Divv3k

Let's see... 1. Disney Studios Paris 2. Disneyland Park Paris 3. M&Ds Scotland's Theme Park 4. Loudoun Castle 5. Camelot 6. New Pleasureland Southport 7. Gulliver's Warrington 8. Adventure Island 9. Thorpe Park 10. Coney Island 11. Holiday World 12. Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom 13. Beech Bend 14. Indiana Beach 15. Riverview Park 16. Timber Falls 17. Six Flags Great America 18. Cedar Point 19. Kennywood 20. King's Island 21. Stricker's Grove 22. Valleyfair 23. The Park at the Mall of America 24. Geauga Lake 25. Busch Gardens Europe 26. Astroland 27. Six Flags Great Adventure 28. Six Flags New England 29. Legoland Windsor 30. Alton Towers Don't think I've missed any. Still got a couple of parks planned for the remainder of the year: Blackpool, Wicksteed Park, Thorpe again, Chessington and Brighton Pier.

Nemesis in the dark last night! Good stuff!

For train info check www.nationalrail.co.uk

Woo! Tom's trip report is here! That was nice of BA to send you all the way to Tokyo after delaying you. Japan just looks amazing. One day soon, I'll get there. Looking forward to more!

Let's see... Out of the ones I've rode here's how I'd rank them: 1. Nemesis 2. Batman Clones 3. Raptor 4. Nemesis Inferno 5. Alpengeist Nemesis is still my #1 steel and I really didn't care for Alpengeist at all. Shows you that size isn't everything.

Thanks for the comments everyone! Sorry to inform you RIP Psyclone but this is it. The final update. All good things and all that! ----- PART TWENTY-THREE: SIX FLAGS NEW ENGLAND Well here it is finally, the last installment of my trip report! Sadly, my final day was one of the real disappointments of the whole trip. I had been really excited about having Six Flags New England on my itinerary for one reason, that reason obviously being Superman: Ride of Steel, the apparent number one steel coaster in the world. So after a 4am wake up call and a bus journey of about five hours I get to Six Flags New England all pumped up to finish the trip with the best steel coaster around. My excitement was wiped away completely as soon as I reached the entrance when I saw the sign they had displayed at the front. "Sorry for the inconvenience. Superman will be closed today". Argh!!! Now I know how Clark Griswald felt when he got to the Walley World entrance on that fateful day. What a real sickener, I was so gutted. I mean there were loads of other East Coast parks I could have went to instead had I known the ride would be closed. Because really, when you take S:ROS out of the equation Six Flags New England really wasn't a place worth visiting. There really wasn't much there that I hadn't already rode at Geauga Lake or the other Six Flags parks. But enough of my whining, I understand that ride breakdowns happen and there's nothing that can be done, besides my previous day of walk ons at great Adventure makes up for any disappointment suffered today. I just hope that whenever I get back out to SFNE the damn ride is open! As for the rest of the parks, I pretty much just rode all the coasters once. With Superman closed I didn't bother investing in a flashpass so I had to wait in a few long lines, but that just helped pad out my day as I waited for my bus back to NYC. I'm not gonna go into detail on the coasters becuase there really wasn't anything unique amongst what I rode. The floorless was alright, but again I'm not big on those rides. The SLC was horrible as usual and the woodies weren't up to much. With S:ROS closed and the other coasters conquered I managed to take an earlier bus back to New York and get to bed at a much more reasonable hour than originally planned. The next morning I spent a few more hours wandering about NYC before heading to JFK for my flight to London, which I'm thankful to say was completely incident free. A bus to Manchester and a train to Glasgow later and I was home. 137 credits better off, but way more important than that I had the experience of a lifetime. The people I met and the places I saw really made this the best trip I've ever taken in my life. I seriously urge anyone who's considering a TPR trip in the future to do it! 28 days, 140 coasters and almost 14,000 miles travelled and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat! Bring on the next trip! Here's the final batch of photos... I even found Irn-Bru in Manchester! I missed it terribly! Thanks to everyone who has kept up with this trip report, it's good to know that people have been reading this so I'm not doing all this typing for nothing! Special thanks to Robb, Elissa and everyone else I met on my journey, I hope to meet you again on future trips! Bye for now! In Manchester train station it appears that my final form of transport is on time too! There's my plane, and this one only left an hour late! Back in New York I prepare to head for the airport. "I even shaved for you Superman!" But lets not make this one disappoint sour my whole trip because it was amazing! Sadly they don't accept bribes. And that pretty much sums up my time at Six Flags New England. Not the greatest selection of coasters when S:ROS is closed. This is as close as I'd come to a red airtime hill all day. Yet another kiddie coaster, yet another credit. Just another average woodie. Thunderbolt was nothing compared to its Kennywood namesake. Oh the pain! Oh great, a boomerang. What exactly makes it classic? An American Classic? Not a patch on Dragon's Fury or even Spinball Whizzer. Thank goodness Pandemonium had a single ride queue! That looked like a hell of a wait for an average spinning coaster. Now this may well be the best ride in the park! But they do photograph quite nice. The Batman floorless was not bad. I'm just not wowed by these things at all though. OK, lets try and forget the disappointment and see what else is on offer. Damn that sexy track sitting there doing nothing! I worried a few weeks ago at Thorpe that closed Intamins might become a theme of the trip. Although all that excitement was wiped away as soon as I seen this. It's the final park of the trip, and I'm pretty damned excited to be here!

PART TWENTY-TWO: SIX FLAGS GREAT ADVENTURE This ended up being one of the best days of the trip for me! When I got up early in NYC the streets had dried and the rain appeared to be a t bay but as soon as my bus left the station it started pouring again. This ended up being a really good thing because the park was DEAD! I heard some staff say that there was less than 5000 people in the park at 2pm and less than 2000 by 5pm. Add those levels of people to a gold flashpass and you pretty much have the run of the park. As long as the rides opened, which is what I was really worried about, especially after my time at Cedar Point where nothing would run in the rain. Thankfully at Great Adventure it was a different story. The only ride that had any real problems with the rain was Kingda Ka, which is understandable. Some of the coasters would close if the rain got severely heavy but would reopen as soon as it died down enough. This led to some painful, crazy, memorable rides on a number of coasters throughout the day! Of course the first ride I headed to was El Toro. This was probably my most anticipated coaster of the trip seeing who much I loved Balder. I'm glad to say that El Toro did not disappoint! It was amazing! Definitely my favourite coaster of the trip and my current number two behind Balder. El Toro has the best first drop of any wooden coaster I've been on, amazing airtime over those first few hills and then the drop over Rolling Thunder has the most insane airtime I've ever felt. Needless to say that with the low crowds I got a fair few rides in! I think I rode about 20 times, I made sure to try it in every row and it was fantastic in every one! The people going on TPRs East Coast trip next year are in for a real treat! More parks should get Intamin plug'n'plays. For a while in the morning it was looking like I wouldn't get to ride Kingda Ka due to the rain. Thankfully, the rain held up enough for it to open twice for two periods of half an hour during the day. The gold flashpass was a real lifesaver here because the queue was over an hour the first time it opened but I managed to skip right on. Had I not had the flashpass I wouldn't have got on that time. Which might have been a good thing because that ride in the back of the blue train was horrible. It was horribly rattly and shakey which the OTSRs didn't make any better. This was a really crap ride compared to my back row rides on Dragster and Stealth. Thankfully when the ride opened for the second time I was right next to the flashpass entrance so I managed to skip past everyone walking through the queue line and get a front row ride on the green train which was like a different ride. Really smooth and very fast. It was a lot of fun. I still marginally prefer Dragster due to the better rides on average it gave me and the restraints but really they are very similar obviously so there's not much in it. Here's a run through of everything else I rode in between rerides on El Toro: - Rolling Thunder: Only one side was open, it was nothing special, just a mediocre woodie. - Medusa: A fun ride, but not worth the hype it gets. I preferred Dominator to this, but even then the floorless gimmick is better suited to dive machines. - Runaway Mine Train: So so arrow ride. - Great American Scream Machine: Ouch, this was another horrible rough Arrow looper. - Superman Ultimate Flight - Still not a fan of this after the pretzel loop. Still the presence of the pretzel loop alone makes this ride better than Air! - Blackbeard's Lost Treasure Train: Just a kiddie credit really. - Skull Mountain: WTF! Not quite as much as X:\NWO but still a pretty weird (but fun) ride! - Road Runner Railway: My 200th! Yes I could have worked things out to make my 200th Kingda Ka or El Toro but with Dragon at Beech Bend being my 100th I figured riding Road Runner Railway all by myself would be a much more fitting 200th! - Nitro: Another fun B&M hyper. Not as good as Apollo's Chariot but still a fun ride. Although it's very painful on the face in the pishing rain! - Batman The Ride: I love this ride! I can see why they made so many of these because they are great little intense inverts! Of course Chiller was just standing there doing nothing, which seems to be more than it'll be doing next year, would have been nice to ride but it's no big deal when you have El Toro in the park! All in all this was a fantastic day since I had free reign in the park. I'm sure I could have got away without the $71 gold flashpass but then I might have struggled to get on Kingda Ka and definitely wouldn't have got so many rerides on El Toro. Great Adventure is definitely a place I'd return to, I just wish I was a bit closer so I could ride El Toro even more! Here's the final bearded shot of the trip! I had an amazing day at Great Adventure! I got really lucky to get there on a quiet day, it really is a "must visit" park for any enthusiast! Worth $71? Maybe not today but the Gold Flashpass would be a real lifesaver on a busy day at this park! It might not be just as good as Balder but it's a hell of a lot easier to photograph! It's for sure the best coaster I've rode in the U.S. Lets finish off with a few more sexy El Toro shots. Of course I wouldn't let Wonder Woman go home without getting her photo with me. Hows this for a Kingda Ka wait? It's Kingda Ka - through a branch! Luckily the rain held off enough for me to ride the world's tallest and fastest coaster twice. They be headed to Kingda Ka! Hmmm, where be those people headed? I even had time to get a second to hang out with the furries. But at least I got to see the whole structure standing! Chiller was pretty dead looking. Although Batman might want to get to a Kwik-Fit before the Joker goes on another rampage. These are great inverts, good forceful fun. Hey look - it's Bench: The Ride! This was about as busy as Nitro's station got all day so I managed a fair few rides. If you like your floater air then you'll love Nitro. Although it does hurt your face in the rain. Nitro was another good fun ride. My 200th!!! Nothing like riding a kiddie coaster all by yourself to make a coaster milestone! Skull Mountain was pretty random, if they put some theming in that building this could have been a really great ride! Another kiddie coaster, another credit. But apart from this loop it just didn't really do much for me. Thankfully Superman Ultimate Flight was less painful. Oh the pain! This wasn't a pleasant experience. Only one side was open, but I wasn't expecting to be able to secure every credit today with Chiller being closed. Rolling Thunder was very quiet, which isn't a surprise sitting next to El Toro. Medusa was good fun too, but not worth the hype in my opinion. The Runaway Mine Train was not bad. Ok, lets pull ourselves away from El Toro for a second and see what else is on offer. Enjoy the facial hair today because it's here for a limited time only! Here's an exclusive never before seen photo for you to enjoy! The airtime on these hills is superb in any row and at any time of the day! This thing was running insane in the rain! Mmmm... El Toro... Of course there's no other place to head straight for than El Toro. The rain was a blessing in disguise because the park was DEAD! This was the sight I was met with upon getting to Great Adventure.

Excellent stuff Nadia! See if you can nab a bit of Mean Streak to use as a door stop when you're at Cedar Point next month!

Glad I got to visit Geauga Lake last month, but for all you people who didn't it's not a big loss. It wasn't that great a park in my view and was never a place I was interested in revisiting. This sounds like a good business decision for Cedar Fair.

Apologies for the delay in continuing the updates. I just started a new job this week so have been a little pushed for time. Hopefully I should finish up this TR over the weekend! ----- PART TWENTY-ONE: NYC & ASTROLAND This was my "rest day", well not so much rest but my coaster-lite day. This was an opportunity to see the so-called "greatest city in the world" and while I don't really agree with that I still had a great day! I arrived in NYC really early in the morning which gave me an opportunity to walk down Broadway and get my bearings. I arrived at the Hostel I was to stay the next three nights so that I could leave my luggage before checking in later in the day. I found internet access when I realised that back in Scotland the Celtic vs Aberdeen football game would be kicking off soon. So I used the internet to find a bar in New York which was showing the game. luckily I found a place on 86th Street which I legged it to. It was pretty weird to be in a bar full of drinking Scotsmen at 9am on a Sunday morning in New York City. Thankfully Celtic won the game after being a goal down for most of the match so it was a great start to the day for me. After the match I took a walk around New York and checked out Times Square for a few hours which was pretty cool. Later I managed to check into my hostel where I was introduced to my shoebox room which was literally nothing more than the size of a bed. Which was fine by me since I was only planning to sleep in there and it was clean, safe and much cheaper than most other places in the city. After I checked in I started making my journey to Coney Island which is when the heavens opened. On my way I was sure that there would be no way I would get to ride the Cyclone in this weather but I was wrong. All the other rides in Astroland were closed but the Cyclone was still running. I had a pretty painful ride what with the roughness and moreso the rain but I'm still glad I got to ride the so-called most famous coaster in the world. I don't really get why it places so high in all the rankings, I found it pretty mediocre. Not bad, but not amazing either. Sadly with the rain I missed the two kiddie coasters but that didn't bother me too much. I can live with a few missed kiddie credits. After I left Coney Island I decided to visit Ground Zero in the pouring rain which was a pretty sombre moment. Glad I got to visit it even if I couldn;t really see much. I then checked out battery park before heading back to my hotel. All in all a good day with some culture credits thrown in. A shame about the rain but at least I still had my Cedar Point poncho! Good thing I held on to that Cedar Point poncho! This was a really memorable day for me! My night was spent checking out some wet sights and footering about with my new camera. Not with a lot of success. With pretty much everything closed I didn't spend long in Coney Island. At least I got to ride the Cyclone! Not the best idea to ride in the pouring rain, but at least it helped make the ride more memorable! But thankfully the Cyclone was open! And the kiddie coasters were closed. Yeah, it was pretty wet... I arrived in Astroland just as the rain kicked in. Hooters Crew represent! It really is the most impressive collection of Disney merchandise I've seen outside a Disney resort! If only all the Disney stores were like this! Of course the Disney-geek in me couldn't pass up this place! Being a big fan of the Letterman, I was delighted to see the place where it all happens. I took some time to check out Times Square and the surrounding area. Woo for beer at nine o'clock in the morning! Forget culture credits - its all about the football! My day in New York started with a visit to this Irish bar.

PART TWENTY: BUSCH GARDENS EUROPE Not many updates to go now but at least these few remaining updates will be a nice little preview for those of you doing the East Coast USA trip next year. Busch Gardens Europe was a late addition to my itinerary, I only added it when I found a bus trip that that included admission and transport to the park. The only problem doing it this way is it meant I wasn't going to get a whole day in the park since I 'd have to stick to someone else's schedule. But still, I figured that some time at BGE was better than no time at all. Plus I'd get a quick look at Washington DC as well this way. Sadly my trip from DC to BGE was plagued with horrible traffic and so we got there even later than we were supposed to. But I still managed six and a half to seven hours in the park. I'd have loved to have had a bit more time because the park was PACKED! I suppose that's to be expected for destination park on a sunny Saturday on August. Anyway, when I got into the park Griffon was closed, well testing so I headed over to Alpengeist. I had been pretty excited about Alpengeist having enjoyed all the B&M inverts I'd ridden before but I have to say Alpengeist was a total letdown. Apart from the first drop I didn't feel any forces or intensity, I felt as though the train was just meandering around the elements. It's an impressive looking ride but I'd rank it last out of all the B&M inverts I've been on. After Alpengeist I went for Griffon. Luckily I noticed the single riders line and got on within twenty minutes. I was in the last row but I still loved the ride. It really blows Oblivion out the water, it's just pure fun the whole way. Sadly after my ride the single rider line was closed and the normal line was standing at two hours. The single rider line never reopened and so I never got to ride the front row, which was a shame. Luckily BGE is a park I know I'll be back to one day so it's all good. The big surprise at BGE for me was Apollo's Chariot, I never expected much from this before hand. Especially after Raging Bull but Apollo's Chariot was fantastic. Great air on every hill, great speed and just generally an enjoyable ride. It was my favourite coaster in the park. Big Bad Wolf was also really good, the best Arrow suspended I've been on. Really good layout and nice scenery too. Surprisingly I also liked Loch Ness Monster. Not amazing or anything but better than every other Arrow looper I've been on. Maybe it was the Scottish theming that jaded me. I also rode Darkastle, which had a horrendous wait but was still a very good ride. Of course I've not been on Spider-man but Darkastle was one of the most impressive rides I've ever been on. Except for a few long stretches of corridor which were pitch black that seemed like I was missing something, but still a good ride. I had time to reride a couple of coasters and have a look around the whole park and I have to say it really is a beautiful place. I left in the evening and did my fourth and final consecutive night on a bus. This time I was heading back to New York City. Here's the Busch Gardens Photos... And that was my day in a busy Busch Gardens Europe! One of the nicest looking parks I'll ever visit I'm sure! Any park with an Ireland section is automatically awesome in my book! Two good Arrows in one park?! Who'd have believed it? Surprisingly, I actually liked it! And the Loch Ness Monster looks like this. According to Busch Gardens, Scotland looks just like this... Darkastle was awesome! Shame I had to wait about an hour and a half to get on it though! This was a real great ride. Definitely my favourite Arrow suspended. It's big. It's bad. It's Big Bad Wolf. (lamest caption ever) Busch Gardens was selling counterfeit football tops. For some reason this amused me greatly. Now this game looks like LOADS of fun! What d'ya think cobra_roll06? Great air on every hill, even if there's trims on a few. This ride restored my faith in B&M hypers. Apollo's Chariot must've stole all of Raging Bull's airtime. Apollo's Chariot was a lot better than I was expecting! Mandatory Griffon splashdown photo that must be included in every BGE TR. If only Oblivion was more like Griffon! I hope we see a few more dive machines pop up in the future. I don't think anyone's used this angle before! Time for some never before seen shots of Griffon in action! Griffon has really huge trains! The floorlessness on the edge of the train really makes a big difference! Time to move on to a good B&M! I prefer Nemesis Inferno to this! But they weren't met sadly. It just didn't really do anything for me. My first stop was Alpengeist. I had high hopes. But wow, was it busy today! Then it was on to Busch Gardens Europe! My day started with a quick look around DC where I managed to find some random girl to take my photo.

Can't really say much about the rollerskater, it was just a credit to me. It's one of the better kiddie coaster models I suppose. As I said Tony, I just don't think flying coasters are my thing, I'm not a fan of Air either. That said, I'd still love to give Tatsu a go. ----- PART NINETEEN: GEAUGA LAKE Let's take a look at what the other Midwest trippers could have won! I added Geauga Lake to my schedule after TPR wisely decided Kennywood would be a much better place to visit. That said I still wanted to visit Geauga Lake since I would be in the area. So after my second consecutive night on the bus I ended up in Cleveland and took some local buses over to Geauga Lake. I'm so glad we went to Kennywood instead of Geauga Lake, it's not much more than a credit run park in my view. Here I was on a sunny Friday in August and the park was dead! Well the rides section was anyway, the waterpark on the other hand was packed! Anyway, I basically just rode all the coasters and had a quick look around before leaving after a couple of hours. Moving the two big steel coasters out of the park is a good move in my view since they aren't attracting any custom I literally walked onto both rides in the middle of the day. Dominator and the SLC will serve as much better attractions at other parks. Geauga Lake should probably think about becoming water park only if the place is like my visit on a regular basis. Anyway here's a quick coaster run down: - Headspin: Believe it or not this was my first ever ride on an old fashioned Vekoma boomerang! Gave my ears the bashing I expected. - Big Dipper: Average woodie that doesn't really compare to its blackpool namesake. - Thunderhawk: Horrible SLC, although not the worst I've ridden. - Dominator: My first ever floorless coaster. I really liked it in the fornt row. Elsewhere the floorless aspect is just a gimmick that doesn't work like it's supposed to. It's still a good ride and I'm sure it'll be a good crowd puller in King's Dominion if that's where it ends up. - Beaver Land Mine Ride: Kiddie coaster, nothing else needs said. - Douple Loop: Crappy arrow looper. Still not a fan of these head bashing machines. - The Villain: Ouch, I had a real horrible ride on this, I got pretty beat up. I wasn't too enamoured with the place so I just had a little walk around and didn't bother riding any non-coasters. I left after a couple of hours in the park to check out Cleveland which was pretty nice for what I saw. I left Cleveland early to take an overnight bus to Washington DC. Don't let my review get you wrong though, I did enjoy my day and I'm glad I got to visit Geauga Lake before it changes dramatically over the next few years. I'm just glad that TPR didn't have to waste a day there in lieu of Kennywood. And that was my day (well, two hours) at Geauga Lake! I'm glad I got to visit before it got stripped bare! This is going to be a rare photo a year from now! I think it's a good idea to take Geauga Lake's focus away from the coasters. There's already some decent coaster parks in Ohio. Oops, can't forget to include this photo in my trip report! Luckily this is the last Cedar Fair park of my trip so enjoy your final bin picture! How long will this ride stay standing? Hopefully longer than the SLC and Dominator! ...but it looked pretty dead. Raging Wolf Bobs was there too. No airtime to be found here. Move along... The Villain. What an evil PoS this was! The kiddie coaster was one of the better coasters in the park too. Yeah, it's got a big loop. As well as some other now standard B&M inversions. It's the best ride in the park, by a long way. I think this was the fullest train I saw on the coaster all day. As you can see I didn't have to wait long to ride... Dominator was my first floorless coaster. Ouch squared. The SLC was not good! Have fun in Michigan! Big Dipper wasn't up to much. Although I'm thinking it's still probably my favourite woodie in Ohio! Ouch, sideloop pain! Time to ride my first Vekoma boomerang! Looks like they'll need to make this sign a bit bigger next year. Today was my last day in the Midwest and Geauga Lake was playing host!

Thanks guys! There's still more to come! The camera I got was a Samsung S850. ----- PART EIGHTEEN: SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA - THE RETURN This was the day I had originally planned to go to Michigan's Adventure using a hire car but as I mentioned that plan was nixed due to my hellish journey to the US. For a while it was looking like I was just going to spend a day in Chicago. However after I left Six Flags Great America the previous week still missing a few credits I decided this would be a good opportunity to go back. So after a night on the Megabus I caught a train then another bus and made it to Great America just before opening. I decided that hitting Superman first was the best idea seeing as it always seems to get horrendous lines later in the day. I rode in the back this time, the pretzel loop of really intense there but I really found the rest of the ride really lacklustre. i guess I'm just not a big fan of flying coasters. After that I hit Batman and walked onto the front row. It's such a great coaster (yes, WAY better than Raptor!) and inverts are always excellent in the front. Having got in the two coaster rerides that I really wanted to do I set about getting those missed credits. First I hit the rollerskater which I basically walked onto. Then I headed over to American Eagle but was saddened to see that the red side was still dead. Ah well, at least I got to do the blue side. I then hit the only other coaster I needed to do - Demon. Another crappy corkscrew, not much more can be said than that. Having rode all the credits I could I checked out the Marvin the Martian 3D movie then had a quick wander around the waterpark. I finished my time in SFGam with a ride on Viper which was running amazing! This was a much better ride than I'd had the previous week. I should also point out tat the park was so much quieter than it was when we were there with TPR, although that wouldn't have been hard. After leaving SFGam I did some sightseeing in Chicago where in the library I found a really cool exhibition showcasing the old amusement parks of Chicago like Riverview. There were lots of cool scale models photos and other props. Those old Chicago parks must've been amazing! To finish my time in Chicago I visited Navy Pier, one of my favourite places of the whole trip. There's a really cool assortment of restaurants, bars and music and it also has a really kickass view of the city at night! So after a few beers I headed for my late overnight Megabus to Cleveland and slept the whole way. That's it from my second visit to Six Flags Great America - it's not the same without the TPR madness! But hey, at least I got a few more credits and still had fun! After riding I realised that I never missed much... Demon was another ride I missed last time. Sadly the side of the American Eagle I missed was still closed. Another Intamin ride closed. Ah well, these things happen. Here's a surprise - Deja Vu is closed! Good thing we got on it last week! Always fun riding a kiddie coaster on your own! Enough with the rerides! There's credits to be had! Batman was rockin' too. Such an intense little ride. I realised after this ride that the coaster kinda dies after the pretzel loop. Of course Superman: Ultimate Flight is the place to head to first thing in the morning without a Q-Bot. Yeah we were here last week but I'm back again!

Thanks for the kind words guys. It really encourages me to do more updates! cobra_roll06 - You'd have been amazed at the amount of Celtic fans I met over there! I even bumped into a random guy wearing the hoops at an obscure train station in Illinois. No Rangers fans introduced themselves to me though ----- PART SEVENTEEN: THE MALL OF AMERICA Who'd have believed I could have spent almost an entire day in a mall? Well that's what I did! Obviously the first thing I did was scope out the camera shops and purchased myself a new one. It wasn't exactly the type of camera I wanted but I needed one that took AA batteries since I'd have no way to do any charging being on the road for the next four nights. The main reason for visiting the mall is the amusement park they have inside it. Nothing spectacular but its pretty cool for being inside a shopping centre. I just rode the coasters but there's quite a few things to ride there if you wanted to. Timberland Twister is a fun spinning coaster that didn't make me ill. No Dragon's Fury or anything like that but a fun ride nonetheless. The Pepsi Ripsaw was cool in that it gave you a good overview of the park but it's not a thrill machine or anything like that. I also rode the powered coaster despite me not counting them, you know just to spite the people who do! Anyway, I won't bore you with all the boring mall details but I looked about a bit and went to see two movies Bourne Ultimatum and Ratatouille (which isn't out in the UK for a bit yet) so that was fun. After the mall I found an Irish bar near the bus stop, the bartender and a few of the patrons were really into the fact that I was a Celtic supporting Glaswegian in Minneapolis. They wouldn't let me pay for my drinks which was great! I also had the best Tuna toastie I've ever had in that bar so plenty of good memories to take home. I really liked Minneapolis, one of the nicer cities I visited. It's blurry but Nadia'll kill me if I don't include a photo like this to round out the update! Minneapolis was a really cool city! Where I enjoyed the best ever Tuna Toastie in Kieran's Irish bar and also got free beer! I also used a few hours to check out Minneapolis. Well that's it for the Mall of America. An interesting place to spend a day. Sadly I left my shaving stuff accidentally at the last hotel so look for my facial hair to become obscene over the next few updates. And a powered kiddie coaster Among the other attractions on offer is the ferris wheel. The Mall also had a really cool Lego shop [Lego geek here - look out for some more Lego related photos from me in the near future ] It weaves in and out between all the different rides and interacts with the log flume too. It was good for getting a nice view of the park. The other coaster in the park is the Pepsi Ripsaw. It's a pretty good ride. Even for a non-spinning fan like me! Timberland Twister is the star attraction here. Say hello to my new camera too! No more blind shots from this point on, so I no longer have an excuse for shoddy photography! Next stop on the tour - The park at Mall of America!

^ Yeah I was thinking my TR would be a good taster for you guys doing the East Coast trip next year. But before that let me show you what you missed in the Midwest... ----- PART SIXTEEN: VALLEYFAIR With TPRs Midwest Trip over it was time to start my own crazy solo portion of the tour. Sadly with the coasts incurred with my travel woes at the start of the trip I knew I'd have to make some changes to my schedule. Luckily I only had to incur the loss of Michigan's Adventure from my schedule. The other price was four consecutive nights on spent on buses awaited me soon. Luckily they were mostly on Megabus - a far better service than Greyhound. So I left Cincinnatti on the Monday morning and took a Megabus to Chicago then another to Minneapolis that night. I got to Valleyfair for opening on the Tuesday morning. To be honest I wasn't that impressed with Valleyfair the place isn't very visually appealing and the rides aren't that great except Renegade of course! Renegade was fantastic! That's me two for two with awesome GCI woodies. It's not quite as good as Kentucky Rumbler in my view but then again I didn't ride Renegade at night. The rest of the coasters at Valleyfair were pretty average. Wild Thing is the lamest hyper I've ever rode, The Big One is better than it! There isn't really much else saying about the rest of the park. But I'm still glad I got to visit and got to ride Renegade multiple times. I left the park in the afternoon after getting all the credits with the intention of returning for a few Renegade night rides but tiredness got the better of me and I decided just to make the most of my hotel room seeing as I'd be sleeping on buses the next four nights. And here endeth the "blind" photo updates! Pics from my new camera will occupy the next update! I don't know about the "See you soon" part but Renegade was still lots of fun! Of course you can't do a Cedar Fair update without showcasing the bins... Not-so-Wild Thing does it stuff. Surely this wasn't made by the same folks who did Phantom's Revenge? The corkscrew had its standard moments of pain. Cedar Fair sure know how to make their parks beautiful. Luckily the park was quiet in the morning so I could snag all the credits with relative ease. Excalibur wasn't really up to much. Just like the rest of the non-Renegade coasters at Valleyfair. So you'll just have to make do with this one. A real kickass woodie. Sadly there's not many opportunities to get photos of it in action. First stop of course has to be Renegade! The Intamin Impulse welcomes you as you enter. Although I have to say that Wicked Twister kinda ruined the other impulses for me. Yep, I'm at Valleyfair! A big green coaster by the side of the road can only mean one thing. After a day of traveling I finally spy this... I'm now by myself and I'm pretty tired here in Cincinatti after pulling an all nighter.

Cheers guys! ----- PART FIFTEEN: KINGS ISLAND & STRICKER'S GROVE This the final update from the TPR portion of the trip, but don't worry there's still a few updates to come from me after this one! Today was a real bittersweet day, we obviously had lots of fun but were also pretty sad at the same time since it was the last park we were all visiting together. Still the park was a lot quieter than we expected and we were able to not only get in all the Kings Island credits we were also able to head over to Stricker's Grove and nab the two super rare credits there. Kings Island is a nice looking park but there isn't really much there that's worth re-riding. here's what we rode in the morning: - Firehawk: Better than I expected but the seats are really uncomfortable on the back which took away a bit of the fun. - Flight of Fear: Was fun for what it was. No Rock'n'Rollercoaster though. - Racer: Poor woodie that jackhammered a lot. backwards was probably better than forwards. - Adventure Express: Mine train type ride which was pretty crap except for the fact that it gave birth to the "Lift Hill Dance!". We did the dance on every lift hill for the rest of the day. - Son of a Bitch: SoB really was an SoB. The thing just about killed me. I shudder to think what this thing must have been like with OTSRs. Possibly the worst coaster I've ever ridden. It was M&Ds Tornado bad! We then headed over to Stricker's Grove which is a nice little place with two small woodies. Being that the park is only open to the public two days a year and might not be around much longer I'm delighted I got to visit. The rides weren't anything special but it's a place that's well kept and has a good atmosphere. Oh and they had free soft drinks too, always a big plus in my book. We then headed back to Kings Island where we dusted off the rest of the credits and generally got up to the usual Hooters Crew shennanigans. here's the afternoon menu: - Italian Job Stunk Track: Fun ride, although I'm told there were a few effects missing. - Vortex: Awful, awful coaster. I just about black out on this and my head got a right doing as well. - Runaway Reptar: Junior SLC that was ok I suppose. - Fairly Odd Coaster: Junior woodie that didn't really do anything. - Scooby Doo: Fun shooting dark ride that was made more fun by the daft messing about by us. - Face/Off: Erik broke the ride! OK, maybe it wasn't his fault it but we blamed Erik as he works for Vekoma. Basically instead of hitting the brake run after doing it's thing the ride went back up towards the cobra roll and almost valleyed there, thankfully we weren't stuck for too long. Sorry we ruined your credit Nadia and Shawn! - Top Gun: I really liked this suspended coaster. Yeah it's a little short but what's there is really good! - Drop Zone: This was the first time I'd rode one of these drop towers. Probably the best unthemed drop ride I've rode. - The Beast: Wasn't a fan. I expected good things from riding The Beast in the pitch black but it didn't deliver. I don't get the hype over this rickety thing at all. Although since it was all TPRers on the train I managed to get the whole train to do the lift hill dance on the way up! That was quite a sight! And that pretty much concludes the TPR portion of the trip. I'd just like to say thanks to Robb and Elissa for all the amazing work they put into organising it. To anyone who's thinking of doing any kind of coaster trip I really recommend doing it with TPR, I guarantee you'll have the time of your life. I also gotta thank the whole extended Hooters Crew: Scott, Shawn, Andrew, Nadia, AJ, Anthony, Beth, Nathan, Brad, Dave, Mike, Drew, Erik, Lara, Thomas and everyone else I've forgot to mention here (there were quite a few of us!). That goes for everyone else on the trip too, it was great to meet you all, I hope to see some of you again in Europe next year! After the park loads of us stayed up late talking and just generally having more fun which was great. We really didn't want the trip to end. I should also say thanks to those of you who pulled the all-nighter with me - really appreciated it! So that's it for the TPR portion of the trip, but fret not because there's still quite a few updates to come from me as I embarked upon my crazy solo Post-Midwest-Tour Tour... Here's some Kings Island and Strickers Grove photos. Again, thanks to Andrew for letting me use a few of his pictures. Sadly that brings to a close the TPR portion of the trip. It was amazing! I made some fantastic new friends and had some great fun! Thanks to everyone who was there! We finished the trip with night rides on The Beast. Even if it wasn't a great ride it was still a memorable experience and a great way to cap off the trip! See what I mean? (Photo by Andrew Janes) The Hooters Crew turned up the insanity even more for the last few hours of the trip. (Photo by Andrew Janes) Top Gun was probably my favourite coaster in the park! Meet the Face/Off killing crew! (Photo by Andrew Janes) At least I got the credit! Sorry Shawn & Nadia! Face/Off - right before we killed it! The new TPR lovers share a moment. Aww... Cha-Ching is right! The credit whores whore up the junior woodie! AJ got a new friend courtesy of Shawn's throwing skills. The TPR pole dancers put on a great show for us. Matt Damon gets all the girls. Time for the X-rated portion of the update. Tomb Raider was closed but that didn't stop these two enjoying it! Exclusive never before seen photo of Italian Job. Vortex was pure death. One of the worst coasters I've ever been on. Matt Damon tries to confuse the paparazzi by taking photos of everything himself. We headed back over to King's Island for the remaining hours of the trip... Free soft drinks are amazing. I wish more parks did this! Stricker's Grove was a real good laugh! Everybody was pretty happy to be getting these rare credits! But everyone else enjoyed it. Over at Stricker's Grove Shawn was a little short for this coaster... (Photo by Andrew Janes) Ouch, SoB really is as bad as they say! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Anyone know who's drivers license this is? It's a big Son of a Bitch that's for sure! Time to see if Son of a Bitch really is as bad as they say... Adventure Express. A real lame ride but it did give us the gift of the Lift Hill Dance! We're ready to take on the impossible task of getting all the Kings Island credits in one day! Time for the final day of the TPR trip.

PART FOURTEEN: KENNYWOOD Time for the update on what was by far my favourite park of the entire trip - Kennywood! Words cannot described how much I loved this place. It reminded me of the Blackpool I grew up with when I visited as a youngster, it was really weird getting nostalgic in a place I'd never been before! Every coaster in the park is good and it's filled with loads of classic attractions you don't get many places these days. The place just has such a great atmosphere, I was literally walking around in awe all day. The park was really crowded, which is to be expected for a sunny Saturday in August but luckily we had morning ERT on Racer and Thunderbolt to make our visit more enjoyable. The Kennywood staff were great with us too all day and on Racer they sent us round the circuit twice without us getting up so that we could get the "whole" credit. Racer was fun, maybe not quite as good as Grand National but still, riding moebius woodies with two trains of TPRers slapping hands was a great experience. Jackrabbit and Thunderbolt were both good fun too each with their great airtime moments. I had been excited about Phantom's Revenge before the trip but I was still completely blown away by it! Great air, really smooth and two amazing drops. This was my favourite steel coaster of the whole trip. I wish it wasn't so busy so I could have rode more! I even liked the spinning wild mouse at Kennywood! Exterminator was really cool with its dark ride elements and for some reason I didn't feel ill at all after riding. We also did a few of the other attractions like Noah's Ark which is completely different from the one in Blackpool and great in its own way. The Garfield dark ride was probably the only let down in the park. But we still managed to have a laugh on that so it was all good. I also tried deep fried Oreos at Kennywood which were surprisingly very tasty. I'd definitely eat them again. I can't reiterate enough how much I loved Kennywood, it really is an amazing place! I might look more constipated than happy here but words really can't describe how much I loved Kennywood! I'll definitely be back one day! Deep fried Oreos. Surprisingly tasty! Little did we know at the time but this would be the only chance any of us would get to ride Gold Rusher. And Noah's Ark. It's in much better condition than Blackpool's and VERY different inside. We also got to check out some of the other "old school" rides - like the cars. A credit's a credit! Of course we did have to track down the Kiddie section too. Kennywood is just such a great park to visit. I could have spent forever just soaking up the place. It also wins for having the best ride logo of all time too. Jack Rabbit was really good too. I even liked the spinning mouse at Kennywood! Who'd have thought that? More happy Phantom riders enjoy themselves. If only Morgan could reprofile every Arrow looper. Mmmm... Phantom... Let's just enjoy a few photos of Phantom's Revenge in action... Ah Phantom! Best steel coaster of the trip! Thunderbolt is a lot of fun. Just make sure you like the person you're sitting next to! Followed right up by ERT on Thunderbolt! The Kennywood staff were really great to us. First up - Racer ERT! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Time for my favourite park of the whole trip - Kennywood!

LOL! Well it was a good thing that was right before we went to the waterpark then! Kennywood will be up real soon!

^ Oh yeah Andrew, thanks for splitting that meal ticket with me! I've still got mine here! Yeah, it was pretty funny standing in line for the rapids and gradually removing more items of clothing as we see more people coming off wetter and wetter!

^^ Yeah the car was missing a wheel cover. ----- PART THIRTEEN: CEDAR POINT This is a long one. I apologise in advance if you hate reading lots of text. Just scroll down if that's you. If you read the last instalment you'll know that we left Six Flags great America not long after4pm in an effort to beat the traffic and get to Cedar Point a little earlier. Good thing we did leave early or we probably wouldn't have gotten the experience we all had upon getting to Cedar Point. Now on the long bus journeys on this trip I slept most of the way on pretty much every one of them (which is great as the time just flies by and you're catching up on sleep too!), sometime after 1am I awake on the bus and we're still travelling. Although everything outside looks odd. It's strangely dark, even for night time. Turns out there was a power cut in Sandusky! We got to the hotel and the power was out too but luckily our key cards had been made up before the power cut and the locks were battery powered. It was quite a sight seeing 100 TPRers walking about the halls of Hotel Breakers with torches, it was like something out of The Shining. Once we got into our room I looked out my window and could make out a darkened Magnum XL-200 and Top Thrill Dragster - quite a view! I got to see them again not long after as sometime before 4am the power came back on, including the lights in our room! I looked out the window and saw the lights come on on the coasters. That was pretty cool. The insanity continued the next day. We got up bright and early and got in line to enter Cedar point with the rest of the hotel guests and a few of us even ran all the way to Maverick once the rope dropped. Sadly the rain had started to fall and Maverick was sitting doing nothing as a result. But seeing as we had such a great position in the queue and nothing else was open due to the rain we decided we'd wait it out. We ended up waiting quite a while... It ended up eight and a half hours of waiting through hellacious rain and umpteen aborted test cycles before we finally got on! Obviously if we had known it was going to be that long we wouldn't have waited. But seeing as there was nothing else open at the time and we had already waited so long we continuously figured we were as well waiting it out. Besides, that time in the queue may actually be one of the high points of the trip. Those of us who waited it out actually had a lot of fun, somehow! Mainly due to listening to the entire Maverick soundtrack loop and predicting when Dallas would come on again! Dallas became the unofficial soundtrack of the trip for many of us after that wait. To better grasp how much Dallas meant to us you should check out fudgey's video if you haven't already done so: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38094&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Maverick was a very good ride. It really was a lot of fun, although I did have one problem with it and that was the restraints. They dug right into my legs to the point that it hurt which kinda took away some of the enjoyment of the ride. But I won't dwell on that too much, I still liked the ride it's not a world beater or anything though. After the Maverick wait we headed back to the Hotel got changed then went for dinner and a beer at TGIs. That was much needed and went down very well! After dinner we headed back into the park and managed to actually get quite a few rides done and I think it was in this order: - Magnum XL-200: A LOT better than I expected. Some decent airtime on the hills and generally good fun. If only The Big One rode more like this. - Gemini: Fun ride but nothing spectacular. - Mean Streak: Better than expected but that's not to say it was good because it wasn't. But it wasn't too rough either. It just didn't really do anything. - Cedar Creek Mine Ride: Lame mine train ride. - Skyhawk: short cycle but great fun while it lasted. We decided to finish the day with TTD, the great thing about Cedar Point is that as long as you get into line before the park closes you'll get onto the ride. We waited on front row on Dragster which was worth it. Although, two trains before I was due to get on it rolled back which made me think we might not get on but the ops at Cedar point were excellent and got the ride up and running quickly. I enjoyed Dragster for what it was. Better than Stealth, mainly due to the lack of OTSRs and obviously it feels a little faster. It's not a top ten coaster for me by any means, but it does its job well. After Dragster a few of us headed back to TGIs for a few more beers which is always good. The next day our group set out with a "plan of attack" to make sure we got the other credits we needed in quick time. Luckily the rain stayed away today and we managed to utilise hotel ERT to our advantage. Here's what we did on day 2: - Millennium Force: Great first drop which is followed up with nothing. I was really let down with MF it had no real airtime and wasn't really much fun for me in general after that drop. - Raptor: Not the best B&M invert but I still enjoyed it. Some decent forces and all that. Although it really hurts you when it hits the brakes. - Wicked Twister: Another fun ride, especially sitting near the back on the right hand side - when it reverses up that spike you see nothing but beach below you. - Blue Streak: An old woodie. Nothing special. - Disaster Transport: Another one of those "WTF" rides. I still don't know what to make of it! - Wildcat: An enjoyable little Schwarzkopf. I think Nadia put it best when she said Wildcat was better than Millennium Force! - Mantis: A crappy standup. Not as bad as Iron Wolf but nowhere near as good as Chang. - Iron Dragon: My second Arrow suspended and a crappy one at that. Feels very slow and boring. - Corkscrew: another one of those crappy Arrow things. - Power Tower: Fun S&S towers that give some amazing views of the park. - Woodstock Express: Kiddie coaster, rode it for the credit. Amazingly we conquered all the coasters before our meal at 2:30pm. I couldn't bring myself to steal a child to get the Jr. Gemini credit so that one will have to stay off my list. Having did all the coasters and the flats that we wanted to we were able to hit the rapids ride where we got soaked and also the Soak City waterpark which had a really cool lazy river and some fun slides. We were able to relax, look in the shops and enjoy a few rerides in our remaining hours in Cedar Point. We did Magnum then Dragster in the back row and finished the night by going for Maverick again. Although we were only in the queue for an hour we managed to get in a "Dallas dance" which satisfied me at least! Maverick was fun at night but I still had the same problem with the restraints - and I made sure the ops didn't staple me in this time. But once we went down the drop it seemed to tighten and dug into my legs again. But apart from that it's a fun ride and probably the best in the park. But that's not much of a feat. Afterwards we headed to TGIs for some food and beers which was a nice way to round out two crazy days at Cedar Point. Again sorry about the length of this one, Cedar Point's a big park and a lot happened over those two days. Which brings me onto Cedar Point itself. It's an impressive looking park form some points and it does have a kind of "destination park" atmosphere which is good but I tend to agree with the point of view that it's the world's largest collection of mediocre rides. Nothing really stood out for me that much and the concreted and unimaginative midways left me thinking there should be more to Cedar Point if it was really was to be the "greatest amusement park in the world". That said I still had a great time there and I'm sure I'll be back some day! ...but so as not to disappoint Nadia - here's the token "signature shot" that must finish off every one of my updates! Cedar Point was one of the craziest park visits I've had, for a number of reasons too! I thought this would be a suitable photo to end the update on... (Photo by Andrew Janes) Dragster towers over the whole park. Quite intimidating for some I'm sure. Gemini was fun, especially when they raced. Mantis was crap. But I don't expect much from stand ups. Raptor was pretty good too. No Nemesis or Batman, but still good. But it really is a good drop! Millennium Force - - looks impressive but really isn't much more than a fist drop. Just in case you forgot where we were spending these two days... We also had a real fun front row night ride on TTD. (Photo by Andrew Janes) After the epic wait we were able to hit a few more rides. Like Magnum, which crapped all over The Big One. But thankfully it brightened up and after eight and a half hours we were on! (Photo by Andrew Janes) By this point we were here for the long haul. I think we accepted that we might end up just standing there all day and maybe not even get to ride. Except Beth who kept running away and hiding at any sign of rain! (Photo by Andrew Janes) But it appeared to be another false call as the rain set back in. (Photo by Andrew Janes) The ride finally starts testing again and we start to get hopeful! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Four hours into the wait and us Scots are ready to do it all over again! (Photo by Andrew Janes) I think these people took the "one size fits all" direction the wrong way. (Photo by Andrew Janes) The old west was never this wet! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Then the storm of death starts to come in. (Photo by Andrew Janes) The early morning line for Maverick builds. We're right at the front! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Well except for the horrible wetness! This was the view from our room. Pretty cool.

PART TWELVE: SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA The next stop on our trip was Six Flags Great America. A lot of people were quite excited about this park as it signalled the start of the "steel portion" of our trip. Today was also the day where we got to have a lot of fun with the Gold Q-Bot - a real godsend on this day because the park was PACKED! I don't think I've ever been to a park on a day as busy as this! We started out with ERT on Viper, Raging Bull and the drop tower which was really cool because when there's a hundred of you split between two coasters running multiple trains and a drop tower everything is pretty much a walk on for any row! Viper was fun albeit a little rough first thing in the day. Raging Bull was the opposite. Probably the smoothest coaster I've ever rode, but the problem is it doesn't really do anything. It just meanders round the course with no real feeling of speed or force. I'm sure it'd have been much better before it was trimmed. Once the park opened to the public we headed straight to Deja Vu which wasn't on the Q-Bot. A real good idea due to the unreliability and poor capacity of Deja Vu. I didn't find it too rough for some reason. After that we made an unintentional mistake - we queued up Superman and enjoyed skipping past the whole queue but we somehow ended up in the queue for the front row. I really enjoyed that first ride on Superman, especially the pretzel loop. Although due to ending up in the front row queue we ended up waiting about half an hour more than we should have which caused us to get caught in a huge line for the spinning mouse (another non-Q-Bot ride). After the 75 minute wait for the spinning mouse (I'm really hating those things by this point!) we starting working our way through the rest of the coasters quickly utilising the Q-Bot: - Batman: The Ride was excellent, probably my second favourite invert (behind Nemesis). - V2 was fun. My first Intamin Impulse too. - Iron Wolf was painful. Thankfully B&M have gotten a lot better since this. - We got on the blue side of American Eagle. Sadly the red side died whilst we were on the blue side. It was an ok ride. - Whizzer was good fun too. Those old Schwarzkopfs really hold up well. Sadly time was catching up with us by this point and the weather took a turn for the worse. We met up with the rest of the group and the majority of us decided we should just leave now at 4pm and get a head start on our journey to Cedar Point. I was a little annoyed that I was missing three credits but then I realised that I had a free day in Chicago on my schedule the next week which meant I'd be able to come back and hit the kiddie coaster, Demon and the red side of American Eagle. At that point I was all for getting out that packed and wet park! Our group was kinda split up into fours today for the Q-Bots so there aren't too many antics photos in this update. This doesn't look too bad for a "blind" photo. More Hooters people enjoy the front row of Superman! (Photo by Andrew Janes) These guys were thankful for the gold Q-Bot too! (Photo by Andrew Janes) This is the line for Superman not long after the park opened! Good thing we had the gold Q-Bot! This is what ERT really should be! Our day started out with ERT on Raging Bull and Viper. Raging Bull didn't really do anything. And of course the token constipated photo of me that means "we had a great day" at Six Flags Great America! I'll be back real soon! Thanks Gold Q-Bot, couldn't have done this day without you! I didn't take many more photos today so make do with this "blind" photo of Batman. Batman was excellent! Far more forceful than the other B&Ms we rode today!

^ On the Midwest Trip we were able to visit the waterparks at most parks if we wanted to. At Cedar Point we even had specific tickets for Soak City. Pretty much if the waterpark is included in the admission you are free to visit it as long as you have your swimming stuff. I suppose you could even pay to visit if you had to. As long as you make the bus!

Because it's fun! Sorry about the delay in continuing the updates. I've just moved house down to England so I've been trying to get settled in and stuff over the last few days. ----- PART ELEVEN: LITTLE AMERRICKA & WISCONSIN DELLS OK, I'll start by quickly mentioning Little Amerricka seeing as we were at the park for about an hour but sadly I didn't bother taking any photos. This was the second of our "bonus parks" on the trip. We also got the extra bonus of getting a "sneak preview" ride on the park's new junior wooden coaster -Meteor! It was actually good fun, and really smooth too! This park also allowed me to ride my first Toboggan. What a contraption of pure evil that thing is! But it was amusing to watch everyone else squeeze on and watch their reactions to the ride! The park also has another couple of credits. One being the "graveyard kiddie coaster" and the other being some kind of restraintless wild mouse. It was quite cool. Needless to say it was only really a credit run since we weren't there that long but special thanks to the park for our sneak preview ride! ----- After that we headed onto Wisconsin Dells. Home to a few parks including Mt. Olympus which is where we would be staying that night. Mt. Olympus is a strange place. In a cool way. It's basically a waterpark, a load of go kart tracks and a load of woodies. We didn't ride Hades as soon as we got there due the long queue and the fact that we had ERT scheduled on it later that night. We checked out a few of the other coasters. Like Cyclops, which was insane in the back row! It really is quite scary airtime on there! Zeus is a fun out and back woodie which does it's job well enough. There's also a junior woodie and an indoor spinning mouse (I hate those darned spinning mice!). I also broke off from my group and checked out the waterpark which was really a nice way to chill out. Did a few slides and then checked out the new wave pool. That wave pool was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The waves were huge! I also quickly checked out the indoor waterpark, which was small but fun. After this I met back up with the Hooters Crew where we attempted to ride some go karts. Sadly just as we were about to get going the rain started. The rain was really bad. The go kart fun was over before it even began sadly. We were kicked out the cars. Just as we got off we heard that our night time ERT on Hades had been rained off too. That was a real shame. I had been looking forward to Hades at night after those night rides on Voyage! Oh well, no ones fault. These things happen. Luckily we had more ERT on Hades the next morning and the storm had now passed. Sadly, for me, Hades was a real let down. It was way more brutal than Voyage ever was. I really didn't enjoy those early rides what with the brutality and jackhammering. I did ride a few more times throughout the day and my front row rides were a lot better later in the day but I still didn't think the ride was much to write home about. Maybe I caught it on a bad day. I'll definitely give it another chance some day. We also visited Riverview park this day which was really nothing more than a fun credit run before heading over to Timber Falls to ride their S&S woodie - Avalanche. For a while it was looking like we weren't going to get to ride Avalanche since it had been hit with lightning during the previous night's storm. Thankfully the Timber Falls staff did a stellar job at "hot wiring" the coaster into operation for us at the last minute! Words can't describe how grateful we were for that! Especially since Avalanche was amazing! It pretty much wiped away any disappoint I was feeling from Hades that day. It was a little rough in the rear rows on the turns but in the front row Avalanche is excellent. It just flies round the track, especially for a coaster so small looking! OK, that's enough of me talking, here's some photos (with some kindly donated by Andrew Janes to beef up my dwindling numbers of decent photos of the next few parks)... Or maybe it was just me! Even with all the rain on that first night we still had a great time in Wisconsin Dells! I think everyone had had enough of spinning mice by this point! The TPR paparazzi do their stuff. Mt. Olympus also has some really cool Go Kart tracks. This is a Log Flume therefore it's NOT a credit! Cyclops was insane! You HAVE to ride this thing in the back! (Photo by Andrew Janes) The kiddie coaster that no one was allowed on. Nadia got really close but kicked off at the last second. See how they're all weaved around each other. (Photo by Andrew Janes) This is Mt. Olympus. It's really cool that you see all these woodies all alongside each other. Hey, it's a credit! (Photo by Andrew Janes) Can you believe we actually queued up to ride this death machine? (Photo by Andrew Janes) The people at Little Amerricka were good enough to give us a "sneak preview" of their new junior woodie. (Photo by Andrew Janes)

Jeez, it's the same 30 people in every update! Great photos. Looks like you guys are having a great time!

Great to see you guys getting there alright and having fun already! Tokyo is on my "must visit" list, it really does look like one of the greatest places in the world! Cheers for the update, although I hope you guys aren't spending too much time worrying about keeping us entertained and are focusing on having all the fun yourselves!