The family and I went to SDC November 11.
Enjoyed the warm weather and OTC very much. I have to admit with the kids, we are using the 6 buck parking every time now. Avoiding the tram mess, especially at Christmas adds great value to our visit. Being the frugal type, we never spring for any kind of up charge, but this has become well worth it for us. The "lets get ready to ruuuummmble", portion of the trip was seriously affecting our quality of time spent on park. We are the "no you go ahead" type of family. Unfortunately for my family, people these days are not reciprocal and usually have the attitude of "out of my way sucker". I stress manners to my children and I hate putting them in a situation where they see their elders look like the creatures from the movie "28 days" when it comes to a tram.
Anyway on to the good. The park looked great. It was not overly crowded but not deserted either. The perfect mix of people having a good time with their families and Christmas lights. We casually strolled through the park. I apologize to anyone else from the board that might have been there for sucking the big skillet smell out of the air single handedly. My those cooking smells at SDC smell good. I think those smells could make me hungry after the nausea of a gut busting Thanksgiving dinner and 50 ketchup sandwiches.
During our casual stroll we stopped and let the kids play on the play ground by GG. I snapped some pics of the marker flags and gazed at the abandoned part of the park walkway by the defunct Water Boggin. We climbed to the top of GG and enjoyed the lights from up on high, and enjoyed watching the lit train go by while the kids played. I never noticed the little rail road crossing sign lights up way up there as the train goes by. Little details like that make SDC great. I also noticed Lake Silver was drained really low, and could see where the old Diving Bell sub used to be housed.
We took our usual trip through "Granpas old Mansion" as the kids like to call it. It really looks great in there and it was fun seeing a family explore it for the first time. With the warm temps outside, man it was stuffy and hot in there.
One of the highlights of the trip was a couple of back to back rides on the Flooded Mine. Everything was working great and I actually saw dozens of things that seemed new, at least to me. The special effects were looking as good as I have seen them in a long while. Kudos to whomever is working on the old ride. The staff was really friendly also.
We were a little disappointed to see the soup shack closed and weren't able to get our bread bowl soup on as normal, but maybe it was closed because it was so warm.
Another highlight for me was riding "The powder keg" in the dark. Wow! The view was amazing during the slow ride to the top of the last hill. The lighted city looked incredible from way up there. Man that thing felt like it was flying through the dark. I find myself with that goofy grin you have on your face after it comes to a halt while just writing this.
Biggest highlight though was getting to ride with my six year old boy who is now tall enough to ride Thunderation. The little daredevil would ride anything in the park if they would let him, and laughed hysterically all the way through every bank, hill and turn. Priceless! I look forward to many years of laughter and coasters.
In Summary. Trips like these, including the slow ride home with sleeping kids in the back are why we keep coming!
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