Cobra, Medusa and Roar all have their own special holiday borders this year at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and I’m as happy as a snowman in a blizzard. The only thing I like more than a roller coaster picture is a limited frame on a roller coaster photo.

Believe it or not, the Medusa sleigh on the left is only my second favorite holiday ride photo.  If the presents across the top were actually in focus it might have actually become my number one photo.  The rest of the frame is focused just fine, so it’s neither a printing nor an image problem.  Whoever designed this frame (Six Flags?  Kodak?  Discovery Kingdom?) chose for the presents to be out of focus, though for the life of me I couldn’t tell you why.

The Cobra digital border (pictured right) is actually my favorite holiday ride photo. It looks like the Yeti is actually launching the bobsled. This particular shot is even cooler, IMHO, because that’s Bumbles the Abominable Snowman (from the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon) hanging out next to Zaira. We won him on the midway. Unfortunately, the photo both attendant claimed she couldn’t make any adjustments to the photo to get both Zaira and I into the frame, but more on that later. On the other hand, this digital border is all the more rare because she damn near refused to sell it to us despite our numerous assurances that we still wanted it the way it is.

In hindsight I don’t think this frame was ever intended for Medusa photos, but one of our regular photo clerks was working the booth and she had no problem selling us both digital frames.  Zaira loves this solo picture because of the goofy face made by the kid in the row behind her (top right corner).

Serious kudos must go out to the designer of Roar’s holiday frame.  Last year Roar was closed for the Holiday In The Park event, so this is the first in what will hopefully be a long line of holiday frames for Northern California’s most popular wooden roller coaster.  The snow and ice effects are superbly done and they even made the ice on the front of the coaster appear to be organic by having it streak back away fro mthe front edge.  I also think the (relatively) subtle addition of “Roar” around the edges of the photo is a quality touch that I hope to see emulated on the 2009 Roar digital border.

Discovery Kingdom transformed from Sea, Land and Air to Sea, Land and Snow for the holidays.  Although the transformation wasn’t impressive overall, Zaira did have a blast sliding down their little snow “hill” and Discovery Kingdom got this one right, having professional photographers taking pictures of every run.  We had to kind of nudge the photo clerk at the front gate photo booth to add the snow flurry digital border to this photo although it seemed like a natural match to us.

While planning our visit to opening weekend at Discovery Kingdom’s 2nd Annual Holiday In The Park celebration we decided to focus primarily on character hunting during this visit. You see, Discovery Kingdom goes all out with holiday characters adding holiday costumes and scarfs to their Loony Tunes characters and regular mascots as well as bringing in more than a dozen holiday-only mascots.  We managed to grab photo opps with the majority of the characters available, but missed a few including three reindeer and the most crucial: Merlin the Dolphin.  We also saw but did not manage to photograph, Wile E. Coyote, Speedy Gonzalez, Tweety Bird, and Shouka.

I did manage to get a photo with “Mr. Marine World (er.. Discovery Kingdom)” himself – Captain Lee. As Discovery Kingdom’s chief explorer and park ambassador Captain Lee is the head animal guy and one of my personal heroes, so managing to grab a photo with him was quite a personal treat.  Other than that we did a pretty decent job of character hunting and managed to net photo opps with: Blitzen, Bugs Bunny, Christmas Bear, Comet, Cupid, Daffy Duck, Dancer, Foghorn Leghorn, Frosty The Snowman, Mr.Gingerbread, Mrs. Gingerbread, Mr. Christmas Mouse, Mrs. Christmas Mouse, Christmas Penguin, Prancer, Sylvester the Cat, and the Tazmanian Devil.  Here they are…

Six Flags may not be able to match Knott’s Berry Farm for overall theming of the park for Halloween, but when it comes to souvenir photos and custom digital frames/borders, they wipe the map with Cedar Fair.  The only step they missed was not having special Fright Fest photo folders like those available at the Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween Haunt.

Zaira and I visited along with her friend Hannah and managed to bring home more than half a dozen new photos for our collection.  Before I start detailing the photos, though, there have been a few changes to the way pictures are handled at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom…

First, we did not receive a My Six Flags Photos card from the gate photographer as we usually do.  Frankly, I forgot about it until we were home, so it is possible they had them available, but our gate photographer gave us the standard paper slip instead.

Second (and more importantly, IMO), Six Flags now offers $5.oo Kodak photo vouchers on their website.  If you’re a fan of theme park photos and are buying your tickets online anyway then this is a great deal!  Not only do you need to use your cash in the park as they’re prepaid, but it’s a great deal as well since these are normally a minimum of $12.99.  The only problem is that Six Flags has also instituted a $5.00 per order ‘delivery’ fee for etickets and vouchers that you print at home.  I realize they’re trying desperately to avoid bankruptcy, but this is an absolutely ridiculous fee.  Even at $5.00 it verges on gouging, particularly since we have season passes so the only reason we need to use their online ticketing system is to buy these Kodak photo vouchers.

Back to the topic at hand, check out the digital frames on those two gate photos.  Not only did they make separate horizontal and vertical borders, but both are awesome!  Although the vertical is more fitting with the theme of Fright Fest, I just love the way that Gossamer the Hair Monster looms over us.
But that’s not the end of Fright Fest Photo goodness. The picture on the right was taken while I was chowing down on super worms from the Wheel of Fright. Although it’s not a very good photo, IMO, I love the Halloween cuteness of the digital frame.  This would be even better for pics of kids in costumes, perhaps with a character or two.

Speaking of characters… The only one we managed to get a photo with was Sylvester The (Cat) Vampire. but there were plenty of others out and about as well: Bugs (Bunny) Vampire, Tweety (Bird) Baseball Player, Franken-Foghorn Leghorn-stein’s Monster, and Daffy (Duck) The Pirate. We didn’t see the Tasmanian Devil, but I’m sure he was out and about somewhere.  I am considering returning next Saturday (November 1st) for the primary purpose of hunting down photo opps with Lonney Tunes characters dressed up in Halloween.

The great thing about collecting Six Flags ride photos is that they make special holiday frames for all of their on ride photos.  In fact, for their most popular roller coaster, Medusa, they not only made a special Fright Fest frame, but it’s an entirely different look then the either the standard Medusa ride photo, last year’s Fright Fest frame, or last year’s Holiday in the Park ride photo.  We actually bought three Medusaphotos on this trip-

Medusa isn’t the only coaster with a ride photo of course. Somehow we missed out on the Fright Fest frame for Cobra last year, so I have no comparison photo for y’all, but we were pleased to get our grubby mitts on this one. The ride itself is amusing, but the fogged up ride photo is top notch.

Of course, no trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is complete without a ride on their wooden roller coaster, Roar. Unfortunately, the ride photo equipment was having problems and didn’t grab our picture on our first ride. We returned later in the evening, checked in at the photo booth to ensure it was operating, and headed through the exit with our flash passes to ride again. Still no photo. It literally broke down again on the ride before ours . The folks at the booth were very understanding, however. They offered me another flash pass ride, but instead I asked for (and received) a copy of someone else’s Roar ride photo. After all, not getting our photo was unfortunate, but missing this cool fright Fest frame would have been a tragedy.

I really wish I could include Cedar Fair’s online photo service in this comparison, but I have yet to actually have a Cedar Fair park actually upload my photos as promised in the park. Considering the several hundred dollars I’ve spent on the Six Flags and Hard Rock online photo shops this is truly their loss. But that doesn’t make the “losing” of those photos any less painful for us

Since both Six Flags and Hard Rock use Kodak as their photo processor the systems are nearly identical-

1. When your gate photo is taken at Hard Rock Park or any Six Flags park the photographer should give you a small plastic card (like a credit card) with a number on it. If they don’t give you a card, ask for one.
2. Whenever you have a picture taken in the park, whether it’s a character photo, a set piece, or a ride photo ask the photographer or booth attendant to add the pictures to your card so you can purchase them online.
3. Visit the appropriate site for your park. The entrance screen should look like this -
   
4. At this point you can simply enter the number from your card and log-in or create your account if it’s your first visit.
5. You should now be on the screen containing all of the pictures you had added to your card during your visit to the park. This is also the first place that Six Flags separates itself from Hard Rock Park. You may notice the “Six Flags Photo Gallery” tab on the Six Flags screen. This will take you to a broad selection of professional photographs of the various Six Flags parks. While the vast majority of these photographs are gorgeous I’m not sure why anyone would want to pay these prices for generic photographs.
6. Speaking of the prices, this is what really separates the two sites-
   

   Item	Six Flags	Hard Rock
   5×7 Print	$12.99	$14.99
   8×10 Print	$16.99	$18.99
   Wallets (4)	$12.99	$14.99
   5×7 & Wallets (4)	$19.99	$19.99
   Two 5×7 Prints	$19.99	N/A
   16×20 Poster	$24.99	$29.99
   5×7 Print	$12.99	$14.99
   Photo Download	$44.99	$39.99
   11oz Ceramic Mug	$24.99	N/A
   Travel Mug	N/A	$29.99
   16oz Frosted Stein	N/A	$29.99
   Mouse Pad	$19.99	$19.99
   Snowflake Ornament	N/A	$24.99
   Baby Onesie	$29.99	N/A
   Beach Tote	N/A	$39.99
   Melamine Plate	$29.99	N/A
   Coasters (4)	N/A	$29.99
   Greeting Cards (20)	$29.99	N/A
   Playing Cards	N/A	$31.99
   Jigsaw Puzzle	N/A	$35.99
   T-Shirt Adult (S-XXL)	$24.99	N/A
   Black T-Shirt (S-XXL)	N/A	$24.99
   T-Shirt Youth (S-L)	$24.99	N/A
   Sweatshirt (S-XXL)	$31.99	N/A

   All prices are plus tax and shipping & handling

7. I actually got a little ahead of myself with those prices…
   Before you actually add your items to your shopping cart you can add various logos, borders and digital frames to them. You can also crop the photo and/or zoom in/out or reposition it in any of four directions. As can be seen from the various photos we’ve posted here the selection of add-ons at the Six Flags site far outshines Hard Rock at this point in time.
8. Once you’ve selected all of your photos and other items you simply go to check out where you can pay with any major credit card.
9. I’ve never ordered any custom items (the prices seem exorbitant to me for the most part), but I’ve ordered several photos from both sites and they’ve always arrived in less than a week.

I highly doubt anyone’s going to choose to visit or not visit a park based on their online souvenir photo website, but now those of you who were wondering how it all worked can see for yourselves. Hopefully I’ll get a working code for the Cedar Point website at some point in the future so I can add their information here as well.

On Mother’s Day I donated the “free guest admission” coupon I received with my 2008 season pass to Zaira’s mother, while Zaira used hers for her half-brother (the baby got in free). There’s definitely occasional animosity because of our frequent amusement park trips, so we thought Mother’s Day was the perfect time to help adjust the balance.

Zaira’s the only big ride fan, but the family did take a round on the back of Discovery Kingdom’s famous performing elephant, Tava. This was Z’s second elephant ride (of four total) and the only time we’ve actually managed to get her picture taken on the back of one of these behemoths. We both think it’s pretty cool that she managed to get the ‘ride’ photo when she was riding the ‘star’ elephant.

Speaking of photos I can’t seem to manage to get in on…

They also managed to grab a group shot with many of the Looney Tunes characters. For those of you playing our home game that’s Zaira (in the first of many pink capes she’s “won” at Discovery Kingdom); Merlin (Discovery Kingdom’s leading dolphin star); Bugs Bunny (who seems shocked to have a real life star on the stage); Pepper holding Julian; Sylvester hiding in the background; Gavin being ‘punched’ by Daffy Duck; and Marvin The Martian.

The final coup they managed to pull off was getting a digital frame on their picture with DK’s biggest star: Shouka the killer whale. I honestly prefer the picture Zaira and I had taken with Shouka last year since we’re both actually riding her, but I must admit the special border is pretty darn nifty.

Obviously no day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is complete without a ride (or two or three) on Medusa. Not only is it a great coaster, but we get the chance to rap with the best photo booth clerk anywhere (whose name I still didn’t note). This time around I actually put my foot in my mouth by complimenting her as she printed our latest photo only to have it pointed out to me that this was not, in fact, the same girl. The one I was speaking with was being trained by the one I thought I was talking to. Well, the good news is that now there are two of them!

While discussing how our collection had grown since our last visit we mentioned that this was actually our first Medusa photo with the non-Holiday frame. The girls were great enough to actually bring up the old digital frame for Medusa and we got a copy of that for the collection as well. The difference is startlingly dramatic as you can see for yourself. I can’t imagine many people were interested in spending cold hard cash for the old digital frame with the tiny little picture of them on the ride. Even worse, imagine it in a wallet size! Still, it’s great to have it in the collection.

Photos #095 & #096

This was a banner day for us and character photos! Not only did we finally manage to grab pictures with the ever elusive Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but Zaira got a few autographed photographs of Tweety who is her Grammalu’s favorite Loony Tunes character of all time and got to meet the star of Merlin’s Island Party at Merlin’s Dolphin Harbor, you guessed it, Merlin the Dolphin!

I also managed to bag photo opps with Sylvester the Cat and Foghorn Leghorn (another character Zaira’s never heard of) as well!

Photos #080 – #094

This is one of those rides that you’ll only ever get me on if there’s a ride photo opportunity. Yet parks seem reluctant to provide photos on water chutes for some reason (Jurassic Park at Universal Studios is the only one I’m aware of). Zaira, however, loves them, despite the fearful look she has in this photo (front row, second from left). She came off the ride completely soaked – she might as well have gone down a water slide fully dressed.

If the above paragraph seems a bit self-contradictory or incongruous with my absence from the photo it’s because I took this ride photo myself from the bridge under which the boat passes. I took the two photos below as well but have decided to include them in the ‘strangers’ portion of our collection as they are both wonderful pictures in my opinion. The first because of the people in the back rows who are trying to duck down to remain dry (bad idea) and the second because not only does everyone seem exceedingly excited, but you just gotta love it when people’s hair flies out behind them on a ride.

Photos #077 – #079

I’d really been looking forward to riding Roar again for some time and was excited to see what the non-holiday digital frame looked like as well. You can see it to the left, but you almost couldn’t! The worker at the photo booth first gave us a picture without the digital frame and we had to ask for her to redo it so we could properly add it to our collection.

Of course, had we simply been more observant on our earlier trips we would have known all along what the normal digital frame looks like because there are oversized pictures of it posted right on the side of the photo booth as advertising-

Photos #075 & #076

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to add Kong to our list of missed opportunities. Although we rode Kong on our first visit to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in October 2007 the photo booth was closed all day. It was also closed during our visit to Holiday In The Park. Now, not only is it closed, but it has been entirely removed!! You see those lockers in the photo up there? That’s where the Kong photo booth used to stand

As if it’s not bad enuogh that they removed the photo booth (and before we managed to get an on ride photo!) the lockers they replaced them with are basically a scam. Six Flags no longer allows visitors to put stuff in cubbys on the ride platform. Any hand-held objects must be put in these lockers at the front of the ride. While this may seem like an excellent idea, they then charge you $1.00 for the use of the lockers! Six Flags really needs to take a long hard look at this system before next season. After all, Hard Rock Park in South Carolina uses the same locker system for the same apparent purpose, but the lockers at Hard Rock are free for the first two hours.