josephwanek

Gotta love the quality Vekoma engineering!

Yeah, that's the thing I hate the most. When you know you've seen an adult riding the same kiddie coaster in a picture on rcdb.com, and then when you go they tell you that there's no one allowed on over a certain height. I've actually tried to bribe the ride op with money before. Stupid ride ops that don't take bribes..... Joseph "10 bucks is the maximum bribe" Wanek

M_Force_4_ever, if you go to the enchanted castle website, http://enchanted.com you can find an email address. Ken Phillips (the general manager) is also an enthusiast, so he's sympathetic to us coaster whores. If you just tell him that you are a member of ACE, I'm sure you could set up a time when you could visit. YoshiFan, sometimes those rules are put into effect because of the ride makers maximum weight limit. Especially since the Dragon Coaster is so small; I could barely fit my legs in. So I understand in that situation, but when parks have that dumb rule about riding with a kid (example, Elissa always having to steal a kid for a credit), thats crazy. Obviously, if the ride can accomodate adults, everyone should be able to ride no matter what. Plus, one time I "stole" a kid to get the Wacky Worm credit at WOF, and my stolen kid smelled like a thrift store...

^Yeah, that's what happedned to me too but if you talk to Ken Phillips and tell him you are an enthusiast, you may be able to set something up to ride it. Although you may need to have a membership card to an enthusiast group but I'm not 100% sure.

^ Haha, ya exactly. That damn horse game sucked though. I didn't know how to control it so I lost in, like, 30 seconds.

Enchanted Castle On Friday the 15th, my boyfriend Joey and I left for Enchanted Castle in Lombard, IL. It is a family entertainment center, and a well endowed one at that. It has arcade games, a restaurant, mini golf, bumper cars, a 3D/4D simulation ride, and a very small powered coaster called the Dragon Coaster. This was going to be my 100th coaster (even though it is a powered). Ok, first some background on the story. So a few months back, my friend Sarah and I decided to get all the kiddie coaster credits in Chicago and the surrounding area. When we got to Enchanted Castle, we were denied because the Dragon Coaster had an under 52” height requirement. After being very disappointed, I sent an email to Enchanted Castle. The general manager, Ken Phillips, sent me back an email saying he was sorry and he was also a coaster enthusiast. He said he would like me to return so that I could get to ride the Dragon Coaster. He also provided us with a VIP status. When we got to Enchanted Castle on the 15th, we talked to the manager named Roy. He said he was expecting us and he immediately took us to the restaurant for a free pizza and pop. We also got a VIP wristband and tokens. We played some of the games for a while, including DDR. Then we decided to do the 3D simulator show. We tried one that was about space battles or something that looked like Starfox on Nintendo 64. I was pretty fun but all the kids definitely loved it. Then on to Enchanted Castle’s fun mini golf course. There were fountains and the whole thing was themed really well. My favorite part was the bumper cars though. Even though they were in a small space, the best part was that you can spin in a circle really really fast. It was better than some amusement park rides. And last but not least, the Dragon Coaster. For some reason, kiddie coasters are sometimes almost more of a thrill than big coasters. Even though it was small, it threw me up over the inclines, especially when going backwards. We had a great time at Enchanted Castle, and I definitely recommend it for any family in the area. Check out the picture attachments below (I still don’t know how to put them directly into the post). Kiddieland The next day, Joey and I went to Kiddieland in Melrose Park, IL. We made the mistake to come on the opening day which also had a ½ off coupon offer that we got at Jewel-Osco. So the admission was only $10 and there were hundreds of people waiting to get into this very small park. After waiting 40 minutes just to buy our tickets, we went straight to the coaster credit “Little Dipper” which is a small wooden family coaster that was built in 1950. And it was showing its age. The line wasn’t very long at all, but then some dumb woman told all of her relatives to come and cut. Now, these were adults, and they cut us and a large group of children. That’s right, these ADULTS were cutting a bunch of kids. So then we are about to get on the coaster next but then the ride operator had a problem. Since the Little Dipper is so old, it has manual breaks that the operator has to pull in order for the ride to stop. The train slipped on through and went back up the lift hill. She couldn’t stop again and it went on for a third ride. Finally she got it to stop, but this time it got stuck on the brake run. She had to call someone to help her push it back into the station. They unloaded the train and then ran it for a test run. At this point I was praying to God that I could get this credit. We got on the train in the back seat and it went up the lift hill. It was actually a pretty forceless ride, I was kind of disappointed. Then on to the water slide raft ride. It was the kind that has a two person raft that goes down in pitch black. We got cut by little bratty kids so many times that it really put us in a bad mood. Who knows where these kid’s parents were. The ride was really fun, but after that we decided that we had enough of this park. Obviously, the place is called Kiddieland and it is going to have kids there, but this park is bad at enforcing their “children under must be accompanied by an adult” rule. There were also not enough ride ops by a long shot. The girl running the Little Dipper was all alone and it looked like it was her first day on the job. However, if we had gone on a less busy day, I’m sure the park would have been a fun little place for people to bring their kids. Sorry! I don’t have pictures of Kiddieland, but you’re not missing much… Yay! You read the whole thing! Sorry, it was a little long for just two coasters. Oh my god! Is that Samora from The Ring? Oh..wait...no, that's just me putting that nasty horse tail on my face.... Joey playing mini golf. Joey riding the crazy spinning bumper cars. Yeah, sometimes horse games put me in the mood.... My 100th Coaster, "The Dragon Coaster"

NL as in No Limits? I would never count anything like that at all. If you see pictures or video of the Bahamas, does that mean you actually went on vacation there? Didn't think so...

Oh my God! I didn't know it was going to look that cool. That would have been awesome!

What exactly was the dildo looking thing? It has a shell but is it an oyster? Or a clam? Does anyone know? Loved the caption, by the way!

I'm just sick of boring B&M's. Now I know tons of people may disagree with me, but I think Nitro and Raging Bull are so slow and boring that I feel like falling asleep when I ride them. The Batmans are fun, but once you've ridden one, you've pretty much ridden them all.

Thanks anyway though.

Well at least you're not puking 8 times like I did on Friday! Happy Birthday! Joseph "It could always be worse" Wanek

Best caption ever!

^ Thanks for the info. Sadly, I think I will get in too late because the trains on the Tri-Rail don't run that late. I guess another time

Yeah I was afraid I would have to take a cab. How much do you think it would cost to go there and back? I have a feeling it will be a lot. In that case I think I may have to just wait until another time. :crazy: Damn it, I really wanted to end my dry spell! Thanks for the info Elissa.

I am going to the Bahamas for spring break and we will be stopping in Miami overnight. We get in Friday, March 18th at 9:40 PM. I noticed that Boomers is open on weekends until 2:00 AM. I was wondering if there is a cheap way to get there from our hotel, which is near the airport. Is there a public transportation system or anything that goes anywhere near there? Thanks! Joseph "Needs to ride a coaster to get over my off-season blues" Wanek

My video was an MPEG but I converted it to Pinnicle's Studio 8. I rendered the video as an AVI but now when I play the video it says: Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file. Although, the video plays all the way through just fine. It's only after the movie is over that the message pops up. Will it still work if I send it in on a Data CD?

Me too! I can't wait for spring to come!

To finish off all of the coasters in Illinois, I have to go to Santa's Village and Kiddieland sometime this spring. Sometime after the parks open, but before I go home for the summer on June 5th. Also before school gets out, I want to go to Michigan's Adventure and Indiana Beach. Then on about May 5th or 6th I might (we might be having some problems with the girl we are staying with) be going to Holiday World, PKI, and SFKK as well as the Kentucky Derby! Then there is the biggest roller coaster trip of my life (so far) set sometime around June 12th to June 20th. About 17 parks. Fun Spot Memphis Kiddie Park Jeepers Geauga Lake Waldameer Conneaut Lake Fun Fore All Kennywood Idlewild Lakemont Del Grossos Williams Grove Hersheypark Dutch Wonderland Dorney Knoebles Ponoco Play Park and maybe SFGAd If anyone has any advice for me on this trip it would be very helpful. Then sometime this summer I am going to Silver Dollar City and Celebration City and maybe some kiddie coasters along the way. And then maybe a trip to the Wisconsin Dells and Little A Merrick A (as Robb said, if they build that kiddie wooden one). EDIT: Oh wait, Robb, in your first post were you talking about Hades or the little kiddie wooden one that is going to be built at Little A-Merrick-A? So thats about 110 so I hope there aren't too many that are shut down or anything.

^ Yes, I would also like to thank you guys. If I want to know what a park is like, I go here because its such a good indication of the quality of the service and the rides. And its just so entertaining.

Ok I hope this isn't a bad thing to ask but about how much money do you make from the TPR videos? I always wondered if you used the money from the videos to take the trips. And while I'm asking, how many do you usually sell? I hope these aren't those questions you aren't supposed to ask people...

I'm sure I rode little kiddie dragon coasters that are always at fairs and stuff, but the first actual big roller coaster was the Tornado at Adventureland in Altoona, Iowa. I remember going up the lift hill an being scared. Although I went on a few other coasters that day. I don't really know how old I was but I'm guessing about 7. Now I have ridden the Tornado probably about 100 times.

Yeah it was actually some dumb girl. I think the guy at the photo stand didn't really notice until I had already bought it. That or he didn't really care. Either way, I hate it when people do that because it can ruin other people's pictures.

The picture "keg4" looks so awesome! Guess who's going there this summer! :love:

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