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(Photo TR): Ccron10's TPR Midwest Journey


Ccron10

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Day #2: Six Flags Fiesta Texas: (see bottom of the page).

Day #3: SeaWorld San Antonio: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1399036#p1399036

Day #4: Six Flags Over Texas: http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1463685#p1463685

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Days 0 and 1 My first flying experience and Schlitterbahn:

 

Before this trip, I have only traveled by car and have never gone more than 300 miles from home so a lot of this trip were things that were new to me. After having to sit at the end of a row with a girl who got sick, but moving to another seat and feeling queazy myself on the first flight, the second was awesome. The feeling of takeoff was like riding a coaster with a gradual launch and the view of Earth and cloud formations from 3/4 mile above is breathtaking.

 

In between the flights, I had a good seven hour layover in Houston which was spent exploring the terminals, having fun on the speedy moving walkways, riding the monorail a few times, having lunch at Fuddruckers, and watching a season of Insane Coaster Wars. At San Antonio, I pretty much sat and searched the Internet for an hour or two and watched an employee at a small convenience store clerk try to tell a guy who didn't really understand English that they just closed and were cleaning up for the day. Once a few other TPR members showed up, we shared a cab to the hotel. I pretty much crashed for the night in my room and fell asleep.

 

Next morning, I packed my swimsuit, had breakfast, then loaded up the bus for the first unofficial park of the trip: Schlitterbahn.

Some people are waterpark people and I am one of them. After a good 45 minute drive of park info and getting to know everyone, we arrived. One of the things that kind of rubbed off as odd for this park is the way the park handles admission between the three of them. All guests must wear a wristband and there are no line of ticket booths or turnstiles, but park employees visually looking for the bands as people walk by.

 

As for the slides, they were great. We first had ERT on Master Blaster, which has been frequently shown on many Travel Channel shows and I have to say that because of the frequent attention of this, the ride never really interested me too much. After riding it, I still think it is kind of overhyped, but still enjoyable. It did have a few pop of airtime, but it tried to shove water up my a$$ in places I never thought it could go.

The Black Knight tube slides were enjoyable and managed to get two rides on it before our ride on The Falls, their new lazy river.

Schlitterbahn is famous for their lazy river/slides, which pretty much act like a maze around the three parks and The Falls is their newest and longest water ride in the world. The first part from the conveyer lift to the second park was kind of slower compared to the other, which was crazy. They did seem to have trouble with capacity of the lift hill later on.

 

Over at the second park, our group did Dragon Blaster a good two or three times with a wait time from 15 to 30 minutes each time and it ended up being worth it. I feel it is underrated and is probably one of the best waterslides I've ever been on. I do wish I had my glasses on so that I could see the effects!

 

Buggie Bahn was kind of a bust IMO. Being experienced on the normal Flow Rider models, I though that I wouldn't have any issues with this thing. After heading down the ramp and into the main portion, I straightened out my board and stayed there for five seconds and figured I'd do a barrel roll... well, I nailed it and pretty much ended off the side of the attraction ending my session.

 

After doing the random torrent of river a few times after that my group boarded the 70s busses and went to the original park where we first did the Congo Expedition. After waiting in an hour long line, we got in the freezing water and spent the next 20 minutes doing down random drops, over rapids, and going on forever. As someone who has enjoyed Riptide Run at Dorney Park (now it's being removed), I have always wished that there was one that just went on forever. Let's just say that this place was a dream come true. Most of the river slides did have some issues with current flow and I could've done without them ending up in the creek, but it was awesome overall.

After getting lunch and having time for one more slide, we did the second part of the falls, took a few laps on the insane six-foot high waves in the lazy river in the wave pool (which was my second favorite at the park).

Overall, Schlitterbahn has to be the best waterpark I've been to. It Great slides in a great setting with a great use of space. The food could be a little better, but it's park food.

 

We then headed back to the hotel, got dressed, and then took the bus across the highway to have some epic pizza in an awesome shopping mall at the welcome dinner. We were also were treated to some taunting views of Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

 

Six Flags Fiesta Texas with behind-the-scenes views of Iron Rattler are coming up soon.

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After circling the Philly Airport four times to find the correct lot and waiting an hour to go through security, here's what's going to take me on my first plane ride.

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Here's the boarding gate.

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After an sickening first flight, I landed in Houston and spent the next several hours exploring the terminals... and riding the monorail system.

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I wanted to ride the one built by Disney, but I didn't feel like having to go back though security again.

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It was kind of cool how there was no driver.

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For lunch, I had this view while eating a great cheeseburger.

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The view from 27,000 feet in the air is beautiful.

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The river is pretty winding.

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Much better than my first flight even though the plane was more spacious.

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There she is, the legendary Master Blaster.

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We had our own swim-up bar, pool, and cabanas.

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I am willing to bet after seeing a sign at the top that the wait time at that point is 30 minutes, that if the line went to the bottom, it would probably be two hours.

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Schlitterbahn was truly awesome. It had a bunch of attractions that I have ever even seen before.

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For example, this thing was epic. Kind of like a rapids ride without a giant raft.

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For it being 100 degrees out, the water made it feel like it was actually 70.

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The view from my hotel room. Clearly this isn't Pennsylvania.

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After a quick shower, we took the bus to a nearby mall for some epic pizza and the official welcome dinner for the trip.

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The mall is located right next to Six Flags Fiesta Texas, which gave us some time to drool over what we'll be riding the next day.

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Unlike malls in the northeast, this one was outdoors and had some great architecture.

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The pizza was epic.

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This is about 85% of the people on the trip. We filled this long and narrow room and some tables in the main dining area.

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Making friends is not that hard on a TPR trip.

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Six Flags Fiesta Texas and the coaster porn of Iron Rattler is coming up next.

Edited by Ccron10
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Day #2: Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Tis' the season of giving, so since Christmas is just winding up, my gift to you is the continuation of my trip report!

 

The following morning after the welcome dinner, we gathered in the lobby after a great breakfast and went over the trip rules and what to expect. We then piled into the bus and arrived at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, which is my first theme park south of Virginia.

 

If there was one thing I could take away from SFFT, it is that the park is big on the Mexican theme given it's location and mixes in German/Medieval and western culture as park areas. Some areas were better taken care of and stuck with the theme more than others, but the main entrance pretty much impressed me in how much quality there was.

 

After arriving before opening, we were led through the park and back to Superman, the B&M floorless that we had ERT on first. The ride seemed to be one of the best of it's type that I've ridden with great interaction with the cliff and a wicked intense turn off of the MCBR.

After getting in a good eight or nine rides, we headed over to Poltergeist for a first ride on it.

 

I find it strange to believe, but this is the second to last Premier spaghetti-bowl launcher I need to ride in the United States (it feels strange being close to riding all the manufactured coasters of a single type) and it was one of the better ones, but not a good as FoF at KD, which is my favorite. It did have little roughness to it, but still an intense ride.

 

After our ride, we grabbed our Q-bots and I joined Yin's, James and Nick's Flash Pass group (which ended up being our Six Flags group for the trip). Upon learning how to use one, I think I am addicted to them as now I wish every park had this system. Its convenient, easy to learn and manage, and worth the money on a packed day (and hot day as SFOT showed).

 

The last coaster we had for ERT was Pandemonium, which ended up being the best Gerstlauer spinner of the trip. A few had some pretty insane laps on this thing over the hour we were able to ride it. If I had to pick between a Reverchon/Zamperla spinner and this coaster type, I'd go with the Gerstlauer. The park could do more to tie it into the Boardwalk theming, but given it's Six Flags, its expected.

 

Before heading to lunch, we took a quick ride on the Scooby Doo dark ride with the bonus of A/C and went on Frisbee, which was a flat I was looking forward to, but turned out to be not as great as I expected since it swung lower than the suspended types. Finally, we got on Kiddee Koaster which had a simple oval layout, but seemed to interact with the nearby stream and car ride. It did have a small pop of air on the final hill, which made it a little fun.

 

After a fun group lunch with some of the people from marketing, our group did some lurking in the main gift shop where I got a shoulder bag that assisted me quite a bit for the rest of the trip, and James ended up getting a pair of cheeseburger sunglasses that screamed Six Flags all over them. We then went over to Goliath.

 

In all, there are five Batman clones on the entire trip and out of them, Goliath was the worst and given how it sat in New Orleans for a few years un-used after Katrina, it's no surprise to me that it was pretty rough and rattled like crazy. I do have to admit that I do like the entrance sign and the paint scheme a little though.

 

We wanted to get a closer look at Iron Rattler before our backstage tour, so we hopped on the Railroad and took it over to Crackaxle Canyon, stopped and got some Mello-Yello Cherry at the Coke Freestyle machine, did some oogling and rode Roadrunner Railway.

 

As one of the newest Arrow mine trains built, it was easy to tell that the ride was designed more sophisticated than Trailblazer or Runaway Mine Train. Each turn was carefully bent and even some hills had airtime. I do kind of wish that Arrow would've been able to hold out after going bankrupt because I really wish that could've been able to build more of these with smoother transitions.

 

The backstage tour of Iron Rattler was quite fun as we first started at the base of the first drop where we could take some great shots of the layout interacting with the cliff. We then went in Gully Washer's control room to cool off and wait for the van to take us to the top of the cliff where we got some great overbank turn photos.

 

Following the tour, we looked into doing Boomerang, but the Q-Bot said that it was out of service so we opted to do Sky Screamer. After trying to avoid some huge-a$$ wasps in line we got on and while it wasn't as tall as Great Adventure's, it was still just as fun with a great lighting package and soundtrack.

 

To pass some more time, we did Bugs' Rapids, which had a pretty different layout and did get us a bit wet so we dried off on Scream! Compared to Dominator at Dorney, it was pretty much the same. We also did Power Surge, which was their Hopkins chute-the-chute ride (I skipped) and Boomerang was open by then.

 

Let me just say that having been used to the new trains on Sidewinder, I was really expecting Boomerang to be worse since it had older trains and that it's owned by Six Flags. There was little to no headbanging in the cobra roll, hardly any banging connecting to the second lift, and the brakes in the station didn't give you whiplash. Overall, it was surprisingly good.

 

After heading back over to Roadrunner Express, grabbing some boneless wings and saying hello to a few employee TPR members (It was great meeting you guys!), and getting some stuff in the gift shops, we headed to the Ampitheater for Lone Star Nights, a VERY Texan light show that was kind of fun to watch.

 

After the show, we went back to Superman and Sky Screamer for one last hearty portion of ERT, which was a great way to end our day at Fiesta Texas and kick off a fun Midwest trip!

 

A few observations:

-The park seemed heavily themed to Mexico and the southwest that was pretty well pulled off. Loved the feeling of walking through Crackaxle Canyon because it seemed to be one of the best western areas I've seen in a park so far.

 

-The Boardwalk could've used some shade as it was pretty hot. With some more theming elements and TLC, I think this area would be much better. As for Rockville, I would love this area more if they powerwashed it and re-surfaced the path. The school/theater looked pretty cool though.

 

-While stopping Cold Stone for a drink, I noticed a soda called Red Flash. Having never heard of it before and having a drink wristband, I decided to taste it. Let's just say that it was kind of horrible as it reminded me of cherry cough syrup.

 

-Not riding Iron Rattler sucked, but being able to look at it in-person kind of made up for it and gives me an opportunity to return in the future.

 

-Six Flags Fiesta Texas is a park that seems to have a decent head on it's shoulders compared to others in the chain. With Iron Rattler, Superman, and Poltergeist, they have a decent coaster lineup and one more could make it even better. Operations at the rides ranged right around average and didn't seemed to be too horrible (like what we'll see in two days).

 

I'm going to try to pick back up on my trip reports now that I'm on winter break, so expect more coming soon!

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Here it is, first theme park of the trip. Let the fun begin!

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One of the first things you see at the entrance is Goliath.

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Looks like morning test-runs are occurring.

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Kind of hard to believe that this is a Six Flags park. The main entrance was beautiful with it's walkways and architecture.

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The Spanish music added a nice touch as well.

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Aww, cute. It's trying to act like an Arrow flume with an airtime hill. Too bad it wasn't as good as one.

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The medieval area was different, but I don't think a Studio Six recording studio fits in with the theme. lol

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We'll get to the SkyScreamer later.

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On to more pressing matters: our first ERT session of the trip.

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Looks like they're ready.

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Superman had a pretty powerful layout and might be one of the best floorless coasters I've been on.

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Cool scenery object.

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Loved this turn off the MCBR. It delivered a nice kick!

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The station seemed kind of a little bland for a Superman coaster.

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The ride did end pretty well with a pop of airtime.

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Poltergeist was a pretty good Premier launcher that delivered a solid ride despite a little rattling.

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The layout does a great job packing a lot into a small space.

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This bad boy will be our saving-grace at the four Six Flags parks we'll be visiting.

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Pandemonium ended up being our last ERT session for the morning.

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It did have a nice layout and did produce some crazy spinning that was much better than the other ones on the trip.

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There goes James.

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Frisbee was fun, but not as intense that I expected it to be.

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Control panel porn.

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After lunch, I came across this old map that was hung up in the Hospitality Center from 1992. IT was pretty interesting to see that much of the existing park is still here.

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Time to ride Goliath.

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I really loved the entrance plaza as it is much nicer than what the Batmans have.

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The fountain proved to be pretty useful.

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The ride was beautiful, but I wish it didn't rattle as much.

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Time to take a ride over to Crackaxle and check out Iron Rattler.

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We really should've hit Boomerang this early to avoid the breakdown that happened a little later.

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It pains me that I didn't ride it.

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But at least I was able to see it in-person.

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That hill must be awesome.

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*poke*

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I really liked the entrance.

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There's a backstory.

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I really should've got this. lol

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Roadrunner was really surprising to me as that it was smooth, fast, and something that makes me wish Arrow stuck around longer.

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They did a pretty good job with theming here.

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Time to go behind the scenes.

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Twisty!

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I'm thinking that these were cables that used to support the old first drop.

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Bonus Gully Washer lift shot.

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While waiting for the van, we cooled off in Gully Washer's control room.

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After a short drive, we got to the top of the cliff.

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There was a lot of this up here.

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90 degrees!

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Do the wave...

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Upon coming off the cliff, we were going to do Boomerang, but chose to do SkyScreamer instead.

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Looks like they had a decent kids area.

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It's not as tall as its SFGadv sister, but still as fun.

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Its in english and spanish. That's kind of cool, but kind of expecting since we're not too far from the Mexican border.

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This is probably true considering there's a shopping mall at the top of the cliff.

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Later, we headed over towards Power Surge and passed through Rockville.

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This screams 1950s "Back to the Future" to me for some reason.

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I decided to pass on getting soaked.

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We decided to go back over to Crackaxle Canyon for a lap on Gully Washer, but it was closed so we did another Roadrunner lap.

Edited by Ccron10
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Here is the conclusion to the photos to Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

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They had a pretty good selection of Iron Rattler merchandise.

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Same goes for T-Shirts.

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Along with freakishly large bees, it seems SFFT is having an Ice Bat infestation as well.

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Looks great!

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I don't think there would be room on the bus for that thing. lol

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After some downtime, Boomerang finally reopened!

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Takis: The Ride.

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Despite how it looked, she ended up being pretty good!

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This part didn't try to bash my ears in!

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Not a very fancy station.

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Face the Intensity? I was expecting to replace Intensity with Migraine, but thankfully that wasn't the case.

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Time for the salute to the US, but 99% to Texas laser show.

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The cliff wall made for a great screen. It would be cool if they hosted movie nights and showed some cool films like this.

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Yee-haw!

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The Alamo!

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Stay tuned for the SeaWorld San Antonio update coming soon! Thanks for reading!

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Great TR! SFFT ended up being one of my favorite parks on the tour and exceeded my expectations. Such good times, I miss everyone.

 

^ And today is the Texas New Year! It's so important that the whole world celebrates. Just another "If it wasn't for Texas" moment.

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Remember the bouncy ball?

 

Haha! How could I have not!

Basically in the waiting area for the Railroad in Crackaxle Canyon they had this simple pinball game that dispensed "bouncy balls". Yin decided to try it out and once it came out of the game, I said, "oh, we have one of those at a restaurant back at home." So I demonstrated what it was and tried to get the ball to bounce. Well, it pretty much hit the ground and split in half.

It was a gumball.

 

Thanks for the comments, guys! I'll try to get SeaWorld up soon!

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Remember the bouncy ball?

 

Haha! How could I have not!

Basically in the waiting area for the Railroad in Crackaxle Canyon they had this simple pinball game that dispensed "bouncy balls". Yin decided to try it out and once it came out of the game, I said, "oh, we have one of those at a restaurant back at home." So I demonstrated what it was and tried to get the ball to bounce. Well, it pretty much hit the ground and split in half.

It was a gumball.

 

Thanks for the comments, guys! I'll try to get SeaWorld up soon!

 

 

Great trip report

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Now here is a terrifying photo:

 

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90 degrees!

 

I need to hit more of the Texas parks some day. I've only been to SFOT, and thought New Texas Giant was the best ride ever.

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Day #3: SeaWorld San Antonio

Time for our last day in San Antonio, so we pack up at the hotel, checked out, and headed to SeaWorld for part of the day before we journeyed up to Arlington and SFOT.

We arrived at the park pretty early, which gave us some time to take a few photos in front of the entrance until we were walked back to Journey to Atlantis.

Compared to the other Atlantis attractions other parks have, this one looked like it had the bare minimum of theming. It was pretty fun especially the backwards drop. Other than that, it pretty much felt similar to a normal Chute-the-Chute ride. I did manage to get a ride or two in despite the several downtime moments. Following the ERT on this one, we crossed the park and headed over to the ERT on Steel Eel.

 

I usually like to think of Morgan coasters to be the Cadillac of coasters. They are big, expensive, and aren't made for extreme intensity. Compared to Dorney's Steel Force, Steel Eel felt like it offered a little bit more with a nice diving turn after the MCBR. Strangely, the best seats were either in the front or back of the train. Anywhere in the middle and it didn't really offer quite a bit of airtime. the station did seem kind of odd as there were no railings forming the train rows, which I could probably see being kind of crazy on busy days. For the day we went, it really didn't seem to be a real issue. I ended up taking quite a few rides on the amount of time that we had ERT on it and once the amount of people started dying down, I went over to Great White to get my daily Batman clone credit.

 

Out of the Batmans I rode on the trip and Great Adventure's, I think Great White had to be the best one I've ridden. It seemed to be taken care of so well, the paint scheme wasn't fading, and it rode pretty smooth. As with Eel's station, it lacked row railings in the station.

 

Before heading to Lunch, I quickly stopped by a stand (which was filled with bees) to pick up my souvenir cup as I was starting to get a little thirsty.

 

Lunch was pretty awesome as it was a mix of rice and make your own quesadillas/enchiladas that were really good, but that's always expected at a Busch park IMO. They also brought out a few animals for us to learn about and we also took the opportunity to capture a few Steel Eel photos before we had the rest of the afternoon to explore the park.

 

We next took the opportunity check out a gift shop or two before the Shamu show was scheduled. As someone who has always wanted to see one of them, I kind of felt a little underwhelmed by it. There was some educational value to the show at the beginning, but the rest of it was kind of boring with the tricks being kind of repetitive with them just jumping out of the water, going on to the deck, and that's it. I kind of have a feeling that the recent restrictions have kind of limited the trainers quite a bit on how they can interact with the whales. None-the-less, it still was a fun show and amazing to see killer whales for the first time in my life.

 

After the show, we went over to get the final coaster credit in the park: Shamu Express. It was a pretty simple kiddie coaster with brake fins on the side of the train. I did find it odd for there to be a loose article policy on this thing.

 

After a quick frozen lemonade stop, my group and I headed for the dolphin and shark encounter area, which served as a great place to cool off. Next we took one or two last rides on Eel, hit the restroom and gift shop to gear up for our long drive across Texas to Arlington and one of the many parks I've been anticipating on visiting.

 

To sum up SeaWorld San Antonio, it is a nice park with with plenty of shows, animal encounters, and theming. It was really a colorful and tropical place that could only use two things: a larger coaster/attraction to complement the park's four coasters and rapids ride (which I kind of forgot to do halfway through the visit). With the latest controversy about a certain movie, I have to say that I am really glad to have visited SeaWorld (and BGW twice this year) and have supported them as the animals I've seen had to have been healthiest I have ever seen in a zoo or aquarium.

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Here we are. I really like how the entrance looks.

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I think all of us got a photo of this. It's a pretty nice statue.

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The entrance plaza was really open and probably helps greatly with the crowds.

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Quite a colorful height requirement measurement stand.

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Much of the park is built around the ski show lake.

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I was really looking forward to Steel Eel despite being smaller than Steel Force.

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Can't forget about clone number two, which ended up being the best one of the trip.

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First up, time to get wet on some Atlantis ERT.

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This was really the only source of shade throughout the whole line. It wasn't really too bad since we rode it early on.

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Time for a few laps on Steel Eel.

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Kind of seemed odd with just having gates and no railings separating the rows for the train.

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I really like the idea at how the lift was built over the midway.

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Very colorful!

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Doesn't look like I would need to wait an hour to see them unlike at BGW. lol

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Time for another Batman...

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Err... Great White!

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Same as Eel, there is a lack of railings for the rows.

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The wheel covers are pretty detailed.

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I took two or three rides on it since it was pretty good for a Batman clone. Not really rough at all!

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Smooth and intense!

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Following a great lunch, we got to learn about some animals. Here's a behind-the-scenes shot of Andy's trip report! :)

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Aww... He's kind of cute.

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So is this guy.

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We got quite a few great shots from the catering area of Atlantis and Steel Eel.

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Atlantis is quite a ways over there.

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Time to see some killer whales.

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The stadium was really nice and shaded.

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Pretty big too.

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He's waving!

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Aww... :)

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I think Andy and me may have taken quite a few similar shots. lol

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As you can see, they are pretty big animals.

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This is pretty much the whole layout of Shamu Express.

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Doesn't get more basic than this.

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Didn't check Aquatica out since it was an up-charge attraction.

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On the way to the shark encounter, we stopped to see some dolphins.

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They mostly stayed over on that side of the enclosure since that's where the food was. lol

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...as well as the massages. lol

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The shark encounter building had more than just sharks inside.

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Here's a manta, now there just needs to be a coaster for it.

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Don't stick your hand in the aquarium or you'll be kissing it goodbye.

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Following SeaWorld, we spent the evening driving across the Texas prairie to Arlington to our next park, Six Flags Over Texas.

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That night, we had our International Snack Exchange and were treated to many great new snacks that most of us never heard of before. Some even backed their own snacks. It was kind of hilarious seeing the reactions of those who would eat the brownies (I think Yin ran just about all over the hotel looking for something to drink to wash it down).

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These things kind of appeared to be sweet, but they ended up tasting completely different.

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There were quite a bit of snacks. I was kind of fond of the Cadbury milk-flavored gummies.

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I really want to try Tim Horton's again because it seems like they had more types of donut holes than what Dunkin' Donuts makes, but for some reason, they just seemed ok. That's it for SeaWorld. Coming up next, things start to warm up with Six Flags Over Texas with fun rides on Titan and La Vibora, poor operations and employees, and temperatures of 110 degrees and humidity! Thanks for reading!

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