When the show ended I was completely cooled off and refreshed and ready to tackle the Superman line. It was posted at an hour wait, but it ended up being 50 minutes. I even found a typo on a sign in the queue! I text messaged my friend Peter while I waited, then my phone started to go dead. I quickly text messaged my mom saying to meet me at the carousel at 9:00pm because I figured that I wouldn't have enough battery to call her.
And here is a lovely picture of Superman: Ultimate...wait a second...what's that say?...
It's a typo! Four years of college pay off when I find a typo in a Six Flags queue!
Ultimate Flight in Georgia is in a three way tie for my favorite coaster, so obviously I loved the ride. This one lacked just a little bit though since Georgia's is terrain based, and swoops you close to the ground and through ravines and stuff. Still it was an excellent coaster. And just to show how pack minded people are...as soon as we pulled into the brake run, you could tell that people had been spitting while they waited there, so of course everyone in my train was like "Dude, lets spit!" They did the same thing when we passed a canopy over the queue while on the lifthill and it was covered in gum. So of course, everyone spit out their gum trying to hit it. Why is the GP so disgusting?
I headed off for Ragin' Cajun next, which is a clone of the mouse at Beech Bend and a bunch of other parks. It's a great design of mouse though, so I don't blame parks for buying them up. I rode with a dad and his daughter, and the daughter had never ridden a wild mouse before. She seemd to hate it during the ride, but afterwards said it was fun. I sat on my hat during the ride, and I popped out of my seat at one point, so I leaned over to get my hat and hold it so it woulnd't fly out from under me. Just as I leaned over, the mouse started spinning out of control and I couldn't sit up to save my life! Too much fun.
I figured the line for Batman would be pretty long, so I decided to go ahead and get it out of the way. I noticed the ACE plaque at the entrance, and I guess I don't get it, but didn't Vekoma SLCs come before B&M inverteds? I guess I'm wrong, but I wouldn't have guessed that Batman was the oldest of it's kind.
The ride was fantastic, and extremely powerful! There were so many Gs that my legs were itching and I felt the blood pooling in my feet. And it was still smooth as glass...a great inverted coaster.
Vertical Velocity was closed, but I wouldn't have ridden it anyway. Deja Vu seemed to stay running all day once it opened up around noon, but I didn't want to ride it either. I don't like vertical drops at all, and to add insult to injury, after the drop, it's a boomerang! No way...doesn't look fun at all to me. The last one I hadn't done was Raging Bull, so I headed off in that direction, figuring that if I had to wait an hour, oh well, I'd just wait the hour. I was getting hungry at that point, so I stopped near American Eagle and got two cheesy breadsticks to tide me over.
As I continued on, I stopped to take pictures of Demon's corkscrew, and they all turned out really well.
I got in line for Raging Bull, and ended up waiting about a half hour for it too. I wasn't sure what to expect of this ride. It looked great, but I didn't want to hype it up in my mind to be all that, then be disappointed.
Once I was on it, it was an incredible ride! It was smooth, had tons of great drops and airtime, and I loved the "not so restraining" restraints. You could just see the airtime coming, which was great! Definitely my favorite coaster in the park, with American Eagle being a close second.
As I finished with Raging Bull, it was about 8:00, and I still had an hour before I needed to meet mom. I was still just praying that she got my text message before my battery died else I had no idea how I'd meet up with her. I wandered back to the front of the park and got in line for Whizzer.
It was the only coaster I hadn't done today, and also the only one I'd ridden before. The people operating the ride were being really goofy! They had a stuffed chicken that played Chicken Dance when you squeezed it, and would burp and gag if you squeezed it more. So they played it over the PA system and made us do the chicken dance, then would make it burp and gag repeatedly into the microphone! It was hilarious. You could tell that it had been a long day for them!
As for the ride, it was more thrilling than I remembered, and in hind sight, I'm surprised that I liked it at 16! It's a great starter coaster, and one that should definitely be kept around for a while longer. I was really sad when I heard that the park wanted to take it out and was glad when they decided to keep it, and now I'm even more glad since I got to ride it again.
With about half an hour left, the lights on all the rides had come on, so I decided to get a night shot of the Condor. As I waited on a bench and played with my camera, a lady on an ECV came up and parked right in front of me. I was the only person on any of the three benches in the area, and there was no one else standing or waiting anywhere else near me...and she stopped 2 feet in front of me? Not only that but she carried on a very loud cell phone conversation, and I could hear every word. I thought it was very strange...no one else is around, so you need to stop directly in front of me? You couldn't go 5 feet to my right and have your own little space for your conversation? Had I wanted to get up, I couldn't have because she was blocking me. Then her family appears, and they all stand around her...again, I am still the only person in the area and now everyone is huddling around me! Finally when the Condor started I said that I'd been waiting to take a picture of the ride, and would she mind backing up a couple of feet...and it was like none of them had even realized I was there! They were like "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm blocking your view!" then quickly parted so I could get my picture. Very strange!
Condor, lit up at night. This is how the photo was supposed to look...
But this is how the first one turned out! Not what I expected, but I like it!
Once that was done I still had about 20 minutes left, so I wandered back into the Mardi Gras section and decided to ride the Top Spin since it had been ages since I'd ridden one. Just about the only thing the ride did was flip us backwards four times in a row then dangle us upside down for a second then stop. It made me extremely dizzy, but in a good way. It could have stood to be twice as long though.
At that point I went back and sat down by the carousel and waited, hoping mom would show up. She did, and she told me about how I'd made her have to learn how to read text messages on her phone since she'd never received one before! She hadn't eaten dinner, so we found a place across from the bumper cars that was open and she got a cheesesteak sandwich. The lady asked her if she'd also like a couple of chicken strips since they were closing and were going to throw them out. We said sure, so I ate the chicken strips while mom ate the sandwich.
It also came with a pickle! No trip is complete without a good pickle.
After I finished my pickle, we headed out for the night since we'd done everything we wanted. Once back at the hotel, I got a call from my friend Peter so we chatted for almost a half hour. It's always great to hear from him! I fixed a bag of popcorn (because it came free with my room, and I had a microwave, so why not? hehe) and went to the little store to buy a soda. I think I was in bed at around midnight, with a 9:00am alarm set.
We got up at 9:00am, and I got showered. We packed everything up and we checked out by about 10:30. There was a Dennys not far away so we stopped for breakfast. I didn't really want breakfast food, so I got an italian chicken sandwich with spaghetti sauce and cheese. It was great but it was really messy! When we were done, we drove into Chicago with the intention of going to Navy Pier for a few hours. Mom swore that she'd seen online that they offered free parking and a free shuttle to the pier, which seemed a little fishy to me. She said the only catch was that we had to park a few blocks away...whatever. So we finally find it after she yelled at me so much to tell her where to go like I'd lived in Chicago all my life. And of course the parking was $18, and she acted confused about why they would charge so much for parking (uh, hello, it's downtown Chicago!). She also seemed to get mad at me that I couldn't find the free parking, which obviously never existed in the first place. Note to self...always do trip planning myself. Never leave it up to my mom.
Finally we turned around and left without going to Navy Pier. She was upset with me first over my inability to find free parking at noon on a weekday in downtown Chicago, and second because I didn't know exactly where the highway was from where we were. At this point, I was glad we were on the way back home so I didn't have to be the navigator anymore and get yelled at! She'd say "Just tell me where to go!" and when I'd say "I don't know where to go" well, that answer just wasn't good enough for her. She acted like I was intentionally not teling her the right way to go! Once we finally found the highway it was a straight shot back home.
We stopped for dinner at the same exit as the Max and Erma's on the way up, but had a chinese buffet instead. It was right next to Rapers Rent to own...certainly not a store I was endeared to at first glance! hahaha Dinner was good, and we were back home at around 10:00pm.
Despite mom's attitude while driving, I had a great time at both parks on this little weekend and both are parks I'd love to go back to. The waits at Great America were honestly the worst I'd experienced all season, and even they weren't too terrible. I was able to do everything I wanted with time to spare, and mom also had fun filling her day with flat rides and shows.