Photo TR: Coastin' Coast to Coast

I've always been somewhat interested in theme parks and rollercoasters, but it wasn't I visited Disneyland and Universal Hollywood in 2011 that I really started to take a serious interest. Yes, California Screamin' turned me into a coaster nut (you have to start somewhere, right?). I started planning an epic trip, one that would take in some of the biggest, best and most notable parks and coasters the USA had to offer, and plenty in between.

So in May and June of this year my brother Jon and I, armed with our cargo shorts, goggles, and tie dyed t-shirts (OK not really), spent six weeks on the road clocking up 150 coasters at 22 parks.

We started at Disneyland. It had only been 18 months since I'd last visited but in that time plenty had changed. Guests no longer entered via the alley behind Soarin' and, most importantly, Cars Land had opened! This was a big deal for me - Cars is my #1 Pixar film so I was very excited to see Radiator Springs. Apparently it was a big deal for a lot of other people too, because the place was extremely busy.

On to the photos of Disneyland Resort (but mostly Cars Land!):

Did I say we started at Disneyland? Not strictly true. After arriving at LAX, we immediately headed to Knotts with the intention getting a couple of early rides in.

But despite it being only 11am, queues were already quite lengthy. So we left, having at least processed our Cedar Fair season passes.

Disneyland!

Walt showing Mickey where California Adventure is.

Mandatory castle photo.

The new Fantasy Faire area is really well done, and much more interesting than the glorified gazebo that was there before.

These people are waiting 30 minutes for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I'm sure they will all think it was worth it...

Monstro says: "'sup?"

There were more strollers at Small World than people.

Roger Rabbit is easily the most underrated attraction in Disneyland.

There are always Newsies on hand to welcome you to DCA.

Pixar parade!

"Congratulations, you've been selected to play the role of... dog butt!"

It's somewhat hokey and not the best the Muppets have to offer, but I'll be sad to see this go if the Monstropolis rumours are true.

Up until this point Jon had always refused to go on drop towers. He thought Tower of Terror was just another dark ride and didn't realise his mistake until too late. Hilarious!

Cars Land!

It's just like the movie!

I love the concept, a giant game of air hockey sounds really cool.

In reality it was a minute and a half of Jon and I yelling "no, lean THIS way!" at each other in a vain attempt to actually get our tire to move.

This way to the main event!

This is the shortest stand-by time I saw the whole time we were there. Fastpass was about a 20 minute wait, plus the 20 minutes you spent waiting for the Fastpass machine. Single rider line saved us a lot of time - often getting on within 5-10 minutes, and we usually ended up in the same ride vehicle!

The detail on both the ride and the whole of Radiator Springs in general is phenomenal. It's hard to believe this used to be a carpark.

Ghetto on-ride photo. Me in the front, Jon in the back.

Mater has enslaved baby tractors to work in his amusement park.

Ignore the Carthay Circle, Flo's has the best food in DCA. The breakfast French toast was amazing!

Radiator Springs looks awesome at night, this pic definitely doesn't do it justice.

Maybe Luigi's is more fun after dark...

...nope. Nice lighting though!

RSR is even better at night! It makes more sense too, since the indoor portion is set at nighttime.

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree looks like a kiddie ride, but is actually really fun!

Turbo mode!

Yep. It's also easily the best place to watch World of Color.

The number of bozos who were trying to film a crappy WoC video with their GoPro was astonishing. Whatever happened to just enjoying the show? (I took this after the show had ended!). Anyway, that's it for this installment. Next up: Knotts!

Great review so far, looking forward to the other 21 parks

I'm also looking forward to seeing the rest of the parks. It has always been my dream to do something like this! I hope you guys had an awesome time!

Great stuff so far. Sounds like an epic trip.

I know most people love Flo's but in my two experiences there I was EXTREMELY underwhelmed, especially for the price. I actually think that the Paradise Garden Grill has the best food at the resort.

I also love Maters, glad you enjoyed it.

That trip sounds epic! I can't wait for the next 21 parks!

I know most people love Flo's but in my two experiences there I was EXTREMELY underwhelmed, especially for the price. I actually think that the Paradise Garden Grill has the best food at the resort.

It's at the high end of 'good value', but I'm always a fan of simple meat-and-veg meals. And the brioche french toast was delicious. Paradise Garden Grill is great as well, although last time they drowned my skewer in sauce.

I forgot to mention that we tried the Wine Country Trattoria to get premium viewing for World of Color. Not cheap, though the food was excellent, particularly the grilled chicken sandwich. Even though the restaurant is right in the middle of the park it feels quite secluded, so was a great place to take a break from the crowds. And it saved us having to line up to get a good spot for the show (we ended up front and centre next to the railing), which was definitely worth the extra cost.

We also visited the Blue Bayou for the novelty factor. Ended up going twice because Jon liked the Monte Cristo sandwich so much. Both times we ended up with fairly ordinary seats (i.e. near the door) but it was still a lot of fun to be in a restaurant that was in a ride!

Never underestimate Mater's Junkyard Jamboree! This ride actually provided some pretty hard body slams!

Nice report. Looking forward to the rest of the parks!

dt

Part 2: Knott's Berry Farm

My parents don't travel much. They haven't left the country since their honeymoon, and even then they only got as far as New Zealand. But back in the early 80's my mother had taken a trip to California, and would occasionally regale us with stories of her trip. While we definitely knew what Disneyland was, tales of a place called "Knott's Berry Farm" seemed incredibly lame. Why go halfway around the world to visit a berry farm? It wasn't until years later that I realised it was a theme park, with nary a berry in sight...

After three and a half days of the craziness that is Disneyland, a day at Knott's was like a breath of fresh air. Crowds were light, nobody was stressed about making that "perfect vacation", and not an ECV for miles. It didn't matter that half the park was either closed or still under construction, we had a fantastic day at the park. We even returned a month later to ride everything that was new and/or freshly reopened!

Back at Knott's! They played the national anthem before opening, which was something I'd never seen happen at an Australian park.

I am a big fan of motocoasters when they're done well. Pony Express was OK, but a little short for me. On the plus side, we were able to re-ride a few times before a school group showed up and filled the queue.

After seeing the Timber Mountain Log Ride refurb, I really hope the same is done to the Calico Mine Ride. It was good enough, and I imagine would have been quite spectacular back in the day, but definitely needs some TLC.

The rapids queue takes you on a walking tour of the entire ride before you get to the station. No surprises here!

The old west/mining town theming was a real highlight, and made me wonder why they don't just extend it across the entire park.

For a tasty beverage and a sympathetic ear, visit the Calico Saloon!

The Calico Saloon stage show was hilarious, and it was great to see the performers giving 100% even with a small crowd.

Not quite a ghost town, but pretty quiet all the same.

Nice touch. Bonus points if you know where this is!

When you can't find the right word to make a tombstone rhyme, just invent one.

Theming...? Or just a ride vehicle that got left out?

Three days after we skipped it because the line was too long, Ghost Rider was closed for refurb.

However it had reopened by the time we went back in June. I don't know if I just got a good seat, but while it was a little rough it wasn't the bone-shattering ordeal I'd feared.

That said, SFA's Roar and Coney's Cyclone were still very fresh in my mind, which may have affected my perception a little. Still, there were more thrills than aches to be found here.

Timber Mountain had another three weeks of refurb left at this point.

I did! The updated scenes were great - I could tell it was a 'classic' ride without having to forgive it for being too old-fashioned.

Look at these crowds!

So this was my first Boomerang. I think we ended up riding seven during the trip.

Yellow and green have never looked so good together.

The problem with waiting until you get back to do your trip report is that you end up with photos of attractions under construction that have opened in the interim. Future installments will feature unfinished Gold Striker, Full Throttle and Flying Turns.

On the last day of the trip we waited a good 20 minutes in this queue for Coast Rider. Ended up being the last coaster of the trip.

It was pretty good for a wild mouse, and didn't feel too much like a stock model. Definitely helped that it was only two weeks old and was still quite smooth.

I think this is some Cedar Fair or Knotts management getting a hard hat tour. We were having lunch in the Ghost Town Grill (delicious!) later in the day and a group of them sitting next to us were talking about adding soft-serve ice cream machines.

It would be a full four days before we were able to experience the majesty of flyers for ourselves at CGA.

Xcelerator!

Definitely one of the highlights of the trip, Xcelerator packs a punch that the bigger launchers just don't have.

The feeling as you glide over that top hat is awesome!

Whee!

Gotta love pink track!

Definitely one of the best Intamin launchers, right up there with Maverick and Superman Escape.

Windseeker was, of course, shut. Of the four we would encounter during our travels, only the one at Kings Island was operating when we visited.

I had high hopes for Jaguar! Surely a ride with such elaborate theming would be awesome, right?

Sadly, no. Long and dull. Apparently that's OK if you call it a 'family coaster'.

We rode Montezooma's Revenge, then on the following cycle it broke and stayed shut for most of the day. Awesome airtime on the ends!

It's weird that a park with such elaborate landscaping at the front becomes a concrete mess at the back.

Best themed bin ever.

The first time we rode this a couple of kids were on the other side of the car. Talk about an unbalanced load! We spun so fast I had no idea what the track was doing!

B&M have never built a coaster in Australia, and my nearest is in Hong Kong. So Silver Bullet was my first!

It's not as good as some of the other B&M inverts but still pretty solid, and definitely worth re-riding. The helix is one of the highlights.

Aesthetically it's not great. Maybe if those white supports were painted to blend in a little? I don't know.

It wouldn't be a Knotts trip report without this guy. Moo.

After dinner at Mrs Knott's restaurant (which I'm still full from) the sun set on our first week in Los Angeles.

Let's end on a glamour shot of the rental car. Next up: Discovery Kingdom!

Windseeker was, of course, shut.

Having no experience with this make but Funtime HighFlyers seem to run every time I visit - Prater, Tivoli, Hansa-Park, Holiday-Park - while I often read here that the Windseekers are not very eager to seek some wind...

^ I think the main reason that the windseeker was closed was because of that incident where the riders got stuck up there for like 2 hours or something.

Awesome TR! Can't wait for the rest.

KBF's Windseeker is the only one that's still closed in the CF chain. It's waiting on a blessing from DOSH.

Nice TR so far. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your cross country TR and getting an outsider's perspective of the States.

I hope that Knott's Windseeker is able to run again and doesn't stay SBNO for years until its removed. Last time I went to Knott's was in 2011 during its Halloween Haunt and it was a couple of minutes before closing time and I had the option of going on Windseeker or trying one more maze and I chose the latter thinking Windseeker is going to be here next time I'm here.

Part 3: San Francisco & California's Great America

After Knotts it was time to head north. My last visit to San Francisco had been far too short, and it during the off-season, so there were plenty of coasters to check out for the first time.

First up we visited California's Great America. I'd really been looking forward to checking this place out - partly for the chance to ride Gold Striker, and partly because it just seemed like a great little park. Unfortunately my timing was a bit out and we ended up visiting after the promo shoots but before Gold Striker had opened to the public. But we still had an awesome time, Flight Deck kicked ass, and overall CGA was just a great park to enjoy a day out in (thanks to rolercstrluvr for meeting up and showing us around!).

I enjoyed myself so much I kind of ran out of time to take many photos, so I'll start with some San Francisco highlights.

Onward to San Francisco! Well, Oakland...

No visit to NorCal is complete without a visit to the home of Jelly Belly!

Never before has a car so been so well suited to it's advertising wrap.

The tour was interesting but slooowww... but well worth it for free jellybeans at the end. Jelly Belly is very expensive in Australia, so we emptied our wallets to buy such reasonably priced candy in the store.

Found a Melbourne tram on the Embarcadero - feel like I should point out that back home this type of tram is also just for the tourists. We have actually bought a few new ones since the thirties...

Ghiradelli = delicious!

Golden Gate Bridge. Because, y'know, San Francisco and that.

Artsy.

To escape the freezing winds of the San Francisco summer, we visited the Walt Disney Family Museum. It was more interesting than I'd expected, and there were a few really cool pieces, like this scale model of Disneyland in the early days.

Took this after walking across the bridge. I think the fog is a permanent feature.

It's sunny in San Jose though! This park is beautiful, like a garden with rollercoasters in it.

Hooray for fountains and the double-story carousel!

Since there haven't been enough pics of Gold Striker in the CGA thread, here are some more.

Launching soon! But not today. Of the handful of coasters we missed out on on this trip I was most disappointed to not get a ride on this.

Such curves! Phwoar!

Not a tunnel in sight.

On to the other woodie. I was expecting Grizzly to be particularly terrible. It wasn't. It was, however a bit slow and quite rough in spots. But no worse than most other old wooden coasters.

Ghost train.

The park are clearly aware of how rough this ride is. The trains have a seatbelt. And a lapbar. And a seatbelt for the lapbar. Good times!

After Grizzly, an Arrow corkscrew looked very promising.

I don't know why but this is the only shot I got of the track. At least there's a train on it I guess...

Love the Disko coasters! The Survivor name might be gone but the theming is still great.

Tiki room reject.

It wouldn't be a trip to CGA with a turn on these things. I managed to fluke a few snaps after some experimentation.

I'd not done a standup coaster before, so Vortex was my first. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but I was still glad when it got to the end.

I'll end on a high note. Flight Deck is just awesome, easily one of the top five B&Ms we rode on this trip. The finishing helix was just icing on the cake, and for a ride that's been running for two decades this thing is still very smooth - 10/10!

That's it for this installment. Next up: Discovery Kingdom!

Actually not all Stand-Up Coasters from B/M are bad. For example, I find Riddler's Revenge at SFMM to be very good. Awesome TR though!

^Yes, Riddler is great! Green Lantern at SFGAdv is pretty solid too. Standups are definitely a novel concept, but I'm yet to find one that wouldn't be just as good (if not better) if it had sit-down trains instead.

Nice PTR. but what is snapping and how do you do it?

^Snapping is a technique pulled off on the Flying Scooters, where one skillfully maneuvers the tubs so that the cables 'slack' and 'snap' back to their taught position. It's all timing and knowing the motions of the ride. What is basically happening is that you are getting your tub to either move faster or slower than the main ride supports. When this happens, the cables get slack and tighten up when the tub catches up or slows back down...like when you'd swing too high on the swing set and your chains slack! Yes, I've snapped like crazy on these, and can control myself for light or ridiculously heavy snaps (enough that the op freaks out and hits the e-stop). I'm snapping less now and keeping things light as to not panic anybody.

Nice trip report! Too bad you ended up visiting during that dead time between the promo shoots and the actual opening.

Superb pics!

Gold Striker is one sexy ride

I had been wondering where this TR was. Thank you for the wonderful pictures!

Part 4: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

After an unplanned intermission (Mr Computer has been away for repairs), it's time for the next episode of this saga - Discovery Kingdom! On what turned out to be another sunny day everywhere apart from downtown San Francisco, we made our way across the bridge to see what Vallejo's number one theme park had to offer.

I hadn't been to a Six Flags park before but was cautiously optimistic about SFDK, and it certainly felt like a quality park in most respects. Well, except for the M&M-branded stairs. The shows we saw were all pretty good as far as that sort of thing goes - although the dolphin stadium seemed kind of tiny for such big creatures. For a Saturday the park didn't seem too crowded, but we were still glad to have Flash Passes to fit everything in.

When it comes to coasters, I thought the park was a mixed bag. Medusa, V2 and Superman are great, very re-rideable. Boomerang is a boomerang. Roar has seen better days, and Kong wasn't too bad (which is about the highest compliment one can pay an SLC).

Some stats at the end of this leg:

5 parks

24 coasters (22 steel, 2 wood)

2 boomerangs

3 log flumes

3 rapids rides

3 drop towers

1 ride themed to Superman

and, due to a certain travel companion insisting on breakfast there every day, 4 visits to Boudin Bakery...

Some photos for your viewing pleasure (brought to you by the new multi-image uploader. Hooray!):

If nothing else, Discovery Kingdom is colourful, and this was helped by some awesome weather. On the lower left is the only giraffe we would see all day.

This is either a fountain or some kind of dolphin porn I accidentally photographed. Accidentally.

It's called Monsoon Falls for a reason. I've taken baths and emerged less wet than from this ride. Also they have some water guns where you spend a quarter to help drench anyone who isn't already soaked to the bone. I could have spent the whole day here.

Aww... penguins!

There is something inherently hilarious about sea lions. This show was great, something about lost treasure or stolen fish I think, but I'm always impressed that you can even train animals to perform like this.

V2's unique design make it my favourite Intamin impulse coaster. Not sure why a 45-degree twist is better than a vertical one but it just is.

Seats at the rear of the train seemed better. You got upside-down 'hang' time on the midway end and a higher climb on the vertical end. Awesome.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is mostly a photo of Kong's lift hill.

You'll never hear the end of it? Sounds like a threat more than any sort of inducement to ride. Anyway turns out you do hear the end of it after a little under two minutes, and this version is better than the one in Maryland in that it just gives you a headache rather than back problems.

I don't care what people think, paid skip the line passes are awesome. We waited 5 minutes instead of the 45 in the regular queue.

I assume this was an awesome coaster when it was new. It had some great curves and bounces. But in its current state it's just a little rough to really enjoy.

Most of these people are holding on for dear life.

This seemed like a bigger, badder version of Dreamworld's Buzzsaw. And it totally delivered! I'm not sure what Superman is doing that requires him to perform a mid-air barrel roll but it definitely works on a rollercoaster. We were lucky and got in early enough to only wait 10 minutes for a ride, by the time we got out the line had blown to 1 hour!

The waterfalls exist to amuse the river gods as raft after raft of humans pass by. Futile attempts to stay dry by covering one's head with one's hands will be punished!

Another super-wet ride. I mean, the raft is basically underwater at this point. Love it.

This elephant has a rollercoaster coming out of his trunk!

Never mind, it's just a boomerang.... I really don't mind these rides, people say they're all the same but that simply isn't true. For example Knotts has a yellow and green one. This one is yellow and blue. See? Different!

This ride did, however, have the most entertaining ride ops of the entire trip. Impromptu Taylor Swift karaoke just cuts right through the boredom of waiting in line.

I wonder if other tigers make blonde jokes about white tigers.

Who do? Voo Doo!

Literally moments after this photo somebody lost their lunch. So we didn't ride because I didn't want to end up in "that" seat. I know it's likely happened on every ride I've ever been on, but, you know, this time it was just so REAL.

I assume this is called Kong because the it represents the abusive relationship between a giant gorilla and his lady-captive/lover.

Why do parks name rides after things that kill people? Didn't Medusa turn people into stone?!

But no matter, it's a great coaster. While personally I don't really see much of a ride experience difference between floorless vs floor-present trains, Medusa was definitely a lot of fun.

On the inversions you are reminded that they didn't paint over the carpark lines.

Funtime is an Australian company, so it was my patriotic duty to board this Star Flyer.

Park sure looks great at sunset. Thanks for an awesome day, Discovery Kingdom! In the next part of the report, coaster-free Yosemite, and then New York!

I grew up in central California, yet never visited this park. Of course, when I was younger, it was located in Redwood City and was still called "Marine World."

Did you see the dolphin and Shamu show? Those are my favorites there, and the main reason I go up there, unless there's a new credit of course.

^^^

Shamu is Sea World; Shouka is the lone killer whale at SFDK.

Great great report, with great photos. We're very due for another Cali trip. Wish we could make it for WCB.

In the meantime, great stuff.