After a 3 year hiatus, I was finally able to return to my home park, Six Flags over Texas. I actually worked at the park from 1998 to 2000 in ride operations and Information Technology. The wife and myself drove down to Texas early Friday morning, spent the day at the park and spent the weekend with the family.
Miscellaneous comments:
We were impressed at how clean the park was, employees were smiling and all in all the park was a pleasure to visit. One tip, if you buy your season pass online, you can go directly in the picture building when you enter the park. There was a huge line under the sign that said Season Pass Processing and as we later found out, it was full of people who bought their pass at the park and had to enter their information into the computer. A man leaving processing said that we could go directly to the building and we had our passes 5 minutes later!
Ride List
La Vibora - We rode this first due to the low throughput. I hadnt ridden this for probably 10 years, great family ride!
Texas Giant (2) - Some track work must have been done during the off season. This was smoother than its been for a long time. A great ride, ranks up there with The Boss at SFSTL
Titan - Great hypercoaster! The first drop into the tunnel makes the whole ride. The positive Gs are great but I prefer negative Gs myself.
Runaway Mountain - Waited about 45 minutes for this low capacity indoor Windstorm. Just as good as its always been, a short fun ride.
Runaway Mine Train - The original mine train. My wife loved this and it was great to go back to my childhood.
Judge Roy Scream - Such a beautiful setting on the lake. Good midsized woody, not much airtime but still fun.
Mr. Freeze - At first I didnt like the paint job but it grew on me. Great launch! I like the queue better than SFSTL's. Just a note, they did not repaint the track in the station :-).
Superman Tower of Power - Dallas/Ft Worth looks different from 300 feet. This ride has a great launch, airtime and great scenery. When it pulls you to the top for the turbo shot to the ground, you get an awesome view of the metroplex.
Spongebob 4D - Much better than right stuff/dino island/whatever else its been in its life. They need to clean the ride and queue up and clear off the old right stuff theming. The ride film was Disney/Universal quality but the queue and preshow left a lot to be desired. At Disney, when I get wet on a 4D ride, I dont feel like I need to take a shower because I'm concerned about the source of the water. Still a great ride.
Wildcatter - Figured we'd ride this for probably the last time. The original drop ride, still gets my stomach more than any of the more modern rides.
Shockwave - One of my favorite coasters at SFOT was DDM but we did see the mechanics working on it. Low and behold it opened the next day :-(
Overall it was a great visit to a great park. SFOT is my favorite regional theme park in the country. The influx of family rides from 2006 really made the park seem full and attractive to the whole family.
