any shade. Also build roofs for the stations! The employees looked miserable without roofs, I hope they get them. Additionally they need another truly standout coaster besides gold striker. Railblazer is good but varies in quality if you have straps on and which train you get.
Overall, a very middle of the road park I enjoyed. Heading to SFDK right now so I will report back more later! Someone bump this thread later and I’ll send pics of me on the lift walk.
I’m speechless on how horrible discovery kingdom is. New least favorite park. My god I can’t even put a genuine review out rn because of how bad it was I need to process everything.
Santa Cruz was cute!! Neat little park even if Giant dipper was rly bumpy in wheel seats. Upfront it’s good tho.
I am home now, i will make a writeup tonight about everything that i didnt cover (flightdeck liftwalk, SFDK, plus the 2 mystery parks) and then attach photos
OK im back hi yes i needed a looong break. i still have to rank everything, then ill post my writeup. brace yourself its gonna be a long one yall.
Alright alright I won’t wait any longer!! Gimmie like 20-30 mins to write everything
Thank you Zach for getting me to actually do this btw but where do we start. How about we go back to my flight deck lift walk?
This was absolutely unreal to do, everyone should try to do one.
Final updated ranks for the park: Goldstriker: 8/211, railblazer (in a good train, back row only) 9/211
It’s now (regretfully) time to discuss six flags discovery kingdom. Oh boy. I visited on 6/19/2024, and this is my horror story.
My day began with a backstage tour of flash, sadly wasn’t operating for the duration of the event but was a really cool tour.
Then we had a tour of Medusa which was really cool too. I’ve now toured both Medusa floorless coasters and it’s super neat.
my first coaster of the day was sidewinder safari, I didn’t get any pics but who could blame me. This ride sucks. It doesn’t spin or have any laterals whatsoever, and was only running 4 cars, thankfully I was on the first car of the day but the line exploded after that.
Next was Batman the ride, a S&S freespin, and another ride that sucks. Incredibly painful, vests choke you out, painful rocking and another ride with a dreadfully horrible throughput due to them only running 2 trains. Waited 35 mins for it.
Next coaster was Medusa and for my first ride I was severely underwhelmed, it didn’t have the forces I expected from a B&M looper. However little did I know that opinion would change later. Used an employee skip the line pass (shout out to my friend Jackson who works there and had passes) because the line was FOUR FUCKING HOURS. one train operations with the second in the maintenance shed but holy fucking hell I would never wait that long for anything asides from my top 3.
Next we decided to see some animal exhibits and.. for the sake of everyone I’m not including pictures because the enclosures looked quite small, and the cheetah exhibit didn’t even have any water in it. We then headed for the underwater animals, and seeing sharks were cool but the exhibit was quite small
At this point you might be asking “wait what about Kong and boomerang?” They were both closed lol. Kong was testing all day, but never opened, and boomerang had no train on the track.
Next I did roadrunner express, standard zamperla kiddie coaster but this one was quite painful as usual to be expected from the model. Not good. But better than Batman, I’ll take sidewinder over it tho.
Finally, it was not only ert time, but time for one of the most hyped up rides of the trip, joker. The rmc conversion of Roar. And let me get straight to the point this is absolutely my least favorite RMC hybrid. It only has 4 (very brief, non sustained) good moments of airtime, the drop, double pop under the stall, and the hill before the brakes. Everything else is mediocre floater but a quick pop like rmc does. I don’t like how rmc does quick pops, and especially didn’t like how most of the ride was floater. The inversions were lackluster, and even after getting 2 rides, one up front, and one in the back, I was extremely disappointed by this ride. Also was only running 1 train. Wonderful.
After this I rode Superman, which was a better version of the SEAS skyrockets, I think I prefer phobia phear coaster though. Still a solid ride, fun launch but short.
After this, I went back for one more lap on Medusa, and got a back row, left edge seat ride and it absolutely blew me away. The positive gs were more evident than before (and both instances I was well hydrated), the zero g roll was even whipper, the snap off the midcourse was super awesome, and ended the day on a high note. And after this I left
Food here was quite good, and the staff was extremely friendly, however that can’t save this park. Even if this park has a caring team behind it, shoutout to Jordan btw, this is by far, the worst park I have ever been to. Horrible efficiency, small animal enclosures, lackluster rides besides one, and very ugly areas (looking at you DC universe). This park needs a lot of TLC, but with effort it could easily be very good.
Final ranks: Medusa: 34/211, new favorite floorless, joker: 35/211
I’ll post my Santa Cruz beach boardwalk write up sometime later around lunchtime, don’t want to overwhelm people but full warning, never go to Sfdk for now.
This was absolutely unreal to do, everyone should try to do one.
Final updated ranks for the park: Goldstriker: 8/211, railblazer (in a good train, back row only) 9/211
It’s now (regretfully) time to discuss six flags discovery kingdom. Oh boy. I visited on 6/19/2024, and this is my horror story.
My day began with a backstage tour of flash, sadly wasn’t operating for the duration of the event but was a really cool tour.
Then we had a tour of Medusa which was really cool too. I’ve now toured both Medusa floorless coasters and it’s super neat.
my first coaster of the day was sidewinder safari, I didn’t get any pics but who could blame me. This ride sucks. It doesn’t spin or have any laterals whatsoever, and was only running 4 cars, thankfully I was on the first car of the day but the line exploded after that.
Next was Batman the ride, a S&S freespin, and another ride that sucks. Incredibly painful, vests choke you out, painful rocking and another ride with a dreadfully horrible throughput due to them only running 2 trains. Waited 35 mins for it.
Next coaster was Medusa and for my first ride I was severely underwhelmed, it didn’t have the forces I expected from a B&M looper. However little did I know that opinion would change later. Used an employee skip the line pass (shout out to my friend Jackson who works there and had passes) because the line was FOUR FUCKING HOURS. one train operations with the second in the maintenance shed but holy fucking hell I would never wait that long for anything asides from my top 3.
Next we decided to see some animal exhibits and.. for the sake of everyone I’m not including pictures because the enclosures looked quite small, and the cheetah exhibit didn’t even have any water in it. We then headed for the underwater animals, and seeing sharks were cool but the exhibit was quite small
At this point you might be asking “wait what about Kong and boomerang?” They were both closed lol. Kong was testing all day, but never opened, and boomerang had no train on the track.
Next I did roadrunner express, standard zamperla kiddie coaster but this one was quite painful as usual to be expected from the model. Not good. But better than Batman, I’ll take sidewinder over it tho.
Finally, it was not only ert time, but time for one of the most hyped up rides of the trip, joker. The rmc conversion of Roar. And let me get straight to the point this is absolutely my least favorite RMC hybrid. It only has 4 (very brief, non sustained) good moments of airtime, the drop, double pop under the stall, and the hill before the brakes. Everything else is mediocre floater but a quick pop like rmc does. I don’t like how rmc does quick pops, and especially didn’t like how most of the ride was floater. The inversions were lackluster, and even after getting 2 rides, one up front, and one in the back, I was extremely disappointed by this ride. Also was only running 1 train. Wonderful.
After this I rode Superman, which was a better version of the SEAS skyrockets, I think I prefer phobia phear coaster though. Still a solid ride, fun launch but short.
After this, I went back for one more lap on Medusa, and got a back row, left edge seat ride and it absolutely blew me away. The positive gs were more evident than before (and both instances I was well hydrated), the zero g roll was even whipper, the snap off the midcourse was super awesome, and ended the day on a high note. And after this I left
Food here was quite good, and the staff was extremely friendly, however that can’t save this park. Even if this park has a caring team behind it, shoutout to Jordan btw, this is by far, the worst park I have ever been to. Horrible efficiency, small animal enclosures, lackluster rides besides one, and very ugly areas (looking at you DC universe). This park needs a lot of TLC, but with effort it could easily be very good.
Final ranks: Medusa: 34/211, new favorite floorless, joker: 35/211
I’ll post my Santa Cruz beach boardwalk write up sometime later around lunchtime, don’t want to overwhelm people but full warning, never go to Sfdk for now.
I swear Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is a ticking time bomb for the new Six Flags chain. If I were the Cedar Fair executives coming into the newly combined company, one of the very first things I'd be doing is finding a way to rehouse the vast majority of SFDK's animal collection. The park appears to have a horrible history for animal care back pre-Six Flags, many of the zoological facilities are visibly rundown and severely dated, they have a full selection of big cats, they own goddamn dolphins, and they're located in the Bay Area of CA. They're seriously like one influencial animal activist/documentarian away from Six Flags' own Blackfish—and, what, every third person in the Bay area is an animal activist and/or a documentarian, right? 
Even completely ignoring the health and happiness of the animals, the brand risk to Six Flags here is just MONUMENTAL. We essentially know that CGA is shutting down and SFDK will be the Bay area Six Flags park. Hopefully that will mean rehousing animals, bulldozing their enclosures and theaters, and relocating CGA attractions to fill the holes.
Even completely ignoring the health and happiness of the animals, the brand risk to Six Flags here is just MONUMENTAL. We essentially know that CGA is shutting down and SFDK will be the Bay area Six Flags park. Hopefully that will mean rehousing animals, bulldozing their enclosures and theaters, and relocating CGA attractions to fill the holes.
I will say, the dolphins seemed very well cared for as I went backstage with them and they were being fed quite regularly by trainers who were very passionate about what they were doingI swear Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is a ticking time bomb for the new Six Flags chain. If I were the Cedar Fair executives coming into the newly combined company, one of the very first things I'd be doing is finding a way to rehouse the vast majority of SFDK's animal collection. The park appears to have a horrible history for animal care back pre-Six Flags, many of the zoological facilities are visibly rundown and severely dated, they have a full selection of big cats, they own goddamn dolphins, and they're located in the Bay Area of CA. They're seriously like one influencial animal activist/documentarian away from Six Flags' own Blackfish—and, what, every third person in the Bay area is an animal activist and/or a documentarian, right?
Even completely ignoring the health and happiness of the animals, the brand risk to Six Flags here is just MONUMENTAL. We essentially know that CGA is shutting down and SFDK will be the Bay area Six Flags park. Hopefully that will mean rehousing animals, bulldozing their enclosures and theaters, and relocating CGA attractions to fill the holes.
The animals are most likely being treated extremely well—the infrastructure for said animals isn’t.
They’ve got a lot of safari animals there, right? They could relocate a lot of those over to great adventure, since it sounds like they have better overall infrastructure for them, and the aquatic animals could run to SWSD or a nearby aquarium.