Divv3k

- Thanks Chrissie! My onward flight was indeed with Delta, although despite their delays I do kinda blame myself more for not booking a direct flight in the first place! - Yeah Nadia, that was ALMOST as bad as M&Ds Tornado! As cobra_roll06 says, Tornado is as bad as it gets for steel coasters! - Andrew, thanks for posting that pic! I remember seeing photos of my pain after getting off the ride and wondered who took them! It was a bad coaster, although not quite as bad as Tornado at M&Ds which still stands as the worse steel coaster I've ridden. - Cheers EmBy and all the other non-Midwest trippers reading this report. Glad to know that other people are enjoying it. ----- PART TEN: INDIANA BEACH Before I go on I should say that the next nine installments of this trip report might not include many photos. Due to my camera now having no screen I didn't take many photos and any that I did take were taken "blind". But in order to get to the "post-Midwest" part of my tour I feel that I have to talk about the rest of the Midwest trip first! Plus I figure that even if no one else is interested in reading my report at least the Hooters Crew will! Right? Indiana beach was a funky place. When we first got there we just worked our way around the coasters and didn't think much about the place. The coasters hadn't run that great and we were pretty much ready to go. Then night fell. A few of us rode the woodies again and they were GREAT! Cornball Express had some amazing airtime moments in the back and Hoosier Hurricane was also a lot of fun! Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain is just one of those rides that has to be experienced! Facing both directions! it's such a random ride that it provides plenty of laughs for everyone aboard. After not really impressing much at first Indiana Beach became one of my favourite parks of the trip. Those damned "Blackpool style" parks sucker me in every time! And just for the people who were there... Here's a little memory from the successor to the Pegasus Room - The Conference Room! I think Matt Damon in particular enjoyed this night! I feel like I'm repeating myself at the end of every update, but we had another great day at this park! Here's a "blind" look out over Indiana Beach from the Ferris Wheel. Thankfully after this photo the pictures started to come out a little better. This is Indiana Beach, and despite what this photo might have you believe, its actually quite a nice day! This'll give you a good idea of how badly frakked up my camera was at this point!

Cheers for the comments guys! Totally forgot about the Carmen "C", Shawn! ----- PART NINE: BEECH BEND Our second park of the day was Beech Bend. I was quite excited about this park for a couple of reasons. One obviously being Kentucky Rumbler and the other being I was going to get to ride my 100th coaster! Yeah, I came into Beech bend with 96 credits and there are four at Beech Bend so i could have easily worked things out so Kentucky Rumbler took its place as my landmark 100th. But I figured it would be much funnier if I made it kiddie coaster. Drew was also about to hit his 50th so he made his 50th the kiddie coaster too! Beech Bend is almost a fun fair in many ways but its still got a charm that makes it a great place. The staff here were excellent and always making sure the guests were having fun. The Pinfari Looping Star was evil, although not the worst Pinfari I've rode. The spinning mouse really spun a lot when we rode, which is never good for me. Oh yeah, there's a woodie there too. Kentucky Rumbler was amazing! Especially during night time ERT! The coaster is just pure fun in every seat. I really love this coaster! Sadly it was at the end of this day that the screen of my camera broke, so these might be the last decent photos for a while. What a day we had! Kentucky Rumbler was rockin! I think he enjoyed it. My camera managed to survive long enough to see Nadia give Drew a lap dance. Not a great photo, but it's all I've got with my camera on the verge of breaking. Such a fun coaster. Ok enough beating about the bush, let's ride the Rumbler! Coasterforce members unite! (Homer, Sky, Divv and Nadia) It was great to meet you here Allison! I find this photo amusing even though I can't remember exactly what the joke was supposed to be. Nadia would ask Matt Damon this very question over the next few days! Seems that Matt Damon's a little ashamed to be whoring the kiddie coaster. My 100th! (insert invisible sign here) Hey, it's the monumental kiddie coaster! AJ and Anthony enjoy their ride! Spot the hidden Mickey. There's also a spinning mouse. To be honest I've rode worse Pinfaris. And home to the evil contraption that is Looping Star! Home to the Kentucky Rumbler. But we'll get to that later. Today's second park - Beech Bend!

Cool TR, AJ! Drievliet looks like a nice little park. The X-Coaster there looks a lot better than the one we have here at Drayton Manor!

PART EIGHT: SIX FLAGS KENTUCKY KINGDOM This was my first Six Flags park and I was actually more impressed than I thought I'd be! Maybe it's because the park really rolled out the red carpet for us! The staff were all great to us and we even got a really good lunch too. The coasters weren't really up to much but that doesn't matter when you've got Deluge in the park! What an amazing waterslide! I really hope more of those types of slide to start to spring up! The Tornado in Hurricane Harbor was also really good. Two credits were closed but kudos to the staff who really worked hard on getting them open for us! I also managed to check out the Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera here which was a nice surprise - I loved that ride at Universal Studios so it was fun to get on it again, even if it was a "bares bones" version. So thanks to SFKK for a great time and for the super cheap season pass! I got my Six Flags season pass for $34.99 which definitely helped out later in my trip. We had a great time at SFKK, I was really impressed with how this park was run! Matt Damon loves it when I flex my muscles for him. But it's not reciprocated. What's that pink thing on your arm by the way, Matt? Nadia's found herself a few more suitors... We also took some time out to mess with the characters. What's with the hand gesture, Mr Damon? Deluge was fantastic. My favourite ride in the park. After hitting the coasters we headed for the water park. Oh yeah we got Rollerskater ERT too... It was really good! Time for my first Schwarzkopf shuttle loop! At least we got to enjoy the healthy Twin. Sadly one of the Twins was ill, although I hear a couple of the TPR people managed to get a ride in. We then decided to face our fears head on and check out Twisted Twins. Some TPRers enjoy Chang! Gratuitous vertical loop shot for anyone who might appreciate it. I'm not a fan of stand ups but Chang was actually quite good! Matt Damon's got it right. I don't know what Erik's thinking here. This was one of the early SLCs. And you felt it. Nothing like starting your day with an SLC! Today's first park - Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom

I'm really sorry to hear that Chrissie. Having a family dog ourselves I shudder to even imagine what you're going through. It really is sickening to know that there's people like that out there. Lets hope these idiots are caught. You'll feel better eventually. It'll take time.

PART SEVEN: HOLIDAY WORLD Having got at least a few hours sleep in I was feeling surprisingly well rested this morning. Maybe it was the excitement of visiting Holiday World or just being on the TPR trip, something was keeping me going anyway. This was one of the best days at a park I've ever had! There was quite a group of us making our way around the park on this day and we all had plenty fun on all the different rides. We started with Voyage, which was a coaster I had been looking forward to riding just to form an opinion on since I'd read so many mixed reports. The first ride in the morning was brutal, sure there were a couple of good moments of airtime but the aggression of the course really took away a lot of the enjoyment. After Voyage we headed to Legend. A fun ride but it focused a bit too much on laterals for my liking. Unlike Raven which we hit next which was just pure fun! Such a great ride that kept giving better rides as the day went on. Naturally we did a kiddie coaster takeover too, which is always amusing. It was also a really hot day in Indiana, well definitely hot by a Scotsman's standards. The heat forced us into the waterpark in the afternoon which was really cool. Although a few of us didn't bother doing any of the slides and just checked out the pools and lazy river. We figured we'd have plenty of time to check out slides at Kentucky Kingdom the next morning! We also had awesome food provided for us so thanks TPR and Holiday World for that! The free soft drinks all day really makes an unbelievable difference to your day at the park. I think I tried everything they offered. Oh and we had a walkback at the Voyage too! Which was really cool, we got lots of great views of the Voyage and of other people taking photos of the Voyage. Speaking of the Voyage, that's like a different ride at night! The rides I had in the back seat right at the end of the day were amazing, seriously among the best coaster rides I've ever had. I didn't notice the brutality at all for some reason and the sustained air on those hills is fantastic. Someone mentioned that the ride had been trimmed somewhere but I never even noticed! It's such a shame that The Voyage doesn't perform like that all day and in every seat - if it did it may have come closer to being my number one. Balder managed to survive Holiday World as my favourite coaster. But still, I really liked Holiday World, it really is my kind of park. Hope I manage to make it back there someday soon. This was seriously one of the best days I've ever had at a park! It wasn't just the rides, it was more the people that made this such a fun day! The Hooters Crew prepare for another amazing Voyage night ride! At night this thing really comes alive! It's like a different ride! After looking at it from many different angles, we decided to give Voyage a few more rides. We got some great views of the Voyage and of people taking pictures. Some nice "through the trees" photo opportunities here. Time to head on a walkback! This was our view while eating lunch. Pretty cool. The Hooter's Crew enjoyed the rapids! The Dutch are excited about the kiddie coaster! Here's another nice pic for ya, Drew! Everyone really loved Raven! Some people enjoyed Legend more than others! After ride on Voyage we headed over to Legend. It was quite a brutal ride in the morning. Fun, but i still found that first ride a bit too much. The masses of TPRers make their way to Voyage... Woo! We're special! Today's park - Holiday World!

Yeah, I learned a valuable lesson on that journey - fly direct, or at least connect with the same airline. It might cost a little more but at least you won't have to go through anything like that! But hey, at least its a good story to tell!

^ Having visited four Six Flags parks and Thorpe Park in the space of 26 days I can tell you that Thorpe Park does feel like a Six Flags park. I'm not sure exactly what it is. Maybe the way the rides are just set down on the flat ground, the staff and general atmosphere. It just has a Six Flags "feel" to it. At least that's what i found. Anyway, onto to the portion of my story which you just HAVE to read! ----- PART SIX: THE JOURNEY FROM HELL & CONEY ISLAND This is where the real fun kicks in! When planning the trip I managed to find what I thought was an ingenious way of getting to Cincinnati which would have me paying about £350 - £400 less than the other people from the UK who were on the Midwest trip. Basically this was my plan: 11am (BST) - Flight Leaves Gatwick for JFK via Bermuda to some drop people off. 4pm (EST) - Flight arrives at JFK 7:30pm - Fly JFK to Chicago 11:30pm - Megabus from Chicago to Cincinnati 7am - arrive Cincinnati Of course I had contingencies in there had I missed any of these connections. Namely, the Greyhound which I could get from New York to Cincinnati at 11:15pm or from Chicago to Cincinnati at 3:30am. Looks like quite a journey, but it seemed doable to me, especially since I was saving so much money by doing it this way! So I get up at 6am (UK time) on the Wednesday morning, I get some breakfast and take my time in heading to Gatwick. I get to the airport just after 8am where I get told my flight has been delayed an hour. Ok, it's gonna be a little tighter getting my connection but I figure I'll still make it. 12pm comes and goes and still no one is getting on the plane. At 12:30pm an announcement is made that there is a technical fault with the plane which should be resolved shortly. We get onto the plane at 1pm, and wait... Finally at 2pm the plane takes off. By this point I realise that there's a pretty good chance I'll be missing my connection so decide not to sleep on the plane in the knowledge that I'll be spending the night on the Greyhound from New York to Cincinnati and I'd much rather sleep during that fourteen hour journey. Eventually we arrive in Bermuda, where everyone has to get off the plane for security reasons, fair enough. Whilst we're in the Bermuda airport they find the same technical problem in the plane. I end up sitting in the Bermuda airport for two hours. By this point I'm just hoping I get to New York in time to get this bus. At 9:30pm (US Time) I arrive in New York. I managed to get through security pretty quickly and head straight for the subway to get to the bus station on 42nd Street. I get there about 10:30pm and go ahead and buy my ticket for the Greyhound. It's supposed to leave NYC at 11:15pm and I've to change buses in Pittsburgh with a 55 minute layover there before arriving in Cincinnati at 2:15pm. 11:15pm comes and goes with no sign of the bus and just a lot of angry passengers. Once it hit 12:15am I realise I'm not gonna be making my connection and am going to end up stuck in Pittsburgh waiting for another bus causing me to miss the start of the TPR trip. At 1am I decide to head back to the airport and get a flight since the bus still has not appeared. Bear in mind this is the first time I've travelled outside the UK alone and my first time in the U.S. in nine years. So I get the Subway back towards the airport, although it turns out that there was works on the line near the air train station and so I got kicked off the train a few stops before the air train station. Shit. It's now 2am so I've been awake for 25 hours. I've been kicked out the Subway somewhere in New York. All I know is that it's Brooklyn or Queens and I really don't want to be stuck in the streets of either at this time of the morning. Luckily some bin man comes up to me and realises that I'm lost. He tells me I've got to walk a few blocks to get to the air train. That sounded like fun! Thankfully a little Asian man overheard our conversation and offered to walk me to the Air Train station. I couldn't have been more thankful. He walked me all the way to the station, right past some very undesirable looking people on a few occasions. I eventually get to the airport about 3am where naturally everything is closed. So I start trying to get a hold of Delta on the phone since I know they have a flight going to Cincinnati at 6am. I didn't manage to get a hold of anyone at Delta until 5:30am. When I do I'm told that I can get on the 6am flight, although it's gonna cost almost $800. Ouch, but at this point I'm willing to pay anything just to get out of New York! She takes my card details and all that jazz, we're looking good. Then she tells me its actually too late to get on that flight! What a tease! The girl then tells me she can get me on another flight that gets into Cincinnati at 3:15pm which I told her was no good to me and ask if there's any connecting flights she can get me on which would get me there earlier. After a few minutes she tells me I can get on a flight to Columbus leaving at 9am arriving just after 11am and then an onward flight which leaves Columbus for Cincinnati at 11:40am and arrives at 12:30pm. The connection time sounded pretty tight to me but the girls assures me that should make it ok. So I go ahead and pay almost $800 for these flights and check in for my flight leaving at 9am. So I'm sitting in the departure lounge right next to my gate and watch every flight of the morning leave right on time. Things are looking good. Then it hit 9am... A announcement comes over telling the passengers to Columbus that our air hostess has not shown up for work this morning so the flight will be delayed until she shows up! I couldn't believe it, how much bad luck travelling can one guy get?! Finally at 10:30am the hostess shows up and we get under way. Although I've resigned myself to missing Coney Island by this point because there's probably no way I'll be able to get on a flight to Cincinnati arriving before 3pm (which is when the bus was to leave for the bonus park). I finally arrive in Columbus just after 12:30pm and find out that the same air hostess was actually supposed to be on my second flight! So that flight hadn't left yet - finally a little luck! I got my flight and arrived in Cincinnati somewhere around 2pm. I went for the long walk from one side of the terminal to the other where I found the TPR people waiting to greet me. I'm sure Elissa asked me if I had come by bus. Instead of telling the whole story I think I replied that I had "just decided to fly" - sorry Elissa, I just really didn't feel like retelling my story at that moment. By this point I'd been awake for 37 hours, but I think the excitement of actually making it through that whole ordeal was keeping me going. I was finally on the Midwest Trip! At 3pm we left for the bonus park which was, as expected, Coney Island. The park looked pretty cool for what it was but I only rode the coaster because I really didn't feel like riding anything else after what I'd just been through. Funnily enough we managed to break the coaster which wouldn't leave the station for some reason. We got back on a few minutes later though. After riding the coaster I found Nadia, the only person I knew before the trip and told her my story, she looked pretty shocked. After Coney Island we headed to the hotel where a bunch of us went to Olive Garden for dinner where I became a member of the Hooters Crew. Thanks for letting me in guys! Oh yeah, we also had some fun in this little place in the hotel called the Pegasus Room! I think I got to bed about 2am (7am in the UK) meaning I'd been awake 49 hours! I only took two pictures during my journey which is kinda sad, since it was so epic. But whilst going through all that taking photos wasn't really on my mind. And one final picture. From the longest day in my life! But at least it had a happy ending! Here's another one for you, Drew! Pegasus Room! Of course Drew likes us posting interesting photos of him, so I'll do that now. The Dutch boys show everyone the best places to find porn online. But the real fun started back at the hotel... After the park some of us headed to Olive Garden where I enjoyed this interesting contraption. And enjoy it TPR did. which had a credit for us all to enjoy. Our bonus park was Coney Island... 37 sleepless hours later... finally I'm in Cincinnati. There's my plane at 11am at Gatwick Airport...

When I was at Great Adventure a week ago I must've rode El Toro about 20 times (the park was DEAD). I found that some ride ops were worse than others when it came to pushing down on the lap bars. But even then, I also never found myself uncomfortably pinned into the seat.

Thanks everyone for the positive comments! Keep 'em coming! ----- PART FIVE: THORPE PARK (& LONDON EYE) I spent two and a half hours at Thorpe Park on this morning... It wasn't the best. Got there and got my annual pass made up and then headed to the park. First thing I see is a big sign says "Stealth is closed today". Great, the first Intamin of the trip is closed hopefully this isn't a bad omen. Luckily I already had the Stealth credit, but still, I fancied another ride to help compare the launch to Dragster and Kingda Ka! Anyway I get into the park and go to get a locker to put some bits and bobs in but I don't have a fifty pence piece that the locker takes. So I go around the various shops and arcades asking various staff members if they can give me change for a locker. "No", "no", "no" was my response for fifteen minutes! I finally found a staff member in Burger King who helped me out. So after being first into the park with my annual pass all momentum is lost because everyone else has now taken over me. If you asked a cast member in a Disney park for change and they couldn't help you then they'd stay with you until they had found someone who could help you. The Thorpe staff just didn't care. I was pretty pissed off. Anyway, I rode Nemesis Inferno twice. Once in the front and once in the back and I still think it's a great little coaster. Not as intense as its Alton sister but it still has some good forces. Colossus was worse than last time. It's just so rattly I can't enjoy it. Suffice to say one ride was enough. X:\ No Way Out is still as WTF as ever. I Rode the powered coaster too which I didn't do last time. By 12 I'd had enough of the chavs, the staff, the heat and the lack of rides that excited me. So I left. Seeing as it's free with my annual pass I hit the London Eye in the afternoon. Nothing too exciting but some really nice views, especially since it was such a nice day. That'll do it for the London Eye. Coming next - the journey from hell!!! I got on for free with my Tussauds Pass! On a clear day you can get some really cool views. ...and look about London. Like this... You go up really high in your "pod". Like the London Eye! Two hours at Thorpe park was plenty. Time to try something else... Which is also much better than Colossus. Thorpe brought back their powered coaster this year... The opposite is Colossus, which may well be the worst ride in the park. It may be a shadow of the original Nemesis but its still the best ride in Thorpe Park! This was the first of five B&M inverts on the trip for me. Thankfully Stealth being closed isn't too much of a downer with Nemesis Inferno next door! With signs like this I can believe that! I was hoping that dead Intamins wouldn't become a theme for the trip. This the last park on my trip that I'd visited before. I've heard of lot of people say Thorpe Park is like a Six Flags park...

PART FOUR: ADVENTURE ISLAND This morning I left early and I travelled to London without much incident. Checked into my hostel then headed for Adventure Island which is in Southend-on-Sea. This was the first park on the trip that I visited alone. Something I was going to have to get used to for later in the trip. It was a nice enough park - kinda reminded me of Codona's and Margate mixed together. The new coaster there is Rage. It was my first Euro-fighter coaster. It has a vertical lift-hill and a 97 degree drop. It was nothing too special and a little shakey at bits but the lift hill and first drop were very good. It really is a great coaster for the park. The other three credits are basically oversized kiddie coasters but credits nonetheless. I always seem to really enjoy seaside parks for some reason. Must be all those childhood visits to Blackpool. Adventure Island is a small park but I still quite liked it! Rage is pretty much the only "big ride" in the park. Sadly this Pinfari didn't have the slight moment of airtime that the clone in Aberdeen has. Adventure Island also has a few random kiddie coasters. But it does have its fun moments. To be honest it's nothing spectacular and a little rough. Rage is one of only a few new coasters in the UK this year. Time for the first solo park of the trip!

Yeah that really was some horrible looking crap in there! Gratuitous blurry photo of Nadia's leg and assorted cauldron crap.

^^ I don't know how I'm managing to function either. Since I've got home I had two consecutive nights of heavy drinking and I pulled an all-nighter too! Into "recovery week" now - which will chiefly consist of writing this report! ^ Yeah, the camera problems were a downer but I suppose you just need to take these things in your stride. I honestly can't remember the name of the coaster at Southport - any ideas Tom? ----- PART THREE: GULLIVER'S WORLD The next day we went to Gulliver's World in Warrington, a small family park. It was actually really nice. None of the rides blew you away or anything but there was a real friendly atmosphere and everyone seemed to have a good time. Gullivers does have a small wooden coaster called Antelope. Nothing special, it jolted you back and forward a bit which wasn't great. But still, it was good to ride a wooden coaster again - something I hadn't done since Balder last September. Another three credits in the bag. I should also give a shout out to the great food and the laugh we had whilst eating the food! And that was my day at Gulliver's World! Thanks to all the good people at Coasterforce who were there! Trademark Tom leap... Although Tom was a little more agile than Nadia. Oh and Tom got chucked in too... Like throwing Nadia into a minging cauldron. With the credits out the way it was time to make some fun for ourselves... There's also a wild mouse - which is always good at throwing you from side to side. The credit whores were out in full force! There was also this mine train/wild mouse/kiddie coaster hybrid. The first of many wood coasters for me on this trip. Then we head straight for the small woodie - Antelope! Tom kicks off the festivities once again. Another sunny day, another park! I'll need to get used to this!

^ I know I also can't believe that was all a month ago! PART TWO: NEW PLEASURELAND SOUTHPORT After Camelot Tom and I took a quick jaunt down to the recently opened fun fair which now occupies the old Pleasureland Southport site. Imaginatively called "New Pleasureland" I was pleasantly surprised this place. Yes it's just a bunch of carnival rides thrown down on the ground but most of the rides are better than what was there before. Plus there was a wacky worm rollercoaster there which neither of us had ridden so we got a bonus credit! We also rode a powered coaster and a frisbee which did do a fair bit of spinning. We also checked out the funhouse, it was pretty depressing to see the place gutted out, but at least its still standing and there are some things to do inside. And here is said frisbee. Spinny enough for me. New Pleasureland actually looks very promising. I'm sure I'll be back before too long! Here's the token they gave us to ride the frisbee. Yes it's in Italian! And even though we don't count powered coasters we rode the powered coaster to spite anyone that does! We did get a bonus credit on the Wacky Worm! Even more depressing was the inside of the funhouse. At least there's some stuff inside to keep it going. The former site of the Cyclone. Yeah it was a crappy woodie but it was still sad to see a big gap where it used to be. After Camelot Tom suggested we check out New Pleasureland Southport. Naturally that sounded like a good idea to me!

Excellent Tom. Good to see a few more familiar faces in there too. I wholeheartedly agree with your feelings on Kennywood. What an amazing place! Glad you finished this one before you headed East! Looking forward to that trip report if you do it! Anyway, good stuff. Glad you had a great time over there!

Yes here it is - my super sized, super long trip report that encompasses my four day England tour, the TPR Midwest Trip and my own "Post-Midwest" tour. I should say that I was plagued with camera issues throughout the trip - be it with batteries or memory cards and then the screen broke quite early in the trip. I wasn't able to replace the camera until I visited the Mall of America much later in the trip. As a result a lot of the photos from the TPR portion of the trip were taken blind but hopefully I've got enough here to cobble together some kind of trip report from those parks. If not then well, there are already loads of great TRs from the Midwest trip out there! Anyway - let's begin... ----- PART ONE: CAMELOT So I left on Friday evening and got my train no problem and Tom arrived right on time to pick me up and take me back to his (thanks again to Tom for putting me up those first few nights). Got up bright and early on Saturday morning and headed to Camelot to see the good folks from Coasterforce. Now I had visited Camelot with the school about ten years ago but pretty much all the rollercoasters have changed since then. In fact the park's newest rollercoaster "Knightmare" had only officially opened the day before we visited. I was quite looking forward to riding Knightmare after seeing video of it in its former home of Japan. While the ride was good it did have quite a few rough spots which was a shame. The "psycho drop" half way through really was great though. I was pretty non-plussed about the rest of Camelot though. Tom put it best when he said the place was "tired". Not much upkeep has been done and the rides are mostly pretty crappy. The atmosphere just isn't there. And the food was awful. But still it was a great day and I also got three new credits! That'll do it for Camelot! The park really isn't up to much but I still had a great day there! A great way to kick off my trip! Fed up with the rides at Camelot, Tom decides to invent his own fun... Back to Knightmare - it's the best ride in the park. Although it does have a few rough spots. It definitely doesn't come close to touching the greatness that is Lisebergbanan. But it's nowhere near is good as Dragon's Fury or Spinball Whizzer. Camelot also have a Maurer Sohne spinner. The "psycho drop" is really what makes the ride worthwhile. But it's not "OMFG Amazing!" or anything like that. It's a good ride for the park. The reason for visiting Camelot today? Knightmare! Although a few of us decided to take the slide down the hill. Tom gets the ball rolling by announcing that we're heading straight to Knightmare! The first park of the trip - Camelot!

I've finally caught up with this TR after getting back from my own trip! Good stuff as always, Tom. I pretty much agree with most of what you've said, although I really did have a great day at Holiday World. Really wish I had worked out a way to get Dollywood into my trip somehow!

Just finished reading through the whole TR, Shawn - awesome! Then to cap it off with that video, really brought so many great memories flooding back! Delighted to see some Dallas dancing footage in there, I was worried there wasn't going to be any in the video so thanks for including it! You really summed up the vibe of the trip in the photos and video! Thanks again to everyone involved, especially Matt Damon in this case. Divv "will start my TR soon" Walsh

Awesome Tom, it's great to see some shots of a park I'll be visiting in a few weeks! The Intamin run sounds like a good challenge, maybe I'll try doing the same when I'm there and see how long it takes me.

Oh dear, another unflattering Darien Lake TR. I can see why Shapiro wanted to wash his hands of this one! Shame about missing Predator, Tom, but at least it's not exactly a world renowned coaster or anything.

Yet another fantastic update! Apart from what's on RCDB I know nothing about this park, it looks like one of those places that isn't spectacular but just fuels plenty of fun. Ramses looks so weird, in a good way - does it just keep going up and down the hills until it valleys? Anyway, looking forward to the next installment, go and enjoy yourselves some more!

I'm floored by this. I haven't watched wrestling much in the last few years but Benoit was an idol of mine when I was a big fan in the late 90s. I don't want to get into any speculation over the circumstances of his and his family's deaths. I'll just say how sad this makes me feel. Hopefully we'll get to find out how this actually happened.

Suit yourself, they're your photos to do with as you please. I know for me I'm less interested in looking at photos with watermarks covering half the photo. You've got some really excellent pics there but you've greatly reduced the quality of them in my view. Good to hear testing has begun.

I appreciate you posting photos of Inferno for us, but is there any need for the insanely huge watermark? Any sign of testing yet?

The weather in the winter doesn't make much difference to the weather in the last few weeks, which in Camelot's area has been pretty poor for June. Camelot will be pretty sad about not being able to have media day on Friday and I'm sure they wouldn't have organised the day if they thought the ride wasn't going to be ready on time. This is just a case of unseasonal bad weather scuppering plans, which while unfortunate, happens from time to time be it a football game getting postponed or construction getting delayed. It could be worse, they could be replacing the psycho drop with an S-bend.