Invertalon

As a follow-up, we just booked our flight to Frankfurt in June for two weeks. We will have 13 full days to pack things into, once flight and travel days are removed. Once we land (morning), we will be headed to Cologne for the day (beer!) and then hit up Phantasialand the next day… Then we do plan to head into the Netherlands, at least for Toverland and Efteling… Debating on Walibi Holland at this point… Aside from Goliath, is it really worth it? Then of course headed south to Holiday Park (which looks tiny, I assume just need a few hours to ride Expedition Ge Force until my hearts content… Bucket list coaster right there), Then head down to Europa. We do plan (2) days at Europa. Then we will be cutting over to Switzerland and to Munich for a few days (beer!) and up to Bamberg (more beer!) before finishing our loop to Frankfurt to fly back home some two weeks later. So our final park itinerary will be: Phantasialand Toverland Efteling Holiday Park Europa Park (2 Day) Possibly Walibi Holland. It appears Holiday park can be a short visit… How about Toverland and Efteling? Are those full-day parks or just a few hours? Mind you, we of course want to enjoy the park and ride the important stuff, but we also have plenty of non-park stuff to do so we want to best utilize our time. Appreciated, once again! For a visual, here is our tentative route with some placeholder locations for now... But the general idea. If anywhere else we must go in this general routing, please let me know!

Reminds me of a girl I work with... She literally heads on an international trip monthly, usually alone, just so her and her boyfriend can "tick" countries and see who visits the most (he travels a lot for work, so they don't really go on these trips together). Yet when she comes back home, almost every trip she goes on sounds horrible in some fashion... Complaining of poor accommodations, her flights, that she was sick, her tours weren't any good, it wasn't as good as "insert other country here", the food wasn't good, too tourist/busy, the list goes on... It's like, why travel then? If you can't find enjoyment in doing such things, change it up. Nothing worse than someone humble bragging about their endless travels to amazing locations around the world and hearing nothing but complaining about it. So I have to agree with what others have said... It sounds like you "been there, done that", so just chill and wait until something tickles your fancy again and motivates you to go somewhere. Compound hobbies or something. I personally don't go crazy to visit parks anymore, so our trips more focus on other side hobbies as well... Breweries, Zoo's, natural landmarks/hiking, halloween 'stuff' (witch stuff in Salem, Mass for example, or New Orleans), etc... Makes the trips a bit more fulfilling.

Hopefully those shin bars will be tall person friendly. Hard to tell just from the image, but cool trains!

Closed up at the time. Nothing was open.

Care to explain? This statement confuses me. Rode it 8 times at media day and then, didn't love it. After my ride last night, thinking it was just the day of something of media day, felt the exact same. Great ride, but I don't love it by any means. As far as Maverick goes, I like it a lot, probably more than SV. But the main thing that I dislike are the trains. Being tall at 6'6", the soft restraints are less comfortable than the original harnesses and the seat itself is quite uncomfortable. Other than that, it's awesome.

Lucked out at CP last night as I was in the area for work, so after I was done I got to the park for early entry and went right back to SV. Waited for 10mins or so for a ride and then went off to get my free FL+ wristband (had to go all the way back up to the front of the park). I could have gone back to SV and lapped the thing with FL+ (nobody was in line, normal line was maybe 20-30mins tops at that time), but after my first ride since media day, it just doesn't do it for me. One was enough. Maverick was walkon at the time as well, but for some reason didn't care to ride it last night. Took rides on Valravn, MF and a few on Raptor (the only thing that FL+ was worthwhile for while I was there). Caught the Midnight Syndicate show, grabbed some 75% off candy and headed out. Crowds were light, maybe half full lot if that. Rain kept people away, but even with radar looking the way it did, at worst it was a misty rain. Everything was open for the most part. Tried to ride Dragster which had maybe 10min normal line and walk-on FL+, but it broke when we were seated and ready to head out the station. We all had to get off the train and then maintenance start working on launch track, never made it back to the ride when it went back up. Could have marathon'd all night long with no waiting, but after a long day at work I just wanted to grab a few Raptor rides and try out SV again primarily, so mission accomplished. Grabbed a Korean Food Bowl from a truck also for dinner, which was awesome. I really like all the options for food with the food trucks scatted around, beats any of the park offerings for sure. Was a nice visit though, especially as my only real visit this year aside from one failed attempt on a 90-degree day when everything I wanted to ride was closed. Just been to busy this year to head up to the park. Raptor still remains my #1 at CP even after all these years and new additions... I could ride that all night and be happy as can be! Good times though. Glad it wasn't a fail like last Friday when we tried to stop in.

A tree fell on the antique cars back by Maverick. Good thing nobody was under that portion of the track at the time.

Drove to the park tonight and traffic was backed up nearly a mile off the exit ramp. What is usually 5min from park, map app said it would take 50min. Made it up to the causeway, then saw the gridlock across the entire thing. Then just turned around and went the hour back home. This was at around 730. Friend was a few minutes ahead of us and took him around 45min to just make it across to park. No thanks... Place was Saturday-like busy tonight. A bummer... Never can I remember a Friday during HW being so busy. Next year it may come down to avoiding HW completely. Not sure ill even want to attempt next weekend.

Yep... Been flying down to HHN since 2004 and never had any issue getting through all the houses and zones in a single night (we often go 3-4 nights per yearly trip). Stay and Scream is a must, for sure! We often get through each house some 4-8 times by the end of our trip, which makes a BIG difference in “soaking it all in”. Going through a house just once won’t cut it… Bad cast, timing or other things can really make an epic house be ho-hum. The worst part is just waiting in the hold areas for the hour or whatever, especially when hot. But we have been pushing our past two years back to end of October and have been fortunate to get amazing temps in the low 70's vs. 90's that our mid Sept visits were often... Then those cool nights in the low 60’s or high 50’s, even. Love it.

Yep, avoid waiting in that mess outside the gate at all costs... Stay and Scream. Avoid that crowd and get early entry. We often the past few years always knock out 4 or 5 houses with minimal or no wait before the crowds roll in. Do it right, you won't require express at all. Or knock 5-6 houses out and then use express when it gets busy! Will be there Halloween Night this year and a few nights after, can't wait!

Yep, heard it was rough (as expected). Even against our recommendation not to go, a work friend headed up and took 1.5hrs to just park. Supposedly has a miserable time at the park, shocker. Maybe next time he listen, yes? I think SV had a 2hr Fast Lane wait, with the normal queue at around 3hrs... Oy.

Heard about that from the select few who got to partake in that experience Not sure i'd do it, but it's still crazy to think about. I can just imagine these torso's flopping around when in the flying position lol.

Absolutely. If there at open, you should have a solid 2-3hrs to really make the most out of the FL. When I would arrive at around 1-2pm to do photo shoots at the park, that is when the lot was getting near 100% and I was parked close to or on the grass lol. It's not a mad house right at open, so use that time wisely!

I have only ridden Firehawk at KI once, but X-Flight was butter smooth...Interesting to hear if it was rough at KI. We also had a really awesome maintenance guy at GL that genuinely loved XF, he babied that thing! Was the only ride that got a wheel greasin' (surface of the wheels, not the bearing area) almost every morning, that I know of. They didn't do that on Steel Venom or Dominator or anything. Perhaps a Vekoma requirement lol. Either way, that thing was never rough in the slightest bit at GL.

Usually September Saturday's are not bad. Come October, that is where it gets a bit crazy if weather is nice. I'd expect tomorrow to be the "transition" Saturday where it will significantly ramp up. Being totally honest given my experience at the park, expect Maverick and SV to have 45min-1hr fastlane lines during the day. Again, highly dependent on weather. Ideally you hope for a chance of rain or something to keep crowds more manageable. You can still for sure have a great time (as you will), but HW Saturday's in October are no joke. They literally fill beyond a realistic capacity in which they start parking people on the causeway, grass areas at the back of the lot, etc... It's just insane. If it happens to be that crazy when you go, don't wait until close to leave otherwise expect anywhere from 30min-2hrs to get off of the peninsula. It makes weekends in July/August look dead, lol. Hope the weekend you go it's not nearly as bad as it has been in the past!

You are a brave soul to go to CP on a Saturday during HW... Even with Fastlane Plus, I personally wouldn't touch the place lol. Depending on arrival time, you may be in a 1-2hr wait on the causeway to get into the park if weather is nice. Plan accordingly!

You know, it would have been cool if they kept one of them... Even if they made it all RMC-funky in some way.

Unfortunately, on Sunday the park closed at 2pm due to weather and poor attendance. Then this upcoming weekend we have Hurricane Florence that will make landfall (which may cause rain up here in Ohio on existing path, Friday/Sat it looks like). So two weekends in a row where weather will not help matters, especially the first Halloweekends weekend gets hit by this storm.

Oh boy. Back to your normally scheduled programming...

Huh? You ok over there? What exactly is your point? My only point was that for ME (and likely other tall people, the few percentage we may be...), the restraints are not comfortable with the strong air. That’s it. Bill made comment like anyone finding the restraints uncomfortable is silly, so I shared my perspective. Oh, and no thanks on statistics… After engineering school, I’m good with all that! (Still don't get your point with that one though...)

If you are not 6'6" (or taller), then you really wouldn't know. You may or may not be, who knows, but it gets extremely uncomfortable after a few rides and how those lapbars secure my legs. Just like I prefer Maverick's OLD restraints as the new ones actually are more uncomfortable as the softer vest now digs into my shoulders. The old version didn't. What is comfortable for one body type isn't always as comfortable (or uncomfortable) for another.

I will admit, this is one reason I don't actually love RMC's. The air is just to strong and becomes painful for me. I am 6'6" so perhaps the bar just pins my leg differently than most, but it sucks. Fun rides, but they are not the most re-ridable which for me as after 3-4 rides it is nearly unbearable to ride as it hurts so much. I prefer more "tame" air, like on Fury or Mako... (unpopular opinion, I know!). Steel Vengeance in particular is the most intense of the one's I've ridden (Joker, Wicked Cyclone, Storm Chaser, Goliath and SV).

Looks phenomenal!

Hopefully everything gets up and running smoothly by the time Halloweekends starts... With the crowd sizes rolling in on those nice Saturday's, you don't want anything down to worsen the madness that it will already be!

I'm pretty sure he MEANT to say 3 MINUTE. That sounds far more plausible... Can't be 3 mile... (5mph = 440 feet per minute)... 3 mile = 15840ft.... 15,840 / 440 = 36 minute ride! 3 minute ride = approx. 1,320ft ride track length.