Six Flags Over Texas:
Arlington TX,
Dates Visited: 8/10, 8/11, 8/14, 8/15
Six Flags over Texas is an amazing park, in fact its the best Six Flags park that I have visited besides SFGAM, and very well could be the best park I have ever been too, (including SFGAM)
SFOT boasts a very well rounded line up of rollercoasters: Mr. Freeze, Batman The Ride, Texas Giant and Titan headline the list at SFOT. Upon entering the park you'll realize that this is clearly a SF destination park, for one thing. Outside of the front gate is very clean and extremely welcoming. The security screening is exactly like at every other SF park, metal detectors etc etc.
Inside the park the layout was at first confusing, I was unsure of where rides where at, but as I walked around the place, I realized that its really just one giant loop lol.
Coasters:
Mr. Freeze: Rated 9/10. This ride blows away its clone in St. Louis, it’s a lot smoother as well. The dual loading station makes the wait times for this ride manageable even in the busiest hours of the day, Also air conditioned indoor que makes the wait better too especially in 100 degree Texas Heat.
Batman the Ride: Rated 8/10 This is the second best BTR after SFGAMs, The que is much better themed then any BTR i have ever ridden, The Sky line of Gotham adds an interesting touch to this B&M Classic, ride this in the back for the best ride, Upfront is great too, **NO TRAIN SHAKAGE IN LOOP 2**
Titan: Rated 9/10 This is basically a clone of Goliath at SFMM, with one extra helix added before the MCBR, This ride is fast, really fast and the G's on this ride explain the reason why the MCBR basically stops you. The ride is great other then that, with airtime and speed its an awesome Hyper.
Texas Giant: Rated 3/10 OUCH! This ride is very very painful and wasn’t much fun either. I like rough rides but this one was bad... Really Bad. Mean Streak Anyone?
Shockwave: Rated 6/10 This ride was decent, an amazing pop of airtime and the back to back loops were cool as well.
Runway Mountain: Rated 7/10 This was a unique dark ride, which basically is an indoor mine train type ride, Some great airtime all in the dark.
Flashback: Rated 5/10 Its a Vekoma Boomerang...enough said
La Vibora: Rated 6/10 I haven’t been on a Bobsled in years, I dont think i was missing all that much though, decent ride none the less.
Judge Roy Scream: Rated 8/10 This ride was a pleasant surprise.. Kinda weird placement of the ride though, its across the parking lot and you need to go through a tunnel to get there... Great Airtime. Think of American Eagle Red, just not as tall and you've got JRS.
General Ratings:
Six Flags Over Texas is an awesome park, It was very clean, the employees where very friendly, and the prices for it being a SF park we reasonable.
Food: The Sausage on a Stick was quite good, as well as the hot dogs 8/10
Cleanliness: 10/10 Six Flags' cleanest park I have been too
Parking: 8/10 The parking lot is very easy to navigate through the price is a little steep at $9.
Employees: 10/10 Friendly, Happy and really looked like they where enjoying there job.
What does SFOT Need?
In my opinion SFOT needs another big coaster for there collection.. Maybe a Floorless or a Flyer would be a great addition here, but even if no coaster was added, SFOT needs more flats. A Huss Giant Frisbee would go great here.
Final SFOT Comments:
This park is how all SF parks should be run, I really enjoyed me stay at SFOT and will definitely be back here in 2006. Dallas Ft. Worth is an awesome city as well. One thing i didn’t like was how pushy some of the game ops where pushing there games, In fact one guy asked me every time i walked back and forth in front of his game, not a real big problem though. The Park is very very clean and is very friendly.
Overall Rating of SFOT:
9/10 Make SFOT a must on your Trips List!
Six Flags Fiesta Texas:
San Antonio Texas
Dates Visited: 8/12
Fiesta Texas is San Antonio's Six Flags Park, it is situated in a valley type location behind a shopping center and next to a golf course, The park is surrounded on all 4 sides by steep limestone walls/cliffs which makes for some awesome views.
SFFT boasts a Small coaster line up Headlined by Superman Krypton Coaster and Poltergeist.
Coasters:
Superman Krypton Coaster: Rating 8/10 Worlds Largest Floorless coaster, This ride was a slight disappointment for me, i thought it would be alot faster then it really was, it wasnt rough at all but, the ride kinda let me down. The Elements on it where great, but still a let down
Poltergeist: Rating 7/10 This is a Premier LIM sitdown coaster, its the same as Flight of Fear only outdoors, and let me tell you, the launch on this ride, sucks.. plain and simple, this ride also let me down, as well. The elements are decent, but after the disappointing launch, it was a bummer.
Rattler: Rating 8/10 This ride was a pleasant surprise! much like Roy Scream was at SFOT, The ride though has been modified over and over and that’s pretty sad, because i believe it originally had a 150 foot drop and now boasts only a 127 foot drop. One thing you will notice is during the ride some side to side jack hammering, its not all that rough, but you’ll notice it.
Roadrunner Express: Rating 7/10 RRE was a very nice mine ride with some pops of air, the theming is pretty good as well, and its my favorite Looney Tune: Roadrunner
Boomerang Coaster to Coaster: Rating 5/10 See Flashback above ^
General Ratings:
Food: 7/10 Given the weird parking at SFFT, I didn’t really feel like driving 25 minutes to get food outside the park, but the food at SFFT was decent
Cleanliness: 9/10 for being such a small park, Its very clean, but one thing you will notice through out the park, is that paint is faded everywhere.
Parking: 6/10 The parking lot at SFFT, is crazy… First you have to drive back and around this shopping mall, and then follow about a 3 mile frontage/service road in order to get to the park. (Along the way you’ll the world’s only 14 mph and 22 mph speed limit signs) Parking was $9.
Employees: 10/10 Friendly, Happy and really looked like they where enjoying there job.
What does SFFT Need?
SHADE!!! It was 100 degrees the day that I visited, and while I carried around a bottle of ice water, SFFT needs more shade please. The 50 degree air conditioned stores/shops worked pretty well though.
SFFT also needs some more flat rides as well, Like SFOT there weren’t a lot of flat rides here.
As for rollercoasters, A great ride for this park would be a B&M Hyper or a Xcellerator type Rocket, it would go great with SFFT other wise average coaster line up.
Final SFFT Comments:
SFFT boasts an average coaster line-up, but In my opinion is still a great park. Fiesta Texas reminded me a lot of Kentucky Kingdom (i.e. the size, the amount of coasters etc.) But what it lacks in rides it makes up with in atmosphere and the shows at SFFT are awesome just like at SFOT.
Overall Rating of SFFT:
8/10 If your in Texas, make it to SFFT. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Six Flags Astroworld
Houston TX,
Dates Visited: 8/13
Maybe the fact that it took me over 45 minutes to find a parking lot that didn’t cost $25 for parking, or the fact that once I did find the SFAW parking lot it was almost a mile away from the park. But hear is the sad sad story about SFAW.
Upon entering Astroworld, you must cross an access bridge with is over I-610, (Proof that these things can be built over interstates) Anyway, first you must go through security and then enter the front gate.
As for the park itself, it was dirty, in serious need of paint and the employees where less then friendly.
Coasters:
Ultra Twister: 7/10 This was a different coaster experience, and was pleased after going on this ride. Glad I rode this ride first.
Batman Escape: 3/10 I would have been better using a skateboard going down the track, the ride was terrible, a lot of jack hammering, and to make matters worse the ride ops basically had no idea what they where doing. Yikes!
Viper: 7/10 This ride was alright, but short. An awesome pop of air gives this otherwise average ride a 7.
Greezed Lightnin’: 5/10 It’s a shuttle looper, it’s an alright ride.
Serial Thriller: 6/10 Now, I am on record saying that I really like T2 at SFKK, Serial Thriller was not as good as T2 in my opinion.
X-LR8: 4/10 First of all what a stupid name for this ride. The ride maybe goes 40 mph, that’s hardly X-LR8 and what exactly is the deal with the backwards facing seats on this ride? Pretty stupid if you ask me.
Texas Cyclone: 8/10 Best ride at SFAW, and that’s not really saying much, some good airtime though, and fast ride ops.
Overall Thoughts of SFAW:
Don’t even bother going here, unless they plan on adding 4 new coasters or something really good. (Even that wont justify walking nearly a mile in Texas Heat to get to the park from the parking lot) I hated this park, and Houston for that matter, it smelled, it was dirty and looks to be gang infested. I’m sorry if you live in Houston and are offeneded by my opinion, but that’s how I saw it. I was at SFAW for about 5 hours, and then specifically made it a point to drive back to Dallas. I really have no good things to say about SFAW.
Overall Rating: 4/10
That ends my Texas Experience TR!
Thanks for reading.
