Jeezus Juice

Same day, a bit later. We ended our day with some Fireworks. I have a ton more pictures but they'll have to wait. I really want to finish this massive TR now. The Indy coaster was pretty fun. I didn't get a chance to ride in the front but I really liked the ride. I am glad they turned it back around, I don't like going in reverse. ummm...who put all the show scenes in reverse order? Don't think I didn't notice! Into the Gaufre bin with ye! Monica and her chocolate Gaufre. It wasn't very good. The dragon walkthrough under the castle was really cool. I actually like all the walkthroughs in this park. Monica woke up and decided to join me for an evening at DLP. Can you believe they actually have Fastpass for this? I wasn't even going to see these shows but they were really good. I'm glad I made time for them. I decided to wait by the tour bus for some autographs. I don't usually hope for clones but PLEASE put this in DCA. This version is awesome. I think the lighting package works much better than the "Superstar limo" effects in FL. I wonder why they went with Millionaire in DCA instead of this. I thought it was pretty good. OK their parade is slightly bizzare Monica was worn out after out theme park cammando morning so she went for a nap and I poped in for some RnRC action

Paris day two. We did so much today. Guess where we went today! It was weird seeing one that wasn't bright blue. We knew what this was at least. We have seen 3 others so we felt we should see the origional. Heres monica by some building, you know we really should pick up a guidebook when we go to places like this. Does anyone know what this place is? Since we had to change trains anyway we figured we'd take an hour to see the sights. heres the Louvre. The park wasn't too bad when we were there. We got there right at opening and had all the coasters done except Vol D'Icarus (It was down) and the darkride, boat, and rope/rock in two hours. We then left and took the train park to paris. I found the rock on a rope ride by the hidden kiddie coaster. We rode the little charecter boat ride. I wish I had paid more attention to the cartoon when I was a kid. Unfortunatly this was the only picture i got of it. Trace was a really long, really good bobsled. Goudurix has some messed up elements. It was awesomely bad, but it didn't suck. It was! we both really liked it. We were told that this was a really good darkride. I finally got to stick my hand in this thing! We got up way too early and decided to hop the train out to Parc Asterix

Alright, with the ECC trip over we flew back to the UK, took a bus to Heathrow and from there Phil (Yeah 7) was kind enough to drop us off at our hotel by Luton airport for our flight to Paris the next morning. We landed in Paris Monday morning and found the Disney bus stop at Charles De Gaulle airport with out any difficulty. We stayed at the Sequoia at DLP which seemed to be the best looking hotel on property (Disneyland Hotel not included $$$$$). The Sequoia was very close to the parks and themed really nice, I'm glad we stayed there. Here are the pictures from our first day at Disneyland Paris. This is about the only similarity to the other mansions. Yeah, the graveyard scene is only slightly different in this version. I was completely unprepared for this. Definately the best of the 3 I've ridden. I couldn't believe how fast you get going on the last tunnel under the river. This thing really hauls near the end. Probably the best themed coaster anywhere in the world. For Mission 2 the train now launches from the base of the cannon I can't bear the though that I have to live across the world from this ride. Chernabog is here terrorizing some small town. Thats what you get for living by a demon mountain. OMG their Casey jr. is actually a coaster! Bonus cred! Pre DCA I thought that this was a rather strange ride for a disney park. Too bad it's been closed for years, I really would've liked to ride it. The hub is currently done up for the Wishes firework show. Hows this for an entryway?! One thing we noticed right away is how much awesome landscaping the Paris park has. This is the entryway to the DL turnstyles. The Newport Bay hotel is one of the nicer looking ones but ours was still closer! The Hotel New York takes and interesting interpretation on a NYC skyline. First thing you see once you leave the hotel is the large Panoramagique balloon, and McDonalds.

I only saw 2 suvs while we were in europe. One was a Land Rover, and the other one had Texas plates!

We were flying out of Pisa Italy the next day but there was just enough time to check out Florence before we had to head to the airport. For some reason my camera battery didn't charge the night before but I still had enough charge for a few pictures. *warning* no coasters ahead!! The last pictture I took before my battery totally died. I got a snarling Italian woman, Monicas ear, and the Hotel Miracosta in the background. We stumbled upon what we would later discover was the most famous bridge in Italy, the Ponte Vecchio. Apperently the thing to do is but a lock on this little fence with the names of yourself and your partner. Somekind of love thing. Dude check out these doors! God himself could fit through. Oh Gelato, I miss you so much! This is a Smartcar Fourtwo. Please start exporting these! There only about $7000. We passed a dealership on the highway that had these in a glass tower. It looked like a giant vending machine! Another really old church. It hard to imagine that someone actually carved all this out of stone. nowaday we'd just pour a form and staple it up.

Mirabilandia This was the last park on the ECC trip which was kinda sad since we were having so much fun with everybody. Today was pretty cool though anyway. We started off with a Katun ERT (B&M Invert) that went really well. I rode about 5 times in different seats and every one was really good. It's weird because it look just like a really big verson of Batman but it's so much better. The Helix ending is really good too. Awesome ride. After that we just toured the park leaving room for their awesome car stunt show and we even tried their little waterpark. I was even able to try that Taiko drum rythem game (japenese version) and it is really fun and pretty easy to pick up. Pics... We filled the sadness void the best way we know how. Leaving the last park on a trip is always kinda sad. Has anyone been on one of these before? It rises up and then just spins and twirls and has interior light and sound effects. What a great little ride! While not as elaborate as Moteurs: Action it had a MUCH better pacing which more than made up for it. I think it was called "Monosaur" or "Dinorail" I can't remember They had this weird Dinosaur Egg monorail ride. Theres almost enough food here to have a No-Coaster Con! (j/k ACErs) Norwegians eat hot dogs without buns, how strange. Another shot of the rumble drop The waterpark here was an extra 3 euro charge but it was actually really fun. They even had a master blaster in their other slide complex. Park overview. Gardaland gets the edge over this park because of their darkrides and themeing, but Katun is soooo much better than Blue Tornado. It looks cool, I really wish I could recommend it. 1983 called.... Tonante must mean retrack me please. I believe these are morgan trains but the car were trailered and the lapbars were seperate for front and back rows. Much better than the Giant Dippers' or Grizzly's trains. Pakal's brakes were on quite hard today. It gave a good shot in the abdomen at the end of the ride. Katun also has this really cool Olmec temple area to explore around the ride. Katun has a great finishing helix. KATUN!! I guess if your going to copy a style for your park, it might as well be a good one. Last park on the trip (sad face). At least the mascots are better than the bucktoothed dragon.

HA at Ron Jeremy!! OMG I didn't really notice until now...thats funny. Yeah, he was alot of fun to hang out with on this trip too. It's sad he had to leave us in florence...I hope he had fun in Rome though. I just updated my post above with more pictures. For some reason I keep hitting send to early. Mirabilandia is next but work is getting kind of crazy today. I'll try to have it up tonight though. I love all the comments! Please leave more!! Heres another Flying island photo! Bestest ride ever, screw sky towers!

Heres more pictures (I took alot) The enterance to the ancient egypt darkride. Think the haunted mansion meets the mummy. I was very suprised at how fun this park was today. It's unfortunate that they have some guest service issues because I think that this bark is better than 80% of the ones in the states. (coasters notwithstanding) In addition to selling cleaving instruments they also had crossbows for sale. Disneyland doesn't even have fake guns in their fort anymore! Theres not really much to see in there unfortunately. Here is their mushroom capped Intamin drop. It's one of the shorter ones that don't brake untill way late. I love these. Another shot of the beautiful blue tornado. If only it didn't shuffle. Yay! Another flying island credit! Weather you count it or not it is a very elaborate ride that would not be out of place at IOA. (Intamin at IOA, OMG that would be sweet!) That my friends is Intamin tri-track. the exact same track on S:ROS and Millennium Force. If Journey to Atlantis is a coaster, than this one definately is to, come on rcdb! Fuga de atlantide, their Intamin water coaster. Awesome ride with a cable lift like Millennium force and two drops. Too bad it has to suck because Blue Tornado sure looks beautiful. It's the extended version with the helix at the end. The helix was actually quite good. Holy $#!7 is that KONG?!? Heres trader sam, hes head salesman of the jungle. Buissness has been shrinking lately so hes offering a two for one deal. I arraived late for dinner and all I got was a cold shoulder..... "Can you feel the love tonight..." This park had a little jungle cruise ride too! Monica managed to fit her village people costume into her luggage Monica and Ken enjoy the little mine cart dark ride. The ride exits into a head shop. This was a very cool stargate lazer fog effect. Again, very elaborate show scenes.

Yeah Phil I thought that was you. I'll try and see if I can find some more. Gardaland- It seems that this has been a troubleing park for some people this year. I thought the park was absolutely fantastic, but even I noticed that there seemed to be some problems with our group leaders and the ticket booth. It seems that the guest relation problems seem to be centered around the point of purchace areas because park operations and ride ops were as friendly as can be. I knew zero about this park other than the Screamin Squirrel so it was fun spending the day at a brand new to me park. The Darkrides here were amazing, the gardens were very elaborate, and about the only thing lacking were some of the coasters. The park was so awesome otherwise that I didn't even notice. I'll get to the pictures in a second but I just want to gush some more. I actually really enjoyed Sequoia Adventure. While I absoluely agree it's not a traditonal coaster experence I had a couple of reallg good rides. The themeing was well done and the ride is quite fun. S&S seems to have found out how to design 2 part restraints so they don't suck. SeqAdv doesn't really have any laterals either which I believe helps. onto the pics! The Pirate attack scene, complete with crumbling spanish fort. The VERY creepy Man/Serpent anamatronic. It actally rides up from the water to look at your boat. (It's also hard to photograph) No problems with pirates chaseing wenches here! This was the enterence to their very elaborate Pirates dark ride, the best POTC ripoff I've ever seen! This was actually a cute little ride. Imagine a Big Apple coaster about 1500 feet long with 6 little lift sections. The park is also home to "Magic Mountain" The coasters only go down from here. What a fun little ride It really isn't that painful, honest. Oh crap... The lift hill is really fast. Here is the themed enterence Oh yes, it is ERT time The dumb bucktooth dragon again, and Tony the tiger. Gardalands guilded Hippo/dragon Hotel accommidations provided by the hotel Ibis, 1 Industrial crap parkway with no food Verona, Italy

We actually had a really good time at Gardaland but then there was no need for us to deal with guest services so maybe that had something to do with it. As a whole Italy didn't leave a lasting impression on me. That is probably in part due to coming out of the spectacular alps and into the rebirth of the mullet. BTY I just edited in more pictures of Movie Park. I accidently hit send before I was finished. Gardaland is actually going to be next. I'll have that up this afternoon. I actually have some work to do today. I like your comments. please leave me some more while i work on the next installment. -Don

The day after Venice we went to Canevaworld which consist of a Movie Studios park and a water park, Aqua Paradise. The movie park was pretty interesting. I believe Robb covered it pretty well in his TR last month. We really enjoyed this park, the pace was a bit slower which gave us a nice break. Most of the day was spent waiting for the next attraction to open. We saw all the shows and rides and broke over to the waterpark after the Rambo stunt show (which was awesome!) I don't have any pictures of the waterpark because I had my camera in a locker but I'll go ahead and compare it to the run of the mill US parks. First off on innertube slides I'm used to waiting for a green light or a lifeguard signal. Here they just put people trough as fast as they could which really helped capacity. The body slides were one at a time but you were signaled by a whistle when to go by a lifeguard who was watching the splashdown pool. The wave pool was really cool. They let you walk along anywhere and just jump in! Even from the very back of the pool. The pool was about 1.8 meters deep and they would let you DIVE in!? The best parts though were the 2 "never in america" slides. The first was called "the water jump" and consisted of a short 15foot near verticle enclosed bodyslide that emptyed onto a large ramp that launched you into the air and into about 4 feet of water. Insane. The next one was a sort of watercoaster. You rode in 2 person tubes down a very steep drop down to where the slide would valley and then have another huge hill into a slashdown area. Thing is weather or not you made it over depended on your weight! If you were too light you just rolled back into a valley area and got off there. Me and this other guy were about 380lbs together and we went FLYING over the second hill. Holy crap it was scary! On to the pics: Movie studios park doesn't appear to have a single movie studio supporting it. They had all kinds of stuff. Luckily the waterpark was right next door. The watercoaster slide is the one on the left. We actually had a pretty good day at the Movie Studios Park. Even without major studio support they did pretty good. Luckily there were plenty of explosions to keep me happy. I was suprised at how much I look like the Rambo stunt show guy. This is Italian fo "Duke Boys" It had some good effects even if it seemed a bit short Magma is their ride through disaster jeep ride. The green hulk colored logs on X-Splash I told you not to stand up Mick! Yngve seemed to enjoy the coaster a little too much. This is the X-sector area with 3 rides, X-Speed the small powered coaster, X-Splash a small lof flume, and X-Spin a large octopus flatride (in the green tent) Really though their just 3 rides in a parking lot. These houses a right up next to the park. Thats lake Garda in the distance. Supposedly George Clooney has a house out here. I was accosted by italian border control. Oh yeah. I liked their "Backdraft" inspired T2 better than hollywoods. Uma and I got off to a great start. Oh sweet!!

Incidentaly the canals wern't smelly at all and the water looked pretty clean. I didn't swim in it or anything but It did look pretty inviting in the Italian heat. The part where they had drained was pretty bad smelling though. the mud at the bottom was really rank. I have a few more pictures of Venice before I get to the next park. Beware that some of the images are a little, well...European. Caio' The churches here were really ornate. And then one thats just "in your face" And here are the aprons they sell everywhere. One subtle and one no so subtle. Heres me being all artistic. For the Women:Enjoy the romantic postcard shot of this Italian plaza in the midafternoon sun. For the guys: I totally kicked this bucket and these birds across the square just after I took this shot. Here is the Rialto Bridge. Apperently its pretty famous too. It's got shops along one side and looks pretty old. These Gondola look like they were upholstered in Tijuana. Heres a shot of the cash and prizes. Shopping in Venice can be a bit of an adventure. Note the Cock Coat. Also these manniquins had breasts and high heels on. More ornate Jesus stuff. I tell you if people in the south would put up this kind of stuff instead of garish billboards and haystack crosses they might do a bit better recruiting. I had to give monica my shirt because your not allowed in with tanktops. Yeah, topless in venice!

I hope you guys are enjoying these. Let me know if you want more detailed written TR or just more photos. Next up we arrived in Italy and we had a day break from parks to go and check out Venice. It was one of those places that i'd always wanted to go and check out so It was pretty cool having it on the trip. Up until we had been at parks mostly full of locals. This was going to be our first pickpocket loaded GP infested tourist trap stop, but we had a really great time exploring the city. If your really only interested in parks and coasters you might want to scroll down to my next entry. For everyone else: Here they had drained one of the canals to work on it. They really aren't that deep. I'll have some more pictures a little later. Gansta'! We were trying to find that spot where madonna filmed her "Like a Virgin" video I'm really not too sure what this little sculpture is supposed to be. It was pretty expensive so I bought a pornographic tie instead. We ate at this canalside cafe with the red drapery on the right They were selling these Salvadore Dali clocks form around 200 euros. I bought more gelato. Anymore americans and that bridge will collapse What isn't water is tight narrow passages. Not even the streets of Venice are McSafe. Check out this Jesus fresco. Looks much better on ancient plaster than black velvet. "If you whomp me so help me I'll eat you." "Unhand my book of spells! This staff is +10 against mystical beasts!" These guys are afraid that wizard in the background is going to anger that griffin by whomping it with that staff. This is St. Marks square. Apperently its a famous Church and Tower area. We thought it was pretty cool. This was my first time seeing roads made out of water. The gondola rides ran from 80-100 euros so we decided to take pictures of them and buy Gelato and pizza instead We took a water taxi up the grand canal to start our tour of the city.

Next up was a coaster that I'd seen online that lookedlike the craziest thing I'd ever seen. It is similer to the last one only you ride on a single rail on a one person cart. Why don't they have these in the states? As you can see I conquered it in style. This is apperently the highest bridge in Europe "The hills are alive with the smell of McDonalds!" One last shot of the coolest coaster on the trip They built these foot bridges because they have hiking trails that cross the path of the coaster several times. note the lack of any kind of pedestrian deterrment system. cruising through the woods this is just after that last picture, tunnels! You better obey these signs if you want to live (whatever they say) OMG Dude Mach 5! This gives new meaning to the term "terrain coaster" The course is shorter but much much steeper This one has a similer layout but is about 10 times more insane I think this was the name of the second place we went. One of the pics double posted. heres a pic going up the lift of the first coaster.

The next day was for Alpine Coasters. Now I've been to Gatlinberg but I didn't get a chace to do their alpine slide so this was going to be brand new to me. We left Innsbruck and headed even deeper into the alps to the town of Imst where our first coaster was. We had an hour of ERT inwhich I managed to get three rides in before we had to go. Luckily there was a suprise second alpine coaster we were able to stop at that was even more wild than the first! Check out these pictures! Nothing like barreling down a hillside in a small plastic cart. Well, untill we saw where we were going next... We both agreed that this was the best thing we've ever done. Control your own speed. Go down as fast or as slow as you want. No brakes for me thanks! Tell me that doesn't look like the coolest thing ever. There is a seperate lift for the carts It's a long way to the top This is the worlds longest Alpine Coaster at around 3km in length =-0 You have to ride a lift to the top, it takes about 14 minutes Finally we arrived At our hotel in Innsbruck I met this guy named Sven, he gave me a Red Bull We head into the Alps!

I just edited the last picture post so be sure to check it out. Anyway the park owner was totally awesome and he gave us an hour of ERT after the park closed and narrerated the Magic show in english for us. ERT consisted of the Wild Train, Super Slide (which I got about 4 feet of air on), bumper cars, and the trampolines. heres some more pix: Another train of happy riders. Notice a few of us they let climb the lift hill to take pictures. Look at that mangle of track! This is me JUST landing from the previous hill. I got going so fast that I actually bottomed out a few times! Charecter dance in western town. (Notice the Noose and Confederate flag in the background!) A very floral Mick and the park owner next to him in the blue shirt. The one HUGE air hill I remember seeing construction pics on screamscape about this coaster, It was cool to actually go and see it Monica and some guy enjoy the ERT/ERS Yes! More trampolines!! I haven't been in a ball pit in like 10 years

After Prater we headed east toward the Alps for our next Hotel in Innsbruck. Midway though was a small park that got a Pax wild train coaster a few years back. We stopped there and had the best time. Parts of Austria look like texas This was one of the best parks on the trip I'm really not sure what this guy is trying to do to this horse Mike really enjoyed the super snail pedal monorail ride The park also had a very large storybook forest. I had to put in another picture of the monkey. ...and interracial dioramas. The person lying on the floor was dead or really sick. Uncle Remus seemed to be haveing a good time reguardless With Hippos They even had a jungle cruise This park is awesome by the way One of the many airhills The real reason were here. This coaster is really compact but really delivers on the airtime over every hill. Imagine a chance little dipper just hauling ass in every crazy direction at once. Please Pax, bring some of your stuff over here! So thats where the Country Bears went! The America theming reminded me of Knotts (only better ;P) The park owner was very generous with us today. We were greeted with free Weinersnitzel We finally arrived at Elebnispark Strasswalchen

I've got some more. I caught this show at night back in our hotel. It stars a loaf of bread who seems to get repeatedly crushed and maimed. It was a good way to learn german. I love trampolines Here is a close up of one of the starflyer chairs, essentially a flying carseat/lawn chair Monica tried to walk off with some of the strange art. this is a cross between a centepede shaped giraffe and a briefcase, right out of Beatlejuice No matter how many times I see these I'm amazed This was a new ride being set up that I have never seen before. It is a small pendulum set up inside a giant bell. Evidently it swings back and forth with the bell and emits bell noises and lights. I would have loved to try it but we were about 2 week ear A cross between a zamperla hawk and X at SFMM. The seats actually go through a controlled rotation as part of the ride program 5 story funhouses? yeah, we got those. Almost as scary as the Starflyer The tunnel is pretty cool, but its still a boomerang Here is their boomerang with the tunnel

Hey Phil! Thanks again for the ride, it was fun to cruise around in a car again after a week stuck in a coach! We ended up going to Chessington and had a blast. That park was much better than I thought it would be. I think I actually had more fun there than we did at Thorpe! Back to the TR's... Day 6 Weiner Prater, Vienna Austria: OK, let me tell you guys about the Prater. We had a guided tour when we first got there that really gave us the history of the park. Back in the 1500's a plot of land was given to the Royal family of Vienna for their private use and for a long while it served as their private hunting grounds. Somewhere along the line the park was given over to the people of Austria as a public park and entertainment facility for the city. Now the Prater is a huge funfair with more rides than I ever seen at one park. The park is public land I believe and each ride is owned and operated by independent vendors. What this means is that there is no central GM who gets to say what ride opens in the park and what does not. So if someone wants to open their own Tilt-o-whirl directly across from someone else Tilt than thats fair competion. I've never been to a park with more than one Mad Mouse coaster before! The park is also home to a metric ton of darkrides, walkthroughs, funhouses, trampolines, and whatever anyone decided to pick up at IAAPA and charge admission to. The park is home to 8 coasters including a boomerang with a TUNNEL and lighting package, and the scariest flat I've ever been on, Starflyer. I'll just show you the pictures. Heres a shot of the most famous ride, the older than dirt Eli Wheel from one of the old worlds fairs. The piss clown tells you where the bathroom are We decided to skip this, we heard it was overrated This is the elaborate Jack the Ripper walkthrough It wasn't even a super durable chair. It was plastic and kept changing shape and flexing with the G-forces. And the chains were so tiny. I decided to risk my life for the sake of starflyer It was rather creepy They had some walkthroughs i had never seen before. This one was some kind of lazerlight effects show. The weirdest thing was how the ride kept refering to itself in the 3rd person in german talking about how great it was. I suppose I should include a picture of an actual coaster, Here is Praters senic railway Hochschaubahn The name of this ride translates into "Splinters in the ass" Some of the themeing made me feel right at home I got to meet alot of celebrities in the park today Yes, this is a Horse-drawn carousel! Home of the worlds larges permanent funfair! Welkommen dur Austria

While I was in Europe I had a dream that we took a side trip to Port Adventura. It was weird because I don't even know anything about that park and it was pretty friken far from where we were going to be. Strange, but most dreams are. Don "Really want to go to Port Adventura now" Garrison

Psycho Eastern European Park #1 Vindampark, Budapest Vindampark is one of those small parks you find in major citys. They have 4 coasters, most noteably a Schwarzkopf looping star (from Dreamland, Margate) and a pretty old Senic Railway (not from Dreamland). They lady who ran the park showed us around a bit (forgot her name, sorry!) and let us ride Hullamvasut (Who-Lam-Va-SHOOT) the Senic Railway and the Looping star before turning us loose in the park for a few hours. Hullam was my first SRailway and it was actually pretty fun! Each car had a leaf-spring suspension so you really got bouncing as you went along. The Looping star was pretty standard Swarzy, which is to say quite good. The park is operated with a small general admission charge and then every ride is one to two tickets I believe. We each got a 20 ticket book from the club and free admission. Plus monica found half a ticket book in a bathroom so we had more than enough to hit the coasters as well as there strangly large amount of darkrides. Pics! We had enough time left over to explore the city before we had to return to the hotel. Dinner was at a Hungarian McDonalds. I wonder if we'll ever get Doritos Latinos in the states? For some reason though BBQ flavor doesn't transfer well to a corn chip If ANYONE knows where I can get this shirt PM me This breakdance had inner city themeing "Give me some cheap prizes" "Let me on or I'll stroke my 9mm" seemed to work pretty good How do you say "Credit Whore" in Hungarian? They had this strange fairy tale themed tunnel of love type boat ride I like 'em long and swoopy Oh yeah The ride actually takes about 5 minutes to navigate is long course Oh and did I mention, I'm all about coasters and riding in cars with suspention Hullamvasut sits right next to a blvd near the back of the park. Yeah, first park of the ECC trip!

Here are some pictures leaving england and arriving in Budapest Monica really liked it, and thats all that matters They had this huge plaza in the middle of town Mr. Hungary, Bela Legosi We decided to do a photo shoot by this awesome walkthrough attraction in the park I checked and this isn't a medieval times restauraunt This was the first day of the ECC trip. They dropped us off in this nice city park which was a short castle strewn walk from Vidampark Are you sure we aren't on a backlot? The city is an interesting mix of new and very old buildings Among the top 5 places I never thought I'd ever get to: Budapest Hungary American gangsta' in Budapest, dag yo Nuclear Power anyone? Roundabouts are pretty straightforward. I don't know why americans has so much trouble with them Make sure you sit on the correct side of the car as I demonstrate thusly

I see this is going to be a running gag Replace that picture of some random Hungarian castle with this pic of Spinball Wizzer. Thank you!

Here are the Alton Towers pics: Can we go back NOW please!? Pretty much the best park of the ride Some german spinner goodness Attn Magic Mountain: Build this plus 1 pretzle please I'm pretty sure that this was the mad bomber pretty much the greatest ride ever made Totally looks like your going to kick that eyeball Dude, how sweet is Nemesis? Look at that drop! If your handicapped and really evil your in luck! I'm a Zombie guys with crap in my mouth, please go on my darkride! For some reason alot of the oblivion merch was homoerotic Finally we get to ride Oblivion Dude, awesome! remember, this is my first time seeing these pictures too. It was hard to take a bad picture of the castle Rita: All bark and the restraints bite! ewww.... We started our day with Rita: QOS! OMG dude, a castle!

Day 4, Alton Towers This was probably the park I was looking forward to the most. We stayed at a Hotel pretty close to the park on the a50 but even then it is still a drive to reach the park. You have to drive through these small villages with very narrow streets to get there. Imagine driving down international street in the USH backlot with two way traffic. I don't know how the busses make it. We got to the park way before opening because I knew being july that alot of schools take end of the term trips here. The gates opened about 45 minutes before the rides so we got a good spot in the Rita queue and waited until 10am for the rides to open. Rita being new was a huge draw so I'm glad we went there first. We waited about 15 minutes once it opened and then got a quick one train wait on corkscrew (In the front). As for my Rita review, well...it sucked. The ride itself was pretty fun but I would't recommend a special trip just for it. The launce is just as intense as the others just very short, only 60mph. The course is essentially an elaborate figure 8 into the breaks. What really kills the ride is the restraints. Instead of really enjoying the yummy intamin transitions I kept hitting my neck on those stupid flat bar shoulder straps. grrrr. If ever a ride needed lapbars only its this one. Now I only rode once due to crowds and it was near the back. But I have ridden Stormrunner in the rear or the train and don't remember it being quite that uncomfortable. I'll definately give it another chance but I really wanted it to be good. We walked right onto Hex after that and we were both really shocked to see how much of the queue is in the actual castle itself. After Hex we took a quick trip through the castle itself on the way to Oblivion. The school kids were out in full force so I was trying to get the low capacity rides first but we finally caught up with them at Oblivion. And it only got worse from there. Hears the story: after wainting an hour in the oblivion queue (with a posted 10 min wait time) we finally make it into the station. I'm at the gate for the front as my train pulls in, stops, unloads, then nothing. The unload area emptied, the trains left the station empty, the trains on the brake run emptied, and the ride op turned to us and said they now have to empty the entire queue. Evidently, some asshat had left a bag unnattended at or near the exit ramp and due to the recent London Bombings they weren't taking any chances and cleared out the entire X-Sector of the park. I completely understand why they cleared out the area. I'd rather miss acredit than be blowned-up. But it just seemed so unfortunate that I happened to be at the load gate, for the front, after waiting an hour that this had to happen. Luckily the rest of the park was still open, but after the time wasted at Oblivion it was getting to be 1pm and the park closed at 5 (damn tussaud hours) so I was becoming a little concerned about the rest of the day. We decided to just go for the coasters we most wanted to do and headed for Nemisis next. After a single rider wait of about 40 minutes Monica and I actually rode together in the back row. Wow Nemises kicks total ass. If you've see video you know what this ride does. And it does it really good. I had high expectations for nemesis and it totally lived up to them. We went over to queue for Air and the op at the front said it had been having problems and the queue right now was massive. He also said that the park hours had been extended untill 630 (YES) because of the massive crowds/bombs in the park. He told us that as long as we queued by 6:29 we would get to ride so we went off and rode the mack powered train (15 min) and Spinball Wizzer (40 min) and the kiddie (0 min) Lo and behold after Spinny I noticed Oblivion was open! It was about 445 and most of the kids had left so the queue only took about 15 min. We also got front row (YAY) I'll just say real quick that I liked Obli as much as SheiKra. It doesn't do as much but what it does do it does much better than shakira. After that we had just enough time to walk onto Air and Nemisis one more time. We ended up having a really good day and we were able to ride all the coasters, but we were really fighting all day in order to do it. I've gotta run real quick but I'll put up the pictures in about 30 min for those of you playing along in real time. -Don "Ignore any typos, I'm trying to do this as quick as I can" Garrison