Ryancrash

Blue Fire sure looks like one helluva ride! I love the rocks, the tunnel, the color scheme... this coaster is gonna be a winner. Can't wait to go back to Deutschland and Europa Park!!

Yay for Thunderbird ERT!! I'm sure looking forward to this one. Thanks for sharing the good news Robb. How are any spots left open for Scandinavia?! Wow, I know the economy's crap right now, but still... This is not a trip to be missed. I could lose my job tomorrow and I'd still find a way to make it happen somehow. Ya do what ya gotta do, right? (Hold up a bank, start a Ponzi scheme, sell corporate secrets, blackmail the mafia...) Where there's a will...

The dead giveaway here is the absence of KT. Leave home without her? I don't think so. Robb and Elissa have teleported back in time, back to a year before her birth. My final answer? Robb and Elissa are inside a magical time-warp wormhole. (Either that, or you're in South Africa...)

I loved seeing the Cos-play-zoku in Japan! What fun. This needs to seriously catch on in the States. Americans have gotten too conservative with their attire since the days of punk rock. Let every day be Halloween!

Ah, the popcorn... when we were at Tokyo Disney in 2005, they had those curry popcorn carts all over the park and it smelled sooooooo good. Unfortunately, we never got to try any, cause there were always about 200 people in line. We were there during Japanese Spring Break - it was absolutely THE most crowded I've ever seen a park. Just the same, Tokyo Disney was awesome, a truly delightful park, even with the crowds. (And no French crushing either - the Japanese are polite.)

Haven't been to Muscle Park yet, but Sega Joypolis rocks! I loved Spin Bullet. Halfpipe Canyon was cool too, and I seem to recall some awesomely wacky haunted house attractions that made little sense, but were a lot of fun. Mountain of sushi - yum! Monster Burger - yum! Damn I wanna go back to Japan soon... Nice Takeru Kobayashi reference! My best friend's son has "Takeru" for a middle name (named after Kobayashi, of course).

YAY!! Perhaps I got a bit overly ambitious / excited / carried away. Then again, how could I not? The Scandinavia trip is gonna RAWK!! I can't wait!! Sorry I had to miss the chat last nite. I never ever work on Tuesday nites - (Tuesday nites are my Saturdays) - but for some odd reason I was working last nite. D'oh... Oh well, I'll look forward to reading the transcript, whenever it's posted. Has anyone started the official countdown yet? How many days left until Scandinavia?

I love Thunder Dolphin! Yeah, it's no GeForce or SRoS, but it's still a helluva lot of fun. And its central location is just wonderful. I've been to Tokyo twice - anytime I had an hour or two to kill, I could always hop on over to Tokyo Dome City and ride Thunder Dolphin some more. This ride makes me more than a bit jealous of Tokyo - why can't Manhattan have a big Intamin hypercoaster right smack dab in the middle of the city? Seriously! I'm sorry to hear that GeoPanic and Zombie Paradise are gone. I kinda liked those rides too. I hope something good takes their place. How is that new Intamin mini-hyper at Tobu Zoo? (They were just starting to build it last time I was there...)

So it's three months later and I'm just now finally starting to check out trip reports. Great photos Tim!! It's fun to hear the Efteling soundtrack as well. I didn't get to enjoy the Flying Dutchman theme music in the park, because I was too busy getting French-crunched in line to even notice it, so it's nice to look back and appreciate it now. Excellent TR - Hope you post some more!

What is Becki (the ghost from Schloss Beck) doing in Korea? Wow, T-Express and Eagle's Fortress both look absolutely incredible! I will have to get over to Korea in the near future. Robb - awesome photos and videos!

A Disney park without the crowds - I love it!! I haven't seen a Disney park this empty since I had the priviledge of visiting Eurodisney in early 1992. Sure, there wasn't much there (BTM, Pirates, Phantom Manor and not much else), but it was totally a fair trade-off, getting to enjoy the short lines and the park all to ourselves. Disney ERT RAWKS!!

Pearl Land? Is that like, um, a pearl necklace? That bag-o-cubed meat looks pretty darn tasty. I hope the rest of your trip continues to be an orgiastic affair!

Wow, crazy disk-o monster RAWKS!! The Chinese Paris Hilton is much prettier than the real thing. And I totally wanna ride one of those hydro-hamster balls. Too bad about all the cats everywhere though - that's just nasty! And THUNDERCLAP? Now that CAN'T be good... In Japan, I loved reading all the signs that were written in "Engrish" - nice to see that China has a lot of that as well. "Engrish" never ceases to entertain. When I rode coasters in Japan, I often heard the Japanese people screaming "ITAI!", which translates to something like "OUCH! IT HURTS!" Do the Chinese have such a word? If so, you guys must be hearing a lot of it right now! Good luck - I hope you all make it back in one piece! Riding death credits = AWESOME. Becoming a death credit = NOT COOL!!

So just how long is that Alpine "sliding car" ride? It looks damn awesome! (Hope you got some POV footage!) I soooooo wanna go to the Great Wall... And BUTTERSCOTCH chicken?! Wow, sounds delicious! Watch out, with all that amazing food, you guys are gonna be putting on the pounds like ACErs in no time at all. By the end of the trip, you'll be asking parks for the XL shirts.

I love Leap The Dips! And Skyliner. And Toboggan and Skydiver both bring back childhood memories of carnivals. My best friend is originally from Altoona, PA - when he was a teenager, he lost his virginity in the Lakemont Park parking lot! Years later, we took his little boy (who was three years old at the time) on Leap The Dips for his very first coaster ride (he loved it). Lakemont Park is just awesome...

Erik - Great photos and videos! Glad I was able to make it up for Behemoth Bash - that entire day was an absolute blast. Wish I could have joined you all for the rest of the trip as well. Glad you liked the pistacchio soft serve - I'm gonna try to head down to Coney Island before work tomorrow evening. I'm overdue for a Cyclone/Nathan's/pistacchio soft serve fix.

I may not have been at Waldameer with you all, but I was definitely there in spirit. The proof: I am somehow riding in the second seat of the first car on the NINETY DEGREES photo - Yay! Damn, I have got to make it back to Waldameer and ride Ravine Flyer II at night....

ERT on Big Thunder Mountain was amazing! Quite an unexpected surprise to cap off an already phenomenal trip. And the TPR perks just keep on coming... Robb and Elissa - thanks again for such an awesome Europe Tour! How many days left until Scandinavia now?

A confession - I actually go to both TPR and ACE events (wow, I feel so out-of-the-closet now...) I have nothing against ACE, really, but I do have to say I have a lot more fun at TPR events. Yes, there is a noticably different energy between the groups. TPR tends to be a younger, more energetic crowd. And yes, ACErs are more "hard core" - that is, more "hard core" about making a bee-line for the buffet tables at chow time! (Hence the need for more of the XL shirts - American Chow Enthusiasts?) Seriously though, I'm not trying to diss ACE in any way - there are some great people there as well. But when I have to choose between an ACE event and a TPR event (which has already happened twice), TPR wins out pretty easily.

The full answer was "Hot Fuzz Rich (who owes me $50 for stealing my signature move)" (as discussed earlier on the Europe trip thread, I think it was... me and my devil horns...) Also, you can't see too good in the photo, but I made a nice little drawing of you as well. It's better than the drawing I did of Ike from South Park, but not as good as my octopus drawing.

I think he wrote down the wrong answer to that question. I see my name written off to the left hand side. I believe it was the Jiggidy question. Actually Jeff, I wrote you down twice, both times as WRONG answers - my trivia sheet had a LOT of wrong answers! (Hence the dire need for the magical octopus with the 100 bonus points.) As Erik pointed out, I confused you and him on the Jiggidy question. Then I listed you as one of Robb's former roommates - I had a right answer to begin with (Dave Thomas), then I crossed out his name and put yours instead. Wow, I sure know my fellow TPR members well!

Behemoth Bash RAWKED!! Behemoth was my 400th coaster back in May - but that day, I only got a few rides on it, since the park was so crowded. At Behemoth Bash, I got to ride it 18 times - damn I love ERT! (Nighttime ERT on Vortex was pretty sweet too.) Behemoth is such a great ride, possibly my favorite B&M hyper - and I so LOVE B&M hypers! I think I like it even better than Nitro. (Now I can start counting down the months until Diamondback opens at Kings Island...) The world can never have enough hypercoasters! Robb, I have to disagree with your assessment of Behemoth as an "emo" coaster. Yeah, I know the three letters appear in the coaster's moniker - but emo? Maybe I'm off target here, but I think of "emo" as being overly-sensative, a bit whiny, mopey, introspective, ultra-PC, a bit lazy - basically, the exact polar OPPOSITE of everything that Behemoth is! Hey, they don't call it a HYPERcoaster for nothing... (Then again, what do I know about emo...) Thanks Robb, Elissa and TPR for another awesome event!

Behemoth Bash was a blast!! It was great to see some familiar faces from the 2008 Europe Tour, and to meet some new folks as well. Thanks to all the awesome people I hung out with, and to Robb and Elissa for another insanely fun TPR experience! (Robb - thanx also for the Behemoth schwag I won by playing dirty in the trivia competition!) Now I'm back in NYC - I was planning to swing down to Coney Island tomorrow to say Hey, but I've got a birthday dinner to attend at the exact same time. Sorry I'll miss you guys! Coney Island's a bit ghetto, but it definitely has its charms. (I still visit every summer.) You probably won't need a whole lot of time there. Some recommendations - get the pistacchio soft serve ice cream! I believe the place is called Denny's - it's on Surf Avenue, a couple blocks west of the Cyclone, south side of the street. If the Freak Show is open, check it out - Coney Island has the last ten-in-one circus sideshow in the country. There are three haunted house dark rides - none are very good, but they're all charming in their own cheesy way (Dante's Inferno is the best of the bunch, Spook-a-rama and Ghost Hole are a bit more ghetto - I usually ride all three). And when you ride the Wonder Wheel, make sure to get in one of the cars that moves back and forth. Eat Nathan's Hot Dogs - there's one on the corner of Surf and Stillwell (which also has seafood - soft shell crab sandwiches, mmm...) and another on the Boardwalk. And once again - PISTACCHIO SOFT SERVE! Have fun! I hope the Cyclone gives you some good rides and doesn't injure anyone too severely. (I still love that coaster...)

A perfect description of Space Mountain Mission 2! I couldn't have summed it up any better. I rode it in the front and the back (WHAT was I thinking?) and I honestly can't say which was a worse experience - they were both horrible. I understand that this was once a good coaster - I really wish I could have ridden it back then. It's sad when parks don't take care of their coasters. SM:M2 is just screaming for some rehab work. WTF? It's not like Disney couldn't afford to fix it up a bit. They certainly seem to be doing enough business and making enough money. Are they not aware that there is a real problem with this coaster? Or do they just not give a damn? SM:M2 was certainly one of the worst rides of the trip, worse than Anaconda, worse than some of the SLCs, maybe even worse than Goudurix. OUCH!!

I ate quite a few croque monsieurs on this trip (mostly on the pre-tour days I spent in Paris). These things were delicious! (And probably about 3000 calories each...) Can't believe I never had these before. Wonder if I can find them somewhere here in New York. I'm happy to say I only ate at McDonald's once on this trip - the nite at the Ibis Hotel near CDG, when we took the trip to the airport. McDonald's is all fine and dandy, but I can get this in the U.S. anytime. Yeah it's cheap and convenient, but it's nothing special. If I'm in a foreign country, I'd much rather try something different, something I don't see at home everyday. My taste buds need to know that they're on vacation, too. And as for the McDonald's at Disneyland Paris, the idea of waiting forty-five minutes for FAST FOOD is really beyond my comprehension. No thank you. I missed out on the pizza burger experience - but a few of us ate at the Blue Lagoon restaurant (the one inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride). The food was actually really good, and the portions were much larger than I expected. And unlike McDonald's, it wasn't crowded at all - I'd say the place was less than half full. However, the service was still really slow. I was kinda hoping Disneyland Paris would have the curry popcorn, like they had in Japan. At Tokyo Disney, there were these curry popcorn stands all over the park, and it smelled soooooo good. Unfortunately, there were always at least 200 people in line at each stand, and we didn't feel like waiting. To this day, I still haven't tried that popcorn.