gatorchomp83

Islands of Adventure x2 Universal Studios Florida x2 Holiday World x2 Beech Bend x1 Six Flags Great Adventure x2 Hoping for a SFGAd/SFA/HP trip sometime in September and maybe SoCal in December. Planning on a 5 week Europe trip next summer so I may just scratch any plans for the rest of this year to save for that.

By far, Tennessee Tornado! Smooth, GREAT location and I have to remind myself everytime that it IS an Arrow.

This ride looks AWESOME! I was never really excited about it, from announcement, through construction and testing videos. However, after seeing the POV, I REALLY wanna get to St. Louis and ride this! The speed looks a lot faster than I would have imagined with the size, and the direction changes, as well as those consecutive bunny hops, makes the coaster seem as if it packs a very good punch!

Magnum - Painful Millennium Force - Wayyyy too much wasted speed, but still a very fun ride. Nothing like it was billed to be, however. The Beast - Borefest. (And I'm gonna get shanked for this) El Toro - Very solid #2 wood, intense and scary airtime...But there's so much lacking. I was under the impression it was the end-all to wooden coasters, but I got off the ride saying "That's it?" The first drop up until the 4th hill (which does NOTHING) is insane, and the Thunder hill is ridiculous as well. But between the 4th hill and that hill, and after the first intial turns in the Figure 8, it putters out.

Good seeing you in Jersey and Indiana, Rob! We'll probably be back up at GADv in September so I'll let you know about that. Nice pictures.

Through my experience (CP visits in 2000 and 2007; GADv visit last month) I hand it over to GADv easily. My trip to Cedar Point in 2000 was terrible. The lines were atrocious and the service was not very good. Not to mention the quality of the coasters was notches below the quantity. I came away from that trip hating the park. My visit in 2007 was a LOT better, although still left a lot to be desired. On the flipside, my two trips in one weekend to Great Adventure last month were AWESOME. The staff was friendly, the park was clean, the operations were top notch, the landscaping and setting was immaculate, and the ride selection blew CP's out of the water. My personal ranking for coasters: 1. Nitro 2. El Toro 3. Millennium Force 4. Medusa 5. Raptor 6. Kingda Ka 7. Dragster 8. Superman 9. Wicked Twister 10. Batman Both parks are very nice, but given the choice, I'd much rather spend time at GAdv.

*Didn't realize the pictures were so big...I'm going to try to resize them. Just a quick note... For anyone who has checked out my previous PTRs, I was forced to sell my old camera that took some awesome pictures so I've been relegated to the camera on my Blackberry 8310. While 2 megapixels,its still not a great camera, but you will still get the idea. ANYWAY! This was my first time to Great Adventure and I had very high expectations, as it was the one park I wanted to visit more than any other in the country; luckily enough, my roommate in Florida took a position in Delaware, only 1.25hr from the park, so we purchased season passes and spent two days in New Jersey. Our first day at the park was Friday night, and we arrived around 6pm. The park was open from 5pm-10pm for season pass holders. Choosing to go this evening was a GREAT decision as the park was essentially dead. First on the slate was Kingda Ka. Now, I have a fear of heights, and when I rode Dragster last year it freaked me out. Pulling up to the park and seeing Ka tower over everything was even more intimidating than Dragster. I'll cut out unnecessary details and give a quick breakdown of my opinions on the major rides and the park itself. Kingda Ka - More powerful than Dragster, better overall, but slightly rougher in the back. Two day total: 2 rides Rolling Thunder - Grabbed one ride on the Left side, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had heard. Not too rough and had a couple little pops of air. Medusa - My second floorless coaster, and a very good ride. Very smooth, great location and a great second half. Still prefer Kraken, however. Two day total: 3 rides Skull Mountain - This ride really surprised me! The pop of air on the first hill was not only unexpected, but great. Two day total: 2 rides Superman - Still not a great ride, and I prefer Georgia's because of location, but this ride still is fun and toys with my fear of heights and falling. Two day total: 1 ride. Scream Machine - Terrible. Two day total: 1 ride. Nitro - I'm absolutely in love with Nitro. After the first ride, I knew it was my new #1 Steel coaster, replacing SFoG's Goliath. Nitro's location is incredible. The first drop feels a lot steeper than it really is, all of the hills supply GREAT airtime (ESPECIALLY) the fourth hill, and the helix was a lot more powerful than I expected. I had high hopes for Nitro and it lived up to everything and exceeded. Two day total: 13 rides El Toro - Well, here we go. Corey and I debated this from the minute we got off our first ride (he had ridden before) until the minute we flew out of Philadelphia and went our seperate ways. Voyage was my #1 Wood/Overall heading into this trip, and remains that way afterward. Toro was a GREAT ride, I will not deny that. The airtime on the first, second and especially the third hill is unreal, however, it has too much "downtime" for me. The fourth hill does nothing, the turn into the Thunder Drop does nothing, and by the time it hits the brakes, it's puttered out a bit. BUT, those previously mentioned hills, as well as the Thunder hill, and the 2-3 turns after are insane. However, for me, it's too smooth; it doesn't feel like a wooden coaster. The headchoppers are insane as well, but to me, Voyage still delivers the perfect ride. Toro is a solid #2 wood and #3 overall. Two day total: 7 rides. On top of everything already mentioned, we grabbed credits on everything open (all coasters minus one side of Thunder and Dark Knight) and had two amazing days in the park. Everything was essentially a walk-on, or stay-on, and we had plenty of time to relax and take everything in. All in all, Great Adventure is now my favorite park, although I'm sure I'd have a different opinion of it when there were more crowds, but the landscaping was awesome. The location and staffing was awesome, and we had a great time! Onto the pictures.

Alymighty, you truly are missing out on a great park! As you noted, it is a very beautiful park, especially for Six Flags, but the ride selection is a lot better than you make it out to be! Goliath - My personal #1 steel coaster. A great mix of floater and ejector air with an insane helix. Scorcher - My favorite stand-up coaster. Very well paced and it doesn't kill like other stand-ups I've ridden (Mantis, Chang, Iron Wolf, etc). Mindbender - INCREDIBLE ride. Very under rated. Very unique, and an amazing setting. Batman - Most intense version I've ridden. Ninja - Well, yeah, Arrow garbage. Every park has their duds. Supes - Clone, yes, but nice setting. Scream Machine - A classic with a great setting and some nice pops of air. Cyclone - RIDICULOUS. LOVE this ride. You really should give the park a try.

hahaha, yeah except that she doesn't ride rollercoasters! And besides, I don't think she'd be able to keep up with us!

ACK! The 23rd is my mother's birthday. Damn...

Thanks for the comments, guys. Mission: Space is a very claustrophobic space shuttle simulation ride and is very intense (at least the orange side is, didn't try green).

We must've just missed ya'll on Sunday. We did Animal Kingdom from about 11-3 and then Epcot from 3-9 or so. Nice photos, I've got a Photo TR floating around here from this past weekend as well.

Oh definitely. Monday morning I woke up around 5:30am with a terribly dry mouth and throat and had to SCOUR the hotel for something to drink. Apparently they don't believe in drink machines in the hotel. I eventually found an open restaurant on the first floor, in a very far end corner (we were on the 10th floor) and bought Powerade for $3.

We had some hilarious on-rides pictures on Hulk, as well, but didn't get any pictures of them. I took some video on Test Track and Everest that I'll probably post sometime today.

My buddy Corey Jessup from Chicago flew down to Florida last Wednesday and came up to party with me in Tallahassee Thursday-Saturday. Saturday morning we headed to Orlando for a wild romp around the theme parks. We started the trip off with drinks at NBA City and then headed to Islands to catch a few rides on Dragons before heading over to the Studios. Revenge of the Mummy ended up being a new credit for me and I LOVED it; definitely a worthy replacement to Kong! Sunday morning, we headed out to grab some free ParkHoppers at MGM and jumped on the bus to Animal Kingdom where I picked up two new credits. Expedition Everest was AWESOME. We ended up finagling our way into a stack of FastPasses so we managed to get a few rides in. We also grabbed a ride on one side of Primeval Whirl but didn't care to wait in line for the other credit. We jumped on another bus to Epcot where we proceeded to spend the next 6.5hr Drinking Around the World, and riding Mission and Test Track. I LOVED Mission: Space, in fact we ended up getting back-to-back rides on the Orange side. It's so incredible. Test Track was it's same old self, a good time but nothing outstanding. Monday morning, we hit up Magic Kingdom before heading over to Islands of Adventure. Onto the pictures! And I leave you with this...Our only regret is we didn't get to watch this! NOT Last coaster picture for the 2007 season! You can draw your own conclusions here... I'm pretty sure this has never been taken before! Corey bartered his fries for my corn on the cob....I loveeee fries cause I'm SUCH an ACEr...Not Mmmmmm, beer and burger! The second Immelman on Fire is so ridiculous Watch your feet! I think some forgot their radio when they left the Landing... This mist was KILLER when the sun went down! Brrrrr Good afternoon, Hulk! IOA was a LOT less crowded! Except for FearFall....711 minute wait! One last shot of Cindy, and it's off to IOA! Aaaaaaand, didn't ride this either! 40min wait + DDM when we got there = Impatient Didn't ride this, either (Thank God!) Yep, didn't ride this...(Entire outside queue was full!) Thunder sounds good! Hmmm, what to do next? (Magic was PACKED today) So hilarious DAMN YOU SPLASH! In the morning... Corey: We're SO doing Splash today! (It was like 40degrees out) Me: I'm NOT riding Splash! First thing we do in Magic? Ride Splash, and get SOAKED And I wasn't very happy about that So, our tickets didn't scan so we had to wait for them to get us good ones...Corey made it in first, and as you can see, was very happy about that. Space!1 So yeah...I left my suitcase at my parents' house so I had to lug everything around in a laundry basket haha So, we couldn't find a bus back to the hotel so we had to flag down this one...The nice driver lady offered to bring us out to The Dolphin, and we had the whole bus to ourselves Veddy Nice I love this shot Possibly the best on-ride picture EVER Yeah, we're astronauts...What!? Me and Holly inside our shuttlecraft And they ended up all over me somehow Someone had the bright idea to eat chips on Test Track.... New friends! Italy and Beer #8! It was at this point where it started to get really cold, so we opted to head back to the hotel to change. Alas, we never made it out of the park as we met two different groups of people and ended up spending the rest of the night riding Test Track and Mission over and over! Momentary beer break for a picture of the ginormous golf ball Germany! (Beer #7!) Epcot's trash cans were definitely not designed too well. Me: Excuse me, do you know where there's an ATM around here? Chinese Lady: Umm, in America! Me: Uh, alright, um...Where's America? (Beer #6!) Beer #5! Hot Norwegian chicks! Beer #4! In Mexico! (Beer #2 got taken by a PhotoSpot person and we don't have the shot...Beer #3...Who knows?) These totally were all obtained legally Close-up Soooo ridiculously intense "Houston, we have a problem..." Hiding from the Yeti! Well, can't say I've never seen snow before anymore... You think the kid in the front is slightly nervous? It's so amazing looking. Photos do NOT do this ride justice! This one had some serious ups! Corey is deathly afraid of DUCKS. yes, ducks. Here we go again! Beer #1 This picture has NEVER been taken before HELLLLOOO Everest! I swear to you he spent $50 on Minnie Bars throughout the course of the trip The Tree of Life...But wait, aren't all trees life providers? And here we are at the Kingdom of Animals, where there are lions, and tigers, and dragons...Ohhh, wait... Our personal ferry to MGM! But I think I was moreso! Yeah, Corey's pretty excited about the hotel Our awesome room (with an Everest view) at The Dolphin Hotel "SHOTS!!!" before Mummy Me, Corey and his friend Chris in Suess Poseidon at night. I wanted to take a spin on it but we didn't really have time as Mummy was calling. Corey made a new friend on the trip! Welcome to Florida!

Yeah, that's not gonna happen this year haha. However, if we win out, Georgia and Tennessee lose, we'll be in Atlanta. If we win that game, we'll be somewhere WVU won't be: A BCS bowl.

Yeah, Dollywood is definitely a beautiful park. I wish you hadn't put October in that perspective...Kiiiinda depressing! I've been to every game this year except for LSU, and the Georgia game last weekend was the hardest to swallow so far. We'll be alright, though. And thanks for the comments.

So me, my roommate and my boy Daryn from Gainesville decided to make the 11 1/2hr drive to Lexington, Kentucky two weeks ago for the Florida-Kentucky football game, and during planning, realized we were going right by Dollywood. We left Tallahassee around 9am Friday morning and checked into our hotel in Kentucky about 10:30pm that night. It was a looooong drive, but I must say, the eastern side of Kentucky is a LOT nicer than the western side. I always thought Kentucky was kind of a dump, but this trip changed that opinion. After going out in downtown Lexington Friday night and spending the whole day Saturday tailgating and watching the Gators win (45-37!) we hit the beds earlier Saturday night and left for Pigeon Forge around 8am Sunday morning. We got parked and into the gates by 11:30am and headed straight to the Q2Q booth to pick up our Bot on the suggestion by Sean Flaharty. First ride of the day: THUNDERHEAD! Thunderhead was my SUPPOSED to be my #100 but come to find out later, my first coaster actually was Thunder Express, ironically at Dollywood, when I was about 10 years old, which slid Goliath into the 100 spot. I'd heard Thunderhead was a afternoon/night ride, and our first ride on it was decent but not what I was expecting. By 4:30pm when we left the park, the coaster was FLYING and shot up to my #2 spot, firmly behind Voyage. After two rides on Thunderhead, we zipped over to Mystery Mine and rode twice. What an awesomely unique ride! I HATE steep lift hills and this ride totally tripped me out. That first vertical drop was nuts and the ending sequence was incredible! Awesome ride for this park! The rest of the day was spent credit-whoring (although I skipped on the Spinach coaster, or whatever it's called) and going back to Timber Canyon for more rides. Tennessee Tornado was the easily the best Arrow coaster I've ever ridden (yes, better than Magnum!). Overall, we had a great 5 hours at the park and the Q-Bot saved our lives on a decently crowded day! My camera died about two hours after we got there, so most of the shots are just from Timber Canyon. Enjoy! Me being a tourist in Gatlinburg...With my dead camera Only in Tennessee (Part 3) Nice, cool, relaxing cave to the back of the park Looked soooooooooooo good Only in Tennessee (Part 2) The theming outside the ride, inside the ride, in the queue, the loading dock and the trains was immaculate Ground hugging! Heading back into the building Oh snap! My restraint came up! The hangtime here is ri-donkey-diculous! Well, I THOUGHT it was #100 Second row...Did you enjoy your ride? Are you alive? "Let the Thunder Roll!" Heading into the station fly-by Did not ride the Topple Tower but it was very well themed. I particularly enjoyed the beavers. Peaking thru the foliage This park is GORGEOUS...It's also the worst laid-out park I've ever been to and is confusing as all get up to navigate This vulture was giving life lessons about women and the damn bird was RIGHT ON. I videotaped him talking for about two minutes and was going to post it with this PTR but apparently I deleted the file. Grrrr. Enter If You Dare! More Thundy Perfect ride for this park! Bathroom signery Thunderhead! (Thru the leaf!) Awesome ride, awesome setting, terrible for shooting Only in Tennessee (Part 1) I totally thought the train was going to be coming from the other direction, dammit! First things first...Shower time HELLO THUNDERHEAD! Getting closer..... Definitely a great purchase! We only saw about 10 other people with these throughout the entire day. Early morning fog in the Smokies Daryn, me and my roomie after the game That's right! Hey! Nighttime falls in Kentucky A helluvalotta orange! Our defense PROBABLLLLLLLLY got burnt on this play Tailgating at the GameDay set in Lexington! BEST location, ever!

Awesome link, Ted! 1. Voyage 2. Thunderhead 3. Raven 4. Rampage 5. Cornball

Looping Star at Beech Bend. I REALLY thought I was gonna die.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I had a great time at the park and had a lot of fun shooting it, too! The only other Six Flags parks I have been to are SFKK and SFGAm. SFOG is by far my favorite one, with GAm second and SFKK a far third. The ride selection at Georgia is just awesome, as there is something to do for everyone. Mindbender isn't exactly the most photogenic coaster in the world but it is one of my favorites. Although I think I'm starting to get sliiiiightly too tall for it, as I was absolutely CRAMMED in my seat, which made for a not-so-enjoyable ride. GASM had some GREAT pops of air that I really didn't remember from years past. I must be a masochist cause I still LOVE Cyclone! The camera is a Sony DSC-H7. It's 8.1megapixels with a 15x optical zoom and has an option to shoot in 16:9 ratio 1080 HD. Oh, and GO GATORS (15 out of the last 17..for you Georgia fans )

A couple more pictures... A note on some of the shots...I've had to drastically reduce the quality for TPR's uploader to be able to upload the picture.

It's a Sony DSC-H7. I bought a Canon SD750 about three weeks ago and then saw this one. What sold me, for the price, was the 8.1megapixels and 15x zoom and it's got an adapter for extra lenses as well. So I sold the Canon (even though I prefer Canon products) and bought this and have been extremely pleased with it thus far.

Wish I had known that about Cyclone! I've always loved it because it's so brutal but today it was extra kickass. Vu was definitely closed, as the whole time we were there, the train was stuck in the middle of the cobra roll. I got a picture of it, don't know why I didn't put it up... Not going anywhere!

Seeing as Florida had a bye week, my roommate and I decided to head to Atlanta to visit Six Flags and ride Goliath. I live only four hours away, but the ride had eluded me up until this weekend. We got into Atlanta Saturday night and our friend Amanda took us out to my first strip club, and that was a helluva time. We didn't end up getting to bed until almost 5am after a nice drunken game of Ultimate Frisbee with some random people on the Georgia Tech Intramural Fields and then it was off to Six Flags and Goliath at 11am. My impressions? INCREDIBLE ride. The first three hills have awesome, sustained air. The hill which transitions into the helix has amazing air, the helix was intense and then rest of the hills in the second half of the ride all have very nice ejector air. My only disappointment was that it had taken me so long to get up to Atlanta and ride. The longest we waited during the day was 30min for Goliath in the morning when they decided to remove a train, and then put it back on about 15 minutes later. Other than that, the park was pretty much dead. Ride Count: Goliath x3 Georgia Scorcher x1 Georgia Cyclone x2 Superman x1 Great American Scream Machine x1 Mindbender x2 Batman x1 Onto the pictures! "You ain't gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell out of my trunk!" Most realistic fake foot, ever, in front of us on I-20 Alright, last coaster picture for this report.... Scorcher was feeling neglected... "Look ma! I'm sideways!" A couple more, because they're good See??? Better watch your back! I'm pretty much always locked and loaded...Beware Is it too late to get off? I kid, I kid. I love Cyclone Yeah, we're definitely about to receive some broken ribs courtesy of Cyclone Sorry, friends, but the day's almost over.... Good afternoon! Still one of my favorite inverts Yeah, you're floating from below where the picture starts...To below where the picture ends. Irresponsible mother (in HD!) Roommate (in HD!) Goliath (in HD!) Goliath thru the....You know the drill How was the ride, children? Okay, last shot of Supes, I promise More random, flying Peeps A little GASM to break up the Supermonotony "I believe I can fly!" Weeeeeeee! Nose Chopper! So intense, here. Too bad that's the only part. Oh okay, there we go; that's better! I thought this was supposed to be a flying coaster? You can see this damn thing from EVERYWHERE in the park! Yeah, put your feet to the fire...Nice. WTF, Mate?! Nice, steep lift... Almost there! Too bad they decided to transfer the trains twice, we could be those happy folks right now... Well, hello and good morning! Downward B&M Helix >>>> Upward B&M Helix If you're on the right side of the train, you get THROWN over the side in the Horseshoe turn Such a beautiful ride Okay, well, I guess we'll wait for my roommate....The first stop of many haha Okay, last one, let's head in! Batboy! I still contest this is a lot more intense than Chicagoland's Woohoo! Man, this Ultimate Frisbee thing is a LOT harder when trashed! T&A!? Hell yeah!