Well, I have been waiting for months now to say this, but I can now say that I am officially going to California! For the first time since I have turned into a hard-core coaster freak, my dad and I will be heading to the west coaster for a six day, six park tour that will feature over forty roller coasters, almost all of them being rides I have never been on before. With the exception of seeing family when I was little and visiting a few parks, I have never been to the west coast, so the entire week will be full of new experiences. Here I will outline what we have planned, and I would also GREATLY appreciate any help or tips from anyone who has been there or lives in the area.

In hope of avoiding Memorial Day crowds, we will fly from Philadelphia to San Francisco late on Monday night, May 28, which is actually Memorial Day. Starting to hit parks on Tuesday will maximize our time at the parks without being there during the holiday or on weekend for the most park, and getting there before peak season hits in mid-June.

Stop one will be on Tuesday May 29, at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Only about forty-five minutes north of the airport, we will be obtaining our season passes here. We will be getting there early to give us ample time to get them processed. Hopefully with people going back to work Tuesday, crowds should stay on the light side. Sadly, Superman: Ultimate Flight will likely not be opened yet. A first time park for both of us, our current plan is to head to Medusa, Kong, and Cobra first in terms of coasters. We will then head to the nearby Boomerang: Coast To Coaster before continuing a giant loop around the park, catching some shows and other rides. With the park closing at 6PM, we don’t have a ton of time, but we will finish up with Roar and V2: Vertical Velocity in the coaster department before heading to the car and making the drive south to our hotel near California’s Great America.

As mentioned above, our second stop will be in Santa Clara, to another first time park for us. Like Six Flags, this park will also close at 6PM, giving us eight hours from opening to closing to do what we would like. I think the obvious choice is to head to Flight Deck first, with it being what many say is the best ride at the small park. After that the coaster lineup would seem to be Vortex, Demon, and Grizzly before scoping out the smaller rides and perhaps a quick stay at the adjacent water park if time and weather permit. With my Dorney Park ID and my dad’s Platinum Pass, we will be parking and riding for free for the day before finding our vehicle and making the longest driving leg of our tour to our next stop.

Our third stop, and the focal point of the trip, is the massive Six Flags Magic Mountain. This will be the only park we spend more than one day at. On Thursday the park will be open from 10:30AM until 8PM, while on Friday the park mysteriously closes at 6PM. That being known, the current plan is to purchase a Flash Pass for Thursday, which would give us over nine hours to use it, in hopes of getting pretty much every major ride in at least once over the course of the day.

On a personal level, I would like to make Tatsu my 250th coaster, and if the first two parks go according to plan, I would have either 236 or 237 when arriving at the park, and knowing that it is likely that one side of Colossus will be down as well as Superman: Escape From Krypton due to the Lex Luthor Drop Of Doom construction, I should still be able to get to the 250 mark at the park. With the luxury of the Flash Pass, the plan will likely be to head to X2 and Viper first, and then heading back towards Goliath and the smaller coasters and work our way around the park, coming to Tatsu, Apocalypse, and Ninja towards the end of the day.

Friday will hopefully be mostly dedicated to re-rides, and in the case of missing out on a few rides Thursday, we still have the luxury of having another seven plus hours in the park the following day. For those of you who do not know, I have a tradition of getting custom airbrushed t-shirts for milestone coasters, including Firehawk as #100 and Behemoth as #200, and I hope #250 can be one of the better rides there, and Tatsu has an awesome logo that would look great on a customized t-shirt.

It is sure to be a fun trip, and this was a look at just the first three of six parks we will be visiting. Stay tuned later this week for an outline of the final three parks of the trip, Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure Park, and Knott’s Berry Farm, where we will rap up our week-long trip to the west coast.