Trip Report for Six Flags Over Texas
7/5/04
Crowds/Weather: Crowded

Park Rating
Mike: 4.5 out of 5
Mike’s Park Comments: We hit Six Flags Over Texas at a time when it should be difficult for a park to show it’s good side – on July 4th weekend. Crowds were large, the heat was painful and we were both getting a little tired of parks after a solid few days of straight park-going. In spite of these inherent drawbacks to our experience walking in, SFOT won us over with it’s terrific coaster collection, solid ride operations, and it’s unique character as a park. SFOT, in short, is a big winner as far as parks go, and my favorite Six Flags of the trip.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that SFOT was completely missing the endemic flaws that haunt nearly every Six Flags we visit – Shockwave, a Schwarzkopf coaster I was really looking forward to, was closed all three days we visited with never an explanation available. I would later learn from the internet that this was due to recent flooding, and the coaster was knocked out for most of the summer season. In fact, it’s a testament to Six Flags that they spent the money and got Shockwave running again as soon as they have. However, it is an endemic problem of the chain that they feel when rides are closed there is no problem with offering no explanation to guests. Parks run by other chains, when attractions are closed, offer some form of explanation, often posting employees outside the attraction to do just that. Six Flags, for some reason, never feels a need to do this. In fact, when I asked employees near the ride for reasons the ride was closed, I received random answers, always different, and none of which I would later find out, were true.

It wasn’t just Shockwave, there were lots of small quirks that absolutely let one know they were in a Six Flags park. However, this park was so well operated, so fun, and had enough unique atmosphere that in this case the flaws stood out as anomalies, as opposed to being what I expect when I enter a Six Flags. I’m writing a sidebar that will list all the minor annoyances – not so much to complain about SFOT as to try to explain why the chain as a whole is inherently flawed – but for now and here I’ll just list what was good – which was a lot.

The coasters are a fantastic amount of fun. Four of the coasters got a 4.5 rating or higher from me, which places SFOT’s lineup with the likes of BGTampa, Dorney Park, Great Adventure, Great America, Magic Mountain, and Cedar Point. Ride ops were energetic, cheerful and efficient – a shocking combination of traits for Six Flags park employees. Ride ops here weren’t just the best of a Six Flags park, like in Fiesta Texas they were some of the best ride ops in the country.

A fair portion of the park was well-organized, well themed, and well built. Upon first wandering around the park, I experienced the pleasant sensation of not knowing what would be around the next corner, and being excited to find out what it would be. This almost never happens to me in the miles of concrete hell that is most Six Flags or Cedar Fair parks, but here small paths, lots of trees and lots of turns were the norm – at least until you hit the more typical (i.e: awful) section that holds Mr. Freeze and Batman.

SFOT is absolutely a must visit park. I’ll be back.

Clarisse: 4.25 out of 5
Clarisse’s Park Comments: We went to this park on 3 separate days, & I cant think of a better park to spend so much time in. We got to the area on July 4th and even though we were not scheduled to go till the 5th, we decided to amuse ourselves at the park. After all, it was the 4th and they’d have fireworks!

Wrong! I stared in the face of the employee who said they wouldn’t be having any Fourth of July fireworks, because I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Anyway, he told us where we could go to see them, but the park was too much fun to bother.

We went to the park on the 5th as scheduled, and we got into a fight over nothing. We were hot, thirsty, hungry, and on a road trip for a month and a half; all of which adds to the right climate for a fight over nothing. This nothing made our day pretty miserable (even though I rode rides) so we decided to come back on the 6th.

The park’s layout is a little tricky since many of the ride entrances are tucked away in little corners. I learned the layout once I’d been there for a while. The themeing of the park It’s more decorated than themed (its no where near Orlando level) but they do a good job with making sections of the park that feel completely different.

Runaway Mountain

Clarisse: 3.2 out of 5
Comments: Runaway Mountain is an indoor coaster which is reminiscent of Great Adventure’s Skull Mountain. The exterior is a big fake rock with water running over it. Just like skull mountain, the water which manages to wet you on line. Inside the ride is a steel coaster with lots of curves & banked turns. It was almost dark in here which is more than I can say for may other dark rides. I think this ride is slightly better than Skull mountain.

Mike: 3 out of 5
Comments: This was our best indoor coaster yet. The experience was improved by being darker and having more speed then the others. This is an indoor coaster that I actually wanted to ride more then once.

Judge Roy Scream

Clarisse: 3.89 out of 5
Comments: Judge Roy Scream’s layout is classic. It features 2 big hills and several bunny hills. Based on the layout there’s not as much airtime as I think there should be. The ride is defiantly fun and thrilling but its not scary at all.

Mike: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: Unexceptional, old, family coaster made better due to great maintenance and a few small surprises. Short and sweet.

Texas Chute out

Clarisse: 2.6 out of 5
Comments: This is a Paradrop Ride. Riders sit on a bench with a parachute above them. The ride is raised and dropped in a controlled fashion. The ride goes up high! We went on at night so wee got to see the lights of the park. The ride is well situated in the corner of the park so you get a good view of most of the park.

Mr. Freeze

Clarisse: 5 out of 5
Comments: This ride is perfect! Exquisite, even, like fine chocolate.

In Mr. Freeze I’ve found my roller coaster fetish. The combination of a launch and going upside down, are totally phenomenal! This ride got one of the few number 5 ratings of the trip. The themeing on the line is cute, you’re made to think that you’re inside an ice cream factory.

The loading platform is split in to 2 sides; riders are loaded on from alternative sides. One seated, riders are faced with a tunnel (which lights up!) and then the get shot through it. During the ride the cars go upside down twice then it stops at the end of the track, leaving riders looking straight up. The cars then slip backwards going through the ride track again.

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: After my first few rides on a coaster I would later rate a 4.9 (it was Superman Krypton Coaster), I thought to myself “This is really good, but just doesn’t quite feel like a ‘5’.” Having ridden Mr. Freeze, I know I was right. When you ride a fantastic coaster, you just know it. Mr. Freeze is one.

Titan

Clarisse: 4.96 out of 5
Comments: This ride is beautiful. The front seat is scenic especially during the turn after the block break that leaves riders looking straight down! You can’t beat the feeling of the wind going through your hair. The back has some serious g forces going for it, I greyed, out and I almost blacked out on both of the helixes.

Mike: 4.95 out of 5
Comments: This hypercoaster is all about the helixes. There’s only one noticeable air time moment and, though it’s good, it’s not what this coaster is all about. What it’s about is 2 sections of mind-numbing helixes that will make your brain melt.

Superman – Tower of Power

Clarisse: 4.28 out of 5
Comments: Out of all of the drop towers out there, I think this one might be my favorite. Its really high and well it’s just fun! They run it in combo mode so riders get to experience being stapled to the seat by gravity and floating due to the lack of gravity.

Use the single rider line. The regular line is just way too long, and riders aren’t that close to their companions. Of course, do whatever you want, if the 30 seconds of conversation comforts you past the 40+ minutes on line, then use the regular line.

Mike: 3.25 out of 5
Comments: I’m just not that big a fan of S&S towers, and this one, though quite tall, is no exception. The single rider line on this is a life saver. Most people don’t seem to be aware of it, it’s right next to the exit. We waited 30 seconds to get on this ride which had a 45 minute wait.

Texas Giant

Mike: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: A big, long, Texas coaster that kicks the shit out of you in every which way but good. Our front seat ride was fantastic, while our 2nd seat and back seat rides were less pleasant. Coasters need to have more then one good seat but if you ride this one – wait for the front for an awesome experience.

Clarisse: 4.345 out of 5
Comments: Surprise! Texas giant is a giant wood coaster that looks like a humungous sombrero in the distance. The ride is really fast, super long with super high hills. The back seat was painfully jarring and rendered my bulletproof sports bra useless. The front gives a mighty fine ride but the second seat doesn’t. I imagine the ride in the second seat of all of the cars is different in a slightly painful jarring way. I felt like this should be a better ride. But I’ll definitely ride it again.

La Vibora

Clarisse: 3.2 out of 5
Comments: This could have been a fun bobsled coaster. It wasn’t cause we were both uncomfortable, we didn’t quite fit in the seat and the jarring jostled us around plenty. This coater is not smooth because it has lots of sudden stops which makes passengers rock back and forth in the seat and slide forwards. It was hard to brace yourself for the stops so we ended up being flung about.

Mike: 3 out of 5
Comments: More exciting then the Kings Dominion bobsled, but nowhere near as pleasant with very violent transitions and such poor capacity that the ride consistently has one of the longest lines in the park, which is way out of whack with how much fun it is. While it’s not a bad ride, anyone with a limited time in the park should certainly skip this one unless it has a manageable line (and a “manageable line” would have to be pretty short considering how slow the line moves even when it’s operating at it’s best).

Yosemite Sam

Mike: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: Monster Plantation at SFOG it’s not. This raft dark ride is very cheap and chintzy feeling. For example, you see the ceiling of the ride as it’s brightly illuminated, making me feel like I was in a warehouse. The sound is timed poorly for the rafts, and the characters look poorly maintained. The upside is this is some of my favorite cartoon characters, but in some ways that makes the cheapness of the ride even more disappointing.

Clarisse: 2.4 out of 5
Comments: This is a slow moving boat ride. The animatronics were cute featuring the Looney tunes gang performing predictable gags. Yosemite Sam stole the gold from the mine shipment and the rider helps the rest of the loony tunes characters catch him. On the ride, I spied Daffy, Bugs, Porky Roadrunner Coyote, and Speedy. Marvin the Martian was not invited to the party, I guess they couldn’t think of a plausible plot twist to include him. In the end, as we all know, crime doesn’t pay, Yosemite gets caught and put into jail. I noticed that Yosemite Sam’s beard was dusty, yuck.

Batman

Clarisse: 4.78 out of 5
Comments: I can’t thing of a better ride to clone than Batman. Batman rides feature suspended cars so you can swing you feet. Riders are subjected to inline twists, loops and banked turns – all fun stuff. I grey out on this coaster every time I ride it! It usually happens coming out of the first loop, but this particular coaster made me grey out coming out of the double twist (hmm maybe they’re not all the same). Its hard to say anything new about the coaster since we’ve ridden it so many times!

Mike: 4.75 out of 5
Comments: Yet another Batman. At least this is a good clone, as opposed to all the SLCs and Boomerangs we are now skipping. I’ve ridden so many of these now I’m wondering if there’s any difference in the layout. They’ve blurred so closely together for me it’s hard for me to tell. Regardless, this was one of the best operated of the Six Flags Batman rides, and the ride was as smooth as one of the better ones.

Wildcatter

Clarisse: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: Freefall rides are always nice and they are even nicer when you lift up your legs as you fall 7 stories. Unfortunately the ride is over much too fast, and you’ve probably waited in line much too long.

Oil Derrick

Clarisse: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: Going up this observation tower was a nice break from the heat and the crowds. It was very windy up here but we got a very nice view of the park, especially Texas Giant. To make the most of your time at the park, go right after lunch, when you may not want to ride anything (especially if you’ve gorged yourself on nasty park food)…at least you’re doing something with your time there!

Mike: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: Cute landmark that offers nice views of many coaster layouts and an exceptional view of Texas Giant. Points to Six Flags for having the elevator ride op talk to the guests about facts and trivia for the attraction, as opposed to the Kings Dominion op, who was reading a book.

Casa Magnetica

Clarisse: 3.45 out of 5
Comments: This is a cute but chintzy attraction. It’s often referred to as the crooked house. I heard people on line talking about how it was before they remade it. It sounded like it was more fun with interactive elements, but it was in its old incarnation for a long time so the locals probably got bored. As it is now, visitors take a tour of Don whatzhisface’s house by quaint costumed cast members in olde syle Spanish dress. Inside the Casa Magnetica there is an obviously sloped floor but you feel like you’re going to fall over more than the slope of the floor suggests. It feels odd in here but curiously cool, The number of people they cram in the Casa magnetica at one time detracts from the experience. They have some cute tricks such as water and other & other stuff running uphill. It’s a walk through attraction in which I won’t recommend going right after lunch. One person in our group felt queasy and had to leave. I like the attraction, it is a cute diversion from the rest of the park. I wish I could have come back to figure out how they did the tricks. My guess it the houses is severely tilted the other way and the floor is slanted the other way to confuse you. If I’m wrong, I’m not sure if I want to know. I want to go in the attraction again as a layman physicist, and not just to experience it.

Shockwave

Clarisse: NA out of 5
Comments: Unfortunately the park was flooded the week before we went. The flood submerged the tracks of some of the rides, including this one, and it wasn’t back up yet,… oh pout! We missed a Schwarzkopf. So now we’re defiantly going back, I must ride it!

Mine Train

Mike: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: An excellent mine train due to a rustic feeling, great scenery, cute themeing and a long ride time. But, you know… it’s still just a mine train – but this was one of the better ones.