robbalvey

We just got back from Typhoon Lagoon and I just wanted to post a quick TR about that visit. Crush N Gusher is AWESOME! I was really not expecting them to be that great, because we didn't think any of the Master Blasters at Schlitterbahn were anything that special. These were better than all three of those! They are VERY short, but each one of them is FAST, has a couple of good drops, and Coconut Gusher has this camelback hill that gives you airtime...TWICE!!! We rode all three of them and Coconut twice. They really were that good...although short. Make sure you get there first right after the park opened as we spent about 25 minutes at the Crush N Gusher complex and when we left the line was already about 20-30 minutes long. The rest of the park was pretty easy to do at this point, since most people were at Crush N Gusher. The Family raft ride wasn't as bad as Elissa said it would be. It's short...REALLY REALLY short, but then again it was one of the first family raft rides in the world. The wave pool is great with the 6 foot waves that it makes and the other body and tube slides were fun too. There isn't as much to do at Typhoon Lagoon as there is at Blizzard Beach, but Crush N Gusher is worth the trip alone. Anyway, we're off to Epcot in a little while... --Robb

^ If you are having any problems with our DVDs, either technical or "parental" yes you may return them. --Robb "Who is curious what kind of problems you are having" Alvey

Yeah, the video is too damn popular! It will be back up and running tomorrow. --Robb

^ No, that is not possible. And all the of the contest videos are working fine, I just checked. On a side note, this week's entries will go up on Tuesday since I am in Florida until then. --Robb

Hey everyone! I finally made it back to the laptop! Our days have been INSANE, so I haven't gotten the chance to go online much. It's actually been nice NOT being able to spend time on the computer! To give you an example, here is how our days have been since Thursday: Friday morning - started out at Epcot. Went right to Soarin'. Nice queue, identical to DCA's other than that. Did Test Track and Mission Space, then did the tour of boat rides in World Showcase.' Ok so Norway isn't that great, but it's weird! Friday afternoon - Went to lunch at Big River Brewery. Good beer (says Elissa's dad) and good meatloaf. Next up MGM, where we managed to get in 4 rides on "Good Tower" (Jon was all...man this Tower craps all over DCA's!), 1 on coaster, Elissa got into the hot seat in Millionaire, we saw the stunt show (which I actually think the Paris version might be a little better), and did a little shopping. Friday night - Back to Universal, went to dinner with Reed & Stacey (Hi guys!) and just 'crashed' out in the lobby lounge with them chatting about the most random stuff in the world. It was SOOOOO much better than being at any theme park! Saturday - Today would be our 'all day at Universal/IOA day.' And it really did kick ass, especially with the front of the line pass all day. We did pretty much EVERYTHING! Mummy a bunch of times, MiB a bunch of times, Jaws, Shrek, Jimmy Neutron, Dragons a bunch of times, Hulk a bunch of times, Spiderman, Posiden's Fury, JP, Ripsaw, 1 Fish 2 Fish, Doom, Cat In The Hat, etc, etc, etc..... It ROCKED!!! Lunch was at Mythos, and OMFG this is still the best food in any theme park EVER!!! And this time my normal entres were not there! No Balsamic Chicken, no Spicy Asian Wings, no Tortillia Soup. But I had the most KICK ASS nachos....hard to even describe, and this HUGE chinese chicken salad. Followed of course by the warm gooey banana chocolate cake! Yum! Anyway.... Today (Sunday) was more randomness.... We started the day off at Epcot, mainly to take the monorail and we headed over to MK. The park was PACKED...like I'd never seen it before! It looked like "Tokyo Disneyland" PACKED! :shock: But we did good. We got on Thunder, Splash, Mansion, and Pirates in about 2 hours. Space went down, but we got our fastpasses exchanged for rider switch passes so we can come back later. Then off to MGM for lunch at Mama Melroses (yummy stuff!). Played Millionaire again and Elissa was #1 on the board the whole time, but she couldn't go into the hot seat since she was just there. Oh well. Tried to get on Tower, but it was down. Boo... Next up was Sea World for a quick run in, get two rides on Kraken and one ride on Journey visit. Then BACK to MK again to use our rider switch passes only to find out that Space was down.....AGAIN! Luckily they let us use one pass on Buzz, and by the time we were out, Space was open again, and we got our two rides on it! Yay! We're now back at the hotel ready for sleep and ready for our Typhoon Lagoon and Epcot day tomorrow! That's it everyone! We'll post photos soon. --Robb

ok, so we're 14 for dinner. If anyone else can make it, let us know ASAP so we can call Disney and let them know the final count. See you all tomorrow! --Robb

I'm pretty sure that Elissa got it from whatever the 'official' website is for the guy that did the animation. We got it a while ago, at least a year, so I'm not 100% sure about what the site is. --Robb "Google is your friend!" Alvey

Hey everyone. This is just a quick TR from our day. No pics. I'll post them tomorrow, but we're REAL DAMN tired from a LONG day after a redeye! Flew in at 6am. Went straight to BGT and met up with thier PR dept. Rode Shakira twice. Much better than I thought it would be. Really quite a lot of fun! I would "kind of" compare it to the SUF's in that there are parts of it that are REALLY good, and parts that are just 'ok.' Overall, I think I liked it better than SUF and it was VERY well themed up! The splashdown ending, for example was just REALLY well done. Thumbs of from all of us! And with the recent B&M's, we didn't think it would be. We did a lap around BGT - rode Montu twice, Kumba once, Cheetah Chase (finaly rode this after, what two years it's been there?), Scorpion and then we headed out. Got to Royal Pacific around 3:30, got our front of the line pass and got to the park around 4ish. We managed to do nearly a complete lap including Hulk, Spiderman, Buzzsaw, Bluto, JP, F.U. (Flying Unicorn), and dragon hopped three times! The only thing we didn't hit was Cat In The Hat and 1 Fish, 2 Fish. We'll do those on Saturday. Anyway, we're off to bed now....More pics and updates to come tomorrow. We'll post pics from Shakira and IOA today, and from Epcot and MGM tomorrow! --Robb

^ I have to say that I'm totally confused by the question you are asking. Do you mean "longest" as in "total track length to get from highest point to the lowest point of a drop?" In that case, you could theoretically have a drop that's only 50 feet tall, but extremely shallow, and it be the "longest" drop. Do you mean "longest" as it "tallest" from top to bottom? For example The Boss which goes down into the ravine has a much longer 'drop' that it does a lift. Do you mean "longest" as in time? "How long does it take to get from the top to the bottom?" Etc, etc... --Robb "Still confused." Alvey

One thing I did want to mention, while as much as I really like Angry_Gumball's animation, I don't think there is a Vekoma ride named "Rattler." I don't know why but that always bugged me a bit! Maybe if the train had said like "Mind Eraser" or "Gourdurix" or something, it may have gotten my vote! --Robb "It's all about continuity!" Alvey

^ OMG! I forgot about that guy at SFA. That was probably the single most creepy experience of any of my dealings with coaster enthusiasts. Picture a guy, wearing shorts and a suit jacket. Holding a clip board telling us that he owns 49% of the Six Flags company and he is going around making notes on things to change at SFA because he is in negotiations to buy out the remainder of the company. Also note that the guy seems to be about 21 (maybe) years of age. And no matter what we said to him to fuck with the guy, he was ABSOLUTELY persistent that he owned 49% of the company, he was buying Six Flags, and he was there to make changes! It was weird. --Robb "That's certainly more creepy than any mis-informed 'know-it-all' member of the GP!" Alvey

Yeah, that's always the most annoying thing.... They make some stupid comment, then you correct them, then suddenly you are the "bad guy" for actually having intelligent accurate information! That always seems to be someone's defense for being wrong. "Oh, well, I'm not a dork who geeks out on coasters!" --Robb "No matter what, it's always YOUR fault...which is why I say I just laugh at them silently to myself." Alvey

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050525085009990002&ncid=NWS00010000000001 Runaway Bride Indicted for Making Up Story

^^ Well, we are going to be at parks in Belgium in a few weeks. You could always start with meeting up with us there! --Robb

We are heading out tonight, but I'll have my laptop with me to check the boards every day. If you can make any of the meets or dinner, please let us know ASAP! --Robb

^ I don't know about anyone else who got footage, but we are meeting with the PR dept this week to film on the ride. --Robb "We went through the proper channels." Alvey

^ Give it a try now! --Robb

^ But don't you think that might make the businesspeople of Nashville say "This area can't support a theme park?" --Robb "Two parks have closed in the past 10 years." Alvey

^ I clicked on that link and it worked just fine. I have just made some changes to the links to the videos. Try these: http://www.themeparkreview.com/contest2005/contest2005.htm --Robb

Here are the TOS that you didn't read: Please have a look at #9. I will usually make an exception for people who are overseas, but your posts obviously have internet speak in them. u instead of you, etc. Please try to clean it up as best you can. Thanks! --Robb

^ It will change back in the next couple of days. I had to do that because of bandwidth reasons. --Robb "Always good to have a backup server!" Alvey

http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/searchResults.asp?p=searchResults&selQT=ALL&sContent=valley+amusement+park

^ I don't know, but the similar version in the US they released is THICKER than the Japanese version. --Robb "Fatter cameras for fatter Americans!" Alvey

It was neck and neck for me between Wes and Coasterfanatic, but Coasterfanatic edged out simply because I liked the way his avatar was in theme with his website. --Robb "Sorry Wes!" Alvey

^^ Over the past couple of years we have gone from doing video still to 3 or 5 megapixel photos. Two years ago, 640x480 video grabs were still *almost* acceptable for online, but now that DSL and Cable Modems are in just about everyone's house, we're doing higher quality photos now. Our first "real" digital camera was a 2 megapixel Sony Cybershot U: Now we use a 5.1 megapixel Sony Cybershot T-3 (the Japanese version) It's awesome. It's just a little bit bigger than a credit card and it takes AWESOME photos! I hope that answers your question! --Robb