robbalvey

We've actually had both of these happen on our trip, and instead of people being PATIENT about whatever the issue is, they actually would come to up with endless bitching and complaining as though it's our fault. I actually said to a person once "I cannot control the weather. Seriously, if you are going to sit here and complain to me that being at a beautiful theme park (We were at Tokyo Disneyland), even in bad weather is still worse than sitting at your day-job, then you shouldn't be on our trip." I think at that point they just stopped talking, turned around and left. Send us an email and we'll see how it goes!

Well, to be honest, we never really stopped, we just were more "cautious" on who we invited on our trips. Like I said above, I'm hoping this way of adding new people to the tours doesn't turn out to be a mistake, and if it does, we'll just go back to doing our own tours and only telling the people we want to about them!

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE POST Once you have read this entire post, and you are SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in a TPR Tour (seriously interested meaning you would be ready to send in a deposit as soon as your application is accepted) then send an email to: robbalvey@themeparkreview.com requesting the application. I cannot stress enough to only email if you are SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in a TPR Tour. That being said... As many of you may know, TPR hosted theme park tours for 10+ years but stopped publicly hosting them a few years ago for a variety of reasons, mainly due to the behavior and attitude of the participants as it was creating stress levels for us and for other trip participants that we no longer could tolerate. If you don't know what we are talking about, this thread will give you an example of some of the stress we want to avoid. While we may have stopped doing public tours, we have not stopped doing tours completely because we actually really enjoy putting on tours, but have done them “private, invite only” for the past few years. In 2017 we quietly opened up about ten spots to new people and that actually worked extremely well! So this year, we are going to try opening that up a little bit more and hope that doesn't end up being a mistake! At the moment, we have 4-6 spots open for our Japan trip in June and 6-8 spots for our USA Trip in late July/early August. As a "test" we are going to allow new people to apply for one of those open spots. We are looking for enthusiastic, well-behaved, appreciative people who can get along well with others, are drama-free, have respect and trust for the tour leaders, and not complain about every little thing that happens on the tour if things don’t happen to fit your own personal preferences. After all, you’re on a theme park tour and not at work, right? Vacations are meant to be fun! If you consider yourself “high maintenance” or a “complainer” you probably would not be a good fit for a TPR trip. (THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ!) 1. Emailing us and submitting the application does NOT immediately mean you are on the invite list. We only have a handful of spots open and we need to fill them with the people we think will be the best fit for the tour. If you are not selected for this tour that does not mean you won’t be considered for a future tour. 2. Only email us asking for the application if you are *SERIOUSLY INTERESTED* in the tour. It is expected that if you are selected to be on the invite list, you will immediately send in a deposit for the tour. Tour deposits will be between $200 - $400 depending on the tour. If you fill out the application, and then decide to back out after being selected, you will NOT be invited to fill out the application for future tours. 3. We are unable to "part out" any days of the trip or have you "meet-up" if you only want to join for a day or two. This creates a crazy amount of work and hassle for us and it's just not something we will do anymore. Sorry, this is the entire tour or nothing. 4. You MUST be over 18 years of age to join a tour on your own. Anyone under 18 MUST be accompanied by an adult on the entire tour. So to summarize: “If you fill out the application, and are selected to be on a tour, you are expected to submit your deposit immediately. DO *NOT* EMAIL US ASKING ABOUT THE APPLICATION IF YOU ARE **NOT SERIOUS** ABOUT JOINING A TOUR!” Tour information - Final prices and itineraries will be available when you request the application. Our tours are in the $2800 - $4000 range.(based on double occupancy in rooms, there is a single supplement option at an additional cost.) Yes, our tours are higher priced than others you may see, but we feel we also offer a higher-end product than anyone else doing theme park/roller coaster trips. For example, we are staying on property at Hotel Breakers next to Cedar Point for three nights during our USA tour. We will get front of the line passes at all parks that offer them. We will rent out rides at certain parks just for our group. We go to higher end restaurants and many meals are included. We are staying on property at both Disney and Universal during our Japan trip, etc. Our tours are limited to only 25-40 people so there is plenty of room on the bus, train, etc. Our prices are very reasonable compared to other higher-end excursions. In short, you get what you pay for and in the case of TPR, a higher-end vacation. Most people come away from our trips saying they had to spend very little money outside the cost of the actual trip. Japan Trip 15 Nights - June 15 - July 1 Ground transportation included by bus, trains, and taxis. (You are on your own for airfare to/from the starting and ending points) 14 Day Rail Pass Included. At least one meal per day. Base camps in three different cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya) including resort stay at Universal and Disney! Parks included: - Tokyo Disney - Fuji Q - Universal Osaka - Nagashima Spaland - Parque Espana - New Reoma World - Washuzan Highland - Misaki Park - Adventure World - Benyland - Lina World - Hirakata - Legoland Nagoya - Hamanako Pal Pal - Lagunasia - More parks may be added to the itinerary! Non-Park Activity Options during Free Time: Castles, Shrines, Food, Museums, other parks, Zoo's, Shopping, etc. USA Trip Late July/Early August 10-12 Nights Ground Transportation included (You are on your own for airfare to/from the starting and ending points) Parks Included: - Six Flags Over Georgia - Carowinds - Kings Dominion - Busch Gardens Williamsburg - Hersheypark - Knoebels - Cedar Point (with three night stay ON PROPERY) - More parks may also be added to the itinerary Two meals per day! Fastpass options at all parks that offer it! More perks may include behind the scenes tours and ERT! Once again, if you are SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in one of these trips, and would be ready to send in a deposit between $250 - $400 depending on the trip, then send an email to: robbalvey@themeparkreview.com and request a 2018 TPR Trips Application. Thank you and we hope this test works out! We've had a lot of people ask us about TPR Tours and we feel this the best compromise for satisfying some of those requests while at the same time keeping our sanity! Thank you everyone! --Robb

We need to get past this beta test period first and then we will figure out when we will do the poll for "real." We haven't really even mentioned that poll that much outside of the forum members as we wanted to get as many bugs worked out of the system before it goes more mainstream.

Today was a very special kind of media event at Walt Disney World which actually wasn't about Walt Disney World at all! Disney invited us out to The Living Seas special events area at Epcot so we could sample some food offerings from Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, and Disney's Aulani resort in Hawaii, and they talked about some new additions coming soon to those destinations. Let's jump right into some of the amazing food and awesome news we heard today... Check out the replay of the live stream we did from today's event... [fbvideonew] [/fbvideonew] As if Epcot wasn't already amazing with the Festival of the Arts going on, adding some delicious food from three amazing higher-end Disney offerings was icing on the cake! We entered The Living Seas lounge, which is a super cool venue if you ever wanted to throw an awesome party, have your wedding, etc... The event started off with some dancing from Aulani's Luau, which is rated one of the best in the world! This resort is still on my bucket list (and I'm sure it will be crossed off soon enough!) The dancers were fantastic! Let's start with the Tuna Poke, which is all the rage right now in big cities and it was awesome to see this delicious item being offered as one of Aulani's signature dishes. We also had the tomato soup, again, fantastic! The resort is located on 21 oceanfront acres on the western side of O‘ahu. Guests can hang out in their lazy river, explore adventure trails, enjoy fire pit story telling, full service spa & fitness center, movie nights, live Hawaiian entertainment, high-end dining, bars, lounges, and so much more! Let's move on to Disney Cruise lines. Here are two awesome dishes I sampled... This gnocchi was one of my favorite items of the day! Delicious! Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, is consistently a top-rated destination. In 2018, the Disney Dream will sail a series of cruises that include two stops at Castaway Cay so guests can have twice the fun in the sun and enjoy even more of the pristine island paradise. Guess who is getting her own restaurant on the Disney Magic? At Rapunzel’s Royal Table, families will delight in an all-new dining experience inspired by the beloved story of Disney’s “Tangled.” The first table service restaurant themed to “Tangled” that features characters and live entertainment will transport Disney Magic guests to the kingdom of Corona for an evening of music and interactive fun featuring Rapunzel and the mischievous Snuggly Duckling Thugs. Disney Cruise Line guests can celebrate Marvel Day at Sea on the Disney Magic during eight special voyages from Miami departing January through April 2018. In 2018, the epic day at sea returns to Disney Cruise Line with 15 special Disney Fantasy sailings to the Caribbean from January through April. Star Wars Day at Sea transports guests to a galaxy far, far away to celebrate the legendary adventures and iconic characters from the Star Wars saga with Jedi, Wookiees, droids, Stormtroopers and others during the special day-long celebration. And yes, there are Star Wars Day at Sea special food offerings as well! I absolutely love this picture! lol! Marvel at Sea features all-day entertainment including interactions with some of the mightiest Marvel Super Heroes and the menacing foes who oppose them, an extraordinary deck show spectacular, Marvel-themed youth activities, special merchandise and unique food and beverage offerings. And we will end this Disney Cruise Lines segment with one more amazing dish! And now for Adventures by Disney, which after our Danube River Cruise with them last summer, we cannot say enough good things about! A new 10-day, 9-night Seine river cruise vacation combines two days exploring Paris on land, followed by eight days of cruising to picturesque French destinations such as Conflans, Vernon and more. Did someone say macarons? You'll be able to get plenty of them when you travel to Paris with Adventures by Disney! I love that AbD journeys are experiences beyond the parks, but with that Disney class-act service that you know and love from the parks! The French Onion soup was absolutely FANTASTIC!!! Highlights of this new Seine River vacation include: • Interactive culinary experiences, including a gourmet food tasting tour, regional wine and cheese sampling and hands-on macaron making demonstration. • Guided tours of Paris icons, including Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. • Active excursion options for the whole family, including biking, canoeing, horseback riding, a ropes course and hiking on the stunning cliffs of Etretat. This Beef Goulash from the Danube River Cruise is by far my favorite thing I had today at the tasting! It was just delicious... ...and not just because we got to actually MAKE this very dish during our Adventures by Disney river cruise last summer! I simply cannot say enough things about Adventures by Disney. We absolutely love their excursions and highly recommend them! Ken Potrock, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Disney Vacation Club spoke to us about the new Copper Creek DVC offerings at Wilderness Lodge. We actually rented out one of the cabins for ours and another family this past summer and again, the total package blew us away! Not only was the cabin a wonderful place for us to hang out at for three nights, but the new additions to the resort like the new pool area, Geyser Point Bar & Grill, and of course the long time favorite Artist Point were all highlights of our stay. Hey! Look who came to join us today! Captain Mickey! To close out the event, more entertainment from Aulani made us even more want to book a trip out to Hawaii! I am ready to use these luggage tags for one of each different Disney adventures! And as we head out of Epcot, we of course have to give a nod to Festival of the Arts! So happy this has returned for it's second year. It's certainly in my top five Epcot "festivals" as I absolutely LOVE it! Thanks for reading everyone! Now... POST YOUR COMMENTS!!!

Wishful thinking!

Huh. I just tested it on the latest Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and dragging and saving is working just fine for me. When you drag to the top, you have to hold it above that line just for a brief second and then it should drop into place. Is that what you are doing?

Sorry but all parks are closed on january Excuse me but please don't make posts in the "Ask Alvey" forum if your name isn't Alvey and you are going to post incorrect, stupid information. Because you're absolutely wrong. All parks in Europe are NOT closed in January.

Then I would suggest using one of the many coaster counting websites out there to do this. I have not looked at that site in probably 5 or 6 years.

I don't want this poll to just be a carbon copy of the Mitch poll. To be honest, I always thought it was a little stupid all those mediocre similar rides were included in his poll to begin with and I think I didn't even bother voting for "My Favorite Boomerang" or whatever it was, because IMO it was sort of dumb. I'll ask Chase what he wants to do. I'm honestly fine with either decision, but would lean towards not including them or only including ones that are significantly different if that was an option. Again, remember, I'd prefer this poll to be a bit more focused on what really are the best coasters and not being an overall list of "all credits."

Here's a side note on what I said above... In a way, this poll sort of *IS* the "TPR Coaster Counter" in that Larry is right, we have no interest at all in helping people count insignificant kiddie rides and other bullshit coasters to assist them in "padding their count" into somehow thinking that makes them a better coaster enthusiast and a more well-rounded human, (and YES, I kid you not some people **ACTUALLY BELIEVE** this) and instead we present to you a list of coasters that TPR thinks are relevant and you should be counting! Think of it as the "no bullshit, anti-creepy enthusiasts riding kiddie coasters, actually relevant rides that matter" TPR Coaster Counter!

Two reasons: 1. And this is really the main reason - I personally find "counting coasters" to be pointless and stupid and even though I used to do it at one point, I would like to start encouraging more people NOT to do it, because it's just making people look like entitled assholes instead of having fun at parks, which is the point. 2. Do you remember when you'd get something like a "VHS/DVD Combo Player" and it wouldn't be a very good DVD player or a very good VHS player? I've always felt that you should stick to doing one thing, focus on it, and make it great. So really, the answer to your question "Why isn't it also a coaster counter" is "Because it's not a coaster counter."

Sorry, but we’ve already stated several times we aren’t including defunct coasters. IMO it makes no sense at all including rides that are closed and have zero relevance to a “best coasters” poll other than to be nostalgic and that isn’t what this poll is about.

I'm curious to hear from people who have tried using the system now that some of the major issues have been addressed.

But seriously, I agree with you. We'll see if that is something that is possible or we must just leave it the way it is for now...

It’s also “very annoying” when someone comes on our forum and complains about our beta test being “very annoying.” You opted into helping out. Don’t be rude about it on top of it.

I'd rather you rank them as you rode them. If they're crap now, their rank will likely reflect that. If they're so awesome it outweighs that, then we'll see that as well. First off thank you to everyone for the very valueable feedback! And also thanks to Chase for following up with many of the questions. For those of you who are asking about if you should or should not include a ride, please remember that this is technically a beta test and we will figure out a lot of those issues in time. But for now, don’t think about it too hard and as Chase said, just rank them as you’ve ridden them! If we need to add certain limits about time frame we can add that later. Thanks again!

Also, Dragon Challenge did operate in 2017...

No. This is not a list of coasters people have ridden this is going to be a poll for the best coasters. A ride that no longer exists cannot be the best coaster because it doesn’t exist so I’m not sure what the point of that would be other than to satisfy someone’s nostalgia for a lost ride and that’s not really what this is about. Again, think about how it would look presenting an award... “Dear Six Flags Over Texas your roller coaster won an award! Oh, but not the current version, the version that was torn down seven years ago...” See how that would sound? Yeah, I get that, make sense. I think I saw Dragons Challenge on the list so may want to remove it unless you want to give Universal an award for a ride they tore down It was probably there because the initial list was generated about a year ago and yes, needs to be removed.

No. This is not a list of coasters people have ridden this is going to be a poll for the best coasters. A ride that no longer exists cannot be the best coaster because it doesn’t exist so I’m not sure what the point of that would be other than to satisfy someone’s nostalgia for a lost ride and that’s not really what this is about. Again, think about how it would look presenting an award... “Dear Six Flags Over Texas your roller coaster won an award! Oh, but not the current version, the version that was torn down seven years ago...” See how that would sound?

I would actually rather not list kiddie coasters as to not encourage enthusiasts behavior to go ride them. Seriously, what is even the point of listing such coasters at Cedar Point on a ballot other than giving self-entitled bragging rights that nobody outside of the coaster geekdom world would care about? This isn't a "coaster credits" list, it's a poll to determine the best coasters in the world, which two kiddies at Cedar Point are not going to be part of.

Yes, I would at least hope so. It would just seem so silly to me that, in the event we would ever do this, we would give an award specifically to one side of Lightning Racer. "Dear Hersheypark! Your roller coaster has won a top spot in our coaster poll! Um, but only half of it..." See how dumb that sounds?

I've never even heard of that.

TPR's 2018 Coaster Poll Thread is here: https://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=76592 Please use the thread linked above for questions, comments, or feedback instead of this one. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey everyone! I have some very exciting news to share with everyone! Today we are opening our “beta test” for the TPR Coaster Poll! Please click this link: https://coasterpoll.com/ Note that you will need to create a new account specific to that page, but if you already have a forum screen name, we would ask that you use that same screen name when creating your CoasterPoll.com account. I know many of you have been missing the Mitch Hawker Poll for several years and we have been asked many times “When will TPR create their own poll?” It’s something that we have wanted to do for a while and thankfully one of our forum members “comeagain?” (aka Chase) presented us with something he was working on about a year ago. It looked GREAT! It was a poll that wasn’t a “popularly” contest meaning “he who gets the most votes wins” as it takes everyone’s riding experience into consideration when calculating the results, just like Mitch Hawker’s poll did! We would like this to be a live, active beta test. We ask everyone to treat this as though it is an actual version of the coaster poll, because it is, we will collect as many ballots as we possibly can from all of you, and then see how the entire system works and what issues come up along the way. Feel free to use this thread to ask as many questions as you’d like, make suggestions, etc. Just like Mitch’s poll you will find that not every roller coaster is included, as that would be impossible, but we have included as many relevant ones as possible. If you feel that something is missing that should be there, please let us know and we will take that into great consideration. Please note that most kiddie coasters and defunct coasters will not be part of this poll. The other thing that would really help us out… Please SHARE this link as much as you can! On your social media, on your blogs, in any videos you might produce, etc, getting as much data as possible will allow this poll to get better and better! Huge thanks to Chase for making this happen, and and even bigger THANK YOU to all of you! We appreciate your support and we look forward to seeing the results as much as I’m sure you all do. —Robb NOTE: Please keep in mind this is *NOT* a "coaster credits" list so you're not going to find a bunch of Wacky Worms and powered Dragon Wagons. If you want to include rides like that on your own personal list, that's great, but that is also not what this poll is about. UPDATE! Good News! Park links from search results work Giant list is sorted alphabetically No longer viciously caching everything and refusing to expire No longer showing (hundreds?) of duplicate notices Typo on the homepage was fixed DRAG AND DROP WORKS!!! RANKINGS CAN BE SAVED!!! So the most annoying problems hopefully have been addressed. Specifically, drag and drop actually works in Chrome (there was a change and the package had to be updated). Plus, you can actually save the rankings that you spent so much time working on. It'll auto-save after a few seconds of inactivity, but you can also save on your own if it makes you feel better. And now that you can actually see changes we make to coasters or parks, without waiting 2 hours, it's much easier to make sure things get done and corrected. UPDATE #2 Loads of work was done over the weekend and your input and feedback has been extremely helpful! Please take another look at the poll to see if you find any other errors. At the moment we are in the middle of inputting many European & Asian parks so we know some of those are missing and that data will show up in the near future. What we need specifically is any missing "major" North American coasters. We are not including Wacky Worms, Roller Skaters, etc in this poll, but if you see a major ride missing, please mention it in the thread on the forum. UPDATE #3 We should now have all major coasters in all continents around the world on the poll. At the time of this writing, that means that we have a pool of over 1,000 rankable coasters! As a reminder, the list currently includes all roller coasters that are the size of a wild mouse or greater. This means that no Dragon Wagons, no [insert manufacturer here] kids' coasters, no small Tivolis, no Wacky Worms, no small Miler coasters, and no Vekoma roller skaters. Exceptions to this rule are made, of course. If there is a coaster that is missing from the list that should be there, please make your request! When you are ranking, please also keep in mind coasters that share the same name. For example, there are six "Jungle Trailblazer" coasters listed, all at Fantawild parks, that have different layouts. Please be sure to select the correct coaster(s) if you have only been on one or a few. Parks in the same chain that share the same name (such as Happy Valley and Fantawild / Oriental Heritage) have been given regional identifiers right in their titles. We are now soliciting feedback for missing coasters and inaccuracies for any and all coasters. I'll continue to check in on the thread for this information, so please keep helping us out! UPDATE #4 You can now rank using the previous drag and drop, or you can use a new "spreadsheet" view, that's not javascript based, that allows you to sort in a few different ways, and then save everything at once. Alse: Filtering and custom sorting on the massive list of coasters. Automatically scrolls up when dragging. Doesn't renumber to #1 when dragging a second time. Can now view and share other users entire rankings. UPDATE #5 We are in the final stages of wrapping up the Coaster Poll Beta Test which will give us REAL results with a real ranking! Please be sure to "finalize" your ballot by ranking all your coasters and make sure to click the "DONE RANKING" button to officially submit your ballot. The "DONE RANKING" button is new and if you haven't updated your ballot recently and clicked that button your ballot may not get submitted! So just to be safe, go right now and check your ballot and click that button! Please click this link: https://coasterpoll.com/ Thank you!

If getting guests to come in the gate by making false promises about a ride that doesn't actually deliver them is what "works" for the British market then all I have to say to that is Brits have become just as dumb as Americans, which is depressing. Clearly when you see reviews like this posted online... You're not doing any service to satisfying the expectations of your guests...unless your guests expect that everything you tell them is going to be bullshit.