ytterbiumanalyst

Wonder Woman looks hot wrapped around anything.

"What do you mean, ALL 3 parks?" --Hydro Adventures

Europe Higher in the Air confirmed!

I know right! Literally the day before the announcement it was all whining about how no one had built a Raptor and speculating about when someone would build a Raptor. Boom! Someone does, and immediately complaints. People are awful.

Allegiant is so bad it's awesome. Glad it sort of worked out for you. Sitting in a plane that's not moving for hours cannot be fun. Allegiant: "We'll getcha there in one piece. Approximately."

1. Its not opening til 2018 2. Im not saying this won't be great but you're really gonna make a bold statement like that when we have 3 pretty-much-confirmed RMC's opening next year, an RMC raptor, and whatever the hell Knotts and CGA are doing? It's a time traveling coaster. It's opening a year before it opens to offset Lightning Rod.

^ I'm in the queue for the Safari. Animals don't care about that sh*t. That's writer's instinct talking! Brought to you by the Professional Organization of English Majors.

You do know their business model, right? There is no way they buy any more than the minimum number of trains.

It was an odd beginning to the trip, for sure. This report is unusual for me, too, in that I'm actually still on the trip. Usually I do this right after I get back to kind of digest the experience. This essay, though, I felt worked best if I was still feeling those emotions of fear, uncertainty, and a loss of what I had previously thought was true. It was important to write this in that moment. Yep, I'm alive despite all the odds. As for the planning, it all came down to too many things I wanted to do in Pennsylvania for the time I could take off work. Something had to go. Pittsburgh is at the extreme end of how far I would go on a road trip, while Hershey and Knoebels are just over the limit of how long I can drive in one day. So that's where the line was drawn. If I'm going to all the trouble of flying, I'm prioritising the parks can I can only reach by plane. I do plan to work Kennywood and Waldameer into a future Cedar Point trip.

Day 1: Requiem for a Delusion I'm writing this from a New Jersey Transit bus. This is not what I expected to be doing right now, and I daresay it's not anyone's Plan A. But this is not a Plan A sort of trip. It began innocently enough, with my wife driving me to SGF airport at 5AM to catch my flight to Philadelphia. Excitement swirled in my head. I'm going to Knoebels! All went well with the first flight to O'Hare. The second flight was delayed, then overbooked as American piled a bunch of people from a canceled flight and I was bumped to a later one. Only to be un-bumped about 20 minutes later and I got onto my scheduled flight. Ah, the joys of air travel. We got into PHL a little late. The flight was a bit turbulent due to thunderstorms, but no big deal. We flew right over Cedar Point, but since we were almost directly over it, there wasn't a good way to get a photo. We landed in PHL and I got on the SEPTA train to go to the rental car place. I had booked a reservation for an offsite lot because the rental cars were so expensive at PHL. Plus, I'm a train enthusiast as well, so the idea of taking regional rail and an el train was appealing. I texted Boldikus because he wanted to know when I landed, and I mentioned I was on the train to the rental car lot. He asked where it was, and when I told him, this is approximately the conversation: B: You are so f*cked. Me: Really? Is that a bad area? B: That's the Badlands. Me: What's the Badlands? B: Google it. I hope you don't die. I did not Google it just then, because I thought Googling the area to which I was at that very moment traveling would probably give me away as a tourist. Given that I was wearing a bright red St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt, using Google Transit for directions, and rolling a carry-on suitcase behind me, I figured I didn't need any more bright gleaming beacons. I also removed the luggage tag that said PHL and took off my Bluetooth. I figured I shouldn't be listening to podcasts while walking alone in the Badlands rolling a f*cking carry-on suitcase behind me and generally looking like the naive Midwesterner that I absolutely am. I'm going to repeat that thought just for emphasis: I thought that I should remove my Bluetooth headset and not listen to my favourite podcast, Holy F*king Science (actual name of it), a show where a bunch of nerds from Montana try to out-nerd each other with unusual science facts. The fact that I thought that, and the fact that I am writing that sentence on an Internet forum about theme parks, should tell you all you need to know about just how f*cked I truly was. Boldikus strongly recommended I get a cab from the el to the rental car place, but no cab was in sight, and I really didn't want to stand around waiting for one, so I just went. I have never seen such a place as this. I didn't know such a place existed, or even could exist. There was just so much devastation. I have a friend from the south side of Chicago who has told me a lot of stories. It's not that I didn't believe him, but that world just seemed like it couldn't exist. There couldn't possibly be any place where despair is so bad that people are willing to do the kinds of things the characters in his stories do. People just aren't like that. Not in America. They are. And this is who they are and where they live. This trip is as much about Philadelphia as it is about the theme parks. I want to see all the Franklin sites, and the Liberty Bell, and Hamilton's bank. I want to see the history of my country. I want to be where my heroes lived, the people who built all the good and wonderful things I've come to appreciate and to depend on. I want to breathe in the air breathed by the architects of modern democracy. Instead, I saw the people for whom that democracy doesn't work, the people who are left out of everything that I thought this country was about. I saw it, and I thought I was going to die. So I came for Philadelphia, and I saw it. Philadelphia is Franklin's city. It is our first capital and the original seat of Congress. But it's also the Badlands. It's their city too. So here I sit, on my way to a better part of town to pick up a rental car, a part of town I understand. A neighbourhood filled with museums and universities, gleaming office towers and condominiums. I'm going to the Philadelphia I came to see. But I will never forget the Philadelphia I accidentally saw. Approaching Chicago Somewhere down there is Cedar Point. First Chickie's and Pete's sighting! Yeah, I got a welcome all right. My train is here! Off to the Badlands! I have no more photos after this. I was not about to take any photos in that area.

Surely not. Maybe it is just the way they were hoisting it up? And the support is in the background? That just seems so crazy! While I'm not convinced it isn't just camera angle, I don't think a vertical drop is crazy in the least for a park with an 87 degree drop already to get one that's 90 degree vertical.

^ Awesome, have fun in Missouri! We have one great and two decent theme parks. You'll have a good time.

That ride looks far better than Buzzsaw Falls.

No, and probably more. But could be less. Or equal.

Very awesome. I've been wanting to get back to San Antonio. Sea World's new coaster got me starting to make plans, and this pretty much makes it mandatory.

Couldn't disagree more strongly. I love those swinging ships, and the ride ops that encourage these contests are super awesome. It makes an already good experience spectacular and memorable.

0% I think that estimate is a bit high.

That is hilarious. What is up with Tennessee wildlife? If it's not snakes, it's cicadas (Cicadae? Cicadi?). You'd think a rattlesnake fell in your lap with how loud they are and how hard they hit you flying at full speed. They're pretty bad in the midwest this year....I believe we're approaching the massive 17 year swarm. If you don't know what I'm talking about look it up, I'm not kidding I did just look it up. We don't have those all the way out here on the western edge of the Midwest, but I do remember driving somewhere on a family vacation when I was a kid and those things were so loud they were drowning out conversation in the car at highway speeds. Don't remember if that was the year we went to Chicago or Pensacola, so it was either rural Illinois or Mississippi.

That is hilarious. What is up with Tennessee wildlife? If it's not snakes, it's cicadas (Cicadae? Cicadi?).

I'm not sure, but B&MIntaminGCI said this:

That Cedar Point bug will get you.

Just to chime in here on hotels (since I work in the industry) I'd stay away from Magnusson. They've grown rapidly as a chain by charging less for franchise fees than other chains do, and they have far lower standards. Their franchisees are largely the people who either got kicked off their previous brand for not meeting standards or else just want to not have to meet those requirements anymore. Trust me, you don't want to see a hotel that Super 8 doesn't want to be associated with.

Great report! SeaWorld looks awesome. But then, I don't think I've ever seen a SeaWorld report that didn't make it look awesome. I've pretty much decided to make SeaWorld my next destination park (will be the San Antonio one since that's closest to me), and your report is totally cementing that decision. The Dine with Shamu thing looks awesome, and $22 at a theme park is nothing. Especially when beer is included.

The fake out water effect was always there. You just used to approach it from a different angle. That section from the fake out to the beginning of the lift is the only part of the original ride still left, although there used to be a drowning man animatronic in the middle of the whirlpool. They also still use the original Jim Owens station as an overflow queue.