caffeine_demon

A small package arrived for me last week, I opened it thinking "have I ordered something?" - and it was a book on botox! i thought "surely this isnt my secret santa gift??" fortunately it wasn't and had been sent by spabreaks... Anyway - waiting at work today was a box from amazon, I was thinking "how big a box do they need for a couple of dvd box sets?" and when I opened it, I saw the delivery slip that said "plasma ball", and was just about to call amazon to say they got my order wrong, and then it clicked that it was my gift! great choice - just a shame I found out early!

The main problems with an age restrictions are: 1 - Difficult to enforce, without having people carry some form of ID 2 - Age is no guarantee of maturity(*) - I've seen quite old kids coming out of silly ghost trains crying (*) - then again, nor is height!

Blackpool's wild mouse Blackpool revolution formule 1 at parc st paul - http://rcdb.com/2664.htm (A crazy slam into your seatbar moment) maurer spinners (particularly spinball and sc2000s) rita intamin mega lites as others have said - batman clones

Surprised noone's mentioned flight of fear, where the belt is attached to the lap bar - everyone looks at the side of the seat for the belt!!

I rode the one at fort fun abenteuerland in germany, and rather liked it! Anyway - mine is alton towers marketing of thirteen - first it was a family coaster, next it was going to be "so extreme you could only ride once a day, and have to sign a waiver" - and in the end we got a nice drop, and decent enough indoor bit, but a dire outdoor section! Oh - and "storm surge" at thorpe park

I think this is a more realistic reason - people in general like height and inversions and Most parks who COULD afford one, already have an airtime coaster, which is probably taller. I don't think its because it has "airtime and forces", otherwise how would you explain skyrush, el toro, bizarro(sfne) etc. Also - the restraints/seating is no smaller than TTD, el toro and mille etc. But they are great coasters, so that's a real shame! but at least you do have some airtime coasters over in the US - the closest we have to airtime in the UK is grand national! (not that it's a bad ride...) As to underrated - I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Rita at Alton Towers.

ANother goodun is freizeitpark klotten - a chairlift, followed by a 5-10 minmute uphill walk!

Europa is great - watching silver star's despatching is almost as good as riding it! Also - would like to mention cedar point - The ops were all very efficient (maybe too efficient 1 time, closing a restraint before I'd put my bag in the bins....), and even though I'm a big guy, I never got "stapled"

I like random geeky things, gadgets, being a diabetic, cakes and large biscuits are out, but nutty things are fine, as is a small amount of choccy I'd also like a fully paid up ticket for one of next years TPR trips, I'm sure Robb will discount it to $15.....

Hmmmmm - Those rooms look just about big enough for 2 adults, and 1 kid, but 4 adults? that's gonna be "cosy" to say the least!

Even the one's in asia?...

Isn't that the idea of a roller coaster then?

I'm in! sounds sweeeeet!

It's sad to see a theme park close - but on the strength of my visit in the season knightmare opened I'm not really surprised - the place unfortunately looked really run down, and there was litter trampled into the ground all over the place - it was pretty depressing. Knightmare was pretty good - although Jetline felt better. I enjoyed the spinner too, and the gasoline coaster was quirky. Oh - and the food at wimpy was attrocious!

1 - Bizarro (SFNE) | 2 - Skyrush | 3 - Colossos (heide)| 4 - Nemesis | 5 - Piraten | 6 - Dominator | 7 - Griffon | 8 - Batman the ride | 9 - Maverick | 10- Oblivion

in the order I rode them Swarm - Thorpe - A decent start to the year of coastering - not super intense, and varied a great deal depending on seat. broadly delivered what I was expecting, but with thorpe being "the ultimate thrill capital", a bit tame. Goliath - SFNE - great intense ride - hanging at the top of the lift hills is pretty scary - Have been on stunt fall at parque warner, but this felt better Apocalypse - SFA - Probably the best of the b and m stand ups i did - mainly because it was quite short Skyrush - hesrhey - wow wow wow wow wow! buckloads of airtime, and I didn't have much problems with those restraints! Verbolten - BGW - a great, enjoyable family ride, with a bit of a twist - does exactly what it promised Oziris - PA - compared to the hype it got after opening, it wasn't as intense as promised - but I did really enjoy it wodan - europa - after the original negative reviews, I was pretty impressed with the sense of speed and qdc's thoughout the ride so - I think most overrated is either oziris or swarm - even though I liked em both!

Mine was Nemesis - still in my top 5! Latest as a new cred was oziris, latest otherwise was silver star (although it was running so well - it might as well be a new credit)

They could spend several years building a clone of it.....

Almost as annoying as going to try the test seat, and there's some little *%@£ sitting in there!

I rode it about 6 or 7 years ago, and thought it was "ok", and had heard rumours that it was running really well this year. The rumours were confirmed a few weeks ago - rode it about 8 times in various sears and had lovely airtime everywhere! Certainly on a similar level to Nitro, and way above Apollos Chariot! All in all - the park is wonderfully run!

I don't think I ever mentioned this, but once on a school trip at an indoor wave pool (late 80s), I got rather close to the grill at the back of the pool and almost got sucked in - had a few flashbacks as to what could have happened on that one.

I'd also say Saw at thorpe park - All I seem to hear is "it gave me a headache" and "I felt like it was gonna shake my brains out", but I haven't had a bad ride on it, little bump on the first drop, other than that it's awesome! Also - Wipeout (boomerang) at pleasurewood hills - actually think it gives a great ride! Another one which most people seem to hate is rita - it really has grown on me!

So - might it just be the first coaster which a drop tower and a sort of magic caropet style ride were removed for!

Maverick - A- - A good fun coaster, first half nice and smooth, few neck choppers in the second half Top Thrill Dragster - a- - just the one trick, but done really nicely Blue Streak b+ - Good airtime, underrated little ride! Wicked Twister b - Prefered this to the dorney impulse Millennium Force b- - fun, but very overrated Magnum XL-200 b- - some good air, if a bit jolty in places Raptor b- - decent bandm invert Iron Dragon c+ - don't quite get all the hate - enough fun, and a bit of history Gemini c Cedar Creek Mine Ride c Disaster Transport d Corkscrew d- Mean Streak e - so shakey! Mantis - e - OW! Woodstock Express - e Haven't ridden: Jr. Gemini WildCat

on a recreation of SW13 at alton towers: "This is basically just like G-Force at Drayton Manor but bigger and longer. That's not a bad thing, G-Force is great"