odie

Hi all, Was wondering if anyone on the forum plans on being at the park this coming Saturday, May 5th? I will be over in Denmark for a work trip and was thinking of heading to Liseberg for the first time. I don't mind going by myself, but figured I would see if anyone else on here is around to join me/show me around the park?

These are awesome pictures, AJ. Would be a sick experience I'm sure!

I can't even begin to estimate the amount of work you put into this! Such an amazing job.

It's been three years since my last PTR (school took over my life there for a bit) but I found something that I really felt the need to share, so here I am. To give you some of a background as to why I was in Lanzhou: I was doing a cultural exchange at the university there for a month through my university back home. It was an awesome experience. I loved China and I even grew to love Lanzhou. It may be one of the most polluted cities in China, but we must have been there for a good season because I would say it was sunny about half the time. Obviously, it wasn't one of their good days when I went and explored this park. I've never lived in a town larger than 50,000 people, much less a city of 2 million. So one Sunday, I had to get out and go for a hike. I decided to climb to the top of Lanshan Forest Park, to get a good overlook of the city. I don't use the term "climb" loosely. You know how in Kungfu Panda, Po climbs those thousands of steps to get to that temple, and literally is crawling to the top at the end? I think there is no better depiction throughout the entire movie of every single temple in China. After climbing thousands of steps, thousands of feet up, I got what I was promised: an amazing view of a sprawling cityscape. I also happened to see a theme park along the way. Originally, I didn't think I'd have time to check it out before it got dark. But I hauled butt up the mountain just so I would be able to go back and check it out. I also took the gondola down... If only Po knew there were gondolas at every major mountain in China now. I admit that I actually didn't end up riding anything here. Some of the contraptions scared the crap out of me and the others had ride cycles that were so long they were guaranteed to make me puke everywhere. I did go around the whole park to watch and get pictures of everything. I apologize before hand as the camera I brought with doesn't handle the smog background of every picture very well. But I hope you enjoy the pictures of this pretty unheard-of park with all its unique creations. Also, there is a zoo here that I returned to later in the week. However, it was so sad and such a terrible place that I completely regret going and supporting that. So I won't be posting pictures and I really recommend never going there unless it is to burn it down and set the animals free. When people say SeaWorld is bad... they don't even know. The start of the hike, overlooking the park This was most of what the hike was like, before the stairs even started. 1981,1982,1983,... The view from the top! Fantastic. I can only imagine it at night. Taking the gondola back into the park. The wind was blowing pretty hard, making even this ride a terrifying experience. The park was extremely scenic! This was one of the coolest parts of the park. The stairs were blocked off for some reason while I was there though. The reason this park, in Chinese, is called the "Five Springs Mountain". I have no idea what happened inside the cat. This ride looked pretty new compared to the others. I'm guessing this is a knock-off Top Scan? Would have loved to see this running. I counted how many times this thing went around... 20+ times each way. No joke. Rule number 2 is my favorite. This was some kind of haunted house, I think. My favorite ride of the park. Things started out ok... Then the cars flipped upside down and went into "spin cycle" mode. And when "spin cycle" mode stopped, it held them upside down for over a minute... (I actually counted because I was concerned) After the minute upside down, they returned to "spin cycle" mode. Thankfully, the ride stopped after that. This Top Spin was so fast. They operated it only in a "free swing" mode and they still made it flip so many times. Scenic trails throughout the park. A pretty cool classic carousel. Trampolines! A TPR Favorite. The entrance of the park... sorry this PTR is somewhat backwards. Cheap knock-off stuff. I picked up a 10,000 mAh power bank (that still works!) for the equivalent of $5.00 US. I call this: curly fries in brick form + seasoning And what park would be complete without GUNS??? If I remember right, those were either cans of Red Bull or cans of beer.

Finally, I have a couple pictures of the local area around Estes. I know there's no theme park included in them but I didn't want to create another thread for the same trip. A lot of the pictures are from Rocky Mountain National Park; what a beautiful place. I had a great time exploring and running a lot of the trails there. I definitely recommend spending some time exploring it yourself! If you're planning a trip to Elitch's or anything, it wouldn't be a bad idea to add a couple days on and spend some time up in Estes. I had a great time and can't wait to go back. Hope you enjoyed the whole TR and thanks for reading! -Odie The Alluvial Fan cascade. The top of the Alluvial. Loch Vail. On the way down from the Loch, we found this guy. He ate almonds right out of our hand! In this picture, I'd say he had at least 5 in his mouth haha. No zoom! An elk we passed in the car. Also no zoom. Up at Gem Lake. Gem Lake itself. The way down from Gem Lake. It was my favorite hike of the trip by far. There was so many cool rock formations like this. Heading to the continental divide. Almost 12,000ft in elevation! Breathtaking roads on the way back down. Horseback riding with the whole family. Why yes, this is a MINIATURE DONKEY! Riding was a lot of fun. I'm even super allergic to horses and I loved it. It was totally worth the two hour allergic attack I had afterword... no joke! Hiking to Lake Odessa, looking over the town of Estes. Lake Odessa. I wish my local Safeway sold elk. On our final day I decided to challenge myself with a run up this. I normally run at home every other day but this week it was so beautiful that I usually got a run in daily. So I gave the 2,500ft elevation gain a go! About a third of the way up. I found a couple Alpine Marmots. Apparently they can get up to 40lbs! I made it! My last picture of the TR: Looking over on the Estes Side. You can see the fires off in the distance. My heart go out to all the families close to the many fires going on in Colorado.

Jeremie - I'm not sure what's up with the rapids. I did leave before 1 o'clock so maybe they got it open later in the day? It seemed like they should have had it up before then if it was working... considering it was 100 DEGREES! Anyways, Sorry it took so long to get to the rest of the TR. Been super busy with work this week but here it finally is! So in Estes Park (about an hour and a half from Denver), they have this little place called Fun City. It's super cheesy and small but with as big of a group as we had, it's a blast! Their main attraction is the Giant Slide. It's like they took a normal traveling giant slide, added a 15 foot drop in between the first and second hill, and then stuck four of them next to each other. It gets going so fast that it becomes painful, mainly because on the last hill; If you haven't slowed yourself down at all, you catch about 6" of airtime. It's a dollar each slide but I'd say, if you're in Estes, you might as well do it once at least. The other stuff they had was standard bumper cars, bumper boats, go carts, trampolines, a super small and slow zipline, and two mini golf courses. Sorry, no credits at this place We had a great time on everything but I think a lot of that is due to the fact that we had so many people with us. For example, on the bumper boats, we filled every boat and had a huge battle! We were all soaked in the end but it was awesome. I can't imagine it being as fun in a small group though, considering it is about $6 a pop. All in all, it's an expensive place but if you have a large group or if you are there on a busier day, it is a great little daytime adventure. -Odie Fun City! Prices. They're about to experience some airtime... quickly followed by pain. The Bumper Cars ran a pretty long cycle. If you ride these, you will get soaked! The Go-kart track wasn't bad. You could take this corner so hard. Serious lateral forces here haha. One of the Mini Golf courses went on both sides of the river. They were both very good and fun courses. The trampolines. This guy was pulling the kid down so he shot up really high every time... it was hilarious. The zip line... really this was it. It maybe hit 5mph hahaha. For those of you who are of age: there was a Brewery within 500ft of this place! Giant Slide POV! On the way out I took this last picture. You can really see how big the slide is. Especially the second drop!

This past week my family reunion was held in Estes Park, Colorado. There was never a plan to hit either park (if you consider Fun City a "park") so they both came as a great surprise to an already amazing vacation. We got to Estes on Saturday the 16th and stayed till the following Saturday. It was hot the whole week, but coming from Washington, it was a nice break from the monotonous cloudy/rainy/50 degree weather. Anyways, On Sunday my family was on a hike and my dad said he planned on going into Denver some time during the week. I slipped in that there happened to be a theme park in Denver and the next thing you know I was at Elitch's the following day. I ended up going by myself which was odd. I had never been to a park solo before and I couldn't decide if I liked it or not. I loved the fact that I could use the single rider lines and move at my own pace. But it was weird not talking to anyone about the ride experience once it was over. I missed that part. When I got to the park it was about 11am and I only had till about 3pm at the latest. I could tell it was busy so I ended up buying into their Rapid Ride system. What an amazing deal it was! I paid $14.99 to skip probably 3+ hours worth of lines. I was literally done with every big ride I wanted to ride (besides Tower of Doom, because it wasn't running) in 2 hours. With the $14.99 pass you're supposed to only get 5 front-of-the-line passes but I never once was marked like I was supposed to be. I didn't have time to do more than the 5 rides I used the Rapid Ride system on, but I feel like park management should look into this... it would be so easy to abuse the system. My first ride of the day was Sidewinder. I thought it would be a less painful way to start off and overall, it really wasn't bad. The drop both ways had some pretty intense airtime. I wish I had gotten a chance to ride in the front because of the edge on the far side. It seemed like it would be nerve racking watching the end of the tracks come up like that while you're 56' up off the ground. But because I was in somewhat of a rush and there wasn't select seating I decided to just opt for my seat near the back. The plus side of being near the back: it made that first drop of my season even better. Next up I used my Rapid Ride on Mind Eraser and was on within the first two minutes of walking up the exit ramp. It's an SLC and I'm sure most of you have heard about a thousand plus reviews of them. So I'll try and make mine brief. My favorite part: the big sweeping curve after the roll over... I like the weird-angled floater airtime. My least favorite part: all of the inversions. Finally, I couldn't wait any longer, I hit the only ride I knew would be quality: Half Pipe. I really enjoyed this ride! I love the straight down freefall feeling you have on each side of the 'pipe'. The spinning adds a really interesting effect to it also. It's hard to describe it in words but the faster it spun, the more on-edge I felt. The out of control sensation was awesome. It made me wonder though... is there a limit to how fast this thing can spin? Has anyone been on it while the weight was totally unbalanced? Anyways, it was a great break from the duplicate Vekomas and the Arrow rides. I headed over to boomerang afterword. I went up the exit line like I was suppose to and got ready to board the next train. Before the ride op let me in though, a girl in the line yelled across at me and asked me to sit with the single rider on the train in front of her little group, that way they could all sit together. That's what I was going to do anyways but when I told the ride op my plan he said I HAD to sit in their seat. It really put me in an awkward position and that is the thing I HATE about fast pass systems like these using the exit line. I really didn't understand why I couldn't just sit with the kid in front of me. And if every person using a Rapid Ride pass has to sit in the certain seat he sat me in, it completely screws over the people waiting for that spot in the actual line. If I could complain about just one thing in the park that day, it would be this. Twister II , my final new credit of the day. I was really looking forward to this as it was a ride that wasn't a duplicate that I had been on before. Plus the layout actually looked pretty cool. But I have to admit it didn't live up to expectations. It really has no forces except for extremely painful lateral ones. On the first drop everyone had their hands up but, as soon as we hit that first corner, everyone's hands flew down to grab the bar. It was probably the most painful corner I had ever experienced on a roller coaster. Even when we hit the break run you could still hear everyone talking about it. I don't know if it's always been this bad or if it's a recent thing but I really can't see it being rideable for much longer. After that corner it got better, but overall it was just... meh. I only had about a half hour left so I rode Dragon Wing. I was pretty surprised by how much you could get this thing swinging using the "whip" technique. After the first minute are two I got bored of that though and ended up just enjoying the breeze and looking at the surrounding city. It gives some pretty great views. Finally, I ended the day with a re-ride on Half Pipe. Overall, Elitch's is a good park. I did enjoy my time there but, from the roller coaster enthusiast side of me, I feel like it's more just a park to get credits at. If I had a family along and everything, I would totally see it a different way. But as of now, I can't imagine spending too much time there because there isn't too many rides I'd like to re-ride. Maybe if you stopped by the water park, it would make for a better all day excursion. I hope the best for Elitch's in the future and I hope that one day they get something big that draws me back in. Now onto the pictures. They're all taken with my iPhone 4s so I hope the quality doesn't look too bad for you guys. I'm also going to say sorry in advance for some of the weird shots I got of some rides... I was on a time constraint and felt like I had to rush a little more than I should have. But I hope you enjoy them! I will be posting some pictures of Fun City and Estes soon! -Odie The Main Entrance. Can someone explain the whole "Not To See" thing? Lies... The main street leading to this was very pretty. First coaster of the 2012 season: Sidewinder! Pretty good airtime here. Mind Eraser. I'm sure you've seen enough pictures of SLCs... but just for good measure My favorite ride of the park. A half of the Half Pipe. The day it's 102 in Denver... Disaster Canyon was closed :/ The new Rockin' Tug. It had a bubble machine that all the kids seem to love too! (Sorry this was one of those rushed pictures I was talking about). They're definitely riding it wrong. From the exit. Twister II is a really hard roller coaster to photograph inside the park. Sadly this was the only one I got. Dragon Wing and that hot hot sun! It's hard to imagine them following this combined weight of 340lbs rule. I mean, that's just like two adults. I couldn't find the Rapid Ride entrance to Ghost Blasters so I decided to skip it. I would have felt too bad getting on in front of little kids too. One day... one day I will ride an Intamin drop tower! One last picture on the way out.

+ = X3, already in the making.

Considering I was 6 when the decade started, this is more like my theme park-lover life so far in review... - Favorite new coaster: Terminator Salvation - Favorite new ride: Tower of Terror - Most memorable park moment: Going to Disneyland with all my friends in 7Th grade. I don't think I'm ever going to forget standing on Main Street watching the fireworks, looking around seeing that there's nobody else I'd rather be enjoying that trip with but all of the people surrounding me. - Most memorable coaster moment: First Intamin - California Screamin'... where I learned that proper roller coasters actually don't hurt?! - Best ERT Session: Not official ERT but riding Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain 3 times in a row with no wait was really cool to me. - Least favorite coaster: I went to California's Great America so I'm pretty sure you guys can guess! - Least favorite ride: An Octopus at a local carnival. - Least favorite park: Fun Forest Amusement Park, the home of the lamest/most drugged up ride operators ever. - Most interesting ride you've seen introduced: Maverick. For some reason it had us all mesmerized while it was being built. I remember checking the site constantly for construction updates! - Least interesting ride you've seen introduced: Kangaroo Bounce at Wild Waves - Your favorite TPR moment (favorite post, trip report, video, whatever!): Finding TPR and seeing all the sweet videos and browsing through the actually active topics (A rarity when it comes to coaster lover websites)! - The decade's biggest flop: Hard Rock Park... so sad. - The decade's biggest success: INTAMIN - The best meal you've had at a park: Pizza at Disney because I was so busy riding rides all day that when I finally stopped to eat anything tasted amazing! - The worst meal you've had at a park: Orange Chicken at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It kinda ruined the love I previously had for that food. - Best park turnaround: Six Flags Magic Mountain. - Worst park turnaround: I would say Hard Rock Park but it wasn't even a turnaround! It was doomed before it even opened. - What was the biggest trend of this past decade?: Intamin ownage.

OK, here's the other picture... It looks almost the same just a *little* more zoomed in and off centered

I flew out originally for a wedding but I took off two more days of school for Six Flags too. And about the plane picture: I completely lucked out with that Haha. Like three years ago I remember seeing the park from the sky on the way down to LAX (going to Disneyland), so I knew I had a chance at seeing it again. So when we took off I just held my camera and looked out the plane window. Slowly I started to think we passed it and then I got distracted for a little and when I looked back it was there! So I took two really fast pictures haha. I'll post the other one when I'm back on the other computer (probably Sunday). It's kind of off center so that's why it wasn't in the TR in the first place.

Need more information....camera, ISO settings...etc. I have a Olymps Stylus 1010. I don't know much about 'ISO' but it can be set on Auto, High Auto, or between 80 to 1600.

My dad called me up about a month ago saying my uncle was having a wedding in Southern California on the weekend of the 14th of June and we were attending. He then asked what the best amusement park is down there. After my heart skipped a beat, I managed to blurt out "Six Flags Magic Mountain" before he even finished the sentence. And a couple weeks later we were on our way! The flight there was great. We flew Virgin America and the planes were just awesome. Each seat had a touch screen monitor in front of it where you could pick a movie, watch TV, listen to music, play games, or even text seat-to-seat. When we landed we hit In-N-Out and drove in the crazy LA traffic to my Aunt's house where we were staying for the weekend. We went on a hike up in the hills of the valley near the house. Then, I came home and went to sleep early, hoping for morning to come faster. I slept like a little kid on Christmas Eve but I finally made it and we arrived at the park about 20 minutes late for opening. The weather was actually colder and gloomier than in Washington, which was slightly disappointing, but I was hoping it would scare some of the crowds away... it didn't. My Dad and I hopped in line for X2 and it was already an hour-long wait. I've heard it can be a lot worse though so it wasn't much to complain about. Anyways, it was so worth it! The first drop was, and still is, the most insane drop I've ever been on. And the 2nd element (that felt like a pretzel loop without all the intense G's) was just as exciting. The music and fire really made the ride complete too. Yeah, I did feel the jerkiness and it kinked up my dad's neck a bit but we both would pay the money to ride it again any day. We left and headed straight to Tatsu. The line was another hour-long wait. It was also a great ride and yes, the pretzel loop was intense haha. We rode in the back and the ride was just so full of G's! The only thing to complain about was how uncomfortable I became. I think it was just the way I was positioned the first time though because it felt a little better the second day we were there. Next, I rode Ninja with my little brother because he was sadly 47" and it was the only large roller coaster he was tall enough for. It was a very relaxing ride I thought and was pretty family friendly too. My brother ended up riding it 8 times in 2 days because he loved it so much! When that was done, we hit up Terminator! We didn't really know/care what we were getting into with the line situation because there were no signs up yet saying: "Your wait from this point is approximately..." but it ended up being an hour and a half. We went through the pre shows and I thought they built up to the ride well. We luckily got the front and when we were next on, the ride broke down! I was so scared I just waited an hour and a half for nothing and would never get on the ride. But it ended up fixed in less than 15 minutes... it was finally our turn. This ride ended up blowing me away. I loved Roar at SFDK last summer and I knew I was a big fan of GCI's. So I expected it to be fun... it was so much more. The music, flames, tunnels, and everything just perfected the coaster even though it didn't need more perfecting. I couldn't decide if it or X2 was my new #1 coaster though until we got on it again that night. After that second ride, I knew Terminator had swiped the spot. The flames worked great and being in the front (yes, somehow we lucked out and got the front again!) during that first tunnel was the biggest surprise. With the fog and the darkness, you couldn't see anything. I have to say that it was one of the most exciting parts of the ride for me. After the Terminator experience we rode the coasters clockwise around the rest of the park. Riddler's was a really fun ride and I liked the airtime hills (off the break run and a little after the break run). So much better than Vortex Batman reminded me a lot of Flight Deck except a little better. Very compact and fast paced. The zero G roll was crazy fast too, which surprised me a lot. Scream! was kinda a let down, Colossus was the opposite. I couldn't believe how fast Colossus got going and how much airtime there was! If it were just a little smoother, it would be a great coaster. I guess the same could be said about the smoothness of Scream! also. After a spree of B&M coasters, I rode some more little rides with my brother. We rode the Log Jammer when we made our way to the front of the park and this is when I came the closest I've ever been to witnessing a ride related accident at a amusement park. We were going up the last lift toward the first of the two drops and I was watching a log full of large college guys going down the drop. They gained a lot of speed and hit the splashdown but it seemed like it barely slowed down and slammed into the next corner tipping the boat at least 45% to the right... enough to make them scream. I have to admit it was really scary, especially to know that we were soon to go down the same hill. I don't know if this was a normal occurrence or something the ride can handle but I had never seen anything like this so obviously, it freaked me out a bit. As soon as I got off though, I was over it and was headed for the next credit I hit Superman before dinner two times in a row 'cause there wasn't a line. I loved this ride... I love any coaster with a launch though. The line was really neat too and it was cool to hear the coaster launch when you're behind the doors, waiting your turn. We had dinner at Panda Express and then walked back to end the night with Goliath because we didn't want to wait in an hour and a half line earlier in the day. It was a good decision because now we pretty much had ERT! It easily made my top 3 coasters... beating out Tatsu in my opinion. The first drop just never ends! I was expecting a lot worse out of the helix, because everyone says it's so forceful, but it wasn't bad at all. By our second ride of Goliath, the park was closing so we headed home for the night. It was an amazing day but we were all tired and we had another great day to come. I slept well that night and was back at the park at about 11. Obviously, it was busy. It was Saturday AND the first day of summer break for most kids in Southern California. Plus, we only had a half-day in the park because the wedding was that night all the way on the other side of LA. We headed straight to the Flash Pass place where my Dad's fiancée surprised us by getting the Gold Flash Pass. It worked wonders. We didn't wait but for one coaster (Tatsu). So basically, our only wait was how long it took for us to walk there! You can read the rest of my Flash Pass review here: www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50022&start=20 We queued up Deja Vu and hopped right on as soon as we got there. This ride was very surprising. The first drop free fall was a great start to the ride and the intensity of the inversions just kept up the greatness. I can't wait to ride the one at Silverwood sometime if people are saying that one's better. Next, we queued up for Viper, which is my new favorite arrow (not counting X2). I have to admit I was a little freaked out to be 171' up in the hands of a arrow looper but it ended up being pretty fun. Now I had 2 credits left in the park: Revolution and Gold Rusher. Revolution was a lot smoother than expected and Gold Rusher was a lot crazier than expected haha. We rode in the back so we soon learned the point of the 48" height restriction We also got another ride on Tatsu before we left. Overall this trip was an awesome experience. The park was nice, a lot of security, not much line cutting, amazing rides, and there were some really good ride ops too. Angela was a ride op for the Buccaneer on Friday and she's probably the nicest ride op I've ever met. I had never seen another TPR member in real life till this park visit either. I saw Johan working very hard on Tatsu when I was riding on Saturday and another person getting off X2 with a TPR zip-up hoodie on Friday. Anyways, I got in 15 new credits in two days leaving my totally at 49. This park completely took over my top 10 too... 6 spots now are from SFMM including 4 of the top 5! I just can't wait to go back now Finally: the pictures. Sorry in advanced for not getting pictures of all the coasters... I completely forgot to get some of them! But some are better than none so here they are: Ugh. Hello Washington. And goodbye SFMM. Goodbye California. I hate this part : ( Yeah, to the right is the line for X2. No joke. Last coaster of the trip. Loop and airtime hill! We made a trip up to the Sky Tower. First up for the day. Who says you can't buy a best friend?! Day 2! My only posted night picture... the rest turned out worse than this one. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could take better night pictures without all these dot things? I love how long this airtime hill lasts! The pictures make the letters look a lot smaller. They were so huge in real life. I never even knew this ride existed! My brother and I had a great time on it together though. Why is Superman SO LOUD?! Some theming. I took this picture myself... you just can't tell because it's like the 400th picture from the exact same viewpoint OK, I was just kidding... it's really not that bad. "Everyone still alive?" "Here it comes!" In line... Walking toward Tatsu. Viper from X2's line. I thought it was funny how many people thought they were waiting for Viper. Haha. First ride of the day! Did Colossus used to not have a break run? You can't really see it in this picture but when you're closer you can see old track dipping down where the break run is. I couldn't even imagine it without that break run! This is more like it! OK. That's enough of the hike... There was lots of different plants, flowers, and trees I wasn't used to. A few pics from our hike... LOL. Mandatory.

Well this last Saturday I was at the park for my first trip (2nd day of the trip) and school got out the day before for Californians so the park was PACKED! The line for X2 had to be 3 hours at least. It was down the stairs and everything. So we had 5 hours in the park because of a family thing we had to attend that night so my dad's fiance surprised us by getting the Gold Flash Pass. It worked wonders! We did 4 big coasters in about a hour and that's just 'cause it took us so long to walk back and forth to the ones we wanted to ride. I didn't know if I would have payed that much for the Gold at first but by the end of the day I would have probably payed more! Especially if you could get a full day in with that thing! The downside was definitely cutting in front of people though. I mean, I understand that we payed for it and they had that option too... it just made me feel uncomfortable. Rides where the line joined before boarding were fine though (Example: Tatsu joins at the stairs going into the station and Viper joins in the station where you can choose the seat you want to wait for). We did end up giving back to the GP though. When we were turning our bot back in, we ended up giving it to the guy behind us in line for free, saving him 105 bucks! They just transferred the information from ours to theirs and that's it! It was really cool and I'm glad my dad's fiance thought of the idea.

New record for me: 1 and a 1/2 hours for Terminator. So worth it though!