Brassinthegrass

Day 4 - Dollywood After a great night sleep in a creepy hotel (not my best pick but it was fine) we showed up with about 20 min before opening. Took some picture and then the rope dropped. Headed straight to Fire Chaser Express Fire Chaser Express - great ride. I chose not to tell my group about the ride and we didn't see any trains running as we were first on line. They were take by surprise by most of it. What a great mid sized ride. And it looks great up on the hill. Wild Eagle - my first wing coaster and I must say it was quite fun but after riding Fury yesterday I was a little less enthusiastic. Smooth beautiful location on the hill. Needed some stronger G forces, but this is Dollywood so I'm Not surprised it wasn't an ass kicking ride Mystery Mine - loved it. Solid ride. Great theming and quite a fun coaster. Full of surprises and unexpected twists. More parks need these rides, especially with this idea of theming involved in the ride. At this point we stopped for lunch and had steak sandwiches and sausage and peppers. One of my companions was finished and I sent him to get a loaf of cinnamon bread. I think I tasted it. I think I loved it. I inhaled it so quickly it was gone before we even noticed there was frosting... Omg. So good. Took a spin on Barnstormer. I wanted to ride it here so that if the lines at cedar point are crazy were not bummed about not riding. Fun ride but for a Saturday I feel like both sides should have been running. We hit the train ride which was a nice break for the thrills. Thunderhead - what a surprise! Tons of fun, never let up!! A bit bumpy in the middle, but it was a really great ride all around! I wish more woodies were built like this and have the love given to them that they need. Tennessee Tornado - a few switchbacks were filled but the line moved quickly. I was surprised by this ride. Nice g's didn't let up but I do feel like it could have been a little longer. Knowing that this was one of the first major rides for Dollywood I understand it's shortness, but I feel like another helix at the end or another inversion would have filled it out nicely. After that we grabbed Kettle Korn and frozen lemonade and hit to road to Smokey Mountain Coaster. Smokey Mountain Coaster - great ride. Really liked the lonely ride up to the top. The ride down was intense and fun. Wanted to break some times but I didn't want to hand in my man card so I kept the breaks up. Tons of fun. Drove to Louisville. Nothing to really report on that trip. Welcome to the longest Parking Lot ever! Really liked this ride, great medium sized family ride. so pretty.. so dirty... Google Effects Im at Dollywood! The Eagle is amazing to see in person omg. omg. omg. so good. the cinnamon bread's home great ride! choo choo! just an amazingly beautiful park

Day 3 Carowinds Showed up to the park to a slightly cloudy sky. Park was relatively quiet. Fury 325 - oh man. By far the best coaster on the trip. Not the most intense, clearly intimidator does take that cake, but I think this is my all time favorite ride. Rerides galore, solid g's nothing too extreme but definitely there. The air time was perfect, strong but not too intense. Rode it once in the front, once in the back, once in row 5. All great rides. We ended with another ride in row 4 at the end of the day, and clearly the ride warmed up and was running stronger in the afternoon sun. Thunder Road - ran over to get our commemorative medallion. Ummm it's a button... I was picturing a Cedar Point tweet up medallion. Oh well. Nice racer but I think Rebel Yell at KD is a better ride. Afterburn - solid B&M invented. The ride had no line so when we rerode it the ride op joined us. Love it when the employees are having as much fun as we are. Solid ride, possibly my favorite invert to date. Flying Ace Arial Race - one and done. Why can't Vekoma get their act together. Not every ride should be a head banger! Especially a family ride. Intimidator - second B&M hyper for me with these trains, I don't like them... No rattle though, so that's nice. Good floaters g's. At this point we left for some Bojangles. Nice little break from the park and very convenient. Carolina Goldrusher - fun mine train. Nothing more to it than that. Nice break from the big boys for some digestion time. Carolina Cyclone - solid Arrow multi looper. I like rides that loop over the midway. I don't understand Cedar Fairs decision to paint coasters with different colors on parts (I.e this ride and dominator at KD). Vortex - solid stand up not a huge fan of them, but they do have their good parts. I wouldn't be against a floorless retrofit. After another reride of Intimidator Afterburn we hit up planet snoopy Woodstock express - I love these little guys. So much fun! Lucy's Crabbie Cabbie - painful credit. Hurler - much better than at KD. not to say it was great. Just better. Fury 325 one more time and then hit the road for beers and live music in Ashville, NC. What a great night! We ended up at Highland Brewery where they had two local food trucks stationed outside. Grabbed the towels we brought in the car with us. A few rain clouds past but we were in such a Nirvana we didn't care. Great food, great locals and great fun. Welcome! Clearly we were hungry. Not a scrap was left! Love Bojangles! love these little woodies Coaster Porn Look at that beautiful lift! These girls wanted us to take their picture, but they asked "can you take a picture with us?" clearly I had to joke around a bit!

Day 1-2 Kings Dominion Showed up around 5pm to the Kings Quarters, checked in, calmed down from the drive and went over to the park for a few hours. Started with a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower to get our bearings and show everyone the park. Then we hit some of the coasters. Grizzly - solid woodie, I'm happy to keep it as a woodie without a RMC conversion... Fun time through the woods, nice air time. Avalanche - I've never been on a bobsled ride, other than flying turns at Knoble's, and that's not really fair as a comparison. Fun ride, nothing crazy, but I liked it... I did like the location of the helix over the exit midway, but if I built it I would have made that the queue Intimidator 305 - god I love this thing... Solid kick-ass ride...today we rode it third car. Tomorrow morning well do more. No gray out for me, but everyone else did! So good, so twisty, and so intense in all the right places. Woodstock Express - they always blow me away how good these little rides are. It's not a huge ride, it's not intense, but there is still a little thrill in these rides and I love them! Boo Blasters - great ride! Lots of fun, I do wish that parks would realize that these are "cool off from the heat" rides. So I wish they were like ice boxes inside, but it was a fun ride in the dark... The skeleton scene I didn't like... That's going to cost some children some good nights sleep! Dominator - great way to end the night. Solid B&M. I love the over banked turns between the vertical loop and the cobra roll. Wonderful addition to the park and definitely filled a hole in their line up Went back in the morning to finish up the park. Beautiful weather, not too hot, nice cloud coverage. Took advantage of the early entry for platinum members and rode Volcano. Volcano - such a great ride, solid, strong, fun. What more could you want? I've ridden in the front before. Today was about middle of the train and then back row. I have to admit I really enjoyed the back row! Not usually a favorite of mine on inverted coasters, but this one surprised me. Anaconda - solid Arrow Dynamics. They will never be as good as more modern steel coasters, but I love these old school looping coasters. Intimidator - rode second row and for the first time (of my 4 times) on this ride, I finally grayed out on the first turn. Solid ride, so much fun. Strong and intense. Sadly it was closed very soon after our ride and didn't open again before we left. Flight of Fear - second premier spaghetti bowl, jokers jinks was the first the day before. I do have to say that I liked the inside sort of dark light show design of this ride. But Jokers Jinx seemed smoother and more fun. Shockwave - My 100th coaster!!! Fun ride, but the length on the break run wait was not my favorite... That's ok, I took an illegal selfie on the break run of the group since it was 100th, shoot me Rebel Yell - solid racing coaster, since it was nice and quiet in the park, we did a race between our group. My team won. Hurler - ouch. Not terrible, I do love a good rough ride in the back (that's what she said) but something needs to be done in the future if they don't plan on trashing it. Grizzly - rode again, same as before, but it was much better at night, and makes me look forward to a night ride on the beast. At this point we walked back over to Intimidator and it was closed, so we left. As suggested before, we went to Jake's Place for brisket sandwiches. SO FREAKING GOOD! Drove to Greensboro, NC to sleep before tomorrow at Carowinds! A view from Kings Quarters Google Images doing some cool things! Views from the Eiffel Tower Anaconda looking great in the afternoon sun Welcome! Grizzly is really a great ride, and almost never has a line because people can't find the entrance! Hello there sexy Currently one of my favorite park pictures. Hey, lets all point at something! It really is a beautiful park. I hope they don't take down all these trees when they build whatever is coming in next. another of my favorites from the trip My 100th coaster! Google, rocking it out again I'm sorry did you say something? I dino what you said... There I am, hamming it up in front of #100

Day 1 - Six Flags America Arrived around 11am. Park seems like every other Six Flags, nice up front, and then you walk down the main road and see 100 ads and a lack of theming... We noticed a pattern that I think explains the one train system. If you have to wait longer, you'll stay longer, and then want to eat something...if the park was runny two trains on everything, we would have been done with al the major coasters within 2-3 hours. In that case, there is no need to pay for food in the park! Anyway, on to the rides: Apocalypse- closed for the day... Standard six flags theming "if we make it look like a disaster, people messing with it will just make it look more like a disaster. Roar - Really not as bad as everyone makes it seem. Not the smoothest ride on the planet, and I'm sure RMC will do wonders in California. SFA could only hope to be as lucky in the future. Jokers Jinx - such a great ride!! I was taken back at how much fun it was. Very smooth, great with just the lap bars, and a nice launch. Freaking loud, but that's half the fun. Turned out to be one of our favorite launched rides on the trip Superman: Ride of Steel - I have ridden RoS at Darien Lake back in college, so I knew what to expect. It's a nice ride, good forces, but the straight always get boring. Batwing - This was my first Vekoma Flying Dutchman. Might be my last... I really did not like the experience, the flip at the top was good, but about everything after the loop was just uncomfortable and disorienting. Had to sit down for a few min before we moved on... Some other guy lost his cookies at the first garbage can... Wild One - nice strong old school woodie. I liked the double down on the return, and the helix had great laterals... Nothing else to really report, but it is nice to see a solid old school woodie at a six flags park. Mind Eraser - saw it... That was enough for me The Entrance Building is quite nice and patriotic A View from the entrance of the park Walking to Roar, our first ride of the trip! Love the sign for this ride Mist, love mist. Looking at the the S:RoS structure look at all that thumbing... sigh look at all that thumbing... sigh my least favorite ride of the whole trip Batwings first turn The Helix of death Mr. Jelly Belly and the trip crew One of the unexpected pleasant surprises of the trip! Jokers Jinx really is a great ride. I feel like its at the wrong park its so good! More Superman

Well the trip is finished. I'm sitting in the car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike back to New York. Final coaster could was 71. I hit my 100th (Shockwave at KD) and 150th (Mine Train) coaster! Trip reports will be up over the next few days. I have them all written up but need to collect all the pics from the group. These will be some MASSIVE trip reports! For now, 300 more miles back home!

I'm here now at Hotel Breakers. Yes, the park was INSANE today. We already ordered Fast Pass for tomorrow. Not taking any chances

It's ok, you know what that means... I'll have to go back... Damn

I truly think HW is going to keep their woodies as is for as long as they can... With that being said, I do think an RMC creation would be a great addition.

We were going to hit Blue Ash, but they are closed on Sunday's, and mo day we're going to wake up, hit the rest of kings island that we didn't do the night before so we can bee line for cedar point and have a night and a day there!

Or would it have all the downtime because the two rides are so different?

Leaving tomorrow! All hotels are confirmed, with park views at Kings Dominion and Cedar Point! Not sure how much I will update during the actual trip, but I'll definitely post trip reports when I get back with LOADS of pictures! Just look at this weather report! Wednesday 88 sunny Thursday 87 party cloudy Friday 91 partly cloudy Saturday 89 mostly sunny Sunday 91 AM thunderstorms (keep the crowds away!) Monday 87 partly cloudy Tuesday 82 mostly sunny Wednesday 89 sunny

Before someone replies to that, I'm going on Sunday! What other "dry park" rides should I check out? I know SS is a must, but no one talks about the flats!

You want to give us some stats on your fake ride? Looks like a perfect fit for CP

Because people think it's OKmto take them on rides... And the people that use them seem to forget that there are people around them and pay no attention to people they might hit with the stupid device.

Fury Skyrush Wicked Cyclone Nemisis El Toro and Voyage Batman & Robin: The Chiller (yea, I said it) Maverick Baron 1898 Ladd Trakk This could get very interesting...

This will be a great addition! Two thoughts: I wonder how insane that first hill will be... It's RMC, we have yet to see a single standard hill from them, so I'm sure we will see some craziness in airtime. Red track again,ugh!

Paula, any chance you can shine some light on this?

^^ A.J. Please, no more boomerangs!!! Fun Spot can do better!!

This info is great! I too am a first timer to the park. I have a water park question for the locals: How is the shower / changing situation? Is it private, or more like old school High School showers situation?

I'd be stunned! They haven't done any land work get, have they?!

Ok, first timer to the park next week... I know the "post 5pm no front row due to may flies" rule: does that count for Power Tower as well? Both up and down? Thanks!!

I'm leaving Wednesday for a 2200 mile, 8 day trip. Here is a link to my thread and a shot of the itinerary. The 4 of us going are VERY excited!! http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70554

That's kind of genius, hopefully if the day comes to RMC the ride, they take that idea... I'm sure RMC watches this website... There more nuts about coasters that we are!!!

Not really... We seem to pay just as much attention to everything being built that's pushing a limit, no matter what that limit is...

Careful, I don't think it's that they can't, I think it's that they won't... Totally different... I'm sure if B&M wanted to build a super extreme ride,mthey could... But they choose to build rides that the GP want to ride over and over again... As much as I love intimidator and skyrush, I can only handle them so many times, while a ride like nitro or fury over and over ago!