Since the kids are with us for a month, there was no choice but to make the obligatory trip to a theme park. So last Saturday the kids and I loaded up the family truckster and headed south to Six Flags Over Georgia. My first mistake of the day was not listening to phone's GPS directions. I could not figure out why it wanted to route me through Rome and Cedartown instead of through Atlanta until I got stuck in an hour long construction based traffic jam on I-285. SO we didn't arrive at 10 AM as planned but an hour later.
One thing that just really chaps me about amusement parks is being charged a high price to park. They did not disappoint with their $20 charge for up close parking. I had not even thought to stop and get money before I arrived, but in what is a very unusual case for me I actually had cash on me. I don't mind paying for parking but that just seemed high. One of my kind managers had given me a buy one get one free coupon and they were running a $29.99 special. My luck got better as we approached the ticket booth a kind gentleman and his two kids gave me the extra ticket they had from their buy one get one coupon. So we all got in for $29.99.
Since we had gotten in for so cheap (I'm used to paying $50+ for theme park admission) and I don't get enough chances to spoil my kids I splurged for a Gold Flash Pass for the three of us ($121). This allowed you to bypass most of the lines. You could register for any ride and it would tell you what time you could ride. The only frustrating part was people who thought that because they had a pass they could shove by all the other pass holders. I had finally had enough when a gentleman tryed to shove me out of the way and then said "Excuse Me". I asked him where he thought he was going and didn't move as he tried to explain it was his turn. I just said that's not how it works and refused to budge. Thank goodness that was the end of that because while I was lucky enough to have parking money, bail money was not in the budget. The park needs to do a better job of explaining the passes to these numnuts who think that they own the place after purchasing one.
That being said the pass was worth the additional money as the wait for most of the good roller coasters (and they were good) was anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. We never waited more than 15 minutes. We started off on the Dahlonega Mine Train, if you like coasters you'll hate this one as I think I could have drank a beer and not spilled it on this one (The park is alchohol and almost smoke free). I'm glad our wait to ride was none even though there would have been a fifteen minute wait without the pass. Good Kiddie ride I suppose but we weren't there for that.
We followed that up with a boat trip through Monster Plantation. It was kind of like Its a Small World at Disney without the cute but with an equally annoying but thank goodness quickly forgettable song. It was supposed to be scary for little children and it did work on the tikes in front of us. Once again there was a wait which we skipped right over. Good Kiddie ride I suppose but we weren't there for that.
So we headed over to Superman. We waited about fifteen minutes to ride in the front row (Wait for others for any seat was over an hour). This was the first time that I actually got to ride what I would call a REAL roller coaster with both kids. This ride actually straps your ankles in and then rotates you to face the floor before taking off. At this point my son would not let me speak to him as he was either in deep concentration or contemplating what the heck he was doing on this ride in the first place. It is supposed to simulate flying and having never ridden a ride quite like it I would have to rate it as excellent. Definitely in my top ten coasters and the first thing my son said was "Let's do it again." So we immediately got back in line and fifteen minutes later rode it again from one of the middle seats. Also a great ride but it was better in the front. I was ready to ride again but at this point the kids were complaining about dehydration and hunger so we headed for lunch.
Lunch was at The Carrot Cafe where we had a deep dish Pepperoni Pizza and three souvenir drink cups ($12.99 each) which gave free refills for the rest of the day. Total damage was $67 but the pizza was good and we utilized the cups all day.
We then went and tried to ride Goliath for the first of three times that day. Tried because as we got to the front of the line a nice rain shower broke out which caused them to shut all but the kiddie rides for about 45 minutes. After we finally got to ride it I would have to say that this one moved itself into my top ten list very quickly. The ride was huge as the name indicated. It ran through most of the park but it was so fast you did not realize how much ground it covered. The nice thing was when we came back later in the day to ride it the second time the ride operator forgot to reset my flash pass so we got right back in line and rode it again ten minutes later.
We also rode Batman twice, yes, this is the ride where the young man was killed a few weeks ago attempting to retrieve his hat. Now this was a decent ride but does not make my top ten. I have ridden many coasters of this type and would have to rate many if not most of them over this one.
We experienced another rain delay later that slowed us down with another ride shutdown.
Afterwards my daughter suckered me onto this ride, it was okay but just being dropped from a height doesn't do much for me, thought the view was nice. While waiting for this ride which is located in the Confederate Section of the park I noticed the irony that even thought the park is Six Flags and we were in the Confederate Section they didn't dare display a Confederate Flag. I understand the political correctness of this move but just rename the section of the park then. Honor the legacy of South or ignore it, it just seems you shouldn't have it both ways. It seemed disingenuous that their idea of the Confederacy was to put up a fried chicken restaurant in the middle of it.
On the way out of the park I made my second mistake of the day. We decided and I convinced my son to ride one last ride, the Georgia Cyclone. I have never liked wooden coasters going back to my childhood fear of The Texas Cyclone at Astroworld. This ride only reinforced my hatred for wooden roller coasters as it was so rough I felt like it was two minutes of getting punched in the kidneys and I only wanted it to end as soon as possible while my teeth still had all their fillings.
Overall we had a great time, rode some great coasters and best of all I got to share my joy of roller coasters (not made of wood) with both my children at the same time.
I did make a third mistake that day thoug
h by listening to my GPS on the way home which put me in a thirty minute loop around Kennesaw State University because of a closed on ramp.
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