Tales of the Flowers: Summer Coaster Tour - Day 02 - Six Flags over Georgia and driving to Carowinds

Time for the very first stop on our Summer Roller Coaster Tour! It's Six Flags Over Georgia!

Despite Six Flags buying all Cedar Fair parks, Six Flags Over Georgia is still the closest park to Orlando, and for convenience, it is now our home park! Last year we were traveling and our home park was up in New York because that's where we happened to be when we bought passes. What a mess that was, trying to sort anything out when we were in California in February visiting Magic Mountain, and the New York park didn't open for another 3 months and wouldn't answer their phones.

For this trip, everything is fitting into the Prius. Since we're stopping at multiple hotels, many for just one night, we opted to take one comfort from home for everyone, our pillows. Despite taking up a large amount of space in our very limited capacity, they were a very welcome addition, making each night's sleep more relaxing, without having to deal with some random pillow that's either too hard, soft, overstuffed, or understuffed.

The breakfast crew checking out the offerings of the Hyatt Place. You won't see Ian in any of these photos. He'd rather get a few more minutes of sleep and often skips breakfast.

I've been to a lot of hotel breakfasts and chicken burritos is not something I've seen before. We thought they were tasty, though the worker there couldn't tell me what brand they were.

Time to head to the park! It's a Friday and they don't open until 11am, so we weren't very rushed to get here.

Looking forward to some good rides today.

And making use whenever we can of the photo pass.

Everyone was let into the park early, but being held until the park officially opened at 11. Hi Petunia Pig!

And we're off! It's a sprint to the very first ride of the day which is...

not a roller coaster at all! Acrophobia is a 200ft drop tower that has the added bonus of leaning your seat outward once you get to the top! It was closed when we were here a few weeks ago and Alli really wanted to ride it. Since it's near the front of the park, there's no line, and it's working, definitely going on this one first.

Theresa watched from below as we went, taking photos and videos. That'll be her job most of this trip since she doesn't do thrill rides.

With no line, we ran around to get in the queue again and went once more before continuing to the next ride.

Another ride that we never got to do (either due to construction of the ride or it just not being open) was the Georgia Gold Rusher. We walked up to the entrance, but they've still got a chain across it. We waited for 10 minutes or so with a larger group until another local park goer told us they're training new people right now and it won't be open for a while. We'll try to come back later.

Instead, let's head over to another ride that is often broken down. Superman!

Last time we were here we tried to ride it, but it was closed most of the time, then when it came back up, the line ballooned to unreasonable lengths.

Today though we've got our Fast Lane passes and we're ready to use them! We walked right into the line, right to the loading station, and were told to sit wherever we wanted. Um, the front obviously.

Theresa on the ground getting some good Supermanning pictures of the four of us.

Always a blast!

With our dining plan, we get 2 meals every day, but the only caveat is that they must be spaced 4 hours apart. If we're going to have dinner here at the park, we can't be eating lunch too late.

Looking around the park and stopping at many different food places, they were all closed, even though they had signs saying they opened at 11am. We found a place with nachos and a walking taco. Jacob went ahead and grabbed that. Oh, and they have Icees too!

Where else can we go?

Last time we ate at the Miner's Cook House and at noon they finally opened. They had a crispy chicken salad that was tasty to T and Alli. T opted for that, while Ian chose a burger. Alli was hoping for something with more sustenance, so I took her around the park looking for other open locations.

We walked to a sandwich place; closed. Asian place; closed and apparently shut down. Mexican place; closed. Sigh...

Eventually we found Firehouse BBQ which had meats and other sides.

Alli was excited to see brussel sprouts (how many kids can you say that about?). It was the last of the pan of them, so they brought out a fresh one. These look way more covered with some sort of cheesy sauce, which she didn't end up loving. She asked if next time she could get them plain.

I was excited to see Peach Cobbler out, but when I asked for it, I was told it wasn't included in the sides, but separate. Bummer. Guess I'll have the baked beans.

We all met back up at the Miner's Cook House to eat and plan the rest of our day.

I always think of Ruston when I'm eating chicken drumsticks and how he loved the big bucket of drumsticks at Big Thunder Ranch BBQ.

Ian's burger was... not so tasty. He offered me the rest of it, but it's that frozen Sysco burger patty with the awful texture. No thanks Ian. I'll pass on this one.

We tried heading to Pandemonium next but it was closed. Looks like the Georgia Gold Rusher is open though! Instead of waiting in the regular line, we walked right up through the Fast Lane line and got on the very next train! Good thing too because with this style coaster, there's only one train on the track at a time. With only 20 seats per ride, it's a very slow moving line.

It was a lot of fun though, especially as you spin and get some airtime over the bumps.

But next, it's the old standby. Goliath is a B&M coaster that has lots of good drops, lots of airtime, and the line always moves fast, especially when they're running all the cars.

We started our first ride in the back.

Without having to exit, moved up a row.

Got back in line and took another spin from the front.

Moved back a few rows to go again.

Then took one more spin on it! 5 times riding! Love it!

Nearby is the Dare Devil Dive coaster. We used our Fast Lane, but it's still a slow loading zone and the merge point is pretty far back.

We took our one trip on it and considered it good for the day.

The constraints aren't the most comfortable and for us taller people, our knees hit the plastic in front of us.

How about another round on Superman? We walked to the back of the park, but saw that it was closed. We hung out in the area for a little while thinking about what to do next when the decision was pretty much made for us.

When we planned this whole long trip, we weren't really thinking about encountering bad weather. The morning we left Florida, we opted to grab our rain jackets "just in case". Good thing we did!

When there was a brief pause in the downpour, we ran over to Justice League Battle Metropolis, an indoor shooting ride.

Big scorer over here.

I know there's versions of this ride in at least 2 other parks, Magic Mountain (California) and Great Adventure (New Jersey).

After we got off, the rain had started to let up. Jacob, Alli, and I rode Blue Hawk a couple times, then met up with everyone else for dinner.

The rain has been off and on, so a few of the good coasters have been closed. Theresa and Alli headed back to the Firehouse BBQ for dinner. Alli wasn't able to get the brussel sprouts without all the cheesy sauce on them, so she chose baked beans instead. Ian and I are getting real hamburgers from Johnny Rockets.

Much better than the last one.

We wanted to ride Twisted Cyclone, another big fun coaster here, but sitting right across from it, we saw the chain was blocking the entrance. A line would form behind it, a rain shower would hit and everyone would run for cover, then when it was dry again people would come back out and queue up.

With the threat of even more showers, and the park only being open until 7pm, at 5:15pm we decided to call it a day.

We've got a 4 hour drive tonight to get to the next hotel, and I'd like to do as much of it as we can in the daylight.

A restroom break happened to line up with a Sam's Club. We need to stock up on Chuck E Cheese gift cards. Can't beat the $37.50 for $50 of gift cards deal. That's 25% off! Pair that with the 50% we get off food with our summer fun pass, and we're only paying ~38% of the regular menu price for most things.

Crossing over into South Carolina, T got this blurry rainy photo.

That rain we left in Georgia caught up to us. It was coming down hard in places, which wasn't so bad when we were near big cities that had clearly marked lines and reflectors on the roads. But between major towns when it was just faded lines with no reflectors it was a little more difficult to see where the lanes were.

It was a long 4 hour drive, that took closer to 6 hours with all the stops plus slowing down for rainy weather.

One more restroom break before we get to the hotel.

That's a new one for me. A basket of fries from McDonald's. They're $4.99 and 630 calories. Compared to the Large Fries that are $4.29 and 480 calories, you're getting about 30% more fries for 70 cents.