Divv3k

DAY THREE, Part Two Okay, okay. I know a lot of you read the last report and would have rightfully picked up on the fact that I omitted a very important aspect of the day. And you’re right, I mean how could one visit World’s of Fun and not mention it? And you’re right, it is reason enough for visiting Missouri. So without further ado, let’s take a look at how we closed our day at World’s of Fun… That’s right we went to WAFFLE HOUSE!!! How could I forget to include this most important part of the day! So many choices! TPDave likes his hash browns “All the way!” As if a day at Worlds of Fun can’t get any better! I mean how do you top Snoopy’s Hot Summer Lights? I LOVED my hash browns all the way! Thanks Waffle House! What an experience! More World’s of Fun to come! Can it get any better than this?

DAY TWO, Part Two: WORLDS OF FUN Time for the first "corporate" park of the trip! This was World’s of Fun, originally built themed to the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days. Current owners Cedar Fair have done their usual stand up job at preserving this theme. Erm… The park itself was actually pretty nice, definitely not as bland and lifeless as some of the other Cedar Fair parks I’ve visited. There’s quite a range of coasters: the Morgan Hyper, Mamba rides like every other Morgan Hyper – good but nothing amazing; Patriot is one of the more forceless B&M inverts unfortunately; the boomerang is a death trap and the spinner is alright. I should probably mention the woodie – Timber Wolf gave a CRAZY ride at night! Oh yeah, there’s also that new thing that open quite recently that’s purported as the greatest thing since Phileas Fogg took his knife to a loaf. I’ll get to that in the photos. Our next park is World’s of Fun! See how the park represents the entire world with it’s selection of flags at the entrance. We’re special, so special. What better way to start of your experience at a Cedar Fair park with the imaginatively named, Boomerang. At least we’re getting it out the way early, right? And at least we didn’t need to queue. Next up we checked out the Morgan hugeness that is Mamba… Wasn’t too bad actually. And if there was any doubt you were in a Cedar Fair park… Please excuse TPDave whilst he enters Coasters to update his Coaster Count. Timber Wolf delivered some CRAZY night rides. I can see why everyone says Worlds of Fun has one of the craziest wooden coasters in the world! Watch Chuck as he perfects his technique at training a spinning wagon. The Gerstaluer spinners don’t compare to the Maurer Sohne ones in my opinion but they’re fun for what they are. Riding at night also makes the experience more fun. Before the park closed we were sure to get a ride on Patriot. Even though we had ERT scheduled the next morning it’s always good practice to get your ride in as early as possible! It’s a cheap Sub Land knock off , but it’ll have to do. When I saw the Worlds of Fun had an indoor ride I was pretty intrigued… Then I found out it was a spinning ride. Oh well, I’m glad that it still exists! Cedar Fair should have more indoor rides! Okay, I realise that I have totally overlooked World’s of Fun’s latest new attraction. You know, the new attraction that has been celebrated by visitors from all over the world. The attraction that was the very reason for me signing up for the Mid-America trip. I wanted to build a bit of excitement and anticipation before mentioning the new attraction but rest assured we were able to experience it in all its glory at the end of our first night at Worlds of Fun. That’s right everyone, behold the beauty of… SNOOPY’S HOT SUMMER LIGHTS!!! How this thing didn’t win number one in last year’s Hot Summer Light poll, I’ll never know! Glorious! Beautiful! Snoopy’s Hot Summer Lights rocked my world! I don’t think this trip can hit a higher high now!!!

DAY TWO: ADVENTURELAND (Not the place from the movie) The first park of the trip (at least from my point of view) was Adventureland in Iowa. This was a new place for me and really a place I hadn’t heard a whole lot about so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. In actuality I was very impressed with this park. It certainly is a place filled with charm and to me seemed to show off the local flavour of Middle-America, maybe I’m wrong but that’s the impression I got. Adventureland has a few coasters, the most unique of them being the Underground. The Underground as the name might imply is an underground rollercoaster, an underground woodie to be precise. Pretty damn cool and pretty unique! The other two woodies were pretty good for what they were, Outlaw has certainly held up a lot better over the years than a few similar coasters at other parks. Just be sure to brace yourself on The Dragon! Ouch! That thing is deadly! One of the themes you might have noticed from other TRs is that there was a lot of food consumed on this trip and certainly a lot of unique contraptions. Adventureland pretty much sealed its approval in my mind when Elissa informed me that the park offered a taco mixed in with a bag of Doritos! Really! The “Travelling Taco” became a must for me and it sure delivered! Good morning from my first park of the trip – Adventureland! I can’t quite put my finger on it but there’s something a bit familiar about this place… Wahay! Time to actually ride something! Lou’s a bit disturbed by the Iowa locals… Although they're still better looking than the locals in the Scottish parks! All the big brands have set up shop in Adventureland! While other places have ponies, or parrots... we have dragons. Eats its victims... burns its victims... buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside-out... Chuck is actually the star of the upcoming movie sequel How To Train Your Wagon. Adventureland has a very RCT looking park map. Thorpe Park got jealous when they saw this photo and just had to have one of these rides. I thought I recognised that lack of sleeves! Hi Larry! That’s right, Adventureland has a ride named after the hit NBC show, Outlaw! OMG, it’s Larry’s long lost son! Don’t worry, they’re all as tall as the line. Outlaw was fun. A bit of a surprise really! It's definitely one of the CCIs that has held up better over the years. Russ JUST made it onto Tornado. That’s right this ride is named for a whole host of SyFY movie tie-ins. This coaster was actually alright as well. The wood coasters at Adventureland were all pretty rideable. Gotta love the RCT style bacon shop. We’re special, so special… The rapids at Adventureland is the first rapids in the world to feature Blue WKD instead of water. Make sure TPDave doesn't drink it! At the Skeeball parlour things started to get VERY serious! Lou’s been trying for ages to get that monkey off her back. Expression number 2 is getting pretty worn out by now. Early doors on the trip and I'm not yet used to the heat. I almost considered riding this thing just to get a little shade! CAUTION: Overlord at work! Here’s Larry completely failing at winning birthday toys for Jon. This is the park’s shot tower. I forget what it’s called but it’s okay because Larry got a photo of the ride sign. See! Carousel! Pretty! Now for the greatest place in the whole of Adventureland – Taco Villa! Why is it so amazing? Because they’ll give you a taco in a bag of Doritos!!! Amazing! TPDave can’t believe he’s not getting in on the questionable food action. That’s it from Advenutreland. A really nice park that really gives you a feel for what Middle America is all about. A great way to get the ball rolling on this trip!

Fret not, TPFriend you shan't be disappointed. Plenty more TPPhotos to come! Thanks guys!

Awesome stuff, Joey! I've duly stolen that GQ photo for my Facebook! Thanks!

Hey, it wasn't MY wedding!

I know this is MONTHS later than is usually acceptable for posting a TR but I figured at least a few of you are actually interested in seeing the TR I said I’d do for the Mid-America trip. My plan is to have all my trip reports up to date before I head to Japan in June. We’ll see if I make it… As with all other most post TRs on TPR lots of comments are encouraged and appreciated if for no other reason than it lets new updates appear on new a page which helps keeps things neater in my weird OCD world. Thanks! I’ll start off by saying the Middle-America trip was AMAZING, though you probably knew that already it really is worth stressing! I travelled to a lot of these parks on my first TPR trip in 2007 which made for a stunning comparison as it showed to me how much TPR trips have evolved over the years. How Elissa and Robb really do everything they can to make sure the trip is so good is astounding. If you’ve never been on one of these trips before you really need to get yourself on one. They really do become the best few weeks of your year. Every year! UPDATES: Day 1 - ARRIVAL (Below) Day 2 - ADVENTURELAND Days 2 & 3 - WORLDS OF FUN Day 4 - SILVER DOLLAR CITY Day 5 - GATEWAY ARCH & CITY MUSEUM Day 6 - SIX FLAGS ST LOUIS Day 7 - HOLIDAY WORLD Day 8 - INDIANA BEACH Day 9 - SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA Day 10 - IT'S ALL ABOUT BRYAN!!! Day 11 - VALLEYFAIR DAY ONE: ARRIVAL Due to work commitments I didn’t arrive as early as the majority of the group. Actually I’m fairly certain I was the last one to arrive. My late arrival meant that I wasn’t able to take advantage of the early arrival park which was the Park at Mall of America. Luckily I visited there in 2007 so it wasn’t a disaster for me. It would have been nice to hit the Euro-fighter but I’m not upset about it. I guess I’m just not the credit whore I used to be. Even without a park for me to visit day one was fantastic! Day one of TPR trips are always a big deal for me now as it tends to be the first time in at least a year that I get to see a lot of these friends I’ve made of the years. Just as exciting as meeting old friends is how generous they all are when it comes to feeding my snack addiction with the International Snack Trade! That’s right, once again my friends from all over presented me with many different Doritos of many different nationalities to boost the Dorito credit count to over 50! Thanks everyone! On top of all that we had a brilliant welcome dinner at Buca di Beppo and an absolutely CRAZY encounter with the legend that is Leslie Hall! I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story! A big plane in Heathrow must mean that it’s time for another TPR trip! 10 hours is a long time to travel but it’s worth it when your first stop when you arrive is… BUCA DI BEPPO! This was my first Buca experience! Made even better by getting catch up with old friends like the Roachman! As well as catching up with all those old friends I had to put up with bloody TPDave again! TPDave loves having his hand underneath two big meaty balls. Doesn’t that cheesecake just look amazing? It was so good that there wasn’t enough to go around and sadly Russ didn’t get any. Not wanting his vertically challenged friend to be disappointed, TPDave set about reducing Russ’s disappointment from missing out on the cheesecake by using some actual cheese and sauce from the main course. Looks delish! Russ LOVED it!!! It doesn’t get more serious than the Pope Room! Once we got to the hotel the 2010 International Snack Exchange begun! Also known as Divv’s excuse to get everyone to bring him Doritos from all over the world! Thanks to everyone who supplied me with Doritos this year! I’m up to sixty different flavours from around the world now! As if things couldn’t get more exciting than copious amounts of Doritos! Leslie Hall decided to get in on the action! Pictures cannot capture the hilarity of this night! Just like any night on a TPR trip really… What a crazy start to TPR’s Mid-America trip! More bigger updates to come! Up next, an actual park – Iowa’s Adventureland!

Thanks everyone and you're welcome! I was on the fence on whether I was even gonna do a trip report from this day. I'm glad I did, it's definitely a day worth remembering!

Usually the Brit Crew have to make up an excuse to get together to go out, get drunk and have fun but on April 9th 2011 we were given a legitimate reason to go out and make utter fools out of ourselves. One of our own, the effervescent Sir Campsalot of Lampington, Lampshire: Dave Fudge got married to his beautiful partner Amy and the Brit Crew were there to celebrate in style! I don't know about anyone else but I've found that since I've hit my mid-20s that weddings start to become a regular part of life. I think I've got about 7 to go to in a two year period! With that in mind I'm always intrigued to see all the little things each couple does to make their own day unique and special. Making a day unique and special is certainly what Dave and Amy pulled of, it was a fantastic day with by far the most unique setting for a wedding meal I've ever seen. The day started quite traditionally with the wedding service and a beautiful church afterwhich we were carted off to Kidderminster train station where everyone got onto the restaurant car of a vintage steam train that had been hired out as the venue for our wedding meal! It was VERY cool and the food tasted amazing. After our little jaunt around the rails we were carted to a hotel for the reception which was kicked off with some great speeches all capped off by best man Mike's HILARIOUS speech (PowerPoint presentation and all!). Of course by now the booze was in full flow and Southern Steve just wasn't able to contain himself. Drunk Southern Steve + Dance Floor = endless entertainment for everyone! All in all it was a fantastic day. I wish Dave and Amy all the happiness in the world and thank them very much for inviting me to be a part of their day. Oh and Mike would be annoyed if I didn't let you know that we got really lucky with the weather. It was absolutely gorgeous sunshine! Here's some photos... Much like a TPR trip there was one important rule to abide by today - DON'T miss the bus! There were a few locations being used for the celebrations and Dave was organised enough to arrange transport for all of us! I guess if we're gonna have a traditional British wedding then a church might come in handy! Wow, look at all these sharply dressed individuals! Southern Steve hasn't looked so smart since his last court appearance. Half an hour to go before the ceremony starts... Plenty of time for a beer! The Brit Crew together, in a church. This has potential to go very badly! Thankfully it all went very smoothly and Dave and Amy were married in a very nice service. They both looked fantastic! OMG, has Mike pulled?! Get a room you two! Dave and Amy enjoyed some very swanky transport to their next location! The rest of the Brit Crew enjoyed some very familiar transportation! Next stop... Kidderminster train station! Cool... Retro! While we waited on our train we got to enjoy a champagne reception at the station! Oh yeah, and beer too! Looks like our meal location has arrived! How cool!!! Before we could board we had to check our table number on this chart. Full Sunday names for everyone here... Except for TPDave! Like Cher, he needs only one name! TPDave's place setting was even better! "OMG ITS TPDAVE! *CELEBRITY TABLE!" What a unique setting for a wedding meal!!! Southern Steve was all over the copious amounts of FREE WINE on offer! Here's the menu for the journey! Everything sounded really good! The salmon starter was lovely. Here's Scottish Steve, pretending to be important. I went for the roast lamb option for the main course, a very British dish but very un-Britishly tasty! I'm in the clean plate club! After the main course the train pulled into Bridgnorth train station where we were able to go have a look around. It was like somewhere out of Harry Potter! Gentlemen! Bridgnorth station has a bar! Result! "If anyone's looking for me on the journey back you'll find me in here!" For the journey back these guys decided to come in and slum it with us plebs. The Lemon Meringue Dessert was delicious! Instead of using a spoon Southern Steve thought that it would be a much better idea to use his specs as cutlery. That's a wine stain on his sleeve. TPFail! The meal on a train idea was certainly unique for a wedding reception and it worked great! I think I can speak for everyone when I say that this was amazing! After our train ride we headed to the Pear Tree Hotel for the evening reception (and more booze!). Check out the the hand made train carrying all the wedding cake and Fudge bars! Southern Steve was very keen on stealing this. Here come the happy couple! Come speech time Dave slipped quite comfortably back into teacher mode as he addressed everyone and said his and Amy's thanks to everyone. Mike's highly anticipated Best Man's speech delivered big time. Dave had no idea what he was in for! Mike's PowerPoint presentation did indeed contain full frontal nudity!!! The presentation, titled "Dave's Amazing Face" was priceless! Mike absolutely nailed it. Turns out that Anth isn't the only one who got his suit from Primark! Time for some more food! How about some Hog Roast?! Yet again some more awesome food! My mum always says I almost never have any photos of me and when I do I'm always looking stupid. Hopefully I'm looking slightly less stupid in this one! (Not much I know!) First dancey dance! OMG, Mike HAS pulled! At last! The moment we've been waiting for - Steve's let loose on the dance floor! Can't read Steve's poker face! No woman was safe! Hold onto that feeling Mike! Bit of Thriller, Dave? OMG, has Anth pulled?! Sorry Anth! The medium-browness of Mike's beard was an attraction for all the hotties! OH MY GOD, IT'S TPDAVE!!!!!!!!111!! In true Brit Crew fashion the dance floor was taken over by us! Steve's night is almost complete! Steve knows he's gonna be the man who gets drunk next to Divv. One last dance for the happy couple! Crazy mid-dancefloor group photo!!! Looks like the Brit Crew have left their mark on proceedings! Amy looked fantastic, looks like she had a great day! (Even with the Brit Crew in attendance!) Dave really does have an Amazing Face! Thanks to Dave and Amy for inviting me to be there, it was an incredible day! This report doesn't capture anywhere near how cool and fun this day was but I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!

^^ I agree, Larry. The Voyage was in my top five after the Midwest 2007 trip but dropped down dramatically on my list after I rode it on the 2010 Mid-America trip. I'm not surprised the ride fell a few places this year. Bottom line for me: the ride wasn't as good in 2010 as it was 2007.

Just remembered to do this! Glad I got it in on time!

Obviously December isn't always the best time of the year for visiting parks but in the UK it usually means there are a lot of carnivals around and Glasgow is no exception. The Irn-Bru carnival which is celebrating it's 90th anniversary this year is Europe's largest indoor carnival and has been an annual visit for us Scots of TPR for many years now. The carnival itself wasn't so great this time around, with there looking to be less rides than previous years and none of the more unique and interesting contraptions that I'd witnessed at the Goose Fair and Hyde Park Winter Wonderland earlier in the year. That said we still managed to have a good time. Plus, there was one new addition for this year - the dreaded Toboggan! The bruises from my last ride February hadn't even faded and I've now got some fresh ones to accomopany it! The real thing that excited me about this little TPR member meet up in Glasgow was the opportunity to visit Glasgow's latest haunted walkthrough - The Ghosts of Christmas. This haunt is located in The Arches, the same place where Alien Wars was in 2009. I have to say this was a VERY good walkthrough. Maybe it's just my sick and twisted mind but seeing an evil demented Santa and his bloodthirsty elves was a very cool concept. Plus, this walkthrough lasted about half an hour, a lot longer than any I've done before. It seems that this seasonal haunt has been a success and so I'm hopeful I'll be able to bring a few more TPR members there next year! Here's the photos... Another year, another giant bottle of "ginger", it's gotta be the Irn-Bru Carnival! They let us in! They obviously don't remember last year. In the line for the Dodgems I had to give Michael a crash course in the Brit Crew's common practice of making sure Steve can't walk by the time they're finished. Always a highlight of the Irn-Bru Carnival – Scottish Steve’s Fun House Tour! Hey look it's Mario, star of Jersey Shore: The Movie! Steve does a real mean TPDave impression. He also does a real good Dave Fudge impression. Unleash the fury, Steve! Steve gave this fun house a rating of three pumpkins of fun! Although this is about where Steve's fun ends! It doesn't look like any of us will be having any fun with this sign welcoming you into the line. Five yards later we encountered this, gotta love carnie incompetence making the line really short! Speaking of carnie incompetence, this had to be one of the worst ghost trains ever. Most of the effects didn't go off until after the car had passed them. Scottish Steve would have loved it. The one effect that actually went off before we passed it! We were able to put the ghost train disappointment behind us by indulging in some super fun happy thoughts! Everyone admire Steve's rug! Not the first time Steve's been happy to have an ass on his rug. Just a general carnival overview. Hey look Anth, it's your favourite ride on the bottom right! The small drop tower has been the best ride at the carnival for the past few years, in my view. THis is Steve mid-fright. Not too hard to get this photo on this drop tower. It's actually not too hard to get this photo when someone like TPDave or myself is in Steve's vicinity! Not being an enthusiast Michael didn't understand at first why Steve and I were so amused to see the Toboggan at the carnival this year! Beautiful! Right? What is it with Scotland and "boisterous" rides?! And we never saw Steve again! Yay. Do the Toboggan squish! Since there wasn't too much there that we actually wanted to ride we decided to invest the rest of our tokens in Steve's addicition to cheap sideshow thrills. Look at Steve, displaying his team colours with pride! Good man! Over at The Arches we encountered this straggler lurking around! Good thing too, this is where Glasgow's festive haunted walkthrough resides! Whilst the rest of us spent half an hour getting tormented in Santa's Grotto Steve did a fantastic job of keeping all our coats completely safe! Thanks again Steve! Is that lust? Ghosts of Christmas was a fantastic haunted walkthrough! A real eerie experience with some real good scares in there. I can't wait to see what The Arches comes up with next! The Irn-Bru Carnival was a bit of a disappointment this year. It seems to get more ordianary each year whereas events like Hyde Park only get better. But still it's always a good excuse for us TPR Scots to get together and have a laugh. Ghosts of Christmas also more than made up for the Carnival disappointment, I get the feeling there might be a bigger Brit Crew get together north of the border in the near future! Thanks for reading!

This past weekend the Brit Crew had a fantastic weekend in Madrid planned out: flights were booked, hotels were booked, plans to visit Parque Warner and that other parque with the long name were in place. It was the recipe for a LOT of fun. Step in the Spanish Air Traffic Controllers, or more accurately I should say "step OUT" controllers as that's exactly what they did twelve hours before our flight was due to leave! And by "our" flight I mean everyone but Anth's. Fortunately for Anth the flight he booked himself onto left as scheduled. Unfortunately for Anth he was not on it because he thought he had booked himself onto the same flight as the rest of us. So the strike caused our flight to be cancelled, there would be no Madrid for the Brit Crew this year. But the Brit Crew aren't going to let a cancelled flight ruin all our fun so we quickly put together a new plan to spend the day in London and check out some of the fun stuff going on there. The big thing that we wanted to check out was Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park, I saw photos from this fair last year and just knew we'd have a lot of fun there. It's basically a German Christmas Market infused with a load of German fair rides. It was really busy since it was a Saturday night but lines weren't long and there was a great atmosphere. It was nice to go to a fair which was filled with families instead of obnoxious teenagers. I definitely recommend this fair to other Brits who haven't been! Before hitting up the fair we visited a few other London attractions including a haunted maze and a West End show. All in all we had a great day despite not making it to Spain. We just might have to wait til next Christmastime to do that Madrid trip! Here's the photos... Where in the world are the Brit Crew? Not in Madrid, that's for sure! Mike does a great Japanese impression on the Tube. The hotties were out in force serving hot chocolate at South Bank. Dave and Amy are both huge Christmas Market enthusiasts. Apparently they hooked up due to their mutual Christmas Market love. Mike likes his food uncomplicated and as a result will only EAT at EAT. Anth decided it was totally worth missing his flight to Madrid once he got this free hug from a random chick with herpes. Not to be outdone, Mike gets in on the "free stuff from weird strangers"act by receving his first Christmas card of the year from some random dude. It could well be Mike's first Christmas card ever. The only thing that make this photo more perfect is Piers. It's all wax, or so you may have Scottish Steve believe... I'm not quitre sure what this chick was up to but it freaked me out! Speaking of getting freaked out... We stumbled upon the Death Trap, which is a walkthrough near the London Aquarium. Being the haunt fans that we are we couldn't pass this up! Hands on the wall for the pre-walkthrough cavity search! The Death Trap was fun. A bit short but what was there was good, it had a few Alien Wars style interactive moments which are good in my book. Next up we took in a matinee of the Yo Gabba Gabba inspired musical, Chicago! The Brit Crew gives fourteen Jazz Hands up to the two hours of pure smut that makes up Chicago! Moving on to some park related stuff, it's Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park and OMG, Southern Steve is here! The fair was crazy busy but thankfully it was mostly families and not annoying teenagers like at the Goose Fair. Unlike the usual spinning mouse you tend to find at British Fairs, Hyde Park actually had an interesting enclosed coaster. We may not have made it to Madrid but we're getting some credits, damn it! Continuing the theme of interesting travelling coasters we encountered this inverted contraption next. This isn't just any inverted contraption though, it's an inverted wild mouse! In my view the inverted wild mouse was way better than pretty much every standard wild mouse out there! Enough with the coasters, this fair is German inspired which means that it's beer time! Mike was majorly excited to have encountered the father of Finland's favourite talking tree, Peena Puu! Almost every ride in the fair had some kind of "Christmas twist" to it. Very cool! Avert your eyes Scottish Steve, we're about to take on the inverted ghost train! Playing the role of Scottish Steve whilst we ride the Ghost Train is Russ! This is the exact face that Anth made when he realised he booked himself on the wrong flight. The inverted ghost train is perfect for all the family. Especially the father and son combo of Steve and Brad. The evil skeleton wall will eat the crap out of you! Is that animatronic dude blaming Mike? And by "blaming Mike" I do mean self-pleasuring. This ghost train was five pumpkins of fun! Say hello to the fair's kiddie coaster - the Wacky Reindeer! Yup, we're festive credit whores! Another of the Christmas themed rides, the "spinning snowflake". Brad and Steve ate the crap out of the Spinning Snowflake. This fun house looked very much Dave Thomas friendly. These fools thought it would be a good idea to try out the Winter Waltzer. When he's not missing flights Anth makes a great hands free bag bitch. These guys look way too alive here. It's clearly the "before" photo. Okay, enough of the rides, this is a German fair so let's get some awesome food! Any opportunity to get currywurst in the UK must be seized with both hands! It was awesome! No point holding onto you boarding pass now Anth. You're two days too late! Seeing as we couldn't get to Madrid to stay in the hotel that we'd booked for this night we were forced to really scrape the bottom of the barrel in finding someone who had room at their inn... OH MY GOD, IT'S TPDAVE!!! Scottish Steve too! Steve and Dave would have joined us at the fair but they had a very important gig to go to at the O2 Arena... Or was it at Wembley? Don't ask Scottish Steve which one! TPHouse features some of the latest and most innovative technology when it comes to communication. In all seriousness, thanks to TPDave for giving us a place to stay. A lot of people would jusat give up and mope around if their tripped got messed up by a strike but props to all the Brit Crew everyone made the most of this day and we had a LOT of fun! (I also randomly bumped into Robin at Victoria Station the next morning which I should have definitely documented photographically. Sorry Robin, it was good to see you for those few minutes though!) We'll make it to Madrid next year I'm sure, Anth might still try for this year though. Thanks for reading everyone!

EFTELING! On the second day of my Dutch excursion we headed to Efteling. Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough to partake in the Club TPR fun at Efteling this summer but with a new GCI dueling coaster opening I knew I had to get to the park this year. I really liked Joris en Draak! Granted, I'm quite a big GCI fan but even I've been getting a little bit bored with how samey a lot of them are. The good thing about Joris is that it's quite different from the others, especially the first drop and starting section. Also with it being a dueling coaster there are loads of interaction points with the other train. I can only imagine how much fun this must have been when TPR had ERT on it in the summer! I don't think anyone can argue that this was a great replacement for Pegasus! The rest of Efteling was looking as nice as ever especially with Autumn taking over a lot of the trees. The park was pretty busy but we got rides on everything we wanted to. (All the dark rides and the coasters which don't try to kill you). The new section which is under construction looks very nice from what you can see from the park. Pretty much what you'd expect from Efteling. I know I'll be back when they open Pandora's Box or whatever it is in there! I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story... Hello Efteling! My my, that’s one big sexy entrance you have! Speaking of sexy… Check out that hot new GCI goodness! Any ride which features a hubungous, crazy, water-farting dragon is good with me! A winning train! (aka fatties) Joris is just a mess of fun crossovers and little pops of airtime. Hey Gwazi! This is what a fun duelling GCI looks like! Overall I thought Joris is a fantastic addition to Efteling! Just great fun from start to finish and with the modified seating a lot of families can enjoy this ride together. Over to the other big ride at Efteling – it’s beer o’clock at the Flying Dutchman! Just looking at this photo means I can’t get that song from the queue out my head! There was a little change to ride in this tower since my last visit. Overall I still really like the ride. The coaster section isn’t anything special but the water splash doesn’t get you wet which gets the thumbs up from me in October! I’m still recovering from my last ride on this in 2008 so we passed on Python today. There's no way I can visit Efteling without checking out La Via Volta! It’s a nice Mad House but it’s the fantastic soundtrack that makes this ride so amazing! Keep watching the creepy eyes on these things – they move! (Not in the photo though) The new area looks pretty interesting. Looks like Efteling is pulling a big trick out their for this addition! Dream Flight! Some hate it, others think it’s the most amazing thing ever. I think it’s pretty cool. Though I am a big fan of pixies, fairies and elves. That’s one pissed off looking bird. I guess I would be too if thousands of people walked between my legs every day. Wow, that’s quite a line for Vogel Rok. Thankfully the good capapcity means that this lined whizzed by. I got to hear the soundtrack on the ride this time too (for some reason I got a soundless ride in 2008) it definitely improves the ride! If you’re having wind issues then you should check out Efteling’s rapids. I’m always a bit tentative about riding rapids in October but Efteling’s seem to be in Thorpe Park’s category of getting you “moist like a jam sponge cake”. For some reason I had no recollection of riding “Pirates of the Arabian” in 2008 even though I have photographic proof that I did ride it. It’s a pretty cool ride. Tiger hunt! How the hell do I not remember this?! It's totally my kind of ride! Only in Holland would you exit a ride to find these contraptions in the gift shop! I missed this Efteling icon in 2008. I’m so pleased I can now say that I’ve had my own up close, shitting donkey encounter! What better way to finish my Dutch adventure than with the glory-bound amazingness that is Panda-FUDGING-Vision?! Although this is no ordinary Panda Vision… This is the best damn Panda Vision in the world! Complete with animatronic giant arse pandas! Before he leaves, AJ just wants to say “Hope you’re having fun in Singapore Erik!” Upon leaving the park I found the most amazing new piece of theme park merchandise ever – THE PEENA PUU ACTION FIGURE!!! And that brings my Dutch Adventure to a close. Efteling is a fun park with some real unique attractions. I can’t wait to check out the new area in a couple of years! Thanks to AJ for his hospitality this weekend and if you’ve made it through this TR then thanks for reading!

On our way back from Walibi World we took a quick detour via the fair in Dam Square! After we got back from Walibi World we found this small fair right in the centre of Amsterdam at Dam Square! This small fair had a portable version of those crazy Star Flyers! Some Skeeball too! Why don’t we have this in the UK? OMG, archery with real bows and arrows! Never in the UK! I love Europe! That’s one pretty cool looking ghost train! Creepy AJ can’t wait to check out Spunk – Castle of DOOM!!! This was most definitely up there in “Jeff Johnson Credit” territiory! There were some real quality effects in here! In true European fashion we got finished off with the LIVE Chainsaw dude! This is me totally freaked out by how nice the Dutch carnies were! Efteling is up next!

UPDATES WALIBI WORLD (Below) DUTCH FAIR EFTELING On Halloween weekend this year I was fortunate enough to be able to go and visit my good friend AJ in Holland. I guess that's just another of the many unexpected perks of doing TPR trips - having friends all over the world you can visit and visit parks with! I was intrigued to visit Walibi World at this time of year because this is when the park runs their "Halloween Fright Nights" event. It's fascinating that Walibi World offers this event seeing as by all accounts Halloween is hardly celebrated in the Netherlands at all. Even for a country that doesn't celebrate Halloween the Dutch really ate up the haunt concept. The park was CRAZY busy. Probably a combination of the Halloween stuff and it being the last operating weekend of the season. Good thing the park offers "RIP passes" which lets you cut the line on the mazes, which of course we did not think twice about purchasing! The park offered three mazes, four scarezones and a bunch of shows for the event. The mazes ran with the US concept of a continuous stream of people walking through rather than the UK way of having small groups of ten go through. The mazes themselves were all good, with the best probably being "Club Roxy" which was basically themed to a night club where lots of evil stuff was going on. The other mazes were "The Villa" which took you through many iconic scenes from horror movies and "Alice in Horrorland" which was a trippy experience which required 3D glasses. Quite appropriate for Holland really! All in all Walibi World put on a great event and I'd love to visit again for Halloween someday. Oh yeah, Goliath was running FANTASTIC. I just love that thing! Hello Walibi World! Long time no see! Walibi World have pulled out the pumpkins and blood fountain to make sure you know that it's Halloween! But first, here’s the main reason to visit Walibi World! Mmm… Intamin sexiness! I have to say, Goliath was running absolutely fantastic this visit! Great to see the ride ops slap hands with riders every single time the train goes out! Not something you'd see in every country. Goliath was delivering airtime in spades today! It’s beer o’clock at Walibi World! I think this Mad House was closed in 2008, or I just somehow missed it on that visit. It was pretty cool, though I am a sucker for pretty much any mad house! AJ has a four foot long Walibi. True story. What a fortunate mug combination. The Willy Lorry is where all the fun goes on. Robin Hood has gotten a little rougher since my last visit but it’s still pretty good, especially for a Vekoma! I guess this must be where Batman sleeps during the day. Don’t worry Scottish Steve, your Stacker crown is safe. AJ failed multiple times. If you visit Walibi World next year then you might just get to rock out on the Double Decker flavoured Boomerang! You can’t visit a Walibi park without grabbing one of the amazing waffles! There’s those weird Vekoma rapids that I’ve only ever seen at Walibi World. It’s a shame you don’t see any more of these! And it’s a shame you see so many of these! The original and worst. The line was spilling out onto the midway for El Condor. No thanks! Not even without a line! Time to check out Walibi’s Halloween Fright Nights stuff! I was very interested to see Walibi’s take on a Halloween event since the Halloween holiday is pretty much non-existent in the Netherlands. When this show mentioned putting snakes in this box never in a million years did I expect them to be live snakes! But true enough, this guy sat with live snakes moving around his face for about ten minutes! The park offers quite a wide range of different mazes, shows and scarezones for the event. The map gives you an idea of how much the Halloween event really takes over the park! The hockey dude is probably doing a lot of people a favour right now! Not wanting to wait in any horrendous lines, AJ and I purchased the RIP passes to skip the lines at the mazes. We also got a special impromptu RIP meet and greet with Beetlejuice! Just when you think the maze is over and you leave Club Roxy is right when the freaky chainsaw dude attacks! As this board shows the park was CRAZY BUSY this weekend! Good thing we get to skip the lines at all the mazes! The Villa was a cool maze that went through lots of scenes from various horror movies. I dug my own grave and you can too! Just visit digmyowngrave.com right now! You’ll be dying to try it! Sexy scary dancers should be at all Halloween events in my view! Beatleben, she says hi. Not even AJ could tell me what Camazotz means. Turns out it means more slutty vampires and zombies singing Lady Gaga and Britney songs! See that huge line behind AJ? No way we’re waiting in that! We just waltzed right past the two hour line thatnks to the RIP pass! Alice in Horrorland was my first 3D maze. A bit gimmicky but it did look cool and worked quite well for the theme. AJ prefers his fairy tale hotties dead and evil. Halloween Fright Nights at Walibi World was a fun event. There were some really crazy crowds so everything had crazy lines at night so the RIP passes made a massive difference. The event felt like a bit of a cross between Halloween Horror Nights and Thorpe’s Fright Nights. Obviosuly it’s not on the same scale as HHN but it felt like that’s where a lot of the inspiration came from. And at least Walibi know how to do a scarezone, unlike Thorpe Park! I’d certainly visit the park at Halloween again! So Walibi World brought my 2010 Halloween season to a close. It was cool to see all the Dutch people get right into it even though Halloween hardly exists in Holland. Walibi World put on a good event and it felt like they could possibly expand it even more. I’m excited to watch this event evolve. Thanks for reading!

The next day we visited Alton Towers Scarefest. This was my fourth year in a row visiting the park for the event and it definitely delivered a great day again! I would say that this year's event was on a par with last year. Some things were improved like Terror of the Towers (which is a real achievement as it was fantastic last year too!) and The Boiler House, which has been made a lot longer and just seems to work a lot better than it did a year ago. I expected the Duel overlay to be a disappointment this year being that it's called "Skelvin's Haunted Adventure" but amazingly the Skelvin involvement (he's the mascot for the younger skewing parts of Scarefest) is limited to the pre-show video only. Apart from that it's very similar to Duel: Live with the added enhancement of the Beetlejuice theme song! I counted seven scare actors in there which might have been a bit much for kids going in expecting to see their favourite cartoon skeleton. The disappointments of the event were very few. I'm sad that the park doesn't have any actors at all in Haunted Hollow any more as that always used to be a good laugh to walk through and was certainly the closest to a "scare zone" that the UK has seen. One of the things that Alton has been shouting quite loudly about in advertising Scarefest is that Thirteen would have actors haunting the queueline after dark. Sounded good to me but we only had a couple of actors run past us in the line once in 30 minutes and they didn't really do anything. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I expected more than that. Maybe we were just unlucky. Speaking of Thirteen it was interesting to see some who non-enthusiasts were quite happy to ride Air but wouldn't go near Thirteen because they were too intimidated. Just shows how the ride really has been mis-marketed to the general public. It's a shame because I really do like the ride, especially in the dark! The other sad thing for me was that this would be my first year visiting Scarefest without the Field of 1000 Screams. A real shame in my view because I absolutely loved that corn maze. The good thing is that it's replacement, the Carnival of Screams is pretty damned good! A bit more random and jokey than The Boiler of House or Terror of the Towers but still plenty creepy. This maze did some really cool and inventive stuff. I imagine they'll probably tweak it for next year and make it even better too. All in all Scarefest was a fantastic event and really cemented my thoughts on Alton as it compares to Thorpe. I would rather be at Alton any day, they really do put a great event and can manage the crowds! Here are the photos... In what’s now definitely a Halloween tradition for many of us, we’re at Scarefest at Alton Towers! Looks like Dave’s been on just another typical Brit Crew night out! Terror of the Towers is so good... FIVE PUMPKINS OF FUN good!!! Erm, Zombie Dave… What are you doing with your left hand? Terror of the Towers was REALLY good this year! Not much different from last year but the few changes they did make definitely improved it. My favourite Halloween maze of the year so far! There are coasters to ride at Alton Towers too! And unlike Thorpe the lines at Alton were actually reasonable! Awesome Scarefest theming on Oblivion’s hole. Speaking of holes... Most awesome ride specific merchandise ever! Hey hey, we found a TPR friend operating Spinball today! Hi Rob! Enough monkeying around, Sonic wants to spin! After 24 years Mike FINALLY popped his Squirrel Nutty cherry! Well done to Mike for finally plucking up the courage to ride! The Flume in October. At Alton Towers. Weirdos. Even Zombie Dave wants to take a break from eating flesh and brains to hit up the awesome Pizza and Pasta Buffet!!! When I heard that Duel was getting a makeover called “Skelvin’s Haunted Adventure” this year I was pretty disappointed. I figured they were making the whole thing Scottish Steve friendly and adding all the cartoon characters. Thankfully that was NOT the case, the ride is pretty much identical to last year’s “Duel: Live”, actors and all! The only difference is the old “Haunted House” theme doesn’t play any more. Don’t be sad because it’s been replaced with the even-more-awesome Beetlejuice theme! Zombie Dave can’t eat Skelvin’s brains. This upsets Zombie Dave. If Alton Towers wasn’t Dave Thomas approved already surely it must be now! These guys are just dying to get off the ride. Anth was with us, which automatically means we’re hitting every water ride in the park! And now for a major highlight of the day – the Runaway MIKE Train!!! Playing the role of Lou today will be ZOMBIE DAVE! Exclusive, never before seen photo! Nemesis. Still awesome. Still super smooth. Still my favourite coaster in the country! Mike just loves assuming the position on Air. OMG, the zombies are terrorising Air!!! Alton do have a few kid-friendly Halloween attractions at Scarefest. The Trick or Treat doors seemed to be a big hit. Especially with Mike! This is the extent of the haunting that went on in the Thirteen queue during the half hour we waited in it after dark. A bit disappointing after it was advertised as being a huge deal. Typical Thirteen advertising I guess! At least we had Zombie Dave to haunt the guests! Thirteen in the dark was pretty cool. I do really like the ride still but I found it interesting that some people who would ride Air refused to ride Thirteen. Just shows you how Alton have mismarketed this ride. Sorry I’m not quite front and centre in this group photo. I won't mess it up next time! Ooh, what’s going on here?! Kinky! Runaway Mike wanted to ride his train again in the dark but it broke down. Runaway Mike FAIL! Another reason why Scarefest rocks - short lines to do all the rides in the dark! Okay, so we’re leaving the park but the fun doesn’t end just yet! Once again, next to the resort hotel are a couple of upcharge Halloween mazes. The Boiler House returns from last year with some marked improvements! Anth gets the lowdown on the murderous Hamble twins in the queue for the Boiler House. The new maze for this year is the very creepy, Carnival of Screams! Fans of Alton Towers’ past might recognise these guys! FIVE ZOMBIE PUMPKINS OF FUN!!! The maze itself was pretty cool. Not so much of a gore maze but one more to creep you out. There were some really cool effects in here, pretty much all involving clowns that you weren’t sure were real or not. It made Zombie Dave scream like a girl many times, which makes it great in my book! So that’s it from Scarefest. Once again it was such a fantastic day. I really do recommend visiting Alton during this time if you can! Thanks to everyone there for a great weekend! Hope you enjoyed the TR, thanks for reading! (Please note that Zombie Dave bears no relation to Zombie Divv, who made his one and only appearance at Movie Park Germany in 2008)

^ Thanks Steve! I truly think you might have died had you visited Thorpe that day! Alton on the other hand, you would have loved! FIVE PUMPKINS OF FUN!

Thanks for the comments everyone! Sure! - Seven is placed in the outdoor auditorium next to Nemesis Inferno's drop. That was actually the first time I ever set foot in that auditorium! - Hellgate is at the back of the X:\ No Way Out building. - Asylum is close to the Nemesis Inferno exit. I don't really know how the squeeze it in there but they do a great job! - The Curse is placed on one of the two "beaches" right at the front of the park. It was nice to see one of those beaches used for something useful rather than the usual waste of space they tend to be! The hands on the shoulder thing is pretty standard for most mazes over here. From my experience of US mazes guests go through as one continuously moving long line which is not how they work in the UK. Usually you are sent around in groups of about ten. It tends to make for a creepier and more intimate experience but isn't so good for getting lots of people through!

HALLOWEEN WITH THE BRIT CREW 2010! Updates: Thorpe Park Fright Nights & Paulton's Park (below) Alton Towers Scarefest --- Hello! As the years go by Halloween seems to become a bigger and bigger deal for parks in the UK. Good news for people like me who just love Halloween events and haunts! Thorpe Park have been doing their annual Fright Nights event since 2002 and it's certainly the most popular halloween event in the country. Despite me having visited the park during Fright Nights a few years ago I had never done any of the mazes. This year I was visiting the park specifically to do them and quite happily spent the extra money on the Fast Track tickets for the mazes due to the notoriously long lines that they tend to get. I'm not one for going into a play-by-play of each maze but I will say they were mostly good. Hellgate was a little disappointing but Seven, The Asylum and The Curse were all pretty good. The only problem with Fright Nights is the popularity of the event causes the park to get absolutely rammed which makes it pretty difficult to get on many rides due to the horribly long lines. Fortunately we found a way to combat this - visit another park in the afternoon which doesn't have so many people in it! All in all it was a good day despite the crowds. Thorpe Park puts on a good halloween event but it's not as good as Alton's Scarefest in my view (but I'll get onto that later!) Here's the photos... Hey look, Thorpe Park! Why on earth are we here? It’s Fright Nights! Where Thorpe Park gets transformed into something gruesome and scary! (More than usual!) Before we get to the other stuff here’s some art for the relocated raft ride that’s coming over from Cypress Gardens next year – Storm Surge! Say goodbye to any kid-friendly rides in Thorpe and hello to piles of dirt! We started out the day with a nice ride on Nemesis Inferno. I think this was the only coaster we rode at the park today! Just what Mike wants - a calculator that will let him do sums by throwing rocks at the buttons from afar. Whilst none of the Fright Nights mazes open until later in the day you can still get an early fix of scares from Saw: Alive! I liked this maze a lot, it seems that the actors in here have really gotten their act down over the season. I hope more parks bring in year-round haunts! Thorpe’s okay and all, but do we really want to wait in long linea for these coasters whilst we wait for the mazes to open? Hello Paulton’s Park! Mike’s got the whole world in his hand. New Gerstlauer Bobsled credit for us! I really liked Cobra! Maybe not quite as good as Tripsdrill’s Bobsled but still a lot of fun! I wish more parks had these! The Fudges can’t get enough of their Disk’os! Paulton’s has one of those big extended Disk'os! Take that Blackpool! That's not our dino! The first thing that you encounter in the dinosaur land is an elephant… Okay. "DON'T LOOK AT MY TINY USELESS ARMS!!!" Enough dinosaurs, there’s more credits to be had here! The Stinger is one of those Zierer Tivoli things with the humongously long trains that I can never decide if it’s a kiddie or not. Those Fudges are pretty crazy when it comes to golf. Me, not so much. Anyone seen Mongo? Mike is so awesome at crazy golf. So, so awesome. He won a badge. A badge!!! Why am I holding my hands out in such an awkward pose in front of the kiddie coaster? Because that’s me hitting 500! I had to make sure I hit something really appropriate for such a landmark credit! So that was our brief detour to Paulton’s Park. Overall a very nice park that caters for families well. I hope this park continues to flourish and grow! Now, back to the scary business at Thorpe Park! Ah look, there’s Russ and Stacey right where we left them! The first of the Fright Nights mazes that we checked out was 7. A maze based on the seven deadly sins. I couldn’t really tell what sin was what apart from one or two but it was still pretty cool. There’s no way that we’re waiting in hour-long lines for the mazes when Thorpe offer Fast Track options for sale! Screw you, line-waiters! Vines = theming. And now, the number one highlight of the day – Chocolicious Shakes! These are awesome, even in October! The Asylum is probably the best maze in Thorpe Park. It’s really long and there’s some great sections. Although I would say that it gets a bit repetitive in the middle. Still pretty cool though! Pretty much everything had at least a 30 minute wait. There’s no way I’m not buying Fast Tracks when I visit Thorpe Park at this time of year! The rapids as usual had no line, and as usual you didn’t get wet at all. Which is pretty much the reason why we decided to ride whilst we waited for our next Fast Track time to come up! Mike demonstrates the absolute best way to experience Time Voyagers. Bring back Captain Lucky! It may look like Saw has no line but it was actually 80 minutes by 7pm. I like the ride but not that much. Good thing I got loads of rides in June! The new addition to Fright Nights this year is Thorpe’s interpretation of a scare zone called Dead End. We preferred to call it Path: The Ride. I think kind of got this a bit wrong. Queuing up to walk through a bit of path that’s been blocked off with some props scattered around just felt more like a really lame maze than a scare zone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re trying new things but hopefully they’ll work on this concept a bit more for next year. The last maze we checked out was The Curse which is themed to a ship which is well, you guessed it, cursed. Free massages for everyone before the maze! This was my first visit to Fright Nights in a few years and my first time actually doing the mazes. The mazes are mostly pretty good, but do be prepared to spend some money on Fast Tracks if you visit during Fright Nights. I can’t imagine what kind of a day people must have if they’re queuing up for everything. Still we didn’t have to queue and had a fun time! Alton Towers’ Scarefest is up next!

I went to Thorpe Park's Fright Nights and Alton Towers Scarefest (trip report coming soon!). I've also got a trip to Walibi World's halloween event coming up - can't wait!

Space Invader 2 has recently been constructed at Brean Leisure Park. It's going to have a building built around it so that it's indoors by all accounts. Here's a photo from my recent visit: With regards to Goldrush, it's cool to see some pictures of it actually open! It couldn't have been opening more than a few weekends by the looks of things. Hopefully it shows up at another park soon!

So after about three hours sleep and some hilarious piecing together of the previous nights events we set off for Cleethorpes! This is probably one of the last "bigger" parks in the UK that none of us had visited. I thought the park was quite nice, though a bit tired in places. The place was totally dead though, I can see why this park had all those problems earlier in the year. Oh yeah, we whored up some delightful places afterwards too... TPDave says "Welcome to Thorpe Park!" No wait, make that Pleasure Island! Meeting Tommy Tinkaboo has made only having three hours sleep totally worth it! A coaster that goes over water! Shh... Don't tell Blackpool! A walk on and a takeover - this park was dead! MBFMike! Larry, I hunted but there is NO sign for this ride at all. We were very intrigued to check out the park's new ghost train! Looks like this park has been taking tips from Chessington! We were all fairly impressed with this! It's nice to see a new dark ride that doesn't have guns and targets all over it! "Gravitron Power!" says Mike Fudge. No Anth, we're NOT waiting for the Tinkaboo show! For Larry! The ride never operated while we were there so here's a photo of it doing nothing! "Listen up sea lions, it's time to take over the world" To be fair, being able to jump and hit a ball with their nose makes them less dumb than 98% of the population of the planet. Yay, my favourite coaster type anywhere! It's just a Vekoma, guys! You have to wait about two hours to do this in Disneyland Paris. And does Disneyland Paris give you as beautiful a view as this? From up here you can see that the park is quite spaced out and has a nice setting. Since he's not seen Wendy in 24 hours, Anth can't help but reach for his sack. Yup, TPDave and Mike just can't get enough balls. Well that was our visit to Pleasure Island. A nice park but it really looked like it had seen better days. Of course, being the absolutely whores that we arewe couldn't miss this little beauty on Cleethorpes' beach! And I mean literally on the beach! That's right. we're Dipper Enthusiasts and proud! The coaster was down when we arrived but we waited it out like the sad and pathetic losers that we are! Arty! Little Dipper on the beach - shamelessly conquered! So TPDave's asleep in the car. How can we best scare the crap out of him when he wakes? Why take him to The Skeg, of course! You may remember that Jubilee Odyssey was closed when we last visited in June... Well the damn thing got stuck on the lift hill as soon as we arrived! Note that this is my 5th attempt at getting this credit! Miraculously the ride actually opened minutes before the park closed and we got on! Even more miraculously, Anth got this credit on his first attempt! Of course you can't visit The Skeg without a visit to the amazing market! The two biggest teen icons in the world right now? Quite possibly! Still my favourite stall in the whole of The Skeg! Oh Skeg, how I will miss you for all eternity. I could have sworn this place was closing down in June... Can anyone tell us where our rubbish goes??? What an amazing. Not only was the Goose fair awesome. Not only was the boozing the most hilarious night out of all time. I never, EVAR have to vist The Skeg again!!! It doesn't get much better than that! Thanks for reading!

BAR PHOTOS! Woohoo, Reflex! Where else would we go? Yay, alcohol! Mike's loving his girly drinks... Onto drink number three or four... Don't look at me, check out the guy in the background! Mike's been using Dimoxinil. Now that's hot. This is the best photo of Dave Fudge ever, ever taken. It's 3am and the bar has closed but there's still boozy fun to be had! Looks like Mike's pulled. TPDave's getting stuck in. Looks like we've all pulled! We encountered this very talented girl in Nottingham who could light a cigarette with her nipple. She's a huge TPFan! Lamppost credit! Check out Mike, he's hanging with the hotties! Score another two for Mike, TPDave could only look on in awe! Just hanging with the local drug dealers... Is Mike is trying to call his brother on a bottle?! This was one of the craziest, most mental nights out I've had with these guys ever! (And I've had some real messed up nights with these guys before!) I don't think photos do the hilarity of the night justice! Back to park photos in the next update!

This past weekend a few of us Brit Crew people hit the UK's oldest (it's history goes back over 700 years!) and largest fair - the Nottingham Goose Fair! This was my first time visiting the fair and I have to say I was totally blown away by the sheer size of the Goose Fair! I mean I thought the Leeds Valentine's Fair was big but it's tiny compared to this. There seems to be at least two of every ride in the fair, sometimes even more - I counted three ghost trains and EIGHT dodgems! There were even two spinning wild mice! The biggest shock to come out of this whole evening was that I actually rode a flat ride! I know! To be fair it was the most messed up, crazy flat ride I've ever seen. This ride, called "The Roller" was mental - it's kind of like a mesh between a rollercoaster and a top spin. I can't really explain it, but you have to check out videos of this thing if you've never seen one. All in all I was really impressed with the fair. It was pretty rammed with people but never long waits for the rides. There really was a cool atmosphere in the place, not to mention some interesting food options. Here's the photos... Hello! We’re at the Nottingham Goose Fair! It’s the oldest and biggest fair in the UK! All the major Disney staple attractions have been taken out from the Magic Kingdom and brought to Nottingham for 5 days! See?! Santa’s Sleigh is out in force, complete with snow machine. Anth’s seen smaller. TPDarth. Anth approves of simulators showing video from Blackpool. Especially if Wendy is featured. Here’s a look at the fair, I'm not sure if this photo does it justice. It's pretty damn big! This is one of your more run of the mill rides at the fair. UK carnivals – where grammar is optional. Just one of the EIGHT sets of dodgems at this fair! One of the interesting things about the fair is the varied selection of food on offer. Some of it looks really good. There’s also some questionable loking stuff of course. I mean, it is the UK! But still, when else can you find funnel cakes in the UK? Or churros for that matter? Cool looking Top Scan! (Not for me though!) Quality prizes can be won from Fair Bingo. Give me a duvet and a Chunkie Action Playset please?! Foodmixer: The Ride: Not one of Anth’s favourites. Just one of the three ghost trains on offer! Oh yeah there are coasters here too! Quite a diverse range as well. All Elissa's favourites were here... Yup, this’ll be spinning mouse number two! They were both credits so I’m not gonna complain any more. This ACTUAL casino came From Russia With Love. Mushy peas are the staple food of the Goose Fair. If you visit you are required buy some. It's Goose Law. You don't want to piss off those geese. Random spinny ride. There were lots like this! One of the less questionable food stands... No Smoking. No Refunds. OMG, Dave looks more freaky than usual!!! Sparing no expense, the Goose Fair has one of those fancy ferris wheels with the enclosed gondolas. Another Brit Crew favourite... Credit number three of the fair! Ca-ching! Mike tried some traditional Nottingham noodles and spent the next forty five minutes not even making a dent in them. And now for the most messed up, crazy flat ride I’ve ever rode – The Roller! I really should have read the warning! If you haven’t seen video of this then check it out on YouTube – it’s mental! Both Daves are about to get raped and pillaged by The Roller and they paid £4 for the pleasure. Not even The Roller can put TPDave some quality carnie food! Of course, the Brit Crew can’t visit a fair and miss out the funhouse! Dave really has to stop eating all that Kryptonite. TPFail. TASTY! I’ll take a giant cock please. Bargain. One last look over the MASSIVE Nottingham Goose Fair, it really is huge! You should definitely check out the Goose Fair if you get the chance! That’s all from the fair but there are more updates to come! The next one may contain a little alcohol…