odene497

Maybe I caught it on a good day, but my few rides on Gwazi had me liking it better than Apocalypse or Troy. As long as Kumba stays put, however, I'm happy.

That flat ride looks crazy! I wish I'd noticed it. And the S&S looks good, and I loved the one at Shenzen. Maybe next time around for this one.

Going back to work tomorrow sucks! Mexico as a country really surprised me and the trip was great fun, a perfect way to spend some time in warmer weather! I loved seeing the cities and spending time with wonderful friends. A big thank you to Robb and Elissa for an awesome experience as always, I'm looking forward to Japan!

Signed up at Canada's Wonderland for my second year! https://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/nick-cramer-1/CanadasWonderland2013

The whole night time boat thing sounds really cool! I'd love to visit there one day. Thanks for the nice report Martin!

Playstation 3 Family trip to Arizona Some books Overall a fine day.

I'm pretty thrilled with all of these well thought out and thorough park improvements. Of course I'd love a new crazy coaster. But ultimately I feel better about my home park getting some real positive treatment. I'm really excited for Blast Off, as it's a top notch flat that'll help round out the selection. That news alone got me to renew my season pass again. I'm sure we'll see a new coaster in a few years, but right now I'm really pleased with how the park is being handled.

I don't mind a few seconds of hangtime, I just don't like it to the point where my head feels like it's going to blow up. The Happy Valley parks in China all had these flat rides that looked like some sort of Orbiter type fast spinning fair ride. We didn't realize until riding (parks were dead, rides mostly only ran when a good chunk of people were filling up), that while spinning the arms slowly lifted until completely upside down and spun like that for well over a minute. It was excruciating.

Signed up for the other two trips and I'm still ridiculously jealous of those on Texas/Midwest! Looks like such an amazing combination of parks. And City Museum! Mexico and Japan should have City Museum add-ons.

Dang, I always thought this ride looked so cool, and missed it by not too long.

Aside from being ridiculously shaky, the air on Hades was nuts. It could be such an amazing ride. Barrel roll, new track and trains, and maybe a transfer area with a second train and it could be incredible. Although their whole "Don't ever want the possibility of a collision" might be a somewhat realistic statement considering their lethargic workers.

If it helps your cause at all, I was 17 when I went on my first trip. I didn't know anyone until the trip boards opened up, and that's where you really can start to get to know exactly who's on your trip. You'd have to try NOT to get to know a good deal of the people before the trip even starts. I ended up with an amazing group of friends and had the best experience of my life. And now I do trips each year with really great friends I've met and know from all over the world. There is a huge range of ages, types of people, etc...unless you're completely antisocial, you'll have an incredible time and leave with a ton of solid friends.

These aren't really in any particular order, but are 10 favorites that came to mind. Dinoconda Skyrush X2 Kumba Expedition GeForce Goliath (Walibi World) Boulder Dash El Toro Maverick New Texas Giant

I think a launch is one of my favorite things a coaster can have. Xcelerator is definitely up there for the Intamin hydraulic launches. I like Maverick's launch too. Probably my favorite launch as of now is on the new S&S, Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley Shenzhen. That was pretty strong. I've yet to ride one of the old school S&S compressed air launch coasters, I'd really like to try Dodonpa.

Every year outdoes the last, and 2012 certainly wasn't an exception. -Awesome West Coast Bash weekend with great friends -Coastin' for Kids Behemoth marathon -Two week mega camping road trip with friends and TPR bashes And then there was that huge China trip... -Held a Giant Panda -Valley-ed random coasters -High Five coaster -Tian Tan Buddha -Awesome new friends Oh, and the annual fall park weekend with friends! What a great year. And assuming the world doesn't end, next year should be good too!

Let's see. Leviathan is fun, not super crazy, but I'm happy with it. I was a tad underwhelmed by Verbolten, but at the same time I can't really say anything bad about it. It's a solid ride. I think I was just expecting a lot, but it does what it does well. Goliath, while a clone, was only my second GIB (first being in China), and I absolutely love these. Intense, smooth, just really cool rides. Skyrush blew me away. No, not the most comfortable, but easily one of the craziest, scary-intense rides that I've ever ridden. Definitely the strongest negative gs of anything I've been on, including things like GeForce, and El Toro. I loved Dinoconda! I can't wait to see how some of these projects for next year turn out.

It's bizarre how it looks like most of the stuff just sort of dropped down. The coaster stayed mostly together with itself. Even the lift of the log flume is standing up, just down in the sand. I'm surprise they're not in more pieces.

I was worried I'd never ride one again!

I really like the little Japan add-on, as it covers a few parks I don't want to miss if I'm there. I'm not too familiar with park locations in Japan, any idea if Parque España would make its way in? Also for Mexico, is there any chance the trip would go up to Aguascalientes for Texas Tornado/Zonga? I've always wanted to ride that, although RCDB says something about it only operating during a fair. Just curious! It'd really help "complete" the trip for me.

Don't know about damaged, but it was great for riding at Great Adventure yesterday for their last day of the season. Despite them closing at four, the rain held off and even Kingda Ka was running in the morning. Everything was a walk on. They were asking people to stay in their seats on Ka so they could send the train full.

Great video! I really loved this ride as well, definitely not "intense", but just really great fun, and extremely well done. The whole area is beautiful. I love the launch. The crazy strobes and wind blasts in the tunnel as you launch are an awesome touch.

I really like Predator at Darien Lake. It was my first big coaster, so I like it for sentimental reasons, but they've also done a decent amount of track work, and I think it has some neat rough air up front.

I don't know exactly, but I'd say since I started doing TPR trips in '08 each year has been about the same (70+), however this year was definitely the most for me with the full China tour. This year I made my first visits to Disneyland, USH, and picked up a few stray credits at SFMM and Knott's. Also had my first visits to DelGrosso's, Lakemont, and Kings Island. Picked up a good amount of random new attraction credits like Leviathan, Skyrush, Verbolten. I might be missing a few. And then the whole China trip, which with my counting system I ended up getting exactly 100. So maybe a total of around 130 new credits this year.

Most things I would have wanted to ride or would like to in the near future are made pretty accessible through the TPR trips. But a few things off the top of my head I've yet to ride: Mindbender (Galaxyland) Dodonpa iSpeed Formula Rossa T-Express Dragon Khan And a ton of random other ones. But these are up there pretty high.

I believe if you go to the park before this season is over they'd give you the card, because it's good for the rest of this season as a bonus. I know a group of us are going to be (or at least planning on) processing them in a few weeks to use there, as well as at Great Adventure.