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Europa Park Day 2 - part 1: so we got up before park open again, grabbed breakfast, and met up with the park guide who once again walked us into the park before general guests. .this time bringing us around the left side of the big lagoon with the boats (which I was planning to ride later) so pretty when it's empty. . and loved this train "station" over here in the Russia area. . .wait. . why were we in Russia? because our morning ERT was on Euro-Mir this am! going up the disco steps to the station. . . and getting ready to ride. That "bees in a can" song gets stuck on one's head! sheesh. . was humming it for a couple of hours after! our host. . whom, after seeing several updates on the new coaster videos posted - and hosted by him, I now recall his name was Lukas. WHEE !!! Since I see AJ and Andy in this pic, I have to assume this one is courtesy of Brad Roach. after multiple rides on Euro Mir (and I must admit, that I could only ride 4-5 times before I needed a break. . . going down that drop backwards - more often than not - wears you out) I had planned to ride the "stupid" stuff today. . things that didn't really do much, or just the dumb rides I really like. and to my surprise, almost the entire group I had hung out with on day 1, wanted to hang with and also ride the dumb stuff. . at least for a bit. So since we were right here, we took another spin on Bench: the Ride (this time with working a/c) WHEE!!!!!!! hahahahaha. . just look how thrilled we all are! (tho honestly, it was such stupid fun. .I loved it) right around the corner was a station for the inpark monorail, so we headed there and took over the first couple of rows. a nice, slow moving - 10 minute or so ride (I think it was that long). . great views of the whole back portion of this gorgeous park. Remember, it was still really early - park had just opened, and we had started in the center at Euro Mir. . so the people hadn't really made it over here, which is why it looks so empty at the moment. I see you. .and will get to you, later! shamefully, didn't do ANY shows on this trip. There just was not enough time, so that means I need to go back. But loved this "Globe Theater" in the England Section. theming! and made it over to the part I've been calling "Amity". . . this inpark monorail really does give such a great, relaxing ride. and goes over the rapids ride. Doesn't look like it gets you too wet. . . ummmm. . . I spoke too soon! Aquatica Super-splash (which I just rode the other weekend at SWSA). . . SKLOOSH!!!! YES! such a good coaster. . . will see YOU later too. and you too, Blue Fire construction cranes over towards Greece.. where they are building the new coaster I totally forgot Europa Park has one of these. . .didn't' ride it, and didn't' even remember until I saw this pic I took. that's a long rapids ride! see? "Amity" the loading/exit station for the Monorail where we got on, was in the same building as the "roller coaster restaurant". . .so although it wasn't open yet (it was too early, and it was fully booked anyways), was able to peek in and see the "serving" tracks that are used to bet the food to the tables. wasn't quite ready to ride the slow moving barges around the lake - I think we were headed to Arthur perhaps. . .but we walked along it, and again, stopped for pics. there are SO many photo spots in this park even the attractions list is well done. and then we went to England. I mean. . how could I not stop for this? but we had spotted this from the monorail. . and I REALLY wanted to ride it. yep, my kind of stupid ride. so dumb, there was ZERO line for it. . and there were 6 of us. . .so it was a complete TPR takeover of Crazy Taxi. . LOL (and the operator encouraged us to take pictures while riding, hence so many cameras out ) wheeee! after Crazy Taxi. . we headed over to Ireland. it's the kiddie section. . but there are a few rides over here that Adults can ride. . . I didn't really WANT to. . I'm absolutely not a credit whore. . . . but yeah, I got on the kiddie coaster with the group. but after we all got to ride the spinning dragons. . .which is a big ol gay "Tilt a Whirl" type of ride. I mean, you ride in pastel femmy dragons! it was awesome. and tractors. . . yup. . slow moving, bouncing up and down tractors. and we rode them. the train even comes thru the kiddie section. . with no drop-bars, they just expect people not to be dumb and to move out of the way. ah. . Europe! next up on the silly/dumb ride agenda for me was the infamous "Creepy dolls" ride. . . where you ride a slow moving round boat past nightmare fuel clowns! turns out it's THEMED to Marionettes. . . but that doesn't make it *any* less creepy. and it was awesome! there was also a pretty creepy/weird boat ride closeby that was also themed. .this time to fairies and mushrooms! we'd come back to ride this one. . . but . . yeah. . several creepy boat rides over here in this area and a "hanging" monorail themed to Leonardo DaVinchi's inventions. but we were headed towards the front gate, to ride the "flying theater". . think it was called the Volarium, or something? on the way tho. . passed the golden idol mascot of the park: and there was a meet and greet going on. NO idea who she is, but she had a short line, so I hopped in it. (later ont he way back, the Elephant was out, but his line was really long, so passed him by) headed to the front gate to shop, and ride a flying theater ooo. .they have some of the Berlin Wall here? Photo op! never made it outside the front gates (a shame, as the pics that Erik shared, show that it's beautiful out there). . .but we just had too much we wanted to do. and flying theater was the one everyone wanted before it got too busy (since it's near the front gate). cool model of it in the queue. heck, the whole queue for it was pretty cool. . even if the show was just "Soarin" but over Europe. I dont' remember much of it. . just that it was "ok" Queue is great tho to be continued in part II. . . .

Hope it's still cool to drop photo TR's in discussion threads... let me know if otherwise. Happy month of spooks! Yesterday I got to squeeze out some time to come check out the Pumpkins at Kentucky Kingdom event. Kentucky Kingdom's been doing a huge "family friendly" push this year, and this event certainly epitomizes it, imo. It's a night and day difference between 2019's HalloScream event with haunted houses, spooky sculptures, and even playing a shortened version of Friday the 13th movie in the 5D cinema. Now it's all about Pumpkins! Lots and lots of pumpkins! Frankly speaking, I think this event works really well for Kentucky Kingdom. It's a very local-focused event geared toward families having a place to bring their children without any worry of scares or safety issues (decent security and police presence throughout the park). There were multiple new shows in the park including a glow drumming show, a magician, and a country singer from Bardstown, KY named Will Wright. Thrill seekers can still get night rides on all of the park's major coasters (except T3, which is closed for the rest of the season). People of all ages were out in the park donning halloween costumes, and there were booths set up throughout the front circle of the park for kids to trick or treat at throughout the day. Here's something I don't think I've ever seen at Kentucky Kingdom before: a parade! The Glow Drummers as well as some familiar and new mascots marched the full front circle of the park twice a day starting and ending at the amphitheater. In front of Prof. John's Flying Machines, they cleared out some tables to put in a very small hay maze. The walls are just high enough that most kids can't see over. The two new shows playing in the amphitheater are Glow Drummers and local magician David Garrard (didn't catch his show unfortunately). They do two shows, a daytime show and a nighttime show. There's a second stage with two other acts, including Bardstown country singer Will Wright playing his songs between the carousel and Thunder Run. And last but not least... the pumpkins! And another friendly reminder, night rides are back as well! They're not quite the pitch-black rides you'd expect at other parks, but still nice getting to experience these rides during unusual hours of the day (and in the colder weather). I managed to be on the last train of the night on Storm Chaser which was also cool.

^I was hoping to ride this earlier in the summer but it wasn't open yet. An Italian Movieland Studios home made mission space just sounds epic!

^There will be a lot next week at the official announcement.

The family and I headed to Hershey this past Saturday to check out Dark Nights, their inaugural haunt event. While they've had "Hersheypark in the Dark" for several years, this is the first time they've actually added a number of walk-through haunted houses to their lineup. We went in with pretty low hopes overall, expecting it to be packed and crowded based off what we've seen from HP so far this season, and since we weren't planning on buying any Fast Lane passes, we pretty much were resigned to only riding a handful of rides and hopefully getting through all of the houses. Although the park opens at 2:00 PM on their October weekends, we got into town around 12:00, hoping to grab some lunch at Chocolatier. We walked up the steps and asked for a table for four, only to find out that they were COMPLETELY booked the entire remainder of the day. Apparently they now take reservations, compared to last year where it was walk-up only. Oh well. Instead we pivoted over to Chocolate World for a while, and did their free factory tour dark ride. While this has usually been a walk-on for us in the past, the line ended up being about 45 minutes. And trying to walk through Chocolate World's retail areas was tough, as it was wall-to-wall people. A definite sign of things to come for the remainder of the day. After Chocolate World, we lined up outside the gates; the lines to enter were already back towards the tram dropoff points, and by 1:30 PM, they had started opening up four of the gates to begin letting people in. Our initial idea was to knock out Candymonium first, but it seemed like everyone else had that idea as well as those lines quickly backed up out of the building and all the way back to Starbucks. No big deal. We decided to skip it. Instead, we grabbed our wristbands for Dark Nights (as the houses are an upcharge, similar to what Six Flags does for their events), and waited near the guest services building waiting for them to drop the ropes. Our next plan of attack was to hit Cupfusion since that always gets a pretty long line and has slow throughput. Unfortunately, when rope drop happened, it was not yet open for the day, and a line outside of the queue had already formed for it. Time for pivot #2! We decided to walk towards the back of the park and hit the three coasters near the Boardwalk section. This ended up being the right move, as my son and I were greeted with a completely empty queue for Fahrenheit and got on the back row immediately. This is probably my favorite of the vertical lift coasters that I've been on, and is a ton of fun. Next up, we headed over to Jolly Rancher Remix, which is the old Sidewinder boomerang with a brand new paint job, some gorgeous Jolly Rancher shaped lights in the station, a pumpin' club music soundtrack, and a funky short little tunnel after the cobra roll with lights and scents. My daughter had missed out on it as Sidewinder every time we had previously visited, so this was a new credit for her, and my wife hemmed and hawed for a bit before deciding to make this her first boomerang as well. We were greeted again with basically no line here as everyone else was still in the front of the park. We got in the front two rows, and it was... fine? I guess? As far as boomerangs go, this is one of the better ones, but it's still nothing too special. My wife handled it pretty well at least while going forwards, but the backwards part completely messed her up and she decided to sit out rides for a while afterwards. While she was taking a break, my daughter decided to give Mix'd a try, which is a Zamperla Nebulaz situated directly between the two halves of JRR's cobra roll. It had a pretty long cycle and she really enjoyed it! And during her ride, my son and I jumped over to Storm Runner, which had the first inklings of a line, with about three groups of people in each line in the station. Only the left side of the station was open at this point. We ended up waiting about five minutes for a row in the middle of the train. This is still one of my favorite launched coasters; while KDK and TTD are fun enough and impressive for their sheer scale, having a full layout with absolutely insane elements makes this a top-tier pick in my book. Always a fun time! We took a short break here to grab some lunch in the park. With not much in that area open at 3:00 PM, our choices were pretty much limited to either Subway or Moe's. At this point I was taking a look at the app to see what rides were open, what was closed, what had long waits and what didn't. We noticed that Great Bear was posting a five minute wait, so my son and I scarfed down the rest of our sandwiches and headed off across the park to go get some wacky inverted goodness. When we arrived, we were greeted by this; Insert [sothatwasafuckinglie.gif] here. On the plus side, we managed to get a quick ride on the Hershey Tower, the only one of the Triple Tower that was open that day. Kisses and Reese's were both down due to staffing. There was no line for Hershey as it had just reopened, so we hopped on and started going up the tower... only for it to get about ten feet off the ground, make a *CLUNK* noise, and lower slowly back down to the ground. The ride ops came around again to recheck restraints, they started it up again, and... same thing. Then I got pelted in the forehead by one of those obnoxious little spotted lanternflies; second time in a row this has happened on my Hersheypark visits. Gah! Thankfully, third time was the charm and we got the full launch and drop experience. Afterwards, we doubled back across the park to meet up with my wife and daughter; my daughter was getting in a spin on Howler with a couple other kids while my wife was still recovering from her boomerang experience. We decided to take it nice and easy for a little bit with a ride on their miniature train, Dry Gulch Railroad. The queue was completely full, but we got on within three cycles in 20 minutes. It's a nice, relaxing way to take in some views of the park. We took a quick break from doing rides to take a walk through their trick-or-treat trail, located in the otherwise closed Boardwalk section. Everyone was issued a medium-sized plastic bag, and there were a number of photo ops and people handing out pieces of Hershey's candy throughout a winding 10-15 minute long walk through this area. At this point, we decided to try our luck on Cupfusion again. The ride was now open and the app was posting a 45 minute wait. We got in line near the entrance, and 45 minutes later, we were still outside; we hadn't even made it to the covered part of the queue yet. We decided to cut our losses here and start preparing for the haunted houses. As the sun was going down and the temps were dropping to the mid-40's, we went back to a locker and grabbed some gloves and scarves to start bundling up. We took a walk to the back section of the park, where the first two houses were located, and were greeted by a display showing tribute to Hershey's rides of the past, as well as a display accurately reflecting what it felt like to ride Wildcat. Most of Wildcat's station has been completely stripped bare at this point, with just the framing remaining. Our first house was The Descent, located to the left of Laff Trakk. We waited approximately 15 minutes for this house. They were letting in groups of 8-12 people at a time, as there was a short pre-show scene with some live actors before the house proper kicked off. Some magical visor ended up being stolen that allowed the wearer to see their future, and we were tasked with following them into the sewers to try and get it back. There were a lot of neat effects in here, including some cutout sections of the floor that looked like holes you could fall into, and a misty blue laser at waist height which gave the illusion that you were wading through the water. It had a fair amount of scare actors and some good jumps. For my wife and daughter, this was their favorite house of the night, and I'd personally rank it at #2. Afterwards, we walked around to the other side of Laff Trakk, where they had the first scare zone of the night, "Midway of Misery". This looked promising, as there was a big archway with some fireball jets on the top and some gothic-industrial covers of 80's pop hits playing. Unfortunately, there were not many scare actors present in this scare zone; we noticed a grand total of two in here. We quickly found the line for the next house, Twisted Darkness, which was to be entered through the queue for The Whip. The line ended up stretching back to Musik Express, but that was primarily due to them scanning the Dark Nights bracelets at the entrance of The Whip. A lot of the stand-up Hershey Kiss scanners (the same kind they use for Fast Lane) weren't quite working properly with the RFID chips in the bracelets, and so instead they'd use handheld scanners to scan the QR codes printed on the bracelet. Once this backup was cleared the actual queue was mostly empty all the way to the merge point between regular bracelet users and Fast Lane users. We waited maybe ten minutes from here to get into the house, and this was one of the more well-done sadistic carnival themed haunted houses I've been in. Lots of actors, a bunch of great props throughout, and more than a handful of gotcha moments for all of us. This was my favorite one of the night. From here, we headed back towards Trailblazer for the location of the next scare zone, "Valley of Fear", and the next haunted house, the Haunted Coal Mine. Once again, the scare zone was definitely lacking in actors; we found one random zombified miner who was slowly dragging a pickaxe behind him, but that was about the extent of it. Unless you find fog scary, there wasn't really anything in this section to note. The line for Haunted Coal Mine (which was on the opposite side of the river from Trailblazer) was saying 90 minutes, but we ended up getting into the house in 30 minutes. Unfortunately since the queue was stretched all the way back over the bridge and into the pathway for Trailblazer, there were no lights back there, and I ended up tripping over a branch in the pathway, skinning a couple fingers and my right knee and slightly twisting my ankle. Not fun and definitely not the kind of "Twisted Darkness" I was hoping for. The house itself was okay. This definitely had the fewest amount of scare actors in it, but there was a cool part where you would enter a room meant to be an elevator, the doors would close behind you, and when they reopened it would lead to a different location. There were also some good effects here. Overall, nothing to write home about, but interesting to see them trying something different than the usual concepts. The final scare zone and haunted house took some work on finding. Although the exit was directly across from the Haunted Coal Mine, the entrance was all the way back in the Hollow area, with the queue starting in Dispatch Pizza. This haunted house, Creature Chaos, was less of a house and more of a haunted trail along the waterside near Great Bear and Skyview. We also had the opposite luck of what we experienced at the coal mine; this one said a 30 minute wait, and it ended up being a full hour long. Once the trail started, we were led into an auditorium with the creepy Professor Darkstone making a grand theatrical display of one of his mythical creatures. It looked quite impressive and was setting a good stage for what was to come; sadly, the remainder of the trail just wasn't nearly as interesting, as there weren't a ton of great places throughout the trail for the actors to surprise you. Many of the actors were just standing in place waiting for you to come near them. This one was universally agreed as being the biggest letdown of the night for us. You'll also note I didn't really write anything about the scare zone... and maybe that's because either we completely missed it entirely, or it was completely devoid of anything whatsoever. I understand this is their first year, and they may be dealing with staffing issues like everyone else, but all three of those scare zones were utter disappointments. Hopefully this will improve in the years to come. By this time, it was already 10:00 PM, at which point most of the rides were beginning to shut down. We found ourselves back at the Hershey Tower and the ride op graciously let us on for the final ride of the night. The park remained open until 11:00 for people to continue doing the haunted houses, but we decided having already seen all of what Hershey had to offer on that front that we should probably head out, grab a late night meal nearby, and rest up for the following day where we would be checking out Dorney Park's Halloween Haunt (write-up to come). All in all, it wasn't a terrible day at HP, but it's definitely not a case anymore where you can expect the park to be empty during the fall season like in years past. Go in with the expectations that if you want to ride rides, you'll need to pick up Fast Lane or be resigned to waiting anywhere from 60-240 minutes for any given ride. (Yes, one ride was posting a 4 hour wait at one point throughout the night.) Hersheypark definitely feels as they cannot handle the crowds as effectively as they used to. We'll be back probably sometime next month or early December for their Christmas Candylane event and we'll see if that's still the case then. Good night, Hersheypark.

So, I attended GHOST LAKE yesterday. I know nothing about Conneaut Lake other than they used to have Blue Streak which I never rode and that I'd drive near it on the way to Pittsburgh but have never been, but here is my copy and paste of my Google Maps review because I thought it was worth mentioning here. "I had to scale back the review A LOT since I hit the Google Maps character limit The whole tone was set by the "map" that was posted on Facebook which was a Google map with some blue text thrown over it with the name of each house, despite most not being labeled on the buildings themselves. The DEVIL'S DEN dark ride. I read there is no VIP line for this one, so I assumed the line would probably get the longest. This "ride" was absolutely fantastic. There was one group ahead of us headbanging down the drop with their fists shaking in the air to amp us up. We smooshed our two grown-ass adult asses into the car and were PUSHED to the lift hill. How it carried us up I will have no idea, but after thinking we were going to snap the chain, derail at multiple points of times, being so confined that our elbows were rubbing up against the walls during the ride, we were giggling and horrified all at the same time. We continued on to what looked like ACTUAL HOUSES IN A NEIGHBORHOOD that were torn apart and built into haunted houses. You know, houses are usually THEMED with a dining room scene, kitchen, etc but here it wasn't a part of the theme because you were walking through an actual abandoned house, complete with unlit stairs, no regard for safety, lots of OSHA violations, and no accessibility for handicapped whatsoever. Again, this is all a positive with complete sincerity. There are no rules given at the houses. Nothing said about actors touching you. No gimmicky "waiver" to sign. No visible security at the gate. This haunt breaks all the rules of traditional haunted attractions and provides so much entertainment along the way. You end up walking through very large rooms with only a few actors sprinkled throughout, but damn they tried their hardest with what was given to them. The sets are amateurish, and not well put together, but it's all a part of the charm. In the one house, there appeared to be no way out despite seeing an exit and people were ready to start climbing over the fence/set pieces to get out of the mosh of people because they were getting frustrated. Everyone is yelling at each other and nobody can see except for a scare actor trying to point the way out with no light and talking at room noise level while music is BLASTING. The only way out is by going through what appeared to be a backstage area, but wasn't, and didn't look like anything else earlier in the haunt, so people were confused and not going the way they were supposed to. A DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND, INDEED! Anyways, I could go on and on, but you just have to experience it for yourself. They won't win any REAL awards, but dang, we had fun. We walked by the DEVIL'S DEN ride later on in the night and heard a very loud snapping sound and really loud grinding noises. I really do think the chain snapped, or something really bad was happening, but it all felt right at home and only added to the ambience. We lucked out because even without the VIP it took us 1.5 hours to get through everything and most reviews complain about not getting through everything. We bought tickets online to save the initial line and I'm surprised they had the technology in place to even be able to redeem these virtual tickets given the general disrepair and unorganization of everything else. We started in the back at opening and made our way forward. Only the 3 houses up front had lines and where we spent the most of our time. Good stuff. Check it out. Just PLEASE if you are familiar with haunts around the country, SET YOUR EXPECTATIONS APPROPRIATELY. It's unique and charming, and definitely worth $25 compared to much shorter, less enjoyable haunts out there. But I would put this in the "so bad, it's good" category, unlike some haunts which just fit in the "so bad" category. "

Surprised no one is talking about the rumors for the Fast and Furious coaster. Looks pretty imminent at this point due to permits being filed and concept art being leaked. Honestly I could do without the “drift“ gimmick and just get the west coast version of Velocicoaster. I’ll reserve final judgment when the plans are released. Nonetheless over the moon that USH is getting a legit coaster!!!!

A video from JackRev on Antares new opening, for an home made version of Mission Space looks like loads of fun, the video is in Italian but if you only want to see the POV, it starts from the min 1.49

Double Post but it has been months so. I wanted to give another update on the park as things had been better but are worse again. Also I have taken pictures also from the last day of Spookslot but I have a new phone and cannot link it up to my PC so a satellite image has to do. First the latest things not marked. 70th anniversary stuff has come and gone and the rebuilding of the fairy tale that was suppose to be complete in winter 2022 has already warped up. Now what is marked down, every ring I marked down is currently inaccessible for visitors as major constructions are going on there. Dark Red: This is the area blocked for the construction of the hotel, currently they are working on the foundation. l marked with pink how guest get to the main pathways what is basically going over the new dock of Aquanura. Orange crosses fairytale forest: Two fairy tales are undergoing heavy maintenance right now, Rapunzel and Little Thumbling both covered in scaffolding. Yellow: This used to house the Alice in Wonderland display for the 70th anniversary but is now taken down to make room for the winter area opening November 15th, this will see the return of the ice-skating ring for the first time in 3 years. Purple: Is for Danse Macabre, yes all of it. While the bit at Spookslot makes sense as that is the place where the ride is going to be placed, the lake will be used for a different purpose, namely to supply the site. Currently the lake has been dried up and filled with roads these roads go through the the trees what makes me think that the current gap will be placed next to the lake in the future and they close the current one. The dark yellow line is a new path to avoid having to go all the way to the bridges to avoid the construction work. The lavender line is the current queue for Fabula. Red: Save the big one for last. While not the biggest area but George and the Dragon is closed again. It has been open this year now and then sometimes only blue track sometimes only red track sometimes both. But this time they are going above and beyond. The ride will be closed until December 23th to undergo retracking work, currently pieces for track have been removed allover the ride and will be replaced with Iron wood rails, this is however temporary, as George and the Dragon will become a full on Hybrid coaster soon, when the ride reopens in December the corners on the Python side will be replaced with Titan track form GCI, with the idea that all track will be replaced in the coming years. Also Edna the dragon after 3 years will get her movement back, however no water splashing and no fire, just neck movement and Growls for now. Also for people wondering what is with the grassy area next to the Python, this is where they drop the removed track for now. Grey: This is just closed off because of everything going on behind it. Future: So we have all this going on till at least November 15th with only the Yellow area going open. Currently we have 4 other rides closing for maintenance soon: Symbolica 10 October till 21 October 2022 Villa Volta 10 October till 14 October 2022 Aquanura 16 October till 23 October 2022 And another big one: Droomvlucht: 31 October 2022 till 3 March 2023 Yes all four will overlap with the current stuff (except maybe the fairy-tales idk), and I have no idea what will happen to Flying Dutchman and Piraña November 15th as they usually close and get maintenance done during the winter months but they are not on the calendar this year, so maybe they want to compensate for other rides being closed. That was everything going on right now, lots to cover so yeah.

Perfect analogy! I love it.

Angela Lansbury, 5 days shy of her 97th birthday, has died.