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^ You beat me to it. Yup, that's Evinrude. I never knew he was a walkaround character! I vaguely remember Orville though. He was my fave in The Rescuers. I also remember having plushies of Bernard & Miss Bianca when I was a kid.

I'm going to be at the park this coming Saturday (the 21st) for awhile to see if I might catch a soft opening. If not no biggie. Any other TPR-ers going to be there?

Ok those fog shots are pretty nifty. I really miss Cedar Point. Haven't been there since 1990.

My poem didn't get picked. Sucks but oh well. Now I'll have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn for the morning ERT for passholders every weekend in June. I wanted nighttime ERT! I can't get that Friday off work to cover the opening so I'm all kinds of miffed. *shrug* I'll get over it. *twitch* FYI, I heard the park had the coaster open for employees to ride today til noon.

I'm 36 and my first coaster was the Corkscrew at Michigan's Adventure (back in the 80's when the park was still called Deer Park Funland).

Ok I'm a week late, but here are some photos from the Star Tours mall tour when it was in Tampa last weekend: You could get your photo with C-3PO and R2D2. The cool thing was 3PO actually talked to you and it sounded JUST like him! Jedi Mickey was out (and yes that's my Duffy he's holding... in his Jedi costume... people were going NUTS over my Duffy) We got free special ear hats! You could then get your photo taken behind a green screen. They gave you a special PhotoPass card so you can add backgrounds from your home computer. Princess Leia Minnie was out while Jedi Mickey took a break (Mickey was the top half of each hour and Minnie was the bottom half of each hour) We got free photo prints of our pics with Mickey and Minnie! Did I mention everyone was just going nuts over my Duffy? They simply adored him.

Really surprised Montu didn't rank higher. That's my personal fave steel coaster of all-time. Will be interesting to see where any of the new coasters opening this year fall on next year's poll.

I am seriously late on this one, but I went to this park once back in 80's. It was seriously creepy. It was an overcast day and the park was nearly deserted and pretty much on its last legs. I remember going on the Arabian Knights/Ali Baba themed dark ride... I was probably the ONLY person on the ride, which gave me big time heebie jeebies because the animated figures in the ride didn't say anything. They just moved a bit and their mouths opened and closed while this howling wind sound was going on through the whole ride. I'm convinced now the "AA's" were trying to suck my soul into oblivion. I don't remember the dragon coaster, but I remember there being bumper boats and a haunted house/castle dark ride that I didn't go on, a bus themed kiddie falling star type ride and and an AA-type show that starred a Confederate wolf or something (I discovered years later the figures were created by Aaron Fetcher, the same guy who did all the figures at Showbiz Pizza in the 80's.... Billy Bob, the Rock-a-Fire Explosion and all those). There was a giant UFO that housed a space simulator ride or something, but I don't remember seeing it (though I have seen photos). I heard it was actually pretty convincing for what it was. I wish I had a chance to really explore that creepy place more throughly. My dad made me leave after an hour or 2 in there. Being a kid, of course I wasn't smart enough to take any photos. Oh well.

Wow that was worse than the seriously creepy Magic World that used to be in Pigeon Forge, TN back in the 70's & 80's.

I still can't get over how gorgeous those trains are. And if you missed it, here's the animal segment from last night's Leno, featuring Kasi & Mtani: http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/julie-scardina-and-animals-part-1-51011/1326548/

I think you mean Howl-O-Scream. That's the only thing I'm NOT looking forward to. I don't really do Halloween stuff because I can't stomach the gore these events seem to love to rely on. I'm all for a good scare, but when there's too much gore I just can't take it. Yes I'm a wuss and I'm proud of it! BTW, Busch Gardens just posted on their blog that Kasi & Mtani are going to be on Leno Tuesday (the 10th) night! http://www.buschgardenstampablog.com/catch-baby-cheetah-tonight-show

TRP takeover of Air Grover would be HILARIOUS! Here are some pics I got yesterday. I also got some of Kasi the cheetah cub and his puppy pal, Mtani. Dig those trenches! Dig, I say! New Skyride sign Coming down out of the figure 8 Coming back to the load station Passed out pooch He's so FLUFFY! AWWWW!!!

I wouldn't be surprised if the gift is just a free on-ride photo. I'm going to try to get the 27th off work so I can go to the grand opening. If not then I'll be there the 28th for sure. The Cheetah Hunt shirt I got a couple weeks ago isn't gaudy "Ed Hardy" looking at all. It looks like this: I was at the park yesterday and OMG it's looking so good! The walls along the Crown Colony side are down so you can really get the scope of everything. Saw them testing again later in the day too. The trains just look so awesome. I'll upload some pics later. I'd do it now, but my boyfriend is on his way to pick me up.

It's so PURTY!!! I'm going to try to swing by the park tomorrow afternoon for a bit to get some photos (and see my kangaroo & wallaby friends). In the morning I'm going to be at Citrus Park Mall checking out the Star Tours thingy Disney is going to have going on to promote the updated ride.

I think the show looks great. It's stunning visually. I love the main hat/video screen barge/prop thing. Very versatile. This is the perfect version of Fantasmic! for DisneySea. Really. The dragon coming through the mirror was freaking AWESOME. It really just came out of nowhere. The only Fantasmic! I've seen in person is WDW's, which is utter crap compared to this. Hell, it's utter crap compared to just videos I've seen of Disneyland's version. I refuse to even attempt to see that show until it gets a HUGE revamp. I wish I could afford to go on the TPR trip to Japan!

LOL! Yeah totally, which is also why I don't do water rides. I will, however, go through $5 worth of quarters blasting people with the water cannons on rides like Congo River at Busch Gardens and Popeye & Dudley Do-Right at IOA. Because I'm evil.

Holy crap how did I never NOT notice this before?! Now I'm going to have to pull out my TRON DVD when I get home tonight and look for it! That is awesome.

I would have posted these sooner, but my laptop crashed over the weekend and needed a new hard drive. Was at Busch Gardens on Saturday (4/23) and got some shots of Cheetah Hunt testing: Also, saw the carousel in Timbuktu has been reassembled after a lengthly refurb. It wasn't open to guests yet and I saw maintenance working on it when I happened by. Jack Hanna was at the park for Earth Day and brought along a bunch of critters. This is NOT Kasi, the new cheetah cub at the park. Kasi is much younger/smaller. Oh! More Cheetah Hunt merchandise! They got at least 9 different shirt designs for this coaster alone! And I think this shirt sums up the lot of us here on TPR:

BREAKING NEWS! Cheetah Hunt is going to start testing TOMORROW, April 16th! http://www.examiner.com/busch-gardens-in-orlando/3-2-1-cheetah-hunt-to-launch-for-the-first-time-tomorrow Sadly I can't make it to the park again until next weekend at the earliest, but I can't wait to see that puppy in action! Also, the cheetah cub and his new puppy playmate are moving into Jambo Junction in the Nairobi area and guests will able to see them in person.

I would be one of those evil fiends who LOVES to blast the water cannons at unsuspecting riders.

Yeah those ones are pretty gaudy.. I think the one I'm going to get is the brown one I took a pic of by itself. They had at least 3 or 4 other shirt designs too but I forgot to get pics of them all (the heat from the day totally zapped my energy). They also have plastic tumblers and water bottles. I wanted a little cheetah plush, but they were all sold out.

From my personal experience, weekdays even in the summer are much more managable than weekends. Saturdays are usually quite busy, but if you play the game right, you can sometimes hit the coasters with a minimal wait (15 minutes at the most). Of course it doesn't apply to Gwazi (because their ride ops are the slowest on the planet) or Scorpion (which only uses one train and still draws a crowd after 30 years).

I love me some pie. I actually prefer it over cake (because my aunt makes the best from-scratch cake in the world and ruined all other cakes for me). Maybe next year I can drag the BF with me to this. And I'll drink coffee when it's 92 degrees out... if it's iced coffee.

Very cool! I'm 36, no kids, and I love Spongebob.

Definitely check out Wizarding World of Harry Potter if you can. The Forbidden Journey ride is simply amazing. Dragon Challenge is a great inverted dueling coaster. Spider-Man can NOT be missed. It's awesome! Hulk is a good coaster. And just for the silly theming, be sure to check out Suess Landing. Oh and save up your quarters to use on the water cannons at the Popeye raft ride! it's so much fun soaking innocent riders I can easily blow through $5 in quarters doing just that.