milst1

I totally agree with Steel Eel, an air popping machine. It's my #1 steel.

Last weekend was a four-day weekend in Europe so a bunch of parks were open during what is the very early season in Scandinavia. We flew to Copenhagen and then did the three open parks on the island of Zealand on the first day, namely BonBon Land, Bakken, and Tivoli Gardens. Enjoy! BonBon Land! This was the only park where we could have used our Club TPR cards but didn't because some nice people handed us a newspaper coupon that had an even bigger discount! Vildsvinet (Wild Boar) is a Gerstlauer Euro Fighter. Poor little rat! I admit that we tore through this park because we had to hit two others in the same day. I didn't see some stuff from the TPR video of the park (like the Butterfly), but we didn't really look that hard either. Even without the scatalogical stuff, there is some great theming. Yes, personal milestone on a Gerstlauer spinning coaster. This giant custom Zierer Tivoli with an elevated platform was great. The new thrill attraction this year is a spin and swing. I liked this psycho beaver guy. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." - William Shakespeare I'll always remember this place as the restaurant where we were introduced to Scandinavian food prices. Scarier than Balder. Actually, the interior was pretty relaxing for a theme park restaurant. After a fun BonBon morning, we jumped in the rental car and headed for Bakken. Pretty awesome to reserve a Toyota and get a Beemer, huh? Bakken is arguably the oldest amusement park in the world, dating back to the late 16th Century. Here's something you don't usually see right outside the main gate. For your information, this park gives a discount to Club TPR members! Pjerrot the clown is a fixture at Bakken. VERY cool theming on Tornado, the Intamin spinning coaster. Unfortunately it was down when we got to it, but they got it up and running. First Flitzer we've see outside of New Jersey! Rutschebanen is a 1932 side friction woodie. Unfortunately they replaced the old trains (which had a brakeman) with new Kumbak trains. As I said, we did get on Tornado eventually. It's an Intamin spinning coaster. The lift chain is super fast and it really flings the car over the hump, so I took a dig from the OTSRs. Ouch. Indoor dry bumper boats. At Bakken we discovered the Danish love for massive ice cream cones with multiple scoops and jelly and chocolate and cookies thrown in. It was like a $8 for one of these monstrosities and a miracle that we resisted the temptation. Funhouse. Splash battle type ride, but it was too cold. Cute details on the Kumbak trains on Rutschebanen. Third park of the day, the famous Tivoli Gardens, also one of world's oldest parks. Like several of the parks we hit in Scandinavia, the park began as a public gardens and became an amusement area, sort of like the way trolley parks evolved into amusement parks in the U.S. Lots of stages with ongoing performances. Uban oasis. Lots of places to stroll and relax. The whole place is covered with lights, but sundown is so late we really didn't get the full illumination effect. This star flyer was awesome because you can see the whole city of Copenhagen. Rutschebanen at Tivoli Gardens is the third oldest coaster, dating to 1914-15. As you can see, a brakeman rides along. Or should I say brakewoman? The Danes are so progressive. There are a *lot* of restaurants in the park. Dæmonen is a compact B&M floorless. Vertigo is a Technical Park Flying Fury (thanks for your post Steffen_Dk), a cross between one of those dark rides where you control rotation of the car and a skyscraper. Looks like a pretty extreme ride, but we took a pass. This was a nice little dark ride based on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. Little Mermaid boob credit! Gourmet licorice store. Europeans are way into licorice. Well into the evening, it's still quite light out. Hope you've enjoyed. Coming up: Day 2 = The worst walkthrough EVER and Club TPR VIP treatment at Liseberg!

Larry, see photo. Larry, this is the carousel at Lightwater Valley, and, fwiw, you can see the Dodgem also.

1pizza14, there are a few adult rides at Keansburg, including a Schwarzkopf Wildcat and a Loop-O-Plane, which I didn't include because larrygator had shown it in his earlier report. There is also a good sized water park at the property. Medusa1816, that is very interesting about a ferry from Manhattan to Keansburg and the boardwalk there. As a small child growing up farther north, the amusement attraction was, of course, Palisades Park on the Fort Lee/Cliffside Park border. I only remember a few things from that park but my older sisters were frequent visitors and I've collected some memorabilia, including an old radio commercial that instructed Manhattanites on how to get to Palisades Amusement Park via public transit! I guess Keansburg offered people a quick way to get "down the shore"! Everyone, thanks so much for checking out the report! Love to hear from you! Today we're off to Denmark and Sweden and Credit #500!!!

Last part of this report. Larrygator already visited this park so I'll try not to overlap with his too much. Last park of the day...Keansburg in New Jersey! As Larrygator mentioned in an earlier report, this is a very old park...1904. To me the amazing thing was how close it is to NYC! There's the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn) and Manhattan! This place had an amazing assortment of old kiddie rides, like these Hampton cycles... ...these great old cars with bells(!) to ring... ...swing planes... ...these boats are one of the few rides that I actually remember riding at Palisades Amusement Park... ...rocket ships... They had this Mangels ride that looked like a whip, but it was circular... And they also had this actual Mangels kiddie whip. Some older model Zamperla kiddie flats A Mangels fire engine ride! If you don't know already, William Mangels was a major Coney Island-based carousel builder and ride manufacturer in the early 20th Century. He invented "The Whip". He was also one of the first to write a book about the amusement industry. Happy to find Spook House open. You gotta love these old school dark rides. Keansburg has dippin' dots! Nobody yelled at me for taking this picture. Pavilion has carousel and arcade. Fortune Teller Can you fry my cappuccino? A mini Himalaya! Never seen one of these before. In general, this place had a *ton* of flats for kids. Impressive collection. Too many to include so I've just shown the more unusual older rides. ...a nice old Mangels kiddie carousel. No great carvings here but the horses are wood (as opposed to today's common fiberglass)... Hope you've enjoyed your trip ti Keansburg Amusement Park!

Almost exactly the same as Plopsa Indoor Hasselt! Do you know which one opened first? Nice little parks!

Oops, Larrygator, we did not visit the arcade. Sorry. Continuation of our Jersey Shore run last weekend...a visit to Jenkinson's Boardwalk! Next stop was Jenkinson's Boardwalk. Here's the "official" Jenkinson's logo...don't bother to look for it in the merch shops. Jenkinson's has a Flitzer. There are also a lot of flats but I suspect you don't need to see more pics of swings and a tilt-a-whirls. Then something weird happened. I took this photo and the lady in the picture (behind the counter) then started yelling at me, saying that I was not allowed to take pictures. I argued that I was a tourist and that tourists normally take photos when visiting tourist attractions. She threatened to call security. If you know me, you know I've taken photos of dippin' dots all over the world and I run the dd group on flickr. I wrote a long email to one of Jenkinson's owners about being yelled at and threatened by this concessionaire but I haven't heard back yet. We moved on to the funhouse. And to clarify, she was specifically objecting to me photographing the sign on the top of the stand...wtf? The Funhouse at Jenkinson's is really a gem. Dizzy tunnel! Lots of nice sets and black light. Clowns are scary. Lots of good food, sweets, and snacks. Every theme park should have a seafood section. Reminder for the choo-choo train ops. Next up: Keansburg!

Great pictures, Hanno! Bellewaerde was one of the few parks we missed on our great NL-BE tour last summer. What park were you thinking about for Koninginnedag (Queen's Day)?

Delayed by the Icelandic ash cloud, I finally made it back to America for the weekend. Yesterday we headed down for some Jersey Shore action. First stop was Blackbeard's Cave in Bayville, NJ. They have a restaurant... ...mini golf... ...archery?... ...bumper boats (doesn't look like they're open for the season yet)... ...water wars... ...a bungie jumpy thing... ...batting cages... ...a mechanical bull!... ...gladiator jousting?... a climbing wall, and there was even a golf driving range. But we were here for... the coaster! Adventure Station is a little kiddie park on the premises, including this Wisdom Rides Flying Dragon and... this little ferris wheel. Cheryl was pretty excited about this because they had the same model at her old stomping grounds, the famous Nunley's (RIP). They had a kiddie swing... ...kiddie plane ride (notice Snoopy in the middle -- See Cedar Fair, you don't have to pay expensive licensing fees!)... Swingy boats Kiddie Carousel Super Slide! Atmosphere! Dude even sold me the Blackbeard's Cave Adventure Station shirt that the employees were wearing! Nice little park, worth a stop!

I would have guessed Oblivion's earliest paint job would be orange, given the piles of orange Oblivion merchandise that are still taking up space in the shops. By comparison, there was very little "Th13teen" merch.

Hey super RB! How the hell does someone get 180 wood credits? Well, the lack of "c" does explain a lot. The volcano name looks like their alphabet exploded. Maybe that's when they lost the "c".

Hats off to that night ERT session we had. That ride just kicked ass. I guess it comes off Mitch's poll, right? Have to put the all-time list together.

Iceland is bad! Holland told them to send "cash", and they sent "ash"!

Wow, I missed the follow-up comments...thanks for checking out the report! We also broke UK airspace. We left on Monday and I think all flights had ceased by Wednesday/Thursday? Good news is that Amsterdam let three flights out tonight so I might get home on Thursday. Anywho, on with the rest of the pics! Last day, Drayton Manor! G Force is a Maurer-Sohne X-Coaster with a really long and slow queue. Troublesome Trucks is a Gerstlauer junior coaster in the Thomas Town themed area. The Shockwave is an Intamin stand-up that looks like a B&M standup because B&M did it while they were working for Intamin. Last park of the trip: West Midland Safari & Leisure Park. First you pay a lot to get in and do the safari drive-through, then you have to pay more to ride the rides! We saw furries eating children, and statuary eating adults. Not sure if there was an extra charge for this. Giant croc inflatable! Unfortunately, we only got one coaster photo of the three credits here. Gorgeous park, but the ops were notably bad. The Wacky Worm hadn't stationed correctly, so when the new op came on, he managed to valley the train when he put the brakes on! Valley'd a wacky worm big apple!!! Thanks to the slow ops, we had to miss this dark ride. We had to floor it back to BHX, especially considering that we hit traffic. Thank you, Garmin GPS unit. Rhino coaster was number 24!!!! Very cool trip. Currently we're planning a mini-Scandi tour for next month. Stay tuned and thanks for visiting!

We were there on Sunday! In fact, we're kinda weirded out because since we got back home, Alton Towers has had two power outages, Pleasure Island Cleesthorpes has closed, and so has all of British airspace!!! Terrible photo TR here.

What an awesome shirt! That is going to be such a great trip.

I'd rather do a crappy Photo TR than work on grading or making up an exam (that's due tomorrow). This past weekend, Cheryl, Leon (from TPR's Tokyo 2008 Tour), and I flew from AMS to BHX and had some great weather, though it was a bit chilly in the mornings. As we found out today, one of the parks we visited is now closed(!), and Alton Towers, our first park, has had two power outages since we visited! Weird. Anyway, enjoy while we whore our way across northern England! On the way to Alton Towers, guy in van basically runs me off the road! Tire hits rock, ack! Driving on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel and stick shift on the wrong side of the car is hard! Hertz sends new tire directly to Alton Towers parking lot. Yay! Sonic Spinball, first credit. In case you don't have a dictionary handy... 2nd credit: Oblivion, first dive coaster evah. Third credit! I purposely didn't read anything about it, so I was pleasantly surprised, but I have been led to believe that there are additional effects that were not running. Fourth credit, my new favorite B&M inverted. Nemesis has some pretty cool and unusual theming. Credit Five: Rita, an Intamin launch. Credit Six: Air, the first B&M flying coaster Credit 7: Beastie, a Pinfari dragon Next park: Camelot! Leon counts off this older Maurer Sohne spinner, a surprise favorite of the trip. It looks like I was preparing to eat my air guitar. Credit 9: Knightmare, crazy Schwarzkopf. Credit 10: First of many Pinfari wacky worms Then after finding that Gulliver's doesn't allow adults without kids, we drove all the way up to Lightwater Valley so that Leon could ride "The Ultimate". This insane monstrosity has to be ridden to be believed. It really is a white knuckle ride. And, btw, new Raptor theming on old Sewer Rat coaster is cool. Do remember to brace yourself for final brake run. Third park was Pleasure Island. This was Sunday morning. Just found out that the park did not re-open on Wednesday...closed down!!!!! Cheryl and Leon count Credit 11: A Vekoma junior. Our first skyscraper. And no upcharge! Credit 12: A Vekoma Boomerang. Not so much fun after skyscraper. Incidentally, the new dark ride at PI was pretty cool. Hopefully will reopen soon! Next park, Fantasy Island in Ingoldmells. Sorry for the crappy photos. We couldn't recharge our camera batteries because of our stupid UK adapter, which was unusable with the camera battery charger. Credit 13: Fantasy Mouse, a Reverchon spinning mouse. The original Millennium coaster (1999) was a surprisingly smooth Vekoma sitdown steel looper. Now we're at Botton's Pleasure Beach in Skegness. Credit 15: a spinning mouse Credit 16: Another Big Apple/Wacky Worm Credit 17: A Pinfari family inverted. You should have heard the groan when the op started us on a 4th circuit. Credit 18: A seriously crappy little family mine coaster. This is some serious whoring. Coming up soon: Drayton Manor!

Awesome report. We did an overlapping trip last summer, starting at Wildwood and then going north, ending at Casino Pier, never making it as far as Keansburg. Cool to see Funtown P. and Casino P. in the daylight! I grew up in Jersey, but we never went..."down the shore". Thanks for the pics.

That was a riot, thanks!

Awesome report! Thanks! We're looking forward to our first AT trip in just a few weeks.

Great report! We visited that park in the misty rain a couple of years back but it was still a treat. For the record, Steel Eel has been my #1 steel since then. I just loved the drop and the pops. It's just such a *fun* coaster. Thanks for the great pictures!

Gardaland is in Castelnuovo del Garda in northern Italy, right here on a Google map, approximately equidistant from Milano and Bologna. We flew into Bologna so that we could go from Mirabilandia (in Ravenna) to catch our return flight. Yes, that was the Screaming Squirrel prototype, named Sequoia Adventure, and if you look at the Flamingo Land picture, that is the current generation of that coaster, Mumbo Jumbo, which is S&S Power's El Loco model. Indiana Beach has one called Steel Hawg. Unfortunately, both types are lacking, IMHO. The Screaming Squirrel was braked so much that you're spending a lot of time hanging upside down. Quite slow. The new version has some of the same problems: a bit too slow and upside-down hang time embeds the restraints into your shoulders. But it is a nifty ride nonetheless, just not my cup of tea. Sequoia Adventure is definitely nice to look at, with every round support painted to look like a giant California redwood. Incidentally, there's a fantastic review of Mumbo Jumbo in First Drop Magazine.

I'm not getting the smiley...Do I know the poster? Yes, it is 2009. We moved to Holland on January 2, 2009, and a couple of weeks later, the great Leon S. of TPR Tokyo Trip 2008 picked us up at Breda Station and drove us to Bruhl, home of Phantasialand!

I love that you are "The Bat"!

Heck, I wish I was you! I don't particularly want to face puberty for a second time, but your potential credit count is so much higher. I'll probably have to stop riding in 30 years, but you'll get to ride all of the coasters built after 2040 that I'll never see!