TBpony414

A few days late to this discussion but fanny packs are OK on everything except El Toro and Joker. I've been able to wear mine on Ka before with no issues but with the latest no-loose-articles-even-wallets policies in place on Toro and Joker, they will probably make you put it in a lo cker for Ka. Sunglasses with straps are allowed on all rides and I wear mine on everything including Joker (against the advice of the ops.) My straps are pushed far onto the arms of the glasses and I make the back drawstring straps very snug just before getting on the ride. I've ridden everything under the sun at many different parks this way (Tomb Raider at KD, X2 at Magic Mountain, etc.) and never had them move an inch. You should be fine to bring an umbrella in though especially if it's a collapsable one. Have fun and report back!

Zach - I have no idea what happened to the Fury documentary link I tried to post up above - sorry! I just saw this. Technology and I go together about as well as oil and water. Thanks coneyislandchris for providing the correct link!

Thanks Bert and others for the comments! I'm so relieved LR was eventually up and running on Monday after a bad end to its Sunday, and it having A Case of the Mondays. I hope they can continue to keep it operating consistently and improve operations so everyone else who makes the trek to the park can enjoy it! I didn't make it to the park today because we spend too much time at the aquarium and walking the main Gatlinburg strip. Eventually ate at Mellow Mushroom Pizza which was super with a massive upstairs and it was very clean inside. Other adventures today included Hillbilly golf (excellent!) and visiting The Island which was nice enough but different. Not quite what I expected I guess. Went over to Smoky Mtn Alpine Coaster for a much talked about night ride with the rainbow chaser lights thru half the course. Unfortunately on the very last part of the multiple lifts up the hill right when they tell you to push forward on the bars, a massive cicada slammed into the front of my crotch. It was at least 2" long if not more. I went to swipe it away but due to the way the seats and foot rests are it fell and got stuck flapping and fluttering around between my crotch/butt and the seat during the whole freaking downhill part LOL. When I got up at the end the poor thing was exhausted but flew off. Got a milkshake at Mad Dog's Creamery on the way home and tomorrow is LR and CB (cinnamon bread) day before we head up to Carowinds on Thursday. Boldikus - thinking about it now, the only time an op helped me was on Wild Eagle when I couldn't quite reach the restraint to begin pulling it down. The op pushed it about 1" down and stood there while I reached up and pulled it the rest of the way. There aren't a lot of seat belts on rides there (which makes the often brutal dispatch times even more bizarre) but the few times I had flipper fingers and couldn't get the darn thing to click in on WE, the ride op was less than enthused to assist me. I would genuinely like to know why these policies are in place because it really makes things difficult/frustrating for both ride ops and guests. I find the hands-off approach also contributes significantly to the ops not paying attention during dispatches because they just stand around waiting for riders to hopefully get themselves settled correctly so they totally space out. On all rides they lift or push up ever so slightly on your restraint and off you go. Definitely NO firm push/pull like I'm used to. On Barnstormer (smaller SkyHawk) the one ride the op really hesitated to push my restraint down which was weird because at CP if you touch the restraint they freak out. I asked her to push it tight and she barely used 2 fingers. The next time I rode it a guy was doing restraints and did it the CP way - hands up and he'll push them down. I much prefer that way and he was zipping thru the restraints doing a great job. I was asked on one LR ride to push my bar down a bit more and keep my feet flat on the floor while doing so. I had my heels lifted up approximately 4cm due to the way I fit in the super deep seat, but other than that they really do a sad job of checking the restraints. Except for that one request when I was able to shove it down a fraction of an inch more to satisfy her, honestly I think I could have had the bar a full 3" off my thighs on every single other ride on every coaster and they wouldn't have said a word to me. They don't tug on the seat belt ends either on LR or the other rides where you share a belt like Thunderhead. Stapling sure ain't a thing in the south, y'all.

Thanks! I got that shirt for SO in green and my brother in red as a surprise for Christmas. They both wear them all the time and get a ton of compliments on them. It was funny though yesterday because SO is pretty shy so when people would say "hey nice shirt!" he'd at first be like (5 pt font) "errrr uhhh thanks" but by the end of the day he was enthusiastic in his replies to complete strangers which was great to see. Anything to bring that guy out of his shell I support 100% haha. I wrote some other stuff that I forgot to include in my TR from yesterday but the site ate it when I went to post so I'll retype another time.

I'd never forget the Cinnamon bread, Bill! We tried twice last night (Sun PM) to get it. Waited 20 mins in a massive line around 7:30pm and they ran out before we got close. It'd be 22 mins (seriously?!) til the next batch was ready so we went back at 9:30pm and they were like "oh yeah no we sold out a while back. But we have cookies!" Between getting close to the station in line for LR only to have it go down for the night and then being denied cinnamon bread twice it was a rough start to our trip lol. Today was much better! FYI this is quite long, or it seems long at least on my notepad! I'll try to add pics in but no promises that it works since I'm on mobile and half asleep. We arrived at opening today (Mon) and headed straight for LR. They were testing and occasionally ratcheting restraints (cue flashbacks to the Maverick breakdown with Nrthwnd and Bert back in June) so we waited it out in a line at the entrance. At 11am it opened and we were on the 3rd train of the day, row 7. WOW!!!!! Absolutely insane! In the few short minutes we had been riding, the queue line already jumped to 45 mins so without hesitation we got the Unlimited Time Savers. Proceeded to walk right back around and into the station 5 more times in a row skipping the at one point hour+ line and trying out various seats. I think we liked row 7 the best, interestingly. I prefer the left side and SO prefers the right so it works perfectly. On ride #2 we were in row 12. On the brake run SO says to me "my back really got slammed at the bottom of the first drop, what was up with that? It was smooth as glass on our first ride!" Yes, sadly, the bump at the bottom of the first hill is real and OUCH did we get nailed on it a few times today. The closer to the front of the train the better it was, however neither of us noticed it on row 7. My SO loves coasters but thinks it's embarrassing that I go on forums so bad no idea about the hotly debated bump. It absolutely seemed to get worse as the day went on. Let's start with the launch. Holy crap does that thing fly!! It feels like rocket boosters and I loved every second of it. 47mph is crazy fast. The way the ride whips over and thru the hills completely sideways is wild and the airtime on those moments defies all possible understanding. The quad down is incredible and I'm sure half the park could hear me cackling with laughter during it. I just couldn't stop smiling and cheering! Unfortunately after 8 total rides on this beast today, including our last one just moments before the fireworks went off, we are both a bit beat up. My left upper thigh area has some nasty marks from the seatbelt (thanks to the multiple left wave/overbank insanity) and my left shin has a huge goose egg on it, I guess from how I had my leg positioned and hitting the restraint. I barely even touched the seat on any of my rides so it's not surprising I'm a little battered. A true airtime machine indeed!!! I thought the seats and restraints were quite comfortable so no complaints on my end. It's not anywhere near as violent as Skyrush but slightly more crazy regarding its elements than El Toro. It's very short and is over before you know it. I'm ok with that though. What a great ride! Can't wait to go back for more laps on it tomorrow, and also to see the bubble show which wasn't playing today. To the user who asked - They only ever ran 1 train on LR today and I'm so freaking thankful they didn't mess around trying to get another one running. There were a lot of walks of shame, only one was actually close while the other people were not going to fit in a million years yet they still insisted on trying. One skinny lady in the train ahead of us belted herself in no problem but then sat there, leaving her lap at up. They did the spiel about how you have to do your own bar blah blah blah and the ops came by to check hers. She motions to them to put it down. They tell her she has to do it and she says "it's ok, you can just do it" and back and forth it went. Eventually she pulled her own bar down but stupid things like that waste time. There was also some serious screaming from the LR ops (not from Al though today, surprisingly. Maybe he got spoken to?) at kids shaking the heck out of the queue gates. Why they don't have big signs on the gates saying DO NOT TOUCH and bright red paint on the ground 18" behind each gate I don't know. It'd save the ops from having to repeat themselves no less than three times each cycle, that's for sure. Maybe they'd only have to tell people once per dispatch instead LOL. Is it common sense not to do that crap? Of course! But this is America and we can't have nice things and shaking the gates apparently messes up the ride sensors so unfortunately it's an issue. I'm constantly amazed by the parents just standing there oblivious to their children smacking gates and pounding or climbing on them, on any ride. It's even worse on LR where they clearly tell you every 90 seconds it to not touch the freaking gate. Someone this evening got kindly told to please put their permanent marker away and to not mark up property such as signs or rails in the queue that isn't theirs. Seriously people??? Switching rides, the Wild Eagle statue is extremely impressive in person! We also rode (in no particular order) Barnstormer, Slidewinder, Blazing Fury 2x, Mystery Mine 2x, FCE, Wild Eagle 2x, TN Tornado, Thunderhead, the train which was excellent, saw the wild bird show, ate cinnamon bread and had an icee, saw the fireworks, and probably something else I'm missing. We took a break for a couple hours in the middle of the day to go back to the cabin so I could take my dog on a walk so my notes are a bit jumbled. Tomorrow is the Ripley's aquarium followed by Hillbilly golf, then DW in the evening. Now onto the pics: We made it! This sign concerned a lot of people who stood there reading it and then debated whether it was safe to ride, clogging up the ride entrance in the process. Queue line and station are well themed Grab bars to help pull the restraint down and/or hold onto if you're a-scurred. Pic of a pic of our ride photo. My SO was pretending to be driving since we were in row 1, LOL Klondike Katie was the name of our train She smokes like a chimney (apologies for the blur) But does a great job taking us into the woods! Nom nom nommmmm Fun fact: raccoons are my favorite animal. Later in the evening we saw a gorgeous skunk walking around near this sign. Ducks and turtles! Lots of them, and big ones too. This dude was enjoying the beautiful weather... and French fries people were throwing down there. For Coasterbill Love this giant eagle! The end.

^That's impressive and I never would have guessed it was a Motel 6 after seeing the new renovation pics! Thrillrider's lucky to have made it out alive from the nasty hotel with the taped AC plug. Sorry to hear you went thru that but it's a funny and cautionary tale for after the fact!

You worked your magic because it opened a few mins ago. We waited out front while they tested for over an hour and then were on the 3rd train row 7! WOW!!!! The overbanks are insane with airtime that defies understanding and the quad down is glorious. Got the Time Saver unlimited now so we can basically marathon it (and Mystery Mine lol which we loved) all day.

We got in line at 6:20pm and it was running fine, I checked the app religiously the whole drive down here and it was operating consistently. Unfortunately we were 3/4 of the way thru the queue and at 6:41 it went down. I know this because I was texting a family member a video of what ended up being the last train of the night, not because I have a LR journal like Rainman does for Wapner haha. Some worker went onto the brake run and looked at something right away. They announced 15 mins later that it'd be at least a 20-30 min delay but we were welcome to wait it out. We bailed and 50 mins later they updated it to CD. Maybe I've spent too much time at Cedar Point where they'll work up to the minute the park closes and sometimes even after that to try to get a ride back up and running... but I don't understand this "ride went down Bob, what should we do?" "Well it's almost the evening, it ran most of the day kinda sorta so let's just close it up til tomorrow and call it good" stuff. Tomorrow is a new day and I hope they can get it running! Mystery Mine is a trip and Thunderhead was a surprise hit for us.

Nice!! I love Dragster. "Von Rolled from Raptor to Matterhorn" is hilarious

Cool idea! I've never been on an inverted first drop so I'm excited for it. Sometimes the smaller coasters kick just as much ass as the bigger ones... I'm looking at you, Maverick!

This "stand by and watch" policy on LR is really bizarre and ride op Al's nasty reaction to Robb is totally uncalled for. Usually on a ride with that much airtime when checking the restraints they push down more and almost staple you in. On El Toro it's not usual to have 2 or even 3 people bouncing on the restraint to try to get the green light. I've also seen 2 ops pushing OTSR's down on Wicked Twister on multiple occasions.

Woohoo! Is today your last day there or are you going to get to experience the awesomeness tomorrow too?

Excellent pics! So Mountain Slidewinder gets you kind of wet and Daredevil Falls soaks you - is that about right? I love the ones of Daredevil Falls where KT shrieks, shrinks, and disappears into the skloosh. I also love the picture of the fireworks with the old car in the foreground. Glad to hear the Lightning Rod gods were smiling on you for your visit!

That stinks. Any combination of tired, annoyed, headache, aching anywhere, hungry, dehydrated, etc. is a bad time no matter where you are. Hopefully it was just a fluke and tomorrow you'll be feeling better and LR will impress you!

Excellent pics, per usual! I especially love the one of Fury's treble clef framed by the supports, and the upside down lift hill reflection in the puddle.

+1 for the Johnny Tsunami reference! I haven't thought of that movie in years. Those were in the days when the Disney Channel actually had tolerable content haha. I think most people would agree it got on peoples nerves (admittedly mine too, I know I piled on with everyone else) because of the frequency that you posted about it, not this idea that VIP tours are a bad thing. Its just not feasible for a large amount of people in this hobby. I'd actually love to hear a trip report about the VIP experience @ Dollywood. DoinItForTheFame - What I wrote yesterday was harsh and frankly rude. I'm truly sorry about my inappropriate wording. Tone via text is sometimes difficult to decipher and just as you didn't mean to come off in an unintentional manner in the past, I didn't mean to come off like such a jerk... but I totally did. Please forgive me for this. I would actually love to see a TR of your VIP trip at DW. Hope you can get some rides on LR when you're there!

I always feel a lot better with seatbelt on any ride and one does have to wonder if belts would have saved a life in this horrific situation.

I read and saw the first 2 HP books/movies in the series and know next to nothing about it after that but was still able to enjoy Potterville because I knew all the characters and some of the details. If you have the chance to at least do a little research on it or watch one of the beginning movies before you go I think the experience would be greatly improved. The first 2 books were an easy read. I've been using Amazon's audiobook app called Audible and am enjoying it so that's another option too. Bill - your trip reports keep getting better and better! Sadly I wasn't a fan of the Butterbeer - I don't particularly like butterscotch and it was too sweet for me, but one person in my group went bonkers for it and we joked that she needed a Butterbeer IV haha. Looking forward to Sea World!

This, exactly. Like bgtlover, I don't every try to sneak anything in. Paying $4 for 2 bottles of water at DW is a good deal - thanks for mentioning that Robb, I wasn't aware of their reasonable prices.

The last picture you took is gorgeous!! Superman is a really fun coaster. The brake run placement kind of sucks but that's a minor gripe on an otherwise great ride. "Yay we're flying!!! Airtime, airtime, airti--Unnghhh" (into the restraint). I'm not surprised you ate someone's weave on it but that's still hilarious!!

Sounds like Kennywood style, except CP's operations are 1000000x better than Kennywood's!

Thanks Canobie and bgtlover for confirming that a water bottle is permitted! Another question regarding my trip... we are traveling with my dog and I'll need to leave the park at some point in the afternoon to drive back to our pet friendly rental cabin and let him out for a bit. Are you allowed re-entry to the parking lot with your paid parking receipt for that day? Or are they going to want to charge us twice in the same day like Carowinds tried to pull one time?

The Fury ERT and behind the scenes tour both look incredible! For me personally the whole first half of Fury is spectacular but after the tunnel is that long flat stretch to the trim brake and after that it's so uninspired. I don't want to compare it to Gatekeeper's stupid circle into the station after the MCBR but it almost feels that boring. The specific part that really kills it for me on Fury is that monorail-type right turn thru the supports towards the station before the bunny hops. I go from "YEAH!!! This ride KICKS ASS!!! I want to ride it again and agai--- zzzzzz, seriously?" which stinks. The incredible sense of speed and zooming around somehow instantaneously disappears.

After being on hold for almost 30 minutes someone finally answered the phone to take my water question. She said at first that if it's sealed and in my hand it should be fine but then said NO outside food or drink is allowed. Well that's clear as mud. "Ok, just to make sure I understand - an unopened Dasani water bottle would or would not be permitted?" "Honey, there are security stations you have to go through and I really don't know if they'll make you dump it out or not." "Gotcha. So it's possible they may make me just dump it but then I could refill the empty bottle inside the park?" "There are free ice waters available at the food vendors so I'd just go there. OK?" I'll try with an unopened bottle next week and will report back in case others have the same question. If they confiscate it I'll buy one from a drink place I guess. Little dixie cups of water aren't sufficient for my hydration requirements unfortunately but it's nice they offer that.

It was like a Black Friday stampede a couple weeks ago at Cedar Point when TTD finally opened after several days of being down so I know what you mean haha. Assigned seats is fine with me as long as it keeps the line moving. Does DW have loose article bins? I have a very small fanny pack I wear with my phone and eye drops plus contacts case inside but I carry a regular clear water bottle around with me. Are there any rides that require a bunny (or a bush, right Bert and Bill? Ugh.) oe are there bins on the ride platforms that I can set the bottle in? Speaking of water, am I allowed to bring in an unopened bottle of water along with me into the park?