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^^My God! It's a blue marshmallow cow! A minion of Mr. Stay Puft! "Beware my COWS OF DEATH! Their teats squirt fire, and they crap brimstone!"

There's a whole thread devoted to flyers: http://themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=214233#p214233. You should be able to find some answers there, so I'm locking this topic. Enjoy! Flyers can be insane, scary fun!

^^I second what Robb has said. DisneySea is my favorite theme park, anywhere, and Parque Espana and Mitsui Greenland are excellent, as well. Plus, the many of the Togo rides in Japan are much better than what we have stateside.

^RIP, "Great Leslie"--still my favorite Tony Curtis role.

Are you posting from some future dimension in which it is 2012 and this park has already opened? Proper grammar and punctuation count on TPR, although we do make allowances for our members who do not speak or write English routinely. Please read our Terms of Service before posting again.

Finally got around to watching all the Skyline Park videos. What exactly is the point of Sky Wheel? That has to be one of the strangest rides I've ever seen.

Timing is often everything at Howl-o-Scream and KD's Haunt. I've had similar experiences at both parks where I've gone through a maze once and nothing happens, then hit the same maze later in the evening and it's much better. I think you're right that it depends on how many people are being let in at once; sometimes, annoying groups of guests bunch up the line and screw up the timing for everyone.

Not if your name is Fred Minotaur and you happen to run a storage facility,

^Good to hear. Bungee wolf must've been on a smoke break when I went through. Which picture are you in?

I have flown Southwest a couple of times and have no complaints about their service or seating policy. They just haven't been competitive out of southeastern Virginia when it comes to price and availability of flights (at least not for the last couple of years). Maybe buying AirTran will solve this problem. Who knows?

What will happen when the wood starts to rot? What will happen when the trains get dirty? What will happen when [fill in the blank]?

^Ledgy, thank you for the background information, but please leave the moderating to the moderators. Tezee, TPR encourages TRs of all sorts of events, so thank you for sharing this one. However, I think the "Random" forum is a better fit, so I've moved it in here. Please go ahead and post part 2, but you might want to include a little more background information about this "karneval"--for example, why is it held? How often? That might help stir up a little more interest in your topic. Thank you.

This makes me very happy. Chuck is becoming a beer nerd! I just know what I like.

BGW does this, too. They've swapped the entrances and exits of three of their mazes over the last few years. I give BGT credit for trying to come up with a new "icon" each year.

Maybe they should rename it "Beer Goggles World."

I'm not sure how to take this news, either. Southwest serves my area out of Norfolk, but their flights are always more expensive (for example, to Orlando) than most of the other carriers, including Air Tran. Hell, even with paying extra to check a bag or to select a seat (which really does irritate me), Air Tran is cheaper than Southwest when flying out of southeast Virginia. If they keep Air Tran's routes out of Richmond and Newport News and drop the checked-baggage fees, I'd be OK with it.

I guess wet Zorbing is for those who really want to relive the process of being born.

^They play these nibbling/slurping sound effects. They sling spiders over the path on ziplines, and some of the black widows bounce over people's heads.

One more look at HOS 2010. Werewolves in New France! Hmm--must be "Take Your Kid to Work Night" or something. The Alpengeist bridge looks much creepier after dark. The entrance to Germany looks like something out of "Ghost Hunters International." Noted! "Screw 'Twilight'! I'm a vampire in a cape and I like it! Team Bela forever!" And now, a moment of respect for the dearly departed. Unfortunately, some vampires have not taken the success of the "Twilight" series well. This one staked himself in the heart after seeing the first movie. What's nice about green lights is that they work for Halloween, Christmas, and St. Patrick's Day. Like BGT, there's an official Halloween store this year. Yes, All Hallows Eve just puked all over the place this year. I still would've used "Rockenstein." "Frockenstein"? OK, there were some witches in Italy outside of "Cursed." "This is 'Bitten.' Vee bid you velcome! Enter uf your own freevill!" Can you hear the ghost of Drachen Fire? A rather blurry look at "Harvest Hollow." Whew! I'm beat. Time to head home. Mr. Reaper is waiting for you! Later, BGW.

Is the "Scare" Really "Everywhere"? The 1st Night of Howl-o-Scream Last Friday (September 24) was the opening night of Howl-o-Scream 2010 at Busch Gardens, and they claim that "The Scare Is Everywhere" with expanded scare zones, but one less maze. (No Cavern of Darkness this year, I imagine beacause they want to keep their new attraction, Europe in the Air, running during HOS.) And how did they do? My feelings are mixed. Scare zones have been the weakest part of HOS in the past, but they've had some success beefing them up a bit for 2010--emphasis on "some." For example, the crazed chainsaw-slinging lumberjacks in New France were pretty active that night, as were the walking corpses working the queue for the Catacombs maze. I liked the spider-themed walk from Ireland to France, too. That being said, I'm guessing that there were supposed to be witches in Italy. Yes, "guessing" because I saw one making feeble attempts to scare people with a broom near the Italian restaurant. There were some very active sliders in Germany, but it was hard to tell what they were supposed to be: Vampires? Punks? Random guys in crash helmets who slide on their knees? (They did startle quite a few people, though.) Mysterious figures in black strolled around England--they were rather creepy after dark. Here's how the houses stack up. Bitten (Drachen Fire station)--This was the best maze last year, too, and it's essentially unchanged. Very European, 19th-century-style vampires stalk guests in their house of the damned. You'll hear lots of Danny Elfman Sleepy Hollow music in here, along with a fair serving of James Bernard's score for Hammer Films' Dracula movies (and that's a good thing, I think). The scareactors here were probably the best of the night, and you can hear screams from inside this maze from all over the old Drachen Fire area. Harvest Hollow (Drachen Fire lawn)--This outdoor maze was essentially a scare zone full of scarecrows with pumpkin heads in 2009. This year, the path winds around the lawn, and you have to navigate a gauntlet of lunatics and mutant peasants with axes, pitchforks, and other implements of destruction. The scareactors were nice and creepy--good job. Hunted (Drachen Fire barn)--No bungee wolf on Friday. (Boo! But maybe he'll return--who knows?) Even so, the more stationary werewolves lurking in the woods and old hunter's cabin were putting their little hidey-holes to good use, making this maze a little better than it was last year. One strange change--last year's exit is this year's entrance. (In other words, it's back to its original configuration from 2008. BGW likes to switch entrances and exits around--go figure.) Cursed (Festa Italia)--I guess some of the witches that were supposed to be in the scare zones were in the maze, instead. This is the logest maze at HOS, and although there weren't a lot of scares in it Firday night, it made up for that with atmosphere--plus, it has fire! The witches and goblins weren't jumping out much, but they had cackling down to a science. Revenge of Pompeii (Escape from Pompeii building)--Mummies and undead explorers menace unwary tourists amid the ruins of Pompeii. This was the weakest maze last year, but I'm happy to report that's it has improved a bit this year (the scare actors seem a bit more into it, and there are mummies prowling the walkways outside the maze, as well). There's a "kid-friendly" version of this maze in the afternoon until 5:30. Catacombs (France)--Ghouls and skeletons haunt this "necropolis" under Paris. This maze has atmosphere to burn, but was a bit short in the scares department. Opening nights are tricky, and my experience is that HOS tends to improve as the month grinds on. I'll be back a few times this season. Here's a look at Howl-o-Sceam 2010's opening night. Official valet parking for Howl-o-Scream? Must be for visitors from Kingsmill. "Boo! Boo, I say!" As they said . . . . . . "The Scare Is Everywhere!" (Well, there seems to be a bit more if you head to the left.) It wouldn't be HOS without tombstones and fog. "Hello! I'm sitting on some Hobbits until I squish them into jelly. Come back later, and I'll squish you, too!" Spot the troll, win a kewpie doll! Agh! Scary Howl-o-Scream person! Look like Vesuvius is becoming active again! Turn back, you fools! I don't think these ravens are too impressed with these scarecrows. Nothing is scarier than a bunch of pumpkins! Yes, orange is the true color of FEAR! Oh no! The power of orange is filling me with dread! "Screw orange! I gotta blue light and a black widow spider! In your face, Jack!" Uh oh! I think those spiders ate the gray wolves! The Sierra Club is going to be very upset. They actually explained France's Halloween theming here--nice touch. "Henri?" "Oui, Pierre?" "How do our skeletons hang together with no cartilage or musculature?" "It is a mystery, mon ami." Darkness begins to fall. Guests running the gauntlet of spiders between Ireland and France. The queue for the Catacombs. "Thanks for visiting the Catacombs, folks. I apologize for the mess, but it's the maid's century off." One more set of pics to come.

The whole Oktoberfest experienced looked amazing, even though I imagine that the insane German flatrides would cause me to "enjoy" the same beer twice. For me, the highlights of these updates wre Olympia Looping, the bizarre walkthough attractions, and Piers's musings following the Alpine Slide.

^Aunt Bea is pretty vicious--she's the one!

Stone the unbeliever! But, seriously, Euro Toro looks like a great ride.

^I bumped into some neighbors there and ended up doing Catacombs and Revenge of Pompeii twice. Catacombs was the weakest maze last night; they had the same problem last year, but got better as October moved along. I don't think of Bitten as a "copy" of Club Blood. They both take very different approaches to vampires--Bitten is more like a "Hammer" film, whereas Club Blood is more like a "Blade" flick. BGW's and KD's vampires don't "twinkle" like "Twilight" vampires, as least.

^I recommend visiting on Friday or Sunday night. If you go on a Saturday, you might want to purchase Quick Queue, as it includes rides and mazes.