ginzo

You're a great poster. I thought it was really smooth last season. But this season it's got more bumps and shakes in it. The first half has more shuffle in it, but I think the second half still runs really well. That's all. Care to comment? I thought Voyage ran great in early 2006, but was significantly worse towards the end of the season. My single cycle on it last year was bad, and that was with the trims. I was a bit encouraged to hear they got the trims off of it this year, but now there are reports of it being rougher. It's a 160 foot wooden coaster using traditional carpentry to build the track. Imagine how much it's going to hurt after 5 more seasons of "a little bit rougher". It's good to hear that the Raven is still running well, as it always does.

It actually was pretty amusing. You're just taking this new coaster crap a bit too seriously. Joe "I need to read less new coaster threads" C.

I think I need to see this one again. We got really horrible seats because we didn't get to the theater early enough. We were literally in the very front row, which just sucks. Consequently, I didn't really get into this movie much.

I think they would have been a lot better off with 1 or 2 bench trains. I heard a fair amount of bashing into the turns when I rode in the back. The front was glass smooth though.

That list also ranks WALL-E above Dr. Strangelove and Citizen Kane, which is just silly.

I've eaten at Waldameer twice and found it to be noticeably better than your average SF/CF sawdust and soy microwave burger of death. And not really overpriced considering it's an amusement park.

Ha! Judging from everyone's pictures, we missed a lot of neat stuff at Tripsdrill. We spent a lot of time hanging out in the vinarium. You won't get any arguments out of me. Tripsdrill is definitely the nicer park. Der Mammut was just a little bit frustrating to me because it COULD have been really fun, but the train just didn't have enough oomph to give airtime over the hills. I hear it warmed up and ran better later in the day. It's nice to see that Gerstlauer finally learned how to pad their trains correctly.

But what about Raven? That's a great ride and I think Tripsdrill could have been very safe bringing up the intensity to that level.

I don't know about that, Ryan. Holiday World promotes themselves as THE family park. And what kind of coasters do they feature? Three very aggressive woodies, including The Voyage, which is as aggressive as it gets. I think they could have safely turned up the juice on Mammut a bit.

Illusions! A trick is something a whore does for money.

It also uses cheesecloth for its underwater scene and King Kong has THO.

Yeah, Phantasialand was a favorite for me also. While it was a bit smaller than Heide and Europa, it made up for this by having many excellent attractions. To me, it definitely had the strongest coaster line up of any park on the trip. Winjas & Michael Jackson were both in my top 5 for the trip. And Black Mamba and Temple were really good also. I think the general quality of Phantasialand's attractions was the best of the trip. The hotel was my favorite of the trip. The theming was excellent and the very close proximity to the park was great. I didn't spend any time in the Dragon Bar because I was far too lazy and tired to wait for drinks, but it did look nice for the 2 minutes I was up there. If Phantasialand had a little bit nicer dark rides, it would have been my favorite overall for the trip. But anyway, a real stand out park in a trip full of excellent parks.

Looking forward to the T-Express coverage!

I'm going to go with Expedition GeForce, which I liked a little bit more than El Toro. The first drop on GeForce has to be experienced to appreciate the unique, whipping action it does towards the back of the train. The second hill is pretty much the best airtime hill ever. Pure ejector air way up in the air. It has nice turns with the overbanks, even though I'm not really into laterals that much. Oh, and the twisty hill before the bunny hops is a great maneuver and again something I've never experienced on any other coaster. And the final bunny hops are filled with ejector air. I understand that GeForce doesn't always run as well as it did for TPR, but I can only judge it by how it ran for us. And it ran GREAT! It sent Goliath at Walibi World crying home to momma. As well as every other hyper I've ever been on. Though SFNE'S SROS is conspicuously absent from my credit count and I'm not likely to add it this year.

http://www.dldhistory.com/2k7articles.asp?Tab=Disneyland&Page=19&MenuLink=4&Ident=222&Action=Info That article is 7 years old. The technology has greatly improved since that time and guests are much more used to the concept now. Dick is in his final contract with CF. A lot could change in the years to come.

^^That doesn't look much like Elissa to me.

You'd also feel it more if B&M would man up and start doing negative G's on their hypers.

You just paid admission at the gate.

^^The look on that guy's face is priceless. "I'm middle age German guy with a gut and a mustache. What do you want from me? Go away! No ice cream for you."

What time would you be at Kings Island, Mike? I'd love to meet you from opening until around 3 PM. I've got work that day and I can't get out of it.

No complaining here. Just noticed a contrast between dinner and the EXCELLENT spread Movie Park made for us. I'm still having fun with Liz about the fact that she missed out on probably the best park meal. And, for my part, I didn't think food prices were bad in Europe. Honestly, the park food prices seemed about the same. And, I got some excellent fare in Paris at the little restaurant windows for very reasonable prices. Trois fromage paninis were out of this world good at some places. Now, if you did something dumb like sit down at some random expensive restaurant in Paris, then maybe you could get rolled fast.

Well, we did get two nice breakfasts out of them. So, paying for one meal out of three at the hotel didn't seem bad to me. But yeah, the quality of the food definitely did not square with the price. I think the breakfast food was actually a lot better for some reason.

YOU LOST THE MAP!@#$!@#$!@#$!@#$ YOU LOST THE MAP!@%^@$%^@$%^@ I saw that one in the theater and I'd give it 0/10 personally. It got scary for maybe 5 seconds at the end. Everything up to that point was just the characters bickering and being generally annoying. Nothing suspenseful or even remotely scary, at least for me. Oh, and I am a big fan of the ultra low budget film genre. One of my favorites is Takashi Miike's "Visitor Q", which he made for about $60,000.

^ & ^^ & ^^^^ & ^^^^^ There wasn't a dark ride per se. It was a haunted walk through in the basement of the house. Basically, you had to pay like 0.50 EUR per room to watch a really craptacular haunted scene complete with cheesy music and strobe lights. They must have spent no more than 25 EUR on the entire thing. It was great! Nope. Nobody watched the rides AT ALL. That's why they're self-operated rides. It seemed to work out. If some kid cut you in line, you just cut the kid back.