New Years 2021 Texas Trip

Several months ago we booked a late December trip to Dallas to visit Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags Fiesta Texas. We still had flight credits that needed to be used, the kids still had a week off for mid-winter break, Texas is (usually) warm in the winter, and it has two operating Six Flags theme parks. We left on December 29th and stayed until January 5th. We'd originally booked our flight for 12:30pm, but Alaska airlines changed it on us to 7:00am. We didn't want to ask anyone to take us to the airport at 4:30am, so we opted to park at a hotel near the airport and have them shuttle us over. It was a bit stressful and tight on time when we arrived at the hotel, but we made it alright, and getting into Dallas early allowed us to get to the park around 2:30pm central time.

We let the kids do a few rides while Oscar figured out where to get us some food. We were HUNGRY! We hadn't eaten much in the morning since it was so early and we didn't have much of an appetite at those wee hours, so we were famished by the time we got to the park. 

There were still Christmas decorations during our trip. Here are the kids at the big nativity. 

After we ate I took Tyler on the Runaway Mountain indoor roller coaster while Oscar took Allison on the Antique Cars. She took a nap in the back, She was tired from waking up so early, though she'd also slept on the plane and in the car on the drive down. My girl loves her sleep!

Allison liked posing with the ornaments.

Here she is on the cloud bouncer while the boys were off doing 48+ inch coasters.

Later we walked through the "Mystic Acres Trail" to meet some characters. I'm happy they figured out how to make meeting characters possible. We went to Six flags St Louis, Six flags America, and Six flags Great Adventure over the summer, and all of them stated there would be no character greetings because of Covid 19 restrictions. Apparently you need 9 months to figure out how to put a gate between the children and the characters. 

Allison is so funny. She can't stay still when she's posing with characters. She'd be hugging them if she could, but since she can't, she dances.

Here's me on Pandemonium with Allison and the Rodeo with Tyler. Rodeo at Six Flags America was 52+ inchs while here it was 48+ with adult. I was expecting it to be like a bucking bronco, but it's actually really smooth. I don't see why the height restriction is so high. 

The kids were so excited to go sledding for the first time on the Frosty Snow hill made of shave ice. It rained heavily the next morning and washed it all away.

While we were watching the "Lone Star light show," a little boy who'd won several prizes at the carnival games gave Allison a hamster stuffy. She was delighted! She named it Cheeky and talked about it constantly the rest of the trip. I'd been videoing some of the show while she was sitting up closer to the lights with Oscar. I didn't realize until going through my pictures and videos of this trip a few weeks later that I'd actually captured the boy giving her Cheeky on video! 

I took Allison on the Carousel and we watched the Christmas tree light show while the boys finished up their ice cream. We called it a day then even though the park was still open for about 30 minutes. We were exhausted!

It rained hard the next morning. It was predicted to rain hard all day, so we figured we'd probably skip the park that day, but then it let up around noon and we figured we might as well go in for a few hours. When we got to the gate they said they'd be closing at 4 and many rides would remain closed. First we went around on the train so we could get a better idea of the park's geography, then we got off so Oscar could do Mr Freeze Reverse Blast (which he did 3 times). I took the kids on a ride then got them lunch. Our chicken and fries were cold, but there really weren't a lot of food options open with how few people were even in the park. After Oscar was done I went on the ride Mr Freeze and Superman: Tower of Power. I really like that Superman both shoots you up fast, then resets and drops you down fast. Most tower rides only do one or the other. Mr Freeze was fun too. We'd done the same ride at Six Flags St Louis, but there I sat in the back while this time I sat in the front. I vastly preferred the front. The back was a little bit too intense. 

Later that day Allison threw a violent angry fit when her Kindle wasn't behaving, then she completely zonked out in the bed with daddy from about 5:00-7:30! I knew she'd be hard to keep settled down when she woke up, and we hadn't adjusted to the time change yet, so we went out and looked for Christmas lights before picking up dinner.

It was a little disappointing since several homes on the list were no longer lit, but we still found a few goodies, like this house full of illuminated Santas and the 12 Days of Christmas neighborhood.

The next day the weather completely dumped rain all day long, which was the day we needed to drive to San Antonio to spend our next few days at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. The drive was longer than Google anticipated thanks to the extremely heavy rain slowing traffic down, and there were a few scary moments when we felt like we were driving through a waterfall. We ended up taking a play break at Mt Playmore in Austin so the kids could get out and run around. They only had about 45 minutes before it closed at 5:00pm, but it was worth the stop since we still had 2 hours of driving to go. Fortunately the rain improved considerably as we continued further south and was not raining at all about an hour before we reached our hotel. 

We were all exhausted by the time we made it to our hotel, enough to consider skipping the park that evening, but we were hungry and needed dinner. Our hotel was just a couple minutes away from the park, so we figured we might as well go in and get free food with our meal plan. Here we are arriving around 8:20pm and posing at the entrance with some of the neat Christmas decorations. 

Their main dining area is really neat with huge high ceilings. It felt like being in the great hall at Hogwarts. We ended up getting a HUGE dinner because they let us use both our lunch and dinner credits. Any other park we'd visited wouldn't let us use our lunch credits after 3pm, but the Texas parks don't seem to have that restriction. We took home a big bag of leftovers that night.

The carousel was right outside the Sangerfest hall, so I took the kids on that while Oscar took our leftovers back to the car. We then rode the ferris wheel and "The Pirates of the Deep Sea." I was expecting it to be a boat ride like Pirates of the Carribean, but it's actually a game ride where you shoot at pirates. The kids LOVED that one. I think Allison went on it about 9 times in our 3 days there.

I have fun memories of being at Disneyland with my cousins for New Year's Eve fireworks way back in 1996, and I'd been wanting to spend New Year's Eve at a theme park ever since. Who would have thought that the year I would get to would be during a pandemic?! And thanks to a day and a half of rain and storms, temperatures about 8° colder than usual, plus the pandemic, it was about as uncrowded as a holiday at a theme park ever could be. We had perfect views, and we literally walked from our previous ride into the viewing area arriving only a few seconds before it started without having to weave through any sort of crowds. The fireworks were at 10pm, and we really hadn't adjusted to the time change yet, so a 10pm show was like an 8pm show for us since the kids had been sleeping in and Allison kept getting good naps.

Apparently they had an even bigger fireworks show at midnight for park members with premium passes. I'll have to look into that some year when the kids are older and can stay up that late.

The next morning the kids and I enjoyed some hot tub time. They forgot to take their masks off when they first got in.

It was much more crowded the two following days than it'd been on New Years Eve. I'm sure it was still much less crowded than it would have been before the pandemic, but the warmer weather really brought in the crowds. Oscar took some video of the kids and I going on Road Runner Express (we're in the back rows). Oscar and Tyler then rode the Iron Rattler (awesome ride btw) while I took Allison on some kids' rides. They also got to pose for a picture with Taz. The sun was right on them, so Allison wouldn't look at the camera and Tyler kept his eyes closed.

Here's Allison on the train and both kids on Taz's Tornado.

At one point we split up so I could ride Superman and a couple other 54+ inch rides. When I was done I tried to rejoin the family (who were back on the Pirates of the Deep Sea ride), but I couldn't get across the train tracks to get to them. These ducks walked across the tracks right as the train was coming, so the train braked hard to keep from running them over. I guess it's not used to recovering from an unexpected break, because the train wouldn't move and the train bars didn't lift for around 30 minutes. I had to walk a long way around just to find a bathroom I could use.

Eventually I reunited with the family and we headed back to the hotel to get a little quiet time in before going back to the park for dinner. We actually got 2 of our 3 nights at our lovely, super close hotel free because Tyler had found an adult product under our bed at the HGVclub we stayed at in Las Vegas. They gave us 40,000 Hilton Honors points to make up for it. 

Tyler and I had a tremendously long wait for Wonder Woman when we got back, which sucked up nearly all of our evening time in the park. Thanks to social distancing requirements on the ride itself, they could only put so many people on each coaster at a time. On the plus side, the ride was AMAZING! I'd never been on a single rail coaster. Now I can't wait until Silverwood opens its single rail coaster this summer.

That evening Allison was so tired she put herself to sleep in the middle of our bed while the rest of us finished eating dinner. Oscar moved Allison over to a chair and foot rest where she slept those nights. Our kids do not do well with sharing a bed together, but fortunately Allison can sleep pretty much anywhere she can lay down. 

Here are the kids playing with Oscar the next morning.

The next day we went to the park and sent Tyler and Oscar to do Wonder Woman first thing. Their wait was about 25 minutes while Tyler and I waited over an hour. Meanwhile I took Allison on the ferris wheel, the pirate ride, and pandemonium. Oscar then brought Tyler back to us while he went off to do some 54+ inch rides and we rode pandemonium and pirates again before picking up lunch at Johnny Rockets. Allison was delighted there were onion rings in our meal. In this picture she's using an onion like she's flossing her teeth. She takes the breading off, eats the onion, then eats the breading.

Kids with Daffy Duck

Here's Tyler in front of Iron Rattler (awesome roller coaster btw) then I watched the kids do a few kids' rides while daddy finished up some 54+ inch rides. Allison had fun chasing the same ducks who'd delayed the train the previous day.

The kids' area had nice decorations and blowups. I only wish the playground had been open. Sometimes the kids are worn out from rides and just need a chance to run around and play.

We finished up our last few rides then grabbed dinner and headed back to the hotel. We had a long drive back to Dallas the next day, so we opted out of staying until closing.

After our long drive back to Dallas the next day (though not quite as long as the first drive now that we had nice weather), we went to Six Flags Over Texas for a few hours. Oscar and I finally got to ride Batman, which had been closed our previous days. It was a clone of the Batman we'd gone on at Six Flags Magic Mountain. We also did Judge Roy Scream as a family since Allison was big enough for it. She loved how many roller coasters she could ride at this park!

To our complete delight , the Frosty Snow Hill was back. The kids loved it, though the lines for it were always long and slow. When it was rained out on January 30th, we assumed they wouldn't be rebuilding it for just a few days left of the season, but they did!

Here's my cute girl dancing around while meeting characters. She's got so much energy that she had to dance since she couldn't hug them. While I took Tyler on the New Texas Giant roller coaster she made a friend and went on the Boot Scootin' ride with her. 

We tried to go on the antique cars, but then the steam engine on the nearby train ran out of water. They evacuated the whole area in case it exploded (which fortunately it didn't). Before we were evacuated Oscar and I showed off our wedding rings to prove we were not "single" riders.

Fortunately the Titan coaster was far enough away that Tyler and I could still go on it. Here he is posing with the holiday decorations after we were done.

The next day the kids did their school zoom meetings at the hotel. I'd had a nightmare we'd returned to find Nibbler dead stuck inside an airtight container, so I was enormously relieved when I looked at our home camera and saw him walking around perfectly alive.

After school we went on the El Vibora bobsled ride, El Sombrero, and a few of the other rides we hadn't gotten around to yet. 

This is "Shockwave," though we called it the Ariel ride. Allison was worried about going upside down and didn't want to do it at first, but then Oscar told her Ariel the mermaid loves to go upside down and that she could pretend to be just like Ariel. Allison was now willing to try it, and it quickly became her favorite ride. She rode it at least once all 4 days we visited. On our last day she rode in the front seat with Oscar.

And on our last day we did a little Zoom school before heading to the airport to catch our flight home. Here's Oscar tossing Allison on the bed.

Plane views

Because the shuttle at the hotel we parked at has very strict social distancing requirements, we decided to send Oscar on ahead while the rest of us waited for our bags. It'd be easier to fit one guy in a shuttle than all 4 of us with bags. He then came back to pick the rest of us up. We had everything before he returned, so the kids did a little coloring and ate the snacks we'd been given on the plane. They really liked that the cheese crackers were shaped like airplanes.