Ryancrash

So sorry to hear this. Glad we got to visit when we did. I remember Karolinelund being a nice little park - the Boomerang was fun, and I really enjoyed Spøgelsestoget a lot.

Sorry I didn't tickle you Larry - I didn't realize you'd be so disappointed. At least we finally got the car to spin a little bit. (And yes - it was probably my last coaster of the season...)

Mmm... Seafood!

Great TRs, guys! I hope GeForce is still running as good as before (it's still my fave coaster, based on my 2007 and 2008 visits). Too bad it wasn't running for us in July - but hey, I think that actually worked in our favor, since we all got to go to the Kiliani Volksfest. And Spinning Racer looks great! Hope I get to ride it at another German fair. I think a Sausage fair would be perfect for a future TPR trip.

Looks like an awesome fair! I've been digging the German fairs this year - but I think I need to make it over to some of the British ones too. I watched the Roller video - wow! Really not what I was expecting. Looks like quite the "boisterous" ride indeed - glad you guys aren't "people of a timid nature" (Ha!)

Another awesome update Robb! I really enjoyed both of these parks a lot and would love to visit them again - for smaller parks, they sure had a lot to offer. A crazy PAX coaster, an excellent Dracula's castle, butterflies, alpine slides, anti-PC rides, nice theming... it all made for a truly wonderful day (capped off by yet another fun night at Oktoberfest!) The slide video doesn't capture just how hard I actually kicked Jon when we hit the wall. In a fraction of a second I managed to maneuver my legs to the side enough that I missed his head, but I still nailed him so hard that for a brief moment I was afraid I'd done some real damage. In this race, the winner is the loser - meaning the first one down gets absolutely pummeled by everyone else. Fun!

Nice photos - thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed Gardaland when we visited in June. And now this coaster gives me one more reason to return. Sure looking forward to seeing (and riding) the end result.

Last Saturday nite, in Munich - Olympia Looping in the rain at Oktoberfest!! The wet track made it an absolutely INSANE ride - the g-forces through the loops were mind-blowing! (And some good German beers only enhanced these sensations even more...)

My German friends and I discussed this a bit at Oktoberfest, and they were all of the same opinion - that the event has actually not become too commercialized, as some have argued. Yes, it does attract tourists from all over the world, but at the same time it still attracts the locals. ALL of the Germans still go to Oktoberfest. (If the Germans were to stop going, then it would be a bust...) And while the tourists number in the thousands, they are still the vast minority - but I think it's the tourists who tend to be the more noticeable individuals sometimes, as the tourists are the ones who are more likely to make asses out of themselves. (Americans and Italians, I'm talking about you.) There are certainly other German fairs that are just as good, if not better in some ways, but Oktoberfest was truly awesome and I look forward to going again in the future. As for the Rocket - I rode it. It was an experience. I made the mistake of not emptying my pockets completely - I figured my wallet would be safe, as it was chained to me, buried very deep within a relatively tight pocket, and also pinned down tightly by the restraint. I was wrong! I came so close to losing it. Early in the ride cycle I had to work my arm down under the restraint so I could reach the wallet, and I spent the entire ride hanging onto it for dear life - it was a struggle! Amazing ride... though I'm not sure I would feel the need to do it again anytime soon.

Great TR Robb! What an amazing trip, absolutely mind-blowing. I’ve been back in the U.S. for over 48 hours now, and I still haven’t quite recovered from it all. So many highlights… getting into the Hacker tent with my German friends, our TPR nite in the Löwenbräu tent, riding Olympia Looping in the rain on our last nite (INSANE!!), Neuschwanstein, Alpine slides, El Toro, so much delicious German food and beer, drunken bus rides, Weißbier gardens, dark rides, Alpina Bahn, Höllenblitz, Sky Rider, Wild Train, our private tour of Dracula’s castle, all the breathtaking scenery in the Alps… Germany has long been one of my favorite countries, and this trip only made me love it more. Oktoberfest is truly a unique event that must be experienced to be understood - words and pictures just don’t do it justice. I will definitely go back and do it again (hopefully with more money next time, so I can afford some nice Lederhosen!) Thanks Robb and Elissa for such an awesome adventure! “Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!”

U-571 and the Horror House were both surprisingly great! Is Bront'O'Ring the world's only Go Gator that doubles as a terrain "coaster"?

Great TR, Robb! Love the POVs. This was sure an awesome day. (For some reason, the link directed me to Page 3, which confused me for a moment - I was trying to figure out why the TR started with lunch. What are we, ACE?!) iSpeed was really a great ride - but I did get a little bit of headbanging from it, which took it down a couple notches for me. (Not as much headbanging as Maverick...) Still a helluva lot of fun though - if only they would replace the current OTSRs with the type of strap restraints now used on I-305, then this would be perfect. For me, Katun was the real star of the park - I was sold on the first drop alone! The airtime on that first drop absolutely blew me away. (Oh yeah, the loop and the rest of the ride were awesome too.) Katun really had the "WOW!" factor - it quickly became my favorite B&M invert. Mirabilandia really surprised me - I really wasn't expecting the park to be as amazing as it was. Can't wait to go back! (But I vote next time we visit in the winter, when it's a bit cooler, when it's only 90 degrees Fahrenheit...)

I was about to say Intimidator 305 - and then I remembered the credit whore stop I made on the way home... (dirty, dirty, dirty...) The last coaster I rode was Jett Star at the Central Park Fun-Land in Fredericksburg, VA. A very small kiddie coaster. (And no, I didn't bother taking pictures.) The cycle lasted forever - I went around ten or eleven times, I actually lost count. Two YMCA busses full of kids pulled into the Central Park Fun-Land parking lot ahead of me. I was in and out of the park before the first kid stepped off of either bus.

The Super Waltzer at Botton's was absolutely the best flat ride ever! (Unless you're not into spinny rides, of course...) Wasn't Skeggy where Robb picked up the inflatable love sheep?

Great TRs Divv!! I too was impressed with the Italian parks (which were all new for me). Katun especially blew me away - I actually liked it even slightly better than Nemesis, which is saying a lot (that first drop was just so good...) And my compliments for being brave enough to bring a camera on U-571! (Hope it still worked after being submerged in all that water...) U-571 and the Horror House were both truly awesome. Gardaland was my favorite of the three parks - glad we had two days there - I look forward to returning in the future and riding the new coaster. We missed having you along for the rest of the trip, but glad you were able to join us for a few days!

Hey Jason! We missed you this year. Yes, you definitely need to make it to Europa, it's my favourite park! (Wish I could go there every year...) Euro-mir is really something special - a coaster that does its own Yo Gabba dancey dance. No, I didn't get to do an ice bar this time. They had one in Amsterdam - I saw signs for it when I was stomping around the city and getting some culture credits. But unfortunately I wasn't around long enough to hunt it down. Guess I'll need to go back... or back to Helsinki! (And didn't I hear a rumour about the ice bar returning to Liseberg? Or is this just crazy wishful thinking?) I had totally forgotten about the Helsinki ice bar being inside the Mexican restaurant - how funny! A nice contrast - first you eat spicy jalapenos, then you cool off with drinks in the deep freeze chamber.

^Coney Beach really surprised me with its AMAZING lemon lime cheesecake ice cream... Yummers! The rides on the other hand weren't quite so tasty... (Although I enjoyed my ghost train fix well enough.) Wasn't this the first place where we had to pay to use the loo?

Europe was so damn awesome. Hard to believe it's been a week already. Can we go back now? (I'm suddenly suffering from a German beer deficiency... Must get back to Wuerzburg...)

^Aw, I'm jealous! I love actors that actually do stuff. But we walked through the same time the game was on, so some of the actors may have been taking an extended break. Glad your Saw experience was better than ours!

I know you were exaggerating, but this simply isn't true. I must have scared him 20 times in that one day alone, sometimes by just saying boo. Steve, it's all out of Love, I swear This was no exaggeration! The Saw Alive walkthrough was so non-scary that I was offended. At the beginning of the maze, we were warned that there were actors inside who would grab and molest us. Sadly, nothing could have been further from the truth. I think I saw three actors inside - two did nothing at all, and one sort of stood there and looked at us. (Maybe most of the actors were off watching the football game...) We walked through three or four rooms, and then it was over. I felt cheated. I know how easily Steve scares, but he would have been absolutely FINE on this one! (Especially since there were no sharks inside.)

Smothered in whipped cream and chocolate sauce?

^Sorry Craig - I missed out on the Pancake Girls at Gulliver's (I'd already eaten too much that day). I had my pancake at Alton Towers - with lemon, mmm! And it was prepared by a Pancake Guy.

So now that I'm home from Europe, I finally get to go back and look at all the updates that were posted all along - Fun! Such an awesome trip, with so many highlights - Nemesis, Air, The Crystal Maze, Blackpool, Alton Towers, Millennium Coaster, Wagamama (twice!), hitting credit no. 666 on Queen Bee at Botton's, the Botton's Super Waltzer (best flat ride EVER!), Speed No Limits, Megaphobia, the lemon lime cheesecake ice cream at Coney Beach, not getting murdered by the locals at Coney Beach, Nemesis Inferno, Saw (the coaster, not the flaccid walk-thru maze that couldn't have scared Scottish Steve), Splash Landings ERT (and my first Master Blaster), surprise visits from the Brit crew, Mumbo Jumbo, Valhalla, the awesomeness of the Blackpool Ghost Train, Nigel and his stories about peanuts, the Blackpool show that was truly beyond belief, Hydro, Rage, beers, football games, our Indian welcome dinner, Stealth, Steeplechase, surprise bonus parks, Raptor Attack, Big One, Big Dipper, getting a surprise soaking on the malaria-infested waters of Calamity Canyon at Gulliver's (thanks Ivan), Grand National, the London Dungeon, the London Eye, Dragon's Fury, the tastiest pancakes ever, the Crobar, Oblivion, Avalanche, riding the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters, Vampire, Over The Hill, the Devil's Creek Goldmine, surviving The Ultimate, cornish pasties, Irn-Bru Revolution, Zipper Dipper, Derby Racer... I could go on. Thanks to Robb and Elissa for all of your hard work - and to everyone else who helped make this such a great trip! (And now I think I have some Europe updates to check out too...)

Great coasters!! I liked Water slightly better, but this may just be because I rode it first, so Water got to make the first impression upon me. Both sides are pretty similar. A lot wilder than the family ride I was anticipating - expectations were surpassed by far!

^I will definitely make it over there with you guys one of these days! Japan is so awesome - can't wait to go back.