Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Trip Report

Work brought me out to the bay area. Not knowing when (or really if) I’d be back anytime soon I figured it was worth checking out the two major Northern California parks while I had the chance.

Day one of my adventure brought me north of San Francisco over the bay bridge to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. I flew in late the night before and given that the park didn’t open until 11 I decided to start here. Somehow this ended up being my first Six Flags park despite living 2 hrs from Darien Lake for most of my life. Six Flags has a somewhat negative reputation amongst enthusiasts for the way they run their parks. Lazy theming, random ride closures, and slow operations unfortunately seem to be a hallmark of many Six Flags parks. So I was curious to see if that held true. I ended up just buying a regular old single day ticket with no skip the line. Given the coaster line up, the somewhat convoluted system, and the exorbitant cost for the most useful tier I didn’t feel it was worth it.

While San Fransicio was relatively mild for the time of year (~20 C) Vallejo was more what I was expecting from California in the summer. It was a very consistent 30 C and sunny all day long. While it was quite hot it didn’t have the humidity which made it much more bearable.

The park has a very strict 150 ft height limit so the coaster lineup here is interesting. Lots of cloned rides and smaller scale coasters. I ended up riding everything I could but The Flash: Vertical Velocity, Kong, and Boomerang were closed all day. I’ve ridden other versions of Boomerang and Kong so I wasn’t too upset about them but it did suck to miss out on the Flash. I also did ride the kiddie coaster Roadrunner Express but nothing really to say there.

Coasters

Cobra

Lives up to its name with by far the longest train I’ve ever seen. Decent forces for the family coaster.

Sidewinder Safari

I always enjoy a good wild mouse, especially a spinning one. But this is a spinning wild mouse that doesn’t spin. I’m not sure if it was the weight distribution of the car but once we cleared the mid course breaks it stayed locked in the same position only doing some mild listing to one side as we entered the final breaks. When a ride is supposed to spin and doesn’t it usually makes the ride uncomfortable or boring. In this case it was both. Easily the worst mouse I’ve ridden.

Superman Ultimate Flight

While this is the original installation this ride has been cloned to many parks. Earlier this year we rode Tigris at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay which is the same ride. This one doesn’t have the “comfort collars” and the lap bar was also more comfortable so I’d give a slight edge to Superman over Tigris. But overall this is your pretty standard SkyRocket II installation.

Batman The Ride

Similar to Superman this ride is at a ton of parks most of which are owned by Six Flags. However unlike Superman this is my first encounter with a 4D freespin. These are interesting: you hang over the side for the track, kinda link a wing coaster but unlike a wing coaster your car freely spins. If the weight distribution is favorable you can end up doing a bunch of flips. I rode this first thing so no one else was on my side and only ended up getting one good flip. My take is it was kinda short and gimmicky but still pretty fun. It’s extremely disorienting to be front flipping as your train descends the course but in a good way. If the line wasn’t so crazy I would have gone back from a re-ride but it didn’t end up being worth it.

Medusa

The best coaster located in a former parking lot I’ve ever ridden! But in all seriousness this is a pretty good ride considering it’s only 150 ft tall. The ride layout is probably about as good as you could get given the footprint and the model. The first drop is good but the real strength of Medusa is there are a ton of good inversions all paced excellently. It feels like a very complete ride. The only real comparison I can make is to Rougarou at Cedar Point, both of these being B&M floorless coasters. Unlike Rougarou (and a ton of other floorless) Medusa isn’t a converted standup. That really shows as it has a lot of great elements that I’m sure would not be possible with standup trains. While I don’t like B&M floorless as much as B&M inverts, I see the potential the model has when the track is designed for the correct trains. Overall I’m a fan.

Joker

One of the most anticipated coasters of my trip - another RMC hybrid conversion. This one is on the smaller side compared to the hyper hybrids I’ve had the pleasure of riding so I was curious how those brilliant bastards at RMC would use that space to deliver their signature mix of elements. Given the scale I think this still manages to deliver a great ride. The twisted first drop really takes you off guard before hitting you with some really fun inversions. I particularly liked the zero-g stall. Joker also still packs a punch with those signature small scale rapid fire airtime hills. I’m always surprised how effective those are given their size. Even though the ride isn’t super long it does still very much feel like a complete experience. Easily the best ride at the park.

Conclusion

I had a good, not great time here. The park is well kept and clean but I just don’t think it's very well run.

Unfortunately a lot of the reputation Six Flags gets turned out to be true. It was a pretty busy Saturday with great weather in peak season but literally every coaster save for the wild mouse only was running one train. I understand given the parks year round operations and size that's somewhat inevitable but still it makes the lines move painfully slow. Speaking of slow moving lines the consistently lackadaisical approach the ride operators take here significantly contributes. Medusa and Joker were bad examples of this. Around 1 pm I was considering a re-ride on Joker but when I checked it had a 140 minute wait which given what I witnessed earlier in the day was not surprising at all.

I also found it annoying that the two standout rides in the park didn’t open at 11 when the rest of the park did. Joker didn’t open till 11:30 and Medusa was even worse not opening till 12:30. It seemed to me like this was due to staffing on the rides. Honestly this is completely inexcusable and I’ve never experienced these kinds of unannounced delayed openings at another park.

The park also has a bizarre layout with a ton of dead ends. I found myself constantly backtracking though areas over and over again. The park doesn’t really have a natural flow to it. I also found the DC super hero theming pretty lazily done with the exception of maybe Joker. I really hope with the Cedar Fair Six Flags merger on the horizon that Cedar Fair brings their style of park management to Six Flags parks. A lot of the problems save layout I’ve mentioned have never been an issue at any Cedar Fair park I’ve attended.

Glad I went but I don’t think I’ll ever go back here unless they get a new standout coaster which given the park's history and height limit I find highly unlikely.