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Hi Hoosier Dude, I believe we've seen your updated review on Google. I apologize that we didn't update our response until just a few minutes ago (Google doesn't put those in our "new reviews" section). I just want to express that our team puts our hearts and souls into what we do. When a ride goes down, we will spend what it takes to get it back up and operating safely as quickly as possible. Right now, we're at the mercy of a mess of a global supply chain--both with food and ride parts, but our team is going above and beyond in so many invisible ways to get rides back and food in restaurants this year. I'm proud to be a part of that team. That said, the days of your visit were particularly unlucky days for our maintenance team. We'd like to find a way to make your experience better, but we need to be able to converse with you in an appropriate forum--would you mind sending us an email at comments@holidayworld.com?

I mean... you do realize every park in the industry is dealing with these issues at the moment?

Fast Lane, Flash Pass, Skip the line passes are an even playing field. ANYONE can buy them. if you want to spend the money on it, then do it. If not, don't - and don't bitch about those who are willing to pay for something you've chosen not to get.

They're counting down the years until they get a new coaster.

Just to clear things up, we offer three 4-hour tours per day with a maximum of eight Guests per tour, and Guests may not ride the same ride back-to-back without waiting at least 15 minutes. We also offer one EarlyBird Tour per day. We don't believe premium or skip-the-line products should interfere with everyone else's experience.

As far as Joel making it onto Orion from Beast with 5 minutes to spare...........he has pulled that sort of thing off a bunch of times. Amazing that he can make it all the way across a theme park in a couple minutes but takes him hours to clean up his room or do a simple homework assignment or take a shower, etc, etc, Teens. Are. Annoying.

Yep. Just booked Breakers and flights. I'm gonna shop around for the cheapest rental car but I've decided that's the best (and most reliable) option, despite being $$$$. Thank you all for the advice. I'm excited to finally come back and ride SV. Hopefully the park's operations and staffing are tolerable the last weekend in August. It's before Labor Day so I should expect most things to be open, right? lol

Yeah, not so much "slow degradation" as "immediate response to a crisis." But I do agree that it's not the same experience as 10 years ago. It's the same experience as 1 year ago. When you figure out why, maybe you'll cut them some slack. These are good people, and I guarantee they want even more badly than you do for service to be back up to their usual standards. Edit: Haha, and while I was typing this out, they're already on it.

Can't you at least be a little constructive with your criticism? He clearly put a lot of work into that, and it's obviously okay if you think it's crap but that's a bit harsh no?

Yo, that crack in Maryland is strong af.

Speaking of unique rides, when I made my first visit out to this wonderful park last week, my daughter and I rode the Looper, and that sure was a blast! Hopefully they can keep it in good working order, since it sounds like it's one of the last operating flats of its type left! Since I haven't done an actual TR from my brief trip (that ended up being two brief trips) to the park, I thought I'd mention a few of my thoughts in highlight fashion. First of all, much to the chagrin of many of you I'm sure, the nature of my trip was such that I didn't have a full day on either end of it to do Knoebels for a full day, and as such, we had to pick and choose what we did, and focused primarily on coasters for this particular "tasting" of the park. I definitely plan on returning with my kids to the park for a full day, full "Knoebels Experience" in the future, tentatively next year for PPP. So rest assured, just because we didn't do something this trip (such as the Haunted Mansion), doesn't mean that your suggestions went unheeded, but rather it was just the particular dynamics of our visit, and the time we had allotted that kept it out, and it is still on our radar for the future! So, on our way out to New Jersey to spend some time on the shore with my relatives, we stopped at Knoebels around 4, Wednesday the 14th, for the Sundown admission, and got our wristbands unlimited riding. We had an amazing time at this small, family friendly, and very warm and welcoming park, and look forward to returning again in the future! One of the positive thing to come out of the last year plus, and the pandemic altering plans, has been my kids and I have been going to a bunch of smaller parks like IB, Adventureland, Holiday World, and now Knoebels. We've enjoyed our small park experiences so much, it's kind of spoiled us to the point where going to the bigger parks (like Cedar Point) seems much less attractive now. We had an opportunity to pop back into Knoebels on the way back for about an hour, while we were in the area, and took advantage of it, getting a couple more rides in, and getting some merch we were unable to get the first visit through. So, technically, I left home before my trip never having been to Knoebels, and now I've been twice! Great park, and definitely a place we'll be going to for a much longer period of time to get the full experience in the future! Thoughts: Phoenix lived up to expectations, mostly, and ends up as my favorite coaster at the park, barely! My first ride on it in the back seat didn't give as much air as I expected, but I was riding with my 7 year old, and was cognizant of not fully letting myself go, so as not to freak him out. So that could be why. My second ride, in the front row, was much better, and my third ride, which I've already forgotten where it was (sorry, do I lose my enthusiast card now?) was absolutely awesome, as I was flying out of my seat left and ride, and practically standing on the way back to the station. That final ride cemented the coaster's place as the best in the park, narrowly edging my biggest surprise of the trip. Twister just doesn't get the attention it deserves I feel, due to the tremendous hype over Phoenix. I do see people mention it as underrated more and more, and I can understand why, as it was REALLY a great coaster! It seemed SO fast, and brought some exciting laterals to the experience, much like The Legend at HW. I don't hesitate to say that I prefer Twister over The Legend, however, and myself, and all my kids were big fans as well. I think my 7 year old may have ended up preferring it even more than Phoenix. It's a very unique coaster, and in addition to the speed and twister elements, it had some great moments of airtime as well, making it a complete, and exciting coaster experience! Impulse was my 4th of that type of coaster (vertical lift and drop, single car - not talking about manufacturer or specific ride type), and while I really enjoyed it, it's no Monster or Fahrenheit, and I'm not sure if I prefer it or Hydrus more. It's still a great addition to the park, and a fun coaster! One of the fun tidbits from the trip was that my 7 year old was not ready to ride coasters that go upside down when we went to the park last week, and waited off the ride while I rode it with my other three kids. But after a week of being an increasingly brave "coaster kid" (what he calls himself, nothing to do with any group or organization), which included him making Hydrus his first upside down coaster, he wanted to ride Impulse, so we made sure to do so when we returned to the park, and he enjoyed it as well! Black Diamond was closed the first visit we were there last week, and we never made it over there the brief time we stopped in on Tuesday this past week. Flying Turns was also down both visits, obviously. The rest of the rides we made it on were great, such as the Flyers, which lived up to expectations, and gave my best ride on that type by far! We also rode Stratosfear, and of course the iconic Bumper Cars, which were super fun, and caused much mayhem! We didn't eat a lot, but we did seek out and eat from the stand made famous by CoasterBill's photo, getting the fantastic pierogies, as well as the roast beef, plus some birch beer, and chicken fingers. All of the food was excellent, and definitely lived up to the hype! I look forward to trying a number of the other other highly touted food places when we visit next time! That's probably enough for now. The bottom line is that myself, and my kids, and more satisfied Knoebels fans now, and we are very grateful to have finally made it out to this wonderful park! Thanks again to all of the many of you who have contributed recommendations over the years regarding this place, as I definitely thought about them as we were there!

Welcome to theme parks during a pandemic. This is happening everywhere.

"To promote social distancing we've made our event lineup absolutely terrible so nobody wants to go" ... easy, efficient, no need to mess around with reservations, they really are playing chess while the rest of the industry is playing checkers.

Why would a park thats in the business to make money be attempting to keep the crowd down a bit? God, CF sucks so hard anymore.

You're right it went up to $330 + tax, even August during the week. I'll go before they reduce their hours again, looks like 10pm weekdays go thru the week of Aug 9. If you aren't a weirdo and wanna tag along to make this trip more cost effective please DM me haha.

OMG! That kid on Racer! So the whole time we were loading and getting secured he was non stop talking telling me about his past adventures on the coaster, and I was wondering how much snot was gonna fly on me during the ride and I asked him if he was there with someone and Mom or Grandma or somebody was waiting for him, couldn't understand.......none of which freaked me out after all my years teaching. So as we are going up the lift hill I said to him "so are we going hands up?" and he got super agitated, pointed to the sign that said hands and arms inside at all times and was adamant that we hold on to the grab bar. So I humored him and we rode strictly to code. Then as we came into the brake run he put his hands over his ears and expressed his apparently repeated fear that it would not stop. I think the noise in the covered brake run really bothered him. So I told him "it's ok" and I threw out my hand in front of us doing a stop sign and yelled "STOP TRAIN" and got really lucky and it all timed out like I controlled it and he just stared at me the entire time we were unbuckling and getting off. I mean he almost fell over because he was watching me instead of where he was walking as we exited, lol. I do regret not having a picture. The benefit of taking the bullet as Bert phrased it is that while they were stuck on the brake run I was able to see all of the fireworks from the little bridge that overlooks the station.

No real difference 4 years ago either. LOL

I'm 100% sure management was not like "hmmm...let's not open Legend today. Or the next day." There is no way it was due to staffing, they would have taken the people from the ice cream stand at that point and train them. Rides need maintenance. Earlier this year Thunderbird was down for a few weeks, but you know what? At midnight and into the early mornings they were tirelessly getting it back open as soon as humanly possible. They were doing MAJOR structural work and digging up all around the ride. I don't know what the issue with Legend is, but I can assure you it's not like they want the ride to be closed. Things happen, unfortunately it just happened while you were there. It may be going downhill over the years in your eyes, but major rides being down on purpose is not something Holiday World would allow to happen. I can see them maybe staggering rides if there was a staffing issue, or closing some smaller attractions or ones that require a LOT of staff to run, but cheetah chase is a brand new ride and there's no way they wouldn't just not open it due to staffing. (Unless you're Darien Lake). Sorry you had an unfortunate visit.

https://bfy.tw/RLRs

We’ve reached peak enthusiast when there’s a page of discussion on arguing semantics about revolutions loop. In other news: track is here for “insert super hero name here” coaster

^ every complaint you had about staffing/open places, and supply at said places are due to the Pandemic, and interruption of Supply Lines. you may not have intended it (tho it sounds like you knew how you were coming across "I was afraid I'd receive a response like this"). . but yeah, not a great 1st impression as a welcome here at TPR. Cut them some slack, and maybe don't go to any parks until 2022 when things are back to relatively normal if you're not able to cut them some slack - I mean, really, check out the Cedar Point thread. . it's been kind of a horror show this year at that park. So either go and know what you're getting into (so don't' complain), or wait for things to normalize. just my input.

Probably. I don't see how that statement is verified based on your facts. Just because there is water visible in an area in drain condition in an aerial doesn't mean it could not be 3" of standing water and the drain is functioning. This is kind of dangerous extrapolation without the facts or expertise (or ability to accurately verify that information) before putting it out there and drawing strong conclusions. Written very artfully and dramatically without any legs. Extra points for sneaking in a political bias based on irrelevant donor information.

Was at the park from 9-noon today and it was slammed. Gatekeeper was down. FastLane waits for Maverick, Raptor and Valravn were about 30-45 minutes (a BIG difference from their other Ohio park), Dragster’s standby line was about 75% full, the sipper stand wasn’t open, and many of the rides were shut down during a light sprinkle of rain (to be fair, radar showed lightning in Toledo, so, you know there’s that…. ). I also saw Cedar Downs had a line extending out onto the midway, which may have been the first time I had ever seen that in all my years of visiting. I think I’ll stick with making the 4 hour drive to Kings Island the rest of the summer. Not sure I want to deal with the inconsistencies and longer waits at the Point for a while…

Not gonna be posting a ton of pics but I finally made my first ever trek to holiday world last week. I went Monday July 12 and Tuesday July 13th. I had my three daughters with me. We all enjoyed Holiday World immensely. More on the coasters in a minute, but all of the flats were enjoyable and my kids LOVED the selection. It's nice to have so many classic carnival style flats in a well themed park. I know Holiday World is always known as a clean park, but coming from St. Louis (and by proxy, Six Flags St. Louis as my home park).....it was shocking how clean the park was. Just fantastic. And with having three kids 10 and under, the free drink stations were VERY nice. So, the coasters. Lines were relatively short (it rained part of one day, and it was hot the other so Splashin' Safari was more where people were at) so a lot of coaster time was had. The Voyage really is a monster. That first drop is wild and a lot of airtime was had. It was very intense. Was definitely a rougher wooden coaster and my neck was feeling it, but a heck of a ride. Thunderbird rocks. So incredibly smooth. It's been a minute so I had done a launched coaster and the speed really struck me. The way you are exposed in the train coupled with the speed and smoothness really makes for that cool flying feeling. It's a short ride, made to feel even shorter if you just rode the marathon voyage, but it's all killer no filler. Loved it. The Raven. After having some time to process it since the trip, I think Raven is now my favorite wooden coaster. First off, it felt incredibly smooth for a wooden coaster. Don't get me wrong- it's not steel - but it felt bumpy in the great "out of control" feel a woodie should have, versus "that's going to hurt the next morning" that some are like. Tearing through the woods was an absolute joy. Great airtime. The turn by the lake is so cool! I really can't define why I found it to be the best, as the other two are more "thrilling"....but it just felt like a great ride. Exactly what I want a wooden coaster to be. Disappointingly, the Legend was closed both days. I couldn't get an answer as to why. Oh well, I suppose it at least leaves something for another trip. We did a couple hours at Splashin' Safari and of the water coasters, only got to do Cheetah Chase as lines were too long for the time we had left. Heck of a ride though. Easily my favorite waterslide/ride I've ever been on. Not really a waterpark person, though. Before ending I should also say the park staff was incredibly friendly and made a great visit even better. This is now one of my favorite parks, and it's EASILY my favorite as a family park. Can't wait to go back.

Finally! Someone else can appreciate it, too. Emily always looks for the ones with one hand not moving, and giggles...

Almost every major car rental company will rent a car to you, they will just charge an extra fee of like $20-30 a day for being under 25 so just browse the Cleveland Airport prices for rental cars and be sure to check their fees. Also if the prices are really high check out the rental prices at some rental locations not at the airport. Sometimes you can get a really good deal that makes it worth it to take an uber to another rental location. Personally I've been curious about Turo but never tried it cause some of the reviews I've read have made me eh about it, like some owners apparently can be super annoying and can keep contacting you and there are total miles / daily limits on some cars. Just has never seemed worth the hassle to me if I can get a similar priced car from a rental place. Personally I've always stuck with Budget and Enterprise because I've never had any issues with them.

"Flip Flap Railway was the name of a looping wooden roller coaster which operated for a number of years at Paul Boyton's Sea Lion Park on Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. The coaster, which opened in 1895, was the first looping roller coaster to operate in North America." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Flap_Railway "Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria It's bad enough being pedantic. Being pedantic and wrong? Bummer.

Some cars on Turo have a age listed. Did a quick search and found out most cars the age is 21 https://turo.com/ca/en/car-rental/united-states/cleveland-oh/toyota/corolla/639580 Found this for you. They pick you up from the airport it sounds like and on your way you go. Also I take it the park has been slammed most of the summer? Everyday when i look at the web came parking lot looks full.

Heyo! I work there, so let me see if I can answer some of these for you. My biggest advice, is if you're coming during the summer months, PLEAsE DRINK WATER!!! Hydrate before you come to the park. Hydrate while you are at the park. Hydrate Hydrate Hydrate! Drink water drink water! It sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at the amount of times we have to call safety to get help for someone who has heat exhaustion or passes out due to dehydration. I literally saw it happen in person yesterday. Also, if you're coming for summer, do make sure to check out your sweet summer nights show. Its definitely worth the wait, starts at 9:40 in Wildwood Grove. Most, if not all your coasters will have bins. I think they all do. A lot of our flat rides will have them as well. Please note, Daredevil Falls does NOT have bins. You must carry your items on that one. so if you got a phone you don't want getting wet, I'd recommend leaving it with a friend in the que line. I'm not sure about smoky mountain rampage. Might be the same there as Daredevil falls. Front Porch Cafe is ALWAYs packed. same goes for Aunt Granny's. If you're coming during a weekday during the summer, expect lines. They will be long. Weekends tend to be less packed as far as I can tell, but my work time with dollywood is short, and I'm sure that will change. You may want to check out TIll and Harvest over in wildwood grove as well. Also, the cinnamon bread, you can get that at the Grist mill yes, but a lot of people don't realize you can get that at the bakery right as you enter the park too. The upstairs level to the Grist Mill is CLOsED, so don't try to go up there to get it, you'll be sorely disappointed. As far as what order to get to things, I don't really have an answer for you on that. Refer to the guys above me. They may know better about that than I will.... single rider lines are good, but not all rides have them. I do suggest the timesaver, particularly if you're coming on weekdays during the summer. This past Tuesday and Wednesday have been the busiest days we've had since I started working here. It does save you a lot of time, particularly if you get to the park after the morning rush at the gates. Get there early, and make sure you have the dollywood app on your phone. It does come in handy, and we update wait times on the rides about every 15 minutes. Please note, if you want to ride Daredevil falls, That ride closes at 8. The website may say differently, but Daredevil falls is a special case in that the ride itself has no lights, which means it closes when the sun sets. Rides in general close, starting at 9 across the park from Country Fair towards Wildwood grove. All the rides over in Timber Canyon up to Wilderness pass will close at 9:30. As for Lightning Rod. Well. It's at least opening every day. It is still having issues with it's launch every now and then, but it hasn't closed for an entire day during the time I've worked here yet. Typically if it does, it's down for an hour or so, then they get it fired back up. Keep the dollywood app on your phone, and you'll know when it goes down and gets back up and running. I've had a chance to ride it multiple times with the Ibox track, and the air time is still very much there. In fact I got a night ride, last ride of the night, ride on it a couple weeks ago. That was an experience. lol. Let me know if you have any other questions.

I get why people say this but I've really evolved to the point where I think that if Lightning Rod is the big draw for you then that's where you should go first. It's not a reliable ride. If it opens for the first hour and then closes for the day and you miss it because you were at Mystery Mine you'll be kicking yourself. You should absolutely, 100% go to Lightning Rod first, then do Mystery Mine and Firechaser after that because of their low capacity. Lightning Rod is more reliable lately. You'll probably be fine but don't mess around either. If it's open, ride it.

Most rides at this park are great in the dark, to be honest. Yes to Apollo and Verbolten but also Invadr and Alpengeist. The park is heavily wooded.

Yep you're right. The Orion definitely does not suck as much as your weird and endless attempts at haikus. The one almost rhymes, but not quite. But under no circumstances should you let that stop you.

I did some research into this ride, and I'm of the opinion that Adventureland was extremely neglectful of its operating condition and had established no procedures for a water rescue in the area where the raft overturned even though they knew rafts being stranded there after a ride stop was possible https://medium.com/@spennydc/lack-of-maintenance-and-disregard-for-industry-recommended-safety-procedures-may-have-contributed-bfe6a22cd232

Update: The ride has been closed all day and there's a sign out front stating that it will not open today. If it's been testing consistently then that's great news though.

Photo trip report from Heide-Park, June 1st 2021 We had a long hiatius from theme parks as Germany was completely shut down in the amusement sector from October 2020 to May/June 2021. As we heard that the state of Lower Saxony was opening up a bit we took our kids, booked a hotel and went to Hannover. After having three great days in Hannover, at the Steinhuder Meer and visiting friends we used our last day for Heide-Park. We've been there in 2017, when we had no kids and just started riding coasters. So this time, with two litte kids, our focus was mostly on the kiddie rides and on Colossus, which was closed for renovation four years ago. We would have done more coasters, but sadly express pass, baby switch and single rider lanes were closed due to their COVID protocol. But all in all the park was in a good shape, extremely better then in 2017. Merlin has done some good work here. But to be honest, the coasters could use some mmore love. Krake was more down then open, had a more then 60 minute wait when open because it ran only two trains. Flug der Dämonen ran one train all day with a 90 minute queue in the middle of the day. Same goes for Desert Race. From our view, attendance was perfect and the weather was legit, with a lot of sun and no rain. We came into the park right at opening and headed straight to Colossus to get this thing done. It was our first new coaster since Tripsdrill in August 2020 and the first really big new thing since Walygator Parc two years earlier. As you can imagine, we were a little bit nervous. Even without express pass and single rider lane I waited just 20 minutes for a front row ride, Sarah the same directly afterwards. After that, we went to the Peppa Pig Land to satisfy our little ones. The area was really pretty and both liked all the rides a lot. Same goes for the How to Train Your Dragon area with the exception that both kids were too small to ride some rides. After more than two hours there, we decided to walk back to Colossus and the slide tower, where Paul deperately wanted to challenge himself. On this way we stopped at Grottenblitz, the powered coaster, where Paul was allowed to ride. So he cleared off his second coaster in his life - not bad for a three year old in a pandemic in Germany! After two laps, one with Sarah and one with me each, we checked the app and saw that there was almost no line at Colossus, so Sarah did a second front row ride while the kids and me made a rest at the parks lake watching coasters and ducks befor we switched and Sarah went sliding with Paul while I did a back row ride. As the park was closing around 5:30 p.m., we didn't have much time left, so we went on a walk up the hill with the big rides looking for an evening snack. While eating a truly good pizza, we decided that we adults were almost done for the day. As all major rides had more than a 60 minute wait for each one of us, we decided to go on Flug der Dämonen as our last big ride. I went first on the back right outer seat while Sarah waited with the kids and afterwards we switched and while Sarah rode I went back to the two kids areas to do some rides with them. All in all it was a very satisfying day. It was our first thing we did after an eight month long lockdown in Germany where you could do almost nothing. For the most time, there was no dining option in your home city, only takeaway or delivery. While we were at Heide Park these rules still applied to our home city. Our kids were so happy and even Sarah shared some tears during the day because she was so relieved. Ride reviews: Colossus: It was our first time on any Intamin woodie. For me, it was one of the best coaster experiences I've ever had. We had already awesome airtime in the front in the morning - but after a long, sunny day the airtime in the last row was incredible! And it was butter smooth in all speeds and all rows. We had much bumpier and shakier rides on steel coasters in the last years. We also loved the layout and the wooden fire figure at the end was just more then a scenery object. In total, it's now one of our top wooden coasters and even one of our all time favourites. It reminded us much of a wooden mixture of Expedition GeForce and Millennium Force. And this is just great. Pappas Ballonfahrt: A slow ballon tower ride with a nice view over the kids area. Even one year old Emma enjoyed it. Worth a ride if your kids like it! Schorschs Dino-Abenteuer: A dinosaur ride. It's the same system as the Flip ride at Holiday-Park, if you know that. But different to Holiday-Park, Emma was not allowed to ride it. Pretty dumb, but it is as it is. The ride is nice, long and funny. Paul likes it! Peppas Bootsfahrt: A circular boat ride for pre school kids. Paul loves those rides. You even have some sound interaction. Opa Pigs Zugfahrt: A slow train ride for the whole family with animatronics and sound. Pretty slow, but enjoyable. Huge hit with Peppa Pig Fans. Grobians Wolkenspringer: The same ride as Holiday-Parks Red Baron. Pretty nice, Paul loves those rides where you can do something manually like going up or down. Pretty nicely themed! Drachengrotte: Maybe the biggest surprise in the kiddie areas! It's for all ages and starts slow, but then you enter a cave where the dragons live. You get covered in fog and the dragons roar. It's pretty challenging for small kids. Paul got frightened, but his little sister was pretty amused! Grottenblitz: Pauls second real coaster (okay: powered coaster)! It had no line, so Paul took Sarah for the first lap. He did it with hands up - we were so proud! In the dark indoor part, he got a bit frightened. But when they met with Emma and me again, he insisted to go back on the ride once more with me! Western-Riesenrad: It's basically a cowboy themed kiddie ferris wheel. It was okay. One and done. Even the kids didn't like it. Flug der Dämonen: It was the second "adult only" thing we rode for ourselves - and it was a good choice. After a roughly 40 minute wait I took the last row, right side, outside seat. My favourite place on this beast. And what can I say? The ride was even better then I remembered! No bouncing, fast pace, great inversions! Only bummer was, that there was only one train. I think, a second train would have decreased the waiting time a lot and we could have done more rides. But this one ride was truly amazing. I'm happy we chose this as our last ride! Sarah took the same row, but the inner seat for better comfort and was also amazed. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed our trip report. Here are some photos of our tour: Hannover City Hall Steinhuder Meer Colossos queue line Colossos station I can hear this photo Mmmmh, humans! The dragons in the circle go up and down, up and down, up and down... Happy waffle photo Captain Paul Peppa Pig Land was really good themed Sarah and Paul: Car three, row two! Mandatory Krake splash pic I'm a real fan of the demonic knot element! COVID correct queue lines One of the best park and coaster views I know... ... can you count all the coasters? Goose family Soon he will be allowed to ride!

Disney has announced that more entertainment offerings will be returning across the Walt Disney World resort, including two big shows at Disney's Hollywood Studios! https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/07/more-entertainment-returning-across-walt-disney-world-resort-this-summer/?fbclid=IwAR3YHwcvECghOLwcSxSn3cUuILXCBUZp0ykWcC_tvtArTIVD2E-7tUPlkMw It’s been really great this summer to once again gather in the Harambe Theatre at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park for “A Celebration of Festival of the Lion King” and to feel our hearts soar with the sight of fireworks in the skies over Magic Kingdom Park and EPCOT. We’re continuing to work on bringing even more entertainment experiences back to Walt Disney World Resort, and today I’m thrilled to let you know about four other favorites returning soon. Starting August 1, we’ll be lighting up the night at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with the return of “Wonderful World of Animation.” This cinematic nighttime experience leverages projection mapping technology to transform the park’s iconic Chinese Theater on a magical journey through more than 90 years of Disney animation. On August 15, a tale as old as time will return to Theater of the Stars on Sunset Boulevard with “Beauty and the Beast – Live on Stage.” The heartwarming tale of Belle and Beast will once again swirl to life in this lush stage performance, with colorful costumes, gorgeous scenery and the songs you know and love. We’re also excited to share that you’ll soon be able to visit those monsters of comedy in Monstropolis and chat with a certain sea turtle at The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Mike Wazowski will begin welcoming humans to the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor at Magic Kingdom Park on August 8. And beginning August 21, you can get your most pressing questions answered during Turtle Talk with Crush at EPCOT. Duuuude! We also recently announced that all-new nighttime spectaculars “Disney Enchantment” and “Harmonious” would be debuting October 1 as part of The World’s Most Magical Celebration. That means this summer is also your last chance to come out and catch the current fireworks shows before they sparkle into Disney history. “EPCOT Forever” will conclude its limited-time run on September 28, and you have until September 29 to take in the spectacle of “Happily Ever After” at Magic Kingdom Park.

if you're a history buff, or love "re-enactments".. we LOVED Colonial Williamsburg. we bought a combo ticket from Colonial Williamsburg online which got us multiple days at both there and at BGW (we ended up spending day and 1/2 at Colonial Williamsburg, and 2 1/2 days at BGW before moving on to King's Dominion & Washington DC to hit the Smithsonians. it was worth it to us, but not everyone's cup of tea, as it's mainly outside, and very "authentic" to the times in terms of food and atmosphere. https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/ here's the specific ticket we got: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/tickets/summer-bounce-ticket/ it's a steal at $148 a ticket, that includes parking at BGW & Water Country (that we didn't do, but it's included as well)

Guys, you're all missing the point! We don't want this coaster to have water anywhere around it!!! Remember what their 'water coaster' is like!??!!

So a real estate developer bought the park and is clearing the prime real estate near the water so it's now just an empty lot with a nice boardwalk, slowly closing everything permanent and throwing up a few carnival rides that they can tow out of there in a few hours to reveal more empty, buildable lots? Sounds like the future of the park is looking bright! I'm sure Blue Streak will reopen in no-time.

Got back a little bit ago from going to GAdv with my kids for their first time to the park, and we all had a great day, on a manageable day crowd-wise! (The same could not be said for Hurricane Harbor, apparently, based on them reaching capacity again, having a security incident that briefly closed the park, and then making the decision to go pass-holders only the rest of the season!) Even my 7 year old rode everything he could, including Zumanjaro, and Jersey Devil! Jersey Devil was my first RMC Single rail coaster, and our first two rides in the morning underwhelmed me, at least based on my expectations for it. I rode first in the front seat, then the back seat, and while the back was definitely better than the front for air, it wasn't as wild as I was expecting. At the end of the day, after dark, and presumably, after the coaster had sufficiently warmed up throughout the day, it was a different story! I rode in the 4th seat from the front, and 3rd from the back (on the last train of the night!), and both were awesome rides, wild, and full of airtime, just like I was anticipating! So clearly this is another coaster that gets better as the day goes on! Waits were manageable all day, with none ever topping a half hour for JD (I hate the "Coaster" part of the name, so I just ignore it, FYI), so that gives an idea of the crowd levels of the day. It broke down a couple of times, just that I saw, but never seemed to stay down long. All in all, it was a great coaster, and a great addition to the park! I love the area around it, and I'd say it settles in nicely as the second best coaster at the park, behind The Bull! I'm not sure what our longest wait of the day was for, but it felt like it was for the parachutes ride! lol Only two chutes were operating, which turned what seemed like a reasonable line, into one that pretty much matched the wait time for Superman nearby (I went on Parachutes with my 7 year old while the older three kids went on Superman, and there wasn't much time difference between our experiences!) The longest wait of the day may have been either Kingda Ka (with a breakdown included), or Green Lantern (for obvious reasons), but even those topped out around 40-45 minutes. Not bad for a Summertime day at GAdv, and we were able to pretty much do the whole park that we wanted to do! We skipped Joker because we're not crazy about it in general, and we preferred to get more rides on JD. I attempted to get on Wonder Woman, which would have been my first Giant Discovery, but as it had been doing all day, it broke down as soon as I entered the line, and it was near the end of the day, so I didn't bother staying in line. I don't think it opened again. It also was pulling a large wait, it appeared. The longest wait time of the day on the app was stunningly Nitro, which was listed as 70 minutes! I couldn't believe it, as B&M Hypers are usually people eaters. We rode it early in the day and it was a walk-on, but we skipped a second ride at night due to the wait. All in all, a great day at GAdv, and I have to say this is definitely my favorite SF park for rides, and thrills! My kids also loved it, and my 7 year old looks forward to coming back when he's over 54", so he can ride everything he missed this time around! I have a few other thoughts about the day, and the park, but I'll have to post them at a later time, as I have to crash right now, as we're hitting the road to make the 12 hour trip back home in about 8 hours.

^Yeah, I love that they have a "Surf" coaster themed to Fire! I mean, fire makes any ride better so it's fine with me!

I did the Racer/Orion walkback and took a few pics. It was drizzling the whole time and seemed a lot more crowded since there wasn't as much space as there was during the Beast walkback. Still cool to get these shots which I will post right now!

conclusion of 1st day: finishing up the shopping (several shirts, and magnets were purchased), it was almost time for dinner. So rather than head to the car to drop stuff off at the car, we headed over to the Picnic Grove and joined the long lines of Coasterstock attendees for dinner: despite the lines, it all moved pretty fast. tonight's offerings were burgers, hotdogs, chicken tenders, Potato Salad, Beans, Coleslaw, potato chips, and chili. . with Deserts being Ice Cream offerings from Hershey (their versions of stuff like Strawberry Shortcake, Fudgesicle, or Dreamsicle). from what Kim told me - she had just done a major Coaster event with ACE, this is pretty typical dinner offerings at a coaster event. (the only events I've done were at SFFT, so the catering was more BBQ based. .but that would be the meal tomorrow). here's my plate - I bypassed the beans, and the coleslaw as I'm not a fan (but John said the slaw was good): the great: -the star of my plate was the Potato Salad. Absolutely fantastic, and I had a 2nd serving of it. - the Hotdog which I added the chili to was also excellent the good: - the burger was ok, tho tasted like a standard "Theme Park Burger". . so not awful, but nothing really special. Tho I did like there were cheese slices one could add to it along with other condiments. - the ice cream (I had "Strawberry Shortcake") as a perfectly acceptable ice cream desert - tho we made note that we would be trying the famous Kings Island Blue Ice Cream later the bad: - the chicken fingers were so overcooked they were almost unedible _ the homemade chips were not crisp and needed salt. the disgusting: - the grilled onions that were available to put on the burger/hot dog were GRAY. I don't mean they were translucent. .I mean they were gray. Like they were cooked in grease that hadn't been changed out after the burgers were grilled on the same grilltop. I ate some of them (and have to wonder if that's what upset my stomach later that night. All I know is that once i pointed out that I really don't trust the color of these grilled onions? John scraped them off his plate and into the garbage after deciding my observation was a good one overall tho? it was decent, and a filling enough meal. A great deal too, in that it was included in the Coasterstock ticket. Tho if I had to do it again, I'd just eat a couple of hot dogs, and eat a TON of that fantastic potato salad. the company was fantastic at the table we chose, and yes, it was mini TPR forum group there Ltr: Joel (Kim's son), PianoJohn, Teacher Kim, Stacy Gretchen, John, and me. after we realized we had likely made a mistake by sitting down, LOL, we forced ourselves to get up and head out to the car to drop off hats, store purchases, and Kim to change shoes: on the way back in, I finally saw Invertigo running. I hadn't noticed it running earlier in the day (tho was told it had been), but honestly, we hadn't been over on that particular area of the park. . so I snapped a few pics. we decided upon heading back into the park, that although we knew we had ERT tonight that included Orion? let's go over there - which was really the only "big" area we hadn't gone over to, and check it out to see if the line is nuts or not. on the way there, we happened to pass by the FestHouse right as the clock was hitting 7:15, and the Chicken Dance was starting. So we stopped to watch it (and yes, some of the kiddos in the area did stop and join in on the dance). and then we headed to Area 72. the park has done an incredible job over here, with the theming of Orion fitting pretty seamlessly into the theme they already had going for Flight of Fear. Really, this area is pretty impressive with the props scattered around, the sounds and lighting thruout. this parked vehicle was playing a conspiracy theory podcast supposedly being broadcast from inside the area - with working lights on the car. Very cool: the whole area/ queue for Orion is very well done, tho it seemed to have a lot of "open space". . maybe to eventually put a small flat in there? or maybe it's just drainage? regardless, I was very impressed. the line at this point (~7:20, so the park was open for 2 1/2 hours longer) didn't seem too bad, so we went ahead and got in the line. it ended up being about 30 minutes, which really wasn't too bad, considering we wanted a daytime ride for my first ride on it. And at least we weren't the only ones - despite having ERT on it in ~3 hours? we saw several other Coasterstock attendees in line with us. How was it? I REALLY liked it. although I think I liked Fury 325 at Carowinds *slightly* better, and I think Diamondback over on the other side of the park has more sustained airtime thruout the ride? OMG, that wave turn just after the 1st drop is incredible, and makes this ride a very very good one, and easily into most people's top 10 lists. it's SO smooth, and there's a lot of floater air (tho more in the front row than towards the back of the train. . . tho every row gave a great ride). Really liked it. Here's the Funpix from our 1st ride: it was just after 8pm when we exited Orion (and the line for FOF was insane, and snaked all the way thru the outside queue!). . I wasn't in any rush to ride it as that was also included in our evening ERT, so we decided to head to Racer and see if the line had gotten any shorter. it had not, so we headed over to check out Adventure Express - something we had bypassed earlier since the line looked a bit long, but we had heard over dinner that even if the line on that stretches out to the walkway, it's really only ~15 minutes since there are no switchbacks. while we were standing at the entrance, PianoJohn and his friend happened by and we stopped and chatted about how much I had enjoyed Orion. We mentioned we were about to go on Adventure Express, and they should join us. . so they did. i had no idea what to expect on this ride, other than it's a mine train. but really this impressed the hell out of me with the total WTF-ery of it. I was laughing so hard, and didn't really know what the hell was going on (it made a LOT more sense when I found out later that originally it had been themed to Indiana Jones when Paramount owned the park - and that makes a whole lot of sense with the remaining "sorta Raiders" theming on the ride. and oh, that theming is fantastic - from the spears coming out of the walls at you in the tunnel, to ruins the train rushes thru, to the "masturbating Idols" and the "lava" dumping on you on that final lift hill - that had a drop after that must be experienced to be believed ( ) yes, I loved this, and ended up riding it multiple times the next day with our Fast Lane + armband. getting off Adventure Express giggling, we decided it was time to get some Blue Ice Cream. Asking John where the nearest location they sell it at was (we were hoping we didn't have to walk back across the park to Planet Snoopy), he told us they sell it just down the way towards Banshee. so telling them we'd meet up with him at ERT, we headed off to get us some famous Blue Ice Cream. I should mention that as typical (apparently), Drop Tower had been up and down all day. Not as in it lifts you up and drops you, but as in: it worked briefly, then stopped for along time. so as we came around the bend, I noticed Drop Tower had just started loading up the chassis. I said to Kim & Joel - hey, looks like this is just opening back up, and there's no line, do y'all wanna ride? Kim did not, but Joel said yes, so he and I headed to the queue, while Kim got in line to buy the ice cream. well. . . . joke on me, since what looked like a one cycle wait? took 4 cycles, as the moment it started running? the FastLane queue started loading up, and the operator was filling at least 2/3rd of each cycle with folks from that line, rather than from the regular queue line. So what should have taken maybe 5 minutes, ended up taking us ~25 minutes. which normally is not anything to complain about, except that Kim had already gotten thru the food line, and had our ice cream waiting for us (melting). by the time it was almost our time to ride, Kim had actually come over to see what was taking us so long, and handed me my cone so i could eat it before it melted more - and apologizing that she had to eat the whole top "swirl" off it, since it was starting to collapse. LOL No worries, really, the Drop Tower takes so long to check restraints for each cycle, that I was able to eat most of the cone before it was our turn to board. Got a fantastic ride on it too..I love the Drop Tower here (think it's the same one at KD) as it rotates while it raises up. what did I think of the Ice Cream? I liked it. I can't really describe the flavor. . it was kinda fruity. . but really, it tasted. . . . . . . blue. yeah. .it tasted like what I'd imagine "blue" tastes like. it was good tho, and definitely worth trying if in the park. not sure why the heck I didnt' take a picture of it . . strange for me, but I don't have one. it was closing in on ~9:30 at this point, and we slowly started to head back towards Orion area, since we had Carousel ERT at 10pm. As we passed by Racer, the line wasn't too bad at all, so we decided we'd get on, and try to race. literally 30 seconds after we got in the line, the Blue Racer went down. so capacity cut in half, and only Red operating. Ok, no biggie, there aren't that many people in front of us, and there's still two trains on Red Racer, so should still move pretty good. Since we couldn't race, we decided we'd wait for front row - I mean, it's an old woodie, so 1st or 2nd seat (or any non wheel seat) is the way to go. there was a little boy (maybe about 10) who was by himself in front of us, so I asked if I could ride with him, since we were 3, and that way Kim and Joel could ride together. He said yes, and we were golden. . tho it quickly became clear he was slightly special needs (with a lovely runny nose that he was having trouble controlling). Kim pulled me aside and asked if I wanted her to ride with him instead - after all, she had just retired from Teaching and was used to being around kids - so i graciously accepted her offer, and we swapped places, with her riding with the solo rider, and I'd ride with Joel. it took a few trains, since they let us wait for front row, and finally it was Kim and her friends' turn, and they climbed into the front seat. and everyone got ready, and they started to check restraints. .and from back in the train (around row 11), there was a loud "EWWWWWW" and a woman jumped out of the train and stood in the station. several staff came over, looked into the row, made faces (that I can only describe as the "Mr Yuck" logo sticker from the 70s) and they made an announcement for everyone to exit the train back into the station. The little boy was confused, but with Kim's guidance he eventually understood they had to wait to ride a bit longer. an employee (who looked like a manager) came running with gloves, a spray bottle full of cleanser, and lots of paper towels, and headed down to that row. he did some cleaning on that row - including pulling out the hose, and hosing down that row! (and thank goodness the breeze was going the other way. . . so I'm still not sure if it was vomit or pee. . tho I certainly suspect vomit based on reactions), and they sent the train out empty to dry it. they then sent the other racer train out empty as well. . and when the 1st train came back, the Employee took one look at that row, went and got the cleaning bottle out again, pulled the top off, and dumped the whole thing into the row. . and they sent the train out empty again! (if you're familiar with the trains on Racer, they are like wells there. . so good luck getting that mess out!). . OMG. . we were horrified, and amused at the same time. Horrified because the coaster now had capacity dropped down to one train on one side. . and amused by the looks on the Station Staff's faces. . they were having a fantastic time joking at the expense of the guy who had to clean. at least the other train when it came back, got loaded, so Kim and her friend took off with their ride. (Kim's gonna say she took this bullet for me, but hey, she jumped infront of said bullet by offering to ride with him - I'll let her fill in what "rules" she had to follow while riding). the "problem train" came back in.. they looked at it. . . pulled out the hose AGAIN, and sent it out empty AGAIN. LOL I can laugh, because the end result of this? it took so long, that by the time we were loading into the train for our ride? the booms of the fireworks for the nightly Area 72 celebration had started - so yes, I got a Fireworks ride on Red Racer, so that was absolutely awesome and I feel like it was a win in the end anyways. the finale happened when we were in the brake run (and yes, they sent the other train out empty again). . . so we missed that, but what an amazing way to end the "normal" operating day. and hey, we "won". . .ok, ok.. we were the only train on the track, but we still won our race we exited, heard about Kim's magic powers that she had utilized during her ride - LOL - and then headed over to what I had been looking forwards to for most of the day. the Carousel ERT for 30 minutes. yes, I know it's nerdy, but it's a lovely Carousel, and I had forced myself not to ride it yet, since I knew we'd get on it this evening. so here ya go.. Carousel ERT pictures: why yes. . I DID ride it 4-5 times, why do you ask? then I took a brief break to call home and tell the Spouse how much fun I was having, and we headed back over to Area 72, since we were closest to FoF and Orion, so figured we'd get some rides in on those before heading over to the Beast for a night ride. I ride Poltergeist all the time at my home park SFFT, so the fact that they were running Flight of Fear with lights on for tonight's ERT wasn't a huge selling point for me. . but I did want to ride it so that I could say that I'd ridden 4 of the 5 Premier Spaghetti Bowls that had been built (the 5th is in China, so likely won't ever get that one. .but never say never). I knew it was the 1st one that had ever been built, and I knew it uses MCBR to bring the ride to a complete stop. But I was willing to get a ride, especially since during ERT it was basically a walk on - a HUGE difference to the line we'd seen a couple of hours earlier. the queue for this one is really impressive: a spaceship? you go into a Spaceship in the hanger? Even tho it was ERT and not crowded, we were directed to the back row. we asked could we go closer to the front and were told no, so we shrugged and went to where we were directed (hey, at least got a good pic of the aliens). but wow.. it was a horrible ride. . super shaky in the back. Not "jackhammer" but not in the least bit pleasant. The complete stop midcourse was a nice break in this case, as it stopped the shaking! it's really showing it's age. .and I know Joel rode it the next day with Zach in the front and said it wasn't too bad.. but man, in the back it was TERRIBLE. for some reason, the pics of our car came out "black". . .maybe someone in front of us shot the finger or something? but as a result, no on ride from Flight of Fear, but I rode it. we then went next door for the palate cleanser of Orion, and had a fantastic ride on it, this time in row 2. it's just as good at night, perhaps even slightly better than the daytime ride. I believe we even went right back around and got in line again, and this time sat more towards the back. That turned out to be a mistake, because we finished our excellent ride, and got to the brake run. . and stopped. after sitting for a couple of minutes, we realized that there was a train in the station, the 2nd train was on the brake run just outside the station, and we were in the 3rd train. Thank goodness I wasn't stapled in, but we started to get a bit concerned when we saw station staff trotting out to the 2nd train, and another lady coming up the hill to our train. she went row by row asking people how their ride was, and just being cheerful and chatting. I wasnt' too concerned about it - I thought outloud, "this must happen often enough that y'all have a process in place". But did start to get a little worried about our planned Beast night ride - that we had intended to head to next, as we approached 15 minutes sitting on the brake run. It was maybe 11:20 when there were cheers from the station, and the train in the station pulled out (empty) and train 2 pulled in to unload, and we moved as well. as soon as we got off, we headed straight over to the Beast area (tho we had to stop for a restroom break on the way, where I remain scarred from having to pee while listening to a "bluegrass" version of "Walk Like an Egyptian") Never thought I'd even have that to check off a list. . really.. I think it scarred me. . . but we made it to Beast with a little time to spare, and queued up for Row 2 (Row one had at least 10 people waiting for it) and got an absolutely incredible ride. it wasn't the complete darkness I had been expecting - but that's because Orion's light illuminate the woods pretty good. BUT it was certainly dark enough to not really be able to tell what's coming. and that stellar 2nd drop into the Helix feels completely insane and out of control at night, where it really does feel like you're going to derail, and you can't see the edges of the tunnel so you feel like you're brushing right up against it in those helix-es. Oh and the light IN the tunnel? was out. So it was like dropping into darkness. all in all, an amazing ride, and a night ride on Beast is a MUST do. by the time we got off of Beast (and scanned our FunPix of course), it was something like 5 to midnight. Kim and I were both pretty wiped, but Joel really wanted to try and get one more ride on Orion. we both were like, no way will he make it, but he's young and can move fast, so we told him to head to Orion and try to make it, and we'd meet him at the front gates. he took off and we headed around the park towards the front gate, but deciding that we'd try to see if we could get on Stunt Lot Coaster - since it was on the way, and was on ERT. it looked closed, but as we walked up I asked if they were still letting riders on, and was told yes - so Kim and I got a front row ride on BackLot Stunt Coaster. I have to say, it was much better than I remembered the one at Kings Dominion being.. but that might be because on the Kings Island version? all the effects were working! the helicopter blades spun, the bullets shot and lit up on the wall behind, the fire effects worked (oh man, so hot! and very impressive). I had totally forgotten that launched upwards helix. . seriously intense! almost passed out from it. it was one and done - didn't bother with it the next day. . but with my ride on this, it meant all I needed for every coaster in the park (other than Great Pumpkin which I didn't care about) would be Invertigo, Banshee (both on the next morning's ERT) and Blue Racer. I was pretty happy with how the day had gone, and even tho we ended it on Backlot Stunt Coaster (and not Orion or Beast) it was still a perfect cap to a perfect day. we cut thru the Carousel area to head to the front gate, and bumped into Joel - who actually *had* made it on Orion for one last ride before midnight. Exhausted - but still stopping to snap some pics - we slowly made our way out the front gates, made the short drive back to the hotel, and passed out to try to get some sleep before the next full day of CoasterStock. it had been a wonderful first day, and I couldn't wait to do it again the next day. . .especially with Fastlane+, and meeting up with Zach (PKIJizzman) to hang out. Day 2 up in a couple of days (if not sooner)

^ we had beer (I had frozen Pina Colada) there and watched a show on Saturday afternoon I made the bartender blush (and the other one Guffaw) when he asked me for ID, and I showed him it in my "wallet" and he said "can you pull it out" and without missing a beat, I responded: "But Sir, I JUST met you!"

day 1 continued. . . So we headed over to the front of the Eiffel Tower for the group picture at 2:30. to get there from Woodstock Express, we headed back thru Planet Snoopy, and past this bizarre ass game called "Stinky Feet" -- where you sit on a toilet and shoot water at the feet of a guy taking a bath (and there's also a bar of soap in his hand that has a target on it). I have SO Many questions, but really, at the top of that list is: What kind of bathroom is it, where if you're sitting on the toilet, you're facing directly at the bathtub looking at whomever might be in the tub? Seemed a bit kinky for a family park. so of COURSE I had to get a picture (tho hadn't noticed the lady looking at me from her perch on her toilet until just now. . . LOL) we got to the base of the tower tho: and tho there were a lot of us there, still immediately bumped into Stacy and John and chatted with them about the day thus far (and my opinion of what things we'd ridden thus far). here are the group shots they sent out to us - 1st the shot with everyone hands up which I think they quickly realized blocked out most everyone other than the front row, LOL. . so a "hands down" pic then went out to everyone as well: and tho the "vertically challenged" (or "fun sized" as they would say) Stacy & Kim aren't really visible.. you can actually see Joel, John, and myself in the pic: I hadn't officially met him yet - tho would within the next hour - PianoJohn from right here at the TPR forums is very visible in this pic too, far left front row, in the black shirt with white hat Pic taken, everyone split off to fill the ~1 hour until the next Coasterstock official activity - a behind the scenes walking tour/photo op for The Beast. I hadn't even seen the Carousel yet, and since it was right behind the tower, we headed that way to get a look at it and enjoy some other scenery - and I *think* we made a walk over to Diamondback, and rode it as the line wasn't too bad (tho the Mystic Timbers line had gotten long, so wouldn't get another ride on that until tomorrow when we rode the heck out of it with Fast Lane Plus) eventually, it was close to time for the tour, and we all met up by the gates next to Beast - ending up next to Stacy & John again (LOL), but she was able to point out PianoJohn to me and I went and said hello (he's a really nice guy and we chatted quite a bit thruout the tour, and even rode a few rides together thru the remaining of Coasterstock. and then the gates opened, and we got to walk way back into the woods where Beast course runs. It really felt like I was back at camp in my teens. . but so much fun, and thank goodness, no bugs! here are lots of pics of the backstage walking tour, that was ~50 minutes long: and yes, I'm sure all these riders were wondering who the hell all these folks are taking pictures of them! you can get some great shots of one of Orion's turn arounds from back here too. . . .and you can see how some of the light bleed from Orion at night results in a Beast night ride not being COMPLETELY black these days. . but still. . .beautiful coaster (and we hadn't even been near it yet at this point. . it had all been foreplay thus far today). and here he is (I hadn't taken a pic of us together, but John did), PianoJohn and bert, backstage at the Beast! I wasn't interested in heading further down into the woods - tho some did, to get some shots of the final helix, so we headed back towards the Station and remembered that this tour also included a chance to go over by Diamondback's turnaround - which was over here in the Backstage area - just behind the old "the Crypt" ride building, which is still standing, and they told us they use for Haunts these days. so we hung a left at the Beast Station instead of heading back out into the park. and discovered what the Water Dummies do on their downtime if you've ever wondered? Water Dummy Orgy, of course . . .LOL.. KI is way kinkier than I could have imagined I had actually forgotten that I had taken these pics, and was annoyed at myself that I didn't take any pictures of Mystic Timbers incredible 1st diving drop . . . so was so thrilled to see I have these in my photos from the Beast walkback tour: one last pic of Diamondback, before we headed out back into the park. I think we had about 1 1/2 hours until dinner time at this point, and I honestly can't remember what we went to next - but I seem to recall that the lines were pretty long on everything at this point in the day and we were worried that if we tried to get in line for something, we'd miss dinner. I wanted to do some shopping for Tshirts/magnets as well, so I'm pretty sure we decided that we'd head back over to the Eiffel Tower to go to the top if the line was short, and then run to the car to drop off hats, Kim could change shoes, and could drop off anything purchased. walking back thru Planet Snoopy, I stopped to snap a pic of this Carousel. I had to because: 1) it's a carousel 2) it annoyed the hell out of me that it's called "Character Carousel" - but with NO characters on it! I mean, c'mon. . I rode the craptastic carousel at USJ because it was themed to Sesame Street characters, and I rode the even worse one at YomiUriLand because I got to ride on LandDog. But only having the Peanuts characters on the Sign ? LOL.. that annoyed me, even tho I was tempted to ride it anyways, since I liked the Zebras. 1st world Carousel Fan problems. . . . but wait. . now there was an actual walk around Snoopy out? of COURSE I waited for a picture (thanks for taking Kim). tho I left snoopy high and dry, when I started to walk away without realizing he was trying to give me a high-five - I went back and did it once it was pointed out (by many!) that I had left Snoopy hanging. Speaking of High-5 (which makes me think of touching). . I do want to mention how the park is handling Covid these days. well, "handling" might not be the right word, since it's basicially not even being actively addressed. In several places around the park, I did note signs referencing social distancing, and a few of the stores did have signs up on the doors referring to Masks recommended, but none of it was being enforced or even mentioned. in fact, I think out of all the "Sanitation Stations" - and there are *many* of them thruout the park, and ride queues - I think I only found one of them in the entire two day visit that had any sanitizer in it. The rest were all dry. I carried a small bottle of sanitizer in my zip pockets, so just used that (and refilled it this evening for the next day), and I even supplied it once or twice to other folks who tried to use a sanitize station but found it out of fluid. I also had a mask with me both days (you can see it in my hand in some pictures from earlier in the day), tho I didn't really put it on when we were outside, but I did for ordering in Starbucks, when we cut thru the festhaus, and for the Elevator ride down from the Eiffel Tower - once realized on the way up that it was going to be a crammed full elevator of people. (i held my breath the whole time going up, and then kicked myself for not pulling out my mask. . so made sure to wear it for the ride down) I don't mean that in a negative way, or really to criticize the park. . . just giving heads up for those who are still a bit concerned about going out where there are groups as to how KI is handling it. other than myself? I saw, *maybe* , 5 other masks being worn in the park - either indoors or outdoors. not judging, just noting. anyways. . . we got up to the top of the Eiffel Tower, with only a one (packed) elevator wait, and spent a good 30 minutes up there enjoying the breeze and the view: Orion on the lift hill Clockwise from bottom LtR: Backlot Stunt, Beast, Diamondback, showbuilding for the Crypt, Mystic Timbers, Race For Your Life Charlie Brown Clockwise from bottom LtR: Dogem, Zephyr (swings), Racer, Orion, Antique Taxis, Windseeker, Beast, Backlot Stunt Coaster. ~40 minutes till dinner. . got it Pretty full parking lot, with Invertigo on the right Invertigo, Chute the Shoots boat, drop Tower, Delirium, the Bat, Banshee, and at the bottom the top of the Swinging Ship ride. In this pic, you can actually see our hotel - just to the left of the drop tower, about level with the red portion (across the freeway). So good location, and POSSIBLE to walk to if you must in an emergency. Banshee really does have a fantastic layout, with the elements spaced out just enough that it doesn't seem so intense. I played it safe and only rode it once (I know how I do with suspendeds), but it was very good Closeup on Diamondback's splashdown finale, from the top of the tower: (again, that big "box" is the showbuilding for the closed Crypt ride - an indoor giant Top Spin ) LOL. . Flight of Fear really isn't all that Photogenic, is it. LOOK! a big silo building. . .LOL But Orion sure is pretty tho! It absolutely just dwarfs Racer. I had such intentions to ride this. . but again. . every opportunity, the thought of spinning just said. . nope. I love these rides tho. the intention was to do a quick stop in some stores to pick up some t-shirts and then run them to the car before dinner (we had even taken a quick peek earlier while waiting for the group picture so I'd know exactly which shirts I wanted). . but finding the sizes I needed took longer than anticipated - the staff was able to find the sizes I needed in the shirts I wanted in the back, so big thanks to them. . and it got too late to run to the car without missing the first 30 minutes of dinner. So we grabbed our (my) bags, and we headed over to the Picnic area behind Planet Snoopy for the first of two catered Dinners at Coasterstock. . . to be concluded. . . .

I'm going with my kids this Saturday, the second time for most of us (after HWN), and I can't wait to experience it with my youngest for his first time ever! Whatever's open, will be open, and I'm sure it'll be a great time there for the whole family regardless!

So I have to add: I regret so much that there is not a pic, video, or even audio of our rain ride on Adv Express. I am sure it would have sounded like we were all being tortured Even though the boy is hardly a boy anymore if I don't feed him regularly he gets super grumpy AND he won't eat breakfast very often. I told you. Teens. Are. Annoying. So on the log flume I was actually in the back and my extremely helpful son ducked all the way down when he realized we were about to get Tidal waved (which did NOT happen the last time I rode this flume) so his back was soaked and my front was soaked. Thanks kid. And after I finance your coaster trips and feed you. The Brewhouse food was fantastic and not just by theme park standards I also had no idea that there was that cute bar area behind the Mexican restaurant and I have been to this park multiple times. It really is a biergarten and although I am not much of a beer drinker as Bert mentioned they had other drinks, a little show, and it was just a pleasant pleasant area to take a break and relax. Joel and Zach went and rode something so the old people (that's you and I Bert) could take an extra long break.