I’d had a trip around this area stewing in my brain for some time, and after seeing some good flight options I thought I’d finally flesh this up into a proper trip. For an “American theme park road trip”, it’s not actually particularly cred-heavy, but it was a good excuse to see some of this area of the country I’ve not been to before and tick off some creds along the way.
Day 1 – Heading Out
Keeping this boring bit brief - it was a straightforward enough but long day. Simple trip to Heathrow, direct flight to Atlanta, some baggage faff in the airport due to a storm, a long queue at the rental car desk, but smooth sailing thus far. Bit of hassle with the rental car as the one they gave me originally had two broken (like, completely bent/buckled out of shape) windscreen wipers and a badly scratched/chipped windscreen – but they were relatively efficient in swapping me to another vehicle and I was finally in my hotel.
Day 2 – Atlanta & Fun Spot America
Jetlag kicked my arse hard on this trip (and the same on the way back – still suffering now!), so it was a restless night’s sleep and I was itching to get out of the room by about 7am. I grabbed some breakfast and did the obligatory grocery store run to stock up on various snacky things, and then headed towards downtown Atlanta for a bit of simple sightseeing.
Started off at the MLK Museum (with free all-day parking, result!), and have to admit overall this was a nice little museum complex. The life history and other people involved in his journey are something that hadn’t really come up in anything I’ve learned about him before, and it was very interesting and quite well put together. It’s all quite nearby itself (the museum, his birthplace – though under refurbishment so couldn’t tour that - and the tomb are all within a block or two of each other so it’s very accessible). I’d recommend.
From there, I took a short-ish walk into the city and generally just mooched about a bit. It was all quite pleasant actually. I also hadn’t realised that there would be a big Juneteenth parade heading through the part of the city near where I’d parked the car, so it was cool to see so much of a buzz and people out in the sun having a good time!
Now originally I had planned to take a few hours off in the middle of the day, and head over to Fun Spot in the evening, but the forecast was looking pretty terrible for the evening with another wave of storms passing through, so I decided I’d have a bite to eat for lunch and then head straight down to Fun Spot in the afternoon. Glad I did, in the end, as both evenings I was in Atlanta the weather would have shut down the coasters – which would have rendered evening trips to Fun Spot pointless.
Got there at the peak heat of the day, to a park which isn’t very friendly to the sunshine, so it was a hot afternoon! Anyway, started with the two creds right by the entrance – Hurricane and Sea Serpent. The latter is entirely forgettable, but Hurricane was entertaining enough. A bit rubbish, really, but some hilariously violent ejector in places.
Okay, to the main event then. ArieForce One (god I hate the name, going to go for AFO for now) is quite striking as you approach the park from the road, and the outerbank hill draws you in even more once you’re in the park. Coaster was a walk-on all afternoon, with the ops happy for a few of us to just keep switching seats each lap as there was no-one in the queue. They were quite good in dispatching trains without doing anything silly like waiting for them to fill up, so it was easy to get plenty of laps in.
Here's a bit of a photo dump:
I took three laps initially, front, back and second back. Crikey this is a good coaster. The first five elements (drop, dive loop, stall, outerbank and airtime hill) have an excellent sense of scale and the forces are fantastic. After that, it drops into a very high-speed section which the first time goes by so quickly it’s hard to get a sense of where you’re going. Very smooth and flowing though, with none of that RMC jerkiness that some of these elements can have. Final row of airtime hills is great, but I admit after three consecutive laps were taking their toll on my thighs already! I can only imagine how good RMC’s would be if the trains didn’t suck…!
Anyway, time for a break from AFO and I headed over to the only other thing of any real interest to me in the park – the go karts. I love these ridiculous go kart structures in US parks and the funny little slow speed go karts – they’re not really like anything you get in Europe in my [limited] experience, and I always enjoy them.
Right then, back to the main event for a couple more laps and some photos before I call it a day – was starting to flag quite a lot by this point given the jetlag and patchy night before, and frankly my thighs were starting to suffer.
Here, have a bunch more photos of AFO:
I headed back to the hotel, grabbed a pizza on the way, and had an early night. It’d be a long first day in a very hot Atlanta, and I was out for the count in no time!
Overall I quite liked Fun Spot. It felt a bit less dynamic than the other two in Florida, I think mostly due to the more spread out nature of it, but perhaps also the fact it was very quiet and the middle of the day as opposed to the evening.
Biggest park of the trip next.
Day 1 – Heading Out
Keeping this boring bit brief - it was a straightforward enough but long day. Simple trip to Heathrow, direct flight to Atlanta, some baggage faff in the airport due to a storm, a long queue at the rental car desk, but smooth sailing thus far. Bit of hassle with the rental car as the one they gave me originally had two broken (like, completely bent/buckled out of shape) windscreen wipers and a badly scratched/chipped windscreen – but they were relatively efficient in swapping me to another vehicle and I was finally in my hotel.
Day 2 – Atlanta & Fun Spot America
Jetlag kicked my arse hard on this trip (and the same on the way back – still suffering now!), so it was a restless night’s sleep and I was itching to get out of the room by about 7am. I grabbed some breakfast and did the obligatory grocery store run to stock up on various snacky things, and then headed towards downtown Atlanta for a bit of simple sightseeing.
Started off at the MLK Museum (with free all-day parking, result!), and have to admit overall this was a nice little museum complex. The life history and other people involved in his journey are something that hadn’t really come up in anything I’ve learned about him before, and it was very interesting and quite well put together. It’s all quite nearby itself (the museum, his birthplace – though under refurbishment so couldn’t tour that - and the tomb are all within a block or two of each other so it’s very accessible). I’d recommend.
From there, I took a short-ish walk into the city and generally just mooched about a bit. It was all quite pleasant actually. I also hadn’t realised that there would be a big Juneteenth parade heading through the part of the city near where I’d parked the car, so it was cool to see so much of a buzz and people out in the sun having a good time!
Now originally I had planned to take a few hours off in the middle of the day, and head over to Fun Spot in the evening, but the forecast was looking pretty terrible for the evening with another wave of storms passing through, so I decided I’d have a bite to eat for lunch and then head straight down to Fun Spot in the afternoon. Glad I did, in the end, as both evenings I was in Atlanta the weather would have shut down the coasters – which would have rendered evening trips to Fun Spot pointless.
Got there at the peak heat of the day, to a park which isn’t very friendly to the sunshine, so it was a hot afternoon! Anyway, started with the two creds right by the entrance – Hurricane and Sea Serpent. The latter is entirely forgettable, but Hurricane was entertaining enough. A bit rubbish, really, but some hilariously violent ejector in places.
Okay, to the main event then. ArieForce One (god I hate the name, going to go for AFO for now) is quite striking as you approach the park from the road, and the outerbank hill draws you in even more once you’re in the park. Coaster was a walk-on all afternoon, with the ops happy for a few of us to just keep switching seats each lap as there was no-one in the queue. They were quite good in dispatching trains without doing anything silly like waiting for them to fill up, so it was easy to get plenty of laps in.
Here's a bit of a photo dump:
I took three laps initially, front, back and second back. Crikey this is a good coaster. The first five elements (drop, dive loop, stall, outerbank and airtime hill) have an excellent sense of scale and the forces are fantastic. After that, it drops into a very high-speed section which the first time goes by so quickly it’s hard to get a sense of where you’re going. Very smooth and flowing though, with none of that RMC jerkiness that some of these elements can have. Final row of airtime hills is great, but I admit after three consecutive laps were taking their toll on my thighs already! I can only imagine how good RMC’s would be if the trains didn’t suck…!
Anyway, time for a break from AFO and I headed over to the only other thing of any real interest to me in the park – the go karts. I love these ridiculous go kart structures in US parks and the funny little slow speed go karts – they’re not really like anything you get in Europe in my [limited] experience, and I always enjoy them.
Right then, back to the main event for a couple more laps and some photos before I call it a day – was starting to flag quite a lot by this point given the jetlag and patchy night before, and frankly my thighs were starting to suffer.
Here, have a bunch more photos of AFO:
I headed back to the hotel, grabbed a pizza on the way, and had an early night. It’d be a long first day in a very hot Atlanta, and I was out for the count in no time!
Overall I quite liked Fun Spot. It felt a bit less dynamic than the other two in Florida, I think mostly due to the more spread out nature of it, but perhaps also the fact it was very quiet and the middle of the day as opposed to the evening.
Biggest park of the trip next.
This trip wasn't long enough for heading down there and all the faff days at those parks entail. One for another, dedicated, trip.
