downunder

^Ditto on the management, I was talking to the PR on the way to Wild One and she was really switched on and cool, I really felt awful for her that the park wasn't working quite that well on the day. I'm looking forward to knowing what the big announcement will be and what it will mean to the park.

Excuse me, but where was any reference to race made in my trip report? Because I mentioned crack etc, am I implicitly singling out any particular race? In your mind - yes, but not in my mind. I didn't notice what races people were at SFA because I don't notice what race people are, but what I do notice is attitude and service, which was poor that day. I am a foreigner and we think everyone in America is a gun toting crack addict no matter what their race is - sorry, just stirring you all. I'm sorry if I offended you but I think you are reading too much into this. My comments are caustic but very much tongue in cheek, and I sincerely hope that SFA improves because it could be a fantastic park with a little love. Maybe we are just a little less PC downunder and for that I am thankful. I'm also acutely aware of the struggles people have because of racial discrimination in my own country and yours and I'm very much against this. I'm also very glad that race couldn't stop the best man for the job becoming President in your country.

Sux Flags America The first bad sign was that the reception of the Hotel near the park the night before had a bulletproof shield, welcome to the really superbadlands. Now if I told you we were going to a park that had 7 coasters including an Intamin hyper, a Premier spaghetti bowl, a GCI woodie, a PTC woodie, a flyer, an invert - you'd think that would stir the loins of any coaster geek. Well you get there and the Intamin and Premier are going at something considerably less than warp speed, the woodies are running about as well as SFA staff morale, and the the flyer and invert are Vekoma's & top it off the kiddie coaster is more intense than some of the former. I felt sorry for the poor PR girl as we showed up at ERT coaster 1, not working, ERT coaster 2 - come back later, of course the coaster 3 was the Vekoma which offered us plentiful rides but I settled for one. On paper this park looks great but in practice not so good. The rides don't run well when they are potentially great rides (at least some of them). Most employees look like they'd rather be an inmate at Camp X-ray than working at SFA. After our epic walk to the picnic area, so epic it would have kept Frodo and his boyfriend at home. A vote was taken on whether to leave the park early or not. You can't get much more unamimous than 100% (well I rounded screech and mike back to zero), and I hope the Six Flags people there got the message. I hate to see wasted potential, especially when there is a lot of potential. We all escaped without any scrapes or bullet holes - I'm sure getting shot is still not an excuse for being late for the bus on a TPR tour. I wonder if you have already been shot if that would make any other criminals less inclined to shoot you again later on the Greyhound you would be on trying to catch up to the TPR tour, I'll leave that one to the criminologists. Anyway, we had gone through the most nightmarish traffic ever to get to Washington, you'd think people were trying to get in early for a good spot at the Obama inaugeration. We were under siege all night at the hotel and then SFA, it was a tough 24 hours that made us appreciate everything that involved not being at SFA. Next up Busch Gardens Eurobeer. We came, we got bored, we left. The longest queue was to leave the place These guys fought for America the beautiful, America the brave, but America the bland? The best part was that up top you could see beyond the walls of SFA, there was hope, until you realised it was Capitol Heights. Whether it's Saturday night at Northies or at SFA, wonder bras always suck me in, doesn't this come under false advertising laws? This was one of the rougher SLC's I have been on, though that's like comparing being shot by different guns which was also something that you could do at SFA. The Duck looked shocked, newly gay Adam was going to keep him in a box in the luggage hold and call him the Gimp. Yosemite Sam was offering HJ's for money just to afford the Greyhound to escape. He made $4.99 from the Thunder bus. Tweety, Foghorn, & Bugs had their arms up because they were being held up by one of the kids. Where's that 4 X 2 when you need it Foghorn? The sign says "For your thrill experience enjoy one of our other coasters". Thrill, enjoy and SFA are mutually exclusive terms, fix your sign bucko. On the left sign, it says "No Line Cutting", I wondered if that prohibition extended to cutting yourself while in line, SFA was turning this slightly bronzed Aussie emo - like Gerard Way would have told me to lighten up. Roar was poor, GCI coasters are awesome but when they fall into the wrong hands; cruel, uncaring hands - don't blame Joe and the boys at GCI. Yay, win a car instead of stealing or jacking one. But a crack fix waits for no man, the car was soon gone. The Skull at SFA was like Skull Mountain except without a ride that actually works. Flo Rida was supposed to take the stage, but someone capped him in the parking lot. Wild One was rated by some prior to the trip but there was no love for TPR, or airtime, or excitement, or anything of interest. I counted it as a scenic railway credit. I thought it was going to valley at this point. The excuse for running it so slow is because there is no mid-course brake. I think it is because SFA couldn't get enough budget to pay for electricity for the launch, so they put Mr Six down there when he got retired and made him pull each train. Cool sign, but this ride was about as lively as test pattern on the golf channel. Down she goes, people adjusted their video cameras thinking they were filming in slow motion. "Come back when we care - like never, TPR bitches!" Ride of Steel ran more like a ride of macrame. I think the wheels buckled at any opportunity to give us some of that formerly trademark airtime. "Dear Lord, please stop! Ow, I was saving that kidney to donate it to save my dying mother. Ouch, my head, I can't feel my ears". Cruelly, the Vekoma Flying Dutchman was working for ERT. The first crash test dummies seemed apprehensive, this coaster is the scariest dutchman since Goldmember. The celebratory floats gathered dust waiting for the inauguration of the park being made decent again. Max (Indian name: "Dances With Glowsticks") had managed to avoid the trouser snakes on the Thunder Bus but not this fearsome creature. The entrance looked stately and colonial like the one at Six Flags New England except without any SFNE goodness after that.

^Agree with you there, I think Cedar Fair needs an exorcist to deal with their marketing department issues.

Little Laser needs a new dad so why not Laser now it's gone. Or Son of Laser, Laser's Revenge. With a CF coaster called Prowler coming out I'm waiting for them to degenerate down that path - Stalker, Chickenhawk, Backdoor Stunt Coaster.

Possessed sounds like a silly name for a coaster unless there is a significant theming tie in. Did they hire Linda Blair as a ride naming consultant or something? If this coaster was at Six Flags America it would be called Repossessed.

Thanks for that report, there's something poignant about the park in winter, I guess I'm just thinking about when it all comes alive again. I love running around the point before sun up in summer when everything is still like that when I have visited the point.

Now that I have been on Hydra, I would have to add that to the list, that jo-jo roll is the biggest pickpocket since Oliver Twist.

I love this, it is the most interesting (at least to me) ptr in ages, I was expecting you to find a derelict rollercoaster in the forest - well you did find a Jeff Johnson credit at least. I need one of those punching dummies, I'll write Windows Vista on it's forehead.

I certainly like the look of the Mid America trip, it covers places I would love to go back to like Holiday World, Indiana Beach, and Dells with some new stuff. And the departure point being a hub like Chicago is good too - at least from my point of view.

^I got some really intense rides on Chiller Robin Side, that's the side that doesn't have the top hat BTW, loved that it didn't have OTSR's. Then again I really like Flight of Fear as well, another Premier. As for CHUD, it seems to have snuck into the vernacular, like in Clerks II, Randall (in reference to Dante): "your hideous CHUD of a love child" to paraphrase.

^I wouldn't say I hate Superman, except for the pretzel loop I just think it's very bland but on the whole I'm not a fan of flyers, like I got bored of Tatsu after a while. Sigh, what was right with that picture - Chiller, it was such a good coaster even if it blacked out the county when they ran both sides at the same time. I only ever got to ride Robin and I thought that was pretty good. As far as photo taking goes, I have been pretty lazy on TPR trips because I am so busy. I think to take good photos you really have to set aside some time to go around the park and just do photos which I wasn't really prepared to make time for. The rain put paid to that at GAdv anyway - there was hardly anything running and I generally prefer to snap rides when they are going. You know I've never actually seen CHUD but I have heard about it, I would say that seeing CHUD isn't on my bucket list.

Six Flags Great Adventure Part 2 Here's part 2, not much to say, it rained and didn't stop. We left early into the most hellish traffic I have ever seen when we were passing through Washington. There were so many cars you'd think they were fleeing a pending nuclear strike on Washington. Anyway I did do Dance Dance Revolution for the first time ever, I did alright, though I think my best steps are still on the football field. See if you can spot the retro photos. Yes, the weather was much better in my dreams. That was until I found myself with an ex on a lifeboat on the Titanic, WTF, very strange dream, I'm sure Freud would have got something out of it. NEXT REPORT: Sux Flags Awful. While I was asleep during my Dark Knight marathon I dreamed of happier times. PETA tried freeing this tiger but when they broke in they found out it was just a hologram. Though I wonder what are the native animals of New Jersey - the CHUD, mutant sewer rat, Jon Bon Jovi? Batman soars before the deluge, ubiquitous but always fun and intense. As far as superhero coasters go, I'm still waiting for a Blankman Coaster, and what about the Hebrew Hammer? Not for much longer, I think GAdv must have hired the guy from Cedar Point to do their rain policy. Even indoor coasters close, and everything else - the similarities to Cedar Point are startling. My humps, my humps, my humps, my lovely coaster lumps. Supreme coaster porn, somewhere in an internet kiosk a coaster geek gets over excited, and the jizz mopper is called in. What is wrong with this picture but oh so right? I ran into The Phantom in the skull cave, I complimented him on a rather impressive head butt in the last Phantom film. Believe it or not, this thing actually shuts in the rain, the explanation from a ride op required 5 years of electrical engineering to fully comprehend. It does look good, my camera can't stop taking photos of it - good looking but boring, I know that a little too well. Standard GAdv car park shot, well what did you expect, I'm not Annie Leibowitz just Neville Nobody from Australia. I was worried more about not getting eaten by a shark or envenomated by ugly bitey things when I get home. Superman wasn't going to be flying for much longer, rain stops this thing better than a shipload of Kryptonite. It's amazing how these coasters consistently get 2 hour lines but I guess mediocrity is always popular if it's packaged right. Nitro, better known as Nyquil offered relaxation and a nice view. A cool coaster but I prefer the monster ejector air on the other side of the park. After 5 visits I had finally found this thing (not that I looked that hard), new credit, ka-ching. Scott has a look on his face like he just found the mother-lode. I love you Gold Q-bot even if you were only informing me that everything except Dark Knight and something else crappy were the only things open. If only I could have a Gold Q-bot for life in general but that's what being rich and/or famous is for. The Scream Machine is defintely not a Great American like Will Smith, The Fresh Prince, Homer Simpson, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. More like Godawful Arrow Spine Annihlator - anyway the rain would soon stop the abuse for the day.

To paraphrase Living Color: Now you can tear a coaster down But you can't erase a memory This coaster may look all broke down But it has a value you can't see It was my 300th coaster credit you mofos! Actually Phoenix should have been, but my coaster counting went awry by +1. I'll have to post up the POV when I get to Knoebels on my East Coast trip report. Now let's see if Golden Nugget turns up - here's hoping.

What are you thinking for North-East Robb? Knoebels, Compounce (assuming un de-sexed Dash), SFNE, SFGAdv would be a perfect trip on their own.

^Australia - should be OK as long as you don't go swimming, we've got a bit of a shark problem at the moment, Australia should should renamed Amity.

Wow, a glory hole with a t-rex (not the Marc Bolan kind) on the other side, ouch!

So does this mean Ryan will be able to actually get that thing going at 88 mph? If so, I have some time travel requests: *I need to go back in time to the Phoenix and Boulder Dash ERT sessions. *There's some investments and bets I need to make in 1987 *There's also this Nirvana gig in 1992 in Sydney I'd like to catch I'll let you know the rest later.

Does Fuji-Queue have good views of Mt Fuji, if so, maybe they think people want to stand around looking at Mt Fuji, and have long lines to faciltate this? I wouldn't mind giving Euthenasia (the coaster, that is), Fujiyama, and Dodonpa a go, but not for the amount of travel and tolerance that would be required to do it.

I last rode a coaster in August 2008, and won't ride another one until June 2009. As a semi enthusiast, I didn't ride a coaster between 1994 and 2001. I also didn't ride a coaster once in 6 years of high school.

In terms of operations, is Fuji-Queue the worst park in the civilised world?

^Millennium Force is a good example of a coaster where the experience has changed for me over the years, in 2003 it was mind blowing but by 2007 it was crawling over those airtime hills. And boy does a strong headwind slow down Magnum on the bunny hill run but not enough to not totally neuter a first time rider friend who I recommended the ejector seat too.

What - Revolution or Viper? Sorry, just stirring, I couldn't resist, they are the tow coasters physically in between X and Tatsu.

^One of my great fears, we'll have to start a protest movement. Does Pamela Anderson count as a ride at the Santa Monica Pier, if so, I'll have to change my vote.

One other facor I forgot to mention is where on the train you ride the coaster, I've had some very different rides on different rows, and possibly different trains if I had been taking notice. My Beast rides have been horrible but I hear it is much better on a non wheel seat, which I didn't do. Also Cornball Express was 10 times better in the back than anywhere else. Kingda Ka, beyond the first couple of rows was terrible, shakier than Robert Downey Jr in a dry county.