| SFA Fright Fest TRs (Starting 10/7/05)
SFA Fright Fest TRs (Starting 10/7/05)
As I’m guessing there will be many SFA Fright Fest Trip Reports, there usually are, I figured it would be better to put them all in one place than to clutter up the board. Anyways, here’s my TR from the first day of Fright Fest 2005.
October 7th, 2005
From about a week ago, I was bound and determined to go to SFA for the first day of Fright Fest come Hell or high water. Well as it turned out, SFA provided the hell in the form of their wonderfully ghoulish decorations for Fright Fest (at least better than in years past), and Mother Nature provided the high water in the form of a torrential downpour. Keep in mind that the entire month of September we had 0.11” of rain, but we had over ten times that amount of rain in one day by the time I pulled into the parking lot around 4:15 pm.
As I strolled through the rain, park employees looked at me with questioning eyes as they asked themselves “who would come to the park when it’s raining like this?” Well, I would! I’ve been to other parks in the rain, and as long as I have my waterproof windbreaker to keep most of me dry, I don’t mind a little rain (or in this case, a pretty heavy downpour). Anyways, so I can stop talking about the weather, I’ll just say that it rained the entire time I was at the park. Sometimes it was light, and sometimes it was heavy, but there was never any thunder or lightning to shut down the rides.
As I waited, they cued up the main gate music, though the only song I heard before they opened the gate was the song “This is Halloween” from the Nightmare Before Christmas. Needless to say, VERY few other people showed up at the gate by the time the gates opened. I was slightly pessimistic as I walked down Main Street figuring almost nothing would be open. Turned out I was wrong, VERY wrong. The park pretty much had everything open that would usually be open. Only a few down rides: RR (been closed since Mid-Sept for some reason), IE (open and closed all year), KC (been closed pretty much all year), TSC (which had the water running, but never tested, probably because they didn’t plan on opening it with so few guests in the park), and PBR (where the station was decorated, but otherwise the ride looked to be starting the end of year close).
The Fright Fest themeing seemed to be on par with last year, or possibly SLIGHTLY improved. They added a few more ghoulish statues to the bridge to enter the park, a werewolf stands guard on the IE loading platform, the “Gotham” in the Gotham City entrance sign is covered with a tattered cloth that reads “Transylvania,” the winged beasts that used to hang under Shipwreck Falls now hang over the entrance to “Transylvania” City, the person about to be burned at the stake is now where the Batmobile usually is, the area around PBR has a cemetery and much of the area is covered in webs, and all of that circus stuff that they used to put in GC is no where to be found. They have a lot of potted flowers in fall colors around the entrance to the park, which really adds a nice touch, and Loony Toon’s Spooky Town has a LOT more along the kiddie hay ride trail.
So the first place I headed was Superman. They cycled the trains a few times, then I rode… and rode, and rode some more. I stayed in the front seat for about five cycles until someone finally arrived in the queue, and of course they wanted to ride in the front, so I gave up my seat in hopes of riding Batwing a few times. Otherwise, I could have moved to the back and never left the train the entire time I was at the park. Anyways, I went over to Batwing, loaded on the first public train (no one had ridden yet despite my many cycles on the Ride of Steel). Anyways, just my luck, the train starts to dispatch and stops with just the zero car out of the station. The computer consol reads “DC Motor Failure.” So, I wait, and wait. Mind you I’m the only one on the train and the coaster had cycled just fine all the while I was on Superman. I’m sure if I hadn’t been on the ride, they would have just threw in the towel and waited to fix the ride until later, but in the current situation, the mechanics scrambled to the ride, put the station motors in reverse, and backed the train back into the station. From there, they released the restraints while the train was still in the down position (the second time I’ve needed to exit the train while it was reclined since the ride opened a few years ago). I kept hoping the ride would reopen as I really haven’t had the opportunity to ride Batwing that much this year due to the long lines and badly timed break downs, but to my disappointment, I never saw it reopen.
From there I milled around. Joker’s Jinx was next which seemed to run REALLY fast in the rain. It was a lot of fun because they had the lights on and you could really see the rain. It was fun watching the rain seem to fall up or sideways as you made your way through the convoluted course of the ride. Upon exiting the ride, I took a moment to look at some of the props along the “Midnight Express” train ride. The biggest thing of interest was a graveyard set up-along the tracks. Among the tombstones was one that simply said “SFAW,” a modest grave in respect for the most recent fallen SF park. However, there were several other tombstones in the cemetery, most with simply initials. I thought I saw one that said “RIP HC” but as I really didn’t get a good look, it might have said “RIP KC” as an indication that Krypton Comet (the troubled Chance Chaos), will be on its way out. There were several other graves here that those visiting the park may wish to check out. They were all new this year and could give some clues as to what SFA or the rest of the SF nation has in store for 2006.
From there, I rode Wild One once and Two Face once. BTW, Two Face had an AMAZINGLY good crew despite the weather. It looks like the “Shortcut” between Gotham City and SWT will not be used this year, but TOD was running all three sides again, which is a good sign on its own. Surprisingly, all the shows performed as usual, or at least would have if people had been there. The Great Escape show performed to an empty theater for it’s first run of the year, but I guess it was good practice. Joe Ramano started his show, but with no one there, he went out to the front of the theater and just performed street magic for those few guests that were there. I didn’t go to any of the “Halloween” attractions (shows, haunted houses, the Midnight Express, or the like), so I really can’t comment on that. But if you didn’t mind the rain, it was a great day to be at the park. I overheard that they were talking about closing the park at 7pm, but since I left at about 6:45, I’m not sure if they closed early or not. I’m assuming they did because as I left the main entrance, they told me that there were a grand total of 32 guests in the entire park.
Other than that, the biggest news is about Python, the old Arrow Shuttle Looper that used to be where TF is now but has sat back in the lot near Batwing for the last few years. Well, to cut to the chase, it’s GONE, or at least moved to elsewhere on the property. Ride Superman, look back over your right shoulder and all you’ll see now is a big square dirt plot where the track pieces to Python sat for so long. There was a backhoe there that I’m guessing they were using to move around the pieces. Of note, the ground did look like it had been cleared in the area (there was much more grass when the pieces were there), but that could just be a result of the machinery moving over the area. I wouldn’t get my hopes up about a new ride back there, as it just wouldn’t make sense. The currently cleared area is too small for anything but a flat ride or a wild mouse or something, but why would they put it way back there? Just doesn’t make any sense. My guess is that they moved/removed Python because they realized that it couldn’t be rebuilt and/or because SFA will most likely serve as a storage facility for rides from SFAW that don’t immediately find homes in 2006 and they were just getting ready for the pieces to ship before the ground froze over. Nothing to get too excited about.
Anyways, that’s about it. I guess I had quite a lot to say considering I was only there for 1.75 hrs, but I’m sure there’s SOMEONE out there that wanted to know all of that. I’m going to try and go next weekend, and as long as it isn’t raining, I’ll take some pictures for those of you who can’t get to the park this year.
I've included a scan of the front and back of the special Fright Fest park map. There arn't any hints about 2006 attractions, but just thought someone might be interested. Enjoy!
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