PKI Jizzman

It's not going to be a flat, it's going to be a coaster. https://www.wlwt.com/article/rip-kings-island-confirms-one-of-its-biggest-roller-coasters-is-leaving/23398846

Wow feels like I am back at SFOG! Agree with you on everything and you perfectly detailed Cyclone. Those bumps before the lift are so much fun!

Another weekend in paradise! The food, beer, and rides all look great. Thanks for the fun read.

I have no idea where the next project will be but I'd imagine it in that XBase area due to the forest right there. I hope Firehawk is out. Regardless if you like Vekoma Flyers you have to love the potential more. I could see Drop Zone out because of the downtime in recent years. Hmm. Vortex nahh. Just not yet. Invertigo wouldn't be missed.

Woah me and my corn made it in your TR!

The food looked great

Ahhhhyeah, you finally got to check out the flume! Glad you like it, and glad you got on Orange Streak. The place is seriously as modern engineering marvel, every theme park fan needs to check out MoA.

Day 7 - Six Flags America Guys I was looking forward to SFA. I'm not joking you. It was a quick visit and I had a plan - ride Wild One, Superman, and check out the weird slides in the water park on a beautiful summer day. Is that the sound of booing because I'm skipping more credits? I have my own priorities. The ex-Tony Hawk themed old school Half Pipe, tube-speed slides without tubes, terrain/woodsy body slides, drop pods, and brand new extreme lazy river seemed much more exciting than a SLC, old GCI, Vekoma Flyer, etc. Plus, all of the slides were included on the Flash Pass! Score! All I need is a couple hours! That plan sounded alluring to Michael, Andy, Allison, and Chase so we all planned to hit up the waterpark after the coasters. First impressions of the park were surprisingly great! We got our Flash Passes, headed over to Superman, and were even given a short cut tip by one of the locals that overheard our conversation. Whaaaaaat is happening? Drake and J Cole was playing through out the park on our walk over. Okay, this is cool. We made a stop at Joker, which was fun! I had been on the indoor and outdoor version of this coaster before so it was nothing new to me. My last name is Boothe. I'm a security booth. Get it? On over to Superman there were 2 trains running and the op was busting his ass. I am pretty sure there were only 2 ops running the ride and they were doing their best. So let's pause for a second. So far: *The GP are friendly *The ops are doing their best *Solid music playing throughout the park Good things happening and I haven't even stepped into this waterpark yet, this is excellent. The Superman op desperately needs a microphone. Six Flags if you're reading this please help the guy out. He had to shout to the whole station his spiel and that's not good for the guests or for the guy's voice. He was being as nice and polite as he could despite the situation. Superman was great! I only rode in the front seat and I thought it maintained its speed well and was more fun than a B&M hyper coaster. Yeah, even with the straight bits and helices. There's just something about those Intamin trains that elevates the ride experience for me. I'm probably in the minority here since the side bars don't effect me so I didn't notice the difference between the regular T bar and the Six Flags T bar. The first drop was great, there was airtime on the second half, and it is smooth.* I didn't ride in the back, where reports were different. Before! After! Come on guys, stick to the front seat Beautiful shot from Robb's video. On over to Wild One I was really starting to think that this park had turned a corner until I stopped to get some water. Oh man, the drinking fountain water was foul. And this was reported in more than one location.Guess I'll stick with Powerade. At this time it was also being reported that the food service was probably the worst experience you could ever encounter, so I planned on having my delicious TPR snacky snacks for lunch when we got back on the bus. Wild One wasn't that bad. It had some funky airtime and didn't kill me, but I had higher expectations since this ride is apparently pretty great when it's running well. The trains were interesting and seemed to have extra cushion in them but it didn't make much of a difference. That was that last ride to check off on the dry side of the park for me, but I stuck with the group for a lap on Ragin' Cajun before we headed to the water park. We're a wild group acting wild on Wild One! Note to self, take more pictures of Chase and Michael next trip "If I don't make it back take care of my camera.." The weird lap bar of the car almost smashed our heads as it came down as we were trying to get in and got stuck in a half open position so they had to bring out this portable car battery to re-open the restraint. I didn't remember that ever happening at SF Great America, haha. Of course we got out brains melted by this spinning mouse. Waterpark time! And this is the part where my Six Flags day started to lose Flags. The main bathroom/changing room was disgusting and it was hard to get privacy to change. I only had to be in there for a minute but even that was too long. I already had my suit on, so I didn't need to change. The changing booths were barely covered up by a shower curtain and most were barely hanging on by 1 or 2 rungs. It probably made it very difficult to change. The locker situation was easy and we were able to put our stuff away quickly and cost effectively before we were ready to slip and slide. Let's put our Flash Pass to use. Oh wait. The kiosk to queue up a slide isn't working. Hmm let's find another one. Oh, this one isn't working either. No help from any type of employee on finding a working kiosk so I guess we'll just have to wait in the regular line. None of the lines looked bad so maybe we won't get on all the slides but it's fine. The new Wahoo River was nothing like they depicted in the announcement: Well, the important thing is that it was clean and refreshing. Maybe they'll add the details later but outside of a few little water buckets and one part with a very tame increase to the flow of the lazy river it was as stripped down and as bland as you can get. The only thing in this attraction that got my heart pounding was when a child near us decided to play opossum and go face down in his inner tube. It's okay, even though he scared the shit out of me and his sister, he was "just playing dead". Hilarious, kid. The drop pods were a walk on and holy crap were these too intense to enjoy. They were not the straight down shot, they were like a corkscrew that tossed you from side to side while scraping your back. I'm pretty sure Allison will never try another because of these Damnit SFA! This day got off to such a great start! We looked on the other side of the waterpark for a working kiosk for Flash Pass because the slide lines were building with no luck, so we enjoyed the wave pool for a bit before checking out the body slides. They were old school fun and smooth! Only 3/5 were operating, meh. Chase met up with us and we FINALLY found a working kiosk (next to another dead one) towards an unexplored part of the water park. Andy this is the part where I call on you to tell the kid's slide race with Michael That was hilarious. We put the Tornado in the queue and went over when ready. The FP perk lets you go to the front of the "get your tube here" line, but the employee directing people to come get the tube is across the pool, leaving you to ....kindly ....cut the line/explain to the GP that you have a FP and you're next. You can imagine how well that's received! Thankfully we got eye contact from the life guard across the way who waved us over to get the tube. Well, this wasn't your ordinary ProSlide cloverleaf tube, it was a little....flat The guy shrugged it off when we asked if we're cool to use it and we weren't about to stand around and take more heat from the rest of the people waiting in line for tubes...so away we go! (And we're still trying to hold it up in this picture, so just imagine it a bit more saggy) Once Chase and I get to the top and set the tube down in the water, the guard up top looks at us funny and we burst out laughing. She says "When you get to the bottom, tell (insert guy at the exit pool's name here) that (insert girl at the top's name here) said 'PULL THIS TUBE OFF TO THE SIDE!'" So, how did it go? There was just enough air in the tube to keep me @$$ from riding on the bottom of the slide, but there were a couple points where I thought I might break my tailbone, haha. It was a great ProSlide Tornado and we got some serious altitude on the side of the funnel. It was slightly terrifying, but endlessly funny and absolutely one of the most memorable parts of the trip. And yes, the guard at the exit pool laughed and put the tube out of commission when we got to the bottom and relayed the message. By that time there was only an hour or so until our departure time, so I got in the short line for the half pipe. The op at the top was having an absolutely blast punting people down the slide and spinning tubes at random. This slide was AMAZING. My heart popped out of my chest as the guy blasted me off the platform by swinging on the bar and I got really far up the other end of the pipe before going backwards. It was a one of a kind SFA experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Thanks for the memories 0 f*cks halfpipe slide op! Upon meeting up with the rest of the group, I encountered Mr Goodwin in a jovial mood who told me about the excellent service at the New Orleans bar. Cody expressed interested in going to check it out and we had just enough time so we briskly walked over. I met the famous bartenders, got compliments on my tattoo, told them I wished I had more time to chat with them, but I only had enough time to get one of her special sangrias. It was just what I needed after flailing around in the waterpark all afternoon and that is when we'd head out. All in all SFA has the rides, slides, and layout to be a really solid park in the future. They're doing their best to upkeep the park, add new attractions, and encourage their regular guests to be on their best behavior. That's a unique challenge not many parks have to deal with and I honestly don't know the best way of going about it. Keep up the good work SFA. With all that being said, it wouldn't shock me if the park closed in 5 years. As much as I'm trying to be positive about this park, there are a lot of flaws that I could see putting a nail in the coffin. Thanks for reading! -Zach

This sounds like so much fun and genuinely spooky. I'm all in and getting friends to join with!

Are you the woman that married the Nachts ride at Knoebels?

Sounds like this can happen to any wooden coaster over 10 years of age. It might start the season off well but by the time July/Aug comes it's worn down quicker. I also could just have a high tolerance considering I had no issues with Voyage on Labor Day weekend or Boulder Dash ever. I was going to use Voyage as an example as that's a ride I've only ridden in May and I hear awful things about it in July/Aug, haha. I'm right there with you since I grew up with SoB, Beast, Vortex, Face/Off, etc. I think the only time I have issues with wooden coasters is when there are sudden jolts. Grizzly had some serious jolts that had me thinking I was going to bounce out of my seat into the woods quicker than a Virginian can skin and gut a deer.

It was Alex Pope with that Avalanche shot, but Franklin has the slomo video somewhere. How did I get that mixed up, of course Franklin was filming me Sounds like this can happen to any wooden coaster over 10 years of age. It might start the season off well but by the time July/Aug comes it's worn down quicker. That's good to hear! It just wasn't happening that day, especially when I305 is right there. I couldn't justify leaving it for an old Arrow, haha. Next time! It looked good and tasted great Definitely. It was still one of the best days of the trip despite my morning so that says a lot about the park and people I was with! Thanks! Yeah I'd suggest trying TT in the middle for the first ride whenever you get there, but it might not be your ride. It doesn't matter the obstacle I run into, I am able to rebound haha. BUT MAYBE THAT WAS THE SECRET ANTIDOTE. THE MISSED CREDITS! Ahhhhhhhhh Thanks! That handy dandy Platinum pass probably saved me $10 by the end of the day haha. I'll be on the look out for that next time!

After we left BGW, we arrived in the Doswell area around dinner time and that gave us the whole evening to just hang out and do whatever we wanted to do. We picked out a sushi spot for dinner that had great reviews all around and didn't give us any reason to be hesitant about it. Look I pride myself on having an iron stomach growing up in Cincinnati with Skyline Chili, my mom's cooking and my dad's "let's use every marinade available" grilling style. I go visit small Mexican villages, Egypt, Istanbul, I have no issues. Well. Virginia style sushi f****'d me up, haha. There were 5 of us for dinner but I was the only one effected so I'm not sure what happened. Yokozuna Sushi was the place and it had everything you'd want in a sushi place - lots of good sake/wine offerings, beer offerings, the owner/chef slicing up fresh fish taking a break to play some songs on the piano Day 6 - Twilight Zone Kings Island Without going into detail, I declined quickly in the morning and ended up sitting out on ERT and spent more money on Vitamin Water at KD than I did on beer at any other park I've ever been to Big shout out to the security lead who talked baseball with me, helped me get some electrolytes even though the park wasn't open yet, and gave me some tips so I would get back to 100% as quick as possible. Also shout out to KT and Elissa for hanging out and distracting me from feeling awful. So from 9-noon I just relaxed and took in the park. I had really been looking forward to Kings Dominion since I grew up going to Kings Island. I had never been to KD before and I really loved the park. Really loved it! The Candy Apple Grove might be the cutest name for a park area. KD seemed to have more original parts of the park still left compared to KI. The amount of shade was welcomed in the Virginia heat and I spent a good chunk of time sitting by the log flume. While I really enjoyed that section of the park, there's the Dominator/Volcano/I305 area that provides plenty of evidence of where Paramount and Cedar Fair added on. If they could blend those parts of the park in with the rest of the layout I think the park would leave me with nothing to pick on. There were just too many stretches of pavement/no shade and dead ends with no bathrooms/food/drink spots that left me feeling like I had stepped into a completely different park. I was happily surprised by the freedom of expression the employees had. I think the dyed/bleached haired employees were even with the natural hair colored employees. Did anyone else notice this?! I don't know if Cedar Fair has gotten way more lax of it's just KD. The food was great! Rita's is amazing of course. More love for Hank's. The food was really fresh, the employees were extremely friendly, and the service was quick! All while it was down pouring and people were flooding in. Probably the best non-chain/generic food I've had at a Cedar Fair park. Everyone I was around seemed to like the Mexican food on International Street, too. Andy once again showed off his skills and called out precisely when the rain moved in and when the rain moved out, which thankfully cooled things down to a tolerable level in the evening. So how about the rides! I skipped Anaconda, yeah no thanks it just wasn't happening today. Same with Stunt Coaster and other clones I've already been on. I found some shade and hung out with my Vitamin Water instead. I think I had 7 or 8 by the end of the day haha. Avalanche - I was looking forward to this ride since I had been on the bobsleds like Vibora and Disaster Transport, but not this type. It was fun! It was the first coaster I started the day off with and it's great to see a unique ride still up and running. Dominator - Who else noticed that part where you exit the station and step down a few stairs - where it's not completely connected to the next ramp?! Most of us know this coaster was relocated and this was one part that Alex called out. It's a really solid B&M floorless. Not my favorite, not the worst. Wasn't as memorable as I hoped it to be. Apple Zapple - It's a good mouse. Racer 75 - Was running so well. The team that re-profiled this ride did a fantastic job bringing it back to life. There was airtime, it was smooth, it looked good. Grizzly - It's amazing what they did to Racer 75, so hopefully the same team can give some attention to Grizzly. I'm usually very tolerant of rides with a rough reputation, but Grizzly needs some help. I rode the front seat at night and it had some obvious rough patches. The layout is so basic and compact it's pretty much a bigger version of the junior wooden coaster but it could be a fun night ride for the family if they fixed it up! Flight of Fear - I had to try this one to see how it compared to Kings Island's. The only difference I noticed were the creatures in the station. There's no difference in MCBR strength or smooth/roughness IMO. Intimidator 305 - I was actually nervous for my first ride. I've been reading about the intensity of this coaster ever since it has been built and I saved it until the evening when I was back to feeling 100%. It delivered and it kept getting better and better with each ride. I enjoyed the front (row 2) the best! This ride deserves all the hype and it kicks your ass no matter how young or old you are. The turn around into the first hill will have you feeling like you're in Hollywood because you will be seeing stars! I was taken off guard with how great giant sustained airtime hill is. From there it's really hard to put your hands up because the following series of twisty bits taken at those insane speeds are not to be trifled with. Even though the trim tries to slow you down at the end you're still hauling ass into the brake run. It's absolutely one of my favorite rides on the planet and my only gripe is how they handle the front row. You can't access the front row from Fast Lane because it has its own queue and it extends out from the station to the regular queue. It was a 5-10 minute wait for any other row, but dispatches were 5 minutes, so it's easy to see how it only takes 30-40 people to create a painfully long wait. It was 60-90 minutes for the front as the op and I counted out how many people were waiting in that line. If the front row queue was shorter maybe it's encourage people to pick other rows? Twisted Timbers - Thiiiiiiis RMC. This guy. This was one of the few roller coasters that tested my limits. It's so aggressive and the airtime is so strong. Similar to Skyrush, I think the more I rode it the more I became tolerant to the airtime. The barrel roll drop was amazing and felt different than Storm Chaser, the trio of airtime hills were outstanding, and that whole stretch of ...how to explain it (At this time stamp - https://youtube.com/XGavn7bCuOM?t=192)... the airtime trick track, quick airtime hill, then that U turn with the airtime hill somehow fit in was just crazy! And it all worked so well. So smooth. I thought Twisted Timbers was the most intense coaster of the trip because of how much extreme airtime was packed into the layout. There's not an inch of the track that was left out! I couldn't pick if I liked the front middle or back the most. It was just that good! Drop Tower - I was impressed with the difference between KI's original gyro drop (1999) and Kings Dominion's V2 gyro drop (2003). KD's doesn't spin, but the carriage works so quickly and efficiently it's taken to the top and dropped all around a minute. It's got a lower/shorter(?) set of brakes which result in a longer fall. KI's ride cycle is double or triple because it takes so much longer to go up and drop. Gotta love the better capacity, longer/faster fall, and the speaker at the top allowing the ops to mess with you. Log Flume - I loved the old school feel to this flume. It really felt like it was one of the first ever built. It was a leisurely ride and didn't get me too wet. This was a great flume! Watch out for those water bombs after the final drop. Our ERT session on Twisted Timbers was really special. The ride ops were having a ton of fun with us, there was heat lightning in the distance which gave an ominous vibe, and there was just so much energy. I think everyone was on the same page in that TT is a world class coaster. Each lap just seemed to fuel us Thanks for reading! -Zach This is now a cursed image. The closest we can get to Tomb Raider:The Ride in 2018. Sad. Guys I'm coming back to life!!! Thanks Alex Pope!!! for the photo. This is probably my favorite photo of the trip. Look at that blush on Michael's face! Hhaha. (Chase photo credit!) Gentleman....START YER ENGINESSSS!!! Intamin water fountain keeping the wheels cool. This ride is just fantastic. One of the best on Earth for sure! Michael, Allison, Chase, Joao all super pumped for our make shift ERT session on I305. It was only a 5 minute wait all night! One huuuuuge sustained airtime hill before you hit top speeds and get twisted. Row 2 ftw!!! This is the best Drop Tower. Playing the spectator's role but enjoying this majestic view at 8am. We have a long day ahead! How was Grizzly's Beast impression? Not good. But a solid attempt. Guys how was it?!!? I'm getting flashbacks to Valravyn with this angle. Dominator is a great modern day looper. This seems like a great spot to sit and drink 3 Vitamin Waters. Look at those pretty trains. This ride is all around stunning and fits in so well. Excellent job KD! I'm not at Kings Island anymore. I really loved this side of the park. I'm so happy to be here!!! Doesn't it look stunning?! (Albert photo credit!) TT is so wild I couldn't stop laughing to look at the camera. Not once could I time the camera right. Robb and Joe are experts! Thank you Kings Dominion crew! We love you and your great park!!! (Robb photo credit!)

Yay you finally got to Minnea! Sorry to hear about Renegade. I haven't been this year but I've been hyping it up as a supremely underrated GCI since visited. Maybe this year's extended winter made it rougher usual. Who am I kidding it's a GCI. Target field is a nice little modern ballpark, yep! I was surprised with how close the light rail stop is to it. It's more convenient than Wrigley and the L! I love Minnea.

I love that Shrimp Heaven shirt that's hilarious, haha. Pittsburgh is an underrated city which many Midwesterners probably avoid because they hate the Steelers and they'll never know what a great place it is. That house is really cool. Reminds me of the secluded house in Ex Machina. I looked and that house is in Norway with mountains added to the view. Close!

Haha fair enough on the Coors. I don't know it just tasted meh. Which isn't what you'd expect since you're so close to the brewery. I will definitely get back to that area for BGW and KD again. I really loved both parks. Le Scoot was a fine flume but it was so short. The views of Invadr were cool, but did they sacrifice a lot of trees for that? It just seemed like it was sitting on a barren area next to Invadr. Pretzels were good, but not heavenly or anything. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as the ones a BGT. Are they supposed to be way better than other parks? Thanks! I should have another update or two by the time you check back in. You'll definitely be featured in my SFA report, haha. Thanks Phil! Nice meeting you as well. I can't believe it's been 2 months already.

Thanks! I definitely wanted to try Trapper's but was never in that area at the right time. It did smell great. I imagined Jared doing a high kick to the face. Yeah so unnecessary. And the guy didn't even speak. Wtf?! Thankfully there were 3-4 throughout the park. Much needed! Thanks David!

Of course! I couldn't remember the order it happened! Oh my gosh that was one of the worst things I've witnessed in a theme park. Unforgivable, Verbolten ride op trying to flex.

Indiana Jones + Space Mountain

Thaaaanks bert. We went by multiple times because it's pretty much part of the walkways, so it was cool to see them! The last thing I want with that oppressive heat and humidity is to stand in line next to a stinky stable

Thanks Fox! They sell sauce by the bottle in the store, but they didn't have the Cheerwine available yet otherwise I would have grabbed some for fellow Cheerwine fans. The website does say they have it in bottles now so next time you're in the area you can grab some. Day 4 - Evening at Busch Gardens This starts the part of the trip that I'll talk about things a bit more and have more pictures to show off because there's lots of new/firsts for me! We took off from our spot north of Charlotte and headed up towards the East Coast. We had another eventful stop in the middle North Carolina and got into Williamsburg with great timing. Good morning. Here's a picture of this weird ass mirror covered boost mobile store in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. Stay boosted NC! Good afternoon. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET THE ARBYS MEATS IF WE CAN'T GET IN?? (Albert photo credit) Good afternoon from the faith and family DVD section in Walm LOOK OUT MOSES, PENNYWISE HAS BREACHED THE FAMILY AND FAITH SECTION FROM THE HORROR SECTION and now we have sharks attacking us! Let's get the f*********** out of here to BGW! Everyone on the bus let's gooooo! (Albert photo credit) Okay, we arrived! First impressions - Living in a big city has made me appreciate the outdoors more. Chicago might have Millennium Park but that's nothing compared to what other cities like San Francisco or New York have to offer. Williamsburg was heavily wooded with that delicious rich southern pine scent. I immediately loved the setting. It took no time to go from the hotel over to the park. Effortless. We had a super fun 2 days tickets since we were spending the evening and the following morning/afternoon at the park. And whew. It. Was. Hot. Humid. Muggy. Heavy. I'm confident in saying everyone on the trip was prepared for heat but today it was just plain gross out. I hadn't felt that level of heat + humidity in a while. All that excess sweat and sun didn't matter because I was on cloud 9 being in a NEW PARK! BGW had been on my bucket list for some time since it's been 9+ hours away from me my whole life. This is why I'm here! Wooo yeahhhhh TPR USA 2018 trip! We got a good introduction to the park since we had to meet up with BGW relations at Invadr for our ERT wristbands. That put us in the back of the park, so we ventured over to the Oktoberfest area. One of the first sights in the park. Great first impressions! Verbolten was testing empty trains, so we started things off at Mach Tower since it was a walk on and simply, it was operating. For so many years this ride had such an awful reputation so I wasn't going to miss an opportunity to ride it. First off, what is up with the restraints? I'm a little guy and they still pinched my arms to the plastic side of the car. They are over the shoulder restraints but the way the seat hugs up against your body is just so bizarre. After a beautiful, lengthy trip to the top you're treated to an enormous view of the James river and all the inlets of water surrounding. It's one of the best views on a drop tower and the drop is A+ as well. It's easy to forget that this is one of the larger drop towers out there. I really really liked this ride despite the uncomfortable over the shoulder restraints. Even the people in the Mach Tower promo video are confused as to why the over the shoulder restraints are so uncomfortable. But damn it's a good tower.(BGW Youtube) A quick stop in the Festhaus to check out the dinner options but the line was absolutely massive, so we checked off our .40 cent beer credits, still too much for Coors light and I grabbed a better beer on the way out. We walked across the bridge to the Italy section of the park where we browsed some dinner options, but there were still some coasters to check out first. Yeah this place is beautiful. Apollo's Chariot! Of all the B&M hypers I've ridden I like them all about the same, but Apollo would be the one that sticks out as too tame. I mean, come on, you know what you're getting with a B&M hyper but even the pre-drop couldn't give the train a boost to lift me out of the seat. That being said, it's still a fun ride with a divine setting. The drop over the river, the helix with deer, and twisty bits towards the end of the ride were all good. Apollo is the first B&M hyper built back in 1999 and it gives you everything you want - little tunnels, a lengthy out and back trip, comfortable trains. It's easy to see why families love this coaster. Apollo I know you're the god of light and sun and all but give us a break here! Hello from the surface of the sun! We all dumped the water on our heads after this photo. A re-ride was tempting, but the operations weren't 100% and we didn't want to wait in the sun for another Apollo ride. Tempesto was firing off trains pretty quickly, so we went over there for a station wait. Tempesto - The coaster that just kind of showed up at BGW I was about to type "aren't comfort collars the worst?" until I remembered that no, the worst is being stuck waiting behind a parent forcing their bawling child to ride a coaster. There are plenty of things I witnessed on the trip that made me shake my head, but this is one thing that really bugs me. Following the "does this affect me in any way?" rule, we just kinda let it happen and thankfully the girl didn't seem too traumatized when they got back into the station. I love Premier coasters! I didn't love Tempesto! It just didn't do much for me and I felt like I was riding a Vekoma flyer. Fast, slow, fast, twist, slow, fast, slow is pretty much what I got from the ride. That experience combined with the loose article policy prevented me from riding again. I'd love to check out the models with the friendlier trains. Dinner time at Marco Polo grill! We almost didn't get to have the dinner that we wanted - the Mediterranean beef. The station was out of pretty much everything and we were first told that there were only veggies left when it was just Alex Michael and I, but when the rest of the group showed up after browsing the options the guy took back what he said and went in the back and brought out a beautifully seasoned slab of medium cooked beef. It came with potatoes, pita, salad, and was f******* delicious. Really glad the guy double checked with the kitchen because this was the best theme park food I've had! Seriously some of the best theme park food I've had. (bgwfans photo credit) After taking a lap around towards the front of the park, we ran into Loch Ness Monster. The did a great job with the effects in the tunnel that they put in for the 40th anny. So, riding it for the first time in 2018. What else can I say about Loch Ness other than it's a coaster that I felt a sense of accomplishment in riding but not much desire to re-ride. It's like a mine train with loops. I'm glad I got to ride it, but I'd rather admire it off ride than on ride Ryan took this brilliant photo. Loch Ness looks great! At this point the day was starting to wind down, so we let Jared shop a bit to figure out our next move and took the sky ride over to Griffon. Laura and I love the sky ride because we can say hello to our bovine friend below. I'll call this "Two Guys Touching A Pole With Thumbs Up" Love ya Michael and Chris ***airhorn******airhorn******airhorn*** Merch Madness update Jared is on a roll! ***airhorn******airhorn******airhorn*** And now you have to carry your truck load of shirts around in the heat. Smart move Ahhh Griffon, how I had been looking forward to a dive coaster without the vest restraints. Of course I really like this ride! The view overlooking the Budweiser brewery and the James river is fantastic, the drop with just the OTSR is fun, the drop down to the river was great, and the little bump into the splashdown was fun as well. I could re-ride this coaster all day (foreshadowing!). Everything about the B&M dive coaster track/trains is so neat to look at in person. Nailed itttt! By now the heat had gone from 100* to probably 90* Yeah we were all hot messes for our ERT session on Invadr. Invadr! It's a GCI. It has a tunneled first drop which is a unique choice and I actually really enjoyed the initial drop for my first couple of rides because you couldn't really see where the drop ended at night. This was a memorable ERT session and I'd like to thank Robb for keeping count of my rides, I would have been lost without you Robb! Our ERT was 30 minutes and that was the perfect amount of time because by the end of it I had never wanted a shower more in my life. It was that hot and humid. The Holiday Inn Express we stayed at was great. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to go to BGW (https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/williamsburg/wbgbg/hoteldetail) Day 5 - Look out for ze black fhorest yah? The next morning we were treated to filming sessions on Griffon, Alpengeist, and Apollo. Big thanks to Robb and Elissa for their efforts on working with BGW to make this happen. There's nothing like starting the day off with the park to ourselves. Also the early start helped out with heat for real! It seemed like everyone was able to chill out and have a drink/see a show/relax before we left and that's definitely because we were able to get rides on the big 3 before the park even opened. Good morning Griffon! We all filled the train and switched seats every cycle giving plenty opportunities to ride left/right/front/back. New remix: "We are IN the log flume" On over to Alpengeist! My first time on this massive old school B&M invert! With all the RMC's, 300ft+ coasters, and new parks on this trip I had forgotten to ride it on day 1. I've seen pictures of this legendary coaster since a kid so I was pretty pumped up to ride. And yeah, Robb's rider cam caught my reaction perfectly, haha. Guess who's never been on Alpengeist before. (Robb photo credit!) It's a very solid invert! The snappyness doesn't bother me on any B&M I just hug that OTSR nice and tight and ..yeah that's my trick, haha. I honestly did not know what it did post MCBR and zero g, so I was taken by surprise with the low to the ground elements. It's not my favorite, it's not my least favorite. It does feel like you're eye to eye with Griffon on top of that lift and that's such an interesting feeling on an invert. Seriously impressive structure. We took a trip through the Oktoberfest over to Apollo for some filming and we got sooooo many rides on Apollo! Thanks BGW! It's not my favorite hyper, but it's still a really enjoyable ride. There's really nothing to not like or offend anyone. I rode in the front, back, middle, left, right it seriously felt like we had this ride for over an hour. The Apollo crew was awesome! They were really sweet to us. It's smooth, it's fast, it's like whatever the Greek version of cappuccino and biscotti (Andy photo) B&M ERT pfftt it's all about big ass fan ERT!!! Oh no did Alex get Fabio'd??? (Andy photo) Nope he looks perfectly normal. At that point we only had 2 things left to accomplish - Le Scoot and Verbolten. After we picked up our fast pass, we went over to check on Le Scoot because KT wanted to ride and Jared/Chris/Michael/Collin/Alex and I were all about that plan. Le Scoot didn't open 'till noon so we checked on Verbolten. I honestly forget if that was open or not, I don't think it was yet so we just got a pretzel and hung out for a moment before getting to Le Scoot at opening. Also somewhere in that time frame the 8 of us rode Invadr because Elissa was really upset she missed out on the ERT the night before Eventually Verbolten opened. Going into Verbolten the coaster was kind of an after thought to me. I didn't know too much about the ride - I knew what trick it had in the building, but wow I was pleasantly surprised by this ride. **Spoiler, skip if you don't want to know what happens*** There was just so much more that went on in the building than anyone could have convinced me. Even on Mach Tower I didn't notice the indoor building. It looks tiny! But there's a solid airtime hill in there along with a good bit of twistyness. The drop track was great, so that was 2 unexpected moments of airtime that I wasn't ready for. Then, the launch out of the building had a nice kick! ***Okay you're good. The drop down from the bridge was a great way to pay homage to BBW, and there are some nice twisty bits to end the ride. Overall when it's running, it's an impressive coaster. I can totally see why it has downtime with a number of launch portions, the drop track, lots of block sections, etc. Also there are 5 or 6 trains running? Well done BGW. Verbolten ended up being one of the biggest surprises of the trip for me and is my favorite BGW coaster by far. Trains or cars? I don't know! It was right about beer o'clock since we were leaving in a few hours and BGW has an impressive selection. I got the Chesapeake Pale Ale per Chuck's recco. Thanks Chuck! Great to see you!! I can't believe I met larrygator in real life. Larry! Nice meeting you! Hope to see you again soon. We took a lap around the park for more sky rides and to just take in the park. Jolly jolly jolly. The walk through the bird exhibit was really well done. You got really close to some exotic birbs. Not in the bird exhibit but beautiful birb!! Can't forget about the train! We made the whole lap around the park. Seems like the whole crew ended up at the pub in Ireland which was an oasis from the heat with plenty of different drink options. From there it was time to leave so we headed out for our drive to the Doswell area where I had an unfortunate date with Virginia style sushi This update turned out to be way bigger than I thought! Thanks for reading! -Zach

Are they going to surpass their 5lb Hershey bar with a 10lb Hershey bar?! How about doubling up on the 1lb Reese Cup and make it 2lb or a giant ass Take 5 bar! ...so this is the B&M hyper announcement or teaser I guess

You're the pioneer of the "throw yourself off the side of the train, look straight down, and watch the structure of the lift hill disappear beneath you" technique. But that's too long a name so we'll just call it the Zach. I like to think of it as simply being in my element, haha ...combined with the realization of being able to re-ride this incredible coaster with a train full of people just as happy as you are on a perfect summer night

Knockback Nat's nice choice! There's not much to see downtown but looks like you covered all the bases haha.

Agreed. It was a different view of glow each ride! The tunnel all lit up was so much fun.