Rastuso

Since we’ve been working 6 days a week, I was really hoping for good weather on Sunday. As it approached, the forecast kept improving to where it was saying simply overcast. Excellent! I got up quite early, and did a similar plan from last weekend. A coworker wrote down in Korean so I could taxi from Yeoido to the Gangnam subway station, exit 6. That is where there was to be a bus to Everland. My taxi driver was a lot more aggressive than last Sunday. We took a different route, which concerned me a bit when we crossed the river. But that was so he could get to a freeway and haul ass. We were doing 120-130 in an 80 km/hr zone. His GPS was not alarming him either, I guess it had just given up. Once we got back across the river, we were hauling through the city streets, where I’d assume the limit was 40 or 50, and we were doing 100. We got there quite fast, and the fare was only 10,000 Won, as opposed to 16,000 last weekend for destinations quite close to one another. I thanked him, and got out. Luckily, the bus sign was right there and showed I needed to walk a few blocks to the 5002 bus stop. It was further than I thought, and I got a bit nervous, but finally saw it and ran to it, only to find out it wasn’t leaving for 5 minutes or so, but I sure didn’t want to miss one. It was a bargain of 1800 Won to go the 35 minute drive to Everland. The bus almost filled up, and we were off. We drove by tons of the apartment buildings that litter Seoul. They basically make up cities in a very small footprint of about a square mile. It started sprinkling. You only see glimpses of the park as you circle around the resort before entering. The entrance plaza for Everland and Caribbean Bay water park are at a plateau near the top of a hill. I walked from the bus stop to find a very nice entry plaza and thankfully very short ticket lines. I got my very cheap ticket for 33,000 Won and got in a short line and finished my second cold Starbucsk drink I brought. I saw nothing but Koreans, and luckily they were for the most part heading off to the right to the water park, which is heavily advertised on TV here, and looks to be pretty impressive. As 9 am approached, the ticket takers came out and did a halfhearted dance and they opened up. They took your ticket, but also gave you a wristband if you had a ride ticket. You can enter Everland for the grounds only. The entry plaza is themed to Arabia, and looked a bit tacky, but still very nice and clean. The map was not to scale very well, but T-Express is as far from the entrance as it can be. So, I came up to a chair lift and hopped on. The lift was sloooooooow. But, I could see that the park is quite well landscaped. The back section of the park is a good 200 feet below the front section, if not more. T-Express then is on another hill that goes up in the back of the park that has some sled hills on it for the winter. It is probably 50 feet above the ground level. I walked through some animal areas with pretty small cages, and got to the Alpine Village to find a girl in front of the ride giving me an arms crossed X, meaning it was closed. It was to open at 10:30. OK, well, now what. Eagle’s Fortress was next on my agenda, and of course it was waaaaaay back up at the top of the park, so I got on another, larger chairlift to get most of the way back up. I got to the station to find a line barely out the station, and they only let folks in for one train, so it was 2 trains, with only one running. I got in line for the front seat, and the guy behind me offered to take my pic in the seat, which was very nice. I first thought he asked if I was going to take pics while riding. I’ve always loved suspendeds. I was heartbroken when I simply stood in front of the Bat in the 80s. I was shocked to see an article on the bulletin board in the computer room of my high school in 85 about Big Bad Wolf. I was shocked to learn another one was successfully built, and I begged my parents to hit BGW on our trip to NYC for the Statue of Liberty celebration in 1986. I vividly remember riding it with dad, and being ecstatic about finally being on a suspended. BBW has been neutered over the years, but is still great. Top Gun and Vortex are very good, and I always enjoyed riding them. Eagle’s Fortress is on a whole other level. First up, it’s a perfect terrain coaster. It stays about 10 feet off the ground the whole time. You go up to the top, do a turn around, and dive through the trees. Over the years, the ride has carved out a nice tunnel in the trees. You get back to about the station, and make a large loop to the right, and back over and by the station. You then go off on a zig zag out and back similar to Top Gun, but a heck of a lot faster. The last few turns were very violent from the speed. If it gets a lot faster during the day, it could get painful. This ride is awesome. Without a doubt the best suspended ever, and definitely one of the funnest coasters anywhere. It’s like the bottom of BBW’s second drop for the whole ride. Is it the third best steel coaster on the planet? I don’t know. You could ride it all day long, and it’d never get old. My fave is MilF, with Dragster right behind. The Supermans are good too, but SFNE’s is too brutal on the thighs for marathoning. I’m surprised at its ranking last year. I’m a major league suspended lover, and it’s somewhere 3-5 on my list. I’m amazed that folks wanting aggressive coasters would rank it that high. Suspended coasters, by design, can’t offer much in lateral or negative g’s. Since I’m “very old” in the word’s of the one Korean girl at Lotte World, I really like that EF doesn’t bash you around. I’ve always loved coasters for speed, and flying through the trees, hanging under a near invisible track is kick ass. I took a quick reride in the back for an even wilder ride, but front is where it’s at overall. I’d love to have ridden it later in the day, but I was exhausted, and the line was about 30 minutes. I decided to head back down to check on T-Express. I could see a worker on the first drop, so I knew it was still not open. I saw the Mystery Mansion right under the chairlift, so headed on in. This is a shooting dark ride with a strange car with four seats facing outward, and the car doesn’t spin. You got a laser sight flash for each shot for aiming. Most of the targets worked, and many triggered animation. A pretty good ride, really, and scarier than Sally ones. They had a score billboard at the exit. I quickly rerode and filmed the ride. Next, I saw they had a 4D film in the Space World building named Zootopia. OK, sorta weird. I think Zootopia is a cartoon that is even in the US, but I’m not positive. It stars a bunch of uber-cute little animals and the villains are big evil wolves. The preshow room was filled with banners and pictures, but the preload room just has TV screens showing the cute animals getting some magic items to use against the wolves. The show room is stark, with I believe 4 motion bases, but I don’t recall the seats moving really, but maybe they did just a bit, each with 3 long rows of chairs, somewhat similar to Jimmy Neutron. You wear standard polarized glasses, and the screen is pretty large. There are only 2 4-D effects, water of course, and very overused fans. It’s like a damn tornado in there. There seemed to be some smell misters firing, but I didn’t smell anything. The film was pretty good, for being in gibberish, and was good animation. Good fun for the kiddies. I was amazed you weren’t dumped out into a store full of Zootopia stuffed animals. I went back to T-Express, with a new estimate of noon for an opening, and clouds rolling in. I was having sinking hopes of riding. I decided to go check out the log flume, which was about a third of the way up the damn hill. The queue was full and advertised 30 minutes, so I bailed and went back down to get some food. Couldn’t find much variety. Every place had burgers, fried chicken, and popcorn chicken, which I got. I waited for it to be fresh made and saw an empty train fly down the tracks of T-Express. I damn near left without my food, but it showed up soon. It was dark meat popcorn chicken, but still OK, but a bit fatty. I wolfed it down while I saw another train go by. I ran towards the station to see a train full of people going up the lift. They were already holding the line outside the queue house. I got a locker real quick for 1000 Won with unlimited time (now that’s a bargain), and got in line. It ended up being about 10-15 minutes for the wait. I got my favorite first row of the last car, and we were off for my first Intamin Plug-n-play coaster. You get to the top, make a 180 and dive down the impossibly steep first drop. And let me tell you, that drop is awesome in the back. Serious pull over, and big air. The second hill is damn near a top hot with more insane air. Then you make a curving right drop down to a fast S-turn and curve up to the very early midcourse. This first section is flat out awesome, but quick. I can’t compare it to El Toro though. After that, the ride is a bunny hop, 180, 2 bunnies, 180, 3 bunnies, 180, and then the final run of bunnies. A bit repetitive, and each hill felt the same, and the turns were slow. This ride would be killer if they used the fact that this section was way over the ground and threw in another big drop and high speed turn on the ground. The air on these hills was quite extreme, but not painful. And thankfully they don’t staple you. It’s a damn good ride, but could be so much better. A park with the masterpiece terrain coaster adding a coaster basically on stilts is a bit of a head scratcher. It’s damn good, and smooth as silk, but I’m not sure it’s my #1. Of course, my #1 Shivering Timbers probably wouldn’t be if I ever rode it again. I just love the newer GCIs with a great mix of smooth curves, great bunny hops, and loads of fun. And of course, I’m NOT a Voyage worshipper. I do think T-Express is better than Voyage, for what it’s worth. The section up to the midcourse is brilliant, the rest could have been so much better. I did go for another ride, again in the back seat. It had already sped up considerably, and the turns were faster, but still tame. After that I was hungry and a bit woozy. I got a Steff hotdog which are everywhere here. It was damn good. I then headed over to the animal section. I saw the raft ride, so got in line. first two drops Good overview of the ride. more T-Express First drop, damn it's steep. Gardens area Cast of Zootopia 4-D movie Station and some ending stunts Mystery Mansion shoot-em-up ride Eagle's Fortress station. You can't see much of the ride anywhere. The main entry plaza in the park. T-Express from the chair lift Entry plaza. You could not see much of the park at all. If you're on a bus at Gangnam station, and see this to the right, congratulations, you're going to Everland!

I'll post some quick pics of just T-Express. I tried to get some good overview pics, since getting closeups is tough, since it looms over the back portion of the park. You ejector lovers will be in heaven. The second half of the ride is like being on a bucking bronco with short respites on the turnarounds. And they do NOT staple you. RO Early morning pic from the big chair lift. There was a guy working on the first drop. The sun actually came out. You can see the train roaring towards to the midcourse. I'll do some photoshopping later. These are 7 megapixel pics, so, I'll get some much better closeups with some work. Most of the ride. Note how much lower the second hill is from the first. The second drop dives right, does a quick S-turn, and then jumps up to the midcourse, all in view here. That's one steep drop The drops from a distance The bucking bronco section

Finally hit Everland today. I'll get pics up tomorrow hopefully, but I'm exhausted tonight. T-Express was down at opening, so I hit Eagle's Fortress first. Man, the location of this thing is unbelievable. Even on a parking lot, it's the best suspended ever. But on a mountain side, it's phenomenal. Definitely top 10, maybe top 5 steel. I always loved BBW, but it's neutered now, and was never this good. T-Express finally started sending trains about 11, just when I got some food. I wolfed it down and headed over to find about a 10 minute wait. I took my favorite first seat, last car. This is my first Intamin plug-n-play, so I have no comparisons. But, the first drop is simply insane. It looks a hell of a lot steeper than the advertised 77 degrees, even from the side. The second hill looks comical, almost like a tophat it's so extreme. You then dive down to a fast s-curve to the midcourse. The second half is failry repetitive bunny, turnaround, bunny, bunny, turnaround, etc. IMHO, this half could be improved. THe hills give too extreme of ejector air, like I've heard other PnPs do. But, you certainly don't get stapled. And the turnarounds are too high, and don't go fast enough. It DEFINITELY got better as the day progressed. My third and final ride in late afternoon was simply insane in the front seat. The section up to the midcourse is probably the best wood coaster track anywhere. Since I'm more of a floater airtime fan, the second half is a bit much, but still great, and smooth. Is it my favorite woodie? I don't know, it's damn close, and it's definitley the best first half. If you like extreme air, I can't see how this wouldn't shoot up to number one immediately. Everland is awesome, but makes BGW look flat. My dogs are barkin. A high point of the day, just as much as the two coasters was the fact that I got to hold a baby tiger, probably about 4-6 weeks old, and he let out a little meow-growl as I was getting my picture taken. Lots of pics to come. RO

Lotte World part 2 So, the rain had stopped, and I headed to the outside portion, which is really pretty small. Obviously, the star of this area is Atlantis Adventure. It looms to the right of the castle, another Disney rip-off. I try and get my ticket fixed, in preparation of getting a magic pass, but that still doesn’t work, and no one could help me. Luckily, the magic pass machines were covered anyway. They were also holding the line outside the main queue, making it look longer than it was, thereby keeping it a bit shorter. In line, the girl in front of me is talking like crazy, asking me where I’m from, etc. She was proud of her English skills. She asks me how old I was. I say 39. Her soul crushing response? “Wow, that’s really old, I’m only 13”. When I said I was young at heart, she still said I was old. She talked to me the whole line. Sometimes I didn’t know what she was saying. She said the ride was scary. I said I like scary and gave the thumbs up. Hopefully that wasn’t some sexual gesture like using the “come here” finger is. I stuff my GPS and camera in a cargo pocket on my pants, and leave my vid camera in the bin in the station. I’d never do that in the US. They hassle me about my glasses, but let me go. OK, I knew nothing about this ride really, except seeing some pics of the outside. This ride is f&*#ing awesome!!! I think this is the best launch and start on ANY coaster. It scared the bejeebies out of me. Insane air, insane head and arm choppers, and great theming. The whole ride is awesome, great hills and curves, although the water doesn’t add much. I’m amazed there was no on-ride pics. This is definitely a top tier coaster. A bit short on the number of thrills, but the ones it has are flipping awesome. And I can’t believe all the stuff they got in that building. I then got in line for Ghost House. After seeing the clouds getting worse, I left that line for another Atlantis ride. I didn’t want to get rained out with only one ride. The wait was about 20 minutes. After that I got what was thankfully a normal corn dog and then got in line again for Ghost House. I had read this was a special effects show as you sit at a table with things going on around you. Well, that’s not it now. You go up to a theater to watch a 3-D movie. It was a bit odd, since it was animated from a cats perspective and used a cats eye lense, so that made it weird, plus it was a bit dark, and my second row seat was a bit too close. It was very cool though. Everyone once in a while, you’d see your reflection to remind you you’re a cat. You enter a haunted house, go into a toy room full of total demented toys, including a hilarious bit where a doll is caught on fire by a dragon and tries to put the fire out but only get it’s melted face stretching off on their hand. There were some cool effects, and a ghost dog chasing you. Some spiders showed up, a snake, some skeletons, and a surprise ending when you see your reflection one last time. Very well done, and no dialog. After that, you go through a vertigo tunnel and a few other haunted rooms and that’s it. Next up was the Fantasy Dream only-in-asia dark ride. You basically went through candyland and other really f-ed up scenes on a train. Lots of animatrons, and very well done.. Comet Express was down for inspection which really sucked. Although it sounds like this may not really be a coaster anyway. I went though another Disney ripoff, which was a Snow White walkthrough in a castle setting. I decided I needed one more Atlantis ride, and got off right before the rains really picked up, so that was good. I went back inside to see a stage show going that had all sorts of ripoffs. A Goofy ripoff, Droopy Dog, and some others. The inside section crowd had REALLY increased. I walked around taking in the weirdness and bought a few trinkets. The plush of Lotty and Lorry were way too expensive, and didn’t look that great. I checked out the mall for a while and saw Lotte Mart which was basically a Korean Wal-mart. It was packed to the gills. I’d love to have bought a few things, but didn’t want to carry it around. I saw a Sizzler on the bottom floor. Not the greatest place, but as good as I could find. The steak looked a bit odd, but tasted decent with the pepper sauce. I almost ordered a plate that had a steak, lobster tail, and some ribs. Then I noticed it was meant for two people. I could have eaten it all, but felt I didn’t need to perpetuate the fat American standard. I was going to ride some more, but after 5 they have a late entry price, the crowds got even bigger. I never did get on the log ride, but had a really great day at Lotte World. They do a great job at theming, do hold their own with Disney on what I’m sure is a much lower budget. I’d love to see what Pharoah cost in comparison ot Indy. Yeah, it looks cheaper, but it’s a hell of a ride still. I decide to ride the subway back, and get out of the station in what can only be described as the most water that can physically be falling from the sky at any one time. There is a tunnel somewhere for part of the journey, but I don’t know where to get into it. It didn’t really matter, After 10 seconds you were totally soaked. Well, no fun for a few days now. I’m REALLY hoping for a sunny weekend next weekend and a good visit to Everland. RO The star of the Island, Atlantis Adventure. These statues said lots of ominous sounding gibberish. The weenie of Magic Island, a Disney ripoff castle. Random subway shot After my less than satisfying Sizzler meal, I was wanting more. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see the grail shaped beacon. And they were hot!!! I find these signs strange. As if to say "if you can read this, you don't want to eat here" I exited through the main entrance. Here's the whole Lotte World gang. Lotty in person. Who said I'd see rides with this weird cat thing? Fried squid balls. WTF is the deal with squid? More weirdness I'm goofy candy cane dude, and I'm going to eat you. Since this is a fake island, you enter here to go down a long escalator to get on the creepy candy ride. This is why you don't wear shirts of another language. It says "I'm a tosser for design united" This line wouldn't have been as bad if they would have been filling the theater. at about this point, you're going: Oh My God, this ride kicks ass. Grafitti is everywhere in the lines, including stuff you wouldn't find in a real Disney park.

I may go back, but it's looking like my stay may be shorter than originally planned, so I may not have time. Atlantis alone is worth a return visit. -RO

Lotte World!!!!! Part one Sit down and relax, this is going to be long. This morning, the forecast was rain, all day. I had already decided to skip Everland this weekend, so I thought, hey at least I can ride the indoor rides at Lotte World, so I got up to find Starbucks closed. NO!!! Luckily, the 7-11s sell about 325 different coffee beverages, so I got a Starbucks there, and headed over to the crappy Lexington hotel where I knew there would be cabs. Well, there were tons of busses, plus a lot of traffic probably coming to the huge Christian church across the street. I found a cab dropping off someone, and jumped in. A coworker had written down directions for me to give the driver, but the cabs do offer free translation services if you need it. He put it in his GPS and went off. I also tracked him on my GPS to make sure we were going the right way. His even beeped when he was speeding. It sure didn't beep when he was weaving around everywhere. We get there and I see a big Lotty sign. I get excited and tell him that's where I want to go. He's confused, but finally figures it out "animal". He asks me what kind it is and I say "Raccoon". Right on cue he says, "ahhh, Laccoon". I pay the very reasonable $16 and get out at the hotel. I ask a bellman how to get to the park. He points me to the "New York City Subway". I was a bit confused, so I ended up going back to teh front desk and they tell me to walk around the hotel, and I get to the empty South entrance. I later learn all the main entrances are from subway and underground mall. I buy my ticket and am first in the gate. I head straight to Sinbad, hoping to get a Magic Pass, I couldn't get it to work, and the girl said the ride would open in 10 minutes. So, I bail and try to find Pharoah's Fury. It's up on the 4th floor. I find the escalators and get there easy enough. I again try the Magic Pass for a future reride, and still no luck. I never did get one, the bar code on my ticket was not as long as on everyone else's ticket (story of my life). Luckily, the park was dead this morning. I enter the looong queue that is loaded with museum stuff and then you get into a burial chamber, enter an Iron Maiden, and finally get to the load station. Lotte engineers spent a LOT of time at Disneyland designing this. It's a complete ripoff of Indy, with many things looking EXACTLY the same. The ride motion was great, the effects were very good, although not Disney level. The room that I guess usually has fire did not, and was dark instead until the bill ball comes out and you take a big dive. The treasure room was pretty neat, as was the spider room. I decide for a quick reride since it was still walkon. I decided to hit the French Revolution coaster next, which had about a 10 minute wait. No lockers were needed, as they have bins for your stuff and keep track of them if there are multiple trains going. This coaster was decent and really reminded me of the one at Circus Circus as far as going into rooms and some basic theming. It had some rough transitions, but was unique enough. I decided to go back to Sinbad next, since it seemed to be a major ride. I got my son another Mario DS stylus goshapan, still not Boo, and got on the ride. This ride was excellent! A good story, even with no English, with good scenes, some drops, and obviously some more Disney stealing. Then I headed back to the other side, taking a quick journey into the bug exhibit that had massive beetles, and then into Desparados. This was an unusual ride. You go into a theater with about 25 horses facing a screen. You get on one and hold on and shoot your gun at the screen that has animated sceens in it. It's hosted by this weird stick figure cowboy. There are lots of screts to shoot for. I got a TNT keg during the learning stage and quickly jumped to first place. They showed the top three after that sceen, and it was a bit surreal when I was the only non Korean there and I was kicking ass, and looked silly when I raised my hands in triumph. There was a scene as you went through the desert, and one in a soloon, and a few others. It was very cool, and made it look like maybe Disney is copying Lotte with Toy Story a bit. I was again shown as the winner at the end. I then found the rapids ride. This is, as far as I know, the only totally inside rapids ride in the world. It's themed to the jungle, and was again damn good. An average length with some cool rooms, great dark setting, and nothing to get you soaked. I had the boat to myself. I then went around the arcade area some looking at the weird games. They had a variation on the cork guns, a strange one called "Catch the Mouse" where you had to throw balls at mice moving around in a scene, and a pool game where you had to get balls to stop in divits. They all seemed quite hard. I found some squished penny machines that just squished copper disks, so the result was a nice, very shiny medallian. I really felt a bit strange at this park. Kids would keep coming up to me and going "hello" and waving their hands frantically as they seem to do to Americans. Some seemed VERY interested in where I was from, and wanted to use their English skills. I then headed up to the ballon ride. THis was very unique and cool. YOu get in and float up to the top of the mall for a slow tour. There was even a rope to pull that looked and sounded like turning a burner on in the balloon. I got some great pics, and saw that the log ride was pretty basic, so I never did ride it since I couldn't get a pass and it's line was fairly long. I did see one of the nastiest items ever that you'll see in a pic. It seemed to be fairly light outside, so I headed to Magic Island, the outside section, that I'll cover after some photos. RO More awesomeness to come. Odd catch the mouse game. It seemed qiute hard. You really had to nail the mouse with the ball to get points. Jump rope game. Wow, how exciting. The big ball from the balloon ride. Under it is a skating rink and mall. Funky coaster shot Balloon ride. This ride would never work in the US. I was amazed at how clean the tunnel you went through was. Although many queues were covered in graffiti. Ape. Yeah, the captions are getting lame The mushroom room The crystal room in the Jungle Adventure More Indy ripoffs! You Cheat! The river raft ride entrance Big ass creepy cartoon bugs Big ass beetles The Conquistador that the pirate ship is named after The monkey band These skeletons sounded like very sterotypical arabs. It was pretty funny. THe Sinbad ride was pretty misty to take pics. They even filmed a queue movie that the animatrons were based on. HERE IT IS!!!! Peanut Buttered Roast Squid. And, um, NO I didn't try it. What No fire? Or have I entered a worm hole to Anaheim. The very creepy spider room. Good thing I left my wife in the car with my son. She would have flipped here. The treasure room The first section that you go outside for and can see the rest of Lotte World Adventure. No choice of doors on this Indy Through the Iron Maiden to the station The Pharoah's Fury queue was great

How am I just showing the bad part of your culture? I'm showing what I'm seeing. I've really enjoyed my time here so far, and really like Asian culture. I'm simply pointing out unusual things I've observed. RO

Thanks for the comments. This is going over well, so I have more random pics to come. Park plans have changed. It's raining like mad today, I have a sinus issue, probably from the first crappy hotel's mold, and we have to work today. So, no Everland today. It's probably rain tomorrow too, so I am hoping to feel well enough to do Lotte World, at least the inside stuff. I'll probably subway over and taxi back, since my GPS says it's only 9.9 miles from the hotel. I'm sick of sandwiches, which are very popular here. The streets basically go: Coffee shop, sandwich shop, convenience store, Korean food, repeat. A lot of stuff is below the street and above. I've attached some sign pics. The signs with balls on them are for snooker halls, with maybe one table with pockets. TV is OK. CNN International propaganda, of course, but I do get channels that show US shows with subtitles. And they are uncensored. So, I was watching Rock of Love uncensored. Strange show choice for Korea. I did find a good restaurant that served decent steak. Probably Ponderosa quality at Morton's price. But, it was served almost as soon as I ordered on a hot rock that cooked it, so you chose how much it was cooked. They had a salad bar with a lot of stuff, including green tea yogurt! They also had a baked potato, which really made me happy. Plus, I found a store that sells Guinness in cans. Hooray! RO The steak was neat. It came on a mega hot stone with this "safety fence". You had a little bowl of seasonings you could add to taste. There was a putt putt course on the roof. It was pretty simple and vacant. The mall I went to had a few huge department stores. Each floor was dedicated and seeemed to have many different stores within it. Like this electronics floor. Each counter had about the same stuff, and seemed to have one salesman per customer. The subway transfer halls have people selling stuff in the center the whole length of the hall. And these halls are quite warm. I didn't look much, but it seemed you could get some knockoff stuff. these downstairs areas are a bit scary. You definitely get looks for being there as an American. These signs list what is below and above the street. I'm not sure if the ball colors mean anything, but many are different. They set up seating areas at lots of these street places. Some are busy, some empty.

After wanting to go to Japan for many years, I finally got sent to Asia for work. I'm in Korea for about 6 weeks doing a safety review. Then I'm off to Japan for a week of vacation. I am planning on hitting many parks while I'm here, the first being Everland on Saturday hopefully. Since this is a work trip, I flew business class on Korean Air. Wow, that was nice. The culture is very old school with the flight attendants all women, and all dolled up in uncomfortable attire. They bowed a lot, and even went around at the end of the flight and bowed to everyone. They had Korean and Western meals, I always chose the beef, which is was decent. They had a bowl of ramen you could get as a snack. I should have tried it, but didn't. Free hooch too, but I didn't drink much. The entertainment system was nice, with about 30 movies on demand, music, TV, and games. I watched Vantage Point and 21. I tried to sleep but the timing was weird, and they served dinner at essentially midnight right when I was getting tired. I did get about 2 hours sleep after dinner on the near lay flat seats. We did go through Russian airspce, so I've been to Russia, which is cool. After landing and checking into the shitty hotel my boss got for us, I walked around a bit and tried to sleep in a stinky room in what the Korean's call air conditioning, which is the equivalent of putting a bowl of ice cubes in the room. After complaining, we got to move to a Japanese style new hotel with good AC. I've wondered around some, and hit a mall so far. I've been too tired to go to Lotte World, but that is coming soon. I'm hitting Everland Saturday hopefully for a full day. They advertise their water park a lot, which seems to even have a Master Blaster. OF course, the park also looks to be packed with Asian babes. The subway was something else too. When you think it's full, that is just the beginning, as it then gets packed. Then more folks get on to the point where you are totally immobile in the collective. I hope the lines at Everland aren't that bad. RO There are convenience stores everywhere too. Probably 2 every block. All small, with tons of coffee drinks and these nasty "meat" items. At night, these street restaurants pop up everywhere serving fried something and other things I choose not to eat. They are literally every few hundred feet. This cat thing is very popular here in Korea. Hopefully this theater will show Batman in English. These apartment complexes are everywhere. They don't look great, but still cost serious bucks apparently. Food was pretty good, including this beef brouchette. The lay almost flat seats were nice, but needed more padding. You did get some free slippers, which seems to be a big deal in Korea. The entry desk for the lounge.

I'm finally getting an international business trip. I'll be in Seoul, Korea for 6 weeks for a project safety review. Obviously, I'm planning on hitting coasters. Everland and Lotte World are no brainers. as is Seoul Land, since they're all in Seoul. Other parks I'm definitely looking at are the Korean Folk VIllage (no coasters, but it looks like a good place to visit for history, and they supposedly have a dark ride) and Gyeongju World (B&M invert). Beyond that, there are tons of little parks, but operations seem unreliable at some of them, and I don't know how easy others will be to find. The engineering company I'm visiting should have people to help me with travel plans, and who knows, maybe they have a coaster geek working there. Any tips from Koreans on the board for other places to visit, or other parks that have cool stuff at them? I'll obviously have quite a bit of time to do stuff. But, I'm a bit hesitant of traveling alone. I will have a DS with a Korean translator program with me to get me out of trouble, hopefully. Are there any areas of Seoul that have big arcades, or crazy shops like Japan? My son's begging me to bring back lots of Nintendo stuff. I'll be in Japan for a week on the way home, on personal time, but I'd rather knock out some of that stuff in Korea, leaving more time in Japan for coasters/parks. Are there trains to get you to most larger cities, like the ones on the Southern coast with parks? Will I run in to many folks outside of Seoul that speak English? What dark rides exist in Korea? I"m just as big of a dark ride fan as a coaster fan, and hope to write some DAFE articles on Korean rides. I know of the one at KFV, a Sally one at Seoul Land, and the hopefully really cool Indy type ride at Lotte World. ANy help would be fantastic. -RO

Great to see the one at Ontario Place mentioned. Yep, that is a long one, and pretty good. Although it's WAY too expensive of a log ride credit if you aren't there for the CNE. I like any of the old Arrow flumes, even Astroworld's was pretty good. SFGAdv has a really nice one. Someone earlier asked about the uphill sections on Arrow flumes. Kennywood still has their's, and I've yet to ride because of massive crowds whenever I'm there. There used to be one at Carowinds, and I remember being really surprised by the first one I experienced at BG Tampa, which is now gone too. I stupidly didn't ride the massive one at Blackpool, but it was too darn cold. And don't forget the first log ride with a drop... Lake Winnepesauka's Old Mill. One log ride related question. I have a memory that no one can back up of Cedar Point having their log ride that used to be up near the park entrance named the Nestea Plunge at one point in the late 70s, early 80s. Of course, for you youngsters, the Nestea Plunge was used in their commercials one year, and was standing at the edge of a pool with a glass of tea in your hand, and then falling into the pool backwards. So, CP ran the flume with the logs backwards. Can anyone verify this? RO

First up, sorry no pics. I didn't feel like making separate trips in with my camera to take pics. We did get a walkthrough with the water off, but there really isn't much to take pics of that aren't already on the Schlitterbahn site. We got to the park about 5:30 Saturday. It was mega hot, and we were ready to get wet. However, the event was first. First up was a dry tour of the ride. The ride wasn't running yet. It had had a media that morning I believe, and was surprisingly not open to the public on Memorial Day Saturday. I wouldn't be surprised if this was because Jeffrey Seibert wanted ACE to get some of the first rides. This guy is way too good to ACE. THere be SPOILERS ahead...... The facade is a big castle archway with the logo on it, and the original theme music blaring. Most of the wet queue is gone, and this is maybe half of the space now in a queue that zig zags up to the themed load station. Two big sets of armor, and a big dragon's skull are there. We had dinner before riding, so it was back down to the picnic area for a crawdad boil with very mild crawdads, boiled shrimp, pulled beef sandwiches, and chicken kabobs. All very good, but the chicken disappeared quickly. THe lines were total chaos, since folks lined up in the wrong way, and the drinks were tough to get to. When you did get the drinks, they were in plastic Schlitterbahn half yards. The tables had free castle chotchkis on them too. They said the ride was about 10 minutes away, so I headed up. My son is not too hip on Schlitterbahn rides after his White Water Tube Chute flips last year, so he sat out. I ended up on the 3rd raft out, since most folks were still in ACEr mode and were eating. The start section is shrouded in mist. Now, I figured this was working fine for our late day rides, but was surprised to find that the mist did still shroud the ride during the day. You immediately go into the mist and are in it until you hit the first tunnel. You hit a few more, and then a big theme tunnel. FIrst, there is a dragon and flame design done in LEDs on the side of the slide, then lots of dragon eyes everywhere, then you hit the vertigo tunnel with dragon designs on it. OUt of that tunnel into some more uphill sections. Then into the main tunnel. A long straight tunnel playing music and a water curtain covering the slide with the projected dragon head breathing fire at you. This looked GREAT. Very well done. After that you hit another mist area and hit the big drop. I was surprised they kept this splashdown, since it requires someone man it all the time. I really like the ride, and headed back up since there was still no wait. I ended up getting a second ride with the line not even down to the water, about 10 minutes. After that ride the tubes were all gone, and the queue was now down at the end, waiting for tubes, so I figured this was at least 30 minutes now. SO, I headed down to find my family and get some lazy river time until the park closed. Yes, the park was still open, and they were constantly telling patrons you had to be in ACE to ride. VERY few parks would do this. I mean, this is the first new ride at the 'bahn in many years, and it was reserved for ACE during one of the busiest days of the year. Again, Jeff Seibert is way too good to ACE. He even showed us the sign that is going up on the facade saying that Dragon's Revenge is dedicated to ACE! The whole ride was repainted, and the the castle walls were everywhere. SOme folks were saying it looked tacky since it was all plywood. I think it looked fine. We'll see how it holds up to a few summers of constant wetness. I'm sure it will be a crowd pleaser. I heard the queue area was pretty much full yesterday, waiting to get tubes to go up to the castle. I'd guess that's about 2 hours. After that, the event included a hottub viewing of Rollercoaster, but we headed to our hotel. Well, after a quick stop at Freddy's custard. Kick ass! The next morning included first ride on Master Blaster and breakfast. I decided to skip it since first ride with 150 people is only good if you are in front of the line. When I did get there to find out about wristbands for the day, there was still a HUGE amount of breakfast left. Eggs, bacon, sausage, tortillas. Enough for at least 100 people. I hope it didn't go to waste. I finally got my wristband and headed to the old park. It's tough to get down to the river walkway where the tubes are, so I hit the speed slides as a short cut of sorts. Damn! that cold river water sure was a wakeup call. It wasn't too hot, probably only 80 so far, and of course most of the old park is covered in trees, and the river water was probably about 60. I saw a guy I noticed from the event grab something off the fence in front of me. I missed out on the scavenger hunt instructions. Apparently, they had placed large and small Dragon's Revenge signs EVERYWHERE. I even heard a girl say she got one at the factory during the tour. THe small ones were worth 1 point, the large ones, like this guy got, 5 points. It was pretty big, and would have been a pain to carry around all day. The winning team had like 30 points, way more than anyone else. I don't know what the prize was. I then hit the tube chutes. FIrst up was the White Water, the site of my son's flips that ended up in a waterslide fear that really sucks right now, but he seems to be realizing he should be getting over it. This ride was great as usual, the best tube chute anywhere. Next was the Hillside. Splashing folks in line was extra evil today since it still wasn't very hot and the water was still very cold. I then decided to hit the Raging River and take it to the very end. This starts out at the far end, behind the castle. It meanders through some other rides, under the entrance walkway, all the way down to the kiddie area. You can then choose to get off at the lazy river, or take the next chute that can either take you to the Comal River, or through the resort area, which I chose. You then end up on a slide that drops you into the river. You then ride the river down to a small whitewater tube chute that drops you into a small pool of river water at the end. This dropped me off close to may car, which I had planned, so I got in and went back to the hotel to relax until evening festivities. We all went back around 4:30 and did some TOrrent River in a sea of humanity. It was packed. Not Japanese wavepool packed, but close. Soon enough, it was dinner time. It took a bit to find the pavilion way back behind the park. Dinner consisted of BBQ brisket and chicken. Decent food. One table collapsed and almost started a fire with the Sterno. I went and told them they should get a fire extinguisher out of the wall, but it locked like it was a break glass type that probably would have alarmed, and they were hesitant to do it. Luckily, the fruit salad ice water put out the fire. This was the second fire at Schlitterbahn that day. The turkey leg stand had what looked like a total destruction fire that closed off the main path to the blaster tower. IT was covered in tarps, and you had to go the back way that is usually staff only, to get to the main tower. I found this out after waiting, and talking to someone about the fire. BUt, before that, back to dinner. THey had a presentation, Schlitterbahn gave I think $1000 bucks to the mythical museum, and they raffled off what seemed to be pirated copies of the pop-up version of Rollercoaster that they showed the night before. WHere were the the REC copywrite nazis when you need them. THey gave the scavenger hunt prize, and talked about the night time river float to come. There was also an ice cream bar set up with all the fixins. My son of course got a scoop with 20 cherries on it. I heard something about T-shirts. Apparently they were handed out that morning, and the sizes weren't distributed properly, so many ACErs got Large shirts, which , well you know. It fits me, but I don't like wearing shirts tight. WHich sucks, because it's a cool shirt with the DR logo on it and it says "I was among the first to ride". I may eBay a couple of them. This was the only real bad snafu of the event. I mean, I didn't pay for the shirt, but I'd really like it my size. I'd guess about 10 people there were size L. We headed back to the park for EPT on everything, except to my son's dismay, the kids area. I got two Master Blaster rides in about 30 minutes, and it was getting quite windy and borderline cold up there in line, so I hit the Torrent River. It was actually running with no waves, so we got my son to ride too. Well, after one lap, as we were approaching the wave machine, it started up and my son freaked, but we were past the point of no return. We got him in the tube and he did enjoy the trip around. We took a few more, and then EPT was over. We skipped the late night river ride. IT was WAY too cold to be getting in the river, and some hot tub time and snacks. Hey, we had already got MORE than enough out of our $25 admission. Schlittercon is without a doubt the best deal out there for an event. Two days admission, although the first day wasn't really clear, and would have been on a horridly crowded Saturday, three good meals, a T-shirt, freebies, ERT on rides that usually have huge lines, and probably more free food at the hot tub time. Usually I'm on vacation during it, but an extension of the school year put a nix on that, so I"ll probably go every year from now on. Schlitterbahn and Jeff Seibert put on one hell of an event, and pretty much insured my return next year, hopefully with a son without a waterslide fear anymore. Rastus O'Ginga

^^I was one of the rain riders on opening night. It was truly a night to remember for me and my son. Our second hard core coastering together after the first Rumblefest. Those rides were truly for the ages, just as I expected as we were walking up to the station in the rain. I'm almost afraid to go ride the Bullet again. I really think maybe I should just stick with that opening day as my memory of the Bullet. The speed definitely helped it. I think much of the roughness is the train simply not going fast enough to track properly, and it ends up banging down on the side rails on banked turns. I think the space redesign hurt, but GG try to make thier coasters do too much. THey never have simple swooping turns and hills. THere always has to be a kink in it somewhere. A dogleg, a twist, a weird change in banking. It's just too much, imho. If the coaster fights the track every time, the track will eventually lose. Texas just seems to be THE place for insanely aggressive coasters that end up a shell of their former selves, unless they are moved to Pennsylvannia. RO

Kemah WILL be a Summer park in about 3 weeks. RO

Here's a couple tidbits from my TR from opening day: "The drop is not very long at all, and you quickly got into a hard right and tunnel through the structure. This section was very wild, and a bit jerky already. I have a bad feeling about the future state of this section of track, it could easily get brutally rough very fast. " "The front is very smooth, but the back is a bit rough, and I fear this ride is not going to age well, like Voyage, but we'll see. " Gravity Group make insane rides, but they hardly make rides that age well. This sounds like some serious rework this time around. And for them to be doing it and endangering having the coaster open for Memorial Day Weekend is shocking. Obviously, something was deemed seriously wrong on that first drop. -RO

Looks neat, but definitely underwhelming. Hell, they don't even try to make it look nice. You can see the whole ride as you enter, all the screens, the whole layout. That's just bad show. They could have at least had immersive tunnels and rooms between game screens. I think this will look pretty damn good, if it's perfect digital 3-D, but the games all look very similar. MIB blows this away. It's some amazing technology, but not implemented great. Imagine a SPidey type ride base with these interactive screens and weapons themed to Call of Duty. NOw THAT would kick ass. RO

Sadly, it does seem to be GWL-Grapevine standards. I've read many complaints of long waits for waterslides, which is simply unacceptable. You're paying for an exclusive park, and a 45 minute wait is simply insane. I would be livid if I stayed there on the weekend and found "really big rides" to have waits similar to what I'd find at Six Flags, all because they were too damn cheap to pay for 2 more lifeguards. Heck, the guy wouldn't even preload the rafts. He didn't even get the raft off the conveyor until the other raft was emptied in the splash pool. I'm sure they've gotten many complaints about this, and haven't changed, so it must be SOP for that lodge. I want some wait, just so I can catch my breath, but I can go to Splashtown on a weekday and have a shorter wait for their funnel slide for a lot less money. It's a shame. That one single operational issue that saves them about $25 an hour will really tarnish people's memories of the place. I'm also amazed that they aren't putting at least small Magiquest rooms into the lodges and then just have maybe half of the stuff in the hallways. RO

I absolutely didn't have a bad stay. HOwever, I can see that if you stay there on the weekend, you're almost guaranteed to have one. Tripadvisor is full of people talking about 15 minute lines for the elevators, 45 minute lines at the waterpark (wow, that would make me livid when spending nearly $300 a night on weekends), and lines for food. We had a great stay. If we return, it will again be for a Wed-Fri time period. RO

I just looked at Crystal Maze. That looks a bit cooler, and more puzzle driven. Magiquest is more of a scavenger hunt. There are a few things you have to figure out from the clue poems as far as what order to do things, but not really puzzles. Crystal Maze looks more like Wizard Quest in the Dells, which is a bit more puzzle driven. RO

It's $30 for a visitors pass. I get the feeling you could go, even if you don't know anyone there. It wasn't clear about that. RO

We had never been to any of the waterpark resort hotels anywhere, so when Great Wolf Lodge opened up in Dallas, I was excited. We were going to go over spring break to coincide with the pinball fest, but it was way too expensive that week. So, we decided to go when the Scarborogh Renaissance Festival started up. We decided to arrive Wednesday evening, enjoy the full day there on Thursday, and check out Friday. I had read many reviews saying the place is a zoo on weekends, and they simply can't handle the crowds. So, we take the boy out of school for a couple of days and head to Dallas. We've been to Schlitterbahn Galveston in the SUmmer and WInter and have been fairly underwhelmed both times. The outside part is very sparse, although we went before the tube chute section opened. The indoor part is VERY sparse for the money. A torrent river, some small slides, some big slides that you froze getting to, and a little kids area. For $30 a person regular price. I hoped GWL was better. So, we had a bit of a hard time finding the place, since it's in a fairly new development area. Once we found it I was amazed at its size. THis is one big ass Lodge. Eight stories high, with a huge waterpark with slides sticking out of it. THere is a great drop off area, complete with huge wolfs carved in it. My son and I jump out to go check in, and I was amazed with the entry area. Every bit as good as the Wilderness Lodge, imho. My son drools over the waterpark which is viewable through a huge glass in one wall next to the checkin desk. SInce this was Wednesday at about 7, there was no wait and I walked up, checked in, got two airport carts for baggage (they have about 50 of them), and head out to the wife, whose been unloading stuff. We pack everything on the carts, which was a bit of a pain. They have no valet, and no large carts, but it was fine. I park real quick, and meet them at the doors. We take in the entryway and go back to the elevators. There is one bank of 4 elevators, which is a massive design flaw. This is a 8 story hotel with tons of rooms, and a lot more under construction. That alone would maybe be OK, but add in the Magiquest game, which was basically played in the elevator landing areas on each floor, and I see a major issue that I'll get to later. We get to the room, which is pretty close to said Magiquest game, which scared me a bit, but never became an issue, even with the Knothole Fungus right outside our door. The room was huge. Larger than a normal midrange hotel like a Hampton Inn. It had a microwave, fridge, central air, and safe. It also had some awesome citrus soap that we somehow ended up with about 10 bars of when we got home. The bed was Queen size in some alternate dimension. My son had the sofa bed. THe bed was far from comfortable, and really stuck out from the quality of everything else. We quickly unloaded and went down to start Magiquest. I had played the real one in Myrtle Beach and loved it, so I was looking forward to playing it with my son. We loved DinoQuest last Summer in LA. He got a dark wand and had earned a topper of his choice for a phenomenal report card, and chose the dragon head. My MB wand wasn't found in the system, but the guy added my info back in and I used my old wand. We payed the $15 each to play during our stay, took the Ancient Book of Wisdom, and began our quest. The quests were very reminiscent of MB's, but simpler. In MB, you spend a LOT of time going form area to area to find the items, and it was even worse here, since items could be on any floor. Usually they were on a range of 3 maybe 4 floors. Some quests were tough. The Great Wolf quest especially. And since the 5th floor totally crapped out while we were on that quest, we didn't finish it. Each successful quest netted you a rune to be used for other things. Three runes had interactive sessions with characters on the big screens. The Dazzle rune was used with the Pixie Princess to get her magic gem charged up, and you dealt with Ursa Major with the GW rune. The main battle was downstairs in the Dragon's Lair. The main difference in this MQ was that all the items to look for were stand alone things or wall mounted pictures/paintings, so once you went to the floor it gave in the clues, you easily found it. The MB version had many things simply embedded in rocks or bricks and you really had to find them. We got one rune the first night before heading to the waterpark. I realized that I had packed swim trunks from about 8 years ago that had apparently shrunk over that time, and were a bit unstylish in their length. Well, nobody knows me here, so WTH, I wore them, but was just conscious of their fit all the time. The park is pretty darn big, and seems bigger than most GWL's I've seen pics of. Maybe close to the one in Wisconsin Dells. It's all one large building. THere is a large bucket kids area right in front to get the kiddies excited when they check in. It had 2 decent slides that kept my son occupied most of the time. THere were some buckets you could drench people with in a few areas, including right at the start of one slide. THere was also a little kids and Milfs play area to the right that had some really small slides and such. Behind that was the wave pool that had very short wave times. THen there was a large pool with lots of basketball goals in it. Then the big stuff. THere were two stairways up to the big slides. ONe to the lower lever was for 1 or 2 person slides that you lugged up tubes for. One slide was not done yet, which was weird because it was just missing one section outside, and everything else were there. ONe of these was a standard slide, the other was a toilet bowl. There were both very good slides. THe cool thing was that from the splashpool of these slides, you could enter a dark tube that led to the fairly short lazy river. It was a sort of bonus slide. The lazy river was OK, it had lots of water effects in it. The top level had two slides, a large, enclosed raft ride, and one of the large funnel slides. My son is pretty skiddish of big slides after a bad experience on the White Water Tubechute at Schlitterbahn, so he didn't ride the big slides much. We never did ride the funnel. My wife was amazingly going to ride it, but that was on Friday morning. Oh that needs some explanation. We spent most of THursday playing Magiquest, and were leaving the evening to end in the waterpark and some hot tub time. They had an adult hot tub and a slightly cool family hot tub, which was cool. They also had some cabanas which I'll never understand who the hell pays for, especially at a resort where your room is just up the elevator. Anyway, the waterpark was open until 10, so we got some Pizza Hut pizza in the hotel. It was undercooked, but damn tasty and not too high priced. We then headed down at about 8. Well, at 9, we abruptly told to get out. Mass confusion followed, and I argued with many people that closing time was 10, and that I had the paper in my room. The kids running it didn't care, and booted out everyone. And everyone was mad. I head to the front desk to complain and there was one other lady there that I had already talked with downstairs complaining. I ganged up with her on the manager at the time, who said she didn't know what happened, and that she'd know in about 20 minutes. So, I go up and shower and come back down, with my sad kid to get more sympathy. As I go up to the counter, I'm asked by some management type how I was, to which I said "not very good". This piqued her interest, and I caudal see her watching me complain to the front desk. She came over and said she was the top manager. I ripped into her pretty good. We had planned a nice end to our final day, including hot tub time, only to kicked out an hour early. The most important hour really, since the park was pretty vacant, although a LOT more crowded than the previous night when they were scheduled for a 9pm close. She asked if I was local, to which I said no, so she skipped the free waterpark pass offer and offered up a free breakfast buffet for us. Well, we're not big buffet eaters, and I figured that was not worth a whole lot. I pressed harder and point out my son, who was told to look quite sad, and ended up getting a $25 offer off my night. SInce the room price went up $50 for that night, I said that was pretty much for that extra hour of waterpark time. She ended up with $30 off, the price of a waterpark pass, and a lot of "I'm sorry"s. It sounded like a misprint, but that's too bad. If they put a sign up in the entryway giving park hours, it would get rid of the problem. She also gave us a 1pm checkout, so we could hit the park Friday morning. So we did. The crowd was getting bad, and that gets us finally back to the funnel slide. The wait was getting pretty bad. Our whole stay, they operated the two big rides as such: THey had one lifeguard on the tower, and one in between the pools. They would send down one raft on one slide, wait for it to empty on the bottom, and then start loading a raft on the other side and sending it down. This was insane, and ended up with about one raft down the slide you were waiting for every 4 minutes. Given that most rafts had 2 or 3 people on it, this made for an insanely long wait. On Wednesday night, when we had like 8 people in front of us, it was a 15 minute wait. On Friday morning, when I could see the line going down the first flight of steps, I knew I was unwilling to wait, especially when a quick check verified that was how they were still manning it. This was flat out totally unacceptable. It seems through reviews I read online that this is also how they do it on weekends. That's simply horrific management that doesn't care about guests. They also used walkie talkies to give the all clear for the rides. Never heard of buttons? Was there a big GWL lawsuit? THey obviously have corporate lawyers that hate their guests. We also finished the Dragon battle on Thursday. After earning the portal, ice arrow, protection, and freezing runes-, you could go on this quest. You were sent to find a picture with the secret code for entry into his lair. ONce getting those three symbols, you pointed at them on the portal, then used the portal rune to enter. Next, after hitting the MQ light with your wand (which was totally not obvious), you began the battle. It took a few times to figure it out, but me and my son both defeated him. For defeating him, you receive the red dragon amulet, which is amazingly also available in the store for $13 (my family owns two, what a coincidence). THey really need to expand this game. I'm amazed they don't have a dueling station there, since I would think it would mint money. There is room in the secondary MQ room on the 6th floor for another large screen, so I'd say more quests will be added. They really should just make a full blown MQ game at the lodge. Maybe a bit smaller, but still make it its own room. Because there were way too many kids taking the elevators for one stinking floor change for the game. We used the elevator for 3 floor changes, and boy were my legs spent after climbing slide towers and MQ secret stairs. I surprised my wife with a massage at the spa in the hotel. It was here first one, and she absolutely loved it. Afterwards she sat in front of the big fireplace sipping Starbucks Hot Chocalate. I could have said I was having an affair with Britney and she wouldn't have cared. It was pretty reasonable too. Overall, the restaurants were not too gouging, but we brought enough food we only ate a pizza and some ice cream. They have some issues still, for sure. Ultimately, our stay was awesome. We had a very empty lodge with very short waits for most everything. We are already thinking of a return next Winter. As a quick aside, we really enjoyed the Scarborough Ren Faire, but not as much as the Texas Ren Fest here. It was about as big, but not nearly as many vendors, and seemed smaller. We had a great Scotch Egg, some of their Mead, a unique orange drink, and of course a Steak of a Stake. Of course, a trip to Dallas always ends with a stop at the Russel Stover factor outlet. Not as great of deals as last time, but still 75% off chocolate, and they had an incredible deal on large boxes of their Premium chocolates that was abut 90% off. Rastus O'Ginga WTF? Gathering for a parade Crazy guy at Ren Faire Downstairs has a redemption arcade, ice cream, pizza, MQ, shops, and a teen hangout The meager outside section Opening a treasure chest ONe of the halls of Maqiquest stuff The main slide tower in the back of the park A screen showing out quest status Some of the tube slides More of the lobby and the treehouse Dragon Slayers The MagiQuest store At night, they had an animated kids show in the lobby The huge fireplace The waterpark view from the lobby The main facade

You're comparing greater Cincinnati to Vallejo? I think you'd have to compare Mason, OH to Vallejo. Or to compare two Cinti locales, it'd be like if Mason was having fiscal problems before Finneytown. Why do you think towns fight so hard to get companies to build manufacturing plants there? It's an enormous financial boon, especially in states where there are citie income taxes, like Cincinnati. The little town where the plant I worked at in Cinti always had a brand new fleet of cars, and a brand new government building, even though it was a lower income area. They had million of dollars of salaries to tax at the plant. And we had our own fire truck and security. You really think cities have to raise taxes because they can't afford to pay their police and firemen? You're a complete rube. That's always what they say, because more people will be sympathetic to that as opposed to having to raise taxes to pay more welfare benefits. Sorta like how lottery funds were for schools. Too bad most states then dropped school funding from the general funds, used that money for social programs, and then said the schools still need more money. I guess it's amazing how states used to survive on 4% sales tax. And that was before computers greatly reduced the manpower needed to do most government jobs. Please learn basic economics before you vote this Fall. -R

And my whole point is that a city with an enormous taxable revenue stream from a theme park should be the last city with problems, not the first. Most cities have no desire for fiscal responsibility, they simply raise more taxes by getting stupid voters to approve levies and bonds. Vallejo seems to be a posterchild for this problem. Of course, California, and especially San Francisco is simply reaping what they sow. With all the high tech companies and enormous tax revenue from their income and ridiculous property values bringing in huge property taxes, the entire San Francisco area should be sitting on a pile of money. Instead, they've enacted insane social policies, and have wasted every dime of what should be their excess income. I have no sympathy for California governments, especially in the SF area. But, as this thread shows, plenty of people will believe their lies and assume they're doing everything right, but just honestly need more money. -R

^^ And if most cities can pay for police and firefighters without a themepark that brings in probably $100 MM in revenue a year, and employs hundreds of people, and has their own security force, I think Vallejo should be able to squeak by. They should be more economically stable than most CA cities. It's either corruption or uncontrolled spending. -R

Which is why the only way they can be bankrupt is from massive corruption in the local government. With all the salary taxes and sales taxes that the park gives the city, there is no fricken way they can be bankrupt. Unless all that awesome liberal socialism isn't working so well. BUt, that's just crazy talk. Everyone knows socialism always succeeds. Free everything for everybody!!! -R