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Everything posted by robbalvey
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Kolmården Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Here it is! Wildfire POV! Holy CRAP!!! -
Kolmården Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I just got a text from Mattias... "POV will be in your inbox soon..." Stay tuned. I hope our WiFi here at Disneyland Paris holds out! -
Dear stupid people of TPR, If you think that coming on OUR PAGE and challenging my rant with uneducated factoids trying to "prove us wrong" about the international tour business we ran for over ten years is going to be met with a positive response from me, that's where you are VERY wrong. Your posts have been deleted and your accounts have been banned and you are just another reminder of why we stopped doing tours and why I posted the rant in the first place. Thank you for helping us justify our decisions.
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This wall of text is going to be a rant... Today we took a wonderful private group tour of the Paris Catacombs with a very informative Italian tour guide. He was awesome! However, this small 18 person tour reminded me of exactly why I can never be a tour guide again and had to stop doing our public tours before I would go legit insane from my pure hatred of most people. We saw just about every example of terrible behavior represented in this small group that I can easily cross reference to our own TPR tour groups that we have encountered over the years. For example... Self-entitled people not following directions and doing whatever the hell they felt like, people touching things when they were just told not to, people taking flash pictures when it clearly says no flash, assburgers people who can't sit still and ask a million questions and keep talking and talking and talking, people asking just insanely stupid questions that make everyone around them dumber for listening, people who would interrupt and blurt stuff out over what the guide would say to show everyone how smart they were, people questioning the guide on minor details as though their information was more important or more accurate or somehow mattered, obnoxious kids who were fucking CLIMBING on ancient ruins and falling off them annoying the rest of the group, people trying so hard to impress everyone else with all the French they knew as if the next person actually gives half a shit, and of course people leaving the tour and not tipping the guide after he just put up with their shit for over two hours. And then there was us. The four of us who quietly kept to ourselves enjoying the tour, listened to what the guide had to say, respected all the rules and our surroundings and didn't try to go out of our way to impress total strangers with whatever pointless comments we would have made. Is it really too much to ask for people to just be like us? And what we've realized over the years is that it is. People just can't quietly enjoy something without having to feel so important and blurt out factoids, corrections, organize their own personal agenda around ours, brag about their personal coaster counts, and other pointless inane crap that they think everyone cares about but nobody does. And after ten years of putting up with that crap, I just couldn't take it anymore and only want to travel with people more like us. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. At the end of the tour we thanked our guide, gave him a nice tip, and wished we could tell him that I fully respect him for having more patience with people than I ever had, but I'm not sure he would quite understand. Anyway, it was a great tour. Looking forward to our next one that is a private personal tour without any other idiot people because I'm pretty sure if our tour went any longer we would have been adding more bones to the catacombs. Thanks for reading. /end rant
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Part 1 - Disneyland Paris Part 2 - Paris Sightseeing Part 3 - More Disneyland Paris Part 4 - Bobbejaanland Part 5 - Walibi Belgium Part 6 - Toverland Part 7 - Efteling Part 8 - Slagharen Part 9 - Walibi Holland Part 10 - Potts Park Part 11 - Heide Park Part 12 - Hansa Park Part 13 - Movie Park Germany Part 14 - Phantasialand Part 15 - Holiday Park Part 16 - Europa Park Day 1 Part 17 - Europa Park Day 2 Part 18 - Europa Park Day 3 Part 19 - Grona Lund Part 20 - Kolmarden & Wildfire Part 21 - Final Report! Cruise, Greece, Rome, Rainbow Magicland & Cinecitta World! BONUS REPORT! Visiting Venice, Italy So at the moment we are in Europe doing random stuff. I'll post a few things here and there but not sure if I'll have time for a full-blown trip report while we are on the trip. We are live tweeting every day so to follow along, click: Anyway, let me get you all caught up over the past two days... Next stop... Paris! The first leg of our summer TPR adventures begin! Almost there! ...and now on the other side of the world, we are at #DisneylandParis! Space Mountain: Mission 2 continues to be the best looking but worst riding of all the SM versions. On the plus side, #DisneylandParis probably had the best version of Pirates! (Although it was sort of disappointing to see lots of the effects not working: no more swordfight scene, lots of audio not triggering or just missing, etc...) 9:18pm and the sun is just starting to set at #DisneylandParis! Another reason why I love European summers! I will never understand how such rampant line jumping is not just allowed but almost encouraged in this culture. We also saw smoking & selfie sticks everywhere at DLP even though there are signs saying not to use them. #DisneylandParis looks freakin' incredible at night! Disney Dreams at #DisneylandParis is by far the best "castle projection" show (yes, better than Tokyo's, IMO) & in my top 3 Disney night shows! There is one part of Disney Dreams where it actually looks like the #DisneylandParis castle is on fire! lol Next day... It's going to be a #Disney + @Starbucks morning! First stop this morning? Crush's Coaster! Thankfully it opened early, the line is not too bad! Was awesome to meet TPR fans on the other side of the world! Tower of Terror is always impressive no matter what language you ride it in! If you miss the Studio Tour @WDWToday it's still here at #DisneylandParis but personally, I don't miss it! Not sure why these old @WDWToday #Epcot Horizons props are on the #DisneylandParis studio tour, but there they are! Ratatouille was "ok" and it's not a bad ride, I just wish it wasn't what it was. Someone described it as "Disney does a Universal ride" complete with 3-D glasses, a bunch of movie screens, motion based vehicle and water that sprays on you! lol That about sums it up! Interesting to see how much better Disney Studios #DisneylandParis has gotten since our 1st visit opening year. The girls got these awesome cute yet terrifying @McDonalds Happy Meal boxes for #Euro2016 OFF WITH THIER HEADS!!! [twitter] /status/741347334924042240[/twitter] I really prefer the Buzz Lightyear rides that have different shapes for targets. Hit the triangles! I sort of like that Casey Jr's Circus Train is a powered roller coaster @DisneylandParis! I'll be honest... I sort of have a love/hate thing going on with Disneyland Paris. This is so much of this park that I love: the look of and feel of many of their themed areas (Discoveryland is just beautiful and you could drop it right into DisneySea and it would fit right in), they have some of the best versions of some Disney attractions (Pirates, Mansion, Thunder, etc...) and the castle is just breathtaking! but I *HATE* that the park seems to be neglected by it's clientele who don't seem to care or respect the park. The amount of line jumping, smoking, overall just annoying people just really grates on me. And while I realize that's part of the European Culture and I should accept it, which I do, I also don't have to like it. The staff of the park have at least been wonderful and we are having a good time here, it's just hard to not walk away from the park feeling like "Wow, I really want to *LOVE* this place...I really want to... but I just can't." We are live tweeting every day so to follow along, click:
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Shanghai Disney Resort Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to Dr Freeze's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Oh, it's most certainly being dissed. But I think we have all been on enough Rapids rides, especially two others that are nearly identical, to pass at least a preliminary judgement. I mean, I've been on both Grizzly and Kali *ONE* time each in all my visits to those parks. This doesn't look like will appeal to my any more than those rides did. -
Shanghai Disney Resort Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to Dr Freeze's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I wasn't asking because I cared what the Chinese locals think I was asking because it may help me make a decision if I even bother to go on it or not when I visit. -
Shanghai Disney Resort Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to Dr Freeze's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Yeah, it looks like they put a dragon statue in DCA's Grizzly River Run. It sure looks like an exact copy of Grizzly River Run, just with different rocks and a broken animatronic. Is the layout an exact copy? I've only been on Grizzly River Run once. -
Shanghai Disney Resort Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to Dr Freeze's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Wow, that was quite underwhelming. I was really hoping this would be something a bit more than just a slightly longer Kali River Rapids with a cool looking animatronic (which is clearly not even finished yet.) This would appear to be a "one and done" for me. -
Gröna Lund Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to Tobias94's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
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So last month on our YouTube channel we had 75% of our views watched on either a mobile phone or tablet. The number of people watching on computer desktop browsers is rapidly decreasing. Please take our poll. We are curious to know what device "on average" you spend more time viewing TPR's content. If you watch videos on your phone, but respond to the forum on your desktop, choose the option where you view TPR the MOST. So if you watch more videos than you do browsing the forum, choose "phone", if you browse the forum more on your desktop, choose "Computer Desktop." (Look, I know this should be painfully obvious to most of you, but people are quickly getting dumber and dumber every day and I have to make this as idiot proof as possible, mainly so the world can prove there is a bigger idiot.)
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It's a Facebook issues that we can't really resolve. It's probably also because you're using an older version of a web browser. Those videos show up just fine for me in Chrome.
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Dollywood Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to crispy's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Obviously the video was removed. Don't be stupid and post it again. Thank you. -
Dollywood Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to crispy's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I get the impression that TPR has never really cared about being first and more about the quality of the videos they shoot. I think they'd rather have a nice steady video without the shaking than having a member rush out with a hand mounted one to be first. This is exactly right. -
Worlds of Fun (WOF) Discussion Thread
robbalvey replied to OzCatter's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Is this even in English??? Seriously, this is a warning to all of you. Make more stupid posts and you'll all be banned. Get back on topic and stop acting like idiots. -
Thanks for the update. I wasn't all that excited about Mako until I drove by it a couple of weeks ago. Glad to hear that your review was positive. You like rides like Helix so I expect this to be in your top ten! Now, now... I thought we'd agreed to never discuss Helix again. We aren't discussing... I'm just quietly judging...and laughing...ok maybe not so quietly..