Day 2: If Six Flags owned seaworld...
It is never a good sign when a parks hours are 11-6/7 right? Well somebody at SFDK didnt get the memo on how to effectively operate a sonewhat busy theme park.
After arriving about an hour before park opening, my first sign should have been the lack of ride testing until about 10 minutes before opening.
After the most chill rope drop ever, I hopped in line for Joker, got on the first train of the day, and got the back row. And I was pretty surprised by how good it was. (Also ride/Park reviews will come after the last day posted on this thread to give me more time to write it out) but to keep it short, Joker is a wonderful RMC, and is right neck and neck with Twisted Colossus in my rankings. Current Rank: 5
From Joker, I went on a cred run, starting with Superman Ultimate Flight. It's your typical SkyRocket 2, minus the comfort collars, plus a very out of pocket rattle not typically found on Premiers. It ranks below Electric Eel and Tigris for me. Current Rank: 47
Venturing a whopping 200 feet, I got into a nearly empty line for Batman: the ride: the coaster: the six flags: the who cares, its a freespin...
I actually kind of cared since it was my first freespin, and has historical interest since x2 at Magic Mountain was supposed to be nearly identical to this freezing clone, but Six Flags demanded Alan Schilke do better and bigger. For once, Six Flags got something right. There is nothing inherently bad about he ride, it's just short, and I didn't get too many flips. Current Rank: 44
From there, I walked over to Medusa witch had about a 10 minute line. In between I rode Cobra, the Zierre family coaster. There is nothing of note about it, other than its long trains. Anyways, back to Medusa. I am not a huge floorless fan boy, so I had very little expectations for Medusa. Overall mutch like the other B&M loopers I've done, it is very overated, providing next to no force aside from the typical zero g roll. Overall still a long fun ride, just nothing to write home about. Current Rank: 37
After that, I went to Sidewinder Safari, a very common cloned spinning wild mouse. Over two days, I only got one Ride. It had decent spinning, but nowhere near the insanity that was my two rides on Galaxy Spin a few years ago. I also got the kiddie credit. Typical clone of Speedy Gonzales or Whistle Punk Chaser.
Also shoutout to the kiddie coaster ride-op who was actually encouraging me and a few other enthusiasts to ride. She took no issue with us riding, and was an absolute delight to not just me, but everyone that got on and off the ride.
That does bring up a point about the workers at SFDK.They were all very nice, but to put it bluntly, there are absolute morons. One worker tried telling me my diamond pass flashpasses wouldn't work since my home park is Magic Mountain. I then calmly walked out of the building, sat down, booked a flashpass, and walked on Medusa. That folks is why you don't give LightningColossus46 back door fastness links...she also tried to convince me it was a recent change that only applied if your homepark was Magic Mountain. That is complete BS, if you encounter this, it is a lie to counter the large number of enthusiast in NorCal that week for an ACE event. She was also extremely rude, trying to convince me that my benfits(that I showed her include SFDK) where invalid. Once you say it works that way, you can't go back on it to circumvent large flashpass uses. Not a huge issue that I resolved within about 10 minutes messing around with the link she gave me, but still this is the point of trip reports, to tell others about good and bad things during your day. Also this happened on day two, it just fit in with my previous point.
After getting all of the open credits, I got some more re-rides, mostly on Joker with warmed up massively from my first ride. Sadly Joker was on one train both days, and had a constant hour long line. This brings up the point that operations at Discovery Kingdom suck royally. All major coasters on one train, and having 3-5 minute long dispatches. Batman only had two of five cars running. Most of the slow dispatches stem from not being allowed to pull down on you own restraint since the workers need to check the rather unnecessary seat belts. This is most prevalent in Joker where the seat belts are so heavy that guest struggle getting them up, and workers struggle getting them down. Also, if you are on the smaller side, go back row right(far) side. This specific seat had a maximum position about 2 inches higher than the other side of the train. This leaves an insane amount of room for airtime.
I also got more rides on Joker and Cobra. I also checked out some animal exhibits throughout the day, along with a cute monkey themed spinning ride.
Overall, I closed out the day with a back row last ride of the night on Joker. It was a great day, and Joker is awesome. If you love animals go, if you love RMC go, if you like Europa park level operations don't come within a ten mile radius of Discovery Kingdom.
Went to a hotel so close, I have pictures of Medusa from the parking lot.
Also, some nice albeit sideways phots:
