Photo TR: Johnson's Coaster Vacation

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:03 pm Post subject: SFOG

Day 7: (7-29-05 Six Flags Over Georgia)

Yeah we finally got to our final park of our trip, Six Flags Over Georgia. Leanne has been to SFOG once before when she was quite a bit younger. I have never been to this park before, but for many years I have been wanting to come here after seeing some cool photos of the Mindbender when I was much younger. Even though I did not ride many coasters when I was younger, this coaster just looked neat. Now I was going to get my chance to finally ride this legendary coaster. We left my friend's house at around 8:15 to make sure we got to SFOG early. The traffic through Atlanta was amazingly light....we avoided the beltway and took I-75 right to I-20. We got to SFOG at around 9:20 or so. We walked through the front gate at around 9:30 (we already had tickets through AAA) and noticed that many of the Looney Toons characters were there to greet us. Foghorn was waiting for us to take a pciture with him. He seemed happy to see us visiting his park. We then went over to the Q-bot center (right next to the Georgia Cyclone) to pick up our new friend, The Q-bot (Best $30 we ever spent). Yeah! we got to see "The Toons" do the Vegabus dance..this was some fun. The Georgia Cyclone was running before the official park opening time of 10:00 AM so we decided to take in our first credit of the day. They were only running one train...it took us about 10 minutes to get to ride, even with the Q-bot. While this was a fun coaster, it was quite rough (not as rough as the Hurler). We did not sit in the recommended back seat. instead sat in the 2nd row of the front car. We then walked over to The Georgia Scorcher, and with Qbot, we got on the ride about 10 minutes after we scanned it...(I also ran over to Acrophobia to get a reserve time as well). After our "Evil" Vortex experience we were uncertain that we would enjoy the Scorcher. It turned out that we both loved it....It's an intense stand-up with very comfortable restraints. What a great coaster SFOG!! After the Scorcher we went over to ride Acrohphobia...The best drop tower ever (not including Tower of Terror). You have never ridden a drop tower until you experience this one. As you can see from pictures, you are not really in a normal seat. During the entire ride you get a clear view of what is directly beneath you, especially since the seats are tilted slightly so nothing can obstruct your view. This ride was a lot of fun, especially with the ride ops taunting the riders with songs and sayings.

Ok here are some pictures....I will continue with the next post.

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject:

Ok onto more Six Flags over Georgia goodness.

Again, we just loved Acrophobia. Now it was onto aimless wandering since we had no idea where to go to next. Ok Six Flags...surprise us! Our next stop was the Foxhorn shrine, which looked undisturbed, fountain thingy. Oh look what is in the distance..another coaster credit...The Deja-Vu...maybe its going to be open!!!! Alas, we were not so lucky since again this was another day Deja-Vu was going to be closed for the day (Even though I got a reserve time for Deja-Vu (it never cancelled either) as well as to constant running/testing that occured most of the day)). After our Deja-Vu pouting we scanned our Q-bot for the rapids ride. We, The Johnson's, love rapids rides. SFOG has a very nice one. It may be an old one, but the landscaping was quite nice. We even helped dislodge another raft that was caught on some rocks. Next stop was The Ninja. I am happy to report that due to the information from other TPR's members we knew to sit in the magical seat (back car front seat). Actually we found this coaster to be fun.....The magical seat makes all the difference in the world. We got to witness all the crazy headbanging of others..but we came away unscathed....actually enjoying this ride. Though the next coaster was not as fun (not because of the coaster itself). The Great American Scream Machine. While pulling down the restraint bar I accidently nailed my funny bone on the side of the coaster which left my right arm numb. I might have said one or two of those family unfriendly words which led the ride operator to ask me if I was ok. I gave my thumbs up and away we went. While the first drop was a lot of fun but my arm (and some internal organs lol) did not enjoy the rest of the coaster. This time we were in the fifth car of the train which may have led to its roughness. While I do like wooden roller coasters, this one just seemed to be rougher than normal (plus my right arm was really hurting which probably did not help). After GASM we proceed to get our QBot time on Leanne's new favorite coaster (Montu is now 2nd) Superman: Ultimate Flight!

Onto more pictures!!! Will be continued soon!

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 8:37 pm Post subject:

Great TR, looking at the qeue for the Cyclone it looks kinda like there was a good crowd. Glad that you knew about the "magic seat" as well, because I enjoy riding Ninja as well. I also see that Acrophobia got its new seats, I didn't know that they changed the color of the restraints as they used to be yellow. Anyway, I still haven't gotten to ride Superman or Deja Vu, and SFoG is my home park, we don't get down there much though. Anyway glad you had a good time!

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 6:03 am Post subject:

I miss the big chicken...I used to live in the ATL, and every time we went to SFWW, we'd stop at the big chicken.

SFOG is one of the best SF parks. Their rides aren't record breakers but they are all solid and some of the "best of breed". Definitely best standup, flyer, and Schwarzkopf custom layout. Taiko Really Happy Red

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 8:23 am Post subject:

Superman Ultimate flight was the coaster that influenced our decision to visit SFOG this trip. I showed a picture to Leanne (yes from TPR) and she said, "Let's go!" Yeah this coaster was really great. For the most part its very graceful, yet it features the intense pretzel inversion. It truly felt like we were flying through the air. After SUF we walked over to Six Flags newest attraction, Skull Island. Skull Island happens to be sponsored by Publix, Leanne's employeer. I was not sure if adults could go and explore Skull Isalnd, but we decided aginst it because we did not feel like getting soaked again. We took a quick and fun ride on the bumper cars before getting our next coaster credit, "The Dahlonega Mine Train." It was an OK mine-train coaster, though it has the highest number of chain lift sections in a coaster I have ever encountered (3). Oops, I forgot Big Thunder at WDW has 3 so never mind. Next was the Great Gasp, one of the classic rides of Six Flags. Six Flags posted the night before our visit that on Aug 14th they are closing The Great Gasp. That is too bad since its a great ride. After The Great Gasp, we decided to get another coaster credit on the newest coaster in the park, Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster. While we did go through the Qbot entrance (The exit), the Coyote coaster has to have one of the strangest ride entrances we have ever encountered. You basically walk into a room which reminded me of one of those side rooms you would find in an old bowling alley. It had an arcade as well as a small kiddie flat ride. Notice how well the "Piggy" ride pigs resemble Porky Pig. Very strange. The coaster itself was a little strange as well. The normal line for it was huge...it had to be at least a 60min wait for this thing. The Coyote Canyon coaster only has one train and it did take a few minutes to dispatch between rides. (i.e. a very long wait). The coaster itself was fun but very short. What made it strange was the very beginning of the ride in reaching the first chain lift. It took the coaster at least 30 seconds to go around a short bend from the loading area to reach the chain lift itself. Mind you this really was a short distance for the train to travel. The chain lift "approach" as well as the chain lift itself was longer than the actual coaster. Fun coaster? yes. Worth more than a 5 min wait? Nope. Make sure you use a Qbot on this one. After the Canyon Blaster we took a ride on The Confederate Sky Buckets ride, the shortest sky ride ever.

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:26 am Post subject: Another SFOG posting.

Onto Gotham City where the next two coaster credits await us. We walked by the Gotham Crime Wave swings but we decided to pass on it to go ride The Mindbender. We walked up to the entrance to the Mindbender and noticed something very bad. NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Mindebender was closed for the day! Drat......Anyways we got our time, using our friend the Qbot, for a ride on Batman and walked around Gotham a little. We took ride on the swings, which was a lot of fun then proceeded to go ride Batman. Batman is a great inverted coaster (first Batman coaster I have ridden).
It was a lot more intense than expected, especially the 2nd half of the ride. The exit of Batman takes a cue from Disney as it exits right into a gift shop. They had some neat things in there including a toy replica of Kingda Ka. We had lunch at the Panda Chinese place. After lunch we proceeded to use our next reserve time that we got before lunch for the Monster Plantation. The Qbot had us wait...ohhh about 30 seconds before we could load into our boat. I had no idea that this was a water ride, Woot!. Well...not really a woot! It was fun, but you can tell the ride has seen better days. Back to Gotham, where we proceeded to ride Batman 2 more times (it was a walk-on so we did not need the Qbot). The queue area was very nice for Batman (something you miss out on with Qbot). You walk through a nice park until you reached what looked like a run down part of the city. This section of the queue ends up in Batman's Batcave where the coaster loading area is. We had to get a front seat experience, (Qbot did not give us the seating option earlier) which is a must for all inverted coasters. What a great ride.

Ok more pictures!

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:09 am Post subject:

:shock: Holy Crap, thats alot of photo's

very cool one of these days we will get to do a nice road trip

nice TR

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:24 am Post subject:

I'm so sorry to hear that Mindbender was closed! What an awesome, awesom ride. SFOG really is a GREAT park, I think it is the best in the chain, they just have 4 great coasters, Mindbender, Georgia Scorcher, Superman and Batman (Best clone out there)! And Georgia Scorcher is the nly standup coaster that will actually get love from non standup enthusiasts. Other than the Vortex's I've ridden all the B&M stand ups and honestly can say pretty much hate them all, except for Georgia Scorcher!

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:34 am Post subject:

Ok...This is my last posting for Six Flags Over Georgia....I just wanted to say we had a really great time at this park. I heard it was a nice park, and it did exceeed our expectations. We will have to go back sometime for a weekend getaway since its only about a 5 hour drive north of here. Maybe next time Mindbender and Deja-Vu will be open. Anways enjoy these last few pictures of Six Flags Over Georgia.

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:41 am Post subject: Final TR posting for this trip

The day after visiting Six Flags Over Georgia we made the five hour trip back to our home in Gainesville, Florida. lucky for Leanne she was able to play our Nintendo DS on the way back...we love Meteos. Both Paramounts Carowinds as well as Six Flags Over Georgia are recommended parks. Next year we hope to hit Cedar Point as well as some others on the way. In the meantime we should post an occasional TR of some of the great parks less than 2 hours from our home. Again thanks again TPR for all the information which really helped make our trip a good one.

--Erik and Leanne Johnson

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