ginzo

That's what TPR tour are for. I guarantee you that Elissa won't have the bus going up any dangerous mountain roads that have big signs that say: NO MOTOR VEHICLE TRAFFIC

Yeah, out of all the SoCal parks that we visited back in 2007 Legoland was our second favorite. While it's easy to look good when compared to Knott's, Legoland is just so darn intricate. I can't imagine the time invested in building all those complicated Lego creations. Definitely looking forward to visiting the original Legoland here in a few months. Also, for out-of-town visitors looking to hit a lot of attractions, you can get a Go San Diego card that covers a bunch of regional attractions and makes Legoland a much better value.

Cedar Point?

I've read worse reviews on Trip Advisor. Here's my favorite review: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g188084-d549964-r23057576-Eiger_Guesthouse-Murren_Jungfrau_Region_Bernese_Oberland_Swiss_Alps.html This Canadian family drives up a bunch of very dangerous Alpine roads to Murren, Switzerland. Not only were they not supposed to be on those roads at all (you're supposed to take a cable car up), but Murren is a car-free mountain village. So what do they do? Blame everyone else but themselves for their mistake. They should have been told! Why should a traveler have to research the places they visit?

^I think that is exactly their reason. But I don't see how it makes much of a difference with all the chlorine that's in the water. All hair in the water is gross, but that's why you have filters. I'm not going to go into gruesome details, but there are much, much grosser things going on when people swim together.

What I don't get is why it's apparently a local law that you MUST wear Speedos at Walibi Belgium. They claim it's for hygiene, but they never give a really good reason for why Speedos are more hygienic.

I think there is little doubt that driving in Southern California is generally nastier and more stressful than driving in Central Florida. I've never driven in another place where they'll tailgate you so consistently at very high speeds. For me, it's a big reason why I'd never live out there. Still though, you'll manage fine. Buy or rent a GPS with text-to-speech. It helps a LOT for driving in SoCal because it's so nice to have a little computer telling you where to get off, what turns to make, what lane to be in, etc. Also, if you make a wrong turn, the GPS will re-calculate the directions on the fly. Google Maps print outs can't do that.

You'd love Walibi Belgium's water park.

Although I agree that the new owners suck, I'm not too worried about IB. They seem to do a reasonably good business and with the whole destination thing with the lake and all I can't see them going away any time soon. If anything, it might just change hands again to a more interested owner.

^In a row?

Damn it. Now I might have to make a quick trip to WV this year. Grrr..

Did Coaster Boy ever stop breast feeding? Man, it would be awesome if he participated in all TPR trips. His mom's phobias be damned.

I think he did exactly what he had to do given the situation. He was talking to the press. If he had made the slightest acknowledgment of the possibility of bankruptcy, the headline would have been: CEO THINKS SIX FLAGS MIGHT DECLARE BANKRUPTCY

To me, the best theme park food is at the EPCOT Food & Wine festival. Nothing else has come close to that, but I really love wine and how they basically set the whole World Showcase up as one giant tapas bar. Best idea ever. For more traditional theme park fare, I'll go with Knoebels as my favorite. I've tried all sorts of different things there and everything has been really good. Very consistent quality level across all food items that they sell, down to the soft serve ice cream. The pizza might be a bit overrated, but it's still better than most of the below hospital-grade pizza that most parks serve. My single favorite theme park food item has to be the cheese and bacon fries at Kennywood. What a delicious symphony of unhealthy goodness. It's the essence of true theme park food; bad for you and damn proud of it. My favorite theme park restaurants are Blue Bayou and Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Mythos used to occupy this spot, but my most recent meals there have been good, but not great. The Yachtman's Steakhouse at the Yacht Club at WDW also deserves an honorable mention for having probably the best steak at WDW and excellent service.

According to the timetable I'm looking at, TGV takes you from CDG to Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy in about 10 minutes. Amazing!

I think I need an eye transplant after trying to read this.

The first step in being a fanboy of a park is learning how to spell the name of the park.

Well, I wouldn't know much about that. I was referring to how the nonsense with this park keeps resurfacing like an unwanted sore. Just when it seemed that HRP was turning a new leaf under the new ownership, the previous management clowns come back for an encore performance.

What a parasite. And it sounds like he's too stupid to understand that he might be shining light on his own shadiness (illegal transfer) that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. This HRP saga is like herpes, the gift that keeps on giving again and again.

^Yeah, and I absolutely hated Botany when I had to study it in college. Alternation of generations, gametophytes, sporophytes, BLAH. So much to learn about stuff that just did not interest me. But, I'm glad that some people find it interesting.

In science it's difficult to determine what you're going to get from research ahead of time. Many big discoveries have been made accidentally while studying something that seemed unrelated. Alexander Fleming came across penicillin by accident while studying bacteria. As for plant research, it's very important that we have as complete an understanding of plants as possible because they are the cornerstone of our food supply. As humans, we currently cannot produce enough food from existing farmland to feed our ever-swelling population. The key, therefore, is to learn as much as we can about how plants work so that we can increase crop yields from the land that we have available for farming.

I didn't even realize that Six Flags parks didn't sell alcohol. I never bothered to look for it. To me, it seems like a total no-brainer that they should sell it. The preponderance of alcohol-consuming guests will cause no problems. And you have security to eject the few that do. There's also this funny thing called "not selling more alcohol to the obviously drunk".

What studies have found this? I looked on PubMed and found a bunch of epidemiological studies that indicated that soy might be protective against prostate cancer. These, of course, are just observational studies that should be further confirmed with experimental studies.

What's detrimental about it? I got bored and checked the ingredients. I didn't see much of concern.

Crap! I'm mad I missed out on that now! Do they per chance sell fondue or rosti as well? Update: I found some link that claimed that they do sell fondue in the Switzerland area of Europa Park. Not sure about the rosti though, which might be the crowning achievement of hearty Swiss cuisine.