As some of you may know, I've been over in California for two weeks embracing the west coast. In that time Chris and I visited five new theme parks and went on some of the most well known rides out there. So to start off with;

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

I don’t know many people that have been to this park so for me, it would live or die based on how my trip was to go. The day started relatively badly. A heavy hangover from the Eurovision celebrating the night before meant some hangover coffee and food was required from Starbucks. Nevertheless, we sobered up and drove the 40 minute drive to one of two Six Flag parks in California. Now, when it comes to Six Flags, enthusiasts always come across as frosty. It’s reputation is near the bottom of the barrel. Reports of poor operations, rude and unhelpful staff ad dirty, littered areas are common complaints. I’m happy to report none of these came across on this particular visit.

Access to the park was swift, we purchased annual passes (at $100 each including parking and discounts it was a steal!) and made our way over to our first ride and my first new B&M since Dæmonen last year, Medusa. Now our first mistake was to take our bags into the queue so unfortunately our first ride was actually my first ride as Chris sat it out to put bags in lockers ($5 for all day use in all lockers in the park, very good value!).

Now, when it comes to the Floridian B&M’s they were very hit and miss. They are either large and overblown but over rated like Hulk and Montu or they little pieces of perfection like Manta and Kumba. Having already ridden Superman de Acero, Kraken and Dæmonen, I was fully aware that the floor less riding seat wasn’t the be all and end all of these rides. When it comes to Medusa I just took it for what it was; a glorified sit down ride. I have to say I really enjoyed it. It gets away with a few things though. For example it is as much of a car park coaster as Scream is at Magic Mountain. But that doesn’t effect the ride experience much at all. Secondly it’s oversized vertical loop, dive roll and zero g roll are a lot of fun. There is so much hang time throughout the inversions and it has that old style, B&M aggressiveness that some would say are missing from modern day Beemers. The Sea-Serpent roll which features exclusively to B&M rides on here isn’t that great but is the only dull moment on this ride. After the MCBR, the ride hots up with some very forceful helixes over the faded car park white lines. These are all taken at ground level and feel very quick. The corkscrews are also very quick and intense and the final helix is great fun.

I have a feeling that Medusa was running so well because of the heatwave that California was having at the time. It was 37 degrees on our visit, (absolutely stifling weather) and all the rides were running fast. This helped Medusa in particular as it just seemed to have that extra wallop. It was running two trains the whole day and the staff were giving great guest interaction. I thought they were supposed to be unfriendly idiots and no interest in the guests. Not true here. I found their visual check spins quite funny as they put their arms at full length, say visual check and spin on the spot. So, first ride down, three rides done on Medusa (two in the back row, one in the front) and a fantastic start to the theme park trips.

Our next stop was Kong, a Vekoma SLC. My only other experience with this ride type is Infusion at Blackpool. This wasn’t too bad although it was definitely a slight head banger. We had one front row ride on our trip, no more goes were required.

Next stop was the weirdly named Sky Screamer, a glorified wave swinger that gave great views of Medusa and nothing more. This was closely followed by Cobra, a Zierer junior coaster which wasn't too bad, not too dull but nothing crazy.

We stopped for a little bit too have some water and chill out and then head to our next batch of rides. Discovery Kingdoms entrance is weirdly placed between areas. On your left is Medusa and Kong, over the entrance is V2 and to your right is Superman:Ultimate Flight and Roar. So naturally our next stop was the other coaster corner starting with V2

Starting with V2 (Vertical Velocity), this is an Intamin impulse coaster that has a weird angled piece of track at one end and a vertical spike at the other. The ride launches you one way then the other then back again until you reach nearly the end of the track. Weirdly the zero g at one of the end is angled oddly so sometimes you get halfway through the inversion and others you make it the whole way through. Oddly, this never had a queue but this may be down to its poor reliability as it seemed to rarely run through our day.

Next up was Superman: Ultimate Flight, a premier launch roller coaster that won awards a few years ago for its original ride design. I can understand that, it is pretty out there in terms of rides but it has a fatal flaw. It’s poor throughput means queues can rise quickly. Luckily it was relatively quiet on our visit but I can imagine long waits on busier days. So with that being said, how is the ride. Yeah its good, the constant launching back and forth through the station feels very good and the ride definitely has some good bum of seat action. It also features a good amount of air time and the sensation of speed is there in bucket loads. I just question whether parks can justify such a low throughput ride.

Our final major roller coaster was Roar, a wooden coaster built by GCI, the masters behind Wodan at Europa Park. Before our visit, Roar was a very unloved ride, thrown aside by the enthusiast community (well.. TPR) for being rough and uncomfortable. Luckily, the ride had a slight refurbishment with track being replaced before our visit so the question was, could it take down Wodan.

No it can’t.

But it shares many characteristics with the German version such as the relentless sensation and the amazing sense of speed as you are thrown left and right the whole way around the circuit. The first drop was a particular highlight. The rest of the circuit kind of melted into one in my mind. Suffice to say we enjoyed both our rides on this ride even though it only ran one train. The other didn't seem to be around at all.

So with the major rides all done it was time to kick back and enjoy the rest of what the park had to offer. A nice lake surrounds the park affording it a nice scenic view. We had some nice chicken and chips and then went around the zoo area. We were slightly surprised by how close we could get to the animals such as the giraffes and elephants. You could also pay to ride the elephants around a little enclosure.

Next up was Boomerang: Coast to Coast or as I refer to it as, my first Vekoma Boomerang. I’ve heard the horror stories and the outlook wasn’t great. But you know what, I thought it was fine. Sure there was the odd jerky sensation but I’ve had worse. It certainly wasn’t uncomfortable.

In the park is several huss creations such as a top spin (that had no water thankfully) and there was little roller coasters for the kids dotted around. Our final stop was a show with Dolphins called Drench. With marine life being a hot potato at the moment, what with the Blackfish documentary this show had a slight edge for me. The dolphins looked well looked after and seemed well treated so erm.. not much more I can add to either side of the argument.

So to conclude. Discovery Kingdom. Done a large floorless or a decent woodie before? Probably not going to add much to your interests. But if you want to go to somewhere relatively ignored in UK coaster circles, somewhere that does have genuine charm and some cracking good rides then you can’t go far wrong then Discovery Kingdom.