Six Flags Discovery Kingdom & Magic Mountain Parks - July 2nd & 9th

While staying in San Francisco we headed to the nearby Six Flags Discovery Kingdom park with the Murrays (Trevor, Ryan & Lachlan), for a day of rollercoasters, jelly legs and crowds. The crowds weren’t anything as bad as we had pictured, which was great, and the rides were better! America has some pretty serious rollercoasters…

Lawrie and I took a bit of convincing to go on the newest ride there, the ‘Superman’, which I’m still convinced was the scariest (the whole vertical up and down thing…) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMbzenb_I_c - Superman

Superman (in case it wasn't obvious from the picture...)

My dreaded view about to head over the edge...

One of the other rides :)

There were also some animals at the park - this photo REALLY doesn't show it, but walruses are absolutely gigantic!

  

I think the general consensus was definitely that the Medusa was the best of all of them – the biggest and loopiest and highest, and definitely the most fun! But after heading to the Six Flags Magic Mountain park near Los Angeles (as our lovely season passes covered this as well, for only $10 more than the price for a single day!) we soon changed our mind – there are so many awesome rollercoasters there!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kyisg7hXIs – Medusa

Medusa

One of the other awesome rides - Kong

Us (plus Nicole) at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

At Magic Mountain the day was a tad warmer than we hoped, at 40ºC… But what a fantastic day, with great company!! (The Murrays again, as well as Wes and Lianna) If you like rollercoasters at all and are ever anywhere near Los Angeles, GO HERE!! Although we tried to rush around all day to make it to all the good rollercoasters without worrying about the other rides, there was no chance, so we missed out on a few that we would have loved to go on…

But some of our favourites were the Riddler’s Revenge (a stand up rollercoaster, just to keep it interesting), Batman (the speed was incredible, talk about stuck to your seat as you whop around the corners!), Goliath (definitely the biggest one I’ve ever seen, with the biggest hill! Not to mention speed – SO much fun!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBD9qY3mgBE - Batman

Riddler's Revenge stand up roller coaster

Goliath in orange

View from the front seat of Goliath at the top of the biggest hill!

The hill... Awesome!!! Over 250 feet drop, up to 80mph (128km/h)

Batman

Then the ultimate ones unlike any we’d ever seen were the best 2 – Tatsu, which is a ‘flying’ rollercoaster, where the seats are rotated back before the ride starts, so you’re looking down at the ground the whole time – well and the sky in quite a few places, and also there’s one unexpected part where the ride goes down in a massive loop, so headfirst towards the ground – the video shows it! It was probably the best ride we’d ever been on!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qFN-R0uJBI – TATSU

Tatsu in the distance, in orange

'Flying' seats on Tatsu, facing the ground

headfirst down the loop on Tatsu :)

And the most different one of all was absolutely awesome too, X2! It has seats which rotate and spin in unexpected directions as the ride goes, so you have no idea where you are! Starting off backwards up a massive hill, until you’re tipped over the top to race down a massive vertical drop facing the ground… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns4L1vZNIPM – X2

X2 - about to head down one of the vertical drops face first :)

The 7 of us at Magic Mountain :)

And the whole time there are sound effects in speakers mounted behind the seats, asking ‘Are you OK?’ and ‘Is everybody in?’ and screaming. Not to mention a burst of fire that comes out halfway through. It was definitely the most different ride we’d ever seen, and was awesome!! Sorry for raving, these really were fantastic though, and regardless of the heat we had such a great day, were very tempted to go back again the next day…