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My wife and I went to KI on Saturday. In general, I just can't believe the stark contrast between how well KI is maintained compared to our trip to SFGam in August. Outside of trick or treating and Oktoberfest at our local STStl this weekend, I really have no desire to go to any other SF parks for a while. We stayed during the day from 12-2. We got FL. We did one lap on (non JR) coaster except The Beast, because we wanted a night ride, and The Bat, because we don't really like it. We also skipped Back Lot, because Back Lot. Our only non coaster was the antique cars. They're so well done, but I feel like a complete child when we FL in front of all the families. The park was very clean, the themeing is just right, and the new themeing around Adventure Express was really high quality for an old ride. KI really takes care of all of their attractions, not just the newest, biggest, or fastest. Our seat on Adventure Express were more jerky then rides in the past, so I didn't really have fun on it. By contrast, the non-wheel middle seat on Racer was very smooth with floater air. The new area in general was well done. I like how you can get a good view of Banshee from where the bungee ride was located. It's nice to watch from the patio, while having a beer. It looks like KI spared no expense with the large planters surrounded by massive stones. We left and came back around 5, drinking a couple beers and people watching, after one of three rides on Mystic Timbers, our only repeat coaster of the trip. After 6, we used our Fright Lane passes, doing every haunt once. We virtue signaled and gave away our last Haunt of of choice option to a dude and his 'just barely old enough for the Haunt' daughter. All of the Haunts were well done, except the corn field one. Whatever it was called. The line looked at least an hour long and it was total hilarious trash composed of wooden fence and cornstalks. Slaughterhouse upped its game, so did the science one by Orion. Killmart is still awesomely hilarious, because of the cheesy nostalgic theme. Some of the mazes were a little confusing. Us, and other groups, kept walking into the scare actor areas. One even looked like some kind of a break area with a table and chair. lol. It was kind of fun to get chased out, since the actors could tell it was purely accidental. I'm glad we weren't the only ones. Fast Lane was useless for us until about 10 PM. Prior to that, we tried to wait in line for The Beast. We were about 20 feet outside of the station building. After about 5 minutes, the line did not move, but the standby line was cooking. I'm convinced the Fast Lane line was a longer wait. I was bummed we weren't going to get our Beast night ride, but we bounced from the queue. I wouldn't have been surprised if the Fast Lane line was over an hour. Similarly, we knew we were screwed when we got into Diamondback and saw the FL line about half full. People were sitting on the first set of steps comfortably like they had been there a while. Again, after a few minutes of not moving, we left the queue. The standby line had a healthy amount of movement, and I believe the FL wait would have been over an hour there as well. This dampened the mood a bit. Long waits are way less fun when you find yourself actually not moving. I even heard one dude in the regular queue saying FL looked like it had a longer wait. I can't remember what we did. We probably had a couple more beers... for $27 for two. Things are going so well. By about 10 PM, we shared a Pizza/Breadstick Larosa combo. It was OK. By that time there were plenty of unattended teens taking advantage of the chaos and not bothering to pay. Cool. Finally, FL queues cleared out, and before 11 we took our third and final ride on Mystic Timbers and another ride Diamondback. Both are probably my favorite rides in the park. They offer phenomenal night rides, tailing The Beast. Speaking of which, The Beast queue was similar to what it was earlier, which we checked one last time in between Mystic Timbers and Diamondback. Bummer. We looked around and saw mostly teens, which was one of the reasons to leave. We were out of the parking lot by 11. Things were getting a little obnoxious and we didn't want to feel like total trash on our five hour ride home in the morning. We had a decent trip, even if the FL waits dampened the mood for a portion of the night. That, and no matter how much I keep trying to kid myself, we're just not into it like we used to be since we had our daughter. We kind of talked about that before Mystic Timbers and Diamondback pepped us up. It was a much needed trip to spend time together alone, but it's just as fun for us to watch Eve ride all of the bullshit kids rides. We'll probably skip The Haunt next year. If we go back to the park, we'll go on a Friday in mid-summer, possibly with our daughter. On another note, I really tried to like Orion more, but I finally admitted that it just doesn't thrill me compared to Diamondback and Mystic Timbers. It might even be behind (front seat) Banshee. We should have asked for the front, because it's the only place on the train that really does much for me. Cheers.

The next park on the trip was Tivoli Friheden. We knew this park was unlikely to occupy us for the entire day, but the entire day we had. Luckily, we were in Denmark's second largest city, Aarhus, which had plenty of other stuff to do.... 10: My Sense of Your Sense of Language A nice simple entrance. Looks like it confused Daniel, though. This is the best theme park logo I've ever seen. The main draw here is the last remaining SCAD tower. It's not so much a ride as just being dropped into a net. Of course, I have a medical condition that prevented me from experiencing it: cowardice. Also, they strap a flat plastic mat to your back and I have scoliosis. I might also weight too much? At the very least, I'm right on the line. What I'm getting at here is that I didn't ride it, had no interest in riding it, probably shouldn't ride it, and also no. Smisty also passed. But lots of folks did do it, and some maybe even enjoyed it...? Don't worry though, I kept myself occupied by eating all of the ice cream and not sharing with any deadbeat broke-ass children. What else does this park have? Well, some pretty nice landscaping, fountains, and a fun house of illusions. Interesting that there was an upper level where you could look down on the mirror maze area. Not much to write home about on the coaster front. Just a very slow-moving "not particularly spinny" spin mouse and an SBF Visa spinner. Of course, the park used to have another, more thrilling coaster. And by "more thrilling," I of course mean that you might non-metaphorically die. Speaking of death, you can also hunt zombies in this weird new-school meets old-school dark ride. Okay, so, imagine that you wanted to combine a classic dark ride with a modern one. If you aced it, if you did absolutely everything right, you'd have created something like Blue Train at Gröna Lund. If, on the other hand, you completely botched the job, you would have this. However, in all fairness, I still really liked it. (Maybe not for all the right reasons, but nevertheless.) #beesforreed Ooh, a Ferris Wheel! But first, let's have some PIT.sa! Not a lot of great food options available. It looked like there was a full service restaurant at the back, but it was closed for a private event. This pizza buffet was passable, though. Smisty repping Seattle. Looking back towards the front of the park. Erik's score for Tivoli Friheden: 2 I still had fun. Don't be tricked into thinking a 2 means that I hated it. My ratings are so inscrutable as to be counterproductive to include them at all. You're welcome. Construction update! We enjoy walking. Especially around new places. And, you know, Europe. And across streets on green viking walk signs. This is a parking garage and transportation hub. This building houses the Gender Museum. Which sounded weird enough for us to check out. Okay. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I put my balls in the barometer, but like the rest of the museum, it was disappointingly uninteresting. This is a little better, I guess. I don't know. Just kind of meh. Aarhus (in the middle of our street). Down this rather suspicious stairway lies a viking museum. But I mean, if you get robbed or murdered at a viking museum, can you really complain? This is pretty much it. There's not even an employee. Just a machine to buy tickets from and a sign telling you that you really should buy a ticket. But don't worry, the third museum is really going to hit! Can you even call yourself a European city if you don't have a canal? ARoS Aarhus Art Museum Spoiler: This place was great. One of the best museums we've been to. Just lots of different interesting types of art. Handy floor guide. That was not a hand pun. But now I guess it is, no matter what I say. "Your Rainbow Panorama" An art and an observation deck. What could be better? My first thought was penis. Allow me to explain. A lot of classical roman statues are nude figures that sometimes modern prudes object to, and demand be covered up. This figure seems to have been covered in a way that is injuring him, by driving spikes into his flesh that hold up the cloth that covers his junk. Thus, a statement. Or I'm totally off base. But isn't art supposed to make you think? And when one thinks, isn't one, in a sense, supposed to think of penises? I have always felt it to be so. Also a penis. I assume. Jesus, guys, is everything here just a penis? Who is Boy? I, also, am an artist. I call this photograph, "Penis." Comedy comes in threes and that was four. Comes. Ah yes, the third manned mission to land on the moon. Apollo 14, the one where they started to get experimental. French artist Annette Messager has quite a large area dedicated to her work, some of which is really interesting and thought-provoking and some of which is this. Bathrooms in Denmark are weird. And for some reason I got thrown out of the museum right after this and I'm not sure why. Maybe I wasn't supposed to take pictures in there? I guess that makes sense. Any one of these could've been the title of this update. What's the next park we're going to? Djurs? Maybe "Meow Meow Ocean Burst" could work for that one. This unisex bathroom was even weirder. But I do like Denmark. Not as much as I like Sweden. Okay, okay, I'm going! Something tells you that you've got to get away from it.... Condiments are very specific in Denmark. Flea Market Genes

Went to the park yesterday, actually the only visit we've made to our home park all year; partly because my son no longer works there as he has moved on to his first full-time adult job. FF was just as expected, I think the houses and scare zones were better staffed than last year but that can vary nightly. Crowds not bad on a Sunday night, we managed to get through all the haunt stuff in a couple hours and we didn't even have haunt fast passes. Just wasn't necessary. We did see the main show in the Palace. Cute. Entertaining way to kill and hour (which is what we were doing while waiting for the haunts to open) Probably a little disappointing to us because we were coming off of a weekend at Lagoon where the shows were extremely high quality. In my opinion tame enough for pretty small kids unless you have one that is really really freaked out by monsters, but there were several small kids in there and I didn't see any of them get scared. It's more of a comedy/musical than any scare factor. In fact if you do have little kids Sundays 12-4 would be a good time to go, quiet and all the kids stuff going with minimal waits. They trick or treat trail next to Freeze looked fun for the little ones and they can wear costumes. We did try out the October fest festival food. All of it is at the Mooseburger which has been nicely decorated. And.......I have to say it was fairly tasty and better quality than I expected. There is an outdoor bar, walk up snack stand, and then a different menu that you order inside. Unfortunately none of it is on the dining plan but if you go for sure check it out, it was definitely a cut above the usual offerings. We also had a later meal in Johnny Rockets and it was by far the highest quality I've ever had there. Rookie Racer-Super smooth, nice on board audio, quick load. I never saw a line for more than maybe 15 minutes. We got through the turnstiles about 5 min after rope drop, walked quickly (but not speed walking or anything) right to it and waited maybe 5 min. Just as everyone has said a needed attraction for the park and something grandparents can do with little kids. Train operational until about 5:30 when they shut it down to bring the freaks in. Freeze opened late, about 3:15 Ninja, Spinsanity, Colossus, Supergirl, all down for the entire day. Carousel still down as well of course. Scrambler was sporadic and only seemed to open for a short time in the late afternoon. Of course all three water rides done for the year. Mine Train, Boss, Eagle all started the day on one train ops. I know they added the second train back to Eagle because we caught a night ride but not sure if they others got a second train back or not. Catwoman carried a 2 hour wait all day. I don't get the love for that one. Although it's pretty at night, lol. They have definitely already been working on the site where Joker is going. Almost all vestiges of Dragon's Wing are gone. I did notice on arrival that they are preparing to make the parking lot toll booths automatic without the need for humans. There are scanners installed, but not yet operational where I assume you will scan either your pass or a cc. They had two lanes designated for the speedy pass thing where you buy ahead of time on line. And they have new signage up for preferred parking to use the left two lanes. I'm hoping they make a dedicated lane right into preferred parking from there instead of having you drive all the way around. It would make a ton of sense and then essentially negate the need for security to have to stand all day at the preferred parking entrance. The only thing I'm not sure of is how they will deal with pickup/dropoff, maybe it will also get a dedicated lane? Again they weren't using any of the dedicated lanes yet but I'm guessing they will next season. They will probably still have a security person there and maybe an employee to deal with issues but it should not only cut down on the staff needed at the toll booths but hopefully make it faster to get through and eliminate some of the normal backups.

Did you? I've no idea. I don't read your stuff.

Great update, Chuck. Not knowing much about Kolmården other than being some sort of zoo with a giant wooden RMC, it was such a welcome surprise how great the property and the zoo were, especially with the gondola tour. Definitely a bonus on top of a new favourite RMC coaster.

I know a resident curmudgeon was quite critical of the line Rookie Racer had displayed in my visit. But even with two laps it is a relatively short cycle. And with the fast operations the trains allow and the fact that they actually have someone on the platform ensuring the trains leave full every cycle (for now) it is actually churning through riders pretty fast. The longest line shown in the video wouldn't have been more than a 40 minute wait or so. The actual set queue only starts around where the helix is so during normal ops this thing should rarely top 30 minutes. Quick note that the audio system is probably a pretty basic setup with audio less "following" the train and probably more just 8 different audio tracks mixed carefully to time up with the course. So as long as the wiring stays in shape it should hold up well. I'm assuming it is simply based on timing because I didn't really see any position sensors on ride.

Part 13 Hey, It's an Old Park for TPR: Kolmarden I've been to Kolmarden a few times with TPR in the past, so I'm not sure how much more I can tell you about it now. It's still a great zoo with Wildfire, one of the RMC's best creations, which careens around natural rock formations and beautiful woods. The park is also mind-numblingly, blister-inducing big. It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to walk from the main entrance to Wildfire on some steep, hilly paths, which provided the biggest challenge to Barry and his comrades after the Skara Sommarland incident. Seriously--you need decent walking shoes for this park. I can't really add much here to what I've previously written about Kolmarden, but here are a few highlights: Wildfire is still amazing, both on the ride and backstage. We got a nice behind-the-scenes tour of Kolmarden's gondola safari, including the big engines that run it and the place where they store the gondolas at night. The park offers a fun opportunity to "camp out " (or perhaps "glamp") next to their wildlife habitats. We got a good look at the campsite when the group went there to feed their giraffes as part of a wildlife tour. The pictures and captions will tell the rest of the story of our great day at Kolmarden. Enjoy! Zombie mastodons can be dangerous--watch yourselves! Happy Halloween! So, their way is the highway? How novel! Who's ready for something you apparently can't do at Busch Gardens Tampa at the moment? Hey! Big-ass body of water! You're distracting from my view of Wildfire! "Whoever splattered me with this white stuff is gonna get the horns, I swear to god!" "I say, Cyril, you didn't spray paint the chap with the horns again, did you?" "Me? Er, why of course not. I'm too busy here, umm, enjoying these . . . sticks." "I'm a real zebra. Not like those phony ones in the old Tarzan flicks." They plunged into the mysterious fog and were never seen again. At least not in this dimension. One must step lively to take a backstage tour of Wildfire. "Welcome to Wildfire! Who's ready to lube a train?" Off they go. Back they come. Here we are at the nerve center of Wildfire. The train gave me permission to take this photo. "You sure you want to let those guys in here, sir? They'll see the BIG BOARD!" Here we have an example of "forced perspective." Is Wildfire's wheel really big, or is Robb's head really small? The only thing better than taking a tour of Wildfire . . . . . . is taking a ride on Wildfire. One of the best rides in Europe.. It's tough to beat this natural setting for a coaster. Who's ready to go behind the scenes at the safari ride? Watch your step. Here's where they store the gondolas after closing. The chords are for recharging the on-ride narration, which is offered in multiple languages. This ladder is even steeper than those stairs. This is like climbing around inside a battleship. "Yep--the lion dragged him down there. Well, half of him, anyway." Looks like something out of a 1970s sci-fi movie. "Captain! We canna maintain this speed much longer!" Is this the best theme-park "safari"? Possibly. It gives Kilimanjaro Safaris at DAK a run for its money. " Just call me 'Skull Loki.'" Aw, this coaster is so adorable! Who doesn't love dolphins . . . except for sharks? And orcas? "Hi. We're chimps and we're ready for some flingin' if you catch my drift." OK, who's up for some bear baiting . . . I mean feeding? Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake. Shot from Jason's point of view. "Oh, I'm so glad you're still alive. Pay no attention to the man in the hockey mask. Now you can give me some of those delicious pellets." "After you've fed us, we really don't care." "Yes, Jason can decapitate or eviscerate you then. It's totally fine." "Yes, you'd better move along. Jason is not known for his patience." Do not let his adorable, dreamy appearance fool you. This is a Satanic Raccoon! Die, panda wanna-be, die! They still have the half-buried bus where the tigers can whiz on you. "Could you toss me a small child? There's a good chap." One last look at Wildfire before we head out.