milst1

I've shown you a Lakeside shirt, but "Not to See Elitch's is Not to See Denver"!

From my home state of New Jersey!

From my home state of New Jersey!

This was also a gift to me, from friends who were grateful that I took their teenage son onto KK, because they would have none of it!

I forgot that this was a gift; you're so right, Bill, a very nice gesture!

Resurrecting this thread after 6 months of inactivity! Here's a shirt from the TPR Scandi Trip and the only repeat park so far, Fårup.

^^^ Yeah, good question. I guess it was that the first Skeleton Key that I used in the Asylum (in the bathroom) was so fucked up that I just didn't want to deal with it anymore. I had just flown in and I was tired, and I was by myself. I tried to make friends with a park-goer or two, but it was all kids and they just looked at me like the creepy middle-aged man that I am. But I still had a good time, even without the Skeleton Keys. My favorites were Mr. Cleaver's, Chateau, and Zombie High.

^^^ Thanks. It was great to be back in Minnesota. I couldn't believe how much things had changed since 1991.

First coaster this year was Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disneyland on January 15th, and last coaster was Drachenritt at Belantis on Saturday October 11th.

I made a weekend trip to the Twin Cities for a fraternity anniversary event (I spent 3 years doing graduate economics at the University of Minnesota 1989-1991) and I just couldn't go another day without a theme park, so I headed to Shakopee for ValleyScare's Halloween Haunt! And I had a lot of fun! It's a fairly brief report, but I hope you enjoy! Welcome to Halloween Haunt at ValleyScare! It's really cold here! It was in the low 40s, but felt like the 30s with the wind chill. Plus there was some light freezing rain! It wasn't too busy, probably because of the weather. I had a Fast Lane and a Fright Lane, but I barely used them. Remember, no readmission after 7pm! Does this mean that if I left my camera in my car, I can't go back and get it? I think it does. Here was my Fright Lane pass. It had "skeleton keys", which unlocked special rooms in some of the mazes. Here was my map of the frights. But first, I'm freaking starving!!! I stopped for deep-fried cheese curds on the way to Coasters Restaurant. Man, these are so good, but I've only seen them at the Minnesota parks and at fairs. Dinner is served at Coasters. I got the veggie burger thing, which I think had more calories than a regular burger. The fries were good, but I'm sorry, Red Gold will never be as good as Heinz. My first stop was at Mr. Cleaver's Bloodshed, a really good maze with a slaughterhouse theme. Well done! Here's the exterior. I'm sorry that I'm not a good night photographer, so apologies in advance for this crap. There were some nice set scenes to set the mood. Of course my photos don't do it justice. The park was relatively empty, so it was really pretty spooky. A funeral. This guy was at the corn maze. A graveyard for former rides. Even Snoopy wants to get in on the act! And his satanist tendencies are finally exposed. I love these kinds of little touches. Here is my one decent picture of the Hellside Farm sign. I love the guys dressed in corn husks who jump off the walls to scare you. I don't have good pictures, but I also really liked Chateuau du Damne, a kind of Vampire L'Estat house. Great scare-acting. There were also some "scare zones", which were just haunted areas you had to pass through to get around. There were creepy soundtracks too. Here's the back side of my Fright Lane pass. I only used it twice, and I only used one Skeleton Key, which was disturbing enough that I didn't want to use another. Go ahead, call me a wuss. I can take it. Of course I got a few rides in. High Roller and Renegade were running really really well. Maybe it was the cold and rain? I need to bump Renegade up in my rankings. It was crazy in the dark with the freezing rain. One of my favorite things was this show, Ritual of Fire. It's hard to describe. It was a Stomp-like drumming show, then a fire/dance show, and then a little human sacrifice was mixed in. I watched part of a show and then watched the entire next show. This is the best still photo I have; I did shoot a bunch of decent video, but I'm not sure how to share it here. There was also a very good and very funny improv show after this in the indoor theater nearby. Wait, is the light on? Rockin Cherry dippin' dots!!!! I don't care how cold it is! Thanks for visiting ValleyScare with me!

Curse you, Larry Gator!!!

There used to be a Zipper at Coney Island in Brooklyn, and someone actually made a documentary about Coney Island's recent changes using the Zipper as the centerpiece of the film.

We went to three fairs this summer (Wisconsin, Washington, and the Brookhaven Exchange Club), and I'm still living off of the calories gained by THINKING about some of the food there!

Same here, in 1995, one year after it opened. Blew me away.

Cheryl and I did a weird little trip that brought us to the great Midwest and then down to the Deep South! We hope you enjoy! We started with a flight from New York to Chicago. First we went to Santa's Village AZoosment Park, which we've visited before, but now they have a new credit. And it's down. Apparently it hasn't yet opened while it waits for a state inspection, or something along those lines. Oh well. Next stop was Donley's Wild West Town. This was a lot nicer than Fort Jefferson Fun Park in New Hampshire, which was more like a ghost town. Non-lethal archery. Here's the cute little credit. I know we get shit for riding this stuff, but these things can actually be very scary and painful, and this one was. Nice train ride with good narration (although the PA system was a little fritzy) This did not stop Cheryl from sleeping on the flight. Donley's also has an interesting museum full of 19th and early 20th C. artifacts, like these Edison recordings. And these civil war relics. It was interesting and we spent some time in here. Next stop was Great America in Gurnee, IL. We feared the worst after TPR's trip. I know it's expensive, but it's worth it to retain my sanity. I know these aren't anything special, but I liked this ride. Here's the main reason for visiting. I don't know if I could handle it. I'm getting too old. I think we got two rides in, one in the 2nd row and one in the back. We really liked it, but I don't think it's in my Top Ten, not after two rides. OTOH, if this was my home park, I'd be trying to get on it as much as I could. I think this is only our second RMC coaster. The other is IRat. Definitely looking to ride some more of these. Healthy dining options. I think I had started my serious dieting by this point. Kinda cool if you're into DC. Here's where Ragin' Cajun used to be. They've done nothing with the space. This themed section leaves a lot to be desired, 10 years later. We stayed late and rode a bunch more stuff. The next morning we hit the Wisconsin State Fair, thanks to the tip from Matt and Lauren. omg While we still don't count powered, we have started to count fair coasters, mainly because Coaster-Count makes it possible to keep track, and it's actually a little bit fun to get to know which showmen are operating and what kinds of rides they tour with. This is owned by Showtime Rides in Texas, and I met the owner, who was very nice. Comet II used to be at the Texas State Fairgrounds, but now it travels with Wade Shows. Unfortunately it was down. We found some other interesting rides, like this dark ride. Here's one you don't see every day, a Zipper. We took a stroll through the animal barns. Wisconsin's motto is "Smell our Dairy Air". lol They were actually blow drying and styling the cows for the contests. We saw a lot of cool Clydesdales in another barn. This is a very huge fair. Best of both worlds! So much good food. Our next stop was the infamous Little Amerricka, which we'd never visited before. Price board for 2014. They have this kiddie... A decent kid/family woodie, but I wanted to kill the operator, who was more interested in his lame comedy than actually dispatching trains. The sun was blazing and there was no shade in the queue. Moron. Allan Herschell Mad Mouse, the model from which Chinese knock-offs are derived. Then there's one of these. They don't make 'em like this anymore. This one had another "great" operator. On the plus side, Little Amerricka had a pretty amazing train. Definitely one of the longer amusement park train rides I've ever seen. Now if they would just put backs on the benches. Speaking of trains, we found another at our next stop in Wisconsin, Bay Beach Amusement Park. This was another nice train ride, along the bay's shores. But the real reason to visit is for "Elvis Favorite Ride" [sic] We really liked Zippin Pippin and rerode it a bunch. There's one super ejector point that broke our femurs, but once we knew what to expect, we were fine. So long to Bay Beach. After a nice meal, we were up early in the AM to fly to Jackson, Mississippi. Ten minutes after picking up the rental car in Jackson, MS, a rock hit our windshield. Thanks to this truck. We then drove to Brookhaven, MS, the home of the house with the coffee pot on top. Apparently this was the nation's first fast food restaurant ever. The National Exchange Club is a service organization, albeit less well known than Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Club, and the like. We were here for the Brookhaven, MS Exchange Club Fair. FYI, Kiwanis and Rotary each operate small amusement parks in California, and this is the only other permanent coaster that I know of that is operated by a service organization. But this one is only open one week per year. Here's the credit. Some crazy rides here! Another excellent train. How are you supposed to drive that home? What happened to the fish in a plastic bag? Scene from the air. Thank you Brookhaven Exchange Club. They were very nice when we introduced ourself. Of course they remembered Big Mike Betzler, who got them to run the coaster when the fair wasn't going on! We did some other cool Mississippi stuff, like sleep in a plantation house... ...visit an Indian Burial Mound... ...see another plantation house that had burned down... ...saw the Vicksburg National Military Park, and a bunch of other things. See my California's Great America shirt, meant to confuse everyone. Thanks for sharing this trip with us! Hope you enjoyed it!

Great stuff!

We were ambivalent but some weather issues also factored in. We needed the kiddie at Compounce, not that we would get it. We haven't ridden Superman at SFNE since the changeover to Bizarro, not that anyone has cheered about that. OTOH, I know George Frantzis (owner) and Ron Gustafson (Dir. Mktg/PR) at Quassy, and I like to support that park. My mom used to live near there, but she's since moved away and there are fewer opportunities to visit. Ah, c'est la vie.

Yes, we're weird. Actually, we were under a time constraint, and it's a long way up to Northern NH. We've been to the Connecticut parks and SFNE so that's where we had to sacrifice. We missed one credit at SFNE, but it's in the neighborhood so we'll get it at some point.

Thanks, Victor! The report has some gaping holes, namely Quassy, SFNE, and Lake Compounce in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Here is Part II! This coaster has a great front piece. It's a short train, and there's only one, so the capacity is a bit limited. But people are having fun. Nice splash battle type ride. Polar Coaster is the other credit. Hopkins! Our last park of the trip was Fort Jefferson Fun Park, formerly know as Six Gun City. I'm not sure why they changed the name. RCDB says that the park was up for sale in the recent past but the same family still owns it. The park has been open since 1957, and it has definitely seen better days. Gold Rush Express is the credit. We found horses but we weren't sure of their purpose. It was a Monday and the place was dead, but there didn't seem to be much to do. The place is decaying. On the other hand, there was at least one sign of "investment". And there's a new sign covering up the old one. For those wondering, I definitely chickened out and did not attempt to drive up to Mount Washington. Thank you so much for enjoying our trip with us!!!!! Hope you liked it!!!

We've done so much travelling this summer that the photos have stacked up and I'm way behind. This might be my last chance to post a full report for a while because school is right around the corner and things are about to get way too busy. I hate the end of summer. Anyway, we went to a wedding on Long Island, then took the ferry across the Long Island Sound to Connecticut, and then we drove up to Maine, back down to Connecticut, and then back up to Rhode Island and New Hampshire before heading home. It's a lot of photos, so it's in two parts. Sorry if it's too long, but I hope you enjoy! First stop, Funtown Splashtown! Yay, new park, new woodie! Excalibur! This was a funny sign! Price Board! I've created a new album on flickr just for price boards. Whoa, we hit the dippin' dots motherlode! They had everything, every flavor, and even extra stuff like mix-ins! Sample of all of the different types of offerings. Of course, I had just started my diet, so it was one child-sized serving for me. Other dining options for humans and bears. We were immediately struck by the simple low-key charm of this park. Antique cars. Some flats. Oooh, C on the garbage cans, but points for recycling. Time for Excalibur! This was in a nicely themed Medieval area. Good ol' CCI. It's a decent woodie, but showing its age like most CCIs. It was worth a re-ride or two. Fun flume. A casino-themed Trabant! Here's the other credit, a Maurer-Sohne Wilde Maus. A last shot of Excalibur. Next stop was Palace Playland in nearby Old Orchard Beach. This was a typical shoreline park. Price board 2014! C- for garbage cans. Points for name on the can. Not too much to say about this park. Games... Tilt-a-Whirl... Dodgem... Interesting ATM machine that you had to swing by to get money. Here's a credit, and SDC Galaxi... ...and also a Wisdom Orient Express. Some higher level flats... And I always like to see a working band organ at the carousel. Here's a view of the pier from the Ferris wheel. Next stop was York's Wild Kingdom. The zoo section was very wild. I like tigers, but they're so territorial, they pace a lot. I like parks that do more play activity with the tigers, like Busch Gardens Tampa and SFDK. Crocs. Forgive my curiosity getting the better of me and imagining the glass to disappear a la Harry Potter. Lion around. TheSchwitek, what does he SAY?????? Deer are permitted to jump the fence to harass humans for more food. Here's the park's lone credit and one hopes that the care of the animals is better than the care of the amusement rides section. This was the fun house that seemed to be in decent condition. This was the one that was more or less neglected. And this walk-through was sorry indeed, although the ticket-taking woman was very nice. These are becoming rarer. C- This was more or less a typical scene. A-yuh. Incidentally, there are a lot of lobster joints in Maine in the summer and they're good and the food, even the lobster, is priced very reasonably. It was time to leave Maine. Incidentally, here's our ride! We went next to Milford, Connecticut, for the Annual Family Picnic on my mother's side. This is the view of Long Island Sound from my Aunt and Uncle's front lawn. On a theme park note, the blue dot is where I took the last picture, and the red dot is where Savin Rock used to be. That's the amusement park my mom and her brother visited in the summer when they were kids. The park closed in the 60s, but had six different credits over the years, including two Virginia Reels. Annual Heyman Family Photo After the picnic, we headed north again, to Atlantic Beach Park in Rhode Island. This park is a little bit forlorn, but they did have this Wisdom Dragon Coaster. They also had a building for the carousel. I thought it was interesting that there were no jumpers on the outside, but I have no idea if that's common or not. I didn't notice the band organ to the left until I saw this picture later. I can't remember if this band organ on the right worked or not. But I did like this Illions print. There was also this nice deck outside. It took a few hours to make it to our next destination, Canobie Lake Park. This was our second visit here. Nice light package through the trees. We came to ride Untamed. It's a nice looking coaster, but I'll admit that Eurofighters aren't really my cup of tea. Nonetheless, there were a bunch of people who loved it and they kept re-riding. I did really like all of the ride's theming. We had a great ride on the Yankee Cannonball. I think this was Sunday night, so the park was pretty empty. We arrived less than two hours before closing time. Thanks to Larry for informing us about the dark ride. We sort of missed this part of the park last time. Some more Ferris Wheel. The park was lots of fun at night. The next morning we hit Fun World Game Center, an FEC. The pictures don't really do it justice, but it's a decent-sized facility, with tons of games etc. all over. Of course there is another Orient Express. And I love any place that has 8 pinball machines. We then drove deeper into New Hampshire, hitting some nasty thunderstorms just as we crossed the mountains, which was scary. We made it to Fort Jefferson Fun Park, but there was a note on the door that they'd closed early due to weather. So down the road we went to Santa's Village. Rudolph's Decaptitated Head Santa's Village Price Board. We came late in the day and it was rainy and overcast, so they actually gave us a ticket for the next day, unasked. We had to agree that Santa's Village was the nice surprise of the trip. It was full o' charm and we had a great experience. I have read that Santa's Village was the first franchised theme park. There was one in Illinois, three in California, one in Canada, and on in NH. They were always full of oversized statuary like this, but the park in Jefferson, New Hampshire has taken the next step and has transformed itself into a modern-ish theme park. Yes, there was cheesiness. Check out the Jinglebell Jamboree. It's a pretty scary and outdated animatronic elvin music show featuring Elvin John, Elfis, and, you get the picture. The railroad crossings played "Jingle Bells". In fact, there was Christmas music constantly playing throughout the park, as you might expect. There are lots of nice touches and details around the park. There's a Rudolph credit. It's one of those super long Zierer large Tivolis. Check out this cool flat raft race. A very decently themed and large water play structure. A very nice Monorail. Good theming on standard rides. Animal shows. Seriously, you can feed and pet the reindeer. This was a live show on our way out. We were actually impressed by this park. Check it out. The next morning, we went to visit a huge boulder that had been moved by glaciers during the last ice age. Big damn rock. I'm in the shadow on the left so you can see the relative size of the thing. Continuing our New Hampshire tour, we visited Story Land. We are here, of course, to see Gravity Group's Roar-o-Saurus. Nice setting for a raft ride. There are standard kiddie flats. Train. Some parks "get it" and just give kids a place to play. And here is our dino-coaster. More coming in the next post.

Quick finance lesson: Compare the present value of future net cash flows that will come from from an investment (such as $$$ paid by additional paying guests who come to ride a new roller coaster) with the cost of that investment. If the former is greater than the latter, the investment should be undertaken. The company has calculated that more than $14mm in future cash flow, discounted to the present day, will come from this coaster, so a $14mm investment is justifiable. That's about it. On the point of what the $14mm is paying for, that seems to be a reasonable question, given that Spider at Lagoon only cost $3mm in 2003 and Whirlwind at Sea Breeze cost a million less in 2004, according to rcdb. The Dark Knight coasters were $7.5mm in 2008-2009, and Six Flags must have gotten a bulk discount for buying 3 of them. Inflation and the change in the Euro/$ exchange rate only explain a small part of the price difference, so the rest has to be related to the building, effects, theming, and queue. I'm guessing/hoping that there are a few surprises that the public doesn't know about yet. As far as bonuses and raises go, that is not exactly the most vibrant economic region in the country, so many of those staffers are lucky to have jobs, not to mention bonuses. If they don't feel they're being paid their worth, they should find work elsewhere, but in truth, Hershey workers are, historically, some of the best-treated workers in the world, beneficiaries of an unmatched corporate paternalism. Hershey invests in its own hometown unlike few other companies, and I'm sure they get more excellent resumes in the mail than they know what to do with. Few employees are irreplaceable for a company like Hershey. Moreover, to address your point, raises and bonuses generally come out of operational cash flows and profits. The cost of a new coaster only affects profits through depreciation (positive effect), interest expense (negative), and operational costs (negative). I doubt that the decision to build a new coaster had any bearing on the decision to give or not give raises and bonuses, unless the company is strapped for cash, which seems unlikely. The building of the coaster is not coming out of operational cash flows anyway. Also, I also don't see why coaster number 13 is any more significant than coaster 3 or coaster 8. Why, exactly, is that important? Did you get really annoyed when they announced Cocoa Cruiser for number 12? Finally, Dorney isn't really a good example for comparison. Their collection of cast-off rides from other parks doesn't really mark them for excellence. I think this is the most I've said on TPR in the last 5 years. Cheers.

We finally bit on the Flash Passes, although thanks to MattGuyver and Lauren and Joann G. for recommending the single rider line. We looked at the Flash Pass site online and 1) the price had come down significantly since our last check and 2) there was no warning of a time limit on picking it up. I'm willing to kick and scream and stomp my feet if it comes to that.

Fair point.

I've got a rookie question about the use of Platinum Flash Pass to get onto Goliath at SFGA, which is the only credit we need there. Of course we've used Flash Pass many times and we've paid the obnoxious Platinum premium to get onto a new ride. The problem this time, however, is that we are coming to the park later in the day. We've often reserved FP but we have always arrived at the park in the morning. If we reserve/pay in advance, do we lose our money by showing up late in the day? If they sell out of Platinum but someone returns their Plat Q-Bot to leave for the day, will we get that Plat Q-Bot? Thanks for your help and sorry if this has been covered in the past.