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Creds of America 2014 PTR
- Thread starter peep
- Start date
If you think I don't like any coaster then you're clearly not reading my reports. 
I find it easier to talk about the flaws, most of the time I'll say, I really enjoyed it but such and such is better or I didn't approve of x and x. Not saying I don't like it just pointed out some minor flaws. If I didn't my report would be a lot shorter from just being a bunch of "x was good/great/excellent" and that's it. That's boring to read.
Yeah sometimes my opinion really differs from the majority on coaster sites, just means what I enjoy in a coaster is different. Also as I've pointed out before sometimes a coaster doesn't leave much of an impression on me, I'm writing these reports ages after riding them, it can be hard to remember my exact reactions to some of them.
I find it easier to talk about the flaws, most of the time I'll say, I really enjoyed it but such and such is better or I didn't approve of x and x. Not saying I don't like it just pointed out some minor flaws. If I didn't my report would be a lot shorter from just being a bunch of "x was good/great/excellent" and that's it. That's boring to read.
Yeah sometimes my opinion really differs from the majority on coaster sites, just means what I enjoy in a coaster is different. Also as I've pointed out before sometimes a coaster doesn't leave much of an impression on me, I'm writing these reports ages after riding them, it can be hard to remember my exact reactions to some of them.
Tuesday 17th
It was time for Dollywood! I'd personally wanted to get to this park for a really long time, thought it always looked like a great park. Silver Dollar City being a similar park helped really hype it up too. After another quite long drive we met back up with AJ, Conor and Jordan just inside the park entrance.
We decided to head left up a long winding pathway towards the creds. It was a nice introduction to the park, it was a pleasant walk lined with over-themed speaker systems...
First on the agenda was Thunderhead which was almost walk on. I sat at the back and I really enjoyed it, not the best but it was great fun.
A rollercoaster I'd been really hyping up myself since it opened was Mystery Mine and that was the next ride we came across. We only had a small wait which was nice. I love the theme but I have so many gripes with this, maybe I was being extra critical of it as it was something I wanted to be great. The finish on the rock theming was turd. You could actually see proper open flaps where whatever material they used wasn't fused together, it had been bolted together and you could clearly see the bolts too, it really aggravated me. Just such a poor finish on what looks great from afar.
Animatronic vulture was awesome
If you look close enough you'll see what I was ranting about
Loved this
Then we got on the ride, I'm not a hater when it comes to Gerst so I was expecting quite a fun ride. It has such a weird layout. I liked what it was trying to do however it ended up just throwing me into the restraint in an uncomfortable way that I just couldn't enjoy it. Such a shame. On the other hand that heavily themed lift hill segment is incredible, it's a shame the rest lets it down. Such a disappointment.
Next up was Firechaser Express which was new for this year. Since construction I've not liked how they've just plonked it in this location, something utilising the landscape would have looked much nicer. The area theming is nice, I liked the signed hoses in the queueline from local fireman.
However there was something about the queue that I didn't like and that was the very clear view of the effects building, you can see everything that happens leaving no surprise for when you're on the actual ride, how silly.
I thought the staff did a great job of loading and offloading guests in a short time frame, still doesn't stop there being a boring wait for when a train wants into the station. I think the ride itself is quite fun, great for the little ones. I just feel like there's 10 poor design choices for every good one which is a shame.
Forwards or backwards?
Loved the little touches everywhere
Some poor bloke got stuck on the zipwire thing. I didn't actually know about it before going so was a little shocked to just see some guy dangling in mid air lol.
The next ride was Wild Eagle. I've ridden most of the B&M wingriders and I'm not a huge fan of them, I find the restraints can be uncomfortable and that what they do best has only been properly utilised by the first one (Raptor). I was still intrigued as to how this one would ride though. The huge steel Eagle out front is pretty impressive.
The station building is actually fab, I love the stone work.
The ride met my expectations of not being very good, I just didn't enjoy it and by the end the restraint was stupidly tight. I would have liked another go though to get a proper rounded opinion but more on that later in the report.
It was then time for Blazing Fury, pretty much a clone of Fire in the Hole at Silver Dollar we all pretty much knew what to expect. Kinda frustrated then that the splashdown had a lack of water! That's the best part and it wasn't there!
There was a replica of an old school which was interesting.
We then came across the birds of prey area which was cool, so many awesome birds.
There were loads of craftshops again where everything is made on site. There was an epic sort of barn that sold horse-drawn carriages which was pretty awesome. I loved this sort of thing in Silver Dollar and I loved it here too, almost like we'd gone back in time.
Metal workshop
This is the sort of thing I came to the park for and I loved it, such a beautiful area. At one point the train was coming and the staff member had to lower the barriers to stop guests walking in front of the train. Conor asked if he could lower it and she let him!
We then spotted a caterpillar, which we were really intrigued by.
Then the train went by, I wasn't expecting to see such a huge train, it was pretty impressive.
We grabbed some food from a food court area so we all went for something different. We were going to then ride the S&S swing but it decided to have some fail time. Instead we went on the dingy slide. I had lots of annoying locker faff and then we made the massive hike to the top of the slides. They weigh your group as there is a limit to what each boat can hold. I rode with AJ and Jordan. There were a few moments when it felt like we could have flipped which was terrifying and at one point I managed to get a large amount of water land on my side. It was awesome though.
Same theme, still looks fantastic
Epic slides
It was boiling hot (as usual) so Jordan tried to cool down by getting moist in Granny's garden...
We then decided to catch one of the park's many shows. The Country Music Show is held in the Celebrity Theatre and has a Country chart artist actually come out and perform in the show. I thought this was pretty awesome, we obviously had no idea who this guy was but I just loved the fact that on most days the park is open an actual chart artist is performing in a theme park show. I have a soft spot for Country music (the TV show Nashville helped) so I enjoyed the show, I thought the production on it was excellent and all the performers were fantastic. Most of the others nearly fell asleep but it's not their thing so I understand.
Ridiculous birdhouse
They had a 50s America area which was excellently themed, lots of classic cars strewn across the area.
It really was stupidly hot at this point so we decided to join the stupid queue for the rapids. It really was burdenous. We were given a random American lady who was FAB, we had a really awesome conversation with her and she loved us. She was also holding all her stuff in a giant bin liner so it was joked about that it was a body and she was going to try and get rid of the evidence bit by bit by throwing it into the rapids. As we were about to crest the lift hill Conor made the mistake of saying "I am so ready for this" and then we hit the bottom of the drop and he got absolutely drenched, it was amazing. Then at the end of the ride there's a huge amount of stacking to get back into the station and we are sat by this waterfall for ages. AJ and this poor lady were the closest and their backs were just getting drenched from all this water.
So yeah, you could say we really enjoyed this ride, it was full of amusing antics and cool water.
O rly?
It was then time to shamefully grab the kiddy cred. It's in an amazingly tacky America themed area.
The kids cred has an adult limit so we had to be split up. Richard did something weird which made the fab old ride op question his motives in life. When it was time for AJ, Jordan and I to go on Jordan was first to go through and the ride op went "You go girl!" which for some reason (probably because she was an old fab lady) it was highly amusing.
The cred was a cred. +1.
We then walked through the awesome crafty woods area to catch the birds of prey show. It was worth it for the whole ridiculous speech about how great America is etc before they could bring out the Bald Eagle. It was just so cheesy and American and totally cringe-worthy and yet brilliant.
We were still stupidly hot so we went to do the other water ride, the log flume. I believe this is the one we rocked from side to side for pretty much the entire duration of the meandering section before the lift hill (which is really long and dull). Then somehow Richard and I got a lap full of water just from cresting the lift hill into the little trough. The main drop then happened and we got a really nice spray. It's in a really nice area and the main drop theming is great but I wish it did more.
It was then time to go grab the last cred of the day, Tennessee Tornado. I had no idea what to expect from this ride. It was awesome! It starts off a little odd and then it goes down a huge drop into a tunnel (yay for tunnels!) before going through this stupidly large vertical loop which just had all the right forces going on. Really enjoyable ride, a little sad we didn't go round for seconds though.
I loved this
We decided to do all the Dolly Parton stuff next. First on the tour was the recreation of her childhood home which was built by one of her brothers. We went via the awesome craft area again.
It was weird, it really made you think about how they grew up in such a confined space when there were so many of them. Afterwards we headed straight over to Chasing Rainbows, the Dolly Parton Museum. It's actually a very interesting museum full of information of every step of her life. We definitely started by trying to take in as much as possible but the end area I think it all got too much and it was decided it was time to move on. I loved that the first room has a holographic Dolly introducing you to the museum.
ALL the awards
I wanted to go in here, they'd recently refurbed it and it looked great from the outside
It was starting to get dark so we decided upon doing some re-rides. First up was Thunderhead. Sat at the front this time and it had really warmed up. It was a much better ride, had a bit of a headache inducing woodie rattle but it's a great solid ride.
We gave Mystery Mine another go. It's an ok ride (mainly because of that main mine shaft section) but I still didn't enjoy the way it was throwing me into the restraint.
It was then nearly time for the fireworks. Earlier in the day we had seen a poster about a special fireworks package thing. There was a special designated seating area to watch them, you got a drink and popcorn and then a night ride on Wild Eagle or Firechaser Express. It must have been a fairly new thing because it felt like none of the staff knew what they were doing. There was only us and an old couple doing it (tbh it wasn't exactly the busiest of days). I'd read on the map that the fireworks were set to a song by Dolly Parton, I thought that was pretty cool. However in the seating area that we'd paid money for there was no audio. I really wasn't happy about this, like, we'd paid for like a premium thing and yet half the show was missing? We could faintly hear something audio wise in the main park area so it's not like the audio track was a myth. The fireworks themselves were meh, some good big ones.
After the fireworks obviously we're then escorted down to the park (seating area was up on the hill by Wild Eagle). What confused us is that the ad for the seating thing made it sound like everything would close down for the fireworks and that wasn't the case. Slightly confused we then talked to a staff member who was new and had to ask her colleagues to help. Why advertise about a special night ride on one of the two coasters if they're still open? They apologised for the confusion and told us we could use the disabled entrance to Wild Eagle. Doesn't sound that beneficial seeing as there wasn't that much of a queue. We then get up there to find a very confused staff member but just tries to deal with it. Ends up splitting us up so some go through. Everyone is sat down and ready to go but the train doesn't leave the station. It's then announced that the ride has broken down and they're not going to bother trying to fix it as it's too late in evening (park was closing in like 10 mins).
Really peeved we then rush over to Firechaser to just try and get another ride in. We end up all getting on but at different times. There was one of those family holiday groups (ya know the ones in all the same horrific t-shirt) and they were being a burden. Turned out they all wanted the last ride to themselves after the staff kicking up a fuss with us for trying to sit in specific places. Because this family were being such cretins about 3 or 4 trains were sent with no more than 4 people riding. None of us were allowed to re-ride by filling up the empty seats on those trains too which didn't make sense because minutes before they seemed eager to get every seat filled. I think most of us were just peeved at this point (I know I was) and we left. But the whole last 30-40 minutes really tainted what was such a fantastic day. We did talk to a lovely lady at the cash desk (which was weirdly still open because the park doesn't have a help desk/somewhere to complain) who may have shed some happiness at the end of our day.
The trolley ride back to the car was fun too, there was a family who were obsessed with Conor's accent and our group travelling all the way to the park. Lovely people.
It was then on to the next hotel and more of Richard's Dolly facts.
Thanks again for reading my tales and rants.
It was time for Dollywood! I'd personally wanted to get to this park for a really long time, thought it always looked like a great park. Silver Dollar City being a similar park helped really hype it up too. After another quite long drive we met back up with AJ, Conor and Jordan just inside the park entrance.
We decided to head left up a long winding pathway towards the creds. It was a nice introduction to the park, it was a pleasant walk lined with over-themed speaker systems...
First on the agenda was Thunderhead which was almost walk on. I sat at the back and I really enjoyed it, not the best but it was great fun.
A rollercoaster I'd been really hyping up myself since it opened was Mystery Mine and that was the next ride we came across. We only had a small wait which was nice. I love the theme but I have so many gripes with this, maybe I was being extra critical of it as it was something I wanted to be great. The finish on the rock theming was turd. You could actually see proper open flaps where whatever material they used wasn't fused together, it had been bolted together and you could clearly see the bolts too, it really aggravated me. Just such a poor finish on what looks great from afar.
Animatronic vulture was awesome
If you look close enough you'll see what I was ranting about
Loved this
Then we got on the ride, I'm not a hater when it comes to Gerst so I was expecting quite a fun ride. It has such a weird layout. I liked what it was trying to do however it ended up just throwing me into the restraint in an uncomfortable way that I just couldn't enjoy it. Such a shame. On the other hand that heavily themed lift hill segment is incredible, it's a shame the rest lets it down. Such a disappointment.
Next up was Firechaser Express which was new for this year. Since construction I've not liked how they've just plonked it in this location, something utilising the landscape would have looked much nicer. The area theming is nice, I liked the signed hoses in the queueline from local fireman.
However there was something about the queue that I didn't like and that was the very clear view of the effects building, you can see everything that happens leaving no surprise for when you're on the actual ride, how silly.
I thought the staff did a great job of loading and offloading guests in a short time frame, still doesn't stop there being a boring wait for when a train wants into the station. I think the ride itself is quite fun, great for the little ones. I just feel like there's 10 poor design choices for every good one which is a shame.
Forwards or backwards?
Loved the little touches everywhere
Some poor bloke got stuck on the zipwire thing. I didn't actually know about it before going so was a little shocked to just see some guy dangling in mid air lol.
The next ride was Wild Eagle. I've ridden most of the B&M wingriders and I'm not a huge fan of them, I find the restraints can be uncomfortable and that what they do best has only been properly utilised by the first one (Raptor). I was still intrigued as to how this one would ride though. The huge steel Eagle out front is pretty impressive.
The station building is actually fab, I love the stone work.
The ride met my expectations of not being very good, I just didn't enjoy it and by the end the restraint was stupidly tight. I would have liked another go though to get a proper rounded opinion but more on that later in the report.
It was then time for Blazing Fury, pretty much a clone of Fire in the Hole at Silver Dollar we all pretty much knew what to expect. Kinda frustrated then that the splashdown had a lack of water! That's the best part and it wasn't there!
There was a replica of an old school which was interesting.
We then came across the birds of prey area which was cool, so many awesome birds.
There were loads of craftshops again where everything is made on site. There was an epic sort of barn that sold horse-drawn carriages which was pretty awesome. I loved this sort of thing in Silver Dollar and I loved it here too, almost like we'd gone back in time.
Metal workshop
This is the sort of thing I came to the park for and I loved it, such a beautiful area. At one point the train was coming and the staff member had to lower the barriers to stop guests walking in front of the train. Conor asked if he could lower it and she let him!
We then spotted a caterpillar, which we were really intrigued by.
Then the train went by, I wasn't expecting to see such a huge train, it was pretty impressive.
We grabbed some food from a food court area so we all went for something different. We were going to then ride the S&S swing but it decided to have some fail time. Instead we went on the dingy slide. I had lots of annoying locker faff and then we made the massive hike to the top of the slides. They weigh your group as there is a limit to what each boat can hold. I rode with AJ and Jordan. There were a few moments when it felt like we could have flipped which was terrifying and at one point I managed to get a large amount of water land on my side. It was awesome though.
Same theme, still looks fantastic
Epic slides
It was boiling hot (as usual) so Jordan tried to cool down by getting moist in Granny's garden...
We then decided to catch one of the park's many shows. The Country Music Show is held in the Celebrity Theatre and has a Country chart artist actually come out and perform in the show. I thought this was pretty awesome, we obviously had no idea who this guy was but I just loved the fact that on most days the park is open an actual chart artist is performing in a theme park show. I have a soft spot for Country music (the TV show Nashville helped) so I enjoyed the show, I thought the production on it was excellent and all the performers were fantastic. Most of the others nearly fell asleep but it's not their thing so I understand.
Ridiculous birdhouse
They had a 50s America area which was excellently themed, lots of classic cars strewn across the area.
It really was stupidly hot at this point so we decided to join the stupid queue for the rapids. It really was burdenous. We were given a random American lady who was FAB, we had a really awesome conversation with her and she loved us. She was also holding all her stuff in a giant bin liner so it was joked about that it was a body and she was going to try and get rid of the evidence bit by bit by throwing it into the rapids. As we were about to crest the lift hill Conor made the mistake of saying "I am so ready for this" and then we hit the bottom of the drop and he got absolutely drenched, it was amazing. Then at the end of the ride there's a huge amount of stacking to get back into the station and we are sat by this waterfall for ages. AJ and this poor lady were the closest and their backs were just getting drenched from all this water.
So yeah, you could say we really enjoyed this ride, it was full of amusing antics and cool water.
O rly?
It was then time to shamefully grab the kiddy cred. It's in an amazingly tacky America themed area.
The kids cred has an adult limit so we had to be split up. Richard did something weird which made the fab old ride op question his motives in life. When it was time for AJ, Jordan and I to go on Jordan was first to go through and the ride op went "You go girl!" which for some reason (probably because she was an old fab lady) it was highly amusing.
The cred was a cred. +1.
We then walked through the awesome crafty woods area to catch the birds of prey show. It was worth it for the whole ridiculous speech about how great America is etc before they could bring out the Bald Eagle. It was just so cheesy and American and totally cringe-worthy and yet brilliant.
We were still stupidly hot so we went to do the other water ride, the log flume. I believe this is the one we rocked from side to side for pretty much the entire duration of the meandering section before the lift hill (which is really long and dull). Then somehow Richard and I got a lap full of water just from cresting the lift hill into the little trough. The main drop then happened and we got a really nice spray. It's in a really nice area and the main drop theming is great but I wish it did more.
It was then time to go grab the last cred of the day, Tennessee Tornado. I had no idea what to expect from this ride. It was awesome! It starts off a little odd and then it goes down a huge drop into a tunnel (yay for tunnels!) before going through this stupidly large vertical loop which just had all the right forces going on. Really enjoyable ride, a little sad we didn't go round for seconds though.
I loved this
We decided to do all the Dolly Parton stuff next. First on the tour was the recreation of her childhood home which was built by one of her brothers. We went via the awesome craft area again.
It was weird, it really made you think about how they grew up in such a confined space when there were so many of them. Afterwards we headed straight over to Chasing Rainbows, the Dolly Parton Museum. It's actually a very interesting museum full of information of every step of her life. We definitely started by trying to take in as much as possible but the end area I think it all got too much and it was decided it was time to move on. I loved that the first room has a holographic Dolly introducing you to the museum.
ALL the awards
I wanted to go in here, they'd recently refurbed it and it looked great from the outside
It was starting to get dark so we decided upon doing some re-rides. First up was Thunderhead. Sat at the front this time and it had really warmed up. It was a much better ride, had a bit of a headache inducing woodie rattle but it's a great solid ride.
We gave Mystery Mine another go. It's an ok ride (mainly because of that main mine shaft section) but I still didn't enjoy the way it was throwing me into the restraint.
It was then nearly time for the fireworks. Earlier in the day we had seen a poster about a special fireworks package thing. There was a special designated seating area to watch them, you got a drink and popcorn and then a night ride on Wild Eagle or Firechaser Express. It must have been a fairly new thing because it felt like none of the staff knew what they were doing. There was only us and an old couple doing it (tbh it wasn't exactly the busiest of days). I'd read on the map that the fireworks were set to a song by Dolly Parton, I thought that was pretty cool. However in the seating area that we'd paid money for there was no audio. I really wasn't happy about this, like, we'd paid for like a premium thing and yet half the show was missing? We could faintly hear something audio wise in the main park area so it's not like the audio track was a myth. The fireworks themselves were meh, some good big ones.
After the fireworks obviously we're then escorted down to the park (seating area was up on the hill by Wild Eagle). What confused us is that the ad for the seating thing made it sound like everything would close down for the fireworks and that wasn't the case. Slightly confused we then talked to a staff member who was new and had to ask her colleagues to help. Why advertise about a special night ride on one of the two coasters if they're still open? They apologised for the confusion and told us we could use the disabled entrance to Wild Eagle. Doesn't sound that beneficial seeing as there wasn't that much of a queue. We then get up there to find a very confused staff member but just tries to deal with it. Ends up splitting us up so some go through. Everyone is sat down and ready to go but the train doesn't leave the station. It's then announced that the ride has broken down and they're not going to bother trying to fix it as it's too late in evening (park was closing in like 10 mins).
Really peeved we then rush over to Firechaser to just try and get another ride in. We end up all getting on but at different times. There was one of those family holiday groups (ya know the ones in all the same horrific t-shirt) and they were being a burden. Turned out they all wanted the last ride to themselves after the staff kicking up a fuss with us for trying to sit in specific places. Because this family were being such cretins about 3 or 4 trains were sent with no more than 4 people riding. None of us were allowed to re-ride by filling up the empty seats on those trains too which didn't make sense because minutes before they seemed eager to get every seat filled. I think most of us were just peeved at this point (I know I was) and we left. But the whole last 30-40 minutes really tainted what was such a fantastic day. We did talk to a lovely lady at the cash desk (which was weirdly still open because the park doesn't have a help desk/somewhere to complain) who may have shed some happiness at the end of our day.
The trolley ride back to the car was fun too, there was a family who were obsessed with Conor's accent and our group travelling all the way to the park. Lovely people.
It was then on to the next hotel and more of Richard's Dolly facts.
Thanks again for reading my tales and rants.
I forgot to write a summary for Dollywood! I really enjoyed the park, I think it's beautiful, just like Silver Dollar City. However I felt on the whole that Silver Dollar City was better, I felt like all the crafts and that were well spread out across the park and not just in one area and the ride selection on the whole was a lot better. The staff at both parks though were absolutely wonderful, I wish more parks had staff like theirs. Shame our day also ended on a slightly sour note.
Wednesday 17th
It had been decided that as there was lots of options for this day and that everyone had slightly different ideas as to what to do that we'd split up. I spent the day with Rach, Peter and Rich. To kick off the day we all went to IHOP for breakfast which was obviously delicious. Then the first stop on our day of randomness was the new alpine coaster thing. There was quite a queue for the attraction but we joined the back of it and waited in the horrible heat of the Sun. The lift hill for the attraction is ridiculous and goes on and on. I think the guy said it takes around 5 minutes which feels like forever when you're by yourself on a lift hill. The surroundings of the forest was nice though.
The ride itself was quite enjoyable, I liked that all the way up the lift hill I could see Richard in front of me and then as soon as he hit the top he disappeared and I didn't see him again until I reached the end. I only used the brakes lightly on a couple of corners but it was really necessary, as you can imagine a fair amount of speed was gained by not really using them. I think it would have been rather dull if they were used when the signs come up though. I don't usually go out of my way for these sort of attractions as I find them a bit of a let down for the price you pay but I'm glad I did this one just because it was a bit different (for me).
It was then down the road to NASCAR Speedpark. Basically loads of not very good looking go kart tracks at a stupidly high price and a couple of random attractions thrown in for good measure. When we arrived there was a really long queue to get in. Then the staff working the tills we couldn't pay for just the coaster we had to pay the full entry price (which was something absurd like $30). Obviously we weren't happy about this and the manager was called over. He then gave in and let us in, we were then escorted over to the cred, got the cred and then slightly watched as we then exited the park. Not the first time where I've been in a situation where this has happened, doesn't make it any less weird.
I really love the heavily themed attractions in these sort of areas, it gives off a really naff vibe but I still love the sheer amount of effort put in.
This dinner show looked incredible
Massive Christmas 'village'
I really like the building this Dennys was in
I had seen the night before this huge dark ride and curiosity got the better of me and we went to check it out. Upon arrival we found out it was silly money (like $15, eww) but Richard and I just became more curious and we just had to ride it. Kinda glad we did, it was dreadful but like on the verge of 'it's so bad it's good'. The "boats" moved excruciatingly slowly and to get round corners a big piece of metal would basically just push you. There were lots of dinosaur animatronics but most were poorly looked after or didn't work. There were also lots of moments where you were just sitting in the dark, no audio, no movement, just sitting there wondering what the hell was going on. Then the finale happened. You slowly approach this void of nothing and then there's some audio of something happening, then a dinosaur head pops out of the wall. It then transpires that the boat has been locked on to a ramp and the ramp slowly starts to rise. It was all a bit weird. You then get lowered back down and exit the attraction questioning everything.
Next up on our agenda was Fun stop and their cred, Dragon Wagon. Rach and Peter had managed to ride the night before so it was just time for Rich and I to get the +1.
What a dump. Onwards and next was a quick drive through the next town, Gatlinburg, which is a very similar area but more cramped. It was then up into the Smokies. I think we were all really looking forward to this part of the trip. Shame the weather wasn't so great.
Gatlinburg
We found an info centre where some gentlemen gave us a map and an idea of the best way to see most of the area in the shortest amount of time. There was also a mass of taxidermied animals that you can see in the area. It was all rather exciting but we didn't get to see any of them
3D map of the mountains, it's such a huge area
Glad we didn't find one of these though!
I think I would have died (of joy) if I spotted one of these though
Ready it was then back on the road. We stopped at a few spots to take photos and admire the scenery. It really is a beautiful area. It was quite a wet day which turned out to be a good and bad thing. Good because it's the rain water rising off the trees causing the trees to look like they're smoking, hence the name. Bad because, well, we'll get to that in a mo.
Roads be crazy
Smokies selfie
Then we got quite high up and the roads started to get rather cloudy.
Before we knew it we were so high up and in the clouds that we couldn't see the car in front any more! We then reached the peak where there's a huge viewing platform thing. Fun thing was that we couldn't see any of the fab views because of all the cloud! We did have an enjoyable time up there though and hiked up the massive hill to the viewing platform. We needed a rest about three quarters of the way up where we got chatting to a couple who were also struggling. We'd heard rumours the bench we were sitting on was the last one before the top! It was all rather amusing and exciting.
Every now and then the clouds would move and you'd see something in the distance.
What land?
Ohhhh, that land
The struggle was real
Finally at the viewing point
Ah yes, the Western view. Very good
Sigh
This amused me way too much
Ironically by the time we got back to the car the clouds has passed and the views revealed themselves.
On the way back down the mountains Richard saw this sign and immediately pulled over to get a photo. Peter and Rach didn't understand why and I doubt non-Brits would but Jonathan Creek used to be a popular crime solving program over here. He lived in a windmill, Richard likes windmills.
We then continued our drive on to the next hotel. Instead of going straight to the hotel we found a Cheesecake factory. I could spend a whole afternoon taking photos of these restaurants, they're so beautiful.
The infamous cakes
The bible
I had a cider called Angry Orchard, it was really nice, many thanks to Richard for that suggestion.
I ordered a salad for the main meal, it was amazing and way too much food!
As we were buying some cheesecake to take back to the hotel AJ, Conor and Jordan waltz in just about to do the same. After purchasing over sized cheesecake we all went back to the hotel. We grabbed some alcohol too on the way and had some time in one of the hotel rooms discussing about our days activities.
It was a really fun day despite the randomness of it all. It was nice to have a day where we weren't just in a theme park all day.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday 17th
It had been decided that as there was lots of options for this day and that everyone had slightly different ideas as to what to do that we'd split up. I spent the day with Rach, Peter and Rich. To kick off the day we all went to IHOP for breakfast which was obviously delicious. Then the first stop on our day of randomness was the new alpine coaster thing. There was quite a queue for the attraction but we joined the back of it and waited in the horrible heat of the Sun. The lift hill for the attraction is ridiculous and goes on and on. I think the guy said it takes around 5 minutes which feels like forever when you're by yourself on a lift hill. The surroundings of the forest was nice though.
The ride itself was quite enjoyable, I liked that all the way up the lift hill I could see Richard in front of me and then as soon as he hit the top he disappeared and I didn't see him again until I reached the end. I only used the brakes lightly on a couple of corners but it was really necessary, as you can imagine a fair amount of speed was gained by not really using them. I think it would have been rather dull if they were used when the signs come up though. I don't usually go out of my way for these sort of attractions as I find them a bit of a let down for the price you pay but I'm glad I did this one just because it was a bit different (for me).
It was then down the road to NASCAR Speedpark. Basically loads of not very good looking go kart tracks at a stupidly high price and a couple of random attractions thrown in for good measure. When we arrived there was a really long queue to get in. Then the staff working the tills we couldn't pay for just the coaster we had to pay the full entry price (which was something absurd like $30). Obviously we weren't happy about this and the manager was called over. He then gave in and let us in, we were then escorted over to the cred, got the cred and then slightly watched as we then exited the park. Not the first time where I've been in a situation where this has happened, doesn't make it any less weird.
I really love the heavily themed attractions in these sort of areas, it gives off a really naff vibe but I still love the sheer amount of effort put in.
This dinner show looked incredible
Massive Christmas 'village'
I really like the building this Dennys was in
I had seen the night before this huge dark ride and curiosity got the better of me and we went to check it out. Upon arrival we found out it was silly money (like $15, eww) but Richard and I just became more curious and we just had to ride it. Kinda glad we did, it was dreadful but like on the verge of 'it's so bad it's good'. The "boats" moved excruciatingly slowly and to get round corners a big piece of metal would basically just push you. There were lots of dinosaur animatronics but most were poorly looked after or didn't work. There were also lots of moments where you were just sitting in the dark, no audio, no movement, just sitting there wondering what the hell was going on. Then the finale happened. You slowly approach this void of nothing and then there's some audio of something happening, then a dinosaur head pops out of the wall. It then transpires that the boat has been locked on to a ramp and the ramp slowly starts to rise. It was all a bit weird. You then get lowered back down and exit the attraction questioning everything.
Next up on our agenda was Fun stop and their cred, Dragon Wagon. Rach and Peter had managed to ride the night before so it was just time for Rich and I to get the +1.
What a dump. Onwards and next was a quick drive through the next town, Gatlinburg, which is a very similar area but more cramped. It was then up into the Smokies. I think we were all really looking forward to this part of the trip. Shame the weather wasn't so great.
Gatlinburg
We found an info centre where some gentlemen gave us a map and an idea of the best way to see most of the area in the shortest amount of time. There was also a mass of taxidermied animals that you can see in the area. It was all rather exciting but we didn't get to see any of them
3D map of the mountains, it's such a huge area
Glad we didn't find one of these though!
I think I would have died (of joy) if I spotted one of these though
Ready it was then back on the road. We stopped at a few spots to take photos and admire the scenery. It really is a beautiful area. It was quite a wet day which turned out to be a good and bad thing. Good because it's the rain water rising off the trees causing the trees to look like they're smoking, hence the name. Bad because, well, we'll get to that in a mo.
Roads be crazy
Smokies selfie
Then we got quite high up and the roads started to get rather cloudy.
Before we knew it we were so high up and in the clouds that we couldn't see the car in front any more! We then reached the peak where there's a huge viewing platform thing. Fun thing was that we couldn't see any of the fab views because of all the cloud! We did have an enjoyable time up there though and hiked up the massive hill to the viewing platform. We needed a rest about three quarters of the way up where we got chatting to a couple who were also struggling. We'd heard rumours the bench we were sitting on was the last one before the top! It was all rather amusing and exciting.
Every now and then the clouds would move and you'd see something in the distance.
What land?
Ohhhh, that land
The struggle was real
Finally at the viewing point
Ah yes, the Western view. Very good
Sigh
This amused me way too much
Ironically by the time we got back to the car the clouds has passed and the views revealed themselves.
On the way back down the mountains Richard saw this sign and immediately pulled over to get a photo. Peter and Rach didn't understand why and I doubt non-Brits would but Jonathan Creek used to be a popular crime solving program over here. He lived in a windmill, Richard likes windmills.
We then continued our drive on to the next hotel. Instead of going straight to the hotel we found a Cheesecake factory. I could spend a whole afternoon taking photos of these restaurants, they're so beautiful.
The infamous cakes
The bible
I had a cider called Angry Orchard, it was really nice, many thanks to Richard for that suggestion.
I ordered a salad for the main meal, it was amazing and way too much food!
As we were buying some cheesecake to take back to the hotel AJ, Conor and Jordan waltz in just about to do the same. After purchasing over sized cheesecake we all went back to the hotel. We grabbed some alcohol too on the way and had some time in one of the hotel rooms discussing about our days activities.
It was a really fun day despite the randomness of it all. It was nice to have a day where we weren't just in a theme park all day.
Thanks for reading!
Thursday 18th
Our second to last park of the trip was Carowinds. I think we arrived shortly after the gates opened. The state line going through the park is pretty cool...
The first cred we came across was Vortex, a B&M stand up. I don't remember this being awful, it would just be a better experience if it was a sit down rather than a stand up. A common opinion with these.
Next on the agenda was Ricochet which annoyingly had a wait, these +1s always do. Nothing to really say here, once you've done one it feels like you've done them all.
Hurler was next, there was a little bit of a wait for this one. I was concerned it would be as dreadful as the one in King's Dominion, luckily it was better in the sense it didn't totally try to kill us. Some sections had ben retracked and you could really tell. Apart from that it was rather meh.
Nice logo
Carolina Cyclone was next with it's many colours. Don't remember much about the ride experience, just remember the heat really getting to all of us and we had to take a long break in the shade. The heat was absolutely ridiculous, not helped by the concrete floor everywhere.
We then did the Mine train which was dull. Then we rode Thunder Road which was actually a decent wooden rollercoaster. That is until it got to a certain point when it decided to hate life and just becomes vile. Still it was fine up to that point.
After burn the B&M invert was next. We sat at the front and I loved it. Some great forces, the batwing around one of the park entrances was awesome and the little air time hill over the lift hill and station was floaty and fantastic, totally unexpected. Really enjoyed this one.
Some of us then opted to ride the wind seeker because there wasn't a queue at the time. It was lovely and cool spinning round at the top. We then joined a long queue for Nighthawk. It felt like the queue wasn't really moving and then it transpired that it had broken down but the staff had failed to notify anyone in the queueline. A staff member walked past and was ignoring tis fact until someone asked and then they were like "yeah it's currently not in operation" or something, but with an air of we should have known? This resulted in everyone (including us) to flee from the queue. Burdenous cred.
We decided to then ride Intimidator. I sat at the back and really enjoyed it, one of the better hypers out there.
We decided to then faff a bit, moan some more about the heat before going back out to the cars to grab our stuff for the water park.
The water park was rammed, as you'd expect on a stupidly hot day. The floor was horrific though, what is it with water parks having the most uncomfortable floors ever? It was searing hot too, pretty sure the bottom of my feet were burnt from walking on it. Did make for a fun game trying to get anywhere though, just trying to find any shade or patch of water to get anywhere. We paid out for one of the little tent things which came with a bunch of water bottles in a fridge. It was nice to just chill out for a few hours. We didn't make it on to any of the water slides though due to the long waits (and the painful walk to get to any of them) but we did manage to get to the lazy river where Richard may have had a small outburst at an annoying family. Whoops.
Back in the park and we finally managed to get on Nighthawk. It was awful at life. We then did the ACE flying academy cred which was just as you'd expect it. Woodstock express was next on the family cred run which was ok, these small woodies tend to be fun. We tried to get on the small Kiddy cred but we got denied by the ride op in the most disgraceful manner. He stopped the current riders from having their second lap just to tell us no, which we obviously contested but he was having none of it and made up some rules that don't exist (in terms of h&s). It was just really stupid, like fine say no but don't make stuff up and act like a twat about it.
We'd gained all the creds we could now so it was time for a few re-rides. First was After burn which was still excellent.
Then we went for a few more rides on Intimidator which was even better in the front, a very enjoyable ride.
peep enjoyed it
It was then back on the road where we found another Logans Roadhouse for dinner. It wasn't as good as the first one we went to but it was still pretty amazing. All the peanut casings on the floor was mental.
It was an exhausting day due to the heat, most of the rides were rather meh but it also has some outstanding ones in the form of After burn and Intimidator. The water park was gross too but at least we got to chill out for a bit and watch England fail at football on the little screen (with Mexican commentators - lol ). Having a meal at Logans was a great way to end the day though.
Once again thanks for reading!
Our second to last park of the trip was Carowinds. I think we arrived shortly after the gates opened. The state line going through the park is pretty cool...
The first cred we came across was Vortex, a B&M stand up. I don't remember this being awful, it would just be a better experience if it was a sit down rather than a stand up. A common opinion with these.
Next on the agenda was Ricochet which annoyingly had a wait, these +1s always do. Nothing to really say here, once you've done one it feels like you've done them all.
Hurler was next, there was a little bit of a wait for this one. I was concerned it would be as dreadful as the one in King's Dominion, luckily it was better in the sense it didn't totally try to kill us. Some sections had ben retracked and you could really tell. Apart from that it was rather meh.
Nice logo
Carolina Cyclone was next with it's many colours. Don't remember much about the ride experience, just remember the heat really getting to all of us and we had to take a long break in the shade. The heat was absolutely ridiculous, not helped by the concrete floor everywhere.
We then did the Mine train which was dull. Then we rode Thunder Road which was actually a decent wooden rollercoaster. That is until it got to a certain point when it decided to hate life and just becomes vile. Still it was fine up to that point.
After burn the B&M invert was next. We sat at the front and I loved it. Some great forces, the batwing around one of the park entrances was awesome and the little air time hill over the lift hill and station was floaty and fantastic, totally unexpected. Really enjoyed this one.
Some of us then opted to ride the wind seeker because there wasn't a queue at the time. It was lovely and cool spinning round at the top. We then joined a long queue for Nighthawk. It felt like the queue wasn't really moving and then it transpired that it had broken down but the staff had failed to notify anyone in the queueline. A staff member walked past and was ignoring tis fact until someone asked and then they were like "yeah it's currently not in operation" or something, but with an air of we should have known? This resulted in everyone (including us) to flee from the queue. Burdenous cred.
We decided to then ride Intimidator. I sat at the back and really enjoyed it, one of the better hypers out there.
We decided to then faff a bit, moan some more about the heat before going back out to the cars to grab our stuff for the water park.
The water park was rammed, as you'd expect on a stupidly hot day. The floor was horrific though, what is it with water parks having the most uncomfortable floors ever? It was searing hot too, pretty sure the bottom of my feet were burnt from walking on it. Did make for a fun game trying to get anywhere though, just trying to find any shade or patch of water to get anywhere. We paid out for one of the little tent things which came with a bunch of water bottles in a fridge. It was nice to just chill out for a few hours. We didn't make it on to any of the water slides though due to the long waits (and the painful walk to get to any of them) but we did manage to get to the lazy river where Richard may have had a small outburst at an annoying family. Whoops.
Back in the park and we finally managed to get on Nighthawk. It was awful at life. We then did the ACE flying academy cred which was just as you'd expect it. Woodstock express was next on the family cred run which was ok, these small woodies tend to be fun. We tried to get on the small Kiddy cred but we got denied by the ride op in the most disgraceful manner. He stopped the current riders from having their second lap just to tell us no, which we obviously contested but he was having none of it and made up some rules that don't exist (in terms of h&s). It was just really stupid, like fine say no but don't make stuff up and act like a twat about it.
We'd gained all the creds we could now so it was time for a few re-rides. First was After burn which was still excellent.
Then we went for a few more rides on Intimidator which was even better in the front, a very enjoyable ride.
peep enjoyed it
It was then back on the road where we found another Logans Roadhouse for dinner. It wasn't as good as the first one we went to but it was still pretty amazing. All the peanut casings on the floor was mental.
It was an exhausting day due to the heat, most of the rides were rather meh but it also has some outstanding ones in the form of After burn and Intimidator. The water park was gross too but at least we got to chill out for a bit and watch England fail at football on the little screen (with Mexican commentators - lol ). Having a meal at Logans was a great way to end the day though.
Once again thanks for reading!
Jordanovichy
Credit Whore 2016
FINALLY got round to reading, that's 80 minutes of my life I'll just say goodbye to
I have to say though the way you report on these trips is brilliant. A great mix of the coasters, opinions, the parks in general and the company and 'banter'. Carowinds was the penultimate park yeah? Looking forward to the final instalment
I have to say though the way you report on these trips is brilliant. A great mix of the coasters, opinions, the parks in general and the company and 'banter'. Carowinds was the penultimate park yeah? Looking forward to the final instalment
I'm now going to make a bad attempt at finishing this report off...
Friday 20th
We drove to the final park of our trip which was Six Flags Over Georgia. Upon our arrival it was weird seeing quite a few of the creds just chilling in the car park.
This did look lovely and interwinding...
... Till I realised it was a stand-up, great layouts but just the worst restraint systems. The crowds getting in were quite big and was an indication of what the rest of our day would hold. Oh and it was stupidly hot again and this caused us issues.
We headed straight to Dare Devil Dive due to potential poor capacity. We were fairly right, the queue moved slowly but the staff were clearly doing their best to keep it moving.
The ride itself was ok, it had some nice moments. I don't think everyone else was quite so ok with it though. We then headed down into Gotham City area for yet another Batman Clone. Joy.
I loved the theming of the chairswing...
We were going to ride Mindbender next but it decided to have some annoying downtime so we aborted that plan and went to Georgia Scorcher. It definitely was scorching hot and we were in Georgia so why not? The queue was vile, cattlepen in the heat was unpleasant. Batching was a slight nightmare too due to people not grasping the concept of the ride vehicles. Still after x amount of time we were on board. Like I had predicted earlier, a good layout ruined by the restraints/position.
Mindbender managed to mend itself by the time we got off so we tried to beat the crowds back over to it. I don't think we ended up waiting too long. I found it to be a fun rollercoaster with some great loops.
We then headed over to Goliath which didn't have much of a queue. This is where the incident regarding Jordan's short shorts happened. Some woman behind her in the queue didn't appreciate being behind her behind and told her that "there are kids here". Jordan didn't care and we were soon on the ride. There were some good moments but it didn't blow me away or anything, but to be fair I was on Intimidator the day before.
We then found ourselves in a wild west themed area which had a little show going on, can't remember what happened now but it happened. We then grabbed some good pulled pork sandwiches.
The area was actually nicely themed, when Six Flags decides to theme something they can do a good job. We were going to do Ninja next but it decided to have a whole day of down time (spiteful s.o.a.b.). Instead we rode Great American Scream Machine.
The queue was a little vile in the heat and the ride wasn't much to write home about.
It was then time to join the vile queue for Superman. Apart from as soon as we had put all our stuff in the lockers they told us the ride had broken down, burdenous. I think we just sucked it up and waited around for it to re-open. When it did we joined the long queue that barely moved, pretty sure it broke down again while we were waiting. I'm not really a fan of flying coasters, I find the riding position to be uncomfortable and when there's a bit of force I find it unbearable, so suffice to say I didn't really enjoy Superman.
We then went over to the family cred, Canyon Blaster. There were some nice bits of theming around, the layout of the ride was also really odd. I believe we got the 'OMG I love your accents' from the ride ops again. I also managed to get a bruise from this ride as I was sitting at the back and it whipped me off the top of the lift hill and I managed to bang my knee on something.
Next up was the mine train which was laughably awful. It's just very dated and doesn't really do much.
Then it was time for Georgia Cyclone. I ended up sitting next to some kid and I can't remember what was said but something weird definitely happened at some point. The ride itself was actually fun, some nice pops of air time and not too much bashing about.
Some of the group did the drop tower next, I was too drained to bother with it so chilled out.
While we were waiting I spotted this giant bug on this poster, still have no idea what it is.
After lots of faffing around we then decided to make our last ride of the day the dark ride, Monster Mansion.
So glad we did this ride, I thought it was great and totally unexpected from a Six Flags park. It's a fun little boat ride through the Monster Mansion but then it all goes horribly wrong and you see the bad monsters. The animatronics were really good and the design was nice.
That was the end of our day at Six Flags Over Georgia. It's a very meh park, with some good attractions in amongst a lot of rubbish. A lot of it also feels quite crammed in. The crowds and heat didn't help us though, and whether it had been slightly different circumstances we might have enjoyed our day a bit more.
We then drove into Atlanta for our last meal of the trip where we're all together. We chose Hard Rock Cafe. Our waiter was awesome and very attentive despite it being rammed.
We then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.
Saturday 21st
Peter, Rach and Richard left us so they could go catch their flight back to the UK. The rest of us stayed for another two days of Atlantics. First on our agenda was the Georgia Aquarium. Luckily I like to peruse the many leaflets for attractions at hotels and had discovered that something called the Atlanta City Pass exists. This got us into both the attractions we wanted to do (aquarium and Cola museum) and more. It also saved us money just for those two attractions so it was purchased and it somehow got us past a stupid queue to get in.
We love these ads for that fast food chain
Later
They had a pool of small rays that you could touch.
The way this aquarium was laid out I found interesting. There's this huge hub and then off of that are all the different exhibits.
It was busy, but some of the theming in the exhibits was awesome...
Yes, that is a tank that goes over the path
A man was trying to get some Archer fish to spit at his hand, it worked too!
They had a huge dolphin tank. Our pass got us into the dolphin show but we poorly timed our visit and didn't want to hang around for it.
Belugas are cool
This Beluga loved playing with the big stick of something
More unnecessary theming!
MANTA RAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ray and a whale
They had this cool little tank with some shark eggs with lights underneath so you could see the little baby sharks wriggling about...
After quite a lot of time spent roaming the huge aquarium we headed over to the Coca Cola museum which was just a giant ad for the company, would you expect anything else? It was nicely designed with the history of how they market the drink and how it's made. They also had the awesome tasting room with their products around the world on tap.
Inventor of Coke statue
A World of Scouts entered the World of Coca-cola.
Then we got to meet the Polar bear!!! He was awesome and kept the queue of people waiting entertained inbetween photos.
Then it was time to enter the vault. Mainly described about the origins of the drink and the early years of the brand. It then pretended it was going to reveal the secret ingredient (which it obviously doesn't), actually there are a few things where they're like "find out the secret" only to not reveal it.
LIES!
There was a mini factory where they filled small bottles which were handed out as a free gift at the end of the attraction.
There was also a 4D film which was meh...
Now we're talking!
We went round the room and worked as a group, we'd all taste and judge each drink at the same time. We then discovered Beverly from Italy. It is the most vile drink known to man. So once we were finished we played a game called "trick people into drinking Beverly". It was the most fun we'd had in the whole building (and we met the polar bear!). Everyone's reaction was pretty much the same. It starts out with a "I'm not so sure, it's not too bad" to a "OMFG get that OFF my tastebuds!".
Aquarius makes me happy
Free coke!
The fab guy behind the till managed to convince me to buy a 'surprise' bag. He also managed to convince Conor. I got a pen...
We then spent some time in a shopping mall before having dinner at Cheesecake factory. Our waitress was fab.
I think we then just chilled out at our sketchy hotel.
Sunday 23rd
Our last day in the States consisted of us visiting the zoo (thanks city pass!) and then catching our flight home. Trying to find a parking space for the car at the zoo was a right mare but we finally sorted ourselves out and went in.
Not actually seen a Cassowary in person before so this was exciting!
Bird was trying to get this hook out, we watched it for ages
Then we found the PANDAS!!!! Argh, they were so cute and there were two baby twin pandas.
The Mum and Dad were separated (I suppose to stop them from making more?) and there was this adorable moment where they could see each other through this gate...
He was trying to escape which was fun to watch
Steel bamboo walls was a new one on me, a nice idea and looks better than chain fences etc
RED PANDA!!!
The reptile house was disgustingly hot which considering it was already hot outside made it unbearable, it was literally a run around and then escape to breathe.
Baby Pumba
There was an aviary where you could buy some birdseed and feed the birds. We all got the sticks but clearly everyone does it as they were barely interested, slightly annoying.
We then left the zoo which was actually decent and had lots of animals that I'd not seen in person before. However I think tiredness and heat really got to us and by the time we left we were all totally done with it. On the way into the city to find some dinner we spotted a massive cemetery, Conor and I decided to have a look inside. It was huge.
As we were driving around we found a place called Your pie, sounded good so we went in to have a look. Conor may have driven a little bit into a sign much to our amusement... whoops. It was awesome, so glad we spotted this place. It was a bit like Subway, you just add whatever you like to a pizza and then it's freshly cooked and then it comes out to your table. It tasted awesome the selection of toppings was great.
nom nom nom
AJ's meat mountain
We then dropped the car off at the hire car peeps and went over to the terminal to catch our plane back home.
It was an amazing two weeks, absolutely exhausting and that heat really did get to me on most days. A lot of great rides were ridden as well as a lot of bad ones but ultimately I had a great time. Thank you for reading my epic report and all your comments
Friday 20th
We drove to the final park of our trip which was Six Flags Over Georgia. Upon our arrival it was weird seeing quite a few of the creds just chilling in the car park.
This did look lovely and interwinding...
... Till I realised it was a stand-up, great layouts but just the worst restraint systems. The crowds getting in were quite big and was an indication of what the rest of our day would hold. Oh and it was stupidly hot again and this caused us issues.
We headed straight to Dare Devil Dive due to potential poor capacity. We were fairly right, the queue moved slowly but the staff were clearly doing their best to keep it moving.
The ride itself was ok, it had some nice moments. I don't think everyone else was quite so ok with it though. We then headed down into Gotham City area for yet another Batman Clone. Joy.
I loved the theming of the chairswing...
We were going to ride Mindbender next but it decided to have some annoying downtime so we aborted that plan and went to Georgia Scorcher. It definitely was scorching hot and we were in Georgia so why not? The queue was vile, cattlepen in the heat was unpleasant. Batching was a slight nightmare too due to people not grasping the concept of the ride vehicles. Still after x amount of time we were on board. Like I had predicted earlier, a good layout ruined by the restraints/position.
Mindbender managed to mend itself by the time we got off so we tried to beat the crowds back over to it. I don't think we ended up waiting too long. I found it to be a fun rollercoaster with some great loops.
We then headed over to Goliath which didn't have much of a queue. This is where the incident regarding Jordan's short shorts happened. Some woman behind her in the queue didn't appreciate being behind her behind and told her that "there are kids here". Jordan didn't care and we were soon on the ride. There were some good moments but it didn't blow me away or anything, but to be fair I was on Intimidator the day before.
We then found ourselves in a wild west themed area which had a little show going on, can't remember what happened now but it happened. We then grabbed some good pulled pork sandwiches.
The area was actually nicely themed, when Six Flags decides to theme something they can do a good job. We were going to do Ninja next but it decided to have a whole day of down time (spiteful s.o.a.b.). Instead we rode Great American Scream Machine.
The queue was a little vile in the heat and the ride wasn't much to write home about.
It was then time to join the vile queue for Superman. Apart from as soon as we had put all our stuff in the lockers they told us the ride had broken down, burdenous. I think we just sucked it up and waited around for it to re-open. When it did we joined the long queue that barely moved, pretty sure it broke down again while we were waiting. I'm not really a fan of flying coasters, I find the riding position to be uncomfortable and when there's a bit of force I find it unbearable, so suffice to say I didn't really enjoy Superman.
We then went over to the family cred, Canyon Blaster. There were some nice bits of theming around, the layout of the ride was also really odd. I believe we got the 'OMG I love your accents' from the ride ops again. I also managed to get a bruise from this ride as I was sitting at the back and it whipped me off the top of the lift hill and I managed to bang my knee on something.
Next up was the mine train which was laughably awful. It's just very dated and doesn't really do much.
Then it was time for Georgia Cyclone. I ended up sitting next to some kid and I can't remember what was said but something weird definitely happened at some point. The ride itself was actually fun, some nice pops of air time and not too much bashing about.
Some of the group did the drop tower next, I was too drained to bother with it so chilled out.
While we were waiting I spotted this giant bug on this poster, still have no idea what it is.
After lots of faffing around we then decided to make our last ride of the day the dark ride, Monster Mansion.
So glad we did this ride, I thought it was great and totally unexpected from a Six Flags park. It's a fun little boat ride through the Monster Mansion but then it all goes horribly wrong and you see the bad monsters. The animatronics were really good and the design was nice.
That was the end of our day at Six Flags Over Georgia. It's a very meh park, with some good attractions in amongst a lot of rubbish. A lot of it also feels quite crammed in. The crowds and heat didn't help us though, and whether it had been slightly different circumstances we might have enjoyed our day a bit more.
We then drove into Atlanta for our last meal of the trip where we're all together. We chose Hard Rock Cafe. Our waiter was awesome and very attentive despite it being rammed.
We then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest.
Saturday 21st
Peter, Rach and Richard left us so they could go catch their flight back to the UK. The rest of us stayed for another two days of Atlantics. First on our agenda was the Georgia Aquarium. Luckily I like to peruse the many leaflets for attractions at hotels and had discovered that something called the Atlanta City Pass exists. This got us into both the attractions we wanted to do (aquarium and Cola museum) and more. It also saved us money just for those two attractions so it was purchased and it somehow got us past a stupid queue to get in.
We love these ads for that fast food chain
Later
They had a pool of small rays that you could touch.
The way this aquarium was laid out I found interesting. There's this huge hub and then off of that are all the different exhibits.
It was busy, but some of the theming in the exhibits was awesome...
Yes, that is a tank that goes over the path
A man was trying to get some Archer fish to spit at his hand, it worked too!
They had a huge dolphin tank. Our pass got us into the dolphin show but we poorly timed our visit and didn't want to hang around for it.
Belugas are cool
This Beluga loved playing with the big stick of something
More unnecessary theming!
MANTA RAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ray and a whale
They had this cool little tank with some shark eggs with lights underneath so you could see the little baby sharks wriggling about...
After quite a lot of time spent roaming the huge aquarium we headed over to the Coca Cola museum which was just a giant ad for the company, would you expect anything else? It was nicely designed with the history of how they market the drink and how it's made. They also had the awesome tasting room with their products around the world on tap.
Inventor of Coke statue
A World of Scouts entered the World of Coca-cola.
Then we got to meet the Polar bear!!! He was awesome and kept the queue of people waiting entertained inbetween photos.
Then it was time to enter the vault. Mainly described about the origins of the drink and the early years of the brand. It then pretended it was going to reveal the secret ingredient (which it obviously doesn't), actually there are a few things where they're like "find out the secret" only to not reveal it.
LIES!
There was a mini factory where they filled small bottles which were handed out as a free gift at the end of the attraction.
There was also a 4D film which was meh...
Now we're talking!
We went round the room and worked as a group, we'd all taste and judge each drink at the same time. We then discovered Beverly from Italy. It is the most vile drink known to man. So once we were finished we played a game called "trick people into drinking Beverly". It was the most fun we'd had in the whole building (and we met the polar bear!). Everyone's reaction was pretty much the same. It starts out with a "I'm not so sure, it's not too bad" to a "OMFG get that OFF my tastebuds!".
Aquarius makes me happy
Free coke!
The fab guy behind the till managed to convince me to buy a 'surprise' bag. He also managed to convince Conor. I got a pen...
We then spent some time in a shopping mall before having dinner at Cheesecake factory. Our waitress was fab.
I think we then just chilled out at our sketchy hotel.
Sunday 23rd
Our last day in the States consisted of us visiting the zoo (thanks city pass!) and then catching our flight home. Trying to find a parking space for the car at the zoo was a right mare but we finally sorted ourselves out and went in.
Not actually seen a Cassowary in person before so this was exciting!
Bird was trying to get this hook out, we watched it for ages
Then we found the PANDAS!!!! Argh, they were so cute and there were two baby twin pandas.
The Mum and Dad were separated (I suppose to stop them from making more?) and there was this adorable moment where they could see each other through this gate...
He was trying to escape which was fun to watch
Steel bamboo walls was a new one on me, a nice idea and looks better than chain fences etc
RED PANDA!!!
The reptile house was disgustingly hot which considering it was already hot outside made it unbearable, it was literally a run around and then escape to breathe.
Baby Pumba
There was an aviary where you could buy some birdseed and feed the birds. We all got the sticks but clearly everyone does it as they were barely interested, slightly annoying.
We then left the zoo which was actually decent and had lots of animals that I'd not seen in person before. However I think tiredness and heat really got to us and by the time we left we were all totally done with it. On the way into the city to find some dinner we spotted a massive cemetery, Conor and I decided to have a look inside. It was huge.
As we were driving around we found a place called Your pie, sounded good so we went in to have a look. Conor may have driven a little bit into a sign much to our amusement... whoops. It was awesome, so glad we spotted this place. It was a bit like Subway, you just add whatever you like to a pizza and then it's freshly cooked and then it comes out to your table. It tasted awesome the selection of toppings was great.
nom nom nom
AJ's meat mountain
We then dropped the car off at the hire car peeps and went over to the terminal to catch our plane back home.
It was an amazing two weeks, absolutely exhausting and that heat really did get to me on most days. A lot of great rides were ridden as well as a lot of bad ones but ultimately I had a great time. Thank you for reading my epic report and all your comments
ATTACKHAMMER
Strata Poster
Awesome report! The coke museum looks really good. I agree about Beverly, that stuff is probably the worst thing that I have ever consumed.
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
what's with the flip flops on your hands in the petting zoo?