Six Flags Elitch Gardens Trip Report: 10/16/05 : Theme Park Trip Reports

This week I have a break coming up, so I asked my family if they'd want to go to SFEG and they all said sure. We left the house at 12:45pm and headed over to the local grocery store to buy discount tickets. The family left the grocery store and got on the freeway to SFEG. We arrived at about 2:00pm. The whole of October is Fright Fest so they had all sorts of Halloween stuff around the park. Crowds were light and I was able to ride many of the good coasters there more than once.

Halfpipe:

This was my first ride on Halfpipe and also the first for my brother. Halfpipe at SFEG is the second of the Intamin halfpipe coasters. The ride uses very minimal supports with tubes in the station and a set of tubes connected to each side of the halfpipe. The LIM launch was relatively mild and the coaster accelerated slowly. It took 4 passes to get the maximum speed. The seat pods could have rotated faster for more fun. I was scared at the top of each pass because the train comes really close to edge of the halfpipe. Overall it was not a bad ride and a good thing to start the day with. The wait was about 10 minutes. Very Short.

Twister II:

My second ride of the day was Twister II. It's an ok wooden coaster with a good tunnel and a good first turn off the lift. It's been about 3 years since they added new wood to the lift and SFEG still hasn't repainted it. This really shows how dedicated they are to their wood coasters. Twister II is pretty forceless and really only has a few spots of good lats and no air at all. It has been better since they added the 6 car PTC trains. The lift at the beginning pulses like crazy and on my later rides, they breaked it really hard before the station. I rode it a total of 3 times: first in the very front with my bro, then in the second row back from the front with my mom, then in the second row from the back with a stranger. My first ride had a wait of about 10 minutes with the second ride at 5 minutes and the third a walk on.

Sidewinder:

Sidewinder is one of the a few Arrow shuttle coasters in operation. For those of you who don't know how they work, it's not too hard to understand. The train starts up high and is then pushed by a sled down a hill and through a loop and up another hill. The train is breaked and completes the layout in reverse. Sidewinder is my favorite coaster in the park for one reason...airtime. I rode Sidewinder 5 times: twice with my brother and 3 times by myself. The first 3 times, I was about in the middle of the train and I got a fair amount of air, but nothing too big. If you're wondering why I was in the middle, it's because for that ride, the ride ops make you go in order from the first seat to the last seat. On my last two rides though, the ride op let me sit in the farthest seat back and boy did that make a difference. Coming down from the first launch, I was hit with some humongous ejector air. Enough to lift my entire body, feet and all, from the seat. I never waited more than 10 minutes for a ride.

At this point my brother went off to ride a ride that I didn't want to go on so I'll let him explain it. Remember, the views expressed in this small portion are the views of my brother, not me. He can sometimes be a little obvious in his comments.

Tower of Doom: The Tower of Doom, in my opinion is AWESOME. Plenty of airtime on the drop. Which is 260 feet if I might add and you get braked by magnetic fins two thirds of the way down. You get a pretty nice view of Denver from the top. If you are afraid of heights, or falling from them then you should definetly NOT ride this. The wait time was minimal, about 20 minutes. In the summer, the wait is usually double the time because the park is busier. [}:)]

Troika: The Troika is a tradition of my brother and I at SFEG. It's an old Huss ride that basically spins you around and tilts you up. Nothing that thrilling, but when you aren't tilted you get this cool slide out affect. It was a walk on.

Mind Eraser:

An SLC, what more can I say. Mind Eraser was rough and banged my head a lot. I came off with a small headache and because I wear glasses, my ears hurt. The thing I hated most about this ride were the stupid people smoking in the line. I had to deal with enough smoking at SFEG and didn't need to have it in tight quarters with the other people in line. Wait was about 15 minutes and I only rode once.

Flying Coaster: The first of the Zamperla Volare coasters. Flying Coaster is very abrupt and rough, and it does not use parts where the track is inverted as well as upright, the whole thing is inverted. My trip on this coaster started normally until my car was about 3/4 of the way up the lift, then, for some reason the spiral lift just stopped. I hung around on the lift for about five minutes, then the ride op came on the PA and told us that he would be stopping the trains at each block and that we should brace ourselves. I thought, "Oh, great." The lift started up again and we stopped at the block right after it. Then we left that block and passed through most of the coaster, stopping extremely hard on the second block break. We were held there a while and talked to the maintenence guy who told us to stay away from the head restrains for more comfort. The second block released the train and we came to a stop at the final break coasting into the station. Several people outside the queue watching the coaster asked us if we were ok. The whole experience was very interesting. Wait was 10 minutes.

Big Wheel: Almost every park has a ferris wheel and SFEG is no exception. The wheel is a nice relaxing ride that provided some tranquilitly between all the coaster riding. The whole family loaded in our gondolla and we went around 4 times. There's not much else I can say about this ride except the wait was 15 minutes.

Boomerang: The Boomerang is...you guessed it, a standard Vekoma boomerang. The one at SFEG uses Vekoma's newer trains. My brother and I rode it only once and in the front seat. Wait was 15 minutes because of how slow it loaded and unloaded. I also encountered smoking on this ride. Just nasty. [xx(].

At this point in the trip we were all getting hungry so we stopped and had some pizza. Following the pizza, I took my second and third rides on Twister II and my third, fourth, and fifth rides on Sidewinder. The day was pretty good and by the end I felt satisfied. The weather was unusually warm for October. I took plenty of pictures which I'll try to put up tomorrow. Until then, happy coastering.

On another note, the day was also a good one because the Broncos beat the Patriots. Go Broncs! [^]