robbalvey

^ Well, it's not getting any lower. It was $14 when we rode in November! --Robb

I had heard they needed to push it back, but it's still happening. --Robb

^ Yes, I do this for every application. As much as I love Facebook, they have made it so it could be very annoying. I don't want to hear about any Mafia Wars or Farmville BS. I don't want to be tagged in anyone's "birthday calendars", etc. So hopefully some of these tips will sink in and make FB a better place for everyone. --Robb

Remember that today is the *LAST DAY* to send in a wood ballot. If you need help getting the ballot done or submitting it, see page 1 of this thread! --Robb

^ I think that's a bit different though. I'm talking about personal pages here.

^ Mark, you don't have to remove Bizarro. I don't think the name change really means you have to take it off if you didn't ride it. I know Elissa and I both certainly put them on my list. I don't think people took off X2 from their list if they had only ridden X. The change between these two versions of the ride isn't THAT significant to where your previous ranking would no longer apply. I mean, last time I rode X2 the audio and fire weren't working and it was pretty much the same old X as before, just with a different paint job! --Robb

I've been on Manhattan Express twice this year now and neither ride was as bad as the one from 2004. Although the ride is not smooth and it does still throw you around quite a bit.

WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS SOME CRAZY FOUL LANGUAGE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! Manhattan Express! I'm told by many that this is the end-all, be-all classic TPR video! I'll let you be the judge. Personally I like some of our music videos better but this short little POV that is the hell called "Manhattan Express" and the colorful words we use during the ride can be very hilarious! Enjoy! [coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=manhattan_express_pmws[/coastertube] I do want to note that this footage was shot in 2004 and I have been on the ride several times since and never have I experienced such a horrible ride as the one shot in this video. I'm told that the new trains did help the ride somewhat. The ride is by all means not "great" at all, but at least it doesn't kill your body like it used to!!

Ugh. I will permanently block anyone from Facebook that tags me in one of those!!!!

I have edited my original post to add more examples.

For those of us non-Disneyland Resort fanboys, what exactly is that we are looking at? To me it just looks like an explosion of water...or something that looks sort of familar to the Fantasmic screens. --Robb

^ And without a major ride like Raptor. But see, I don't really know because I haven't been to this event since 2000. I have no idea if Friday is more of the "popular night" or what. And if that's the case and everyone is pretty much gone by Saturday no reason to have anything big open anyway. --Robb

Just forget what I said about the whole general consensus thing or taking other feedback into consideration. I'm not sure I'm making my point clear enough and to be quite honest, I not even bothered to explain it futher. It just doesn't matter. I think your opinions and such are just fine. I'm more worried about someone being as injured on a ride during a TPR trip and not knowing about it. Had I known you were as injured as you say I would have made sure you got at least first aid treatment if not further medical attention. --Robb

^ I guess I just didn't realize you got that hurt on it. And I wasn't suggesting that you should base your rankings on what other people say, I was just suggesting that in some unique cases to take that into "consideration." I understand that some people can't and won't do this, and everyone has different opinions on how they rank and why they rank. And just for the record, while I don't rank The Voyage in my top 5 it does rank in what I would consider the top tier of my woodies. I only mention that because it's kind of a pet peeve of mine where people keep pointing out my ranking of The Voyage when I don't rank it that low at all. I think I have it ranked as #30 out of 163 possible woodies on Mitch's list. I actually really do like The Voyage, just not enough to rank it #1. --Robb "Who sustained probably his most painful coaster injury on his #1 woodie!" Alvey

^ Creepy avatar!!! HA! No way! Not when it pops up every now and again to give us a good laugh! XD!!!!! --Robb

ERT schedule seems a little unbalanced to me. Lots of "majors" one night, but none the next... The final ERT that closes out the event seems kind of weak I know it's just personal preference, but usually when we plan an event we like to always have a "Major" included with every ERT schedules and we try to end on the best coaster you possibly can. Do they ever pull the "surprise coaster" for ERT and add something like Dragster or Millennium Force for the final night ERT? Maybe they are worried about flushing the queue on a major for a Saturday night? But still I'd have to think that MF's line would clear pretty fast. --Robb

10-29-2012 UPDATE! While Facebook has changed quite a bit since I originally posted these "Tagging Etiquette Tips", it's interesting how this still 100% still applies today! If you find these tips tl:dr, just remember this one VERY important thing... PLEASE DO NOT TAG TERRIBLE PHOTOS OF PEOPLE IN FACEBOOK!!! Hey everyone! I wanted to pass along some of these "Facebook Etiquette Tips" in regards to tagging photos on FaceBook with all of you. There have been a LOT of photos taken during many TPR events trips this summer and I've seen quite a few photos tagged and added to several of our members FaceBook pages. I can't stress this enough - "Please review each photo before you tag someone in the photo." I kind of have a rule of thumb that says "Anyone not looking at the camera doesn't get tagged." Hopefully these following tips will help you when deciding which photos to tag (and feel free to add to this list taken from various websites about FaceBook Etiquette): - Don't tag photos of your friends on Facebook that could get them in trouble. - Don't tag your friends in unflattering photos. This is probably the best advice we can give to our readers. Tagging photos of friends dressed in old 80s fashions and with bad perms can be funny, but tagging a picture of them taken last week with food between their teeth is not so funny. - Don't "spam" your friends with photos. Remember that each photo you tag probably ends up in their "photos of me" folder and having to go into each photo and remove tags is actually a lot of work. - If you are adding a series of 1000 photos and the same person is in all 1000 photos, please, PLEASE do not tag them 1000 times!!! (unless you know for a fact they WANT to be tagged 1000 times!) - Photos should only be tagged if the people being tagged a) look their best or at least not their worst; and b) are not doing anything illegal or anything they wouldn’t want one of their Facebook friends to see. If there’s something overarchingly redeeming about the picture, post it. If it’s one of three similar shots, don’t even think about posting it. - If someone un-tags a photo that you have tagged, do not re-tag that photo again. I will repeat, IF SOMEONE UN-TAGS THEMSELVES IN A PHOTO YOU HAVE TAGGED, DO NOT RE-TAG THAT PERSON AGAIN! This is extremely annoying! - Perhaps letting people tag themselves in your photos may be a better idea. - Please take caution when tagging children (especially not your own) as some parents can be over-protective (and rightfully so) when photos of their kids are posted and tagged. - If you really, REALLY want someone to know you're posting pictures of them in your album, tag someone in the posting of the album, e.g. "Great time with @Robb Alvey and @Theme Park Review at East Coast Bash!" - Please don't post Fatbooth pictures of anyone. Ever. That app is stupid and anyone who uses it has the IQ of a poisonous frog. I want to ENCOURAGE people to post and tag photos from TPR trips and events on their Facebook page, but just please remember to post and tag the BEST photos! This is so important! I'm just trying to help make Facebook a better place for everyone else! An Example! For example, look at the picture below. (We'll use Big Mike as the example because he LOVES being in pictures!) Big Mike is the focal point of this picture (as always!) So of course he gets tagged. I put a "maybe" on rich because he's obviously the 2nd most prominent in the shot, but to be honest, it's not a great photo of him (few are) and I'm not sure he'd want this picture showing up under "My Photos." Besides, he can tag himself in this picture if he wanted to. All of my "No!" tags are people in the background. DO NOT TAG THESE PEOPLE!!! Seriously I have been tagged in a picture being that guy on the far left in the yellow shirt. WHY WOULD YOU TAG THIS PERSON?!?!? They aren't even in the picture! Remember, people can go and tag themselves in a shot if they really want to be in it. It's far less annoying to have to tag yourself in a shot you'd like to be tagged in than it is to have to un-tag yourself from a bunch of pictures you don't want to be in. And here are some examples of photos where I have been tagged in lately that I've either left the tag or removed it. Hopefully this will help you with future photo tagging... YES! It's a good photo, I'm looking at the camera, and the people being tagged are the focal points of the picture. Good tagging job! NO!!!! It's a horrible, unflattering photo of me. I'm not looking at the camera. Why would someone even post this let alone tag it? It's horrible. YES! I'm the focal point of the picture, and you can see it's a picture of "me taking a picture of someone taking a picture." It's fine. NO!!! Can you even spot Robb Alvey in this picture? I sure can't. But I guess I am somewhere because I was tagged. Annoying! YES! Again, I'm the focal point of the photo, it's a good picture of someone having fun. Great tagging job! NO!!! Similar photo, but you can't even tell that's me. Why bother tagging this one? YES! It's a picture of me. It's funny. Good work on proper use of tagging etiquette! NO! NO! NO!!!! Seriously, WTF even is this? Silhouette view of the bus? You can't make out ANYONE in this photo! But yet, I was tagged in it. Beyond terrible!!! I apologize if I've offended anyone with this update, but I just find poor use of judgment tagging Facebook photos a HUGE PET PEEVE of mine! If I want to be tagged in your photos, I'll do it myself. Thank you. --Robb 12/21/10 Update! I just want to bump this again to remind people to please once again read this post. With Facebook's new profile page, it automatically chooses 5 photos for your profile to be displayed (as of right now you cannot choose which photos those are.) I just had to weed through about 500 horribly tagged photos to delete them to find 5 good ones (and trust me, finding a good photo of me was difficult!) So please, to keep annoyance levels down, PLEASE DO NOT TAG TERRIBLE PHOTOS OF PEOPLE IN FACEBOOK!!!

I also have Tornado in my top 25. The restraints never touched me once and I probably rode it 6 or 7 times with various different weight distributions and I was unable to hold on because I was having to hold the camera equipment! I can see where some people could get whacked by them and it would affect your rankings, but 2nd worst coaster of all time? Behind Space Mountain *AND* Gouderix?!?!? C'mon! Especially for a ride where "the general consensus was that it was great" you'd think someone would give it a *little* more benefit of the doubt. For example, I ranked Piraten equal to all the other Mega-Lite's I've been on, because, even though our specific rides *THAT DAY* *THAT HOUR* *THAT MOMENT* didn't quite match up to the other three. I know that the ride has the potiential to deliver based on what I know the ride can do and what others have said, so I'll give it the nod. Not to mention that even running a bit slower it was still a kick ass ride that day! If the "the general consensus" was that the ride usually under performs the others, I'd consider ranking it lower, but when everyone else who had been on it prior, and even the park owner told us "it's running a bit slow right now" I take that into consideration. --Robb "Just surprised you ranked it THAT low!" Alvey

Eh...I guess I'm just not a theme park show person enough to care either way. I've never stepped foot into that theater at DCA and don't ever care to unless someone is passing out $100 bills at the exit. So I guess really my comments are worthless in this thread.

Here is a TPR video that we have NEVER BEFORE RELASED other than on our Coaster Expedition DVD Series! This is the first time this video has ever been made available for website viewing or download! This is from Beech Bend Park in 2007 during our MidWest Tour. I'm not going to give away too much here, other than this is pretty much what you expect most days on a TPR Trip! Enjoy! [coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=beechbend_2007_pm2i[/coastertube]

^ Right, but I think those parks may be the exception to the rule. Remember, those parks really started out as parks who's feature attractions were the shows...and then they got some rides in. Like I said in an earlier post there are very few parks, IMO, that having a high production value show actually works for them. I mean, at Dollywood, they play Sha-Kon-Oh-Hey! with a LIVE BAND! How many theme park shows do that?

When you say "I've seen a show on Broadway" have you actually seen a show on Broadway, or just a cheaper Los Angeles version of a Broadway show? I have never seen a show in a theme park that is anything near one of the top Broadway or West End shows. I've seen shows like Les Mis, Miss Saigon, Phantom, Beauty & The Beast, Sunset Blvd, etc in both Los Angeles and actually on Broadway, and I can tell you that while it's for the most part the same show, it's not the same experience. --Robb

^ Agreed. One of the reasons why I've never stepped foot into the Hyperion theater is that nothing they have ever shown in there excites me in the least bit. Partly because I'm just not a "show person" but if I want to see a show like that I'll go see a REAL show, not some theme park watered down rendition. I remember seeing the Beauty & The Beast show, One Man's Dream, etc, and just thinking "What is the point of this crap?" If you're going to put me in front of a show, let my kids sing along like in Playhouse Disney or blow stuff up like in Illuminations. If you're not letting kids interact and have fun or explosions aren't happening left and right. F**k it. I pass. --Robb

That trip report was so weird for me! I don't think I've stepped foot onto the Disney Studio lot since I last worked there in 2000...it hasn't changed... AT ALL! Was quite the flashback for me! Thanks for posting this! --Robb

I wouldn't expect anything to be shown in that theater to be any better or worse than a "Cruise Ship Show" to be honest. If you're going into a theme park show expecting Broadway, I think you're going to be dissapointed. I can't say that I've seen many theme park shows that are much better than what you see on even the better cruise ships. There have been few exceptions, but not many. --Robb