george greenway

Fantastic Achievement, well done. You do know I'm 6 away from completing the buttefry collection

Having ridden relocated Boomerang's I can endorse this as a stupid thing to do Agent George

2012 Bomerang Tally: There's a new variety of Junior Boomerang and its very smooth and uninvolving, its non inverting which makes it a family attraction. I've ridden the one in my local park, "BEN-10", Drayton manor, Staffordshire, England. There is one other in the world, which I'm due to visit in July in France at Parc Tourist des Combes, not an easy park to get to. I'm due to ride the brand new Giant Inverted Boomerang in Jin Jiang Park, Shanghai in September. its been over 10 years since the last of these was installed There is currently only 1 operating in USA, at Silverwood, relocated from 6FGAm and one in Spain; Parque Warner. the one from 6FMM is being built up in 6FNE the one in Italy is from 6FOG and is not errected yet I've riden all the Giant Inverted ones in USA and Spain, in their original location, some took 5 visits to the park to find it operating, 6FMM was the toughest to get. George

Why did you guys chose Danga World as your last stop on this Malaysian Trip; you had Trans Studio in South Sulawesi or E-DA Theme World in Kaohsiung to go for, both took me by surprise on my visit last year, well presented themed areas, clean and not full of iritating locals on holiday,. George

I was invited to visit the Nurburgring Race Track July this year to be a passenger in a BMW M5 driven around the ring by a professional driver, a mid-life crisis birthday gift, an experience I'd recommend to any enthusiast seeking "out of control" speed. At one point the back end was made to drift out and we drove in all 3 directions at once over the red/white chicane edges, undertaking another private owned car, doesn't do the tyres much good but it impressed the crowds watching. The BMW RingRacer Car The entrance to the RingºRacer is quite imposing, the car park was over the road connected by a bridge. If you look closely you can see the coaster track to the right of the word "boulevard", the doors are shut Entrance to Ring Racer It's not a big coaster, this is 1/3rd of it after the launch run. If you went over this rise at full speed you would black out, it must be heavily braked before it hits this high point, why dont they run it at half speed and not use the braking? You can't see the launch run of the coaster without spending an eye watering wedge of bucks to get in the visitor center. The only exciting feature of the ride You can walk through the RingºBoulevard and see the return leg of the coaster here in the boulevard. Can you imagine parts of the coaster dropping off in your latte. As you can see it was not a busy day RingºBoulevard Agent George

If you wondered how magazines get it wrong, a quote from http://www.enterf1.com/f1-tickets/F1-Nurburgring-2011-Tickets.asp "Ring-Racer was meant to open in 2009 but after a few faults, the launch was delayed by 2 years. Ring Racer will accelerate you from 0 to 135 mph in 2.5 seconds! That is double the speed of a F1 car!" so an F1 car reaches the dizzy speed of 67.5MPH!

The link to the flyer comes to a page not found, and you need to log in to see it if you go to information

I tallied my Vekoma List, as defined on RCDB: 38 Boomerangs, which including 4 Giant Inverted (there is a new going into Jin Jiang Park! aaaagh) 1 Corkscrew with Bayerncurve 1 Custom MK-1200 3 Custom MK-700 1 Enigma 3 Flying Dutchman 3 Invertigo's 18 Junior Coaster 2 LSM Inverted 4 Mine train 1 MK-1200 Whirlwhind 23 roller Skater 10 SLC 1 Stingray 3 Suspended Family Coaster 2 Wild Mouse and 1 Tilt Coaster (very rare!) no partridge or pear tree yet George

The rest of the story. The rotary coaster was the fake, and the Crazy Car turned out to be the missing Mad Mouse from OZ. What a find, in such an out of the way place. A park which had one powered credit has now put Tuban right up in the must visit places alongside Batu in Indonesi. Add to that the Premier LIM shuttle going into Bandung later this year, Indonesia is becoming the next must visit place for allot of cre-hoe's Pictures for both locations are starting to appear on RCDB, over the next few weeks, all the locations we visited in Java and Salewesi will be documented. The big reveal, it IS a Wooden Mad Mouse, but where was it before it got here no problems taking camera's on board I'd got the first car out, and Tal was just behind when a problem occured, had I got the credit as I was over the lift hill and Tal wasnt' he doesn't look too happy at the moment. still, a very nice man was called to "fix" the control panel, and wave his hands in the air. Ah, Tal looks much happier, he has realised he can photograph parts of the ride only superman2 would appreciate I got my own helper, with jazzy red and white cap, what was he going to do next. at the next block brake was a non enthusiast, obvious by the lack of taking photos of a broken ride, who must have eat one too many buns as she needed 2 helpers to get her going. we survived the first ride, and wristbanded we got back on again and again, but what's that you see in this picture. It's not on any of the other 4 WWM's I've been on. The first time round I felt a tap on the head as I shot through this mouse hole. You don't get any warnings in this park about closeness to ride furniture. On this re-ride I was lying down in the car, camera in hand to take the snap as I flew thru the hole. This park was very busy, here you can see they are running 5 mouse cars out on the course. NABBED! In search of that illusive angle on the coaster, Tal attracted a blue cap worker. Apparently it was a kiddie playground and Tal's was being described as an adult bu the blue cap helper, whilst I was cunningly photographing at the other end of the kiddie playground. does anyone remember a Wood Wild Mouse in OZ with the mouse hole. It's not on any of the other 4 WWM's we found this strange building, people came out of the hole on the left, but how did they get in, is it some sort of transporter device Planet Kaca, is this the entrance to the previous picture, or a space age toilet. This is a must visit place for TPR, they even have the required Tagada ride. In case anyone is still reading this, and wonders what the rotary coaster is, tada. Sarang Bajak Laur, of course we know what that is, it's white shark with zoro mask ride, that information panel headed "prolog" must hold a fascinating tale of salty sea dogs and fries as this young park goer stood staring at it for ages, so I took the picture, oh and looking at the artwork on the sign; there is no dissabled access unless you have a peg leg. The attention to deatil is first rate, this is the over view of the previos ride entrance. You walk into the mouth of a pirate and then go through his body parts to get all goggle eyed and skeletonised before coming out... we didn't find out but it could be at that mysterious exit we found in ant world. Most parks would have put a wall in, some would paint it, but how many would disguise it as a boat and oversize pencil box. Hiding behind the wall is a "shop" selling Ice Creams, we think they were only because of the shape of the shop. We didn't try one. Aha, they were Ice Creams. Here we see 2 strange inhabitants of the park possessing chilled snacks and one concrete park mascot wearing WBL dungarees, is that Walt Bisney World? And so we leave the park unaware that a giant crab was about to attack us as we exited.

how many people have seen this sign before

Just noticed in your original post, you have 1 coaster in under its 2 locations head spin at geauga lake went to carowinds as carolina cobra george

Its really sad when you can extract such trivial information from your coaster database. Zoomerang Alabama Adventure Missile American Adventure Boomerang Bellewaerde Park Bat Canada's Wonderland Carolina Cobra Carowinds Boomerang Darien Lake Ragin' Cajun Dixie Landin' Family Theme Park Boomerang Elitch Gardens Boomerang Freizeit-land Geiselwind Boomerang Coast to Coaster Great Escape Sidewinder Hersheypark Boomerang Karolinelund Boomerang Knott's Berry Farm Boomerang La Ronde Zoomerang Lake Compounce Sea Serpent Playland Boomerang Pleasure Island Family Theme Park Wipeout Pleasurewood Hills Cobra PowerLand Boomerang Coast to Coast Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Boomerang Six Flags Fiesta Texas Boomerang Six Flags Mexico Flashback Six Flags New England Flashback Six Flags Over Texas Tidal Wave Trimper's Rides Boomerang Walibi Aquitaine Cobra Walibi Belgium Boomerang Walibi Rhone-Alpes La Via Volta Walibi World Boomerang Wiener Prater Boomerang Wild Adventures Boomerang Woobang Towerland Boomerang Worlds of Fun

which one is the fake The first coaster we came across was the rotary coaster then we found the jet coaster being attacked by a giant squid and lastly we found the crazy car

The high point of the trip, literally; we were totally blown away at the friendly nature of the manager and his team. The weather had canged during the day from cloudy with sun to cloudy and sporadic rain, by the time we got to Batu we were expecting the worst as it was raining hard; but no, they were very happy to run the ride in the rain. The difference being this ride is pay per go, so the opperators have that very important incentive to give the customers value for maney. We were thrilled to accept their hospitality to climb all over the ride, and had numerous rides on the mouse. Our enthusiasm encouraged other locals to pay up and have a go in the rain too. The mouse is located on the far right as you go through the main entrance, you go through a market area where you can buy both T-shirts and Polo shirts, in average UK sizes. The drive back to the hotel was over 3 hours, and we debated wether to miss the last park, with only 1 powered credit it wouldnt be a deal breaker. We both had trans world flights the next afternoon, with 16 hours travel, and a 4 hour layover in Singapore before overnight flights setting foot back in the UK the next morning; I also had to spend a happy hour changing planes in Charles de Gaule, at 6am. Our fate was set when we started the negotiations with the hotel for a car and driver to visit the park, look after our backpacks, and drop us of at the airport, a princley sum of 1/2 million, in cash. We were running low on currency at this point so We tried to get our debit cards to give us money from the cash point, nada, they dont work. Luckily I had my travel cash card, which duly coughed out the million we needed to survive the last day. The journey to Wisata Bahari Lamongan, for a powered dragon, was going to be a few hours, starting with the battle to leave the city snarlup. The time vanished as we reflected on the superb credit from last night, and we soon realised our english speaking driver only knew 2 words, "Pay Toll". We had arranged an all inclusive trip including toll's fuel, so we duly paid the toll's and deducted the money from his tip. The park was a nice surprise, it was scorchingly hot even though we had driven to the seaside. We quickly wristbands and proceded through the exit as all the entrance gates we could see were chained up, but that proved a mistake so we tried again, this time following some local who just bought a ticket; success we got in the park. The park map they gave us had scribbles on it indicating the coaster was not where it was on the map so when inside the entrance we checked the map on the wall to find the dragon coaster, and then the surprise happened. there were 3 coasters in the park. The known dragon, a rotary coaster and a crazy car coaster, we were stunned ...

Have a look at how well spread out the credits are in this island They fall into 4 distinct areas, 7 to the west, one cre-ho place in the centre, the cream of the trip is hidden in the parks to the west, and there is one gem tucked away on the Northern island of Salewesi, called Trans Studio. it does sound like a movie stage for a chick flick. This trip held allot of other counting options. I collected 4 airport credits; semerang, surabaya, ujungpandang and jakarta. Then there were the budget airlines. for the princely sum of £30, ($50) you can fly between these places, the inflight food was a sweet bun and glass of water. Talhat's planning can best be described as seat of the pants, we'll figure it out when we get there. Bearing in mind we know of no-one who has been there, advice was scarce. We had the broad plan timed out with flights and hotels fixed, and a rough itinerary that we thought might work. What we were told but didnt believe was a 160km road journey from Jakarta up into the mountains to Tamar Safari and then to the city of Bandung would take 5 friggin hours. Some roads were washed away, huge pot holes big enough to hide an elephant and vehicles that were antique and then it would open up into an out of town streach where our Toyota Insipid 4x4 managed the dizzy speed of 48MPH, with the diesel engine making so much noise we needed ear defenders. If you look at the Islands terrain, you'll see a huge ravine seperating Taman Safari and Bandung, the gorge is spanned by a large bridge which gave frightening views of the river below. We ventured to Bandung to check on the progress of the new launched coaster slated for a June opening according to the billboards, no chance, we'll post more detail of the other places in Indonesia we visited, but for now, its over to Tal to do the reveal on the wood we found in Batu, and the surprise of the trip negotiated by Tal in true TPR style. This is the layout for Indonesia

Thanks for all the comments, there is a story to to this thread, and I'll begin the tale with the background Counting Coasters can get very boring, its only a number after all, some are more special than others, like "1000", mine was in denver, colorado. So I developed the idea of "getting the set". For this to be fun, the set must be something of note; if you search for it on here you will find Richard Bannisters "getting the set of B&M's". a mighty achievement covering 4 continents, saddly none in Oz or South America. But how did he know where they all were? How do you get your bucket list? Over the years, I've been offering ideas to Duane Marden, Owner of RCDB, about how to improve it, bug fixes, etc. The biggest change he made was just over a year ago when the complete data storage and search system had a modernization. With a little bit of practice, you can use the "Advanced Search" to reveal alot of data. I have on my bucket list; "All 51 Schwarkopf's"; http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?ot=2&mo=8191&page=1&order=4 "All 75 B&M's"; http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?nm=na&ty=1&co=6831&st=93&ot=2 (ive got 1 of the B&M's left!) The above are easy searches, but to hone it down to find only the vekoma boomerangs takes a bit more diligence: "All the Vekoma boomerangs"; http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?ot=2&mo=8191&page=1&order=4 Copy that into your browser, now look at the top right of the window, you'll see the words "Plot on Map" Because of a major effort from Duane Marden, Malcolm Marr and others, the exact location of every park and now even every coaster are being plotted in Goolge Earth. This challenge will require me to go to Uzbekistan and Argentina to complete! now you can see how sad/fanatical this hobby can get; "All 55 Butterflies"; http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?ot=2&nm=na&st=93&ty=1&co=7140&page=1&order=4 So how did I get such a fascination with Wood; there are 167 wood coasters listed on RCDB as currently operating: http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?nm=na&ty=2&order=4&st=93&ot=2 Back in 2008 I had 20 left to go ... and OZ had 3 majestic ones; a scenic, and TWO wild mouses. So a plan was hatched to get all the OZ coasters in 10 days, including 3 prized woodies. Joining me on the trip was fellow enthusiast Richard Bannister (noxegon on this forum), but fate was to deal us 2 sad blows. A couple of months before the trip in March 2008, the Melbourne Scenic was taken apart for refurbishment that took a good year. Being true enthusiasts we still went to Melbournes to get the Zyklon and the powered dragon (sad debateable inclusion in ones coaster count) and photographed the renovetion work on the scenic. Research showed 3 operating Wood Wild Mouse Coasters in the world on RCDB in 2008, so this trip would complete the set. A noteable achievement. I'd already added to my count the one in blackpool in 1979 and added Luna Park Sydney in April 2008, but sad blow #2, the Wild Mouse at Aussie World was down for maintenance the month of our visit. As followers of the Forum may remember, in 2007 my job took me to Shanghai to work for a few weeks at a time. Over the next 3 years I took every free day I had to travel throughout the Country to visit parks, Zoo's and Cultural areas (that also had coasters), and it was at the end of the TPR 2009 trip to Chengdu and Shanghai I had a "4 day weekend" spare so I went to Brisbane to relax, and crucially look up the Wood WIld Mouse I'd only seen from outside the park the year previous. It was September, and the begining of the park season down under, so it was uncertain if anything would be reliably open. I'd allowed 2 days to get the mouse, and I also had a return flight booked to Melbourne to get the Scenic there, complete madness. The plan had me flying a red eye flight into Brisbane at 7am friday. A quick call to the parks found both Aussie World and Luna park Melbourne were open the next day, so I headed to Warner Bros. Movie World for a ride I just loved, The Scooby Doo Coaster, then in the afternoon headed to Sea World to get the new launched bike coaster. That night I had boked into the swanky resort of Pelican Waters, the hotel had just converted into a Crowne Plaza and was stupidly expensive, but I am a member of the Holiday Inn Scheme and I'd amassed enough points to stay there the night. It was just perfect, I got an upgrade to a junior suite and had an infinity pool outside the window streaching across the golf course, with the occasional Pelican dotted arounds the lake. The next morning I was up early, straight to Aussie World, first on the door, and the mouse was not running. bummer. I was the only one in the park too, so I went around photographing, took a ride in the Ferris Wheel, and was spotted by management. Once I was outed as an enthusiast, who had flown from Shanghai for the Mouse, they got the compressor on, ran a few test trains and I had an hour of fun before I had to leave for my flight to Melbourne, where I was succesfull in getting a few rides on the Scenic before another 12 hour red eye flight that night to get back into Shanghai for work monday morning. But I had all the Wood Wild Mouse credits in the world! then the obvious happened .... http://www.rcdb.com/r.htm?nm=na&ty=2&st=93&lo=95&ot=2 some one found a Wood Wild Mouse in Indonesia, at a place called Batu, and it ran at night. what a wind-up RCDB had a few photos of the coaster, but we couldn't get a good fix on the park as at that time the Google Earth Imagery was low quality. This changed in 2009 when Malcom Marr locked the position of the coaster, and so a trip was conceived between myself and fellow enthusiast Talhat Mohammed at the end of 2009. We delayed the trip till 2010, as Talhat opted to join TPR on the OZ trip, and added Indonesia onto the end of that, and then the obvious happened. If we made the trip a day longer we could get ALL the credits in Indonesia in. That trip ended in a mass of flights, unbeleivable long car journeys, but would end with us standing on top of the world .... over to Talhat to add in some spice.

On the last TPR trip to OZ, Robb came out with a blooper. They had just ridden the Wooden Mouse in Aussie World, N.Queensland, A casual question was in the air, "How many wooden Mouse Coasters are there in the world", Robb's reply was 3. Is he right, are there more, which did he miss out ... I'll add more to this as the week progresses,

It is not foolish to spend any amount of money you want to get what makes you happy, you have one road in this life. I'm a fully paid up member of the "It was closed when I got there" club, my record is fujiyama; missed 3 times, jungle jacjs twice, then tower of terror (south africa), battlestar galactica this year and formula rossa by 2 weeks as it opened after i flew through Dubai, by the way Ferrari World is in Abu Dhabi. The furthest Ive flown is to melbourne to find the wood coaster closed. thats 23 hours of flying.

fantastic detailed report, what did you ride more of butterflies or alpine slides

I have accompanied the geek on many of these trips and can attest to his lack of sanity on this occasion even sadder I would have finished the set on the same day as the champion B&M rider, but I am 1 behind, I missed Flight Deck at CGA 5 days ago because I ran out of time credit hoaring Taxi Jam

Id support the membership idea I'm also in favor of supporting a site which is ad free Being based in UK, its tougher to attend events in US, so having some incentives like being able to use Robs airmiles card would be of benefit. Id like to see a per day invite on the European trips for us europeans so we can catch up with the TPR crowd.

sorry about that, I get tied up with work and trip planning and it slipped my mind i'm back in china this week working again ill have a heap of spare time in the evenings. Ill put together a collection of discoveryland for you, Ill go through the other parks available in dalian too, there is a seaside one and a city park. look for the new thread around the end of this week headed Parks in Dalian george

I've been to 2 happy valleys, beijing and shenzhen, and this year will be at the chengdu and songjang this september, and the fantawild park in wuhu. a place you have to go to just to say "wo-hoo". they have the same feel to them, great theming on the buildings, lots to do, plenty of side shows, theatres. the happy valleys have been around longer and had more time to mature, they have the bigger coasters and are in big cities, Beijing and Shanghai have many international routes, Shenzhen is a stones throw from HongKong, and Chengdu is accessible from Amsterdam on a KLM direct flight. the fantawild parks, and the second one is in Chongqing where i'm hoping to get to also in september, take a heck of a time to get to them to get to the Wuhu one, its a train from Shanghai to Nanjing 3 hours, and a train from nanjing to wuhu, another 2 hours, you cant fly there any quicker. Nanjing has other coasters to offer so its worth a making it a 2 day trip. to get to Chungking, fly into chengdu and then take a 4 hour train to get to Chungking. for the amount of effort to get there, the parks are not that rewarding, but as i'm working in china and have been to all but 1 park with more than 2 coasters, seriously I have, if you hit the 5 major cities, they are next on my list to visit.

the worst copy ive ever been on is in discoveryland, dalian. its a beijing shibaolai hanging coaster. i dont fit in it. im too tall. but hte ride op had a go and pushed on th eover shoulder restraints and got me in. unfortunately he was of the opinion the restrait must touch your stomach. i treid to breathe out to give the ffect but he wasnt having that, he made run and jumped ont he restraint. it closed another notch and i went round doubled up in pain the whole ride. i had a sore back for the next week. im sure he would disslodge my spine to get me in. the reason for going to the park is its wonderfully themed and has the lim launch from suzuka crcuit. that was a great ride. the fantastic lim launch frm suzuka the bs clone, evil thing

flare meteor was down for maintenance, and it isnt going to be back for several weeks. its having a train and station overhaul. Although it loks like a real Vekoma, it isnt, but its damn convincing Its a golden Horse XGC 20A suspended type. The mine train and the suspended hanging pulley are also golden horse, but the roller skater type is not known.