Barge84

I always enjoy your reports, Chuck. Looks like everyone had a great time! My plans fell through to get down to F&W this year (stupid work!), so it was nice live vicariously through some of my friends last week.

I'll be honest, I never understood all the hype for the City Museum. After going there with TPR, I'd have to say it was one of my favorite things we did on this trip. Such a cool place, and 4 hours wasn't enough time to even see half of that place! Lots of injuries happened that night, but I don't think anyone would say it ruined how much fun they had. I think my favorite memory was TPDave hiding in the dark at the bottom of the 10 story slide, scaring the crap out of each person that would come down. I keep hoping to see pictures of some of the reactions from that, but I can't remember who took them. It might have been Hanno...

They've never mattered to me. I'm more of the quality over quantity type. I've even started skipping boomerangs, wild mice and mine trains, depending on the situation.

Full Throttle and it's not even close. I rode it about 5-6 straight times during ERT at WCB. I had no expectations for the ride, but it was a ton of fun! Gatekeeper looks impressive, and I love everything that it did to the front of the park. Overall, I found the ride to be pretty boring, and both of my rides were the roughest that I've ever had on a B&M. I only rode it the 2nd time to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. Probably one of the bigger letdowns I can remember for a new ride.

Oh, yeah! I forgot about Hades 360. It was awful. Then we got drunk. It was a good day.

Iron Rattler - Closed when I was there. Outlaw Run - Amazing. Definitely surpassed the expectations that I had. This makes me really excited for Goliath. Gatekeeper - Meh. I actually preferred X-Flight at SFGAm. Gatekeeper looks great, and has really changed the front of the park, but it just wasn't that great. I had two very rough/uncomfortable rides on it in August. I was very disappointed with it. Full Throttle - I didn't really follow the construction of this ride since I didn't think I'd be out in LA this year, but I came away very surprised with it at WCB. It's a little short, but I thought it was a really fun ride. My only complaint is the brakes at the end of the ride. After a few rides, it became a little painful with the abrupt stopping. The loop was really cool. Not at all what I was expecting, and the lap bar added a little extra thrill! Those are the only 4 that I can think of...

I'm heading to Minneapolis for the Vikings game on Sunday, so I guess I'll hit up Valleyfair before I head back home. Haven't been there this season and I need my Renegade fix.

Another great update! I'd only been to SDC once, in 2001, and after visiting again I'm not quite sure why I haven't made the 6 hour drive from here since that first visit. I'll definitely be heading down there at some point next year. Such a fantastic park.

56. Surprised it was that high. I guess 2 straight years of TPR trips will do that.

I hadn't even thought about the Christmas season. It basically rolls into that once F&W is done. And I'd hate to see some of the crowds during Christmas and Summer if they were doing the booths during those times. I'm probably just bitter because this is the 2nd straight year I'll miss out on it because of work.

I can definitely see that being the case for locals. I really liked what they did for Flower and Garden last year. It wasn't the same, but it was nice to have something while I was there in April that was somewhat close to F&W. Good point on the normal restaurants, I don't think we ate at any of them last time I did F&W.

What are people's thoughts on the food and wine kiosks being a permanent thing at the park? I love F&W, it's by far my favorite event that WDW does. It seems like a lot of locals show up for the event while it's going on, especially on the weekends. But I'd think that they could create a ton of revenue by having the food and drink options all year round. Maybe I'm crazy, and probably a little selfish since I can't always get down there when the event is taking place. Just curious what others think...

The water tunnel was awesome!

Lots of great pictures from Magic Springs! I didn't take a whole lot of pictures there, but I thought it was a really nice little park. Outside of SDC, they were probably the friendliest employees that we dealt with. Especially the crazy girl running the Arkansas Twister!

This has been my busiest year... MK Epcot DHS DAK Knoebels Hershey Dorney SFNE Lake Compounce SFGAdv BGW KD WoF SFFT SWSA SFOT Summer Adventures Magic Springs SDC SFStl Mt. Olympus Timber Falls SFGAm CP Kennywood KI HW Adventureland Disneyland DCA SFMM Knott's Possible other parks: VF, SWO, BGT, Universal Orlando, IOA **Edit - Forgot about Little Amerricka. In my defense, I was pretty drunk when we stopped there.

Great pictures so far. By the way, I think you meant Great White, not Iron Shark.

This thread makes my head hurt. I can't believe they'd do this, but if they built a 300 ft tall wing rider it would be one of the more disappointing announcements that I've ever heard.

Skyrush. I was caught so off guard the first time I rode it. You're thrown out of your seat for the entire drop.

The ride op on the Ghost Train was awesome. TPDave pulled me aside before we rode and said, "Don't tell Shawn, but there's scare actors on this ride." Throughout the entire ride I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. I assumed that TPDave was just messing with me. As we came out of the last door I figured the ride was over. That's when the ride op showed up with the giant hand! It caught me off guard and actually scared me a little. Your picture of Michael and Colin getting scared is by far my favorite picture! Michael is freaking out! Great stuff. I was going through some pictures last night and found one of you guys riding the mini mine train at SFOT. Enjoy! Whores

Hey, me too! I definitely was not wildly impressed, and didn't even bother trying to maximize my view. Single rider line saved me on the Matterhorn, especially since I initially didn't remember which credit I already had. While the ride is far from smooth, I didn't find the trains painful, perhaps in part because I preemptively held on tight to the bar. The left side seemed a little more jerky, but also slightly faster and more exciting. Put me on the not that impressed by World of Color as well. I wonder if it was our view? Yellow area. I feel the show is missing a story like all other Disney shows. I kind of felt bad using the single rider line on Matterhorn. The line looked to be at least 30 minutes and we rode both sides in less then 10 minutes. I agree that the left side was better. Same here, but like you said it might have been the viewing area. I was in yellow as well. I ended up leaving before the show was over.

Not just a lemur! A lemur that took a huge dump, then jumped on your shoulder! Loving the report so far. I think your picture of Steel Eel is one of the few times I've seen myself on a ride. I look like I'm bored for some reason, which is weird, because I really liked that ride. I'm probably just disappointed that I was riding with Jake.

I'm an Iowa fan, so I naturally hate Wisconsin, but they were screwed last night. Not sure what the refs were doing the last 12 seconds of that game. Bama looked really good yesterday, but I still think LSU can play with them. Mettenberger has been throwing the ball really well this year. Iowa beat Iowa State, and no one outside of the state cared one bit. To be honest, we're both so bad this year that most people in the state weren't even excited about the game. UCLA was very impressive in the 2nd half. I love watching Nebraska get beat like that.

Awesome start, Matt! Can't wait to see more of your pictures from the trip. I'm still upset that we missed out on that Looney Tunes 80's show.

Can't help you with that. I forgot to pick mine up as well. Hopefully someone posts one!

There's one on this page: themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=66174&start=20