Skycoastin Steve

I don't get what all the fuss is about.

^Well if an elusive Wacky Worm credit isn't enough to bring you back to Orlando ASAP, I don't know what is!

Well that's strange. I was just there Thursday night and all my friend and I did was purchase enough tickets to ride the Wacky Worm and Windstorm. The operator at the Wacky Worm cracked up when we came up to ride, but he let us right on (and we were the only riders on the train). So maybe the policy has changed? Either that or they just didn't care on that particular night since it wasn't crowded.

I might have skipped over it, but have you never ridden the one at Old Town in Kissimmee?

^ Thanks Larry. I took a picture of some manta rays in the Manta queue with my Razr on Friday, but I was thinking that might look crappy and make my trip report look equally crappy. Some people haven't learned that yet.

Hello everyone. Ask yourselves a few questions. First, have you ever fed giraffes? Do you want to? Have you ever wondered what various animals' noses looked like from three inches away? Do you think it's funny to watch foreigners run away from a splash down? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes," then check out the first installation of the 2011 Extravaganza! Only high quality pictures need apply, no grainy cell phone pics around these parts!

^It's the fact that they called it "footless" that's hilarious.

^Manta is just an excellent ride. It has a lot of positive g's throughout, a terrific pretzel loop (although not quite as good as Tatsu's), great theming, and even some airtime mixed in there in some places. Not to mention the water interaction with the wing dip and the near-miss on the cliff right after that. Kraken has a fairly unique layout as far as floorless coasters are concerned (might have the same elements, but they're laid out differently). It's intense, keeps its speed through most of the ride, and the 2nd loop is probably the best part of the ride. The only real negative is the section between the 2nd loop and the corkscrew at the end, it kind of just meanders along through there.

And now for the pictures, the full album can be seen on my facebook page here. Foreign tour groups were the theme of the day on Wednesday. What I love about the GP is their strikingly hilarious inability to read "Splash Zone" signs. Oh foreigners. Safari time! So handsome! His name was Captain. "Strike a pose." I wish I had spiky hair running down the back of my neck. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up!" Yummy lettuce! This one's feeling left out! I can't remember her name, it was something tribal/African. I wonder if giraffes ever wanted to be Toys-R-Us kids? Success! Now if only making small children eat vegetables was this easy..... Emo giraffe needs more food. Emo giraffe is now happy giraffe! Check out that tongue...... Apparently their eyeballs are the size of tennis balls! Jen petting one. The first instruction the tour guide gave was to not pet them on their faces. And what do the foreigners do? Pet them on their faces. Looking for more food. If he can't find any, an innocent foreigner would suffice. Is it just me or do they kinda look like camels? Only thankfully they don't spit. Glamour shots by Steve! They paid me in giraffe poo. NOM NOM NOM NOM! "Aw, no more?" This was an Eland that came over to see what all the commotion was about. The tour guides told us not to touch them, so what do you think the foreigners did? If you've ever wondered to yourself, "Gee I wonder what an Eland's nose looks like from 3 inches away," now you know. Time to go! "Come baaaaaaaaaaack!!!" Family of white rhinos. The tour guide says they have sensitive hearing and can be angered or spooked by sudden noises, so that's why they stay quiet around them. So what does a foreigner do? Start whistling VERY loudly at them. Another family of rhinos. I believe there are at least three or four baby rhinos in the park (not counting any ACErs that might have been there that day). So I guess there's a new coaster being installed? More food? MEERKATS! Such silly little creatures. Whatchu lookin' at? Cute! Mama Lion #1 is sleepy. Mama Lion #2 was playing with this palm frond and carrying it around, but kept tripping over it. Cats are so dumb. They are really dumb. For real. Back to see the kangaroos again! I guess they're sleepy, as well. In case any of you ever wondered, "Gee I wonder what a kangaroo's nose looks like from 3 inches away," now you know. Thirsty. Moving on! I hope you brought your Glock with you to this trip report! At least this was good. I can't imagine coming to this place and having the only coaster there suck. A few glamour shots of the DBH. With a train this time. Obligatory sign picture. Getting away as fast as possible!

For my first trip report of the year, it's time for something a little different. My trips to Busch Gardens involved more animal interaction than coaster riding/photography, but that's ok! Sometimes you gotta appreciate the finer things about a park rather than just the coasters, and with BGT, there's PLENTY to do besides ride coasters. Plus, when you have a Platinum Pass, you can do whatever the hell you want when you visit since it's not costing you any money. Alrighty, so in case you missed it, my first day at BGT last week was to document Cheetah Hunt's progress, which can be seen here. The return trip on Wednesday was all about the Serengeti Safari and feeding giraffes! We got a few laps in each on the big B&Ms, but as I said before, we were definitely there to feed the giraffes. For anyone that hasn't done this before or might be considering it in the future, SPEND THE EXTRA MONEY AND DO THIS!!! This was by far one of the coolest experiences I've ever had, period. Hand feeding creatures as large as giraffes isn't something you get to do every day, and they were as sweet as anything, too. It was to the point where I wanted to take one home with me, but unfortunately they don't fit in overhead compartments on an airplane. If you have any affinity for animals at all, this is most definitely worth the extra cash. On Thursday, Jen and I made the three hour trek from Winter Haven down to Dania Beach to hit up Boomers. As was showcased in Erik and Smisty's thread, Boomers was what you could call.........ghetto. Half the arcade games didn't work, the mini-golf courses were in disrepair, the dilapidated building in front of the go-kart track was a nice touch, and I had a strong feeling that a future episode of CSI: Miami would fit in perfectly there. However, we were there on a $12 Thursday which meant we got to get unlimited arcade/mini-golf passes, and we paid an extra $10 for unlimited go-karts and rides, as well as the $12 for unlimited rides on Dania Beach Hurricane. Everything was forgettable except our rides on DBH. That ride kicks some serious ass! Absolutely crazy airtime on every hill, and while it had some rough spots, it was still maintained pretty well for being at a shithole like Boomers. Thankfully an outside company handles the operation of the coaster. After we left Boomers, we went to the famous Jaxson's ice cream parlor in town, and me being an ice cream-thusiast, it did not disappoint! If I ever make it back down around that area, the ice cream and the Hurricane are the only things that will bring me back to Dania Beach. We also went to Kissimmee on our way back and credit whored at Old Town, picking up the Wacky Worm and Windstorm credits they have there. Nothing exciting really. On Friday, before I drove back to Tampa to fly back home, I made a quick pit stop by SeaWorld to get some rides on Manta and Kraken (my #1 flyer and floorless). I was able to get four laps on Manta and only one on Kraken (one train operation, slow crew). Both delivered fantastic rides, and as previously stated, Manta has now taken over my #1 flyer spot ahead of Tatsu. I had ridden Manta the year it opened and didn't remember it being as forceful as it was on Friday, but this thing was running amazingly well! I've found that the best place to sit is the left side of the back row. You get a nice yank/pop of airtime coming off both drops, and the pretzel loop is just ridiculous in the back! My one ride on Kraken was front row, and it kicked ass as always. Well that's it for my January adventure into Florida. For now I'll have to keep dealing with this atrocious cold weather until the spring, but five days of warmth was certainly worth it! Pictures to follow soon......

The Extravaganza rolls on into 2011 with plenty of early experiences to kick start the year right. This past week while in Florida I was able to get to BGT twice, SeaWorld, and Boomers, as well as two bonus credits at Old Town. As time goes on I'll edit this post around and add in my future trips, but for now, all I got is the little five day excursion I had this past week in the Sunshine State. Good Will Hunting for Cheetahs, Giraffes, and a Hurricane in the Ghetto! January 17 - Busch Gardens Tampa January 19 - Busch Gardens Tampa January 20 - Boomers, Old Town January 21 - SeaWorld Orlando Spring Time in the Old Dominion! April 1 - Luray Caverns April 2 - Kings Dominion April 3 - Busch Gardens Williamsburg Chang-ing and Whoring in Jersey! May 20 - Six Flags Great Adventure May 21 - Nine Shore parks, including Morey's Piers Cheetah Hunt Opening Weekend! May 25 - SeaWorld Orlando May 27 - Busch Gardens Tampa TPR Day at BGW! June 19 Seeking Wood and Wind! June 28 - Camden Park, Columbus Zoo June 29 - Cedar Point July 1 - Waldameer, Conneaut Lake Park TPR Northeast Trip and Pre- and Post-Add On Days! July 26 - Clementon Park, Morey's Piers July 27 - Bowcraft Amusement Park, New York City July 28 - Coney Island July 29 - Quassy Amusement Park, Lake Compounce July 30 - Bizarro Bash at Six Flags New England July 31 - Palace Playland, Funtown Splashtown August 1 - Canobie Lake Park August 2 - La Ronde August 3 - The Great Escape, Magic Forest August 4 - Six Flags Great Adventure (no pictures), Sesame Place August 5 - Dutch Wonderland, Dorney Park August 6 - Knoebels (no pictures) August 7 - East Coast Bash at Hersheypark Quick Links! Luray Caverns Culture Credit - Page 2 Kings Dominion opening day and Busch Gardens - Page 2 Mach Tower construction update 4/29/11 - Page 3 Six Flags Great Adventure, Green Lantern preview - Page 3 Whore on the Shore! - Page 4 Mini-SeaWorld Report - Page 5 Cheetah Hunt Opening Day - Page 5 TPR Day at BGW - Page 6 Sweet Sunset and Night Time Pictures of KD, and video of SSS! - Page 6 Camden Park and Columbus Zoo - Page 8 Cedar Point with Daytime Photos - Page 8 Wicked, Crazy, Cool Shots of Windseeker at Night - Page 9 Waldameer and Conneaut Lake Park, and a cat! - Page 11 Illuminights at Busch Gardens Williamsburg - Page 12 Pre-pre-pre-trip Day at Clementon Park and Morey's Piers - Page 14 Un-Un-Official Day at Bowcraft, and Pizza! - Page 14 The Un-Official Day at Coney Island! - Page 17 First official day of the TPR Northeast USA Trip at Quassy and Lake Compounce! - Page 19 Bizarro Bash! - Page 20 Palace Playland and Funtown Splashtown - Page 22 Canobie Lake Park - Page 23 La Ronde - Page 23 The Great Escape and Magic Forest - Page 25 Sesame Place - Page 27 Dutch Wonderland and Dorney Park - Page 27 East Coast Bash at Hersheypark! - Page 28 Empire State Building, 9/11 Memorial, Lombardi's Pizza - Page 29 Christmas Town at BGW - Page 31

The "PTC Seat," as I call it, which is the front row of the back car, almost NEVER gives a bad ride. It doesn't matter if you're in the roughest incarnation of a wooden coaster ever built, that row on a PTC train is always good, and rarely as rough as anywhere else in the back of the train. It's easily my favorite place to ride on most woodies that use PTC trains. It's basically the same way with Arrow trains. And as far as GhostRider goes, it's my #10 because the rides I got on it during WCB last year (specifically during nighttime ERT) were incredible. Maybe it was because it had just come off a rehab session, but it really only had one or two spots that I would characterize as uncomfortably rough, but I even had a spin or two on wheel seats and was clamoring for more every time. That layout is just batshit crazy, and I wish they could get it to run more consistently so that it could start gaining its recognition back again.

1. Kraken 2. Hydra 3. Dominator 4. Superman: Krypton Coaster 5. Bizarro 6. Scream! Dominator was FAR too rough in the 2nd half of the course this past year, to the point where it wasn't as rerideable as it used to be. While the beginning of the ride is spectacular, the 2nd half was a major buzzkill for me. Hydra is just crazy fun to me, you don't know which way is up or down, and it's such a unique ride compared to just about anything else you see from B&M. Kraken is just insane, nuff said. The only thing keeping Kraken from approaching my top 10 is the weak finish after the 2nd loop, but everything before that is phenomenal.

We went to Boomers and Jaxson's today. Boomers = yeesh. Jaxson's = YUM! Dania Beach Hurricane = fantastic. Dania Beach = sketchiest beach town ever.

I think it's a great topic for the BGT thread, but that's just me.

^Yeah I was in the park again today and saw one of the supervisor/team leader guys riding in the front of one of the trains. He waved at us as he rolled out of the station.

Fantastic evolution of the park index. Well done!

Alright, so paiging_jen and I went up to BGT yesterday, and despite the heavy rain showers early in the day, it cleared up well enough for us in the afternoon to be able to take some pictures of Cheetah Hunt's progress and to ride a few rides. The park wasn't doing so hot, as Sheikra and Kumba were down for most of the time we were there, and Montu just had one train running (understandably because of the light crowds). We only rode Montu once, did a lot of riding on the train, and took Rhino Rally for a spin. Other than that, we just looked at Cheetah Hunt, looked at the animals, and fed the kangaroos (which still might be my favorite thing to do at that park). But without any more ado, here are some pics from the day. And to her credit, these pictures were taken with Jen's camera! (don't need a lawsuit on my hands, now do I? ) Another new piece of track being carried to its final resting place, looks like transfer track. The figure 8 element is still looking spectacular. A little upskirt action on the figure 8. I really can't wait to see what this will look like once the banners are up. When you're tall like me, you can reach the camera over the giant wall and get shots like these next few. Overview of the first launch and turn. The climb into the figure 8 is a lot steeper than I thought. They simply had a gate left open for this one. The dive into the trench and the 2nd launch. Looked like they had a decent amount of work done on the walls of the trench, and all the launch track was in place. Such a unique design. This will look very different in a few months. Final brakes. They already have supports up for the last turn, but no track yet. Working on pumping all that rain water out of the final trench. I spy an inversion! Marker for a future footer. You can see they have the rebar already in place for the walls of the trench. Apparently posing in front of the tower makes you a cheetah. It really baffles the mind how spread out the layout is for this ride. Someone else wants to be a cheetah, as well. While on the train, we had to TAKE THE TUNNEL!!!! Sheikra had some issues and needed to transfer a train off, so we just skipped it. The Millennium Flyers were resting at the top of each lift on Gwazi for most of the day, and then started testing about an hour or so before closing. Why can't this be the new train??? For the first time in 2011, THROUGH THE TREES!!!!! The weather did decide to cooperate for a little while at least. Another nice look at the first turn. Launch track! More launch track! Now I could be mistaken, but from what I could tell, it looks as if they had all the launch track already in place. I couldn't see into the trench around the 2nd launch, but it seems as if its all in place. The tower is visible from most places in the park. And while on the train ride, they did give the official height of the tower to be 130 feet. We found a place where we can put our rifles through the fence so we can hunt the cheetahs once they arrive!!! mmmmmmmm Documenting this as much as possible while it's still there *coughcoughMAVERICKcoughcough* Two more footers will go here. So do cheetahs do this maneuver while they are hunting? You can see the barrel roll goes uphill, so expect some nice hangtime. Oooooh I see some twisty goodness! This is where the train will ramp off the track. Meanwhile, Kumba has gotten itself stuck at the top of its lifthill. This train definitely had riders on it, and they definitely had to get walked down after about 45 minutes of being stuck up there. Lots of good stuff to look at here. It's funny how different this element looks from different places. Here's a nice look at the midcourse. And the drop off the midcourse. And the ramp! Seriously though, this hill is going to have an INSANE amount of airtime. Probably very similar to Maverick's first airtime hill. I was able to get a great shot looking down the 3rd launch track. More TWISTY!!! You can see the track work done on this hill. And a nice parting shot of one of the new lion trains.

Hmmmmmm........so what could this be? Stay tuned, more to come in the morning!

Insane!

^Based on what I saw in my visit during the fall, and based on what we've seen in recent pictures, the ride has gotten some pretty extensive rehab work on the track the last year or so. It's pretty necessary to do if you change the rolling stock.

^^I believe he releases alternate results based only on coasters that were ridden by the pollsters in that season. I could be wrong though.

I rode Voyage in '07 and '09, and while my rides in '09 were rougher than in '07, I wouldn't put it anywhere near the roughest woodies I've ridden. Each day I rode it several times, and while I was definitely spent after those rides, it's not like I would have felt after the same number of rides on coasters like, say, Hurler, Son of Beast, Georgia Cyclone, Rattler, or Mean Streak. As far as which park it's at, that doesn't make a difference at all for me. I have two Six Flags woodies, two Cedar Fair woodies, and a ton of other "small park" woodies in my top 10. A good coaster is a good coaster, plain and simple. In my opinion, Raven is still far too short with far too little action to make it into my top 10.

Paiging_jen and I will be in the park tomorrow and should be able to report back with updated pics of Cheetah Hunt!

What fun it is to fill out these ballots! This year I kept running tabs on my rankings for both steel and wood, so it made my ballot leaps and bounds easier to fill out this year. And now for my wood list.........(by the way, LOVING the Rampage love!) 1. Voyage 2. El Toro 3. Ravine Flyer II 4. Evel Knievel (American Thunder) 5. Prowler 6. Thunderhead 7. Phoenix 8. Rampage 9. Lightning Racer (both) 10. GhostRider 11. The Boss 12. Kentucky Rumbler 13. Legend 14. Raven 15. Twister (Knoebel's) 16. The Beast 17. Terminator: Salvation (Apocalypse) 18. Boardwalk Bullet 19. Jack Rabbit (Kennywood) 20. Thunderbolt 21. Wildcat (Hershey) 22. Grizzly (KD) 23. TEH BIG DIPPING COASTR--PLZ SAVE WITH UR MONEEZ!!! 24. Wild One 25. Roar East 26. Blue Streak (CP) 27. Giant Dipper (Belmont) 28. Thunder Road 29. Screamin' Eagle 30. Great American Scream Machine 31. Gwazi Tiger 32. Gwazi Lion 33. Rebel Yell 34. Racer (KI) 35. Cannon Ball (Lake Winnie) 36. Comet (Hershey) 37. Racer (Kennywood) 38. Colossus 39. Thunderhawk 40. Judge Roy Scream 41. Skyliner 42. Cheetah 43. Leap the Dips 44. Georgia Cyclone 45. Hurler (Carowinds) 46. Hurler (KD) 47. Timber Wolf 48. Rolling Thunder 49. Thunder Run 50. Comet (Waldameer) 51. Son of Beast 52. Mean Streak 53. Woodstock Express (Carowinds) 54. Ghoster Coaster (KD) 55. Woodstock Express (KI) 56. Rattler