ginzo

HFE? Seems like kind of a big acquisition for them considering that BEC is a much larger operation than they are.

Although my pain was only temporary, I'm still wondering who the heck thought that would be a good idea? Yeah, let's have the rider stop their weight on a very small part of their crotch. GREAT IDEA!!@#$@#!$

Nervous???

Answer unclear. Try again later.

Yeah, I got to ride my first GREAT Vekoma coaster on this trip. Michael Jackson, of course. Such an insane ride in the back seat.

Yeah, uhm, whatever. I loved Colossos, but that hardly makes me an Intamin fanboy. I wasn't that impressed with the following big Intamins: Storm Runner TTD Kingda Ka SROS (Darien Lake & SFA, haven't been on SFNE yet) Goliath @ Walibi World Millennium Force Yeah, there was a bit of roughness at the bottom of the hills on Colossos, but I also got some GREAT rides on it. Maybe it runs worse when it's really dry. I can only judge a ride by how it runs when I ride it.

And Matt's very valid point is it's very difficult to say at this point. Maybe they'll get better? AB was notorious for being generous on CAPEX, but stingy on OPEX for their parks. They certainly haven't given Gwarzi much love over the years. Maybe the parks will be even better as a spin off/under new owners. Impossible to say at this point, but I suppose it's also a valid point that InBev would probably suck at running the parks. They're too much into cost cutting, which would clearly be DOING IT WRONG as far as running the AB parks goes. But, they also don't seem to have much interest in running the parks at this point and will likely divest to help bring their debt load down.

Great pics Hanno. You're an excellent photographer.

Seriously, this talk needs to stop. The merger hasn't even gone through, why is everyone all up in arms about never getting to these parks? I agree 100%. The idea that they're going to take nice, profitable amusement parks and scrap them is pretty insane. InBev isn't stupid. The Busch park chain is among the best and most successful of all theme park operators. They ain't going anywhere. I do think the merger is as good as done if they bring it through fast enough. The Bush Administration isn't big on blocking these things.

Do conservationalists meet and discuss their strategery for saving trees?

I love Jungle Jim's. It's the best food store I've ever seen.

No doubt about that. A huge serving of cheese and bacon fries for just $5 for the win. Mmm, cheese and bacon fries.

We still have all that stuff. The shark is not bad for $1. I think I'll give the CD a listen just to see if I can make it all the way through it. Oh, and Big Mike, the plaque made it through Continental's baggage check 100% unscathed. It's still in great shape and I'll keep it for years to come.

I thought that was the Novotel in Amsterdam, which was a really nice non-themed hotel.

God forbid he'd have an opinion or dare to the insult Holy Cedar Point.

Although I'd never heard of the guy before, anyone who makes art that pretentious and has a wife named "Jeanne-Claude" will always be special to me. Where would we be without insane modern artists to entertain us? One of my very favorite moments of the TPR Europe trip was visiting the Centre Pompidou before the trip started and watching some of the video art in the media room. My favorite was an hour long video from the 1970s of some woman brushing her hair. She kept saying: "Art must be beautiful. Artist must be beautiful." Over and over again for an hour straight. Then she got naked.

I think the Belgians were hell bent on buying them out and they may have faced a protracted battle possibly involving a hostile takeover. This story was only going to end one way. Maybe doing it "the hard way" would have generated some really bad blood and been even more damaging to their US operations and employees in the long run. InBev always has the option of closing up every US office and plant, firing 100% of the US employees, and then setting up shop in Mexico where they'll make the stuff at greatly reduced overhead and ship it to the US at a huge cost savings to both InBev and the consumer. And the consumer wouldn't bat an eye at this strategy because "hey, cheaper beer!@##!@" Although I'm sad to see the company change hands, I find it hard to get too worked up about it. Like you said before, they make REALLY AWFUL beer. It's not like we're losing a company world renowned for its quality, like Mercedes or something. AB makes cheap, raunchy beer. It's so bad I can't even drink it at all.

Sounds like a really iffy rumor. What would they gain from scrapping the parks? It's not like we're in the middle of a real estate boom. A spin off would make infinite more sense as opposed to trying to make a quick buck at greatly reduced property values.

The airtime is more extreme on El Toro, but Colossos has more airtime hills overall. El Toro also feels more intense. For me, El Toro is definitely the better ride, but Colossos is no slouch.

Nope. We were very lucky in that only the two Walibi parks had coasters down. Yes, Heide Park's bobsled was good. The trains had a a pretty significant amount of rattle, but it was good other than that.

Or real pain DVDs!

Yeah, I'll have to agree about Phantasialand. So many high quality attractions: Winjas, a good B&M invert, a shockingly good mine train, a really good themed indoor drop ride, the best rapids ride I've been on, etc. All in a well-themed park with an excellent hotel attached to it. I don't think so, but who knows. It was a rainy day when we went to Heide. Maybe it's louder on dryer days.

Yeah, Heide is exactly what I think of when I think of a European park. The buildings, the landscaping, the brick walkways, the random slides stuffed everywhere. Without our ERT it would have been a 1-day park. I could have easily spent 2 days there, but I like to try to do everything in a given park if I really like the place. I didn't mind the duplicates because they usually themed the variations quite differently. Another thing I liked about Heide is they actually have some really great rides (Colossos & Scream) mixed in with all the random rides stuffed everywhere. Europa just didn't have that for me. They had good, but not great rides. Oh, and Heide got major brownie points for keeping Hussland going. I wasn't really in the mood for flat rides that day (low tolerance for spinning), but the mere fact that they keep all those old flat rides running makes me happy.

I loved this park. I know I'm probably the only one who thinks this, but I liked Heide more than Europa.

Until the paint starts peeling and they leave it that way for a good 10 years or so before they finally get around to painting it.