rctneil

Great report on Fuji Q Bill. Nice to see it from the point of view of someone not rushing to fit all the coasters in. Glad I have now ridden them all so future visits can (hopefully) be a bit more relaxing. But big props to Robb and Elissa this day for camping out at the FastPass kiosk and to Chuck and Michael for enabling me to get through the haunted hospital! Even though there were not that many scare actors in there, the fact that you felt very alone and it was very eerie and creepy more than jumpy, made it bearable.

Some of my favourite airtime moments arE: Megafobia - Oakwood - About half way throguh there is a great small airtime hill Hair Raiser - Ocean Park - The bunny hop half way through is pretty nice too and dare I say it: Dodonpa - Fuji Q - Maybe not enjoyable airtime but it is 100% mega ejector airtime!

#50 - Unsure #100 - Tatsu - Six Flags Magic Mountain #150 - Knightmare - Camelot #200 - Superman Ultimate Flight - Six Flags Great America #250 - Grover's Alpine Express - Busch Gardens Williamsburg #300 - Dragon in Clouds - Happy Valley Chengdu #350 - Speed Mouse - Amazing World #400 - Laser Blaster - Window on China Theme Park #450 - Hero - Flamingo Land

For me: Dodonpa - I know it's not the fastest but it's the acceleration to that speed which just knocks you out! Powder Keg - Just really enjoyed it.

This! Outer Space Flying Car at Fisherman's Wharf:

Since visiting Japan, my two favourite drop towers have changed: Blue Fall at Sea Paradise, just an amazing rush as you keep dropping ... and dropping ... and dropping! - Prefer the side with the constant drop even though the teaser drop is quite fun. Tower of Terror at Tokyo DisneySea - The actual ride portion is extremely short and I hate the fact you have to wear over shoulder seatbelts and the whole whole safety spiel takes at least twice as long as the ride lasts but it's the whole story and experience of this ride I like. oh and it has Shiriki Utundu! - My new fav Disney character.

^This exactly! - I guess i'll make to make do with the small model I bought instead. Great report. Really enjoyed reading and wish I could have been there.

I did rather well at this game whilst standing in the 40 minute line for Journey to the Center of the Earth at DisneySEA last month! Shame there was no network connection to submit my score. ...

Welcome! The 19th seems to be a Monday (unless my in head calendar is wrong!) so I wouldn't expect it to be packed but i've been totally wrong in the past estimating how busy a park will be! To be perfectly honest, drop towers are one of a very few types of rides that always make me nervous before riding. I always do ride them but I always get that strange type of nerves before and as you get pulled up the tower. It's all part of the experience so congrats for braving through it. Going upside-down on rides is normally one thing where people who have never been on an inverting ride (upside downy parts) before get scared or worried about and normally it's the last thing they think about when on the actual ride so I really wouldn't worry about going upside down, no matter how many times it does so. Collossus inverts the second to most times of any coaster in the world right now so well done for riding it! Restraints can be a big debating topic in this community and other amusement park groups. As Stan Checketts from S&S (roller coaster company) once said on a TV programme, "You can build a ride with a restraint that covers you all up and holds you nice and comfy so you don't move, but the experience of the ride is lost", so companies are always battling to create smaller and smaller restraint styles that balance holding you safe and secure in a comfortable manner that doesn't make you forget you are on a ride and forget the experience the ride is meant to provide. All these rides are designed to have safety mechanisms in place to do with the restraints and most restraints have a hand/grab rail that you can hold onto. Inferno has metal bars on each side, Stealth, hold ontot he restraint itself and Swarm have bars either side. You'll be fine. Not sure what you are trying to ask here. Sorry! Just look around and enjoy the view as you climb the lift. The first slow inversion on Swarm is a pretty cool sensation so enjoy it! and before you know it you'll hit the brakes and will be wanting to ride again! Have a great day and to others on this forum, please feel free to correct me if I have given out bad info.

Really great news to hear that Perth is getting a pretty awesome new coaster. I enjoyed Perth when I visited so it'll be nice to have a new coaster to ride next time I go.

I am now totally devastated!!!!!! What am I going to do now!!! I was soooo excited for the insanely speedy section!

I didn;t see the old one operating but apparently others did at one point. I guess it must have only been open for a very short period though.

Great start to the report. As it's Tokyo Disney, do you really need to go any further? TDS is such an outstanding park, now my number 1. It's a mix of the quality of themeing, ride selection and operations and because each of those are just superb it all comes together for an awesome park. Can't wait to see the following days as you write them.

It was definitely more of a subtle scariness then jumpy scariness. You spend all the time expecting things to jump out or do something but the majority of the time, that does not happen. It's quite unerving being in what looks like an old abandoned hospital and hearing peoples screams coming from afar and just following the arrows with nothing but a torch! It was very well themed, all real old medical equipment and the atmosphere was very creepy but overall I really enjoyed it.

fujiama was a very odd ride. Those weird rift to left and back again swoops near the end try there best to kill what is left of you by that point but the first part I the ride is actually really nice. This was my first coaster at Fuji Q which was odd as a few of us had said that Dodonpa was our highest priority and Dodonpa ended up being the last coaster I rode that day! I think it was because Robb and Elissa both stated to grab Fujiama first thing due to the queues building up later and unsurprisingly their advice worked perfectly and all Fuji Q coasters were ridden by lunchtime for pretty much everyone!! Turned out to be a pretty decent day overall! Oh, this was also the day with the Haunted Hospital but no ones shoulders died so all was good! Thanks for the POV too Robb. Came out really nice

After arriving back from Japan, I would have to say the sound that Dodonpa makes as it launches is pretty cool. Big hydraulic boom.

My favourite issue was, I was told I had to remove my watch on Takabisha, from my wrist and place it in a locker for which I was given a solid metal key on a very flimsy piece of elastic that had seen better days to wear around the same wrist as my watch but was a lot looser than my watch and had a much higher rate of flying off! Go figure!

Raging Spirits at Tokyo DisneySea

Gravity Max is an awesome ride. Really smooth. I preferred the very back row to ride in. The tilt is scary but as soon as the freefall starts you get this amazing drop tower feeling but it's not half nervewracking putting your entire faith in a hook and a small block of steel! It was very nice to finally be able to get to ride this thing though.

It does have a jarring impact and I guess that is slightly what they were aiming for. It is a bit odd that they are aiming to make people smile when the theme is quite dark and not all jolly jolly happy happy. I think the main thing that gives it it's dominating status is that is is so damn big, crammed into the space and the mess of supports criss crossing one another from each persons point of view give it a very technical and complicated look. I also think that the fact it is sat in a ditch makes it feel contained and sort of 'in it's place'. I too think that with a bit more thought, a launch, not necessarily a fast accelerating one, could have fitted in to pull both halves together a bit more. However, I do like how the outside portions of each half do seem to mirror each other slightly: eg: Lift - 2 dive loops - bunny hop - batwing - corkscrew Lift - butterfly - bunny hop - cobra - 2 inlines Once the duelling action is perfected I guess it should look pretty spectacular with each train performing it's (slightly) mirrored element at similar times. There is a lot I like about Alton, (mainly that it is my home park) but Alton is most definitely not the best park in the world and has it's downsides and bad parts just like every other park out there. I do know a lot of people who think that Alton is perfect but it's not. I do wish sometimes that Alton would realise that a ride doesn't need to have a worlds first 'thing' or something like it. Rides like Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars at HK Disneyland really show that. It's not fast, has no inversions, young and old people can all ride together and the theme is simple. Yes, having the worlds first is great for marketing but Alton need to see, that is is not the be all and end all and it doesn't guarantee you a perfect ride.

Couldn't agree more. The theming of the ride is great for Alton. The marmaliser (spider) is brilliant, albeit mainly for the off-ride perspective as you don't notice it at all from onride. The queue is one big cage maze and you do feel a bit down in the dumps sort of thing as you are below the ride and below everything going on above. But the overal theme and style is really nicely done. I didn't have any issues with the restraints whatsoever. I hate Saw as it just beat me up everytime I rode it but didn't have that problem here as I was expecting. Maybe I braced myself in preparation and that dismissed it but it didn't feel rough apart from one sudden and surprising jolt when the train exits the cobra roll. And yes, it does feel like 2 multi loopers glued together, but I guess the upside of this is that (when it's right) the dueling action looks immense offride and adds something to the onride perspective too. A launch would have been great though. I too think Alton have only been focused on "World's First" or record breaking strategies for it's last few coasters. Air, as I stated in one of my previous posts, I enjoy as it does give you the sensation of flight but is much much weaker compared to the newer flyer variety such as Sky Scrapper but I get that it was a prototype and didn;t ahve intensity as it's main goal. Rita, never really been a fan but I do love the pop of airtime at the top of the first hill. 13, I like but it was themed and marketed totally wrong. Spinball, What can I say, Chessington got the better end of the deal! I think most people say this! Smiler is a nice ride, to me it won't beat Nemesis but it's a good solid ride that will do well for Alton. It rides ok (for now) however I expect it to be as rough as hell in several years! It looks fabulous of ride and it's great to take photos of. Just my two cents.

Here's the boat ride at Jin Jiang Action Park just outside of Shanghai, China. Didn't catch a pic of the other end of the tunnel.

I know Jinjang park in China has a small round boat river ride that you entered in its opposite end. I have a photo of it somewhere. Let me dig it out.

I know Alton encourage people to unfasten their seatbelts once you are in the final breaks. They were telling people to undo them as the train went from brakes to station when I went yesterday.