Trip Report: Cliff's, 8/2

I finally made it back to the US, and that would include some fun coasters that we could get to from my parent's place in Albuquerque. Cliff's is a nice little park that is getting better with a few additions over the last several years. The New Mexico Rattler alone is well worth riding, and this will be a more complete park with the former Greased Lightning of Astroworld coming in.

There are also plenty of flats, especially for kids that were just great for our little ones. The attached water park was wet enough, and cooled us off quite well.

The main attraction was the New Mexico Rattler. I have felt since riding this when it first opened that if it were in another location that it would get a lot more attention. It has very similar stats as Raven at Holiday World, and from what I remember, a similar feel. The air was pretty great, and laterals were surprisingly good. Another thing I love about this coaster is the acceleration into the tunnel. I don't know that it cracks my top ten, but NMR is one of the things that I had been looking forward to since finding out I would be here during operating season.

The waits were not bad at all (when there was a wait), I don't think we waited more than ten or fifteen minutes for the back seat. At first they did not have the back seat open, but that changed soon. I did both the back and the front seats, and the back was definitely the best for the air, and not at all rough. It is great to see that they are taking very good care of this coaster. We rode 5 times, and thought about one or two more later in the day, but they closed when the thunderstorms hit.

The only other coaster I rode there was Super Fire Ball. I had a hard time finding this on roller coaster data base (rcdb.com), so am not sure how to classify it. I saw this at the state fair when I was really young, and always wanted to ride it. Basically it is a loop, where the car goes forwards and backwards over and over again upside down. I thought the coolest thing about this was the upside-down views of the nearby NMR. I did this once.

We did not make it to the Galaxi, but if memory serves, we did not miss much. That was also planned for after the water park, but we got rained out.

The disco bumper cars were fun once again, and as I mentioned there were plenty of flats, and a train for the kids.

The water park consisted of one large attraction with many connecting parts. It was big enough that those of us who are adults could enjoy it as it had some slides. There were different levels on these slides, so the kids could decide to go on the shorter ones if they wanted. There was also a large bucket that would fill and douse anyone near or on the apparatus with water. All of this was welcome since the temperatures were in the 100's.

After finishing at the waterpark we were thinking about getting a couple more rides in, but the thunderstorms hit so everyone left. The park would not have been open long enough to have waited it out anyway.

This was a great day at a very fun park that appears to be on its way up. My kids really enjoyed it too, so it was a real winner.

Next up is Adventuredome in Las Vegas.