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Europa Park, day 2, part III. . the conclusion: after the Taxis, we hit up a few things we'd already been on, but loved and wanted to ride again. such as Can Can Coaster (this phone booth was outside it, and I bought a few souvenirs there from it - such as a Can Can Coaster coin, and Euro) the Dinosaur Birthday Party WTF ride: and Can Can coaster again. . as well as Arthur. this time discovering there were a couple of smaller rides hidden at the end of the path near the exit: I think at this point Ryan wanted to go ride Silverstar, so he (and James (who's John???)) went off to do that, while the rest of us headed towards the lagoon for the slow boat ride, that I was determined I was going to ride. turns out it's called: Josephina's fairytale wedding . . or something like that. . . it was slow, it was stupid. . and OMG. . I loved EVERY. SECOND. OF. IT !!!! and yes it has animatronics water features. . wait. . there's a boat ride coming from the other dock on the other side of the lagoon too? and that boat is equipped with water guns???? luckily, the folks riding weren't able to crank them fast enough for the water to reach us. wait? our slow boat ride has a dark ride section? you bet your ass it does. . .EVERYTHING does. . ha! but it all ends well. . with Josephina getting her prince. . .i think? I dunno what the hell was going on. after we relaxed on the slow boat, we headed back to Ireland. . we had tractors to ride! we werent sure adults were allowed to ride them, but the operators assured us "yes" although there was no way to sit in the front seat to do so! (teeny tiny kiddie seats) but they moved on their own, and were "gas" powered. . so you chugged your way slowly around the course. mah tiddies were jiggling for the whole 5 minute ride, and I was laughing like a moronic hyena the whole time. in other words? yeah, i loved it. the tiny seats adults can't sit in. . so had to ride in the back. theming among the tractors! and yes.. Animatronic. . . it was getting close to time to meet over by Wodan for our ERT. . so we started heading back that way. taking pics as I walked. . sad the day was over. but with the park closing by 6:30? it made the day go pretty fast. but we DID manage to pass the train as it was loading. . so we managed to get a ride on it. Something I totally forgot, until I saw this picture. I don't remember if it was good. . hell, I didn't even remember that I rode it. but we did. Paddington catching a train as we passed thru England. more "Mushrooms" oh. . but we can't leave this part of the park without riding Kurse of Kassandra again! (remember, I'd never been on a Madhouse, and didn't realize they'd be in every park). we also rode over here, an "underwater" dark shooting ride. . but I don't seem to have ANY pictures of it, nor much of a memory of it other than we rode it. so there's that I guess. . . Poseidon had been rough the day before, so just took some pics of it, but didn't ride it. ah. . THIS time I did take some pics of Kassandra. . .yay me. getting ready to "spin" such a cool effect. . . I really loved it. even the restrooms over here are heavily themed. . so well done. we headed over to Blue Fire/Wodan for our ERT, and I think we had to store our bags? as the only pic I have from the ERT is this one from Wodan, courtesy of either Robb or Elissa. but I LOVED Wodan. .favorite coaster in the park. rode this at least 5 times during our ERT. .maybe 6 or 7 . . . but we couldn't hang out on it too long, as we had time on Blue Fire as well. . and funnily, the park had warned Robb/us that they were filming a reality show and they didn't know when they might show up. and of course they showed up during our ERT session, so one of the trains was given over to what looked like a reality dating show (some of the women were dressed quite provocatively. . so I'd assume as show like Love Island?). It was funny. . most of them tapped out after 1 or 2 rides. . while the TPR folks kept going until we had to get off, because we had dinner scheduled back at the hotel. I only rode it 3-4 times. . I mean, I loved the dark ride section prior to the launch, and as mentioned yesterday, the first loop is amazing. .but that slow hangtime in the heartline roll (or whatever it is). .is just NOT my cuppa. . didn't like that part at all, and affected overall how much I liked the ride. but I didn't shut down the ERT, and headed over towards the hotel to make the dinner reservation a little earlier than some of the hardcore riders on this trip. dinner was at the Brazilian Steakhouse restaurant in the hotel. . .you know. . "MEAT ON STICKS". . . MEAT-A-PAL-OOZ-A everything was really good. and we stuffed ourselves. and drinks were included. . so lots of wine Cheers to a great start of a great trip. I may have overdone it on the deserts (as full as I was already). but I had Pepcid back in the room.. which I DID need. . whoops. heading back up to the room after dinner. . or should I say "waddling" we had to get everything packed up, as we were headed out pretty early the next morning (I think it was 6am at the bus?). . . we were gonna have a long day tomorrow. starting off at Tripsdrill, and ending with nighttime ERT on Expedition GE-Force at Holiday Park. so it was time to say farewell to Europa Park, and go to bed. Id been having a great time thus far. and tho had no idea what was going to eventually happen? between now and going home? the trip would only get better and better and I'd have such a good time. back as soon as I can with the next day. . . Tripsdrill. . . thanks for reading!

Like what? You don't think you would close the harness fully? I would 100% ride it exactly the same as it was. I know how far such restraints need to be down to be safe. The only thing wrong with the ride was a misadjusted sensor that let an obviously insecure restraint dispatch. And we still don't know who made that adjustment and why it was allowed.

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.

An absolutely perfect addition to the park that desperately needs flat rides. Big win in my book! Can't wait to ride next year. Also - off topic - today is my 10 year anniversary of posting on TPR!

That has to be the most detailed trip report of Europa park I've seen and has bumped the park back to the top of my bucket list. Great photos. Look forward to reading the next part.

Day 2, part II: after riding the flying theater, we headed over to the observation tower, for some great views of the park. I love the theming over here for the queue, and these benches are amazing. getting some views of the new coaster construction in Greece but lets zoom in on Euro-Mir, Blue Fire, and Wodan (right to left). . .this park as such a stacked coaster lineup in places! the bobsled coaster good view of the construction going on behind Poseidon (and Kassandra) I did get some good shots of Silver Star and it's layout. . go figure. . .LOL. . I forgot! such a beautiful park. . even from above! never did learn this guy's name. . but he's the main park mascot, and is all over everything. ok. . let's go back to the other creepy boat ride. this time with Fairies and Mushrooms! (some of which are VERY phallic.. the mushrooms, not the Fairies) just look how much fun we're having.. as I dragged the group onto one silly ride after another. . .but hey, they wanted to ride them too. . . what? it's got an indoor dark ride section? OF COURSE it does! with animatronics? yup! um.. . ok. . if you SAY that's supposed to be a "mushroom" the frog looks concerned for the kids that may be riding tho. meanwhile the "mushroom" in front has Chlamydia the stilt walkers are SO well done here. . wonder why the USA Stilt folks don't wear the "shoes" to hide the bases? and then it was time to go back for another ride on Pirates! ending the ride with just a little bit of eye candy. . . the piggie on the back of the boat seems very pleased with himself. just outside, there were clowns. really pretty kinda racist clowns. . but clowns. they had their funnel cakes on rubber bands and "threw" them at people. but they did seem to be out front of this place advertising for it. . . so don't mind if I do! when in Germany? I can Poffertjes with the best of em. let's head back thru "Amity". . . we have to cut thru here to get to the Germany section, as we hadn't even been over there yet, and we needed to ride the mountain coaster, and the flume. . that are housed inside a man-made mountain and interact with each other supposedly this had one of the longer lines of the day, if I recall. . but it was lovely over here too. in the queue for the coaster, with a great view of the flume's big drop. this photo courtesy of Jon - I think THIS may have been the ride where Andrew had to sit in Ryan's lap? theming! and animatronics. . lots of bears. what is this? ohhhh. . you can walk thru the inside of the mountain? cool.. let's do that. Nice view of the giant helix from the coaster as you climb the path. and animatronics. . LOL. . so scary! oooo.. inside the mountain. not only lots of crystals. .and disco lighting. . but also mining fairies, and giant animatronic snakes/dragons. . and the flume *and* the coaster go thru this area too, as the walking path goes over and under. that's the flume on the right here. hard to see, but that's a dragon that moved and hissed at the passing coaster train. and you exit the mountain into an underground cave system full of *gorgeous* mosaics and some freaky ass dolls. .that got freakier as you go NIGHTMARE FUEL !!! but so pretty! gahhhhhh!!! Pretty! pretty. . . (the mosaic is nice too) and more phallic mushrooms. . . LOL we were by the Spanish section all the way back near our hotel entrance. . so it was time to ride the indoor sea storm. themed to Christopher Columbus! with a moving Animatronic Columbus in the queue wow. .this sucker hauls! and it mimics a storm during the cycle with the sky flashing and dark. awesome! full size, and the boats turned and were controllable. pic courtesy of Jon. . look how happy I am to be riding a real Sea Storm (after riding the junior version yesterday) since we were over here, we went right next door to the indoor, heavily themed Music Express. Love, love, love these vehicle designs. these are the horses, that are infamously the "Flaming" horses, during the show over here. . but again, we didn't do any shows at Europa. . more interested in reriding things we loved. but we passed the horses on the way over to the Atlantica supersplash that some of the guys decided they wanted to ride. as noted, since I ride it all the time at SWSA, I decided to just sit this one out and went and grabbed a pretzel and a slushie while waiting (think Andrew skipped it too) what going on here? are those Pirates wading in the lagoon towards this thing in the turnaround? Yup, it's a stage, and they do a diving show. . . and the pirates have to wander out thru the water to get to the stage. I found that hysterical, and actually watched a bit of the show while waiting for the guys to get thru the queue and ride. ah. .there they are.. back row is TPR. the show has a "land" aspect too. . tho that seemed to be mostly juggling, and wasn't as exciting as the diving going on from the stage. not 100% sure why I took this, but think because Wodan is cresting the lift hill in the background. I had snacked, but others were hungry, and it was coffee time. . so we made our way back to "Amity" and into our "secret" restaurant we had found the day before, and had a nice 30 minutes sitting in the A/C and non-crowded area, relaxing (a pic I sent home to Nick) looking at the list of things we hadn't done yet (and knowing we had express passes for Arthur, and ERT tonight on Wodan & Blue Fire), we headed over to the Antique Cars.. .or: Oldtimer Fahrt. yup ok then.. no naked children allowed! Noted! um. . whut? but I guess at least they aren't phallic mushroom animatronics. I DO wonder what "Teddy Taste"s like tho. . . I passenged in the back seat so I could take pictures while Ryan drove us the taxis come pretty close to the fairy boat ride. and the Monorail. gah !! "mushrooms" but we all rode it and had fun! naked mermaid fountain? sure, why not I have no idea what ride this sign was part of . . but I still have no idea what it means. don't be a superman??? to be concluded with part III

^ She was a wonderful actress. Chilling as the mother in "The Manchurian Candidate". And we had awesome fortune to see her LIVE on stage, in New York, in Sondheim's masterpiece, "Sweeney Todd ~ The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." It was in mid October of 1979, and the production had already won a good # of TONYs, including Best Musical, Director (Harold Prince), Best Score for Steve (natch). and for Angela (as Mrs. Lovett) and Len Cariou (as Sweeney), lead role TONYs for their parts. We were in the front row, against the orchestra pit, and got to see her in action, from about 20 feet away (from us to them in their 'box set'). After that thrilling time, I found out her birthday was indeed a few days away (back then). So I found a funny pop-up card and mailed it to her care of the show/theatre. A month later, I got a surprise hand written Thank You Note from her and how she loved the card, etc. And she would give my "Canadian Regards" to Len, originally from Winnipeg, Canada. Best memory ever of seeing Ms. Lansbury in person and on stage. "Sweeney Todd" 1979

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. . . .

Only Movieland could take a friggin' Gravitron and turn it into a memorable dark ride.

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.

Last issue of Amusement Today has an article about the new Zambezi Zinger and other information about 2023 at Worlds of Fun. Enhanced theming throughout the park, renaming of Orient to East Asia, Africa being split into three sections, new bird show, history display in Tivoli Theater lobby, 50 Days of Celebration for the 50th Anniversary including the 50 Nights of Fire show and more.

So, I visited Hershey Park for the first time last Thursday. Park layout and operations aside I really liked the park (more than Kings Island for example). Besides its grand and corporate entrance, I feel like the park still has a lot of charm, hopefully this will not be lost in the future. As I do feel the park is finding itself in this transition between regional to destination park. - The biggest surprise was definitely Skyrush. I absolutely loved that ride. The restraints aren’t comfortable but they aren’t unbearable either. I'd say there on pair with the new Mack restraints... although that might be swearing in the church to some. It does not really happen anymore that a ride gives me an "oh sh*t" moment, so that was a pleasant surprise. - Great Bear was also great, if the ride was 1/4 longer with 2/3 more elements it would definitely be my favourite invert. - Storm Runner was great too, hydraulic launch coasters are some of my favorites and this one actually has a layout after the top hat. - Candymonium is a great ride, especially the first drop & 2nd hill are great. It just pales in comparison to skyrush as B&M hypers all feel very controlled and calculated. Again, I ended up having a great day. The low crowds really helped as the ops were not that great. Can't wait to come back to see what RMC did with wildcat.

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