Episode 32: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (Clones & Closures)

My third and final stop on my northwestern trip was Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA.  With the future of California's Great America very much in doubt, this just may be the only major theme park in NorCal within the next five years.  The park experienced staggering growth during the Coaster Wars with a whopping seven roller coasters installed between 1998 and 2001.  The headlining attractions are the massive custom B&M floorless Medusa, and the Joker, the first GCI coaster converted to IBOX by RMC.  Join me for my first visit to Discovery Kingdom where I ride my 250th roller coaster!

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Transcript

Welcome Episode 32 of Coaster Redux.  My name is Erik, and this is the story of my revived roller coaster fandom.  For years, I’d all but forgotten my coaster obsession from high school and college.  Then during the pandemic, I started following the amusement world again, and for the last two years, I’ve been on a mission to ride as many new coasters as I can, and share my experiences through this podcast.

It all started with a week-long road trip back in 2022, and I just completed my longest road trip yet, visiting eight parks over a span of 16 days.  I finished that trip in June, yet like most coaster enthusiasts, I quickly got to work planning my next one shortly upon my return.

Fast forward to October when I hopped a flight heading northwest from Florida to tick off three more parks I’d yet to visit.  My second stop on the trip was yesterday at California’s Great America.  It’s a charming park with a complicated history of ownership changes, and unfortunately it will likely close in the next few years to make way for a new real estate development.  Should that come to pass, I probably took my last rides on excellent roller coasters like the Flight Deck B&M invert, and the Gold Striker GCI wood twister.  Hopefully the standout RailBlazer RMC single rail finds a new home.  All that said, I was happy to have experienced this park, and hope that somehow, some way, the new Six Flags chain reverses course and decides to keep it.  

My next stop is Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, located just over an hour north of Great America in Vallejo, CA.  It’s home to nine roller coasters with the stand-outs being Medusa, a massive custom B&M floorless with the world’s only sea serpent roll, and the Joker, RMC’s first IBOX conversion of a GCI creation.  They’ve also got some other Six Flags staples, including a Vekoma SLC, a Boomerang, a Premier Skyrocket II, and an S&S Free-Spin.  With my coaster count currently sitting at 248, I’d be riding number 250 today!          

I know as a roller coaster fan that one of my favorite parts of the hobby is getting the reaction of somebody coming off of a ride they’ve never ridden before.  That’s what I want to share with you.

And with that, join me for my first-time reaction to what may be the only major amusement park in Northern California within the next five years as I roll into Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on Coaster Redux.

The weather this Sunday morning was more of that California perfection with clear blue skies and temps in the upper 70’s.  It reminded me of the precious few days we get like this in February and March in Florida, and I was so happy to soak it up.  I packed up my car and got on the road for an easy interstate cruise that would take me right along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay.  The drive was a pleasure as I looked down on the bay waters to the left and up at those sandy mountains on the right.  About an hour in, I crossed a massive suspension bridge over the Carquinez Strait.  The elevation change is impressive around here as the waters of the bay sit low with hills and mountains surrounding them.

I then promptly exited the highway in a valley and had to climb uphill to reach the park.  The access road passes right by the entrance and pretty much all the roller coasters are right up front.  Joker, Superman, Batman, they’re all right there sporting twisted steel colored as brightly as their namesake characters.  Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is situated next to a large lake, and incoming cars are directed past the entrance to park in a stepped hillside lot with each row of spaces covered with solar panels.  

I locked my car and began the trek back to the entrance.  It reminded me of similarly long walks at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Six Flags Over Georgia.  With most of the roller coasters clustered in the front section of the park just across the lake, Discovery Kingdom has a sweet skyline to get you hyped up for your day.  

The path descends low along the lake before heading back uphill towards the entrance.  Medusa stands tall to the right with its dive loop reverse and zero-G roll placed right against the entry path.  While most of the neon lime track and purple supports are badly faded, portions of the vertical loop and sea serpent roll feature fresh fluorescent paint that really pops in the sun.  Hopefully this ride is in the midst of a gradual repaint when it’s closed on weekdays.

I passed Medusa and headed for the entrance straight ahead.  It’s got a different feel from other Six Flags parks with palm trees and pastel colors.  The sign prominently features the words “Discovery Kingdom” written in the Jurassic Park font with a mini Six Flags logo below.  It honestly felt more like a SeaWorld park at this point, and that’s for good reason.  

This property opened in 1986 as Marine World, a sea life park operated by a non-profit with roots dating back to 1968 in Redwood City, CA.  Financial trouble followed and the City of Vallejo took ownership of the park in 1996 and hired Premier Parks to operate Marine World in 1997.  Premier purchased the Six Flags brand from Time Warner in 1998, and rebranded the park Six Flags Marine World in 1999.  The Coaster Wars of the late 90’s and early 2000’s were in full swing, and the company added a whopping seven roller coasters to the property between 1998 and 2001.  Imagine that!

1998 brought the addition of the brand new Boomerang: Coast to Coaster, and Kong, a Vekoma SLC relocated from the defunct Opryland in Nashville.  Roar, a GCI wood twister and the Roadrunner Express family coaster were added in 1999.  Medusa was joined by the Zierer Tivoli Cobra in 2000, and the Intamin Impulse Vertical Velocity in 2001.  That's a staggering investment in such a short period, but it sure put Six Flags Marine World on the map as a roller coaster destination.  In 2007, the Six Flags purchased the land from the City and re-named the park Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in an effort to showcase both the animal and thrill aspects of the experience, with more new roller coasters opening in the following years.   

I passed through security and the front gate and was greeted by a pleasant Main Street with shops on both sides.  The Flash Vertical Velocity’s unusual heartline twist is directly above.  A glance at the app revealed that upon rope drop, only two roller coasters were operational.  Anxious to get my day started, I hoped for the best as I turned left at the end of Main Street bound for DC Universe.  

I walked beneath the superhero sign and into an unshaded land of concrete and cut-outs home to the majority of Discovery Kingdom’s coasters.  This area used to be the main parking lot, and it was repurposed when Six Flags beefed up the park’s coaster portfolio.  Unfortunately, that fact remains evident to this day.  The Joker is closed, and they aren’t even sending test trains yet.  I’d really like for that to be my 250th coaster, but I still have to ride number 249.  My choices were Superman: Ultimate Flight, the Premier Skyrocket II and Batman: The Ride, the S&S 4-D Free Spin.  I opted for Superman as these single train coasters tend to have super low capacity, and I figured I’d knock this out and hope that Joker would open soon.

I entered the queue that wound beneath the coaster.  Opened in 2012, this was the first Skyrocket II from Premier Rides.  It’s an ultra compact swing launched coaster, and I’ve ridden its cousins at both Busch Gardens parks.  It sports red track with yellow rails and blue supports, and they’re all pretty faded.  The station is dog-eared as well.  Peeling paint is accented by guest’s creativity carving what they pleased into the walls.  It’s not a good first impression.  

Fortunately, the ride is a walk-on, and I grabbed a seat in the back row.  Unlike the Busch Gardens versions of this ride, the train has only two cars instead of three, and there are also no cumbersome comfort collars, awkward shoulder vests that aren’t comfortable and make boarding a challenge.  I stumbled into Premier’s notoriously narrow seat, buckled the seatbelt, and waited for the crew to lower my lap bar.  With that, it was time for this Man of Steel to take us for a ride.

The LSM’s whistle to life propelling the train forwards up the first vertical rise.  You then fall backwards and launch through the station and up part of the ride’s non-inverting loop.  This part felt odd as the shorter train climbs higher up than the others I’ve ridden.  You plummet back to the ground through a Superman logo shaped tunnel, and blast straight up to experience the entire layout.  The apex features a ferocious kick of ejector airtime before the train slows through an inline twist with wicked hangtime.  Then there’s a brake that slows your vertical descent into the non-inverting loop where you get some whippy air at the apex before slowing to a stop in the station.  

So Superman is fun, just like Tempesto and Tigris.  These are aggressive, but short rides, and while I like the lack of a comfort collar here, this coaster has a shake I’ve never experienced on a Skyocket before, so comfort wise, I’ll call it a draw among the three I’ve ridden.

I stepped back into DC Universe and saw no new movement on the Joker.  A glance at the app revealed that Batman was still the only other coaster operating in the park.  The queue for the Free Spin was growing, as guests had few operating rides available, so I regretfully decided to make the Dark Knight my 250th.  Like its sister at Fiesta Texas, Batman has a themed entrance building and a Batmobile in the open air part of the queue.  It’s themed much better than the other Joker Free Spins I’ve ridden, so props to the park there.  I waited about 15 minutes before boarding, and sat in the back row right.  

The train was dispatched and climbed the vertical lift giving a great view of the whole area.  We dropped off the lift, and complete pandemonium quickly ensued.  I don’t know what happened, but we absolutely ripped through the course.  This was the fifth of these coasters I’ve ridden, and I’ve never flipped so forcefully.  While I was disappointed that my 250th roller coaster was a commonly cloned ride, my experience on Batman was phenomenal!  By far the best ride I’ve ever had on a 4-D Free Spin.

I left Batman and found that the Joker had finally opened for the day.  I don’t know where they all came from, but there was a deluge of guests flooding the queue line for this RMC, and despite hustling to get in line, I found myself stopped with about three quarters of the queue filled before me.  

The switchbacks for Joker are basically built into the blacktop midway right next to the station.  There’s a shade over the first portion, but as you get closer to the entry, you’re pretty exposed to the sun.  It was hot, and the line moved slowly.  After about 30 minutes, I was getting close to the entrance, and while the queue itself has no theming, the station looks awesome!  It’s essentially the Joker’s fun house.  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha is plastered all over the side of the station and the ride supports, and you enter through the open mouth of a creepy red-haired clown.  

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it that far.  The ride went down with a mechanical problem.  Being so close to the station, I decided to wait it out, but then another announcement was played stating that the downtime would be extended.  The line emptied out, but we were all given a skip the line pass for our trouble.  Props to Discovery Kingdom for some strong customer service here.

I pulled up the app and found that Medusa was operational, so I hightailed it out of DC Universe, and back across Main Street to check it out.  This coaster shares its midway with the Kong Vekoma SLC and the Cobra family coaster.  Kong’s paint was faded as well, and there was no sign of activity around this ride, however Cobra was running.  I approached Medusa’s entrance which is placed below its towering 150 foot lift hill.  As trains snaked through the Sea Serpent, I noticed that it runs pretty much silently, like Silver Bullet at Knott’s, so I’m guessing that the track as well as supports were filled with sand on this one.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the queue completely empty until I got to the station.  It looks nice as it winds through tropical greenery before you climb the stairs to board.  Medusa was running two trains, and it looked like they were doing new employee training as a senior ride operator was calling out when one train was on the mid-course for timing, and congratulating the crews on fast dispatches.  I love seeing this.  My first ride was in back row right, and I settled into the comfy B&M seat to experience 3,937 feet and seven inversions.       

You leave the station and turn around to the left before beginning the climb upwards.  At the top, the entirety of DC Universe is straight ahead, and the striped pavement of the year 2000 parking lot remains below.  You dip down the pre-drop, level out, turn slightly left, and careen down the straight first drop.  There’s a great pop of airtime in the back, and I wish more B&M loopers had straight drops.  They just hit so much harder.  At the bottom, you pull up into a vertical loop, followed closely by a dive loop.  They’re smooth and forceful like an old school B&M should be.  Next up is a zero-G roll, and this one leaves nothing to be desired.  There’s whip and airtime galore!  You then pull up into the sea serpent roll.  It’s like a cobra roll, but when you corkscrew out of the first inversion, you continue to corkscrew the same direction and exit the same direction you entered.  There’s a bit of whip here, and best of all, it’s very smooth.  

Medusa then twists up and to the left to enter the mid course brakes, and I don’t think these hit at all!  You bank hard left and twist downward, and there’s a great airtime pop in the back.  You fly up into the first corkscrew, then turnaround to the left and enter another left corkscrew.  These ones don’t interlock like most B&M’s.  Medusa then concludes with a tight right hand helix before climbing up into the brakes.            

Medusa is an excellent floorless coaster.  It’s a long ride that delivers all that B&M goodness complete with some surprises.  I love the straight first drop, and the zero-G roll kicks nice and hard.  The sea serpent roll is a nice departure from the standard cobra roll, but it’s not especially memorable.  The second half is filled with whip, and Medusa manages to be one of the smoothest old school B&M’s I’ve ridden.  It’s right up there with Montu at Busch Gardens Tampa in that regard.  Superman: Krypton Coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas was my favorite floorless, but I think Medusa’s claimed the throne today because of that big straight drop and silky smooth ride.  It’s a perfect signature GP people eater for Discovery Kingdom.

The station remained empty when I disembarked, so I walked around and grabbed a second ride in the front.  While the views are obviously better up here, the pull down the first drop makes Medusa a back row ride for me.

By this time I was hungry and I set about walking the park in search of lunch.  I left the Medusa midway and walked towards the back of the park and hung a right.  As I left the hustle and bustle of the roller coasters stacked in the front of the park, the back portion felt more serene.  Trees and landscaping become much more prominent, and the pathway weaves around before opening up into a lakefront promenade.  Tables are set up along the waterside.  The Six Flags staple JB’s Sports Bar & Grill was here, and this is usually a go-to for me for solid barbeque, but this one sported a line out the door for burgers, fries, and chicken wings.  No thanks.  There were a few other restaurants in the area, but they were shuttered and closed.      

Just around the corner, there was an area promoting Octoberfest, branded just like I’d seen yesterday at Great America.  Apparently the merger is already bringing some synergies between the parks.  I poked my head in and found a food stand offering a beer braised bratwurst with sauerkraut and carmelized onions.  I grabbed one and parked myself down at a table by the lake and it was quite good.

Refreshed and nourished, I made a lap around the back half of the park.  It’s comprised mostly of kiddie rides and animal encounters, though it wasn’t like SeaWorld where you get instantly drawn in and can’t help but stop for a moment.  Maybe they were closed, or maybe I wasn’t paying close attention.  It’s just a weird vibe as the park has so much land yet the vast majority of the action is confined to a very small area.  A quick check of the app showed Kong, Boomerang, and the Flash were closed, but at least Joker was running again, so I returned to DC Universe looking forward to some RMC airtime.

The line was basically the same length that I waited through earlier in the day, so I knew it would be about half an hour to the clown face, then whatever followed from there.  I weaved through the switchbacks noticing dispatches every few minutes.  Despite running two trains, Joker’s line crawled.  

I finally walked through the clown’s mouth and into the final leg of the queue, a quick pair of upward switchbacks leading to the station.  From here you get a great view as the train snakes through the pre-lift sequence which is longer than most.  With almost 45 minutes invested, I queued for the back row.  Operations here reminded me of Wicked Cyclone at Six Flags New England where they didn’t have the monitor to show which rows’ lap bars were secure, and the crews didn’t have much of a sense of hustle to get the trains out.  

I sat down in the back row right, and buckled the seatbelt.  When the attendant came around to secure the lap bars, I got a major staple.  This is probably because they don’t have those screens to tell them when the restraint is in place, so they overcompensate.  Feeling more secure than I wanted, it was time to see what tricks the Joker has up his sleeve.

The station platform has a pretty substantial incline, and when the train dispatched, it almost felt like a weak launch because gravity was assisted by tire drives to propel the six cars into that pre-lift sequence with authority.  It’s not like there’s airtime or anything, but it was a surprise.  You slam into the lift and climb upwards to 100 feet looking straight ahead at Medusa with the entry plaza below.  

At the top, the green and purple rails twist right and disappear in the only RMC with a turning first drop.  It’s nice and whippy as you barrel down and bank upwards into a step-up underflip.  It’s basically an upward facing zero-G roll that exits in a banked turnaround.  There’s some nice snap here as you enter and exit the maneuver.  You bank left and head directly into a zero-G stall, and it passes the ArieForce One test.  Lift your feet slightly off the floor and feel the inverted weightlessness.  It’s a great moment, but it’s over quickly.  You pull up into an abrupt outer bank to the right while banked left, then transition into an overbank to the right before a quick downward drop and a twisting airtime hill.  You bank around to the left and enter a kinda double hump giving two wicked ejector pops.  You bank right again before a nice barrel roll before turning up into the brakes.

So I just gotta love on RMC here for a minute.  The Joker is an awesome roller coaster.  Best in the park by far, and top three in NorCal.  It’s a compact coaster with great airtime, laterals, whip, inversions, you get the idea.  That said, layout-wise it’s probably the weakest RMC I’ve been on.  It’s all good fun, but there’s no WOW moment.  Nothing that makes it memorable over the others.  But then, that’s the hallmark of an outstanding roller coaster manufacturer, that their weaker installations are still so good, and this ride’s popularity all day demonstrates that the Joker is doing its job by knocking the socks off the average visitor.

I left Joker heading back towards Medusa.  The line was posted at 45 minutes, so I doubted I’d ride again, but I wanted some more video from that section of the park for Instagram.  Sure enough, the queue was sprawling, so I decided to end my day at Discovery Kingdom with a front row ride on the Joker using my skip the line pass from earlier in the day.  With that, I headed back to DC Universe again.

All day long I’d been walking by the Flash: Vertical Velocity, the Intamin Impulse coaster with the bizarre 45 degree twisted spike located right above the entrance.  This coaster has been closed for the better part of the year, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t get to ride it, but it certainly would have been unique.  It was built in 2001, the same year and the same model as the Flash at Six Flags Great America.  Upon opening, it featured two 186 foot tall spikes, however, the City of Vallejo has a 150 foot height limit.  It seems like Six Flags tried to pull a fast one on the City installing the full-sized clone while publishing a height of 150 feet.  I mean who’s really gonna notice 36 extra feet, right?!

Well, somebody did notice, and the coaster needed to be modified the next season, resulting in the one-of-a-kind ride that stands today.  While I’m sure the shortened vertical spike on the back part of the coaster is notably less intense than it was originally, I’ve heard that the 45 degree part imparts some wacky hang time during the swing launch.  This is certainly something I would love to have tried out having really enjoyed the one in Illinois this past summer.  

Anyway, I returned to the Joker, and walked straight to the clown mouth to turn in my skip the line pass.  This time around, that same senior ride-op who was on Medusa earlier was schooling the crew on quick RMC dispatches.  He was on it, with lots of announcements to move guests along quickly and inform everybody on what was expected.  Again, this was great to see, and I’m hoping with the merger that we see more of this quality improvement across the chain.

I had a blast on my front row ride.  I had my hands up and let my body free fly through the course muscles relaxed.  Being a GCI conversion, I would call this a mini Wildcat’s Revenge at Herhseypark, though not nearly as intense.  It does have some kinky laterals on the first drop, a disorienting layout, and a big lateral pop into the brakes.  I also noticed the slightest hint of a rattle.  It was very faint, but I’ve never felt it on an IBOX coaster which are pretty much the smoothest rides out there.  I’m guessing the wheels are towards the end of their service life, but now I’m really nitpicking.  The Joker is a blast despite being a bottom tier RMC.  They just don’t make bad rides.

I made the long trek back to my car and settled in for the drive to my next hotel right next to the San Francisco airport.  Six Flags Discovery Kingdom was an interesting park, and I have lots of thoughts about it.  Let’s get the bad out of the way.  The place is filled with cloned coasters, most of which are placed right on top of one another.  Of their ten coasters, Medusa and Joker are the only ones that are original.  I guess the Flash is unlike anything else too because of the modifications.  The park opened for the day with only two coasters running.  Lots of food stands were closed, and I had a tough time finding something I wanted to eat.  Kong and Boomerang didn’t open all day.  Am I losing sleep over not riding a pair of rough old Vekomas?  No.  If they were open, I would probably have ridden each one once, and complained about how rough they were.  

Now let’s talk about the good.  Outside of the DC Universe area, the park is pretty.  It’s well shaded and pretty darn big.  It’s an animal park too, but that component wasn’t really showcased, but in fairness I wasn’t seeking those experiences out.  Their two headlining coasters, Medusa and Joker were great fun.  I’m psyched that Medusa was getting paint and that the park seemed to be working on training crews to get trains out quickly.  At the end of the day, this is a regional theme park.  It isn’t meant to be a destination.  There aren’t that many people like you and I who travel cross country to visit.  So with the likely closure of California’s Great America, what can we hope for from Six Flags Discovery Kingdom?

First of all, I want to see more rides open.  Having three major coasters closed is bad for the guest experience.  Secondly, the signature attractions need to open with the park.  Having only two coasters open at rope drop is a bad first impression.  Third, and I think this is an area that the merged Six Flags is working hard on, is better food.  So many restaurants were closed, and the ones that were open were pretty uninspiring.  

Now that we’ve seen the direction the new chain is moving in, I think a lot of this is going to be addressed.  With the Cedar Fair folks at the helm, the emphasis seems to be on quality.  I foresee investment on the overall aesthetics of the park, and removals of unreliable and unpopular rides.  The Flash will probably go, and maybe Boomerang and Kong eventually.  I keep hearing people talk about RailBlazer being relocated here, but I don’t think they’ll do that.  It would make more sense to send that somewhere else where it could be marketed as new, versus sending it here when much of the market may have already ridden it.  

So what would be my pick for Discovery Kingdom’s next coaster?  One that would put it on solid footing as the area’s only major park?  I would go for a new school Vekoma coaster located somewhere in the back of the park interacting with the lake. Or maybe a modern GCI wood coaster.  Something to draw crowds away from the front of the park.  They gotta add something awesome to this park if Great America closes for good.  That sure would get me back, and hopefully keep the locals coming back as well. 

I cruised back down the 80 freeway towards the airport. The highlight of the drive was crossing the Bay at Treasure Island leading into downtown San Francisco.  It really is a beautiful area, and I didn’t have the time to fully experience it.  I checked into the Sheraton Four Points right by the airport, posted my Instagram reel for the day, and got Indian food again since there were so many great options in this area.

The next morning, the rental car return was only a few minutes from the hotel, and returning it was a breeze.  I hopped on the Air Train with plenty of time to catch my JetBlue flight back to Florida.  After flying Delta and United economy on the outbound leg, I was happy to relax on an Airbus A321 with the most comfortable seat, best leg room, and awesome in-flight entertainment for the non-stop ride back home.  JetBlue just does everything better, and I disembarked refreshed and overall content with an exhilarating whirlwind of a long weekend.  

While it was only the middle of October, this would be my last new park trip for 2024, but it’s not the last episode for this season.  Back in September, I visited Busch Gardens Tampa and SeaWorld Orlando and got my first rides on their pair of new B&M family coasters, Phoenix Rising and Penguin Trek.  This coincided with Scorpion’s final day of operation at Busch Gardens.  While I’ve talked about that park numerous times on this podcast, I’ve never done a full episode on it.

So join me for the next episode for my first time experience on Phoenix Rising, and everything else at Busch Gardens Tampa, including my final ride on the park’s classic Schwarzkopf.  It’s a story that I really need to tell, and I’ll be joined by my new friend who I met that day to talk Scorpion and a lot more.  That’s next time on the Season 3 Finale of Coaster Redux.