Paul_Hollibone

The Uncle Fester character was really well done. It was fun watching him run up and down, chasing the screaming girls, lots of fun. He also made a cameo appearance in the Moto X show that they held in the Hollywood Stunt Driver arena. Best paid actor at the park I say.

Hello Everyone. Firstly thanks for your kind comments. I'm sure the photo's will get better as we go along (as I kinda worked out how to use this camera) Anyway, if anyone wants a full res copy of the photo's I post, just ask and i'll send it off to you! Day 1 & 2 - Bus Trip and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Anyway, as I was staying in a different hotel to the rest of the TPR gang, I did miss out on the porno store visit the previous night and "Six Fags Magic Mount-em" . Anyway, day 1 consisted pretty much of a long scenic drive of the Californian Highways. I will say now that the whole countryside was very different than I anticipated, and even the area where Magic Mountain was very different than I anticipated (for some reason I anticipated that the park was going to be on the opposite side of the freeway than what it was). Anyway, today was the first day I broke my TPR virginity, Day 0 didn't really count. Today was the day that I was going to meet the wonderful Mr Robb Alvey, the guy which I have spoken to many times yet have never met him. If I was a stalker, that would have been my dream come true, but I am not a stalker, but was still pleased to finally meet this kind person that would be our "camp leader" for the next 2 weeks. We all met in the lobby of the La Quinta Hotel in LAX and boarded the bus from there. Destination? Disneyland! Oh wait, thats right we had to head up to San Francisco first. I will just say that one of my biggest goals on this trip was to visit Disneyland, and to a lesser extent Six Flags Magic Mountain. Thats all I cared about really, but strange thing is with the amount of fun we had on the trip, as much of a Disney freak I am, I pretty much forgot about Disneyland until we saw the Fireworks when we arrived in the Anaheim area. Anyway, the bus trip was entertaining, and somewhat weird (you have no idea what was going through my head when Yo Gabba Gabba came on screen!) but it was that humor that kept me quite entertained on the boring bits (not that there were many) of the trip. And it's that humor that makes me crave another TPR trip in the future. We stopped somewhere in the middle of no-where for a meal break, which had a service station or 2, a Macca's, Carls Jnr, and Taco Bell, and it was there where I was introduced the massive portion sizes of the USA. I couldn't believe it for the second time when I asked for a Medium sized drink at McDonalds that it was rather large size cup (the "regular size" cup over in the US at the fast food chains is pretty much our "Large" sized cup in Australia). We then ventured into one of the service stations for some "Americana" and I couldn't believe the drink and food portion sizing! It was massive. Anyway, we arrived at Silicon Valley at the Avatar hotel where we got settled in, and did Snack Exchange. My packet of Chewy Caramel Tim Tams went pretty quickly! As others vegged out with the Snack's, and a couple of others went to CGA to grab some coaster credits in, me, josh, mikael (hope I spelt that correctly) and a few others went for a walk around the area, mainly to snap some shots of the Yahoo building, but also to check out the area, check out CGA and whatnot (can you blame us? There was an amusement park across the road!) We then went back to the hotel where a bennigens establishment was located and most (not me, I didn't get service!) had a meal. I also found out that they sell Fosters over there, so scored a free Fosters Key Ring from the bar because I was "Aussie". Free stuff = Win. Anyway, this hotel was really cool, with nice room's that have big LCD tv's, an iPod dock, and Roller Coaster pictures in the room, an IHOP, free WiFi and decent "Computer Room" which has 2 free to use iMac computers to use. Score! It was a great hotel, and was very comfortable to stay at. You wouldn't be able to find anything like that in Australia unless you paid a bucketload for it, and even then things like WiFi are an add-on over here. Day 3 - Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Day 3 we all hopped onto the bus for the drive upto Six Flags Discovery Kingdom for Bay Area Bash. Driving around the bay area, we thought we saw a little tornado forming, and all we thought (well I did) was "Uh Oh". Luckily nothing really formed of it, and all was ok. We arrived at SFDK early (that was a common trait among this trip, we always arrived early to our destinations, but that ain't a bad thing). As soon as I hopped off the bus I had already experienced one of my firsts, that being a Six Flags Parking Lot Tram, or a parking lot tram. They aren't exactly common over here, but then our parking lots aren't exactly huge, or "far away" from their venue. That was kinda cool, but I was more interested in what was ahead. Medusa, Roar!, V2 and all sat there teasing me. Kong, not so much. Once we entered the park we had a really decent animal presentation and a tiger presentation (sorry guys, not as good as our tiger presentation at Dreamworld) then it was off to Medusa for some ERT. I only managed to get 2 rides on Medusa, but I did wait for the front so it was well worth it in my opinion. This was my B&M virginity about to be broken, it it lived upto it's every expectation. It was such a good ride I would have loved to bottle it up and take it home to Australia. Me and Bas checked out the rest of the parks offerings with our Gold Qbots and for my first ever Six Flags park, I was surprised, this park was very nice, and what was more surprising was the Boomerang was actually very smooth and enjoyable (unlike that Boomerang at Knotts!). I was so surprised with this park, it was everything that I was told a Six Flags park wasn't. Lunch was quite good (well food wise, rather average) but the gathering, the free giveaways, the Animals and characters were quite awesome and well done. I won a painting that had been painted by Terry the Dolphin, which was quite awesome. Anyway after lunch all I wanted to do was ride Roar. I wanted to ride that beast. Unfortunately I didn't ride until just before ERT, but that only made the ride sweeter. Most of the gang opted to go to the Jelly Belly factory for a tour which was held after lunch, which was quite awesome (traffic wasn't though). The Traffic turned what should have been a 15 minute drive I believe into a 40 minute drive. Not to worry, that gave me time to "bond" with the rest of the TPR gang (for the record, I quite enjoyed Bus Time). After I went looking for Oompa Loompa's, we all headed back to the park. We had night ERT on V2, Roar and Tony Hawk with the Tony Hawk Water Challenge. That was fun, and quite challenging (I lost my cup of water on the first drop, landed all on Mike Moody who was sitting opposite me. But I came out quite dry compared to my other riding buddies (and the other people on the trip who had whole water coolers full of water dumped onto them!) Overall it was an awesome few days, and I thought if thats awesome now, I can't wait till we get a bit further on in the trip! Anyway, if you've made it this far, Congratulations! You win the right to view the photographs below. If you didn't read this far, well naughty you. For your punishment YOU MUST VIEW THE PHOTO's below... Till next time folks. Why is this so big? The Jelly Belly Beatle. I used to drive a 1970's VW Beatle. I'd kill to have that car pictured. Hmmm, bed time. Bye Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I'll be back (highly un-bloody likely). This turned out well. Rawwww. Whats that? I'm doing it wrong? This Cobra snake coaster had the biggest coaster train I have ever seen in my life! Woa, what a big loop. Kong and V2. I actually had a decent ride on Kong, one of my most smoothest rides on a SLC. Tony Hawk's Surprisingly Decent coaster. No Oompa Loompa's here. I asked the lady. She said the Moose out front should've told ya. Yep, thats the cause for our delay. Damn this ride is a tease. Hmmmmmm. I think the thing that ruins this ride is that unless your near the front of the train, the whole front part of the ride is rather sucky. Don't worry folks, i'll get you out-a there, Fast, Superman fas.... Oops wrong ride. Hey, it's the same track colour and track design. Hi Terry! Water Water Everywhere. I didn't bother with this ride, didn't feel like getting saturated. Aye Aye Captain Donald...Oh wait. The Colourful swings (not that there's anything wrong with that). Pretty Fountain. How awesome is that ride? Much better than Scream thats for sure! Through a tree? As much as I heard that Boomerangs suck, this baby was teasing me so badly. So apparently it's a myth that Camels store water in their humps. Shampoo jumping through the Loop! So since we found out that they water down this ride in the morning (anyone know why?) can it count as a Watercoaster? I would have walked, but there was a tram right there... It was teasing me. Very Similar to how it looks in the film. Ahhh, Wonderworld... The Yahoo Property. I was amazed at just how many buildings Yahoo Occupied in this area. I contemplated walking into the reception of the main building though and asking the receptionist to Google something for me though. (Seriously, who uses Yahoo anymore?) That was not our bus (our bus was right behind this one).

It certainly is a fantastic ride. Sure it beats you up (it's rough, but if your in the wrong seat I describe it as the ride's "beating you up"). I had my first ride at night (with TPR on the West Coast Tour) so we were hyped and ready to go. We were on a natural high, and that hour line that we were in did not seem like an hour at all. Anyway, I was luckily enough to have the front left side (park side) inside seat, and boy was my first ride on it ever so smooth. So if your able to, give that seat a try, as it was fine for me. When we had ERT on it the next morning though, it was much rougher, trying various seats. Now mind you I was on the right side (so the highway side) but it was rough wherever I sat (I even tried the front inside seat, but it wasn't nearly as good as my first ride). Roughness aside, it's absolutely excellent ride, and a very unique attraction. It has lots of "what the hell am I doing" moments, and the fire and mist just add to the craziness that is this ride. Don't expect to walk off the ride with your eyebrows in tact

I actually didn't mind CGA (and Grizzly was surprisingly alright, I enjoyed it). It was a very nice park, just way too many trash-cans. Now here's something, with the exception of Grizzly, are there any other Cedar Fair parks which have roofing over their rides stations?

^I hear Megasharks are all the craze these days!

Ok, so i've fixed it, 3rd time luck hey! Thanks for all your kind comments guys, it was a pleasure to meet you all (and to those who I haven't met, well just don't listen to that bit And yes wlmoorer, it was a sweet plane. And Josh, for legal copyright reasons I just said it was a Mega Octopus instead of Giant (hey, thats my reasoning and i'm sticking with it!) Oh ok, i've adjusted it to the correct name.

G'day Everyone! I was a little reluctant at first to do this, but thought what the heck. So i've decided to post a Trip Report (my first ever mind you) of the TPR West Coast Trip. So bare with me, and hope it all comes out ok. First Day. Well I arrived at LAX at about 9:40am after a long 12 hour flight from Sydney. I was lucky enough to ride on the Qantas A380. I'll just say that this was an awesome plane, absolutely loved every moment of the flight. For some reason I came off the flight not feeling all the bit tired, despite getting no sleep on the aircraft, and having quite a long time awake. With all the drama right happening right next to me, is it any wonder why I didn't sleep? First the wonderful lady sitting right next to me had just purchased a Macbook but didn't know how to set it up, so I got to play with one of those beauties, and secondly that same lady collapsed. It was quite good though, she was alright, and I had airline hostesses looking after me and her for pretty much the rest of the flight (how's that for Economy seating!) Can't beat service like that I say! I also met some quite nice American's on the aerobridge boarding the plane at Sydney. Something told me this was going to be a good trip. Once I arrived in LAX, and everything was all good, I checked into the Holiday Inn at LAX (after 2 American couples argued on the bus which was better, Santa Monica or Venice Beach (I say Santa Monica for the Record). Checked out the Macca's store, got some lunch, then crashed on the bed watching Seinfeld (yep, I really wasn't tired .) Anyway, TPR was awaiting me for the Extra Credit trip to Santa Monica Pier, so off I went. First stop was Venice Beach to meet with the rest of the gang on the early sightseeing trip. It was then I made my own conclusion of Venice Beach! At Venice Beach I was asked twice if I wanted some "Medicinal Marijuana". Anyway, Santa Monica was where I really got my first taste of "TPR". Once all our Wristbands were handed out, where do you think our first stop was? Why the WestCoaster Credit of course! The park was reasonably quiet mind you, so there was literally no lines for any of the rides (except the Ferris Wheel). WestCoaster was surprisingly ok. It was my first ever morgan coaster, and found the whole wheel assembly to be weird, but it was an alright coaster for what it's worth, especially that last bit. I then went onto the Ferris Wheel as I wanted to get some photo's of the park and beach from above before the sun set. I was quite surprised that they actually take your photo and try to sell it to you on this ride. Wow, that was my whole "Toto, I don't think we are in Australia anymore" moment. We also did the Cha Cha (or Scrambler as you like to call it) and was quite surprised at how long the ride actually lasted, you won't find anything like that in Australia. It was quite awesome. We had dinner and I became welcomed and introduced to my new friends. We also found these awesome bumper cars (why are they called Sig Alert?) which are rotating bumper cars which I loved. I later found out that these are common in America (why don't we have crazy Bumper Cars like these?). Overall we had an awesome time, and an awesome start to what would be some crazy but awesome times, that will be cherished forever. Anyway, onto the photo's, because we all know thats what your here for! Anyway, Stay Tuned, next up (thats if you want my antics) is Day 1, the Bus Trip, our Hotel, and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom! And i'll finish up with this. Took me 4 attempts to get this photo! Anyway, hope you enjoyed my first ever PTR (or TR). Next up is another first for me, my first Six Flags Park, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom! Quite Pretty at night. Somewhere out there in the great outdoors is Australia! Hi Australia! An Overview of the park. Pacific Park was a pretty good park for what it's worth. I was certainly impressed, beats our seaside amusement parks for sure. Where's the Hoff? What about Pamela? And we have arrived at Pacific Park! It's an Octopus in disguise (it certainly is GIANT!) Santa Monica Beach. One thing I was surprised about was how wide the beach was, it was massive! This place was certainly questionable. I didn't particularly want to stick around, there were coasters (or Coaster) to look ride! I was worried... The TPR Day Bus off-loading at Venice Beach. After the argument on the shuttle bus to my hotel, I didn't know what to expect at this place. And I had to try an American McDonalds! I'll say very Different from our McDonalds! Our Macca's seem to be priding themselves on trying to be healthy. I did not see this at all over in the US! Nothing wrong with that though. My first glimpse of the "Real" America. It was awesome, these planes have Camera's on the tail of the aircraft for you to see what's happening outside (especially helpful if you don't have a window seat). It's awesome though, the little touch screen tv's were essentially iPods, with heaps of music, great movies and tv shows, as well as games. I loaded my iPhone with heaps of stuff to watch, and I did not once watch it! Mr Pilot, take me there! For those who want to see what the inside of an A380 looks like, this is for you! The Qantas A380. Much like a normal Airbus A380, but Qantas-ified! An Awesome Aircraft.

Its always nice to see our parks through international folks eyes. Between Luna Park Melbourne and Sydney, which was your favourite out of the two? I actually prefer Sydney as it does have a better setting, and its mostly better presented, but a decent new attraction wouldnt go astray either. That neon sign for the Big Dipper though is the sign for the Arrow coaster they had, which is now the Cyclone at Dreamworld. It used to travel through it. The Arrow coaster though was a replacment for a wooden coaster that they once had (both luna parks had a wooden dipper). However they were unfortunatly torn down, the Sydney one sustained some damage from a Ghost Train fire, which was right underneath the ride. Several people died in that fire. Anyway, enjoying your TR so far, am looking forward to your opinions on Dreamworld and Movie World.

So where the bloody hell have you been? Cairns I suppose does get pretty hot, so it does deserve a waterpark in a way, but I can't really see it becoming a big tourism hotspot. Now if a decent dry Park was built up there, I know i'd certainly be up there on opening day.

Mike, they are some awesome photo's. Love it. I'd say your the best photographer I know, but that may offend some of the people on this trip. There have been some very good photo's come out of this trip, and I mean very good. Anyway, look forward to seeing more mate!

No your most welcome Katie, well deserved. That's quite a feat re belles voice. Even these days with the simpsons, the voices for Bart are really starting to unravel. It used to be really convincing, these days he is starting to sound like a female. Fantasmic is a great show, and whilst it does get crowded, Crowd Control procedures at the park are very good. Just talking about crowd control, when i was at Disneyland I sat at one of the eateries that has a deck near the hub in order to watch the fireworks, and at the end of the fireworks managment looking people started ushering people behind Main Street (so essentially backstage). The door was outside next to the piano on the patio for the Coca-Cola store. Even though I didn't want to go that way (as in to the flagpole) I went for a walk down there anyway just to check it out. It was rather cool, I got to see the Jungle Cruise maintenence bay, saw the backside to main street and the streetcar tram holding area. It was pretty cool, but can't imagine it's something they do very often. Does anyone know if they do this often or if it's only done in those cases where the park is packed out?

Love it so far Soren. I too love Disneyland, wish I could be there all the time. Unfortunatly that's not possible, but you can dream. A lot of people do ask me why I like Disneyland over any other of the Disney Parks. For me it's all about Walt. Disneyland in a way is a fun museum to Walt Disney. It was his park. Sure WDW, Euro Disney and Tokyo might be better, but to me they doesn't have the same connection to Walt that Disneyland had. Anyway, glad to see you enjoyed yourself in my heaven.

So it was approved? Sounds good, but do we really need more Waterparks?Screw the Waterparks I say, give us more Dry Parks and some decent coasters. That's what this coaster deprived country needs.

Great photos Katie, I especially love the fantasmic photo's. I know it's not a loved show due to the crowds it does attract, but I loved that show with no fire breathing dragon. Just a question though, those ladies at the end, are they the original voice actors for Tinkerbell and Belle? Anyway, Awesome photo's and awesome trip report. 10/10 in my books!

I was really pleasantly surprised at how awesome Adventure City was. It was "Ghetto" but "awesome" at the same time. Sure Treetop racers almost killed us, it was an awesome ride, just thinking "am I really going to come off this alive" whilst riding is always fun, and talk about the head chopper, but I suppose if the coaster's for kids, they aren't too tall anyway. It was also pretty cool to ride the balloon ride, I haven't been on one of those in years, it was good to re-live some nostalgic moments. Here here to adventure city, as we all said after the park, soooo much better than Knotts edit: For those who don't know, apparently Treetop Racers is an ex Australian Carnival ride. More details here - http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4587417-1.html

Just Admit it Josh, it was not a good ride. Come-on, you can say it, just 4 words, just 12 letters.

Awesome photo's josh as per always (why is it that everyone here can take some very good photo's?). I'm glad you got a photo of the Apple Worm ride, it shows off the ride's naturistic wonders If only the world had more parks like Gilroy. Josh though, when will you realise that Hurricane was NOT a good ride? Ok, it wasn't that bad, but I wouldn't rate it any higher than the Galaxy Coasters that are around. At-least the hurricane has a somewhat thrilling layout. I'll give it that.

I ended up doing the Walk in Walts footsteps tour when I was there. My reasoning for chosing that tour was that it seemed like it was the most indepth tour at the park, since I wasn't really after anything family oriented. It was a really good tour, and in my opinion worth the $49 dollars I paid for it (they gave me a discount because I paid with a visa branded card). A lot of the info they gave out I already amazingly knew, but there was some stuff that was new to me. The tour was reasonably long, but there wasn't any "boring" bits on the tour. I won't spoil any more of it for you, but I'd say go either the Walk in Walts tour or go the segway tour which also seems pretty cool, something I'll do next time I trek all that way over to LA.

Whilst I don't have any photos of the demolition (there are a few aftermath photos around) but when Wonderland Sydney was being demolished, they had to pull down the parks most significant coaster somehow. The bush beast was essentially a mirrored clone of Grizzly at CGA, and when it came to demolish the thing, apparently they got 2 construction tractors (you know, the big CAT things) attached part of the old Chairlift cable between the two tractors and just plowed their way through the ride. Apparently though the ride didn't give up without a fight, and many of the first attempts snapped the cable. There are a few aftermath photos around as I said, but they arent mine, but in the photos you can see the freyed cable, so whether it's a true story remains to be proven, but I'd say it's more than likely true.

Sounds like an absolutly terrible week Natalie, sorry to hear it. But those photo's are to die for (and when I say to die for, I really mean AWESOMELY FANTASMAGORICAL). Great work, seriously.

Am I the only one that finds this funny? Great pictures Benny and Hans, I look forward in seeing more guys.

^ Correct and half correct. The park has had a chequered history, with the ghost train fire, the many ownerships, and the more recent resident noise complaints. I have to disagree though, I think the Big Dipper (now Cyclone) is a very good ride, all thats missing is some decent operations (this is a ride which only has 1 train, with some terrible operations). It's a half decent ride in my opinion.

Not all of us are clinically insane, just 99.999% of the population Nice pics of the park at night though, well done.

Just on the Bugs Bunny ride, I know there were atleast 2 more (obviously different though to the one at Six Flags Texas) but WB Movie World in Australia has a Bugs Bunny dark ride, as did WB Movie World in Germany, which was a clone of ours. I do believe that the Germany version is now however gone. What an awesome looking trip so far though, and that storm looked awesome. Two thumbs up for the storm (and the subsequent pictures taken of the storm).

Grizzly for me (we were sitting in the middle of the train) was actually pretty good. There were a couple of "rough" patches, but nothing like I expected it to be. It was actually reasonably good in my opinion. The only reason it's my second worst woodie on the coast (first being the Giant Dipper at Belmont) is because there are other woodies which are better, not because it's a "bad" woodie (naughty boy, go sit in the corner!). As always Benny, great shots. I think on the rapids picture, thats roughly around the area where I started to whinge about all the "cheapskates" because no-one wanted to spend a QTR to get us wet. It was a reasonably dry water ride indeed (nothing like the Rapids ride at Magic Mountain!) which is how I like it!