PKI Jizzman

Thanks everyone! I promise the following updates have more pictures, haha.

Nice rundown of the event, John! That means a USA Trip report is due right The choice to add the comfort collars to avoid seat belts doesn't make sense. The comfort collars actually are a seat belt that you buckle once you pull them down Unless Racers are getting a different version that don't suck. I'd much rather have a regular seat belt that doesn't take away my upper body freedom.

Day 3 - Testing SuperPowers With one RMC in the books it was time to head out to our next stop - Carowinds. This isn't just the RMC tour. It's the RMC and more tour. What's a part of more? 3 giga coasters! All vastly different from each other and needless to say we were excited to greet the first of the trip. This was a good down day coming off of a 14 hour SFOG day. The bus is fantastic and makes even a 5 hour drive go by quick - plenty to see out the clean windows, endless AC, and outlets to keep everyone happy. No poopin' in here!!! Lots of time on the bus was important today because it was time to collect your thoughts and make a guess for Jared's Merch Madness. For those of you who don't know, Jared loves to collect t shirts from all the parks he visits. Lots of them. But much less than my initial guess I'm a dumbass. We had an hour lunch stop and given our location outside of Spartanburg, I knew there was bound to be some good BBQ in walking distance. I like to think one of my super powers is finding a hidden gem to eat/drink. Chicago has really sharpened my restaurant-detective skills and within a few minutes I had found something promising. Carolina BBQ! http://www.mycarolinabbq.com/ Yep the famous German TV one! With the hour time limit, I knew BBQ would be perfect. It's already smoked. You just go get it. Once I got close I knew it was legit because the aroma of delicious smoke was somehow overpowering the exhaust of 100+ cars at the crowded intersection, haha. This place is cute and homey, right down to the stereotypical motherly waitress with the big southern accent that says "Thank-yew vurry much sweet pea" way too many times. The BBQ was some of the best I've ever had and it came with slaw, orka, hush puppies, and a tea. Of course it was all for under $10. There were plenty of sauces to try, too - including Cheerwine sauce. Yeah I'll be stopping here anytime I possibly can. I paid and was able to make it back to the bus with 20 minutes to spare. We only had an hour or so to Carowinds and the skies started to darken up, all to familiar to my quick stop in May where the radar looked like a piece of abstract art. Well, looks like this was going to be the case. BUT we aren't just your normal group of coaster enthusiasts, we have someone special. We have Andy: Super powers: expert weather predictor, mother nature whisperer, Ghostbuster of storms. First off, when we arrived we some how dodged rain. While we waited for Fast Lane and wristbands, we still didn't get rained on. That would have been brutal trying to get into the park in the middle of a storm. We knew storms were in the area so we all found indoor rides/shopping/the bar. The bartender at Carowinds in Harmony Hall was great, and kept many of us entertained while the rides were down. They had a great selection of mixed drinks and beers. It was about 6:30 or so that rides started to open up, so we hit up some favorites while we could. Get your credits in, Carowinds noobies! Afterburn - I'm a huge fan of this invert and for a good 30 minutes there was no one in line, it was like mini ERT. The zero G is my favorite element with that crazy wing over between the trees being a close second. This part Storms moved back in for a bit, which was totally fine since it gave everyone time to get another drink and some food. When I pick food at a theme park I try to go for the food that's hard to mess up - fried food, something simply grilled like a burger, or BBQ. People rrrrrrrraaaaaave about Harmony Hall and I was excited to double up on BBQ today and get pulled pork for dinner. Welp, it must have been an off day because the pulled pork was really weak. It was edible, but nothing close to what they have set their expectations to be. Oh well! The beer is great and that makes up for it. It was getting dark and the storms were clearing up once again (thanks Andy!!!) so it looked like we could all get in 90 minutes of riding before Fury ERT. I was talked into riding Hurler and woah, who fixed this ride up?! It was not bad at all. Not quite Racer 75 smooth, but totally fine. I also fell for the new shiny boomerang trains. Curiosity got the best of me, wanting to try out the new Vekoma set up but it was still a crappy boomerang I nearly forgot about that with all of the Fury and Afterburn love. Hey Brad and Franklin! TPR giving Intimidator some love! Fury for an hour was so much fun. It's one of the easiest coasters to ride over and over again. This made it a favorite for a lot of people on the tour! I really like Fury because I can hang over the side, lean left and right, pretty much just take advantage of the freedom those B&M clamshells give you. Combine that with an hour of riding I'm pretty sure I got every angle I could on the hills, turns, and that special diving wave turn/treble clef. Bzzzzzzzzz Fury 3 2 5 E R T Fury looks amazing at night. MERCH MADNESS HAS BEGUN!!! (Robb photo credit!) Big shout out to the crew. Thanks for all the rides! Bye Fury, see you next year! After an hour of Fury, some of us weren't ready for bed yet so we took over the late night window at Cook Out once we got to the hotel. What is Cook Out? It's a quick service restaurant that serves up shakes, fries, burgers, chicken, all of your favorite foods. For cheap!!! https://cookout.com/menu/ You can get a combo with 2 sides for like, $5. Or floats. Or just a gallon of Cheerwine. TPR loves Cook Out and this won't be the last you see of it! Yes, these prices are real. This is a real place. I don't know how it's so cheap and so good just go find the closest Cook Out! That'll cap day 3.

Thanks everyone! More coming soon. Hahaha, too funny. You just need to visit a couple parks to get inspired! You'll find something. Have fun riding out this current wave. Thanks! Yep, our group had just gotten in line. We figured if we only have to wait for 1 thing the whole day it might as well be food. But we didn't anticipate the food to be...that..bad. Woof. Yep! There was one lonely pretzel rotating for what seemed like hours, and while we wanted the pretzel, we were not going to pick that one So they made a fresh one. Hooray one positive SFOG food note! With thanks to EB (vuurvogel) for starting the idea for me in 2016! When you can fall back on Stroolwafels for dinner when Wendy's is closed, that's a beautiful thing.

Hey TPR! I realized that I could use my time on the L for something productive, like putting together a trip report! So it's been a little over a month since the tour ended and there are a lot of great memories to share with everyone here. Thanks to Robb and Elissa for putting together this trip. It was great spending time with you and I appreciate all the time/effort/patience/loss of sleep/communication that went into the 2 week adventure. I hope I helped make your life easier and happier on the tour! So let's see, I think the hype started to build in December. 2018 was due to be a big theme park year for me since I had lost focus roller coasters and without a car it's more difficult to visit certain parks. I think May and June were the toughest months to through because once July it the count down was real! Day 1 - Just get there. Thankfully there was not anything major weather wise going on between Chicago and Atlanta. Once I got to the airport I was quickly made aware of what mother nature was doing in the whole Pennsylvania/NE part of the country with the summer Nor Easter thing going on. Turns out my friend had been stuck there all morning trying to go to NYC and it wasn't looking good for the rest of the day. But everything was on time to ATL so it was time to grab some popcorn and go. I booked my flight months in advanced since it was so cheap and gave myself plenty of time to be able to land and make my way to where the bus pick up was at the ATL airport. Flights didn't cooperate for a good chunk of the rest of the USA since a vast majority of the group were slated to get in unreasonably early with lots of time to kill. Robb and Elissa noticed this and put together a quick Fun Spot stop! They are great at improvising. Talk about saving the day! Check out the other reports to see some photos there. I noticed Russ was in around the same time I was, so I told him we should link up to make our way over to the bus pick up. Shockingly, I think I frightened Russ a little bit because we hadn't met before, but I knew who he was because of the plentiful amounts of photos of him from previous trips If you've ever met Russ you'd probably agree it's a feat to scare him, haha. So already first impressions are going g r e a t. It was cake to take the monorail over and of course, the bus arrived when it was slated to. In this crazy world there are few consistent things. 1 thing without fail is the punctuality of the TPR bus. It will leave when you are told it is going to leave. It will arrive when you are told it is going to arrive. Isn't that great? Yes, yes it is. Sticking to my past TPR experiences, I went towards the back of the bus where I immediately found familiar faces like Laura, Michael, Colin, Andy, and more! We were off to the hotel, a relaxing dinner, and the snack exchange! Thanks a bunch to Ryan for getting the snack exchange together last minute. I think it's fair to say we crushed it and had a little bit of something from all over the USA and some international treats. Tooooons of Universal/Harry Potter/Disney snacks, too. Those were great! I brought a sampling of Chicago popcorn and some multiverse-Rick stickers in case someone couldn't have the snacks I brought. Long live the TPR snack exchange. (Credit to Robb) It was a great way to start getting names down, mix up the group, and get QBot teams ready for the first day at Six Flags Over Georgia! My roommate, Andy, and I were on the same page with wake up times so I knew we'd be a great fit. This held true the whole trip and post trip (hey Andy!!) If you don't think Andy can be any cooler you're wrong because he brought Stroopwafels for the snack exchange Day 2 - Six Flags Over Georgia We had a biiiiig day ahead of us starting with early morning filming pre-park opening and post-park ERT on Twisted Cyclone. Today was a pretty mellow day for me since the last time I was at SFOG it was with TPR for the Deep South bash. So needless to say there were a few new rides to check out, but for the most part I was just going with the flow. Filming time starting with the new RMC! I love the filming sessions. It's very simple - listen to Robb's instructions and follow the park's rules. Thanks to Robb's quick set up and improvisation he was able to get lots of different angles of Twisted Cyclone which meant lots of rides for the group! Thanks to John for the onrides + Elissa for the offride!) Twisted Cyclone - Such an easy coaster to love. The open seating in the front row gave incredible views, which was so cool with the classic car detail. The progression of elements gets more and more wild throughout the circuit and by the time you hit the brakes everyone is laughing. I ended up enjoying Cyclone more towards the front but I also appreciated how the middle and back provided a slightly different ride. Goliath was second, I think! This is a really solid B&M hyper that bounces around the park and features a helix that you actually feel the g's on. Dare Devil Dive was up next! I had already been on this one, but it's impossible to not be intimidated by a vertical coaster with only a lap bar. I wish all the Euro Fighters were able to get this treatment. DDD is a funky coaster that looks more frightening than it actually is. It's really smooth and an easier going than Batman and Blue Hawk if you want a less intense loopy ride at SFOG. ...more ERT filming! Mindbender was right around the corner and we were almost able to get all of our group on one train! These sessions provide some really unique opportunities - since the other train was full that gave about 6 or so of us freedom to pick wherever we wanted. Mindbender makes great use of the terrain and takes you through the trees, down into a creek, and a tunnel through a hill while sprinkling in those classic loops and bits of airtime. Back row cruuuuuuuu! Michael, stop looking at the camera!!! (from Elissa) Classic TPR moment when 2 different people get pictures of you on the same ride That's Andy for the first and Franklin(!!!) for the other. Franklin photo credit! Put that on the bingo card for future trips. ...wait more filming?! This is amazing! Yep, Batman was conveniently close and it seemed like we were doing a pretty good job day 1 that we had time to get some shots on Batman. By that time, it was almost getting to park opening so we went over to group up and grab our QBots. Chris, Ryan, Alex and I decided we make a well rounded group since combined we check off foreigner/big Texas/West Coast/Fresh Coast and headed to the back of the park by Superman. Justice League - Everything was working and I think the main thing I recognize about the newer versions of Justice League is the screen resolution. St Louis and Chicago's just seemed a bit blurrier to me, so I was happy I was able to following along better. The fire worked, Joker was on point, and it's a great dark ride/shooter. Superman - It's the original! I like this model best of all because it doesn't seem like you're up that high on the lift since the hill follows you for most of it. Then once you swoop down and pull up for the pretzel loop you realize you're 100ft in the air. Pretty fun! Great American Scream Machine - This ride is not in a great shape at this time. It doesn't look good, the trains are all mismatched, and it's rough. That being said somehow I had a fun bouncy ride on a non wheel seat while I listened to the screaming agony of Alex behind me Not a great look, but it was only down for a little bit. Which lapbar would you like? We had just leaned of the hot sauce incident. Blue Hawk was a ride I warned people about prior to the trip. It's not a coaster that you should like. It's got all the sketchy boxes crossed off: *New generic name *New paint and trains to try and trick if you if the name didn't do it *Voiceovers in the line and entrance of the line talking about how (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ~~***~~SMOOTH AND NEW~~***~~ and COMFORTABLE(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ Blue Hawk is. Pfft, you're not fooling me, Six Flags. This is going to be pitiful. But I'm going to ride it since I'm with the group. And...it did not suck. Six Flags does care about my experience on this Arrow/Vekoma mutation. Whoever worked on this reprofile did a great job. Check out (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ~~***~~SMOOTH AND NEW~~***~~ and COMFORTABLE(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ Blue Hawk. At this point we had been explored nearly all of the park and it wasn't even lunch time! We're crushing it, group. We took the scenic route to get around using the Sky Buckets, as you should since this Von Roll installation has been around since 1968. JB's has been a solid option for food at other Six Flags parks, so we decided to eat there. Welp, the easiest way to be reminded that you are in a Six Flags park is to step into a food or beverage establishment. It wasn't even the peak of lunchtime and they were out of "all salad" so that crossed off a third of their menu, leaving burgers and boneless wings. I wasn't trying to eat hot wings at Six Flags Atlanta on a 85*+ day and made the extremely poor, stupid decision of ordering the turkey burger. It's just a frozen patty grilled to perfect mediocrity, I thought. Guys have put up with some crappy food, but this was the absolute worst food item I've been served anywhere. It must have been either boiled or microwaved because there weren't any grill marks or flat top marks. It was leaking some juice or water from the gray puck of probably 30% turkey turkey burger. At least the fries were hot, but the filling was tasteless. Damn even fried food isn't good here. There you have it, your crap Six Flags food story you were expecting. I gladly bought a pretzel later. Moving on! We proceeded to check off a couple things the group hadn't been on yet like Monster Mansion, Mine Ride, Scorcher, and the Flume before they wanted to take advantage of our super close hotel and take a break from the heat. I stuck around and met up with some friends who I'd been on past trip/events with. I hit it off with Jared and Alex and we just roamed the park for a while before taking a break at the bar to have a couple drinks and celebrate Jared's birthday! Time for re-rides on our favorites before ERT. Birthday boy picks the next ride. We got invited to a party. A monster party! Also: John, before he learned his s i g n a t u r e m o v e A quick reminder Atlanta is still the south. Six Flags over ...Llamas?! No birthday cake, the pretzel is the best we can do. This old school flume is so much fun! Let's go again! You lied to me, you DO get wet in the front! Oh wait it's Atlanta I'll dry off immediately.. Twisted Cyclone was only a 5 minute wait for most of the day with out flash pass. So let's ride! This is when Cyclone really shows off and puts it into a gear you didn't think it had. Wave turn!!!! So wavey. Much wavve. ERT is starting up! Hey Laura and Paul! The Twisted Cyclone crew was amazing!!! Thanks everyone! This is what TPR excitement looks like! First park day in the books! The ERT session on Twisted Cyclone which was just heavenly. I rode Cyclone so many times I feel like we're BFFs and I could put down 'Twisted Cyclone' as my emergency contact. Seriously it's an amazing ride. Go out there and ride it as many time as you can. The crew crushed it and were really feeding off our excitement and even joined in for a few rides! Big shout out to the Six Flags crew that treated us to a memorable time pre/post regular hours. Thanks to R&E for a great start to the trip! Other notes: *I didn't spend much time take pictures since I had been there before *Scorcher is still running great despite looking like it could crumble at any second. *The Flume may be small but it spends the first minute of the course letting you barrel down hill bumping into the sides of the trough. It's a a wild flume. *The park still has that vintage charm to it that other parks lack -Zach

My time hop from 3 years ago graced me with this. Is this still in the men's bathroom by Eagle? Seriously this was in the bathroom

+4 this season! Storm Chaser Twisted Timbers Twisted Cyclone Steel Vengeance When it comes to RMCs you know you're going to get lots of crazy good airtime. So what helps you choose favorites would be the first drop and elements that fill in the layout. And when I go to rank them I can't pick a favorite. 1) Outlaw Run - I'm a sucker for pre drops and the long sideways airtime hill down the slope makes it one of my favorite rides. 1) Steel Vengeance - It has everything and more. The inversions are fantastic, the wave turn over the brake run is epic, and so is the dive into the structure. 1) Twisted Timbers - This was one of the few roller coasters that tested my limits. It's so aggressive and the airtime is so strong. The barrel roll drop was not my favorite element going into the ride, but for some reason this one felt a little different. And the middle of the ride is so wild! The more I rode it the more I liked it, and ended up loving it. 1) Twisted Cyclone - I loved the progression of elements on this coaster. The airtime got stronger throughout the ride and the hidden barrel roll that takes a step down into the rocky trench is a favorite RMC moment for me. You hit the brake run with so much speed and everyone is laughing. It's just a great ride! 2) Storm Chaser - Absolutely nuts and out of control. It's like the sampler platter from RMC. It kinda gives you everything - the barrel drop, straight airtime hill, crazy twisty airtime, laterals.. 2) Goliath - A big ol first drop, a long airtime hill, the well paced half loop into the structure, and then ....the upside down floater hill. It's like time stands still. There's nothing like it! So Storm Chaser and Goliath are not my favorites but they're still extremely good.

Hooray more S&S swings! This looks like a great location for one, especially in that part of the park. Another saucer water coaster eh? I'm surprised as to how popular they are given the reviews. Are they more cost effective due to less up hill sections?

Loving this report When I first read Knoebels + cabin your pictures confirmed the picture I painted in my head haha. Clean and comfy, but with way too many of grammas kisses. The cave tour looked really spectacular being on the water and all. Great pictures of all the animals! Too bad the foxes didn't want to peek out. Keep it up! What a sh*tty comment. If you can't come up with anything nice to say about someone's trip report they put time and effort into posting, you shouldn't say anything at all.

There's been a good bit of talk comparing the lap bars on the trains recently. Riding Storm Chaser, Twisted Timber, Cyclone, Vengeance (and Lightning Run if you want to include that) all within a month I couldn't notice the difference. Does someone have pictures to show the different design? They all seemed the same to me.

Glad you had a great visit! Diamondback is such a fun ride and good on ya for trying the local flavors. KI gets 5 stars in that department. It's so refreshing to have quality food options. So cool to get a solo ride on the Rapids. That's pretty unique haha.

Dollar days. Get after it!

That whole fair area is so bizarre. The buildings look so bland and cost efficient they remind me of the outside of a prison. Too bad KK closed, but hey bourbon and beer and weird Louisville!

Actually, you have the option to vote for all of them. It says "choose up to three". I voted for all of them.

Good, good... keep thinking we only eat deep dish while we hide away from the crowds at the good pizza places.. The best of the best is not far from Wrigley Field - Michael's

Wooooahhhh I love everything about it! The atmosphere, launch house, weird bump in the second launch, all of the twisty bits and inversions. Looks like I might have a new favorite at Carowinds! This will be a great compliment to Fury and Afterburn, and actually give me something to look forward to in the middle of the park.

Thanks I could never figure it out and had to ask!

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love the diversity of coasters at this park. Pre-drop, old, new, wood, steel, weird, unique, best-clones, launched, tall, family friendly... they've covered all the bases. All of the coasters range from good to great, imo. The recent additions + recent positive reviews of the park will have me signing up for a pass next year.

Before I start reading serious question: How do you pronounce YTTERBIUM

I knew this one was coming, haha. You wrote it up very well and like others said, it was a great read despite knowing that it was an underwhelming day. Way to bounce back champ!

Love the captions and photos, well done They do such a great job at this event! Wait. Is MNSSHP where you get all the great candy for TPR trips?!

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

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. Can't do much about Volcano, we all knew it was/will be down for a while. Still cool it see it in person, though! It's amazing what they did to Racer 75, so hopefully the same team can give some attention to Grizzly. I with you - 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!

You're visiting during the last week of daily operations, I'm sure they're not as staffed as well as they were earlier in this month. Either mechanical or staff related, I wouldn't be surprised to see 1 side of Gemini open, Corkscrew closed, Sky Ride, other less popular coaster/rides closed, merch/food spots closed, etc. You might see them open up later in the day after school is out and there's more help. I visited the same time 2 years ago and it was the same situation. You're at the park right now, you have better odds of figuring out than anyone else hundreds of miles away

I've used Uber to get from the airport to the park and park to hotel with no issues. Airport to park was only about $20 and park to hotel was less than $10. The driver doesn't have to pay for parking and there's a pick up spot by the buses near Fury's first elevated turn.