downunder

Ah, I don't remember my first 'rang (too young), but I do remember what it was: Titan at World Expo Park in Brisbane. Which I then rode as Demon in Sydney, and Zoomerang in Alabama. Hopefully there won't be another place I can ride it, and it will be left to rust in pieces in the deepest darkest pit of hell. In all seriousness, they pull some good g's on the drop. Though the restraints, like the SLC's, seem designed for maximal cranial damage - I didn't think the newer vekoma trains at Power Park in Finland were much of an improvement in that respect.

Amazingly I actually rode coasters in October, only a few so it's worth ranking them: 1. Xcelerator 2. Revenge Of The Mummy (Hollywood) 3. Ghostrider (front row only) 4. Canyon Blaster (Circus Circus) 5. Scandia Screamer (new credit) 6. Merlin's Revenge (Castle Park, new credit, other 2 credits closed - boooo!) 7. Little Dipper Coaster (Scandia, new credit)

I've been to both, and I much prefer Hollywood. Orlando has excellent sets in the mazes, but they seem to go more for spooky than scares. The Hollywood scare-actors come after you like you killed their family. I think USH's lack of space works in their favour because almost the whole park is Halloweened out, there's not much room to have any dead spots. I have to admit I liked the mormon Polygamy reference in the B & T show. It was something like Romney: "my wife would get me a sandwich" and the response "which one".

^^At the 2 sessions of Bill and Ted I went to, the Mormon references were well received. Obama didn't get off scot-free either. Props to the zombie guy just before the entry of walking dead hiding behind the van, that guy was on fire.

Went last night, and I've got to say the VIP offering was much improved. While there was no Rat Lady (at least I didn't see her) or scary keyboard dude at the VIP lounge - the food was much better, it was an actual dinner. The tour was also improved, in a nutshell, you do King Kong 3D and then get told scary stories and walk around Jaws lake (different to where they went last year), then you're dropped off at the beginning of the Terror Tram. Throughput at Gate A has greatly improved because Front of Line people have barcodes instead of punch cards - which slowed things down last year. VIP's get the usual lanyard, but also a wristband with a barcode. The mazes were good, though I didn't think Silent Hill came close to the Hostel or Saw that previously occupied that area on my previous years visits. Walking Dead had great energy, and the worst I noticed the line was 160 minutes, you could watch a few episodes of the show on a tablet while queueing. Dubstep was a surprise, the music reminded a lot of the soundtracks of a lot of old Dario Argento horror films, just with scratchy records added - definitely the best overlay of the House of Horrors I've seen. Alice Cooper had great colour and variation, La Llorona was changed up nicely and Texas Chainsaw Massacre worked well and had some very good rooms. Bill and Ted focused a bit more on comedy than musical numbers this year, and it wasn't bad.

^I'm doing the VIP thing next week, do they do regular food and then change over to desserts at 10pm like last year? Where is the lounge located this year? If rat lady is back I'll let that be a surprise.

Wow, thanks for the report. I'm booked in for 2 nights at Scary Farm, I have the option for a 3rd night which I may have to exercise.

Happy to help. I guess the big thing is whether you are happy with doing mazes once or twice, or a lot of times for FOL vs VIP. Gonna be a blast, that's for sure. Edit (9/15/12): I forgot to mention that you get Valet Parking as well with the VIP, I didn't use it because I was staying onsite.

I did the VIP at Hollywood last year and will be again this year, mainly because I was coming from overseas and have a limited time window to attend the event, and like to go through the mazes as many times as possible because there is so much to take in. I'm glad they at least have some form of unlimited Front of line, lack of at Florida really turns me off going. Running through the VIP experience from memory. You get priority access to the event, of course unlimited front of line - though on the busier night I found there was congestion at the FOL entrance because all the FOL pass people enter through the same access point and they have get a whole punched in their card. I think VIP also had a separate seating for the Bill and Ted show, apart from regular FOL. The lounge was nice, they have free drinks (including a couple of alcoholic beverages) and food, after 10 pm the food changed to deserts. And periodically through the night they wheeled in a lady dressed as vampire in a glass coffin full of real rats, and there was another guy playing tunes on some kind of organ. The extra tour was okay, you do King Kong 3D, and they walk you through a few darkened sets - that part could have been better. So it's not a bad deal the extras on top of the one entry FOL being: the lounge, unlimited FOL & the exclusive tour. Like Joey said if you get there early, you can get a hell of a lot done before the lines build up, especially in the lower lot. Hope you have a great time at HHN, I'm really looking forward to it myself.

As posted previously, McKamey Manor looks absolutely insane. I'm going to try and get to Sinister Pointe this year, it sounds so cool. The 13th Floor at Circus Circus casino is fun, 13 rooms with something scary in them, and last year you were involved in an exorcism that goes wrong. Eli Roth's Goratorium is a year round haunt that will be opening on the Las Vegas strip this month.

^If you're in New York. There's an NJ Transit bus that goes straight to SFGAdv from the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street, they say they leave at 9am, but the first bus leaves at 7.30am - I've used it many times. I think there's a similar bus from Newark as well. The good thing about New York is that Six Flags New England is pretty easy to get to by public transport as well.

Rot in Pieces, you Son of a B*tch. Though Son Of Beast has the distinction of being the only coaster I've seen boobies on. They could raise a lot of money selling places in the demolition crew to the public, probably enough to put in an Intamin Prefab.

To quote Murdy on twitter regarding Hollywood: It sounds to me that Orlando is getting what Hollywood had last year, and Hollywood is doing a new 3D maze.

I just take into account what all the fanboys like and rate my top coasters based on what would appease them. So it would go: Voyage, Prowler. In all seriousness, I find the coasters that I enjoy most are the airtime monsters and they dominate my top ten. There's always a delicate balance between number of quality elements versus the best quality elements, but less quality elements. I think at the moment my top ten is: El Toro (less quality elements but the good stuff is wow), Balder, Phoenix, GeForce, Boulder Dash, NTag, SFNE Bizarro, Piraten, Walibi Goliath, & X2.

Who designed that ride, Mr Garrison from South Park? It's just such a comically unfortunate mishap for the guy. Knowing a few nurses, they tell me about the number of people who come to hospital with similar injuries that they try portray as accidents (not this Swedish guy of course). It's so prevalent, a lot of comedy shows use the scenario. The best one in real I got told about from the medical fraternity: tThe dude slipped over in the bathroom and fell on an aerosole can and it got stuck. She noted to me they the top was taped up. Hope that's not too rude for the forum.

Great reports. Ocean Park is the only Asian Park I've been to. I went there when I was very young, and Dragon could possibly have been my first looping coaster. I agree with you on Thorpe - they have some very good coasters I really liked: Saw, Colossus, Nemesis Inferno & Stealth, and I'm sure Swarm is very good too. X: No Way Out was more X: No Way In - they seemed to hold everyone in the outside queue, and when I finally got to the coaster there was no one there. For me, Alton has one amazing coaster (I rode it at least 25 times on my visit), but I found everything else just okay at best - gorgeous park though.

Damn, someone beat me to it. This ride will be very popular with a large number of TPR members. First we had Backdraft. Now we've got "Backdoor: The Ride".

^It's $60, but you can take up to 6 people in a group, then it would come to $10 a head. I'll be doing it for sure.

A random Wacky Wrom at an insane carnival in a park behind the Louvre in Paris on July 1, completely unexpected as I was in Paris to sightsee. That carnival might even warrant a trip report. Ah, the Wacky Worm speaks the international language of credit whores.

I really liked that coaster and that's only based on the Robin side. Hopefully they'll be able to keep it running.

I wasn't in this line, but it's worth mentioning because of it's sheer horror. Last week 2-3 hours in the sun for Goudirix at Parc Asterix, but it was French people so I have no sympathy. Kingda Ka in 2006, before I discovered the joy of qbots, the line moved slower than an ACEr in a 400 metre sprint.

Alice Cooper was really good last year in Hollywood, it would be a plus for Orlando. Though they'd have to match the energy of the performers in Hollywood. That little kid from walking dead was so annoying and got do many of them killed, if anyone sees him at HHN give him a good spanking. Walking Dead has enough action to make a scary maze. Zombie Awareness Program in 2010 had some zombies on the loose rooms that were really unnerving, and that was a comedy maze.

Just toured Europe and didn't ride a single boomerang, the joy, but I did ride Goudurix which more than made up for that.

Novgorod for me, followed by Mystery Mine, and SAW (which surprised me how good it was). The only other two I've been on are Vild Svinet & Untamed.

B & M: Iron Wolf - definitely in the "please make it stop" category of coaster, you're doing well if you're standing up after this stand-up coaster. Intamin: Flashback - passed around Six Flags parks like a newbie in the prison showers, now if we could name one thing Magic Mountain really got right - it was sending in team demo - rust in pieces most mediocre Intamin. GCI: Gwazi - Jackhammer would have been a more apt name. Vertebrae are no match for soul crushing, should-be-sawdust, cruel coaster.