Six Flags Over Georgia 06/11/2004 (#1)

On Friday, I toured the InfoComm show floor for a while, then decided I had worked hard enough. I got on the train, went back to the motel, changed clothes, and decided it was playtime. Accordingly, I drove out to Six Flags over Georgia for the afternoon.

When I approached, one of the first things I noticed was that the park has competition! Right next to the parking lot entrance are hand-painted signs advertising parking for $5 in a field adjacent to Six Flags' parking lot. Six Flags has put up signs warning people walking to the park from that lot that they did not park on Six Flags property and that Six Flags disavows any responsibility for their vehicles. Seems fair enough to me. But I thought that with competition would come competitive pricing. That does not appear to be the case. Six Flags signs invited me to park in their "value-priced" parking lot for only $10. $10? They have an incredible amount of gall, referring to that as "value" parking. To me, that's more like a "major screwing". At least the lot is paved and they are running parking lot trams, which is a Good Thing™ as the parking lot is apparently located on the diametrically opposite end of the park from the entrance gate. Or something like that. In any case, I was parked right behind the Batman station.

Entering any Six Flags park can be a bit of a challenge for me. Knowing that the park uses me_al detectors, I took all the keys, pocketknives, loose change, measuring tape, and pens out of my pockets, strapped on the ****** bag [Footnote 1], and rode to the gate, Wyandot Lake pass in hand. This is where the real challenge comes. At some parks, it is necessary to check in at the Customer Service window. At some, it is necessary to use a season pass entrance gate. At some, I can use any gate. And the gate personnel at most Six Flags parks have never heard of Wyandot Lake. So I asked around. I went up to a turnstile at random, identified my pass as a non-Georgia Six Flags pass, and with a little bit of scowling and confused looks, the attendant scanned it. The computer beeped happily, and I strolled through the gate. Quick and painless. You know, that doesn't work for intra-chain admittance at Paramount and Cedar Fair parks.

I last visited Six Flags over Georgia some years ago, and that visit was under somewhat unusual circumstances: the park hosted the IAAPA Thursday Night Party. So the park had been dark, mostly empty, and thanks to inclement weather, wet. So I was really not familiar with the place at all. I turned right, knowing that Georgia Scorcher, the coaster I was planning to not ride, was to the left. Within minutes, I was seated in the back-right seat of the Georgia Cyclone.

The classic lines of the Georgia Cyclone.

The Georgia Cyclone is a beautiful ride. I suppose it is technically classified a "twister" with its compact layout, but compared to modern twisters, it really isn't. It has far too much straight track to qualify. It features very tall, very steep hills in what amounts to an out-and-back layout that has been folded a couple of times. It's that classic looking profile that you think of when you think, "wooden roller coaster," even though comparatively few wooden roller coasters actually look like that. It's the type of design the ACE logo kind of looks like. Of course, the last coaster I rode that looked like this one was Viper at Six Flags Great America, and that thing was excellent. Last time I rode the Georgia Cyclone, I remember it was a good ride. So this should be fun.

The G-Clone as seen from the midway.

Well, it should be. Things deteriorated real quick, though. While the ride is gorgeous, its trains are hideous. Not only does each seat have that same ugly, hard-as-a-rock high seatback as found on Mean Streak, but all of the padding has been removed from the train. Not only have the seatback, side cushions, and seat divider been replaced with this foam crap, not only is the seat divider now about 4" wide, but the seat bottom cushion has also been replaced, meaning that riding in the Cyclone's train is about like sitting on a wooden bench.

I sat down and put the ratcheting lap bar right where I wanted it. The train took off from the station with an ear-piercing squeal. The station runs downhill at a non-trivial angle, so the booster wheels really should not be necessary , but the ride has them anyway.

I don't know whether to love this ride or to hate it. What the Georgia Cyclone does is wonderful. There are multiple moments of extreme airtime on the ride, particularly the top of the second hill where the sudden rollover launches the rider into the lap bar and seat belt with a force that is not quite as extreme as on Viper, but it is close enough. The way the ride does all this is pretty abominable. The ride simply does not track well. It's better than a lot of coasters I have ridden, but with no cushioning in the train, there really is no room for error, and the trackwork features a whole lot of error. The train bucks and shuffles through the course, not as badly as, say, Raging Wolf Bobs 2002, but not particularly well, either. If the seats were halfway decent, the rough track probably wouldn't matter. But when every little jounce of a wheel is transmitted directly into your spine, it gets pretty unpleasant pretty quickly. I love what this ride does. I hate the way it does it.

On around the corner and up the hill is Viagraphobia. Er, I mean, Acrophobia. That's the floorless stand-up free-fall tower that just seems to me to be a bad idea all around. For whatever reason, the ride was down mechanical and wouldn't operate all day. I'm sure you can tell by the huge grin on my face that I was absolutely heartbroken to learn I couldn't experience this thing.

The railroad train was pulling into the station, so I boarded and rode it all the way around. It supplies some good views of a couple of rides, especially the mine train, but mostly it runs past the service areas at the center of the park. I wonder if there is a rule that any employee whose hands are free when the train goes past has to wave at it. They all certainly do. Or maybe it's just one of those Southern hospitality things.

The lap bars on the Dahlonega Mine Train are unusual for a Runaway Train.

From the train, I got a good look at the layout for the Dahlonega Mine Train, and it looked interesting. I hadn't ridden it on my last visit, so I corrected that omission with a back seat ride. I noticed that the station brakes were the updated caged-spring calipers instead of the standard Arrow air-bladder brakes, and it wasn't the hodge-podge of brake calipers I saw on the mine train at St. Louis a couple of years ago. The train is an interesting variation on the Arrow Runaway Train in that it has the later molded seats, similar to, say, Gemini, but the train has the old-style single-position lap bar. But even that is a little different, as the bar is bent on the ends to close the gap with the side of the car. Hmmm...it seems that the Arrow Runaway Train cars have gone through almost as many revisions as the Intamin hypercoaster trains. Almost. The ride itself is a classic mine train, with two lifts. Much to my surprise, there is an operator at the top of the first lift. I suppose from there he can see the entire ride. The ride lacks steep drops, but it has lots of sharp curves, and a gradual speed build-up. Then it gets to this third lift. At the top, there is a quick rollover and a long, steep drop into a tunnel, with a severe dogleg in the dark that gives the ride an exciting finish. Exciting, and really violent for a diminutive ride such as this one! I kind of liked it.

Wile E. Coyote's Canyon Blaster construction site as seen from the Sky Buckets.

Looking up at the Great Gasp.

I took a quick tour through Bugs Bunny's world where I failed to note anything especially out of the ordinary, and where I looked briefly over the construction site for Wile E. Coyote's Canyon Blaster, the forthcoming junior coaster. Then I went on around the corner and took a ride on the Great Gasp, which was my first ride on a full-size parachute drop ride. Really, it is quite a neat ride. Not a major thrill machine, but still fun.

I found myself in a plaza that looks a lot like the themed area at Geauga Lake around Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall. It was fitting, then, that the Freefall ride was nearby, along with a restaurant looking like an oversized diner and something that looks like a drive-in theater. A large dome looks a little like a gunite igloo, and apparently has a ride inside. I decided to check it out.

The ride in question happens to be a Scrambler. As soon as I learned that, I started looking very closely at it. The ride is a more or less typical Scrambler, in a darkened building with colored and flashing lights, images projected on the ceiling, and loud music. I noticed that at no time does the building actually get dark inside during the ride. Six Flags puts two loads of riders into the building at a time...24 riders on the Scrambler, and another 24 riders standing in a queue inside the building. Although the data plate on the ride clearly indicates that the maximum capacity is 36 riders, Six Flags signs indicate, "Two riders per seat." When I got on the ride, I noticed some other interesting things about it. First of all, the ride is equipped with seat belts, which is not uncommon these days. I was surprised to find that the upholstered seat bottom cushion has been replaced with a molded foam "cushion" (Are there ANY upholstered seat cushions in this park?). More interesting is that a metal bar has been added to the end of each stub-arm sweep with a bumper on the end. This bar 'catches' the tub door as it opens, as the two rubber bumpers are missing from the door hinges. In addition, a large plastic bumper has been added below the handlebar door on the latch side, so I suppose the hinge alignment is slightly less critical than usual. It's an interesting set of modifications. The ride runs OK, too, though I did notice a slight bounce similar to that on the Wyandot Lake ride.

I went down a hill and under a bridge and into Gotham City. "Gotham", I discovered, is apparently an old Cherokee word which translates to, "One Train." While Georgia Cyclone and Dahlonega Mine Train were both running two trains, the Mindbender was only running one. I had never ridden it before, and I don't know if

ever built a bad coaster, so I gave it a go. The parking lot tram operator claimed that it was the nation's first three-looping coaster, a claim that I am sure Cedar Point is more than willing to dispute. I am still trying to figure out what they are calling a third loop. By any reasonable measure, Mindbender is a 2-loop coaster. It's also a very good coaster, very much like Hersheypark's Sooperdooperlooper in that while it is a looping coaster, the design involves a lot more than just a couple of loops. In many ways, it reminds me of the Whizzer up at Six Flags Great America. I'd have ridden it more, but with single train operation, the wait was about 40 minutes.

The Gotham City Crime Wave is an interesting way to decorate a Zierer Wave Swinger. This Wave Swinger is mechanically interesting not just for its unique paint job, but also for its seats which have molded foam surfaces instead of the usual plastic basketweave stuff.

Batman: The Ride as seen from my parking space.

Batman: The Ride is right across the midway, and because it is in Gotham, it was running one train with about a half-hour wait. I have ridden this one once before, and I probably should have taken a cue from several of the locals and skipped it this time around. The ride ran OK, but the wait for it was awful. Much of the line is stacked up on a stairway and in a couple of large steel pipes, where the stagnant air was superheated by the Southern sunshine. Even worse, there is a queue house between the sewer pipe and the stairway which was completely bypassed. An air-conditioned queue house which is large enough to accommodate all the people who were baking in line on this Friday afternoon. When I got to the station, I saw something else that I would see a lot of on this trip. The last two cars of the train were roped off in the station, probably to accommodate the Q-Bot users. So when the queue gates opened, the people in front of me waiting for the 6th car filed through, and then sat in the last two rows, as nobody was waiting for Q-bot service. I wasn't aware that was local custom. Of course, Batman was also the only ride where I saw seats reserved for Q-bot users. What was odd is that apparently the local custom at Six Flags Over Georgia is that it doesn't matter where you line up to ride, when the gates open, you walk down the platform and sit wherever you want. Am I missing something here?

I walked back across the park to the Monster Plantation, where the long line I had seen there earlier in the day had evaporated. As I climbed the stile to the loading platform, coaster nuts Chris, Derek and Jack climbed the exit stile on the other side. They decided to ride again, and joined me for my first ride on Monster Plantation. It's a water-flow driven dark ride, and once inside I saw the monsters and immediately started having flashbacks to 1970's children's television shows. I mean, the first monster I saw immediately reminded me of Henrietta from The New Zoo Revue. It is a kind of a cute ride, and I think I am glad they haven't turned it into a Scooby Doo attraction or something like that.

Derek, Jack and Chris were finishing up a 10-day whirlwind tour of the South, and were actually about to leave the park to go up to American Adventures. So they went their way and I went mine, which was to ride the Sky Buckets down to the one area of the park I hadn't visited yet. When I arrived, the comedy show had just ended. I walked past the control booth where I noticed that they were using a 360 Systems Instant Replay system to play sound effects. That's a neat little box; I've often thought that parks were full of good applications for them.

The games midway across from Great American Scream Machine.

The Great American Scream Machine

More wood coaster lap bars should look like this!

The Great American Scream Machine starts like this...

..and ends like this.

I passed under the arbor and onto a narrow midway with games on one side and roller coasters on the other. Ninja sits out in the middle of a pond, but was not operating. I saw an empty train leave the station, but the ride entrance was blocked. So I went on down the hill to the Great American Scream Machine. With two trains running, the coaster was almost a walk-on.

Is Great American Scream Machine the only full-size Six Flags wood coaster that still has drop-down lap bars? The coaster has the same horrible seats as the Georgia Cyclone, but the effect is mitigated a little by the classic lap bars. I just hope it can keep them, in spite of the crap I saw while I was riding. I boarded and sat in the front of the last car. As we pulled out of the station, a kid two seats up from me called to the kid in the seat behind me, asking if he was going to ride without the seat belt, then adding, "Don't do it, man!" Unfortunately, that didn't stop him. When the train stopped on the lift for an unrelated reason, I heard the idiot buckle the belt again, but I also heard it cut loose again as we crested the hill.

The ride is a more or less out-and-back ride, and it runs a little better than the Georgia Cyclone. It also has loads of airtime, and is an all-around good coaster, and I think I like it a little better than the G-Clone. I took several rides, and the idiots really started to grate on my nerves. For my second ride, the kid behind me kept his seat belt fastened, but decided it would be cool to stand up on the first drop. I gave him a tongue lashing, and suggested that if he returned to the ride the operator ought to keep an eye on him, but he continued on down the midway. Where do these people come from, anyway?

A trainload of Superman riders returns from their flight.

Around the corner was the backhanded entrance to Superman: Ultimate Flight, the first USA installation of the B&M 'flying' coaster [Footnote 2]. I had actually forgotten that SFOG had this thing, so I wasn't properly equipped for it...that is, I hadn't remembered my eyeglass cord. I took a quick look around the nearby shops to see if Six Flags had any for sale, but they didn't, so I went ahead and got into the short line anyway, fully expecting that I might have to bail out at the platform. That didn't prove to be necessary. Unlike the crew at Great America last summer, the Georgia crew left the decision in my hands, so I was able to ride. It's basically the same ride as the one at Six Flags Great America, except that it has the two stations...though only one was in use (both trains were running). I like these rides, although every time I ride one I get off with sore ankles. Perhaps the padding on the foot-flap needs to be just a little thicker, or perhaps better, extended a little higher so that it spreads the load over a larger area. I have the same question about this ride as I had about the Great America ride: What qualifies as an "inversion" on this thing? Also, entering the big loop from the top is just...odd.

From Superman, my travels took me up to the top of what I came to refer to as Bonehead hill. I call it that because it seems to be an IQ sink. Kind of like a Wal-Mart [Footnote 3]. This one area of the park seemed to exude plain stupidity, and perhaps this "IQ sink" is responsible for the idiots I encountered on Great American Scream Machine. After all, I didn't have similar experiences elsewhere in the park; only in the area between the Carousel and Great American Scream Machine.

This carousel originally operated at Riverview Park.

When I got to the top of the hill, I took a ride on the Riverview Carousel. Just like the other Six Flags parks, SFOG has made the questionable decision to install "safety" belts on their carousel horses. I know, there are varying points of view on that, and not everybody agrees with me that those things are dangerous. But I have to wonder, if they were really trying to improve the safety of their antique carousel, would it not have been more effective to install rigid stirrups or foot-pegs?

The carousel itself has a nice collection of horses on it, but the machine itself is quite plain, with mirrors instead of scenery panels. The ride is also depressingly slow, and instead of a band organ has amplified music played through garbage speakers. It's not the nicest ride in the park.

Next to the carousel is the Rockin' Tug, which I rode almost by myself. I'd never ridden one before. As it turns out, it's quite a decent ride. The Disk'O is a larger ride than the Rockin' Tug, but the ride action is similar, and either way they're great rides. Zamperla has another winner on its hands with this one, but Six Flags put theirs in a kind of an out-of-the-way (and, dare I say, stupid?) location.

While I was in the neighborhood, I decided I should ride the park's antique car ride. The wait was perhaps four or five minutes, tops, and when I got into the car, the operator told me I couldn't ride.

The sign doesn't say, "No single riders." Furthermore, I would have been happy to join another group of riders. But the sign says, "Two per seat," the same as the sign on the Scrambler (which I rode solo) and on the Dahlonega Mine Train (which I rode solo) and on the Great Gasp (which I rode solo). But for some reason, the operator was insistent. Here, I fully expected to be denied a ride on Superman, and I didn't even try to ride Georgia Scorcher. But I never dreamed that I would be denied a ride on the Antique Cars! This made absolutely no sense to me. I guess it's that IQ sink at work again.

Ninja is an impossibly tight knot of steel track.

By this time, Ninja was up and running again, so I rode it. The ride was a walk-on, but walking on was a bit of a problem. It was once again the strange behavior where a group of people lined up for the last seat in the train, then tried to grab my seat (in the front of the last car), realized it was the back of the train, and then moved up to the front of the train. As if that wasn't strange enough, the senselessness carried over to the ride's operation. Both trains were running, but the operators were only loading one train. Oh...kay. I don't understand the benefit to that, since both trains are still running, and procedure dictates that all the shoulder bars still have to be checked on the empty train. So they aren't saving wear on the train or labor for the operators. Wouldn't it have been more logical under these conditions to simply run the coaster "Gotham"?

Logic aside, Ninja is a good ride that gets a bad rap. It's an impossibly twisted coaster, I believe built by Vekoma (I know Vekoma built the car bodies for the train, though apparently not the chassis). What sets this ride apart from most other coasters is the insane number of times the train passes so close to a support, track tie, track section, or other big solid object that you are absolutely convinced that there isn't enough room to squeeze through. I like it, which isn't a distinction given to very many loopers with shoulder bars. And except for the lateral shake when the train hits the final brake run, I don't find it to be a rough or violent coaster at all. When the train hits the final brakes, the structure at that point shakes sideways a few times, probably because the supports are vertical pillars about 30' tall. In the back of the train you can really feel that oscillation. It's almost more frightening than the first drop on the Camden Park Big Dipper. Almost.

Sorry, no Delayja Vu ride today.

De(lay)ja Vu was not operating. What a surprise. I wonder if Six Flags knew that the ride was going to be a lemon when they decided where to put it. Unless you're looking for the Go-Karts, the ride is actually very easy to miss.

I rode again on Great American Scream Machine, which I think has become my favorite coaster at Six Flags over Georgia. I also took a front seat ride on the Dahlonega Mine Train, which is old enough that it has one of those Six Flags air-conditioned open-air queue houses like the ones I saw at Six Flags St. Louis. The bad news is that it took just long enough to get that ride that I wasn't able to ride the Georgia Cyclone again before the park closed. I swear, 8:00pm closings in mid-June are hardly civilized, especially for those of us who can't get to the park before about 1:30pm.

In all, Six Flags Over Georgia is a very nice park, with a nice collection of rides in it. I live in a region which is once again a Six Flags Free zone. The Six Flags parks I always wanted to visit were Great America and Magic Mountain, and I never gave much thought to Six Flags Over Georgia. But Georgia has a good park, and I had a good time there. The light crowd certainly didn't hurt any, but my timing was apparently good. They did lose out a little because the combination of the early close and the outrageous parking fee means I didn't buy dinner at the park. One of these days, Six Flags will figure out that they are shooting themselves in the foot with the insulting parking rate. But hey, when the worst things about the park are the parking charge and the idiots riding one of the coasters...well, that's actually pretty good!

Footnote 1: The bag contains a hand-held apparatus which converts light energy into a series of electronic images which are stored on 1/4" magnetic tape at a rate of 29.97 images per second. In certain environments, that information about the contents of the bag is better left undisclosed. [Return to Text]

Footnote 2: Not to be confused with the Flying Coaster, which is a flat ride originally designed by Norman Bartlett and sold by Aeroaffiliates. [Return to Text]

Footnote 3: Every time I enter a Wal-Mart store, I get the distinct impression that I am the smartest person in the building. I swear, I think they must have come up with a way to reduce their operating costs by absorbing customer intelligence and using it to run the lights or something. I tell you, it's frightening! [Return to Text]

Trip Report: Six Flags Over Georgia (#1) Austell, Georgia - 06/11/2004

Trip Report: Six Flags Over Georgia (#1)
Austell, Georgia - 06/11/2004