robinschroder

Happy Birthday! Wow - you even have your name in italics in the birthday calendar!

Great trip report! Looks like you had an ace time at Liseberg which makes me even more annoyed at my appendix (or should I say ex-appendix) that I couldn't come!!! Anyway, if I get to ride Balder in the future (and I'm sure I will) I shall feel safe in the knowledge that the structure has been all fixed up by TPR members! Robin

My hi-score was 99! I wonder if he'll read all of them! I really like the paradox created by the fact that when one of the suggested e-mail subjects is 'DIE'. Get well soon, Dan.

Yeaaahhh - that one is ace! I think I rode it too! I just can't get enough of those S&S Turbo Drops - especially Power Tower @ CP and Supreme Scream @ KBF! The funny thing about any drop towers for me is that they really freak me out every time - I can't stand waiting at the top to drop. Very few rollercoasters give me that same sense of fear / anticipation anymore - I think I've become immune! I'd love to have a go on one of those kerazy Double Shots [edit: am I getting confused with the Combo Towers?] - what's the deal with those - do you get blasted up like a Space Shot, then immediately blasted down like a Turbo Drop?

There should be a prize of some sort for whoever manages to get every single Intamin Rocket non-operational-credit! Each coaster must be down for at least a couple of hours for the non-credit to count.

Thorpe Park needs to look into getting some custom Intamin scarecrows fitted to Stealth!

^ I agree that S&S's screaming swing lapbars are really nice. I like the fact that they're designed to have some 'play' in them which means that even if you're stapled in, you're not actually stapled if you see what I mean! The only downside is that they (or maybe, more accurately, their sensors) seem to cause a lot of problems/downtime though (at Thorpe Park at least). I hated the restraints on Deja Vu - namely the lump that jolts into your chest! I thought that my rib-cage had been broken!!

Oh no! Have you seen this? http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26030 It looks, from the article, as if Speed Monster wasn't behaving itself and broke down just before the ERT. I hope everyone on the add-on trip got plenty of rides whilst it was working (the article makes it sound as if this was the case - I do hope so). I hope it's not too wet at Liseberg today and that the rides on Balder make up for the Monster's misbehaviour. Whilst I'm here, here's my photo trip report (taken in hospital in Hamburg) for my recent non-trip to Heide Park which also extends to my non-trip on the TPR day at Thorpe Park as well as the TPR add-on to TusenFryd and Liseberg... Maybe I'll meet you all on one of the 2007 trips instead. All the best, Robin I want my appendix back!!!!

Hello, Well here's a photo trip report of my visit to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch steam railway in Kent earlier this year. One of my best friends, Jon, used to work there full time as train driver. Even though he now works where I do, he still volunteers there from time to time and he invited my friend Tom (who I also work with) and me down to see him at work! We had a really fun day - Tom and I took turns riding up front with Jon! Further details of the railway can be found here : http://www.rhdr.org.uk/rhdr/rhdr.html . Robin You can't see it so well here, but there was a cloud on the way back that looked like a stick-man urinating! Honest!!! I got a little wet during the day! Jon prepares to put the engine to bed for the night. At the station in New Romney. The engine gets a glass and a half of oil. Some of the other engines having a snooze. The train was thirsty! Jon and Tom riding upfront. Me, Jon and Tom still in Dungeness. Me at the end of the line in Dungeness, enjoying the view of Dungeness Nuclear Power Station! (I love Radioactive Materials!) Feeding the furnace with coal... The train's controls as viewed from the footplate. Here we are passing through Dymchurch station - note the sign for MW's: I don't think there are any credits to be had there, but I could be wrong! ...and around! My friend Jon with his steam engine turning around... See if you can spot anything disturbing about this sign! It was a bit of a wet day... Tom and me on our way down to Kent from London.

Here's a picture of me loving radioactive materials near Dungeness Nuclear Power Station! I Love Radioactive Materials!

WOW! The finished product looks amazing! I'm definitely hoping to get out to Phantasialand later this year! Tom - how were the 'foot-chopper' effects? Robin

Not sure how much you're into your Intamin rides, but Holiday Park isn't all that far from Europa Park - it would be a shame to miss out on Expedition GeForce! (edit - I forgot to say that you can take a shuttle bus from Hassloch HBhf train station to and from Holiday Park, so if you're doing that part without a car, you won't have a problem) Have fun on your trip!

How exciting!! I can't wait to hear more details, after all I'm overdue another Stateside visit!!

Although I couldn't get the full video to buffer for some reason, SpeedMonster was totally just like "I'm the SpeedMonster give me some candy!" in the bits I could see! I can't wait for the TPR trip out there!

I thought exactly the same thing - I was really worried that I'd picked up some sort of virus! Glad to hear that everything's actually OK! Is it just my computer, or have the lizards really slowed the boards down? Anyway, er, Happy Easter lizards!

^ Five Live is "the BBC's home of live news and live sport"! A big percentage of its output is news and current affairs based, which is generally dealt with by way of live interviews / panel discussions / phone-ins rather than just studio cue - pre-rec despatch - studio cue - pre-rec despatch - etc. Anyway...

Hello, This 5 minute radio item from BBC Radio Five Live may be of interest. Apparently more than 30 character actors at Hong Kong Disneyland have reported aches and pains after wearing their costumes, but are unable to get time off to recover. Open this link up in Real Player : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/shows/rpms/fivelive/uan1_wed.ram and spin forward to 2 hours, 47 minutes and 20 seconds! This link is good for 1 week from now. Enjoy! Robin

I was browsing the forums during a quiet moment at work and one of my colleagues happened to glance at my screen. He asked me why I was looking at a site that specialised in the discussion of (Theme Parks, Roller Coasters and) Donkey Rides!

Wow! Thanks for sharing these pictures! I especially liked the supports' names. I can't believe the scale of the ride! Let's hope it all works out OK... Robin

Hi! My first TPR experience began at 9:00am when I met up with Robb, Elissa and Non-German Tom out in front of the entrance to Thorpe Park! We found out that although Stealth had been scheduled to be back up and running today (after a few days' downtime) it was, in fact, still closed! A big queue was already starting to form outside the front of the park (as it's currently school Easter holidays here in the UK) so instead Tom drove us over to Paultons Park so we could ride their new coaster, Cobra! Cobra turned out to be very much a family ride, unlike its insane counterpart Robb and Elissa visited in Klotten! Whilst it definitely had some really fun parts, the final bunny hills sadly didn't really have much/any airtime - although the ride did totally redeem itself by going through a shed! It's the sort of coaster that would be even more fun and maybe even quite intense if it ran a lot faster. But Paultons is a family park so it kind-of makes sense that they're (intentionally) running the lift hill on a reduced speed. Next, I picked up my very first 'kiddie-coaster-ridden-as-an-adult' credit on the Flying Frog whose airtime hill resembled Stengel's Bückel-type hill as found on Expedition GeForce, Alton Tower's Rita:QOS etc.! The launch was intense* and the airtime was extreme*! Hopefully Robb will post his awesome and totally exclusive POV footage soon! (*for a coaster of its size, resembling a kind-of-bored-looking frog) After being stung by Stinger - another family coaster, we hit the Kontiki (Tours) ride which was a lot of fun (not quite sure how to describe it - but there was some spinning involved so Elissa took on the role of photographer). But my favourite ride at Paultons was the Jumping Bean which was a nice bounce-up-and-down Moser ride. We left the park just after midday and headed for the McDonalds just down the road. This was another first-in-a-long-long-time for me, so I definitely got the full Theme Park Review experience today, that's for sure! One of the other many highlights of the day was Robb making his 'special noise' to scare Tom whilst he was driving us back! That's something that will stay with me a long time, and really has to be experienced in person to be believed! Words alone would not do it justice. All in all, it was a hoot hoot! Which in Paultons terms means a really great day and I'm very much looking forward for some more TPR fun on the 'add-on' trip to Tusenfryd and Liseberg this June! Anyway, here are some more pictures - this time from my camera - for you all to enjoy. Big shout out of maximum respect to Percy the owl, by the way. All the best, Robin And I went back on the train whilst Robb, Elissa and Tom headed off to their exciting and mysterious next destination! Tom braved the water chute! ...before we checked out the penguins!! A word of warning... Wow! The Flying Frog was really flying!! The back of the train went so fast that it overtook the front... Er... Has the shed been mentioned enough? It's like a 'behind the scenes' of the main update page! Robb capturing some footage in front of a Teletubby-style landscape! ...and we found Cobra! Percy pointed us in the right direction...

Yikes! They certainly keep finding ways to make the leg-clearance even smaller, don't they! I wonder how they'll render the wall - it kind of looks out of place at the moment. Although, of course, a couple of months ago the whole thing just looked like a coaster in a building site - but now look at it! Robin

I agree - I got the colour of Colossus's old restraints wrong in my memory, but I do definitely remember the old restraints being very clunky and heavy. Chestnut-brown sounds about right!

I went with two of my friends to Thorpe Park today (Thursday 16th March). The weather forecast wasn't the best - a symbol of a black cloud with a snow flake and a rain drop coming out of it, and a maximum temperature of 5 degrees C (or 41 degrees F) - but this little excursion had been planned weeks in advance, so there was no way we were changing our plans; especially since Stealth had opened to the public yesterday! We had a brilliant day, although it was really very cold (definitely below the forecast maximum for most of the day!) - to the point where, later in the afternoon, we were told that it was too cold for Nemesis Inferno to run and (unless there was another reason) I guess the weather was also responsible for Stealth not running from mid afternoon onwards. Stealth was fantastic on the rides we did get, though! The launch was very similar to Xcelerator - i.e. lots of fun! There was airtime on the top hat, definitely (although not quite as much as on Xcelerator). The front of the train gave some fun negative Gs on the airtime hill too, although the very back of the train seemed to have slowed too much (as a result of the brakes) to get all that much. That said, I seemed to get really stapled in each time when the ride ops were doing their checks, so that would have had a big effect! Plus the track would have been very cold too - I expect there's probably more airtime to be had on a sunnier day! Here are some pictures from our fun day out: Robin P.S. They seemed to be fiddling with Slammer today, so that was out of action. Otherwise everything else (except Tidal Wave, Pirates 4D and Miss Hippo's Jungle Safari!) seemed to be running - well, on and off at least! And may the bird that Stealth killed yesterday also rest in peace. Thanks for reading and sorry the pictures aren't so great - it was a bit of a grey day! We spotted a pile of Stealth's test dummies. May they rest in peace - especially the one Robb and Elissa made friends with in their construction update! Colossus seemed so much smoother than my last ride a few years ago. Plus the restraints it sports now (not sure when they were changed from the really heavy cream-coloured ones) seem to induce far less headbanging - thank goodness! Colossus, which had some technical problems in the morning but was running by the afternoon. There seemed to be way too much mist in Nemesis Inferno's 'volcano opening bit' for such a cold day - brrrrr!!!! And still waiting... but it was definitely worth the wait! Waiting excitedly for Stealth to open up!

Cool! Thanks for sharing these pictures - looks like you had an interesting tour!

Time to bring out this slightly odd montage again... ...er, so anyway - Happy Birthday Elissa!