Hello Loopies. Well last weekend I made the trek up to Northern California to visit a few parks. I spent my Saturday over at the beautiful California’s Great America. My plan for the day for to attack the coasters and get some more coaster credits but as well as take a look around the park and see what they have to offer. The evening was spent doing the Halloween Haunt event and you will see a review for this event at the end of the month with my Halloween Theme Park mega review.
My first impressions from the park were that it would just be a small boring park with a couple of coasters. You pull up to the 49’s Levi’s Football stadium as it shares the same parking as the Theme Park. Once entering the gates I was happily mistaken as it turned out to be a well manicured, well kept, well landscaped park. You enter with a great view of the parks sign with a large man made pond/fountain backed with the first two story Carousel I have ever seen in person. Quite impressive. Goldstriker, the parks newest attraction, sits to the right wrapping around their observation tower.
We rode all of the coasters in a few hours and ended up riding some of the flat rides and even managed to ride all the water rides. After being there for half a day I really started to grow fond of the park. Its designed to have a circular rotation to the traffic but have cleverly been disguised as not a straight up circle. We rode the Sky Buckets(Eagles Flight) across the park both directions and were able to see get an eye in the sky view of the park. It just confirmed how nice the park layout and landscaping was. Again, very nicely put together park.
The food was maybe a dollar or 2 too steep but the garlic fries we had were some of the best fries we have ever had. Merchandise was plentiful and was modestly priced. It is owned by Cedar Fair so of course you will find plenty of Peanut Gang merch.
Below is a list of the Coasters and note worthy attractions visited ( In no particular order )
1. Flight Deck: A well themed cue line graces this B&M invert in the corner of the park. It may not be very high or very fast with only 3 inversions but it is a fun ride. The whole ride is themed after a fighter jet and the ride itself is to imitate the flight of a jet. It actually had some very jet flight like moments and ends with a helix over the water there next to the park. I have to emphasize on the theming. They really do go the extra mile with the theming on the cue. It is very well done.
2. Vortex: Vortex is a standup coaster located right in the center of the park. Again, not very tall or very fast with minimal inversions. It of course is the roughness you expect from a stand up from B&M in the 90s. No real theming here or anything. Just a short mildly rough stand up coaster.
3. Demon: Demon is one of the rare Arrow Dynamic coasters built with actual theming. You start off going through a cave then up the lift hill, through a few loops, then you dive into a rock skull that shoots out into a double corkscrew. One of the funnest Arrow Dynamic coasters I have been on to be honest. Not too rough and really fun. It is buried in the trees and diving into the skull head is the highlight. I really enjoyed this one for being a rough old Arrow Dynamic built coaster.
4. Grizzly: Grizzly is an older woody built towards the back of the park. The drops were not too extreme, the corners were slow. Its a bit rough but not a bad ride.
5. Psycho Mouse: A fun little mouse coaster at the back of the park. Fun for kids or adults.
6. Tiki Twirl: A Large disk on a track that moves back and forward while the disk spins. At first I was afraid to ride but then I decided to take it on. I get easily sick on spin type rides and I did just fine on this. It was actually pretty fun. It draws a bit of a line as people love this one at the park. It is worth the wait for a nice short coaster/flat ride
7. Drop tower: A nice decent height drop tower. Multiple cars are pulled up at the same time and dropped down a little over 200 feet. Was a pretty fun ride. No complaints here.
8. Loggers Run: A log flume ride that follows a real simple flume chute and a double hump drop. Average log ride and had quite a line from the slow loading area. No theming here just a standard Log Flume ride.
9. Rip Roaring Rapids: This was a really fun raft ride. They had fun elements along the way and you get absolutly soaked. So much fun. They had paid geysers guest could pay a quarter for to shoot the guests as they rode by. there was also a trough that gets you absolutely soaked. There is no escape from getting wet on this ride. It is in the trees with some good theming. I really had a lot of fun on this one.
10. Goldstriker: An Absolute fantastic Woody. One of my favorites. A nice woody rumble but not too rough. The ride drops and turns blasting by the cue line into a fast floater hill. The rest of the ride are fast corners flicking and floating through the track. It is a great length and a whole lot of fun. The best in the park for sure. GCI never fails to disappoint so far with their coaster constructions. The ride also featured some foam bolted to the structure to add some muffling to the structure. I am assuming this has something to do with the city noise ordinance.
Over all it was a great day at the park. Great atmosphere, fun rides, clean and lines moved at a decent pace. It possesses a charm that will keep me coming back when I am up in the area. I want to get back to ride goldstriker more to switch up the seating and find out how it is more towards the front. Again, Stay tuned for the nighttime adventures as I also visited the Haunt Event that evening.
