Groteslurf

Roots bloody roots - Sepultura

Batwing - SFA

13/20

Pony - Ginuwine

Yesterday, with much lighter crowds, it worked out better. At a lot of rides, they now managed to get the trains dispatched before the previous train arrived at the station. One example : at most rides, they opened the gates immediately after the train came to a stand still in the station so that people could start taking place. On Monday, they waited till everyone of the previous train had left the loading platform before opening the gates for the next riders. It looks like heavy crowds make the ride ops work more slowly for some reason.

5/28 : KD Nice park. Crowds were very light. FoF was closed the whole day and only one side of Rebel Yell was running. Dominator kicks a$$. Very good and long coaster. Avalance was running only 1 train which resulted in the longest row of the park. Great that this one is not covered. For taking pics that is. I love these things Volcano : short but good. Scooby Doo : bad. Rebel Yell : bad Hurler : bad Grizzly : bad It's the weirdest train, no doubt. This was no good. This one had nearly all effects working. They 2 we rode earlier, had only a small part of the effects working. CF really should do something about that. I love it when the train disappears under the water for a moment. Nice gimmick. Only a pitty that you can't get closer to that point. This Arrow was fairly ok. We rode it in the frontrow and turned our head in the right direction I guess ^ No, it was running perfect. Oh no, not again

Thanks for the report. We're just back from KD and crowds were even lighter. Volcano had no waiting line during the day. 5 minutes for frontrow. Dominator is great and had a wait of max 5 minutes. Longest waiting line was for Avalanche as they were running it with only 1 train. Biggest surprise on that ride was the complete stop at the mid course trims FoF was closed as well today and Rebel Yell was running only the left side.

Public Image - PIL

5/26 : Six Flags Great Adventure Wow, this park has some good coasters ! For me, this park has set new standards. El Toro blew me away. Nitro is silky smooth thus good, Medusa is the best floorless I've been on now, Superman is the best flying coasters I know so far, Kingda Ka is the highest and fastest and I like it, though I prefer Dragster. Dark Knight is, euh ...., better than not covered ? We heard several GP saying "Was that it ?" and "Did we wait 2 hours for that ?". Luckily we listened to R&E and got FP Gold So SFGAdv impressed me with their coasters, but they didn't impress me at all with their operations. Batman was running with 2 trains but the ops never managed to get the train ready before the other one returned. Medusa : same El Toro : same Rolling Thunder : same (on each side) Nitro was running 3 trains but there was always 1 train which had to wait for a while before entering the station. One time all 3 where at the station. And this with a clamshell only train Superman was running only 1 train while the normal line was more than 1 hour. After 9 pm we saw that they finally were running 2 trains. Gasm : same as with Nitro. KK : 3 trains but it took us nearly 1 hour wait (incl 10 minute breakdown) to get on frontseat with 12 people in front of us. So that means we were on the 7th train. 7 trains times 3 loadstations, that about 21 trains in 50 minutes !! Although I like the coasters, it was really one of the worst ride operations I ever saw. Nitro : what a very smooth ride. It was just like sitting in my sofa watching a TPR dvd The ride is awesome though. Superman row. "I don't care if people have to wait, I'm only running 1 train and I will make sure we'll take our time to un- and reload the train so that there is only one train dispatched every 4 minutes". Didn't like these Some moro El Toro Medusa, another great, smooth ride. Wow, just wow ! There is a train on the track though you hardly see it. I love the way you can walk around Dragster. SFGA could have done better with KK. Now you can only take pics from a distance. KK : it is high and fast. But noticed some shaking going one. GASM : I'm not a fan of those Arrow loopers, so didn't like this one either. It is a beauty though. That first loop is so weird. In person. Dark Knight preshow. Batman : great ride but not the best B&M inverted. Entrance

Kingda Ka.

Yeah, isn't that a shame When we left, I couldn't imagine they would still open the ride the same day after what have happened. Oh well, it was quite interesting to stand there. We actually didn't do any rides that day in Hershey. We have just been standing there for 4 hours. How silly are we ? Anyway, since I was wearing my TPR t-shirt, I had a lot of people to talk to. What a shirt can do Today, in another shirt, nobody talked to me at Dorney To all the people I talked to at HP, it was nice meeting you. To the lady I briefly talked to in the elevator of the hotel and who was one of the 11, hope you got yr ride after all. To Anthony of www.hpbuzz.com , lots of success with your new Hersheypark website. Btw, thanks to all readers and their comments. We really appreciate your comments. Otherwise we would not have the energy for putting in all the time it takes to make those reports. So thanks for that. Tomorrow and Tuesday SFGAdv.

See me feel me - The Who

Talon

Just noticed that we are only 15 miles from the Burlington Coat Factory. We'll drive to the mall over there in a few moments. If we see the BCF, I'll try to find out what is going on over there

5/25 : Dorney Park After the Fahrenheit disappointment of yesterday, it was time today for Dorney Park. We expected large crowds but lines were very ok. Talon is the best ride in the park. Talon : the best ride in the park. For me, a top 5 B&M inverted. I can't believe how wet all the waterrides in the Usa are. Hydra : the inversions before the lift hill is weird. Steel Force is better then Magnum : no pain. Thunder Hawk : I couldn't believe they timmed the train to death on the second bunnyhop. The 3 remaining hops are taken without speed. Voodoo : we liked Wicked Twister better. The "hang second" is great though. Entrance

5/24 : Knoebels This is a great park. A very relaxed laid back atmosphere and 2 great woodies. Twister is ok. Phoenix is awesome Flying turns : 2nd missed credit today. full parking lot

Alright, because I'm a day behind, here my updates : 5/23 & 5/24 : Hersheypark Very nice, beautiful and clean park. At some rides though the ride ops really suck big time. Superdooperlooper ops are great and get the trains out very quickly. But at Great Bear the train still has to leave the station when the other train is already back waiting to enter. At Trailblazer they've only put one train on the track while the park was packed with schoolgroups. Stormrunner was running with 2 trains only. I don't know whether there are more trains than 2 but still, the ops took their time to load and check. This was also the first park where at most rides they wait to open the gates until everybody from the train before is out of the station. 5/24 : Hersheypark day 2 Cobra roll valley on Pharenheit As we still had to visit Knoebels, we decided not to stay any longer. When we drove off the parking lot, train was still in the same position. And another 20 minutes later Another 20 minutes later. Moving further. Time between each pic is now approx 20 minutes. Train moving. The guy on the right of the pic was some big shot at Hershey and was obviously completely stressed out. He wanted to have the area near the cobra roll evacuated and as we were sitting there, he told us : "NOW is a good time to walk through". Maybe he was not happy with us taking pics of the stalling. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Once the crane arrived at noon, they started working with the other machine which was already there since the beginning :-/ A lot of talking before action. a test train stalled in the cobraroll. However .... All set for the official opening. Today : we were this close to being first in the park. Not really, because resortguests could enter at 9 already. Hershey after dark. ^ It's a pitty this one is blurry. The busy ride op at Stormrunner. Ace couple Ready for opening. Bye bye test dummies. Still running great during testruns This is what the ride op was doing while the train was running. Just standing there. Second train of Trailblazer. Awesome elements Stormrunner is great. I love the sign the ops give to the dispatch op. Great Bear again Skytower with kisses windows. Superdooperlooper was good and very good ride ops. Great Bear Comet ^ We also did the chocolate tour darkride outside the park. This was a nice shooting darkride Missed credit Lightning racers ^ Wild Cat Raft ride

Kennywood 5/22/08 After another long drive this morning from Niagara Falls to Kennywood, we arrived at noon time at Kennywood. KW asked us to come and say hello at guest relations so we did. Much to our surprise they let us into the park for free. That was a nice welcome. Thanks again Kennywood ! The park was really crowded (60 minutes for exterminator, 45 minutes for the new dark ride. 25 minutes for Phantom and about 20-30 minutes for the woodies). We thought there was a special event or something but according to the people at guest relations it was a normal weekday crowd. Kennywood is a nice park. It is however situated in a very industrial environment which is a bit weird. There are a lot of flatrides which I'd never seen before anywhere else. Phantom is a very good coaster : very smooth, lots of air and great headchoppers. The second drop into the valley is awesome. Thunderbolt also dives into the valley midcourse and that was very surprising. Racer is an ok coaster. It's a pitty though that loading the trains takes so damn long. I think the trains are dispatched only every 4-5 minutes). The track switch is great. Jack Rabbit is also a nice woodie. I loved the double drop. So great. Second drop. First drop of Phantom Evil Knievel ride One of the weird flat rides. Noah's Arc. I expected more of it. ^ ^ Thunderbolt is very nice with the midcourse drop in the valley. It was the weirdest thing to see 5 people holding the train while the 6th person was putting the track back to normal. Putting an additional train on Thunderbolt requires much manpower. The new darkride. It's great fun. Another Gyrodrop tree. A junior one this time. Difficult to capture Racer Racer Jack Rabbit It made me think of Pepsi Max due to the first drop but it's lots better. Oh, there it is.

Canada's Wonderland : 5/21/08 After a 90 minutes drive from the falls, we arrived at CW. Btw, is everybody in Canada living near Toronto ? Man, traffic was busy ! Behemoth is (still) great. It seems the trims are still out of order and B&M is going to 'repair' that one of these days. Therefore, the last car of the train is closed because of too intensive forces. Our ride frontrow was great as expected. But our ride in the middle of the train was already surprisingly airy. Our ride on the (currently) backrow produced complete hills of airtime. CW's Togo stand up was an experience and the ride was ok. So was the Zamperla flyer. We rode the Arrow looper in the front this time and it was also ok. Vortex was very good and will now be called "good Vortex" CW has 10 other coasters but all standard crap (SLC, Boomerang, ..) or crap standards (the 3 woodies). Ah, we remember you from KI. At KI the Heli effect was working, at CW the fire effect worked but the heli didn't. Hopefully we will have the full experience at KD. Long trains due to weird positioning of the riders. No trims yet !! The main reason for our visit. ^ There are a lot, really a lot of flat rides and kidrides. ^ ^ Zamperla flyer. Hans says : Hi Beeja Hi Beeja Entrance Tomorrow Kennywood. "Where else". and Dora Hi Bob Arrow looper

Cedar Point day 2 : 5/20/08 We parked on the Magnum parking lot before 9 am as this was the closest entrance to TTD. Dragster didn't open at 9 am however so we headed over to MF immediately and had a walk on for front row shortly after 9. We then headed over to Maverick and rode in front row without having to wait. Our plan was to head over to Dragster before 10 am but just before we were back in the station, Maverick broke down and we were stuck for half and hour Anyway, we got our frontrow ride on Dragster later that day, after waiting 90 minutes (1 hour normal row + 30 minutes front row wait). But it was really worth it. I'm so looking forward to our Flash Pass Gold next Monday & Tuesday. Kingda Ka, be prepared ! Too bad we missed on the shooting at Waldameer but as Hans said, we don't have the chance to visit CP every week so the choice wasn't too difficult. Hope to be able to meet up again with you next month in Europe Robb. ^ Blue Streak Wildcat wasn't open during our visit. And MF So is Mean Streak. ^ Maverick too. Mantis is a beauty. The misting is making Iron Dragon. I love the midway in CP. MF TTD I loved that ride. Disaster Transport. I don't really understand they made the investment to cover that ride. They must have costed a lot of money and I think I'd preferred it uncovered. Parking lot overview. Crowds were ok. It was worth the 90 minutes wait. My cheeks were touching my neck Waiting for front row on Dragster. Empty station at Maverick. I really loved the ERT. Walk on for MF. Nice place to take pics of Magnum. Our entrance of the day Where the hell is all that water coming from ? A lot of water and mist ... There is a lot of water. The misting was on. As we arrived at Niagara Falls just before nightfall, we decided to make a quick visit to the falls. This is the skyline from where we got rid of our car. I love the highways through the cities in the Usa. See you in a few days ! I love you ! Our last view on CP Anyway, a lot of water going over the edge. It was impressive but got me bored after a few minutes. Hi Beeja

Good TR. Some funny captions.

Damn it was cold today.

New born - Muse

Ok, here a quick update. We have currently problems uploading pics. Yesterday we revisited CP and got frontrow rides on Maverick, TTD and Millennium Force. In the afternoon we drove to Niagara Falls, Canada, from where we'll be leaving to Canada's Wonderland within short. We'll see what we can do

Roots bloody roots - Sepultura