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September 10, 2006

Six Flags America (Maryland)

Awhile ago Adam had sent out an Evite to go to Six Flags America for yesterday. This was to be a birthday trip for him, and the park chosen because of some specific rides and also because he has been going to Great Adventure like mad. While this meant a 3+ hour drive, in theory it should have been worth it.

So we meet up in front of work a little after 9am. Everyone goes inside and grabs a drink and some breakfast, before we get on the road. I'd say we headed out roughly around 9:30. The drive itself wasn't too terribly bad. We hit construction in a number of spots, but I think it only caused problems maybe once. We were actually able to listen to WYSP all the way into Maryland, before it started fading out. However, we found another station which played an amazing mix of music; which we were sad to lose once we arrived back in Jersey.

Around 1:20 I called Adam's cellphone to find out how much further away it was. After all, we're running on near 4 hours of roadtime and I'm in desperate need of a restroom! He said we would be there soon, and were there about 5+ minutes later, most of that time actually looking for a spot to park. Thankfully Mike and I dove into a spot near the very front, and I ran off to find a restroom (which they thankfully had one outside the gates).

Now, this is where it gets interesting.

We have already spent nearly 20$ in tolls. Tack on an additional 15$ for parking. 15$!! Thankfully admission was only 25$ due to our season pass holders having nice coupons.

What I didn't notice was that as we went through the gates, they weren't able to scan the season passes or our tickets. Mike pointed this out later. But we get inside the park and everyone else does restroom runs and puts on sunscreen because it's blazingly hot and ready to burn everyone to a crisp. Now, this whole time there are people leaving the park, in droves. I'm thinking, well, the park's likely been open since.... 9? That's a good 4 hours in the park, so I'm not too terribly surprised.

We head off to our first chosen ride; a woody called Roar. As we approach the entry area, we're stopped by two park employees.

We've had a power failure, and the rides are down at the moment. But they're rebooting, and should be up in a few minutes.

Whoa... the park is awfully silent. And that would explain it; there are no rides currently in motion. Eh. Well, this doesn't sound good. So this demands a group conference. Wait? Find another ride? Finally we settle on finding drinks. We wander off and stop at the first place that looks promising. Promising, except that they won't give one of the girls a complimentary cup for water. Finally she gets one (it might have been from another booth, I'm not sure) and everyone else orders their drinks. Mike gets to the front of the line and asks for a Coke. He then pays for said Coke.

We're out of Coke.

Sigh! By now, everyone's worked up into a froth over the lack of rides running—there are still none in motion—not to mention the refusal of water, so it's decided to head to Guest Services.

Apparently, we were not the only people with this idea, as we joined a line of probably 100+ people. A line which continued to grow, and grow. Worse, the bright and sunny day decided to randomly rain on us!! Though everyone's upset, we do manage to joke around some. Like talking about the possibility of forcing a riot, and tearing down all these non-functioning rides. The entire line is frustrated, and the lack of park employees coming along and trying to keep everyone patient made things worse.

Oh, better yet. There's no power for the rides; the power company apparently was out there trying to fix the problem too. Yet ... they're still selling tickets and admitting people, only telling them the problem after they walk through the front gate and ask what they massive line is about. How kind!

We finally get into the office at 3:30. So we've been in the park for roughly 2 hours, and the only ride we've taken was the car trip there. Adam and Leigh calmly explain that we drove four hours from Jersey, strictly to come to the park. We would like our ticket money back, and parking fees. We must have been there for almost 15 minutes, maybe a bit more as the woman had to search for the credit slip as it had been thrown away. Our parking refund is denied, but we are given a refund for our tickets, only due to the fact that we were from out of state. Everyone else was being given tickets for one day in particular.

This whole time, the woman keeps changing her story about the ability to give out exit passes (first they don't do them, then they are out of them, back to they don't do them, and finally hand writing us one). When she finally decided to give us one, she asks what ride we would like to go on. They ask what's open, she says, "Anything but steel." Yeah, except Mike and I took that as "Steel"—the name of a ride. Heh, no. Steel coasters. So, they have all of two rides working, not counting all the kiddie rides. A ride is picked, and we head for the door.

Only to hear a great deal of shouting and booing. I'm like, "Fabulous, the riots have started." It seriously sounded like that. No, instead someone was apparently getting a little mouthy in line, and the security decided to remove the man from the park, by grabbing him out of the line and wrenching his arm behind his back. Adam walked up and took a picture.

Now, we're glad to have gotten our admission refunded, but there's still a funk about the day. We head toward Roar and walk up the exit, showing the guy at the gate our hand written note for the ride. When the next car pulls in, we're let in first to grab the front rows. Amazingly enough, I didn't hear any complaints from the people waiting; I was expecting people to yell and get annoyed. I think everyone was just grateful there was a ride to go on.

Roar is a woody, so it's rough and bumpy. My headache nearly turned into a migraine, and Mike was pouty because he dislikes woodies. After Roar, we went on the swinging pirate ship and Allyson proceeded to scream her lungs out. She's an absolute riot.

After the pirate ship, we went on another woody, The Wild One. And that ... was that. They went in to watch the Batman show, while Mike and I got back on the road for home. I'm not sure what time we actually left at, probably 5:30, but it was 5:50 when we left McDonald's and hit 95 North. We got home at 8:50.

Adam called today. Apparently he called the General Manager at Six Flags America, and had procured for us free tickets, a refund of our parking money and Flash Passes. (And let me tell you, I just looked up Flash Passes and ... wow.) There may be more that we're getting, but when I was talking to him today, I was in the middle of a Scholomance run with the guild. LOL

Mmm, Fright Night, here we come! Finally!

Posted by Coyote at 5:49 PM

September 7, 2006

I MUST OWN ONE!!

Atari 2600 Plug and Play Keychain

How unbelievably awesome is this thing?! This is so going on my Christmas list!

Posted by Coyote at 7:21 PM