Sky
Mega Poster
In a bout of slight stupidity, @Groot and I decided to take a slightly ill-advised trip out to Texas, aka one of the current hotspots for COVID in the United States. With the Texas Live in May cancelled, we were still itching to get out into the region, since we'd never been. We know how to be smart with masks and sanitizers and all that jazz, so after some planning with @tomahawk (and a lucky price drop on the flights) we decided to just say screw it and make it happen. We had a good chunk of Delta flight credit left over from the cancellation, so we used about half of that to book the flight out to Dallas for right after the July 4th holiday weekend. And with staying most of the week with Tom, plus we already had Six Flags/Sea World passes paid for, we wouldn’t have many expenses during the trip. Perfect!
Buuut then Tom went and destroyed his foot, making his go of the parks impossible. So after an hour-long chat, we figured out the best new itinerary, working around some tricky rental car needs and park closings (cause, you know, pandemic):
Monday, July 6: Land in Dallas stupid early, get rental car, Six Flags Over Texas, drive down to San Antonio
Tuesday, July 7: Sea World San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, drive back to Dallas
Wednesday, July 8: Hang out in Dallas
Thursday, July 9: Also hang out in Dallas
Friday, July 10: Fly back to Atlanta
So, onto Dallas!
===
Our day started with a 3:45am wake up call, after which we were dropped off at the airport by my father-in-law at 5:00. Our flight wasn’t until 8:05, but his dad works near the airport stupid early anyway, so the timing just worked. We just kind of explored the terminals and goofed off on the peoplemovers to kill time since neither of us had been on a flight in 10+ years.
Land at Dallas Love Field on time after an uneventful flight, get the rental car, and immediately get going to Six Flags Over Texas. After multiple wrong turns (seriously, Dallas and our GPS just did not get along), we finally see Titan looming over the parking lot—which they’re oddly social distancing as well, as cones were covering two out of every three spaces.
@Skeletor decided to come out to the park and join us, and we’re so glad he did, because the place was deserted! We only had one wait all day. It was such a fantastic first visit to this park! We get through the park entrance at around 11:30, and security is a breeze with the COVID stuff in place—seriously, they need to just keep these forever, because it was so quick and easy.
First up was supposed to be Titan, but it was closed when we got there and sadly remained closed all day. (We assume, as even though we never went back to the ride entrance, we never saw it run all day.) So, on to New Texas Giant instead!
New Texas Giant: We walked on, and we had so much fun on it. The restraints were quite comfortable compared to the RMC we’ve come to known and (mostly) love. They were seating every other road, and that was the trend for all the coasters over the course of the day. There was some fantastic ejector and great overbanks on it. Get back to the station—station is deserted. They tell us we can ride again if we want. Uhh, yes please! Take another lap. Still no one in the station. We almost stay another round, but we still have the entire rest of the park, and someone took one of our rows anyway. Excellent start to the day.
For those that are curious about RMC rankings, I’d put it solidly in the middle of my list. I’ve done…7 so far (I had to count), but 2 more are still to come this trip, so who knows how that will change.
Shock Wave: I had been anxious to give it a shot, as the comparable Mind Bender is in our backyard. Unfortunately @Groot is too tall for this one (he can’t fit Schwarzkopf trains with his long legs) so @Skeletor and I took a lap in the front row. It was definitely a good time, with lots of nearly-standing airtime, and the back-to-back loops gave some serious G’s. My first impression was that Mind Bender is still better, but I was told I need to ride in the back before making a true comparison. Fair enough. We decided to come back later on and focus on the rest of the park first.
Runaway Mine Train: Again, quite similar to Dahlonega Mine Train in Georgia. Sure enough, it has the same spine crunching transitions, not made any better by @Skeletor and I choosing to sit in the back row so that @Groot could have a seat to himself for his legs.
Mini Mine Train: Well, it was a cred run after all. And @Groot managed to fit with ease, because it oddly had a ton of leg room for him.
Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast: Freeze was honestly one of the creds I was looking most forward to because it’s just so dang unique. This was our only wait of the day, but it wasn’t even that long at that. Loved seeing the dual loading platform in action! I definitely wanted front row for this one, and it was worth it. The backwards tophat was great, and going up the spike was an incredible view. I was cracking up laughing the whole time, which is my mark for just an overall fun ride.
Joker: After a quick hydration break, we went down to the path for the ole Free Spin. One of the ear loops on my mask broke as I was putting on my harness, and it went fluttering off in the wind partway through the ride. The return run had us flipping like crazy, and I had no idea which way was up. Then we found my broken mask on the exit path!
Batman The Ride: We rode in the front. It was…another Batman clone.
Judge Roy Scream: I was warned that this would be a bad one, but it wasn’t too bad, even towards the back. I thought it was fairly enjoyable without too much jackhammering, to be honest. But I may have been the only one in our group with that opinion.
La Vibora: The three of us fit with no issues into the bobsled. I had been on Disaster Transport nearly 20 years ago, but remember absolutely zero of it. It was a fun time. Weird to hold onto the low bars that I knew were inches from the track.
By this time, the heat was getting worse, and we still had a long drive ahead, so we skipped out on Pandemonium, and Runaway Mountain was closed. Plus @Skeletor was needing to head out soon, so we went back over to Shock Wave to finish up the day on that back row ride I supposedly needed. It did have some insane ejector—not a bad ride by any means, but I would still rank Mind Bender above Shock Wave, but only just barely. It’s Mind Bender’s diving helix that eeks out the win for me.
We finished out the park in just about 3 hours, which was a pleasant surprise. Quite the cred run for us! We said our goodbyes to @Skeletor, and we started our trek down to San Antonio.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON SFOT: We were a little wary of going out on this trip with the COVID cases in Texas growing quickly, but we felt fine at SFOT (and on our flight as well, for that matter). There were no lines to worry about distancing, and the one line we did have, people spaced out well. I was the sanitizer lady, who had some in my pocket at all times, making everyone sanitize after every ride. SFOT was a super nice park, and the layout was a breeze to get through (minus the Aquaman construction). Great variety of coasters, too! I haven't been to too many Six Flags parks, but I would definitely rate it on the upper end of the ones I've done. Maybe one day we'll get back to get those last few creds that we missed...
On the drive to San Antonio, we were able to make one additional stop since we got out of SFOT at a decent hour. Yep, we were those people, and we stopped at Austin’s Park N Pizza (in Pflugerville, which is so fun to say), for the garbage cred that is…
Fiesta Express: Yep, we paid money for an 8-foot-tall coaster. The op said no words to us and judged us hardcore. We also used some leftover credit on a quick game of air hockey (that I won).
We got to our hotel in San Antonio nice and late, and stopped at a local In N Out for some late dinner before collapsing in bed. After about 22 hours going nonstop, with a 2-park day ahead... we needed that sleep.
Day 2 to come whenever I actually finish writing it up!
Buuut then Tom went and destroyed his foot, making his go of the parks impossible. So after an hour-long chat, we figured out the best new itinerary, working around some tricky rental car needs and park closings (cause, you know, pandemic):
Monday, July 6: Land in Dallas stupid early, get rental car, Six Flags Over Texas, drive down to San Antonio
Tuesday, July 7: Sea World San Antonio, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, drive back to Dallas
Wednesday, July 8: Hang out in Dallas
Thursday, July 9: Also hang out in Dallas
Friday, July 10: Fly back to Atlanta
So, onto Dallas!
===
Our day started with a 3:45am wake up call, after which we were dropped off at the airport by my father-in-law at 5:00. Our flight wasn’t until 8:05, but his dad works near the airport stupid early anyway, so the timing just worked. We just kind of explored the terminals and goofed off on the peoplemovers to kill time since neither of us had been on a flight in 10+ years.
Land at Dallas Love Field on time after an uneventful flight, get the rental car, and immediately get going to Six Flags Over Texas. After multiple wrong turns (seriously, Dallas and our GPS just did not get along), we finally see Titan looming over the parking lot—which they’re oddly social distancing as well, as cones were covering two out of every three spaces.
@Skeletor decided to come out to the park and join us, and we’re so glad he did, because the place was deserted! We only had one wait all day. It was such a fantastic first visit to this park! We get through the park entrance at around 11:30, and security is a breeze with the COVID stuff in place—seriously, they need to just keep these forever, because it was so quick and easy.
First up was supposed to be Titan, but it was closed when we got there and sadly remained closed all day. (We assume, as even though we never went back to the ride entrance, we never saw it run all day.) So, on to New Texas Giant instead!
New Texas Giant: We walked on, and we had so much fun on it. The restraints were quite comfortable compared to the RMC we’ve come to known and (mostly) love. They were seating every other road, and that was the trend for all the coasters over the course of the day. There was some fantastic ejector and great overbanks on it. Get back to the station—station is deserted. They tell us we can ride again if we want. Uhh, yes please! Take another lap. Still no one in the station. We almost stay another round, but we still have the entire rest of the park, and someone took one of our rows anyway. Excellent start to the day.
For those that are curious about RMC rankings, I’d put it solidly in the middle of my list. I’ve done…7 so far (I had to count), but 2 more are still to come this trip, so who knows how that will change.
Shock Wave: I had been anxious to give it a shot, as the comparable Mind Bender is in our backyard. Unfortunately @Groot is too tall for this one (he can’t fit Schwarzkopf trains with his long legs) so @Skeletor and I took a lap in the front row. It was definitely a good time, with lots of nearly-standing airtime, and the back-to-back loops gave some serious G’s. My first impression was that Mind Bender is still better, but I was told I need to ride in the back before making a true comparison. Fair enough. We decided to come back later on and focus on the rest of the park first.
Runaway Mine Train: Again, quite similar to Dahlonega Mine Train in Georgia. Sure enough, it has the same spine crunching transitions, not made any better by @Skeletor and I choosing to sit in the back row so that @Groot could have a seat to himself for his legs.
Mini Mine Train: Well, it was a cred run after all. And @Groot managed to fit with ease, because it oddly had a ton of leg room for him.
Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast: Freeze was honestly one of the creds I was looking most forward to because it’s just so dang unique. This was our only wait of the day, but it wasn’t even that long at that. Loved seeing the dual loading platform in action! I definitely wanted front row for this one, and it was worth it. The backwards tophat was great, and going up the spike was an incredible view. I was cracking up laughing the whole time, which is my mark for just an overall fun ride.
Joker: After a quick hydration break, we went down to the path for the ole Free Spin. One of the ear loops on my mask broke as I was putting on my harness, and it went fluttering off in the wind partway through the ride. The return run had us flipping like crazy, and I had no idea which way was up. Then we found my broken mask on the exit path!
Batman The Ride: We rode in the front. It was…another Batman clone.
Judge Roy Scream: I was warned that this would be a bad one, but it wasn’t too bad, even towards the back. I thought it was fairly enjoyable without too much jackhammering, to be honest. But I may have been the only one in our group with that opinion.
La Vibora: The three of us fit with no issues into the bobsled. I had been on Disaster Transport nearly 20 years ago, but remember absolutely zero of it. It was a fun time. Weird to hold onto the low bars that I knew were inches from the track.
By this time, the heat was getting worse, and we still had a long drive ahead, so we skipped out on Pandemonium, and Runaway Mountain was closed. Plus @Skeletor was needing to head out soon, so we went back over to Shock Wave to finish up the day on that back row ride I supposedly needed. It did have some insane ejector—not a bad ride by any means, but I would still rank Mind Bender above Shock Wave, but only just barely. It’s Mind Bender’s diving helix that eeks out the win for me.
We finished out the park in just about 3 hours, which was a pleasant surprise. Quite the cred run for us! We said our goodbyes to @Skeletor, and we started our trek down to San Antonio.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON SFOT: We were a little wary of going out on this trip with the COVID cases in Texas growing quickly, but we felt fine at SFOT (and on our flight as well, for that matter). There were no lines to worry about distancing, and the one line we did have, people spaced out well. I was the sanitizer lady, who had some in my pocket at all times, making everyone sanitize after every ride. SFOT was a super nice park, and the layout was a breeze to get through (minus the Aquaman construction). Great variety of coasters, too! I haven't been to too many Six Flags parks, but I would definitely rate it on the upper end of the ones I've done. Maybe one day we'll get back to get those last few creds that we missed...
On the drive to San Antonio, we were able to make one additional stop since we got out of SFOT at a decent hour. Yep, we were those people, and we stopped at Austin’s Park N Pizza (in Pflugerville, which is so fun to say), for the garbage cred that is…
Fiesta Express: Yep, we paid money for an 8-foot-tall coaster. The op said no words to us and judged us hardcore. We also used some leftover credit on a quick game of air hockey (that I won).
We got to our hotel in San Antonio nice and late, and stopped at a local In N Out for some late dinner before collapsing in bed. After about 22 hours going nonstop, with a 2-park day ahead... we needed that sleep.
Day 2 to come whenever I actually finish writing it up!
