DerekRx

Well, its September now, which soon means Autumn. Perfect time to break out the Halloween beers. Portland Maine's own Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale, nice and spiced.

Terribly sorry to hear about the loss of the little dude. He lived a great life, going from homeless rodent to every fanboy's dream, chilling with the Alvey's day and night. Spike and Lily will be waiting for him in Pet Heaven. As a special tribute, Derek's Garden Hose Kingdom will be naming the new kid's playplace "RatTums's Resort". One thing's for sure, he knew he was loved.

Yup, I too voted Humdinger. Its the best choice of them all, at least it has character and spunk. What's a humdinger? THAT'S a Humdinger!

God I hope the rumors are true about the 5G helix finale. The construction so far looks like its going to make for a very Nemesis-like ride with lots of trenches (which is 1 reason why Nemesis and Montu rank so high for me)Looking at the rest of Phantasialand, it looks like its going to be a really nicely themed ride. Glad I decided to go to Phantasialand next September instead of this one. Hopefully its truly more "old school" B&M and comes equipped with forces, otherwise I'll be very disappointed. Claude and Walter, please don't make this another Hydra or Silver Bullet!

Now this is a thread right up my alley, much better than coaster talk! After a nice, long, slow, boring day at work, I like to relax with my version of a "light beer", a Pale Ale. This one is a Magic Hat #9, brewed in South Burlington, Vermont.

If this coaster is as unique as it seems it will be, I may have to consider doing the RideWorld even next year. I've heard great things about the last two. Now if I could only find a way to get to SoCal, ride this, and still get back to the Eastcoast without taking any vacation days (because I have none left next year already!)

I also chose "other" because while Zeus isn't top notch, its a heck of a lot better than the "worst" of any of the 3 at the parks listed. Blackpool would be a close 2nd.

I especially want to get to Liseberg as well as Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea. PhantasiaLand is also high on my list, as is Warner Bros Movie World Madrid.

^I was preparing my stomach for October, November, and June. I would have went to Famous Dave's, but I only had $20 on me, and didn't feel like finding an ATM. If only McDonalds would have had the McRib!

^^Agreed, its very repetitious. You get to the turnaround and think "oh good, now I get more of exactly what I just got." Fortunately, with the few surprise laterals, it spices it up a bit. The helix is nice, too bad its not more in the middle of the return. The air is still amazing though. I may have ranked it so high because I just came off of riding it. Maybe it will slip down a little bit later on, but I really did like it better than Hades. Those two dead hills coming out of the tunnels kinda ruin the continuity for me on Hades. Shivering Timbers has something I really like, airtime and laterals, but it needs to be more mixed up, like Phoenix, which I rank #1 wood.......at least until June 19, 2006, then we'll see what happens

Jennifer Connelly has a nice body and face, but she's got major man hands, as I noticed in the Incredible Hulk. She was super hot in the Rocketeer and Career Opportunities. My list: Then: 1. Tiffany Amber Theissen 2. Sarah Michelle Gellar 3. Alyssa Milano 4. Erika Eleniak 5. Madonna Now: 1. Elisha Cuthbert 2. Kelly Clarkson 3. Kristen Kreuk 4. Michelle Trachtenburg 5. Katherine Heigl

TR: Michigan’s Adventure 8/27/05 With no other major plans for the weekend and decent airfare, rental car, and hotel readily available, I decided to fly out to Grand Rapids, MI for the weekend. My sole purpose was to finally ride Shivering Timbers, a coaster that always seemed to be out of my reach just because of its location. Everything went smoothly and I found myself at the park shortly after 1pm. The parking lot was pretty full already, and the weather was gorgeous, not a good combination for empty lines. I went to Pass Services and without any problems got a comp ticket with my Dorney season pass. Soon I was inside the park. The park is very much like every other Cedar Faire property, lacking cedar (or any other kinds of trees) and being more like a permanent Fair (but nowhere near as badass as the Wisconsin State one!). The ground was covered in bright white concrete everywhere, not good for sunny days without sunglasses. I ducked and weaved my way through the RCT-like walkways and soon found myself at Shivering Timbers. The line was down to the bottom of the ramp and both trains were running, so it was only about a 15 minute wait. Soon I was off in 1.2 for my first ride on this behemoth. After my first ride, I wasn’t really sure about the ride. There was some light airtime, but nothing else. After a while it actually got boring and redundant. I was warned ahead of time to let it warm up, so I decided to finish credit whoring and then come back to try it again. Next on the agenda was the nearby Wolverine Wildcat. The line was pretty long and the darn thing only has 1 train, but I needed the credit and the coaster looked promisingly similar to Phoenix. Well, 45 minutes later I had seen enough of the layout to think, “yeah, it looks like they modeled this after Phoenix.” It has a tunnel like Phoenix, 3 bench PTCs like Phoenix, a double up and double down, and low to the ground bunny hills. Sadly, this thing could never be like Phoenix even if Dick Knoebel forgot he owned Phoenix and let it go for 5 years with no maintenance. Following was the Corkscrew, with the greatest station design ever! Its an Arrow corkscrew, reminiscent of last week’s Canobie Corkscrew, and yet it still managed to Judo chop me several times during the course of the ride. Then it was time for Zach’s Zoomer, the Scooby-doo type kiddy woodie. This also had no wait (I think by this time everyone had moved on to the water park portion of the park) so getting my credit was easy as pie (with no snakes involved). It was a bit rougher than the Scoobys though, with more jostling and CCI tracking issues. It was only while riding ZZ that I finally discovered the mysteriously hidden Big Dipper. I didn’t see an cycling, so I thought maybe it was closed (it is a Chance ride after all). Lucky for me, it was opened, just didn’t have any wait. By the time I got there, a bunch of kids did too, and soon we were all having a great time on this coaster. (OK, well maybe they were, I was just hoping none of my patients were vacationing in Michigan at the time). I did like the flowers in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation in the center of the ride. My final credit to achieve was the Arrow Mad Mouse. It had a full queue when I arrived at the park about 2 hours before, but now had only about a 20 people waiting. This was my first Arrow mouse, and I must say, it took them a while, but Arrow finally learned from other coaster companies. They took Intamin’s stadium seating, CCI’s trick track, B&Ms banked turns, and Mack’s mouse layout and incorporated them all into one ride. Too bad mice aren’t supposed to have banked turns, and the trick track is just weird. Still, the ride wasn’t painful (probably the smoothest Arrow ever!) and it was pretty fun, which is what its all supposed to be about. Credits achieved, I walked around the park, took some pictures, did some shopping, took some photos of Timbers from outside the park, and then went back in for some more rides. Finally Timber’s line was just outside the station, so it was about a 2 train wait for any row. I rode in the front row and knew it had finally woken up, as there was more air on every hill than before. Sadly, it still just didn’t have anything else to offer. Then I rode in the back row, where the airtime was so good that I was being yanked down the hills. The clincher though was the laterals I finally got in the turnaround followed by a violent jolt right after the straight track before the return. It was then that I knew this coaster wanted me to like it. A couple more rides in the back car and I was ready to call it quits. I loved the ride, ranking it right up there below Phoenix, Colossos, and Grand National, but higher than Avalanche, Hades, Loup Garou, and Rampage. I could have stayed and ridden it more, but I was beginning to tire of the constant walking around, the sun and lack of shade, and I was getting hungry. And so I left Michigan’s Adventure for some McDonalds and relaxation at my hotel. I’ll definitely try to get back to Michigan’s Adventure someday in the next couple of years, hopefully to ride a new good coaster. If not, there’s always Shivering Timbers, the best woodie in Cedar Faire’s arsenal (which, in reality, really isn't saying all that much!) New for 2005, the Funnel of Fear. I feared not get any closer to the waterpark without risking severe damage to my camera from Michiwomen in bathing suits Arrow's finest piece, the very smooth Mad Mouse (though I'm sure if it has OTSRs it'd be brutal) The Big Dipper kiddie, notice the Big Dipper in the flowers, awwww how cute Zach's Zoomer was the park's kiddie wood coaster, named after the owner's son (you guessed it, his name was Zach) With not a single vertical loop in the park, I was forced to take a picture of this to fulfill my 'desires' Wow, look at that awesome station for the Corkscrew. Wonder what architect designed that? Pure genius! And it has a tunnel at the start like Phoenix. But its no Phoenix, never! Oooh, Wolverine Wildcat, kinds looks like Phoenix Its got 2 trains running, something no other coaster at the park can do Behold, Shivering Timbers, guardian of the parking lot Here we are at Michigan's Adventure, exciting huh?

Its nice that you took the VIP tour and shared all the little secrets with us. Of course, my wallet really thanks you because you've given such great details that I can just skip the VIP tour now and just stay on property to get the Universal Express passes. 8 hours of theme park, little wait in line, AND a place to sleep. Thanks Barry! Derek- who would get lots of strange looks from his friends if he hung out in Port of Entry all day long listening to soundtrack conversations

I found my way here after pictures of me surfaced on this site. I came to the forums shortly after they opened because I wanted a place to get news and post, and since RRC became troll infested, other sites had too many pop-ups and charges, or I didn't visit the region of the country they focused on enough, I decided this was the perfect place. There's moderation for trolls, no pop-ups, no "only good things about Cedar Point and Holiday World or we'll kill you" and its free, its free, its all free. Plus I can post pictures, giving my TRs more of a fun level (especially for people like Robb who absolutely detest reading).

After visiting over 100 parks, I can honestly say that Blackpool is in its own category. Such great classic coasters, dark rides, and other older rides mixed with new rides, all shoe-horned together in such a great way that you just wanna slap parks like Magic Mountain who have to take out a ride to add one, when they could just spend a little more money to alter the course to have both. Noah's Ark blows away the version at Kennywood. Yup, BPB is awesome and I can get a 99 there to boot! And, oh sweet Valhalla, how I cannot wait to ride you again.

^Nor do I. How can I save it if I can't see it!

Sorry Gregg, I'll be down at BGW that weekend. Hope you have fun!

I also find the Golden Ticket more and more political every year. I'm sure a lot of the people who actually get the Golden Ticket aren't as well traveled as they'd like to consider themselves. I find it funny that Hades, Black Anaconda, and Noah's Ark are all ranked coincidentally the same year as the ACE Convention in the same area. Also, some of the parks and rides people who get the tickets probably don't ride. How many recipients actually have been to real "kiddie parks" such as Storyland or Santa's Village in New Hampshire. Is Idlewild really a kiddie park? It seems more to me like a family park with lots of rides for kids. Is Holiday World really always friendly, or just more so during events which is when most ACErs go there? I also believe Mitch's poll is more fair, weighing all the entries and giving more credibility to the well traveled person. Sending 35 Golden Ticket surveys to 35 people living in Cincinnati and getting 35 replies that the #1 wood is Beast, #1 park is PKI, #1 merchandise is PKI, and the #1 steel is Italian Job is no shocker at all.

^Yeah, pretty much exactly where Drop Zone sits today.

Awesome jobb, Robb. I still think Comcast should look into buying Six Flags. I'd buy it, but we've spent all our money at Garden Hose Kingdom on the new for 06 Toilet Bowl and Funnel slides. These aren't the ones you find at your local water park, they're in fact a toilet bowl and a funnel. We may even add a funnel cake stand, if I feel the urge to count change. Hehe, Robb said "plopped"

You are correct, Ted. My understanding is that when all registration is in, a questionaire will be sent out. If you already have someone in mind to room with, you put them down. Otherwise, based on questions like smoking, snoring, age, sanity will all come together to determine the best matches for roommates. With the private forum for trip goers, roommates will also be able to get a better understanding of their roommates. Think of it like Freshman year in college.

Yeah, thanks for the information. Unfortunately, I already looked into the Southwest option (as much as I hate that airline) and even they were at $260 for that weekend. For less money I could probably invent a teleportation device out of a lawn gnome, garden hose gaskets, an old tire, and rotten banana peels. Hopefully prices will go down, otherwise its the old I-95 option. Total price of gas like $120, total time in the car 32 hours, never having the change the radio channel because you have XM, priceless.

Thanks for the memories. I rode this ride on my first visit to Kings Dominion back in 1998. I think it was taken out shortly after that. I was kinda bummed that it would only let me hang upside down for a short period of time, then automatically returned to right side up. The ride was a lot more fun than a Chance Aviator, thats for sure!

I think both parks did a great job with their respective themes. I like TTD back when it had the full funny car effect, with the engine sounds, grandstand area, and spoiler and tires. Great Adventure did a great job theming the whole area of the Golden Kingdom, very Animal Kingdomish. The permanent queue for KK is great, even though no one will see it again for quite some time. The KK trains are less than spectacular though, and I cannot understand the whole back car situation. I don't quite get KKs theme itself either. My vote for best theme, Olympia Looping Dragonheart Fire found at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds!

As long as it has a straight drop, there should be plenty of opportunity for airtime. Even Kraken, with only a 45 degree drop has airtime. And the first drop on Hydra, as short as it is, ends up being the best part of the ride if you ride in the backseat. Same with Georgia Scorcher. I don't know much about the ride at all, but am very excited to ride it next year.