davidmorton
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Posts
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Posts posted by davidmorton
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To answer my own earlier question, it seems they have numbered benches set up for the lottery ticket winners: http://szsup.tistory.com/663
I was there a couple of months ago ; there is a room full of fast-pass-like machines (setup near Space Mountain);
You scan your park-ticket(s), enter your ticket "requirements" (show/time/number of peeps) on a screen and it spurts out (or not) the tickets;
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^^ think that last image/rendering is flipped L-R? (or the first two are?)
Either way, all looking very nice!
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I had never been to any of these sort of Halloween events before, but I made it to HHN this year; twice. On a Thursday and then the Sunday 2 weeks ago.
Well I REALLY enjoyed it. Yes, there were Qs but thats the sign of popularity isn't it - so I bought the Express pass for the second night. I encountered the roaming hoards lots of times and managed the mazes a few times each. Bill&Ted I enjoyed, thought it was a good (& quite long) show - maybe the Circus show a bit less so, but even then it was worth doing.
I realise I don't have "previous HHN" to compare it to, but if that made me enjoy it and its putting other people off, more power to me I suggest!
Can't control the weather, and I guess it'd be pretty meh in the rain (did get rain for an hour or so on the Sunday) - but if you can look at the weather forecast, get an express-pass and have a happy attitude, I'd expect you to have a good time!
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Farup Sommerland's wave swinger (I took this in June'11)
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I didn't notice the Manta like water spray working yet either. The water effect you see in one of the pictures is just a spray coming from the fire engine.
It was definately working, but just a bit hard to spot unless you are looking for it!
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Waiting around outside the park for my friends with the tickets to arrive;
Looks good as you approach it then;
I liked the station fly-over bit (both on ride and off ride);
And the themeing on the control box was just great!
Its a very quiet ride (themed sound effects apart)
And I didn't realise there was a little manta-like splash thingy... it was a bit hard to see to be honest but it was working.
And the near-misses are good;
Instead of closing the park at 4pm, they did a evactuation drill at 4pm - fair enough really.
Now everybody wave at the nice random girl waving to you in the picture.
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I'd heard that the media day was on the 9th, 10th was a Merlin Friends&Family day (at Thorpe) and 11th the same @Legoland. (could be well wrong about the media day, but I have a friend&family connection, so Saturday is looking good for me )
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Theres a cool video of that place over on the photographer Trey Ratcliff's site;
http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2011/11/07/abandoned-chinese-disneyworld/
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Couple of other links too;
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/12/chinas-abandoned-wonderland/100207/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china%E2%80%99s-deserted-fake-disneyland.html
http://www.timeoutbeijing.com/features/Propaganda/11322/Wonderland-Amusement-Park.html
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^^^ yep pretty sure X2 ate my spare set of glasses last Friday (despite being in a buttoned cargo pocket). I didn't notice they were gone until later on when I was just about to board Tatsu. (Its possible I lost them on that Roadrunner ride which I got in between X2 and Tatsu, but I doubt it). RIP glasses.
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Bit more done by Friday the 4th (in the rain )
And heres a bit more, at approx 12:07 Friday 4th November standing at the top of the Sea Lion stadium - that OK for you?)
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^^ most of the Alton pics are HDR (thru Photomatix), basically if a pic looks processed it'll be HDR! And I love my wide angle lens.
^ Main camera is a Canon450D, pocket camera is an old OlympusC70 Zoom. Some of the processed HDR shots are from the Olympus, the main ones are from the Canon.
(The only park pics from the Canon are @Alton and @Heide, rest are from the Olympus)
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(double-post - I blew the single post charcter limit! 60000!)
Day 6 : Wednesday 1st June
Right then, deliberately planned to be a no-travel day so I could spend all day
in the park (last time I was here in 2006 I had left a bit earlier than I wanted
to in order to get somewhere else in the evening).
Anyway, same MO as Hansa; the park opens at 9am but they don't run the rides until
10am - except this time I realise that and wander into the park about 10to10 and
join the Krake queue (Krake being just about the first big thing you hit when
going into the park from the hotel).
Theres a fair few peeps ahead of me in the queue filling up the midway, but once
it starts testing and they open the queue proper its only 10 minutes or so until
I'm on.
Quick second trip around and you can tell the queue is "light"
They have a manned "bag storage" bit on the queue where you deposit your cr@p and
pick it up on the way out - nice, but you'd think Merlin would have got some pay-
lockers in on that deal pretty sharpish?
OK the ride; I liked it.
I've never really been an Oblivion fan-boy - its OK, one trick (its a good trick)
but after that good start... it just stops. I've been on Sheikra as well and that
was better, but felt a bit "lumbering" to me (if that makes sense) - Krake is
kinda halfway between the 2. The cars feel lighter, more agile than either
Oblivion or Sheikra (and they hold more than Oblivion).
So Krake does its "one big trick" too - great view from the front down into the
seas below (but not into the rather abandoned mouth of the Krake off to the side;
hmmmm) and then you drop, splash (only you don't see any of that splash on ride
until you hit the immelman and loop back over it when the water cloud is vanishing
away above you. Nice. Then you hit an airtime hill with plenty of airtime and
you are done. So short and sweet (much longer than Oblivion tho' ) but
really good. I approve.
(more pics later, only had the little camera with me in the morning)
Since my last visit Heide had very kindly built 3 new coasters, 1 down 2 to get.
Nothing to write home about here, but is this whole (tiny) western section "new"
as well, I could not picture what was here before?
There was a huge queue for the last +1 for me Desert Race, so I went off to play
on one of my favourite coasters instead;
Which had a 30 minute advertised wait - turned out to be a bit longer than that as
they only had 1 train running (which was starting to wind me up a bit) but then
added the second train and then the queue moved more swiftly (1 train opes were
the problem with Desert Race too, but they added the second train to that as well
about the same time... so why not start the day with 2 trains?)
Love this ride - sure I've taken this same picture before as well;
Not so sure about the veracity of this though (its not just PBB that is liberal
with the interpretation of these things then!) - 6th steepest maybe?
Couple of goes on Colossos and the Desert Race queue moving much better now means
I can get my !Rita credit - not much to say about that ride, possibly a bit more
sensible a ride than Rita (which is just such an odd thing to have put into Alton
IMHO) but still a bit of a filler-ride to me.
Work my way around the rest of the park, skipped the SLC which inexplicably had
a large queue whilst Krake was about 10 minutes
Drop tower is fun, their bobsleigh coaster is possibly one of the best of that
type, and you gotta think that Big Loop's days are numbered?
The Splash Battle is a bit rubbish too;
(OK I don't actually come across the real Splash Battle until the end of the day!)
So half the day done, I nip back to the hotel and get the proper camera out for
some fun.
This is the entrance way from the hotel to the park (under a windmill)
Krake's nicely done station building;
and Krake itself
from various angles;
and activities;
from a distance (+zoom)
this shot is probably the best though (and the first one I processed!)
Big Loop (corksrew bit thereof)
The big beauty that looms over the park in wide angle
and closeup
Airtime!
Heide is all around a big lake if you don't realise;
Didn't ride these rapids (they didn;'t have an amusing name like BonBon Land's)
Good timed shot with Krake and Big Loop both doing something (and there are 5
coasters in this shot)
if only the bob had timed it right too, like in this one
Finish up with a few shots of the hotel, which wasn't a great hotel I though, it
was good but not as good as I expected.
The bar, where I may have spent a while in the evening - they did put on a show
and stuff so thats a good effort considering the hotel was quite quiet.
So really nice day I thought. Great park, couple of great rides, nicely chilled
out by the all-you-can-eat (and drink) buffet; ate some German bean sprouts (which
in hindsight may not have been the wisest move).
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Day 7 : Thursday 2nd June
So after yesterday's "no travel" day, today was a "just travel" day. Drove
up from Heide Park to Aalborg at the top of Denmark.
Odd place; I got to Aalborg mid afternoon, so thought I'd have a wander around
the town centre (hotel was just on the edge of the centre by the river) so
I wandered up - and it was shut. Seriously, everything was shut. Mid afternoon
on a weekday, shut. We used to have 1/2 day closing in the UK, but that went
many years ago and our shops are open as much as they can be, but no, not in
Aalborg it seems. Shut.
Turns out the day before (the 1st) was some sort of late-night opening in the
city, and today is in fact a national holiday of some religious significance
I was unaware of (40 days after Easter) - (but I've only just worked that out
3 weeks later!)
Anyway Aaloborg city was quite pleasant, few nice old buildings such as this
one from 1624;
In keeping with the "shut" theme with Aalborg, their town centre amusement
park shut at the end of last season, but I have a wander around the outside
of it to seem what I can see; which amounts to not much more than a boomer's
lift hill. Quite sad.
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The boomerang's lift is still standing...
but the rest of it is in bits on the floor;
Rather sad;
Bits of another coaster ("Looping" I guess);
NO WAY IN here;
Day 8 : Friday 3rd June
OK clearly I'm only in Aalborg so I can come here;
What a nice day - nice park, nice weather, nice rides. Really nice.
Started out with a few trips on their nice launched Gerstlauer Lynet (Lightning)
which I really liked. (Nice touch with a construction video going on in the
queue line, staifying the geeky enthusiast interest while you wait!)
Heres the station;
and heres the ride;
Good ride then, very similar to the eurofighters, but the train is smaller and
more comfortable I think.
The other coasters here are a nice (but unspectacular) wooden one that appeared
to have been built to celebrate the park's 50th anniversary (which must have
worked since a couple of years later they can put in Lynet - well done you!)
(not may great places to photograph it from though)
They also have one of the ubiquitous spinning wild mice (of which more later)
Which appears to be called "Bat" (Danish "Flagermusen"),
and their oldest (1992) coaster is a junior Vekoma minetrain deep in the trees,
which I seem to have failed to take any pics of. Nevermind.
The park itself is really nice (I think I mentioned that before), set amongst
lots of trees and its very pretty.
Pretty popular too, loads of folks out with their picnics;
but the place did seem to have something of a trampoline obsession! Every spare
bit of space seemed to have a trampoline dumped it in, health&safety nightmare!
So after my very nice time at the nice Farup, I say goodbye to Lynet (from the
car park) and head south again.
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A little later then (and a bit further south).
Check into my hotel in downtown Århus and take the 25 or so minutes stroll out
of town to the local park, where lives Tivoli Friheden.
Home of one of those SCAD towers
(which I did not ride, I blame a long queue, but I might well not have even if
it was walk on)
They made the punters wear all manner of protection (to save breaking peoples
back I assume?)
New for this season was a fairly standard big wheel, from where I ca take a few
snaps
All the rides are enclosed in these HUGE sound shields, to protact the locals
from the sounds of people enjoying themselves no doubt. Perhaps Alton could
invest in some?
The main coaster is Cobra, a Sartori invert which has got to be a first for me.
This is a panoramic shot (3 shots stiched together)
Really slow ops, >3 minutes to cycle a train meant and the busy Friday night
crowd meant that it was something like 40 minutes queue for this - not great
then
Unspectacular ride, not as painful as I anticipated but not very elegant
Nicely done trains though.
Next door to this is ANOTHER (thats 2 for the day) annoying spinning mouse,
this time its a Zamperla rather than Farup's Reverchon. Not that that makes it
any better of course.
Much better is the old Pinfari looper Orkanens Øje seen in the shots from the
wheel above. At least this had some character about it.
There is also a kiddie credit. I may have been on this, but you can't prove
that.
And a big evil looking spin and puke job (which I passed on!)
The park was really busy, mainly for a concert going on (much like Tivoli in
Copenhagen the week before), but that made for a nice enough atmosphere to
chill out with a few beers and some food.
Busy day then (nice though, although far too many spinning mice)
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Day 9 : Saturday 4th June
After yesterdays Sommerland fun, its off to the other one near Aarhus. That is
Djurs Sommerland about 30 minutes drive away.
Get there bang on opening and I'm not ashamed to say I was quite excited about
the first ride of the day and I positvely rushed to get onto this thing straight
away.
And its very good indeed - we'll come back to this later I think!
In the same area as the splendid Piraten is this year's new ride "Skatteøen"
(Treasure Island). This is a Mack water coaster, so like Poseidon at Europa
Park. Djurs advertise the ride as "europas-stoerste-water-coaster" which
translates as "largest" - I guess it depends on how you interpret largest, sure
this one is higher than Poseidon, but only half as long? Hmmm.
Anyway, being new and it being a rather warm Saturday, this has a bit of a queue
to it, so I take a few pics as I wait in line;
They have done a really good job on the themeing all full of pirate boats and
giant skulls and the like
And it gives off a lovely big splash
And despite the busy queue, it moves pretty rapidly, really good ops keeping the
line moving and they were consistanly dispatching so that one boat was hitting
the lift hill as the previous one just drops into the splash. Well done them.
The ride itself is good too, not as long (large) as Poseidon which it closely
resembles, this one just drops down after the lift hill in a big circle then
back up before the final drop into the splash zone. Short and sweet then, but
pretty effective. Don't get much wet on the splash which does soak the
bystanders though.
Right then, what else does this park hold... turns out it has a rather splendid
mouse-like Gerstlauer bobsled (another type new to me). So off to Thor's Hammer I
go with its rather ropey themeing (not ropey/bad, ropey/cheesy perhaps)?
Thor looks rather hammered to me?
Hmmmm
so I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but it was really good.
So thats 3 good coasters in the place then. Great stuff!
I wander around the rest of the park for a while, and its all really nice too.
Lots of greenery, nice healthy trampoline obsession too (not quite as many as
at Farup, but still...)
I get to their topple tower "Ornen" and watch that for a while, never seen one
of these before so its a novelty.
Looks fun?
Wierd sensation riding it, rather like you are continually falling backwards as
it spins around and rocks back and forth. Quite cool then.
Added wetness - and they do move the ride into the fountains, didn't catch it
on camera but they soaked the next cycle.
Next to the topple tower was the flume, but didn't ride that (silly queue)
Had some lunch and eventually found myself in the wild-west area where they have
a wave swinger. I like wave swingers and usually have a go, but as I watch this
one it does 2 things I have never seen on a wave swinger... first up it has a
bunch of fountains that they use to soak the riders (and they do get soaked),
then it stops and cycles in reverse. I brave the soaking just for the sake of
the reverse experience and I don't think I've laughed as much on one of these
before!
Their rapids ride had been down all day, but I notice it had just opened, so I
have a quick bash on that (and it must have literally only just opened since I
walked straight through the queue yet as I exit the queue line is completly full;
good timing there!)
OK so I've "done" the park (didn't lower myself to te kiddie coaster this time)
so I re-ride Skatteøen which prompty breaks down as my boat finishes the circuit.
So after sitting on the exit ramp for a while, they evac the boats and I can
escape from this treasure island!
Onto serious business now and I just reride Praten again and again for a while.
Interesting this too breaks down a couple of times so sometimes I have to wait
while they fix it (never quite sure what was broken but they had to manually
release people from a train a couple of times), otherwise its just a 5 minute
queue between rides. Nice. Very nice in fact.
Probably longest queue for it I saw, even this is only 10 minutes with no break
downs.
Take a final shot up its lift hill after my last ride;
and then I spend a while taking some pics of the nice toys.
Skatteøen about to hit the water
I leave you with a nice image of the rather brilliant pirate ride then.
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Day 9 : Sunday 5th June
Ok all coasters done now (but confusingly one more "theme park" to come).
I had decided that I liked Arhus quite a lot so I'd spend my last full day
in the city and have a looksee around.
Thats where I was staying...
And next door was the rather pash town hall place...
There were a couple of things I fancied seeing in the city, so off I went first
to the modern art museum place;
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum http://www.aros.dk/
Which I rather enjoyed. I do like a bit of modern art, and this place had rather
a lot of the stuff since it was pretty big.
I particularily liked the "Get Lost" exhibition of Fredrik Raddum's stuff
The museum has a couple of 'signature exhibits', firstly this Boy by Ron Mueck
(which wikipedia tells me was originally exhibited at the Millenium Dome)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Mueck
and up on the roof of the place is a panoramic walkway that gives you views out
over the city all through various filtered coloured glass. Plays havoc with the
cameras white balance though!
Your Rainbow Panorama (Purple/Red)
Tried a bit of HDR in there, ughhhhh
Your Rainbow Panorama (Yellow/Green)
But panoramas worked;
Inside Your Rainbow Panorama Panorama
Its called Your Rainbow Panaorama and its by Olafur Eliasson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olafur_Eliasson
http://www.olafureliasson.net/
So I really liked ARoS - good work Arhus.
Right then, this other "theme park" to which I referred earlier is called
Den Gamle By (The Old Town) and is a bit of one of the local park's set aside to
house all these (genuine) olde-worlde Deanish builings. The place itself is 100
odd years old (and some of the buildings a few hundred more) - they regularily
move buildings from all over Denmark to here to retain that history. Cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_Gamle_By
Anyway was a pleasant place to stroll around for a few hours looking at the
various buildings and failing to understans anything that the costumed characters
that populated the place were going on about.
Day 10 : Monday 6th June
Nothing to see here. Drive back from Arhus to Copenhagen airport via the rather
spectacular Storebælt bridge (http://www.storebaelt.dk/english) with its rather
spectacularly steep toll charge 220 DKK = £26 ; ouch!
(Clearly since I was driving I don't have any pictures of this and when I stopped
on the far side there was not anywhere I could immediately see to get a good view
of the thing)
So thats it. Denmark (and a bit of Germany) done.
Back to the daily grind for a while.
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Hello, I recently had a couple of weeks holiday from work, and went off around
Denmark and a bit of Germany (like you do). Just before that I had a day at my
local park, just to get me in the mood.
This is what went on then (its gonna be a LONG post);
(and apologies if you've seen this TR elsewhere, I'm non-exclusive and I thought TPR
could have a looksee too!)
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Summer is here, booked a couple of weeks off work and had totally failed to get
myself sufficiently organised / motivated to do anything "long haul" I found
myself sitting at home with the said 2 weeks stretching out in front of me...
So a quick trip to Alton Towers to get me in the mood, then I book some flights,
hotels, hire cars and hot foot it off to the continent.
Alton doesn't really count as the "trip", but I'll dump some pics here just to
get us going... (click through the pics to get to larger ones)
Day -3 : Tuesday 24th May
Nip down to Alton, spend the morning on the rides (needed to get the Th13teen
credit), and the afternoon with the camera.
So in no particular order;
Note that picture quality will vary as to whether I have my proper camera with me
(as above, or when I'm not wandering around a park) or just my compact (as with most
of the parks to come)
Day 1 : Friday 27th May
Easyjet from Manchester to Copenhagen, train from airport to the city, turns out
I can actually see Tivoli from my hotel window (that was not exactly planned), so
seeing that Friday nights are meant to be popular at the place off I trot to see
why.
Nice place - like a lot of the places in Denmark it seems to have evolved from
somewhere that people just used to go to to chill out / picnic / have a meal into
something a but more organised. Most of the people there were just there to be
there (if that makes sense) and the rides and stuff was incidental to all that.
The people there were there for the restaurants, the beer, the evening concert
show thing (which was seemingly confused when the main band didn't turn up and
the support band got promoted to the 10pm headline slot)
Anyway, the rides;
I'd be happy to say I just didn't fancy this (I didn't!) but there was a stupid
long queue and a capacity of peeps every 5 minutes (only running one side) was
enough to put me off anyway! It looked bonkers though - I've read the reviews
but I'm still sure it would have messed my brain up!
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen - Vertigo
Star Flyers should scare me, they do a bit still. Didn't help by it starting to
rain when I was up there!
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen - Star Flyer
Really liked the old wooden "roller coaster" (great name).
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen - Rutschebanen
And I thought that the mini-B&M floorless was good enough, impressively squeezed
into the park's limited space.
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen - Daemonen
Tivoli Gardens Copenhagen - Daemonen
As it got dark, the place got all lit up nicely.
Day 2 : Saturday 28th May
No parks today - culture credit trip around Copenhagen!
Quite a pleasant city I thought. Mermaid statue is a real anti-climax (but I knew
this before I wandered up there).
Really liked the old Rundetårn in the city.
Dumped myself in an Irish bar for the football match in the evening, loud cheers
when Barca scored (yay!), but in fairness much louder from the Irish expats when
Rooney equalised (boo). As an aside I saw a lot of Barca shirts around Denmark as a
whole - a fair few Utd and Liverpool ones as well, but mostly the kids were wearing
Barca.
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Day 3 : Sunday 29th May
Done Copenhagen then (nice), Barca having successfully negotiated the football
to my satisfaction, light hangover caused by the former fading away I hit the
train and head up the coast a little bit;
To here.
I've mentioned before that I do like aquariums so when I'm somewhere random I do
try to get the aquarium-credit as well as the coaster-credits.
Denmark's (National) Aquarium was not much cop to be honest though, pretty small, very old looking.
("They" are going to build a super new "Blue Planet" aquarium in
the next couple of years down near the airport so I guess no one cares much about
this old one anymore;
(New aquarium pic - not mine!;
)
However a still had a good couple of hours there, looking at all the pretty fishes
but there wasn't anything much spectacular to report on and I am still failing
to take any devent pictures in these places
These Stone Fish are great;
not so much if you tread on one though, that'll kill you.
Flat;
PIRANAH (and awful reflections in the glass )
You are not a fish!
The big show tanks, the highlight of the place;
(not so great then)
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The Aquarium is actually right by the coast,
so wandered down there and had some lunch in a cafe overlooking the sea and then
headed a little further up the coast to Bakken.
Quite liked the place, nothing spectacular though. Was pretty busy with the
Sunday afternoon family day trippers (fair enough) and was in a great location
bang in the middle of a forest (10 mins walk from the train).
I don't apprear to have taken many pics at this park, so you'll have
to do with these...
The very splashy log flume (which I passed on!)
New trains on Rutschebanen
I really liked their Rutschebanen (as well as Tivolis the other day). Thought the
automatic trains worked well (but I never experienced it with the brake man so
nothing to compare against really) but they were pretty comfortable, nice enough
restraints and if you didn't know there used to be a brakeman you wouldn't have
realised it was different.
Racing, their Flitzer, I've ridden only one other of these (at Morey's a couple of
years ago) and wasn't wowed by either.
But this I really liked;
Was totally taken aback by the launch off the top of the lift hill and then you
are thrown around (and around) something rotten.
Great stuff, if a little short but you can hardly complain about that in a compact
park this size and this old!
The mine train was pretty good too (don't seem to have any pics of that) but it
did "go down" after my ride so I only got the one go on that - BOO.
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Day 4 : Monday 30th May
Initially I thought today was going to be somewhat of a logistically complicted
day. In the end it was pretty easy.
Logistical step #1
Get to Hertz in Copenhagen, get hire car, negotiate Copenhagen traffic in car
with driving wheel on wrong side AND gear stick in the wrong place (pretty
familiar with being on the wrong side of the car/road, don't think I had done
the manual gears before though?)
Logistical step #2
Drive to here;
Wasn't quite sure what to expect from this place, looked really "tacky" to me
but it was in fact really nice. They definately have gone somewhat overboard
with the fibreglass cartoon character type things, but the whole place is like
that so it works!
For some reason I had it in my head that the spinning coaster was just your
standard (annoying) spinning mouse, so I was quite happy to discover this was
not the case and it was much better;
(and I've only just realised that this is a clone of the ride at SFDK that I did
last year - clearly I'm not paying enough attention to these things. Enjoyed
this one more then!)
You can probably tell from the lack of peeps in these pics that the place was
empty - one ride-op I was talking to said that it was the first operating Monday
of the season and that was why.
So with no queues to cope with it was all a pretty leisurely experience at the
park for me. Next up was what I though was going to be a standard Zierer Tivoli
which I'd done a few of, but it was a lot more custom than that with trenches
dug into a lake and stuff like that, pretty good indeed then.
Onto the original Euro-fighter then;
A bit rough I guess, but good fun anyway.
And the final coaster is the infamous dog-fart ride. Which is just a little
kiddy ride really (albeit with a somewhat low-brow theme!)
The place had a lot of other rides too, a pretty good rapids;
(how can you resist a ride called that!)
This is the entrance to their "new for 2011" attraction which was a "5D" shooter
which just means that you are watching a 3D movie, sat on a little saddle thing
that moves around (+1D) and trying to shoot stuff in the movie (+1D). Was OK,
nothing earth shattering - but the ride-op very nicely (since I was the only one
on the ride) ran it with the English soundtrack instead of Danish (or at least I
assume he did that rather than it only having an English soundtrack!)
The ride is western themed and located in their cowboy town, which was really
living up to the ghost town theme today.
Have I mentioned the gaudy characters everywhere?
Job lot of firbeglass somewhere;
Turtle themed wave swinger - great stuff!
And a giant albatross disk-o - you just can't make this up!
Wacky themed (giant fish!) pirate ship thingy;
And they also have one of those monster Huss frisbees which ran a few times
that day;
But not for me since when I tried after seeing it running, I sat there
talking to the ride-op for about 20 minutes waiting for more punters to turn up
(they will only run it with 10 passengers) and no-one came, so I went off for
some food instead.
Logistical step #3
Drive off the the end of the country onto a ferry.
Logistical step #4
Negotiate stupid German traffic jams for a while and find silly little hotel in
the middle of noweheresville, Germany.
All logistical problems now sorted (with the exception of where to eat that night
which just ended up being some stuff I bought from the local supermarket!)
--
It turned out that noweheresville, Germany was quite a pleasant seaside
area with a nice beach and stuff;
So I entertain myself for a while wandering the beach, taking some snaps
and admiring the view...
Closer up on that view...
(No prizes for working out where I am tomorrow then)
---------------------------------------------------------
Day 5 : Tuesday 31st May
So as expected I nip up the coast the couple of miles to Hansa Park.
Got there at park opening (9am) not realising they just open the park and don't
run anything 'till 10am - d'oh.
(Like the fact all the maintenance workers were dressed as super Mario!)
REALLY liked the place - it was much bigger than I had imagined, although it does
seem to have a really well defined "park shape" and then suddenly there is this
expansion area creeping off seemingly at random in the adjacent field - quirky!
Headed up to the main ride first up then, past the scary queue line
and off on the launched Eurofighter
Which I really liked
Enclosed lift hill is 2/3rds way round the ride and has lots of creepy stuff
going on inside
Overview (from the sky tower)
Hansa Park, Fluch von Novgorod
So yeah, liked this - I hadn't really read up on it much apart from the general
impression that people thought it was good, so the way the elements worked
together all took me a bit by suprise and that was good!
The exit from the ride throws you out randomly in Mexico (very odd) next to this
ride (which the park seems to count as a coaster, when its clearly not, silly
people) but its fun anyway.
A couple of the older coasters are at the front of the park, all entwined.
I really liked the Nessie superrollercoaster (what!) which was a great old
Schwarzkopf that actually dives into the mouth of the monster it is named after;
(unlike Krake manages to do tomorrow!)
The other coaster in that lucky aerial shot above (lucky since both trains are in
shot) is Rasender Roland which I couldn't get out of my mind calling Roland Rat
all day in my head - it was a bit shaky to be honest but fun enough.
So off in the seemingly random expansion area is a bunch of other rides, pretty
worthy ones too. We have a spinny raft thing (which looked a lot better than this
years effort from Thorpe?)
and the bizarre (stupid low capacity) but fun Bell ride;
A nice Star Flyer (getting used to these things now)
and tucked in a corner a pretty highly themed wild mouse, I do prefer these things
to their spinning relatives and this one had a load of themey stuff going on
Also in this area is this years new ride "Die Schlange von Midgard" (Snake of
Midgard), which isn't much more than a kiddy coaster over a little lake;
which they had not finished fitting out yet (queue line was incomplete, gift shop
was still being built) and it appeared there was a tunnel to be built mid-ride
which wasn't there yet;
but if you think I'm being critical about all of that, entirely the opposite is
true - despite still working on the themeing the fact they had the ride open I
was well impressed with! Heres the train in close up;
So yeah, really liked the place, suprisingly large and really nice.
After saying goodbye to Hansa, headed down the motorway for a bit, got stuck in
many traffic jams circumnavigating Hamburg in the pouring rain, but ended up at
the hotel for the next 2 nights at Heide Park.
Which was nice.
-
Great Pyrenees video.
Whats with Parque Espana, is there ever anyone there (apart from coaster enthusiasts)? I've only ever seen pics of the place empty, and the day I went there it was deserted too. Does it EVER get busy?
(Concerned for the place!)
-
-
People seem to want to call things "rare", just because they are outside their own "normal zone"; but frankly our hobby is a mass-market entertainment thing. People build coasters to entertain as many people as possible; so "rare" just doesn't come into it.
Unless its this one, (which doesn't quite fit Robb's demolished immediately after being built criteria, but comes pretty close)
-
Nice pix indeed!
Processing a little over "bleached" if I were to be critical (revenge for comments on my thread ? ) but really really good nontheless!
-
I do take a LOT of pics in the parks though; I don't processes all of them though, only the ones that look interesting!
Camera is set to bracket (take 3 shots) almost all the of the time so providing me with lots of "raw material". Then when I get home and look at everything I can process 3 (raw) exposures into a HDR (Lr to Photomatix back to Lr) in a couple of minutes - sometimes I'll take longer if I need to mask back in the sky in Ps for example; but it doesn't take much time once you are "up to speed".
Not ever tried the batch processing though; I know you can do it, it just seems complex to me!
-
Ta for comments all!
Now I just have to add, as I am a photography-junkie...The "good" pictures* are mostly all 3 exposure HDRs taken on a DSLR - obv. the shutter speed is different in the 3 exposures so I'm not quite sure what happens to all the EXIF data when the HDR is produced (point out a picture and I'll have a look at the originals )? I process the 3xp from Lightroom into Photomatix (minimal changes made in Photomatix apart form the HDR/tone mapping) then play around back in Lightroom until I'm happy; not particularly scientific but helps avoid the common "overblown HDR" trap I think.
I do tend to try to shoot in a lower ISO as I have been caught out by noise in the past (its a bit easier to tell on the camera screen whether the shot is bad because of camera movement rather than bad because of noise).
* - The "less-good" pictures are on a little old compact though (Olympus C70z) ; when I can't be doing with carting the big camera around all day!
-
(Cross-posted from another forum, but y'all may get a few moments distraction
from some of the snaps...(click though the better pics for larger versions on
Flickr))
--
Ok, end of the year comes around, too much holiday from work left, too much
disposable income and combined with the generally grouchy mood I've been in for
much of this year meant I needed to get away somewhere.
So off to Orlando I go (convieniently timed to avoid all that cold weather in the
UK too ).
Saturday - Day 1
Flew out on the Saturday morning (27thNov), nice simple direct flights (Virgin)
from Manchester UK to Orlando, pick up a car at MCO and a little later check into
the hotel.
Now it being "low season" meant I got a cheapo deal (well cheaper, if not cheap)
at the Hard Rock Hotel at Universal resort, a bit of a step up from the I-Drive
motels.
View is more parking structure than theme parks though
So grab some eats at Citywalk and wander around for a bit before my time-zone
shift jet-lag (can never sleep on planes) catches up with me and I crash.
Sunday - Day 2
Get up, get in car, go to space place.
I had been here before, back in '94 and quite enjoyed it, but they apparently
changed the operator in 1995 and it had definately improved a lot since then.
I booked onto a "Yesterday and Today" tour (which was bit extra than the normal
tour) and killed a bit of time before the tour with a go on their "Shuttle Launch
Experience" ride;
As a space center visitor attraction this was pretty good - well "themed" if you
like - but the simulator bit was a bit "tame" compared to your normal theme-park
simulator setups (which it essentially was) - but perhaps because of this was
a bit different; the restraints were not as limiting as at a theme-park and the
movement of the ride mainly simulated G-forces and a bit of shaking about. At
the end the roof of the "shuttle" opens up and there are lots of pretty stars.
OK after riding that, it was the time for the tour so get on a bus. The extra
bits on the tour were that we went down to see a bit of the older Cape Canaveral
stuff rather than the just the modern launch sites. We also went a lot closer
to the launch pad (that Discovery is (still) sitting on) than the normal tour
and got off the bus at a couple of stop not on the normal tour.
Was worth the extra $20 I think just to get a bit closer to the shuttle on the
pad;
Big building (US flag is the size of a basketball court apparently);
At the end of the tour they drop you off at a "Saturn V" center (which was not
there the last time I went), where they house a bunch of stuff, including a real
(but obv. not used) Saturn V rocket (which used to be outside that big building
I think).
Pretty impressive being able to walk around/under the rocket (its hung from the
ceiling).
There was a lot of interesting artifacts there too;
After the tour I managed to wander around the visitor centre, doing the IMAX films
and looking ant all the "stuff" for the rest of the day;
Good trip out then, worth it to get to see the shuttle alone I think.
Next up, some Univeral shennanigans...
----------------------
Monday - Day 3
Right then, some proper parks now after all that "educational tourism" from
yesterday! Since I was at an on-site Universal hotel, I got "Universal Express"
perks, which amount to a fastpass to all the Universal attractions EXCEPT the
two new biggies (i.e. Potter and Rockit). BUT the perk also includes early (8am)
entry to Islands of Adventure (actually just to the Wizarding World of Harry
Potter) - so I make a bit of use of that (and the fact that I can walk there from
the hotel in 10 minutes) to get into IoA at about 8:30 and have ridden the new
Potterride 3 times by 9am!
So here it is then;
(note only had compact camera rather than DLSR with me today since there was
mainly going to be riding on agenda!)
First time through, since there was "no wait" I walked all through the queue.
Very well themed indeed, the oustide "greenhouse" bit is a bit cattle-pen (but
a well-themed cattle pen I guess) but once through that into the building proper
its all very well done, nice (obvious though) amount of moving portraits and the
like. Pretty long queue path though.
Eventually you get to the sorting-hat thing; (see how empty the ride is before the GP get let in!)
turn the corner and they assign you 4 at at time to a "bench" which you mount
from a moving carpet thingy. Seats are prtty comfy and you are fairly restricted
to a "forwards only" view of the action.
Ride-wise its very good; clever switching of the animatronic sections with the
film-based sections (projected onto huge curved screens that rotate around in
sync with the ride-vehicle making its way along the track). Lots of neat
animatronics / effects and fairly disorientating ride motion.
Cool ride - tops Spiderman (but it is 10years more modern so fair enough!).
I did get a bit nauseous on my third ride (in quick seccession), so left it at
that, just as the GP started arriving en-masse. Dunno whether it was the motion
that made me a bit queasy or me trying to look out of the vehicle in odd
directions to see the ride mechanics that did it. You can see the other vehicles
pretty easily in quite a few places through the ride - odd looking things them!
A note about the queue - the initial external queue (between the gated ride
entrance and where you enter the building at ground level) actually only takes
you up to the ride lock.ers - a host will get you to dump carryons into the (free)
lock.ers at that point then send you off into the main queue then. This is also
the point where you can take the single-rider queue... SO my point is, if you are
a single rider, with no baggage, you really don't want to join that external Q
at all - just go through the shop exit to the lock.ers and straight to the SRQ.
So the rest of Potterland; all very well themed and all. Was VERY popular with
the patrons ; so much so that even as I wandered in at early-entry time there had
formed a HUGE queue for the wand-shoppe thing - onviously Universal had not
missed a trick by restricting where young-Harryfans could purchase their wand
from to just that shoppe, you could get them from a cart in the street or any one
of a number of stores - but I guess (since I never went in) the real experience
was just to be had there!
Now after some breakfast watching the GP swarming into the park and heading
straight Potterwise I whiled away a few hours in the parks other, older (but
still mainly pretty good) attractions. I was still denied the Pteranodon Flyers
credit since I had no available small child to accompany me, pah!
Park was a bit quiet (apart from Potterland that is)
Anyway not too many pics today as I planned to return with a better camera later!
By early afternoon I was done, now I had NOT originally planned to do this (I
had planned to go to the studios a different day) but the new coaster had been
taunting me all morning in the distance;
so I quickly "replanned" and went off to the Studios next door to play for the
rest of the day.
I actually didn't race straight to Rockit, because I was rather hungry by then
so went for some food and beer and then on a few calmer rides before I tried
the new ride!
But also "new to me" was the Disaster! ride (I'd been on the old Earthquake ride)
and essentially its the same as that with a newer pre-show, and the Simpsons
ride was new as well (having been on various BTTFs around the world). I really
liked the Simpsons ride actually - lots of clever jokes (at theme parks expense)
and a great new updated ride experience. I approved!
So after looping the lake I found myself heading upto Rockit - rather squeezed
into the park along the one boundary and rather dominating the skyline too. I'm
not too convinced how the ride fits in with the "Studios" theme of it all though
(putting "Hollywood" in its name does not make it in keeping I feel!) - but as
a ride I really liked it!
I had heard of some "roughness" complaints, but can honestly say I had no such
problems (and I rode it in many positions from the front to the back).
Cool ride then.
OK, finished for that day now - took some pics as night fell;
but might well be back later in the week with a better camera for some more
pics!
-------------------
Tuesday - Day 4
Got up to 27 degrees C today - which was nice.
I'd not been to Seaworld for a while (missed it out on my last Florida trip) and
they had kindly build a new coaster since then anyway, so it was due a visit.
I like Seaworld(s) - been to all 3 of them (4 if you counted Ohio in its last days
as a animal-themed park). Never been completly comfortable with them filling up
with big coasters (surelys thats NOT the point of the place?), but what can you
do?
So I get it over with and head straight up to Manta, been looking forward to this
and its a pretty fine ride.
Plonked in the middle of the park you can wander around it in a way thats denied
to you on the other flyers.
One gripe was that they were running 2 trains (park was pretty empty) on 1 station
and that meant you were stacking waiting to unload for a longer than comfortable
amount of time, oh well.
Go off and do the other rides next,
Journey to Atlantis (which I think is rather rubbish; actually very rubbish)
I had to Q to ages last time I was here for this, walkon today.
Silly picture time;
Kraken (which I think is possibly the best coaster in Florida, definately in
Orlando anyway (have a soft spot for Kumba!))
Not many photo-vantage points though (unlike Manta!)
Rides done (although I did revisit Manta on my wait out later on), spend
the rest of the day pottering about the shows and stuff.
Someday I'll take a good picture of underwater stuff, until then its;
Above water works OK tho'
The place had their Xmas stuff going in full swing (if I heard Bruce Springsteen
singing about Father Xmas once I heard it a hundred times!)
They had re-themed Wild Arctic to Polar Express (which was OK) and put some
trees in the lake;
And FINALLY (for me), I have been at a Seaworld park when the tower ride had
been open (I have been DENIED a few times in the past), so had a trip on that
too;
Manta
Kracken
Atlantis
Having had a nice day at the park, I spent the evening wandering around the
hotel with my camera&tripod trying to take some pics in the dark.
and a close up of their tree;
------
Wednesday - Day 5
Weather forcast said rain for the morning, brighter later, so figured I's go
somewhere with a reasonable amount of "indoors" for the morning then.
So off here I went;
Needless to say, not a sign of rain all day, silly weather forecast.
So a few rides on the Tower (which is of course a top ride) and a few rides on the
Aerosmith (which is a good, if not outstanding ride)
and thats the big rides done at this somewhat lacking park. Not that I didn't
manage to occupy myself for most of the rest of the day, its just that I find this
place a bit 'meh' after you've done those rides.
Thought the stunt show was pretty good though (this wasn't here the last time I
came to the park)
and I quite enjoyed the Toy Story shooter thingy (but had to Q for over an hour
for it, rather low capacity and pretty popular - get a fastpass for this then d'oh!)
Otherwise I managed the back lot tour (rather poor), the Indy Stunt Show (pretty
good), the Great Movie ride (better than I remembered it to be?) before I got fed
up and headed off.
I didn't take many pics either so I'll just leave you with a picture of their tree
--------------------------------
Thursday - Day 6
Animals today!
- so off to the Animal Kingdom I go!
Quite enjoyed my day here last time I came, not so much this time (novelty factor
clearly having worn off), but still had a good enough day. Clearly the big ride
is the rather photogenic yeti-chase through the plastic mountains...
...the yeti at the end is static though - not sure how long its been broke, it
was definately moving the last time I was here (2007).
Good enough ride, great themeing of course but not what you'd call a great RIDE.
I forced myself to go on a Primeval Whirl (but really what a sad additional to
a DISNEY park these things are), and a spin on the Dinosaur ride (which I found
a little less scary than the time I went on it before). I didn't risk the rapids
ride though (got soaked last time) and thats kinda it for the 'rides' at this
park.
I did however do the Lion King show which I hadn't seen before (and which was
pretty good for even an old miserable cynic like me!)
Show;
I wandered around ann the animal zones too - which is a nice enough way to spend
a few hours - there were a lot less giant bats this time (only a couple) which I
found to be my fave animal there?
but I didn't take many pics at the park today either so I'll just leave you with a picture of their tree (suspicously similar to yesterdays tree at the Hollywood Studios!)
---
So then a little later I wandered around Citywalk with a good camera and my tripod
(only got quizzed by security twice for having a tripod - yes I am a tourist and
not a terrorist! In fairness they were not too evil!)
Not too impressed with my night's work, a few came out nice but I appear to
have also taken a lot of dross!
Edited highlights then...
and my IR filter attempt was a bit poor...
----
Friday - Day 7
Ok, so I've done a lot of parks this week, but only spent a day at Universal
and I had a multi-day ticket; I was moving hotels the next day (cheapo deal at
the Hard Rock ran out) so today I went back to the Universal parks; but this time
armed with the good camera!
Up early to get in the park while its quiet!
Potterland before it fills with punters;
Try to get this sort of shot later in the day!
The irony of the "theme snow" while the UK was covered in the real stuff
was not lost on me.
Nice snowman touch I thought;
The exterior of the big ride is really rather impressive
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Although it does rather impinge on next door!
Some non-Potterland stuff
(took a lot of pics today, more to come!)
...I also spent quite a while wandering around the Studios on Friday, just have
not sorted through those pictures yet...
and went to see the Blue Man Group in the evening (again - seen the Florida show
a couple of times now and the Vegas one too; MUCH nicer theatre in Vegas).
Saturday - Day 8
Quite an odd day really I think, I checked out of the hotel (cheap deal done with)
and went down to the Magic Kingdom. Got there reasonably early so managed the big
rides before the crowds turned up... and turn up they did! Death by baby-stroller!
So the day was odd because I did some rides and wandered the park, all in somewhat
of a real grouchy mood. My grouchyness got the better of me and I quit the place
in the afternoon to find the next hotel (@ Downtown Disney) and thought I'd snap
myself out of my bad mood by trawling Downtown for some beer and food... even that
didn't work. Walked out of one eatery 'cos it was so slow and only managed a beer
and an $10 margeritta sat out in the cold.
Some pics from the Kingdom (compact camera) then (fairly horrible day tho')
So easily the worst day of the hols!
Sunday - Day 9
So after my grumpy day yesterday, I got a resort bus to the last park of my
trip.
Took the good camera along as well, since its pretty photogenic out there.
And I had a thoroughly enjoyable day (you'll be glad to know; no moaning on
today!)
I managed to spend all day in the park, fuelled by taking pictures and the
"beer opportunities" afforded by wondering around the world (why I took
the resort bus rather than the hire care today! )
Got the big rides done first up though, Mission Space being cool (even if I was
the only passenger on the entire ride - can't be cost effective that!) - I was
somewhat confused by the "soft option" ride... the point being what exactly? The
ride is a centrifuge so you choose the centrifuge that doesn't spin????
Soarin' I was a tad dissappointed with ; I had it my mind that there was going to
be a different film to the one at DCA (can't explain why I though that); but
there wasn't... still I cool enough ride, but why no different film? Stupid
popular as well, fastpasses all gone early on, hour long queues and the park was
not even that busy. (I fastpast'd it naturally)
Then the aquarium but - this had been Nemo'd since I had been here before, and
the refit works pretty well I thought, even if all the ride tech pales rather
when you hit that HUGE fish tank.
Really enjoyed wandering around with Nemo and his friends!
Next up was the rather bizarre Captain EO "tribute". Disney cashing in on the
demise of Jacko is a bit odd IMHO, but anything that gets rid of the awful
Honey I Shrunk the Audience film that replaced EO initially must be a good thing
right?
Wrong.
In fairness the film-quality was excellent on the 70mm print, but the film/story
was just awful... clearly not being a Jacko fan at all something is lost on me,
but even considering that its just pitiful.
OK dead-celebs aside, wandered around Imagination! and Test Track before making
my way into the World...
(for some reason I missed out Innovations and Universe of Energy completely
today, I meant to come back to do them later, but never got around to it - d'oh)
So I made my way around the World, riding the little rides they have (Mexico's
had been refitted since my previous visit) and watching their little films
(Canada's had been redone too), taking lots of pictures and partaking of
various "beers of the world" too! (Perhaps the latter explains my good
mood today then!)
Germany - they sell beer here!
These photos are brought to you with the assistance of BEER!
Started to get dark by the time I was in France...
then after a quick trip around Spaceship Earth (and Soarin again 'cos I had
a fastpass still) I turned around and went back around the World.
Finished up watching the fireworks befors I grabbed the bus back to the hotel.
NB all firework pics were hand-held as well, not bad I thought!
--
So best day of the holiday then today!
Monday - Day 10
OK then last day now...
Flight home was late afternoon, so just got up late, had some fast food breakfast
and wandered around (a mostly deserted) Downtown Disney for a while utterly
failing to purchase a Woody & Jessie doll for my niece & nephews Xmas present
(I figured that the packaging wasn't going to make it through my luggage so I
picked up the same dolls in the UK instead - for seemingly twice the price!)
Anyway it was COLD this morning, first real COLD day of my holidays.
I'd have had a go on this, but there was noone there (despite the opening times
board indicating that there should be!) Boo!
Perhaps they didn't like the COLD?
so after mooching in the COLD at Downtown Disney I did a bit of mall-hopping
to occupy a couple of hours (The Festival Bay mall up at the top of I-Drive
is a laugh; vast place almost entirely empty of shops... how does it survive?)
The Florida Mall towards the airport was much livelier - fairly busy in fact,
but it was just a time-filler before I headed back to MCO, dumped the car
(had managed the whole holiday on a single tank - thats what not going to Tampa
gets for you!) and caught a plane home to the COLD in Manchester.
So thats it! Pretty easy holiday, kept me fairly entertained and WARMER
than I'd have been in the UK anyway
Dave.
-
Giant thing behind the ferris wheel is the Oberhausen gasometer;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberhausen_gasometer
Was a gasometer, is a art installation type thingy now.
-
^ thanks!
"The dummys guide to getting to Ferrari World from Dubai" awaited keenly!
-
^ Hey dd, hows the transport options to get to the park from Dubai?
A work-colleague is in Dubai for a couple of days next week and I have generated some enthusiasm for him to go out to the park; but we both have no idea how he can get there from Dubai (hiring a car excepting). Any hints gratefully received!
-
Hey I'm in one of your pics!
I was in front of you on Megafobia - thought I recognised one of the faces but it wasn't until much later in the day did I work out from where!
Anyway, just to prove it; heres a paparazzi style stalker shot...
Whats going on here then?
I'd like to point out that I did not lower myself to the kiddie-credit; some of us have (a little) self-respect.
You might have clocked me later on I was trying to take some shots of Hydro, but they didn't really work. Speed from earlier in the day came out OK though;
Nice!
Coasters at Sunset
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
Heres a couple;
T-Express (lucky shot over a fence);
Eveyone's shot at DCA;