USA Trip 2014 Park #1
22 Nov 2014
It was time to go and play with the big toys again in the states. This time, I had an ‘equally as enthusiastic about roller coasters’ travel buddy, Bec. At this stage, we were both heavily involved in roller derby and referred to each other by our derby names, and so the adventures of Terror and Bubbles began.
This was quite a complex trip to organise, as we had chosen the fun park off season to travel so that we could go and cheer on the Aussies at the Roller Derby World Cup in Texas. This meant that many of the parks we visited had shortened opening hours, and others were open on weekends only. We had to carefully plan every flight to make the most of the weekend times at the parks.
Knowing that my circadian rhythms were strong, and I had not yet had success with sleeping on planes, I sought the help of some sleeping tablets to try and reduce jet lag, as we needed to hit the ground running. The drugs made my arms go a bit numb, but sleep was still as elusive as ever. I get very jealous of people who can nod off in any place at any time! Many hours later, we arrived at LAX in time for our next flight to San Francisco. From here we collected our hire car, and tried to get our tired heads around driving on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel in the wrong spot. I am very thankful that Terror took on the lion’s share of the driving, because I was dreadful. I had to keep singing to myself ‘right means tight’ at each intersection to avoid turning into oncoming traffic. An hour later we arrived at the Best Value Inn. It didn’t even matter that it was a run-down mess next to the highway, I was so damn thankful for a bed at that point.
The next day, we completed the five minute walk to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom with a spring in our step. I had never been let down by a Six Flags experience and was so excited to see what this one had in store.
Discovery Kingdom had a bit of a safari theme to it, with many animal shows and a safari option. We were first at the gate and counted down the seconds until opening. Thinking it would get busy, we went to the biggest coasters first. How wrong we were! It was a very quiet day and we didn’t have to wait for anything. Medusa was first up which was a great start, as we enjoyed a massive vertical loop, some fun drops, twists and turns around a lovely long track. Terror and I had already discussed flouting America’s lack of safety regarding bringing equipment on to the rides, so we got creative for our ride photos. As there were still no lines, we went on many times to experiment with different props and expressions.
Next up was Kong, which was a much smaller but still enjoyable suspended coaster. We also jumped on the kiddy coaster called Cobra for good measure. I loved the V2 coaster which reminded me of Wicked Twister at Cedar Point with a nice bit of fast launch action to wake us up! This one was shaped a little differently though, with an ‘L’ shape at one end and more of a simple slope at the other.
This park had already shat all over the ones on my previous trip to Hong Kong and Singapore, but we were not done yet! ROAARRRR!! Roar was a wonderful wooden coaster, and despite the amazing advances in technology with some of the steel experiences, I still love a classic wooden track. This one closed in 2015, but fear not, it was reopened as The Joker and became a wood-steel hybrid. I have yet to ride one of these types of tracks, so will reserve judgement. I guess I would rather see this than the whole coaster being demolished. Right next door was Superman Ultimate Flight. Although it shares the name with coasters at other Six Flags park, this one was really different. It was a bit like the Buzzsaw at Dreamworld, but bigger and with an additional loop. Despite quite a small track, I find these models really zippy and fun.
The lay out of the park was wonderful, with all the best coasters really close to each other. We spent most of the day in this area, revelling in the lack of lines and going again and again until we actually needed to sit down for a bit and rehydrate. We had discovered the only downside of no queues – a massive headache.
The Boomerang was the only coaster not in this front area, but it was closed anyway. This didn’t bother me as I have been on this type many times before. We even had one in Australia (The Demon), therefore it can’t be that good…
The remainder of the park was not as extreme as the coaster section, but still provided a clean, bright and fun atmosphere. We enjoyed a couple of traditional water rides and a few carnival style rides. There were a stack of animal shows but we preferred to go on the rides and only watched one or two. We did buy some fish to feed the sea lions though. It is kind of against my beliefs, but I think we actually left before closing time. Terror and I had decided to have an early night, as we were off on another (non-roller coaster) adventure the next day – Jelly Belly factory tour!
Jelly Belly beans were quite expensive growing up in Australia, but they were so damn delicious. Terror and I had both arranged extra space in our luggage for all the cheap jelly beans we had planned on buying. We booked a behind-the-scenes tour, and got dressed in our special gowns, shoe covers and hair nets. Excitement level was on overdrive as this really was like our very own ‘Wonka’ experience. We taste tested lots of varieties that we don’t get in Australia like chocolate coated beans, and politely refused the flavours that Americans seem to like but are just so gross (cinnamon/cherry/Dr Pepper style…ewwwwwww.) Terror and I were both curious about how much the factory workers were paid, and noticed that the majority were Latino workers. We hoped (but were not convinced) that they had great pay and conditions, as they were so lovely to chat with and took great care with what they were doing.
There was a fun little gallery of jelly bean artwork and sculpture which was really cute. We went a bit nuts in the shop, buying around 11kgs of jelly beans between us. This included massive bags of ‘jelly flops’ – bags of beans that didn’t come out quite right, so they put them together and sell them a bit cheaper. We did not discriminate, and ate them all equally. For lunch, Terror had a jelly bean shaped burger but I opted for the jelly bean shaped pizza. We both ignored the additives that we surely must have been eating. This experience was awesome, and marked the start of a pro-longed sugar high.
We headed back to San Francisco for some sight-seeing, including skating across Golden Gate Bridge and a night of disco at the Church of 8 Wheels. I would have loved more time in this area, especially to explore Alcatraz and some of the awesome national parks to the East. Not to worry, I shall return!
Roller Coaster Ramble 