TR: 4 days in Texas

First off, no photos so I apologize

 

I have been wanting to take a trip to Texas for the last 10 years and ultimately it worked out this was the only time I could go this year. This trip was also special in the fact that originally I had planned to possibly hit my 300th coaster on this trip, but ultimately in the end I came up 3 short. Was originally going to do 4 days and hit Sea World on the 4th day which would have given me the 300th but due to the long drive from San Antonio to Dallas, we decided to scrap Sea World on the last day.

The minute my girlfriend and I walked out the doors of DFW on Wednesday night we knew we were screwed! Being from so cal, there was nothing that could prepare me for the sheer heat and humidity of Texas in August. I thought there was no way I'd survive 3 back to back days of theme and water parks, but we did and ultimately had an EPIC trip!!

 

Day 1 – Six Flags Over Texas

 

Our hotel was literally right next door to the park so we got there just after opening. Here's a breakdown of the day

 

La Vibora - It hadn't opened yet, but was testing so we waited about 5 min and sure enough, it opened up, and we waited maybe another 5 min. The only other bobsled coaster I'd been on was Disaster Transport at CP, so it was fun to ride one out in the open. It was a lot more fun than I had expected.

 

NTG - To my shock there was no line, maybe just a 2 train wait in the station. We waited for the front, and wow what a ride! I had been on one other RMC prior, and Twisted Colossus, at least in my opinion just edges out NTG as the better ride, due to the fact that TC has the inversions and the added fun of racing (if you’re lucky enough to have it happen). We went back around and rode the very back, and holy hell that airtime coming off the lift!! Definitely a better ride in the back.

 

Titan - Again no wait! Wasn’t really sure what was going on. Thought maybe the heat had scared everyone away but as it turned out the park was only open till 6 that night so it actually worked in our favor since the park was basically DEAD most of the day!!  Titan was awesome! Definitely better than our sister coaster Goliath @ SFMM. The double helix before the mid course almost made me black out as did the other helix. It was intense!

 

Yosemite Sam dark ride and Roaring Rapids.

 

Superman - After about 15 min we were on. This was only my second combo shot tower, and I much prefer those over the simple drop tower like Supreme Scream at Knott’s.

 

Shock Wave - Like most of the other coasters, no wait. It’s amazing how fun a Schwarzkopf can be when it doesn’t have horrible lap and shoulder restraints ::cough:: Revolution ::cough::

 

Runaway Mountain

 

2 mine trains - regular one and the kid one for the credit

 

Justice League 4D - This totally surprised me. It’s basically Transformers but on a smaller scale and interactive. We both loved it, and I was really surprised to see that level of a dark ride in a Six flags park.

 

Pandemonium (15 min wait)

 

Mr Freeze - Holy hell! was that intense. Awesome ride though. I’ve done the Premier spaghetti bowls but they are child’s play compared to that ride. Also basically another walk on.

 

Batman - Typical clone

 

Judge Roy - This really surprised me how fun, and that you actually got some decent speed and air on a coaster that old.

 

We left the park around 5 and managed to ride every coaster in the park with the exception of the kiddie coaster, all without using Flash Pass!! We survived day 1, got in our car and drove a little over 3 hours south to New Braunfels. Coaster/ride tally for the day: 11/17

 

 

 

Day 2 – Schlitterbahn

 

We were there bright and early at 8:30 and parked right in front of the ticket booths at Blastenhoff. We bought the $20 early access pass to get into Blastenhoff with the rest of the resort guests at 9am (an hour before the park opened) At 9 am we threw our bags on a lounge chair and booked over to the tower. Here's a breakdown of the day

 

Master Blaster - We ended up only waiting about 15 min! What an awesome ride that is!! I think we even got a little air going over one of the hills.

 

Wolfpack - About 25 min wait. It was nice to not have any brake pads to slow you down on it

 

Black Knight - 15 minute wait.

 

As we were exiting the splash pool we saw the mad dash of people running in since the park had officially opened, but we had basically finished off Blastenhoff by the time the park opened!! : ) We put our stuff away, then headed over to The Falls to make our way over to Surfenburg.

 

The Falls - I’d almost say The Falls was my favorite ride in the whole place. It was so much fun. We got off at the Surfenburg exit, then headed over to Dragon’s Revenge.

 

Dragon's Revenge - Waited about 35 min. I kinda expected more from it, but that final scene and drop caught me totally off guard.

 

We got back in The Falls and I totally wasn’t expecting the bottom section, completely different from the top. We rode the aquaveyer back up then got out by Blastenhoff. Grabbed our stuff and jumped on the tram to head over to the West park.

 

By now it was only 11:30. The West park was PACKED!! We put our stuff away than grabbed our tubes and headed over to Raging River.

 

Raging River - Waited almost an hour, but seeing as it’s a 45 min ride, figured it was worth it. It was long, but there were so many parts we would get stuck in, and not a lot of exciting drops or chutes to go through. I loved how it weaved it’s way in and around all the other attractions and under the buildings etc.

 

Hillside - Waited about 45 min, but unlike Raging River, we both really liked Hillside. The drop at the end completely caught me off guard, and again I loved how it went inside the building.

 

Whitewater - (waited about 30 min), and wow that first drop was intense, totally reminded me of the Congo River Rapids at Wild Rivers (RIP) the rest of it though wasn’t super thrilling.

 

Cliffhanger - (waited about 20 min) What I thought was the most intense, turned out to be the biggest let down, aside from the drop at the end.

 

It was about 4 and we had finished all the tube chutes. I was super happy, and realized we were probably gonna be able to do everything in the park. Next up we headed to the Bonzai Pipelines. Another 20 min later and we were flying down those. Super fun, nearly fell off my tube around one corner.

 

Downhill Racer - 10 min. Holy crap, the air you get off these things is insane!!! So much fun!

 

We both really wanted to do Hillside again so we waited about 25 min and did it again. Neither of us had really any desire to trek back over to do the Der Bahn speed slides, so we finished off the West park by doing the Soda Straws. We jumped back on the tram and headed back over to Blastenhoff. Jumped back in the Falls for a couple more laps, then headed back into Blastenhoff around 6:30 to see if we could maybe grab one more ride in on Master Blaster. The line was still really long and we were both pretty exhausted but there was one thing we had yet to do.

 

Torrent River. Who knew a lazy river combined with waves would be so much fun. We took a few laps around and then grabbed our stuff and called it a day. Drove about 30 min south to San Antonio and checked into our next hotel. Ride tally for the day: 13/16 including re-rides on The Falls and Hillside.

 

 

 

Day 3 – Six Flags Fiesta Texas

 

We knew we wouldn’t get a repeat of SFoT, especially with it being Saturday, so we got to the park a little after opening, and immediately went to get a Flash Pass. We opted for regular which ultimately proved to be a perfect choice. We started off with reserving Superman which only had about a 30 min wait at the time. Meanwhile we headed over to Iron Rattler.

 

Iron Rattler - With only about a 15 min wait, we opted to wait for the back. Iron Rattler is by far my favorite RMC out of the three I’ve ridden. The combination of extreme air time, the inversion, the double S turn and the use of the quarry wall with the drops and tunnel, makes it my favorite of the group. It probably sits at #3 of my favorite coasters of all behind Bizarro, and El Toro.

 

Roadrunner Express (15 min wait) - surprisingly fun, and one of my favorite mine train rides (I don’t put those in the same category as Thunder Mountain @ Disney though)

 

Superman - Reserved on FP - Again, love the use of the rock wall for the drops.

 

Poltergeist - Reserved on FP - Typical premier spaghetti bowl.

 

We grabbed lunch then got in line for Batman.

 

Batman - 1 hr - Despite a rather full looking queue the line moved fast and we waited just under an hour. Batman was just stupid good fun! I was laughing hysterically during it, and it was so much smoother and overall better than the Intamin version (Green Lantern @ SFMM)

 

After that we headed over to the boardwalk area and jumped in line for Pandemonium. Unfortunately it broke down but we also had a reservation for Scooby Doo Ghostblasters so went over and did that. After doing Justice League over at SFoT, Scooby was pretty lame, though we had a blast (no pun intended) battling each other to see who got the higher score and annoying the hell out of each other with the blaster gun noises.

 

Pandemonium - waited about 5 min. And I really like the loading system they use vs the one at SFoT.

 

Goliath. Pretty much walked on to Goliath and there’s not much to say, it’s your typical B:TR clone but mirrored.

 

Then came the low point of the day. I rode the kiddee coaster for the credit. Part of me died inside but it got me one step closer to 300 so I had to. My girlfriend of course videoed it and put out to the world and she said it was easily the highlight of her day.

 

Boomerang - Reserved on FP - I was reminded how much I hate those things, but I needed the credit so I went into it knowing I wouldn’t enjoy it.

 

We reserved one more ride on Iron Rattler which at that point had an hour and half wait, so we headed over and closed out the day with a 2nd row ride on it. By the 3rd day, especially after the full day at Schlitterbahn, we were DONE physically. We barely made it through the day. Total coaster/ride tally for the day: 9/10

 

You might be wondering how two so cal people managed to do 3 full days back to back at these parks in 100+ degree weather and sweltering humidity every day without dying. Well the key was hydration. The best $30 I ever spent was getting one of those hydration backpacks. Luckily none of the parks I’ve been to have a problem with them, and they even let us bring in sealed water bottles in addition to the water pack. A few times throughout the day we would stop at food places and grab cups of ice to pour in there, but we pretty much had ice cold water all day long and best of all, it was free! I highly recommend them if you are heading out to a theme park when it’s super hot out.

 

Day 4 – Non theme park stuff

 

Checked out of our hotel and headed into downtown San Antonio to check out the Alamo and Riverwalk. We got to the Alamo and walked around outside, but the line to go in was way too long so opted to head down to Riverwalk. We grabbed a couple tickets for the river barges and after waiting about 20 min, we were off on our little guided river cruise. We finished that up, headed to the car and started the long drive back to DFW. Thanks to Waze, it steered us around all the traffic on I-35 by taking the toll road. We stopped mid way to grab a Whataburger, and sorry Texans, those don’t come close to In-N-Out or Five Guys, as much as you might want to believe they are better. We headed to DFW and headed back to So Cal.