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American Thunder reopened!

For those of you who have been wondering what's been going on with the old candy shop in Germany . . . Sip in Secret at an ALL-NEW Theme Park Speakeasy, Opening this Month at Busch Gardens Williamsburg For a Limited-time, Guests Can Save 20 Percent on Reservations for this Exclusive Experience Something new is brewing at the all-new Bürgermeister’s Hideaway This immersive, one-of-a-kind experience debuts on July 20 Guests 21+ can enjoy handcrafted cocktail flights customized to each season For a limited-time, all reservations receive a 20 percent grand opening discount Save up to 55 percent on tickets, Fun Cards and Memberships during the Summer Sale A one-of-a-kind, immersive bar experience is debuting this summer at Busch Gardens Williamsburg with the addition of an all-new speakeasy. Bürgermeister’s Hideaway will open on July 20 and offers guests an opportunity to partake in a spirited experience with festive drink and fantastic ambiance. Behind a sweet façade visitors will explore an exclusive hideaway bar that houses mystery and marvel for all to enjoy. The tale of Bürgermeister’s Hideaway dates back to a centuries-old mystery bar that offers a different type of counter service with a drink that is contrary to its country. This hidden den, run by Busch Gardens’ iconic Bürgermeister, offers signature cocktail, mocktail, wine, and beer flights that will leave guests craving more. Beverage flights are chef curated and seasonally inspired, debuting with the vibrant flavors of summer. Guests who select the cocktail flight can sip on the perfect blend of sweet and spice with the refreshing Watermelon Jalapeno Margarita and the Banana Nutella Martini, a smooth and savory concoction with a hint of hazelnut. Prost to sweet surprises with this ALL-NEW adventure at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Visitors must prebook their speakeasy visit here. Each reservation includes a timed entry to Bürgermeister’s Hideaway and one drink flight. For a limited-time, guests can save 20 percent on reservations purchased before July 22. Throughout the year, Members receive a discount on this all-new experience.

Man what??!? Nostalgia for old people?!? Most of their rides are terrible among today's coasters?!? Some of today's coasters cannot hold a candle to some schwarzkopf coasters. How many "todays" coasters have been torn down while parks opt to keep their coasters for "old people" lol? It's not our fault we appreciate and cherish good engineering and well thought out layouts.

Headed out yesterday for the passholder preview and... woof. I don't want to sound bitchy but I was really disappointed. SFMM decided that functional is the same as finished and we got a pretty terrible overall experience. Coaster - A solid 7/10. Less insane than the 1st-gen single rails, but I think that's a good thing. Easing up on the aggression makes it really re-rideable and I think it will be a huge hit with enthusiasts and GP. My one ride was in row 10, but I heard folks saying that the front was crazier. The new trains do make you sit with your feet unnaturally far apart, and it's kind of uncomfortable. Could be a more significant problem for folks who have shorter legs or narrow hips. Ops - I wasn't able to figure out what caused this but trains were regularly being sent out with only 4-6 passengers. Quite a few trains had only 2 or 3. This happened over and over again during my 3 hour long wait and it was maddening. The handful of times that they did send multiple full trains in a row, I noticed that the line actually does move, so that's a plus. I happened to be in one of the full trains, so I didn't get to see what the problem was they were experiencing. And I'm sure the employees were doing their best, no shade to them, but management forced them to open when they were very clearly not ready. Presentation - Lots of construction stuff still up around the area, a big dirt hole to the right of the switchbacks, confetti still all over the place from media day. The inside part of the queue had no working A/C, so it was hot and very humid from all the sweaty bodies standing inside. The floor inside the building is also a mess. It's like they told the construction crew: "don't worry about spilling paint on the floor because we're gonna do a finish coat on it"... and then they just didn't. Also, the paint on the coaster supports looks SUPER patchy and weird, especially near the ride entrance. Like they got scuffed up and someone fixed them with red spray paint. Extra weird thing - The entrance and exit of Batman have switched so that Batman and WW can share one exit path. Except there was no sign, so we walked off WW directly into the Batman queue and kept going onto the ride. Wasn't a big issue in the moment since there was virtually no line, but that better get fixed quickly before fights start about people cutting the line. -- The whole experience gave me the mental scenario of the construction project manager sending an email update saying "Hey everyone, we're almost to the end. We'll be ready to open in 3-4 weeks." And then someone from marketing replying "We just announced the opening day, so actually you have 2 weeks. Figure it out."

They usually charge more for weekends. They also started a daily ticket promotion today (B2G1) so it wouldn't surprise me if they raised prices a bit while implementing this new sale. If you have access to Tickets At Work or Tmobile rewards or similar, you can get weekdays for $36+fees or weekends for $49+fees.

That's because you're normal. I will ride kiddie coasters soon... but because I have a daughter who won't be able to ride alone. I figured out quickly that it used to feel weird being an adult and riding a kiddie coaster just for an imaginary "credit," because it actually was weird.

oh this "lightning lane" scheme was great, just so easy to get reservations all throughout the day and evening. Sunday afternoon: 12:30pm cali screamin -> 2pm gotg + 2:30pm spider-man -> 4pm toy story midway mania -> 6pm splash mountain PLUS a 5:20pm rise of the resistance -> 8pm grizzly river run -> 9pm world of color -> 10:45pm space mountain!!! other thoughts: * "45 min" wait for rise of the resistance!! (just outside the caves, we waited twice and used two lighting lanes over the two days!) * Easy to get into the cantina bar around 9pm Sat off the app waitlist!!! * Best way to fly the falcon: after visiting the cantina, during the fireworks, oh I crashed so many times

Visited Grona for first time last Friday. Holy cow, what a fun, surprisingly well-themed little park, with really fun coasters! I loved it! Monster had a great themed line, efficient two-train operations, and the ride packed a punch! Loved it's pacing, the foot choppers, and the final little airtime moment (which I never experienced on an inverted before). The great gray color and cool supports only added to it. The sleeper hit for me was Jet Liner. Wow: super fun Schwarzkopft, with great pacing, smooth as can be, and easy old -school lap bar train. Extremely re-rideable. Twister was reallly fun in the back and well-placed. oVerall, extremely well done, fun, and far exceeded expectations (because I entered into it with virtually none!)

It's not 4th of July without... Pizza?! So last week we picked up a new toy for making pizza... An Ooni Koda 16, an outdoor oven! So instead of using our normal oven which is limited to about 550F (or a bit hotter at the pizza steel utilizing broil) and requires 1hr preheat or so before cooking, or the outdoor Kamado Grill which I can get up to about 700-800F at the expense of a bit of fuel (charcoal/wood lump) and a 1hr preheat/prep as well... This Ooni runs propane and can get to 900F+ in about 25-30 minutes and be ready to go. A big perk is when its hot outside and you are not warming the inside of the house for 1.5hrs with the oven during preheat and cool down! So this means for Neapolitan style pizzas at this high of heat, they are done in about 60-90 seconds! For this style in particular, you ideally need that intense heat and very hot stone to cook the dough just right. A touch of very light char, a super delicate poofy/airy crust and the toppings don't dry out. It's amazing! I had really good results with my normal oven with this style, using a pizza steel on the very top rack, preheating a long time and using broil to get a bit more heat into it... But the Ooni just does it quicker/better/faster. As they say, right tool for the job! Much like I won't be using the Ooni when doing Chicago deep dish, Detroit style or other pan pizzas. Or, if I want more intense smoke/wood flavor, that will still be on the Kamado. Used it a few times already and LOVE it! Great tool to have for all our pizza adventures... Without further ado, our pizzas from yesterday included a classic Margherita with fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella (can't go wrong!) and then a bacon, pickle and buttermilk ranch pizza with mozzarella and provolone. The bacon/pickle/ranch pizza was PHENOMENAL! One of the best specialty pizzas we have done, to be honest! Can't wait to do it again.

Somehow today was my first time ever visiting Funtown. I feel like I've been reading about Excalibur for 20 years and kept telling myself I would drive up but just haven't ended up making the trip until today. Due to poor staffing, the park is only open until 6 for all but three "fireworks days" this summer, today being one of the three. I knew I wanted night rides on Excalibur, so I decided to brave what I knew would be a very busy day (especially with gorgeous weather) in order to guarantee myself night rides. Arrived around 5:30 and decided to head right over to Excalibur and that's when I learned the layout of this place is really damn messed up. Despite parking right next to it and the entrance not being far away, you have to basically walk around the perimeter of the park to the very end to get to it. I was reminded of Dinky Park on RCT when you have to start building paths over rides because you literally have to walk through a French Fry restaurant, over the Antique Cars, and through the Log Flume entrance to get back to Excalibur. After finally getting to the thing we were greeted with 3 lines, one for the back, one for all of the middle, and one for the front. All three were about even and we figured that meant the front and back lines would be stupid long, so we ended up dead center in the train. The operations on this ride are painfully slow (minimum 4 minutes on each load) with one train. Then some dipsh*t threw a basketball onto the tracks which took even more time (there were a LOT of knuckleheads in this park tonight) but finally we got on and my first impression from the middle was that it was decently smooth with some floater air moments and good laterals, including a whiplashing second turn which caught me off guard. I've seen people compare it to Legend and I have to agree, it's just much more out in the woods obviously. Got the flume credit next. This is one of the few rides in this park with a somewhat normal capacity, so despite the queue being almost full I was on in 10 minutes or so. This remained me of Canobie's flume but only 1 hill. Lots of fast low to the ground action. Very minor splashdown but there were 6 water cannons that were getting a LOT of use and there was no escaping getting drenched by those. Overall a thumbs up for the flume. Went to get the other credit in this park, the Wild Mouse. Standard Maurer-Sohne layout, only this one runs THREE cars on the whole damn track. So yeah, the line crawls but after 15 minutes we enjoyed the standard mousy affair. After a quick dinner at the chicken place next to the Mouse, I got in the full queue for the Astrodome. It was about a 3 cycle wait. Not bad, right? Well, when they're running THIRTEEN MINUTE load times, it's bad. I know most of the ops are kind of new and all, but god damn. You go into a room where they go over this long schpiel (....for a Scrambler) then you finally get on the thing and after they check your bar 3 times, it finally starts. Can't complain about the music choice (Fire on High by ELO) and the bizarre projections were interesting, but this is the second slowest Scrambler I've ever ridden (the SFNE edition runs in Grandma mode, I swear) and the building doesn't really get that dark. I remember liking PsychoDrome at Canobie a lot better. When it's over, they make everyone stand in a group before leading you through the exit (which is like 10 feet away) leaving you wondering where the last 45 minutes of your life went. Went up front to hit Dragon's Descent, an S&S turbo drop. 20 minute wait but thankfully this thing had way more normal load times than the rest of the park. It was 9:00 by then so headed back to Excalibur to finish with some night rides. The fireworks started at 9:30 so on my first ride they were going off to our,right while going up the lift. Rode in the front row of the back car which provided some great air on the first couple drops. This thing has Beast-style total darkness on most of the layout and the disorienting nature of the second half is really awesome at night. Had time for one more ride so rode in the second row and the first couple turnaround hills absolutely launch you to the stratosphere. Then you get a couple more ejector air moments and strong laterals all in total darkness. Just a damn good coaster and glad I finally got here to ride it. If only they could do something about the ~200 rider per hour throughput. Park was closed after that so headed out to the clusterf*ck of a parking lot which took 45 minutes to get out of. This place is worth visiting just for Excalibur alone. But the operations can be mind numbingly bad in some aspects and it was only made worse by a big holiday crowd. Hopefully they can kind of get that under control a bit. Canobie is a vastly better park but Excalibur blows away anything in that park. But if you're ever in northern NE, hit both in the same day!

Made a few neapoletin style pizzas today. Two with pepperoni and two traditional... Two of these are for coworkers tomorrow as a little surprise!

It’s a nostalgia thing for old people, most of their rides are terrible among today’s coasters.