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Texas Parks & Silver Dollar City TR


gad198
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Areas Covered:

Six Flags Over Texas

Sea World San Antonio

Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Silver Dollar City

Restaurant Reviews - various

Overview:

My friend Dave and I have traveled to a lot of parks in the last couple of years, but neither of us had ridden a Rocky Mountain Coaster (RMC) creation. Because we've had such a nice Winter in Cincinnati (!), we decided to get an early jump on the coaster riding season and check out the RMCs in Texas and at Silver Dollar City. All of these parks were completely new to both of us (and the first new-to-me parks in 3 years). I forgot how difficult trying to navigate parks can be when you don't know where you're going!

We did take a limited number of photos along the way, and I'll try and integrate those into the report as this trip report progresses. This is my first trip report integrating pictures so if they don't turn out right or just flat out suck I am certainly open to suggestion! I'll break this trip report into days to make things manageable for everyone :-)

Itinerary:

Sunday - leave Cincinnati and arrive in Dallas

Monday - Six Flags Over Texas (SFOT)

Tuesday - Sea World San Antonio

Wednesday - Six Flags Fiesta Texas (SFFT)

Thursday - Six Flags Over Texas

Friday - Silver Dollar City and arrive back in Cincinnati

Sunday:

We left Cincinnati around 6:45. Our initial departure time was designed to allow for a breakfast stop in Louisville and a BBQ stop in Memphis and still make it to Six Flags Over Texas by 8:30 local time for some night rides. Unfortunately - traffic in Memphis, Little Rock and in Dallas prevented that from happening, but we did make it to the food places we wanted to try and got into Dallas around 10 local time.

Please & Thank You - Louisville, KY

Anyone who stops through Louisville during breakfast or lunch hours needs to check this place out. We ended up getting some breakfast sandwiches (the Butchertown Panino - bacon, eggs, potatoes, cheddar on focaccia), some chocolate chip cookies and a derby bar. The breakfast sandwiches were delicious. The chocolate chip cookies and derby bar were both excellent and made for great snacks. Two thumbs up!

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chocolate chip cookies & other assorted desserts

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derby bars

Central BBQ - Memphis, TN

We went here because it was the highest rated BBQ place on Yelp that was open in Memphis on Sunday. The place smelled delightful as most smokehouses do. Central BBQ was a real mixed bag. The dry ribs were absolutely delightful - well seasoned and very tender. Everything else we tried - the pork sandwich, the fries, the cole slaw and the baked beans were all cooked properly but tasted very bland. Those of you who have been to Eli's know what a really good pork sandwich tastes like, and, well, this one was not. As much as we wanted to like this place the food - aside from the ribs - isn't worth it.

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Central BBQ - entrance

I hope to have the rest of the trip completed by the end of the week. Stay tuned!

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Trip Report Continues!

Monday:

We stayed at the Comfort Suites just west of the park, so we had a chance to drive by both of the stadiums that are adjacent to the Six Flags Over Texas park grounds.

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Globe Life Park - home of the Texas Rangers

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AT&T Stadium - home of the Dallas Cowboys. Pictures really don't do this place justice. It is LARGE.

Six Flags Over Texas:

SFOT is the original Six Flags, dating back to 1961. The park has a lot of charm in many areas. About half the park is nestled in among a lot of trees with older Western-style buildings that provide a sense of "theme". The other half of the park is very open with virtually no shade anywhere to be found. It's one of the hardest parks in the country to try and get good photos of the rides because of things getting in the way, but here are a couple of larger view shots:

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Titan & New Texas Giant

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Mr. Freeze & Batman: The Ride

**Note: for time & space purposes I'm going to quickly review only the major and/or noteworthy coasters at each park. I would like to keep all of you awake while reading the report!**

Ride Reviews:

Titan - this is one of two Giovanola hypers in the US (Goliath at SFMM is the other). I've now ridden both versions but this was Dave's first. Just like Goliath at SFMM, the first drop is very shallow so there's very little airtime down the drop. There's very little airtime on the large airtime hill. What there is, however, is an abundance of positive Gs. This version also sports two helices, both of which require the use of the fighter pilot technique to ward off the grayouts. Titan and Goliath both win the "look good but ride much worse" category in the steel coaster division. Grade: C

Mr. Freeze - the Premier shuttle coaster; identical to the one at Six Flags St. Louis. We chatted with a local at the rope drop about which coaster to go to first, and she recommended this one because it drew the longest lines. We went to New Texas Giant first anyway, and we ended up waiting a little more than an hour for this including a 30 minute breakdown only an hour into the day. Those of you going to this park wanting to get on this ride will want to get on first thing as it consistently has the longest lines. The ride itself is intense - for some reason this version felt much more intense than its St. Louis cousin. It's a good ride but I'm still not this coasters biggest fan. Grade: B-

Batman: The Ride at SFOT/Great White at Sea World San Antonio/Goliath at Fiesta Texas - our ever-present B&M invert model! I'm lumping all of these together for space sake; they all ride the same and are all very fun. Goliath is a mirror clone just like the Batman in St. Louis (zero-g roll turns to the left instead of the right). These are known for intensity, but I still believe that Banshee offers more sustained Gs. They're all still very solid rides. Grade: B+

Judge Roy Scream - a wood similar to The Racer at KI without the airtime. Apparently this was re-tracked in the off-season and it rode relatively smooth but the hills offered absolutely no airtime. I wonder what riders endured before it was re-tracked?! Grade: C-

Shockwave - a Schwarzkopf similar to Mindbender at Six Flags Over Georgia. Mindbender and Shockwave are both best experienced up front because of the nice pops of air you get there but miss elsewhere in the train. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It doesn't look like there is much opportunity for airtime but there are a couple of good pops along the course that I wasn't expecting. Grade: B

New Texas Giant - we got a total of 5 rides in. We were on the second train of the day going out, so we wanted to ride up front while the line was still short and then ride in the back on our next go. The restraints on both this and Iron Rattler are very comfortable and accommodating. The front row ride was good. The first drop has some nice airtime up front and the double up provided some great airtime. The overbanks were fun and there are a couple of other nice other pops of airtime, but we both got off a little underwhelmed. The ride attendants all told us that it is a back seat ride, so we took the next four rides in the back. We had a chance to ride in the back seat at the end of the day Monday and 3 times on Thursday, and the ride is infinitely better in the back seat. There's really strong airtime in six or seven spots. Our overall impression of the ride is that it's very good ride but isn't quite on the top shelf. More on this in my RMC comments later in the report. Grade: A-

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Lift & Drop

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The RMC version of the El Toro/Rolling Thunder hill

Next report will be Sea World San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, and a review of one of the best BBQ establishments in the US. Stay tuned!

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Trip Report Continues...

Tuesday

We left our hotel in Waco to head down towards San Antonio. Dave and I have been to most of the famous BBQ regions, so we wanted to check Texas off our BBQ list. We stopped at a restaurant on the outskirts of downtown Austin.

La Barbecue - Austin, TX

We initially wanted to go to Franklin BBQ, which has been featured on a lot of TV shows and even in a movie or two. Unfortunately, every review we saw mentioned the long waits - up to four hours - even on weekdays. Thankfully, we found a good plan B in La Barbecue, which many reviews indicated that it was as good as Franklin without the brutal wait. They are actually located a vacant lot, running their operation in a food trailer with two separate smokers attached to trailers. They open for lunch at 11 am, and we arrived at 10:45 with about 50 people already in front of us. We ordered a little bit of everything (picture below), and I'll just say this. The beef here (brisket and beef rib) is perhaps the finest tasting beef I've had in the US. The other meats - the pork and the sausage - were both good and the sides were above average, but the beef here is truly memorable. The atmosphere here is very chill...everyone at the communal tables was talking about where they were from (a lot of the folks in line were out-of-towners, much to our surprise) and how great the food is. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

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The La Barbecue trailer

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One of the two smokers

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The food. From top left to bottom right - potato salad, brisket, sausage, beef rib, chipotle cole slaw, El Sancho Loco sandwich (pork, chopped brisket, sausage and pickled onion), sausage

Sea World San Antonio:

From La Barbecue we took the 90 minute drive down to Sea World San Antonio. Rain was moving in, however, and we wanted to make sure we got on the coasters before we did anything else. As it turns out the rain moved in about an hour into our visit, but we did get all of the coasters there (Journey to Atlantis was closed). The park is about the size of the Orlando park, but feels a lot different due to how the park is laid out. I think the Orlando park feels much more immersive, but it's a nice park that really works well for families since there's a lot to do for everyone.

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Their Batman clone, Great White, through the trees

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Great White up close

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Steel Eel - getting good pictures of this coaster in the park is VERY difficult!

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for you animal lovers

Ride Reviews:

Great White - see my Batman: The Ride review in the Six Flags Over Texas portion

Steel Eel - a Morgan hyper. The coaster is only around 150' tall so I guess it's not a full fledged "hyper", but it definitely rides like one. This coaster completes my Morgan hyper collection and is Dave's second to last. All of the other Morgan hypers are perfectly fine, but none of them occupy a spot in my top 25 steel. This coaster is definitely better than all of the other Morgan hypers including Phantom's Revenge. The airtime is much more pronounced on this ride despite it being the shortest of the bunch. Having said that, I'd still take every Intamin and B&M hyper (other than Raging Bull) over Steel Eel. Grade: B+

Shamu Express - the park's kiddie coaster. Nothing to see here, please move along :-) Grade: +1, as in that's exactly what it is... a credit

Six Flags San Antonio is coming in the next edition. Stay tuned!

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Trip report continued...

Wednesday

We'll get to the Six Flags Fiesta Texas report in just a bit, but I wanted to review a couple of the restaurants we went to in San Antonio first.

Cappy's

This is a restaurant focusing in on American dishes with some Southern and French influences. Think Teller's in Hyde Park for a comparison. Dave had the Gulf Shrimp Nachos and I had the daily special - short ribs and scallops with risotto and some seasonal vegetables. Both dishes were very tasty - the short ribs and scallops were cooked perfectly. Dessert was sticky toffee pudding with a butterscotch brandy sauce. I would definitely stop here again if I come back in to town. Grade: A-

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Short ribs and scallops daily special

Pancake Joe's

We stopped here for breakfast before we went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. The namesake pancakes were good, probably a "B", but they had an item here that made this stop memorable - the hash browns. These are - by far - the best hash browns I've ever tasted. Think Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream potato chips in a hash brown iteration. The hash browns were a separate menu item, and despite that every table that had food still on it had a plate of these hash browns on them. These hash browns are seriously amazeballs. Grade: B+ overall but the hash browns were an A+++++++

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Pecan pancakes and hash browns

Pollos Asados Los Norteños

We discovered this Tex Mex spot through Yelp. It's the highest rated spot on both Yelp and Urbanspoon in San Antonio. We ended up getting their signature chicken and also tried some steak fajitas. The chicken is marinated in spices and then grilled. It's very tender, moist, and very flavorful. The steak fajitas and the rice were also tasty but the chicken is the reason you'll come here. Grade: B+

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Six Flags Fiesta Texas

This is one of the newer Six Flags-branded parks, coming into the fold in the mid-90s. The park is in a really nice location, set amongst the cliffs about 20 minutes to the west of downtown San Antonio. It's a mid-size park about the size of Dorney Park; there are 8 coasters with one currently under construction. It's probably the second prettiest Six Flags park from an aesthetic standpoint (the trees at Six Flags Over Georgia push it over the top for me).

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Front Gate

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Goliath at front entrance

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Theme

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Waterfalls

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Wider Angle

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The S&S 4D under construction. Much larger than I thought!

Ride Reviews

Goliath/Batman clone - see my review in the Six Flags Over Texas section

Poltergeist - the Premier spaghetti bowl coaster. The outdoor versions (this one and Joker's Jinx at SFA) are superior to the indoor versions IMO due to the lack of a mid-course brake. Going through the second half of the course at the intended full speed makes these much more interesting. The trains are the exact same as the ones on Flight of Fear, so they are VERY tight to get in to. This knocks the experience down a couple of notches, but the ride is still fun. Grade: B

Superman - Krypton Coaster - a really nice B&M floorless. The ride utilizes the adjacent cliffs really nicely early in the layout. The first drop and zero-g roll are very good and the ride time is nice and long. I still think Kraken is the king of the floorless coasters but this one is still very, very good. Grade: B+

Iron Rattler - the second RMC of the trip. The setting of the ride is stunning. The first drop is one of the best in the US. The barrel roll in the middle section of the ride actually feels organic, and you flow through it very easily. The last drop into the tunnel is very good. The only downside to the ride is that the portion of the ride up on the cliffs is pretty ho-hum. There's not a ton of space up there and, in fairness, RMC probably did the best they could under the circumstances. The ride overall is a lot of fun but leaves you wanting just a little bit more. Grade: B+

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Iron Rattler lift hill

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Iron Rattler course

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Superman: Krypton Coaster through the trees

The last portion of this report is next. Stay tuned!

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This is the last portion of this report!

We spent Thursday traveling from San Antonio to Fayetteville, AR. We made a quick pit stop at Six Flags Over Texas for some more New Texas Giant rides. Everything I needed to cover at SFOT is covered earlier in the report.

We stopped at a burger joint called Hopdaddy that was really nice (sorry, no pictures). The parmesan truffle fries and shakes here were excellent. It's about on par with Flipdaddy's. We stopped in Fayetteville, AR and then went to Silver Dollar City on Friday morning. The drive between the two destinations is only about 60 miles as the crow flies, but the roads to the park are extremely windy, so it took about two hours. It is, however, a really pretty drive.

Silver Dollar City

Many of the comparisons to Dollywood are definitely valid. The park definitely has a very rustic feel to it and it is immaculately maintained, right down to the new wooden fence posts along the pathways made of freshly cut oak. The place smelled amazing!

There are two major differences - to me - between Silver Dollar City and Dollywood. It seems as though many more SDC patrons were interested in riding the rides. Dollywood very rarely gets long (>30 minute) ride lines but we encountered a number of lines that were longer than we were anticipating. The other major difference is that Silver Dollar City is EXTREMELY difficult to navigate your first time there. Dollywood is essentially is in a big circle. Silver Dollar City is a series of paths that ultimately dead end. Dave and I ended up trying to find each other after briefly going on different rides and it took us nearly 20 minutes to find each other. If you're a first timer visiting this park, make sure you get real familiar with the park map!

Ride Reviews

Fire in the Hole - Silver Dollar City's version of Blazing Fury. This one does have an additional drop and still has the splashdown, so it's a little more interesting. Grade: C

Powder Keg - an S&S family launcher. This has a 42" height requirement so the line here gets the longest the quickest. This ride would have been the surprise of the trip if it weren't for the coaster right next door. The launch is solid and is much faster than I was anticipating. It's got a decent ride time and is re-rideable. I'm not sure what they were thinking putting a lift hill and big drop so near to the end of the ride, but this just a fun coaster. Make sure you hit this coaster first on any visit due to the capacity and its location in the park. Grade: B

Wildfire - this - not Outlaw Run - was the surprise coaster of the trip. Really nice first drop. A nice, fun, unique layout. Very smooth in typical B&M fashion. Absolutely beautiful setting. I like Tennessee Tornado but I'd trade Wildfire for it in approximately 0.03 seconds. It's unfortunate that most parks already had an Arrow multi-looper when B&M came in to the coaster game, because all of the B&M sitdowns are really good. The only reason this doesn't get an "A" grade is because there's no zero-g. Grade: B+

Outlaw Run - the park's Rocky Mountain Coaster creation. The setting is excellent. The station theming is excellent. The ride trains look cool. As far as the ride goes, it's very good. The first drop, while steep, is merely good but not great. The weird "inversion-but-not-really-an-inversion" is probably the most interesting part of the ride and is really quite a treat. There's a series of miscellaneous airtime hills that range from "interesting" to "excellent!" that follow. There are a couple of barrel rolls at the end. We did front and back rides and I thought the front was a little better.

I have mixed feelings about this ride. The layout screams top-5 ride. The ride delivers some really lovely moments; the aforementioned inversion and a couple of the airtime hills. The barrel rolls, however, were completely unnecessary. They are taken at a a very slow pace and it's very out of character with the rest of the ride. It's a neat gimmick but the ride would have been better served by having an additional airtime hill or two to round out the experience better. The other thing I didn't care for were the trains. The trains on the other RMCs we were rode were very accommodating. The trains on Outlaw Run (and presumably Goliath since they use the same trains) really hinder the experience. I'm an average size guy and even I had very little freedom in the trains. All of that said, we both thought that the ride is fun but I think we set our expectations too high. Grade: B+ in the back/A- up front

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View of Wildfire from the parking lot

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Outlaw Run through the trees

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An idea of the crowds

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Theme

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Wildfire life & drop

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Wildfire & setting

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New area of the park

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Beautiful setting

Rocky Mountain coasters overview

Dave and I both felt that New Texas Giant was the best RMC on the trip. Part of that has to do with the longer ride time compared to Iron Rattler and Outlaw Run, but most of it has to do with the more natural progression of elements on Giant. RMC coaster design seems to focus on what cool elements they want to integrate in their rides and building a layout trying to fit them in. The problem is that there's often a sense of random placement of things on their rides - the barrel rolls on Outlaw being one example. They really need to evaluate their wood coaster trains to see if there's a way to make them just as safe without feeling as constraining.

The other side of the RMC coin is that they do airtime really well, and their layouts keep you interested throughout the ride. They are all fun and it would be nice if one of the Ohio parks end up with one. Having said that, I'd MUCH rather them RMC Mean Streak then build a new RMC wood. There's a ton of potential there in that big structure that RMC could use to make a top-5 worthy ride if given the leeway. The ride would be longer than a comparable wood creation and would also take advantage of the roomier and more comfortable trains.

This ends the trip report. Thank you for reading!

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