It's been so long since I've been to Great America - last trip was in '02 and I missed Vu - so this was a really special trip for my family. My dad randomly planned this trip a couple weeks back and no one argued, so we piled into the van and drove the 8 hours to SFGAm. We left Sunday morning at 6 in the morning. My family and another coaster friend.
We arrived at the park at 2:00 and was shocked at how full that parking lot was on the 4th. We parked all the way over by American Eagle and had to walk the whole front of the park to get to the gate. I didn't mind though - SFGAm has an awesome skyline so it was fun watching and seeing Deja Vu running as well as Superman. I miss seeing Shockwave, but S:UF does look nice sitting out front there. We waited abotu 10 minutes just to get into the park. I was shocked that at 2 in the afternoon there would be a line like that just to get into the park. I usually have no trouble getting through metal detectors but these things must be on full power because it found my belt and I had to get pulled to the side to get double checked. I guess you can never be to safe. Once in the park we headed straight for Bull. I don't know if it was stupid not going to Deja Vu right away or not, but we gave the Bull a shot. We only waited about 15 minutes and it was running awesome with three trains. That crew really has it together and I've noticed something about SFGAm. It seems that most of the crews are a little older. You don't have there 16 year olds dispatching every 10 minutes, you have adults dispatching in about one and a half or two minutes - very impressive for a Six Flags park. Even though the Steer is a bit castrated with all the trims, it still delivered an awesome ride and left us wanting more. With a line like 15 minutes for such a good ride, I was sure we would get more. Row 9 is so amazing and I don't know why you would ever want to ride in the front. Since we were in Southwest territory we went ahead and moved on to Viper. SFGAm - your theming is amazing. I feel like I'm in a Disney park in SW Territory. Everything is so well done and every little detail from the bell at the missionary to the Elixir sign and everything else on Viper, I am impressed. Needless to say, we got an awesome ride on Viper and only had to wait 25 minutes. I rode 1:3 and found some amazing airtime. It's so hard to believe Six Flags had something to do with this ride. Wow . . . quite possibly the most underrated woody - EVER. The crew was doing awesome but the only complaints I have are that I don't like how packed that station gets. There needs to be some control over that. Also, I don't like walking that mile after I get off the ride. I still think it's all really awesome though.
Moving on from SW Territory we moved on to Demon. I rode in the last car and a man tried to wait for the last seat with his kids and let them ahead of us. He spoke no English and it really made me mad. The ride operator stopped them from taking our seat but still - this happened 4 other times on our trip. It's ridiculous the crowds I've seen at SFGAm. I have never seen so many inconsiderate, rude, innappropriate, non-English-speaking people at one park. I got to see more each night when we stayed in the heart of Waukegan. But . . . moving on back to Demon it was an awesome ride and that drop in the back is incredible for an Arrow. It's hard to believe that this coaster opened without those loops. Such a fun rerideable ride. I love the theming for this ride too - remember I did not know it before most of the stuff was taken down, so all the lights and the waterfall are really special. It was too painful to ride Demon and not try out Deja Vu, so we did it. First step to riding Deja Vu - it has to be open. Next - you have to get in line while it's not broken down. Well - we got the first two steps under our belt and ended up waiting and hour and fifteen minutes because of a break down. It was totally worth every minute of that wait. Deja Vu . . . wow. It is so fast, disorienting and intense. I would be back. We rode 6B and after some experimenting I found out that I like the back better. After everyone's first Vu ride, we moved around the circle of the park and continued to American Eagle. Both sides were up but they weren't racing because they had to tie off yet ANOTHER seat on that train. I was shocked to see so many closed seats. That needs to get fixed! We waited 15 minutes and rode 6:1 on the blue train. That ride is incredibly smooth and I love the helix. I just wish it wasn't trimmed so much, but I can handle it.
Moving on out of the back of the park and towards the front we had to stop at Iron Wolf for our credit. Sure it's neat knowing that it is the first B&M in the world, but that doesn't justify the headbanging on that ride. I would not wait any longer that what we did. In '02 I waited an hour and 15 minutes, and this year we cut that down to just an hour. As full as the parking lot was, the park wasn't that bad at all. I don't know where all the crowds were, but they sure weren't in the back of the park. We got on and rode front row. IW . . . yeah. . . about that. I could go without it, but I guess it's unfair for me to say because I'm not a big stand-up fan. I got what I wanted next. Batman the Ride is amazing. Everything from the line to the televisions in the station with Batman Dark Knight and S:RoS from SFNE in the background (ahh Six Flags trying to trick us yet again!) and the techno music I was so amazed. This ride is really running nice. So hard to believe that a ride on it's 13th season or so can run so nice. I didn't think I was going to like it, but I do indeed love the paint job. Batman looks awesome, Batman is themed awesome, and Batman was running awesome. We waited 20 minutes and rode in row 8. Good ride. We moved on without V2 - it didn't open for us, although we saw it testing the next day.
I don't know why we did it, but we did indeed give it a shot. We waited over an hour to get beat up on Ragin' Cajun. I still haven't figured out what the clang is on the fast turn by the station, but it sure doesn't sound good. This ride isn't even comparable to the same model at Kennywood. Ragin' Cajun has a terrible queue line - terrible capacity - and it sucks. We got our credit and moved on. One ride was enough. I do really like the new Mardi Gras area. Both days I was there I didn't see King Chaos running so I didn't get to ride it. But, everything seems very attractive and it fits in really well at SFGAm. We moved on and were really lucky as we approaced S:UF - the train got stuck on the lift and the line closed. We were the first to get in line to wait to get on it once it would open. Well - the line was originally in the queue house and about an hour and a half hour wait we were told and all those people seemed to bail. We waited about 10 minutes or so for the break down and got in line and waited altogether 45 minutes. This was a lot shorter than what I was expecting. S:UF - it's a nice try at something good. I really think they had good intentions when they built it. It seems the only thing they seemed to get right was the pretzel loop. That ride is so slow, unintense and boring. I guess I'm used to the shaking, rattling and rolling of X-Flight, but I did appreciate how smooth S:UF was. It was almost - too smooth. But, the pretzel loop was good enough to wait 45 minutes for. It was now about 9:20 so we moved on to the Bull and waited 15 minutes. Another awesome backseat ride. We moved on to Demon and it was a walkon. I was really impressed! It was almost closing time so we hurried over to Deja Vu to get a night ride. We waited 40 minutes and had the second to last ride of the night. Two of the ops were going to let us reride but they changed their mind at the last minute. It's okay, because this ride was godly at night. I was shocked at how awesome it was. We rode in 2A so I didn't have a 'wing' seat but I still liked it quite a bit. It takes that loop at a perfect speed and seems to fly through the inversions. I guess that isn't the case when it's empty though, seeing that it didn't quite make it back to the station the day after I left SFGAm. We left SFGAm very happy and ready to return the next day to get on a few more rides. Day one was awesome and it's hard to believe that on the 4th you could do the entire park. Wow . . .
Day 2
Well - it seems as if the crowds held off until the actualy holidy. SFGAm was stuffed! We went in the season pass entrance really early and got on the second train of Bull. We rode back seat again and weren't disappointed. Giant Drop still didn't have a line so we went there. By now we had met up with another coaster friend of mine from Wisconsin and he is at Great America quite a bit so it was nice hanging out with him. I won't go through the entire day (although it was rather short because of crowds) but we ended up getting a ride on Revolution after a 20 minute wait. It was running really well and I like the colors a lot on this. From seeing this at SFGAdv last August to seeing it at SFGAm now, it looks like a totally different ride. We got another ride on Viper, Whizzer, American Eagle once forward and backwards, 2 rides on Vu and we finally got to try the backseat, a credit on Spacely's where we got all the little kids cheering, and two rides on Batman. We left SFGAm with a ride on Deja Vu. I guess I missed it valleying by 1 train. I know it did it because I was there. Vu knows - but I managed 4 rides so I wasn't disappointed at all. SFGAm has a lot going for it. The theming is incredible. I wasn't ever disappointed with operations. Maintenance does an incredible job on all the rides and the rides there are amazing. SFGAm - I'm 2 hours from CP, you should be flattered I said that about you
. I'm sure I'll be back again soon, hopefully next year or so. I was impressed and this is my favorite Six Flags by far in the entire chain.
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