Philrad71

Really hoping that he plays this one when we go to see him next month at the Albright Knox Art Museum in Buffalo.

^ Wow...that is funny how we were just talking about that a couple of weeks ago in Branson! I have actually never tried either one of those - are they any good? As mentioned, I love their IPA, 2XIPA and Unearthly so much that this about the only 12 I buy anymore...keep your eyes out for this one! It's like $24.99 for a 12 pack, but it's sooooo worth it if you like strong IPA's! I wish that they still had Gemini instead of 2Xsmash, but that one has grown on me.

^ Me too. I have had the ones on the main midway as well as the location over by Windseeker, but they don't taste as good for whatever reason. Maybe I had gotten ones from those two locations that sat under the heat lamp too long or something.

Opening this thread reminded me that it's almost beer-thirty. Cheers!

Chickie and Pete's are good, but I prefer the cheese fries across from Gemini myself. Cheesy goodness. Sure they are a heart attack waiting to happen, but if you have folks to split them with, it shouldn't clog your arteries too much. Happy Friar if you like corn dogs and the even more incredibly unhealthy - cheese on a stick. Make sure that if you order this that you go all in and get the cheese dipping sauce to go with it. LOL!

Great start, Bert! Yes, upper 80's in May around here is virtually unheard of. It's down to a cool 66 and cloudy right now. More seasonable for around here, I suppose - although I prefer temps to be around 80 and sunny. Glad that you had great weather!

Hehe - given that I have seen NF a million times, I can go without. But on the flip side, there are tons of people that never have witnessed it, so I say upload all that you want, Bert! Looking forward to your report!

^^^^^ Oh my- where to even start with this one... I admit that there were a lot of closed rides when we visited a few weeks ago, but I already knew about Shazam and Excalibur being down for refurb. The rest I chalked up to early season hiccups. As far as Justice League - when you look at the high tech rides that are coming out these days, is it really that much of a surprise that a ride would go down time to time for maintenance or to replace a part? Just check out all the posts about Steel Vengeance in the CP thread or Lightning Rod in the Dollywood thread - this stuff happens ALL THE TIME with new rides/technology! I really don't understand your logic on Shazam. Would it make sense for you to go out an buy a new car because it needs new brakes? Of course not, so why would the park invest in a new Scrambler when they are likely refurbishing this ride for half the cost of buying a new one. And I am sure that folks at SF are smart enough to do a cost analysis of replacing old with new or doing a refurb. Andrew already commented on Namtab, and he is absolutely spot-on. So you are calling out foreign kids AND a young man with a disability? If you know anything about businesses in America, they are not legally able to profile anyone for race, religion, sexual preference, disability, gender or age. This isn't the 1800's where American's scorn or "shelter" people of difference ethnicity or someone with a disability. This is why I dislike people. READ what the deals offer (and don't offer) before looking like a douche in front of your kids, other guests and management. You have no one to blame but yourself on this faux pas. All you needed to do was speak with him in a friendly attitude and admit that you didn't see that it was online only and is there a way that we could refund the money? I applaud this young employee for being such a professional in this situation. Soooo...what was disappointing about the show if the singing was tolerable, it was funny and they had A/C? Most theme park shows aren't the 2nd coming of Broadway, but they ARE normally fun to watch and offer a great way to beat the heat on hot days. Given that it's still the beginning of the season, I am sure that there are kinks to work out. So basically the only thing in common that I see with my report and yours was the comment on the poor food service. And I chalked that one up as another early season hiccup, that should probably get better as employees gain more experience with their jobs. Other than that, we actually enjoyed EVERYTHING about our day (well, except for the beating that I took on The Boss). We knew going in that it was early season and that there would be kinks and bugs to be worked out, so there really was no disappointment. We went and had a great time and really enjoyed our first visit to this park. As others have said, they are really only one big coaster away from being a REALLY great park.

So it sounds as if Marineland hasn't changed much since we visited. Glad to hear that they are adding something new though! We're actually at the ER now. Michael's condition has worsened, so his doctor recommended this as precaution. BP is low and he's running a temperature. They think that it might be CHF, but they're running all the tests now. Safe travels home, Bert...we also hope to be home soon.

Glad that you had a great time at Marineland, Bert! It sounds encouraging if they are putting $$ & effort to properly maintain the park. A new ride or attraction would be great as it seems like forever since they have added anything. How long are you in NF? While it would have been awesome to meet up with you guys for an afternoon, unfortunately Michael's been having some issues which involved a bunch of hospital tests yesterday. I think that it's a reaction to a new med he just started taking, but we'll hopefully have his test results back tomorrow. Funny that we were just talking about a possible visit to San Antonio (in the future) tonight and your post popped in about being in Niagara Falls. If we get to SA, we're definitely hooking up at SFFT and/or drinks at the Riverwalk Have fun on your trip...looking forward to your trip report!

^ Nice catch, Andrew...thank you for keeping me on my toes! The Hampton that has the Nancy's pizza next to it was actually in Litchfield, Ill off of I-55 just south of Springfield. Rolla was the next Hampton that we stayed at the evening after we left SfStL. We ended up having dinner at B-Dubs that night as I didn't see a lot of local offerings and we just wanted something light and a cold beer. While the food was not photo-worthy, we did have a neat time sitting out on their patio drinking beer, eating and watching a really cool lightning storm over the hills. We made it out of there just in time to get into the car before all hell broke loose. We ended up waiting it out in the Hampton parking lot for the torrential rain and wind to stop before we went up to our room...it certainly was an interesting evening!

Great start, Bill...looking forward to the rest!

We were also looking for SfStL merch as we always try to get a fridge magnet and ornament for our tree - no luck finding either in any of the gift shops at the front of the park. I agree about all of the Marvel stuff...if I wanted to buy that, I would just head down to the local Wal-Mart. Well actually I wouldn't, but you get the point. ^ Excalibur has been closed all season for refurb.

^ That wouldn't surprise me. A friend that used to live here that now lives in Seattle said that once it showed up there, it started showing up more and more at stores and bars. That's pretty impressive given how big the craft beer scene is in the upper Northwest. Buy it and they will come, I suppose!

That settles it...we're going back to Florida ASAP!

^ I would have LOVED to have gotten to ride their coasters in the dark - so jealous of you! And yes, Powder Keg was a great surprise. I had read about how awesome it was, but my expectations were blown away at just how fun this odd coaster really is! PS - you must have thighs of steel to ride Outlaw Run 30 times...I think I rode it about ten times in two days and my thighs were pretty sore from it. Although that is not a bad thing...no complaints from me!

I had a similar problem about a month or two ago where I would just see the word 'image' - and You Tube videos wouldn't load on the site either. Sometimes a refresh would work and sometimes not. It's been working just fine lately in that regard, so I'm not sure if it was fixed during a Windows update or something? Although I now (for the past three weeks) have had a Windows update that seems to be sticking at 49% before it undoes what it loaded because it says that it can't perform the update. It sucks because I can't even disable the update, so once it starts, I need to wait for it to do its thing, which is to try and update four times before it will finally boot back to my home screen. I have searched online (not recently though) and done all of the t/s that I can think of...weird. Even my tech-savvy friends weren't able to figure this one out.

^ A quick peek at the website didn't show a parent swap program available, but maybe other frequent visitors might know more info. As far as getting through the park in one day, that "shouldn't" be a problem for you as the park isn't all that large. If you're planning on spending a lot of time in the water park, however...that could slow things down because if it's sunny and warm, lines for the slides can get insane. And if there is a concert that night, be prepared for large crowds and one train operations on their coasters. If you can somehow plan your visit on a weekday when there isn't a concert, crowds shouldn't be too bad.

Thanks for the comments, guys...appreciate them!

Ooops...I got out of sequence and forgot a food update. For shame! LOL After we left Springfield, we stayed at a Hampton in Rolla, MO which is about an hour or so from St. Louis. This place was within walking distance, so we decided to check it out. Anyone ever been to one of these before? While I am sure that there are tons of Chicago deep dish places where you could probably get better in Chi-Town, Michael and I were both very pleased with Nancy's pizza! Believe it or not, Michael had never had Chicago deep-dish pizza before and while he was apprehensive (he's a thin crust guy), he ended up loving it! This had pepperoni, mushroom and green olives...soooo good!

We need to get back to Wildwood - it has been way too long! Mudhen's beer, drink and food selection look amazing!

^ That's what I was afraid of with the chocolate mint one as well. I usually stick with their IPA's as they do release a lot of funky stuff like that as well. Currently sampling Release #3 of their Science Is The Art series - The Psychic Laser, which is an unfiltered double IPA. Good stuff!

Chilling out on the back deck having a cold beer listening to Across The River - Bruce Hornsby And The Range. Have the Bose wi-fi speaker/My Amazon Music set on random. Mellow, but satisfying.

^^ Hey, that's awesome, Andrew!! I haven't tried this one yet...what did you think of it? They have another one in this series that's chocolate mint...sounds interesting, but I'm a bit skeptical. Being all commercial here today having a Corona and lime. It's 80 degrees outside and going down pretty good though!

^ LOL! Everything sounds and looks amazing...thanks for sharing, Chuck!