Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
It turns out that the so-called Avatar Hotel where I stayed in Santa Clara was just down the street from California’s Great America. No one else staying here seemed to be on a quick pleasure trip. Nope, they were all mid-level tech guys, all desperate to “wow” the Google guys up in Mountain View no doubt.
But for my part, I was looking to be wowed by Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Decided on doing that one first before returning to the closer Great America.
Discovery Kingdom sits waaaay up near Napa (in Vallejo), nearly an hour north of Santa Clara along the East Bay through enchanting Oakland. It doesn’t open ‘til 10:30, meaning at least the daily rush hour into San Francisco is largely gone once I get on the road. First visit to an unfamiliar Six Flags! My expectations are solidly tempered.
Like most Six Flags parks, Discovery Kingdom has a bonkers past. It began as an independent zoo 50 miles south. Eventually it relocated, went bankrupt, got bought, rethemed, retooled, renamed, redirected. From Marine World to SFDK (with several names in between), turned from a middling animal park in the vague vein of SeaWorld into a middling Magic Mountain.
It sits inauspiciously surrounded by McNeighborhoods, with traditional golden Californian hillsides providing a nice backdrop (with freeway in between). The coaster collection looks awkwardly wedged into a tiny corner. Far enough from the animals, and with a 150’ construction limit, the coasters’ legal limitations are immediately visually obvious.
In typical Six Flags style, parking is no place near the entrance. Instead you drive paaaast the park, paaaast a great big unrelated lagoon, then aaaall the way around a surface lot before at long last getting to park. Then, since the stoner staff couldn’t be bothered to get their trams running yet, it’s the usual “Six Flags Long Dark Walk of the Soul” waaaay past all of those elements, traveling on foot directly past backstage until finally, finally, finally you reach the entry gate on the far side…from satellite, it’s the furthest from the parking lot it could
possibly be.
The park is divided into three things akin to “lands” – Land, Sea, Sky. Sky is where the coasters are. The others are for land and marine beasts. There is some vaguely
Jurassic Park-esque décor, and some colorful animal tile statues (my favorite visual element). Mostly, it’s indifferent modern buildings arranged in a freeform blob layout.
At 10:30 rope drop (
see those crowds! 
) everybody heads towards Sky’s east side. This Sky land is non-contiguous, separated awkwardly by the entry stuff. The walk leads past generic landscaping and the expected Looney Tunes kiddie acreage. It leads past a few animal enclosures, which are 50% inhabited. Lastly you curlicue back around to the DC Comics coasters, everyone headed towards the park’s great big draw…
The Joker.
It’s closed.
Actually,
everything is closed.
The
park opens at 10:30. No one said anything about the
rides.
The gathered employees, they totally couldn’t give a . Guests press them, and after much hootin’ and hollerin’ eventually some slouchy teen resignedly trudges up into Joker’s loading station and starts the 30-minute test run procedure. We all queue up, because what else are we gonna do?!
I’m maybe the 20th person in line. Even once Joker opens (at 11), it takes a solid 20 minutes for me to get seated in the day’s third train. They’ve been sending the trains out half-filled, for reasons of morbid incompetency which are simply staggering. We’re definitely having a Six Flags day so far! I swear, Discovery Kingdom is quickly proving to be the worst-operated park I’ve ever seen, and it’s no competition.
At long last let’s ride Joker! All Six Flagses share ride names, but styles vary. This Joker is an RMC hybrid conversion of Roar, their old GCI wooden coaster. It follows the now-familiar RMC formula, with wild elements tossed into every foot of track. There’s the heart-in-your-throat initial drop, the insane inversions, the general delirium. Nothing makes Joker distinct from its peers. It’s simultaneously Discovery Kingdom’s best ride, and the least impressive RMC I’ve done yet.
Superman: Ultimate Flight nearby is a launched Premier coaster…not the same-named flying coaster seen elsewhere. Its layout is arranged entirely vertically over the loading station, much like the newer Electric Eel at SeaWorld San Diego. They never successfully got this thing running for the entirety of my visit.
V2, a spiraling impulse coaster, also never opened.
Ditto Wonder Woman (a giant Frisbee).
The only remaining ride around here is
Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster. Will I get on this thing? (Well obviously, since I bolded its name.) But damn that sign by its entrance, which is staggering ride availability based on annual pass tiers. What is this "exclusive ride time" BS?!
Nobody can get on yet, and it’s operating! Eventually some half-concerned employee literally threw the sign over a chain link fence, then just let everyone queue up anyway regardless of passholder status.
Apparently today is Crazy Coaster’s grand opening gala! It was a walk-on.
Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster, complete with Superman sign directly in front of it somehow
I’m not sure that technically it’s a coaster. It’s…weird. An “8” laid on its side. Two powered trains follow a Moebius route through the double loops. They’re powered, and usually you pass through the inversion at a disconcerting slow speed. I rode facing backwards by mistake – you can’t tell which end is the front – and found the overall sensation like a lesser one-and-done flat ride.
Well, we’ve conquered Discovery Kingdom’s east side. I’m tempted to redo Joker, but not with how it’s loading. Instead I trudge across the hub to Sky’s west side, where all the older middling coasters are grouped.
Let’s start with
Medusa. It’s guaranteed to be OK, it’s a B&M. A B&M floorless, so there’s a ceiling to the quality. The ride experience is a blur to me; these B&M multi-loopers are just chaotic messes of inversions until they end. Medusa starts out with a very large, very forceful vertical loop. Everything which follows was mostly headbanging – lousy over-the-shoulder restraints! It was a painful ride, honestly. The most unpleasant floorless I’ve done, and I’m not a Rougarou fan.
But the worst is coming up next:
Kong! This one is a Vekoma SLC. The worst coaster type. For when parks can’t afford a B&M invert. I very, very nearly skipped right past it, but completionism compelled me to march down the poorly-marked queue. It wasn’t worth it.
Kong is the
WORST major roller coaster I’ve ever done!
Just look at that tangled, gnarled, snarled mess of . It is an endurance test, plain and simple. Even the ops actively insult the ride over the microphone while loading. I overhear children daring each other to ride it. It’s wretched.
Following, I walk straight past the Dare Devil Chaos Coaster – which is basically Harley Quinn with a single loop. Looks torturous. Didn’t do it.
I settle lastly on
Cobra, a fairly strange kiddie coaster by Zierer. It’s halfway between a mine train and a powered skater. A lift hill, a simple helix layout over small acreage, and you get to do the course twice.
Well, now I’ve done all the coasters
which are running. (In retrospect it seems I missed a Road Runner kiddie coaster, but whatever.) Escaping from Sky, the
Dolphin Theater is having one of the day’s whopping
two 15-minute long dolphin shows. Why not, I go in. There are dolphins in a pool, and every 3 minutes or so they’ll leap out or otherwise do something. In between, it’s mostly an excuse for the summer intern employees to dance around. Chintzy pop music plays. How very SeaWorldian.
There remains 2/3rds of Discovery Kingdom to be seen. I press onwards into the animal exhibit areas. There are rides to be found along the way, from a Boomerang to a rapids ride to a narrow gauge, but none of them seem to be in operation. Very, very few guests have followed me into these distant corners – they’re all queued up for Joker.
There aren’t even that many animals out here, certainly with less density than at any dedicated zoo I’ve ever visited. There are neat sights, to be sure, like a big handsome tiger or a giraffe awkwardly eating something off the ground. Eventually the winding pathways follow the shore of the neighboring lagoon. It’s a pleasant parklike stroll. Feels odd for a theme park however, weirdly lifeless and vacant.
I’ve known folks who are local to Discovery Kingdom, and they’ll tell of busy, vibrant days when everything here works. Today is clearly not that day. I feel no more compulsion to remain. Leaving the park, going against the arriving crowds, I luck out and grab a tram back to my car (saving the ½ mile schlep).
There’s a Cedar Fair park awaiting one hour south. First time I’ll have done parks from both chains in a single day. It’ll be interesting to see how these two coaster titans stack up. Based on Discovery Kingdom’s lousy showing, Cedar Fair is sittin’ pretty.
Up next: California’s Great America
