Goodbye Deja Vu - Get It Out While You Still Can Remember

Deja Vu was removed after the 2007 season. Deja Vu will be missed by me because it was worth the wait even though it was mostly a 40 minute line. Deja Vu sadly was removed because it had low capacity (The target capacity was around 440.), and it had mainteance problems. Six Flags Magic Mountain has one, and it is probably going to be closed after the 2008 season. Deja Vu at Great America is going to Silverwood in Idaho, and might open in July of 2008.

The ride was introduced for the 2001 season. It didn't open till way later in the season in October. I was on it in October. During that season, I would see painters taking there time painting the fences. The train wasn't even on the track even though the whole structure was up until way later in the year.

The first ride on it was really memorable as I was wearing a knitted hat. It was either Eagles, or Steelers hat, and it was going off my head until I stopped it from going off my head. It was colder, and windy on that day.

This ride is the most unique roller coaster I have ever been on. On the first tower, I felt like I was falling out of the seat. That is with the B seats. This ride had a very different seating layout. It had 2 seats together, (next row) it had 2 seats far apart from each other, 2 seats together, and so on from there. It had 8 rows of 2, and not 4 per row like a Batman the Ride even though people that have never ridden it before felt like it did.

For B seats on tower 1, I always felt like I was falling out of the seat. For A seats which I never liked whatsoever unless maybe I get the front row even though I never cared about getting it, there was this stupid metal square in front of you to hold the other seats, and you could barely stretch your legs. They even had warnings to not do it, and it bugged me the heck out of me. It didn't feel like you are falling out on these seats because you felt safe that you had this thing in front of you.

Those people that rode it in A seats could have thought, this ride isn't that much of a big deal because of that. I thought the A seats were for chickens, and the B seats were people that were a little braver. Some people didn't know the difference, and it was evident. They rather ride next to the person they were with rather than be stranded alone.

So, on tower 1, you felt you were falling out of it with B seats (Not with A at least for me). For tower 2, you felt like you were being pushed back in the seat, and it's a different feeling. I liked the falling out feeling better than the pushed back feeling as I liked going more towards the back on this ride.

Before, I talk about the layout, I want to talk about how the train gets up the towers. In the station, there is a square box with wheels that is called the catchcar. It's above the 6th row. It's called a catchcar because it catches the trains when they go up the tower. The catchcar goes up the tower by a cable and pulley system.

The ride layout is this. So, the catchcar is connected to the train. The floor lowers in the station, and you go backwards up this 178 foot tower. The catchcar is going up the tower too. This tower is a 90 degree tower. The catchcar goes up to a certain point, and than the catchcar let's the train go. Sometimes, it would wait a second or two to release, but other times it would release right away. At this height, you can see over the Demon, the waterpark, and so on. This is pretty tall, at 90 degrees.

So, the ride let's go (You are facing forward), and you go through the station fast, go through the cobra roll, than go through a big loop, and than the catchcar catches the train in the air, and than are going up tower 2 which is the same height and it's a 90 degree tower. The catchcar on this tower catches the train on a different row. It's like 3-4 rows on the second tower instead of 5-6 rows on the first tower. Now, you are facing forward up the tower, and you feel like you are pushed back. After the catchcar pushes the train up the tower, the catchcar let's go of the train like the first tower did.

Now, you go backwards through the entire ride again. That is after the second tower, you go through the loop, cobra roll, station, and than on tower one, a catchcar catches the train in the air (Not all the way up the tower, lower), and than it lowers slowly down into the station forwards. It catches it on the 5-6 row.

Why does the catchcar catch it on different rows? The reason is because you want to get the highest part of the train to release. So, on tower 2, the highest part of the ride is rows 3-4 instead of rows 5-6 which are lower because you are going up the second tower forward, and it's going to release backwards.

The biggest problem this ride had as in maintenance was called miscatching. This is when the catchcar didn't catch the trains on tower 1, or tower 2. It would be down for quite awhile especially in the first years because they had no idea what to do with the ride. Soon, they got better though. After the train wouldn't hook up with the catchcar, the train would go backwards.

For tower 2, it would go backwards on the bottom of the loop in which there were brakes that would stop it from going anywhere. For tower 2, it would go into the station, and the brakes would be be turned on. For either way, they would shut the brakes off once it was stopped, and you would go back and forth until it stopped more.

Another problem that happened on tower 2 was called a retraction. This is when the catchcar on tower 2 caught the train, but it wasn't in the right place. So, the catchcar went down the tower. I wonder if this also could be the fact that tower 2 lost power, and thus that's why. It could of been an overheating problem. Eventually, they fixed it,

Too be CONTINUED