Photo TR: New Hotness, East Coast, and More!

Hello, I'm Nathan/Blue Turbo, and welcome to a collection of my adventures from summer 2014.

Contents: (Numbering based off of the start of TPR trip)

Day -6 and -5: Coaster Campout and Cedar Point (Below)

Day -4 and -3: Kalahari Resort Link

Day -2 and -1: Boring stuff we won't mention

Mini New Hotness

Day 0: Coney Island and Stricker's Grove Link

Day 1: Kings Island Link

Day 2: Kentucky! Link

Day 3: Holiday World Link

Day 4: Indiana Beach Link

Day 5: Six Flags Great America Link

Mini East Coast

Day 6 and 7: Hersheypark

Day 8: Knoebels

Day 9: Dorney Park

Day 10: Six Flags Great Adventure

Cedar Point Coaster Campout

This summer was amazing! My first (and technically second) TPR trip, meeting some great people, and riding roller coasters. But before we get to that, I had some fun on my own. This first update is more wordy than picturey (yes I know that's not a word) because I just got a new camera for the trip and most of the night picture didn't turn out. Plus it was raining in the morning so I didn't want to risk it.

Cedar Point held their first ever Coaster Campout on July 18th/19th. It was a free event for members of coaster clubs, and it was outstanding. The original plan was to have guests camp in tents in the grass of the Antique Cars, but due to the overwhelming registration, they had to make the event three times as big, covering the entire area near Maverick. Even while writing this I don't know how they were able to hold this event. There was a couple hundred of people camping in the park, and a large number that were just their for everything else, and every person got admission for two days, two meals, night and morning ERT, and the opportunity to sleep in the park. Did I mention that it was free to attend this event? However they managed to pull this off, it was indeed a great event.

The morning of the18th, I went to check in to get my tickets and credentials and then was free to enjoy the rest of my day. I got Fast Lane Plus since last time I was at the park I didn't get on very much and I did not regret it. After an incredible day it was time for dinner. There was a simple buffet for all the campers that was rather tasty. Next, I went back to the hotel to get my gear for the night. After getting my campsite number, I had to haul my tent and bag from the resort entrance to Mean Streak. They sent people in groups to help the staff at the campsites, but we got many strange looks from GP as a large number of us walked through the Gemini midway carrying camping equipment. After setting up my tent, it was time for some ERT on Mine Ride, Skywalk, and Maverick, which was a blast. The ride-ops were having fun, the lines were short for how many people were there, and Tony Clark was there riding rides and eating Smore's with us.

Now it was time for what made this event truly unique, spending the night inside of Cedar Point! I fell asleep and then around 2am, I am woken up by some creepy music and screams in the distance. I try to look outside of my tent, but since I was way back at the exit of the train, I could not see what was happening. This went on for about fifteen minutes when a voice comes on over the speakers. It was the witch saying that there were cowboys and werewolves running around as a preview for the new Haunt maze that was by Gatekeeper. While I am not a fan of Haunt related things, I thought it was a great way to get people excited about the new maze.

The morning meant that the event was almost over, but there was still fun to be had. It had rained on and off during the night, and the sky looked very ominous when I packed up my things. I took my stuff back to my hotel and heading over to Millennium Force for some ERT (Gatekeeper was also including but I didn't go over there). On my second ride of MF, I could feel it starting to sprinkle, and by the third the rain was coming down steadily. I didn't let that stop my, I threw on my TPR poncho and kept riding. I got a total of ten rides that morning before I gave in because the rain was rather painful while going 90 mph. I headed over to breakfast at Coasters Drive-In. While there I got to talk with some of the workers that were responsible for the event which was really cool. A huge thank you to Cedar Point for putting together such and incredible event. They did a great job, especially with the size of the event and the fact that they had never done something like this before.

Now some picture of my journey and the event:

My mom doesn't like flying so we took the train for 36 hours...and that's just from Needles to Chicago

More train, getting into Sandusky at 1am

There was a lot of this on the way there

See

And more. Riveting. I was mostly just testing out my camera with these

At the park, and I wonder what this sign can be for

Time for dinner

Standard theme park buffet food: Burgers and hot dogs. I better get used to this

My tent that a bought solely for this event

I was in the corner next to the train station, Mean Streak, and Maverick. I could hear maintenance doing some work on Mean Streak's trains

I got to sleep this close to Maverick, which just happens to be one of my top steel coasters!

The view from inside of my tent

Back when this event was people were speculating about what this meant

More Maverick. Thank you to my camera for focusing on the trees

Everyone that camped got on of these blankets

I thought it would be cool to show the souvenirs I got from each park. Here I got a Millennium Force hoodie and a 2014 shirt

And to wrap up this update with even more Maverick. Please ignore the ghost people, thank you

This marks the end the Coaster Campout, but this is just the beginning of my fun! Next time, the Kalahari Resort.

I love this report already! Keep going!

Coaster Campout seemed so incredibly cool, I hope it spreads to other Cedar Fair Parks, like Knotts!

Wish I could be a part of Coaster Campout! Looks like so much fun.

Love the report already! Are you going to rank the coasters? Can't wait for the rest.

^Thanks. I might do a ranking in future updates, but I didn't want to do one for this one as it focuses on the event

That's cool you got to camp out at Cedar Point. But that must have been uncomfortable camping on that sidewalk (unless you had a good inflatable mattress), as putting your tent on the soil right behind your tent would have been far more comfortable.

Thanks for the report - I'm looking forward to the rest

Thank you everyone for your interest in the report! And now...

The Kalahari Resort, Sandusky OH

After a great time at Cedar Point, we headed to the Kalahari Resort, which is about a twenty minute drive. This was actually my second time visiting the Kalahari, but last time we were there a lot of the slides were closed so this was pretty much a new experience for me. The resort is a hotel with a large indoor waterpark and an outdoor pool and activities. The indoor waterpark is very large a features a wave pool, lazy river, two flow riders, a kiddie play structure, a body bowl, a Behemoth bowl, mat racers, several tube slides, several family raft slides, a couple body slides, and a conveyer belt water coaster. The outside has a pool, kiddie structure, small zipline course, ropes course, rock wall, and a small zoo where you can feed the animals. There is also an arcade, black light mini golf, and big play structure inside.

The waterpark was a lot of fun especially since everything was open, but I think my mom had an even better time than I did. She normally doesn't go on many rides. Her roller coaster limit is the Vekoma roller skater at SFGAm. I got her to go on the family raft slides because she will go on those when we go to waterparks and she liked them. I somehow convinced her to go on the Behemoth Bowl, she then made me go on it about ten more times after that, so it's safe to say that she enjoyed it. Then, after ever more convincing I got her to go on the water coaster which she ending up liking and riding a few more times.

Overall, the Kalahari was a great way to spend a couple days, but I wouldn't have gone if I wasn't already in the area. If you are in the area I would recommend checking it out, especially since the waterpark is open to the public. Now, pictures:

The wave pool, and while it is not the biggest, it is still fun

The mat racing slides, with four lanes

The two Proslide bowls were a lot of fun

Here you can see the two other slide complexes where most of the slides are located

The orange slide is the water coaster. It is one of the conveyer belt powered ones, and it had a couple of pops of airtime

The kiddie structure features a couple of small slides, and of course a water bucket

The zipline course is just a small square. The resort was not very busy when we were there, but there was a 45 minute wait for the zipline, definitely not worth it.

The outdoor pool and the zipline in action.

This little cafe had a really nice variety of food and was actually very good.

Found this in the gift shop. I've always wanted nature to come in tube form.

The black light mini golf even has a shark that eats your ball in it.

It also has an elephant who doesn't appear to have a body.

The final hole has the surfer who can apparently part water.

Just what every "zoo" needs, rabbits

These are Barbary Sheep apparently, I don't know what else to day about them.

There is so much judgement radiating from this alpaca.

The one on the right is either entranced by the food, or mentally scarred.

So much sass.

Hello random porcupine and hello fence ruining my shot.

"Please take me with you."

Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you, moving on.

Don't know what is bird is, but it has a sweet mohawk.

I just love zebras, and I don't know why.

"What are you looking at?"

So these Nilgai are employees, ok.

Just a bunch of kangaroos being lazy.

They also have pony rides. I don't know which I like better, the weird pony names, or the fact that they crossed out the price.

This camel thanks you for reading.

Stay tuned for the start of the Mini New Hotness tour with bonus parks!

Neat report so far! I've never been to Kalahari and it's only an hour from me, but I'll finally be visiting in December so it was neat seeing the pictures of it.

Sorry for the delay with this update but I have been very busy will finals just around the corner, and now...

Bonus Park Fun: Coney Island and Stricker's Grove

After spending a few days with my sister in Cleveland, it was time to head down to Cincinnati for the start of what turned out the be the highlight of my summer, the Mini New Hotness and Mini East Coast Tours. As it was my first trip with TPR, I didn't really know what to expect but was super excited. I headed to the airport to meet up with those doing the Coney Island bonus.

Coney Island was an interesting little park and a great way to start the trip. Everyone headed straight to the only credit of the park, the coaster formerly knows as the Pepsi Python, Python. It is a simple Galaxi coaster, but it was quite fun. After lunch, we checked out the flat rides the park has to offer. As I have not been to very many classic amusement parks, a lot of the flats were new to me. I had a lot of fun getting to know the people on the trip and experiencing some new rides.

After the few hours at Coney Island, we heading back to the airport to pick up the rest of the group, and were off to dinner, or so we thought. I thought we were going to be eating close to the hotel/Kings Island, which I knew was not very far from the airport since I passed it on my way in. The drive seemed to be taking longer than it should have, and that is when people started putting two and two together.

When the bus finally stopped, we were at Stricker's Grove. This park is very interesting as it is only open to the public two days out of the year, the rest of the time it is able to be rented for private events. The day we were there was not a public day, in fact there was a church group there, but thanks to a donation to the church by Robb and Elissa, they agreed to let us come to the park for an hour to get the credits. Awesome! The park has two wooden coasters, Tornado and Teddy Bear, and Teddy Bear beat out Banshee for being my 100th credit. The park itself was small, but cozy and the coasters were fun. Overall, the day was a great bonus start to what will be a fantastic trip and get some somewhat hard to get credits.

First things first, where is the food going to be, and why isn't it in the Cuddle Up?

Wow, Oz has sure let itself go

The Euro Bungy, it sadly doesn't allow flips

One of the classic attractions at Coney Island

First credit of the trip, Python

That first drop was actually quite nerve wracking

Python before the helix of death

One of the midways with a Tilt a Whirl and Moser drop ride, The Scream Machine, which was rather fun

The Rock-O-Plane was a great time, but I couldn't quite the hang of them to get multiple flips

Ah, the ferris wheel, which was located right next to a country show. Now I don't normally mind country music, but this was entertainingly bad country music. Think of the most stereotypical country music you can and than make it even more stereotypical and with bad singing

A view of the pool which has couple of water slides

This here is the Tempest. The ride itself was memorable as I was sliding back and forth crashing into the seat dividers, but the breaks on the ride would not hold so it took the operator almost ten minutes to load the ride for us an and almost twenty to get us off afterwards

We leave Coney Island with a picture of this very nice path through the trees

Now to Stricker's Grove with a look at the two coasters and the mini golf

Kiddie turtle ride

Are they surprised by how excited grown adults are to ride two family wooden coasters?

A look a the Tornado, which actually had a few good moments of airtime

The main area of the park with the two coasters and flying scooters

Tornado lift hill and a super roundup

NERD!

The train for Teddy Bear is quite cute, but can we take a moment to appreciate the face the kid in the front is making

Here is my failed attempt to take a picture of the park sign with my phone on a moving bus

You know you are with TPR when your first dinner is at Carrabba's

Just curious, For anyone at the Campout:

Did Tony Clark talk about what happened at No Coaster Con? He said he might say the story at the Campout and I'm wondering.

I don't know if he told the story or not, but I didn't hear it

I hope they do the coaster campout again next year. It sounds like an awesome event.

Did the park staff have to go around waking people up to get everyone to pack up their tents before park opening? lol

^They played the Reveille bugle call over the loudspeakers to wake everyone up

Was just at a holiday event where Cedar Point confirmed the coaster campout would be returning in May. They haven't announced an exact date yet but did say it would be open to everyone so sounds like the event is growing this year.

Great start Nathan. The first drop on Python got me too, but I think that was because it was my first coaster ride in almost a year. Tornado was a lot of fun, especially in the back!

Sorry for the really long delay between updates. I didn't have access to the pictures over break and the start of the semester was too crazy to have time to sit down and put everything together for an update, but now...

The Banshee Bash, Kings Island

The official first day of the Mini New Hotness Tour was a big one, the Banshee Bash at Kings Island. Over 200 people from around the country and beyond came to check out the new hotness of Banshee. The park took out all of the stops for the event, and were promoting the heck out of it. There was a big post on their website and there was even a story on the event on the local news which we saw while we were in the lobby of the hotel! It is very smart of the park to make a big deal of the fact there are people traveling from all over the world to come to the park.

The event itself was incredible, lasting 16 hours! The morning started with some ERT on Bat, Banshee, and their giant Frisbee Delirium. We then moved over to get some rides in on Diamondback. The park offered some ERT over at the waterpark, but I didn't have my swimsuit with me that day. After checking out the rest of the park we had a lunch with some guest speakers. After lunch the park took us behind the scenes of Banshee, Beast, and Diamondback were I got incredible shots of all of them. We were then free to roam the park again during which my group and I had an interesting experience at the Subway in the park. The girls in front of us seemed like they had never ordered a sandwich before. They kept changing their minds about what they wanted and the worker was force to throw away about two sandwiches worth of meat in the process. I give props to the worker for dealing with them because I know I wouldn't have had the patience for that.

That adventure leads us to Cirque Imagine, the parks acrobatic/cirque de soleil-esque show, which we had reserved seats for as part of the Banshee Bash. The show was actually pretty good and I was rather impressed by it. Afterwards, we had a Q&A session with the cast which was very neat. The park also gave us great seats for the fireworks show in the restaurant above the front entrance. While the GP left the park we waited for the most anticipated part of the event, night ERT! First up was Banshee and Diamondback in which I got plenty of rides in on both. The night ended with a hour of ERT on Beast, which is just an incredible experience at night. Caroline and I were really lucky and managed to get a front row ride on the last train of the night!

Overall, it was a fantastic day. I really enjoyed the park itself and all the extras that were thrown in for the event were and added bonus. Now onto the pictures...

The schedule for the day came in lanyard form

I thought we were in Ohio, how did we end up in Vegas?

The reason we are all here. I was pleasantly surprised by Banshee, although it is not as intense as Montu, it still packs a punch and is incredibly fun

But anyone who complains about it rattling needs to pipe down. The only time there was a slight rattle was at the bottom of the batwing/pretzel, and it doesn't affect the ride at all

The first drop is fantastic. The twist is very sharp and you get slightly whipped around it, especially in the back

Also, the crew was fantastic. During ERT there were periods where the train was secure but they had to wait for the previous train to be far enough along before dispatching. One time we actually stopped on the lift for a second to wait for the block to clear

I forget to change my shutter speed for these pictures, but it makes them look really cool and show the sense of speed the ride has

Zero-G into the distance

This was my first time on a giant frisbee and I really enjoyed it!

These signs were up all over the park, and my friend pointed out the Banshee's cleavage and now that is all I can see in that sign

Make the pain stop!

Beast station. While the ride itself isn't that special, it turns into an incredible experience flying through the trees at night.

All of the coaster nerds in aww at all of the wood!

[insert obligatory shot of first drop here]

The train beginning to descend after the second lift hill.

Speed of Beast

Even from behind the scenes, most of the layout is still hidden among the trees

Artsy distant shot of Diamondback's first drop

Wow, I was accidentally being very artsy with these photos

More photos that have too slow of a shutter speed because I fail at photography

A wild train has appeared

Went up the Eiffel tower to get some aerial shots of the park. Those that followed the construction of Banshee will be very familiar with this angle. Bat is there in the background, and I was blown away by it. Such a different experience from Iron Dragon which I had been on a few day priors, and this is a very good thing

The most intense part of the ride, and from this view I could see how incredible the crew was, no double stacking!

An overview of Planet Snoopy

I was not prepared for that water jet (Photo credit: Andy Hatzos-The Great Zo)

Diamondback- two trains and water splash in the same photo. Skill!

Firehawk and Flight of Fear. Firehawk was surprisingly good. Flight of Fear on the other hand was painful and the only enjoyable part of my ride on it was some random guy in back of me singing Iggy Azalea and ironically singing "I'm in the fastlane" right after we came to a stop on the mid course brakes

Racer and Windseeker. I don't find Windseekers that exciting but they do offer some good views of the park. However, they are enjoyable when you ride them with someone who doesn't like heights

Racer was really fun with some good moments of airtime. Ending up riding it around three or four times throughout the day

Drop Tower, while not my favorite drop tower, it was still a lot of fun with a great view of Banshee. It is a cool feeling to stand near it when it drop for the wind that gets kicked off of it

Vortex, which looks very pretty, is a great way to get a headache

Invertigo which was better than a normal boomerang, and the theater for Cirque Imagine

Is that the most iconic thing from the 80s?

Cool shirt I got that has the logos of all the major coasters in 8bit graphics on the back and the park logo on the front

I will end this long overdue update with the Banshee sign at night surrounded by fog and neat lighting. Next time (and hopefully in a more timely manner) Kentucky, all of it.

I want to go back to KI so bad! The last time I was there was Stunt Coasters first year! Missing some great credits.

That 8 bit shirt is awesome

...Is that the most iconic thing from the 80s?

No, I believe this here was Iconic in the 1980s, too...

And her birthday would have been tomorrow, so HB-RIP Farrah Fawcett.

I don't find Windseekers that exciting but they do offer some good views of the park. However, they are enjoyable when you ride them with someone who doesn't like heights

What kind of weirdo gets scared on Windseekers? Not me, that's for sure.

Banshee Bash really was a great time, it was my first TPR event, and now the GF and I are dying for some more. I will have to disagree with you, however, when you say Banshe had little to no rattle. While I found myself thinking just that at first while riding in the purple train, and the blue train, the Aqua/teal train vibrated my brain so badly I got off with a headache. Alisha, my girlfriend who was also at the event, felt the same way. When we met Robb, that was actually one of our conversations. Great coaster nonetheless, I just will be avoiding the aqua/teal train like the plague on my next visit

Thanks for putting this PTR together, I've been far to lazy to write up mine thus far haha.

Great report! Banshee Bash was one of the best days of the tour and Kings Island was an excellent park. I agree with you about the rattle on Banshee...it was noticeable but didn't detract significantly from the ride. I actually liked Flight of Fear, though the Kings Dominion version is significantly better (it's smoother, darker, and doesn't slow down as much), but in any case the random singer made the ride. Lastly, Racer was probably the hidden gem of Kings Island's coaster lineup, especially when it was racing. I think we rode four times and the ride was just as fun each time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the report, regardless of how long it may end up taking to finish it.

Awesome update. Thanks for ruining the Banshee banner flag for me!