805Andrew

^I second that notion

Happy Halloween Robb, Elissa, Kid Tums, and my fellow TPR members!

I've been in Mallorca before, I spent a week there with my family back in 1998 (I was 16). Mallorca is a pretty big island, it takes about 45 minutes to get from one end of the island to another. On one end of the island is Palma de Mallorca, a city with about half a million people, which is a cultural city that is hundreds of years old with castles, cathedrals, and plenty of old world buildings and cultural stuff, along with a port and an airport. On the other end of the island is all the beaches and beach towns with all the hotels people stay at when coming to Mallorca. In between is a whole lot open space, farms, and some small towns. The main attraction of Mallorca is definitely the beaches. There are beaches all over the island and the ones of the east end that every one goes to are long and wide, and there are also secuded beaches on the north and south of the island which are harder to reach and are more like coves. When we were on Mallorca we went to different beaches everyday and went to Palma de Mallorca for sightseeing the day of our flight back. We took an overnight ferry called Trasmediterranea from Barcelona to Palma which took about 7-8 hours and took a night flight back to Barcelona which took half an hour. Palma de Mallorca had very modern and new airport back then if I recall and the 30 minutes Spanair flight back was short and sweet. The difference between Mallorca and Hawaii (besides HI being a lot more exotic and tropical) is Hawaii is a lot more isolated and is at least a 5 hour flight to anywhere on the mainland, while Mallorca is just a half hour flight to Barcelona, which means it is only 1 to 1.5 hours from Madrid, and 2-3 hours from many other cities in Europe. Mallorca has the infrastructure to support a theme park with a modern international airport, highways and freeways connecting the island, and plenty of hotels; the question is does Mallorca have enough population and tourists visiting that will visit a theme park if it is built? Possibly, if it is done right. Will this theme park be built by Palma de Mallorca on the west side of the island, or on the east side of the island where all the beach resorts are? If they build by Palma, it will closer to the airport and to the population base of the island; but if they build on the east side of the island by the beach resorts, it will be more accessible by tourists while they stay at their hotels and resorts. I say if they build it, it should be on the east side by all the beaches and resorts. It would be easier get people that are spending a week in Mallorca to spend a day at a theme park if they are close to the park. This park would be cool if it is built right, and it is definitely a better location than Murcia, but I'll believe it when they break ground on it.

This ride looks great. Looking forward to riding it next time I'm in Spain. Hopefully it will have great on the 7+ story camel humps.

Wow 11 pages of Knoebels pictures! That was awesome looking through it. Phoenix looks like one of those coasters that is unsuspecting and one you have to ride to believe it.

I was thinking the exact same thing, especially since Paramount wanted out of the amusement park business a few years ago and they even had a park in Spain already. I would love to see this thing built and be successful, but I'm very skeptical of it - and this is coming from someone who has relatives in Spain and has been to Spain several times. I've also been through Murcia (in a car on a freeway/tollway) and it is one of the least touristy areas of Spain. Murcia is a working class, industrial city if I recall with rural areas surrounding it. Granada is a lot more touristy and picturesque, Sevilla and Valencia have a lot more population, and Benidorm is full of tourists from other parts of Europe. This studios park may have been more believable if Paramount would have held on to their Benidorm park and would have expanded/transformed/added on to it. Also if they would have chosen Granada, it would been more feasible/believable as Granada already has the historic Alhambra and Generalife, is a very scenic and lively city, and has Spain's Sierra Nevada mountains in the background with winter skiing. This so-called proposed park could be year-round in Granada complementing what Granada already offers. Plus it would give me another excuse to go back to Granada. I think Port Aventura will always be Spain's biggest park destination: Spain's Europa Park, Alton Towers, Disneyland, or whatever you want to call it. At one point it actually was Spain's Universal Studios. I was so excited when Universal took over Port Aventura and branded the whole place as Universal Mediterrea, because I thought it meant they would eventually add a Studios Park, making Port Aventura the "Islands of Adventure". Of course this never happened, and Universal dropped out of Port Aventura for whatever reasons. Universal did add some hotels and a water park (which is nice, but lacking on the slides) and the current owners of PA are continuing to invest and add new attractions to the park. Though I don't think Spain will see another mega-park resort for years especially after Universal gave up their chance to operate the biggest one in Spain.

If you been on Superman the Escape at SFMM, I'm assuming you've been on Colossus. If so, that's taller than Ghostrider according to RCDB. My two tallest right now are Superman the Escape and Colossus.

I'll finally be going Knott's Scary Farm in a couple of weeks. I've never done their Halloween event before and I haven't been to Knott's in almost 6 years so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

Waiting in a longer line for Long John Silvers. What's worse than being in a park that served Long John Silvers?

^^I probably wouldn't hate or criticize it too much just because its Garfield and I love Garfield. If I were at Kennywood, and they had Garfield merchandise, I probably would have bought some souvenirs.

I've been in Seaside, OR before. Last year, I drove up the Oregon Coast on the way to visit a friend in Seattle. I stayed at their Motel 6 for a night which was by far the nicest Motel 6 I've ever been in (sofa, fridge, and microwave in my room). My runner up for nicest Motel 6 was the one I stayed in the previous night in Coos Bay (which had an indoor jacuzzi and sauna on site). Of course it was night time when I arrived in Seaside and I left the town the next morning so I didn't see this place. It was November and I wasn't in theme park mode anyway. I did however check out some pretty cool sites nearby: Ecola State Park, Cannon Beach, Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, a shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park and the most NW point of Oregon, and I climbed up to the top of the tower in Astoria. Cannon Beach was a really nice beach town and would be a great place for a Boardwalk park if the population of the area could support one and the view at the top of the Astoria tower was amazing. I was impressed with the Oregon Coast, despite the on again off again rain, but it was November so that was expected.

The Invertigarden would be a good place for a nice, compact Eurofighter in the coming years.

I'm going Wild Rivers this Sunday. I've never been there before and since I'm going to be in OC this weekend anyway, it works out perfectly, especially since I've always wanted to visit this park and its closing this year. I'm looking forward to all their old school slides. I will eventually post a Photo TR of the final normal operating day at Raging Waters.

Great pics of Kennywood. It's definitely a park I want to visit one day. I've always been curious about that Garfield's Nightmare ride. Its too bad I hear its so bad, because Garfield has been my favorite cartoon character since I was a kid. If someone could do a Garfield ride right, it could be an awesome ride.

Back in 2005, on our first ride of the day on Journey to Atlantis at Sea World San Diego, the ride stopped right before the first drop for a couple of minutes, then it went down the drop and right before we go into the building where the ride lift is the ride stops again. After about 10 minutes, they evacuate every one off the ride and give us passes to skip the line (once) later in the day.

I agree

While Riddler's Revenge at SFMM isn't the worst looking station, its definitely the worst station experience for me, especially on past visits with one train operations cough* 2004* cough. Its complete chaos at the top, and as with no line control people get packed like sardines in there. I wish they had a ride attendant at the bottom of the building controlling the amount of people going into the building (like they do on X2). The techno music in the station is enjoyable until you've been in the station for over 20 minutes, then it gets irritating.

This is not a ride-attendant foul-up, but when I was at CGA last August and got my Woodstock's Express credit, the lap bar popped open at the top of the lift hill before the drop. First of all, this ride has one of the most uncomfortable restraints and seats I have ever had to deal with. I have fit into other kiddie/junior coasters fine, but I barely fit into WE. First of all, I barely got the very short seat belt on (and I'm not even that big) after the ride op told me if the seat belt doesn't fit I can't ride (I'm glad she enforced this). Then I put down the lap bar, and at first thought the seat belt was redundant, but after the lap bar popped out I'm glad I had the seat belt on as back up. When the lap bar popped out, I simply put it back on and it locked on and I just held on to it for the remainder of the ride. I had aches for a few minutes after I was done with this ride from being in a cramped position on this ride. I later find out its a Intamin . Thank goodness Intamin's adult rides turned out much better. I'll never ride WE at CGA again, I give it an F. The scary thing about the lap bar popping open during the ride was imaging if it was a bigger coaster.

If we're talking about best themed station including the queue line, I have to go with Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland mainly for its awesome queue. If we're strictly talking coasters, then my favorite loading stations/queue lines are Space Mountain at Disneyland, Furious Baco at Port Aventura, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, Ghost Rider at Knott's, Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Giant Dipper at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. You've been to South Africa, how cool is that! I bet that's a credit even Robb and Elissa don't have (correct me if I'm wrong). That coaster looks great and has great landscaping around it.

^^I actually liked X's old colors. But I'm fine with X2's current colors too. It looks a little more serious.

Don't forget you also have Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and to a lessor extent, Gilroy Gardens. Still, I hope CGA stays open and JMA improves it over the coming years. That place has potential especially with the 49ers stadium and fans coming in and being in a highly populated metro area.

Wouldn't a better euthanasia coaster be an airtime machine where the restraints automatically unlock halfway through the ride on a huge airtime hill. At least one's last moments before death would be more enjoyable

^I think a big part of it is because we're a "sue-happy country". I would put my restraint on myself and just waive for help if I had any problems. We would have much shorter lines in the US if we checked our own restraints, but we have a lot of dumb people here who expect everything to be done for them and people who try and break the rules by not putting on restraints (which could kill them). The only place I've been to in the US where they didn't check my restraints was Matterhorn at Disneyland. The ride dispatched before I put on my seat belt and I had to put it on going up the lift hill. At the Indiana Jones ride also at Disneyland, they dispatch the car and then it stops briefly and a cast member points a flashlight at all the seat belts to make sure they're on, which is pretty trusting of their guests compared to most ride restraint checks.

When is PA going to officially announce the name and stats for this thing?