live2tell75

That Flying Island was pretty fun. It could have been because you could actually see since there were no plastic windows that where never repaired like in the US. The pirates ride was one of the best ones of the trip. I can't wait to go back! I completely agree about the Pirate ride, that was one of my favorites on the entire trip. I think the main draw was that it was air-conditioned and cool. But the real reason was to pay respect to the pathetic Sea head monster! I'm glad you got a photo of him. And I loved the whole kids area too! The Magic House was my favorite madhouse on the trip. This brings back such great memories!

Earlier this month Kevin and I met up with some awesome friends that I met from the TPR Europe trip this past summer. We spent a fantastic night at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. We had a blast! It was so good to see a few of my castmates during our TPR Real World Europe Trip reunion. Also got to see some other great TPR friends, and meet some awesome new ones. Thanks to Renee, Melissa and Christine for their hospitality at the house and GJ for awesome villians character private meet and greet. MNSSHP is probably one of my favorite Halloween events, we always have a great time. Onto the photos! Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, Such a fun-filled event! Had a mini TPR Real World Europe Trip reunion. The whole group at Mickey's Philharmagic. Dancing at Stitch's Club 626. "Tonight's gonna be a good night, a good night..." With my lovely Real World ladies, Melissa and Christine. More fun peeps! With Kevin and Malificent. "Newsies" Alfredo and Malificent. We needed Renne for this photo, to make it a mini Real World reunion and Joey, Amy, Drew & Derek to make it a complete reunion! We missed you guys! Kevin and I on a date with the Queen of Hearts (who was awesome!) Many thanks to GJ for arranging our awesome private villains character meet and greet. Boo to you and you and you! The Villains Mix and Mingle party was a fun stage show. That's all folk's. I highly recommend checking out MNSSHP, it is a lot of fun! Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

^ I also really enjoyed the Rocky episode. I thought they did a good job considering they were trying to do a pretty risque show as a high school production number. I thought it worked out really well. Not sure why last week, I know a lot of shows were off last week. Next week Glee is off because the Worlds Series begins tonight on Fox. Maybe that may run through next week? Anyone else really loving Raising Hope? That is my favorite new show of the season!

Found another article about Legoland Florida. This one mentions the old Island in the Sky ride being included, a car safari ride, a conservatory to make lego flowers (maybe the old butterfly Conservatory?) and possible future water boat rides. I bolded all of these in the article. link: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2010/10/sneak-peek-at-legoland-florida.html Since I have not been to a Legoland park, I'm looking forward to see this transformation. Glad to see that they are possibly keeping the Island In The Sky ride. I always enjoyed this ride and I think it will be a good fit with Legoland. Probably will give a nice view of Miniland.

On the 2008 TPR Tokyo trip, I became friends with some great people. Two of these people were MIke and Julie Hill from Cincinnati. I had never really been to the midwest except to Cedar Point in 2003, so I wanted to do a mini midwest trip. Mike and Julie were awesome enough to be my fantastic tourguides of 4 midwest parks: Kings Island, Indiana Beach, Holiday World and Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. We had a blast. A 1000 thank yous to them for such a great trip! Our first park was Kings Island. Ever since I was a kid and heard about the Beast and seen the famous Brady Bunch episode I had always wanted to check out the park. Once I finally got to ride The Beast, I thought it was a fun ride. Mike and Julie recommend I sit on a certain seat for a better ride. And it was a really smooth ride! The second ride I sat in a different seat, OMG what a different rought experience! Diamond Back was new and a fantastic ride! I actually enjoyed Son of Beast, I think it must of been that we sat in the front car, it really wasn't that rough - I was expecting a lot worst. The only letdown of the day was The Crypt, I wish I could have experienced the ride when it first opened. I was told that it had a more intense ride cycle and featured a lot of special effects back then. But overall I really enjoyed Kings Island, I thought it was a pretty good balanced-out park. Onto the photos! My awesome hosts and tour guides, Mike and Julie. Great friends I met on The Tokyo 2008 trip. Mike made Julie and I some tastely fruity alcoholic beverages at his bar. First stop on my midwest tour, Kings Island. When we visited Diamond Back had just opened for the 2009 season. I loved Diamond Back - it was such a great ride! I could ride these type of coasters over and over! The water portion was cool, kind of Shiekra like. Such a fun ride! Firehawk, the park's flying coaster. For some reason these flying coaster models freak me out more than B&M's. Invertigo was fun, a little rough. So it was time to ride Son of Beast. I had always heard so many awful things about this ride. I really hate rough coasters so I wasn't really looking forward to this. Julie and I waited for the front seat and I don't know if because I was expecting the absolute worst ride of my life, but it wasn't that bad. I actually liked it. I must have had a fluke ride. Loved Delirium! I wish Busch Gardens Tampa or any Florida park had one of these type of rides. When we visited the dark ride was still themed to Scooby Doo. I thought it was well done. Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle. Julie and I helped Mike search for his architectural plans all day. We checked all the rides, but in the end I think Carol found them for him. Vortex, not one of my favorites. Pretty much like it's Kings Dominion sister, Backlot Stunt Coaster is a fun little ride. Ready to hit the streets on the Backlot Stunt Coaster. The kiddie inverted coaster wasn't as rough as some I have ridden. I came across these Wierdos! You try it, see if you can do it, it's not so easy! A classic amusement park scene. My awesome tour guides! I had a great first visit to Kings Island. Up next Indiana Beach - stay tuned!

In April, Kevin and I travelled to Gatlinburg to attend our friend's wedding. We didn't have time to visit Dollywood on this quick trip (we had been there a few years ago and stayed in Pigeon Forge). This was the first time exploring the Gatlinburg area Attractions. We had a great day! We were pretty impressed with Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. Got to do lots of old-school cheezy attractions like Mysterious Mansion, Ripley's Haunted Adventure & Mirror Maze and Hanutings. Also did some hiking in the gorgeous Smokies. It was a great weekend. Onto the photos! The gorgeous Smokey Mountains. It's such a nice change to be away from flat Florida. Our first stop in Gatlinburg was Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. Since Kevin works at an aquarium, checking out the local aquarium is always a must. Inside the lobby of the Aquarium of the Smokies. With the Aquarium's mascot. Caught the dive show, which was interesting. I love Jellyfish. And this little guy. So coasters and theme parks are my element, while wildlife and nature are totally Kevin's. I think he could of hung out here all day. With our friends in the pretty impressive shark tunnel exhibit. Another cool guy. I love when aquariums and zoos have these pop-ups. We definitely enjoyed our visit to Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. So I'm a big sucker for any type of haunted house walk-thrus. I had actually always wanted to check out Mysterious Mansion ever since I got a brochure for this place when I was young. Even though it is off the main street, it was so much fun, both Kevin and I really enjoyed it. We also did the Ripley's Haunted Adventure. This was fun but we ended up enjoying Mysterious Mansion more. Hauntings, another place I wanted to visit since getting a brochure for it when I was young. I was the only one that shelled out the money while everyone waited outside. It was really weird, cheesy, and a little creepy, especially being the only person in the theater. But I thought it was unique and fun. Again I'm a sucker for these cheesy old-school attractions. Had fun experiencing the mirror maze. Adrian loved it. Your admission into the maze was good all day, so you can come and go as much as you like. Played a few games. Did a little bit of hiking in the Smokies. With my best friend's family: Brett, Amanda and Adrian. We hiked to an area that had really gorgeous falls. With Adrian. Next up my Midwest theme park adventure. Stay tuned!

I love London! Looks like you had quite the tour. Wish I had known you guys by then, cause it would have been a blast hanging out in England! Can't wait to see the rest of your trip report!

^ You are correct a lot of schools were off last Friday. I went last Thursday and it was packed. We arrived at the park at 7:15pm and left at 1am. We hit all 7 houses, 1 show and rode Sheikra, Kumba and Montu. I have gone the last 9 years and typically the park is empty on Thursday nights. The longest wait is usually 10 minutes, if not a walk on. This past Thursday was kind of a fluke. But even though the haunted houses had lines, they all moved really quickly. I think the longest wait we had was about 15 minutes. The longest wait we had of the night was for Montu (had really slow dispatches) waited about 40 minutes. The next few Thursdays will be busy but no where as busy as Halloween Horror NIghts at Universal or Sat. nights at HOS. Just get to the park early, once entering the park, go left, hit the My X House and then head towards the back of the park. Then work your way to the front, this should help keep the waits very short.

I've done 3 events this season: Universal's Halloween Horror Nights XX: Twenty Years of Fear, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom & Howl-O-Scream: My X - Revenge Rocks! at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. At Universal's Halloween Horror Nights XX: Twenty Years of Fear Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. Howl-O-Scream: My X - Revenge Rocks! at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.

Thanks guys for the kind comments! Yep, they seemed to be spread out pretty far. But It was kind of overkill. There were duplicates of many of the rides. I think it is because the Florida State Fair is held in the winter and it features is a bunch of different midway companies that are already in the southern part of the country where is it warm. So this equates to lots of duplicate rides.

^^ Jordan it was great meeting you too! I'm on The Road To Cedar Point next year, if you're not doing that trip I'm sure we will run into each other on a different trip in the future! ^Melissa, you are too kind and just awesome, plain and simple - thanks again for making the trip rock!

I kind of got crazy behind with my trip reports from 2009. So I'm resurrecting this thread back to life! I'll pick this up with some photos of The Florida State Fair from back in Feb. 2009 with a couple of Orlando photos thrown in. Enjoy! A quick visit to Universal Studios Florida with my friend Lynn during Mardi Gras. After a day at Universal Lynn and I had dinner with these great people at Carrabba's. lol - Looks like we had a photo crasher - who's the dude on the far left? 2009 Florida State Fair. First of many Music Express type rides. Go to love the cheesy old dark rides. A spinning wild mouse, one of the fair's 5 coasters. I love fairs at night. Music Express #2. One of my favorite rides. A pretty big funhouse. Storm. A classic. Compact coaster. Another dark ride. Another music express. Another funhouse. Funhouse #3. Skyflyer. Music Express #4! Mirror Maze. Final funhouse. Another childhood favorite carnival ride growing up. The largest coaster at the fair.

After our fun day at Efteling, we closed out the final night of the trip enjoying a fantastic group dinner and some good laughs hanging out in the hotel's bar area. Thank you so much to Robb and Elissa for putting together another amazing trip, all of your hard work and organizing is greatly appreciated! To both of you, thank you for organizing with the parks the great ERTs and especially for everything at the Fair, that was such a highlight. I really never thought I would ever ride Olympia Looping in my life so thanks again for making this happen. All of the hotels on this trip were GORGEOUS! You picked some great ones for us to stay at. So you guys know these trips are a major high for me, so thank you! thank you! thank you! To all the trip participants, it was great seeing old friends, and meeting all the new ones! Thanks to my Real World TPR Europe cast members - I love all of you!. Thanks so much for adopting me that first day at Gardaland. You guys made my trip! Melissa, Christine, Renee, Amy, Andrew (Drama Drew), Alfredo, Joey & Derek you guys are all awesome! I can't wait for many future "reunion specials"! Derek - thank you so much for being our personal tour guide around Europa and Phantasialand, you were a gigantic help. Thanks to Larry for his informative not-to-miss dark rides and unique attractions guide, this helped everywhere we went! Frans, thanks for being a great roommate, it was nice getting to know you and I think Elissa did a great job matching us up! Morgan thanks for helping us with the translations at the fair, this helped ALOT! Bruno, thanks for the nice reception, and passes this was a great way to start the trip! Thanks to everyone else for the great conversations, even if we only shared a ride, a drink or a walk, it was great meeting all of you! I hope to see you all in the future! Please let me know if you are ever in the central Florida area I would love to meet up with you! The Europe trip, like the other TPR trips I have done in the past was a tour full of great parks and sights but most importantly seeing awesome old friends and meeting fantastic new friends. The trips may seem like on the outside all about parks and coasters, but for me the trip is all about the memories made with a bunch of great people. At the last dinner Robb described a TPR trip like a summer camp for adults, I 100% agree! Thanks again to everyone! Thank you so much to my The Real World TPR Europe cast members - You guys are awesome! At the final dinner in Amsterdam. Christine and Alfredo more awesome peeps I met on the trip. I wish I could spent more time with Lou and Cameron - but it was good to see you both again! Joey - you rock! Alfredo and Robb - who knew? I think Andrew and Melissa had finally lost it! More awesome trip participants! Till the reunion show - Thanks!

A review of HHN is in this weekend's Tampa Bay TImes: http://tampabaytimes.fl.newsmemory.com/ I kind of agree with some of her points.

Based on the waterfalls on the right side, looks like the former water portion area of Rhino Rally.

I LOVE Glee. I was looking forward to the Britney episode, but I actually didn't like it. I thought that Heather and the rest of the cast did a fantastic job on recreating Brit Brit's music videos to a T. The dancing was spot on. But the episode felt really wierd and made no sense. I feel like the reason why the Madonna episode worked well in my opinion, is because the songs they choose to do helped move the story along and made sense for the characters storylines. Other than Artie's version of Britney's "Stronger", none of the other songs went well with the story. My actual favorite song of the night was the last song that Rachael sang at the end (a non-Britney song). I loved last week's season opener episode, so this week was a real let-down. I really hope that these "tribute"/stunt casting episodes are very few. I know there were rumors after the Madonna episode that there may be a second Madonna episode in the future. I really hope that this is not true and if it does happen it is not until way, way down the line of the series. I don't want this series to be too gimmicky and turn into the Love Boat/WIll & Grace of stunt guest star shows. On the plus side, it looks like next week's episode should bring the show back on track. FIngers crossed!

^ This is pretty standard. When it is busy (which is about 95% of the time), the houses are always a steady conga line flow. This is how they try to keep the line moving. I agree with you I would much rather wait a minute to let small groups go in. I actually will slow down to give some space between the people in front of me and myself, so I won't see every scare in ahead of me. This usually helps a lot.

So I checked out opening weekend of this year's event with Erik. Similar to last year I enjoyed this year. It was a fun event. Nothing out of the ordinary, but fun. This was my "Sweet 16" year attending, so I really appreciated seeing the older characters from the past especially, The Crypt Keeper from my second event in 1995. This year's icon, "Fear" and I go way back. We kind of got intimate back at the '96 event- Halloween Horror Nights: Journey Into Fear. So it was kind of awkward seeing an old ex. =p The Houses were all pretty good, nothing too innovative like in past years but solid. The scare zones were good for atmosphere. Not sure if I got any true scares in the scare zones. There was lots of fog, that's for sure, which is always makes things scary. I'm usually more worried I'm going to run into something! My main disappointment was with the shows. Bill and Ted was flat for me the 2nd year in a row. Don't get me wrong, the performers did a great job dancing, I just wasn't a big fan of the characters they pick to represent 2010 pop culture. And the audience just didn't seem to have the energy. Then again maybe I'm getting old and what I thought was hillarious when I was younger just doesn't do it for me now. Brian Brushwood was good for an adult magic show, but I missed Rocky this year. =( No matter what the event is like, I will always have a good time, which I did. My main appreciation of the event is how much detail goes into everything. Here are my quick thoughts on the houses. Houses: Horror Nights of Hallowd Past: A- For a HHN veteran, this is a great trip through the history of HHN. Catacombs: Black Death Rising: B Interesting house with a back story. Havoc: Dogs of War: B- Military/Sci-Fi theme. The Orfanage: Ashes to Ashes: C+ Very atmospheric house, not too many scares. Zombiegeddon: B Comical house that was better than I thought it would be. Hades: Gates of Ruin: C+ I think we hit this house during a shift change. Seemed like a lot of dead spots. Looks to have lots of potential. Psychoscareapy: B- Similar to the past incarnations (except the Christmas one a few years ago, one of my top 10 favorites). The mental institution house has become a standard a most theme park haunts, so nothing really new here. Legendary Truth: B+ If there was an innovative house this would be it. We experienced the house twice. First time had awesome effects. Second time not so much - pretty dead. If all the effects are working then it is great. So this year's event lands at #10 out 16 out of my favorite events from best to worst. 1. HHN IV (1994) 2. HHN 13: The Director Will See You (2003) 3. HHN: Reflections of Fear (2008) 4. HHN V: The Curse of the Crypt Keeper (1995) 5. HHN VII: Frightmares (1997) 6. HHN: Islands of Fear (2002) 7. HHN: Sweet 16 Horror Comes Home (2006) 8. HHN: Ripped From The Silver Screen (2009) 9. HHN VI: Journey Into Fear (1996) 10. HHN XX: Twenty Years of Fear (2010) 11. HHN: Tales of Terror (2005) 12. HHN VIII: Primal Scream (1998) 13. HHN IX: Last Gasp (1999) 14. HHN X: You Don’t Know Jack (2000) 15. HHN: What’s Your Breaking Point? (2004) 16. HHN: Carnival of Carnage (2007) Onto the photos! An old pal from '95! Hanging out with Jack. Fear itself. Loved this tree guy a few years ago, and still love him! The Gentlemen, I mean Body Collector. I was scared of him A HHN staple. On the way out, Jack wished us a good night. Thanks for reading!

What a great start Reed! Looks like both you and Stacy had a fun time! The museum up-charge looks pretty cool, I may have to check it out. Both Eric(k) Johnsons will be checking everything out tonight - can't wait to go! Thanks for giving us a glimpse into all the opening night festivities!

^ You can count on it!

Kevin and I just booked the Feb 20th 4-night Disney cruise on the Dream! I'm so excited! I never thought I would be able to manage a Disney cruise. Thanks to being named "team member of the quarter" at work I am able to take this cruise as my special experience! I can't wait!

Great trip report so far! This gets me really excited for the Road to Cedar Point TPR trip next summer! Keep up the good work!

Hello TPR, I am going to be visiting The Great Escape tomorrow (Wed. 8/8). I have been extremely busy at work recently and have not been able to really research the park properly. Any advice on a plan of attack and enjoying the day? Here are the facts: • We will be at the park at opening (10am). • Should be at the park until at least 5pm. • Would like to try to experience all of the park's major attractions. • How are crowds? Do I need to get a Flash Pass? • Our group will be a mix of riders and non-riders. Some like coasters, some do not. • Are the coasters very rough? • My 4-year old nephew will be with us. I have heard their are a lot of nice children's attractions, including a cool Alice in Wonderland walk-thru? • I have no idea if we are doing the water park, I'm thinking probably not. But if we did do the water park, does it get crazy crowded? I figure it might since it's August. Is the water park included with the park admission? I believe it is, just making sure. • Any particular not-to-miss attractions? Sorry for the last minute questions and if there is already a thread like this. I'll be leaving on a flight right after work at 6pm tonight, so I appreciate any type of help. Thanks so much!

Wow looks like all the Europa hotels are beautiful! I thought Hotel Colosseo was gorgeous, this looks just as nice!

Great trip report. I think this looks like a good addition to the park. Hopefully someday I'll get out to Paris. I wouldn't mind seeing Disney's Hollywood Studios adding this area in Florida.