milst1

Thanks for checking it out!

I have it on my iPad and I dance around with my little Chendu doll.

I started working as a professor at Farmingdale State College on Long Island nearly a year ago, and I have to admit, the school's proximity to Adventureland was actually a factor in my taking the job. And while I've communicated with park co-owner Paul Gentile via email and telephone to talk shop, I hadn't actually been over the park since August of 2008, when Cheryl, Lauren, our friend Dave, and I went there to get the credits. This made me sad, because during the school year when I bike from my office to the train station in the dark on my way home, Adventureland always cheers me up because their small Ferris wheel is always lit up with LEDs at night, even during the off season. So on a day when Cheryl was on her way to the Bahamas with Lauren, and with very bad traffic back to Queens, I decided to wait it out and kill some time at Adventureland. I was not disappointed, and it was better than I remembered it. Adventureland is more or less in that circle on the left, and my office is approximately at the end of that arrow. I took this picture while flying in the back seat of a Cessna with a colleague and Cheryl's uncle, who's also a pilot. Farmingdale State College actually has the largest collegiate flight school in the Northeast. Here's the 12-armed Ferris Wheel that I see at night. I think it's a Zamperla. Unfortunately I did not run into Alfie the mascot that day. Hey, it's New York! Adventureland is about an hour from Manhattan, maybe even less without traffic. The S.D.C. Hurricane. A pirate guarding the flume in the pirate area. There's also a pirate ship in the pirate area. Antique cars. Musik Express. Huss Frisbee. Zierer Tivoli coaster. These kids were really into it! Some version of a wave swinger. There is a lot of stuff jammed into a small space. There is one of those scramble-through things for kids. There are a lot of kiddie rides. I can't even show them all, it's so packed in. But still room for little touches along the midway. My kind of park! I had already eaten, but there seemed to be plenty of food options. The train ride took a good 10 minutes, which is amazing given the small size of the park. They had pictures and relics of old rides along the train route. Lots of Long Islanders have Adventureland memories: The park has been open for 51 years. The train ride was surprisingly serene too, given that you're surrounded by exburban sprawl. Good haunt stuff on the train route too. The owner told me that they were getting very pumped up for their Halloween event. My 4 remaining tickets were for the dark ride, and I was surprised to see that the old dark ride was gone and had been replaced... ...by this! It's called Geister-Rikscha (Phantom Rickshaw). I think it was built by Mack way back when. I found that information and this earlier picture of the ride from an earlier location at this German ride site: http://www.ride-index.de/include.php?path=content/content.php&contentid=1466 At least I *think* it's the same ride. I couldn't get a good picture of the whole face of the ride at Adventureland, and it's amazing how tightly they've managed to wedge it in. All of the rickshaw drivers are hooded! Totally creepy. It's fun. They've added a ton of props inside. All in all, it's a small but charming little park with a nice mix of rides packed into a smaller footprint. I had a really nice chat with owner Paul Gentile at the end of my visit. I hope to recruit him as a guest speaker for one of my classes. It's very much a family-owned and -operated kind of place and you can tell that it's a labor of love. Maybe it was because my last park visit had been to pathetic Camden in WV, and this park seemed incredible by comparison, but I left with a really good feeling about Adventureland. It was just good to see a local park that has been treated with a lot of TLC. Thanks for visiting Adventureland Long Island with me!

We were indeed intrigued by Biscuit World, but we were in WV for such a short time. If we had known that our flight was going to be delayed twice, we might have given it a shot. I think Camden Park is in a lot better shape than Conneaut overall, though I understand the sentiment. Camden has a local following and it's in an "urban" area. Conneaut is far more isolated. I've been to Conneaut 3 times. First time it was thriving in the mid-1990's. Second time, out of business. Third time, on life support. Camden was thriving, by comparison. But I get your point.

^^^ You are welcome, peeps!

We jumped on a plane on Friday and spent less than 24 hours in the "Mountain State". Here is Camden Park's iconic front sign. We were there very early, but we were allowed to enter the park before official opening time. There was some rain in the forecast and we wanted to be sure to get the credits. Yikes, reminds me of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". Sure enough, the Men's Room was blocked off. Apparently there was related damage from the fire that burned down the park's Dodgem Cars last week. You can see the front of the roof has been recently replaced. This was all that was left of the Dodgem cars. I was holding my camera over the top of a wall built after the fire. For some reason, disaster precedes many of our visits. Days before our visit to Wiener Prater, there was a terrible accident on the Zamperla Volare. The Big Dipper at Blackpool had an accident weeks before our visit in 2009. And just as we were finishing off the planning for our Texas trip...yep. This was the other view of the site that one was able to see. Coming out of the back portion of the ladies room building that is now set aside for men, you can see the employees having their morning smokes before their morning meeting. I chatted with a couple of them. Lil' Dipper was a fun little NAD kiddie woodie, built in 1961. Big Dipper is the adult woodie, although it's not much longer. There is a killer airtime drop on this ride. There was a part of me that wanted to try this back seat with no bench or lapbar to see if I could stay in and not get killed. We rode in the 3rd row first car and in the second row last car. The latter actually had holes in the floor. It's worth noting that both Lil' Dipper and Big Dipper have a single lapbar, no seat dividers, and no headrests. I really loved the Hawnted House. The gags aren't that great, but the gravity powered cars are fantastic. As far as I could tell, there is no electrification of the track, and gravity handles all of the work after the lift hill. Note lift hill. There is a single track and then four casters. The car hurtles down the single track, tipping over at turns, and the casters catch it when it tips. The gags suck but you're going too fast, turning and twisting in the dark, to notice or care. We also enjoyed the classic Mangels Whip. We did not ride the flume but I did admire the "concrete trough in the ground" style. We rode the Flying Scooters. They did have those rubber stoppers that prevent radical sail turns. These things terrify me because I seem to get slack and snapping without trying. I struggle to stabilize the thing and it just won't work for me. Very sketchy sky ride over "West Virginia Adventure Golf". Very sketchy map. I had one of those moments where I wanted to quit my current job, move to WV, and get a job at Camden Park so I could fix this. What kind of owners/managers leave things like this? This beautiful space is right at the front of the park. Diesel train around the park. There were a few other flats (Kite Flyer, small Frisbee, carousel) that we skipped. We did hang around Huntington for lunch. Huntington is the home of Marshall University. There's the football stadium. If you've seen the 2006 film "We Are Marshall" then you know about this. We went to Fat Patty's for lunch. Their version of a pizza burger tasted better than it looked. The airport is in Charleston, about an hour away. There's the WV state capitol building. The airport is named after WV native son Chuck Yeager, a famous test pilot and Air Force general. He's featured in the book and movie "The Right Stuff". Thanks for visiting West Virginia with us!

^^^ LOL

I hope that all of you are having great and awesome coaster-riding weekends. For those of you like me, who are not having amazing coaster weekends, well, this is for you. I've been having a lazy last 48 hours and finally dragged myself out of the apartment to go visit some family. Anyway, I just get worse and worse as a contributor here, so here I am, mid-Summer, finishing up a report that I started in January! This is for those of you traveling and coastering vicariously this weekend. In January, Cheryl and I visited Malaysia and then Singapore. After visiting Universal Singapore, we zipped back over the Malaysia border for Legoland Malaysia. After Legoland Malaysia, we grabbed a cab and visited the "The Sketchiest Park in Malaysia", Danga World! There was another credit in Malaysia near to Legoland at a park called Danga World. Thanks to CoasterFEV, we knew we could get a cab and shoot over there. Directly across from Legoland is a mall-ish thing with a few restaurants and shops. At the other end of the breezeway, you can find a taxi. The taxi dropped us off, and we were faced with a lot of "nobody's here". Nobody's here at one of the several ticket booths. Nobody's here at the tea cups. You get the idea. Whatever website we had found had said that opening was at 11:00, and this was now after 13:00. Eventually we started seeing a few people around, starting to get some things ready, so we walked around the area a little bit. We found a "resort" area that has seen better days. Nothing was open. Ironically, the signs from the road would lead you to believe that there's a lot going on over here, but "theme park" is a stretch. I guess this development was someone's dream at some point and some money got thrown into it. This was at an abandoned-looking amphitheater. But clearly many parts of the park had been allowed to decay. No clear demarcation between show area and backstage. We hid from the brutal sun, watching the credit, until finally... ...they're opening up the credit! We were finally able to buy tickets and ride! Yay. We are dirty dirty whores. And Danga World is a hell hole. This will set you back about US$2.50. We then stood near the super-busy road and finally managed to wave down a taxi back to Legoland, where we caught the bus back to Sentosa. This was on the bus: No Smoking, No Drinking, No Octopus?, No Durian Fruit, No Farting, No Bullshit, No Dogs Back in Singapore, we took a spin on the Singapore Flyer. Awesome views. Cheryl on Singapore Flyer We then did some Sentosa exploring, like the famous Merlion. The Images of Singapore Museum gives a great picture of the transition from Singapore of old to modern Singapore. This used to be where you would catch that slow boat to China. Street "luge" was great fun, though we only did one run. We enjoyed the Angry Birds-themed cable car ride, and the cable car museum was actually interesting. Apparently an oil drilling ship passing underneath snapped the cable with its derrick in 1983, causing two cars to plummet (7 fatalities) into the sea and 13 others to remain stranded. It took 3 hours to find the bodies, and 3 1/2 hours in pitch black high winds to rescue the remaining 13 passengers. Hanging in Sentosa. The S.E.A. Experience Aquarium may be the world's largest, and the Open Ocean tank is definitely the largest viewing panel in any aquarium. I'm still looking for a better picture, but that, my coaster friends, is a freaking manta ray! The MegaZipline was also a lot of fun. From the mouth of the Merlion: "Thanks for visiting Singapore (and Malaysia) with us!"

Nice report. Hoping to get there in the next week or two.

Outside of the school year, our availability during weekdays is not a problem!

^^^ Good question. We spent 3-4 hours there, and we also spent some time in a small *mall that adjoins Legoland. But we then took a taxi to Danga World (sketchiest side trip ever!) to grab that credit. That took about 90 minutes because they weren't open when we got there. But we did get back and even managed to get an earlier bus back to Singapore than we'd previously arranged, which was good because I don't think Legoland allows re-entry, if I recall correctly. You should check this.

Thanks Kevin! I hope to one day enjoy an empty day like this at the new waterpark!

Looking forward to more, Larry!

Finally, after weeks of actually sort of doing my normal daily job, I'm shoving it aside to post this overdue visit to Legoland Malaysia! Dan C., who we met on the TPR China trip, was instrumental in helping us plan some logistics. Thanks, Dan! Crazily, we've been to Mexico and England since this trip, but I hate that I never finished the report. So here goes, our trip to Legoland Malaysia! Enjoy. First we took a cab to the Singapore Flyer. What's that? It's one of those ginormous Ferris Wheels! We'll hit it in the next report. We had ordered our tickets online in advance, and it was pretty easy to find the bus. It's a trip and a half getting from Singapore to Johor Bahru over the Malaysia border. They don't want you skipping over the border to buy cheap Malaysian gas, apparently. I guess Singapore wants their gas taxes? But the biggest pain is that you have to get off the bus twice...first to go through immigration as you depart from Singapore, then to go through immigration as you enter Malaysia. And then you have to repeat the process on the return trip! At last! No, first a quick stop to drop some people off at Hello Kitty Town. Then a long walk from the bus stop... Yay! It's clean and bright and spanking new! And one of the first things you see are prayer rooms! For my upcoming report on theme park garbage cans. Water park under construction, which made sense. It was hot! Legoland Hotel also under construction. Mack Wild Maus similar to California and Florida. In case you forget where you are. Fountains. As you can see, the place was generally empty. It was a Thursday. It's a fairly big park, pleasant and clean. Here's the medieval dragon section. Theming! Dragon's Apprentice! The Dragon! Lots of nice castle theming. Here's Apprentice. And The Dragon. Theming! Observation tower. Cleverly named! Parking lot, hotel, etc. Shoot-the-chutes. We could also see ground being prepared for waterpark but didn't see any slide parts. Miniland. There we go. Castle, Dragon, and water park area. 4D Adventure we decided not to wait for. All bright and new before the Malaysian sun bleaches them out. Big covered kiddie area. Baby Care Another set of prayer rooms. Very fun musical fountain. I know it looks empty, but the attractions were just spaced out. The Shoot-the-chutes was great. Loved the theming. Skeletons on the rocks! The Sally shooter. They have the driving school, flying school, fire school, etc. These are fun. Better view of Rescue Academy. Nice train ride. Time to eat...as usual, Legoland food is a slight step above typical park food. We're on to Miniland, and as is usual, many models represent the local region. I think this is in Thailand. Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Singapore Flyer Petronas Towers Shopping! We got some good swag. Thanks for visiting Legoland Malaysia with us! It's hard to do the park justice. It's big and spread out. Anyway, more to come!!! Sentosa! And the sketchiest park in Malaysia!

The Hulk is a tire launch, isn't it?

That was the last coaster I rode in The Netherlands, number 45 I think! But now I have to go back to to ride the new coaster at Toverland for number 46. The closest coaster to me is the famous Cyclone at Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. It's 12.29 miles, or 19.78 km, as the crow flies. Takes about 35 minutes with no traffic. Hah! Next closest are Rye Playland (19 miles) and Adventureland (L.I.) (22 miles). The crow is much more direct than the automobile.

We've been on Wooden Warrior at Quassy and Twister at Gröna Lund, and nothing sticks out in our minds about the trains. They do have a high cushioned side but I can't remember much else. We definitely enjoyed both coasters. I hope that the Timberliners work out for Voyage.

We're on to the big highlights of our tour! It's back to Singapore and the wonderful island of fun, Sentosa!!! We said goodbye to our awesome guide, Zach. I still have to write a nice review on Trip Advisor. I know that I look weird in this picture, but it is 05:00 or something and in fact my brain is still back at the hotel. An hour flight later and we are soon at Asia's Favourite Playground. We're being watched by a red and blue beast from behind those trees! One of the six Resorts World hotels. Resorts World is the same company that owns Genting, by the way. I know they have a casino in New York now too, and something in Miami. We're staying at the Hard Rock. Pretty nice! Our room's not ready since it's still really early, but we check the bags and head out. You walk through this giant mall complex area. And KAPOW! You're at Universal Studios Singapore! It's after park opening, but it's not too too busy on a Tuesday. We do end up getting a Universal Express pass that is useful on several lower capacity attractions. Betty Boop is in the house! And these tuneful, clean cut Beach Boys impersonators. As with many Asian parks, there is a large covered area near the entrance. We would get a little rain later and this was invaluable. Elmo! Are there Sesame Street characters at the other Universal parks? I know Busch parks license Sesame Street characters too. I never really thought about it but I guess the Sesame Workshop characters are a separately licensed property from the Disney-owned Muppet show/movie characters. But what about Kermit, who does both? Elmo has unlimited applications! They served a giant home-made Chipwich which was not as good as a Chipwich. Cheryl is amused to find that we have traveled 21 hours, obviously circumnavigating the globe in that period. Except that it got much warmer. It's the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge! We went after the credits first. What is this Vekoma goodness? Holy frack! Cheryl and I are big BSG fans. Human is a red inversionless sitdown. Cylon has blue inverted track with 5 inversions. You can just barely see that the nose of the human ship looks like a Viper fighter. They were pretty strict about loose objects, so go grab a locker. I think they were free for a limited period. We went hunting for another credit in the Lost World section. This little theming detail caught my eye. Yay, it's Canopy Flyer, and yes, we're going to use Universal Express! Similar to Pteranodon Flyers at USF, the capacity is quite low, but at least there is no requirement to ride with a child. Pet triceratops Diane. She blinked and opened her mouth. I think I just realized that the interpreter's arm must be fake. We were kinda running all over the place. Now, back towards the front of the park to Mummy. Mummy was awesome. I'm very unclear on the different Mummy versions, but the FL and CA versions are different, right? This was more like Florida. Please let me know if I'm mistaken. One final credit to get and I don't have a single picture except for this sign. What is wrong with me? This was over in the Shrek-themed Far Far Away land. We'd finished the credits so we were able to start checking out some other attractions, like Shrek. And the oddly entertaining "Donkey Live". We back-tracked a little to Madagascar: A Crate Adventure, which is an old-school boat dark ride. Fun! I followed the rules and didn't take pictures. Then we just *had to* pop out of the park for lunch! At Din Tai Fung!!!! We love these dumplings. We discovered Din Tai Fung accidentally when we were in Taiwan, and we were so happy to see it here! Back to the park! Some of you know what this means... Definitely one of the best dark rides ever, even if it does use exactly the same ride system as Spider-Man. It was awesome. Florida is lucky to get this. After that ride, you're relieved that these things aren't walking around the park. Ultimate patch jacket score! Gotta love these things. This was a really cool raptor animatronic in the back of a truck. It was hissing and blinking and moving. You thought it would jump out and attack. Totally awesome. The marquee Jurassic Park attraction was not a shoot-the-chutes as at the US Universal parks, but rather a river raft ride, which was extremely well-themed and exciting. Since we put our stuff in the storage thing, I didn't have a camera to get any good shots, sorry. That was the view of the Madagascar area across the lagoon. We didn't see the Waterworld show, but while waiting for Cheryl in the restroom, a slew of western guys came out, obviously cast. Treasure Hunters was our last ride of the day. So *there's* my pictures of Enchanted Airways! A Vekoma junior, I believe. We leave you with this view of Mummy in the background, then Battlestar Galactica, then Transformers in the foreground. Hope you like the report. Next up is: Legoland Malaysia!

Cute report.

Cheerleading days are the not hearing friendly days at any park. Nailed it. Sometimes you're just in the wrong seat in front of the wrong teenage girls.

We're definitely headed to Northern California this year...does anyone know the estimated opening date for Gold Striker? Sorry if it's earlier in the thread and I missed it. I'm happy for this park. It's been forever since they got a new coaster.

Love the teaser, the construction video (I understood a word or two), the name, and the logo. Great choice for the park.

Sick photos! Thanks for the report!

No, we were pretty much socked in all day. The only thing I didn't include was our visit to the (enormous) casino, but the table minimums were a little too high for us. I also didn't tell stories of horrifying accidents that have occurred coming down that those mountain roads! Thanks again for all of the great advice, SharkTums!

Awesome awesome update, Chuck!