Goooooooood morning, ACErs!
The day is early yet, but we've already been awake for two hours driving to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom from San Jose! The drive goes by quick, however, if you have the luxury of falling asleep in the passenger seat. :}
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| There's nothing like groggily stumbling out of a car to this view. |
My first visit to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom took place 3 name changes ago, wayyy back when the park was "Marine World Africa U.S.A." Marine World and Africa U.S.A. started out as two 60s-era Bay Area animal parks that were born out of the Sea World animal park boom. The two smaller parks pulled their resources together to open a brand new park in Vallejo that would take the name of both parks.
By 1996, the park was really starting to feel the pressure from parks like Great America, who were experiencing exponential success with roller coasters and thrill rides. The decision was made to sell the park to Premier Parks (who would soon thereafter purchase Six Flags Parks and usher in a new era of outrageous over-speculation of capital), transforming the property into "The New Marine World," which featured a large collection of rides and two roller coasters. In 1999, the name changed again to "Six Flags Marine World" with Premier Park's purchase of the chain. Then, in 2007, yet another re-branding of the park took place, this time leading to its current moniker, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.
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My last visit to Six Flags Marine World Discovery Kingdom was in 2002, but since the park keeps replacing their most recent coaster, they only have one new one for me; Superman: Ultimate Flight! |
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We were greeted by Six Flags Discovery Kingdom as soon as we arrived. Walking in the gate, we were given lanyards with different tours on them.
Which tour did Thrillography get?? :} |
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| Oooh! Wherever it is, Josh, M&M, John, and Dan got it as well! Where could we be?? |
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| Medusa's computer room, of course! |
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| And maintenance bay! Jonathan approves. :} |
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| We were given free reign of Medusa's maintenance area, in which all 3 of Medusa's trains receive their tune-ups. |
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| B&M FLOORLESS WHEEL BOGEY SELFIE! |
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| Look! Ron is here too. :} |
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| Now here's a view you don't get often! |
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| The maintenance bay has two levels: a lower level for maintaining the train's wheels and undercarriage, and an upper level for maintaining the train's seats and restraints. |
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| Matt the maintenance guy talked to us about the ride n' whatnot. I could've stood there and talked to Matt all day. ;} |
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| Maintaining the trains can be tedious, so the mechanics will sometimes throw impromptu dance parties while at work (as evidenced by the boom box). These parties often include the "Three C's": champaign, caviar, and cake dancers. |
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| Medusa maintenance bay glamour shot! |
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| Glamour shot: Round #2! |
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| Like the lower level, we were given free run of the upper level maintenance area. We were merely instructed not to fall through the floor and/or die or anything like that. |
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| For someone like me, the number of pitfalls in this area could prove to be lethal. I had to be very careful not to accidentally plummet through the floor while taking pictures. |
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| Well, that about does it for part one of the tour! Part two takes place a bit higher up. |
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JONATHAN!!! I'M SCARED.
That's right. Part two is a ride on Sky Screamer, the park's 150ft Starflyer. Backwards. |
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| Walking up the lift to Medusa should be a breeze compared to a backwards Starflyer, right? |
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| Our guided climb up Medusa's 170ft lift hill is part three of our tour, or as I like to call it, the "Dude, where's my harness?!" part of the tour. |
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Fans of Dollywood know that a much-coveted walking tour up Wild Eagle's lift hill involves wearing a special harness that's tethered to the ride via a pulley system. Medusa's system is a bit more au naturel. Basically:
Don't. Effing. Fall. |
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| Oh look! Sky Screamer is continuing to be horrible. |
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| Jonathan. PROTECT ME FROM THE SKY SCREAMER. |
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| M&M. PROTECT ME FROM THE VEKOMAS. |
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| The view from the top! We're now taller than anything at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom! |
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| Go-Go Gadget Extend-o Arm! |
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| #LEMMETAKEASELFIE |
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| Back on terra firma, we made our way through the crowds to this morning's ERT. |
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| "Your ERT rides are Roar, Superman, Tsunami Soaker, the go-karts, and V2 if we can get it to work." |
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| *o* |
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| Man of Steel! Here we come! |
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| For a ride that, at first glance, seems like a collection of gimmicks, Superman: Ultimate Flight gives an incredible ride! Remarkable airtime, g-forces, and hang time are all throughout the ride's surprisingly-substantial performance. |
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| Now it's time to party like it's 1999! |
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| How was your ride, boys? |
Roar has not exactly aged gracefully. I was fortunate enough to ride it in 1999; what a joy it was! I didn't know at the time what a remarkable thing it was to be riding in Millennium Flyers. Little did I know that GCI, equipped with their marvelous trains, would be taking over the world!
These days, Roar chatters worse than a cluster of school girls with no decorum. The ride still manages to maintain speed and provide some decent airtime. but after three days of Gold Striker, once on Roar was enough.
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| Tsunami Soaker, a Mack "Twist n' Splash," provides more entertainment per ounce than many of its splash battle counterparts. |
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| The line for solo go-karts got pretty long following a breakdown of Superman, but the tandem line was short; I was able to coax Ray (who'd NEVER driven a go-kart before) into driving me around! :} |
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| Woo! V2 is open! Quick, everyone get their credit before it breaks down again! |
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| Whoa. This pic is huge. |
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| V2's an odd little ride. I hope Six Flags learned their lesson about building rides that exceed the city's height ceiling. Six Flags even tried to pull the wool over the city's face by saying in the press release that V2 was 26ft shorter than it actually was! lol. Silly Six Flags! |
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Dolphin: I have devised a plot for world domination!
Trainer: Oh yeah? Let's hear it.
Step 1. Fish
Step 2. Giant fish market
Dolphin:
Step 3. Profit
Step 4. WORLD DOMINATION
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| *maniacal laughter* |
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| Superman is back open! Super Jeff and Super Ray must have fixed it. :} |
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| Ok! Let's go ride Medusa! |
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And Kong…?
umm.
Let's come back to this one... |
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| STEVE'S 400TH CREDIT! WOO! |
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| Medusa's glassy ride and thrilling sequence of elements made for a perfect 400th coaster for Steve! |
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| Look! V2 is still open! |
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| LOOK! BIRDS! :D |
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| :> |
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| With all of the park's coasters ridden, the boys and I decided to leave the park for a few hours to embark on an additional adventure. |
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| Where might we be going? |
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| An hour north to Sonoma's Traintown Railroad, of corse! :} |
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And what could we expect to find at Traintown?
Planes, of course. :} |
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| #CULTURECREDIT! |
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| Family portrait on the train! |
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| What a lovely little park! :} |
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| Traintown is home to several miniature locamotives in all different shapes and sizes. :} |
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| The expanses of Traintown are positively lush! |
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| Looks like you've got a mild case of raccoon face, John. :} |
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| Just a fraction of Traintwon's ten acres has more foliage than all of Carowinds. |
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| The landscapers here have a keen eye for detail! |
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| Look! It's the Bay Bridge! I bet THIS one didn't collapse during the Loma Prieta... |
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| Other park attractions include a rather spry-looking Eli Bridge Scrambler |
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| and Ferris Wheel! |
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| In the heart of Traintown is a petting zoo and miniature village that is only accessible via the train. |
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| The charming collection of animals seem as though they've just stumbled out of a children's storybook! |
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| I made a friend. :} |
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| The miniature town (which I'm fairly sure is the namesake "town" part of Traintown, though the front of the park is fairly town-ish as well) proved difficult to navigate for giants like Steve and me! |
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| John's goin' shopping! |
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| The whole thing is just too cute to handle. The train even functions as a conveyance for the food and bedding for the petting zoo. |
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| The stop at the petting zoo is only the half-way point for the train. It's a surprisingly long ride! Definitely a good bang-for-your-buck. :} |
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| Traintown is truly lovely. It's a must-do for every Nor-Cal coaster trip! |
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| Family photo under the luscious palms of Traintown! |
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| Oh, and there's a credit here, too. :} |
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| Before we head out, let's investigate the roundhouse a bit. |
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| Here's the bay for all of the passenger cars. |
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| A miniature roundhouse calls for miniature bricks! :} |
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| Ok! Back to the action! |
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| Six Flags Discovery Kingdom's entrance is all but engulfed by coasters. |
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| Roar! You need some new track, bud. |
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| V2! You need some counseling or something. |
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| The only coaster we had yet to hit at this point was Boomerang. I know I said earlier that we'd hit them all already, but by that I mean that we'd hit all the ones that actually matter. Anywho, Tom needed his credit, so I joined him for moral support. It wasn't too bad. :} |
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Ooooh! What a lovely specimen!
The elephant looks nice too. :} |
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| #LEMMETAKEANELEPHANTSELFIEWITHTOM |
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| XTREME ELEPHANT POV CRAZINESS! |
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| Discovery Kingdom's rapids ride is quite nice, but I decided to stay dry this time. :} |
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"Hey, Mr. Eagle! Do you know any of the eagles at Dollywood?"
"Why sure I do! Earl and Mark have been in the display enclosure this season."
"Is one a bald eagle and the other one brown?"
"Yep! That's them. Do they ask for food a lot? They love human food."
"OMG YES. They ask me every time I'm there!"
"Well if I lived at Dollywood I would ask for food all the time too! I hear the cinnamon bread there is divine."
"OH! It so is. Will you come visit soon?"
"Absolutely. I'll send for you via carrier pigeon the next time I'm in the Smokey Mountains. We can go get Bubba Gump's."
" :D " |
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| I tried talking to the flowers, but they didn't respond…….because…….flowers don't talk….…obviously. |
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| Hammerhead Shark! Oh, this brings me back. |
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| I opted out for a ride this time around, but it sure was good to see this guy again. |
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| Between Discovery Kingdom's rapids ride, shoot-the-chute, and new Tsunami Soaker, the park has a pretty substantial collection of wet rides. However, the park does not have, nor has it ever had, a log flume. And that makes my heart sad. </3 |
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| Funny story here. |
So I'm in line for Superman before dinner. I'm waiting for the last seat and I'm next in line. The train launches off like normal, but comes to a halt following its re-entry. And it's not even a clean stop; only the front car is actually in the loading area. The riders look a bit bewildered, but without missing a beat, the ride operator on the left says "Welcome back, riders! You're back a little sooner than we expected."
The ride operator on the right then joins the operator on the left in the telling of deliberately-awful knock-knock jokes to entertain the stranded riders while the ride's breakdown is sorted out. The ride operator to the left and I had already been chatting since before the ride stopped, and when she learned the nature of the ride's problem, she didn't hesitate to explain what had happened; turns out, some idiot hopped the 12ft fences separating the ride from the midway, which lead to the e-stopping of the ride by a vigilant ride operator.
The ride operator continued to tell me that several police and security officers are now in the process of ejecting and arresting the individual. I told her that I applaud the park's response to a matter such as this. At that point, one of the still-stranded riders chimed in: "Hey, this must be kind of embarrassing for the park. Good thing none of those special roller coaster people are around here right now to see this."
With a cheeky grin ( " :} " ) I took my badge out of my pocket to show the operators and riders that they'd been "caught" by a roller coaster person. We all had a good laugh and talked a bit more about the club n' whatnot. I talked a bit about the blog and asked if I could take a picture of everyone. The ride ops and riders agreed, which lead to my special E-STOP photo op! Soon the ride was cleared for re-opening, and after a few test runs, everyone got their ride. :}
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| WOOSH! Superman: Ultimate Flight is flying once again! |
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| On my way to dinner, I managed to catch someone loosing their hat on Medusa. :} |
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| After dinner we were treated to a cupcake reception with the sharks! |
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| As the sun began to set on Discovery Kingdom, we all headed over to Medusa's area for ERT. |
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| An ERT that, of course, included Cobra. :} |
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| We learned that the sweet spot on Medusa is towards the back of the train, in one of the middle seats. Possibly the smoothest ride on a shoulder-harness'd B&M I've ever had. |
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| I guess we should ride Kong... |
The Premier Parks boom of the late 90s lead to a lot of new Vekoma SLCs and Boomerangs, but Kong was actually purchased 2nd hand by Six Flags from Opryland U.S.A. The then 2-year-old ride was shuttled to Marine World in short order when the Gaylord Opry Company called the theme park industry quits. Opryland's sister park, Fiesta Texas, fared much better.
Why?
BECAUSE TOMORROW IS SANTA CRUZ BEACH BOARDWALK DAY. YES.
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is closer to my heart than any other place in the world. Find out why in Part V of My Bodacious ACE Coaster Con XXXVII Trip Report. :}
I'm so excited for tomorrow; I don't know if I can sleep tonight!!!
*falls asleep in car*
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