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Hey Universal, we''re tired of rides where you just go around looking at screens, give us something new. "Ok, we took out the ride part of the experience."

Day 7, evening. . . so we loaded up the bus, in the rain, and waved goodbye to Hotel Charles Lindbergh (and Phantasialand), and headed out towards Wavre, Belgium. that would be where our hotel for the night would be - only 1 night, as we were loading up the bus in the morning to spend the whole day at Walibi Belgium. Scenery as we were driving, it's always comforting to see a Nuclear Power plant. . . James and I mostly sat in row 3, so we got a nice view of the road - and this little guy (who's name I can't recall) that Robb purchased at Europa Parc where he's part of the Pirates ride. lovely countryside, as we moved from Germany into Belgium. And the sky had completely cleared up too. as we exited off the main road, into Wavre, the bus made some tight turns down some narrow (and jungle covered) roads towards our hotel for the night. excellent driving by our bus driver another really tight turn - the entrance gate at our hotel seemed REALLY surprised at the size of the bus about to attempt this turn in. but we made it in, and started unloading. our hotel for the night was another Ibis (same brand as the 1st hotel at the airport) with very similar looking rooms. we put our bags up in the room, and made plans to meet some folks down in the lobby. We had left Phantasialand before dinner, but were getting to Wavre by 8pm or so, so many in the group planned on heading out to grab some food and do some exploring in the charming smallish town. while waiting for the group I was going to grab food with, I snapped some pics of the lobby area and the breakfast area of the hotel. the hotel was pretty full - a football (soccer) team, that was passing thru, if I recall - tho we didn't really see any of them tonight. in the morning at breakfast we interacted with them quite a bit tho. Nice guys. and then once we had everyone who wanted to go check out the local fast food place - the Belgium version of McDonalds. . we headed out for the short walk into town. and here it is. . . not sure if it's specific to Beligum, or a European chain. Tho I can't recall if I ever saw another one on the trip, so maybe it *is* Belgium specific? basically a McDonalds: "Quick" for what it's worth? the name LIES. there are no counter folks to take orders. . all orders are placed at the touchscreens by the entrance doors. then you stand and wait until they call your number to go pick up your food from the counter. yeah. .it's *exactly* as much of a clusterfuck as one would think it was. Especially when busy at dinner time (which I guess this time of night was dinner time). it was absolute chaos. . . and, if I'm being honest, I loved every moment of it . . . LOL. . . . Eventually we got our food, and headed upstairs to a "quieter" area to eat. I don't really recall what I got, tho it looks like cheese balls, a poutine of some kind, and a burger that looked like this. it was ok, I suppose. But really no lasting memory of it, so i guess it was just a standard burger from a fast food place? we had planned to walk over to the Supermarket in the parking lot there and get some bottled water, but by the time we finished eating, the market had just closed for the evening. (I think they closed at 9 perhaps?). . . but as we slowly made our way back towards the hotel, someone in the group that had gone towards the city center (in search of nightlife/bars I believe) had posted to the TPR trip group chat that they had stumbled across a random Breakdance in the downtown area. even tho we had just spent a full day at Phantasialand. . . c'mon, I'm on a trip with TPR folks. . of COURSE we immediately detoured towards the center of town to see if we could find said breakdance. I double-taked on this sign at least 3 times, before I decided I just had to take a picture. "Immotheker finotheker". . . .has made it into my cursing lexicon we had passed a parking lot full of what looked like "Carny" vehicles. . and we started to hear music, so we continued heading that way, and finally came across this. (insert angelic singing here) wasn't super busy - but again, it was a Monday night, but it appeared an entire funfair had been plopped down over two city blocks in the center of Wavre. we weren't gonna cross illegally - gotta follow traffic rules in other Countries - so we headed down to the crosswalk. only to be pleasantly surprised that they were Rainbow Crosswalks. yay! Belgian Pride! while most of the games and rides, seemed targeted towards the way younger crowd. . there were a few "big" rides mixed in. (the stuff on the next street over seemed to be mostly closed this night tho, including a small kiddie coaster. . so we stuck to this main intersection for our exploring) Kiddie Bumper Cars - and no, I still didn't ride them. I was mesmerized by the floating kid's heads on the sign for this one (but I believe everything is independently owned, so it must be the owner's kids?). certainly didn't attract me to the place to purchase anything - tho I was full as I had just eaten a lot of fast food. that spotted donut doesn't look too happy tho! a funfair street cart selling Escargot? how intriguing (and a big ol HELL NO from me). . . but Smisty wanted to try them, so she and Erik got some. and to be fair? they SMELLED amazing. . . but . . . nope for me. the guys at the funfair (James, Erik, Andrew and me), waiting for Smisty to finish her snails some pics of the games. . lots and lots of stuffed animals to (attempt) to win. tho some booths had lots of typical American carnival crap on offer (this Duck Game) seemed to offer prizes as one would find at a ticket redemption counter in a Dave & Busters, or Pinballz arcade oooo. . very tempted. A Frozen Mirror Maze! . . I'm sure 100% officially licensed Disneyland Belgium! If I didn't think my fat ass would break it? I would have ridden on Aladdin's carpet. (tho the Woody Woodpecker confused me. maybe Donald broke and they needed a quick replacement?) it really is a Small World after all. ohhh. . . a big Adult ride. I love the Mexican Hat Dance. should we ride? YES! Funfairs tend to run insane cycles. . but this one ran rather lame. but I'm kind of glad it did, because as we were starting to go, Smisty noticed that the "arms" weren't bolted shut. yup.. they were all held together by color - coordinated bungee cords, not bolts! Really. . .. so I was pretty glad it didn't run a good cycle, as I didn't wanna die at a Belgian Fun-fair. but it was pleasant, if not exactly extreme. (pic courtesy of Erik) so why did I want to ride? (and convince others to ride with me?). this was the ride operator. . .. who spent a LOT of time making eye contact with me before we bought tickets. yeah. . sex sells it was starting to get a little darker, and the Breakdance that had originally attracted us was right around the corner. . so we went to take a look at it. yeah. . THIS one was running a super EXTREME "carnival" program. So intense that Andrew begged off and only Smisty and I rode. SO intense (and such a long cycle) there were periods where we could NOT lean forward in the seats. it was awesome. . all the while, the operator was yelling things out to us in Dutch (I think that's what it was). Could not understand him at all, but I imagine it was something along the lines of "Do you want to go faster??? make some noise!!!" because when we screamed, he sped it up. (pics courtesy of either Andrew or Erik) eventually the ride stopped, and dizzy as hell, I was ready to head back to the hotel and crash. as was everyone else. . . so we made our way back - I think we came this way? grabbed some water from the bartender on the way up to the room, and crashed for the night. Think it was around 10:45 pm at this point. Tomorrow we were headed out at 8:15 sharp for Walibi Belgium for day 8 of the trip. but this had been a fantastic day 7, and it's always fun to spend so much time with great people.

Next thing you know they'll develop some lame seasonal attraction where you pay huge amounts of extra money just to walk around and look at stuff.

Holy schnikes, guys!

I'll have this in my TR when I get to it. but the view from the Decks in our Air BnB cabin we rented (daytime) and Friday Evening.

had a really great time at Dollywood (2 days in the park - tho one we cut short due to how cold it was). amazing rental cabin with a view of the park (!). . we watched the fireworks from the balconies on Friday night, since our first day was Sat. We ate dinner at the Island - MargaritaVille one night), and tho didn't do much in Pigeon Forge proper (just a mountain coaster and the Brazillian Steakhouse). . I somehow STILL managed to take over 500 pictures. sheesh. so yeah. . my trip report will take me a bit to get up. Luckily, JimmyBo's is so damn good to enjoy in the meantime! and he got great pics outside the park that I didn't get. . tho we did go visit DreamMore on the 1st day (thankful to my friends who indulged me when I said I really needed to see the property . . . as that's where Nick and I had booked to stay before we had to cancel the trip due to his health issues) but I will say, I controlled myself PRETTY well. . got all the coasters at least once, the train - which ABSOLUTELY was worth the 45 minute wait to line up before our train ride even came back. SO worth it. . wait in that line, but also wait and ride at night - and every "big" ride on my wish list. Also got to see the 50 minute "broadway" type show. Only had one Cinnamon Bread, but sampled lots of other food around the park. and only bought three shirts (and 8 magnets). .but hey, only 3 shirts. not even the super tacky velvet sleeved one that I REALLY wanted but just seemed too small (and it was dryclean only). .tho I did get a pic of it! LOL. . I'm glad I got distracted and we never went back to this shop. . otherwise I would have bought it! hopefully will have a report up in the next week or so (or at least start one), and will link here. it was my first time visiting, and I have thoughts. . . all of them good tho.

wrong thread. . great report tho!

I went on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (11/23) and I would say about half of the coasters were closed. The list of closed rides included Riddler, Scream, Superman, Wonder Woman for about half the day, Goliath, Full Throttle, Viper about half the day, and Ninja. The only rides running consistently all day with at least two train operation were Tatsu, Twisted Colossus, West Coast Racers, and Gold Rusher. And surprisingly Lex Luthor, CraZanity, and all the flats were running fine too. Coasterbill hit the nail on the head. If you need to close during the week during the off season (especially considering their volume of coasters and rides to maintain compared to every other SoCal park), so be it. But open most (if not all) of your rides when you're open, and when you're charging an arm and a leg for admission and parking now. Six Flags was totally killing it through the pandemic the last couple years and we were all laughing at Cedar Fair, and it feels like the total opposite now.

Looking forward to getting back down to Florida next Thursday and riding Iron Gwazi. It was testing when I was there in February. Also looking forward to Montu. It was being painted on my last trip. Don't really care that Sheikra is closed on this trip as well. Excited to have my daughter join me on this one. She will be 21 in January and I'll lose my DD

Water was removed from the ending of Blazing Fury in 2011. Branson still has it.

Well, I guess Kristen is going to demand a TPR Trip to Spain now to ride Tom Holland!!!!