DerekRx

As you may know, (or even if you didn't you do now) I spent Saturday down in Myrtle Beach with the infamous Tommy, James, and Homey G. While they didn't drink beer like me, they were gracious enough to allow me to endulge in one of my favorite past times. It wasn't very hoppy, but I think its because they were out of IPA and they gave me the Clye's Pale Ale instead To finish off my morning (LOL) I ordered an IPA So good in fact that I finished it fast, and then tried the White Ale. Its mixture of corriander and lemon made for a nice refreshing summer ale My first brew would be the Raspberry Wheat, just for Heath. It was really tasty with a nice raspberry finish Since no parks opened until later in the afternoon, the first stop of the day is Liberty Brewing at Broadway at the Beach.

Yeah, its Cinco de Mayo and I'm in a hotel. But thanks to my new lappy 710m, I'm able to share my night with y'all now instead of on Sunday! Since my flight for the week isn't until tomorrow, I decided to just stay overnight near the Philly airport, and hit Rock Bottom on the way down in King of Prussia. And my "Heath face" just makes me look content with the IPAs citrus flavors But made Talea look like an old man! LOL! Which Roni thought was bitter... And finished off the night with the Prussia's Pride IPA I then tried to train my pallette to the Munich brews with the Munich Gold First up, the closest thing to a Mexican beer for the day, the "El Jefe" Hefeweizen I've been here before, but not with people from work

I'm heading to Myrtle this weekend, so thanks for the heads up about Swamp Fox. I'll make sure the ride is running before I purchase an all day wristband or enough tickets to ride it.

That's great news for the coaster. I never even heard of this FEC before. It may be worth a visit once the coaster is opened if I find myself in the area for brew pubbing or credit whoring at the various Jeepers I haven't been to yet. Thanks for the info!

Like others, I really like the Frontierland and Adventureland areas of Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Disneyland Paris. Each is different, yet all are nicely themed and put the spirit of the moment in me each time I'm there. Although it lacks lots of rides, I'm also fond of Dollywood's Craftman's Valley and pretty much all of Silver Dollar City's atmosphere (especially the left side of the park from the entrance up to Powder Keg). Europa Park is also extremely well themed all throughout, but I honestly can't pick one area that stands out more than the others.

Excellent photos, dude. I'm also in the club of wanting a Sky Red Line. Too bad by Fall it'll be pretty pointless to have a convertible up here in PA. The midnight blue is a nice color, but I'll probably end up getting red or silver graphite. Hopefully the '08 model will correct some of the minor problems with the car. If I wasn't gone for half the summer on coaster trips, I'd probably be one of the first ones on the list up here for a regular Sky until the Red Line drops (which still says "coming Summer '06" in ads in Car and Driver and Road & Track, so who knows!) After I'm done jetsetting on coaster trips and fixing up my house I intend to have a nice little car collection. Heck, with the price of gas, it may just be easier to buy a whole new car everytime you need to fill the tank!

Yeah, that'd be wonderful if TPR was needed to show up for the media event. I've been feeling sorta sick lately, maybe I'll have to call in sometime soon

Actually, I forgot that after riding Barnstormer, I used my Fastpass on Space Mountain (since it was broken earlier). So I guess the last coaster I rode was Space Mountain, Alpha track at the Magic Kingdom, row 5 on Sunday.

Looks to me like they just forgot to check for all the parts before assembling the ride. When they got done, they realized they were missing the seats so instead they just put a hook at the end of the chains and attach it to your belt. As much as the StarFlyer will freak me out when I finally ride one, this would do it twice over! I wonder how landing in one of these is, Wave Swingers and Yo-yos can be kinda dangerous.

It was supposed to be Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, but we decided to ride Pirates. Therefore... The last coaster I rode was Barnstormer, backrow, on Sunday

Sweet Jebus! This darn park has more "will it, won't it" moments than most television dramas and soap operas: The park is closing unless they find money... But wait, they may have found some money in the cushions of the sofa... Oh wait, sorry, that was just a bunch of cheese curls... But cheese curls are a type of currency in some foreign countries... But we're not in that foreign country. I don't think this park will have very good business this year simply because people can't remember whether the park is opening or not this year! I'm changing the channel now, just tell me what happens on the season finale and if the park does it or not. Yeesh!

Following it up HD baby!

I totally love the random Strong Bad attack! ^I'll agree with you on the whole Dino-Rama area looking so terrible compared to the rest of the park. I know it was added later after they realized the park had next to no rides and was not going to receive the Beastly Kingdom, but still. Its like they designed this with every intention that as soon as they had everything worked out, they could go away for Christmas vacation. Likke they started it on October 31, and if they finished it November 1, they had off until January 1, if they finished it December 24, they still only had off until January 1 so they wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. "Lets make it look like a parking lot carnival has set up in this area of the park, that's great theming! Ok boys, we're done, see you next year, have a great holiday!"

It looks like a mini-elevator gone wrong. That Stan is insane!

A 6pm departure from Busch Gardens back to Sea World shouldn't be too little time at all. In fact, usually when I do fly into Orlando for a trip, if I can get a flight out of Orlando after 5pm, I'll usually spend the day at Busch Gardens, and then leave around 2pm to make sure I'm back in time. Most of the time the park isn't opened much later than 6pm anyway, though they are running their Summer Nights thing. If you really think you must stay beyond 6pm for more rides, etc, then you'll pretty much have to rent a car. BGA is only about an hour from Orlando depending on traffic, and rental cars are usually about $30-40 a day, so only you can really determine if its worth it or not. I would say no if I only needed the rental to get to Busch.

I like them all, but prefer the high banked turns. Flat turns are also really good, but not on every ride. Phoenix is one of the best examples of a great flat turn that I can think of.

I am pretty certain the seats don't spin, its just a new type of seating. Looks pretty much like a reverse Togo heartline coaster, where you sit at track level, but on the outside instead of the inside. I'm looking forward to riding this next year. Hopefully it opens without too many complications.

I haven't been to either park yet, but plan on alleviating that situation this year. Heck, I'm even going as far as buying a Paramount Pass from Canada's Wonderland. TPR will be coming within the next couple of weeks!

Went with a canned beer to start out this fine Tuesday! Git R Done! I just like it for its logo and name, it reminds me of good stuff I actually can drink this out of a can, I just choose not to

Its gonna be really hard for a park to get back on its feet if you cut them off at the knees! Poor Conneaut.

Our final day (of 2) was at Magic Kingdom. I was kind of worried seeing how crowded the other parks were on Saturday, but then I remembered Grad Night, so I hoped we would be better off, we were. We were only there for a little more than 3 hours, but we managed to do everything we wanted, and then some. We would have liked to stay longer to get some more rides in, but there's always next time (which for me is July!) I decided to take a little nap since I'd be 3.5 hours late arriving home overall. I can't wait to go back to Walt Disney World, but I certainly won't be doing it on Southwest Airlines! while at the airport, I finished my UK trip shopping and tested some of it out Luckily my mp3 player has a long battery life! This is where the Southwest plane should have been. As we left Disney for the airport, everything was on time. Then 10 minutes into the journey, my plane was delayed by 2 hours. Though apparently some lessons I'll never learn And my main reason for coming to the Magic Kingdom at all, the Dole Whip. My favorite ice cream since I was 8. And we had enough time to ride Pirates before it went down for rehab They even had the horses out on Main Street today We got sent to the back of the plane, an ominous vision of the future? I may like Toontown better than Toontown Fair, but I like Barnstormers theming better than Gadget's Go Coasters. Vekoma really tried to put the trains together like this! Greg's final credit of the trip, Barnstormer All aboard! I haven't ridden these since I was like 8, but didn't feel like waiting for it either Disney's Great Mistake Its a castle, its bigger than some. You get the point. You can't go to Disney World and not be inspired to eat their great popcorn But we still paid his little coaster a visit I guess Reid was really mad that we didn't come see him the night before because he broke Splash before we could attempt 13 people in a boat! Careful Yankees, they travel in packs! (because they're not only brother and sister, but also husband and wife) Though the scariest thing may have been OUTSIDE the Haunted Mansion...Rednecks! We hit Philharmagic which was pretty good, and then made our way to the Mansion Snow White had no wait, so we dedicated a ride to Bret and Dave. We also wanted to see the complete story that Disneyland doesn't have Pooh, its no Disneyland Tokyo, but its no Disneyland either! Metal palm trees are the future So I brought my Disneyland Space Mountain onride music with, which synched up pretty well The only Space Mountain with these trains and no onboard music Greg couldn't remember if he rode both sides, so we grabbed a fastpass to come back later to make sure he got on both Alpha and Omega We headed right for Tomorrowland for some Space Mountain Mickey and all his rodent friends came out to open the park Soon there will be one less park that has this entrance type We got to the Magic Kingdom just before opening

After the calibre of sucktitute that Disney MGM Studios was offering, the only thing that could have any hope of being satisfactory on Saturday was Epcot. If nothing else I knew that 2 of the newest rides would have single rider lines, so even if we couldn't all ride together and make dinner plans, we could all at least ride. We decided to take a more leisurely pace for this and take the boat from MGM to Epcot, arriving at the International Gate. Complete with an animatronic Down at the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney they were really hyping up Pirates of the Caribbean And then the grand finale made your head a splode All right! the fire barge is back and Illuminations is awesome again I SO can't wait to see all this stuff in June! Sake it to me, baby! Then it was off to hike the stairs to dinner Though at least they brought Figment back, although he's about as annoying now as Stitch Journey also had no wait, so we showed Greg how much they ruined it from the original version If Jeff had to carry envelopes with these giant floral created stamps, I don't think they'd be only 39 cents each. Wow, this "Please Try Another Flavor" sure is a hot seller all over the world! I really miss the old Cooling Zone with the snow and everything. And they were out of a LOT of types of drinks, including the Chinese Watermelon > After being asleep for 3 months I was thirsty! With warnings like this ALL OVER the ride, no wonder it only had a 0 minute standby wait. =( "Hello, Wes. Please come visit me again soon, I miss you" Welcome to CSI: Space Watch out, Robb! They forgot to turn off the "paint" robots! =D I never knew Florida had such dramatic temperature changes! Am I going thru Menopause, or is it getting hot in here? We ended up doing Single Rider on Test Track, but it was still only a 10 minute wait, even though it said 30. But as nice as they look, they're not food. Which is why I prefer Food and Wine Festival in October/November They bring out lots of them for this Flower Festival every April My mom would have really liked the orchids in Mexico If these steins were actually filled with Spaten Optimator, Soren would have lost his job and been deported, I would still be passed out in the Germany fountain, and Greg would be dead And then we catch "Soren at Work" And I find my favorite German too! Beer! Erik finds a familar German, Stefan! These guys were practicing for the International Taiko Drum Game Festival Epcot was hosting the annual International Flower and Garden Festival. Home Depot was a big sponsor I guess, as they were giving out aprons to children (but they wouldn't give me one) ='( Though Erik's message to Elissa may have made her send out her happiness calvary. 15 minutes out of MGM and we're already feeling better. (except poor Elissa who was being pestered by Erik as seen here!) The final stop before Epcot was the Boardwalk, which made me think of three great things: Robb, Elissa, and beer As well as the Yacht Club with its really neat themed pool On the way, we passed the Swan and Dolphin

Moving on, we attempted to get Greg on Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster. Obtaining Tower Fastpasses were easy, but something must have been really bad over at Coaster because the Fastpass returns were at 4pm by noon, and standby was around an hour. After standing in line for Coaster standby for over 70 minutes, it broke down indefinitely and they kicked us out of line. Greg got no credit on RnRC this trip. Erik says "MGM today was just lots of pooh" "Hi, I'm a Vekoma ride. I'm going to break down now. No rides for you today!" Greg is amazed by the Worlds Largest Bathroom stall At least they had the street performers out Good Tower can cheer us up "I'm a big ole hat, I'm blocking out the Chinese Theater!" I don't like crowds But that changed upon entry At arrival it doesn't look too crowded

Then we had more time to kill before Erik and Leann's fastpasses were good on EE, so we decided to show Greg some of the animal portion of the park. "Gimme back my beer, you sumabytch!" Looks like the Yeti is looking for more HopDevil Ale End of the line. But the bird-on-a-stick flew away before I got there No mist yet, maybe next time. Then its another credit, right Jeff? But Erik is enjoying it WAY too much! A nice start to the ride Even Farmer John heard about EE and drove his tractor to Orlando Its true that Cuba is stuck in the 1980s. Erik's jean jacket would sell very high on CuBay.com, the Cuban equivalent of eBay The steam was working this time around. That means new credit, right Jeff? This is what EE looks like thru a giant straw According to this, you actually aren't climbing Mt Everest, you're going on a voyage of the Forbidden Mountain, home of that beer swiping Yeti Finally its time to ride EE The Jungle thing has birds too, this is a bird. Kids, do not try this at home. And wear a helmet, because GI Joe says so. And now you know... "Take me with you!" Erik's had enough of AK and is ready to leave Its nicely themed though These elusive creatures only come out when you're driving late at night on the highways going 70mph These ostrich were sure malnurished! Haha! Everyone THOUGHT I had a camera, when in reality its a highly sophisticated micro 12 gauge shotgun. Sorry kitty, you're not so Grrrrreat now, are ya!? But this bat wanted to show us something else of his Heres a bat hanging out showing off his wingspan in the Jungle Trek something or other

Originally I hadn't planned on coming down to ride Expedition Everest until I was 100% certain it would be opened, which would be after April 7. I planned this weekend with Greg "Glutenfree" because he hadn't been to Disney in over 12 years. I got the credit on E:E back in March on an unplanned trip, but decided I love Disney enough to want to come back again. I figured this would be a dead weekend, but I was SO very wrong! Kali is a fun rapids where you don't get too wet, except for 1 side of the boat We met up with Erik and Leann, and then headed to this since we had time and I like dung OK, here's interesting logic. Step 1. Build bridge connecting area to new attraction to even out traffic flow. Step 2. open bridge. Step 3. open attraction. Step 4. Close bridge. WTF?!?! Dark, Dark, Dinosaur! was totally worth the trip! We're on the ride, we're excited "Jeff, why don't you call or write anymore!?" Random turtle dude Dave, wish you were here! This was the real reason I keep coming back to Animal Kingdom anyway They were only running 1 side at the moment, but its only 1 credit to Greg, so he didn't mind. Plus there was NO wait After getting our fastpasses for EE, we swam our way against the current of the River of Tourism back to DinoRama for Greg's cha-ching Apparently someone told EVERYONE that Expedition Everest was opened I'm beginning to wonder if we should have gone to Knoebels instead OMG! This must be the Sea of Humanity portion of the park! Saturday morning we were at Animal Kingdom for opening (this sign still shows they're building Beastly Kingdom) Coronado Springs was really nice and quiet, unlike the All-Stars The resort wasn't very busy at midnight Just finding my riding position, 'cause I'll be in it for like 14 days come June We stayed on site at Coronado Springs, so we got to take advantage of the Magical Express