ginzo

And Jeff Johnson!

Third row of the scenic railway at Bakken was easily the most violent experience I've had on a woodie. It was great, but brutal. Your legs got slammed into the metal lap bar without mercy. I think it made that last drop on Cyclops look like a kiddie coaster.

I like how Joey gets a big stain on his shirt somewhere between drink #2 and drink #3.

^Really strange that went to court. I wonder if they were asking for an unreasonable amount of money to settle this out of court.

If you add days in London like you usually do, there's a Wagamama right by the Tower of London. Should be a pretty good way to end a day at the Tower.

Man, that looks like a good time. Beer and Schwarzkopfs.

Tivoli was a great day. We stayed there all day, from the morning ERT to close. Didn't go back to the hotel once. Great place to just hang out. And that Vertigo flat ride was completely amazing. We almost didn't ride it, but got a cycle in right as the laser show was ending.

^IOA typically closes right around the time HHN starts. The kiddie coaster typically does not run during HHN. They're not running HRRRRR either. The only coaster that will be open is Mummy. If you're interested in the coasters, just get a 1-Day, 2-Park ticket the day you do HHN and do the coasters before the event.

One of the churches there, St. Peter's, has this totally awesome skeleton of a 4th Century Christian martyr: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/2350_-_M%C3%BCnchen_-_St_Peterskirche.JPG Never in America!

I must have had the B-team when I went to Hofbrauhaus back in May. The waitresses and pretzel girls were all older, Eastern-European-looking women with massive biceps that looked like they could have broken up a bar fight with one arm while carrying three 1-L glasses of beer in the other. Incidentally, Weisses Brauhaus, just a short walk from Hofbrauhaus, has really amazing traditional Bavarian food. But it's more of a restaurant and you don't get that crazy Hofbrauhaus experience.

^Or maybe they just focused on the wrong beer. Trappist Westvleteren Gardens. That's more like it.

^ Also, we should be safe on this one. There's no Intamin cable involved in this project.

^Yeah, and thanks again for being so persistent on that. Funny how things went smoothly and the park staff was really nice to us when we got there. The park rep even walked us over to Vogel Rok (not a short walk in that massive park) when I was just asking for directions. Maybe we'll get lucky and the park will remember who we are this time around.

Judging by the awesome ERT we had on Lightning Racers last year, this should make for one heck of an ERT session on the Europe trip next summer.

^As has been said before in this thread, it seems to make a lot more sense to bundle the AB and Universal parks under one umbrella. Multi-day tickets combined with a decent transport system from UO to Seaworld, BGT could really add up to a nice arrangement. Right now Universal just doesn't have that total vacation package like Disney has. This puts them one step closer. It'll never be as cool as having it all on one giant piece of property like WDW, but they can still come up with something very nice. And, like Elissa said earlier, if they could throw a Legoland into the mix, they could really go after Disney's lunch: the younger audience. Let's hope they leverage this new situation for all it's worth.

Maybe for a coaster. I know the Milan Cathedral took 500 years to build.

Ah, OK. That makes more sense to my business dumb brain.

"Private equity" gets its name from the fact that one of the most common things these firms do is buy up all the stock in pubically traded companies and take them private. Right, but if you're a publicly-traded company yourself, like Blackstone (NYSE:BX), how do their acquisitions become private equity? Just a historical name that they didn't change after the IPO?

Good luck to the Grona Lund guys!

^Kind of difficult to off shore most theme park jobs. Ultimately you can only cut staffing and compensation so much before you start to have serious problems. It sounds like InBev has already done some of the dirty work.

^That's all pretty standard with call centers now though. They're really expensive to operate and companies can save massive amounts of money by off shoring them.

^And that's why finance is a giant black box to me. Private equity firm with an IPO? Me no understand.

Is Mr. Hands going to miss the clydesdales?

^Disney has done pretty well with that strategy of giving you huge discounts on admission for adding extra days. The longer they've got you in their parks the better, I guess. More chances for buying food, drink, impulse items, etc.

^Not true. The shrapnel from Intamin cables at nearby parks will spray all over the place and tear you into 1,000,000,000 pieces.