mattnz

Our next stop on the Texas Midwest tour was one of the most amazing places you can eat in all of North America - Lambert's Cafe, the 'Home of the Throwed Rolls'. I was very excited to return here, having thoroughly enjoyed the food on TPR's 2010 Midwest trip, so thank you for adding it to our itinerary once again Robb and Elissa! The menu consists of extra large portions of homestyle cooking. Occasionally the helpings are so generous they serve your meal in a sauce pan! The restaurant is also famous for their 'pass arounds', which is a nice concept, enabling you to sample plenty of different dishes, along with their incredibly large 32 oz drinks (which they'll refill for you!). The steaming hot throwed rolls, which are literally hurled at you by a waiter if you put your hand up, are also fantastic. All in all, this is an amazing eatery, and we have absolutely nothing like it in New Zealand. After travelling to St. Louis we reached a surreal place I never thought I'd visit again, the City Museum. It's hard to describe this former International Shoe building but one I quite liked was that it was a "giant playground for adults". The museum also bills itself an "eclectic mixture of playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion and architectural marvel". Sums it up pretty well to me! We had the whole place to ourselves and plenty of time to sustain injuries. This was easily one of the craziest and most enjoyable days of the trip. And all without riding a single roller coaster! Excuse the quality of some of the photos in this update. We had our small but hardy camera out today... Next stop on the trip was the awesome Lambert's Cafe. While we waited for our tables, we took some time to do a little shopping. This looked deliciously alcoholic. Quite a few of us sampled the local brews. I had to buy some genuine Missouri moonshine! These strangely realistic cats creeped me out. Finally, it was time to eat. And Lambert's did not disappoint! It's an absolutely fantastic place. The food consists of delicious, homestyle cooking. Uh-oh... Onwards to St. Louis. What is with America's obsession with fireworks? We drove near the Gateway Arch, but didn't stop by this time. I cannot believe we made it back to this surreal place. I thought it was all a dream! Crazy, random fun awaits... Delving deep inside. I noticed quite a few new things since 2010. I don't remember any of this from last time. The playground structures at the City Museum can be very confusing! This led us to one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life. The only way out was via a tiny tunnel underneath the floor. The slide to oblivion! Time to explore some more... Love the clash of art and insanity in this place. Inside the whale. The Enchanted Caves. Hey TPR! The City Museum is also known for its ten-story shoe shaft slides. Good luck Andy! Neil and Roxanne added to our entertainment. There was so much to see... Including some actual museum-style exhibits. The City Museum is even educational. And enlightened! Knobs anyone? For no particular reason, they had this giant, empty ballroom. Well, why not? But back to the creative ways for TPR to injure ourselves! This room reminded me of something out of the movie Saw. This place is really not for the faint hearted... The ball pit was a good time! It looked so innocent, but I witnessed quite a few injuries in here... Yup. We made our way to the rooftop. The views were great. Some were very unnerving. They had crazy climbing structures everywhere. This one was particularly frightening...but Andrew braved it! Neil drove a bus off the side of the building. No, really! I was glad not to be in the middle of a heatwave like our last visit. This was exhausting enough! Ahh! Glad to see the creaky Ferris Wheel of death still here. These slides were fun... If you could make it to the top! Whee! I am still having nightmares about this image! I was glad to see Alexis make it out alive. Everyone becomes a kid again at the City Museum! I can't recommend the place highly enough. Just stock up your first aid kit. Thanks for reading!

Going through these photos is bringing back so many memories, but I had forgotten about the awesome gift bags. I drink coffee out of my Outlaw Run mug every day. Neil: I was wrong - there were obviously SIX of us in the manly log. Not five! Haha! Thanks for posting the pic.

Thanks everyone for following along with my TR and apologies for the delay between updates - it's been a busy few months. I was quite ill in 2010 when we last visited Silver Dollar City with TPR, and it didn't stop me from having a great time. In fact, it was my favourite park of the trip back then - and I can say the same for our visit this time round. Silver Dollar City just keeps getting better and better. There is something incredibly charming about the place - the beautiful setting, friendly service, working craftsmen, amazing food around every corner and unique rides all coming together to create a world-class park. In fact, along with Knoebel's, this is easily my favourite theme park in the world. Outlaw Run is the crowning achievement of the park - and what an amazing ride it is! I would compare it to one of my other favourites, El Toro. It's equally insane - a smooth but intense, out of control, wild ride. The first drop is crazy, the airtime and those swooping turns absolutely stunning, and the double heartline roll into the brake run makes for a great finale. We had our first rides at night during an epic ERT session and you could see how good the coaster was by the reactions on the faces of the riders barrelling out of that last heartline roll. Day two at the park saw patchy weather, and just like our visit to Knoebel's in 2011, it didn't affect our experience whatsoever. The park is too well run for that! We enjoyed a backstage tour of Fire in the Hole, and utilised the park's special Trailblazer passes to get on all the rides. Not that we needed or wanted to rush - this is a park you have to explore and, very importantly, eat your way around! Particular favourites of mine were the cinnamon bread (which is to DIE for!), the delicious skillets and kettle chips. The park also put on an amazing lunch for us. It was some the best food we had on the entire trip. We didn't do the Marvel Cave tour this time, and due to flooding you couldn't do the round trip anyway, but I highly recommend it to visitors of the park. It is a totally unique experience and a wonderful break from the heat too. I know I'm raving about Silver Dollar City, and I haven't even gotten to the other rides yet, so I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking... Welcome to Missouri! Day 2: On our way to the park we passed by poor old Ozark Wildcat, now SBNO since 2009. I don't have many photos from our first night at Silver Dollar City, but this one sure brings back memories. Night rides on Outlaw Run were totally epic! And how cool that our visit was on the park's very first midnight closing. The nicely-themed station. TPR ponchos are very in this season. It was great checking out the maintenance areas. Replacement wheels... Fire in the Hole has electrically powered sections and a series of drops, including a splash down finish. A real classic. We then headed straight back to Outlaw Run! Outlaw Run, like all the attractions at Silver Dollar City, is carefully themed. Riders are part of the law enforcement tasked to take control back from the outlaws. As explained to us at lunch, this bit of themeing at the entrance is there to advertise that "good guys always win". We kicked off the day with a backstage tour of Fire in the Hole, the park's fun coaster/dark ride hybrid. The coaster is quite hard to photograph from the pathways, but we got this nice peek of the heartline rolls If rain really does lubricate coaster track, I say bring it on! We were all amazed that the park managed to add the second train today - this was just after modifications were made, and they had only been running one train the previous night. We all cheered at this sight! Station themeing. TPR are ready to ride! No ERT for us today, but no matter, the Trailblazer passes got us on multiple times. The speedy lift hill. That drop...one of the best in the world without a doubt. That turn! A pic we took from the train later in the day. The trees have really grown in since Outlaw Run opened, making it seem even faster! Time to explore the rest of the park. There are all sorts of strange things to do at Silver Dollar City...like Elsie the Milk Cow. Random fun! The Giant Barn Swing is a well-themed S&S Screamin' Swing. I thought this was the Ozark Water Tree, but no - that's apparently a real tree that yields a continuous stream of water. I don't recall seeing it, which is typical of the park - they just have so much to see and do. I love this place! I love these rides - they're usually quite short, but so much fun. We wandered in here for another highlight of the day... Amen! Cinnamon bread with extra frosting... This is just so, SO good, it's hard to explain and hard to overrate. We didn't know about Grandfather's Mansion on our last visit, so were happy to find it this time. Something sure is up with Grandfather! They had some great tricks in here. Every park should have a fun house! Time to explore some more... It was fantastic! (Of course!) The park's suspension bridge. The smells at Silver Dollar City were just heavenly! Ah! Don't tempt me! Silver Dollar City has a lot of craftsmen demonstrations, such as wood carving. We had to sample some of the food from the cast-iron skillets. The weather started to clear up nicely for us, and it actually got pretty hot. Powder Keg was a fantastic, fun launched coaster - and as others on TPR have said, it's quite underrated! The launch is great, the airtime surprising, the second lift hill unique - all in all, great fun. I wish there were most coasters on the planet like this one! Like some of the other rides at Silver Dollar City, it was a little hard to photograph... We're ready for our blast in the wilderness! The park ran the ride exceptionally well on our visit, with fast dispatches, significantly reducing what looked like a long line. It was getting hot, so what better way to cool off than some water rides? (I don't have any decent photos of Tom & Huck's River Blast, but we were all surprised at how fun this was!) We managed to squash five adult men into our log on American Plunge - and got soaked! Lost River of the Ozarks has some interesting features, including a cool tunnel. The public seem to love rapids rides, and so do I! Lost River of the Ozarks was very popular with the crowds, but fortunately the Trailblazer passes saved the day yet again. It also has one of the best backdrops of any coaster in the world! It only has a couple of jolts (the corkscrew, as I recall, walloped my ears). I haven't forgotten about B&M's contribution to Silver Dollar City. Wildfire is a fun ride...and the first drop is particularly good, especially in the back, where your butt will not touch the seat the whole way down. Heading into the cobra roll. It was time for lunch, and WHAT a lunch we had. Thanks Silver Dollar City! After lunch we wandered over to the Grand Exposition area to watch TPR members embarrass themselves on the kiddie coaster. Some nice rides for the little ones too. It's a really beautiful area with lots of flat rides. But a credit's a credit, right? The park spends months covering their buildings with Christmas lights. This undoubtedly looks stunning at night! Finally, a shout out to one of the best Arrow mine trains in the world - Thunderation! The park had an enormous candy store. We brought quite a lot of candy from here! Sugary goodness. Is it time for more food yet? It's a shame the park doesn't run some of the cars backwards like they used to, but this is still a great ride. It picks up some really good speed, and even has (gasp!) airtime. We checked out Geyser Gulch. It's a really fun area for both kids and adults. There were two large buildings with plenty to explore, and lots and lots of balls! I loved the Americana store! We also rode the Flooded Mine, a shooting dark ride. Word has it that it may not be around for much longer, at least in its current form. Thanks Silver Dollar City for a truly wonderful day!

Nice TR Marcel - ONE day I will get to Oktoberfest. It is weird seeing you drink beer though. You're not 21!

Arkansas is far off the beaten path. It's one of those places I probably wouldn't visit were it not for TPR and my ongoing search for elusive credits. Having now visited, I can still tell you little about the place: I know it's the boyhood home of Bill Clinton, it's pretty, it has hot springs, it smells like a cross between cow dung and fertilizer - and it has a pretty decent amusement park. We had a fairly brief stop at Magic Springs & Crystal Falls, since we were on our way to Silver Dollar City where our time was best maximised, but past experience told me that these out of the way parks often have more to offer than meets the eye. I liked Magic Springs. I can see how the park might want to focus on their water park, but I thought the rides section had plenty to offer and I hope they keep it around and expand on it too. They had a Maurer Söhne SkyLoop for one - we've been on one of these crazy contraptions on the Gold Coast in Australia and it is definitely a thrilling ride experience, with some big Gs at the bottom of the drop and the odd sensation of hanging upside down at 150 feet with lapbars only. I was glad to see it still operating at Magic Springs. The other coasters are pretty standard, from a non-eventful out and back woodie to a painful SLC and a better than average Arrow mine train, but if I was a local I'd take these rides over water slides any day. Coasters are just an altogether different experience, and with the park's decent flats - including a Zamperla Power Surge and an S&S Double Shot (two of my favourites), along with a log flume - and I see lots of room for them to do positive expansion rather than doing an 'Alabama Adventure' on us. One last comment: the ride ops and staff here were SO friendly! Inquisitive, talkative and just really nice - the sort of people we always seem to encounter in the South. For example, a staff member, when we passed by their games stall said, "Thanks anyway, have a nice day!" when we turned them down. Very unlike the aggressive attitude you'd see at many other parks (hey Six Flags!). This photo has been seen before and will probably be seen again...until the world gets more female roller coaster enthusiasts! Welcome to Arkansas, a state I only recently learned how to pronounce. We received a very warm welcome to Magic Springs and were given souvenir cups (I still have mine). Five brand new credits awaited us at Magic Springs! Yay for open X-Coasters. We wandered through the water park to get to our first credit. Any park with a FlowRider has an asset on their hands. Some pretty cool slides in the water park. 'Crystal Falls' looked quite tempting. Arkansas Twister, formerly of Boardwalk and Baseball in Florida. It was OK. A fairly decent out and back woodie, but not much airtime to be had... There was a small area for the little ones at Magic Springs. Cute carousel. Nice area of the park. The lake that sits in the middle of Magic Springs. Diamond Mine Run is the fancy name for the park's kiddie coaster. Yay! A Zamperla Power Surge! Great flat ride. Better still, an S&S Double Shot. This one went by the name of Dr. Dean's Rocket Machine. The very intimidating X-Coaster... There is something about vertical lift hills that manages to elicit screams of fear from riders. You don't see too many hands up on this ride. I do love an Arrow mine train, and this one was better than average. This mine train has really whored itself around - from Six Flags St. Louis to Dollywood to Magic Springs. But it feels like it's always been here, with the setting amid the trees. There was some kind of pirate show going on... Yay! First SLC of the trip! We tried every which way to brace ourselves - but it still kicked our asses! No caption required. Magic Springs has a couple of water rides, including this very wet shoot-the-chutes. There was a lot of shade at Magic Springs too, always a welcome component of any park. The giant wave pool seemed to attract most of the park's visitors today. Jesus-themed merch. Magic Mountain isn't the only park than can YOLO! Silver Dollar City up next - and I'll try to be more prompt with my updates. (Sorry Neil!)

Nice TR Yin, and great to meet you. I hope you can do another TPR trip sometime soon!

^^ Thanks for the photo Thad! Awesome! ^ I was so tough on SFOT, but there were many fun aspects to our day there. If all the ride ops were like the Judge, I'd have had a much better day. Call it tough love!

Cheers for the link on the front page TPR! New Zealand, 1985: I'm an excited 7 year old kid. A Kiwi cereal company has randomly decided to include collector's cards in their cereal boxes showcasing amusement parks from around the world. I pull out the latest one - Shock Wave at Six Flags Over Texas, and it's immediately my favourite. "Wow," I think to myself, "Two loops!" Flash forward to 2013: Needless to say I was far more disappointed that Shock Wave was closed than New Texas Giant. Don't get me wrong, NTAG looks absolutely amazing, but I'm really going to have to get on Shock Wave someday, somehow. Six Flags Over Texas do seem invested in the ride, which is a wonderful thing...and the last positive thing I have to say about this park. Really, Six Flags, you've had a nightmare season with the NTAG accident, wouldn't it have been GOOD for you to have welcomed an enthusiastic group of PAYING roller coaster nerds like Theme Park Review with OPEN ARMS?! Apparently the park was too busy ripping apart their brand new Gerstlauer trains for litigious purposes. If it's Six Flags versus German engineering...all I can say is good luck Six Flags!! Along with the closure of their best two rides throw in the blazing heat, mediocre operations, surly ride ops and inconsistent policies and that makes for an irritating day. What a shame - because the park really is beautiful, with a long history and some unique rides. Thank the Intamin gods for Robb and Elissa. The last-minute side trip to Summer Adventures at Fair Park (i.e. the rides section at the State Fair of Texas) was so, so awesome. How can a small midway of rides outside fair time trump a huge corporate park? By being FUN!!! From the small but insane spinning coaster Jungle Twist to the old school Ghost Train to fun on the Flow Rider, Summer Adventures was a good time. And they treated us well. Everyone was so friendly, nice and welcoming - it made going back to Six Flags that night quite depressing. Even just a little consideration can go a long way, and we all left with good vibes. I wanted to like Six Flags Over Texas so much. It reminded me in many ways of Six Flags Over Georgia. Lots of beauty, charm, history, great rides, promise for the future... I really do hope this season is a blip on their radar and they get their act together. Because I have no intention of going back until they do. The view from our hotel room...the bittersweet flagship park of the chain, Six Flags Over Texas. It was a swelteringly hot day, which didn't help our general mood, quite frankly. The queue for Judge Roy Scream is far removed from the rest of the park. I do love an old school out and back woodie, even if it's just for looks. The crowds are just rearing to get into the park today. These spray fans were very welcome! There is themeing all over Six Flags Over Texas - you can see and feel the history of the place. I do love the duel-loading station. "Ice to meet you!" TPR riders enjoying their reverse blast! TPR were allowed into the park early for first rides of the day on Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast. I enjoyed the reverse Mr. Freeze experience. Having done the forwards version I have to agree with the general consensus - it's great looking down from 200-plus feet in the air... The Gotham/pavement portion of the park. Another day, another Batman coaster. This...you won't find me complaining about! I was looking forward to Arrow's first ever mine train from 1966. It's old school, but I thought this was one of the best mine trains out there! We also gave some love to the Mini Mine Train and it's mean-spirited ride ops. Hands up TPR! Ian and I decided to change things up and try a flat ride. I do love a Troika! And this one had a cool name: Crazy Legs. There are numerous areas of the park that look like this, which is not a bad thing at all. We had to give the all-new 400-foot tall StarFlyer a whirl... We gave Pandemoniun a spin, not the first or last Gerstlauer creation we'd ride on this trip! We had fun queueing for Bill Cob's creation, Judge Roy Scream, or as we liked to call it, 'The Judge'. 'The Judge' was also the name we gave the lovely ride op from Minnesota, who provided some of our best memories of the park. I could have listened to her accent all day! The Looney Tunes area of the park looked pretty good too. The Silver Star Carousel. Neil feels right at home in Mexico. Conquistador is the name of the Intamin Bounty swinging ship in this area. It's a good example of the nice themeing this park actually does have. Not a bad view at all, Six Flags! La Vibora was the park's Intamin Swiss Bob credit. I'm not sure if we overloaded the train, but we seemed to bounce off the track more than I would have preferred! We had to give the world's first ever log flume a go - El Aserradero! It was old school alright, and I will never pass up a log flume. I just wish the second flume was operating too. We checked out some merch... 1980s hotness. Moving into the Texas portion of the park... NTAG dominates the area. Alas... It's a gorgeous looking ride... Nevermind, there's another great ride in this area of the park... Titan. Wow! I've been on Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and I had forgotten how powerful these Giovanola hypercoasters are. The helixes are mind-blowing...with some serious grey-out moments. The drops aren't half-bad either, and there's even a bit of air. Last credit we needed was Runaway Mountain, an indoor Premier coaster similar to a Hurricane or Windstorm in the dark, and not bad at all. Some of the history on display...how nice it would've been to visit this park in better days. One of the last attractions we tried was Yosemite Sam and the Gold River Adventure, an old school Arrow water dark ride, that just seemed broken down, dusty, and spoiled by rude, obnoxious ride ops. What a Sixtastic day! TPR are ready for some Summer Adventures! It was great to see downtown Dallas too. The all-new 500 foot Intamin observation tower that goes by the name Top of Texas Tower. Appropriate name! The views from up there were fantastic. See those two TINY little rides? Both made me fear for my life and thank the Intamin gods I made it off in one piece! Queueing for Jungle Twist, you really wouldn't know what's coming... Just imagine a tea cups ride on steroids. We're talking a ridiculous amount of spinning! There were also points when we rode this contraption next door that I didn't think I'd make it out alive. What a ride cycle! (Thanks Neil!!) What is an 'Island of Cats and Dogs'? Why, it's a show, of course! There were two other credits here...including this Windstorm coaster, which had an awesome and funny ride op spraying water by request - and boy did we need that sort of treatment today! Summer Adventures also had a log flume. Yay for another log flume credit. The Bubble House was a fantastic fun house with lots of tricks, a DJ, and plenty of soapy bubbles! Not to mention a clown to haunt your dreams. I loved the karaoke sing-a-long! The ride was also really good! Love this building too. The park had an amazing ghost train! This awesome ride op really got some TPR members by the jugular! Boogedy boogedy boo!! TPDave was somehow immune. Some TPR members dared to ride this crazy thing... A lot of TPR members also checked out the Flowrider, which the park ran for us at double capacity. We did go back to Six Flags for some night rides. Mr. Freeze was particularly good, but what can I say, I'd rather ride Shock Wave... Thanks nonetheless Robb and Elissa for totally saving today and making it awesome. I don't know how you did it, but you did! Neil has never screamed so much in his life! But...you know what, when you're up there, it's not so bad. Somehow, you end up enjoying the view the immense height offers and forget that you're hanging on for dear life by flimsy chains.

Thanks for your comments everyone! The next stop on our trip was SeaWorld San Antonio, which provided a nice change of pace from Six Flags. Again, we had some great ERT lined up, including the three big coasters at the park. SeaWorld also put on a lovely lunch for us, bringing out some animals for us to interact with, and great prizes too. Steel Eel was the surprise of the day, and - having ridden Mamba, Steel Force and Wild Thing - I'd rank it as my no. 1 Morgan coaster. (I'm not counting Phantom's Revenge which is half an Arrow and in another class entirely.) It's not too tall at 150 feet but really delivers in the air time department. The third hill was the biggest surprise - your butt is WAY out of the seat at that point - and even after the midcourse the air keeps coming. A very nice coaster, great at the front and good at the back if you don't mind some butt-slamming air time. I hear that some prefer it! We didn't spend too much time watching shows but checked out the One Ocean Shamu killer whale show as we'd never seen one before. The trainers don't interact with the whales as much as they used to, apparently, but it was an impressive show nonetheless. They are majestic creatures, and it was quite entertaining watching onlookers in the 'soak zone' getting completely and utterly drenched! The one thing we found very strange was the salute to the military at the beginning. What has SeaWorld got to do with the military? Oh well, they did also salute 'our allies' so that includes New Zealand too, I guess! SeaWorld San Antonio is a good aquatic park, particularly excelling in the animal department, but I felt they could do with a couple more signature rides. Even a well-themed flat ride or two. I was also expecting the park to be a little more 'lush', i.e. covered in trees, but I guess it's Texas, which is kind of arid, right? This was the point of the trip where it really started to get very, very hot... TPR members can be very orderly sometimes. Nothing like riding roller coasters first thing in the morning. First coaster of the day was Journey to Atlantis. While they tested the ride we tried to gauge how wet it was. After yesterday's very wet log flume, Andrew and I pulled out our trusty TPR ponchos... The backwards bit was rather unsettling, but I believe this technically makes it a coaster... Turns out, Journey to Atlantis wasn't too wet. Mostly got your upper half. Next up was ERT on Steel Eel and Great White. I LOVE the look of that queue! Steel Eel sails over the midway. The aforementioned third hill. SeaWorld LOVES the military! Another Batman clone, this time themed to a shark, which makes it extra special for TPR. TPR members pick their row. This wasn't as good as yesterday's Batman clone, but it's still one of the best coaster designs out there, packing the usual punch into it's short but sweet length. The park has a rapids ride, which is a great idea in Texas! And gave out prizes! Roxanne nabbed Shamu. Doug preferred the bear. They also brought out some animals. (What even is this thing?) After lunch we caught the Cool Vibrations ski show from across the lake. I have no idea what is happening here. I don't want to mislead people, the park DOES definitely have trees. This looked like a nice picnic area. Some areas of the park were really gorgeous. We wandered into the Sesame Street Bay of Play area to get the kiddie credit. Lots of interactive water fountains to entertain the little ones. Time for Shamu. Killer whales away! A beached whale... I thoroughly enjoyed watching people screaming in the soak zone! In all, a great show. We also spent some time checking out the fishy exhibits, a nice break from the blazing sun. They had a diver taking photos with people through a port hole. And I'll end this TR with a photo of a shark. Thanks for a very enjoyable day, Sea World San Antonio! One great thing about having two theme parks in one town is...multiple hotel nights. I'm feeling refreshed and ready to take on SeaWorld San Antonio! A full train of TPR peeps enjoying Steel Eel. I didn't realise we snapped Robb in action filming another fantastic POV! The back and the front are where it's at. SeaWorld put on a really nice lunch for us. Some I stayed well away from!

Andrew and I did our first trip with TPR in 2010 - the epic Midwest trip that took place during a sweltering heatwave, and followed it up in 2011 with the exhausting but absolutely awesome North East/Road to Cedar Point trips. We have definitely caught the TPR trip bug! I really can't think of too many times in my life when I've had more fun than with TPR. Totally random example: Laughing our asses off on the tiny but insane spinning coaster Jungle Twist at Summer Adventures at Fair Park. A fellow trip participant described TPR trips as "summer camp for adults" and that's a pretty apt description to me! After a year off we had to come back for more and since getting to the U.S. is relatively cheap for us, Texas Midwest looked like a great option. It was a fantastic trip with about 50% new parks and 50% re-visits, which made for a nice mix. It was particularly fun returning to Silver Dollar City and some of the Midwest parks. And of course we had to add on as many other parks as we could (like a lot of international TPR people do...), hitting up Virginia, Orlando/Tampa and L.A. I think we might have displeased the Intamin gods, however, as we had a fairly long list of missed credits, including Iron Rattler, New Texas Giant, Shock Wave, Intimidator 305 and Xcelerator. Yikes! You know it's a bad season for the U.S. parks when a large handful of their very best coasters are closed. We are definitely going to have to return to some of these parks very soon. A huge thank you to Robb and Elissa for all your hard work, especially for all those little things you do behind the scenes that may sometimes go unnoticed by the group. You really have this down to a fine art! And a special shout out to our fellow 'delicious alcoholics' Ian and Neil. It was fun drinking, hanging out and Q-botting with you! A Little Bit of Schlitterbahn (scroll down) The Loneliest Star in the Chain - Six Flags Fiesta Texas (scroll down) Change of Pace at SeaWorld San Antonio (pg. 2) Summer Adventures Trumps Six Flags Over Texas (pg. 3) Off the Beaten Path in Arkansas - Magic Springs & Crystal Falls (pg. 5) Silver Dollar City Just Keeps Getting Better and Better (pg. 5) It Hurts So Good - Knocked About at the City Museum (pg. 6) A Six Flags Day in St. Louis (pg. 7) Drunk in the Dells - Mt. Olympus & Timber Falls (pg. 8) I Love Little Amerricka (pg. 10) A Sixtastic Day at Great America - Shame About X-Flight (pg. 11) Thank the Intamin Gods for Fastlane - Cedar Point (pg. 12) Kings Dominion without Intimidator 305 (pg. 15) Beautiful Busch Gardens Williamsburg (pg. 16) In Support of SeaWorld Orlando (pg. 18) A Mistimed Trip to Epcot (pg. 19) Hustling the Magic Kingdom (pg. 20) Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios in One Day (pg. 21) Storming Busch Gardens Tampa (pg. 22) Impressed by Universal Orlando (pg. 22) The Intamin Cable Strikes Again - Knott’s Berry Farm (pg. 23) A Little Bit of Schlitterbahn Just words for this update as we didn't take too many photos. Check out Marcel's fabulous photo TR of Schlitterbahn here. Schlitterbahn, New Braunfels was a great water park that fully lived up to its reputation for me. I loved the setting along the Comal River and the old school rides and slides. The newer attractions were fantastic too, especially the Blastenhoff slides and Dragon’s Revenge. I also enjoyed The Falls, the park's new, incredibly long whitewater-style ride and found Congo River Expedition a hilarious experience... It just seemed to go on and ON! The 'nude bus' taking you between Schlitterbahn East and West was a little unsettling as you drive right through the township, but it definitely provided a very 'TPR moment'. After a very full day getting far too much sun, we rounded out our day at the swim up bar. Thanks Schlitterbahn for the great hospitality, welcome breakfast buffet and gift bags! The Loneliest Star in the Chain - Six Flags Fiesta Texas Each park in the Six Flags family has its own personality. For example, Great Adventure is a loud, brash but fun kid, Magic Mountain is a spoiled brat, Great Escape the delicate, gifted one, and La Ronde the bastard offspring. Six Flags Fiesta Texas reminded me of the independent, rebellious child. It wants to do its own thing, much like San Antonio and Texas at large. In so many ways it did not feel like a Six Flags park, and the shows were a good example of that, especially the hilarious Lone Star Nights. The rock quarry setting is stunning, and the park utilises it very well. There is good themeing here too that I assume is mostly left over from the park's earlier days. Six Flags has added a number of rides that really pack some punch, including the decent B&M floorless Superman: Krypton Coaster, a very intense Batman clone and my favourite ride at the park, Poltergeist. Iron Rattler looks amazing and we were all disappointed that we didn't get to ride this RMC re-creation, closed for purely litigious reasons. But I don't want to end the report on a sour note, as the park gave us so much ERT, some of which was added to make up for the iRat closure, and we had a fun day. So, onto the photos! Nothing like walking into a park before opening. Ah, TPR trips, how I've missed you... The Boomerang has pride of place right in the middle of the park. We have our VIP passes and we're ready to ride! First ride of the trip was Superman: Krypton Coaster. First squirrel of the trip (they're still such a novelty for us!). We love a little morning ERT! Superman's amazing 145 foot loop. The funky turn on the quarry wall. The Superman swamp... Superman was a good, solid B&M floorless coaster with a bit of kick to it. B&M interlocking corkscrews don't do much for me, but they look cool. After Superman, the ERT kept coming, with rides in the Fiesta Bay Boardwalk area open to us before the public. Somewhat askew on the Pandemonium lift hill... These are fun family rides for sure. We tried to make our car spin, but sometimes it's just the luck of the draw! The park also gave us ERT on Scooby-Doo Ghostblasters which was a good incarnation of the ride. I liked the Fiesta Bay Boardwalk area which had an actual wooden boardwalk. Very nice! It was great to catch up with old friends (hey James!). We got on Poltergeist next... Love that station. This was an AWESOME ride! I preferred this over the Flight of Fear coasters, which stop you pretty sharply on mid-course brakes absent on this ride. The colourful S&S tower, Scream, was a fun surprise. It's a combo tower that shoots you up and blasts you back down! I loved how some of the rides at Fiesta Texas had a retro vibe. The Rockville area of the park harked back to the 1950s. Nice themeing everywhere. Every theme park needs a Wave Swinger. This one was called Whirligig (did they nick this off Great America?). Yup... When you're from a remote country like New Zealand you whore out EVERY coaster you possibly can! As a log flume enthusiast, I enjoyed Bugs' White Water Rapids, a Hopkins 'super flume'. You get totally drenched on this one, and not from this particular water effect (front row...those small dips can really get you!). Skloosh! Lunch was a great time to catch up with friends (hey Werner!). Roxanne and I love cold, delicious alcohol (thanks Fiesta Texas!). Another highlight of the day happened in here... The Looney Tunes sing the hits of the 80s! (Tweety sang Do You Really Want to Hurt Me!) Bugs interacting with the crowd. We had other credits to get... The strangely named Goliath kicked ASS! Hurricane Katrina took nothing away from this coaster. Probably the most powerful Batman clone I've been on (along with Vampire at La Ronde). I spot TPR peeps! This was down for a while...but finally opened. Doesn't Neil look SO happy to ride? I remember this one being somewhere in the middle of the Boomerang pack, between 'kinda OK' and 'bad'. Why do the public love these so much?! It was a fairly quiet day at the park... Road Runner Express was a another surprise! It's an Arrow mine train... ...with BIG drops! And powerful helixes. We held on for our lives. Great ride! Who buys this crap? But... WHY DIDN'T I BUY THIS T-SHIRT!!! We had a great backstage tour of Iron Rattler. *Sigh* We also saw the backside of the Gully Washer rapids ride. Neil contemplates the awesomeness of Iron Rattler. Goddamit!! We were led into this mysterious control room... ...while we waited to catch a lift up the quarry to get some great views of iRat. Whew! Amazing lift hill structure. The sexy barrel roll. It's one crazy looking ride! We are going to have to come back to this park... I love it when parks build these structures. You need them in places like Texas! I haven't forgotten about you SkyScreamer! It's not the tallest StarFlyer out there at 200 feet, but definitely provides an unsettling experience as you soar above the quarry wall. TPR was given VIP seating for Lone Star Nights. This was a fireworks and laser show that took place on the quarry walls. Loved the shout out to TPR at the beginning! It was kind of a cheesy travelogue around Texas. Go Texas!! At this point we felt far, FAR away from New Zealand... We ended our day with ERT on Superman and SkyScreamer, which was fantastic at night. Great ending to a great day!

Really pleased to hear all this news, we thoroughly enjoyed Sea World last year and it looks like they're going from strength to strength. The water coaster is just what the park needed.

Glad you enjoyed the park despite catching the TPR bus flu Marcel! It didn't hit me until Cedar Point, where at least I could take it a bit easier. Have to agree with you about X-Flight. I'd heard reports that it was the best wingrider out there. What a totally uneventful ride. At least it lowered my expectations for Gatekeeper...

That was a great day. I really enjoyed Mt. Olympus (though it might have been because I was hammered...) and Little Amerricka was a fabulous surprise!

Wow. Was not expecting something this extreme. It looks incredible! Makes X-Flight look pretty tame to say the least.

I know, right? What a fantastic park. And it just seems to be getting better and better.

Great TR so far Marcel, nice to re-live the trip. Looking forward to more!

Looks like an absolutely awesome ride in every way. I love the "sideways air". Can't wait to ride with TPR a little later this year. Great photos, footage and coverage as always!

Looks like another wet but fun day in China - enjoying the ongoing updates Chuck. Starry Sky Ripper/Scrapper looks particularly awesome!

Awesome - we'll have to have a Midwest reunion! (Laundry party?)

This could be interesting. Glad to hear their visitor numbers are up and growing.

So excited to join another TPR trip in 2013!

Yay! I found us along with a few other TPR peeps:

Awesome! I wondered if we'd make it online!

Absolutely incredible use of the terrain! Shows what you can do even in a fairly small city park like Liseberg. Wow!

Everything I've seen from this ride looks pretty awesome! As others have said, this is exactly what the park needed. Great job from Sally / Movie World. Was sorry to have just missed out on its opening this year. Oh well, hope forward to visiting sometime again in future.