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It's The Day Before our annual fair, The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition), opens. And it's been a good couple of months, between now, and 'back then' in May when Playland opened for it's 2024 season. I ended up visiting it a few times, though not as many as I've done before, in past seasons. It's an "old age thing". And I'm dealing with it, LOL. Here's the pix from my Visit(s) to Playland, after all the rain we got in June. New coaster to check out; new drinking 'huts' to get your beer from; and a LOT of DIRT! This was what the line looked like, 1/2 hour before the park opened. Glad to see they're still flying the Pride Flag. Why be sorry? Everything's open! Or so one would think ..... Coaster running. Check. The Games Arcade wasn't fully open yet, so they put claw machines there, hoping some one will play them. Over priced pizza slices. Check. ThunderVolt, behind the Kids' Drop ride. Who says "I'm so fly," anymore? View of The VOLT from the West Coast Wheel. And some dirt... A new HUGE performance venue's being built, and opening in 2026. I always enjoy taking mountain shots, when the sky is clear and blue. I decided to eat something onsite, so this where I went. Many many choices... I decided to go the carnivore way, lol. Wasn't too bad. I'd had it before, so I knew what I was getting. And that finished up this visit there! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The other visits were varied and random. Crowds were actually GI-normous, way more than I'd seen before. But other seasons the park was open included Mondays and Tuesdays in the week. This season they were not. So here's (at least) three days' visit to Playland. AtmosFEAR's looking good. Ditto the Log Flume ride. Another fantastic Dirt Shot. I don't think Enterprise goes totally upright. Only this far in it's 'tilt.' Though the run of The Gladiator is always awesome, "landing" is sooooooo sloooooow. Really slow. One of three I counted, onsite. These replace the Ride Side Bar that was closed for the new amphitheatre build. My usual - Stella Artois. Then I headed out. I attended this on July 20th. Hey - two bucks for a hot dog? I'm in! Wish I'd gotten more than one of these.... A bit messy, but still good. And my $1 popcorn refill. Using the same bucket after what? 8 seasons??? Can't wait to see these new signs lit up in the evening, during the PNE. How long would YOU wait, for a 40 second ride? During the PNE, this is going to be insane, queue wise. Speaking of 40 seconds .... Wheeeeeeee! Got my $1 refill of pop with another container that's been used for 9 seasons! I had one of Coaster Dogs more 'busy' dogs. This was with pulled pork and other stuff on it. A good one. My last visit that I actually took photos of. Unlike Disneyland's shutting down their Shooting Gallery, and as simple as it is, we still got ours! Over the hump. Another dirt shot. I'll stop after this. Hellevator now does both it's up-launch and it's fall-down, together in one cycle. (o: ....And One more Stella Artois before heading out - and getting ready for two weeks of the PNE!

Looks good, can't wait to ride it when it finally opens in 2027.

Meanwhile, at SFStl...

Lol, I totally am with Stacy on needing a stepstool! Always have to hoist myself up on wing coasterss.

Day 1 (part 2): Animal Tours, the Aquarium and the World of Jumanji! after a very filling lunch (it was too much food), most everyone met up to take advantage of the animal tours the park so kindly offered us. we met up here in the "Western" section - where I assume behind the wall at the far left just off picture stood the wild mouse coaster, Rattlesnake, that is SBNO. they divided us into two groups to see different things, then we'd swap. my group went first all the way to the backstage area of the park, and over to the Giraffe housing! Clearly they are used to tours here, as they came running, expecting food beneath us (we were on an upper catwalk) there was also a new mama with her baby being kept in here, away from the heat and this guy too the Giraffes get SO close. they smelled a bit like a horse, but not unpleasant. .. what was a bit unpleasant was the slimy tongue. but still. . so worth it to feed them. an amazing experience. this made me giggle - it's like the door at the 711 where there's a height chart, so the counter person can tell the police how tall the robber was of the 3 Giraffes back here, one was the most friendly and kept coming back over, as the keepers answered questions about them and told us about the ones here at the park. after about 25 minutes, it was time to swap, so we made our way back out into the park, and over to another animal section. there was a lot of cool theming back here, and it kind of looked like a queue area? the park DOES have a Safari ride, called Zoofari, where they drive you in small trucks in groups of 25 or so, but it was not open today due to the heat. So gotta wonder if some of this area is the waiting queue for those that are going on the Safari? Eventually we came to the monkey house walk thru area, with the monkeys hopping around above and around us on the netting. most of em were just hanging out in the shade tho. and then we went over to see Reuben - who had a skunk. an un-adjusted skunk. . . yeah, the kind that can spray you with stink. he asked who wanted to hold it, and several folks, like Ryan here, were happy with the opportunity. I was a "hell no". .and stood way back. . but eventually I gave in to peer pressure and agreed to hold the skunk you can tell from my face in these pics how "thrilled" I was. but I *am* ultimately glad I did it - it was warm, and soft, like a cat. .and it fell asleep in my arms. not as quickly as I'd like, but quick enough, he took the skunk back, we all washed our hands, and we headed over to see the Raccoons. these guys were absolutely adorable, and climbed all over Reuben. it was a wonderful added bonus, and i so appreciate that the park offered us these tours as a perk. I didn't mind at all giving up "ride time" to do these, and had a great time. we ended the animal tour by the Penguins and the SeaLife Aquarium, so decided to go in and have a look. but before we got there. . . someone (I think it was Steve) called out to me to tell me the Garafalo was out doing meet and greet. I love a photo op, so quickly got in line (everyone in our group did, but sadly, we didn't think to get a TPR pic with the Garafalo) but I did pull out my baby stuffed Garafalo that I had bought from the ride store earlier, so that made for a fun pic at Chessington World Adventures, the SeaLife Aquarium is included with admission. we still had an hour or so until park close, so a few of us went to hit the rides we hadn't been on yet or wanted to ride again. myself, Stacy and Andrew headed over to "room on the broom" which turned out to be a walk thru, interactive, "house" of sorts. and we decided to head to the other side of the "zoo" area to do the trail of animals, hoping most of them would be out in the afternoon heat. passing by the Reindeer again: and the sea lions (managed to miss the show, but at least saw them playing in the water) some kind of fox a lynx Male Lion and the Female some cat related to a Cheetah.. but can't recall. yeah. . the sun made everyone SO SLEEEEEEPY. . .but most of the animals were out. trying to remember what this was.. but think it was a photo-op to compare yourself to the outline of a Gorilla? we did go back and ride a few more things.. such as a Sandstorm that was running a fantastic program (with full turning in and out during the cycle)- but for some reason, I only took a picture of the sign (LOL) and then we decided we should start to wander towards "World of Jumanji" - the newest section of the park, which we hadn't been to yet but was where we were meeting up for end of day rides on Mandrill Mayhem. our route to Jumanji took us back thru Vampire's Village, where I got a pic of the coaster . .. as noted, love the theming here. some Vampire queue theming hey Mister. . can you spare a quarter? it's so well hidden in the trees, woods.. . I'll bet this coaster is amazing during the evening hours. as it is, I thought it was the best in the park (with lots of swing out action) peeking over the fence up ahead is the big statue at the center of Mandrill Mayhem this was apparently a Dragon Playground. .that's in the center of Dragon's Fury. I would have never known this was here, and I rode the damn thing! yeah, we were spinning THAT much. and here we are, at the World of Jumanji. there are three rides here: Mandrill Mayhem - the signature B&M Wing launch / shuttle coaster Ostrich Stampede - which is basically a frog hopper crossed with Kangaroo & Mamba Strike - which is a falling star/magic carpet type ride the theming in this area is off the chain tho. Fantastic job by the park making this area so immersive. yeah it's dumb, yeah it doesn't do much but go around in a circle and bounce. . but I absolutely LOVED this. it was SO stupid, and I felt so stupid on it. . but I laughed and giggled the entire ride. so yes, fantastic. taken with permission of the ride op before putting my phone away: a look at what the ride does from the center of the area. a bit hard to tell, but it's a circular ride that just "hops" as it goes around in a circle.. pretty extreme airtime too. a look at Mandrill Mayhem doing it's thing behind me is Mamba Strike, and that's where most of us headed while waiting for the line on Mandrill Mayhem to drain as the park was about to close. we got lucky in that Brad happened to be in the area too, and noticed so many TPR folks on it, so snapped some pics of us all on it. the operator even let us ride twice, since it was the end of the day. This one too, had some pretty good forces - it swung FAST. . so fast it was surprising. more pics of Mandrill Mayhem . . if you haven't noticed (and it's hard to see) the back row of seats? face backwards hungry hungry hippos! and soon enough, it was TPRs turn to ride. OMG. .I LOVE these ride vehicles!!! Jon, Albert & April it's a Wing coaster. . so some of the shorties have trouble getting up. the park was prepared! Stacy didn't realize I was gonna snap a pic. . LOL. that's Colin behind her. I believe pic courtesy of Elissa (Ryan and myself) Chris, myself, Robb, and Doug in the back row facing away from everyone else. Pic courtesy of Elissa TPR on Mandrill Mayhem! this inversion is KILLER too.. .on the way back, the train takes it so slowly, there's a ton of hangtime. heading out of the park after a long, and very fun day, we passed the SeaLions sunning. a short drive back to the hotel, and believe it or not, some of us were hungry again. Stacy looked up a pub in walking distance, and we headed over there and had a really good meal. it was impressive how good it was from a pub/coffeeshop. LtR: David, Neal, Neal, Doug, Hawk, Andrew, Stacy, me. my firecracker Cauliflower and noodles (it was so good I remembered what I had) and my lemondrop martini. . . . cheers to an excellent start to the trip. and after this, was time to head back to the hotel and go to sleep (tho I think some followed Andrew to a pub a little ways down and watched some of the playoffs that were on the tv there). tomorrow was a park I had heard of, but didn't know much about: Thorpe Park, and I was excited!

Day 1 (part 1): FINALLY a Theme Park: Chessington World of Adventures. ready for the first "real" day of the trip, and it was a fairly early one! I believe we had breakfast at 6:30 am, with a leave the hotel at 7am sharp to get us to the first park of the trip: Chessington World of Adventures. as this was the 1st official day of the trip, it was also the first time I'd actually had a full English (as was available on the buffet, here and at every hotel we stayed at pretty much). I'm not a fan of beans, nor tomatoes, so I avoided those, but tried everything else - including the blood sausage. (it wasn't *bad*.. but I'll admit I never tried it again during the trip). made sure to fill up tho, as it was gonna be a full day ahead. we were ushered outside, and we loaded onto the Bus that would be our transport for this whole trip. how wonderful that the front of the bus showed it was a TPR Tour! Loved it a very comfortable coach for the trip - and since the trips tend to be under 50 people total, plenty of room to spread out on the bus. a fairly short ride later, and we were outside the gates of our 1st park on the trip! group photo courtesy of Robb. we were met at the gates and ushered in a bit before park open - we were going to have some rides (and Robb was going to film) on two of the parks 4 coasters (really only 3, as the Park's Mauer Wild Mouse, Ratlesnake, was not operating today. and there is also a 5th coaster, a Mack powered minetrain, but that was damaged by a fire in 2022, and the area is totally blocked off, so it's SBNO) as with many of the parks we went to in the UK, it's not only a theme park, but also a zoo. Some had more animals than others, but most of them were very similar to what we saw at Chessington World Adventures. Inside the park, and stopping for another group pic - this time taken by our hosts, as Robb is in this one although most of the animals are gathered together in one area, there are several exceptions (such as the Tigers by the rapids, the Sea Lions & Reindeer by the Pirate section, and these Otters right by the front gate) (he's back there just coming out of the house) here he is much closer - I think he was curious who these people were looking at him, when the park wasnt' open yet. thruout the park are these really nice Topiaries (tho I do think they are astroturf rather than true plants). . . it was fun just noticing them around the park. it's a lovely park, and was very indicative of many of the UK parks I'd see on this trip. This is a ride based on a very popular Children's book (I had never heard of it, so it must be specific to the UK). The Author is so popular, they actually have a 2nd ride based on another of her books elsewhere in the park (the Gruffalo). the aforementioned Reindeer and Sea Lions we headed thru the empty park towards are 1st ride. Chessington isn't really a Thrill Park - or at least I woudn't classify it that way. oh, there are some thrilling rides here, but nothing super extreme (with one exception), and lots and lots of family rides. Combine that with the SeaLife Aquarium and the Zoo? it's a nice, family park. with some EXCELLENT theming in some places. that track on the right? that's where we're headed: Vampire was built by Arrow as a suspended coaster, but a while back, the arrow "bucket" trains were swapped out for Vekoma suspended seats. the coaster still rides incredible, and the theming on it, and around it, is really quite good. some great photo ops among the theming too the station is so dang impressive. and yes, that's a full scale animatronic "playing" the Organ at the end of the station house. Hi Robb & Elissa! (and a good look at the Vekoma suspended train) after a bunch of rides on Vampire, off we went thru the park towards the other coaster we were going to ride (the park was about to open to the public). mmmmm. . . do-nuts the park's really neat Carousel, called the "Adventure Tree" in the central plaza. we cut thru the central plaza to double back over to this insane thing (and the one coaster I'd really call extreme): Dragon's Fury - a Maurer Spinning Coaster it's over in the "Land of the Dragons" area. the dragons in the queue might be "cute" . . but this sucker spins. a LOT. I actually got off it dizzy and it took a few moments for the world to stop moving. if you like spinning? you'll love this. For me it was 1 and done, but yeah, it's a very good coaster. and this wave turn while spinning? all kinds of amazing. (tho after this initial turn post 1st drop, we were spinning so much I couldn't tell you about the rest of the layout) once the park was fully open, and we were handed out food vouchers, we were turned loose in the park. post lunch, the park had a surprise for us with some animal tours if we cared to participate, but other than that we were free to explore the park for the whole day, and just meet up at park close in the Jumanji section for some post close riding of the shuttle coaster "Mandrill Mayhem" a B&M Wing shuttle. I broke off with Andrew and Stacy and we headed into the "Wild Asia" section next to the Land of Dragons. FANTASTIC theming over here, and I absolutely loved it. it was pretty quiet here tho, because to get here, one has to pass Dragon's Fury, and this early everyone went right into that short line. So we had this area mostly to ourselves - which I didn't mind, made for some great photo opportunities. this section has a big playground for the kids, and 3 rides: a Super Disc-O themed to a cobra can't pass up a good photo op. . LOL restaurant - wasn't open yet, as the park had just opened. Monkey Swinger - a wave swinger, that despite my best efforts, wasn't really able to capture the water spraying. tho if you zoom in on the below pic, you can see the water spout on the right just above the entrance sign. you know how on some wave swingers, they have the water fountains that shoot up, and make you feel like you are going to get wet, but they stop just below your feet? not on this sucker. . those fountains shoot up about 20 feet, and SOAK everyone on the ride. particularly the middle row of seats. I rode on the inside row, so only got "spritzed" not soaked. . but it was a LOT of fun. ah.. well, you can see some of the water spraying on the left here. and finally over here are the park's Bumper Cars - themed to Tuk Tuks. . . . in the background on the left, is the large, enclosed Play area for kids. LOL. .it kind of looked like an abandoned asylum, I thought. but really liked the design work. I hardly ever ride Disc-o's. . let alone a Super Disc-o. . . but with some urging from Stacy and Andrew, I joined them to ride this one. I admit, the design is what cinched it for me.. I really liked the Cobra design. we headed around the bend up ahead to hopefully ride the Tiger Rapids flume. . . only to discover it wasn't operating today I did ask about it, and was told that it was too early in the season for it to be operating.. which was a shame as it was a warm day, and it looked like a ton of fun. they did have some Tigers over here, but they were all sleeping in the long grass. . . so instead I took a pic of the Copybarra - who was helpfully just sitting near the glass in his own enclosure as we headed to another area of hte park. actually, there WAS a flume operating today - the Junior one (which I happened to catch Jon on as we walked by). the "logs" were ADORABLE - upside down Alligators. but the line for this one was pretty long, and it wasn't included in our skip the lines today (although I think you could purchase a one time skip). . but I wasn't needing to ride a flume that badly, so just settled for a pic of it as we passed by. the park's indoor dark, shooting ride. I don't remember much about it other than it reminded me very much of the Buzz Lightyear Spaceranger Spin ride. . but with Mummies. so I DID like it. Think we may have ridden it twice. this park made some news a couple of years ago when they built this WTF monstrosity - and I say that with total love, as I adore this funky thing. Croc Drop - a spinning, junior drop tower, that drops INTO A GIANT CROCODILE MOUTH! hahahaha. . it was so silly, I loved it. More Topiary time to ride the Carousel! erm. . "Chessington Adventure Tree" SO many choices. . . I, of course, chose to ride in the giant, carnivorous, plant - at least that's what I think it was (tho dirty minds might see it slightly differently). it rocked back and forth as the Carousel moved. Stacy rode a Tiger but we could have ridden Copybarras! or Rhinos That same author I mentioned earlier who wrote "Room on the Broom" also wrote "the Gruffalo" it's an indoor river dark ride . with some animatronics, and water effects - such as passing under shooting water jets - while riding in small 4 person circular boats. I didn't understand what was going on whatsoever, but during the ride the rafts got very close to each other, and the British kids in the raft behind us attempted to explain the storyline. it's a really popular kids book in the UK. Pic from Andrew while passing under some of those water jets is it Heckle or Jeckle ? this actually looked good. . but we were scouting for were to use our lunch vouchers. . .. we ended up at the BBQ "Smokehouse" place, where our voucher was considered good for the "family" meal. really. . this is what I got! (with two drinks). . and this is with me asking them for no corn and no beans (so there would have been even more food)! to be continued after lunch!

It's not you, it's a really bad design The train forces your feet apart, but the restraint forces your thighs together... which is such an unnatural position to be in. If the restraint allowed you to open up your thighs/knees more, it wouldn't be a problem for most people.

That's very cool how it interacts not only with the surroundings, but also how it spirals through its own layout. Great addition.