TR Pt 1 Sea World SD & Legoland June 24
- From: funtype <funtype3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 22:24:27 GMT
I took a spin down south June 24-25 with Neil Rupp,
Tom Feller, "The Claw" and met up with Mike Kallay for a weekend
of Seaside frivolity and to help lego break in the new
ride.
On tap, One new coaster credit for Mike and I, a
small pile of new stuff at Legoland (has it been 4
years since "das boot") and a first time ride on Sea
World's "Shipwreck Rapids". All of it was new for
Neil, most of it, plus the Belmont Dipper for Tom.
We opted for a Friday night leave for a full
Saturday to do as we pleased. Rolling in to help Mike
close up his new watering hole and bottom out his opens, we
ended up at a Holiday Inn on the bay (thanks Neil)
for the cost of $18 a day parking, and a early morning
wake up call courtesy Santa Fe station downtown SD.
Weather was on off gray with humid-muggy overtones
so being prepped for Water Rides was the attire donned,
and a think load up on the sunscreen.
Mike met us at the hotel, we headed down to Belmont
to ditch one of the cars (to retrieve later) and a
shore side breakfast at Roberto's (monster sized breakfast
burrito's) sitting on the storm wall at the beach as
Superman w/ atrophy was back in training on
roller blades, (sorry no pics) good to see him
getting ready for the press junket's to come.
I made a comment about Sea World in the Carowinds
thread so i'll expand on it here;
We headed off to Sea World SD, the parking lot was
getting packed just after 10 am, thanks to some fancy
cone work, we managed a spot where we should have
been anyway, due to poor routing.
They had almost all booths open and all gates flowing
right in. After a quick stop at the hospitality
center, we headed straight for Journey to Atlantis. It's still
showing some signs of temper tantrums, breaking down
regularly through the day (lift issues, I believe)
and was just stopped as we got in the queue, they
tried to get it running again but when they started walking
guest off from the pre lift area we knew it was down
for a while.
It's still a very cool ride sans the "lite story"
themeing, the ride itself is a blast, especially
with little or no wait which we ended up getting, way
later in the day, after numerous visits on our laps
around the park.
Shipwreck rapids is now one of my All time Top
rapids rides! Up there with DCA's, IOA's and PKD's
For a park that you would not expect to be so
detailed, this thing is so great looking and
immersevly themed, around a bunch of full sized
boast and ships all busted up and spread around with
a really big eatery thru the middle of it. We finally
got to ride it after 4-5 visits, usually in the off
season, and it's a Do Not Miss ride.
Good action, fast pace, nice water hazards & stunts,
it's long, and has plenty of directional changes. We
ended up with one empty seat in the 6 person raft
(maybe Mike might have some pics from earlier
visits) which some kid joined us 'cause his parents
and bro didn't want to go.
He said they were at the water cannons and we asked
if we should yell at them, and taunt them we did (per
his request). Funny thing is, he was facing the brunt
of the water blasts and got soaked along with Tom
sitting one seat over. Due to the rotation we all got
a major wetting thru the course, Mike held off the big
wetness until the waterfall at the end, which had his
name all over it, straight down the back.
We opted for a few fish shows, checking on Atlantis
along the way, Mike needed to split for work, so we
took a mid-day break and headed back to Belmont to
trade cars and get a ride on the Dipper. I think
the last time I rode it mid-day was when Tim Melago
was out here.
This was definitely the first-time in a long-time
that I've ridden with a nearly full train and I have
got to say, she's holding up pretty good for an 81 year
old. Still love the classic S-curve tunnel to the lift, smells full-o-grease ahhhh.
We hung out for a bit getting some snacks and
watching the Flow Rider wave pools, then we headed
back to SWSD, got some up-front parking, looked like
the crowd was filtering out, but slowly.
I do have to say, this park can absorb large crowd
really well, with all it's rides, play areas and
shows. It was busy on the midways, but we managed to
cover everything we wanted pretty good.
The Sea Lion show was a dud (seen better, think
they're trying to hard to make it 'new'), the 2
different Shamu Shows were good and the Circ De La Mer
show was really good, very funny intro, regular
acrobatics, very fun to watch.
We hung out for the last Shamu show (House of Douse) saw the fireworks from the stadium and headed back to Journey for a closing ride on Atlantis, then split to the Wine Bar and proceeded to close it down listening to some Dane Cook and Dave Attell.
Day one complete; next up Lego-hoy!
.
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