monsterfan99

- Items for my theme park trip scrapbooks. While the book may not look the best, it means a lot to me. Right now I have around 100 maps from last year from SF Great America, SF St. Louis and SF Great America's special Fright Fest maps. Most will be cut-up (if anyone ever needs one of them, let me know and I'll be happy to trade park maps.) I just try to take stuff from each park visit. - The one for me has always been Pressed Pennies/coins. I try to buy as many as I can that are site specif (I refuse to buy generic ones.) When I was planning my WDW trip which got canceled, I had a budget of over 250 for the coins alone. Right now I'm working on the ones Great America used to have for my scrapbook. - MST3K on DVD. Should have almost all episodes by the end of next month from the DAP-DVD project and other sources. Next up is the old Rhino releases. - Pride Fighting Championships on DVD. I should have ever event except one by the end of the month. Finally there is my collection of over 2000 wrestling DVD's. I have no clue what to do with them and can't sell them due to being VHS to DVD copies. I probably have only watched 300 of them.

Today I got a call that I was selected to be in the US Monopoly Championship qualifiers this weekend.

Got my ticket today as well.

Only cleb I saw was Mick Foley and his family at Splashin' Safari at Holiday World around 2003. As much as I was a huge wrestling, I didn't bother him. No one else really did other then saying hi.

Actually without Nights in White Satin the line-up is "sub-par", not even good enough to call run-of-the-mill. Agreed 100%. This will probably keep me from making the effort to go there opening weekend. Nights was a huge reason for my visit.

Count me in for the Dark Rides DVD.

Got 3 myself. 1. Riding Montu in 1996. Before that, the only other big coaster I had ridden or even known was Kumba. I had never heard of or even seen an inverted coaster at that point. The simple rush of the ride was amazing. 2. My first time on Superman: Ultimate Flight at SF Great America. This was my first coaster in 5 years plus. While not an amazing coaster (try to avoid it) the ride does mean something to me. It got me back into coasters. 3. My fiancee and I's first ride on Evel Knievel. She was fine with coaster before we took a trip to SF St. Louis for closing weekend. We took one ride on the coaster and she wanted to ride again and again. That ride, along with Mr. Freeze has helped make her a coaster fan as well. The other kinda special moments for me are getting the last ride of the year on the Little Dipper at Kiddieland and Evel Knievel at SF St. Louis last year.

I watch the footage disc more. When I get them I do watch expedition first then the footage. For me right now, I watch the footage disk as a way to get through the 4 month off-season. I feel as I start to plan for summer trips, I'll watch the expedition disc a little more so I get a feel for the park. The footage disc tends to pump me up for new locations. I would prefer to keep them the same.

To keep on the same topic, are there any decent tent camping sites near Cedar Point?

Just a small list for me. All the coasters at Opryland, I think. My family can not remember much about the trip and all I remember was ridding the General Jackson. In was 1990, I was 6 and just had been to the Bigfoot Monster Truck Bash the day before. Coasters were the last thing on my mind then. Kiddie coasters at Holiday World, WDW Magic Kingdom and the former one at SF St. Louis before it was torn down Dueling Dragons - Ice, Pteranodon Flyers and Flying Unicorn at Islands of Adventure (group I was with wanted to see the Twister show at US over them. Same group also made me pick between riding Hulk and Spiderman, I chose Hulk and have no regrets. Plan on pick those up around the holidays this year.) Also missed out on the Woody Woodpecker ride at US Deja Vu at Six Flags Great America (fiancees parents thought that 2 people in there 20's could not be trusted to sleep in the same house, so I missed out on going to the park before I moved here) Nothing I could really do about any of them. I plan go getting most of them in the future, so all is well.

I was planning to hit the park the Sunday after Coaster Mania on the way back home. Oh well, not much I can do about it now. Hope they can get the park re-opened.

I can help you with the Disney Part. I was planning a trip there for the week after that but had to change it. This link will be a ton of help in the what days to go and when. http://www.touringplans.com/tp2/UG2_index.php?PageID=14 Remember to always, always hit the Magic Kingdom on a Monday. With the front of the line system, Universal and Disney each have one (not sure about BGA or Sea World.) With Universal, you pay a fee (different price by day) on top of the ticket price. This gives you one front of the line pass of X number of attractions that have listed. With Disney, everyone can use the fastpass system. Your ticket to get into the park is inserted into a machine and it gives you a slip with a return time. This allows you to by pass most to nearly all of the line. The one thing to remember about this system is they can and do run out of passes for some rides. Toy Story Mania is known to run out of passes early in the day. You also can only have one pass at a time or every 2(or maybe 4) hours, which ever is sooner. Basically, if you make a touring plan (Plan of what to hit when. there are sample ones on the site above) for the day and use the fast pass system the right way, you should be OK at the Disney parks. Get there 20-30 minutes before rope drop and you will beat the crowds as well.

For some reason that reminds me of a 500 pound guy cracking and warping a beach at SF Great America during Fright Fest in October.

To me, coasters combine the best of all hobbies. - You get the speed and rush you get from sports and/or cars. - You can doing the coaster count as a form of collecting. - You get to travel around the world, see new places and maybe a great story. - Get a history lesson on not only the industry, but people's taste at the time. - Meet great people and the hobby has a strong online community. - You also get to escape the realities of life, which is always a plus.

My fiancee always saying The Bench Ride is her favorite. At Viper at SF Great America it is a mess with how large to loading station is. People sit on rails and like to start mosh pits, just gets annoying.

The Red side was not bad last year, but the Blue side needs work ASAP.

The best way to describe this ride is what was said on the Coaster Crew forums Hard Rock Park was built, closed, went bankrupt, found a new owner and will reopen during the construction time. It is a same about the rides state, I was look forward to riding this year.

The Boss needs it badly. It hurt in the mid-40's outside and I've been told it is much worse in the summer heat. I'm not even sure I want to ride it opening weekend and I'm willing to ride the Ninja.

Superman:UF at Great America for me. Was my first coaster in almost 5 years and the first flying coaster. The rush was outstanding. Rode it again about a month and a half later and hated it. The ride was boring and painful (stupid pretzel loop) in the back. Now I can ride it in the front if friends want to ride it but the back is hell. Iron Wolf also falls into this category. Is was my first stand-up coaster and the loop is fun. After the 2nd ride, I noticed a headache coming. Happens about every time I ride it now. The last time I rode it, the ride op's were telling people how to ride and to expect head pains after ridding. That was enough for me.

As a child, I loved the coasters at Busch Gardens Tampa that I would ride on vacation. However, I hated (aka scared) Screamin' Eagle at SF St. Louis. The ride alone was enough for me to hate wooden coasters. Then my second woodie was the Raven and I was hooked. I even got the chance last year to conquer Screamin' Eagle in November of last year. My fiancee was scared of big coasters until she did Superman: Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Great America. Now she enjoys them, although not to my level, and looks forward to theme park trips.

I also agree on the staying to one area, but I'm also insane enough to do the same trip if I had the $$$. I can help you some with the SF Great America part. With the drive from Holiday World to Great America will be around 7 hours without traffic. If you drive around 4 hours the night before, you can get to Great America the next day by around 1ish and give yourself more time there (or even make a stop at Kiddieland, it's on the way up here.) A big word of caution is if you come up and taking the full day to drive, try your best to hit Chicago 11am-2 pm. If you hit the area then, you will miss most of the traffic. If you can't hit drive then, try your best to drive closer to night. The traffic leaving is no where near as bad as hitting morning rush hour going in. If you are only doing one day, the Flash Pass might not be a bad idea. All the coasters (minus Demon and the Vekoma Jr.) get long lines very fast. Superman alone is well over an hour within the first 30 minutes of opening. The water rides are just as bad as well, although Buccaneer Battle should help. I'll be at Great America a ton this year, so if you need any help with planning a day there feel free to ask. On the flight to Texas after SF Great America, where are you flying from? I ask because you are going to be around 2+ hours (with traffic) from each major airport in the area. If you can return the rental car around Great America, you can take the Metra train into Union Station. From there, they have routes to both airports. That should save you some time (the trains are always on time.) Milwaukee, WI is a further drive but cheaper prices on flights. Hope the trip is great.

I was just at Six Flags St. Louis in November. We stayed at the days in about 3 miles from the place. Outside the room, the place was a dump, but the rooms themselves were nice enough. It was the cheapest place near the park and still cost $59.00 a night in November. The Holiday Inn (might be an Express one or something like that) is great but prices ran well over $100.

One small problem, maybe? When you click a subject to browse there is a section at the bottom to pick how many results you want per page. Let's say I change it to 48. When I click next 48, it reverts back to 12 per page. It does this on 8 per page and 24 per page as well. Just giving a heads up.

^Not a problem at all. Newer members have to start somewhere to help with the site. I'll see what else I can find.

Great America is the pager style system. There are two version. The regular version you basically wait the same amount of time that you would in line but are free to do other things until the reservation time. The gold one is basically a 15 minute wait and your up, despite the number people in line. One thing to remember is the cost of them. At great America they will run you $37 for 1 person and $24 for each extra person for the regular and $64 for one person and $44 for each extra person for the gold. There is a season pass discount if you have one (not sure on the percent). With that said, you only can use it on Batman, Superman, Raging Bull, Dark Kinght (at least last year you could, not on the site now), Iron Wolf, Whizzer, the drop tower, the rapids ride and a log flume. With the day of week and time of year, you should be ok without one. Most schools around here should still be in session due to the amount of snow days taken this year.