robinschroder

Hello, Was geht? Those of you on the mini-Europe trip may have spotted me snapping away on an old 35mm film camera (my magic camera!) - finally I have the pictures back from the lab! They were all shot on slide film and cross-processed (i.e. the wrong chemicals were used deliberately) - no photoshop was involved in their manufacture. The trip was so much fun and it was great to make so many ace new friends. Many thanks to Robb and Elissa for all of their hard work, and hopefully see you all at some point in the future! Enjoy the supa-kerazy colours/colors !! Robin Part 1 OK - Here we go - we start with how I travelled from London to Germany: Slightly random self-portrait in the hotel bathroom, Köln! I arrived in Köln after about 6 hours travelling from London - not bad! ...and more of the same! Mass of overhead cables... Eurostar Hello! Here I am on the Eurostar! I'd love to lie and say I took this whilst I was going through the Channel Tunnel itself, but that just wouldn't be right.

Hanno - your photos are amazing!!! Great work! It was great fun hanging out with you on the mini-Europe trip! Robin

I hope this doesn't put anyone off from potentially visiting Alton Towers if ever in London from outside of the UK. Sure, Alton Towers is a fair few miles away, and it's in what could be considered a relatively remote location, but there's a great train / bus / entrance / bus / train all-inclusive deal run by Midland Mainline from London St Pancras station that makes a day out at Alton Towers from London without a car really easy! Robin

Ha ha - this is the most post-modern TR of a TR of a TR etc. ever!

Hey - superfine pictures, there! Were you using a DSLR? I Cedar Point! Robin

My favourite was where Kristen said "I thought it was pretty cool!". Ha ha - glad you're all having a superfine time! Robin

You've got some really nice super-contrasty pictures there - did you use 35mm film? Great photo TR - I must get to Oakwood some day!! Robin

Ha ha - that's so cool that you've got your own personal accelerometer! How come? Great trip report! Robin

Thanks! Yes - the mine train was powered (and not quite as orange in real life!). Robin

And here's a special photo bonus - as I was cycling through Hampton (home to Hampton Court Palace) a couple of weekends ago, I chanced upon a random fair, so I stopped to get a couple of pictures! (Different type of slide film on these, hence the different shades) Enjoy! Robin Mine train Go-Gator! Random Hampton fair

Hello, Last Saturday a friend of mine, Paul, held a birthday day out at Thorpe Park! We all had a really fun day and although we focussed on the water rides (!) we also got a go on Stealth, Nemesis Inferno, and (my favourite) the S&S screaming swing, Rush! Stealth was down at the start of the day, although it did eventually open up with 1 train operation. We would have done Colossus too except for the (as usual) prohibitively long queue. In addition to all the fun, I also got some nice pictures on one of my crazy cameras (Olympus XA2). No Photoshop was involved - these are direct negative scans from cross-processed 35mm slide film. Enjoy the colours! Robin Ha ha - I love this ride!!! Thanks for viewing! Yay!!! It's Rush!!! OMG!!! X:\No Way Out as seen from Depth Charge!!! (And Colossus) Colossus' track Nemesis Inferno zooms by... Nemesis Inferno going all upside-down and everything Nemesis Inferno queueueueueue Detonator and Nemesis Inferno Delphine and Paul (adjusting his ear) Rumba Rapids Paul entertaining us on one of his birthday presents (which accompanied us on most of the rides!) Stealth silhouette And, yes - Stealth through the trees!!!!! OMG!!!! Side-Stealth!!! A 'little' off-centre, but what can you do! Speedway race control Go! Go! Go!!! In the queue for Stealth The Flying Fish testing! We racked up 4 rides on Depth Charge in total!

Ahhh - good old Alton Towers! Great trip report - looks like you had a fun day! Robin

Thanks! Cross-processing rocks totally... good old 35mm film! Here are some using the same method taken on Brighton's Palace Pier... Brighton's Palace Pier - spookily still sea... Waltzer Turbo

Hello, Back in February, a couple of weeks after Rage opened, I took a trip over to Southend to check it out! It was quite a fun little ride, with a couple of brief pops of air both on the drop and on the descent down from the vertical loop. The elements kind of felt a bit too close together, although they certainly managed to cram a lot in to a small space... Not really all that intense - but it did make me a bit dizzy... I think all of these coasters over the years have broken my body! I took along my trusty Olympus XA2 and Lomo LC-A film cameras loaded with slide film which I then had processed in normal negative film chemicals (this is called 'cross processing') for some totally mashed-up colours and contrast! Sorry for the delay in posting these - I only just got one of the films back. Enjoy! Robin Thanks for looking at these slightly disturbing photos! Southend pier Helix! ...zoom! Zoom... Super-tight layout Cresting the lift 97 degrees!!! Adventure Island from afar. Multiple exposure of my journey by train to Southend plus Rage's super-tight twisty track.

Congratulations to you both, Robb and Elissa! Kristen looks so much like you both already - especially Robb! All the best, Robin

I <3 Screaming Swings ! Thorpe Park's Screaming Swing 'Rush' is my absolute favourite ride at the park (with Stealth coming a close second - sorry Intamin!). Great airtime plus a real 'I'm going to fall out of this restraint' feeling thanks to the restraints being designed to have a bit of 'play' in them once they're locked. Plus it's just so much fun to swing back and forth really fast! I rode the one at Knotts and loved that too and although my memory could be playing tricks on me, the Thorpe Park version seems to have a couple more swings back and forth in its cycle than the smaller Knotts one. Hats off to Stan Checketts for his ride design philosophy that says 'little children like to bounce up and down and swing back and forth, so lets make extreme versions to allow people to enjoy those sensations again'. I used to love my baby door bouncer back in the day, apparently (!) and I spent a lot of time on our garden swing growing up, so I guess that's why I like S&S's towers and swings so much! Robin

Happy Birthday to the TPR forums and thank you Robb and Elissa for all of your hard work in keeping the site running!

Well, I went along to the Tate Modern today and can't emphasize the following point strongly enough for those of you thinking of visiting: You need to obtain a free, timed ticket from the ticket desk on level 1 (ground) prior to joining the queue for the slides on levels 3, 4 or 5!! My housemate Tom and I turned up in the late afternoon and rushed straight for the slide on floor 5, the daredevils that we are (!), and queued for a good 20 minutes prior to realising that we needed to have obtained tickets. So I rushed down to the ticket desk whilst Tom was still in the queue - but they had just run out of tickets for the day. I think the idea behind having the tickets is to minimise the already very long queues (I hate to think what it'll be like on a weekend!) and give each visitor just one ride on each of the big slides. But some additional signs or signs at least a little closer to the back of the queue line would have been appreciated! The smaller slides from floor 2 didn't require tickets, so we got on one of those after another 20 minute wait. The general gist is that they lay down a mat for you, you put your feet into the end, they tell you to lie back and keep your arms folded across your chest, much like a waterslide, and then they, rather bizarrely, give you a push to start you moving! As for the actual slide we got on, it was obviously very short, but also very fast and incredibly bumpy! I'm curious to see what the larger slides are like soon... although that may involve visitng an oesteopath afterwards! The funniest thing was watching the people fly down at the end of slide 5 - some of them hit the crash mat, others weren't so lucky! The quoted 30mph is no exageration! Here are some pictures of my somewhat disappointing visit: (and maybe some video clips at a later stage) Me looking slightly disappointed. Thanks for reading! ...and being pushed down by the attendant! Tom loading himself into one of the 2nd floor slides... One of the slides on floor 2. The slide from floor 4 - rumoured to be the fastest of them all in an article I read... Sadly I didn't get to find out for myself! The slides on floors 3 and 5 (plus the queue for one of the floor 2 slides). So no big slides for us, since they'd just run out of tickets! ...without realising that you have to go to the ticket desk first! The fools that we were, we rushed straight to this queue on the 5th floor... Mmm... slides!

Wow! New construction pictures are available at: Kultureflash page 1 and Kultureflash page 2 ! They open tomorrow (Tuesday) and you can be sure of a photo TR from me as soon as I can get over there! Robin New picture from the Kultureflash site linked to above.

I've always been a big fan of the Tate Modern gallery here in London, especially the massive installations in the large turbine hall (it's a converted power station). We've had towers that you could climb up as well as a giant spider by Louise Bourgeois, Juan Muñoz created a new floor level as well as some (non-rideable) elavators, Anish Kapoor installed a giant stretched rubber sculpture resembling some sort of mad trumpet that filled the entire hall, Olafur Eliasson brought the sun indoors - well a fake sun at least - with his weather project, Bruce Nauman filled the hall with noise in a series of sound sculptures and Rachel Whiteread stacked up a whole lot of boxes! And now... coming soon: Slides courtesy of Carsten Höller! They look like a lot of fun! Check out: Tate Modern and Kultureflash for more! Tate Modern really is turning into an art theme park! Robin Slides under construction - as found on the Kultureflash site linked to above.

Hi - I stayed at the Pfalz Hotel in Hassloch last year which was perfectly comfortable (contact them via kontakt@pfalzhotel-hassloch.de) although it's worth noting that whilst Holiday Park's nearest town is Hassloch, the park is kind of in the middle of nowhere so you won't really find anywhere to stay within walking distance. I caught a taxi from the hotel to and from the park, which probably wasn't the cheapest option! If you have a car, you'll be fine however. Another option to bear in mind (if you don't drive) is that there is a bus service that runs from Hassloch train station to and from the park (click on Infocenter - Directions and then click on 'bus transfer' right at the bottom of the page on the Holiday Park website). So, if you stay in Hassloch near to the station (and I'll point out now that the Pfalz Hotel isn't what I'd consider 'near' to the station) you could make use of that. Or you could stay in a town / city further away from Hassloch, and take the train there and back for the day... etc. Good luck! And enjoy Expedition GeForce!! Here's a picture of the bus transfer: The bus leaves from the opposite side of the station to the ticket office.

I read recently that Intamin is an abbreviation of INTernational AMusement INstallations - which, if correct and true, I hadn't realised!

The back seat is the best for sheer insanity on the first drop! Plus also the intensity increases as the day goes on and the coaster 'warms up'! By my last ride at the end of the day, my reflexes made me grab for the restraint bar and I began to understand why they might need the trims - although I wish they didn't have to be there at all. Have a great time!

Wow! Thanks for posting that! Seeing a picture of Moonsault Scramble in the 1984 edition of the Guinness Book of Records as a child undoubtedly had a big effect on me, so it's great to finally see POV footage of the ride! I had forgotten that it 'started off' backwards...

Wow!!! What an amazing trip report! Thanks so much for sharing and for your continued updates throughout construction! Robin