kcsteve

A pleasant turn of events will put me in Florida 2/21 - 2/23. I'm going to see a band in Orlando, but decided to turn this into a mini thrillseeking adventure. I'm flying into Tampa because it's cheaper and I don't have to leave at 0-dark-thirty on the 23rd. Given this, I'll hit BGT whilst I'm in town. I was last there in January 2008. I bought a hotel and park package through the BGT website. If memory serves, and I'm reading Google Maps right, I stayed in what is now the Baymont Inn & Suites Tampa (E on the below map, N 30th and Bougainvillea). That hotel is no longer a BGT partner hotel. Hotels I didn't have any issues or complaints at the time, but it was four years ago. Online reviews of the hotels in the area seem to suggest the area isn't terribly great. But it is the internet. I'm leaning toward the Hyatt Place, which is just a little further north. I'll be able to hit the park all three days I'm there, so a package deal with a length-of-stay ticket is nice. Are the partner hotels a safe bet? Would you recommend staying elsewhere? Thanks, Robb, and or anyone else.

Right now I don't have any dogs, but these are the three Labs I used to have. Sadly, they've all gone to the big fire hydrant in the sky. Tieque, Tobin and Tayan

Mine is my first static-line skydiving jump from 3,500 feet. I'm at eight jumps now. My last one was the first one where I pulled my own ripcord.

A slug was assaulted by a turtle. At the trial, the lawyer asked the slug to describe what happened. The slug said, "Well, everything happened so fast."

Obviously he should go as Peter Pan.

I live in Kansas City, and I drove to the park in 2008 and 2009, but flew in 2010 and 2011. It's about a 7 hour drive. I flew into Cincinnati, though, since I like to hit Kings Island since I'm in the area. It's about a 4 hour drive or so from Kings Island. If I was only going to hit HW, I'd fly into Louisville as it's not that far away.

Okay, maybe worst trip report ever wasn't quite accurate. Unfortunately I bumped into a limit of phpBB when creating it, so some things are a bit whacked. The park is unique, that's for sure. I didn't know what to expect. If you're the type that can have fun anywhere, you should be able to have fun there.

Okay, this looked fine when I previewed it, so I don't know what's wrong. If any mods know what the heck is wrong with this, please fix or let me know. When I preview the post, it looks correct, but when it gets posted, it's all messed up. I guess that helps with the worst trip report aspect. UPDATE: Apparently there's a limit to the number of inline attachments you can have. I've deleted some and it's showing up fine now. I'm done with it.

On June 5, 2011, a day that started out dreary, Jojo19799 and I met up at Indiana Beach, which is situated on the lovely Lake Shafer in Monticello, Indiana. Fortunately, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, so all was not lost. It turned out to be an awesome day, and an even better night (for me, anyway). We walked around. We talked, We wondered about the older guy in the too-short muscle shirt from which his belly protruded. We wondered about the pregnant lady in the bikini. I wondered about the shirtless guy who could have won the man-boob competition hands down at Texas Giant Bash. But mostly we took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Our goal was to create the worst trip report in the history of trip reports. So, let's begin, shall we? This will be quite heavy on the pictures. Fortunately, when we arrived, the park was open, otherwise this would have been a boring trip report Oh, carp! They're here! We found a map to guide us on our journey We visited Elaine's Awesome Gift Shop, but sadly, Elaine wasn't working that day Elaine's had some awesome gifts, like this crab fan, which I am imitating Elaine's also had this awesome wall of, uh, signs There was Rainbow's End There was Quackers There was Boardwalk Shops with gifts from here & there There was the Summer Shop We learned you shouldn't try on hats if you have colored spray in your hair We played (Keep Feeling) Fascination, a game with a ball and a bunch of holes, and I won twice, and that song kept going through my head We didn't play 21, even though it's a nationally franchised game of skill, not to be confused with Blackjack We discovered that it's always time for popcorn, something the carp readily agreed with We located the first aid station in case there were any accidents And, should nature call, we learned where men could relieve themselves And where the ladies could as well We located the bath house Apparently the caramel apples came in the male and female variety I would have fixed the sign if I had a Sharpie, but, alas, they will be stuck speaking Espanol We enjoyed the Elephant Ears, though they were of the Asian variety vs. the African variety that can be found at Cedar Point There were many different items you could buy if you were on a high-calorie diet We were amused that in addition to Cheese Fries and Nacho Supreme, regular fries and nachos were also available, though apparently not as important We discussed changing the Breadstix to Breadstyx, but we never figured out what a Walking Taco was Alcoholics downstairs, Alcoholics Anonymous upstairs We learned that Indiana's largest suspension bridge is in fact at Indiana Beach I got up on stage and played bass to some 12-bar blues and sang the chorus to "Closing Time" on the karaoke, the later of which is most definitely not normal behavior for me. The bar was mostly empty, with maybe a half dozen people plus a few staff members. It was definitely the highlight of my trip, which included HoliWood Nights and Kings Island the days before. JoAnna allegedly has my texts from that night. I imagine she'll share them with you all. And remember, I didn't set out to make this an awesome trip report. If you want to see all of the pics from the trip, they're available on Flickr. This isn't Carowinds, unfortunately We apparently traveled back in time to the '90s, as beepers were forbidden We learned there were some places we couldn't go Steppenwolf was not available for comment This sign was a mystery as it didn't appear to belong or refer to anything in the vicinity Here we see the problem American's have that must drive the Brits and Aussies nuts Your photo is being taken! And apparently it's exciting! Alcohol was readily available The Roof Garden Lounge didn't see me coming And they most definitely didn't refuse to serve me drinks

Did you hear Weiner resigned? Congress Interruptus, he pulled out early. If any Bag of Crap post is worthy of a Bag of Crap, that is one.

That. Is. Fantastic. I knew I should have watermarked my image!

This IS TPR, remember?

Now I don't feel so special. And someone got WAY too organized with their photo. Edit: That's sarcasm, people!

I received my first ever Bag of Crap today. I've dreamt of this day. The amount of crap is phenomenal. I can only wonder how much time was spent packaging all of this just for me. It brings a tear to my eye. Bag Crap

There were no flaming dinosaurs at Kings Island today. One was strangely absent, though...