bskies

I work across the road from the Easter show site & the euro-fighter has already broken down at least once. Not bad for day one!

I'm a little late to this thread (thanks to Dave Fudge for enlightening me) but it's made for great reading. On the other hand, it is sad hearing about people griping on these trips and for the most part it's about trivial crap that doesn't really matter. Reading this thread gives just an inkling of the logistics that must be involved in putting together such a trip. Frankly I'm surprised at how little goes wrong on these trips (or at least how little seems to go wrong!) considering the multiple hotels, parks, bus journeys and countries involved. And all this for up to a hundred people? Elissa and Robb, you do a marvellous job organising these trips and it's obvious by this thread that most others feel the same way. Being purely selfish, I for one certainly hope you keep doing this for many years. See you next year!

Saw it. Done it.

Spokker, the site is called Theme Park Review. The tours are basically theme park tours and that's what you get. If you want to see and do non-theme park stuff you're free to add time before or after the official trip. With 50 or 100 people on the trip I don't think it would be possible to organise sightseeing trips that would please everyone. People who go on these trips like rides - by limiting the trips to theme parks, people are getting what they paid for and aren't paying for superfluous stuff they're not interested in. Yes, these trips are fairly hard work in that the days are long and when the weather's hot can be fairly tiring. However, compared with trying to organise similar trips for yourself I'd call them stress free. The only concern I had throughout the whole midwest trip was making sure I made the bus! As larrygator mentioned, doing it yourself might involve driving on the wrong side of the road (or at least with different laws), navigating etc and, for the European trip, dealing with multiple languages. This is the sort of stuff that can make holidays stressful. Personally, I don't know if Robb and Elissa make any money on these trips (and I have no interest in knowing - it's none of my business) but they certainly deserve to considering the effort put into them. You simply have to look at the cost and make a call as to whether it's value for money from your perspective.

Good on you, Chocoholic. You'll have a blast.

Wow! 42 for Europe already and there's another month before the cutoff for deposits. That's great!

To get an idea of how many people enjoy these trips in their current format, and how much they enjoy them, have a look through the 2008 trip forums and see how many people have done a previous trip and very much want to do another. denning, I can sort of understand where you're coming from but if you want a watered down roller coaster trip I'm not sure these are for you. Personally, I love the fact that for around two weeks I can go from theme park to theme park, in a foreign country, without having to worry about anything at all. The most I need to do is remember to eat and drink, and a lot of this has been organised too.

Call me greedy but I've just sent off the deposit for Europe and the East Coast. Yes, I enjoyed the Midwest trip that much. Can't wait.

Finally! It's taken me a few days to make it through the 60 odd pages of Midwest postings. I just want to say what a great trip it was. It exceeded my (high) expectations. There are way too many highlights to mention (especially with my crap memory) but here are a few: - the people on the trip. - all ERT sessions were great for one reason or another. Riding at night with people you know is especially good fun. - CP was as good as I'd hoped, especially with Maverick, Dragster and MilF. And staying at the Breakers meant I could go back and get dry after getting drenched. Twice! That alone was worth the price of admission. - the people on the trip. - Holiday World was a very friendly park and I loved The Voyage even though it beat the crap out of me! - Hades - the underground stretches were great. - the people on the trip. Thanks to Robb and Elissa for a very well organised and fun trip. Hope to see you next year on the Europe and/or East Coast tour. Only 10 months to go.