WillMontu

With marketing, you can do anything. There are people among the GP who say that Infusion is better than Nemesis, and Cedar Fair could do the same thing with Thunderhawk. Give it a glossy new paint job, bring in some celebrities, add some simple water effects and you have a winner.

Timber Falls After Timber Falls, we got back on the buses and headed back to Olympus for some rides The mini-golf course provides some good angles of the coaster. Hi Joe, how's it going? I need a good caption for Carl here They had to sacrifice the log flume to get the coaster running, but that's no big deal And what do coaster enthusiasts do at Timber Falls? Play mini-golf! The maintenance crew probably won this that day Lots of high speed banked turns and bunny hills Yes, another lift hill shot Ready to go The ride op appears to be checking out Robb's, um, lap bar The mechanics were still working on the ride, even while it was running The park was even cool with us taking POV NOT the same 12 people in each picture The short train means that the ride can go over the hills without losing kinetic energy The coaster surrounds the mini-golf course and the log flume There are a few high speed airtime hills Avalanche was one of several woodies built by S&S You can see the ride mechanic sitting on the track in the background while the train returns to the station There's also a station fly-by The little train speeds along the track With a few tweaks, they got the train going The maintenance guys here rock! But they were able to override the computer and open the ride for us! The ride was struck by lightning and all the sensors were fried We are ready to ride, but there's one problem The group headed to Avalanche first Timber Falls is a small amusement park type attraction down the street from Riverview. They have Avalanche, a log flume, bumper boats, mini-golf, and a Skyscraper Comments are appreciated. The more I get, the sooner I start on Great America DENIED! The Titans Ride Op in action. She's just about to ride! They put up a nicer sign on the second day Now all they need are the big diapers Casey goes in for a tackle, and this time, NOT Ryan. Time for the TPR "Special Olympics at Olympus" What are they doing? Terrorizing the golfers? Did I mention that the day was all about Bryan R&E on the Swing This is the "underwater" section, but it seems just like a regular tunnel How does Casey fit into that little car? He's even going faster than me. More proof that duct tape can fix everything (and when it doesn't WD-40 does) Many of the tracks here have these giant helixes Time for more Go-karts Suck it down! And I thought Elissa was the picky eater! It's just tomato! Of course, being enthusiasts, the next stop is food Back at Olympus. Is this the next big "Tycoon" game?

Riverview Time to head back to the bus for Timber Falls There are a few "upcharge" type rides in the area, including this Sling Shot I'm surprised we didn't get sent here If you've ever seen Robb's video of the Spinning Dragons of Death, e-mail Dan! "Dead slow". The name doesn't make me want to ride It wasn't that comfortable though Catching Air was one of those "bouncy" type flat rides ACEr mirrors. Ryan looks almost as tall as Casey If you find your way through, there's a set of stairs leading to the second level It's a bit disorientating As for attractions on a trailer, they also had a mirror maze But unlike the one at Coney Beach, this one is gravity driven They nearly valleyed the thing Back over at the Dragon Wagon... Let's go around again! The layout is the same as a regular Wacky Worm Of course we had to share with the kiddies! Who is up for a game of Jenga? It is still Elissa Friendly though Except it isn't a Wacky Worm I spy a Wacky Worm! Did Ron Toomer have some input on the design of this? We rode a few of these rides on the trip I didn't think I had fanboys Here we go! An unusual "control panel" for the Galaxi Ready to ride As dangerous looking as it is, it's probably safer than anything at Coney Beach They also had a Galaxi There's Erik shooting the Dragon Wagon POV! (hurry up and post it in the video forum, Erik!) We love Dragon Wagons! This is what we're here for! Riverview is one of those "rides in a parking lot" type parks with a few portable rides such as this. The initial plan was for the Arrow bus to go to Riverview and the Vekoma bus to go to Timber Falls. Since Timber Falls did not have Avalanche running quite yet, the Vekoma bus ended up coming to Riverview as well. The Dells are full of tourist traps, such as this Wonderworks knockoff So how did Elissa get on the Arrow bus?

Some day I might finish this. Hopefully it won't die like my UK PTR did Coming up: Riverview and Timber Falls We go in and the ride started. After doing half a rotation, they stopped the ride. Add another one to the list of rides we broke! What's in these? I was going to get my first Disk-o credit I was too cheap to ride it myself Another view of the swing This looks like an old station for one of the Go-Kart tracks Another angle of Pegasus. The station seems to be arranged for 3-bench cars, rather than the 2-bench cars that run on the ride More "theming" for the Go-Kart track. The track even has a giant wooden horse The Trojan Horse Go-Kart track Across the road from Olympus. Creepy! It looks like Carl did though Did Bryan even ride?

So, what are they going to do with all those trash cans? As for Villain, "Taer it down!" The waterpark as it is wasn't that great, but that's probably because I live in Florida.

You got some pretty nice shots there. Our hotel room was on the "coasters" side. Better than at Big Blue at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, where we had a "parking lot" side.

Wisconsin Dells - Part 1 I reached the attachment limit, so the rest will be posted later. Since I'm not great a writing captions, I'm focusing more on the quality of the pictures A little wet The wettest part of the ride I did not count Atlantis At this point, the park had opened to the public I figured we needed another lift hill shot Dispatch Robb and the duct tape strike again Cyclops has a "stand-up" row We had enough people for a complete takeover Most of the go-kart tracks operate with dual loading stations, so that one set of cars can load and the others can race TPR left their mark Cyclops go karts? Peeps getting off of Hades, taken from Zeus (Yes, we were given permission to use cameras on the rides) Is Hades a parking lot coaster? Zeus for the lift hill enthusiasts Looking back over to Hades Zeus is one of the older CCI woodies, built in the mid-late 90's Hades speeds through the trees Overview of the park Going up If you look in the background, you can see Robb duct taping random objects to Zeus The section before the lift was better than some smaller coasters Through the trees! Hades was the first woodie built by Gravity Group Most of us started out on Hades I don't think they ever took the signs down We had to take as many pictures of him as we could Today was all about Bryan Time for morning ERT Even though we were going to stay at Olympus, we loaded up the bus for the evening journey Wes is either A) smart or B) afraid of water Did anyone else get a shot of the bus drivers? The next day, things were a little wet, but Zeus had calmed down We were originally going to have night ERT on Cyclops and Hades. Unfortunately, Zeus was jealous and unleashed a few of his lightning bolts in an attempt to both cancel ERT and prevent Avalanche from running the next day The indoor waterpark Ryan and Anthony take on the swing The park has quite a few of these large go-kart tracks. They are all included with the wristbands Hades and Zeus Coaster porn! Long exposure of Cyclops Down the drop All clear Ten rows, eight lap bars. Time for a few more spins on Cyclops Pegasus' lift hill In keeping with the overall theme, a few seats were roped off It follows a small out and back layout Pegasus is a smaller family sized woodie Is this a good sign? They should probably take better care of their rides They were going to close Hades too for those "black wristband people" I didn't get onto Hades until the next day Zeus ends with a small drop back into the station The Big Three are in fairly close proximity to each other Even Zeus had seats roped off They're closing Cyclops at 9:50 for "people with black wristbands". Who are these people anyway? Another look at Little Titan Apollo's Swing is a prototype Screaming Swing. This one is an upcharge, but it runs a long cycle The skyline showing the "big three" woodies, Hades, Zeus, and Cyclops It's the standard model, and the second on the trip It's actually written on the track Opa is the indoor spinning mouse. Note that the ride op is standing on the track in front of the ride vehicle Time to eat At Olympus, shirt and shoes are optional, though the park could use a smoking policy The last seat has some extreme ejector airtime A rare picture of me. Next. As for the first row of the last car, there's nothing holding you in! There's only a buzz-bar holding you in on Cyclops A lot of the rides at Olympus had extra air-gates in the station for non-existent cars Although they were denying adults on Little Titan, this rule was not enforced at all. The back seat is definitely the place to ride This is the queue for Cyclops. Everyone is waiting for the last row Dive to Atlantis is a "water coaster", but is more a lightly themed log flume. If they put some decent theming on it, it might be a decent ride Cyclops' last drop is the largest, and insane in the back Little Titan was a very difficult credit to get The "stairway to nowhere" attraction [insert ACEr joke here] The indoor theme park contained a spinning mouse, a Disk-o, and a few other small attractions The park is divided up into four sections, an "indoor theme park", an "indoor water park", outdoor theme park, and outdoor water park. The large building on the left contained the "indoor theme park" section We eventually arrived at our hotel at Mount Olympus

Congratulations on Kidtums' first credit. It's quite an achievement, considering that most (yes, most) of us got our first credit after we were out of diapers.

Little Amerrika ...with only minor injuries They actually walked away... They survived Strangely, it didn't get stuck going up How they managed to fit we will never know Robb in a cage! Maybe we should re-think this Trying harder It's not closing! Closing the roof Until Robb gets in too He does... Is Casey going to fit? Back over to the Toboggan The park had this section for "little" kids Here you can see the proximity of the park to the cemetery Will this be a future attraction? Arrow Bus! (what is our driver doing in there?) Monorail POV (though technically it's not a monorail) Another shot of the Toboggan Eventually Are we going to die? The fourth and final credit After Robb rode, the station became a crime scene The green water and the fake palm trees are a nice touch The ride is almost as smooth as Balder The track is slightly different from regular woodie track Buy Robb's DVD to get the uber-exclusive Meteor POV They had a small parachute drop type ride. Take THAT Six Flags The ride has an almost RCT like layout Though Casey managed to fit And they are kind of cramped The ride is not the most comfortable around They were running Meteor around twice for many of us, some people had to wait a little while to ride Ready to ride? The wild mouse ride The miniature train ride Another station shot of Meteor We love death machines! This ride was a prototype, and the only one not mounted on a trailer Big kitty The ride is not for the claustrophobic The other three coasters were "death machines" in their own unique ways Besides Robb's backside, this picture shows the wheel design of the train. Like Pinfari Death Machines, they are flanged, but this ride is very smooth Ready to roll The ride only runs one train with the Big Ol' Break Levers Everything looks brand new They opened the ride for us for a "sneak preview" It still operates with manual braking and buzz-bars But what we were really here for was Meteor, the park's recently restored classic woodie They had this small Monorail type ride We just multiplied the number of people in the park While we could not do the Wisconsin State Fair, Little Amerrika was our bonus park Why didn't anyone follow these directions? Carl tries on some shades The pit stop is one of those "over-the-highway" buildings For those of you playing Elissa Bingo, this is probably the closest you will ever get to seeing Elissa changing a diaper other than Robb's Geico has the exact same advertising campaign here in Florida. A quick rest stop Despite being Yeti-Ball's favorite store, I don't think we have any of these in Florida

I've ridden: Grand National Racer (KW) Racer (KI) American Eagle Gemini My favorite is Grand National, followed by Racer at KW. You can't beat the handslapping

I re-uploaded the pictures. They should be working again. I first uploaded them yesterday when the server was having problems.

With the Haunted Mansion coming out of rehab, Erik and I went down to MK to check out the new and improved ride. In addition to new effects and other changes, much of the ride has been cleaned up with better audio and such. Keep in mind that some of these pictures are blurry due to a long camera exposure and a moving ride vehicle. As the haunts say, flash photography is forbidden. Theming? More Halloween theming The park is all decked out for MNSSHP As far as we know, the van didn't eat any small children while we were in the park, though it was probably tempted to, being at the Magic Kingdom Time to go home The Peoplemover is always a walk-on, even on the busiest days They were giving out Fastpasses for Carousel of Progress. I never noticed this detail While getting brainfreeze is optional, buying a Dole-Whip is mandatory It's all about the Dole Whip! Hold the license plate upside down and you get a number that some find kind of scary Some of the merchandise Fortunately they got it going again fairly quickly We had an e-stop at this point The ghost bride Another shot of the floating head More detail of the theming "Back...to the mansion" (If you know what game that quote came from, e-mail Dan!) What happened to the robot that used to be here? Back over to Space for another spin They even have his screen name on a Fastpass! It's all about Bryan! OMG! The castle's exploding! [insert castle joke here] The Peoplemover even duels! Astro Orbiter was down for some rehab It is mandatory to ride the Peoplemover when visiting MK Lift-off Though Space is getting into the Halloween spirit with the ghosts of ride-ops from times gone by Space was running at full capacity though Big Vekoma Mountain was closed An acceptable level of wetness? I thought this shot came out kind of cool He seems to be working on a more consistent basis Going down... The WJOD spared us! We met up with Colin and a few of his friends then went on Splash The pet cemetery hasn't changed, if at all This isn't new, but shows the attention to detail Hurry baaaaaack! The banquet room The head now floats, like the DL version Another look at the lightning flash pictures There are some new decorations in the loading room A few seconds later Looking up in the stretching room More detail We went around again after riding The ghost passengers are now animated The Escher staircases are cool looking Lightning flashes cause these images to change The loading station The stretching room has been improved with a better sound system and other general touch-ups Creepy But it gets older This looks new Is this going to be a scary ride? This fan system appears to be new They had a separate line open for passholders to bypass the regular queue

I have a few pictures from that same visit, as I went down with Erik. As Erik said, it's difficult to get good video, and the same applies to stills. Even with a mini tripod and a high ISO setting, taking pictures from a moving Doom Buggy results in fairly blurry pictures. If Picassa stops crashing, I will post them here.

Indiana Beach continued Next up: 75 pictures from Little Amerricka It has more airtime than Hurricane. We had some Cornball Express ERT Duct tape holds the other coasters together too We were going to have ERT on LoCoSuMo but they were having some technical problems The park at night Nice idea, but it doesn't work too well Look at the little guys go Elissa spent all her Fascination tokens on little pull-back bugs, and a poker set Robb and KidTums pounding it (with the claw grabbing at Robb's backside) ...in more than one way ...cheat at Fascination... ...annoy Elissa... You can use them to get credits You can win a set of pinchers Gameplay is like bingo. The center space is also free Some of the prizes you can win. No meat slicer though The top row of lights are red, if you light them all you get an extra bonus. Not Ryan here though Winner! We had enough people to do a complete takeover Back to Fascination for a few more games Making a sandwich "I surrender" KC! Tkl Ryn! There are some people out there who STILL play DDR ...and the after shot Whoosh! Here's the before shot Welcome to the Space Shot! "He's wearing a ketchup shirt. Why isn't this dude pounding it with me?" Wouldn't that be a better name for a toilet bowl slide? The bumper cars aka. dodgems Wes returned from the emergency room. Didn't he realize that you're not supposed to die until AFTER riding Son of Beast? I like the sandbox theming You can only hold up other drivers in Florida Oh no! Robb's driving A lot of parks have vintage car rides. Did I mention that they are in RCT too? She's getting a lot of attention But it turned out to just be KT's fanboys We've got a lot of paparazzi Handslapping on the train ride View from the train ride. LoCoSuMo used to be a dark ride until they transformed it into the coaster. Here you can see some of the old dark ride structure. Do you really need to go to the bathroom that bad? The train ride Some more shots of Hurricane It gets bonus points for fire though Another run of the Pirate Show. It's a joke! If you look closely, you can also see Duct Tape's counterpart behind the control panel Close-up of the ride seating. If you look closely, you can see the duct tape holding the lap bar together If you look closely, the wheel system is slightly different, as they are designed to handle the sharp turns more easily than conventional woodie trains The ride was one of CCI's last projects The ride vehicles are also unique in that riders face each other The elevator lift is one of the unique feature of this ride I've been told that the ride was much rougher in the past Back over to LoCoSuMo They had one of those mist walk-though areas We had a view of the lazy river, which reminded me of the RCT rapids ride Every ACEr's ultimate fantasy! But since few of us were ACErs, there was enough to go around All you can eat buffet? You got it! Time for food Casey and the Harem The best part of this ride was the sound effects made by the guns How many points do we get for shooting Ryan's hat? Another statue credit?

Indiana Beach continued, part 1 The first ride we went on was the "Bouncy Bouncy Bridge" It looks just like RCT Can playing Fascination save you money on car insurance? To be continued Some of the prizes that can be won If you ever lose Elissa at Indiana Beach, you can find her here, until she runs out of money The goal is to roll balls into holes to light up the back panel. Five in a row wins. The game can be competitive with a large group of people Fascination is an old parlor game that is slowing dying out. The game used to operate at Cedar Point and Geauga Lake (removed for trash cans), Holiday World, Beech Bend, HersheyPark, Kennywood, and Canobie Lake Pound it dude! This what the lines were like for both the woodies Time to take over the Hurricane Here in Florida, A/C isn't a luxury, it's a requirement It does have credits for Terrance though Frankenstein's Castle was an upcharge, I doubt it would even come close to the attraction at Liseberg "Take me back to the Rainbow, that Rainbow kind of magic, Rainbow Rainbow Rainbow's End. Great fuuuuuuun aaaattt, Rainbow's End!" We did not have a chance to visit the waterpark IB sure loves their signs Next up was LoCoSuMo Instead of sailing the seven seas, they zip round on Waverunners If you're ever in Indiana, make sure you get over to Indiana Beach to watch the "Pirate Show" The Den of Lost Thieves is one of those old school dark rides, but converted into a shooting ride Judging by the style of track, this ride looks like a Pinfari Galaxi is built partially over water Another strange sign The coasters are built on top of everything Next up: Hurricane There's even a log flume intertwined with the woodies More RCT-like pathways Cornball Express entering the station This helix reminds me of stuff I've done in RCT A lot of track in a tight space Going up (permission was obtained to take this shot) It's a fun ride with quick drops and sharp turns Tiger is an old school Schwarzkopf It's intermingled with Hurricane's structure Cornball Express is the better of the two big woodies This was my first Flying Scooters credit, and Robb says they are almost as good as the ones at Carowinds, though IB discourages snapping, so I didn't attempt to try. Hoosier Hurricane dominates the park's skyline The wave swinger is built completely over water...just like Infusion Watching Casey getting onto anything can be entertaining WTF? Some of the boat shows Lines for nearly everything were relatively short, except this one They have a lot of rides over water. BPB, on the other hand, just has Infusion aka. Traumatizer They've managed to shoehorn in a Skycoaster, a waterpark, a chairlift, and more

This Photo TR hasn't quite died yet, I have ~160 pictures from Indiana Beach, so I will be posting this in parts The park has a "designed in RCT" feel to it The fact that Robb can get us to form a straight line is quite shocking The park charges for admission, which is less than the cost of parking for most other parks I wasn't sure what to expect from this park. I've heard of it being called America's version of Blackpool Pleasure Beach Indiana Beach is one of those "grass parking lot" parks There's more than Corn in Indiana, like Raven...and this IB billboard We must be in Indiana Arrow Bus, on the other hand, had White Castle AND South Park Vekoma Bus, on the other hand, went to McDonalds in SouthPark For those creepy crawly fanatics out there, we found this little guy outside WC We've probably kept this restaurant in business for a bit longer Gator colors! A little unstable Build a castle? What to do with all those boxes They even have "ACEr Meals" Some us have cravings Time for a complete takeover It even looks like a castle "Arrow Bus goes to White Castle" Our next park is across the Ohio river, which isn't even in Ohio

With #10, Jeff Johnson comes to mind! I think we should have a few more categories: Most likely to get banned from a park Most likely to break park rules Most likely to get banned from TPR Most likely to get a job with Intamin Most likely to start a thread with 10+ pages Most likely to count ____ as a credit Most likely to kill a topic (I might be good at that one)

This one, maybe?

I'm thinking that Joey should be posting in this thread, but he must be out drinking! Where are you Joey?

Whatever the idea was, I think we've done it already

It's probably where they got the idea to use "Baby I'm ready to go" for the ride's theme song. Not long after the picture was taken, someone actually printed it out and posted it at the construction site http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/Coasterpages/TTDwebcam.htm

Models move "fast" because the acceleration due to gravity is the same for models as it is for full scale rides. (The reason why some objects fall faster than others is due to air resistance). It's all simple physics The acceleration caused by gravity is about 9.8 meters/second/second.

If it's anything like CP's other webcams, it might be a construction worker relieving himself!

I'm never aware when I'm causing others to be uncomfortable as I don't have claustrophobia and I prefer window seats. (though if something is upsetting me, I don't say anything about it either). On several of the trips, I was up at the front with Erik and Leanne and I shared a row with several bags of snacks. The bus we had in the UK was a bit nicer than what we had on the Midwest. The seats were more comfortable and the bathroom was in the middle of all the action.

^ The caption is so appropriate too!