inlina

Sad to say that you really did miss out on something worth while with Diamondback. It has great sustained floater air time, a great layout, and decent forces for a B&M hyper. Make sure to catch a back seat ride on your next visit. The fact that you were not quite sure what to make of Adventure Express means that you definitely have the same interpretation everyone else does... which is why I love it. It's a two minute long "wtf" experience. We will be back before the end of the season so I'll definitely get on Diamondback soon. Adventure Express gave me flashbacks to Gold Rusher at SFMM not just because of the manufacturer but also the layout that starts with the station at the top of the hill. CG

Those things stress me out...I'll just pay for the blasted liposuction.

Thanks. I love rides like Delerium. My only concern is the restraints. I'm a bit porky at the moment...I did not fair well through my first winter here. I have found on some rides like these in the past (and at the weight I am back to now) I have been on the limit and they have really had to work to get me in. I didn't not have any trouble with anything else I rode their last weekend though. Any idea if Delerium tends to suit someone in the more svelte range than the other harnesses there? In any event the fear of not fitting a harness will be my motivation to get off the sugar and other excess and back down to a more respectable mass. You won't get me on a drop tower ever again. I hate them. CG

Was at KI for the first time last Saturday. I was going to post last weekend but the trip really took a lot out of me and Sunday ended up with me being dead on the couch for the most part. I won't go into the details of the stupidity on my part that preceded arriving at about 4PM, but we did get there. We rode (in rough order): [*]Back Lot Stunt Coaster - That was a good fun warm-up. I always need a warm-up ride that is not full of airtime or inversions to get me in the mood. [*]Mystic Timbers - I honestly didn't realise it was new until we got in the line (I'm not from around here). Good thing we got in the line when we did because it kept building after us. Great ride. My wife loves a good woody [*]Flight of Fear - I didn't know what to expect but I really enjoyed it. Could have been a bit darker inside with more Space Mountain type effects but maybe that wouldn't suit it. [*]Firehawk - It was OK. Something about the restraints that didn't sit well with me. I wouldn't be in a hurry to get back on it, but if I was near it and it had a short queue I would consider it. [*]Banshee - We weren't going to bother because we had ridden Silver Bullet at KBF about 5 or 6 times when we were there a couple of years ago and Raptor at CP a couple of times last year. Figured it was just another install of the same coaster but I was mistaken. The best of the three I have ridden. [*]The Racer - I wasn't expecting much but it was generally fun. I'd go on it again especially when it has no queue like we had. [*]Adventure Express - I didn't even know it existed because it didn't show up on the app, but my daughter was looking at the printed map and pointed it out. Was well and truly dark by this time so not quite sure what to make of it. Seemed like a fun little ride. [*]The Beast - What we mostly came for. People were suggesting we might need chiropractors after but I didn't think it was that back (Mean Streak last year and Ghost Rider a couple of years ago were far worse IMHO). Most disappointing part was we were stuck in line for well over an hour after a couple of breakdowns and we thought we might be able to manage one more ride on Mystic Timbers after it. We did get back seat though...not sure if it's a good or bad thing. We had been in line for Diamondback at one stage but there was a breakdown pretty early on from when we got in the queue so we gave up. Never got back to it and from reading this thread I guess we missed out on something decent. Not to worry...I am sure we will be back as we have Platinum passes and it's not a huge drive from Detroit. Given that we did not leave the park until 11PM the drive home was tough. Lesson learned - it was too much travel for one day (when the stupidity of the start of the trip is taken into account). Is there anything you suggest I really missed out on apart from Diamondback that I should have in the plan for the next time? CG

Would you be saying 'Go Mud Hens'? I'm in Greater Detroit so that's good info. I might skip SFGAm though and add KI. A structure full of hopes and dreams? Anyway...back to CP. Now that I live in Greater Detroit (don't feel sorry for me, it was by choice) I have Platinum Passes for me and my family. Is CP on opening weekend a dumb idea? CG

Went to KI for the first time ever yesterday. Mystic Timbers is good. That is all. CG

I moved to Detroit from Australia mid last year and managed to get to CP once. After a good day in the park I was planning on buying platinum passes for this season but I hesitated during the sales they had late last year. Does CP/CF ever do another sale on passes before the season opens?

Good work on the PTR. I haven't been to DW for a while so I hadn't realised they changed the name of Cyclone to Hot Wheels Sidewinder....interesting.

I won't do any drop rides that just pull your to the top, stop, wait while I pee my pants and then drop. Maybe the exception was Tower Of Terror at Disneyland but I don't really count it as one of the stupid 'all we do is drop you whildt you make skid marks in your underwear' rides. Green Lantern at SFMM was pretty crap too and we probably won't ride it if we ever find ourselves there again. I had high expectations that went unfulfilled (much like my wife...expectations of the ride that is ). CG

OK, so before I head to day 2 I found a couple more pictures of our tired selves from day 1 at Disneyland on Autopia... Happy, crazy or just jet-lagged? How do we get this bad boy off the rail so we can cruise the whole park? Day 2 - Six Flags Magic Mountain SFMM was not on our original plan but we watched Insane Coster Wars and my daughter became obsessed with flying coasters (I think Tatsu was on an episode). From that the original trip went from under 3 weeks to a full 4 weeks with an extra day in Anaheim/LA to fit in SFMM. Originally it was going to be on our last day in LA after Disneyland and KBF but the weather was looking questionable so we pulled it forward to the first Sunday. That may or may not have been the right choice as the weather was not great on the day we went. The plan was to get up and on the road early and to find something for breakfast on the way. My experience driving on US freeways/highways prior to this was around Michigan and Ohio. If there are places to eat at the next exit then they are sign posted well in advance. Apparently this is not the case in California. We drove past many an exit saying "there was a .... and a ..... at that one" never learning that we should just take a chance on the next exit. We also got heavy showers on the way to Valencia which made us slow down...not many other drivers did but LA freeways are rubbish from a safety persepctive as we learnt of the way back to Anaheim. So we got to SFMM a bit late in the end anyway and the park was already open. The rain stopped as we were parking but soon started up again as we made the trek to the gate. We were saturated. We got through the security and entry just fine, even with our soaked paper tickets. Now I should mention that with the rain the camera and phone didn't come out much so as far as photos go we didn't get much at SFMM. It's wet. Oh, actually, it's not that bad....yet. Where to first..hardest question of the day. Easy answer, the bathroom if we can find one. Look...tracks. We went in search of some food first and the closest thing to breakfast we could see was funnel cake....breakfast of champions. We shared one between the three of us and then decided that we should let that settle before we try any coasters so we went on the carousel. Pro tip...make sure that your horse is connected to a crank if you want a live one... [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] After the carousel no one decided what they wanted to do next so we headed up the 'mountain' in search of any old coaster. Again with it being the off season I knew some rides were out. The obvious one was Collosus given the development and as I found out Scream as well. No big deal as it was off season so not super busy. As it turned out the rain, although very intermittent was also heavy enough to play havoc with a lot of rides especially the coasters. The ride closures would cause problems for lines for rides that were open as the day wore on as they also did not seem to be running all the trains they could be on many coasters given it was the off season. The first coaster we saw was Viper and it was the first one of the day that we would find closed as a result of the weather. The staff member letting people know it was closed indicated they were working on the problem and were aiming to get it back up and running. So we kept on heading up and came across Tatsu. The funnel cake in my stomach was saying 'not yet' even though the queue was quoted as only being 15 mins. It was out the gate but hadn't been weaved through queue switchbacks. So we kept going to to find a 'warm up' coaster. Eventually we got to Apocalypse. The queue was quoted at 30 mins so we thought that was acceptable. None of us had ever ridden a woody either so it was on. The queue was maybe a little longer than quoted in the end but finally got on our first real ride of the day. It was a great as both a first woody and the first coaster of the day. Reasoably smooth but not the air time I though there might be (as I read here this is a California wide 'problem'). Waiting in line for Apocalypse. (Sorry, for some reason this one is the right way up on my computer but didn't upload that way) As we exited the queue we noted the time had blown out to 60 mins. They were only running one train though. We went back down the hill thinking Tatsu might now be a good option. The time had blown out to something much longer, I think over an hour from memory, and with that a call was made to get a Flash pass as it was almost midday and we felt we were running out of time. We anted up for a Gold Flass pass and decided that adding the X2 reservation would be a good idea to make sure we got on it. The guy set it up for X2 as the first booking, but that was going to be 90mins away so I changed it to Goliath which was about 50mins. We headed in the direction of Goliath and went in search of something else to ride on the way. On the way past we noted people were pre-queueing for Full Throttle which hasnt been opened that day at all but was back in test. I was getting hopeful for that as it was one of the coaster I really wanted to ride. Head towards the bigness. My daugther and I went on Buccaneer to fill in some time. By the time that was done it was pretty much Goliath time on the Flash pass. We're here, and I am actually quite nervous. We signed up for a transferable locker as I didn't want to lose my glasses and we were still carrying the camera bag for the camera that almost never came out. The Flash pass for Goliath confused us a bit as I was not wearing my glasses so everything was blurry and there were people getting admitted at the exit gate with some kind of paper based queue jumping (What is with that? We saw people with it at Apocalypse too.). We eventually got told to keep on going to the other side. We got to the actually Flash pass entry point and and everything was on hold. As it turned out a train did not quite come fully home and they couldn't get people out of the train. We waited a while, probably 15 mins and decided to change the Flash pass to something else. We were getting frustrated now. We changed the Flash pass for Green Lantern because I was not leaving SFMM without riding it. That was going to be 90 mins so we went and grabbed some lunch and headed in search of soemthing to ride in the meantime. We also noted that Superman was not running but that was not a big deal as we have ridden Tower Of Terror at Dreamworld many times. We found Gold Rusher so we rode that for a laugh. It was actually a good ride for kids. Fairly long and a bit different being over the top of the hill. From there we wandered up the hill to see what else was up the back of the park. We got to Apocalypse and headed back towards Green Lantern as it was getting close to our time for it. We had a look around the DC area and....Batman was closed. Grrrrr. On to Green Lantern though. Yes, the load cycle is painfully slow. They also only had 1 car on the track at anytime with one on the lift as it came home. I thought they could run more through than this from the videos I have seen. Since there was still about 20 or 30 mins of queue after the Flash pass entrance we booked Tatsu which was about 45mins away. Initially we got loaded as a 3 with me on my own but they added a single ride to my side. I actually though the guy they loaded might have balanced out the car and given us a good ride with a flip or two. Instead we got a ride that was mostly facing the ground on my side which was a bit freaky. I didn't find it as painful as I feel some reports make it out to be but it does pull quite hard on the drops. By the time that was done it was on to Tatsu. We went right over the top of the hill instead of around...that was probably a bad idea. Anywho...Tatsu. This was probably the highlight of the day. It definitely made my daughters day and we all loved it, even my scared of heights wife. Is that feature that ooks over towards the front of the park the pretzel loop? It was the best part whatever you call it. We left Tatsu on a high and we had booked Apocolypse when waiting in the last queue section after the Flash pass entrance. So wandered up to Apocolypse and we were ready use the Flash pass by the time we got there. Again we booked someting when we were in the queue. We selected Goliath in the hope we would have better luck. We got on the front of Apocalypse this time. The ride probably wasn't as good as the first one that was in the middle but it was still fun. We headed to Goliath and between the dark clouds and time of day the light was fading but we still had about 2 or 3 hours of park open time left. Now I am I always quite nervous riding a coaster for the first time. I don't know if it is going to agree with me (although I had not found a coaster I didn't really like yet). While we were in the queue after the FP entrance we booked X2 since we had paid for it. To add to my nervosuness Goliath broke down again with a train being stuck out in the brake run. We talked about leaving the line this time and giving up on Goliath but X2 was still 45mins away for our booking so we held tight. They actually got it back in about 15mins. With some confusion in the queue my daughter ended up riding a cycle before us. So...that first drop I was nervous about. I felt it was warranted as I am not great with heights and it is one of if not the most full on experiences I have had on a coaster. Don't get me wrong, it was awesome but not something I was really ready for. It was also raining when we were on the ride and that hurt when we got up to speed. All in all it was a good coaster and I would ride it again...and again. With the delay X2 was almost open for us on the FP so we headed that way. The rain got heavier on our walk and as we were crossing the bridge many people were saying don't bother going over as it just shut down due to the run. We went and checked anyway to see if it would re-open and were told 'it might'. With that we cancelled the FP booking and booked Riddler's Revenge. That booking was 40mins away and we were starving so we thought we would search for food as we headed in the direction. As it turns out the only thing open was a candy store so the child and wife had something but I didn't feel like that so I just pushed through. After killing some time in shops and arcades the FP booking opened. We got to Riddlers Revenge and headed up the FP queue. The guy managing that was heading out the path to check something and said to just keep on going as there was no queue. That was a bit wierd. As it turns out the 2 hours queue time quoted had not been changed back down as people left the park in the rain. The regular queue was only about 15mins. We could have ridden twice without the FP. That was annoying. So there are no stand-up coasters in Australia and I was looking forward to this. I looked at how some people ahead of me dealt with their man parts versus the harness and came up with a plan to run the harness a little lower than my leg length allowed. I think this was a good idea. I liked the ride but it probably would have been better in the light and without rain. My wife didn't like standing and really struggled with it. By this time that was done it was almost park closing time. There were still rides running but we decided we were tired, hungry, cold and wet. We hit the gift shops for a souvenier and we also like ride photos so I got the one from Tatsu from the photo place at the front. With that we got back to the car and went in search of food, ending up at Denny's. It was actually what we really needed. From there it was back to Anaheim. As I mentioned earlier and in the previous post LA drivers are nuts and this was evidenced in the number of people that hit the wall in the wet on the way back. The most notable was the guy who was doing at least 70 when we were doing not much more than 55 and aqualplaned on a corner. He went 180 3 lane cross to wall touch to reverse 3 lane cross to 180 which would have been a cool move if he was playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater, but given we stopped within a few feet of him it was not something we needed to see. What we did need to see was our hotel beds that we eventually got to unscathed. Oh the sleep was good. All in all this is probably the worst day we have had at a theme park. It was mostly the weather but I don't think the park was quite geared up for all the ride closures and breakdowns. I thought the crowd would have been a lot thinner with the rain as well. Having said all that I would absolutely go back again. I would also make sure that my schedule was more flexible and that we were in season so the park was open during the week and most likely get at least a Gold Flash pass even if the crowds appeared small. The weather wasn't much better the next weekend either. The Saturday might have been a little better but there was still rain forecast in the Santa Clarita area and the Sunday was worse with report of flooding in parts of LA. We copped some the heavy rain from the west on that Sunday as we drove to Las Vegas. Day 3 - No parks, but some ice hockey instead Day 3 was a down day for us as I had ticket to the ice hockey...go Red Wings. I know this is a theme park forum but when in Anaheim in winter -> Let's go.... Red Wings. Oh, and we went to the Cheescake Factory which looks nothing like the one in The Big Bang Theory. Go figure This place looks nothing like the one in Big Bang. Anyway, Disneyland was the next day so more of that in the next post. Corey

Hi everyone, It's been over a month since I got back from the USA with my family and 2 months since we touched down in LA so I figured I should do something with the pics I took during the Anaheim/LA portion of our trip. Sometimes I feel like a bit of an outsider here on TPR being from Melbourne, Australia, as we don't really have much in the way of theme parks down here. I only get to the Gold Coast parks once every 2 years and have never gotten around to doing a photo TR from there. Anyway, onto the TR... Day 1 (I think I will split this up over a few posts by day since we did 6 days of parks in 8 days) We left Melbourne on our Qantas A380 on the 21st February (a Saturday) around midday Melbourne time and arrived in LAX a bit after 7AM on the 21st Feb...woohoo, time travel. Actually, oh no, that just means we lose a day coming home. The original plan for the trip was to just chill for the first day and maybe do some shopping as we were going to have 5 days of theme parks in the 8 days we were in Anaheim. That changed when a friend suggested going to Disneyland when you touch down is a good way to stay awake and get into the time zone. We also found that we could get a 4-day park hopper ticket through an agent online for the price of a 3-day park hopper on the Disneyland website (although there was a $6 agents fee on top of that.) So with the advice of a friend and the ticket bonus we got our hire car from LAX and drove to Anaheim. I won't go into the craziness of that drive but can I just say...LA drivers, most of you are INSANE. Leaving MEL Our plane at MEL On the plane, let's get those doors closed. So we parked ourselves in a Disneyland car park after the harrowing drive...that was easy enough. Onto the transport to Downtown Disney. A quick bite to eat at the Jazz Kitchen Express. From memory I had a Chicken Po-Boy, my wife had a shrimp Po-Boy and my daugther had combo shrimp and chikcen meal. The were definitely better than economy airline food and a good start. Jazz Kitchen Express Shrimp Po-Boy So onto swapping our vouchers from the agent for tickets. Now can someone explain to me why it takes so long for some groups to buy tickets at Disneyland? I know it can be slow at parks here because people haven't done their research, but it seemed to take poeple forever at Disneyland. Yes, there are a lot of options for tickets but seriosuly, why can't some of these people figure out what they are buying from the website before they go? We finally got tickets and headed into Disneyland. Our intent for the first day was to just wander around and get the lay of the land across the two parks with Disneyland for 3 or 4 hours check in to the hotel then DCA for 3 or 4 hours. First impresions of Disneyland...it felt a bit like Dreamworld here in Oz only nicer. I am pretty sure Disneyland was the benchmark for Dreamworld originally (and probably still is to a degree). Wait, this is not Tijuana! So we wandered down Main Street with the intent of buying a Photopass+. I am not the kind of person that likes to be in photos but this may be a once in a lifetime trip fopr us so we wanted some 'memories'. We were meant to buy it before we left and save the $30 but I did not get to it in time. So after a look at some of the shops along Main Street we found the photo place and sorted that out. Might be time for one of those famous photos... We are definitely in Disneyland now. You know they have electricity now, right? And on to Tomorrowland. Now this day was a bit of a blur having got almost no sleep on the flight. I seem to remember going on Astro Orbitor first just because it was there. I know that as a kid I would have loved being able control my own godola. As an adult..well, it is a kids ride. Let's go back...to the future. The line was shortish for Autopia but I really wanted to make sure I got a ride on Space Mountain. We got a Fastpass for Space Mountain as it was a 40 minute wait and that gave us a return time about 2 hours or so later. Autopia was about a 20 minute wait and most of the lines around the park seemed to be fairly short for a Saturday by all reports. Now I should mention that I had Disneyland dreams growing up. I remember being shown a film back in primary school (grade school for you Americans) of footage from Disneyland. The Matterhorn Bobsled was one ride that really interested me from that and also Autopia. I would have loved Autopia as a kid and my daughter (she is 13) seemed to really love it, I guess because she got to drive. She would demand that we come back to that. From Autopia I could see that the Matterhorn Bobsled re-furb did not get miraculously finished for my visit. I knew that visiting in late winter would see us missing out on rides at all the parks and I knew what was out at most of them. I guess this just means we will have to return one day. Before we left Tomorrowland we headed into Buzz Lightyears Astroblasters. The line was only 20 minutes and it moved quite quickly. The attraction istelf was very cool. With 3 in our group I went on my own. The cast member said I should use both guns which made it hard to steer the car. All in all this is a great attraction. If you're going to have a slow dark ride adding interactivity adds that dimension that people really are look for now. So on from Tomorrowland when headed up the back of the park to Mickey's Toontown. We wandered around there and played with some of the interactive features. As everybody mentions with Disney parks, they do the detail really well and Toontown was somewhere that really started to become apparent to me. Are we having fun yet? I could do with a shower about now. Ahoy there. This looks like a fun ride...a seat. We didn't jump in any queues in Toontown so we wandered down to Fantasyland. The line was pretty short for for the Mad Tea Party so it was a must do. That was a bit of fun too but nothing to write home about. It is nice of Disney to give you a spot of ride for a picture in a tea cup, even if it is not a flattering look. We also rode the Carousel just because. It seem parents are insane when it comes to getting their kids a spot on that. We were all about to get on a horse each and as I am about to get on it a woman rushed in and threw her toddler on it as if I wasn't even there. As my family wanted to sit together we all pulled off and waited for the next ride...yes, we were the cause of the slow start on the ride cycle that time. After that and a few pictures at the Sword And The Stone photo point (I have a bunch more pictures from the Photopass than what I am posting here but I am not sure on the usage rights so I am not posting tem). We were then heading towards Frontierland for a quick look before going back to Space Mountain as our Fast Passes were about to open up. Woody was at Big Thunder Ranch so why not have a quick pic with him....yay, a character that I like. On wandering past we saw that the queue for Big Thunder Mountain was about 45 minutes so we thought we might come back to that after Space Mountain. Now for Space Mountain. The stand-by queue was still only about 35 mins but being able to jump straight into the final queueing area was good. I had heard a lot of good reports about Space Mountain and it lived up to it's hype. Whilst not a wild ride the darkness, effects and sound really made it something. We enjoyed it enough to make it someting we wanted to ride again on our return later in the week. After that we headed back to Frontierland and the queue for Big Thunder had blown out to 60 mins. We decided that we were getting tired and it was now late enough for us to check-in at our hotel. We had a quick look around New Orleans Square. Critter Country was completely closed for refurbishment at the time so we called time and went back to get the car...after some Wetzels Pretzels and an icee lemonade thing. We were staying at the Hotel Indigo on W Katella which I cannot recommend enough. It seems to have gotten a little more expensive since we booked it though. It's a good spot, the hotel's restaurant/bar is not too expensive as they have to compete with everyone else in the area and it has a pool which some crazy people were using in the morning and evening when it was only about 15C/60F out. Now the intent was to walk back up to the parks, wander around Disney California Adventure and maybe grab some dinner. We realised that with the jet lag and our change in plans to go up to Six Flags Magic Mountian the next day instead of the last day of our time in Anaheim (the following Saturday) we should just head on over to the Anaheim Gardewalk for dinner and some adult beverages for me and my wife to help us sleep...not that we would really need much help with that. So with that it was California Pizza Kitchen at Gardenwalk and off to bed. I'll sign off this post here and pick it up on Day 2 at SFMM soon. More Disneyland Resort and Knott's Berry Farm to come as well. Corey

According to Touringplans.com the 5th is 3/10 for DL and 4/10 for DCA and the 6th is 5/10 for DL and 6/10 for DCA. I am not sure exactly what that means since I have not been to the parks yet, but as I understand it that means it is pretty quiet for the 5th and not really busy for the 6th. I am a bit upset about Luigi's Flying Tires now. We are going to be at the parks for the first time ever in a about a week and a half. The first time I saw Flying Tires I thought it was a bit ho-hum, but then I saw the TPR video of it on YouTube and realised what it takes to make it work. I was really looking forward to it after that. I also knew we were choosing a time of year were ride closures were likely, but both Splash Mountain and the Matterhorn Bobsleds are closed at DL as well as Grizzly River Run at DCA. I am wondering if I should have bought a 4-day pass now.

Hey again. Working on our trip plan for when we come to the USA and I am now looking at more of the detail of what to do with some of the places we are visiting. SFMM is on the plan so I am looking for the top 3 (or 5) things we should not miss riding/doing there and the bottom 3 where it doesn't matter if we miss them. Let me know what you put in each category.

How can I judge what constitutes busy on the day? Can the Flash Pass be bought once you are in the park? Do they ever sell out? Thanks

Hi...as I have mentioned in a couple of other threads we are planning a family holiday to the USA around February/March next year. SFMM is on the cards to visit and it appears likely to be Saturday Feb 28th will be the day for SFMM. In another thread it was recommended we get a gold Flash Pass each. Given that it is effectively going to double our admission cost do you think it is worth the extra money around that time of year? Thanks, Corey

Hi all, we are planning a trip to the USA next year and KBF is on the list of things to do when in LA (as is Disneyland and SFMM). At the moment the plan would have us in LA in the last wek of February (2015...duh) and we are aiming for KBF to be a weekday visit most likely on the Thursday or Friday. From what I understand their hours are likely to be 10AM-6PM around those dates. Is it advisable to have a Fastpass to make sure we hit as much as possible or would we just be wasting our money? CG

Hi Rob and everyone else, I have been lurking at TPR for a few years now but never had a reason to post. I wasn't sure if I should post the following in Ask Alvey or the general forum but this seems a good place. I am planning a family holiday (me, partner and one 13yo child) that takes in a little over a week in LA with a focus on going to theme parks. We are also hitting Detroit (have to visit some family and one of my bucket list items is to see a Red Wings home game) and San Francisco...oh and a very brief stop in Las Vegas, maybe. The intended timing of the trip is starting in LA in the last week of February 2015 for about a week, not ideal being the end of winter but that is the only time we really have. As I mentioned The LA part of the trip is mainly about theme parks which at this stage are Disneyland, SFMM and KBF, so some Q's/advice being sought... Disneyland related - 1) We intend on getting a 3 day pass with park hopper but we don't plan on doing 3 days straight (Red Wings are playing an away game at Anaheim and I want to see that so no Disney or other parks that day). Can we split the 3 days up to be non-consecutive? 2) My intent is to stay in Anaheim the whole LA portion of the trip. We are considering hiring a car in the latter half of the LA week as we are going to drive to Vegas. Car hire seems super cheap over there so I was considering extending the car hire forward to drive to KBF and SFMM. Any issue with driving from Anaheim to these parks or are there transfers from Anaheim hotels/area which would be less stress? (keeping in mind that my daily trip to work in Melbourne takes 1 to 1.5 hours to do 20 miles so driving in traffic itself does not scare me but does frustrate me) Opening hours/days - There are no 2015 hours for these parks yet so... 1) When do they tend to update their site to show the schedule in the new year? 2) It appears that it is likely that Disneyland and KBF will be open all week in this time frame (late Feb) but SFMM is only a weekend thing. Does that seem to be a correct assumption? Eye glasses and bags - 1) Parks in Australia expect you to take off your glasses for anything more than a kiddy flat ride. I have even been asked to remove them on slow kiddy coasters. Without glasses I am very short sighted (although my wife suggests I am even short sighted with them on). I have a couple of pairs of glasses with straps designed for sport/surfing that I would like to wear on coasters. I have also read a bunch of posts here on wearing glasses on rides. Do these parks have general rules or ride specific rules about which rides you can and can't wear glasses on? (I haven't found much on their websites) 2) We usually like to have a bag with us at theme parks to carry water, a few snacks and put our loose items into for rides. It has been OK at most parks here is Oz although Movieworld does make you hire a locker for Superman. Does having a bag present an issue at any of the parks we are visiting or specific rides within them? Again, hope this was the right spot to ask, but if not, feel free to move/delete the thread. Thanks, Corey

Thanks for the update. Perhaps TPR could have an official Dreamworld/White Water World thread. Having been to DW twice in the last 4 years (about a 2.5 year gap b/w visits) I noticed it seemed to deteriorate a little so some freshening up is good. I was dissapointed that Wipeout didn't have water in the pool on either visit so it is good to see it back. It was a little rougher to ride on the second trip too...have they actually done some mechanical work? Tailspin looks cool. Is it in the Ocean Parade area? Did it replace something? I was wondered what the actual operation was and found a video. I love a ride that allows for some user input...I miss the original Breakdance that used to travel various shows. Anywho, a video I found of the ride... [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] Buzzsaw was down for scheduled maintenance last time we were there so I still haven't ridden that but we did get to ride Pandamonium which was a pretty fun flat ride. I think we rode TOT 4 or 5 times on the last trip too.