Trip Report for Cliffs
7/8/04
Crowds: Light

Mike:

At this point, the trip had toned down. The first month of the trip was hectic as hell, with us often doing 5 parks in 7 days if not more. The 2nd month of the trip, especially after Texas, became more laid back. Just getting anywhere takes a long time out here.

For the two days prior to arriving at Cliff's, we stayed at a hostel in the mountains. It was relaxing, and we chose to avoid the park until the last day, before we drove off. By this point, we maybe were a bit sick of amusement parks, though not of roller coasters themselves.

At Cliff's, we were reminded of why going to small parks is important. As I repeat over and over again in this trip report, the Rattler was one of the best wood coasters of the trip. Knowing that now, I almost wish we didn't spend 2 of our 3 days in Albequerque lingering around in a cabin and, in my case, getting drunk at a small, local bar. But hey, it's just another reason to get back to Albuquerque, which already is a city and area that I love.

Park Rating
Mike: 2.75 out of 5
Mike’s Park Comments: Cliff’s, located in the theme park scarce southwest, has the happy distinction of possessing one of my favorite wood coasters of the trip. Unfortunately, however, they don’t possess much else. Because of this, a day at Cliff’s would have to entail doing something else for the middle of the day, but in Albuquerque this isn’t so hard to do. This is a beautiful city located in what I find to be one of the most beautiful areas of the country.

Cliff’s is a very young and very small park just beginning to grow and I wish it the best of luck – the area could certainly use a park, and Cliff's rubbed me the right way - the park has a good vibe.

I did experience a few small irritations while at Cliff's. For one, the park contains the slowest workforce on the planet. No one else in the park seems to mind this very much, as everyone else in the park is moving just as fucking slowly. As a New Yorker, this drove me crazy. Twice, I waited for food and gave up in frustration, the people in line around me seemingly oblivious to the fact they were on the slowest moving line on the planet. 2 people in front of you? 15 minute wait at Cliff’s on this day. Of course, park guests were part of the "problem". I watched one women reject three different brands of soda before finally accepting one. A long conversation between the friendly worker and the woman then followed. As I’ve said, no one seemed to mind this except grumpy old me.

I feel like a mean, NYC grinch for even mentioning this. But still, it was annoying. And when this “we’ll get to it when we get to it” attitude is applied to operations on The Rattler, smoke comes out of my ears.

Another gripe I had was The Rattler’s safety checks. It’s like they are following the instruction manual or something.

Here is a breakdown of how the ride ops load the New Mexico Rattler.

A) Full train comes in. Ride ops wait for the slowest people in America to get up, collect their things, and leave the station. Only when the station is completely empty do the ride ops:

B) Open the gates. The slowest people in America enter the train. Many will not place their loose articles on the side at this juncture, each requiring a friendly, 30 second conversation with the ride op before finally doing so.

C) Gates close. Restraint bars are not yet allowed down. Ride ops go car to car and individually tighten each person’s seat belt. These are not the kind of seat belts where you can quickly pull a red strap on the outside to tighten (like say, Déjà vu). These require a fair amount of finagling. The loose article conversations also now begin. When this is finally finished:

D) Orange bars released. Ride ops push down all orange bars. They don’t staple you, but you’ll have as little wiggle room as possible, which is redundant as the seat belt is so tight your ass already never leaves the seat. Fucking finally:

E) Train dispatches. Fun begins.

My friend who works in television and music videos used to give a cliché statement to his bosses (the production managers and producers). "There’s 3 things you can get. You can get it fast, you can get it cheap, and and you can get it good. I can only ever give you 2 out of 3.”

I like this idea, and at Cliff’s I began creating an adaptation of this theory for an amusement parks' ride operations. For ride ops, there’s fast, there’s thorough, and there’s friendly. Ride ops, under my new theory created while waiting in this laborious lines, can only be 2 out of the 3.

Most Cedar Fair ride ops, for example, are fast and thorough, but not particularly friendly. Most Six Flags ride ops, as another example, are only 1 out of the 3. (Thorough, if you were wondering, and at some Six Flags parks they are not even thorough. SFOT and SFFT as very notable exceptions to this, however.).

Cliff’s ride ops are very thorough and very friendly. So I guess 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

Clarisse:
Clarisse’s Park Comments: Cliff’s is a small regional park with a surprisingly good wooden coaster. I think of this as good and bad thing. The coaster is good enough that I think that lots of people should ride it (good), but the park itself only warrants a visit if you’re already in Albuquerque (bad). The only rides that need to be ridden in the park is the Rattler and the Rock-O-Plane. The park is only open until 8 at the latest on weekdays, which is unfortunate, because we wanted to ride the Rattler at night! Wooden coasters at night are sweet and it’s a shame we couldn't do it. That area of the Southwest is really pretty and very cool but its not quite the tourist hub. This is a good thing for the ecology out there but not good for the popularity of the New Mexico Rattler. On the other hand, I think its neato cool that a small regional park has a coaster of this caliber. Its nice to be in a non corporate environment with a coaster as good as this one.

Galaxi

Mike: 3 out of 5
Comments: Ok, I have to admit it. The Galaxi was so forgettable I never actually reviewed it for this park. The rating above I took from my Galaxi ride at Indiana Beach. It’s a fun little coaster, really good for kid’s needing a coaster that’s somewhere between a kiddie coaster and a really frightening coaster. It’s cute, it’s small, it’s fun.

Clarisse: 2.85 out of 5
Comments: This is a tame portable coaster. There are a lot of these scattered around the country. They have 2 hills, 2 helixes and a couple of bunny hills.

New Mexico Rattler

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: A wood coaster that’s fast, thrilling and filled with airtime and lots of small jolts and surprises. Every seat was great. I wish we could have ridden at night. Absolutely one of my favorite wood coasters of the trip.

I've just recently ranked the 86 wooden coasters we rode this summer. For some perspective, I've ranked the New Mexico Rattler ninth of the 86.

Clarisse: 4.7 out of 5
Comments: This ride is really fast and really smooth which makes for a really nice ride. Strangely enough I got more air in the 2nd seat than the back. The airtime was nice and forceful, it threw me into the restraints. There were also some nice lateral forces which threw me into Mike!

Rock-O-Plane

Clarisse: 3.4 out of 5
Comments: This contraption was a small ferris wheel with zipper cars intead of the standard gondola. Zippers are great! I love flipping around and throwing my body weight to make it flip more. It's also a challenge to try and brake it so you ride upside down. You have to have the strength to apply the brake and the timing to catch yourself upside down. I only wish that these rides were higher than they are.

Mike: 3 out of 5
Comments: The ability to control my ride’s axis leads to a nice interactive element that I appreciate on Rock-O-Planes. This was our first Rock-O-Plane, and we’ve gone out of our way to ride one at any park that has one since this one.